History for ready reference, Volume 3, Greece to Nibelungen

by J. N. Larned

upon failure of heirs male in the family of Visconti; the
duchy of Milan should descend to the posterity of Valentine
and the duke of Orleans. That event took place. In the year
1447, Philip Maria, the last prince of the ducal family of
Visconti, died. Various competitors claimed the succession.
Charles, duke of Orleans, pleaded his right to it, founded on
the marriage contract of his mother, Valentine Visconti.
Alfonso, king of Naples, claimed it in consequence of a will
made by Philip Maria in his favor. The emperor contended that,
upon the extinction of male issue in the family of Visconti,
the fief returned to the superior lord, and ought to be
re-annexed to the empire. The people of Milan, smitten with
the love of liberty which in that age prevailed among the
Italian states, declared against the dominion of any master,
and established a republican form of government. But during
the struggle among so many competitors, the prize for which
they contended was seized by one from whom none of them
apprehended any danger. Francis Sforza, the natural son of
Jacomuzzo Sforza, whom his courage and abilities had elevated
from the rank of a peasant to be one of the most eminent and
powerful of the Italian condottieri, having succeeded his
father in the command of the adventurers who followed his
standard, had married a natural daughter of the last duke of
Milan [see ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447]. Upon this shadow of a
title Francis founded his pretensions to the duchy, which he
supported with such talents and valor as placed him at last on
the ducal throne."
W. Robertson,
History of Charles the Fifth:
View of the Progress of Society,
section 3.
"Francesco Sforza possessed himself of the supreme power by
treachery and force of arms, but he saved for half a century
the independence of a State which, after 170 years of tyranny,
was no longer capable of life as a commonwealth, and furthered
its prosperity, while he powerfully contributed to the
formation of a political system which, however great its
weakness, was the most reasonable under existing
circumstances. Without the aid of Florence and Cosimo de'
Medici, he would not have attained his ends. Cosimo had
recognised his ability in the war with Visconti, and made a
close alliance with him. … It was necessary to choose
between Sforza and Venice, for there was only one alternative:
either the condottiere would make himself Duke of Milan, or the
Republic of San Marco would extend its rule over all Lombardy.
In Florence several voices declared in favour of the old ally
on the Adriatic. … Cosimo de' Medici gave the casting-vote
in Sforza's favour. …
{2185}
Without Florentine money; Sforza would never have been able to
maintain the double contest—on the one side against Milan,
which he blockaded and starved out; and on the other against
the Venetians, who sought to relieve it, and whom he repulsed.
And when, on March 25, 1450, he made his entry into the city
which proclaimed him ruler, he was obliged to maintain himself
with Florentine money till he had established his position and
re-organised the State. … Common animosity to Florence and
Sforza drew Venice and the king [Alfonso, of Naples] nearer to
one another, and at the end of 1451 an alliance, offensive and
defensive, was concluded against them, which Siena, Savoy, and
Montferrat joined. … On May 16, 1452, the Republic, and,
four weeks later, King Alfonso, declared war, which the
Emperor Frederick III., then in Italy, and Pope Nicholas V.,
successor to Eugenius IV. since 1447, in vain endeavoured to
prevent." The next year "a foreign event contributed more than
all to terminate this miserable war. … On May 29, 1453,
Mohammed II. stormed Constantinople. The West was threatened,
more especially Venice, which had such great and wealthy
possessions in the Levant, and Naples. This time the excellent
Pope Nicholas V. did not exert himself in vain. On April 9,
1454, Venice concluded a tolerably favourable peace with
Francesco Sforza at Lodi, in which King Alfonso, Florence,
Savoy, Montferrat, Mantua, and Siena, were to be included. The
king, who had made considerable preparations for war, did not
ratify the compact till January 26 of the following year. The
States of Northern and Central Italy then joined in an
alliance, and a succession of peaceful years followed."
A. von Reumont,
Lorenzo de' Medici,
book 1, chapter 7 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. P. Urquhart,
Life and Times of Francesco Sforza.
A. M. F. Robinson,
The End of the Middle Ages: Valentine Visconti.
The French Claim to Milan.
MILAN: A. D. 1464.
Renewed surrender of Genoa to the Duke.
See GENOA: A. D. 1458-1464.
MILAN: A. D. 1492-1496.
The usurpation of Ludovico, the Moor.
His invitation to Charles VIII. of France.
The French invasion of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494; and 1494-1496.
MILAN: A. D. 1499-1500.
Conquest by Louis XII. of France.
His claim by right of Valentine Visconti.
See ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.
MILAN: A. D. 1501.
Treaty for the investiture of Louis XII. as Duke,
by the Emperor Maximilian.
See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.
MILAN: A. D. 1512.
Expulsion of the French and restoration of the Sforzas.
Notwithstanding the success of the French at Ravenna, in their
struggle with the Holy League formed against them by Pope
Julius II. (see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513), they could not hold
their ground in Italy. "Cremona shook off the yoke of France,
and city after city followed her example. Nor did it seem
possible longer to hold Milan in subjection. That versatile
state, after twice bending the neck to Louis, a second time
grew weary of his government; and greedily listened to the
proposal of the Pope to set upon the throne Massimiliano
Sforza, son of their late Duke Ludovico. Full of this project
the people of Milan rose simultaneously to avenge the
cruelties of the French; the soldiers and merchants remaining
in the city were plundered, and about 1,500 put to the sword.
The retreating army was harassed by the Lombards, and severely
galled by the Swiss; and after encountering the greatest
difficulties, the French crossed the Alps, having preserved
none of their conquests in Lombardy except the citadel of
Milan, and a few other fortresses. … At the close of the
year, Massimiliano Sforza made his triumphal entry into Milan,
with the most extravagant ebullitions of delight on the part
of the people."
Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapter 37 (volume 2).
MILAN: A. D. 1515.
French reconquest by Francis I.
Final overthrow of the Sforzas.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1515; and 1515-1518.
MILAN: A. D. 1517.
Abortive attempt of the Emperor Maximilian against the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.
MILAN: A. D. 1521-1522.
The French again expelled.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.
MILAN: A. D. 1524-1525.
Recaptured and lost again by Francis I. of France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1523-1525.
MILAN: A. D. 1527-1529.
Renewed attack of the French king.
Its disastrous end.
Renunciation of the French claim.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
MILAN: A. D. 1544.
Repeated renunciation of the claims of Francis I.
The duchy becomes a dependency of the Spanish crown.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
MILAN: A. D. 1635-1638.
Invasion of the duchy by French and Italian armies.
See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
MILAN: A. D. 1713.
Cession of the duchy to Austria.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
MILAN: A. D. 1745.
Occupied by the Spaniards and French.
See ITALY: A. D. 1745.
MILAN: A. D. 1746.
Recovered by the Austrians.
See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.
MILAN: A. D. 1749-1792.
Under Austrian rule after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.
See ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792.
MILAN: A. D. 1796.
Occupation by the French.
Bonaparte's pillage of the Art-galleries and Churches.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).
MILAN: A. D. 1799.
Evacuation by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).
MILAN: A. D. 1800.
Recovery by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
MILAN: A. D. 1805.
Coronation of Napoleon as king of Italy.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.
MILAN: A. D. 1807-1808.
Napoleon's adornment of the city and its cathedral.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
MILAN: A. D. 1814-1815.
Restored to Austria.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE);
and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
MILAN: A. D. 1848-1849.
Insurrection.
Expulsion of the Austrians.
Failure of the struggle.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
MILAN: A. D. 1859.
Liberation from the Austrians.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.
----------MILAN: End----------
MILAN DECREE, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810;
also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.
MILANESE,
MILANESS, The.
The district or duchy of Milan.
MILESIANS, Irish.
In Irish legendary history, the followers of Miled, who came
from the north of Spain and were the last of the four races
which colonized Ireland.
T. Wright,
History of Ireland,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
See IRELAND: THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS.
----------MILETUS: Start----------
{2186}
MILETUS.
Miletus, on the coast of Asia Minor, near its southwestern
extremity, "with her four harbours, had been the earliest
anchorage on the entire coast. Phœnicians, Cretans, and
Carians, had inaugurated her world-wide importance, and Attic
families, endowed with eminent energy, had founded the city
anew.
See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.
True, Miletus also had a rich territory of her own in her
rear, viz., the broad valley of the Mæander, where among other
rural pursuits particularly the breeding of sheep flourished.
Miletus became the principal market for the finer sorts of
wool; and the manufacture of this article into variegated
tapestry and coloured stuffs for clothing employed a large
multitude of human beings. But this industry also continued in
an increasing measure to demand importation from without of
all kinds of materials of art, articles of food, and slaves.
See ASIA MINOR: B. C. 724-539.
In no city was agriculture made a consideration so secondary
to industry and trade as here. At Miletus, the maritime trade
even came to form a particular party among the citizens, the
so-called 'Aeinautæ,' the 'men never off the water.'"
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book. 2, chapter 3 (volume 1).
Miletus took an early leading part in the great Ionian
enterprises of colonization and trade, particularly in the
Pontus, or Black Sea, where the Milesians succeeded the
Phœnicians, establishing important commercial settlements at
Sinope, Cyzicus and elsewhere. They were among the last of the
Asiatic Ionians to succumb to the Lydian monarchy, and they
were the first to revolt against the Persian domination, when
that had taken the place of the Lydian. The great revolt
failed and Miletus was practically destroyed.
See PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.
Recovering some importance it was destroyed again by
Alexander. Once more rising under the Roman empire, it was
destroyed finally by the Turks and its very ruins have not
been identified with certainty;
MILETUS: B. C. 412.
Revolt from Athens.
See GREECE: B. C. 413-412.
----------MILETUS: End----------
MILITARY-RELIGIOUS ORDERS.
See HOSPITALLERS;
TEMPLARS;
TEUTONIC KNIGHTS;
and ST. LAZARUS. KNIGHTS OF.
MILL SPRING, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).
MILLENIAL YEAR, The.
"It has often been stated that in the tenth century there was
a universal belief that the end of the world was to happen in
the year 1000 A. D. This representation has recently been
subjected to a critical scrutiny by Eiken, Le Roy, and Orsi,
and found to be an unwarrantable exaggeration. It would be
still less applicable to any century earlier or later than the
tenth. A conviction of the impending destruction of the world,
however, was not uncommon at almost any period of the middle
age. It is frequently found expressed in the writings of
Gregory of Tours, Fredegar, Lambert of Hersfeld, Ekkehard of
Aurach, and Otto of Freisingen."
R. Flint,
History of the Philosophy of History: France, etc.,
pages 101-102.
MILOSCH OBRENOVITCH, The career of.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-19TH CENTURIES (SERVIA).
MILTIADES:
Victory at Marathon.
Condemnation and death.
See GREECE: B. C. 490;
also, ATHENS: B. C. 501-490, and B. C. 489-480.
MILVIAN BRIDGE, Battle of the (B. C. 78).
See ROME: B. C. 78-68.
MIMS, Fort, The massacre at.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).
MINA.
See TALENT;
also, SHEKEL.
MINCIO, Battle of the.
See ITALY: A. D. 1814.
MINDEN, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).
MINE RUN MOVEMENT, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JULY-NOVEMBER: VIRGINIA).
MING DYNASTY, The.
See CHINA: THE ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE, &c.;
and 1294-1882.
MINGELSHEIM, Battle of (1622).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.
MINGOES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MINGOES.
MINIMS.
"Of the orders which arose in the 15th century, the most
remarkable was that of Eremites [Hermits] of St. Francis, or
Minims, founded … by St. Francis of Paola, and approved by
Sixtus IV. in 1474." St. Francis, a Minorite friar of
Calabria, was one of the devotees whom Louis XI. of France
gathered about himself during his last days, in the hope that
their intercessions might prolong his life. To propitiate him,
Louis "founded convents at Plessis and at Amboise for the new
religious society, the members of which, not content with the
name of Minorites, desired to signify their profession of
utter insignificance by styling themselves Minims."
J. C. Robertson,
History of the Christian Church,
volume 8, pages 369 and 224.
MINISTRY.
MINISTERIAL GOVERNMENT, The English.
See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.
MINNE.
See GUILDS OF FLANDERS.
----------MINNESOTA: Start--------
MINNESOTA:
The aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.
MINNESOTA: A. D. 1803.
Part of the state, west of the Mississippi,
acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
MINNESOTA: A. D. 1834-1838.
Joined to Michigan Territory; then to Wisconsin; then to Iowa.
See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.
MINNESOTA: A. D. 1849-1858.
Territorial and State organizations.
Minnesota was organized as a Territory in 1849, and admitted
to the Union as a State in 1858.
----------MINNESOTA: End--------
MINNETAREES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HIDATSA, and SIOUAN FAMILY.
----------MINORCA: Start----------
MINORCA: 13th Century.
Conquest by King James of Aragon.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238.
{2187}
MINORCA: A. D. 1708.
Acquisition by England.
In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Port Mahon,
and the whole island of Minorca, were taken by an English
expedition from Barcelona, under General Stanhope, who
afterwards received a title from his conquest, becoming
Viscount Stanhope of Mahon. Port Mahon was then considered the
best harbor in the Mediterranean and its importance to England
was rated above that of Gibraltar.
Earl Stanhope,
History of England: Reign of Queen Anne,
chapter 10.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.
At the Peace of Utrecht Minorca was ceded to Great Britain and
remained under the British flag during the greater part of the
18th century.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
MINORCA: A. D. 1756.
Taken by the French.
At the outbreak of the Seven Years War, in 1756, there was
great dread in England of an immediate French invasion; and
"the Government so thoroughly lost heart as to request the
King to garrison England with Hanoverian troops. This dread
was kept alive by a simulated collection of French troops in
the north. But, under cover of this threat, a fleet was being
collected at Toulon, with the real design of capturing
Minorca. The ministry were at last roused to this danger, and
Byng was despatched with ten sail of the line to prevent it.
Three days after he set sail the Duke de Richelieu, with
16,000 men, slipped across into the island, and compelled
General Blakeney, who was somewhat old and infirm, to withdraw
into the castle of St. Philip, which was at once besieged. On
the 19th of May—much too late to prevent the landing of
Richelieu—Byng arrived within view of St. Philip, which was
still in the possession of the English. The French Admiral, La
Galissonnière, sailed out to cover the siege, and Byng, who
apparently felt himself unequally matched—although West, his
second in command, behaved with gallantry and success—called
a council of war, and withdrew. Blakeney, who had defended his
position with great bravery, had to surrender. The failure of
Byng, and the general weakness and incapacity of the ministry,
roused the temper of the people to rage; and Newcastle,
trembling for himself, threw all the blame upon the Admiral,
hoping by this means to satisfy the popular cry. … A court
martial held upon that officer had been bound by strict
instructions, and had found itself obliged to bring in a
verdict of guilty, though without casting any imputation on
the personal courage of the Admiral. On his accession to power
Pitt was courageous enough, although he rested on the popular
favour, to do his best to get Byng pardoned, and urged on the
King that the House of Commons seemed to wish the sentence to
be mitigated. The King is said to have answered in words that
fairly describe Pitt's position, 'Sir, you have taught me to
look for the sense of my subjects in another place than the
House of Commons.' The sentence was carried out, and Byng was
shot on the quarter-deck of the 'Monarque' at Portsmouth
(March 14, 1757)."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 3, pages 1021-1022.
