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A, THE first symbol of every Indo-European alphabet, denotes also the primary vowel sound. This coincidence is probably only accidental. The alphabets of Europe, and perhaps of India also, were of Semitic origin, and in all the Semitic alphabets except one, this same symbol (in modified forms) holds the first place; but it represents a peculiar breathing, not the vowel a,— the vowels in the Semitic languages occupying a subordinate place, and having originally no special symbols. When the Greeks, with whom the vowel sounds were much more important, borrowed the alphabet of Phoenicia, they required symbols to express those vowels, and used for this purpose the signs of breathings which were strange to them, and therefore needed not to be preserved; thus the Phoenician equivalent of the Hebrew aleph became alpha; it denoted, however, no more a guttural breathing, but the purest vowel sound. Still, it would be too much to assume that the Greeks of that day were so skilled in phonetics that they assigned the first symbol of their borrowed alphabet to the a -sound, because they knew that sound to be the most essential vowel.
This primary vowel-sound (the sound of a in father) is produced by keeping the passage through which the air is vocalised between the glottis and the lips in the most open position possible. In sounding all other vowels, the airchannel is narrowed by the action either of the tongue or the lips. But here neither the back of the tongue is raised (as it is in sounding o and other vowels), so that a free space is left between the tongue and the uvula, nor is the front of the tongue raised (as in sounding e ), so that the space is clear between the tongue and the palate. Again, no other vowel is pronounced with a wider opening of the lips; whereas the aperture is sensibly reduced at each side when we sound o, and still more when we sound u (that is, yoo). The whole channel, therefore, from the glottis, where the breath first issues forth to be modified in the oral cavity, to the lips, where it finally escapes, is thoroughly open. Hence arises the great importance of the sound, by reason of its thoroughly non-consonantal character. All vowels may be defined as open positions of the speech-organs, in which the breath escapes without any stoppage, friction, or sibilation arising from the contact of those organs, whereas consonants are heard when the organs open after such contact more or less complete. Now, all vowels except a are pronounced with a certain contraction of the organs; thus, in sounding the i (the English e -sound), the tongue is raised so as almost to touch the palate, the passage left being so close, that if the tongue were suffered for a second to rest on the palate, there would be heard not i but y ; and a similar relation exists between u and w. This is commonly expressed by calling y and w semi-vowels. We might more exactly call i and u consonantal-vowels; and as an historic fact, i does constantly pass into y, and u into w, and vice versa. But no consonant has this relation to the a -sound; it has absolutely no affinity to any consonant; it is, as we have called it, the one primary essential vowel.
The importance of this sound may be shown by historical as well as by physiological evidence. We find by tracing the process of phonetic change in different languages, that when one vowel passes into another, it is the pure α-sound which thus assumes other forms, whereas other vowels do not pass into the a -sound, though sometimes the new sound may have this symbol. Roughly speaking, we might express the general character of vowel change by drawing two lines from a common point, at which a is placed. One of these lines marks the progress of an original a (ah- sound ) through e (a -sound), till it sinks finally to i (e -sound); the other marks a similar degradation, through o to u (oo -sound). This figure omits many minor modifications, and is subject to some exceptions in particular languages. But it represents fairly in the main the general process of vowel-change. Now, we do not assert that there ever was a time when a was the only existing vowel, but we do maintain that in numberless cases an original a has passed into other sounds, whereas the reverse process is excessively [9:1:2] rare. Consequently, the farther we trace back the history of language, the more instances of this vowel do we find; the more nearly, if not entirely, does it become the one starting point from which all vowel-sound is derived.
It is principally to the effort required to keep this sound pure that we must attribute the great corruption of it in all languages, and in none more than our own. Indeed, in English, the short a -sound is never heard pure; it is heard in Scotland, e.g., in man, which is quite different from the same word on English lips. We have it, however, long in father, &c., though it is not common. It has passed into a great many other sounds, all of which are denoted in a most confusing way by the original symbol, and some by other symbols as well. Thus a denotes—(1.) The English vowel-sound in man, perhaps the most common of all the substitutes, dating from the 17th century. (2.) It appears in want; for this sound o is also employed, as in on. (3.) A more open sound is heard in all (also denoted by au in auk, and aw in awl). (4.) Very commonly it represents the continental e, as in ale (here also we have the symbol ai in ail). (5.) It is found in dare and many similar words, where the sound is really the e of den, prolonged in the utterance; here also ai is sometimes an equivalent, as in air. Then (6) there is a sound which is not that of a either in man or in father, but something between the two. It is heard in such words as ask, pass, grant, &c. All these may be, and often are, pronounced with the sound either of man or of father; still, we do often hear in them a clearly distinguishable intermediate sound, which ought to have a special symbol. Lastly (7), there is the dull sound heard in final unaccentuated syllables, e.g., in the word final itself. It is that to which all unaccentuated syllables tend; but it is also often heard even in monosyllables, where it is represented by every other vowelsymbol in the language, e.g., in her, sir, son, sun. This Protean sound is commonly called the neutral vowel; it occurs in all languages, but perhaps in none so frequently as in English. This great variety of sounds, which are all denoted among us by one symbol, clearly shows the insufficiency of our written alphabet.
As in English, so in Sanskrit, the short «Λ-sound was lost, and was replaced regularly by the neutral sound. This was regarded by the grammarians as inherent in every consonant, and therefore was only written at the beginning of a word; in fact, it is the smallest amount of vowelsound requisite to float a consonant. Long a, however, kept its sound pure, and does so still in the vernaculars of India. In Latin the sound was probably pure, both short and long, and it has been preserved so in the Romance languages down to the present day. In Greek there was considerable variation, proved in one case at least by a variation of symbol; in Ionic a commonly passed into η, a symbol which probably denoted the modern Italian open e; but possibly the close e, that is, the English a in ale. On the other hand, it is probable that the Doric a approximated to an o, being sounded as a in our word want; and it is likely that this variation was the πλατειασμός which the grammarians attribute to the Dorians. This is commonly supposed to have been the retention of α where the Ionic had η ; but that was not peculiar to the Dorians, being common to all the Greeks except the Ionians. In the north of Europe we find a similar tendency to give to a an o -sound; thus in Norse, aa is sounded as an open o. By a further extension in the north of England, at least in such parts as have been specially exposed to Norwegian influence, au has the sound of o; e.g., law is pronounced lo.
A is frequently used as a prefix in lieu of some fuller form in old English. Thus it stands for the preposition on (O.E. an) in away, again, afoot, asleep; for off in adown (O.E. of-dune); and seems to be intensive in athirst (O.E. of-thirst). Sometimes, especially with verbs, it represents the old English â which in old High German appears as ur or er, and in modern German as er, which signifies the completion of an action, as in erwachen, to which awake corresponds. Frequently no special force seems to be added by the prefix, as in abide, arise, &c. Sometimes a appears as the representative of the prefix commonly used in past participles, which has the form ge in German, and ge and y in old English, e.g., in ago or agone; compare aware (O.E. gewaere), among (O.E. gemang), &c. A also stood for the preposition an (on) in such expressions (now obsolete) as a-doing, a-making, where doing and making are verbal nouns. Lastly, it represents the prepositions on or of in the phrases now-a-days, Jack-a-lantern, and others.
The place that A occupies in the alphabet accounts for its being much employed as a mark or symbol. It is used, for instance, to name the sixth note of the gamut in music; in some systems of notation it is a numeral (see Arithmetic); and in Logic it denotes a universal affirmative proposition (see Logic). In algebra, a and the first letters of the alphabet are employed to represent known quantities. Al marks the best class of vessels in Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping. In the old poets, “ A per se” is found, meaning the highest degree of excellence; as when Chaucer calls Creseide “the floure and A per se of Troye and Grece.”
A was the first of the eight literoe nundinales at Rome, and on this analogy it stands as the first of the seven Dominical letters.
It is often used as an abbreviation, as in A.D. for anno domini, A.M. for ante meridiem, A.B. and A. Μ. for artium baccalaureus and artium magister. In commerce A stands for accepted. (J. P.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 1 [9:1:1]
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AA, the name of about forty small European rivers. The word is derived from the old German aha, cognate to the Latin agua, water. The following are the more important streams of this name :—a river of Holland, in North Brabant, which joins the Dommel at Bois-le-Duc; two rivers in the west of Russia, both falling into the Gulf of Livonia, near Riga, which is situated between them; a river in the north of France, falling into the sea at Gravelines, and navigable as far as St Omer; and a river of Switzerland, in the cantons of Lucerne and Aargau, which carries the waters of Lakes Baldeker and Hallwyler into the Aar.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 2 [9:1:2]
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AACHEN. See Aix-La-Chapelle.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 2 [9:1:2]
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AALBORG, a city and seaport of Denmark, is situated on the Liimfiord, about 15 miles from its junction with the Cattegat. It is the capital of the district of the same name, one of the subdivisions of the province of Jütland. The city is a place of considerable commercial importance, and contains a cathedral and a school of navigation. Soap, tobacco, and leather are manufactured; there are several distilleries; and the herring fishery is extensively prosecuted. Grain and herring are largely exported, as are also to a smaller extent wool, cattle, skins, tallow, salt provisions, and spirits. The harbour, which is good and safe, though difficult of access, is entered by about 800 vessels annually, and there is direct steam communication with Copenhagen. The district is celebrated for its breed of horses. Population (1870), 11,953.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 2 [9:1:2]
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AALEN, a walled town of Würtemberg, pleasantly situated on the Kocher, at the foot of the Swabian Alps, about 50 miles E. of Stuttgart. Woollen and linen goods are manufactured, and there are ribbon looms and tanneries in the town, and large iron works in the neighbourhood. Aalen was a free imperial city from 1360 till 1802, when it was annexed to Würtemberg. Population (1871), 5552.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 2 [9:1:2]
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AAR, or Aare, the most considerable river in Switzerland, after the Rhine and Rhone. It rises in the glaciers [9:1:3] of the Finster-aarhorn, Schreckhorn, and Grimsel, in the canton of Bern; and at the Handeck in the valley of Hash forms a magnificent water-fall of above 150 feet in height. It then falls successively into the lakes Brienz and Thun, and, emerging from the latter, flows through the cantons of Bern, Soleure, and Aargau, emptying itself into the Rhine, opposite Waldshut, after a course of about 170 miles. Its principal tributary streams are the Kander, Saane, and Thiele on the left, and the Emmen, Surin, Aa, Reuss, and Limmat, on the right. On its banks are situated Unterseen, Thun, Bern, Soleure or Solothurn, Aarburg, and Aarau. The Aar is a beautiful silvery river, abounding in fish, and is navigable from the Rhine as far as the Lake of Thun. Several small rivers in Germany have the same name.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 2 [9:1:2]
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AARAU, the chief town of the canton of Aargau in Switzerland, is situated at the foot of the Jura mountains, on the right bank of the river Aar, 41 miles N.E. of Bern. It is well built, and contains a town-hall, barracks, several small museums, and a library rich in histories of Switzerland. There is a cannon foundry at Aarau, and among the principal manufactures are silk, cotton, and leather; also cutlery and mathematical instruments, which are held in great repute. The slopes of the neighbouring mountains are partially covered with vines, and the vicinity of the town is attractive. About ten miles distant along the right bank of the Aar are the famous baths of Schinznach. Population, 5449.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 3 [9:1:3]
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AARD-VARK(earth-pig), an animal very common in South Africa, measuring upwards of three feet in length, and having a general resemblance to a short-legged pig. It feeds on ants, and is of nocturnal habits, and very timid and harmless. Its flesh is used as food, and when suitably preserved is considered a delicacy. The animal is the only known species of its genus (Orycteropus), and belongs to the order Edentata of the mammalia. The same prefix Aard appears in the name of the Aard-wolf (Proteles Lalandii), a rare animal found in Caffraria, which is said to partake of the characters of the dog and civet. See Mammalia.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 3 [9:1:3]
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AARGAU (French, Argovie), one of the cantons of Switzerland, derives its name from the river which flows through it, Aar-gau being the province or district of the Aar. It is bounded on the north by the Rhine, which divides it from the duchy of Baden, on the east by Zurich and Zug, on the south by Lucerne, and on the west by Bern, Soleure or Solothurn, and Basel. It has an area of 502 ½ square miles. By the census of 1870, the number of inhabitants was 198,873, showing an increase during the preceding ten years of 4665. Aargau stands sixth among the Swiss cantons in density of population, having 395 inhabitants to the square mile. The statistics of 1870 show that of the inhabitants 107,703 were Protestants, 89,180 Catholics, and 1541 Jews. German is the language almost universally spoken.
Aargau is the least mountainous canton of Switzerland. It forms part of a great table-land to the north of the Alps and the east of the Jura, having a general elevation of from 1200 to 1500 feet. The hills do not rise to any greater height than 1800 feet above this table-land, or 3000 feet above the level of the sea. The surface of the country is beautifully diversified, undulating tracts and well-wooded hills alternating with fertile valleys watered by the Aar and its numerous tributaries, and by the rivulets which flow northward into the Rhine. Although moist and variable, the climate is milder than in most parts of Switzerland.
The minerals of Aargau are unimportant, but remarkable palaeontological remains are found in its rocks. The soil to the left of the Aar is a stiff clay, but to the right it is light and productive. Agriculture is in an advanced state, and great attention is given to the rearing of cattle. There are many vineyards, and much fruit is grown. The canton is distinguished by its industry and its generally diffused prosperity. Many of the inhabitants are employed in the fishings on the Aar, and in the navigation of the river. In the villages and towns there are considerable manufactures of cotton goods, silk, and linen. The chief exports are cattle, hides, cheese, timber, raw cotton, yarn, cotton cloths, silk, machinery, and wooden wares; and the imports include wheat, wine, salt, leather, and iron. The most important towns are Aarau, Baden, Zofingen, and Laufenburg, and there are mineral springs at Baden, Schinznach, Leerau, and Niederweil. The Swiss Junction Railway crosses the Rhine near Waldshut, and runs south through the canton to Turgi, whence one line proceeds S.E. to Zurich, and another S.W. to Aarau and Olben.
Until 1798, Aargau formed part of the canton of Bern, but when the Helvetic Republic was proclaimed, it was erected into a separate canton. In 1803 it received a considerable accession of territory, in virtue of the arrangement under which the French evacuated Switzerland. According to the law whereby the cantons are represented in the National Council by one member for every 20,000 inhabitants, Aargau returns ten representatives to that assembly. The internal government is vested in a legis.- lative council elected by the body of the people, while a smaller council of seven members is chosen by the larger body for the general administration of affairs. The resources of Aargau are stated to amount to about a million sterling; its revenue in 1867 was nearly £82,000, and the expenditure slightly greater. There is a public debt of about £40,000. The canton is divided into eleven districts, and these again are subdivided into forty-eight circles. There is a court of law for each district, and a superior court for the whole canton, to which cases involving sums above 160 francs can be appealed. Education is compulsory; but in the Roman Catholic districts the law is not strictly enforced. By improved schools and other appliances great progress has been made in education within the last thirty or forty years.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 3 [9:1:3]
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AARHUUS, a city and seaport of Denmark, situated on the Cattegat, in lat. 56° 9' N., long. 10° 12' E. It is the chief town of a fertile district of the same name, one of the subdivisions of Jutland. The cathedral of Aarhuus is a Gothic structure, and the largest church in Denmark. The town also contains a lyceum, museum, and library. Aarhuus is a place of extensive trade. It has a good and safe harbour, has regular steam communication with Copenhagen, and is connected by rail with Viborg and the interior of the country. Agricultural produce, spirits, leather, and gloves are exported, and there are sugar refineries, and manufactures of wool, cotton, and tobacco. Population (1870), 15,020.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 3 [9:1:3]
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56 9' N 10 12' E
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AARON, the first high-priest of the Jews, eldest son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi, and brother of Moses and Miriam. When Moses was commissioned to conduct the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, Aaron was appointed to assist him, principally, it would appear, on account of his possessing, in a high degree, persuasive readiness of speech. On the occasion of Moses’ absence in Mount Sinai (to which he had gone up to receive the tables of the law), the Israelites, regarding Aaron as their leader, clamorously demanded that he should provide them with a visible symbolic image of their God for worship. He weakly complied with the demand, and out of the ornaments of gold contributed for the purpose cast the figure of a calf, this form being doubtless chosen in recollection of the idols of Egypt. In obedience to instructions given by God to Moses, Aaron was appointed high-priest; his sons and descendants, priests; and his tribe was set apart as the sacerdotal caste. The office of high-priest was held by Aaron for nearly forty years, till the time of his [9:1:4] death, which took place on Mount Hor, when he was 123 years old.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 3 [9:1:3]
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AARSSENS, Francis Van (1572-1641), one of the greatest diplomatists of the United Provinces. He represented the States-General at the Court of France for many years, and was also engaged in embassies to Venice, Germany, and England. His great diplomatic ability appears from the memoirs he wrote of his negotiations in 1624 with Richelieu, who ranked him among the three greatest politicians of his time. A deep stain rests on the memory of Aarssens from the share he had in the death of Barneveldt, who was put to death by the States-General, after the semblance of a trial, in 1619.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABABDE, an African tribe occupying the country between the Red Sea and the Nile, to the S. of Kosseir, nearly as far as the latitude of Derr. Many of the race have settled on the eastern bank of the Nile, but the greater part still live like Bedouins. They are a distinct race from the Arabs, and are treacherous and faithless in their dealings. They have few horses; when at war with other tribes, they fight from camels, their breed of which is famed. They possess considerable property, and trade in senna, and in charcoal made from acacia wood, which they send as far as Cairo.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABACA or Abaka, a name given to the Musa textilis, the plant that produces the fibre called Manilla Hemp, and also to the fibre itself.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABACUS, an architectural term (from the Gr. άβαξ, a tray or flat board) applied to the upper part of the capital of a column, pier, &c. The early form of an abacus is simply a square flat stone, probably derived from the Tuscan order. In Saxon work it is frequently simply chamfered, but sometimes grooved, as in the crypt at Repton (fig. 1), and in the arcade of the refectory at Westminster. The abacus in Norman work is square where the columns are small; but on larger piers it is sometimes octagonal, as at Waltham Abbey. The square of the abacus is often sculptured, as at the White Tower and at Alton (fig. 2). In early English work the abacus is generally circular, and in larger work a continuation of circles (fig. 4), sometimes octagonal, and occasionally square. The mouldings are generally rounds, which overhang deep hollows. The abacus in early French work is generally square, as at Blois ’(fig. 3).
The term is applied in its diminutive form (Abacis-eus) to the chequers or squares of a tessellated pavement.
Abacus also signifies an instrument employed by the ancients for arithmetical calculations; pebbles, bits of bone, or coins, being used as counters. The accompanying figure (5) of a Roman abacus is taken from an ancient monument. It contains seven long and seven shorter rods or bars, the former having four perforated beads running on them, and the latter one. The bar marked I indicates units, X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads on the shorter bars denote fives,—five units, five tens, &c. The rod θ and corresponding short rod are for marking ounces; and the short quarter rods for fractions of an ounce.
The Swan-Pan of the Chinese (fig. 6) closely resembles the Roman abacus in its construction aud use. Computations arc made with it by means of balls of bone or ivory running on slender bamboo rods similar to the simpler board, fitted up with beads strung on wires, which is employed in teaching the rudiments of arithmetic in elementary schools.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABAe, a town of ancient Greece in the E. of Phocis, famous for a temple and oracle of Apollo. The temple was plundered and burned by the Persians (b.c. 480), and again by the Boeotians (b.c. 346), and was restored on a smaller scale by Hadrian. Remains of the temple and town may still be traced on a peaked hill near Exarkho. See Leake’s Northern Greece.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABAKANSK, a fortified town of Siberia, in the government of Yeniseisk, on the river Abakan, near its confluence with the Yenisei. Lat. 54° N.; long. 91° 14' E. This is considered the mildest and most salubrious place in Siberia, and is remarkable for the tumuli in its neighbourhood, and for some statues of men from seven to nine feet high, covered with hieroglyphics. Population about 1000.
ΑΒΑΝΑ and Pharpar, “rivers of Damascus” (2 Kings V. 12), are now generally identified with the Barada and the Awaj respectively. The former flows through the city of Damascus; the Awaj, a smaller stream, passes eight miles to the south. Both run from west to east across the plain of Damascus, which owes to them much of its fertility, and lose themselves in marshes, or lakes, as they are called, on the borders of the great Arabian desert. Mr Macgregor, who gives an interesting description of these rivers in his Rob Roy on the Jordan, affirms that “as a work of hydraulic engineering, the system and construction of the canals by which the Abana and Pharpar are used for irrigation, may be still considered as the most complete and extensive in the world.”
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABANCAY, a town of Peru, in the department of Cuzco, 65 miles W.S.W. of the town of that name. It lies on the river Abancay, which is here spanned by one of the finest bridges in Peru. Rich crops of sugar-cane are produced in the district, and the town has extensive sugar refineries. Hemp is also cultivated, and silver is found in the mountains. Popidation, 1200.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABANDONMENT, in Marine Assurance, is the surrendering of the ship or goods insured to the insurers, in the case of a constructive total loss of the thing insured. There is an absolute total loss entitling the assured to recover the full amount of his insurance wherever the thing insured has ceased to exist to any useful purpose,—and in such a case abandonment is not required. Where the thing assured continues to exist in specie, yet is so damaged that there is no reasonable hope of repair, or it is not worth the expense of bringing it, or what remains of it, to its destination, the insured may treat the case as one of a total loss (in this case called constructive total loss), and demand the full sum insured. But, as the contract of insurance is one of indemnity, the insured must, in such a case, make an express cession of all his right to the recovery of the subject insured to the underwriter by abandonment. Tho insured must intimate big intention to abandon, within a [9:1:5] reasonable time after receiving correct information as to the loss; any unnecessary delay being held as an indication of his intention not to abandon. An abandonment when once accepted is irrevocable; but in no circumstances s the insured obliged to abandon. After abandonment, the captain and crew are still bound to do all in their power to save the property for the underwriter, without prejudice to the right of abandonment; for which they are entitled to wages and remuneration from the insurers, at least so far as what is saved will allow. See Arnould, Marshall, and Park, on the Law of Insurance, and the judgment of Lord Abinger in Roux v. Salvador, 3 Bing. N.C. 266, Tudor’s Leading Cases, 139.
Abandonment has also a legal signification in the law of railways. Under the Acts 13 and 14 Vict. c. 83, 14 and 15 Vict. c. 64, 30 and 31 Vict. c. 126, and 32 and 33 Vict. c. 114, the Board of Trade may, on the application of a railway company, made by the authority aud with the consent of the holders of three-fifths of its shares or stock, and on certain conditions specified in the Acts, grant a warrant authorising the abandonment of the railway or a portion of it. After due publication of this warrant, the company is released from all liability to make, maintain, or work the railway, or portion of the railway, authorised to be abandoned, or to complete any contracts relating to it, subject to certain provisions and exceptions.
Abandoning a young child under two years of age, so that its life shall be endangered, or its health permanently injured, or likely to be so, is in England a misdemeanour, punishable by penal servitude or imprisonment, 24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, § 273. In Scotland abandoning or exposing an infant is an offence at common law, although no evil consequences should happen to the child.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 4 [9:1:4]
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ABANO, a town of Northern Italy, 6 miles S.W. of Padua. There are thermal springs in the neighbourhood, which have been much resorted to by invalids for bathing, both in ancient and modern times. They were called by the Romans Aponi Fons, and also Aquae Patavinae. Population of Abano, 3000.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 5 [9:1:5]
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ABANO, Pietro d', known also as Petrus de Apono or Aponensis, a distinguished physician and philosopher, was born at the Italian town from which he takes his name in 1250, or, according to others, in 1246. After visiting the east in order to acquire the Greek language, he went to study at Paris, where he became a doctor of medicine and philosophy. In Padua, to which he returned when his studies were completed, he speedily gained a great reputation as a physician, and availed himself of it to gratify his avarice by refusing to visit patients except for an exorbitant fee. Perhaps this as well as his meddling with astrology caused the charge to be brought against him of practising magic, the particular accusations being that he brought back into his purse, by the aid of the devil, all the money he paid away, and that he possessed the philosopher’s stone. He was twice brought to trial by the Inquisition; on the first occasion he was acquitted, and he died (1316) before the second trial was completed. He was found guilty, however, and his body was ordered to be exhumed and burned; but a friend had secretly removed it, and the Inquisition had, therefore, to content itself with the public proclamation of its sentence and the burning of Abano in effigy. In his writings he expounds and advocates the medical and philosophical systems of Averrhoes and other Arabian writers. His best known works are the Conciliator differentiarum, quae inter philosophos et medicos versantur (Mantua, 1472, Venice, 1476), and De venenis eorumque remediis (1472), of which a French translation was published at Lyons in 1593.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 5 [9:1:5]
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ABARIS, the Hyperborean, a celebrated sage of antiquity, who visited Greece about 570 b.c., or, according to others, a century or two earlier. The particulars of his history are differently related by different authors, but all accounts are more or less mythical. He is said to have travelled over sea and land, riding on an arrow given him by Apollo, to have lived without food, to have delivered the whole earth from a plague, &c. Various works in prose and verse are attributed to Abaris by Suidas and others, but of these we have no certain information.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 5 [9:1:5]
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ABATEMENT, Abate, from the French abattre, abater, to throw down, demolish. The original meaning of the word is preserved in various legal phrases. The abatement of a nuisance is the remedy allowed by law to a person injured by a public nuisance of destroying or removing it by his own act, provided he commit no breach of the peace in doing so. In the case of private nuisances abatement is also allowed, provided there be no breach of the peace, and no damage be occasioned beyond what the removal of the nuisance requires.
Abatement of freehold takes place where, after the death of the person last seised, a stranger enters upon lands before the entry of the heir or devisee, and keeps the latter out of possession. It differs from intrusion, which is a similar entry by a stranger on the death of a tenant for life, to the prejudice of the reversioner, or remainder man; and from disseisin, which is the forcible or fraudulent expulsion of a person seised of the freehold.
Abatement among legatees (defalcatis) is a proportionate deduction which their legacies suffer when the funds out of which they are payable are not sufficient to pay them in full.
Abatement in pleading is the. defeating or quashing of a particular action by some matter of fact, such as a defect in form or personal incompetency of the parties suing, . pleaded by the defendant. Such a plea is called a plea in abatement; and as it does not involve the merits of the cause, it leaves the right of action subsisting. Since 1852 it has been competent to obviate the effect of such pleas by amendment, so as to allow the real question in controversy between the parties to be tried in the same suit.
In litigation an action is said to abate or cease on the death of one of the parties.
Abatement, or Rebate, is a discount allowed for prompt payment; it also means a deduction sometimes made at the custom-house from the fixed duties on certain kinds of goods, on account of damage or loss sustained in warehouses. The rate and conditions of such deductions are regulated by Act 16 and 17 Vict. c. 107.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 5 [9:1:5]
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ABATI, or Dell’Abbato, Niccolo, a celebrated fresco-painter of Modena, born in 1512. His best works are at Modena and Bologna, and have been highly praised by Zanotti, Algarotti, and Lanzi. He accompanied Primaticcio to France, and assisted in decorating the palace at Fontain-bleau (1552-1571). His pictures exhibit a combination of skill in drawing, grace, and natural colouring. Some of his easel pieces in oil are in different collections; one of the finest, now in the Dresden Gallery, represents the martyrdom of St Peter and St Paul. Abati died at Paris in 1571.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 5 [9:1:5]
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ABATTOIR, from abattre, primarily signifies a slaughterhouse proper, or place where animals are killed as distinguished from boucheries and étaux publics, places where the dead meat is offered for sale. But the term is also employed to designate a complete meat market, of which the abattoir proper is merely part.
Perhaps the first indication of the existence of abattoirs may be found in the system which prevailed under the Emperors in ancient Rome. A corporation or guild of butchers undoubtedly existed there, which delegated to its officers the duty of slaughtering the beasts required to supply the city with meat. The establishments requisite [9:1:6] for this purpose were at first scattered about the various streets, but were eventually confined to one quarter, and formed the public meat market. This market, in the time of Nero, was one of the most imposing structures in the city, and some idea of its magnificence has been transmitted to us by a delineation of it preserved on an ancient coin. As the policy and customs of the Romans made themselves felt in Gaul, the Roman system of abattoirs, if it may be so called, was introduced there in an imperfect form. A clique of families in Paris long exercised the special function of catering for the public wants in respect of meat. But as the city increased in magnitude and population, the necessity of keeping slaughter-houses as much as possible apart from dwelling-houses became apparent. As early as the time of Charles IX., the attention of the French authorities was directed to the subject, as is testified by a decree passed on the 25th of February 1567. But although the importance of the question was frequently recognised, no definite or decided step seems to have been taken to effect the contemplated reform until the time of Napoleon I. The evil had then reached a terribly aggravated form. Slaughter-houses abutted on many of the principal thoroughfares; the traffic was impeded by the constant arrival of foot-sore beasts, whose piteous cries pained the ear; and rivulets of blood were to be seen in the gutters of the public streets. The constant accumulation of putrid offal tainted the atmosphere, and the Seine was polluted by being used as a common receptacle for slaughter-house refuse. This condition of things could not be allowed to continue, and on the 9th of February 1810, a decree was passed authorising the construction of abattoirs in the outskirts of Paris, and appointing a Commission, to which was committed the consideration of the entire question.
The result of the appointment of this Commission was the construction of the five existing abattoirs, which were formally opened for business on the 15th of September 1818. The Montmartre abattoir occupies 8¾ English acres;
Ménilmontant, 10¼ acres; Grenelle, 7¾; Du Roule, 5¾; and Villejuif, 5½. The first two contain each 64 slaughterhouses and the same number of cattle-sheds; the third, 48; and each of the others 32. The dimensions of each of the slaughter-houses is about 29 ½ feet by 13. The general arrangement of the abattoirs will be understood from the preceding plan of that of Ménilmontant.
The component parts of a French abattoir are—1. Echaudoirs, which is the name given by the Paris butcher to the particular division allotted to him for the purpose of knocking down his beasts; 2. Bouveries et Bergeries, the places set apart for the animals waiting to be slaughtered, where the animals, instead of being killed at once, after a long and distressing journey, when their blood is heated and their flesh inflamed, are allowed to cool and rest till the body is restored to its normal healthy condition; 3. Fondeurs, or boiling-down establishments; and, 4. Triperies, which are buildings set apart for the cleaning of the tripe of bullocks, and the fat, heads, and tripe of sheep and calves. Besides these, a Paris abattoir contains Logements des agens, Magasins, Réservoirs, Voiries, Lieux d'aisance, Voûtes, Remises et écuries, Parcs aux Boeufs, &c., and is provided with an abundant supply of water. All the abattoirs are under the control of the municipal authorities, and frequent inspections are made by persons regularly appointed for that purpose.
The abattoirs are situated within the barriers, each at a distance of about a mile aud three-quarters from the heart of the city, in districts where human habitations are still comparatively few. There are two principal markets from which the abattoirs at Paris are supplied,—the one at Poissy, about 13 miles to the north-west, and the other at Sceaux, about 5 miles and a quarter to the south of the city. There are also two markets for cows and calves, namely, La Chapelle and Les Bernadins.
The Paris abattoirs were until recently the most perfect specimens of their class; and even now, although in some of their details they have been surpassed by the new Islington meat market, for their complete and compact arrangement they remain unrivalled.
The example set by Paris in this matter has been followed in a more or less modified form by most of the principal Continental towns, and the system of abattoirs has become almost universal in France.
The condition of London in this important sanitary respect was for a long period little more endurable than that of Paris before the adoption of its reformed system. Smithfield market, situated in a very populous neighbourhood, continued till 1852 to be an abomination to the town and a standing reproach to its authorities. No fewer than 243,537 cattle and 1,455,249 sheep were sold there in 1852, to be afterwards slaughtered in the crowded courts and thoroughfares of the metropolis. But public opinion at length forced the Legislature to interfere, and the corporation was compelled to abandon Smithfield market and to provide a substitute for it elsewhere.
The site selected was in the suburb of Islington, and the designs for the work were prepared by Mr Bunning. The first stone was laid March 24, 1854, and the market was opened by Prince Albert, June 15, 1855. The Islington market is undoubtedly the most perfect of its kind. It occupies a space of some 20 acres on the high land near the Pentonville prison, and is open to both native and foreign cattle, excepting beasts from foreign countries under quarantine.
In connection with the Islington cattle market are a few slaughter-houses, half of which were originally public, and half rented to private individuals; but at present they are all practically private, and the majority of the cattle sold are driven away and killed at private slaughter-houses. In this respect the London system differs from that of Paris; and it may be said for the former that the meat is less liable to be spoiled by being carted to a distance, and is therefore probably delivered in better condition; but the latter secures that great desideratum, the practical extinction of isolated slaughter-houses.
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The Edinburgh abattoir, erected in 1851 by the corporation, from designs prepared by Mr David Cousin, the city architect, is the best as regards both construction and management in the United Kingdom. It occupies an area of four acres and a quarter, surrounded by a screen-wall, from which, along the greater part of its length, the buildings are separated by a considerable open space. Opposite the principal gateway is a double row of buildings, extending in a straight line to about 376 feet in length, with a central roadway (marked AA in the annexed plan), 25 feet wide. There are three separate blocks of building on each side of the roadway, the central one being 140 feet in length, and the others 100 feet each—cross-roads 18 feet wide separating the blocks. These ranges of building, as well as two smaller blocks that are placed transversely behind the eastern central block, are divided into compartments, numbering 42 in all, and all arranged on the same plan. Next the roadway is the slaughtering-booth (BB), 18 feet by 24, and 20 feet in height, and behind this is a shed (CC) 18 feet by 22, where the cattle are kept before being slaughtered. All the cattle are driven into these sheds by a back-entrance, through the small enclosed yards (DD). The large doors of the booths are hung by balance weights, and slide up and down, so as to present no obstruction either within the booth or outside. By a series of large ventilators along the roof, and by other contrivances, the slaughtering-booths are thoroughly ventilated. Great precautions have been used to keep rats out of the buildings. To effect this, the booths are laid with thick well-dressed pavement, resting on a stratum of concrete 12 inches thick, and the walls, to the height of 7 feet, are formed of solid ashlar; the roadways, too, are laid with concrete, and causewayed with dressed whinstone pavement; and the drainage consists entirely of glazed earthenware tubes.
The ground on which the abattoir is built was previously connected with a distillery, and contains a well 100 feet deep (E), which, with the extensive system of tunnels attached to it, provides the establishment with an abundant supply of pure water. By means of a steam-engine (F), introduced in 1872, the water is pumped up into a raised tank (G), whence it is distributed to the different booths and sheds, as well as for scouring the roadways and drains. The steam from the engine is utilised in heating water for the numerous cast-iron tanks required in the operations of cleansing and dressing the tripery (H) and pig slaughtering-house (I). By an ingenious arrangement of rotary brushes driven by the steam-engine,—the invention of Mr Rutherford, the superintendent,—the tripe is dressed in a superior manner, and at greatly less cost than by the tedious and troublesome method of handcleaning.
By the Edinburgh Slaughter-Houses Act of 1850, the management is vested in the city authorities. Booths are let at a statutory rent of £8 each per annum, and, in addition to this, gate-dues are payable for every beast entering the establishment. The present rates for tenants of booths are 1½d. for an ox or cow, fd. for a calf or pig, and ¼d. for a sheep. Common booths are provided for butchers who are not tenants, on payment of double gate-dues. The city claims the blood, gut, and manure. The tripe and feet are dressed for the trade without extra charge.
The blood was formerly collected in large casks, and disposed of for manufacturing purposes. This necessitated the storage of it for several days, causing in warm weather a very offensive effluvium. It even happened at times, when there was little demand for the commodity, that the blood had to be sent down the drains. All nuisance is now avoided, and the amount received annually for the blood has risen from between £200 and £450 to from £800 to £1200, by a contract into which Messrs Smith and Forrest of Manchester have entered with the city authorities, to take over the whole blood at a fixed price per beast. They have erected extensive premises and apparatus at their own cost, for extracting from the blood the albumen, for which there is great demand in calico-printing, and for converting the clot into manure.
In connection with the establishment is a boiling-house, where all meat unfit for human food is boiled down and destroyed. The number of carcases seized by the inspector, and sent to the boiling-house, during the 5½ years ending with the close of 1872, amounted to 1449, giving a weight of upwards of 400,000 pounds.
Before the erection of these buildings, private slaughterhouses were scattered all over the city, often in the most populous districts, where, through want of drainage and imperfect ventilation, they contaminated the whole neighbourhood. Since the opening of the public abattoir, all private slaughtering, in the city or within a mile of it, is strictly prohibited.
Few of the provincial towns in Great Britain have as yet followed the example of London and Edinburgh. In some instances improvements on the old system have been adopted, but Great Britain is still not only far behind her foreign neighbours in respect of abattoirs, but has even been excelled by some of her own dependencies. In America abattoirs are numerous, and at Calcutta and other towns in British India, the meat markets present a very creditable appearance from their cleanliness and systematic arrangement. (c. N. b.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 5 [9:1:5]
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ABAUZIT, Firmin, a learned Frenchman, was born of Protestant parents at Uzès, in Languedoc, in 1679. His father, who was of Arabian descent, died when he was but two years of age; and when, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the authorities took steps to have him educated in the Roman Catholic faith, his mother contrived his escape. For two years his brother and he lived as fugitives in the mountains of the Cevennes, but they at last reached Geneva, where their mother afterwards joined them on escaping from the imprisonment in which she was held from the time of their flight. Abauzit’s youth was spent in diligent study, and at an early age he acquired great proficiency in languages, physics, and theology. In 1698 he travelled into Holland, and there became acquainted with Bayle, Jurieu, and Basnage. Proceeding to England, he was introduced to Sir Isaac Newton, who found in him one of the earliest defenders of the great truths his discoveries disclosed to the world.
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Sir Isaac corrected in the second edition of his Principia an error pointed out by Abauzit. The high estimate Newton entertained of his merits appears from the compliment he paid to Abauzit, when, sending him the Commercium, Epistolicum, he said, “You are well worthy to judge between Leibnitz and me.” The reputation of Abauzit induced William III. to request him to settle in England, but he did not accept the king’s offer, preferring to return to Geneva. There from 1715 he rendered valuable assistance to a society that had been formed for translating the New Testament into French. He declined the offer of the chair of philosophy in the University in 1723, but accepted, in 1727, the sinecure office of librarian to the city of his adoption. Here he died at a good old age, in 1767. Abauzit was a man of great learning and of wonderful versatility. The varied knowledge he possessed was so well digested and arranged in his retentive mind as to be always within his reach for immediate use. Whatever chanced to be discussed, it used to be said of Abauzit, as of Professor Whewell of our own times, that he seemed to have made it a subject of particular study. Rousseau, who was jealously sparing of his praises, addressed to him, in his Nouvelle Héloïse, a fine panegyric; and when a stranger flatteringly told Voltaire he had come to see a great man, the philosopher asked him if he had seen Abauzit. Little remains of the labours of this intellectual giant, his heirs having, it is said, destroyed the papers that came into their possession, because their religious opinions differed from those of Abauzit. A few theological, archaeological, and astronomical articles from his pen appeared in the Journal Helvétique and elsewhere, and he contributed several papers to Rousseau’s Dictionary of Music. A work he wrote throwing doubt on the canonical authority of the Apocalypse was answered—conclusively, as Abauzit himself allowed—by Dr Leonard Twells. He edited, and made valuable additions to Spon’s History of Geneva. A collection of his writings was published at Geneva in 1770, and another at London in 1773. Some of them were translated into English by Dr Harwood (1770, 1774). Information regarding Abauzit will be found in Senebier’s Histoire Littéraire de Genève, Harwood’s Miscellanies, and Orme’s Bibliotheca Biblica, 1834.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 7 [9:1:7]
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ABB, a town of Yemen in Arabia, situated on a mountain in the midst of a very fertile country, 73 miles N.E. of Mocha. Lat. 13° 58' N., long. 44° 15' E. It contains about 800 houses, and is surrounded by a strong wall; the streets are well paved; and an aqueduct from a neighbouring mountain supplies it with water, which is received in a reservoir in front of the principal mosque. The population is about 5000.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 8 [9:1:8]
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ABBADIE, James, an eminent Protestant divine, was born at Nay in Bern about 1657. His parents were poor, but through the kindness of discerning friends, he received an excellent education. He prosecuted his studies with such success, that on completing his course at Sedan, though only seventeen years of age, he had conferred on him the degree of doctor in theology. After spending some years in Berlin as minister of a French Protestant church, he accompanied Marshal Schomberg, in 1688, to England, and became minister of the French church in the Savoy, London. His strong attachment to the cause of King William appears in his elaborate defence of the Revolution, as well as in his history of the conspiracy of 1696, the materials of which were furnished, it is said, by the secretaries of state. The king promoted him to the deanery of Killaloc in Ireland. He died in London in 1727. Abbadie was a man of great ability and an eloquent preacher, but is best known by his religious treatises, several of which were translated from the original French into other languages, and had a wide circulation all over Europe. The most important of these are Traité de la Vérité de l a Religion Chrétienne; its continuation, Traité de la Divinité de Jésus-Christ; and L' Art de se connaître Soi-même.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 8 [9:1:8]
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ABBAS I., surnamed the Great, one of the most celebrated of the sovereigns of Persia, was the youngest son of Shah Mohammed Khodabendeh. After heading a successful rebellion against his father, and causing one of his brothers (or, as some say, both) to be assassinated, he obtained possession of the throne at the early age of eighteen (1585). Determined to raise the fallen fortunes of his country, he first directed his efforts against the predatory Uzbeks, who occupied and harassed Khorasan. After a long and severe struggle, he defeated them in a great battle near Herat (1597), and drove them cut of his dominions. In the wars he carried on with the Turks during nearly the whole of his reign, his successes were numerous, and he acquired or regained a large extent of territory. By the victory he gained at Bassorah (1605), he extended his empire beyond the Euphrates; Achmed I. was forced to cede Shirwan and Kurdistan in 1611; the united armies of the Turks and Tartars were completely defeated near Sultanieh in 1618, and Abbas made peace on very favourable terms; and on the Turks renewing the war, Baghdad fell into his hands after a year’s siege (1623). In the same year he took the island of Ormuz from the Portuguese, by the assistance of the British. When he died in 1628, his dominions reached from the Tigris to the Indus. Abbas distinguished himself, not only by his successes in arms, and by the magnificence of his court, but also by his reforms in the administration of his kingdom. He encouraged commerce, and, by constructing highways and building bridges, did much to facilitate it. To foreigners, especially Christians, he showed a spirit of tolerance; two Englishmen, Sir Anthony and Sir Robert Shirley, were admitted to his confidence, and seem to have had much influence over him. His fame is tarnished, however, by numerous deeds of tyranny and cruelty. His own family, especially, suffered from his fits of jealousy; his eldest son was slain, and the eyes of his other children were put out, by his orders.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 8 [9:1:8]
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ABBAS MIRZA (b. 1785, d. 1833), Prince of Persia, third son of the Shah Feth Ali, was destined by his father to succeed him in the government, because of his mother’s connection with the royal tribe of the Khadjars. He led various expeditions against the Russians, but generally without success (1803, 1813, 1826). By a treaty made between Russia and Persia in 1828, the right of Abbas to the succession was recognised. When the Russian deputies were murdered by the Persian populace in 1829, Abbas was sent to St Petersburg, where he received a hearty welcome from the Czar, and made himself a favourite by his courtesy and literary taste. He formed a design against Herat, but died shortly after the siege had been opened by his son, who succeeded Feth Ali as the Shah Mohammed Mirza. He was truthful—a rare quality in an Eastern—plain in dress and style of living, and fond of literature.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 8 [9:1:8]
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ABBASSIDES, the caliphs of Baghdad, the most famous dynasty of the sovereigns of the Mahometan or Saracen empire. They derived their name and descent from Abbas (b. 566, d. 652 a.d.), the uncle and adviser of Mahomet, and succeeded the dynasty of the Ommiads, th( caliphs of Damascus. Early in the 8th century the family of Abbas had acquired great influence from their near relationship to the Prophet; and Ibrahim, the fourth in descent from Abbas, supported by the province of Khorasan, obtained several successes over the Ommiad armies, but was captured and put to death by the Caliph Merwan (747). Ibrahim’s brother. Abul-Abbas, whom he [9:1:9] had named his heir, assumed the title of caliph, and, by a decisive victory near the river Zab (750), effected the overthrow of the Ommiad dynasty. Merwan fled to Egypt, but was pursued and put to death, and the vanquished family was treated with a severity which gained for Abul-Abbas the surname of Al-Saffah, the Blood-shedder. From this time the house of Abbas was fully established in the government, but the Spanish provinces were lost to the empire by the erection of an independent caliphate of Cordova, under Abderrahman.
On the death of Abul-Abbas, Almansur succeeded to the throne, and founded Baghdad as the seat of empire. He and his son Mohdi waged war successfully against the Turkomans and Greeks of Asia Minor; but from this time the rule of the Abbassides is marked rather by the development of the liberal arts than by extension of territory. The strictness of the Mohammedan religion was relaxed, and the faithful yielded to the seductions of luxury. The caliphs Harun Al-Rashid (786-809) and Al-Mamun (813-833) attained a world-wide celebrity by their gorgeous palaces, their vast treasures, and their brilliant and numerous equipages, in all which their splendour contrasted strikingly with the poverty of European sovereigns. The former is known as one of the heroes of the Arabian Nights; the latter more worthily still as a liberal patron of literature and science. It is a mistake, however, to look in the rule of these caliphs for the lenity of modern civilisation. “No Christian government,” says Hallam, “except perhaps that of Constantinople, exhibits such a series of tyrants as the caliphs of Baghdad, if deeds of blood, wrought through unbridled passion or jealous policy, may challenge the name of tyranny.”
The territory of the Abbassides soon suffered dismemberment, and their power began to decay. Rival sovereignties (Ashlabites, Edrisites, &c.) arose in Africa, and an independent government was constituted in Khorasan (820), under the Taherites. In the West, again, the Greeks encroached upon the possessions of the Saracens in Asia Minor. Ruin, however, came from a less civilised race. The caliphs had continually been waging war with the Tartar hordes of Turkestan, and many captives taken in these wars were dispersed throughout the empire. Attracted by their bravery and fearing rebellion among his subjects, Motassem (833-842), the founder of Samarah, and successful opponent of the Grecian forces under Theophilus, formed bodyguards of the Turkish prisoners, who became from that time the real governors of the Saracen empire. Mota-wakkel, son of Motassem, was assassinated by them in the palace (861); and succeeding caliphs became mere puppets in their hands. Radhi (934-941) was compelled by the disorganised condition of his kingdom to delegate to Mohammed ben Rayek (936 a.d.), under the title of Emir-al-Omara, commander of the commanders, the government of the army and the other functions of the caliphate. Province after province proclaimed itself independent; the caliph’s rule became narrowed to Baghdad and its vicinity; and the house of Abbas lost its power in the East for ever, when Hulagu, prince of the Mongols, set Baghdad on fire, and slew Motassem, the reigning caliph (20th Feb. 1258). The Abbassides continued to hold a semblance of power in the merely nominal caliphate of Egypt, and feebly attempted to recover their ancient seat. The last of them, Motawakkel III., was taken by Sultan Selim I., the conqueror of Egypt, to Constantinople, and detained there for some time as a prisoner. He afterwards returned to Egypt, and died at Cairo a pensionary of the Ottoman government, in 1538.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 8 [9:1:8]
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ABBÉ is the French word corresponding to Abbot, but, from the middle of the sixteenth century to the time of the French Revolution, the term had a wider application. The assumption by a numerous class of the name and style of abbé appears to have originated in the right conceded to the King of France, by a concordat between Pope Leo X. and Francis I., to appoint abbés commendataires to 225 abbeys, that is, to most of the abbeys in France. This kind of appointment, whereby the living was commended to some one till a proper election could take place, though ostensibly provisional, really put the nominee in full and permanent possession of the benefice. He received about one-third of the revenues of the abbey, but had no share in its government, the charge of the house being intrusted to a resident officer, the prieur claustral. The abbés commendataires were not necessarily priests; the papal bull required indeed that they should take orders within a stated time after their appointment, but there seems to have been no difficulty in procuring relief from that obligation. The expectation of obtaining these sinecures drew young men towards the Church in considerable numbers, and the class of abbés so formed— abbés de cour they were sometimes called, and sometimes (ironically) abbés de sainte espérance, abbés of St Hope— came to hold a recognised position, that perhaps proved as great an attraction as the hope of preferment. The connection many of them had with the Church was of the slenderest kind, consisting mainly in adopting the name of abbé, after a remarkably moderate course of theological study; practising celibacy; and wearing a distinctive dress—a short dark-violet coat with narrow collar. Being men of presumed learning and undoubted leisure, many of the class found admission to the houses of the French nobility as tutors or advisers. Nearly every great family had its abbé. As might be imagined from the objectless sort of life the class led, many of the abbés were of indifferent character; but there are not a few instances of abbés attaining eminence, both in political life and in the walks of literature and science. The Abbé Sieyès may be taken as a prominent example of the latter type.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 9 [9:1:9]
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ABBEOKUTA, or Abeokuta, a town of West Africa in the Yoruba Country, situated in N. lat. 7° 8', and E. long. 3 o 25', on the Ogun River, about 50 miles north of Lagos, in a direct line, or 81 miles by water. It lies in a beautiful and fertile country, the surface of which is broken by masses of grey granite. Like most African towns, Abbeokuta is spread over an extensive area, being surrounded by mud walls, 18 miles in extent. The houses are also of mud, and the streets mostly narrow and filthy. There are numerous markets in which native products and articles of European manufacture are exposed for sale. Palm-oil and shea-butter are the chief articles of export, and it is expected that the cotton of the country will become a valuable article of commerce. The slave trade and human sacrifices have been abolished; but notwithstanding the efforts of English and American missionaries, the natives are still idle and degraded. The state called Egbaland, of which Abbeokuta is the capital, has an area of about 3000 square miles. Its progress has been much hindered by frequent wars with the king of Dahomey. Population of the town, about 150,000; of the state or adjacent territory, 50,000. (See Burton’s Abbeokuta and the Cameroon Mountains, 2 vols.)
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 9 [9:1:9]
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ABBESS, the female superior of an abbey or convent of nuns. The mode of election, position, rights, and authority of an abbess, correspond generally with those of an abbot. The office was elective, the choice being by the secret votes of the sisters from their own body. The abbess was solemnly admitted to her office by episcopal benediction, together with the conferring of a staff and pectoral, and held it for life, though liable to be deprived for misconduct. The Council of Trent fixes the qualifying age at forty, with eight years of profession. Abbesses had [9:1:10] a right to demand absolute obedience of their nuns, over whom they exercised discipline, extending even to the power of expulsion, subject, however, to the bishop. As a female an abbess was incapable of performing the spiritual functions of the priesthood belonging to an abbot. She could not ordain, confer the veil, nor excommunicate. In the eighth century abbesses were censured for usurping priestly powers by presuming to give the veil to virgins, and to confer benediction and imposition of hands on men. In England they attended ecclesiastical councils, e.g. that of Becanfield in 694, where they signed before the presbyters.
By Celtic usage abbesses presided over joint-houses of monks and nuns. This custom accompanied Celtic monastic missions to France and Spain, and even to Rome itself. At a later period, a.d. 1115, Robert, the founder of Fontevraud, committed the government of the whole order, men as well as women, to a female superior.
Martene asserts that abbesses formerly confessed nuns, but that their undue inquisitiveness rendered it necessary to forbid the practice.
The dress of an English abbess of the 12th century consisted of a long white tunic with close sleeves, and a black overcoat as long as the tunic, with large and loose sleeves, the hood covering the head completely. The abbesses of the 14th and 15th centuries had adopted secular habits, and there was little to distinguish them from their lay sisters. (e. v.)
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 9 [9:1:9]
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ABBEVILLE, a city of France, in the department of the Somme, is situated on the River Somme, 12 miles from its mouth in the English Channel, and 25 miles N.W. of Amiens. It lies in a pleasant and fertile valley, and is built partly on an island, and partly on both sides of the river. The streets are narrow, and the houses are mostly picturesque old structures, built of wood, with many quaint decaying gables and dark archways. The town is strongly fortified on Vauban’s system. It has a tribunal and chamber of commerce. The most remarkable edifice is the Church of St Wolfran, which was erected in the time of Louis XII. Although the original design was not completed, enough was built to give a good idea of the splendid structure it was intended to erect. The façade is a magnificent specimen of the flamboyant Gothic style, and is adorned by rich tracery, while the western front is flanked by two Gothic towers. A cloth manufactory was established here by Van Robais, a Dutchman, under the patronage of the minister Colbert, as early as 1669; and since that time Abbeville has continued to be one of the most thriving manufacturing towns in France. Besides black cloths of the best quality, there are produced velvets, cottons, linens, serges, sackings, hosiery, packthread, jewellery, soap, and glass-wares. It has also establishments for spinning wool, print-works, bleachingworks, tanneries, a paper manufactory, &c.; and being situated in the centre of a populous district, it has a considerable trade with the surrounding country. Vessels of from 200 to 300 tons come up to the town at high-water. Abbeville is a station on the Northern Railway, and is also connected with Paris and Belgium by canals. Fossil remains of gigantic mammalia now extinct, as well as the rude flint weapons of pre-historic man, have been discovered in the geological deposits of the neighbourhood. A treaty was concluded here in 1259 between Henry HI. of England and Louis IX. of France, by which the province of Guienne was ceded to the English. Population, 20,058.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 10 [9:1:10]
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ABBEY, a monastery, or conventual establishment, under the government of an abbot or an abbess. A priory only differed from an abbey in that the superior bore the name of prior instead of abbot. This was the case in all the English conventual cathedrals, e.g., Canterbury, Ely, Norwich, &c., where the archbishop or bishop occupied the abbot’s place, the superior of the monastery being termed prior. Other priories were originally offshoots from the larger abbeys, to the abbots of which they continued subordinate; but in later times the actual distinction between abbeys and priories was lost.
Reserving for the article Monasticism the history of tho rise and progress of the monastic system, its objects, benefits, evils, its decline and fall, we propose in this article to confine ourselves to the structural plan and arrangement of conventual establishments, and a description of the various buildings of which these vast piles were composed.
The earliest Christian monastic communities with which we are acquainted consisted of groups of cells or huts collected about a common centre, which was usually the abode of some anchorite celebrated for superior holiness or singular asceticism, but without any attempt at orderly arrangement. The formation of such communities in the East does not date from the introduction of Christianity. The example had been already set by the Essenes in Judea and the Therapeutae in Egypt, who may be considered the prototypes of the industrial and meditative communities of monks.
In the earliest age of Christian monasticism the ascetics were accustomed to live singly, independent of one another, at no great distance from some village, supporting themselves by the labour of their own hands, and distributing the surplus after the supply of their own scanty wants to the poor. Increasing religious fervour, aided by persecution, drove them further and further away from the abodes of men into mountain solitudes or lonely deserts. The deserts of Egypt swarmed with the cells or huts of these anchorites. Antony, who had retired to the Egyptian Thebaid during the persecution of Maximin, a.d. 312, was the most celebrated among them for his austerities, his sanctity, and his power as an exorcist. His fame collected round him a host of followers, emulous of his sanctity. The deeper he withdrew into the wilderness, the more numerous his disciples became. They refused to be separated from him, and built their cells round that of their spiritual father. Thus arose the first monastic community, consisting of anchorites living each in his own little dwelling, united together under one superior. Antony, as Neander remarks (Church History, vol. iii. p. 316, Clark’s Trans.), “without any conscious design of his own, had become the founder of a new mode of living in common, Coenobitism.” By degrees order was introduced in the groups of huts. They were arranged in lines like the tents in an encampment, or the houses in a street. From this arrangement these lines of single cells came to be known as Laurae, Λαυραι, “streets” or “lanes.”
The real founder of coenobian monasteries in the modern sense was Pachomius, an Egyptian of the beginning of the 4th century. The first community established by him was at Tabennae, an island of the Nile in Upper Egypt. Eight others were founded in his lifetime, numbering 3000 monks. Within 50 years from his death his societies could reckon 50,000 members. These coenobia resembled villages, peopled by a hard-working religious community, all of one sex. The buildings were detached, small, and of the humblest character. Each cell or hut, according to Sozomen (H. E. iii. 14), contained three monks. They took their chief meal in a common refectory at 3 p.m., up to which hour they usually fasted. They ate in silence, with hoods so drawn over their faces that they could see nothing but what was on the table before them. The monks spent all the time, not devoted to religious services or study, in manual labour. Palladius, who visited the Egyptian monasteries about the close of the 4th century, found among the 300 [9:1:11] members of the Coenobium of Panopolis, under the Pachomian rule, 15 tailors, 7 smiths, 4 carpenters, 12 camel-drivers, and 15 tanners. Each separate community had its own oeconomus, or steward, who was subject to a chief oeconomus stationed at the head establishment. All the produce of the monks’ labour was committed to him, and by him shipped to Alexandria. The money raised by the sale was expended in the purchase of stores for the support of the communities, and what was over was devoted to charity. Twice in the year the superiors of the several coenobia met at the chief monastery, under the presidency of an Archimandrite (“the chief of the fold,” from μάνδρα, a fold), and at the last meeting gave in reports of their administration for the year.
The coenobia of Syria belonged to the Pachomian institution. We learn many details concerning those in the vicinity of Antioch from Chrysostom’s writings. The monks lived in separate huts, κ ά λvβa ι , forming a religious hamlet on the mountain side. They were subject to an abbot, and observed a common rule. (They had no refectory, but ate their common meal, of bread and water only, when the day’s labour was over, reclining on strewn grass, sometimes out of doors.) Four times in the day they joined in prayers and psalms.
The necessity for defence from hostile attacks, economy of space, and convenience of access from one part of the community to another, by degrees dictated a more compact and orderly arrangement of the buildings of a monastic coenobium. Large piles of building were erected, with strong outside walls, capable of resisting the assaults of an enemy, within which all the necessary edifices were ranged round one or more open courts, usually surrounded with cloisters. The usual Eastern arrangement is exemplified in the plan of the convent of Santa Laura, Mt. Athos (Laura, the designation of a monastery generally, being converted into a female saint).
This monastery, like the Oriental monasteries generally is surrounded by a strong and lofty blank stone wall, enclosing an area of between 3 and 4 acres. The longer side extends to a length of about 500 feet. There is only one main entrance, on the north side (A), defended by three separate iron doors. Near the entrance is a large tower (M), a constant feature in the monasteries of the Levant. There is a small postern gate at (L.) The enceinte comprises two large open courts, surrounded with buildings connected with cloister galleries of wood or stone. The outer court, which is much the larger, contains the granaries and storehouses (K), and the kitchen (H), and other offices connected with the refectory (G). Immediately adjacent to the gateway is a two-storeyed guesthouse, opening from a cloister (C). The inner court is surrounded by a cloister (EE), from which open the monks’ cells (II). In the centre of this court stands the catholicon or conventual church, a square building with an apse of the cruciform domical Byzantine type, approached by a domed narthex. In front of the church stands a marble fountain (F), covered by a dome supported on columns. Opening from the western side of the cloister, but actually standing in the outer court, is the refectory (G), a large cruciform building, about 100 feet each way, decorated within with frescoes of saints. At the upper end is a semicircular recess, recalling the Triclinium of the Lateran Palace at Rome, in which is placed the seat of the Hegu-menos or abbot. This apartment is chiefly used as a hall of meeting, the Oriental monks usually taking their meals in their separate cells. St Laura is exceeded in magnitude by the Convent of Vatopede, also on Mount Athos. This enormous establishment covers at least 4 acres of ground, and contains so many separate buildings within its massive walls that it resembles a fortified town. It lodges above 300 monks, and the establishment of the Hegumenos is described as resembling the court of a petty sovereign prince. The immense refectory, of the same cruciform shape as that of St Laura, will accommodate 500 guests at its 24 marble tables.
The annexed plan of a Coptic monastery, from Lenoir shows us a church of three aisles, with cellular apses, and two ranges of cells on either side of an oblong gallery.
Monasticism in the West owes its extension and development to Benedict of Nursia (born a.d. 480). His rule was diffused with miraculous rapidity from the parent foundation on Monte Cassino through the whole of Western Europe, and every country witnessed the erection of monasteries far exceeding anything that had yet been seen in spaciousness and splendour. Few great towns in Italy were without their Benedictine convent, and they quickly rose in all the great centres of population in England, France, and Spain. The number of these monasteries founded between a.d. 520 and 700 is amazing. Before the Council of Constance, a.d. 1005, no fewer than 15,070 abbeys had been established of this order alone. The Benedictine rule, spreading with the vigour of a young and powerful life, absorbed into itself the older monastic foundations, whose discipline had too usually become disgracefully relaxed. In the words of Milman (Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 425, note x.), “The Benedictine rule was universally received, even in the older monasteries of Gaul, Britain, Spain, and throughout the West, not as that of a rival order (all rivalry was of later date), but as a more full and perfect rule of the monastic life.” Not only, therefore, were new monasteries founded, but those already existing were pulled down, and rebuilt to adapt them to the requirements of the new rule.
The buildings of a Benedictine abbey were uniformly arranged after one plan, modified where necessary (as at [9:1:12] Durham and Worcester, where the monasteries stand close to the steep bank of a river), to accommodate the arrangement to local circumstances.
We have no existing examples of the earlier monasteries of the Benedictine order. They have all yielded to the ravages of time and the violence of man. But we have fortunately preserved to us an elaborate plan of the great Swiss monastery of St Gall, erected about a.d. 820, which puts us in possession of the whole arrangements of a monastery of the first class towards the early part of the 9th century. This curious and interesting plan has been made the subject of a memoir both by Keller (Zurich, 1844) and by Professor Willis (Arch. Journal, 1848, vol. V. pp. 86-117). To the latter we are indebted for the substance of the following description, as well as for the above woodcut, reduced from his elucidated transcript of the original preserved in the archives of the convent. The general appearance of the convent is that of a town of isolated houses with streets running between them. It is evidently planned in compliance with the Benedictine rule, which enjoined that, if possible, the monastery should contain within itself every necessary of life, as well as the buildings more intimately connected with the religious and social life of its inmates. It should comprise a mill, a bakehouse, stables and cow-houses, together with accommodation for carrying on all necessary mechanical arts within the walls, so as to obviate the necessity of the monks going outside its limits. The general distribution of the buildings may be thus described :—The church, with its cloister to the south, occupies the centre of a quadrangular area, about 430 feet square. The buildings, as in all great monasteries, are distributed into groups. The church forms the nucleus, as the centre of the religious life of the community. In closest connection with the church is the group of buildings appropriated to the monastic life and its daily requirements—the refectory for eating, the dormitory for sleeping, the common room for social intercourse, the chapter-house for religious and disciplinary conference. These essential elements of monastic life are ranged about a cloister court, surrounded by a covered arcade, affording communication sheltered from the elements, between the various buildings. The infirmary for sick monks, with the physician’s house and physic garden, lies to the east. In the same group with the infirmary is the school for the novices. The outer school, with its head-master’s house against the opposite wall of the church, stands outside the convent enclosure, in close proximity to the abbot’s house, that he might have a constant eye over them. The buildings devoted to hospitality are divided into three groups,—one for the reception of distinguished guests, another for monks visiting the monastery, a third for poor travellers and pilgrims. The first and third are placed to the right and left of the common entrance of the monastery,—the hospitium for distinguished guests being placed on the north side of the church, not far from the abbot’s house; that for the poor on the south side next to the farm buildings. The monks are lodged in a guest-house built against the north wall of the church. The group of buildings connected with the material wants of the establishment is placed to the south and west of the church, and is distinctly separated from the monastic buildings. The kitchen, buttery, and offices, are reached by a passage from the west end of the refectory, and are connected with the bakehouse and brewhouse, which are placed still further away. The whole of the southern and western sides is devoted to workshops, stables, and farm-buildings. The buildings, with some exceptions, seem to have been of one story only, and all but the church were probably erected of wood. The whole includes thirty-three separate blocks. The church (D) is cruciform, with a nave of nine bays, and a semicircular apse at either extremity. That to the west is surrounded by a semicircular colonnade, leaving an open “Paradise” (E) between it and the wall of the church. The whole area is divided by screens into various chapels. The high altar (A) stands immediately to the east of the transept, or ritual choir; the altar of St Paul (B) in the eastern, and that of St Peter (C) in the western apse. A cylindrical campanile stands detached from the church on either side of the western apse (FF).
The “cloister court” (G) on the south side of the nave of the church has on its east side the “pisalis” or “calefactory” (H),the common sitting-room of the brethren, warmed by flues beneath the floor. On this side in later monasteries we invariably find the chapter-house, the absence of which in this plan is somewhat surprising. It appears, however from the inscriptions on the plan itself, that the [9:1:13] north walk of the cloisters served for the purposes of a chapter-house, and was fitted up with benches on the long sides. Above the calefactory is the “dormitory” opening into the south transept of the church, to enable the monks to attend the nocturnal services with readiness. A passage at the other end leads to the “necessarium” (I), a portion of the monastic buildings always planned with extreme care. The southern side is occupied by the “refectory” (K), from the west end of which by a vestibule the kitchen (L) is reached. This is separated from the main buildings of the monastery, and is connected by a long passage with a building containing the bakehouse and brewhouse (M), and the sleeping-rooms of the servants. The upper story of the refectory is the “vestiarium,” where the ordinary clothes of the brethren were kept. On the western side of the cloister is another two story building (N). The cellar is below, and the larder and store-room above. Between this building and the church, opening by one door into the cloisters, and by another to the outer part of the monastery area, is the “parlour” for interviews with visitors from the external world (O). On the eastern side of the north transept is the “scriptorium” or writing-room (P 1 ), with the library above.
To the east of the church stands a group of buildings comprising two miniature conventual establishments, each complete in itself. Each has a covered cloister surrounded by the usual buildings, i.e., refectory, dormitory, &c., and a church or chapel on one side, placed back to back. A detached building belonging to each contains a bath and a kitchen. One of these diminutive convents is appropriated to the “oblati” or novices (Q), the other to the sick monks as an “infirmary” (R).
The “residence of the physicians” (S) stands contiguous to the infirmary, and the physic garden (T) at the north-east corner of the monastery. Besides other rooms, it contains a drug store, and a chamber for those who are dangerously ill. The “house for blood-letting and purging” adjoins it on the west (U).
The “outer school,” to the north of the convent area, contains a large school-room divided across the middle by a screen or partition, and surrounded by fourteen little rooms, termed the dwellings of the scholars. The head-master’s house (W) is opposite, built against the side wall of the church. The two “hospitia” or “guest-houses” for the entertainment of strangers of different degrees (X 1 X 2 ) comprise a large common chamber or refectory in the centre, surrounded by sleeping apartments. Each is provided with its own brewhouse and bakehouse, and that for travellers of a superior order has a kitchen and store-room, with bed-rooms for their servants, and stables for their horses. There is also an “hospitium” for strange monks, abutting on the north wall of the church (Y).
Beyond the cloister, at the extreme verge of the convent area to the south, stands the “factory” (Z), containing workshops for shoemakers, saddlers (or shoemakers, sellarii), cutlers and grinders, trencher-makers, tanners, curriers, fullers, smiths, and goldsmiths, with their dwellings in the rear. On this side we also find the farm-buildings, the large granary and threshing-floor (a ), mills (c ), malt-house (d ). Facing the west are the stables (e ), ox-sheds (f), goat-stables (g), piggeries (h ), sheep-folds (i), together with the servants’ and labourers’ quarters (k ). At the southeast corner we find the hen and duck house, and poultry-yard (m), and the dwelling of the keeper (n ). Hard by is the kitchen garden (o), the beds bearing the names of the vegetables growing in them, onions, garlic, celery, lettuces, poppy, carrots, cabbages, &c., eighteen in all. In the same way the physic garden presents the names of the medicinal herbs, and the cemetery (p ) those of the trees, apple, pear, plum, quince, &c., planted there.