MINORCA: A. D. 1763.
Restored to England by the Treaty of Paris.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.
MINORCA: A. D. 1782.
Captured by the Spaniards.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782.
MINORCA: A. D. 1802.
Ceded to Spain by the Treaty of Amiens.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.
----------MINORCA: End----------
MINORITES, The.
The Franciscan friars, called by their founder "Fratri
Minori," bore very commonly the name of the Minorites.
See MENDICANT ORDERS.
MINQUAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and SUSQUEHANNAS.
MINSIS,
MUNSEES,
MINISINKS.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and DELAWARES;
and, also, MANHATTAN ISLAND.
MINTO, Lord, The Indian administration of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
MINUTE-MEN.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1774.
MINYI, The.
"The race [among the Greeks] which … first issues forth with
a history of its own from the dark background of the Pelasgian
people is that of the Minyi. The cycle of their heroes
includes Iason and Euneus, his son, who trades with Phœnicians
and with Greeks. … The myths of the Argo were developed in
the greatest completeness on the Pagasæan gulf, in the seats
of the Minyi; and they are the first with whom a perceptible
movement of the Pelasgean tribes beyond the sea—in other
words, a Greek history in Europe—begins. The Minyi spread
both by land and sea. They migrated southwards into the
fertile fields of Bœotia, and settled on the southern side of
the Copæic valley by the sea. … After leaving the low
southern coast they founded a new city at the western
extremity of the Bœotian valley. There a long mountain ridge
juts out from the direction of Parnassus, and round its
farthest projection flows in a semicircle the Cephissus. At
the lower edge of the height lies the village of Skripu.
Ascending from its huts, one passes over primitive lines of
wall to the peak of the mountain, only approachable by a rocky
staircase of a hundred steps, and forming the summit of a
castle. This is the second city of the Minyi in Bœotia, called
Orchomenus: like the first, the most ancient walled royal seat
which can be proved to have existed in Hellas, occupying a
proud and commanding position over the valley by the sea. Only
a little above the dirty huts of clay rises out of the depths
of the soil the mighty block of marble, more than twenty feet
high, which covered the entrance of a round building. The
ancients called it the treasury of Minyas, in the vaults of
which the ancient kings were believed to have hoarded the
superfluity of their treasures of gold and silver, and in
these remains endeavoured to recall to themselves the glory of
Orchomenus sung by Homer."
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).
See, also, BŒOTIA;
and GREECE: THE MIGRATIONS.
MIR, The Russian.
"The 'mir' is a commune, whose bond is unity of autonomy and
of possession of land. Sometimes the mir is a single village.
In this case the economic administration adapts itself exactly
to the civil. Again, it may happen that a large village is
divided into many rural communes. Then each commune has its
special economic administration, whilst the civil and police
administration is common to all. Sometimes, lastly, a number
of villages only have one mir. Thus the size of the mir may
vary from 20 or 30 to some thousands of 'dvors.' … The
'dvor,' or court, is the economic unit: it contains one or
several houses, and one or several married couples lodge in
it. The 'dvor' has only one hedge and one gate in common for
its inmates. … With the Great Russians the mir regulates
even the ground that the houses stand on; the mir has the
right to shift about the 'dvors.' …
{2188}
Besides land, the communes have property of another kind:
fish-lakes, communal mills, a communal herd for the
improvement of oxen and horses; finally, storehouses, intended
for the distribution to the peasants of seeds for their fields
or food for their families. The enjoyment of all these various
things must be distributed among the members of the commune,
must be distributed regularly, equally, equitably. Thus, a
fair distribution today will not be fair five or six years
hence, because in some families the number of members will
have increased, in others diminished. A new distribution,
therefore, will be necessary to make the shares equal. For a
long time this equalization can be brought about by partial
sharings-up, by exchange of lots of ground between the private
persons concerned, without upsetting everybody by a general
redistribution. … The Russian mir is not an elementary unit.
It is made up of several primordial cells—of small circles
that form in perfect freedom. The mir only asks that the
circles (osmaks) are equal as to labour-power. This condition
fulfilled, I am free to choose my companions in accordance
with my friendships or my interests. When the village has any
work to do, any property to distribute, the administration or
the assembly of the commune generally does not concern itself
with individuals, but with the 'osmak' … Each village has an
administration; it is represented by a mayor (selskï
starosta), chosen by the mir. But this administration has to
do only with affairs determined upon in principle by the
communal assembly. The starosta has no right of initiating any
measures of importance. Such questions (partition of the land,
new taxes, leases of communal property, etc.) are only
adjudicated and decided by the assembly of the mir. All the
peasants living in the village come to the assembly, even the
women. If, for example, the wife, by the death of her husband,
is the head of the family, at the assembly she has the right
to vote. … The peasants meet very frequently. … The
assemblies are very lively, … courageous, independent."
L. Tikhomirov,
Russia, Political and Social,
book 3, chapter 2, with foot-note,
chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
D. M. Wallace,
Russia,
volume 1, chapter 8.
W. T. Stead,
The Truth about Russia,
book 4, chapter 2.
A. Leroy-Beaulieu,
The Empire of the Tsars,
part 1, book 8.
MIRABEAU, and the French Revolution.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (MAY). to 1790-1791.
MIRACULOUS VICTORY, The.
See THUNDERING LEGION.
MIRAFLORES, Battle of (1881).
See CHILE: A. D. 1833-1884.
MIRANDA, Revolutionary undertakings of.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800;
and COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1819.
MIRANHA, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.
MIRISZLO, Battle of (1600).
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14TH-18TH CENTURIES.
MISCHIANZA, The.
See PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1777-1778.
MISCHNA, The.
Rabbi Jehuda, the Patriarch at Tiberius, was the author (about
A. D. 194) of "a new constitution to the Jewish people. He
embodied in the celebrated Mischna, or Code of Traditional
Law, all the authorized interpretations of the Mosaic Law, the
traditions, the decisions of the learned, and the precedents
of the courts or schools. … The sources from which the
Mischna was derived may give a fair view of the nature of the
Rabbinical authority, and the manner in which it had
superseded the original Mosaic Constitution. The Mischna was
grounded,
1. On the Written Law of Moses.
2. On the Oral Law, received by Moses on Mount Sinai,
and handed down, it was said, by uninterrupted tradition.
3. The decisions or maxims of the Wise Men.
4. Opinions of particular individuals, on which the
schools were divided, and which still remained open.
5. Ancient usages and customs.
The distribution of the Mischna affords a curious
exemplification of the intimate manner in which the religious
and civil duties of the Jews were interwoven, and of the
authority assumed by the Law over every transaction of life.
The Mischna commenced with rules for prayer, thanksgiving,
ablutions; it is impossible to conceive the minuteness or
subtlety of these rules, and the fine distinctions drawn by
the Rabbins. It was a question whether a man who ate figs,
grapes, and pomegranates, was to say one or three graces; …
whether he should sweep the house and then wash his hands, or
wash his hands and then sweep the house. But there are nobler
words."
H. H. Milman,
History of the Jews,
book 19.
See, also, TALMUD.
MISE OF AMIENS, The.
See OXFORD, PROVISIONS OF.
MISE OF LEWES, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
MISENUM, Treaty of.
The arrangement by which Sextus Pompeius was virtually
admitted (B. C. 40) for a time into partnership with the
triumvirate of Antony, Octavius and Lepidus, was so called.
See ROME: B. C. 44-42.
MISR.
See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.
MISSI DOMINICI.
"Nothing was more novel or peculiar in the legislation of Karl
[Charlemagne] than his institution of imperial deputies,
called Missi Dominici, who were regularly sent forth from the
palace to oversee and inspect the various local
administrations. Consisting of a body of two or three officers
each, one of whom was always a prelate, they visited the
counties every three months, and held there the local assizes,
or 'placita minores.' … Even religion and morals were not
exempted from this scrutiny."
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapter 17.
See, also, PALATINE, COUNTS.
MISSIONARY RIDGE:
Its position, and the battle fought on it.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: TENNESSEE);
and (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).
----------MISSISSIPPI: Start--------
MISSISSIPPI:
The aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY, and CHEROKEES.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1629.
Embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1663.
Embraced in the Carolina grant to Monk, Chesterfield, and others.
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1732.
Mostly embraced in the new province of Georgia.
See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1763.
Partly embraced in West Florida, ceded to Great Britain.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES;
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763;
and NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1763.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1779-1781.
Reconquest of West Florida by the Spaniards.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.
{2189}
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1783.
Mostly covered by the English cession to the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1783-1787.
Partly in dispute with Spain.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1798-1804.
The Territory constituted and organized.
"The territory heretofore surrendered by the Spanish
authorities, and lying north of the 31st degree of latitude,
with the consent and approbation of the State of Georgia, was
erected into a territory of the United States by act of
Congress, approved April 7th, 1798, entitled 'an act for the
amicable settlement of limits with the State of Georgia, and
authorizing the establishment of a government in the
Mississippi Territory. The territory comprised in the new
organization, or the original Mississippi Territory, embraced
that portion of country between the Spanish line of
demarkation and a line drawn due east from the mouth of the
Yazoo to the Chattahoochy River. The Mississippi River was its
western limit and the Chattahoochy its eastern. The
organization of a territorial government by the United States
was in no wise to impair the rights of Georgia to the soil,
which was left open for future negotiation between the State
of Georgia and the United States." In 1802 the State of
Georgia ceded to the United States all her claim to lands
south of the State of Tennessee, stipulating to receive
$1,250,000" out of the first nett proceeds of lands lying in
said ceded territory." In 1804 "the whole of the extensive
territory ceded by Georgia, lying north of the Mississippi
Territory, and south of Tennessee, was … annexed to the
Mississippi Territory, and was subsequently included within
its limits and jurisdiction. The boundaries of the Mississippi
Territory, consequently, were the 31st degree on the south,
and the 35th degree on the north, extending from the
Mississippi River to the western limits of Georgia, and
comprised the whole territory now embraced in the States of
Alabama and Mississippi, excepting the small Florida District
between the Pearl and Perdido Rivers. Four fifths of this
extensive territory were in the possession of the four great
southern Indian confederacies, the Choctâs, the Chickasâs, the
Creeks, and the Cherokees, comprising an aggregate of about
75,000 souls, and at least 10,000 warriors. The only portions
of this territory to which the Indian title had been
extinguished was a narrow strip from 15 to 50 miles in width,
on the east side of the Mississippi, and about 70 miles in
length, and a small district on the Tombigby."
J. W. Monette,
Discovery and Settlement of the
Valley of the Mississippi,
book 5, chapter 13 (volume 2).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1803.
Portion acquired by the Louisiana Purchase.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1812-1813.
Spanish West Florida annexed to Mississippi Territory
and possession taken.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1813-1814.
The Creek War.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1817.
Constitution as a State and admission into the Union.
The sixth and seventh of the new States added to the original
Union of thirteen were Indiana and Mississippi. "These last
almost simultaneously found representation in the Fifteenth
Congress; and of them Indiana, not without an internal
struggle, held steadfastly to the fundamental Ordinance of
1787 under which it was settled, having adopted its free State
constitution in June, 1816; Mississippi, which followed on the
slave side, agreeing upon a constitution, in August, 1817,
which the new Congress, at its earliest opportunity [December
10, 1817] after assembling, pronounced republican in form, and
satisfactory."
J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
volume 3, page 100.
At the same time, the part of Mississippi Territory which
forms the present State of Alabama was detached and erected
into the Territory of Alabama.
See ALABAMA: A. D. 1817-1819.
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1861 (January).
Secession from the Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1862 (April-May).
The taking of Corinth by the Union forces.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (APRIL-MAY: TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1862 (May-July).
First Union attempts against Vicksburg.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1862 (September-October).
The battles of Iuka and Corinth.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: MISSISSIPPI).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1863 (April-May).
Grierson's raid.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: MISSISSIPPI).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1863 (April-July).
Federal siege and capture of Vicksburg.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1863 (July).
Capture and destruction of Jackson.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JULY: MISSISSIPPI).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1864 (February).
Sherman's raid to Meridian.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-APRIL: TENNESSEE—MISSISSIPPI).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1865 (March-April).
Wilson's raid.
The end of the Rebellion.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1865 (June).
Provisional government set up under
President Johnson's plan of Reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).
MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1865-1870.
State reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), to 1868-1870.
----------MISSISSIPPI: End--------
----------MISSISSIPPI RIVER: Start--------
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1519.
Discovery of the mouth by Pineda, for Garay.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1525.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1528-1542.
Crossed by Cabeça de Vaca, and by Hernando de Soto.
Descended by the survivors of De Soto's company.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1673.
Discovery by Joliet and Marquette.
See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1682.
Exploration to the mouth by La Salle.
See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1712.
Called the River St. Louis by the French.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1783-1803.
The question of the Right of Navigation
disputed between Spain and the United States.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787;
and LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800, and 1798-1803.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1861-1863.
Battles and Sieges of the Civil War.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI), Belmont;
1862 (MARCH-APRIL), NEW
Madrid and Island No. 10;
1862 (APRIL), New Orleans;
1862 (MAY-JULY), First Vicksburg attack;
1862 (JUNE), Memphis;
1862 (DECEMBER), Second Vicksburg attack;
1863 (JANUARY-APRIL), and (APRIL-JULY),
Siege and capture of Vicksburg;
1863 (MAY-JULY), Port Hudson and the clear opening of the River.
----------MISSISSIPPI RIVER: End--------
{2190}
MISSISSIPPI SCHEME, John Law's.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720;
and LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.
----------MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: Start--------
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: A. D. 1763.
Cession of the eastern side of the river to Great Britain.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: A. D. 1803.
Purchase of the western side by the United States.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
----------MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: End--------
MISSOLONGHI, Siege and capture of (1825-1826).
See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.
----------MISSOURI: Start--------
MISSOURI: A. D. 1719-1732.
First development of lead mines by the French.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1719-1750.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1763-1765.
French withdrawal to the West of the Mississippi.
The founding of St. Louis.
See ILLINOIS: A. D. 1765.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1803.
Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1804-1812.
Upper Louisiana organized as the Territory of Louisiana.
The changing of its name to Missouri.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1804-1812.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1819.
Arkansas detached.
See ARKANSAS: A. D. 1819-1836.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1821.
Admission to the Union.
The Compromise concerning Slavery.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1854-1859.
The Kansas Struggle.
See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (February-July).