It is evident, from this most curious and valuable document, that by the 9th century monastic establishments had become wealthy, and had acquired considerable importance, and were occupying a leading place in education, agriculture, and the industrial arts. The influence such an institution would diffuse through a wide district would be no less beneficial than powerful.
The curious bird’s eye view of Canterbury Cathedral and its annexed conventual buildings, taken about 1165, preserved in the Great Psalter in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, as elucidated by Professor Willis with such admirable skill and accurate acquaintance with the existing remains,^[1. The Architectural History of the Conventual Buildings of the Monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury. By the Rev. Robert Willis. Printed for the Kent Archaeological Society, 1869. ] exhibits the plan of a great Benedictine monastery in the 12th century, and enables us to compare it with that of the 9th, as seen at St Gall. We see in both the same general principles of arrangement, which indeed belong to all Benedictine monasteries, enabling us to determine with precision the disposition of the various buildings, when little more than fragments of the walls exist. From some local reasons, however, the cloister and monastic buildings are placed on the north, instead, as is far more commonly the case, on the south of the church. There is also a separate chapter-house, which is wanting at St Gall.
The buildings at Canterbury, as at St Gall, form separate groups. The church forms the nucleus. In immediate contact with this, on the north side, lie the cloister and the group of buildings devoted to the monastic life. Outside of these, to the west and east, are the “halls and chambers devoted to the exercise of hospitality, with which every monastery was provided, for the purpose of receiving as guests persons who visited it, whether clergy or laity, travellers, pilgrims, or paupers.” To the north a large open court divides the monastic from the menial buildings, intentionally placed as remote as possible from the conventual buildings proper, the stables, granaries, barn, bakehouse, brewhouse, laundries, &c., inhabited by the lay servants of the establishment. At the greatest possible distance from the church, beyond the precinct of the convent, is the eleemosynary department. The almonry for the relief of the poor, with a great hall annexed, forms the pauper’s hospitium.
The most important group of buildings is naturally that devoted to monastic life. This includes two cloisters, the great cloister surrounded by the buildings essentially connected with the daily life of the monks,—the church to the south, the refectory or frater-house here as always on the side opposite to the church, and furthest removed from it, that no sound or smell of eating might penetrate its sacred precincts, to the east the dormitory, raised on a vaulted undercroft, and the chapter-house adjacent, and the lodgings of the cellarer to the west. To this officer was committed the provision of the monks’ daily food, as well as that of the guests. He was, therefore, appropriately lodged in the immediate vicinity of the refectory and kitchen, and close to the guest-hall. A passage under the dormitory leads eastwards to the smaller or infirmary cloister, appropriated to the sick and infirm monks. Eastward of this cloister extend the hall and chapel of the infirmary, resembling in form and arrangement the nave and chancel of an aisled church. Beneath the dormitory, looking out into the green court or herbarium, lies the “pisalis” or “calefactory,” the common room of the monks. At its northeast corner access was given from the dormitory to the necessarium, a portentous edifice in the form of a Norman hall, 145 feet long by 25 broad, containing fifty-five seats. It was, in common with all such offices in ancient monasteries, constructed with the most careful regard to cleanliness and [9:1:14] health, a stream of water running through it from end to end. A second smaller dormitory runs from east to west for the accommodation of the conventual officers, who were bound to sleep in the dormitory. Close to the refectory, but outside the cloisters, are the domestic offices connected with it; to the north, the kitchen, 47 feet square, surmounted by a lofty pyramidal roof, and the kitchen court; to the west, the butteries, pantries, &c. The infirmary had a small kitchen of its own. Opposite the refectory door in the cloister are two lavatories, an invariable adjunct to a monastic dining-hall, at which the monks washed before and after taking food.
The buildings devoted to hospitality were divided into three groups. The prior’s group “entered at the south-east angle of the green court, placed near the most sacred part of the cathedral, as befitting the distinguished ecclesiastics or nobility who were assigned to him.” The cellarer’s buildings, were near the west end of the nave, in which ordinary visitors of the middle class were hospitably entertained. The inferior pilgrims and paupers were relegated to the north hall or almonry, just within the gate, as far as possible from the other two.
Westminster Abbey is another example of a great Benedictine abbey, identical in its general arrangements, so far as they can be traced, with those described above. The cloister and monastic buildings lie to the south side of the church. Parallel to the nave, on the south side of the cloister, was the refectory, with its lavatory at the door. On the eastern side we find the remains of the dormitory, raised on a vaulted substructure, and communicating with the south transept. The chapter-house opens out of the same alley of the cloister. The small cloister lies to the south-east of the larger cloister, and still farther to the east we have the remains of the infirmary, with the table hall, the refectory of those who were able to leave their chambers. The abbot’s house formed a small court-yard at the west entrance, close to the inner gateway. Considerable portions of this remain, including the abbot’s parlour, celebrated as “the Jerusalem Chamber,” his hall, now used for the Westminster King’s scholars, and the kitchen and butteries beyond.
St Mary’s Abbey, York, of which the ground-plan is annexed, exhibits the usual Benedictine arrangements. The precincts are surrounded by a strong fortified wall on three sides, the river Ouse being sufficient protection on the fourth side. The entrance was by a strong gateway (U) to the north. Close to the entrance was a chapel, where is now the church of St Olaf (W), in which the new comers paid their devotions immediately on their arrival. Near the gate to the south was the guest’s-hall or hospitium (T). The buildings are completely ruined, but enough remains to enable us to identify the grand cruciform church (A), the cloister-court with the chapter-house (B), the refectory (I), the kitchen-court with its offices (K, O, O), and the other principal apartments. The infirmary has perished completely.
Some Benedictine houses display exceptional arrangements, dependent upon local circumstances, e.g., the dormitory of Worcester runs from east to west, from the west walk of the cloister, and that of Durham is built over the west, instead of as usual, over the east walk; but, as a general rule, the arrangements deduced from the examples described may be regarded as invariable.
The history of Monasticism is one of alternate periods of decay and revival. With growth in popular esteem came increase in material wealth, leading to luxury and worldliness. The first religious ardour cooled, the strictness of the rule was relaxed, until by the 10th century the decay of discipline was so complete in France that the monks are said to have been frequently unacquainted with the rule of St Benedict, and even ignorant that they were bound by any rule at all. (Robertson’s Church History, ii. p. 538.) These alternations are reflected in the monastic buildings and the arrangements of the establishment.
The reformation of these prevalent abuses generally took the form of the establishment of new monastic orders, with new and more stringent rules, requiring a modification of the architectural arrangements. One of the earliest of these reformed orders was the Cluniac. This order took its name from the little village of Clugny, 12 miles N.W, of Macon, near which, about a.d. 909, a reformed Benedictine abbey was founded by William, Duke of Auvergne, under Berno, abbot of Beaume. He was succeeded by Odo, who is often regarded as the founder of the order. The fame of Clugny spread far and wide. Its rigid rule was adopted by a vast number of the old Benedictine abbeys, who placed themselves in affiliation to the mother society, while new foundations sprang up in large numbers, all owing allegiance to the “archabbot,” established at Clugny. By the end of the 12th century the number of monasteries affiliated to Clugny in the various countries of Western Europe amounted to 2000. The monastic establishment of Clugny was one of the most extensive and magnificent in France. We may form some idea of its enormous dimensions from the fact recorded, that when, a.d. 1245, Pope Innocent IV., accompanied by twelve [9:1:15] cardinals, a patriarch, three archbishops, the two generals of the Carthusians and Cistercians, the king (St Louis), und three of his sons, the queen mother, Baldwin, Count of Flanders and Emperor of Constantinople, the Duke of Burgundy, and six lords, visited the abbey, the whole party, with their attendants, were lodged within the monastery without disarranging the monks, 400 in number. Nearly the whole of the abbey buildings, including the magnificent church, were swept away at the close of the last century. When the annexed ground-plan was taken, shortly before its destruction, nearly all the monastery, with the exception of the church, had been rebuilt. The church, the ground-plan of which bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Lincoln Cathedral, was of vast dimensions. It was 656 feet by 130 feet wide. The nave was 102 feet, and the aisles 60 feet high. The nave (G) had double vaulted aisles on either side. Like Lincoln, it had an eastern as well as a western transept, each furnished with apsidal chapels to the east. The western transept was 213 feet long, and the eastern 123 feet. The choir terminated in a semicircular apse (F), surrounded by five chapels, also semicircular. The western entrance was approached by an ante-church, or narthex ( B ), itself an aisled church of no mean dimensions, flanked by two towers, rising from a stately flight of steps bearing a large stone cross. To the south of the church lay the cloister-court (H), of immense size, placed much further to the west than is usually the case. On the south side of the cloister stood the refectory (P), an immense building, 100 feet long and 60 feet wide, accommodating six longitudinal and three transverse rows of tables. It was adorned with the portraits of the chief benefactors of the abbey, and with Scriptural subjects. The end wall displayed the Last Judgment. We are unhappily unable to identify any other of the principal buildings (N). The abbot’s residence (K), still partly standing, adjoined the entrance gate. The guest-house (L) was close by. The bakehouse
(M), also remaining, is a detached building of immense size. The first English house of the Cluniac order was that of Lewes, founded by the Earl of Warren, cir. a.d. 1077. Of this only a few fragments of the domestic buildings exist. The best preserved Cluniac houses in England are Castle Acre, Norfolk, and Wenlock, in Shropshire. Ground-plans of both are given in Britton’s Architectural Antiquities. They show several departures from the Benedictine arrangement. In each the prior’s house is remarkably perfect. All Cluniac houses in England were French colonies, governed by priors of that nation. They did not secure their independence nor become “abbeys” till the reign of Henry VI. The Cluniac revival, with all its brilliancy, was but short lived. The celebrity of this, as of other orders, worked its moral ruin. With their growth in wealth and dignity the Cluniac foundations became as worldly in life and as relaxed in discipline as their predecessors, and a fresh reform was needed. The next great monastic revival, the Cistercian, arising in the last years of the 11th century, had a wider diffusion, and a longer and more honourable existence. Owing its real origin, as a distinct foundation of reformed Benedictines, in the year 1098, to a countryman of our own, Stephen Harding (a native of Dorsetshire, educated in the monastery of Sherborne), and deriving its name from Citeaux (Cistercium), a desolate and almost inaccessible forest solitude, on the borders of Champagne and Burgundy, the rapid growth and wide celebrity of the order is undoubtedly to be attributed to the enthusiastic piety of St Bernard, abbot of the first of the monastic colonies, subsequently sent forth in such quick succession by the first Cistercian houses, the far-famed abbey of Clairvaux (de Clara Valle), a.d. 1116.
The rigid self-abnegation, which was the ruling principle of this reformed congregation of the Benedictine order, extended itself to the churches and other buildings erected by them. The characteristic of the Cistercian abbeys was the extremest simplicity and a studied plainness. Only one tower—a central one—was permitted, and that was to be very low. Unnecessary pinnacles and turrets were prohibited. The triforium was omitted. The windows were to be plain and undivided, and it was forbidden to decorate them with stained glass. All needless ornament was proscribed. The crosses must be of wood; the candlesticks of iron. The renunciation of the world was to be evidenced in all that met the eye. The same spirit manifested itself in the choice of the sites of their monasteries. The more dismal, the more savage, the more hopeless a spot appeared, the more did it please their rigid mood. But they came not merely as ascetics, but as improvers. The Cistercian monasteries are, as a rule, found placed in deep well-watered valleys. They always stand on the border of a stream; not rarely, as at Fountains, the buildings extend over it. These valleys, now so rich and productive, wore a very different aspect when the brethren first chose them as the place of their retirement. Wide swamps, deep morasses, tangled thickets, wild impassable forests, were their prevailing features. The "Bright Valley,” Clara Vallis of St Bernard, was known as the “Valley of Wormwood,” infamous as a den of robbers. “It was a savage dreary solitude, so utterly barren that at first Bernard and his companions were reduced to live on beech leaves.”—(Milman’s Lat. Christ. vol. iii. p. 335.)
All Cistercian monasteries, unless the circumstances of the locality forbade it, were arranged according to one plan. The general arrangement and distribution of the various buildings, which went to make up one of these vast establishments, may be gathered from that of St Bernard’s own Abbey of Clairvaux, which is here given.
It will be observed that the abbey precincts are surrounded by a strong wall, furnished at intervals with watchtowers[9:1:16] and other defensive works. The wall is nearly encircled by a stream of water, artificially diverted from the small rivulets which flow through the precincts, furnishing the establishment with an abundant supply in every part, for the irrigation of the gardens and orchards, the sanitary requirements of the brotherhood, and for the use of the offices and workshops. The precincts are divided across the centre by a wall, running from N. to S., into an outer and inner ward,—the former containing the menial, the latter the monastic buildings. The precincts are entered by a gateway (P), at the extreme western extremity, giving admission to the lower ward. Here the barns, granaries, stables, shambles, workshops, and workmen’s lodgings were placed, without any regard to symmetry, convenience being the only consideration. Advancing eastwards, we have before us the wall separating the outer and inner ward, and the gatehouse (D) affording communication between the two. On passing through the gateway, the outer court of the inner ward was entered, with the western façade of the monastic church in front. Immediately on the right of entrance was the abbot’s house (G), in close proximity to the guest-house (F). On the other side of the court were the stables, for the accommodation of the horses of the guests and their attendants (H). The church occupied a central position. To the south were the great cloister (A), surrounded by the chief monastic buildings, and further to the east the smaller cloister, opening out of which were the infirmary, novices’ lodgings, and quarters for the aged monks. Still further to the east, divided from the monastic buildings by a wall, were the vegetable gardens and orchards, and tank for fish. The large fish-ponds, an indispensable adjunct to any ecclesiastical foundation, on the formation of which the monks lavished extreme care and pains, and which often remain as almost the only visible traces of these vast establishments, were placed outside the abbey walls.
The Plan No. 2 furnishes the ichnography of the distinctly monastic buildings on a larger scale. The usually unvarying arrangement of the Cistercian houses allows us to accept this as a type of the monasteries of this order. The church (A) is the chief feature. It consists of a vast nave of eleven bays, entered by a narthex, with a transept and short apsidal choir. (It may be remarked that the eastern limb in all unaltered Cistercian churches is remarkably short, and usually square.) To the east of each limb of the transept are two square chapels, divided according to Cistercian rule by solid walls. Nine radiating chapels, similarly divided, surround the apse. The stalls of the monks, forming the ritual choir, occupy the four eastern bays of the nave. There was a second range of stalls in the extreme western bays of the nave for the fratres conversi, or lay brothers. To the south of the church, so as to secure as much sun as possible, the cloister was invariably placed, except when local reasons forbade it. Round the cloister (B) were ranged the buildings connected with the monks’ daily life. The chapter-house (C) always opened out of the east walk of the cloister in a line with the [9:1:17] south transept. In Cistercian houses this was quadrangular, and was divided by pillars and arches into two or three aisles. Between it and the transept we find the sacristy (X), and a small book room (Y), armariolum, where the brothers deposited the volumes borrowed from the library. On the other side of the chapter-house, to the south, is a passage (D) communicating with the courts and buildings beyond. This was sometimes known as the parlour, colloquii locus, the monks having the privilege of conversation here. Here also, when discipline became relaxed, traders, who had the liberty of admission, were allowed to display their goods. Beyond this we often find the calefactorium or day-room— an apartment warmed by flues beneath the pavement, where the brethren, half frozen during the night offices, betook themselves after the conclusion of lauds, to gain a little warmth, grease their sandals, and get themselves ready for the work of the day. In the plan before us this apartment (E) opens from the south cloister walk, adjoining the refectory. The place usually assigned to it is occupied by the vaulted substructure of the dormitory (Z). The dormitory, as a rule, was placed on the east side of the cloister, running over the calefactory and chapter-house, and joined the south transept, where a flight of steps admitted the brethren into the church for nocturnal services. Opening out of the dormitory was always the necessarium, planned with the greatest regard to health and cleanliness, a water-course invariably running from end to end. The refectory opens out of the south cloister at (G). The position of the refectory is usually a marked point of difference between Benedictine and Cistercian abbeys. In the former, as at Canterbury, the refectory ran east and west parallel to the nave of the church, on the side of the cloister furthest removed from it. In the Cistercian monasteries, to keep the noise and sound of dinner still further away from the sacred building, the refectory was built north and south, at right angles to the axis of the church. It was often divided, sometimes into two, sometimes, as here, into three aisles. Outside the refectory door, in the cloister, was the lavatory, where the monks washed their hands at dinner time. The buildings belonging to the material life of the monks lay near the refectory, as far as possible from the church, to the S.W. With a distinct entrance from the outer court was the kitchen court (F), with its buttery, scullery, and larder, and the important adjunct of a stream of running water. Further to the west, projecting beyond the line of the west front of the church, were vast vaulted apartments (SS), serving as cellars and storehouses, above which was the dormitory of the conversi. Detached from these, and separated entirely from the monastic buildings, were various workshops, which convenience required to be banished to the outer precincts, a saw-mill and oil-mill (UU) turned by water, and a currier’s shop (V), where the sandals and leathern girdles of the monks were made and repaired.
Returning to the cloister, a vaulted passage admitted to the small cloister (I), opening from the north side of which were eight small cells, assigned to the scribes employed in copying works for the library, which was placed in the upper story, accessible by a turret staircase. To the south of the small cloister a long hall will be noticed. This was a lecture-hall, or rather a hall for the religious disputations customary among the Cistercians. From this cloister opened the infirmary (K), with its hall, chapel, cells, blood-letting house, aud other dependencies. At the eastern verge of the vast group of buildings we find the novices' lodgings (L), with a third cloister near the novices’ quarters and the original guest-house (M). Detached from the great mass of the monastic edifices was the original abbot’s house (N), with its dining-hall (P). Closely adjoining to this, so that the eye of the father of the whole establishment should be constantly over those who stood the most in need of his watchful care,—those who were training for the monastic life, and those who had worn themselves out in its duties,—was a fourth cloister (O), with annexed buildings, devoted to the aged and infirm members of the establishment. The cemetery, the last resting-place of the brethren, lay to the north side of the nave of the church (H).
It will be seen that the arrangement of a Cistercian monastery was in accordance with a clearly-defined system, and admirably adapted to its purpose.
The base court nearest to the outer wall contained the buildings belonging to the functions of the body as agriculturalists and employers of labour. Advancing into the inner court, the buildings devoted to hospitality are found close to the entrance; while those connected with the supply of the material wants of the brethren,—the kitchen, cellars, &c.,—form a court of themselves outside the cloister, and quite detached from the church. The church refectory, dormitory, and other buildings belonging to the professional life of the brethren, surround the great cloister. The small cloister beyond, with its scribes’ cells, library, hall for disputations, &c., is the centre of the literary life of the community. The requirements of sickness and old age are carefully provided for in the infirmary cloister, and that for the aged and infirm members of the establishment. The same group contains the quarters of the novices.
This stereotyped arrangement is further illustrated by the accompanying bird’s eye view of the mother establishment of Citeaux. A cross (A), planted on the high road.
[9:1:18]
directs travellers to the gate of the monastery, reached by an avenue of trees. On one side of the gate-house (B) is a long building (C), probably the almonry, with a dormitory above for the lower class of guests. On the other side is a chapel (D). As soon as the porter heard a stranger knock at the gate, he rose, saying, Deo gratias, the opportunity for the exercise of hospitality being regarded as a cause for thankfulness. On opening the door he welcomed the new arrival with a blessing— Benedicite. He fell on his knees before him, and then went to inform the abbot. However important the abbot’s occupations might be, he at once hastened to receive him whom heaven had sent. He also threw himself at his guest’s feet, and conducted him to the chapel (D) purposely built close to the gate. After a short prayer, the abbot committed the guest to the care of the brother hospitaller, whose duty it was to provide for his wants, and conduct the beast on which he might be riding to the stable (F), built adjacent to the inner gate-house (E). This inner gate conducted into the base court (T), round which were placed the barns, stables, cow-sheds, &c. On the eastern side stood the dormitory of the lay brothers, fratres conversi (G), detached from the cloister, with cellars and storehouses below. At (H), also outside the monastic buildings proper, was the abbot’s house, and annexed to it the guest-house. For these buildings there was a separate door of entrance into the church (S). The large cloister, with its surrounding arcades, is seen at V. On the south end projects the refectory (K), with its kitchen at (I), accessible from the base court. The long gabled building on the east side of the cloister contained on the ground floor the chapter-house and calefactory, with the monks’ dormitory above (M), communicating with the south transept of the church. At (L) was the staircase to the dormitory. The small cloister is at (W), where were the carols or cells of the scribes, with the library (P) over, reached by a turret staircase. At (R) we see a portion of the infirmary. The whole precinct is surrounded by a strong buttressed wall (XXX), pierced with arches, through which streams of water are introduced. It will be noticed that the choir of the church is short, and has a square end instead of the usual apse. The tower, in accordance with the Cistercian rule, is very low. The windows throughout accord with the studied simplicity of the order.
The English Cistercian houses, of which there are such extensive and beautiful remains at Fountains, Rievaulx, Kirkstall, Tintern, Netley, &c., were mainly arranged after the same plan, with slight local variations. As an example, we give the ground-plan of Kirkstall Abbey, which is one of the best preserved and least altered. The church here is of the Cistercian type, with a short chancel of two squares, and transepts with three eastward chapels to each, divided by solid walls (2 2 2). The whole is of the most studied plainness. The windows are unornamented, and the nave has no triforium. The cloister to the south (4) occupies the whole length of the nave. On the east side stands the two-aisled chapter house (5), between which and the south transept is a small sacristy (3), and on the other side two small apartments, one of which was probably the parlour (6). Beyond this stretches southward the calefactory or day-room of the monks (14). Above this whole range of building runs the monks’ dormitory, opening by stairs into the south transept of the church. At the other end were the necessaries. On the south side of the cloister we have the remains of the old refectory (11), running, as in Benedictine houses, from east to west, and the new refectory (12), which, with the increase of the inmates of the house, superseded it, stretching, as is usual in Cistercian houses, from north to south. Adjacent to this apartment are the remains of the kitchen, pantry, and buttery. The arches of the lavatory are to be seen near the refectory entrance. The western side of the cloister is, as usual, occupied by vaulted cellars, supporting on the upper story the dormitory of the lay brothers (8). Extending from the south-east angle of the main group of buildings are the walls and foundations of a secondary group of considerable extent. These have been identified either with the hospitium or with the abbot’s house, but they occupy the position in Which the infirmary is more usually found. The hall was a very spacious apartment, measuring 83 feet in length by 48 feet 9 inches in breadth, and was divided by two rows of columns. The fish-ponds lay between the monastery and the river to the south. The abbey mill was situated about 80 yards to the north-west, The mill-pool may be distinctly traced, together with the gowt or mill stream.
Fountains Abbey, first founded a.d. 1132, deserves special notice, as one of the largest and best preserved Cistercian houses in England. But the earlier buildings received considerable additions and alterations in the later period of the order, causing deviations from the strict Cistercian type. The church stands a short distance to the north of the river Skell, the buildings of the abbey stretching down to and even across the stream. We have the cloister (H) to the south, with the three-aisled chapter-house (I) and calefactory (L) opening from its eastern walk, and the refectory (S), with the kitchen (Q) and buttery (T) attached, at right angles to its southern walk, Parallel with the western walk is an immense vaulted substructure (U), incorrectly styled the cloisters, serving as cellars and store-rooms, and supporting the dormitory of the conversi above. This building extended across the river. At its [9:1:19] S.W. corner were the necessaries (V), also built, as usual, above the swiftly flowing stream. The monks’ dormitory was in its usual position above the chapter-house, to the south of the transept. As peculiarities of arrangement may be noticed the position of the kitchen (Q), between the refectory and calefactory, and of the infirmary (W) (unless there is some error in its designation) above the river to the west, adjoining the guest-houses (XX). We may also call attention to the greatly lengthened choir, commenced by Abbot John of York, 1203-1211, and carried on by his successor, terminating, like Durham Cathedral, in an eastern transept, the work of Abbot John of Kent, 1220- 1247, and to the tower (D), added not long before the dissolution by Abbot Huby, 1494-1526, in a very unusual position at the northern end of the north transept. The abbot’s house, the largest and most remarkable example of this class of buildings in the kingdom, stands south to the east of the church and cloister, from which it is divided by the kitchen court (K),surrounded by the ordinary domestic offices. A considerable portion of this house was erected on arches over the Skell. The size and character of this house, probably, at the time of its erection, the most spacious house of a subject in the kingdom, not a castle, bespeaks the wide departure of the Cistercian order from the stern simplicity of the original foundation. The hall (2) was one of the most spacious and magnificent apartments in mediaeval times, measuring 170 feet by 70 feet Like the hall in the castle at Winchester, and Westminster Hall, as originally built, it was divided by 18 pillars and arches, with 3 aisles. Among other apartments, for the designation of which we must refer to the ground-plan, was a domestic oratory or chapel, 46½ feet by 23 feet, and a kitchen (7), 50 feet by 38 feet. The whole arrangements and character of the building bespeak the rich and powerful feudal lord, not the humble father of a body of hardworking brethren, bound by vows to a life of poverty and self-denying toil. In the words of Dean Milman, “the superior, once a man bowed to the earth with humility, care-worn, pale, emaciated, with a coarse habit bound with a cord, with naked feet, had become an abbot on his curvetting palfrey, in rich attire, with his silver cross before him, travelling to take his place amid the lordliest of the realm.”— (Lat. Christ., vol. iii. p. 330.)
The buildings of the Austin Canons or Black Canons (so called from the colour of their habit) present few distinctive peculiarities. This order had its first seat in England at Colchester, where a house for Austin Canons was founded about a.d. 1105, and it very soon spread widely. As an order of regular clergy, holding a middle position between monks and secular canons, almost resembling a community of parish priests living under rule, they adopted naves of great length to accommodate large congregations. The choir is usually long, and is sometimes, as at Llanthony and Christ Church (Twynham), shut off from the aisles, or, as at Bolton, Kirkham, &c., is destitute of aisles altogether. The nave in the northern houses, not unfrequently, had only a north aisle, as at Bolton, Brinkburn, and Lanercost. The arrangement of the monastic buildings followed the ordinary type. The prior’s lodge was almost invariably attached to the S.W. angle of the nave. The annexed plan of the Abbey of St Augustine’s at Bristol, now the cathedral church of [9:1:20] that city, shows the arrangement of the buildings, which departs very little from the ordinary Benedictine type. The Austin Canons’ house at Thornton, in Lincolnshire, is remarkable for the size and magnificence of its gate-house, the upper floors of which formed the guest-house of the establishment, and for possessing an octagonal chapter-house of Decorated date.
The Preτnonstratensian regular canons, or White Canons, had as many as 35 houses in England, of which the most perfect remaining are those of Easby, Yorkshire, and Bayham, Sussex. The head house of the order in England was Welbeck. This order was a reformed branch of the Austin canons, founded, a.d. 1119, by Norbert (born at Xanten, on the Lower Rhine, c. 1080) at Prémontré, a secluded marshy valley in the forest of Coucy, in the diocese of Laon. The order spread widely. Even in the founder’s lifetime it possessed houses in Syria and Palestine. It long maintained its rigid austerity, till in the course of years wealth impaired its discipline, and its members sank into indolence and luxury. The Premonstratensians were brought to England shortly after a.d. 1140, and were first settled at Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, near the Humber. The ground-plan of Easby Abbey, owing to its situation on the edge of the steeply-sloping banks of a river, is singularly irregular. The cloister is duly placed on the south side of the church, and the chief buildings occupy their usual positions round it. But the cloister garth, as at Chichester, is not rectangular, and all the surrounding buildings are thus made to sprawl in a very awkward fashion. The church follows the plan adopted by the Austin canons in their northern abbeys, and has only one aisle to the nave—that to the north; while the choir is long, narrow, and aisleless. Each transept has an aisle to the east, forming three chapels.
The church at Bayham was destitute of aisle either to nave or choir. The latter terminated in a three-sided apse. This church is remarkable for its exceeding narrowness in proportion to its length. Extending in longitudinal dimensions 257 feet, it is not more than 25 feet broad. To adopt the words of Mr Beresford Hope—“Stern Premonstratensian canons wanted no congregations, and cared for no processions; therefore they built their church like a long room.”
The Carthusian order, on its establishment by St Bruno, about a.d. 1084, developed a greatly modified form and arrangement of a monastic institution. The principle of this order, which, combined the coenobitic with the solitary life, demanded the erection of buildings on a novel plan. This plan, which was first adopted by St Bruno and his twelve companions at the original institution at Chartreux, near Grenoble, was maintained in all the Carthusian establishments throughout Europe, even after the ascetic severity of the order had been to some extent relaxed, and the primitive simplicity of their buildings had been exchanged for the magnificence of decoration which characterises such foundations as the Certosas of Pavia and Florence. According to the rule of St Bruno, all the members of a Carthusian brotherhood lived in the most absolute solitude and silence. Each occupied a small detached cottage, standing by itself in a small garden surrounded by high walls and connected by a common corridor or cloister. In these cottages or cells a Carthusian monk passed his time in the strictest asceticism, only leaving his solitary dwelling to attend the services of the Church, except on certain days when the brotherhood assembled in the refectory.
The peculiarity of the arrangements of a Carthusian monastery, or charter-house, as it was called in England, from a corruption of the French chartreux, is exhibited in the plan of that of Clermont, from Viollet le Duc. The whole establishment is surrounded with a wall, furnished at intervals with watch towers (R). The enclosure is divided into two courts, of which the eastern court, surrounded by a cloister, from which the cottages of the monks (I) open, is much the larger. The two courts are divided by the main buildings of the monastery, including the church, the sanctuary (A), divided from (B), the monks’ choir, by a screen with two altars, the smaller cloister to the south (S) surrounded by the chapter-house (E), the refectory (X)—these buildings occupying their normal position—and the chapel of Pontgibaud (K). The kitchen with its offices (V) lies behind the refectory, accessible from the outer court without entering the cloister. To the north of the church, beyond the sacristy (L), and the side chapels (M), we find the cell of the sub-prior (a) , with its garden. The lodgings of the prior (G) occupy the centre of the outer court, immediately in front of the west door of the church, and face the gateway of the convent (O). A small raised court with a fountain (C) is before it. This outer court also contains the guest-chambers (P), the stables, and lodgings of the lay brothers (N), the barns and granaries (Q), the dovecot (H), and the bakehouse (T). At (Z) is the prison. (In this outer court, in all the earlier foundations, as at Witham, there was a smaller church in addition to the larger church of the monks.) The outer and inner court are connected by a long passage (F), wide enough to admit a cart laden with wood to supply the cells of the brethren with fuel. The number of cells surrounding the great cloister is 18. They are all arranged on a uniform plan. Each little dwelling contains three rooms: a sitting-room (C), warmed with a stove in winter; a sleeping-room (D), furnished with a bed, a table, a bench, and a bookcase; and a closet (E). Between the cell and the cloister gallery (A) is a passage or corridor (B), cutting off the inmate of the cell from all sound or movement which might interrupt his meditations. The superior had [9:1:21] free access to this corridor, and through open niches was able to inspect the garden without being seen. At (I) is the hatch or turn-table, in which the daily allowance of food was deposited by a brother appointed for that purpose, affording no view either inwards or outwards. (H) is the garden, cultivated by the occupant of the cell. At (K) is the wood-house. (F) is a covered walk, with the necessary at the end. These arrangements are found with scarcely any variation in all the charter-houses of Western Europe. The Yorkshire Charter-house of Mount Grace, founded by Thomas Holland the young Duke of Surrey, nephew of Richard II., and Marshal of England, during the revival of the popularity of the order, about a.d. 1397, is the most perfect and best preserved English example. It is characterised by all the simplicity of the order. The church is a modest building, long, narrow, and aisleless. Within the wall of enclosure are two courts. The smaller of the two, the south, presents the usual arrangement of church, refectory, &c., opening out of a cloister. The buildings are plain and solid. The northern court contains the cells, 14 in number. It is surrounded by a double stone wall, the two walls being about 30 feet or 40 feet apart. Between these, each in its own garden, stand the cells; low-built two-storied cottages, of two or three rooms on the ground-floor, lighted with a larger and a smaller window to the side, and provided with a doorway to the court, and one at the back, opposite to one in the outer wall, through which the monk may have conveyed the sweepings of his cell and the refuse of his garden to the “eremus” beyond. By the side of the door to the court is a little hatch, through which the daily pittance of food was supplied, so contrived by turning at an angle in the wall that no one could either look in or look out. A very perfect example of this hatch —an arrangement belonging to all Carthusian houses— exists at Miraflores, near Burgos, which remains nearly as it was completed in 1480.
There were only nine Carthusian houses in England. The earliest was that at Witham in Somersetshire, founded by Henry II., by whom the order was first brought into England. The wealthiest and most magnificent was that of Shene or Richmond in Surrey, founded by Henry V. about a.d. 1414. The dimensions of the buildings at Shene are stated to have been remarkably large. The great court measured 300 feet by 250 feet; the cloisters were a square of 500 feet; the hall was 110 feet in length by 60 feet in breadth. The most celebrated historically is the Charter-house of London, founded by Sir Walter Manny a.d. 1371. the name of which is preserved by the famous public school established on the site by Thomas Sutton a.d. 1611.
An article on monastic arrangements would be incomplete without some account of the convents of the Mendicant or Preaching Friars, including the Black Friars or Dominicans, the Grey or Franciscans, the White or Carmelites, the Eremite or Austin Friars. These orders arose at the beginning of the 13th century, when the Benedictines, together with their various reformed branches, had terminated their active mission, and Christian Europe was ready for a new religious revival. Planting themselves, as a rule, in large towns, and by preference in the poorest and most densely populated districts, the Preaching Friars were obliged to adapt their buildings to the requirements of the site. Regularity of arrangement, therefore, was not possible, even if they had studied it. Their churches, built for the reception of large congregations of hearers rather than worshippers, form a class by themselves, totally unlike those of the elder orders in ground-plan and character. They were usually long parallelograms unbroken by transepts. The nave very usually consisted of two equal bodies, one containing the stalls of the brotherhood, the other left entirely free for the congregation. The constructional choir is often wanting, the whole church forming one uninterrupted structure, with a continuous range of windows. The east end was usually square, but the Friars Church at Winchelsea had a polygonal apse. We not unfrequently find a single transept, sometimes of great size, rivalling or exceeding the nave. This arrangement is frequent in Ireland, where the numerous small friaries afford admirable exemplifications of these peculiarities of ground-plan. The friars' churches were at first destitute of towers; but in the 14th and 15th centuries, tall, slender towers were commonly inserted between the nave and the choir. The Grey Friars at Lynn, where the tower is hexagonal, is a good example. The arrangement of the monastic buildings is equally peculiar and characteristic. We miss entirely the regularity of the buildings of the earlier orders. At the Jacobins at Paris, a cloister lay to the north of the long narrow church of two parallel aisles, while the refectory— a room of immense length, quite detached from the cloister —stretched across the area before the west front of the church. At Toulouse the nave also has two parallel aisles, but the choir is apsidal, with radiating chapels. The refectory stretches northwards at right angles to the cloister, which lies to the north of the church, having the chapter-house and sacristy on the east. As examples of English friaries, the Dominican house at Norwich, and those of the Dominicans and Franciscans at Gloucester, may be mentioned. The church of the Black Friars of Norwich departs from the original type in the nave (now St Andrew’s Hall), in having regular aisles. In this it resembles the earlier examples of the Grey Friars at Reading. The choir is long and aisleless ; an hexagonal tower between the two, like that existing at Lynn, has perished. The cloister and monastic buildings remain tolerably perfect to the north. The Dominican convent at Gloucester still exhibits the cloistercourt, on the north side of which is the desecrated church. The refectory is on the west side, and on the south the dormitory of the 13th century. This is a remarkably good example. There were 18 cells or cubicles on each side, divided by partitions, the bases of which remain. On the east side was the prior’s house, a building of later date. At the Grey or Franciscan Friars, the church followed the ordinary type in having two equal bodies, each gabled, with a continuous range of windows. There was a slender tower between the nave and choir. Of the convents of the Carmelite or White Friars we have a good example in the Abbey of Hulme, near Alnwick, the first of the order in England, founded a.d. 1240. The church is a narrow [9:1:22] oblong, destitute of aisles, 123 feet long by only 26 feet wide. The cloisters are to the south, with the chapter-house, &c., to the east, with the dormitory over. The prior’s lodge is placed to the west of the cloister. The guest-houses adjoin the entrance gateway, to which a chapel was annexed on the south side of the conventual area. The nave of the church of the Austin Friars or Eremites in London is still standing. It is of Decorated date, and has wide centre and side aisles, divided by a very light and graceful arcade. Some fragments of the south walk of the cloister of the Grey Friars exist among the buildings of Christ’s Hospital or the Blue-Coat School. Of the Black Friars all has perished but the name. Taken as a whole, the remains of the establishments of the friars afford little warrant for the bitter invective of the Benedictine of St Alban’s, Matthew Paris :—“The friars who have been founded hardly 40 years have built residences as the palaces of kings. These are they who, enlarging day by day their sumptuous edifices, encircling them with lofty walls, lay up in them their incalculable treasures, imprudently transgressing the bounds of poverty, and violating the very fundamental rules of their profession.” Allowance must here be made for jealousy of a rival order just rising in popularity.
Every large monastery had depending upon it one or more smaller establishments known as cells. These cells were monastic colonies, sent forth by the parent house, and planted on some outlying estate. As an example, we may refer to the small religious house of St Mary Magdalene’s, a cell of the great Benedictine house of St Mary’s, York, in the valley of the Witham, to the south-east of the city of Lincoln. This consists of one long narrow range of building, of which the eastern part formed the chapel, and the western contained the apartments of the handful of monks of which it was the home. To the east may be traced the site of the abbey mill, with its dam and mill-lead. These cells, when belonging to a Cluniac house, were called Obedientioe.
The plan given by Viollet le Duc of the Priory of St Jean des Bons Hommes, a Cluniac cell, situated between the town of Avallon and the village of Savigny, shows that these diminutive establishments comprised every essential feature of a monastery,—chapel, cloister, chapter-room, refectory, dormitory, all grouped according to the recognised arrangement.
These Cluniac obedientioe differed from the ordinary Benedictine cells in being also places of punishment, to which monks who had been guilty of any grave infringement of the rules were relegated as to a kind of penitentiary. Here they were placed under the authority of a prior, and were condemned to severe manual labour, fulfilling the duties usually executed by the lay brothers, who acted as farm-servants.
The outlying farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known as villae or granges. They gave employment to a body of conversi and labourers under the management of a monk, who bore the title of Brother Hospitaller— the granges, like their parent institutions, affording shelter and hospitality to belated travellers.
Authorities:— Dugdale, Monasticon; Fosbrooke, British Monachism; Helyot, Dictionnaire des Ordres Religieux; Lenoir, Architecture Monastique ; Viollet le Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonnée de l’Architecture Francaise; Walcott, Conventual Arrangement ; Willis, Abbey of St Gall; Archaeological Journal, vol. v., Conventual Buildings of Canterbury; Curzon, Monasteries of the Levant. (e. v.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 10 [9:1:10]
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ABBIATE GRASSO, a town in the north of Italy, near the Ticino, 14 miles W.S.W. of Milan. It has silk manufactures, and contains about 5000 inhabitants.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 22 [9:1:22]
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ABBON of Fleury. or Abbo Floriacensis, a learned Frenchman, born near Orleans in 945. He distinguished himself in the schools of Paris and Rheims, and was a proficient in science, as known in his time. After spending two years in England, assisting Archbishop Oswald of York in restoring the monastic system, he returned to France, and was made Abbot of Fleury (970). He was twice sent to Rome by Robert the Wise (986, 996), and on each occasion succeeded in warding off a threatened papal interdict. He was killed in 1004, in endeavouring to quell a monkish revolt. He wrote an epitome of the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, besides controversial treatises, letters, &c.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 22 [9:1:22]
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ABBOT, the head and chief governor of a community of monks, called also in the East Archimandrita, from mandra, “a fold,” or Hegumenos. The name abbot is derived from the Hebrew אב, Ab, or father, through the Syriac Abba. It had its origin in the monasteries of Syria, whence it spread through the East, and soon became accepted generally in all languages as the designation of the head of a monastery. At first it was employed as a respectful title for any monk, as we learn from St Jerome (in Epist. ad Gal. iv. 6, in Matt. xxiii. 9), but it was soon restricted to the Superior.
The name abbot, though general in the West, was not universal. Among the Dominicians, Carmelites, Augustines, &c., the superior was called Proepositus, “Provost,” and Prior; among the Franciscans, Custos, “Guardian;” and by the monks of Camaldoli, Major.
Monks, as a role, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception. All orders of clergy, therefore, even the “doorkeeper,” took precedence of him. For the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church.—(Novellas, 133, c. ii.) This rule naturally proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert, or at a distance from a city, and necessity compelled the ordination of abbots. This innovation was not introduced without a struggle, ecclesiastical dignity being regarded as inconsistent with the higher spiritual life, but, before the close of the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem almost universally to have become deacons, if not presbyters. The change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century, and partially so up to the 11th. Ecclesiastical Councils were, however, attended by abbots. Thus, at that held at Constantinople, a.d. 448, for the condemnation of Eutyches, 23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops, and, cir. a.d. 690, Archbishop Theodore promulgated a canon, inhibiting bishops from compelling abbots to attend councils. Examples are not uncommon in Spain and in England in Saxon times. Abbots were permitted by the Second Council of Nicaea, a.d. 787, to ordain their monks to the inferior orders. This rule was adopted in the West, and the strong prejudice against clerical monks having gradually broken down, eventually monks, almost without exception, belonged to some grade of the ministry.
Originally no abbot was permitted to rule over more than one monastic community, though, in some exceptional cases, Gregory the Great allowed the rule to be broken. As time went on, violations of the role became increasingly frequent, as is proved by repeated enactments against it. The cases of Wilfrid of York, cir. a.d. 675, who held the abbacy of the monasteries he had founded at Hexham and Ripon, and of Aldhelm, who, at the same date, stood in the same double relation to those of Malmesbury, Frome, and Bradford, are only apparent transgressions of the rule. We find more decided instances of plurality in Hugh of the royal Carlovingian house, cir. 720, who was at the same [9:1:23] time Bishop of Rouen, Paris, Bayeux, and Abbot of Fontenelle and Jumiéges; and Sidonius, Bishop of Constance, who, being already Abbot of Reichenau, took the abbacy of St Gall also. Hatto of Mentz, dr. 912, annexed to his see no less than 12 abbacies.
In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, we find abbots in chief or archimandrites exercising jurisdiction over a large number of communities, each of which had its own abbot. Thus, Cassian speaks of an abbot in the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him, a number exceeded in other cases. In later times also, general jurisdiction was exercised over the houses of their order by the abbots of Monte Cassino, St Dalmatius, Clugny, &c. The abbot of Cassino was styled Abbas Abbatum. The chiefs of other orders had the titles of Abbas Generalis, or Magister, or Minister Generalis.
Abbots were originally subject to episcopal jurisdiction, and continued generally so, in fact, in the West till the 11th century. The Codex of Justinian (lib. i. tit. iii. de Ep. leg. xl.), expressly subordinates the abbot to episcopal oversight. The first case recorded of the partial exemption of an abbot from episcopal control is that of Faustus, Abbot of Lerins, at the Council of Arles, a.d. 456; but the oppressive conduct, and exorbitant claims and exactions of bishops, to which this repugnance to episcopal control is to be traced, far more than to the arrogance of abbots, rendered it increasingly frequent, and, in the 6th century, the practice of exempting religious houses partly or altogether from episcopal control, and making them responsible to the Pope alone, received an impulse from Gregory the Great. These exceptions, though introduced with a good object, had grown into a wide-spread and crying evil by the 12th century, virtually creating an imperium in imperio, and entirely depriving the bishop of all authority over the chief centres of power and influence in his diocese. In the 12th century the abbots of Fulda claimed precedence of the Archbishop of Cologne. Abbots more and more aped episcopal state, and in defiance of the express prohibition of early councils, and the protests of St Bernard and others, adopted the episcopal insignia of mitre, ring, gloves, and sandals. A mitre is said to have been granted to the Abbot of Bobbio by Pope Theodorus I., a.d. 643, and to the Abbot of St Savianus by Sylvester II., a.d. 1000. Ducange asserts that pontifical insignia were first assigned to abbots by John XVIII., a.d. 1004-1009; but the first undoubted grant is said to be that to the Abbot of St Maximinian at Treves, by Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), a.d. 1073-1085. The mitred abbots in England were those of Abingdon, St Alban’s, Bardney, Battle, Bury St Edmund’s, St Augustine’s Canterbury, Colchester, Croyland, Evesham, Glastonbury, Gloucester, St Benet’s Hulme, Hyde, Malmesbury, Peterborough, Ramsey, Reading, Selby, Shrewsbury, Tavistock, Thorney, Westminster, Winchcombe, St Mary’s York. Of these the precedence was originally yielded to the Abbot of Glastonbury, until in a.d. 1154 Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear) granted it to the Abbot of St Alban’s, in which monastery he had been brought up. Next after the Abbot of St Alban’s ranked the Abbot of Westminster.
To distinguish abbots from bishops, it was ordained that their mitre should be made of less costly materials, and should not be ornamented with gold, a rule which was soon entirely disregarded, and that the crook of their pastoral staff should turn inwards instead of outwards, indicating that their jurisdiction was limited to their own house. The adoption of episcopal insignia by abbots was followed by an encroachment on episcopal functions, which had to be specially but ineffectually guarded against by the Lateran Council, a.d. 1123. In the East, abbots, if in. priests’ orders, with the consent of the bishop, were, as we have seen, permitted by the Second Nicene Council, a.d. 787, to confer the tonsure and admit to the order of reader; but they gradually advanced higher claims, until we find them authorised by Bellarmine to be associated with a single bishop in episcopal consecrations, and permitted by Innocent IV., a.d. 1489, to confer both the subdiaconate and diaconate. Of course, they always and everywhere had the power of admitting their own monks, and vesting them with the religious habit. In the first instance, when a vacancy occurred, the bishop of the diocese chose the abbot out of the monks of the convent, but the right of election was transferred by jurisdiction to the monks themselves, reserving to the bishop the confirmation of the election and the benediction of the new abbot. In abbeys exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, the confirmation and benediction had to be conferred by the Pope in person, the house being taxed with the expenses of the new abbot’s journey to Rome. By the rule of St Benedict, the consent of the laity was in some undefined way required; but this seems never to have been practically enforced. It was necessary that an abbot should be at least 25 years of age, of legitimate birth, a monk of the house, unless it furnished no suitable candidate, when a liberty was allowed of electing from another convent, well instructed himself, and able to instruct others, one also who had learned how to command by having practised obedience. In some exceptional cases an abbot was allowed to name his own successor. Cassian speaks of an abbot in Egypt doing this; and in later times we have another example in the case of St Bruno. Popes and sovereigns gradually encroached on the rights of the monks, until in Italy the Pope had usurped the nomination of all abbots, and the king in France, with the exception of Clugny, Prémontré, and other houses, chiefs of their order. The election was for life, unless the abbot was canonically deprived by the chiefs of his order, or, when he was directly subject to them, by the Pope or the bishop.
The ceremony of the formal admission of a Benedictine abbot in mediaeval times is thus prescribed by the consuetudinary of Abingdon. The newly elected abbot was to put off his shoes at the door of the church, and proceed barefoot to meet the members of the house advancing in a procession. After proceeding up the nave, he was to kneel and pray at the topmost step of the entrance of the choir, into which he was to be introduced by the bishop or his commissary, and placed in his stall. The monks, then kneeling, gave him the kiss of peace on the hand, and rising, on the mouth, the abbot holding his staff of office. He then put on his shoes in the vestry, and a chapter was held, and the bishop or his commissary preached a suitable sermon.
The power of the abbot was paternal but absolute, limited, however, by the canons of the church, and, until the general establishment of exemptions, by episcopal control. As a rule, however, implicit obedience was enforced; to act without his orders was culpable; while it was a sacred duty to execute his orders, however unreasonable, until they were withdrawn. Examples among the Egyptian monks of this blind submission to the commands of the superiors, exalted into a virtue by those who regarded the entire crushing of the individual will as the highest excellence, are detailed by Cassian and others,— e.g., a monk watering a dry stick, day after day, for months, or endeavouring to remove a huge rock immensely exceeding his powers. St Jerome, indeed, lays down, as the principle of the compact between the abbot and his monks, that they should obey their superiors in all things, and perform whatever they commanded.—(Ep. 2, ad Eustoch. de custod, [9:1:24] virgin.) So despotic did the tyranny become in the West, that in the time of Charlemagne it was necessary to restrain abbots by legal enactments from mutilating their monks, and putting out their eyes; while the rule of St Columba ordained 100 lashes as the punishment for very slight offences. An abbot also had the power of excommunicating refractory nuns, which he might use if desired by their abbess.
The abbot was treated with the utmost submission and reverence by the brethren of his house. When he appeared either in church or chapter all present rose and bowed. His letters were received kneeling, like those of the Pope and the king. If he gave a command, the monk receiving it was also to kneel. No monk might sit in his presence, or leave it without his permission. The highest place was naturally assigned to him, both in church and at table. In the East he was commanded to eat with the other monks. In the West the rule of St Benedict appointed him a separate table, at which he might entertain guests and strangers. This permission opening the door to luxurious living, the Council of Aix, a.d. 817, decreed that the abbot should dine in the refectory, and be content with the ordinary fare of the monks, unless he had to entertain a guest. These ordinances proved, however, generally ineffectual to secure strictness of diet, and contemporaneous literature abounds with satirical remarks and complaints concerning the inordinate extravagance of the tables of the abbots. When the abbot condescended to dine in the refectory, his chaplains waited upon him with the dishes, a servant, if necessary, assisting them. At St Alban’s the abbot took the lord’s seat, in the centre of the high table, and was served on silver plate, and sumptuously entertained noblemen, ambassadors, and strangers of quality. When abbots dined in their own private hall, the rule of St Benedict charged them to invite their monks to their table, provided there was room, on which occasions the guests were to abstain from quarrels, slanderous talk, and idle gossipping. The complaint, however, was sometimes made (as by Matt. Paris of Wulsig, the third abbot of St Alban’s), that they invited ladies of rank to dine with them instead of their monks. The ordinary attire of the abbot was according to rule to be the same as that of the monks. But by the 10th century the rule was commonly set aside, and we find frequent complaints of abbots dressing in silk, and adopting great sumptuousness of attire. Nay, they sometimes laid aside the monastic habit altogether, and assumed a secular dress.^[1. Walworth, the fourth abbot of St Alban’s, circa 930, is charged by Matthew Paris with adopting the attire of a sportsman. ] This was a necessary consequence of their following the chase, which was quite usual, and indeed at that time only natural. With the increase of wealth and power, abbots had lost much of their special religious character, and become great lords, chiefly distinguished from lay lords by celibacy. Thus we hear of abbots going out to sport, with their men carrying bows and arrows; keeping horses, dogs, and huntsmen; and special mention is made of an abbot of Leicester, cir. 1360, who was the most skilled of all the nobility in hare-hunting. In magnificence of equipage and retinue the abbots vied with the first nobles of the realm. They rode on mules with gilded bridles, rich saddles and housings, carrying hawks on their wrist, attended by an immense train of attendants. The bells of the churches were rung as they passed. They associated on equal terms with laymen of the highest distinction, and shared all their pleasures and pursuits. This rank and power was, however, often used most beneficially. For instance, we read of Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, judicially murdered by Henry VIII., that his house was a kind of well-ordered court, where as many as 300 sons of noblemen and gentlemen, who had been sent to him for virtuous education, had been brought up, besides others of a meaner rank, whom he fitted for the universities. His table, attendance, and officers were an honour to the nation. He would entertain as many as 500 persons of rank at one time, besides relieving the poor of the vicinity twice a-week. He had his country houses and fisheries, and when ho travelled to attend Parliament his retinue amounted to upwards of 100 persons. The abbots of Clugny and Vendome were, by virtue of their office, cardinals of the Romish Church.
In process of time the title abbot was improperly transferred to clerics who had no connection with the monastic system, as to the principal of a body of parochial clergy; and under the Carlovingians to the chief chaplain of the king, Abbas Curioe, or military chaplain of the emperor, Abbas Castrensis. It even came to be adopted by purely secular officials. Thus the chief magistrate of the republic at Genoa was called Abbas Populi. Ducange, in his Glossary, also gives us Abbas Campanilis, Clocherii, Palatii, Scholaris, &c.
Lay abbots, so called, had their origin in the system of commendation, in the 8th century. By this, to meet any great necessity of the state, such as an inroad of the Saracens, the revenues of monasteries were temporarily commended, i.e., handed over to some layman, a noble, or even the king himself, who for the time became titular abbot. Enough was reserved to maintain the monastic brotherhood, and when the occasion passed away the revenues were to be restored to their rightful owners. The estates, however, had a habit of lingering in lay hands, so that in the 9th and 10th centuries most of the sovereigns and nobles among the Franks and Burgundians were titular abbots of some great monastery, the revenues of which they applied to their own purposes. These lay-abbots were styled Abbacomites or Abbates Milites. Hugh Capet, before his elevation to the throne, as an Abbacomes held the abbeys of St Denis and St Germain in commendam. Bishop Hatto, of Mentz, a.d. 891-912, is said to have held 12 abbeys in commendam at once. In England, as we see from the Acts of the Council of Cloveshoe, in the 8th century, monasteries were often invaded and occupied by laymen. This occurred sometimes from the monastery having voluntarily placed itself under the protection of a powerful layman, who, from its protector, became its oppressor. Sometimes there were two lines of abbots, one of laymen enjoying the lion’s share of the revenues, another of clerics fulfilling the proper duties of an abbot on a small fraction of the income. The gross abuse of lay commendation which had sprung up during the corruption of the monastic system passed away with its reformation in the 10th century, either voluntarily or by compulsion. The like abuse prevailed in the East at a later period. John, Patriarch of Antioch, at the beginning of the 12th century, informs us that in his time most monasteries had been handed over to laymen, beneficiarii, for life, or for part of their lives, by the emperors.
In conventual cathedrals, where the bishop occupied the place of the abbot, the functions usually devolving on the superior of the monastery were performed by a prior. In other convents the prior was the second officer next to the abbot, representing him in his absence, and fulfilling his duties. The superiors of the cells, or small monastic establishments dependent on the larger monasteries, were also called priors. They were appointed by the abbots, and held office at their pleasure.
Authorities:— Bingham, Origines ; Ducange, Glossary; Herzog, Realwörterbuch ; Robertson, Ch. Hist.; Martene, De Antiq. Monast. Ritibus , Montalembert, Monks of the West (e. V.) [9:1:25]
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 22 [9:1:22]
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ABBOT, Charles, speaker of the House of Commons from 1802 to 1817, afterwards created Lord Colchester. See Colchester.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 25 [9:1:25]
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ABBOT, George, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born October 19, 1562, at Guildford in Surrey, where his father was a cloth-worker. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and was chosen Master of University College in 1597. He was three times appointed to the office of Vice-Chancellor of the University. When in 1604 the version of the Bible now in use was ordered to be prepared, Dr Abbot’s name stood second on the list of the eight Oxford divines to whom was intrusted the translation of the New Testament, excepting the Epistles. In 1608 he went to Scotland with the Earl of Dunbar to arrange for a union between the Churches of England and Scotland, and his conduct in that negotiation laid the foundation of his preferment, by attracting to him the notice and favour of the king. Without having held any parochial charge, he was appointed Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1609, was translated to the see of London a month afterwards, and in less than a year was made Archbishop of Canterbury. This rapid preferment was due as much perhaps to his flattering his royal master as to his legitimate merits. After his elevation he showed on several occasions firmness and courage in resisting the king. In the scandalous divorce suit of the Lady Frances Howard against the Earl of Essex, the archbishop persistently opposed the dissolution of the marriage, though the influence of the king and court was strongly and successfully exerted in the opposite direction. In 1618, when a declaration was published by the king, and ordered to be read in all the churches, permitting sports and pastimes on the Sabbath, Abbot had the courage to forbid its being read at Croydon, where he happened to be at the time. As may be inferred from the incident just mentioned, Abbot was of the Protestant or Puritan party in the Church. He was naturally, therefore, a promoter of the match between the Elector Palatine and the Princess Elizabeth, and a firm opponent of the projected marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta of Spain. This policy brought upon him the hatred of Laud and the court. The king, indeed, never forsook him; but Buckingham was his avowed enemy, and he was regarded with dislike by the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I. In 1622 a sad misfortune befell the archbishop while hunting in Lord Zouch’s park at Bramzill. A bolt from his cross-brow aimed at a deer happened to strike one of the keepers, who died within an hour, and Abbot was so greatly distressed by the event that he fell into a state of settled melancholy. His enemies maintained that the fatal issue of this accident disqualified him for his office, and argued that, though the homicide was involuntary, the sport of hunting which had led to it was one in which no clerical person could lawfully indulge. The king had to refer the matter to a commission of ten, though he said that “an angel might have miscarried after this sort.” A decision was given in the archbishop’s favour; but to prevent disputes, it was recommended that the king should formally absolve him, and confer his office upon him anew. After this the archbishop seldom appeared at the council, chiefly on account of his infirmities. He attended the king constantly, however, in his last illness, and performed the ceremony of the coronation of Charles I. A pretext was soon found by his enemies for depriving him of all his functions as primate, which were put in commission by the king. This high-handed procedure was the result of Abbot’s refusal to license a sermon preached by Dr Sibthorp, in which the king’s prerogative was stretched beyond constitutional limits. The archbishop had his powers restored to him shortly afterwards, however, when the king found it absolutely necessary to summon a Parliament. His presence being unwelcome at court, he lived from that time in retirement, leaving Laud and his party in undisputed ascendency. He died at Croydon on the 5th August 1633, and was buried at Guildford, his native place, where he had endowed an hospital with lands to the value of £300 a year. Abbot wrote a large number of works; but, with the exception of his Exposition on the Prophet Jonah (1600), which was reprinted in 1845, they are now little known. His Geography, or a Brief Description of the Whole World, passed through numerous editions.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 25 [9:1:25]
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ABBOT, George, known as “The Puritan,” has been oddly and persistently mistaken for others. He has been described as a clergyman, which he never was, and as son of Sir Morris Abbot, and his writings accordingly entered in the bibliographical authorities as by the nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the sons of Sir Morris Abbot was, indeed, named George, and he was a man of mark, but the more famous George Abbot was of a different family altogether. He was son or grandson (it is not clear which) of Sir Thomas Abbot, knight of Easington, East Yorkshire, having been born there in 1603-4, his mother (or grandmother) being of the ancient house of Pickering. He married a daughter of Colonel Purefoy of Caldecote, Warwickshire, and as his monument, which may still be seen in the church there, tells, he bravely held it against Prince Rupert and Maurice during the civil war. He was a member of the Long Parliament for Tamworth. As a layman, and nevertheless a theologian and scholar of rare ripeness and critical ability, he holds an almost unique place in the literature of the period. His Whole Booke of Job Paraphrased, or made easy for any to understand (1640, 4to), is in striking contrast, in its concinnity and terseness, with the prolixity of too many of the Puritan expositors and commentators. His Vindiciae Sabbathi (1641, 8vo) had a profound and lasting influence in the long Sabbatic controversy. His Brief Notes upon the Whole Book of Psalms (1651, 4to), as its date shows, was posthumous. He died February 2, 1648. (MS. collections at Abbey-ville for history of all of the name of Abbot, by J. T. Abbot, Esq., F.S.A., Darlington; Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1656, p. 791; Wood’s Athenae (Bliss), s. v.; Cox’s Literature of the Sabbath; Dr James Gilfillan on The Sabbath; Lowndes, Bodleian, B. Museum Catal. s. v.) (a. b. g.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 25 [9:1:25]
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ABBOT, Robert. Noted as this Puritan divine was in his own time, and representative in various ways, he has hitherto been confounded with others, as Robert Abbot, Bishop of Salisbury, and his personality distributed over a Robert Abbot of Cranbrook; another of Southwick, Hants; a third of St Austin’s, London; while these successive places were only the successive livings of the one Robert Abbot. He is also described as of the Archbishop’s or Guildford Abbots, whereas he was in no way related, albeit he acknowledges very gratefully, in the first of his epistles-dedicatory of A Hand of Fellowship to Helpe Keepe ovt Sinne and Antichrist (1623, 4to), that it was from the archbishop he had “received all” his “worldly maintenance,” as well as “best earthly countenance” and “fatherly incouragements.” The worldly maintenance was the presentation to the vicarage of Cranbrook in Kent, of which the archbishop was patron. This was in 1616. He had received his education at Cambridge, where he proceeded Μ.A., and was afterwards incorporated at Oxford. In 1639, in the epistle to the reader of his most noticeable book historically, his Triall of our Church-Forsakers, he tells us, “I have lived now, by God’s gratious dispensation, above fifty years, and in the place of my allotment two and twenty full.” The former date carries us back to 1588-89, or perhaps 1587-88—the [9:1:26] “Armada” year—as his birth-time; the latter to 1616-17 (ut supra). In his Bee Thankfull London and her Sisters (1626), he describes himself as formerly “assistant to a reverend divine .... now with God,” and the name on the margin is “Master Haiward of Wool Church.” This was doubtless previous to his going to Cranbrook. Very remarkable and effective was Abbot’s ministry at Cranbrook, where the father of Phineas and Giles Fletcher was the first “Reformation” pastor, and which, relatively small as it is, is transfigured by being the birth-place of the poet of the “Locustae” and “The Purple Island.” His parishioners were as his own “sons and daughters” to him, and by day and night he thought and felt, wept and prayed, for them and with them. He is a noble specimen of the rural clergyman of his age. Puritan though he was in his deepest convictions, he was a thorough Churchman as toward Nonconformists, e.g., the Brownists, with whom he waged stern warfare. He remained until 1643 at Cranbrook, aud then chose the very inferior living of Southwick, Hants, as between the one and the other, the Parliament deciding against pluralities of ecclesiastical offices. Succeeding the “extruded” Udall of St Austine’s, Abbot continued there until a good old age. In 1657, in the Warning-piece, he is described as still “pastor of Austine’s in London.” He disappears silently between 1657-8 and 1662. Robert Abbot’s books are distinguished from many of the Puritans by their terseness and variety. (Brook’s Puritans, iii. 182, 3; Walker’s Sufferings; Wood’s Athenae (Bliss); Catalogus Impressorum Librorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, s.v.; Palmer’s Nonconf. Mem., ii. 218.) (a. b. g.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
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ABBOTSFORD, the celebrated residence of Sir Walter Scott, situated on the south bank of the river Tweed, about three miles above Melrose. The nucleus of the property was a small farm of 100 acres, with the “inharmonious designation” of Clarty Hole, acquired by Scott on the lapse of his lease (1811) of the neighbouring house of Ashestiel. It was gradually increased by various acquisitions, the last and principal being that of Toftfield (afterwards named Huntly burn), purchased in 1817. The present new house was then commenced, and was completed in 1824. The general ground-plan is a parallelogram, with irregular outlines— one side overlooking the Tweed, and the other facing a courtyard; and the general style of the building is the Scottish baronial. Scott had only enjoyed his new residence one year when (1825) he met with that reverse of fortune (connected with the failure of Ballantyne and Constable), which involved the estate in debt. In 1830, the library^[1. The Catalogue of the Library at Abbotsford forms vol. lxi. of the Bannatyne Club publications. ] and museum were presented as a free gift by the creditors; and after Scott’s death, which took place at Abbotsford in September 1832, a committee of friends subscribed a further sum of about £8000 towards the same object. The property was wholly disencumbered in 1847, by Mr Cadell, the publisher, accepting the remaining claims of the family over Sir Walter Scott’s writings in requital of his obligation to obliterate the heritable bond on the property. The result of this transaction was, that not only was the estate redeemed by the fruit of Scott’s brain, but a handsome residue fell to the publisher. Scott’s only son Walter (Lieutenant-Colonel 15th Hussars) did not live to enjoy the property, having died on his way from India in 1847. Its subsequent possessors have been Scott’s son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, and the latter’s son-in-law, J. R. Hope Scott, Q.C., whose daughter (Scott’s great-granddaughter) is the present proprietor. Mr Lockhart died at Abbotsford in 1854.—See Life of Scott, by J. G. Lockhart; Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, by Washington Irving; Abbotsford Notanda in Gentleman’s Mag.,
April and May 1869; The Lands of Scott, by James F. Hunnewell, cr. 8vo, 1871; Scott Loan Exhibition Catalogue, 4to, 1871.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 26 [9:1:26]
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ABBOTSFORD CLUB, one of the principal printing clubs, was founded in 1834 by Mr W. B. D. D. Turnbull, and named in honour of Sir Walter Scott. Taking a wider range than its predecessors, the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, it did not confine its printing (as remarked by Mr Lockhart) to works connected with Scotland, but admitted all materials that threw fight on the ancient history of literature of any country, anywhere described or discussed by the Author of Waverley. The club, now dissolved, consisted of fifty members; and the publications extend to 34 vols, quarto, issued during the years 1835-1864.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 26 [9:1:26]
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ABBREVIATION, a letter or group of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to represent them for the sake of brevity. Abbreviations, both of single words and of phrases, having a meaning more or less fixed and recognised, are common in ancient writings and inscriptions, and very many are in use at the present time. A distinction is to be observed between abbreviations and tho contractions that are frequently to be met with in old manuscripts, and even in early printed books, whereby letters are dropped out here and there, or particular collocations of letters represented by somewhat arbitrary symbols. The commonest form of abbreviation is the substitution for a word of its initial letter; but, with a view to prevent ambiguity, one or more of the other letters are frequently added. Letters are often doubled to indicate a plural or a superlative.
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(See Graevius’s Thesaurus Antiquitatum, 1694, sqq.; Nicolai’s Tractatus de Siglis Veterum; Mommsen’s Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 1863, sqq.; Natalis de Wailly’s Paléographie, Paris, 1838; Alph. Chassant’s Paléographie, 1854, and Dictionnaire des Abréviations, 3d ed., 1866. A manual of the abbreviations in current use is a desideratum.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 26 [9:1:26]
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ABBREVIATORS, a body of writers in the Papal Chancery, whose business is to sketch out and prepare in due form the Pope’s bulls, briefs, and consistorial decrees.