The baffling of the Secessionists.
Blair, Lyon and the Home Guards of St. Louis.
The capture of Camp Jackson.
Battle of Boonville.
A loyal State Government organized.
The seizure of arsenals and arms by the secessionists of the
Atlantic and Gulf States "naturally, directed the attention of
the leaders of the different political parties in Missouri to
the arsenal in St. Louis, and set them to work planning how
they might get control of the 40,000 muskets and other
munitions of war which it was known to contain. …
Satisfied that movements were on foot among irresponsible
parties, Unionist as well as Secessionist, to take possession
of this post, General D. M. Frost, of the Missouri state
militia, a graduate of West Point and a thorough soldier, is
said to have called Governor Jackson's attention to the
necessity of 'looking after' it. … Jackson, however, needed
no prompting. … He did not hesitate to give Frost authority
to seize the arsenal, whenever in his judgment it might become
necessary to do so. Meanwhile he was to assist in protecting
it against mob violence of any kind or from any source. …
Frost, however, was not the only person in St. Louis who had
his eyes fixed upon the arsenal and its contents. Frank Blair
was looking longingly in the same direction, and was already
busily engaged in organizing the bands which, supplied with
guns from this very storehouse, enabled him, some four months
later, to lay such a heavy hand upon Missouri. Just then, it
is true, he could not arm them, … but he did not permit this
to interfere with the work of recruiting and drilling. That
went on steadily, and as a consequence, when the moment came
for action, Blair was able to appear at the decisive point
with a well-armed force, ten times as numerous as that which
his opponents could bring against him. In the mean time,
whilst these two, or rather three, parties (for Frost can
hardly be termed a secessionist, though as an officer in the
service of the State he was willing to obey the orders of his
commander) were watching each other, the federal government
awoke from its lethargy, and began to concentrate troops in
St. Louis for the protection of its property. … By the 18th
of February, the day of the election of delegates to the
convention which pronounced so decidedly against secession,
there were between four and five hundred men behind the
arsenal walls. … General Harney, who was in command of the
department and presumably familiar with its condition, under
date of February 19, notified the authorities at Washington
that there was no danger of an attack, and never had been. …
Such was not the opinion of Captain Nathaniel Lyon, who had
arrived at the arsenal on the 6th of February, and who was
destined, in the short space of the coming six months, to
write his name indelibly in the history of the State. …
Under the stimulating influence of two such spirits as Blair
and … [Lyon] the work of preparation went bravely on. By the
middle of April, four regiments had been enlisted, and Lyon,
who was now in command of the arsenal, though not of the
department, proceeded to arm them in accordance with an order
which Blair had procured from Washington. Backed by this
force, Blair felt strong enough to set up an opposition to the
state government, and accordingly, when Jackson refused to
furnish the quota of troops assigned to Missouri under
President Lincoln's call of April 15, 1861 [see UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL)], he telegraphed to Washington
that if an order to muster the men into the service was sent
to Captain Lyon 'the requisition would be filled in two days.'
The order was duly forwarded, and five regiments having been
sworn in instead of four, as called for, Blair was offered the
command. This he declined, and, on his recommendation, Lyon
was elected in his place. On the 7th and 8th of May another
brigade was organized. … This made ten regiments of
volunteers, besides several companies of regulars and a
battery of artillery, that were now ready for service; and as
General Harney, whose relatives and associates were suspected
of disloyalty, had been ordered to Washington to explain his
position, Lyon was virtually in command of the department. …
Jackson, … though possessed of but little actual power, was
unwilling to give up the contest without an effort. He did not
accept the decision of the February election as final. …
Repairing to St. Louis, as soon as the adjournment of the
General Assembly had left him free, he began at once, in
conjunction with certain leading secessionists, to concert
measures for arming the militia of the State. …
{2191}
To this end, the seizure of the arsenal was held to be a
prerequisite, and General Frost was preparing a memorial
showing how this could best be done, when the surrender of
Fort Sumter and the President's consequent call for troops
hurried Jackson into a position of antagonism to the federal
government. … He sent messengers to the Confederate
authorities at Montgomery, Alabama, asking them to supply him
with the guns that were needed for the proposed attack on the
arsenal; and he summoned the General Assembly to meet at
Jefferson City on the 2d of May, to deliberate upon such
measures as might be deemed necessary for placing the State in
a position to defend herself. He also ordered, as he was
authorized to do under the law, the commanders of the several
military districts to hold the regular yearly encampments for
the purpose of instructing their men in drill and discipline.
… Practically its effect was limited to the first or Frost's
brigade, as that was the only one that had been organized
under the law. On the 3d of May, this little band, numbering
less than 700 men, pitched their tents in a wooded valley in
the outskirts of the city of St. Louis, and named it Camp
Jackson, in honor of the governor. It is described as being
surrounded on all sides, at short range, by commanding hills;
it was, moreover, open to a charge of cavalry in any and every
direction, and the men were supplied with but five rounds of
ammunition each, hardly enough for guard purposes. In a word,
it was defenseless, and this fact is believed to be conclusive
in regard to the peaceful character of the camp as it was
organized. … Lyon … announced his intention of seizing the
entire force at the camp, without any ceremony other than a
demand for its surrender. … Putting his troops in motion
early in the morning of the 10th of May; he surrounded Camp
Jackson and demanded its surrender. As Frost could make no
defense against the overwhelming odds brought against him, he
was of course obliged to comply; and his men, having been
disarmed, were marched to the arsenal, where they were
paroled. … After the surrender, and whilst the prisoners
were standing in line, waiting for the order to march, a crowd
of men, women and children collected and began to abuse the
home guards, attacking them with stones and other missiles. It
is even said that several shots were fired at them, but this
lacks confirmation. According to Frost, who was at the head of
the column of prisoners, the first intimation of firing was
given by a single shot, followed almost immediately by volley
firing, which is said to have been executed with precision
considering the rawness of the troops. When the fusillade was
checked, it was found that 28 persons had been killed or
mortally wounded, among whom were three of the prisoners, two
women, and one child. … Judging this action by the reasons
assigned for it, and by its effect throughout the State, it
must be pronounced a blunder. So far from intimidating the
secessionists, it served only to exasperate them; and it drove
not a few Union men, among them General Sterling Price, into
the ranks of the opposition and ultimately into the
Confederate army."
L. Carr,
Missouri,
chapter 14.
When news of the capture of Camp Jackson reached Jefferson
City, where the legislature was in session, Governor Jackson
at once ordered a bridge on the railroad from St. Louis to be
destroyed, and the legislature made haste to pass several
bills in the interest of the rebellion, including one which

placed the whole military power of the State in the hands of
the Governor. Armed with this authority, Jackson proceeded to
organize the Militia of Missouri as a secession army. Meantime
Captain Lyon had been superseded in command by the arrival at
St. Louis of General Harney, and the latter introduced a total
change of policy at once. He was trapped into an agreement
with Governor Jackson and Sterling Price, now general-in-chief
of the Missouri forces, which tied his hands, while the
cunning rebel leaders were rapidly placing the State in active
insurrection. But the eyes of the authorities at Washington
were opened by Blair; Harney was soon displaced and Lyon
restored to command. This occurred May 30th. On the 15th of
June Lyon took possession of the capital of the State,
Jefferson City, the Governor and other State officers taking
flight to Boonville, where their forces were being gathered.
Lyon promptly followed, routing and dispersing them at
Boonville on the 17th. The State Convention which had taken a
recess in March was now called together by a committee that
had been empowered to do so before the convention separated,
and a provisional State government was organized (July 31)
with a loyal governor, Hamilton R. Gamble, at its head.
J. G. Nicolay,
The Outbreak of the Rebellion,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
T. L. Snead,
The Fight for Missouri.
J. Peckham,
General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (July-September).
Sigel's retreat from Carthage.
Death of Lyon at Wilson's Creek.
Siege of Lexington.
Fremont in command.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).
A. D. 1861 (August-October).
Fremont in command.
His premature proclamation of freedom to the Slaves of rebels.
His quarrel with Frank P. Blair.
The change in command.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: MISSOURI).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (January-March).
Price and the Rebel forces driven into Arkansas.
Battle of Pea Ridge.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-MARCH: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (July-September).
Organization of the loyal Militia of the state.
Warfare with Rebel guerrillas.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (September-December).
Social effects of the Civil War.
The Battle of Prairie Grove.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (August).
Quantrell's guerrilla raid to Lawrence, Kansas.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (AUGUST: MISSOURI-KANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (October).
Cabell's invasion.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1864 (September-October).
Price's raid.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).
----------MISSOURI: End--------
MISSOURI COMPROMISE, The.
Its Repeal, and the decision of the Supreme Court against it.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1818-1821; 1854; and 1857.
{2192}
MISSOURI RIVER:
Called the River St. Philip by the French (1712).
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
MISSOURIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.
MITCHELL, General Ormsby M.:
Expedition into Alabama.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862(APRIL-MAY: ALABAMA);
and (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).
MITHRIDATIC WARS, The.
A somewhat vaguely defined part of eastern Asia Minor, between
Armenia, Phrygia, Cilicia and the Euxine, was called
Cappadocia in times anterior to 363 B. C. Like its neighbors,
it had fallen under the rule of the Persians and formed a
province of their empire, ruled by hereditary satraps. In the
year above named, the then reigning satrap, Ariobarzanes,
rebelled and made himself king of the northern coast district
of Cappadocia, while the southern and inland part was retained
under Persian rule. The kingdom founded by Ariobarzanes took
the name of Pontus, from the sea on which it bordered. It was
reduced to submission by Alexander the Great, but regained
independence during the wars between Alexander's successors
(see MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301; and SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 281-224),
and extended its limits towards the west and south. The
kingdom of Pontus, however, only rose to importance in history
under the powerful sovereignty of Mithridates V. who took the
title of Eupator and is often called Mithridates the Great. He
ascended the throne while a child, B. C. 120, but received,
notwithstanding, a wonderful education and training. At the
age of twenty (B. C. 112) he entered upon a career of
conquest, which was intended to strengthen his power for the
struggle with Rome, which he saw to be inevitable. Within a
period of about seven years he extended his dominions around
the nearly complete circuit of the Euxine, through Armenia,
Colchis, and along the northern coasts westward to the Crimea
and the Dniester; while at the same time he formed alliances
with the barbarous tribes on the Danube, with which he hoped
to threaten Italy.
G. Rawlinson,
Manual of Ancient History,
book 4, period 3, part 4.
"He [Mithridates] rivalled Hannibal in his unquenchable hatred
to Rome. This hatred had its origin in the revocation of a
district of Phrygia which the Senate had granted to his
father. … To his banner clustered a quarter of a million of
the fierce warriors of the Caucasus and the Scythian steppes
and of his own Hellenized Pontic soldiers; Greek captains, in
whom he had a confidence unshaken by disaster—Archelaus,
Neoptolemus, Dorilaus—gave tactical strength to his forces.
He was allied, too, with the Armenian king, Tigranes; and he
now turned his thoughts to Numidia, Syria, and Egypt with the
intention of forming a coalition against his foe on the Tiber.
A coin has been found which commemorated an alliance proposed
between the Pontic king and the Italian rebels. … The
imperious folly of M'. Aquillius, the Roman envoy in the East,
precipitated the intentions of the king; instead of contending
for the princedom of Bithynia and Cappadocia, he suddenly
appealed to the disaffected in the Roman province. The fierce
white fire of Asiatic hate shot out simultaneously through the
length and breadth of the country [B. C. 88]; and the awful
news came to distracted Rome that 80,000 Italians had fallen
victims to the vengeance of the provincials. Terror-stricken
publicani were chased from Adramyttium and Ephesus into the
sea, their only refuge, and there cut down by their pursuers;
the Mæander was rolling along the corpses of the Italians of
Tralles; in Caria the refined cruelty of the oppressed people
was butchering the children before the eyes of father and
mother, then the mother before the eyes of her husband, and
giving to the man death as the crown and the relief of his
torture. … Asia was lost to Rome; only Rhodes, which had
retained her independence, remained faithful to her great
ally. The Pontic fleet, under Archelaus, appeared at Delos,
and carried thence 2,000 talents to Athens, offering to that
imperial city the government of her ancient tributary. This
politic measure awaked hopes of independence in Greece.
Aristion, an Epicurean philosopher, seized the reins of power
in Athens, and Archelaus repaired the crumbling battlements of
the Piræus. The wave of eastern conquest was rolling on
towards Italy itself. The proconsul Sulla marched to
Brundisium, and, undeterred by the ominous news that his
consular colleague, Q. Rufus, had been murdered in Picenum, or
by the sinister attitude of the new consul Cinna, he crossed
over to Greece with five legions to stem the advancing wave.
History knows no more magnificent illustration of cool,
self-restrained determination than the action of Sulla during
these three years." He left Rome to his enemies, the fierce
faction of Marius, who were prompt to seize the city and to
fill it with "wailing for the dead, or with the more terrible
silence which followed a complete massacre" [see ROME: B. C.
88-78]. "The news of this carnival of democracy reached the
camp of Sulla along with innumerable noble fugitives who had
escaped the Marian terror. The proconsul was unmoved; with
unexampled self-confidence he began to assume that he and his
constituted Rome, while the Forum and Curia were filled with
lawless anarchists, who would soon have to be dealt with. He
carried Athens by assault, and slew the whole population, with
their tyrant Aristion [see ATHENS: B. C. 87-86], but he
counted it among the favours of the goddess of Fortune that
he, man of culture as he was, was able to save the immemorial
buildings of the city from the fate of Syracuse or Corinth.
Archelaus, in Piræus, offered the most heroic resistance. …
With the spring Sulla heard of the approach of the main army
from Pontus, under the command of Taxiles. 120,000 men, and
ninety scythed chariots, were pouring over Mount Œta to
overwhelm him. With wonderful rapidity he marched northwards
through friendly Thebes, and drew up his little army on a
slope near Chæronea, digging trenches on his left and right to
save his flank from being turned. He showed himself every inch
a general, he compelled the enemy to meet him on this ground
of his own choice, and the day did not close before 110,000 of
the enemy were captured or slain, and the camp of Archelaus,
who had hastened from Athens to take the command, was carried
by assault. We have before us still, in the pages of Plutarch,
Sulla's own memoirs. If we may believe him, he lost only
fifteen men in the battle. By this brilliant engagement he had
restored Greece to her allegiance, and, what was even better,
the disaster aroused an the savagery of Mithradates, the Greek
vanished in the oriental despot.