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They are first mentioned in a bull of Benedict XII., early in the 14th century. Their number is fixed at seventy-two, of whom twelve, distinguished as de parco majori, hold prelatic rank; twenty-two, de parco minori, are clergymen of lower rank; and the remainder, examinatores, may be laymen.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 29 [9:1:29]
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ABDALLATIF, or Abd-ul-Latif, a celebrated physician and traveller, and one of the most voluminous writers of the East, was born at Baghdad in 1162. An interesting memoir of Abdallatif, written by himself, has been preserved with additions by Ibn-Abu-Osaiba, a contemporary. From that work we learn that the higher education of the youth of Baghdad consisted principally in a minute and careful study of the rules and principles of grammar, and in their committing to memory the whole of the Koran, a treatise or two on philology and jurisprudence, and the choicest Arabian poetry. After attaining to great proficiency in that kind of learning, Abdallatif applied himself to natural philosophy and medicine. To enjoy the society of the learned, he went first to Mosul (1189), and afterwards to Damascus, the great resort of the eminent men of that age. The chemical fooleries that engrossed the attention of some of these had no attraction for him, but he entered with eagerness into speculative discussions. With letters of recommendation from Saladin’s vizier, he visited Egypt, where the wish he had long cherished to converse with Maimonides, “the Eagle of the Doctors,” was gratified. He afterwards formed one of the circle of learned men whom Saladin gathered around him at Jerusalem, and shared in the great sultan’s favours. He taught medicine and philosophy at Cairo and at Damascus for a number of years, and afterwards, for a shorter period, at Aleppo. His love of travel led him in his old age to visit different parts of Armenia and Asia Minor, and he was setting out on a pilgrimage to Mecca when he died at Baghdad in 1231. Abdallatif was undoubtedly a man of great knowledge and of an inquisitive and penetrating mind, but is said to have been somewhat vain of his attainments. Of the numerous works—most of them on medicine—which Osaiba ascribes to him, one only, the Account of Egypt, appears to be known in Europe. The manuscript of this work, which was discovered by Pococke the Orientalist, is preserved in the Bodleian Library. It was translated into Latin by Professor White of Oxford in 1800, and into French, with very valuable notes, by De Sacy in 1810. It consists of two parts: the first gives a general view of Egypt; the second treats of the Nile, and contains a vivid description of a famine caused, during the author’s residence in Egypt, by the river failing to overflow its banks. The work gives an authentic detailed account of the state of Egypt during the middle ages.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 30 [9:1:30]
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ABD-EL-KADER, celebrated for his brave resistance to the advance of the French in Algeria, was born near Mascara, in the early part of the year 1807. His father was a man of great influence among his countrymen from his high rank and learning, and Abd-el-Kader himself at an early age acquired a wide reputation for wisdom and piety, as well as for skill in horsemanship and other manly exercises. In 1831 he was chosen Emir of Mascara, and leader of the combined tribes in their attempt to check the growing power of the French in Africa. His efforts were at first successful, and in 1834 he concluded a treaty with the French general, which was very favourable to his cause. This treaty was broken in the succeeding year; but as the war that followed was mainly in favour of the Arabs, peace was renewed in 1837. War again broke out in 1839, and for more than a year was carried on in a very desultory manner. In 1841, however, Marshal Bugeaud assumed the chief command of the French force, which numbered nearly 100,000 men. The war was now carried on with great vigour, and Abd-el-Kader, after a most determined resistance, surrendered himself to the Duc d’Aumale, on the 22d December 1847. The promise, that he would be allowed to retire to Alexandria or St Jean d’Acre, upon the faith of which Abd-el-Kader had given himself up, was broken by the French government. He was taken to France, and was imprisoned first in the castle of Pau, and afterwards in that of Amboise. In 1852 Louis Napoleon gave him his liberty on condition of his not returning to Algeria. Since then he resided successively at Broussa, Constantinople, and Damascus. He is reported to have died at Mecca in October 1873. See Algeria.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 30 [9:1:30]
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ABDERA (1.), in Ancient Geography, a maritime town of Thrace, eastward from the mouth of the river Nestus. Mythology assigns the founding of the town to Hercules; but Herodotus states that it was first colonised by Timesias of Clazomenae, whom the Thracians in a short time expelled. Rather more than a century later (b.c. 541), the people of Seos recolonised Abdera. The town soon became one of considerable importance, and in b.c. 408, when it was reduced by Thrasybulus the Athenian, it is described as in a very flourishing condition. Its prosperity was greatly impaired by its disastrous war with the Triballi (circa B.C. 376), and very little is heard of it thereafter. The Abderitae, or Abderitani, were proverbial for their want of wit and judgment; yet their city gave birth to several eminent persons, as Protagoras, Democritus, and Anaxarchus the philosophers, Hecataeus the historian, Nicaenetus the poet, and others.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 30 [9:1:30]
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ABDERA (2.), a town in Hispania Baetica, founded by the Carthaginians, on the south coast, between Malaca and Prom. Charidemi. It is probably represented by the modern Adra.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 30 [9:1:30]
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ABDICATION, the act whereby a person in office renounces and gives up the same before the expiry of the time for which it is held. The word is seldom used except in the sense of surrendering the supreme power in a state. Despotic sovereigns are at liberty to divest themselves of their powers at any time, but it is otherwise with a limited monarchy. The throne of Great Britain cannot be lawfully abdicated unless with the consent of the two Houses of Parliament. When James IL, after throwing the Great Seal into the Thames, fled to France in 1688, he did not formally resign the crown, and the question was discussed in Parliament whether he had forfeited the throne or had abdicated. The latter designation was agreed on, for in a full assembly of the Lords and Commons, met in convention, it was resolved, in spite of James’s protest, “that King James II. having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of this kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant.” The Scotch Parliament pronounced a decree of forfeiture and deposition. Among the most memorable abdications of antiquity may be mentioned that of Sulla the dictator, b.c. 79, and that of the Emperor Diocletian, a.d. 305. The following is a list of the more important abdications of lator times :—
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 30 [9:1:30]
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ABDOMEN, in Anatomy, the lower part of the trunk of the body, situated between the thorax and the pelvis. See Anatomy.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 31 [9:1:31]
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ABDOMINALES, or Abdominal Fishes, a sub-division of the Malacopterygious Order, whose ventral fins are placed behind the pectorals, under the abdomen. The typical abdominals are carp, salmon, herring, silures, and pike.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 31 [9:1:31]
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ABDUCTION, a law term denoting the forcible or fraudulent removal of a person, limited by custom to the case where a woman is the victim. In the case of men or children, it has been usual to substitute the term Kidnapping (q.v. ) The old severe laws against abduction, generally contemplating its object as the possession of an heiress and her fortune, have been repealed by 24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 53, which makes it felony for any one from motives of lucre to take away or detain against her will, with intent to marry or carnally know her, &c., any woman of any age who has any interest in any real or personal estate, or is an heiress presumptive, or co-heiress, or presumptive next of kin to any one having such an interest; or for any one to cause such a woman to be married or carnally known by any other person; or for any one with such intent to allure, take away, or detain any such woman under the age of twenty-one, out of the possession and against the will of her parents or guardians. By s. 54, forcible taking away or detention against her will of any woman of any age with like intent is felony. Even without such intent, abduction of any unmarried girl under the age of sixteen is a misdemeanour. In Scotland, where there is no statutory adjustment, abduction is similarly dealt with by practice.
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 31 [9:1:31]
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ABDUL MEDJID, Sultan of Turkey, the thirty-first sovereign of the house of Othman, was born April 23, 1823, and succeeded his father Mahmoud II. on the 2d of July 1839. Mahmoud appears to have been unable to effect the reforms he desired in the mode of educating his children, so that his son received no better education than that given, according to use and wont, to Turkish princes in the harem. When Abdul Medjid succeeded to the throne, the affairs of Turkey were in an extremely critical state. At the very time his father died, the news was on its way to Constantinople that the Turkish army had been signally defeated at Nisib by that of the rebel Egyptian viceroy, Mehemet Ali; and the Turkish fleet was at the same time on its way to Egypt, to be surrendered perfidiously by its commander to the same enemy. But through the intervention of the great European powers, Mehemet Ali was obliged to come to terms, and the Ottoman empire was saved. In compliance with his father’s express instructions, Abdul Medjid set at once about carrying out the extensive reforms to which Mahmoud had so energetically devoted himself. In November 1839 was proclaimed an edict, known as the Hatti-sherif of Gulhané, consolidating and enforcing these reforms, which was supplemented, at the close of the Crimean war, by a similar statute, issued in February 1856. By these enactments it was provided that all classes of the sultan’s subjects should have security for their lives and property; that taxes should be fairly imposed and justice impartially administered; and that all should have full religious liberty and equal civil rights. The scheme was regarded as so revolutionary by the aristocracy and the educated classes (the Ulema) that it met with keen opposition, and was in consequence but partially put in force, especially in the remoter parts of the empire; and more than one conspiracy was formed against the sultan’s life on account of it. Of the other measures of reform promoted by Abdul Medjid the more important were—the reorganisation of the army (1843-4), the institution of a council of public instruction (1846), the abolition of an odious and unfairly imposed capitation tax, the repression of slave trading, and various provisions for the better administration of the public service and for the advancement of commerce. The public history of his times—the disturbances and insurrections in different parts of his dominions throughout his reign, and the great war successfully carried on against Russia by Turkey, and by England, France, and Sardinia, in the interest of Turkey (1853-56)—can be merely alluded to in this personal notice. When Kossuth and others sought refuge in Turkey, after the failure of the Hungarian rising in 1849, the sultan was called on by Austria and Russia to surrender them, but boldly and determinedly refused. It is to his credit, too, that he would not allow the conspirators against his own life to be put to death. He bore the character of being a kind and honourable man. Against this, however, must be set down his excessive extravagance, especially towards the end of his life. He died on the 25th of June 1861, and was succeeded, not by one of his sons, but by his brother, Abdul Aziz, the present sultan, as the oldest survivor of the family of Othman.
A BECKET, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England in the 12th century, was born in London on the 21st of December 1118. His father, Gilbert Becket, and his mother Roesa or Matilda, were both, there can be little doubt, of Norman extraction, if indeed they themselves were not immigrants from Normandy to England. Gilbert Becket, a merchant, and at one time Sheriff of London, a man of generous impulses and somewhat lavish hospitality, provided for his only child Th0mas all the attainable advantages of influential society and a good education. At ten years of age Thomas was placed under the tuition of the canons regular of Merton on the Wandle in Surrey. From Merton he proceeded to study in the London schools, then in high repute. At Pevensey Castle, the seat of his father’s friend Richer de l’Aigle, one of the great barons of England, he subsequently became a proficient in all the feats and graces of chivalry. From Pevensey he betook himself to the study of theology in the University of Paris. He never became a scholar, much less a theologian, like Wolsey, or even like some of the learned ecclesiastics of his own day; but his intellect was vigorous and original, and his manners captivating to his associates and popular with the multitude. His father’s failure in business recalled him to London, and for three years he acted as a clerk in a lawyer’s office. But a man so variously accomplished could not fail to stumble on preferment sooner or later. Accordingly, about 1142, Archdeacon Baldwin, a learned civilian, a friend of the elder Becket, introduced him to Theobald, Archbishop of [9:1:32] Canterbury, who at once appointed him to an office in the Archiepiscopal Court. His talents speedily raised him to the archdeaconry of the see. A Becket’s tact in assisting to thwart an attempt to interest the Pope in favour of the coronation of Stephen’s son Eustace, paved the way to the archdeacon’s elevation to the Chancellorship of England under Henry II., a dignity to which he was raised in 1155. As he had served Theobald the archbishop, so he served Henry the king faithfully and well. It was his nature to be loyal. Enthusiastic partisanship is, in fact, the key to much that is otherwise inexplicable in his subsequent conduct towards Henry. When at a later period A Becket was raised to the primacy of England, a dignity not of his own seeking, he must needs quarrel with Henry in the interest of the Pope and “for the honour of God.” As Chancellor of England he appeared in the war of Toulouse at the head of the chivalry of England, and “who can recount,” says his attendant and panegyrist Grim, “the carnage, the desolation he made at the head of a strong body of soldiers? He attacked castles, and razed towns and cities to the ground; he burned down houses and farms, and never showed the slightest touch of pity to any one who rose in insurrection against his master.” In single combat he vanquished and made prisoner the valiant Knight Engelram de Trie. Nor did A Becket the chancellor seek to quell Henry’s secular foes alone. He was the able mouthpiece of the Crown in its contention with the Bishop of Chichester, who had alleged that the permission of the Pope was necessary to the conferring or taking away of ecclesiastical benefices; and he rigorously exacted scutage, a military tax in lieu of personal service in the field, from the clergy, who accused him of “plunging a sword into the bosom of his mother the church.” His pomp and munificence as chancellor were beyond precedent. In 1159 he undertook, at Henry’s request, an embassy to the French Court for the purpose of affiancing the king’s eldest son to the daughter of the king of France. His progress through the country was like a triumphal procession. “How wonderful must be the king of England himself whose chancellor travels in such state !” was on every one’s lips. In 1162 he was elected Archbishop of Canterbury, Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Herford, alone dissenting, and remarking sarcastically, at the termination of the ceremony, that “the king had worked a miracle in having that day turned a layman into an archbishop and a soldier into a saint.” Hitherto A Becket had only been in deacon’s orders, and had made no profession of sanctity of life. At the same time, there is nothing to show that his character was stained by the gross licentiousness of the times. Now, however, he devoted himself body and soul to the service of the church. The fastidious courtier was at once transformed into the squalid penitent, who wore hair-cloth next his skin, fed on roots, drank nauseous water, and daily washed the feet of thirteen beggars. Henry, who had expected to see the archbishop completely sunk in the chancellor, was amazed to receive the following laconic message from A Becket :—“I desire that you will provide yourself with another chancellor, as I find myself hardly sufficient for the duties of one office, much less of two.” From that moment there was strife between A Becket and Henry, A Becket straining every nerve to extend the authority of the Pope, and Henry doing his utmost to subject the church to his own will. Throughout the bitter struggle for supremacy which ensued between A Becket and the king, A Becket was backed by the sympathy of the Saxon populace, Henry by the support of the Norman barons and by the greater dignitaries of the church. At the outset A Becket was worsted. He was constrained to take an oath, “with good faith and without fraud or reserve, to observe the Constitutions of Clarendon,” which subjected clerks guilty of crime to the ordinary civil tribunals, put ecclesiastical dignities at the royal dis posai, prevented all appeals to Home, and made Henry the virtual “head of the church.” For his guilty compliance with these anti-papal constitutions he received the special pardon and absolution of his holiness, and proceeded to anathematise them with the energy of a genuine remorse. The king resolved on his ruin. He was summoned before a great council at Northampton, and in defiance of justice was called on to account for the sum of 44,000 marks declared to have been misappropriated by him during his chancellorship. “For what happened before my consecration,” said À Becket, “I ought not to answer, nor will I. Know, moreover, that ye are my children in God; neither law nor reason allows you to judge your father. I refer my quarrel to the decision of the Pope. To him I appeal, and shall now, under the protection of the Catholic Church and the Apostolic See, depart.” He effected his escape to France, and took refuge in the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny, whence he repeatedly anathematised his enemies in England, and hesitated not to speak of Henry as a “malicious tyrant.” Pope Alexander III., though at heart a warm supporter of Becket, was guarded in his conduct towards Henry, who had shown a disposition to support the anti-pope Pascal III., and it was not till the Archbishop of York, in defiance of a papal bull, had usurped the functions of the exiled primate by officiating at the coronation of Henry’s son, that Alexander became really formidable. À Becket was now resolute for martyrdom or victory. Henry began to tremble, and an interview between him and Becket was arranged to take place at Fereitville in 1170. It was agreed that À Becket should return to his see, and that the king should discharge his debts and defray the expenses of his journey. A Becket proceeded to the coast, but the king, who had promised to meet him, broke his engagement in every particular. A Becket, in retaliation, excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury for officiating at the coronation of the king’s son. The terrified prelates took refuge in Normandy with Henry, who, on hearing their tale, accompanied by an account of A Becket’s splendid reception at Canterbury, exclaimed in ungovernable fury, “Of the cowards who eat my bread, is there not one who will free me from this turbulent priest ?” Four knights, Fitzurse, Tracy, Morville, and Brito, resolveb to avenge their sovereign, who it appears was ignorant of their intention. They arrived in Canterbury, and finding the archbishop, threatened him with death if he would not absolve the excommunicated bishops. “In vain,” replied A Becket, “you threaten me. If all the swords in England were brandishing over my head, your terrors could not move me. Foot to foot you will find me fighting the battle of the Lord.” He was barbarously murdered in the great cathedral, at the foot of the altar of St Benedict, on the 29th December 1170. Two years thereafter he was canonised by the Pope; aud down to the Reformation innumerable pilgrimages were made to the shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury by devotees from every corner of Christendom. So numerous were the miracles wrought at his tomb, that Gervase of Canterbury tells us two large volumes kept in the cathedral were filled with accounts of them. Every fiftieth year a jubilee was celebrated in his honour, which lasted fifteen days; plenary indulgences were then granted to all who visited his tomb; and as many as 100,000 pilgrims were registered at a time in Canterbury. The worship of St Thomas superseded the adoration of God, and even that of the Virgin. In one year there was offered at God’s altar nothing; at that of the Virgin £4, 1s. 8d.; while St Thomas received for his share £954, 6s. 3d.—an enormous sum, if the purchasing power of money in those times be considered. Henry VIII., with a just if somewhat ludicrous appreciation of the issue which À Becket had raised [9:1:33] with his royal predecessor Henry II., not only pillaged the rich shrine dedicated to St Thomas, but caused the saint himself to be cited to appear in court, and to be tried and condemned as a traitor, at the same time ordering his name to be struck out of the calendar, and his bones to be burned and the ashes thrown in the air. A Becket’s character and aims have been the subject of the keenest ecclesiastical and historic controversy down to the present time, but it is impossible to doubt the fundamental sincerity of the one or the disinterestedness of the other, however inconsistent his actions may sometimes appear. If the fruit of the Spirit be “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance,” À Becket was assuredly not a saint, for he indulged to the last in the bitterest invectives against his foes; but that he fought with admirable courage and devotion the “battle of the Lord,” according to the warlike ideas of an age with which he was in intense sympathy, is beyond dispute. He was the leading Ultramontane of his day, hesitating not to reprove the Pope himself for lukewarmness in the cause of the “church’s liberty.” He was the last of the great ecclesiastics of the type of Lanfranc and Anselm, who struggled for supremacy with the civil power in England on almost equal terms. In his day the secular stream was running very strong, and he might as chancellor have floated down the current pleasantly enough, governing England in Henry’s name. He nevertheless perished in a chivalrous effort to stem the torrent. The tendency of his principles was to supersede a civil by a spiritual despotism; “but, in point of fact,” says Hook, in his valuable Life, “he was a high-principled, high-spirited demagogue, who taught the people to struggle for their liberties,” a struggle soon to commence, and of which he was by no means an impotent if an unconscious precursor.—See Dr Giles’s Vita et Epistolae S. Thomae Cantuariensis; Canon Morris’s Life of St Thomas Becket; Canon Robertson’s Life of Becket; Canon Stanley’s Historical Memorials of Canter-bury; J. G. Nichol’s Pilgrimages of Walsingham and Canterbury; Hook’s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury; and Lord Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors of England.
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A’BECKETT, Gilbert Abbott, a successful cultivator of light literature, was born in London in 1811, and educated at Westminster School. He wrote burlesque dramas with success from his boyhood, took an active share in the establishment of different comic periodicals, particularly Figaro in London and Punch, and was a constant contributor to the columns of the latter from its commencement till the time of his death. His principal publications, all overflowing with kindly humour, and rich in quaint fancies, are his parodies of living dramatists (himself included), reprinted from Punch (1844); The Small Debts Act, with Annotations and Explanations (1845); The Quizziology of the British Drama and The Comic Blackstone (1846); A Comic History of England (1847); and A Comic History of Rome (1852). He contributed occasionally, too, to the Times and other metropolitan papers. A’Beckett was called to the bar in 1841, and from 1849 discharged with great efficiency the duties of a metropolitan police magistrate. He died at Boulogne on the 30th of August 1856.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 33 [9:1:33]
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ABEL (הבל, breath, vanity, transitoriness), the second son of Adam, slain by Cain his elder brother (Gen. iv. 1-16). The narrative in Genesis, which tells us that “the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect,” is supplemented by the statement of the New Testament, that “by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,” (Heb. xi. 4), and that Cain slew Abel “because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous” (1 John iii. 12).
In patristic theology the striking contrast between the brothers was mystically explained and typically applied in various ways. Augustine, for example, regards Abel as the representative of the regenerate or spiritual man, and Cain as the representative of the natural or corrupt man. Augustine in his treatise De Haer esibus, c. 86, mentions a sect of Abelitae or Abelians, who seem to have lived in North Africa, and chiefly in the neighbourhood of Hippo-Regius. According to their tradition, Abel, though married, lived in continence, and they followed his practice in this respect, so as to avoid the guilt of bringing sinful creatures into the world.
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 33 [9:1:33]
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ABEL, Karl Friedrich (1726-1787), a celebrated German musician. His adagio compositions have been highly praised, but he attained greater distinction as a performer than as a composer, his instrument being the Viola di gamba, which from his time has given place to the violoncello. He studied under Sebastian Bach, played for ten years (1748-58) in the band formed at Dresden by the Elector of Saxony, under Hasse, and then, proceeding to England, became (1759) chamber-musician to the queen of George III. His life was shortened by habits of intemperance.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 33 [9:1:33]
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ABEL, Niels Henrik, one of the ablest and acutest mathematicians of modern times, was born at Findöe in Norway in 1802, and died near Arendal in 1829. Considering the shortness of his life, the extent and thoroughness of his mathematical investigations and analyses are marvellous. His great powers of generalisation were displayed in a remarkable degree in his development of the theory of elliptic functions. Legendre’s eulogy of Abel, “Quelle tête celle du jeune Norvégien !” is the more forcible, that the French mathematician had occupied himself with those functions for most of his lifetime. Abel’s works, edited by Μ. Holmboe, the professor under whom he studied at Christiania, were published by the Swedish government in 1839.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 33 [9:1:33]
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ABEL, Thomas, a Roman Catholic divine during the reign of Henry VIII., was an Englishman, but when or where born does not appear. He was educated at Oxford, where he passed B.A. on 4th July 1513, Μ.A. on 27th June 1516, and proceeded D.D. On 23d June 1530 he was presented by Queen Catherine to the rectory of Bradwell in Essex, on the sea-coast. He had been introduced to the court through the report of his learning in classical and living languages, and accomplishments in music; and he was appointed domestic chaplain to Queen Catherine. It speaks well both for the chaplain and his royal mistress, that to the last he defended the outraged queen against “bluff King Hal.” The Defence, "Invicta Veritas,” was printed at Luneberge in 1532. This pungent little book was replied to, but never answered, and remains the defence on Queen Catherine’s part. Abel was ensnared, as greater men were, in the prophetic delusions and ravings of Elizabeth Barton, called the “Holy Maid of Kent.” As belonging to the Church of Rome, he inevitably opposed Henry Viii.’s assumption of supremacy in the church. Ultimately he was tried and condemned for “misprision of treason,” and perished in the usual cruel and ignoble way. The execution, as described, took place at Smith-field on July 30, 1540. If we may not concede the venerable and holy name of martyr to Abel—and John Foxe is passionate in his refusal of it—yet we must hold that he at least fell a victim to his unsparing defence of his queen and friend, the “misprision of treason” having been a foregone conclusion. In stat. 25, Henry VIII., c. 12, he is described as having “caused to be printed and set forth in this realme diverse books against the divorce and separation.” Neither the Tractatus nor the “diverse books” are known.—Dodd, Church History, Brussels, 1737, folio, vol. i. p. 208; Bourchier, Hist. Eccl.
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de Martyr. Fratr. minor. (Ingolst. 1583); Pitts, De illustr. Angl. Scrip.; Tanner’s Bibliotheca Hiber nico-Britannica, p. i.; Zurich, Original Letters relative to the English Reformation (Parker Society, pt. ii. pp. 209-211, 1846); Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (Cattley’s, vol. v. pp. 438-440); Burnet, Soames, Biog. Brit.; Wood’s Athenae (Bliss), s. v.; Stow, Chron. p. 581. (a. b. g.)
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 33 [9:1:33]
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ABELARD, Peter, born at Pallet (Palais), not far from Nantes, in 1079, was the eldest son of a noble Breton house. The name Abaelardus (also written Abailardus, Abaielardus, and in many other ways) is said to be a corruption of Habelardus, substituted by himself for a nickname Bajolardus given to him when a student. As a boy, he showed an extraordinary quickness of apprehension, and, choosing a learned life instead of the active career natural to a youth of his birth, early became an adept in the art of dialectic, under which name philosophy, meaning at that time chiefly the logic of Aristotle transmitted through Latin channels, was the great subject of liberal study in the episcopal schools. Roscellin, the famous canon of Compiègne, is mentioned by himself as his teacher; but whether he heard this champion of extreme Nominalism in early youth, when he wandered about from school to school for instruction and exercise, or some years later, after he had already begun to teach for himself, remains uncertain. His wanderings finally brought him to Paris, still under the age of twenty. There, in the great cathedral school of Notre-Dame, he sat for a while under the teaching of William of Champeaux, the disciple of St Anselm and most advanced of Realists, but, presently stepping forward, he overcame the master in discussion, and thus began a long duel that issued in the downfall of the philosophic theory of Realism, till then dominant in the early Middle Age. First, in the teeth of opposition from the metropolitan teacher, he proceeded to set up a school of his own at Melun, whence, for more direct competition, he removed to Corbeil, nearer Paris. The success of his teaching was signal, though for a time he had to quit the field, the strain proving too great for his physical strength. On his return, after 1108, he found William lecturing no longer at Notre-Dame, but in a monastic retreat outside the city, and there battle was again joined between them. Forcing upon the Realist a material change of doctrine, he was once more victorious, and thenceforth he stood supreme. His discomfited rival still had power to keep him from lecturing in Paris, but soon failed in this last effort also. From Melun, where he had resumed teaching, Abelard passed to the capital, and set up his school on the heights of St Geneviève, looking over Notre-Dame. When he had increased his distinction still further by winning reputation in the theological school of Anselm of Laon, no other conquest remained for him. He stepped into the chair at Notre-Dame, being also nominated canon, about the year 1115.
Few teachers ever held such sway as Abelard now did for a time. Distinguished in figure and manners, he was seen surrounded by crowds—it is said thousands—of students, drawn from all countries by the fame of his teaching, in which acuteness of thought was relieved by simplicity and grace of exposition. Enriched by the offerings of his pupils, and feasted with universal admiration, he came, as he says, to think himself the only philosopher standing in the world. But a change in his fortunes was at hand. In his devotion to science, he had hitherto lived a very regular life, varied only by the excitement of conflict: now, at the height of his fame, other passions began to stir within him. There lived at that time, within the precincts of Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle, the canon Fulbert, a young girl named Heloise, of noble extraction and born about 1101. Fair, but still more remarkable for her knowledge, which extended beyond Latin, it is said, to Greek and Hebrew, she awoke a feeling of love in the breast of Abelard; and with intent to win her, he sought and gained a footing in Fulbert’s house as a regular inmate. Becoming also tutor to the maiden, he used the unlimited power which he thus obtained over her for the purpose of seduction, though not without cherishing a real affection which she returned in unparalleled devotion. Their relation interfering with his public work, and being, moreover, ostentatiously sung by himself, soon became known to all the world except the too-confiding Fulbert; and, when at last it could not escape even his vision, they were separated only to meet in secret. Thereupon Heloise found herself pregnant, and was carried off by her lover to Brittany, where she gave birth to a son. To appease her furious uncle, Abelard now proposed a marriage, under the condition that it should be kept secret, in order not to mar his prospects of advancement in the church; but of marriage, whether public or secret, Heloise would hear nothing. She appealed to him not to sacrifice for her the independence of his life, nor did she finally yield to the arrangement without the darkest forebodings, only too soon to be realised. The secret of the marriage was not kept by Fulbert; and when Heloise, true to her singular purpose, boldly then denied it, life was made so unsupportable to her that she sought refuge in the convent of Argenteuil. Immediately Fulbert, believing that her husband, who aided in the flight, designed to be rid of her, conceived a dire revenge. He and some others broke into Abelard’s chamber by night, and, taking him defenceless, perpetrated on him the most brutal mutilation. Thus cast down from his pinnacle of greatness into an abyss of shame and misery, there was left to the brilliant master only the life of a monk. Heloise, not yet twenty, consummated her work of self-sacrifice at the call of his jealous love, and took the veil.
It was in the Abbey of St Denis that Abelard, now aged forty, sought to bury himself with his woes out of sight. Finding, however, in the cloister neither calm nor solitude, and having gradually turned again to study, he yielded after a year to urgent entreaties from without and. within, and went forth to reopen his school at the Priory of Maisoncelle (1120). His lectures, now framed in a devotional spirit, were heard again by crowds of students, and all his old influence seemed to have returned; but old enmities were revived also, against which he was no longer able as before to make head. No sooner had he put in writing his theological lectures (apparently the Introductio ad Theologiam that has come down to us), than his adversaries fell foul of his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Charging him with the heresy of Sabellius in a provincial synod held at Soissons in 1121, they procured by irregular practices a condemnation of his teaching, whereby he was made to throw his book into the flames, and then was shut up in the convent of St Médard. After the other, it was the bitterest possible experience that could befall him, nor, in the state of mental desolation into which it plunged him, could he find any comfort from being soon again set free. The life in his own monastery proving no more congenial than formerly, he fled from it in secret, and only waited for permission to live away from St Denis before he chose the one lot that suited his present mood. In a desert place near Nogent-sur-Seine, he built himself a cabin of stubble and reeds, and turned hermit. But there fortune came back to him with a new surprise. His retreat becoming known, students flocked from Paris, and covered the wilderness around him with their tents and huts. When he began to teach again, he found consolation, and in gratitude he consecrated the new oratory they built for him by the name of the Paraclete [9:1:35] Upon the return of new dangers, or at least of fears, Abelard left the Paraclete to make trial of another refuge, accepting an invitation to preside over the Abbey of St Gildas-de-Rhuys, on the far-off shore of Lower Brittany. It proved a wretched exchange. The region was inhospitable, the domain a prey to lawless exaction, the house itself savage and disorderly. Yet for nearly ten years he continued to struggle with fate before he fled from his charge, yielding in the end only under peril of violent death. The misery of those years was not, however, unrelieved; for he had been able, on the breaking-up of Heloise’s convent at Argenteuil, to establish her as head of a new religious house at the deserted Paraclete, and in the capacity of spiritual director he often was called to revisit the spot thus made doubly dear to him. All this time Heloise had lived amid universal esteem for her knowledge and character, uttering no word under the doom that had fallen upon her youth; but now, at last, the occasion came for expressing all the pent-up emotions of her soul. Living on for some time in Brittany after his flight from St Gildas, Abelard wrote, among other things, his famous Historia Calamitatum, and thus moved her to pen her first Letter, which remains an unsurpassed utterance of human passion and womanly devotion; the first being followed by the two other Letters, in which she finally accepted the part of resignation which, now as a brother to a sister, Abelard commended to her. He not long after was seen once more upon the field of his early triumphs, lecturing on Mount St Geneviève in 1136 (when he was heard by John of Salisbury), but it was only for a brief space: no new triumph, but a last great trial, awaited him in the few years to come of his chequered life. As far back as the Paraclete days, he had counted as chief among his foes Bernard of Clairvaux, in whom was incarnated the principle of fervent and unhesitating faith, from which rational inquiry like his was sheer revolt, and now this uncompromising spirit was moving, at the instance of others, to crush the growing evil in the person of the boldest offender. After preliminary negotiations, in which Bernard was roused by Abelard’s steadfastness to put forth all his strength, a council met at Sens, before which Abelard, formally arraigned upon a number of heretical charges, was prepared to plead his cause. When, however, Bernard, not without foregone terror in the prospect of meeting the redoubtable dialectician, had opened the case, suddenly Abelard appealed to Rome. The stroke availed him nothing; for Bernard, who had power, notwithstanding, to get a condemnation passed at the council, did not rest a moment till a second condemnation was procured at Rome in the following year. Meanwhile, on his way thither to urge his plea in person, Abelard had broken down at the Abbey of Cluni, and there, an utterly fallen man, with spirit of the humblest, and only not bereft of his intellectual force, he lingered but a few months before the approach of death. Removed by friendly hands, for the relief of his sufferings, to the Priory of St Marcel, he died on the 21st of April 1142. First buried at St Marcel, his remains soon after were carried off in secrecy to the Paraclete, and given over to the loving care of Heloise, who in time came herself to rest beside them. The bones of the pair were shifted more than once afterwards, but they were marvellously preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now they lie united in the well-known tomb at Père-Lachaise.
Great as was the influence exerted by Abelard on the minds of his contemporaries and the course of mediaeval thought, he has been little known in modern times but for his connection with Heloise. Indeed, it was not till the present century, when Cousin in 1836 issued the collection entitled Ouvrages inédits d’Abélard, that his philosophical performance could be judged at first hand: of his strictly philosophical works only one, the ethical treatise Scito te ipsum, having been published earlier, namely, in 1721. Cousin’s collection, besides giving extracts from the theological work Sic et Non (an assemblage of opposite opinions on doctrinal points, culled from the Fathers as a basis for discussion), includes the Dialectica, commentaries on logical works of Aristotle, Porphyry, and Boethius, and a fragment, De Generibus et Speciebus. The last-named work, and also the psychological treatise De Intellectibus, published apart by Cousin (in Fragmens Philosophiques, vol. ii.), are now considered upon internal evidence not to be by Abelard himself, but only to have sprung out of his school. A genuine work, the Glossuloe super Porphyrium, from which Μ. de Rémusat, in his classical monograph Abélard (1845), has given extracts, remains in manuscript.
The general importance of Abelard lies in his having fixed more decisively than any one before him the scholastic manner of philosophising, with its object of giving a formally rational expression to the received ecclesiastical doctrine. However his own particular interpretations may have been condemned, they were conceived in essentially the same spirit as the general scheme of thought afterwards elaborated in the 13th century with approval from the heads of the church. Through him was prepared in the Middle Age the ascendency of the philosophical authority of Aristotle, which became firmly established in the half-century after his death, when first the completed Organon, and gradually all the other works of the Greek thinker, came to be known in the schools: before his time it was rather upon the authority of Plato that the prevailing Realism sought to lean. As regards the central question of Universals, without having sufficient knowledge of Aristotle’s views, Abelard yet, in taking middle ground between the extravagant Realism of his master, William of Champeaux, or of St Anselm, and the not less extravagant Nominalism (as we have it reported) of his other master, Roscellin, touched at more than one point the Aristotelian position. Along with Aristotle, also with Nominalists generally, he ascribed full reality only to the particular concretes; while, in opposition to the “insana sententia ” of Roscellin, he declared the Universal to be no mere word (vox), but to consist, or (perhaps we may say) emerge, in the fact of predication (sermo). Lying in the middle between Realism and (extreme) Nominalism, this doctrine has often been spoken of as Conceptualism, but ignorantly so. Abelard, preeminently a logician, did not concern himself with the psychological question which the Conceptualist aims at deciding as to the mental subsistence of the Universal. Outside of his dialectic, it was in ethics that Abelard showed greatest activity of philosophical thought; laying very particular stress upon the subjective intention as determining, if not the moral character, at least the moral value, of human action. His thought in this direction, wherein he anticipated something of modern speculation, is the more remarkable because his scholastic successors accomplished least in the field of morals, hardly venturing to bring the principles and rules of conduct under pure philosophical discussion, even after the great ethical inquries of Aristotle became fully known to them. (g. c. r.)
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ABENCERRAGES, a family or faction that is said to have held a prominent position in the Moorish kingdom of Granada in the 15th century. The name appears to have been derived from the Yussuf ben-Serragh, the head of the tribe in the time of Mahommed VII., who did that sovereign good service in his struggles to retain tho crown of which he was three times deprived. Nothing is known of the family with certainty; but the name is [9:1:36] familiar from the interesting romance of Gines Perez de Hita, Guerras civiles de Granada, which celebrates the feuds of the Abencerrages and the rival family of the Zegris, and the cruel treatment to which the former were subjected. Florian’s Gonsalvo of Cordova, and Chateaubriand’s Last of the Abencerrages, are imitations of Perez de Hita’s work. The hall of the Abencerrages in the Alhambra takes its name from being the reputed scene of the massacre of the family.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 35 [9:1:35]
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ABENEZRA, or Ibn Ezra, is the name ordinarily given to Abraham ben Meir ben Ezra (called also Abenare or Evenare), one of the most eminent of the J ewish literati of the Middle Ages. He was born at Toledo about 1090 ; left Spain for Rome about 1140; resided afterwards at Mantua (1145), at Lucca (1154), at Rhodes (1155 and 1166), and in England (1159); and died probably in 1168. He was distinguished as a philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet, but especially as a grammarian and commentator. The works by which he is best known form a series of Commentaries on the books of the Old Testament, which have nearly all been printed in the great Rabbinic Bibles of Bomberg (1525-6), Buxtorf (1618-9), and Frankfurter (1724-7). Abenezra’s commentaries are acknowledged to be of very great value; he was the first who raised biblical exegesis to the rank of a science, interpreting the text according to its literal sense, and illustrating it from cognate languages. His style is elegant, but is so concise as to be sometimes obscure; and he occasionally indulges in epigram. In addition to the commentaries, he wrote several treatises on astronomy or astrology, and a number of grammatical works.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
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ABENSBERG, a small town of Bavaria, 18 miles S.W. of Regensburg, containing 1300 inhabitants. Here Napoleon gained an important victory over the Austrians on the 20th of April 1809. The town is the Abusina of the Romans, and ancient rains exist in its neighbourhood.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
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ABERAVON, a parliamentary and municipal borough of Wales, in the county of Glamorgan, beautifully situated on the Avon, near its mouth, 8 miles east of Swansea. The town and adjacent villages have increased rapidly in recent years, from the extension of the mines of coal and iron in the vicinity, and the establishment of extensive works for the smelting of tin, copper, and zinc. The harbour, Port Talbot, has been much improved, and has good docks; and there is regular steam communication with Bristol. Ores for the smelting furnaces are imported from Cornwall, and copper, tin, and coal are exported. Aberavon unites with Swansea, Kenfigg, Loughor, and Neath, in returning a member to Parliament. In 1871 the population of the parish was 3396, of the parliamentary borough, 11,906.
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ABERCONWAY. See Conway.
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ABERCROMBIE, John, an eminent physician of Edinburgh, was the son of the Rev. George Abercrombie of Aberdeen, in which city he was born in 1781. After attending the Grammar School and Marischal College, Aberdeen, he commenced his medical studies at Edinburgh in 1800, and obtained his degree of M.D. there in 1803. Soon afterwards he went to London, and for about a year gave diligent attention to the medical practice and lectures in St George’s Hospital. In 1804 he returned to Edinburgh, became a Fellow of the College of Surgeons, and commenced as general practitioner in that city; where, in dispensary and private practice, he laid the foundation of that character for sagacity as an observer of disease, and judgment in its treatment, that eventually elevated him to the head of his profession. In 1823, be became a Licentiate of the College of Physicians; in 1824, a Fellow of that body; and from the death of Dr Gregory in 1822, he was considered the first physician in Scotland. Abercrombie early began the laudable practice of preserving accurate notes of the cases that fell under his care; and at a period when pathological anatomy was far too little regarded by practitioners in this country, he had the merit of sedulously pursuing it, and collecting a mass of most important information regarding the changes produced by disease on different organs; so that, before the year 1824, he had more extended experience, and more correct views in this interesting field, than most of his contemporaries engaged in extensive practice. From 1816 he occasionally enriched the pages of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal with essays, that display originality and industry, particularly those “on the diseases of the spinal cord and brain," and “on diseases of the intestinal canal, of the pancreas, and spleen.” The first of these formed the basis of his great and very original work, Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord, which appeared at Edinburgh in 1828. In the same year he published also another very valuable work, his Researches on the Diseases of the Intestinal Canal, Liver, and other Viscera of the Abdomen. Though his professional practice was very extensive and lucrative, he found time for other speculations and occupations. In 1830 he published his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers of Man and the Investigation of Truth, a work which, though less original and profound than his medical speculations, contains a popular view of an interesting subject, expressed in simple language. It was followed in 1833 by a sequel, The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings, the object of which, as stated in the preface, was “to divest the subject of all improbable speculations,” and to show “the important relation which subsists between the science of mind and the doctrines of revealed religion.” Both works have been very extensively read, reaching the 18th and 14th editions respectively in 1869. Soon after the publication of Moral Feelings, the University of Oxford conferred on the author the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine, and in 1835 he was elected Lord Rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen. Dr Abercrombie was much beloved by his numerous friends for the suavity and. kindness of his manners, and was universally esteemed for his benevolence and unaffected piety. He died on the 14th of November 1844 of a very uncommon disease, the bursting (from softening of the muscular substance) of the coronary vessels of the heart.
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
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ABERCROMBY, David, M.D. This Scottish physician was sufficiently noteworthy half a century after his (probable) decease to have his Nova Medicinae Praxis reprinted at Paris in 1740; while during his lifetime his Tuta ac efficax luis venereoe saepe absque mercurio ac semper absque salivatione mercuriali curando methodus (1684, 8vo) was translated into German and published at Dresden in 1702 (8vo). In 1685 were published De Pulsus Variatione (London; Paris, 1688, 12mo), and Ars explorandi medicas facultates plantarum ex solo sap. (London). His Opuscula were collected in 1687. These professional writings gave him a place and memorial in Haller’s Bibliotheca Medicinae Pract. (4 vols. 8vo, 1779, tom. iii. p. 619); but he claims passing remembrance rather as a metaphysician by his remarkable controversial books in theology and philosophy. Formerly a Roman Catholic and Jesuit, he abjured Popery, and published Protestancy proved Safer than Popery (London, 1686). But by far the most noticeable of his productions is A Discourse of Wit (London, 1685). This treatise somehow has fallen out of sight—much as old coined gold gets hidden away —so that bibliographers do not seem to have met with it, and assign it at hap-hazard to Patrick Abercromby, M.D. Notwithstanding, the most cursory examination of it proves that in this Discourse of Wit are contained [9:1:37] some of the most characteristic and most definitely-put metaphysical opinions of the Scottish philosophy of common sense. Of this early metaphysician nothing biographically has come down save that he was a Scotchman (“Scotus")—born at Seaton. He was living early in the 18th century. (Haller, as supra; Lawrence Charteris’s M.S., s. v.) So recently as 1833 was printed A Short Account of Scots Divines by him, edited by James Maidment, Edinburgh. (a. b. g.)
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
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ABERCROMBY, James, Loud Dunfermline, third son of the celebrated Sir Ralph Abercromby, was born on the 7th Nov. 1776. Educated for the profession of the law, he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1801, but he was prevented from engaging to any considerable extent in general practice by accepting appointments, first as commissioner in bankruptcy, and subsequently, as steward of the estates of the Duke of Devonshire. He commenced his political career in 1807, when he was elected member of Parliament for the borough of Midhurst. His sympathies with the small and struggling Opposition had already been declared, and he at once attached himself to the Whig party, with which he consistently acted throughout life. In 1812 he was returned for Calne, which he continued to represent until his elevation to the Scotch bench in 1830. During this lengthened period he rendered conspicuous and valuable services to his party and the country. In Scotch affairs he took, as was natural, a deep interest; and, by introducing, on two separate occasions, a motion for the redress of a special glaring abuse, he undoubtedly gave a strong impulse to the growing desire for a general reform. In 1824, and again in 1826, he presented a petition from the inhabitants of Edinburgh, and followed it up by a motion “for leave to bring in a Bill for the more effectual representation of the city of Edinburgh in the Commons House of Parliament.” The motion was twice rejected, but by such narrow majorities as showed that the monopoly of the self-elected Council of thirty-three was doomed. In 1827, on the accession of the Whigs to power under Mr Canning, Abercromby received the appointment of Judge-Advocate-General and Privy Counsellor. In 1830 he was raised to the judicial bench as Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Scotland. The office was abolished in 1832; and almost contemporaneously, Edinburgh, newly enfranchised, was called to return two members to the first reformed Parliament. As the election marked the commencement of a new political era, the honour to be conferred possessed a peculiar value, and the choice. of the citizens fell most appropriately on Francis Jeffrey and James Abercromby, two of the foremost of those to whom they were indebted for their hard-won privileges. In 1834 Mr Abercromby obtained a seat in the cabinet of Lord Grey as Master of the Mint. On the assembling of the new Parliament in 1835, the election of a speaker gave occasion for the first trial of strength between the Reform party and the followers of Sir Robert Peel. After a memorable division, in which more members voted than had ever before been known, Abercromby was elected by 316 votes, to 310 recorded for Manners-Sutton. The choice was amply justified, not only by the urbanity, impartiality, and firmness with which Abercromby discharged the public duties of the chair, but also by the important reforms he introduced in regard to the conduct of private business. In 1839 he resigned the office, and received the customary honour of a peerage, with the title of Lord Dunfermline. The evening of his life was passed in retirement at Colinton, near Edinburgh, where he died on the 17th April 1858. The courage and sagacity which marked his entire conduct as a Liberal were never more conspicuous than when, towards the close of his life, he availed himself of an opportunity of practically asserting his cherished doctrine of absolute religious equality. The important part he took in originating and supporting the United Industrial School in Edinburgh for ragged children, irrespective of their religious belief, deserves to be gratefully acknowledged and remembered, even by those who took the opposite side in the controversy which arose with regard to it.
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ABERCROMBY, Patrick, M.D., was the third son of Alexander Abercromby of Fetterneir in Aberdeenshire, and brother of Francis Abercromby, who was created by James II. Lord Glasford. He was born at Forfar in 1656. As throughout Scotland, he could have had there the benefits of a good parish school; but it would seem from after events that his family was Roman Catholic, and hence, in all probability, his education was private. This, and not the unproved charge of perversion from Protestantism in subserviency to James II., explains his Roman Catholicism and adhesion to the fortunes of that king. But, intending to become a doctor of medicine, he entered the University of St Andrews, where he took his degree of M.D. in 1685, From a statement in one of his preface-epistles to his magnum opus, the Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation, he must have spent most of his youthful years abroad. It has been stated that he attended the University of Paris. The Discourse of Wit (1685), assigned to him, belongs to Dr David Abercromby, a contemporary. On his return to Scotland, he is found practising as a physician in Edinburgh, where, besides his professional duties, he gave himself with characteristic zeal to the study of antiquities, a study to which he owes it that his name still lives, for he finds no place in either Haller or Hutchison’s Medical Biographies. He was out-and-out a Scot of the old patriotic type, and, living as he did during the agitations for the union of England and Scotland, he took part in the war of pamphlets inaugurated and sustained by prominent men on both sides of the Border. He crossed swords with no less redoubtable a foe than Daniel Defoe in his Advantages of the Act of Security, compared with those of the intended Union (Edinburgh, 1707), and A Vindication of the Same against Mr De Foe (ibid.) The logic and reason were with Defoe, but there was a sentiment in tho advocates of independence which was not sufficiently allowed for in the clamour of debate; and, besides, the disadvantages of union were near, hard, and actual, the advantages remote, and contingent on many things and persons. Union wore the look to men like Abercromby and Lord Belhaven of absorption, if not extinction. Abercromby was appointed physician to James II., but the Revolution deprived him of the post. Crawford (in his Peerage, 1716) ascribes the title of Lord Glasford to an intended recognition of ancestral loyalty; its bestowment in 1685 corresponding with the younger brother’s graduation as M.D., may perhaps explain his appointment. A minor literary work of Abercromby’s was a translation of Μ. Beague’s partizan History (so called) of the War carried on by the Popish Government of Cardinal Beaton, aided by the French, against the English under the Protector Somerset, which appeared in 1707. The work with which Abercromby’s name is permanently associated is his already noticed Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation, issued in two noble folios, vol. i. 1711, vol. ii. 1716. In the titlepage and preface to vol. i. he disclaims the ambition of being an historian, but in vol. ii., in title-page and preface alike, he is no longer a simple biographer, but an historian. That Dr Abercromby did not use the word “genuine history” in his title-page without warrant is clear on every page of his large work. Granted that, read in the light of after researches, much of the first volume must necessarily be relegated to the region of the mythical, none the less was the historian a laborious and accomplished reader and investigator of all available authorities, as well manuscript as [9:1:38] printed; while the roll of names of those who aided him includes every man of note in Scotland at the time, from Sir Thomas Craig and Sir George Mackenzie to Mr Alexander Nisbet and Mr Thomas Ruddiman. The Martial Achievements has not been reprinted, though practically the first example of Scottish typography in any way noticeable, vol. ii. having been printed under the scholarly supervision of Thomas Ruddiman. The date of his death is uncertain. It has been variously assigned to 1715, 1716, 1720, and 1726, and it is usually added that he left a widow in great poverty. That he was living in 1716 is certain, as Crawford speaks of him (in his Peerage, 1716) as “my worthy friend.” Probably he died about 1716. Memoirs of the Abercrombys, commonly given to him, does not appear to have been published. (Chambers’s Eminent Scotsmen, s. v.; Anderson’s Scottish Nation, s. υ.; Chalmers’s Biog. Dict., s. v.; Chalmers’s Life of Ruddiman; Haller’s Bibliotheca Medicin ae Pract., 4 vols. 4to, 1779; Hutchinson’s Biog. Medical, 2 vols. 8vo, 1799; Lee’s Defoe, 3 vols. 8vo.) (a. b. g.)
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ABERCROMBY, Sir Ralph, K.B., Lieutenant-General in the British army, was the eldest son of George Abercromby of Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, and was born in October 1734. After passing some time at an excellent school at Alloa, he went to Rugby, and in 1752-53 he attended classes in Edinburgh University. In 1754 he was sent to Leipsic to study civil law, with a view to his proceding to the Scotch bar, of which it is worthy of notice that both his grandfather and his father lived to be the oldest members. On returning from the Continent he expressed a strong preference for the military profession, and a cornet’s commission was accordingly obtained for him (March 1756) in the 3d Dragoon Guards. He rose through the intermediate gradations to the rank of lieutenant-colonel of the regiment (1773), and in 1781 he became colonel of the 103d infantry. When that regiment was disbanded in 1783 he retired upon half-pay. That up to this time he had scarcely been engaged in active service, was owing mainly to his disapproval of the policy of the Government, and especially to his sympathies with the American colonists in their struggles for independence; and his retirement is no doubt to be ascribed to similar feelings. But on France declaring war against England in 1793, he hastened to resume his professional duties; and, being esteemed one of the ablest and most intrepid officers in the whole British forces, he was appointed to the command of a brigade under the Duke of York, for service in Holland. He commanded the advanced guard in the action on the heights of Cateau, and was wounded at Nimeguen. The duty fell to him of protecting the British army in its disastrous retreat out of Holland, in the winter of 1794-5. In 1795 he received the honour of knighthood, the Order of the Bath being conferred on him in acknowledgment of his services. The same year he was appointed to succeed Sir Charles Grey, as commander-in-chief of the British forces in the West Indies. In 1796, Grenada was suddenly attacked and taken by a detachment of the army under his orders. He afterwards obtained possession of the settlements of Demerara and Essequibo, in South America, and of the islands of St Lucia, St Vincent, and Trinidad. He returned in 1797 to Europe, and, in reward for his important services, was appointed to the command of the regiment of Scots Greys, intrusted with the governments of the Isle of Wight, Fort George, and Fort Augustus, and raised to the rank of lieutenant-general. He held, in 1797-8, the chief command of the forces in Ireland. There he laboured to maintain the discipline of the army, to suppress the rising rebellion, and to protect the people from military oppression, with a care worthy alike of a great general and an enlightened and beneficent statesman. When he was appointed to the command in Ireland, an invasion of that country by the French was confidently anticipated by the English Government. He used his utmost efforts to restore the discipline of an army that was utterly disorganised; and, as a first step, he anxiously endeavoured to protect the people, by re-establishing the supremacy of the civil power, and not allowing the military to be called out, except when it was indispensably necessary for the enforcement of the law and the maintenance of order. Finding that he received no adequate support from the head of the Irish Government, and that all his efforts were opposed and thwarted by those who presided in the councils of Ireland, he resigned the command. His departure from Ireland was deeply lamented by the reflecting portion of the people, and was speedily followed by those disastrous results which he had anticipated, and which he so ardently desired and had so wisely endeavoured to prevent. After holding for a short period the office of Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, Sir Ralph, when the enterprise against Holland was resolved upon in 1799, was again called to command under the Duke of York. The difficulties of the ground, the inclemency of the season, unavoidable delays, the disorderly movements of the Russians, and the timid duplicity of the Dutch, defeated the objects of that expedition. But it was confessed by the Dutch, the French, and the British alike, that even victory the most decisive could not have more conspicuously proved the talents of this distinguished officer. His country applauded the choice, when, in 1801, he was sent with an army to dispossess the French of Egypt. His experience in Holland and the West Indies particularly fitted him for this new command, as was proved by his carrying his army in health, in spirits, and with the requisite supplies, in spite of very great difficulties, to the destined scene of action. The debarkation of the troops at Aboukir, in the face of an opposing force, is justly ranked among the most daring and brilliant exploits of the English army. A battle in the neighbourhood of Alexandria (March 21, 1801) was the sequel of this successful landing, and it was Sir R. Abercromby's fate to fall in the moment of victory. He was struck by a spent ball, which could not be extracted, and died seven days after the' battle. The Duke of York paid a just tribute to the great soldier’s memory in the general order issued on the occasion of his death :—“His steady observance of discipline, his ever-watchful attention to the health and wants of his troops, the persevering and unconquerable spirit which marked his military career, the splendour of his actions in the field, and the heroism of his death, are worthy the imitation of all λvho desire, like him, a life of heroism and a death of glory.” By a vote of the House of Commons, a monument was erected in honour of Sir Ralph Abercromby in St Paul’s Cathedral. His widow was created a peeress, and a pension of £2000 a year was settled on her and her two successors in the title. It may be mentioned that Abercromby was returned, after a keen contest, as member of Parliament for his native county of Clackmannanshire in 1773; but a parliamentary life had no attractions for him, and he did not seek re-election. A memoir of the later years of his life (1793-1801), by his son, Lord Dunfermline, was published in 1861.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 38 [9:1:38]
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ABERDARE, a town of Wales, in the county of Glamorgan, on the right bank of the river Cynon, four miles S.W. of Merthyr-Tydvil. The district around is rich in valuable mineral products, and coal and iron mining are very extensively carried on in the neighbourhood. Important tin-works, too, have been recently opened. Part of the coal is used at the iron-works, and large quantities are sent to Cardiff for exportation. Aberdare[9:1:39] is connected with the coast by canal and railway. Owing to the great development of the coal and iron trade, it has rapidly increased from a mere village to a large and flourishing town. Handsome churches, banks, and hotels have been erected, a good supply of water has been introduced, and a public park has been opened. Two markets are held weekly. The whole parish falls within the parliamentary borough of Merthyr-Tydvil. The rapid growth of its population is seen by the following figures: in 1841 the number of inhabitants was 6471; in 1851, 14,999; in 1861, 32,299; and in 1871, 37,774.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 38 [9:1:38]
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ABERDEEN, a royal burgh and city, the chief part of a parliamentary burgh, the capital of the county of Aberdeen, the chief seaport in the north of Scotland, and the fourth Scottish town in population, industry, and wealth. It lies in lat. 57° 9' N. and long. 2° 6' W., on the German Ocean, near the mouth of the river Dee, and is 542 miles north of London, and 111 miles north of Edinburgh, by the shortest railway routes.
Aberdeen, probably the Devana on the Diva of Ptolemy, was an important place in the 12th century. William the Lion had a residence in the city, to which he gave a charter in 1179, confirming the corporate rights granted by David I. The city received many subsequent royal charters. It was burned by Edward III. in 1336, but it was soon rebuilt and extended, and called New Aberdeen. The houses were of timber and thatched, and many such existed till 1741. The burgh records are the oldest of any Scottish burgh. They begin in 1398, and are complete to the present time, with only a short break. Extracts from them, extending from 1398 to 1570, have been published by the Spalding Club. For many centuries the city was subject to attacks by the barons of the surrounding districts, and its avenues and six ports had to be guarded. The ports had all been removed by 1770. Several monasteries existed in Aberdeen before the Reformation. Most of the Scottish sovereigns visited the city and received gifts from the authorities. In 1497 a blockhouse was built at the harbour mouth as a protection against the English. During the religious struggle in the 17th century between the Royalists and Covenanters the city was plundered by both parties. In 1715 Earl Marischal proclaimed the Pretender at Aberdeen. In 1745 the Duke of Cumberland resided a short time in the city. In the middle of the 18th century boys were kidnapped in Aberdeen, and sent as slaves to America. In 1817 the city became insolvent, with a debt of £225,7 10, contracted by public improvements, but the debt was soon paid off. The motto on the city arms is Bon-Accord. It formed the watchword of the Aberdonians while aiding King Robert the Bruce in his battles with the English.
Of eminent men connected with Aberdeen, New and Old, may be mentioned—John Barbour, Hector Boece or Boethius, Bishop Elphinstone, the Earls Marischal; George Jamesone, the famous portrait painter; Edward Raban, the first printer in Aberdeen, 1622; Rev. Andrew Cant, the Covenanter; David Anderson (Davie do a’ thing), a mechanic; James Gregory, inventor of the reflecting telescope; Dr Thomas Reid, the metaphysician; Dr George Campbell, Principal of Marischal College, author of several important works, and best known by his Philosophy of Rhetoric; Dr James Beattie; Lord* Byron; Sir James Mackintosh; Robert Hall; Dr R. Hamilton, who wrote on the National Debt.
Till 1800 the city stood on a few eminences, and had steep, narrow, and crooked streets, but, since the Improvement Act of that year, the whole aspect of the place has been altered by the formation of two new spacious and nearly level streets (Union Street and King Street, meeting in Castle Street), and by the subsequent laying out of many others, besides squares, terraces, &c., on nearly flat ground. The city is above eight miles in circuit, and is built on sand, gravel, and boulder clay. The highest parts are from 90 to 170 feet above the sea. The chief thoroughfare is Union Street, nearly a mile long and 70 feet broad. It runs W.S.W. from Castle Street, and crosses the Den-burn, now the railway valley, by a noble granite arch 132 feet in span and 50 feet high, which cost, with a hidden arch on each side, £13,000.
Aberdeen is now a capacious, elegant, and well-built town, and from the material employed, consisting chiefly of light grey native granite, is called the “granite city.” It contains many fine public buildings. The principal of these is Marischal College or University Buildings, which stands on the site of a pre-Reformation Franciscan Convent, and was rebuilt, 1836-1841, at a cost of about £30,000. It forms three sides of a court, which is 117 by 105 feet, and has a back wing, and a tower 100 feet high. The accommodation consists of twenty-five large class-rooms and laboratories, a hall, library, museums, &c.
The University of Aberdeen was formed by the union and incorporation, in 1860, by Act of Parliament, of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, founded in Old Aberdeen, in 1494, by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, under the authority of a Papal bull obtained by James IV., and of the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, founded in New Aberdeen, in 1593, by George Keith, Earl Marischal, by a charter ratified by Act of Parliament. The officials consist of a chancellor, with rector and principal; there are 21 professors and 8 assistants. Arts and divinity are taught in King’s College, and medicine, natural history, and law in Marischal College. The arts session lasts from the end of October to the beginning of April. The arts curriculum of four years, with graduation, costs £36, 11s. There are 214 arts bursaries, 29 divinity, and 1 medical, of the aggregate annual value of £3646, £650, and £26, respectively. About 60 arts [9:1:40] bursaries, mostly from £10 to £35 in value, are given yearly by competition, or by presentation and examination. Two-thirds of the arts students are bursars. Seventeen annual scholarships and prizes of the yearly value of £758 are given at the end of the arts curriculum. The average yearly number of arts students, in the thirteen years since the union of the arts classes of the two colleges in 1860, has been 342, while in the separate colleges together for the nine years before the union, it was 431. In winter session 1872-73 there were 623 matriculated students in all the faculties. In 1872, 32 graduated in arts, 68 in medicine, 5 in divinity, and 1 in law. The library has above 80,000 volumes. The General Council in 1873 had 2075 registered members, who, with those σf Glasgow University, return one member to Parliament.
The Free Church Divinity College was built in 1850, at the cost of £2025, in the Tudor-Gothic style. It has a large hall, a library of 12,000 volumes, and 15 bursaries of the yearly value of from £10 to £25.
At the east end of Union Street, and partly in Castle Street, on the north side, are the new County and Municipal buildings, an imposing Franco-Scottish Gothic pile, 225 feet long, 109 feet broad, and 64 feet high, of four stories, built 1867-1873 at the cost of £80,000, including £25,000 for the site. Its chief feature is a tower 200 feet high. It contains a great hall, 74 feet long, 35 feet broad, and 50 feet high, with an open timber ceiling: a Justiciary Court-House, 50 feet long, 37 feet broad, and 31 feet high; a Town Hall, 41 feet long, 25 feet broad, and 15 feet high, and a main entrance corridor 60 feet long, 16 feet broad, and 24 feet high. A little to the west is the Town and County Bank, a highly ornamented building inside and outside, in the Italian style, costing about £24,000.
A very complete closed public market of two floors was built in 1842, at a cost of £28,000, by a company incorporated by Act of Parliament. The upper floor or great hall is 315 feet long, 106 feet broad, and 45 feet high, with galleries all round. The lower floor is not so high. The floors contain numerous small shops for the sale of meat, fowls, fish, &c., besides stalls and seats for the sale of vegetables, butter, eggs, &c. The galleries contain small shops for the sale of drapery, hardware, fancy goods, and books. On the upper floor is a fountain of polished Peterhead granite, costing £200, with a basin 7¼ feet diameter, cut out of one block of stone. Connected with this undertaking was the laying out of Market Street from Union Street to the quay. At the foot of this street is being built in the Italian style the new post and telegraph office, at a cost of £16,000, including £4000, the cost of the site. It is to form a block of about 100 feet square and 40 feet high.
Aberdeen has about 60 places of worship, with nearly 48,000 sittings. There are 10 Established churches; 20 Free, 6 Episcopalian, 6 United Presbyterian, 5 Congregational, 2 Baptist, 2 Methodist, 2 Evangelical Union, 1 Unitarian, 1 of Roman Catholic, 1 of Friends, and 1 of Original Seceders. There are also several mission chapels. In 1843 all the Established ministers seceded, with 10,000 lay members. The Established and Free Church denominations have each about 11,000 members in communion. The Established West and East churches, in the centre of the city, within St Nicholas churchyard, form a continuous building 220 feet long, including an intervening aisle, over which is a tower and spire 140 feet high. The West was built in 1775 in the Italian style, and the East in 1834 in the Gothic, each costing about £5000. They occupy the site of the original cruciform church of St Nicholas, erected in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. One of the nine bells in the tower bears the date of 1352. and is 4 feet diameter at the mouth, 3½ feet high, and very thick. The Union Street front of the churchyard is occupied by a very elegant granite façade, built in 1830, at the cost of £1460. It is 147½ feet long, with a central arched gateway and entablature 32 ½ feet high, with two attached Ionic columns on each side. Each of the two wings has six Ionic columns (of single granite blocks, 15 feet 2 inches long), with basement and entablature, the whole being 23½feet high. The following are the style, cost, and date of erection of the other principal Aberdeen churches—St Andrew’s, Episcopal, Gothic, £6000, 1817; North Church, Established, Greek, £10,000, 1831; three churches in a cruciform group, Free, simple Lancet Gothic, with a fine brick spire 174 feet high, £5000, 1844; Roman Catholic, Gothic, £12,000, 1859; Free West, Gothic, £12,856, 1869, with a spire 175 feet high.
In 1873 there were in Aberdeen about 110 schools, with from 10,000 to 11,000 pupils in attendance. About 2500 students attend the University, Mechanics’ Institution, and private schools for special branches.
Five miles south-west of Aberdeen, on the south side of the Dee, in Kincardineshire, is St Mary’s Roman Catholic College of Blairs, with a president and three professors.
The Aberdeen Grammar School, dating from about 1263, is a preparatory school for the university. It has a rector and four regular masters, who teach classics, English, arithmetic, and mathematics, for the annual fee of £4, 10s. for each pupil. Writing, drawing, &c., are also taught. Nearly 200 pupils attend, who enter about the age of twelve. Like the Edinburgh High School, it has no elementary department. There are 30 bursaries. A new granite building for the school was erected, 1861-1863, in the Scotch baronial style, at the cost of £16,000, including site. It is 215 feet long and 60 feet high, and has three towers.
The Mechanics’ Institution, founded 1824, and reorganised 1834, has a hall, class-rooms, and a library of 14,000 volumes, in a building erected in 1846, at a cost of £3500. During the year 1872—73, there were at the School of Science and Art 385 pupils; and at other evening classes, 538.
Aberdeen has two native banks, besides branch banks, and a National Security Savings Bank; three insurance companies, four shipping companies, three railway companies, and a good many miscellaneous companies. There are ten licensed pawnbroking establishments, with about 440,000 pledges in the year for £96,000, and with a capital of £27,000. There are seven incorporated trades, originating between 1398 and 1527, and having charitable funds for decayed members, widows, and orphans. They have a hall, built in 1847 for £8300, in the Tudor Gothic style. The hall, 60 feet long, 29 wide, and 42 high, contains curious old chairs, and curious inscriptions on the shields of the crafts.
Among the charitable institutions is Gordon’s Hospital, founded in 1729 by a miser, Robert Gordon, a Dantzic merchant, of the Straloch family, and farther endowed by Alexander Simpson of Collyhill in 1816. It is managed by the Town Council and four of the Established ministers of Aberdeen, incorporated by royal charters of 1772 and 1792. The central part of the house was built in 1739, and the wings in 1830-1834, the whole costing £17,300, and being within a garden of above four acres. It now (1873) maintains and educates (in English, writing, arithmetic, physics, mathematics, drawing, music, French, &c.) 180 boys of the age 9 to 15, the sons and grandsons of decayed burgesses of guild and trade of the city; and next those of decayed inhabitants (not paupers). Expenditure for year to 31st October 1872, £4353 for 164 boys. It has a head-master, three regular, and several visiting [9:1:41] masters. The Boys’ and Girls’ Hospital, lately built for £10,000, maintains and educates 50 boys and 50 girls.
The Female Orphan Asylum, founded by Mrs Elmslie, in 1840, and managed by trustees, maintains and educates, chiefly as domestic servants, 46 girls between the ages of 4 and 16, at the yearly cost for each of about £23, 13s. Those admitted must be legitimate orphan daughters of respectable parents, who have lived three years immediately before death in Aberdeen or in the adjoining parishes of Old Machar and Nigg. The Hospital for Orphan and Female Destitute Children, endowed by John Carnegie and the trustees of the Murtle Fund, maintains and educates 50 girls, chiefly for domestic service. The Asylum for the Blind, established in 1843, on a foundation by Miss Cruickshank, maintains and educates about 10 blind children, and gives industrial employment to blind adults. There is a boys’ and girls’ school for 150 boys and 150 girls on Dr Bell’s foundation. The Industrial Schools, begun by Sheriff Watson in 1841, and the Reformatory Schools, begun in 1857, having some 600 pupils on the roll, have greatly diminished juvenile crime in the district. The Murtle or John Gordon’s Charitable Fund, founded in 1815, has an annual revenue from land of about £2400, applicable to all kinds of charity, in sums from £5 to £300. The Midbeltie Fund, founded by a bequest of £20,000, in 1848, by James Allan of Midbeltie, gives yearly pensions ranging from £5 to £15 to respectable decayed widows in the parishes of St Nicholas and Old Machar.
The two parishes in which Aberdeen is situated, viz., St Nicholas and Old Machar, have each a large poor-house. The poor of both parishes cost about £20,000 a year.
The Royal Infirmary, instituted in 1740, was rebuilt 1833-1840, in the Grecian style, at the cost of £17,000. It is a well-situated, large, commodious, and imposing building. It has three stories, the front being 166 feet long and 50 feet high, with a dome. A detached feverhouse was built in 1872 for about £2500. The managers were incorporated by royal charter in 1773, and much increased in number in 1852. The institution is supported by land rents, feu-duties, legacies, donations, subscriptions, church collections, &c. Each bed has on an average 1200 cubic feet of space. There are on the average 130 resident patients, costing each on the average a shilling daily, and the number of patients treated may be stated at 1700 annually, besides outdoor patients receiving advice and medicine. The recent annual expenditure has been about £4300. There is a staff of a dozen medical officers.