{2193}
Suspicious and ruthless, he ordered his nearest friends to be
assassinated; he transported all the population of Chios to
the mainland, and by his violence and exaction stirred
Ephesus, Sardes, Tralles, and many other cities, to renounce
his control, and to return to the Roman government. Still, he
did not suspect Archelaus, but appointed him, together with
Dorilaus, to lead a new army into Greece. The new army
appeared in Bœotia, and encamped by the Copaic Lake, near
Orchomenos. Before the raw levies could become familiar with
the sight of the legions, Sulla assaulted the camp [B. C. 85],
and rallied his wavering men by leading them in person with
the cry, 'Go, tell them in Rome that you left your general in
the trenches of Orchomenos;' the self-consciousness was
sublime, for nothing would have pleased the people in Rome
better; his victory was complete, and Archelaus escaped alone
in a boat to Calchis. As the conqueror returned from the
battle-field to reorganize Greece, he learnt that the Senate
had deposed him from command, declared him an outlaw, and
appointed as his successor the consul L. Valerius Flaccus. The
disorganization of the republic seemed to have reached a
climax. Flaccus conducted his army straight to the Bosphorus
without venturing to approach the rebel proconsul Sulla; while
Mithradates, who began to wish for peace, preferred to
negotiate with his conqueror rather than with the consul of
the republic. To complete this complication of anarchy,
Flaccus was murdered, and superseded in the command by his own
legate, C. Flavius Fimbria; this choice of their general by
the legions themselves might seem significant if anything
could be significant or connected in such a chaos. But Sulla
now crossed into Asia, and concluded peace with Mithradates on
these conditions: The king was to relinquish all his
conquests, surrender deserters, restore the people of Chios,
pay 2,000 talents, and give up seventy of his ships. Fimbria
… remained to be dealt with. It was not a difficult matter:
the two Roman armies confronted one another at Thyatira, and
the Fimbrians streamed over to Sulla. After all, the
legionaries, who had long ceased to be citizens, were soldiers
first and politicians after; they worshipped the felicity of
the great general; and the democratic general had not yet
appeared who could bind his men to him by a spell stronger
than Sulla's. Fimbria persuaded a slave to thrust him through
with his sword. His enemies were vanquished in Asia, but in
Rome Cinna was again consul (85 B. C.), and his colleague, Cn.
Papirius Carbo, out-Cinnaed Cinna. Yet Sulla was in no hurry.
He spent more than a year in reorganizing the disordered
province. … He even allowed Cinna and Carbo, who began to
prepare for war with him (84 B. C.), to be re-elected to the
consulship; but when the more cautious party in the Senate
entered into negotiations with him, and offered him a safe
conduct to Italy, he showed in a word what he took to be the
nature of the situation by saying that he was not in need of
their safe conduct, but he was coming to secure them."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 26.
Plutarch,
Sulla.
After a second and a third war with Rome (see ROME: B. C.
78-68, and 69-63), Mithridates was finally (B. C. 65) driven
from his old dominions into the Crimean kingdom of Bosporus,
where he ended his life in despair two years later. The
kingdom of Pontus was absorbed in the Roman empire. The
southern part of Cappadocia held some rank as an independent
kingdom until A. D. 17, when it was likewise reduced to the
state of a Roman province.
MITLA, The Ruins of.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.
----------MITYLENE: Start--------
MITYLENE.
The chief city in ancient times of the island of Lesbos, to
which it ultimately gave its name.
See LESBOS.
MITYLENE: B. C. 428-427.
Revolt from Athenian rule.
Siege and surrender.
The tender mercies of Athens.
See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.
MITYLENE: B. C. 406.
Blockade of the Athenian fleet.
Battle of Arginusæ.
See GREECE: B. C. 406.
----------MITYLENE: End--------
MIXES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.
MIXTECS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.
MIZRAIM.
See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.
MOABITES, The.
The Moabite Stone.
As related in the Bible (Genesis xix. 37), Moab was the son of
Lot's eldest daughter and the ancient people called Moabites
were descended from him. They occupied at an early time the
rich tableland or highlands on the east side of the Dead Sea;
but the Amorites drove them out of the richer northern part of
this territory into its southern half, where they occupied a
very narrow domain, but one easily defended. This occurred
shortly before the coming of the Israelites into Canaan.
Between the Moabites and the Israelites, after the settlement
of the latter, there was frequent war, but sometimes relations
both peaceful and friendly. David finally subjugated their
nation, in a war of peculiar atrocity. After the division of
the kingdoms, Moab was subject to Israel, but revolted on the
death of Ahab and was nearly destroyed in the horrible war
which followed. The Biblical account of this war is given in 2
Kings III. It is strangely supplemented and filled out by a
Moabite record—the famous Moabite Stone—found and deciphered
within quite recent times, under the following circumstance.
Dr. Klein, a German missionary, travelling in 1869 in what was
formerly the "Land of Moab," discovered a stone of black
basalt bearing a long inscription in Phœnician characters. He
copied a small part of it and made his discovery known. The
Prussian government opened negotiations for the purchase of
the stone, and M. Clermont-Ganneau, of the French consulate at
Jerusalem, made efforts likewise to secure it for his own
country. Meantime, very fortunately, the latter sent men to
take impressions—squeezes, as they are called—of the
inscription, which was imperfectly done. But these imperfect
squeezes proved invaluable; for the Arabs, finding the stone
to be a covetable thing, and fearing that it was to be taken
from them, crumbled it into fragments with the aid of fire and
water. Most of the pieces were subsequently recovered, and
were put together by the help of M. Clermont-Ganneau's
squeezes, so that an important part of the inscription was
deciphered in the end. It was found to be a record by Mesha,
king of Moab, of the war with Israel referred to above.
A. H. Sayce,
Fresh Light from the
Ancient Monuments,
chapter 4.
{2194}
The Moabites appear to have recovered from the blow, but not
much of their subsequent history is known.
G. Grove,
Dictionary of the Bible.
ALSO IN:
J. King,
Moab's Patriarchal Stone.
See, also, JEWS: THE EARLY HEBREW HISTORY,
and JEWS: UNDER THE JUDGES.
MOAWIYAH,
Caliph (founder of the Omeyyad dynasty), A. D. 661-679.
Moawiyah II., Caliph, A. D. 683.
----------MOBILE: Start--------
MOBILE: A. D. 1702-1711.
The founding of the city by the French.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
MOBILE: A. D. 1763.
Surrendered to the English.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (JULY).
MOBILE: A. D. 1781.
Retaken by the Spaniards.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.
MOBILE: A. D. 1813.
Possession taken from the Spaniards by the United States.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.
MOBILE: A. D. 1864.
The Battle in the Bay.
Farragut's naval victory.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (AUGUST: ALABAMA).
MOBILE: A. D. 1865 (March-April).
Siege and capture by the National forces.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).
----------MOBILE: End--------
MOBILIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.
MOCOVIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
----------MODENA: Start--------
MODENA, Founding of.
See MUTINA.
MODENA: A. D. 1288-1453.
Acquired by the Marquess of Este.
Created a Duchy.
See ESTE, THE HOUSE OF.
MODENA: A. D. 1767.
Expulsion of the Jesuits.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
MODENA: A. D. 1796.
Dethronement of the Duke by Bonaparte.
Formation of the Cispadane Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
MODENA: A. D. 1801.
Annexation to the Cisalpine Republic.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
MODENA: A. D. 1803.
The duchy acquired by the House of Austria.
See ESTE, HOUSE OF.
MODENA: A. D. 1815.
Given to an Austrian Prince.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
MODENA: A. D. 1831.
Revolt and expulsion of the Duke.
His restoration by Austrian troops.
See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.
MODENA: A. D. 1848-1849.
Abortive revolution.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
MODENA: A. D. 1859-1861.
End of the dukedom.
Absorption in the new Kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.
----------MODENA: End--------
MODIUS, The.
See AMPHORA.
MODOCS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS.
MOERIS, Lake.
"On the west of Egypt there is an oasis of cultivable land,
the Fayum, buried in the midst of the desert, and attached by
a sort of isthmus to the country watered by the Nile. In the
centre of this oasis is a large plateau about the same level
as the valley of the Nile; to the west, however, a
considerable depression of the land produces a valley occupied
by a natural lake more than ten leagues in length, the 'Birket
Kerun.' In the centre of this plateau Amenemhe [twelfth
dynasty] undertook the formation of an artificial lake with an
area of ten millions of square metres. If the rise of the Nile
was insufficient, the water was led into the lake and stored
up for use, not only in the Fayum, but over the whole of the
left bank of the Nile as far as the sea. If too large an
inundation threatened the dykes, the vast reservoir of the
artificial lake remained open, and when the lake itself
overflowed, the surplus waters were led by a canal into the
Birket Kerun. The two names given in Egypt to this admirable
work of Amenemhe III. deserve to be recorded. Of one, Meri,
that is 'the Lake,' par excellence, the Greeks have made
Moeris, a name erroneously applied by them to a king; whilst
the other, P-iom, 'the Sea,' has become, in the mouth of the
Arabs, the name of the entire province,
Fayum."
M. Mariette,
quoted in Lenormant's
Manual of Ancient History of the East,
book 3, chapter 2.
MŒSIA,
MÆSIA.
"After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss
[Theiss] and the Save, it acquired, at least among the Greeks,
the name of Ister. It formerly divided Mœsia and Dacia, the
latter of which, as we have already seen, was a conquest of
Trajan, and the only province beyond the river. … On the
right hand of the Danube, Mœsia, … during the middle ages,
was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of Servia and
Bulgaria."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 1.
Mœsia was occupied by the Goths in the 4th century.
See GOTHS: A. D. 341-381; and 376.
MOESKIRCH, Battle of (1800).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
MŒSO-GOTHIC.
See GOTHS: A. D. 341-381.
MOGONTIACUM.
"The two headquarters of the [Roman] army of the Rhine were
always Vetera, near Wesel, and Mogontiacum, the modern Mentz.
… Mogontiacum or Mentz, [was] from the time of Drusus down
to the end of Rome the stronghold out of which the Romans
sallied to attack Germany from Gaul, as it is at the present
day the true barrier of Germany against France. Here the
Romans, even after they had abandoned their rule in the region
of the upper Rhine generally, retained not merely the
tête-de-pont on the other bank, the 'castellum Mogontiacense'
(Castel), but also that plain of the Main itself, in their
possession; and in this region a Roman civilisation might
establish itself. The land originally belonged to the Chatti,
and a Chattan tribe, the Mattiaci, remained settled here even
under Roman rule."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 4 (The Provinces, volume 1).
MOGUL EMPIRE.
THE GREAT MOGUL.
See INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.
MOHACS, Battle of (1526).
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526.
MOHACS, Second Battle of (1687).
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.
MOHAMMED, The Prophet of Islam.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.
Mohammed, Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1104-1116.
Mohammed I., Turkish Sultan, 1413-1421.
Mohammed II., Turkish Sultan, 1451-1481.
Mohammed III., Turkish Sultan, 1595-1603.
Mohammed IV., Turkish Sultan, 1649-1687.
Mohammed Mirza, Shah of Persia, 1577-1582.
Mohammed Shah, sovereign of Persia, 1834-1848.
MOHARRAM FESTIVAL, The.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 680.
MOHAVES,
MOJAVES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APACHE GROUP.
{2195}
MOHAWKS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.
MOHAWKS, The, of Boston and New York.
See BOSTON: A. D. 1773;
and NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774.
MOHAWKS,
MOHOCKS, of London.
See MOHOCKS. [Third item below.]
MOHEGANS,
MAHICANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY,
HORIKANS, and STOCKBRIDGE INDIANS;
also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637.
MOHILEF, Battle of.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
MOHOCKS, The.
"This nocturnal fraternity met in the days of Queen Anne:
[1707] but it had been for many previous years the favourite
amusement of dissolute young men to form themselves into Clubs
and Associations for committing all sorts of excesses in the
public streets, and alike attacking orderly pedestrians, and
even defenceless women. These Clubs took various slang
designations. At the Restoration they were 'Mums,' and
'Tityre-tus.' They were succeeded by the 'Hectors' and
'Scourers,' when, says Shadwell, 'a man could not go from the
Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life
twice.' Then came the 'Nickers,' whose delight it was to smash
windows with showers of halfpence; next were the 'Hawkabites';
and lastly the 'Mohocks.' These last are described in the
'Spectator,' No. 324, as a set of men who have borrowed their
name from a sort of cannibals, in India, who subsist by
plundering and devouring all the nations about them. … Their
avowed design was mischief, and upon this foundation all their
rules and orders were framed. They took care to drink
themselves to a pitch beyond reason or humanity, and then made
a general sally, and attacked all who were in the streets.
Some were knocked down, others stabbed, and others cut and
carbonadoed. … They had special barbarities which they
executed upon their prisoners. 'Tipping the lion' was
squeezing the nose flat to the face and boring out the eyes
with their fingers. 'Dancing-masters' were those who taught
their scholars to cut capers by running swords through their
legs. The 'Tumblers' set women on their heads. The 'Sweaters'
worked in parties of half-a-dozen, surrounding their victims
with the points of their swords. … Another savage diversion
of the Mohocks was their thrusting women into barrels, and
rolling them down Snow or Ludgate Hill. … At length the
villanies of the Mohocks were attempted to be put down by a
Royal proclamation, issued on the 18th of March, 1712: this,
however, had very little effect, for we soon find Swift
exclaiming: 'They go on still and cut people's faces every
night!' … The Mohocks held together until nearly the end of
the reign of George I." [1727]
J. Timbs,
Clubs and Club Life in London,
pages 33-38.
MOIRA, Lord (Marquis of Hastings), The Indian administration of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
MOJOS,
MOXOS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS;
also, BOLIVIA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
MÖKERN, Battle of (1813).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.
MOLAI, Jacques de, and the fall of the Templars.
See TEMPLARS: A. D. 1307-1314;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1285-1314.
MOLASSES ACT, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.
MOLDAVIA.
MOLDO-WALLACHIA.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
MOLEMES, The Abbey of.
See CISTERCIAN ORDER.
MOLINISTS, The.
See MYSTICISM.
MOLINO DEL REY, Battle of.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1847 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
MOLINOS DEL REY, Battle of (1808).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).
MOLLWITZ, Battle of (1741).
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.
MOLOSSIANS, The.
See HELLAS;
and EPIRUS.
MOLTKE'S CAMPAIGNS.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840;
GERMANY: A. D. 1866;
FRANCE: A. D. 1870, and 1870-1871.
MOLUCCAS: Secured by Spain (1524).
See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.
MONA.
The ancient name of the island of Anglesea. It was the final
seat of the Druidical religion in Britain. Taken by the Romans
under Suetonius, A. D. 61, the priests were slain, the sacred
groves destroyed and Druidism practically exterminated.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 51.
See MONAPIA.
MONACANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: POWHATAN CONFEDERACY,
and IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH.
MONAPIA.
"The name of Monapia first occurs in Pliny, and must be
unquestionably identified with the Isle of Man; though the
name of the latter would dispose us at first to consider it as
representing Mona. But the Mona of the Romans, which was
attacked by Suetonius Paulinus and Agricola, was certainly
Anglesea."
E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography.,
chapter 24, section 2, foot-note.