The Royal Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1800, consists of two separate houses, valued in 1870 at £40,000, in an enclosure of 40 acres. It is under the same management as the Infirmary. The recent daily average of patients has been about 420, at an annual cost of £13,000. The annual rate for each pauper is £25, 10s. The General Dispensary, Vaccine, and Lying-in Institution, founded in 1823, has had as many as 6781 cases in one year. The Hospital for Incurables has a daily average of 26 patients, and the Ophthalmic and Auric Institution has had 671 cases in a year.
The Music Hall, built in 1821 and 1859 at the cost of £16,500, has a front 90 feet long, with a portico of 6 Ionic pillars 30 feet high; large, highly-decorated lobbies and looms; and a hall 150 feet long, 68 broad, and 50 high, with a flat ceiling, and galleries. The hall holds 2000 persons seated, and has a fine organ and an orchestra for 300. Here H.R.H. Prince Albert opened the British Association, as president, 14th September 1859. A new Theatre and Opera House was built in 1872, in the mixed Gothic style, for £8400, with the stage 52½ feet by 29, and the auditorium for 1700 to 1800 persons. The front wall is of bluish granite and red and yellow freestone, with some polished Peterhead granite pillars, the rest being built of concrete.
In Castle Street, the City Place and Old Market Stance, is the Market Cross, a beautiful, open-arched, hexagonal structure of freestone, 21 feet diameter, and 18 feet high. It has Ionic columns and pilasters, and an entablature of twelve panels. On ten of the panels are medallions, cut in stone, in high relief, of the Scottish sovereigns from James I. to James VII. From the centre rises a composite column 12½ feet high, with a Corinthian capital, on which is the royal unicorn rampant. This cross was planned and erected about 1682 by John Montgomery, a native architect, for £100 sterling. On the north side of the same street, adjoining the municipal buildings, is the North of Scotland Bank, a Grecian building in granite, with a portico of Corinthian columns, having most elaborately carved capitals. On an eminence east of Castle Street are the military barracks for 600 men, built in 1796 for £16,000.
The principal statues in the city are those of the last Duke of Gordon—died 1836—in grey granite, 10 feet high; Queen Victoria, in white Sicilian marble, 8½ feet high; Prince Albert, bronze, natural-size, sitting posture; and a curious rough stone figure, of unknown date, supposed to be Sir William Wallace.
The Dee to the south of the city is crossed by three bridges, the old bridge of Dee, an iron suspension bridge, and the Caledonian Railway bridge. The first, till 1832 the only access to the city from the south, consists of seven semicircular ribbed arches, is about 30 feet high, and was built early in the 16th century by Bishops Elphinstone and Dunbar. It was nearly all rebuilt 1718-1723, and from being 14½ feet wide, it was in 1842 made 26 feet wide. From Castle Street, King Street leads in the direction of the new bridge of Don (a little east of the old “Brig o’ Balgownie”), of five granite arches, each 75 feet span, built for nearly £13,000 in 1827-1832.
A defective harbour, and a shallow sand and gravel bar at its entrance, long retarded the trade of Aberdeen, but, under various Acts since 1773, they have been greatly deepened. The north pier, built partly by Smeaton, 1775-1781, and partly by Telford, 1810-1815, extends 2000 feet into the German Ocean. It is 30 feet broad, and, with the parapet, rises 15 feet above high water. It consists of large granite blocks. It has increased the depth of water on the bar from a few feet to 22 or 24 feet at spring tides, and to 17 or 18 feet at neap. The wet dock, of 29 acres, and with 6000 feet of quay, was completed in 1848, and called Victoria Dock, in honour of Her Majesty’s visit to the city in that year. These and other improvements of the harbour and its entrance cost £325,000 down to 1848. By the Harbour Act of 1868, the Dee near the harbour has been diverted to the south, at the cost of £80,000, and 90 acres of new ground (in addition to 25 acres formerly made up) for harbour works are being made up on the city or north side of the river; £80,000 has been laid out in forming in the sea, at the south side of the river, a new breakwater of concrete, 1050 feet long, against south and south-east storms. The navigation channel is being widened and deepened, and the old pier or breakwater on the north side of the river mouth is to be lengthened at least 500 feet seaward. A body of 31 commissioners manage the harbour affairs.
Aberdeen Bay affords safe anchorage with off-shore winds, but not with those from the N.E., E., and S.E. On the Girdleness, the south point of the bay, a lighthouse was built in 1833, in lat. 57° 8' N., and long. 2° 3' W., with two fixed lights, one vertically below the other, and respectively 115 and 185 feet above mean tide. There are also fixed leading lights to direct ships entering the harbour [9:1:42] at night. In fogs, a steam whistle near the lighthouse is sounded ten seconds every minute. Near the harbour mouth are three batteries mounting nineteen guns.
The water supplied to the city contains only 3½ grains solid matter in a gallon, with a hardness of about 2 degrees. It is brought by gravitation, in a close brick culvert, from the Dee, 21 miles W.S.W. of the city, to a reservoir, which supplies nine-tenths of the city. The other tenth, or higher part of the city, is supplied by a separate reservoir, to which part of the water from the culvert is forced up by a hydraulic engine. Nearly 40 gallons water per head of the population are consumed daily for all purposes. The new water works cost £160,000, and were opened by Her Majesty, 16th October 1866.
The gas is made of cannel coal, and is sent through 71 miles of main pipes, which extend 5 miles from the works.
The manufactures, arts, and trade of Aberdeen aud vicinity are large and flourishing. Woollens were made as early as 1703, and knitting of stockings was a great industry in the 18th century. There are two large firms in the woollen trade, with 1550 hands, at £1000 weekly wages, and making above 1560 tons wool in the year into yarns, carpets, hand-knit hosiery, cloths, and tweeds. The linen trade, much carried on since 1749, is now confined to one firm, with 2600 hands, at £1200 wages weekly, who spin, weave, and bleach 50 tons flax and 60 tons tow weekly, and produce yarns, floorcloths, sheetings, dowlas, ducks, towels, sail-canvas, &c. The cotton manufacture, introduced in 1779, employs only one firm, with 550 hands, at £220 weekly wages, who spin 5000 bales of cotton a-year into mule yarn. The wincey trade, begun in 1839, employs 400 hands, at £200 weekly wages, who make 2,100,000 yards cloth, 27 to 36 inches broad, in the year. Paper, first made here in 1696, is now manufactured by three firms in the vicinity. The largest has 2000 hands, at £1250 weekly wages, and makes weekly 75 to 80 tons of writing paper, and 6½ millions of envelopes, besides much cardboard and stamped paper; another firm makes weekly 77 tons coarse and card paper; and a third, 20 tons printing and other paper. The comb works of Messrs Stewart & Co., begun in 1827, are the largest in the world, employing 900 hands, at £500 weekly wages, who yearly convert 1100 tons horns, hoofs, india-rubber, and tortoiseshells into 11 millions of combs, besides spoons, cups, scoops, paper-knives, &c. Seven iron foundries and many engineering works employ 1000 men, at £925 weekly wages, and convert 6000 tons of iron a-year into marine and land steam engines and boilers, corn mills, wood-preparing machinery, machinery to grind and prepare artificial manures, besides sugar mills and frames and coffee machinery for the colonies.
The Sandilands Chemical Works, begun in 1848, cover five acres, and employ over 100 men and boys, at £90 to £100 weekly wages. Here are prepared naphtha, benzole, creosote oil, pitch, asphalt, sulphate of ammonia, sulphuric acid, and artificial manures. Paraffin wax and ozokerite are refined. An Artesian well within the works, 421 feet deep, gives a constant supply of good water, always at 51° Fahr. Of several provision-curing works, the largest employs 300 hands, chiefly females, in preserving meats, soups, sauces, jams, jellies, pickles, &c., and has in connection with it, near the city, above 230 acres of fruit, vegetable, and farm ground, and a large piggery. The producte of the breweries and distilleries are mostly comsumed at home. A large agricultural implement work employs 70 or 80 men and boys. Nearly 200 acres of ground, within three miles of the city, are laid out in rearing shrub and forest-tree seedlings. In 1872 about 145 acres of strawberries were reared within three miles of Aberdeen, and 80 tone of this fruit are said to have been exported.
Very durable grey granite lias been quarried near Aberdeen for 300 years, and blocked and dressed paving, kerb, and building granite stones have long been exported from the district. In 1764, Aberdeen granite pavement was first used in London. About the year 1795, large granite blocks were sent for the Portsmouth docks. The chief stones of the New Thames Embankment, London, are from Kemnay granite quarries, 16 miles north-west of the city. Aberdeen is almost entirely built of granite, and large quantities of the stone are exported to build bridges, wharfs, docks, lighthouses, &c., elsewhere. Aberdeen is famed for its polishing-works of granite, especially grey and red. They employ about 1500 hands in polishing vases, tables, chimney-pieces, fountains, monuments, columns, &c., for British and foreign demand. Mr Alexander Macdonald, in 1818, was the first to begin the granite polishing trade, and the works of the same firm, the only ones of the kind till about 1850, are still the largest in the kingdom.
In 1820, 15 vessels from Aberdeen were engaged in the northern whale and seal fishing; in 1860, one vessel, but none since. The white fishing at Aberdeen employs some 40 boats, each with a crew of 5 men. Of the 900 tons wet fish estimated to be brought to market yearly, above a third arc sent fresh by rail to England. The salmon caught in the Dee, Don, and sea are nearly all sent to London fresh in ice. The herring fishing has been prosecuted since 1836, and from 200 to 350 boats are engaged in it.
Aberdeen has been famed for shipbuilding, especially for its fast clippers. Since 1855 nearly a score of vessels have been built of above 1000 tons each. The largest vessel (a sailing one) ever built here was one in 1855, of 2400 tons. In 1872 there were built 11 iron vessels of 9450 tons, and 6 wooden of 2980 tons, consuming 5900 tons iron, and costing £252,700, including £70,700 for engines and other machinery. 1400 hands were employed in shipbuilding in that year, at the weekly wages of about £1230.
In 1872, there belonged to the port of Aberdeen 236 vessels, of 101,188 tons, twenty-four of the vessels, of 7483 tons, being steamers. They trade with most British and Irish ports, the Baltic and Mediterranean ports, and many more distant regions. In 1872, 434,108 tons shipping arrived at the port, and the custom duties were £112,414. The export trade, exclusive of coasting, is insignificant. The shore or harbour dues were £126 in 1765, and £1300 in 1800. In the year ending 30th September 1872, they were £25,520; while the ordinary harbour revenue was £37,765, expenditure £28,598, and debt £324,614. The introduction of steamers in 1821 greatly promoted industry and traffic, and especially the cattle trade of Aberdeenshire with London. These benefits have been much increased by the extension of railways. Commodious steamers ply regularly between Aberdeen and London, Hull, Newcastle, Leith, Wick, Kirkwall, and Lerwick.
The joint railway station for the Caledonian, Great North of Scotland, and Deeside lines, was opened 1867, and is a very handsome erection, costing about £26,000. It is 500 feet long, and 102 feet broad, with the side walls 32 feet high. The arched roof of curved lattice-iron ribs, covered with slate, zinc, and glass, is all in one span, rising 72 feet high, and is very light and airy.
The Medico-Chirurgical Society of Aberdeen was founded in 1789. The hall was built in 1820 at a cost of £4000, and is adorned with an Ionic portico of four granite columns, 27 feet high. It has 42 members, and a library of 5000 volumes. The legal practitioners of Aberdeen have been styled advocates since 1633, and received royal charters in 1774, 1779, and 1862. They form a society, called the Society of Advocates, of 127 members in 1873, with a [9:1:43] hall built in 1871 for £5075, a library of nearly 6000 volumes, and a fund to support decayed and indigent members, and their nearest relatives. The revenue in 1872 was £2880.
Aberdeen has one daily and three weekly newspapers. The. Aberdeen Journal, established in 1748, is the oldest newspaper north of the Forth.
The places of out-door recreation and amusement are chiefly the following:—The Links, a grassy, benty, and sandy tract, 2 miles long and ¼ to ⅓ mile broad, along the shore between the mouths of the Dee and the Don. It is mostly only a few feet above the sea, but the Broad Hill rises to 94 feet. Cattle shows, reviews, &c., are held on the Links. To the north-west of the town, a Public Recreation Park of 13 acres was laid out in 1872, at the cost of £3000, with walks, grass, trees, shrubs, and flowers.
Daily observations from 1857 to 1872 show the mean temperature of Aberdeen for the year to be 45° ∙8 Fahr., for the three summer months 56° Fahr., and for the three winter months 37° ∙3. The average yearly rainfall is 30∙57 inches. Aberdeen is the healthiest of the large Scottish towns.· East winds prevail in spring.
Since 1867 £50,000 has been spent in constructing main sewers throughout the city. A few acres of farm land have been irrigated by part of the sewage.
The city is governed by a corporation, the magistrates and town council, consisting of twenty-five councillors, including a provost, six bailies, a dean of guild, a treasurer, &c. The corporation revenue in the year 1871-72 was £11,498. The police, water, and gas are managed by the council. The municipal and police burgh has an area of nearly three square miles, with 12,514 municipal electors, and with assessable property valued at £230,000 in 1873. The Parliamentary burgh has an area of nine square miles, including Old Aberdeen and Woodside, with 14,253 Parliamentary electors, and real property to the value of £309,328 in 1873. It returns one member to Parliament. The population of Aberdeen in 1396 was about 3000; in 1643, 8750; in 1708, 5556; in 1801, 26,992; in 1841, 63,262; and in 1871, 88,125; with 6718 inhabited houses, 292 uninhabited, and 77 building.
Aberdeen, Old, is a small, quiet, ancient town, a burgh of barony and regality, a mile north of Aberdeen, and as far south-west of the mouth of the Don. It mostly forms one long street, 45 to 80 feet above the sea. The Don, to the north of the town, runs through a narrow, wooded, rocky ravine, and is spanned by a single Gothic arch, the “Brig o’ Balgownie” of Lord Byron. The bridge rests on gneiss, and is 67 feet wide and 34½ feet high above the surface of the river, which at ebb tide is here 19 feet deep. The bridge is the oldest in the north of Scotland, and is said to have been built about 1305. The funds belonging to the bridge amount to £24,000.
The town was formerly the see of a bishop, and had a large cathedral dedicated to St Machar. In 1137 David I. translated to Old Aberdeen the bishopric, founded at Mortlach in Banffshire in 1004 by Malcolm II. in memory of his signal victory there over the Danes. In 1153 Malcolm IV. gave the bishop a new charter.
The cathedral of St Machar, begun about 1357, occupied nearly 170 years in building, and did not remain entire fifty years. What is still left is the oldest part, viz., the nave and side aisles, 126 feet long and 62½ feet broad, now used as the parish church. It is chiefly built of outlayer granite stones, and while the plainest Scottish cathedral, is the only one of granite in the kingdom. On the flat pannelled ceiling of the nave are 48 heraldic shields of the princes, nobles, and bishops who aided in its erection. It has been lately repaired, and some painted windows inserted, at the cost of £4280.
The chief structure in Old Aberdeen is the stately fabric of King’s College near the middle cf the town. It forms a quadrangle, with interior court 108 feet square, two sides of which have been rebuilt, and a projecting wing for a library added since 1860. The oldest parts, the Crown Tower and Chapel, date from about 1500. The former is 30 feet square and 60 feet high, and is surmounted by a structure about 40 feet high, consisting of a six-sided lantern and a royal crown, both sculptured, and resting on the intersections of two arched ornamented slips rising from the four corners of the top of the tower. The chapel, 120 feet long, 28 feet broad, and 37 feet high, still retains in the choir the original oak canopied stalls, miserere seat, and lofty open screen. These fittings are 300 years old, in the French flamboyant style, and are unsurpassed, in tasteful design and delicate execution, by the oak carving of any other old church in Europe. This carved woodwork owes its preservation to the Principal of Reformation times, who armed his people, and protected it from the fury of the barons of the Mearns after they had robbed the cathedral of its bells and lead. The chapel is still used for public worship during the University session.
Connected with Old Aberdeen is a brewery in the town, and a brick and coarse pottery work in the vicinity. There are also a Free church, two secondary schools, and two primary schools. Old Aberdeen has its own municipal officers, consisting of a provost, 4 bailies, and 13 councillors. The town is drained, lighted, supplied with water, and is within the Parliamentary boundary of New Aberdeen. There are several charitable institutions. Population in 1871, 1857; inhabited houses, 233. (a. c.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 39 [9:1:39]
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ABERDEENSHIRE, a maritime county in the northeast of Scotland, between 56° 52' and 57° 42' N. lat. and between 1° 49' and 3° 48' long. W. of Greenwich. It is bounded on the north and east by the German Ocean; on the south by the counties of Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth; and on the west by those of Inverness and Banff. Its greatest length is 102 miles, and breadth 50 miles. Its circuit with sinuosities is about 300 miles, 60 being seacoast. It is the fifth of Scotch counties in size, and is one-sixteenth of the extent of Scotland. Its area is 1970 square miles, or 1,260,625 acres, of which, in 1872, 366 per cent., or 585,299 acres, were cultivated, 93,339 in woods (mostly Scotch fir and larch), and 6400 in lakes. It contains 85 civil parishes and parts of 6 others, or 101 parishes, including civil and quoad sacra. The county is generally hilly, and mountainous in the south-west, whence, near the centre of Scotland, the Grampians send out various branches, mostly to the north-east, through the county. The run of the rivers and the general slope of the county is to the north-east and cast. It is popularly divided into five districts:—First, Mar, mostly between the Dee and Don, and forming nearly the south half of the county. It is mountainous, especially Braemar, its west and Highland part, which contains the greatest mass of elevated land in the British Isles. Here the Dee rises amid the grandeur and wildness of lofty mountains, much visited by tourists, and composed chiefly of granite and gneiss, forming many high precipices, and showing patches of snow throughout every summer. Here rises Ben Muichdhui, the second highest mountain in Scotland and in the British Isles, 4296 feet; Braeriach, 4225; Cairntoul, 4245; Cairngorm (famed for “Cairngorm stones,” a peculiar kind of rock crystal), 4090; Ben-a-Buird, 3860; Ben Avon, 3826; and Byron’s “dark Lochnagar,” 3786. The soil on the Dee is sandy, and on the Don loamy. The city of Aberdeen is in Mar. Second, Formartin, between the lower Don and Ythan, with a sandy coast, succeeded by a clayey, fertile, tilled tract, and then by low hills, moors, mosses, and tilled land. Third, Buchan, north of the Ythan, and next in size to [9:1:44] Mar, with parts of the coast bold and rocky, and with the interior bare, low, flat, undulating, and in parts peaty. On the coast, six miles south of Peterhead, are the Bullers of Buchan,—a basin in which the sea, entering by a natural arch, boils up violently in stormy weather. Buchan Ness is the eastmost point of Scotland. Fourth, Garioch, a beautiful, undulating, loamy, fertile valley, formerly called the granary of Aberdeen, with the prominent hill Benachie, 1676 feet, on the south. Fifth, Strathbogie, mostly consisting of hills (The Buck, 2211 feet; Noath, 1830 feet), moors, and mosses. The county as a whole, except the low grounds of Buchan, and the Highlands of Braemar, consists mainly of nearly level or undulating tracts, often naked and infertile, but interspersed with many rich and highly cultivated spots.
The chief rivers are the Dee, 96 miles long; Don, 78; Ythan, 37, with mussel beds at its mouth; Ugie, 20; and Deveron, 58, partly on the boundary of Banffshire. The pearl mussel occurs in the Ythan and Don. A valuable pearl in the Scottish crown is said to be from the Ythan. Loch Muick, the largest of the few lakes in the county, 1310 feet above the sea, is only 2½ miles long and ⅓ to ½ mile broad. The rivers have plenty of salmon and trout. There are noted chalybeate springs at Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and Pananich near Ballater.
The climate of Aberdeenshire, except in the mountainous districts, is comparatively mild, from the sea being on two sides. The mean annual temperature at Braemar is 43° ∙6 Fahr., and at Aberdeen 45° ∙8. The mean yearly rainfall varies from about 30 to 37 inches. The summer climate of the Upper Dee and Don valleys is the driest and most bracing in the British Isles, and grain is cultivated up to 1600 feet above the sea, or 400 to 500 feet higher than elsewhere in North Britain. All the crops cultivated in Scotland ripen, and the people often live to a great age.
The rocks are mostly granite, gneiss, with small tracts of syenite, mica slate, quartz rock, clay slate, grauwacke, primary limestone, old red sandstone, serpentine, and trap. Lias, greensand, and chalk flints occur. The rocks are much covered with boulder clay, gravel, sand, and alluvium. Brick clay occurs near the coast. The surface of the granite under the boulder clay often presents glacial smoothings, grooves, and roundings. Cairngorm stone, beryl, and amethyst are found in the granite of Braemar.
The tops of the highest mountains have an arctic flora. At Her Majesty’s Lodge, Loch Muick, 1350 feet above the sea, grow larches, vegetables, currants, laurels, roses, Ac. Some ash trees, 4 or 5 feet in girth, are growing at 1300 feet above the sea. The mole occurs at 1800 feet above the sea, and the squirrel at 1400. Trees, especially Scotch fir and larch, grow well in the county, and Braemar abounds in natural timber, said to surpass any in the north of Europe. Stumps of Scotch fir and oak found in peat in the county are often far larger than any now growing. Grouse, partridges, and hares abound in the county, and rabbits are often too numerous. Red deer abound in Braemar, the deer forest being there valued at £5000 a year, and estimated at 500,000 acres, or one-fourth the area of deer forests in Scotland.
Poor, gravelly, clayey, and peaty soils prevail much more in Aberdeenshire than good rich loams, but tile draining, bones, and guano, and the best modes of modern tillage, have greatly increased the produce. Farm-houses and steadings have greatly improved, and the best agricultural implements and machines are in general use. About two-thirds of the population depend entirely on agriculture, and oatmeal in various forms, with milk, is the chief food of farm-servants. Farms are generally small, compared with those in the south-east counties. The fields are separated by dry-stone dykes, and also by wooden and wire fences. Leases of 19 or 21 years prevail, and the five, six, or seven shift rotation is in general use. In 1872 there were 11,642 occupiers of land, with an average of 50 acres each, and paying about £536,000 in rent. Of the 585,299 acres of the county in crop in 1872, 191,880 acres were in oats, 18,930 in barley and here, 1633 in rye, 1357 in wheat, 95,091 in turnips (being one-fifth of the turnips grown in Scotland), 8414 in potatoes, 232,178 in grasses and clover. In 1872 the county had 23,117 horses, 157,960 cattle (being above one-seventh of all the cattle in Scotland), 128,308 sheep, and 13,579 pigs. The county is unsurpassed in breeding, and unrivalled in feeding cattle, and this is more attended to than the cultivation of grain-crops. About 40,000 fat cattle are reared, and above £1,000,000 value of cattle and dead meat is sent from the county to London yearly. The capital invested in agriculture within the county is estimated at about £5,133,000.
The great mineral wealth in Aberdeenshire is its long-famed durable granite, which is largely quarried for building, paving, causewaying, and polishing. An acre of land on being reclaimed has yielded £40 to £50 worth of causewaying stones. Gneiss is also quarried, as also primary limestone, old red sandstone, conglomerate millstone, grauwacke, clay slate, syenite, and hornblende rock. Iron ore, manganese, and plumbago occur in the county.
A large fishing population in villages along the coast engage in the white and herring fishery. Haddocks are salted and rock-dried (speldings), or smoked (finnans). The rivers and coasts yield many salmon. Peterhead was long the chief British port for the north whale and seal fishery, but Dundee now vies with it in this industry.
The manufactures and arts of the county are mainly prosecuted in or near the town of Aberdeen, but throughout the rural districts there are much milling of corn, brick and tile making, stone-quarrying, smith-work, brewing and distilling, cart and farm implement making, casting and drying of peat, timber felling, especially on Deeside and Donside, for pit-props, railway sleepers, lath, barrel staves, &c. The chief imports into the county are, coals, lime, timber, iron, slates, raw materials of textile manufactures, wheat, cattle-feeding stuffs, bones, guano, sugar, alcoholic liquors, fruits, &c. The chief exports are granite (rough, dressed, and polished), flax, woollen, and cotton goods, paper, combs, preserved provisions, oats, barley, live and dead cattle, Ac. In the county there are about 520 fairs in the year for cattle, horses, sheep, hiring servants, Ac.
Aberdeenshire communicates with the south by the Caledonian Railway, and five macadamised roads across the east Grampians, the highest rising 2200 feet above the sea. About 188 miles of railway (the Great North of Scotland, Formartin and Buchan, and Deeside lines), and 2359 miles of public roads, ramify through the county. Tolls over the county were abolished in 1865, and the roads are kept up by assessment. The railway lines in the county have cost on the average about £13,500 a mile. Several macadamised roads and the Great North of Scotland Railway form the main exits from the county to the north-west.
The chief antiquities in Aberdeenshire are Picts’ houses or weems; stone foundations of circular dwellings; monoliths, some being sculptured; the so-called Druid circles; stone cists; stone and earthen enclosures; the vitrified forts of Dunnideer and Noath; cairns; crannoges; earthen mounds, as the Bass; flint arrow-heads; clay funeral urns; stone celts and hammers. Remains of Roman camps occur at Peterculter, Kintore, and Auchterless, respectively 107½, 100, and 115 acres. Roman arms have been found. Ruins of ancient edifices occur. On the top of a conical hill called Dunnideer. in the Garioch district, are the remains of a [9:1:45] castle, supposed to be 700 years old, and surrounded by a vitrified wall, which must be still older. The foundations of two buildings still remain, the one in Braemar, and the other in the Loch of Cannor (the latter with the remains of a wooden bridge between it and the land), which are supposed to have belonged to Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland. The most extensive ruins are the grand ones of Kildrummy Castle, evidently once a princely seat, and still covering nearly an acre of ground. It belonged to David Earl of Huntingdon in 1150, and was the seat of the Earls of Marr attainted in 1716. The Abbey of Deer, now in ruins, was begun by Cumyn Earl of Buchan about 1219.
In Roman times, Aberdeenshire formed part of Ves-pasiana in Caledonia, and was occupied by the Taixali, a warlike tribe. The local names are mostly Gaelic. St Columba and his pupil Drostan visited Buchan in the 6th century. In 1052 Macbeth fell near the Peel Bog in Lumphanan, and a cairn which marks the spot is still shown. In 1309 Bruce defeated Cornyn, Earl of Buchan, near Inverurie, and annihilated a powerful Norman family. In 1411 the Earl of Marr defeated Donald of the Isles in the battle of Harlaw, near Inverurie, when Sir Robert Davidson, Provost of Aberdeen, was killed. In 1562 occurred the battle of Corrichie on the Hill of Fare, when the Earl of Murray defeated the Marquis of Huntly. In 1715 the Earl of Marr proclaimed the Pretender in Braemar. In 1746 the Duke of Cumberland with his army marched through Aberdeenshire to Culloden. In 1817 a base line of verification, 5 miles 100 feet long, was measured in connection with the Trigonometrical Survey of the British Isles, on the Belhelvie Links 5 to 10 miles north of Aberdeen.
Among eminent men connected with Aberdeenshire are, Robert Gordon of Straloch, who in 1648 published the first atlas of Scotland from actual survey; the Earls Marischal, whose chief seat was Inverugie Castle; Field-Marshal Keith, born at Inverugie Castle, 1696; Dr Thomas Reid, the metaphysician, minister of New Machar 1737 to 1752; Lord Pitsligo, attainted 1745; Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, who introduced turnips into the county 1756, and was the first to plant wood on a great scale; Peter Garden, Auchterless, said to have died at the age of 132, about 1780; Rev. John Skinner, author of some popular Scottish songs; Morrison the hygeist; the Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister during the Crimean war.
The native Scotch population of Aberdeenshire are longheaded, shrewd, careful, canny, active, persistent, but reserved and blunt, and without demonstrative enthusiasm. They have a physiognomy distinct from the rest of the Scottish people, and have a quick, sharp, rather angry accent. The local Scotch dialect is broad, and rich in diminutives, and is noted for the use of e for o or u, f for uh , d for th, &c. In 1830 Gaelic was the fireside language almost every family in Braemar, but now it is little used.
Aberdeenshire has a Lord-Lieutenant and 3 Vice and 60 Deputy-Lieutenants. The Supreme Court of Justiciary sits in Aberdeen twice a-year to try cases from the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Kincardine. The counties of Aberdeen and Kincardine are under a Sheriff and two Sheriffs-Substitute. The Sheriff Courts are held in Aberdeen and Peterhead. Sheriff Small-Debt and Circuit Courts are held at seven places in the county. There are Burgh' or Bailie Courts in Aberdeen and the other royal burghs in the county. Justice of the Peace and Police Courts are held in Aberdeen, &c. The Sheriff Courts take cognisance of Commissary business. During 1871, 994 persons were confined in the Aberdeenshire prisons. In the year 1870-71, 74 parishes in the county were assessed £53,703 for 7702 poor on the roll and 1847 casual poor.
Aberdeenshire contains 105 Established churches, 99 Free, 31 Episcopal, 15 United Presbyterian, 9 Roman Catholic, and 31 of other denominations. This includes detached parts of the two adjacent counties.
By the census of 1871, 84∙83 per cent. of the children in the county, of the ages 5 to 13, were receiving education. Those formerly called the parochial schoolmasters of Aberdeenshire participate in the Dick and Milne Bequests, which contributed more salary to the schoolmasters in some cases than did the heritors. Most of the schoolmasters arc Masters of Arts, and many are preachers. Of 114 parochial schools in the county before the operation of the new Education Act, 89 received the Milne Bequest of £20 a year, and 91 the Dick Bequest, averaging £30 a year, and a schoolmaster with both bequests would have a yearly income of £145 to £150, and in a few cases £250. The higher branches of education have been more taught in the schools of the shires of Aberdeen and Banff than in the other Scotch counties, and pupils have been long in the habit of going direct from the schools of these two counties to the University.
The value of property, or real rental of the lands and heritages in the county (including the burghs, except that of Aberdeen), for the year 1872-73, was £769,191. The railway and the water works in the city and county were for the same year valued at £11,133. For general county purposes for the year ending 15th May 1872, there was assessed £14,803 to maintain police, prisons, militia, county and municipal buildings, &c., and £19,320 to maintain 2359 miles of public county roads.
The chief seats on the proprietary estates are—Balmoral Castle, the Queen; Mar Lodge and Skene House, Earl of Fife; Aboyne Castle, Marquis of Huntly; Dunecht House, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres; Keith Hall, Earl of Kintore; Slains Castle, Earl of Errol; Haddo House, Earl of Aberdeen; Castle Forbes, Lord Forbes; Philorth House, Lord Saltoun; Huntly Lodge, the Duke of Richmond. Other noted seats are—Drum, Irvine; Invercauld, Farquharson; Newe Castle, Forbes; Castle Fraser, Fraser; Cluny Castle, Gordon; Meldrum House, Urquhart; Craigs-ton Castle, Urquhart; Pitfour, Ferguson; Ellon Castle, Gordon; Fyvie Castle, Gordon. Ten baronets and knights have residences in the county. Of the proprietors many Eve permanently on their estates. Their prevailing names are Gordon, Forbes, Grant, Fraser, Duff, and Farquharson.
Aberdeenshire has one city, Aberdeen, a royal pariia-mentary burgh; three other royal parliamentary burghs, Inverurie, Kintore, and Peterhead; and seven burghs of barony, Old Aberdeen, Charleston of Aboyne, Fraserburgh, Huntly, Old Meldrum, Rosehearty, and Turriff.
The county sends two members to Parliament—one for East Aberdeenshire, with 4341 electors, and the other for West Aberdeenshire, with 3942 electors. The county has also four parliamentary burghs, which, with their respective populations in 1871, are—Aberdeen, 88,125; Peterhead, 8535; Inverurie, 2856; and Kintore, 659. The first sends one member to Parliament, and the other three unite with Elgin, Cullen, and Banff, in sending another.
By the census 1801 the county had 121,065 inhabitants, and by that of 1871, 244,603, with 53,576 families, 111 females to 100 males, 34,589 inhabited houses, 1052 uninhabited houses, and 256 budding. In 1871 there were in eight towns (Aberdeen, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Huntly, Inverurie, Old Meldrum, Turriff, and New Pitsligo), 111,978 inhabitants; in 32 villages, 19,561; and in rural districts, 113,064.