MONASTERY.
MONASTICISM.
CONVENT.
ABBEY.
PRIORY.
"Monasticism was not the product of Christianity; it was the
inheritance of the Church, not its invention; not the
offspring, but the adopted child. The old antagonism between
mind and matter, flesh and spirit, self and the world has
asserted itself in all ages, especially among the nations of
the East. The Essenes, the Therapeutæ, and other Oriental
mystics, were as truly the precursors of Christian asceticism
in the desert or in the cloister, as Elijah and St. John the
Baptist. The Neoplatonism of Alexandria, extolling the
passionless man above him who regulates his passions,
sanctioned and systematized this craving after a life of utter
abstraction from external things, this abhorrence of all
contact with what is material as a defilement. Doubtless the
cherished remembrance of the martyrs and confessors, who in
the preceding centuries of the Christian era had triumphed
over many a sanguinary persecution, gave a fresh impulse in
the fourth century to this propensity to asceticism,
stimulating the devout to vie with their forefathers in the
faith by their voluntary endurance of self-inflicted
austerities. … The terms monastery, originally the cell or
eave of a solitary, laura, an irregular cluster of cells, and
cœnobium, an association of monks, few or many, under one roof
and under one control, mark the three earliest stages in the
development of monasticism.
{2196}
In Syria and Palestine each monk originally had a separate
cell; in Lower Egypt two were together in one cell, whence the
term 'syncellita,' or sharer of the cell, came to express this
sort of comradeship; in the Thebaid, under Pachomius of
Tabenna, each cell contained three monks. At a later period
the monks arrogated to themselves by general consent the title
of 'the religious,' and admission into a monastery was termed
'conversion' to God. … The history of monasticism, like the
history of states and institutions in general, divides itself
broadly into three great periods, of growth, of glory, and of
decay. … From the beginning of the fourth century to the
close of the fifth, from Antony the hermit to Benedict of
Monte Casino, is the age of undisciplined impulse of
enthusiasm not as yet regulated by experience. … Everything
is on a scale of illogical exaggeration, is wanting in
balance, in proportion, in symmetry. Because purity,
unworldliness, charity, are virtues, therefore a woman is to
be regarded as a venomous reptile, gold as a worthless pebble;
the deadliest foe and the dearest friend are to be esteemed
just alike. Because it is right to be humble, therefore the
monk cuts off hand, ear, or tongue, to avoid being made
bishop, and feigns idiocy, in order not to be accounted wise.
Because it is well to teach people to be patient, therefore a
sick monk never speaks a kind word for years to the brother
monk who nursed him. Because it is right to keep the lips from
idle words, therefore a monk holds a large stone in his mouth
for three years. Every precept is to be taken literally, and
obeyed unreasoningly. Therefore monks who have been plundered
by a robber run after him to give him a something which has
escaped his notice. Self-denial is enjoined in the gospel.
Therefore the austerities of asceticism are to be simply
endless. One ascetic makes his dwelling in a hollow tree,
another in a cave, another in a tomb, another on the top of a
pillar, another has so lost the very appearance of a man, that
he is shot at by shepherds, who mistake him for a wolf. The
natural instincts, instead of being trained and cultivated,
are to be killed outright, in this abhorrence of things
material. … The period which follows, from the first
Benedict to Charlemagne, exhibits monasticism in a more mature
stage of activity. The social intercourse of the monastery,
duly harmonized by a traditional routine, with its
subordination of rank and offices, its division of duties, its
mutual dependence of all on each other, and on their head,
civilized the monastic life; and, as the monk himself became
subject to the refining influences of civilization, he went
forth into the world to civilize others. … Had it not been
for monks and monasteries, the barbarian deluge might have
swept away utterly the traces of Roman civilization. The
Benedictine monk was the pioneer of civilization and
Christianity in England, Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Sweden,
Denmark. The schools attached to the Lerinensian monasteries
were the precursors of the Benedictine seminaries in France
and of the professional chairs filled by learned Benedictines
in the universities of mediæval Christendom. With the
incessant din of arms around him, it was the monk in his
cloister, even in regions beyond the immediate sphere of
Benedict's legislation, even in the remote fastnesses, for
instance of Mount Athos, who, by preserving and transcribing
ancient manuscripts, both Christian and pagan, as well as by
recording his observations of contemporaneous events, was
handing down the torch of knowledge unquenched to future
generations, and hoarding up stores of erudition for the
researches of a more enlightened age. The first musicians,
painters, farmers, statesmen, in Europe, after the downfall of
Imperial Rome under the onslaught of the barbarians, were
monks."
I. Gregory Smith,
Christian Monasticism,
introduction.
"The monastic stream, which had been born in the deserts of
Egypt, divided itself into two great arms. The one spread in
the East, at first inundated everything, then concentrated and
lost itself there. The other escaped into the West, and spread
itself by a thousand channels over an entire world which had
to be covered and fertilised." Athanasius, who was driven
twice by persecution to take refuge among the hermits in the
Thebaid, Egypt, and who was three times exiled by an imperial
order to the West, "became thus the natural link between the
Fathers of the desert and those vast regions which their
successors were to conquer and transform. … It was in 340
that he came for the first time to Rome, in order to escape
the violence of the Arians, and invoke the protection of Pope
Julius. … He spread in Rome the first report of the life led
by the monks in the Thebaid, of the marvellous exploits of
Anthony, who was still alive, of the immense foundations which
Pacome was at that time forming upon the banks of the higher
Nile. He had brought with him two of the most austere of these
monks. … The narratives of Athanasius … roused the hearts
and imaginations of the Romans, and especially of the Roman
women. The name of monk, to which popular prejudice seems
already to have attached a kind of ignominy, became
immediately an honoured and envied title. The impression
produced at first by the exhortations of the illustrious
exile, was extended and strengthened during the two other
visits which he made to the Eternal City. Some time
afterwards, on the death of St. Anthony, Athanasius, at the
request of his disciples, wrote the life of the patriarch of
the Thebaid; and this biography, circulating through all the
West, immediately acquired there the popularity of a legend,
and the authority of a confession of faith. … Under this
narrative form, says St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he promulgated
the laws of monastic life. The town and environs of Rome were
soon full of monasteries, rapidly occupied by men
distinguished alike by birth, fortune and knowledge, who lived
there in charity, sanctity, and freedom. From Rome the new
institution, already distinguished by the name of religion, or
religious life, par excellence, extended itself over all
Italy. It was planted at the foot of the Alps by the influence
of a great bishop, Eusebius of Vercelli. … From the
continent the new institution rapidly gained the isles of the
Mediterranean, and even the rugged rocks of the Gargon and of
Capraja, where the monks, voluntarily exiled from the world,
went to take the place of the criminals and political victims
whom the emperors had been accustomed to banish thither. …
Most of the great leaders of the cenobitical institution had,
since St. Pacome, made out, under the name of Rule,
instructions and constitutions for the use of their immediate
disciples; but none of these works had acquired an extensive
or lasting sway. In the East, it is true, the rule of St.
Basil had prevailed in a multitude of monasteries, yet
notwithstanding Cassianus, in visiting Egypt, Palestine, and
Mesopotamia, found there almost as many different rules as
there were monasteries.
{2197}
In the West the diversity was still more strange. Each man
made for himself his own rule and discipline, taking his
authority from the writings or example of the Eastern Fathers.
The Gauls especially exclaimed against the extreme rigour of
the fasts and abstinences, which might be suitable under a
fervid sky like that of Egypt or Syria, but which could not be
endured by what they already called Gallican weakness; and
even in the initial fervour of the monasteries of the Jura,
they had succeeded in imposing a necessary medium upon their
chiefs. Here it was the changing will of an abbot; there a
written rule; elsewhere, the traditions of the elders, which
determined the order of conventual life. In some houses
various rules were practised at the same time, according to
the inclination of the inhabitants of each cell, and were
changed according to the times and places. They passed thus
from excessive austerity to laxness, and conversely, according
to the liking of each. Uncertainty and instability were
everywhere. … A general arrangement was precisely what was
most wanting in monastic life. There were an immense number of
monks; there had been among them saints and illustrious men;
but to speak truly, the monastic order had still no existence.
Even where the rule of St. Basil had acquired the necessary
degree of establishment and authority—that is to say, in a
considerable portion of the East—the gift of fertility was
denied to it. … In the West also, towards the end of the
fifth century, the cenobitical institution seemed to have
fallen into the torpor and sterility of the East. After St.
Jerome, who died in 420, and St. Augustine, who died in 430,
after the Fathers of Lerins, whose splendour paled towards
450, there was a kind of eclipse. … Except in Ireland and
Gaul, where, in most of the provinces, some new foundations
rose, a general interruption was observable in the extension
of the institution. … If this eclipse had lasted, the
history of the monks of the West would only have been, like
that of the Eastern monks, a sublime but brief passage in the
annals of the Church, instead of being their longest and
best-filled page. This was not to be: but to keep the promises
which the monastic order had made to the Church and to the
new-born Christendom, it needed, at the beginning of the sixth
century, a new and energetic impulse, such as would
concentrate and discipline so many scattered, irregular, and
intermittent forces; a uniform and universally accepted rule;
a legislator inspired by the fertile and glorious past, to
establish and govern the future. God provided for that
necessity by sending St. Benedict into the world."
Count de Montalembert,
The Monks of the West,
volume 1, pages 381-387 and 512-515.
"The very word monastery is a misnomer: the word is a Greek
word, and means the dwelling-place of a solitary person,
living in seclusion. … In the 13th century … a monastery
meant what we now understand it to mean—viz., the abode of a
society of men or women who lived together in common—who were
supposed to partake of common meals; to sleep together in one
common dormitory; to attend certain services together in their
common church; to transact certain business or pursue certain
employments in the sight and hearing of each other in the
common cloister; and, when the end came, to be laid side by
side in the common graveyard, where in theory none but members
of the order could find a resting-place for their bones. When
I say 'societies of men and women' I am again reminded that
the other term, 'convent,' has somehow got to be used commonly
in a mistaken sense. People use the word as if it signified a
religious house tenanted exclusively by women. The truth is
that a convent is nothing more than a Latin name for an
association of persons who have come together with a view to
live for a common object and to submit to certain rules in the
ordering of their daily lives. The monastery was the common
dwelling-place; the convent was the society of persons
inhabiting it; and the ordinary formula used when a body of
monks or nuns execute any corporate act—such as buying or
selling land—by any legal instrument is, 'The Prior and
Convent of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Norwich;' 'the
Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of St. Peter's,
Westminster;' 'the Abbess and Convent of the Monastery of St.
Mary and St. Bernard at Lacock,' and so on. … A monastery in
theory then was, as it was called, a Religious House. It was
supposed to be the home of people whose lives were passed in
the worship of God, and in taking care of their own souls, and
making themselves fit for a better world than this hereafter.
… The church of a monastery was the heart of the place. It
was not that the church was built for the monastery, but the
monastery existed for the church. … Almost as essential to
the idea of a monastery as the church was the cloister or
great quadrangle, inclosed on all sides by the high walls of
the monastic buildings. … All round this quadrangle ran a
covered arcade, whose roof, leaning against the high walls,
was supported on the inner side by an open trellis work in
stone—often exhibiting great beauty of design and
workmanship—through which light and air was admitted into
the arcade. … The cloister was really the living place of
the monks. Here they pursued their daily avocations, here they
taught their school. … 'But surely a monk always lived in a
cell, didn't he?' The sooner we get rid of that delusion the
better. Be it understood that until Henry II. founded the
Carthusian Abbey of Witham, in 1178, there was no such thing
known in England as a monk's cell, as we understand the term.
It was a peculiarity of the Carthusian order, and when it was
first introduced it was regarded as a startling novelty for
any privacy or anything approaching solitude to be tolerated
in a monastery. The Carthusian system never found much favour
in England. … At the time of the Norman Conquest it may be
said that all English monks were professedly under one and the
same Rule—the famous Benedictine Rule. The Rule of a
monastery was the constitution or code of laws, which
regulated the discipline of the house, and the Rule of St.
Benedict dates back as far as the 6th century, though it was
not introduced into England for more than 100 years after it
had been adopted elsewhere. … About 150 years before the
Conquest, a great reformation had been attempted of the French
monasteries, … the reformers breaking away from the old
Benedictines and subjecting themselves to a new and improved
Rule.
{2198}
These first reformers were called Cluniac monks, from the
great Abbey of Clugni, in Burgundy, in which the new order of
things had begun. The first English house of reformed or
Cluniac monks was founded at Lewes, in Sussex, 11 years after
the Conquest. … The constitution of every convent, great or
small, was monarchical. The head of the house was almost an
absolute sovereign, and was called the Abbot. His dominions
often extended, even in England, over a very wide tract of
country, and sometimes over several minor monasteries which
were called Cells. … The heads of these cells or subject
houses were called Priors. An Abbey was a monastery which was
independent. A priory was a monastery which in theory or in
fact was subject to an abbey. All the Cluniac monasteries in
England were thus said to be alien priories, because they were
mere cells of the great Abbey of Clugni in France, to which
each priory paid heavy tribute."
A. Jessopp,
The Coming of the Friars,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
E. L. Cutts,
Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,
chapter 6.
J. Bingham,
Antiquity of the Christ. Ch.,
book 7, chapter 3, sections 11-14.
I. G. Smith,
Christian Monasticism, 4-9th Centuries.
See, also,
CŒNOBIUM;
LAURAS;
MENDICANT ORDERS;
BENEDICTINE;
CISTERCIAN;
CARMELITE,
and AUSTIN CANONS.
MONASTERIES, The English, Suppression of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.
MONASTIC LIBRARIES.
See LIBRARIES, MEDIÆVAL.
MONASTIC ORDERS.
See AUSTIN CANONS;
BENEDICTINE ORDERS;
CAPUCHINS;
CARMELITE FRIARS;
CARTHUSIAN;
CISTERCIAN;
CLAIRVAUX;
CLUGNY;
MENDICANT ORDERS;
RECOLLECTS;
SERVITES;
THEATINES;
TRAPPISTS.
MONÇON,
MONZON, Treaty of (1626).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
MONCONTOUR, Battle of (1569).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.
----------MONEY AND BANKING: Start--------
MONEY AND BANKING:
Nature and Origin of Money.
"When the division of labour has been once thoroughly
established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants
which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies
the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part
of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his
own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's
labour us he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by
exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the
society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial
society. But when the division of labour first began to take
place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been very
much clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we
shall suppose, has more of a certain commodity than he himself
has occasion for, while another has less. The former
consequently would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to
purchase, a part of this superfluity. But if this latter
should chance to have nothing that the former stands in need
of, no exchange can be made between them. The butcher has more
meat in his shop than he himself can consume, and the brewer
and the baker would each of them be willing to purchase a part
of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the
different productions of their respective trades, and the
butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which
he has immediate occasion for. No exchange can, in this case,
be made between them. … In order to avoid the inconveniency
of such situations, every prudent man in every period of
society, after the first establishment of the division of
labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs
in such a manner, as to have at all times by him, besides the
peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of
some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people
would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their
industry. Many different commodities, it is probable, were
successively both thought of and employed for this purpose. In
the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the
common instrument of commerce; and, though they must have been
a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were
frequently valued according to the number of cattle which had
been given in exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says
Homer, cost only nine oxen; but that of Glaucus cost an
hundred oxen. Salt is said to be the common instrument of
commerce and exchange in Abyssinia; a species of shells in
some parts of the coasts of India; dried cod at Newfoundland;
tobacco in Virginia; sugar in some of our West India colonies;
hides or dressed leather in some other countries; and there is
at this day [1775] a village in Scotland where it is not
uncommon, I am told, for a workman to carry nails instead of
money to the baker's shop or the alehouse. In all countries,
however, men seem at last to have been determined by
irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this
employment, to metals above every other commodity."
Adam Smith,
Wealth of Nations,
chapter 4, book 1 (volume 1).
"There is … no machine which has saved as much labor as
money. … The invention of money has been rightly compared to
the invention of writing with letters. We may, however, call
the introduction of money as the universal medium of exchange
… one of the greatest and most beneficent of advances ever
made by the race. … Very different kinds of commodities
have, according to circumstances, been used as money; but
uniformly only such as possess a universally recognized
economic value. On the whole, people in a low stage of

civilization are wont to employ, mainly, only ordinary
commodities, such as are calculated to satisfy a vulgar and
urgent want, as an instrument of exchange. As they advance in
civilization, they, at each step, choose a more and more
costly object, for this purpose, and one which ministers to
the more elevated wants. Races of hunters, at least in
non-tropical countries, usually use skins as money; that is
the almost exclusive product of their labor, one which can be
preserved for a long period of time, which constitutes their
principal article of clothing and their principal export in
the more highly developed regions. Nomadic races and the lower
agricultural races, pass, by a natural gradation, to the use of
cattle as money; which supposes rich pasturages at the
disposal of all.
{2199}
If it were otherwise, there would be a great many to whom
payments of this kind had been made, who would not know what
to do with the cattle given them, on account of the charges
for their maintenance. … That metals were used for the
purpose of money much later than the commodities above
mentioned, and the precious metals in turn later than the
non-precious metals, cannot by any means be shown to be
universally true. Rather is gold in some countries to be
obtained by the exercise of so little skill, and both gold and
silver satisfy a want so live and general, and one so early
felt, that they are to be met with as an instrument of
exchange in very early times. In the case of isolated races,
much depends on the nature of the metals with which the
geologic constitution of the country has furnished them. In
general, however, the above law is found to prevail here. The
higher the development of a people becomes, the more frequent
is the occurrence of large payments; and to effect these, the
more costly a metal is, the better, of course, it is adapted
to effect such payments. Besides, only rich nations are able
to possess the costly metals in a quantity absolutely great.
Among the Jews, gold as money dates only from the time of
David. King Pheidon, of Argos, it is said, introduced silver
money into Greece, about the middle of the eighth century
before Christ. Gold came into use at a much later period. The
Romans struck silver money, for the first time, in 209 before
Christ, and, in 207, the first gold coins. Among modern
nations, Venice (1285) and Florence seem to have been the
first to have coined gold in any quantity."
W. Roscher,
Principles of Political Economy,
book 2, chapter 3, sections 117-119 (volume 1).
MONEY AND BANKING:
Ancient Egypt and Babylonia.
"Money seems to us now so obvious a convenience, and so much a
necessity of commerce, that it appears almost inconceivable
that a people who created the Sphinx and the Pyramids, the
temples of Ipsamboul and Karnac, should have been entirely
ignorant of coins. Yet it appears from the statements of
Herodotus, and the evidence of the monuments themselves, that
this was really the case. As regards the commercial and
banking systems of ancient Egypt, we are almost entirely
without information. Their standard of value seems to have
been the 'outen' or 'ten' of copper (94-96 grammes), which
circulated like the æs rude of the Romans by weight, and in
the form of bricks, being measured by the balance. It was
obtained from the mines of Mount Sinai, which were worked as
early as the fourth dynasty. Gold and silver appear to have
been also used, though less frequently. Like copper, they were
sometimes in the form of bricks, but generally in rings,
resembling the ring money of the ancient Celts, which is said
to have been employed in Ireland down to the 12th century, and
still holds its own in the interior of Africa. This
approximated very nearly to the possession of money, but it
wanted what the Roman lawyers called 'the law' and 'the form.'
Neither the weight nor the pureness was guaranteed by any
public authority. Such a state of things seems to us very
inconvenient, but after all It is not very different from that
which prevails in China even at the present day. The first
money struck in Egypt, and that for the use rather of the
Greek and Phœnician merchants than of the natives, was by the
Satrap Aryandes. In ancient Babylonia and Assyria, as in
Egypt, the precious metals, and especially silver, circulated
as uncoined ingots. They were readily taken indeed, but taken
by weight and verified by the balance like any other
merchandise. The excavations in Assyria and Babylon, which
have thrown so much light upon ancient history, have afforded
us some interesting information as to the commercial
arrangements of these countries, and we now possess a
considerable number of receipts, contracts, and other records
relating to loans of silver on personal securities at fixed
rates of interest; loans on landed or house property; sales of
land, in one case with a plan; sales of slaves, &c. These were
engraved on tablets of clay, which were then burnt. M.
Lenormant divides these most interesting documents into five
principal types:
1. Simple obligations.
2. Obligations with a penal clause in case of non-fulfilment.
One he gives which had 79 days to run.
3. Obligations with the guarantee of a third party.
4. Obligations payable to a third person.
5. Drafts drawn upon one place, payable in another. …
These Assyrian drafts were negotiable, but from the nature of
things could not pass by endorsement, because, when the clay
was once baked, nothing new could be added, and under these
circumstances the name of the payee was frequently omitted. It
seems to follow that they must have been regularly advised. It
is certainly remarkable that such instruments, and especially
letters of credit, should have preceded the use of coins. The
earliest banking firm of which we have any account is said to
be that of Egibi and Company, for our knowledge of whom we are
indebted to Mr. Boscawen, Mr. Pinches, and Mr. Hilton Price.
Several documents and records belonging to this family are in
the British Museum. They are on clay tablets, and were
discovered in an earthenware jar found in the neighbourhood of
Hillah, a few miles from Babylon. The house is said to have
acted as a sort of national bank of Babylon: the founder of
the house, Egibi, probably lived in the reign of Sennacherib,
about 700 B. C. This family has been traced during a century
and a half, and through five generations, down to the reign of
Darius. At the same time, the tablets hitherto translated
scarcely seem to me to prove that the firm acted as bankers,
in our sense of the word."
Sir J. Lubbock,
The History of Money
(Nineteenth Century, November, 1879).
"We have an enormous number of the documents of this firm,
beginning with Nebuchadnezzar the Great, and going on for some
five generations or so to the time of Darius. The tablets are
dated month after month and year after year, and thus they
afford us a sure method of fixing the chronology of that very
uncertain period of history. There is a small contract tablet
in the Museum at Zürich, discovered by Dr. Oppert, dated in
the 5th year of Pacorus, king of Persia, who reigned about the
time of Domitian. There is a little doubt about the reading of
one of the characters in the name, but if it is correct, it
will prove that the use of cuneiform did not fall into disuse
until after the Christian Era. … Some have tried to show
that Egibi is the Babylonian form of Jacob, which would lead
one to suspect the family to have been Jews; but this is not
certain at present."
E. A. W. Budge,
Babylonian Life and History,
page 115.
{2200}
"It is in the development of trade, and especially of banking,
rather than in manufactures, that Babylonia and Chaldæa were
in advance of all the rest of the world. The most cautious
Assyriologists are the least confident in their renderings of
the numerous contract tablets from which, if they were
accurately interpreted, we should certainly be able to
reconstruct the laws and usages of the world's first great
market place. … The following account of Babylonian usages
is derived from the text of M. Revillout's work. … It is
confirmed in essentials by the later work of Meissner, who has
translated over one hundred deeds of the age of Hammurabi and
his successors. In Chaldæa every kind of commodity, from land
to money, circulated with a freedom that is unknown to modern
commerce; every value was negotiable, and there was no limit
to the number and variety of the agreements that might be
entered into. … Brick tablets did not lend themselves
readily to 'bookkeeping,' as no further entry could be made
after baking, while the first entry was not secure unless
baked at once. Each brick recorded one transaction, and was
kept by the party interested till the contract was completed,
and the destruction of the tablet was equivalent to a receipt.
Babylonian law allowed debts to be paid by assigning another
person's debt to the creditor; a debt was property, and could
be assigned without reference to the debtor, so that any
formal acknowledgment of indebtedness could be treated like a
negotiable bill—a fact which speaks volumes for the
commercial honesty of the people. A separate tablet was, of
course, required to record the original debt, or rather to say
that So-and-so's debt to Such-an-one has been by him sold to a
third party. Such third party could again either assign his
claim to a bank for a consideration, or if the last debtor had
a credit at the bank, the creditor could be paid out of that,
a sort of forecast of the modern clearing-house system. The
debtor who pays before the term agreed on has to receive a
formal surrender of the creditor's claim, or a transfer of it
to himself. The Babylonian regarded money and credit as
synonymous, and the phrase, 'Money of Such-an-one upon
So-and-so,' is used as equivalent to A's credit with B. … In
ancient Babylonia, as in modern China, the normal effect of a
loan was supposed to be beneficial to the borrower. In Egypt,
judging from the form of the deeds, the idea was that the
creditor asserted a claim upon the debtor, or the debtor
acknowledged a liability to the man from whom he had borrowed.
In Babylonia the personal question is scarcely considered; one
person owes money to another—that is the commonest thing in
the world—such loans are in a chronic state of being incurred
and paid off; one man's debt is another man's credit, and
credit being the soul of commerce, the loan is considered
rather as a part of the floating negotiable capital of the
country than as a burden on the shoulders of one particular
debtor."
E. J. Simcox,
Primitive Civilizations,
volume 1, pages 320-322.
MONEY AND BANKING:
China.
"Not only did the Chinese possess coins at a very early
period, but they were also the inventors of bank notes. Some
writers regard bank notes as having originated about 119 B.
C., in the reign of the Emperor Ou-ti. At this time the Court
was in want of money, and to raise it Klaproth tells us that
the prime minister hit upon the following device. When any
princess or courtiers entered the imperial presence, it was
customary to cover the face with a piece of skin. It was first
decreed then, that for this purpose the skin of certain white
deer kept in one of the royal parks should alone be permitted,
and then these pieces of skin were sold for a high price. But
although they appear to have passed from one noble to another,
they do not seem ever to have entered into general
circulation. It was therefore very different from the Russian
skin money. In this case the notes were 'used instead of the
skins from which they were cut, the skins themselves being too
bulky and heavy to be constantly carried backward and forward.
Only a little piece was cut off to figure as a token of
possession of the whole skin. The ownership was proved when
the piece fitted in the hole.' True bank notes are said to
have been invented about 800 A. D., in the reign of
Hiantsoung, of the dynasty of Thang, and were called
'feytsien,' or flying money. It is curious, however, though
not surprising, to find that the temptation to over-issue led
to the same results in China as in the West. The value of the
notes fell, until at length it took 11,000 min, or £3,000, to
buy a cake of rice, and the use of notes appears to have been
abandoned. Subsequently the issue was revived, and Tchang-yang
(960-990 A. D.) seems to have been the first private person
who issued notes. Somewhat later, under the Emperor
'Tching-tsong (997-1022), this invention was largely extended.
Sixteen of the richest firms united to form a bank of issue
which emitted paper money in series, some payable every three
years. The earliest mention, in European literature, of paper,
or rather cotton, money appears to be by Rubruquis, a monk,
who was sent by St. Louis, in the year 1252, to the Court of
the Mongol Prince Mangu-Khan, but he merely mentions the fact
of its existence. Marco Polo, who resided from 1275 to 1284 at
the court of Kublai-Khan, … gives us a longer and
interesting account of the note system, which he greatly
admired, and he concludes by saying, 'Now you have heard the
ways and means whereby the great Khan may have, and, in fact,
has, more treasure than all the kings in the world. You know
all about it, and the reason why.' But this apparent facility
of creating money led, in the East, as it has elsewhere, to
great abuses. Sir John Mandeville, who was in Tartary shortly
afterwards, in 1322, tells us that the 'Emperour may dispenden
als moehe as he wile with outen estymacioum. For he despendeth
not, ne maketh no money, but of lether emprented, or of
papyre. … For there and beyonde hem thei make no money,
nouther of gold nor of sylver. And therefore he may despende
ynow and outrageously.' The great Khan seems to have been
himself of the same opinion. He appears to have 'despent
outrageously,' and the value of the paper money again fell to
a very small fraction of its nominal amount, causing great
discontent and misery, until about the middle of the sixteenth
century, under the Mandchu dynasty, it was abolished, and
appears to have been so completely forgotten, that the Jesuit
father, Gabriel de Magaillans, who resided at Pekin about
1668, observes that there is no recollection of paper money
having ever existed in the manner described by Marco Polo;
though two centuries later it was again in use. It must be
observed, however, that these Chinese bank notes differed from
ours in one essential—namely, they were not payable at sight.
{2201}
Western notes, even when not payable at all, have generally
purported to be exchangeable at the will of the holder, but
this principle the Chinese did not adopt, and their notes were
only payable at certain specified periods."
Sir J. Lubbock,
The History of Money
(Nineteenth Century, November, 1879).
ALSO IN:
W. Vissering,
On Chinese Currency.
MONEY AND BANKING:
Coinage in its Beginnings.
"Many centuries before the invention of the art of coining,
gold and silver in the East, and bronze in the West, in
bullion form, had already supplanted barter, the most
primitive of all methods of buying and selling, when among
pastoral peoples the ox and the sheep were the ordinary
mediums of exchange. The very word 'pecunia' is an evidence of
this practice in Italy at a period which is probably recent in
comparison with the time when values were estimated in cattle
in Greece and the East. 'So far as we have any knowledge,'
says Herodotus, 'the Lydians were the first nation to
introduce the use of gold and silver coin.' This statement of
the father of history must not, however, be accepted as
finally settling the vexed question as to who were the
inventors of coined money, for Strabo, Aelian, and the Parian
Chronicle, all agree in adopting the more commonly received
tradition, that Pheidon, King of Argos, first struck silver
coins in the island of Aegina. These two apparently
contradictory assertions modern research tends to reconcile
with one another. The one embodies the Asiatic, the other the
European tradition; and the truth of the matter is that gold
was first coined by the Lydians in Asia Minor, in the seventh
century before our era; and that silver was first struck in
European Greece about the same time. The earliest coins are
simply bullets of metal, oval or bean-shaped, bearing on one
side the signet of the state or of the community responsible
for the purity of the metal and the exactness of the weight.