(New Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xii.; the charters of the burgh; extracts from the Council Register down to 1625, and selections from the letters, guildry, and treasurer’s accounts, forming 3 volumes of the Spalding Club; Collections for a History of the Shires of A. and Banff, edited by Joseph Robertson, Esq., 4to, Spalding Club; [9:1:46] Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, vols. i. and ii., by Prof. Cosmo Innes, 4to, Spalding Club; The History of A., by Walter Thom, 2 vols. 12mo, 1811; Buchan, by the Rev. John B. Pratt, 12mo, 1859; Historical Account and Delineation of A., by Robert Wilson, 1822; First Report of Royal Com. on Hist. MSS., 1869; The Annals of A., by William Kennedy, 1818; Orem’s Description of the Chanonry, Cathedral, and King’s College of Old A., 1724—25, 1830; The Castellated Architecture of A., by Sir Andrew Leith Hay of Rannes, imp. 4to; Specimens of Old Castellated Houses of A., with drawings by Giles, folio, 1838; Lives of Eminent Men of A., by James Bruce, 12mo, 1841). (a. c.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 43 [9:1:43]
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ABERDEEN, George Hamilton Gordon, Fourth Earl of, was born at Edinburgh on the 28th January 1784. He was educated at Harrow School, and at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1804. He succeeded his grandfather in the earldom in 1801, and in the same year he made an extended tour through Europe, visiting France, Italy, and Greece. On his return he founded the Athenian Club, the membership of which was confined to those who had travelled in Greece. This explains Lord Byron’s reference in the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers to “the travelled Thane, Athenian Aberdeen.” Soon after his return he contributed a very able article to the Edinburgh Review (vol. vi), on Gell’s Topography of Troy. Another literary result of his tour was the publication in 1822 of An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture, the substance of which had appeared some years before in the form of an introduction to a translation of Vitruvius’ Civil Architecture. In 1806, having been elected one of the representative peers for Scotland, he took his seat in the House of Lords on the Tory side. He was already on terms of intimacy with the leading members of the then predominant party, and in particular with Pitt, through the influence of his relative, the celebrated Duchess of Gordon. In 1813 he was intrusted with a delicate and difficult special mission to Vienna, the object being to induce the Emperor of Austria to join the alliance against his son-in-law Napoleon. His diplomacy was completely successful; the desired alliance was secured by the treaty of Töplitz, which the Earl signed as representative of Great Britain in September 1813. On his return at the conclusion of the war, he was raised to a British peerage, with the title of Viscount Gordon. Lord Aberdeen was a member of the Cabinet formed by the Duke of Wellington in 1828, for a short time as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and then as Foreign Secretary. He was Colonial Secretary in the Tory Cabinet of 1834-5, and again received the seals of the Foreign Office under Sir Robert Peel’s administration of 1841. The policy of nonintervention, to which he stedfastly adhered in his conduct of foreign affairs, was at once his strength and his weakness. According to the popular idea, he failed to see the limitations and exceptions to a line of policy which nearly all admitted to be as a general role both wise and just. On the whole, his administration was perhaps more esteemed abroad than at home. It has been questioned whether any English minister ever was on terms of greater intimacy with foreign courts, but there is no substantial warrant for the charge of want of patriotism which was sometimes brought against him. On the two chief questions of home politics which were finally settled during his tenure of office, he was in advance of most of his party. While the other members of the Government yielded Catholic Emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws as unavoidable concessions, Lord Aberdeen spoke and voted for both measures from conviction of their justice. On the 13th June 1843, he moved the second reading of his bill “to remove doubts respecting the admission of ministers to benefices in Scotland,” and it was passed into law in that session, though a similar measure had been rejected in 1840. As the first proposal did not prevent, so the passing of the Act had no effect in healing, the breach in the Established Church of Scotland which occurred in 1843. On the defeat of Lord Derby’s government in 1852, the state of parties was such as to necessitate a coalition government, of which Lord Aberdeen, in consequence of the moderation of his views, was the natural chief. He had been regarded as the leader of the Peel party from the time of Sir Robert’s death, but his views on the two great questions of home policy above mentioned rendered him more acceptable to the Liberals, and a more suitable leader of a coalition government than any other member of that party could have been. His administration will chiefly be remembered in connection with the Crimean war, which, it is now generally believed, might have been altogether prevented by a more vigorous policy. The incompetence of various departments at home, and the gross mismanagement of the commissariat in the terrible winter of 1854, caused a growing dissatisfaction with the government, which at length found emphatic expression in the House of Commons, when a motion submitted by Mr Roebuck, calling for inquiry, was carried by an overwhelming majority. Lord Aberdeen regarded the vote as one of no-confidence, and at once resigned. From this period Lord Aberdeen took little part in public business. In recognition of his services he received, soon after his resignation, the decoration of the Order of the Garter. He died December 13, 1860. Lord Aberdeen was twice married,—first in 1805, to a daughter of the first Marquis of Abercorn, who died in 1812, and then to the widow of Viscount Hamilton. He was succeeded in the title and estates by Lord Haddo, his son by the second marriage.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 46 [9:1:46]
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ABERDOUR, a village in the county of Fife, in Scotland, pleasantly situated on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, and much resorted to for sea-bathing. It is 10 miles N.W. of Edinburgh, with which there is a frequent communication by steamer.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 46 [9:1:46]
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ABERFELDY, a village in Perthshire, celebrated in Scottish song for its “birks” and for the neighbouring falls of Moness. It is the terminus of a branch of the Highland Railway.,
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 46 [9:1:46]
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ABERGAVENNY, a market town in Monmouthshire, 14 miles west of Monmouth, situated at the junction of a small stream called the Gavenny, with the river Usk. It is supposed to have been the Gobannium of the Romans, so named from Gobannio, the Gavenny. The town was formerly walled, and has the remains of a castle built soon after the Conquest, and also of a Benedictine monas tery. The river Usk is here spanned by a noble stone bridge of fifteen arches. Two markets are held weekly, and elegant market buildings have recently been erected. There is a free grammar school, with a fellowship and exhibitions at Jesus College, Oxford. No extensive manufacture is carried on except that of shoes; the town owes its prosperity mainly to the large coal and iron works in the neighbourhood. Abergavenny is a polling place for the county. Population of parish (1871), 6318.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 46 [9:1:46]
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ABERNETHY, a town in Perthshire, situated in the parish of the same name, on the right bank of the Tay, 7 miles below Perth. The earliest of the Culdee houses was founded there, and it is said to have been the capital of the Pictish kings. It was long the chief seat of the Episcopacy in the country, till, in the 9th century, the bishopric was transferred to St Andrews. There still remains at Abernethy a curious circular tower, 74 feet high and 48 feet in circumference, consisting of sixty-four courses of hewn stone. A number of similar towers, though not so well [9:1:47] built, are to be met with in Ireland, but there is only one other in Scotland, viz., that at Brechin. Petrie argues, in his Round Towers of Ireland, that these structures have been used as belfries, and also as keeps.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 46 [9:1:46]
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ABERNETHY, John, —a Protestant dissenting divine of Ireland, was born at Coleraine, county Londonderry, Ulster, where his father was minister (Nonconformist), on the 19th October 1680. In his thirteenth year he entered a student at the University of Glasgow. On concluding his course at Glasgow he went to Edinburgh University, where his many brilliant gifts and quick and ready wit— thought-born, not verbal merely—struck the most eminent of his contemporaries and even his professors. Returning home, he received licence to preach from his Presbytery before ho was twenty-one. In 1701 he was urgently invited to accept the ministerial charge of an important congregation in Antrim; and after an interval of two years, he was ordained there on 8th August 1703. His admiring biographer tells of an amount and kind of work done there, such as only a man of fecund brain, of large heart, of healthful frame, and of resolute will, could have achieved. In 1717 he was invited to the congregation of Usher’s Quay, Dublin, as colleague with Rev. Mr Arbuckle, and contemporaneously, to what was called the Old Congregation of Belfast. The Synod assigned him to Dublin. He refused to accede, and remained at Antrim. This refusal was regarded then as ecclesiastical high-treason; and a controversy of the most intense and disproportionate character followed. The controversy and quarrel bears the name of the two camps in the conflict, the “Subscribers” and the “Non-subscribers.” Out-and-out evangelical as John Abernethy was, there can be no question that he and his associates sowed the seeds of that after-struggle in which, under the leadership of Dr Henry Cooke, the Arian and Socinian elements of the Irish Presbyterian Church were thrown out. Much of what he contended for, and which the “Subscribers” opposed bitterly, has been silently granted in the lapse of time. In 1726 the “Non-subscribers,” spite of an almost wofully pathetic pleading against separation by Abernethy, were cut off, with due ban and solemnity, from the Irish Presbyterian Church. In 1730, spite of being a “Non-subscriber,” he was called by his early friends of Wood Street, Dublin, whither he removed. In 1731 came on the greatest controversy in which Abernethy engaged, viz., in relation to the Test Act nominally, but practically on the entire question of tests and disabilities. His stand was “against all laws that, upon account of mere differences of religious opinions and forms of worship, excluded men of integrity and ability from serving their country." He was nearly a century in advance of his century. He had to reason with those who denied that a Roman Catholic or Dissenter could be a “man of integrity and ability.” His Tracts— afterwards collected—did fresh service, generations later. And so John Abernethy through life was ever foremost where unpopular truth and right were to be maintained; nor did he, for sake of an ignoble expediency, spare to smite the highest-seated wrongdoers any more than the hoariest errors (as he believed). He died in 1740, having been twice married. (Kippis' Biog. Brit., s. v.; Dr Duchal's Life, prefixed to Sermons; Diary in MS., 6 vols. 4to; History of Irish Presbyterian Church). (a. b. g.)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 47 [9:1:47]
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ABERNETHY, JOHN, grandson of the preceding, an eminent surgeon, was born in London on the 3d of April 1764. His father was a London merchant. Educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, he was apprenticed in 1779 to Sir Charles Blicke, a surgeon in extensive practice in the metropolis. He attended Sir William Blizzard’s anatomical lectures at the London Hospital, and was early employed to assist Sir William as “demonstrator;” he also attended Pott’s surgical lectures at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, as well as the lectures of the celebrated John Hunter. On Pott’s resignation of the office of surgeon of St Bartholomew’s, Sir Charles Blicke, who was assistant-surgeon, succeeded him, and Abernethy was elected assistant-surgeon in 1787. In this capacity he began to give lectures in Bartholomew Close, which were so well attended that the governors of the hospital built a regular theatre (1790-91), and Abernethy thus became the founder of the distinguished School of St Bartholomew’s. ' He held the office of assistant-surgeon of the hospital for the long period of twenty-eight years, till, in 1815, he was elected principal surgeon. He had before that time been appointed surgeon of Christ’s Hospital (1813), and Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons (1814). Abernethy had great fame both as a practitioner and as a lecturer, his reputation in both respects resting on the efforts he made to promote the practical improvement of surgery. His Surgical Observations on the Constitutional Origin and Treatment oj Local Diseases (1809)—known as “My Book,” from the great frequency with which he referred his patients to it, and to page 72 of it in particular, under that name—was one of the earliest popular works on medical science. The views he expounds in it are based on physiological considerations, and are the more important that the connection of surgery with physiology had scarcely been recognised before the time he wrote. The leading principles on which he insists in “My Book” are chiefly these two :— 1st, That topical diseases are often mere symptoms of constitutional maladies, and then can only be removed by general remedies; and 2d, That the disordered state of the constitution very often originates in, or is closely allied to deranged states of the stomach and bowels, and can only be remedied by means that beneficially affect the functions of those organs. His profession owed him much for his able advocacy of the extension in this way of the province of surgery. He had great success as a teacher from the thorough knowledge he had of his science, and the persuasiveness with which he enunciated his views. It has been said, however, that the influence he exerted on those who attended his lectures was not beneficial in this respect, that his opinions were delivered so dogmatically, and all who differed from him were disparaged and denounced so contemptuously, as to repress instead of stimulating inquiry. It ought to be mentioned, that he was the first to suggest and to perform the daring operation of securing by ligature the carotid and the external iliac arteries. The celebrity Abernethy attained in his practice was due not only to his great professional skill, but also in part to the singularity of his manners. He used great plainness of speech in his intercourse with his patients, treating them often brusquely, and sometimes even rudely. In the circle of his family and friends he was courteous and affectionate; and in all his dealings he was strictly just and honourable. He resigned his surgery at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1827, and his professorship at the College of Surgeons two years later, on account of failing health, and died at his residence at Enfield on the 20th of April 1831. A collected edition of his works in five volumes was published in 1830. A biography, Memoirs of John Abernethy, by George Macilwain, F.R.C.S., appeared in 1853, and though anything but satisfactory, passed through several editions.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 47 [9:1:47]
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ABERRATION, or (more correctly) the Aberration of Light, is a remarkable phenomenon, by which stars appear to deviate a little, in the course of a year, from their true places in the heavens. It results from the eye of the observer being carried onwards by the motion of the earth on its orbit, during the time that light takes to [9:1:48] travel from the star to the earth. The effect of this combination of motions may be best explained by a familiar illustration. Suppose a rain-drop falling vertically is received in a tube that has a lateral motion. In order that the drop may fall freely down the axis of the tube, the latter must be inclined at such an angle as to move from the position AD to BE, and again to CF, in the times the drop moves from D to G, and from G to C.
The drop in this case, since it moves down the axis all the way, must strike the bottom of the tube at C in the direction FC. The light proceeding from a star is not seen in its true direction, but strikes the eye obliquely, for a precisely similar reason. If lines be taken to represent the motions, so that the eye is carried from A to C during the time that light moves from D to C, tho light will appear to the eye at C to come, not from D, but from F. The angle DCF, contained by the true and apparent directions of the star, is the aberration. It is greatest when the two motions are at right angles to each other, i.e., when the star’s longitude is 90° in advance of, or behind, the heliocentric longitude of the earth, or (which amounts to the same thing) 90° behind, or in advance of, the geocentric longitude of the sun. (See Astronomy.) Now, in the right-angled triangle ACD, tan ADC (i.e., DCF) = AC / DC ; whence it appears that the tangent of the angle of aberration (or, since the angle is very small, the aberration itself) is equal to the ratio, velocity of earth in orbit / velocity of light . The rate of the earth's motion being to the velocity of light in the proportion of 1 to 10,000 nearly, the maximum aberration is small, amounting to about 20∙4 seconds of arc,—a quantity, however, which is very appreciable in astronomical observations.
Aberration always takes place in the direction of the earth’s motion; that is, it causes the stars to appear nearer than they really are to the point towards which the earth is at the moment moving. That point is necessarily on the ecliptic, and 90° in advance of the earth in longitude. The effect is to make a star at the pole of the ecliptic appear to move in a plane parallel to the ecliptic, so as to form a small ellipse, similar to the earth’s orbit, but having its major axis parallel to the minor axis of that orbit, and vice versa. As we proceed from the pole, the apparent orbits the stars describe become more and more elliptical, till in the plane of the ecliptic the apparent motion is in a straight line. The length of this line, as well as of the major axes of the different ellipses, amounts, in angular measure, to about 40"∙8. The stars thus appear to oscillate, in the course of the year, 20"∙4 on each side of their true position, in a direction parallel to the plane of the ecliptic, and the quantity 20"∙4 is therefore called the constant of aberration.
For the discovery of the aberration of light, one of the finest in modern astronomy, we are indebted to the distinguished astronomer Dr Bradley. He was led to it, in 1727, by the result of observations he made with the view of determining the annual parallax of some of the stars; that is, the angle subtended at these stars by the diameter of the earth’s orbit. He observed certain changes in the positions of the stars that he could not account for. The deviations were not in the direction of the apparent motion that parallax would give rise to; and he had no better success in attempting to explain the phenomenon by the nutation of the earth’s axis, radiation, errors of observation, &c. At last the true solution of the difficulty occurred to him, suggested, it is said, by the movements of a vane on the top of a boat’s mast. Roemer had discovered, a quarter of a century before, that light has a velocity which admits of measurement; and Bradley perceived that the earth’s motion, having a perceptible relation to that of light, must affect the direction of the visual rays, and with this the apparent positions of the stars. He calculated the aberration from the known relative velocities of the earth and of light, and the results agreed entirely with his observations.
The observed effects of aberration are of importance as supplying an independent method of measuring the velocity of light, but more particularly as presenting one of the few direct proofs that can be given of the earth’s motion round the sun. It is indeed the most satisfactory proof of this that astronomy furnishes, the phenomenon being quite inexplicable on any other hypothesis.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 47 [9:1:47]
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ABERYSTWITH, a municipal and parliamentary borough, market town, and seaport of Wales, in the county of Cardigan, is situated at the western end of the Vale of Rheidol, near the confluence of the rivers Ystwith and Rheidol, and about the centre of Cardigan Bay. It is the terminal station of the Cambrian Railway, and a line to the south affords direct communication with South Wales, Bristol, &c. The borough unites with Cardigan, Lampeter, &c., in electing a member of Parliament. Coal, timber, and lime are imported, and the exports are lead, oak bark, flannel, and corn. The harbour has of late been much improved; and the pier, completed in 1865, forms an excellent promenade. There are many elegant buildings, and it has been proposed to establish here a University College of Wales. On a promontory to the S.W. of the town are the ruins of its ancient castle, erected in 1277, by Edward I., on the site of a fortress of great strength, built by Gilbert de Strongbow, and destroyed by Owen Gwynedd. From its picturesque situation and healthy climate, and the suitableness of the beach for bathing, Aberystwith has risen into great repute as a watering-place, and attracts many visitors. Much of the finest scenery in Wales, such as the Devil’s Bridge, &c., lies within easy reach. Population (1871), 6898.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 48 [9:1:48]
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ABETTOR, a law term implying one who instigates, encourages, or assists another to perform some criminal action. See Accessory.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 48 [9:1:48]
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ABEYANCE, a law term denoting the expectancy of an estate. Thus, if lands be leased to one person for life, with reversion to another for years, the remainder for years is in abeyance till the death of the lessee.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 48 [9:1:48]
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ABGAR, the name or title of a line of kings of Edessa in Mesopotamia. One of them is known from a correspondence he is said to have had with Jesus Christ. The letter of Abgar, entreating Jesus to visit him and heal him of a disease, and offering Him an asylum from the wrath of the Jews, and the answer of Jesus promising to send a disciple to heal Abgar after His ascension, are given by Eusebius, who believed the documents to be genuine. The same belief has been held by a few modems, but there can be no doubt whatever that the letter of Jesus at least is apocryphal. It has also been alleged that Abgar possessed a picture of Jesus, which the credulous may see either at Rome or at Genoa. Some make him the possessor of the handkerchief a woman gave Jesus, as He bore the cross, to wipe the sweat from His face with, on which, it is fabled, His features remained miraculously imprinted.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 48 [9:1:48]
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ABIAD, Bahr-el-, a name given to the western branch of the Nile, above Khartoum. It is better known as the White Nile. See Nile.
[9:1:49]
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 48 [9:1:48]
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ABIES. See Fir.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 49 [9:1:49]
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ABILA, a city of ancient Syria, the capital of the tetrarchy of Abilene, a territory whose limits and extent it is impossible now to define. The site of Abila is indicated by some ruins and inscriptions on the banks of the river Barada, between Baalbec and Damascus, about twelve miles from the latter city. Though the names Abel and Abila differ in derivation and in meaning, their similarity has given rise to the tradition that this was the scene of Abel’s death.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 49 [9:1:49]
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ABILDGAARD, Nikolaj, called “the Father of Danish Painting,” was born in 1744. He formed his style on that of Claude and of Nicolas Poussin, and was a cold theorist, inspired not by nature but by art. As a technical painter he attained remarkable success, his tone being very harmonious and even, but the effect, to a foreigner’s eye, is rarely interesting. His works are scarcely known out of Copenhagen, where he won an immense fame in his own generation, and where he died in 1809. He was the founder of the Danish school of painting, and the master of Thorwaldsen and Eckersberg.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 49 [9:1:49]
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ABIMELECHfather of the king, or rather perhaps king-father), occurs first in the Bible as the name of certain kings of the Philistines at Gerar (Gen. xx. 2, xxi. 22, xxvi. 1). From the fact that the name is applied in the inscription of the thirty-fourth psalm to Achish, it has been inferred with considerable probability that it was used as the official designation of the Philistinian kings. The name was also borne by a son of Gideon, judge of Israel, by his Shechemite concubine (Judges viii. 31). On the death of Gideon, who had refused the title of king both for himself and his children, Abimelech set himself to obtain the sovereignty through the influence of his mother’s relatives. In pursuance of his plan he slew seventy of his brethren “upon one stone” at Ophrah, Jotham, the youngest of them, alone contriving to escape. This is one of the earliest recorded instances of a practice exceedingly common on the accession of Oriental despots. Abimelech was eventually made king, although his election was opposed by Jotham, who boldly appeared on Mount Gerizim and told the assembled Shechemites the fable of the trees desiring a king. At the end of the third year of his reign the Shechemites revolted, and under the leadership of Gaal made an unsuccessful attempt to throw off the authority of Abimelech. In Judges ix. there is an account of this insurrection, which is specially interesting owing to the full details it gives of the nature of the military operations. After totally destroying Shechem, Abimelech proceeded against Thebez, which had also revolted. Here, while storming the citadel, he was struck on the head by the fragment of a millstone thrown from the wall by a woman. To avoid the disgrace of perishing by a woman’s hand, he requested his armour-bearer to run him through the body. Though the immediate cause of his death was thus a sword-thrust, his memory was not saved from the ignominy he dreaded (2 Sam. xi. 21). It has been usual to regard Abimelech’s reign as the first attempt to establish a monarchy in Israel. The facts, however, seem rather to support the theory of Ewald (Gesch. ii. 444), that Shechem had asserted its independence of Israel, when it chose Abimelech as its king.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 49 [9:1:49]
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ABINGDON, a parliamentary and municipal borough and market town of England, in Berkshire, on a branch of the Thames, 7 miles south of Oxford, and 51 miles W.N.W. of London. It is a place of great antiquity, and was an important town in the time of the Heptarchy. Its name is derived from an ancient abbey. The streets, which are well paved, converge to a spacious area, in which the market is held. In the centre of this area stands the market-house, supported on lofty pillars, with a large hall above, appropriated to the summer assizes for the county, and the transaction of other public business. The town contains two churches, which are said to have been erected by the abbots of Abingdon, one dedicated to St Nicholas and the other to St Helena; several charitable institutions, and a free grammar school, with scholarships at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1864 a memorial of Prince Albert was erected at Abingdon, a richly ornamented structure, surmounted by a statue of the Prince. Abingdon was incorporated by Queen Mary. It sends one member to Parliament, and is governed by a mayor, four aldermen, and twelve councillors. In the beginning of the century it manufactured much sail-cloth and sacking; but its chief trade now is in corn and malt, carpets, and coarse linen. It is a station on a branch of the Great Western Railway. Population (1871), 6571.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 49 [9:1:49]
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kp-eb0901-004906-0064m
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ABIOGENESIS, as a name for the production of living by not-living matter, has of late been superseding the less accurate phrase “Spontaneous Generation.” Professor Huxley, who made use of the word in his presidential address to the British Association in 1870, distinguished Abiogenesis from “Xenogenesis” or “Heterogenesis,” which occurs, or is supposed to occur, not when dead matter produces living matter, but when a living parent gives rise to offspring which passes through a totally different series of states from those exhibited by the parent, and does not return into the parent’s cycle of changes. When a “living parent gives rise to offspring which passes through the same cycle of changes as itself,” there occurs “Homogenesis.” “Biogenesis” includes both of these. Other names for Abiogenesis are Generatio Aequivoca, Generatio Primaria, Archigenesis (Urzeugung), Archebiosis, &c. The question of Abiogenesis—whether under certain conditions living matter is produced by not-living matter—as it is one of the most fundamental, is perhaps also the oldest in Biology; but within recent years— partly because the means of accurate experimentation have been increased and the microscope improved, and partly because the question has been recognised in its important bearings on evolution, the correlation of forces, and the theory of infectious diseases—naturalists have been led to bestow more attention upon it than at any previous period. While, therefore, the doctrine of Abiogenesis cannot be said to be either finally established or refuted, it is at least reasonable to believe that we are gradually advancing to a solution. Among the older observers of phenomena bearing on the question may be named Aristotle, who, with the ancients generally, favoured Abiogenesis; Redi, the founder of the opposite view; Vallisnieri; Buffon; Needham; and Spallanzani; among later observers, Schwann and Schulze, Schroeder and Dusch, Pasteur, Pouchet, Haeckel, Huxley, Bastian, and many others. The experiments and observations made by these naturalists, and their results—the ingenious expedients employed to prevent inaccuracy—the interesting and often marvellous transformations which microscopists declare they have witnessed—will be discussed in the article Histology; here it will be enough to note the general nature of the reasonings with which the opponents and defenders of Abiogenesis support their views. The opponents maintain that all trustworthy observations have hitherto shown living matter to have sprung from pre-existing living matter; and that the further we search and examine, the smaller becomes the number of those organisms which we cannot demonstrate to have arisen from living parents. They hold that seeming instances of spontaneous generation are usually to be explained by the germ-theory—the presence of invisible germs in the air; and they call to their aid such high authorities as Pasteur and Tyndall. The defenders of Abiogenesis, on the other [9:1:50] hand, while interpreting the results of past observation and experiment in their own favour, are yet less disposed to rest on these, rather preferring to argue from those wide analogies of evolution and correlation which seem to support their doctrine. Thus Haeckel expressly embraces Abiogenesis as a necessary and integral part of the theory of universal evolution; and Huxley, in the same spirit, though from the opposite camp, confesses that if it were given him to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions, he should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not-living matter. (Critiques and Addresses, p. 239.) From this point of view, of course, any microscopic observations that have been made seem very limited and comparatively unimportant. The Abiogenists, indeed, are not without arguments to oppose the results of past observation that seem unfavourable to their views; they argue that, as yet, all the forms observed and shown to be produced by Biogenesis are forms possessing a certain degree of organisation, which in their case makes Abiogenesis unlikely, from the first; whereas it has not been shown that the simplest structures—the Monera —do not arise by Abiogenesis. But it is not so much on grounds of fact and experiment the defenders of the Abiogenesis theory are convinced of its truth, as because it seems to gain confirmation from reasonings of much wider scope; because Abiogenesis aids the theory of evolution by tracing the organic into the inorganic; because it fosters the increasing unpopularity of the hypothesis of a special “vital force;” and because, if this theory of the “perpetual origination of low forms of life, now, as in all past epochs,” were established, it would agree well with the principle of uniformity, and by disclosing the existence of unknown worlds of material for development, would relieve natural selection with its assisting causes from what many consider the too Herculean labour of evolving all species from one or a very few primary forms. The fullest discussion of the subject of Abiogenesis, from the Abiogenist’s point of view, is to be found in Dr Bastian’s Beginnings of Life. Professor Huxley’s address, already referred to, contains an interesting historical survey, as well as a masterly summary of facts and arguments in favour of Biogenesis. For many interesting experiments, see Nature, 1870-73.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 49 [9:1:49]
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kp-eb0901-005001-0065m
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ABIPONES, a tribe of South American Indians, inhabiting the territory lying between Santa Fe and St Iago. They originally occupied the Chaco district of Paraguay, but were driven thence by the hostility of the Spaniards. According to Μ. Dobrizhoffer, who, towards the end of last century, lived among them for a period of seven years, they have many singular customs and characteristics. They seldom marry before the age of thirty, are chaste and otherwise virtuous in their lives, though they practise infanticide, and are without the idea of God. “With the Abipones,” says Darwin, “when a man chooses a wife, he bargains with the parents about the price. But it frequently happens that the girl rescinds what has been agreed upon between the parents and bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. She often rune away and hides herself, and thus eludes the bridegroom.” The Abiponian women suckle those infants that are spared for the space of two years,—an onerous habit, which is believed to have led to infanticide as a means of escape. The men are brave in war, and pre-eminently expert in swimming and horsemanship. Numerically the tribe is insignificant. Μ. Dobrizhoffer’s account of the Abiponians was translated into English by Sara Coleridge, at the suggestion of Mr Southey, in 1822.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 50 [9:1:50]
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kp-eb0901-005002-0065m
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ABJURATION. See Allegiance, Oath op.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 50 [9:1:50]
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kp-eb0901-005003-0065m
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ABKHASIA, or Abasia, a tract of Asiatic Russia, on the border of the Black Sea, comprehending between lat. 42° 30' and 44° 45' N. and between long. 37° 3' and 40° 36' E. The high mountains of the Caucasus on the N. and N.E. divide it from Circassia; on the S.E. it is bounded by Mingrelia; and on the S.W. by the Black Sea. Though the country is generally mountainous, there are some deep well-watered valleys, and the climate is mild. The soil is fertile, producing grain, grapes, and other fruits. Some of the inhabitants devote themselves to agriculture, some to the rearing of cattle and horses, and not a few support themselves by piracy and robbery. Honey is largely produced, and is exported to Turkey; and excellent arms are made. Both in ancient and in modern times there has been considerable traffic in slaves. This country was early known to the ancients, and was subdued by the Emperor Justinian, who introduced civilisation and Christianity. Afterwards the Persians, then the Georgians, and more recently the Turks, ruled over the land. Under the Turks Christianity gradually disappeared, and Mohammedanism was introduced in its stead. By the treaties of Akerman and Adrianople, Russia obtained possession of the fortresses of this territory; but till the insurrection of 1866, the chiefs had almost unlimited power. The principal town is Sukumkaleh. The population of Abkhasia is variously stated at from 50,000 to 250,000. See Palgrave’s Essays on Eastern Questions, 1872.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 50 [9:1:50]
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kp-eb0901-005004-0065m
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ABLUTION, a ceremonial purification, practised in nearly every age and nation. It consisted in washing the body in whole or part, so as to cleanse it symbolically from defilement, and to prepare it for religious observances. Among the Jews we find no trace of the ceremony in patriarchal times, but it was repeatedly enjoined and strictly enforced under the Mosaic economy. It denoted either— (1.) Cleansing from the taint of an inferior and less pure condition, and initiation into a higher and purer state, as in the case of Aaron and his sons on their being set apart to the priesthood; or (2.) Cleansing from the soil of common life, in preparation for special acts of worship, as in the case of the priests who were commanded, upon pain of death, to wash their hands and feet before approaching the altar; or (3.) Cleansing from the pollution occasioned by particular acts and circumstances, as in the case of the eleven species of uncleanness mentioned in the Mosaic law; or (4.) The absolving or purifying one’s self from the guilt of some particular criminal act, as in the case of Pilate at the trial of the Saviour. The sanitary reasons which, in a warm climate and with a dry sandy soil, rendered frequent ablution an imperative necessity, must not be allowed to empty the act of its symbolic meaning. In the Hebrew different words are used for the washing of the hands before meals, which was done for the sake of cleanliness and comfort, and for the washing or plunging enjoined by the ceremonial law. At the same time it is impossible to doubt that the considerations which made the law so suitable in a physical point of view were present to the mind of the Lawgiver when the rite was enjoined. Traces of the practice are to be found in the history of nearly every nation. The customs of the Mohammedans, in this as in other matters, are closely analogous to those of the Jews. With them ablution must in every case precede the exercise of prayer, and their law provides that in the desert, where water is not to be found, the Arabs may perform the rite with sand. Various forms of ablution practised by different nations are mentioned in the sixth book of the Aeneid, and we are told that Aeneas washed his ensanguined hands after the battle before touching his Penates. Symbolic ablution finds a place under the New Testament dispensation in the rite of baptism, which is observed, though with some variety of form and circumstances[9:1:51], throughout the whole Christian Church. By Roman Catholics and Ritualists, the term ablution is applied to the cleansing of the chalice and the fingers of the celebrating priest after the administration of the Lord’s Supper.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 50 [9:1:50]
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kp-eb0901-005101-0066m
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ABNER (אבנר, father of light), first cousin of Saul (1 Sam. xiv. 50) and commander-in-chief of his army. The chief references to him during the lifetime of Saul are found in 1 Sam. xvii. 55, and xxvi. 5. It was only after that monarch’s death, however, that Abner was brought into a position of the first political importance. David, who had some time before been designated to the throne, was accepted as king by Judah alone, and was crowned at Hebron. The other tribes were actuated by a feeling-hostile to Judah, and, as soon as they had thrown off the Philistinian yoke, were induced by Abner to recognise Ishbosheth, the surviving son of Saul, as their king. One engagement between the rival factions under Joab and Abner respectively (2 Sam. ii. 12) is noteworthy, inasmuch as it was preceded by an encounter between twelve chosen men from each side, in which the whole twenty-four seem to have perished. In the general engagement which followed, Abner was defeated and put to flight. He was closely pursued by Asahel, brother of Joab, who is said to have been “light of foot as a wild roe.” As Asahel would not desist from the pursuit, though warned, Abner was compelled to slay him in self-defence. This originated a deadly feud between the leaders of the opposite parties, for Joab, as next of kin to Asahel, was by the law and custom of the country the avenger of his blood. For some time afterwards the war was carried on, the advantage being invariably on the side of David. At length Ishbosheth lost the main prop of his tottering cause by remonstrating with Abner for marrying Rizpah, one of Saul’s concubines, an alliance which, according to Oriental notions, implied pretensions to the throne. Abner was indignant at the rebuke, and immediately transferred his allegiance to David, who not only welcomed him, but promised to give him the command of the combined armies on the re-union of the kingdoms. Almost immediately after, however, Abner was slain by Joab and his brother Abishai at the gate of Hebron. The ostensible motive for the assassination was a desire to avenge Asahel, and this would be a sufficient justification for the deed according to the moral standard of the time. There can be little doubt, however, that Joab was actuated in great part by jealousy of a new and formidable rival, who seemed not unlikely to usurp his place in the king’s favour. The conduct of David after the event was such as to show that he had no complicity in the act, though he could not venture to punish its perpetrators. The dirge which he repeated over the grave of Abner (2 Sam. iii. 33-4) has been thus translated :—
Should Abner die as a villain dies ?—
Thy hands—not bound,
Thy feet—not brought into fetters:
As one falls before the sons of wickedness, fellest thou.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 51 [9:1:51]
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kp-eb0901-005102-0066m
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ABO, a city and seaport, and chief town of the district of the same name in the Russian province of Finland, is situated in N. lat. 60° 26', E. long. 22° 19', on the Aura-joki, about 3 miles from where it falls into the Gulf of Bothnia. It was a place of importance when Finland formed part of the kingdom of Sweden, and the inhabitants of the city and district are mostly of Swedish descent. By the treaty of peace concluded here between Russia and Sweden on 17th August 1743, a great part of Finland was ceded to the former. Abo continued to be the capital of Finland till 1819. In November 1827, nearly the whole city was burnt down, the university and its valuable library being entirely destroyed. Before this calamity Abo contained 1100 houses, and 13,000 inhabitants; and its university had 40 professors, more than 500 students, and a library of upwards of 30,000 volumes, together with a botanical garden, an observatory, and a chemical laboratory. The university has since been removed to Helsingfors.. Abo is the seat of an archbishop, and of the supreme court of justice for South Finland; and it has a cathedral, a town-hall, and a custom-house. Sail-cloth, linen, leather, and tobacco are manufactured; shipbuilding is carried on, and there are - extensive saw-mills. There is also a large trade in timber, pitch, and tar. Vessels drawing 9 or 10 feet come up to the town, but ships of greater draught are laden and discharged at the mouth of the river, which forms an excellent harbour and is protected. Population in 1867, 18,109.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
[email protected], https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 1, page 51 [9:1:51]
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60 26' N 22 19' E
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