Coins were at first stamped on one side only, the reverse
showing merely the impress of the square-headed spike or anvil
on which, after being weighed, the bullet of hot metal was
placed with a pair of tongs and there held while a second
workman adjusted upon it the engraved die. This done, a third
man with a heavy hammer would come down upon it with all his
might, and the coin would be produced, bearing on its face or
obverse the seal of the issuer, and on the reverse only the
mark of the anvil spike, an incuse square. This simple process
was after a time improved upon by adding a second engraved die
beneath the metal bullet, so that a single blow of the
sledge-hammer would provide the coin with a type, as it is
called, in relief on both sides. The presence of the
unengraved incuse square may therefore be accepted as an
indication of high antiquity, and nearly all Greek coins which
are later than the age of the Persian wars bear a type on both
sides. … Greek coin-types may be divided into two distinct
classes:
(a) Mythological or religious representations, and
(b) portraits of historical persons.
From the earliest times down to the age of Alexander the Great
the types of Greek coins are almost exclusively religious.
However strange this may seem at first, it is not difficult to
explain. It must be borne in mind that when the enterprising
and commercial Lydians first lighted upon the happy idea of
stamping metal for general circulation, a guarantee of just
weight and purity of metal would be the one condition
required. … What more binding guarantee could be found than
the invocation of one or other of those divinities most
honoured and most dreaded in the district in which the coin
was intended to circulate. There is even good reason to think
that the earliest coins were actually struck within the
precincts of the temples, and under the direct auspices of the
priests; for in times of general insecurity by sea and land,
the temples alone remained sacred and inviolate."
B. V. Head,
Greek Coins
Coins and Medals, edited by S. Lane-Poole, chapter 2.
MONEY AND BANKING:
Early Banking.
"The banker's calling is both new and old. As a distinct
branch of commerce, and a separate agent in the advancement of
civilisation, its history hardly extends over 300 years; but,
in a rude and undeveloped sort of way, it has existed during
some dozens of centuries. It began almost with the beginning
of society. No sooner had men learnt to adopt a portable and
artificial equivalent for their commodities, and thus to buy
and sell and get gain more easily, than the more careful of
them began to gather up their money in little heaps, or in
great heaps, if they were fortunate enough. These heaps were,
by the Romans, called montes—mounds, or banks,—and
henceforth every money-maker was a primitive banker. The
prudent farmers and shopkeepers in the out-of-the-way
villages, who now lock up their savings in strong boxes, or
conceal them in places where they are least likely to be found
by thieves, show us how the richest and most enterprising men
of far-off times, whether in Anglo-Saxon or mediæval Britain,
ancient Greece and Rome, China or Judæa, made banks for
themselves before the great advantages of joint-stock heaping
up of money were discovered. When and in what precise way that
discovery was made antiquarians have yet to decide. …
Perhaps Jews and Greeks set the example to the modern world.
Every rich Athenian had his treasurer or money-keeper, and
whenever any particular treasurer proved himself a good
accountant and safe banker, it is easy to understand how, from
having one master, he came to have several, until he was able
to change his condition of slavery for the humble rank of a
freedman, and then to use his freedom to such good purpose
that he became an influential member of the community. Having
many people's money, entrusted to his care, he received good
payment for his responsible duty, and he quickly learned to
increase his wealth by lending out his own savings, if not his
employers' capital, at the highest rate of interest that he
could obtain. The Greek bankers were chiefly famous as
money-lenders, and interest at thirty-six per cent. per annum
was not considered unusually exorbitant among them. For their
charges they were often blamed by spendthrifts, satirists, and
others. 'It is said,' complains Plutarch, 'that hares bring
forth and nourish their young at the same time that they
conceive again; but the debts of these scoundrels and savages
bring forth before they conceive, for they give and
immediately demand again; they take away their money at the
same time as they put it out; they place at interest what they
receive as interest. The Messenians have a proverb: "There is
a Pylos before Pylos, and yet another Pylos still."
{2202}
So of the usurers it may be said, "There is a profit before
profit, and yet another profit still;" and then, forsooth,
they laugh at philosophers, who say that nothing can come out
of nothing!' The Greek bankers and money-lenders, those of
Delos and Delphi especially, are reported to have used the
temples as treasure-houses, and to have taken the priests into
partnership in their money-making. Some arrangement of that
sort seems to have existed among the Jews, and to have aroused
the anger of Jesus when he went into the Temple of Jerusalem,
'and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and said unto
them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of
prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Bankers' or
money-changers' tables were famous institutions all over the
civilised world of the ancients. Livy tells how, in 308 B. C.,
if not before, they were to be found in the Roman Forum, and
later Latin authors make frequent allusions to banking
transactions of all sorts. They talk of deposits and
securities, bills of exchange and drafts to order, cheques and
bankers' books, as glibly as a modern merchant. But these
things were nearly forgotten during the dark ages, until the
Jews, true to the money-making propensities that characterised
them while they still had a country of their own, set the
fashion of money-making and of banking in all the countries of
Europe through which they were dispersed."
H. R. Fox Bourne,
Romance of Trade,
chapter 4.
MONEY AND BANKING:
Ancient Greece.
"Oriental contact first stirred the 'auri sacra fames' in the
Greek mind. That this was so the Greek language itself tells
plainly. For 'chrusos,' gold, is a Semitic loan-word, closely
related to the Hebrew 'charuz,' but taken immediately, there
can be no reasonable doubt, from the Phœnician. The restless
treasure-seekers from Tyre were, indeed, as the Græco-Semitic
term metal intimates, the original subterranean explorers of
the Balkan peninsula. As early, probably, as the 15th century
B. C. they 'digged out ribs of gold' on the islands of Thasos
and Siphnos, and on the Thracian mainland at Mount Pangæum;
and the fables of the Golden Fleece, and of Arimaspian wars
with gold-guarding griffins, prove the hold won by the
'precious bane' over the popular imagination. Asia Minor was,
however, the chief source of prehistoric supply, the native
mines lying long neglected after the Phœnicians had been
driven from the scene. Midas was a typical king in a land
where the mountains were gold-granulated, and the rivers ran
over sands of gold. And it was in fact from Phrygia that
Pelops was traditionally reported to have brought the
treasures which made Mycenæ the golden city of the Achæan
world. The Epic affluence in gold was not wholly fictitious.
From the sepulchres of Mycenæ alone about one hundred pounds
Troy weight of the metal have been disinterred; freely at
command even in the lowest stratum of the successive
habitations at Hissarlik, it was lavishly stored, and highly
wrought in the picturesquely-named 'treasure of Priam'; and
has been found, in plates and pearls, beneath twenty metres of
volcanic debris, in the Cyclatic islands Thera and Therapia.
This plentifulness contrasts strangely with the extreme
scarcity of gold in historic Greece. It persisted, however,
mainly owing to the vicinity of the auriferous Ural Mountains,
in the Milesian colony of Panticapæum, near Kertch, where
graves have been opened containing corpses shining 'like
images' in a complete clothing of gold-leaf, and equipped with
ample supplies of golden vessels and ornaments. Silver was, at
the outset, a still rarer substance than gold. Not that there
is really less of it. … But it occurs less obviously, and is
less easy to obtain pure. Accordingly, in some very early
Egyptian inscriptions, silver, by heading the list of metals,
claims a supremacy over them which proved short-lived. It
terminated for ever with the scarcity that had produced it,
when the Phœnicians began to pour the flood of Spanish silver
into the markets and treasure-chambers of the East. Armenia
constituted another tolerably copious source of supply; and it
was in this quarter that Homer located the 'birth-place of
silver.'"
A. M. Clerke,
Familiar Studies in Homer,
chapter 10.
"Taken as a whole the Greek money is excellent; pure in metal
and exact in weight, its real corresponding to its nominal
value. Nothing better has been done in this way among the most
civilized and best governed nations of modern times. There is,
indeed, always a certain recognized limit, which keeps the
actual weight of the money slightly below its theoretical
weight; and this fact recurs with such regularity that it may
be regarded as a rule. We must conclude, therefore, that it
was under this form that Greek civilization allowed to the
coiner of money the right of seigniorage, or the benefit
legitimately due to him to cover the expenses of the coinage,
and in exchange for the service rendered by him to the public
in providing them with money, by which they were saved the
trouble of perpetual weighing. This allowance, however, is
always kept within very narrow limits, and is never more than
the excess of the natural value of the coined money over that
of the metal in ingots. … Of course, the general and
predominant fact of the excellence of the Greek money in the
time of Hellenic independence is subject, like all human
things, to some exceptions. There were a few cities which
yielded to the delusive bait of an unlawful advantage,
debasing the quality of their coins without foreseeing that
the consequences of this unfair operation would react against
themselves. But these exceptions are very rare."
F. Lenormant,
Money in Ancient Greece and Rome
(Contemporary Review, February; 1879).
"The quantity, particularly of gold, … was, in the earlier
historical periods, according to unexceptionable testimony,
extremely small. In the time of Crœsus, according to
Theopompus, gold was not to be found for sale in any of the
Greek States. The Spartans, needing some for a votive
offering, wished to purchase a quantity from Crœsus;
manifestly because he was the nearest person from whom it
could be obtained. … Even during the period from the
seventieth to the eightieth Olympiads, (B. C. 500-460,) pure
gold was a rarity. When Hiero of Syracuse wished to send a
tripod and a statue of the Goddess of Victory, made of pure
gold, to the Delphian Apollo, he could not procure the
requisite quantity of metal until his agents applied to the
Corinthian Architiles, who, as was related by the
above-mentioned Theopompus and Phanias of Eresus, had long
been in the practice of purchasing gold in small quantities,
and hoarding it. Greece proper itself did not possess many
mines of precious metals. The most important of the few which
it possessed were the Attic silver mines of Laurion.
{2203}
These were at first very productive. … Asia and Africa
furnished incomparably a larger quantity of the precious
metals than was procured in Greece and the other European
countries. … Colchis, Lydia, and Phrygia, were distinguished
for their abundance of gold. Some derive the tradition of the
golden fleece from the gold washings in Colchis. Who has not
heard of the riches of Midas, and Gyges, and Crœsus, the gold
mines of the mountains Tmolus and Sipylus, the gold-sand of
the Pactolus? … From the very productive gold mines of
India, together with its rivers flowing with gold, among which
in particular the Ganges may be classed, arose the fable of
the gold-digging ants. From these annual revenues the royal
treasure was formed. By this a great quantity of precious
metal was kept from circulation. It was manifestly their
principle to coin only as much gold and silver as was
necessary for the purposes of trade, and for the expenditures
of the State. In Greece, also, great quantities were kept from
circulation, and accumulated in treasuries. There were locked
up in the citadel of Athens 9,700 talents of coined silver,
besides the gold and silver vessels and utensils. The Delphian
god possessed a great number of the most valuable articles.
… The magnificent expenditures of Pericles upon public
edifices and structures, for works of the plastic arts, for
theatrical exhibitions, and in carrying on wars, distributed
what Athens had collected, into many hands. The temple-robbing
Phocians coined from the treasures at Delphi ten thousand
talents in gold and silver; and this large sum was consumed by
war. Philip of Macedonia, in fine, carried on his wars as much
with gold as with arms. Thus a large amount of money came into
circulation in the period between the commencement of the
Persian wars and the age of Demosthenes. The precious metals,
therefore, must of necessity have depreciated in value, as
they did at a later period, when Constantine the Great caused
money to be coined from the precious articles found in the
heathen temples. But what a quantity of gold and silver flowed
through Alexander's conquest of Asia into the western
countries! Allowing that his historians exaggerate, the main
point, however, remains certain. … Alexander's successors
not only collected immense sums, but by their wars again put
them into circulation. … The enormous taxes which were
raised in the Macedonian kingdoms, the revelry and extravagant
liberality of the kings, which passed all bounds, indicate the
existence of an immense amount of ready money."
A. Boeckh,
The Public Economy of the Athenians,
book 1, chapter 3.
MONEY AND BANKING:
Phœnicia.
"Nearly all the silver in common use for trade throughout the
East was brought into the market by the Phœnicians. The silver
mines were few and distant; the trade was thus a monopoly,
worth keeping so by the most savage treatment of suspected
rivals, and, as a monopoly, so lucrative that, but for the
long and costly voyage between Spain and Syria, the merchant
would have seemed to get his profit for nothing. … The use
of silver money, though it did not originate with the
Phœnicians, was no doubt promoted by their widespread
dealings. The coins were always of known weight, and standing
in a well-known relation to the bars used for large
transactions."
E. J. Simcox,
Primitive Civilizations,
volume 1, page 400.
"It is a curious fact that coinage in Phoenicia, one of the
most commercial of ancient countries, should have been late in
origin, and apparently not very plentiful. There are, in fact,
no coins of earlier period than the third century which we can
with certainty attribute to the great cities of Tyre and
Sidon. Some modern writers, however, consider that many of the
coins generally classed under Persia—notably those bearing
the types of a chariot, a galley, and an owl respectively—
were issued by those cities in the 5th and 4th centuries B. C.
But it is certain, in any case, that the Phoenicians were far
behind the Greeks in the art of moneying. With the invasion of
Persia by Alexander the Great came a great change; and all the
ancient landmarks of Asiatic government and order were swept
away. During the life of Alexander the Great the coins bearing
his name and his types circulated throughout Asia; and after
his death the same range of currency was attained by the money
of the early Seleucid Kings of Syria—Seleucis I., Antiochus
I., and Antiochus II., who virtually succeeded to the
dominions of the Persian Kings, and tried in many respects to
carry on their policy. Of these monarchs we possess a splendid
series of coins."
S. Lane-Poole,
Coins and Medals,
chapter 6.
MONEY AND BANKING:
The Jews.
"It would seem that, until the middle of the second century B.
C., the Jews either weighed out gold and silver for the 'Price
of goods, or else used the money usually current in Syria,
that of Persia, Phoenicia, Athens, and the Seleucidae. Simon
the Maccabee was the first to issue the Jewish shekel as a
coin, and we learn from the Book of Maccabees that the
privilege of striking was expressly granted him by King
Antiochus VII. of Syria. We possess shekels of years 1-5 of
the deliverance of Zion; the types are a chalice and a triple
flower. The kings who succeeded Simon, down to Antigonus,
confined themselves to the issue of copper money, with Hebrew
legends and with types calculated not to shock the susceptible
feelings of their people, to whom the representation of a
living thing was abominable—such types as a lily, a palm, a
star, or an anchor. When the Herodian family came in, several
violations of this rule appear."
S. Lane-Poole,
Coins and Medals,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
G. C. Williamson,
The Money of the Bible.
MONEY AND BANKING:
Rome.
"In Rome the generic terms for money seem to have been
successively, pecunia, As, nummns, and moneta. … Moneta …
is derived from the name of the temple in which, or in a
building to or next to which the money of Rome was coined
after the defeat of Pyrrhus, B. a. 275, more probably after
the capture of Tarentum by the Romans, B. C. 272. It probably
did not come into use until after the era of Scipio, and then
was only used occasionally until the period of the Empire,
when it and its derivatives became more common. Nummus,
nevertheless, continued to hold its ground until towards the
decline of the Empire, when it went entirely out of use, and
moneta and its derivatives usurped its place, which it has
continued to hold ever since. Moneta is therefore
substantially a term of the Dark Ages. … The idea associated
with moneta is coins, whose value was derived mainly from that
of the material of which they were composed; whilst the idea
associated with nummus is a system of symbols whose value was
derived from legal limitation.
{2204}
From the fact that our language sprang from the Dark Ages, we
have no generic word for money other than moneta, which only
relates to one kind of money. For a similar reason, the
comparative newness of the English tongue, we have no word for
a piece of money except coin, which, properly speaking, only
relates to one kind of piece, namely, that which is struck by
the cuneus."
A. Del Mar,
History of Money in Ancient Countries,
chapter 28.
The extent and energy of the Roman traffic, in the great age
of the Republic, during the third and second centuries before
Christ, "may be traced most distinctly by means of coins and
monetary relations. The Roman denarius kept pace with the
Roman legions. … The Sicilian mints—last of all that of
Syracuse in 542—were closed or at any rate restricted to
small money in consequence of the Roman conquest, and … in
Sicily and Sardinia the denarius obtained legal circulation at
least side by side with the older silver currency and probably
very soon became the exclusive legal tender. With equal if not
greater rapidity the Roman silver coinage penetrated into
Spain, where the great silver-mines existed and there was
virtually no earlier national coinage; at a very early period
the Spanish towns even began to coin after the Roman standard.
On the whole, as Carthage coined only to a very limited
extent, there existed not a single important mint in addition
to that of Rome in the region of the western Mediterranean,
with the exception of the mint of Massilia and perhaps also of
those of the Illyrian Greeks at Apollonia and Epidamnus.
Accordingly, when the Romans began to establish themselves in
the region of the Po, these mints were about 225 subjected to
the Roman standard in such a way, that, while they retained
the right of coining silver, they uniformly—and the
Massiliots in particular—were led to adjust their drachma to
the weight of the Roman three-quarter denarius, which the
Roman government on its part began to coin, primarily for the
use of upper Italy, under the name of the 'piece of Victory'
(victoriatus). This new system, based on the Roman, prevailed
throughout the Massiliot, Upper Italian, and Illyrian
territories; and these coins even penetrated into the
barbarian lands on the north, those of Massilia, for instance,
into the Alpine districts along the whole basin of the Rhone,
and those of Illyria as far as the modern Transylvania. The
eastern half of the Mediterranean was not yet reached by the
Roman money, as it had not yet fallen under the direct
sovereignty of Rome; but its place was filled by gold, the
true and natural medium for international and transmarine
commerce. It is true that the Roman government, in conformity
with its strictly conservative character, adhered—with the
exception of a temporary coinage of gold occasioned by the
financial embarrassment during the Hannibalic war—steadfastly
to the rule of coining silver only in addition to the
national-Italian copper; but commerce had already assumed such
dimensions, that it was able in the absence of money to
conduct its transactions with gold by weight. Of the sum in
cash, which lay in the Roman treasury in 597, scarcely a sixth
was coined or uncoined silver, five-sixths consisted of gold
in bars, and beyond doubt the precious metals were found in
all the chests of the larger Roman capitalists in
substantially similar proportions. Already therefore gold held
the first place in great transactions; and, as may be inferred
from this fact, the preponderance of traffic was maintained
with foreign lands, and particularly with the East, which
since the times of Philip and Alexander the Great had adopted
a gold currency. The whole gain from these immense
transactions of the Roman capitalists flowed in the long run
to Rome. … The moneyed superiority of Rome as compared with
the rest of the civilized world was, accordingly, quite as
decided as its political and military ascendancy. Rome in this
respect stood towards other countries somewhat as the England
of the present day stands towards the continent."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 12 (volume 2).
In the later years of the Roman Republic the coinage became
debased and uncertain. "Cæsar restored the public credit by
issuing good money, such as had not been seen in Rome for a
length of time, money of pure metal and exact weight; with
scarcely any admixture of plated pieces, money which could
circulate for its real value, and this measure became one of
the principal sources of his popularity. Augustus followed his
example, but at the same time took away from the Senate the
right of coining gold and silver, reserving this exclusively
to the imperial authority, which was to exercise it absolutely
without control. From this time we find the theory that the
value of money is arbitrary, and depends solely on the will of
the sovereign who issues it, more and more widely and
tenaciously held. … The faith placed in the official impress
fostered the temptation to abuse it. … In less than a
century the change of the money of the State into imperial
money, and the theory that its value arose from its bearing
the effigy of the sovereign, produced a system of adulteration
of specie, which went on growing to the very close of the
Empire, and which the successors of Augustus utilized largely
for the indulgence of their passions and their prodigality."
F. Lenormant,
Money in Ancient Greece and Rome
(Contemporary Review, February, 1879).
MONEY AND BANKING:
Mediæval Money and Banking.
As regards the monetary system of the Middle Ages, the
precious metals, when uncoined, were weighed by the pound and
half pound or mark, for which different standards were in use,
the most generally recognised being those of Troyes and
Cologne. Of coined money there existed a perplexing variety,
which made it almost impossible to ascertain the relative
value, not only of different coins, but of the same coin of
different issues. This resulted from the emperor or king
conferring the right of coinage upon various lords spiritual
and temporal, from whom it was ultimately acquired by
individual towns. The management was in most cases entrusted
to a company, temporary or permanent, inspected by an
official, the coin-tester, originally appointed by the
sovereign, but afterwards by the company, and confirmed by the
king or bishop. The house where the process of coining was
performed was called the mint, and the company who held the
rights of coinage in fee was known as the Mint House Company,
or simply the House Company. Very generally the office was
held by the Corporation of Goldsmiths. The want of perfect
supervision led to great debasement of the currency,
especially in Germany and France; but in England and Italy the
standard was tolerably well maintained.
{2205}
Payments in silver were much more common than in gold. Before
the Crusades the only gold coins known in Europe were the
Byzantine solides, the Italian tari, and Moorish maurabotini.
The solidi, which were originally of 23 to 23½ carat gold, but
subsequently very much deteriorated, were reckoned as equal to
twelve silver denars. They passed current in Southern and
Eastern Europe, Hungary, Germany, Poland, and Prussia. …
Solde, sol, and sou are only repeated transformations of the
name of the coin, which have been accompanied by still greater
changes in its value. The tari or tarentini derived its name
from the Italian town where it was originally struck. It was
less generally known than the solides, and was equal to
one-fourth the latter in value. The maurabotini or sarazens
were only of 15 carats gold. The name survives in the Spanish
maravedi, which, however, like the sou, is now made of copper
instead of gold. In the thirteenth century augustals,
florentines, and ducats, or zecchins (sequins), were coined in
Italy. The first-mentioned, the weight of which was half an
ounce, were named in honour of Frederick II., who was Roman
Cæsar and Augustus in 1252. The florentines, also known as
gigliati, or lilies, from the arms of Florence, which they
bore on one side, with the effigy of John the Baptist on the
reverse, were of fine gold and lighter than the solidi, about
64 being reckoned equal to the mark. The ducats or zecchins
were of Venetian origin, receiving their first name from the
Duca or Doge, and the other from the Zecca or Mint House. They
were somewhat less in value than the florentines, 66 or 67
being counted to the fine mark. Nearly equivalent in value to
these Italian coins were the gold guilders coined in the
fourteenth century in Hungary and the Rhine regions. The
Rhenish guilder was of 22½ or 23 carats fine, and in weight
1/66; of a mark of Cologne. The silver guilder was of later
production, and the name is now used as equivalent to florin.
… In silver payments, the metal being usually nearly pure,
it was common to compute by weight, coins and uncoined bullion
being alike put into the scale, as is still the case in some
Eastern countries. Hence the origin of the pound, livre, or
mark. The most widely diffused silver coin was the denarius,
which was, as in ancient Roman times, the 11/240 of a pound.
The name pending or pennig, by which the denarius was known
among the old Teutonic nations, seems to be connected with
pendere, to weigh out or pay; as the other ancient Teutonic
coin, the sceat, was with sceoton, to pay, a word which is
preserved in the modern phrases 'scot free,' 'pay your scot.'
… Half-pennies and farthings were not known in the earliest
times, but the penny was deeply indented by two cross lines,
which enabled it to be broken into quarters or farthings
(feordings or fourthings). From the indented cross the
denarius was known in Germany as the kreutzer. … With such a
diversity of coinage, it was necessary to settle any
mercantile transaction in the currency of the place. Not only
would sellers have refused to accept money whose value was
unknown to them, but in many places they were forbidden to do
so by law. Merchants attending foreign markets therefore
brought with them a quantity of fine silver and gold in bars,
which they exchanged on the spot for the current coin of the
place, to be used in settling their transactions; the balance
remaining on hand they re-exchanged for bullion before
leaving. The business of money-changing, which thus arose, was
a very lucrative one, and was originally mostly in the hands
of Italian merchants, chiefly Lombards and Florentines. In
Italy the money-changers formed a guild, members of which
settled in the Netherlands, England, Cologne, and the
Mediterranean ports. In these different towns and countries
they kept up a close connection with each other and with
Italy, and at an early period (before the thirteenth century)
commenced the practice of assignments, i. e., receiving money
in one place, to be paid by an order upon their correspondents
in another, thus saving the merchant who travelled from
country to country the expense and risk of transporting
specie. In the thirteenth century this branch of business was
in extensive use at Barcelona, and in 1307 the tribute of
'Peter's pence' was sent from England to the Pope through the
Lombard exchangers. From 5 to 6 per cent., or more, was
charged upon the transaction, and the profitable nature of the
business soon led many wealthy and even noble Italian families
to employ their money in this way. They established a member
of their firm in each of the great centres of trade to receive
and pay on their account. In Florence alone (about 1350) there
are said to have been eighty such houses. Among these the
Frescobaldi, Bardi, and Peruzzi are well-known names; but the
chief place was taken by the famous Florentine house of the
Medici, who had banking houses established in sixteen of the
chief cities of Europe and the Levant. In the north of Europe,
before long, similar arrangements were established by the
merchants of the Hanseatic League. … Assignments of this
kind were drawn out in the form of letters, requesting the
person by whom the money was due to pay it over to another
party, named in the bill, on account of the writer, specifying
also the time within which and the form in which the payment
was to be made. They were thus known as letters, billets, or
bills of exchange, and appear in Italy as early as the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Among the earliest
examples in existence are a letter of exchange, dated at Milan
in 1325, payable within five months at Lucca; one dated at
Bruges, 1304, and payable at Barcelona; and another, dated at
Bologna, 1381, payable in Venice. … 'The first writers who
treat of bills are Italians: the Italian language furnishes
the technical terms for drafts, remittances, currency, sight,
usance, and discount, used in most of the languages of
Europe.' … Of other branches of banking the germs also
appeared in the Middle Ages. Venice seems to have been the
first city to possess something answering to a deposit bank.
The merchants here united in forming a common treasury, where
they deposited sums of money, upon which they gave assignments
or orders for payment to their creditors, and to which similar
assignments due to themselves were paid and added on to the
amount at their credit. The taula di cambi (exchange counter)
of Barcelona was a similar institution, as also the bank of
St. George, at Genoa."
J. Yeats,
Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce,
appendix F.
The name "Lombards" was frequently given, during the Middle
Ages, to all the Italian merchants and money-lenders—from
Florence, Venice, Genoa, and elsewhere—who were engaged
throughout Europe in banking and trade.
{2206}
MONEY AND BANKING:
Florentine Banking.
"The business of money-changing seemed thoroughly at home
here, and it is not surprising that the invention of bills of
exchange, which we first meet with in 1199 in the relations
between England and Italy, should be ascribed to Florence. The
money trade seems to have flourished as early as the twelfth
century, towards the end of which a Marquis of Ferrara raised
money on his lands from the Florentines. In 1204 we find the
money-changers as one of the corporations. In 1228, and
probably from the beginning of the century, several
Florentines were settled in London as changers to King Henry
III.; and here, as in France, they conducted the money
transactions of the Papal chair in conjunction with the
Sienese. Their oldest known statute, which established rules
for the whole conduct of trade (Statuto dell' Università della
Mercatanzia) drawn up by a commission consisting of five
members of the great guilds, is dated 1280. Their guild-hall
was in the Via Calimaruzza, opposite that of the Calimala, and
was litter included in the buildings of the post-office, on
the site of which, after the post-office had been removed to
what was formerly the mint, a building was lately erected,
similar in architecture to the Palazzo of the Signoria, which
stands opposite. Their coat of arms displayed gold coins laid
one beside another on a red field. At the end of the
thirteenth century their activity, especially in France and
England, was extraordinarily great. But if wealth surpassing
all previous conception was attained, it not seldom involved
loss of repute, and those who pursued the calling ran the risk
of immense losses from fiscal measures to the carrying out of
which they themselves contributed, as well as those which were
caused by insolvency or dishonesty. … The names of Tuscans
and Lombards, and that of Cahorsiens in France, no longer
indicated the origin, but the trade of the money-changers, who
drew down the ancient hatred upon themselves. … France
possessed at this time the greatest attraction for the
Florentine money-makers, although they were sometimes severely
oppressed, which is sufficient proof that their winnings were
still greater than their occasional losses. … The Florentine
money market suffered the severest blow from England. At the
end of the twelfth century there were already Florentine
houses of exchange in London, and if Pisans, Genoese, and
Venetians managed the trade by sea in the times of the
Crusades, it was the Florentines mostly who looked after
financial affairs in connection with the Papal chair, as we
have seen. Numerous banks appeared about the middle of the
thirteenth century, among which the Frescobaldi, a family of
ancient nobility, and as such attainted by the prosecutions
against it, took the lead, and were referred to the
custom-house of the country for re-imbursement of the loans
made to the kings Edward I. and II. Later, the two great
trading companies of the Bardi and Peruzzi came into notice,
and with their money Edward III. began the French war against
Philip of Valois. But even in the first year of this war,
which began with an unsuccessful attack upon Flanders, the
king suspended the payments to the creditors of the State by a
decree of May 6, 1339. The advances made by the Bardi amounted
to 180,000 marks sterling, those of the Peruzzi to above
135,000, according to Giovanni Villani, who knew only too well
about these things, since he was ruined by them himself to the
extent of 'a sum of more than 1,355,000 gold florins,
equivalent to the value of a kingdom.' Bonifazio Peruzzi, the
head of the house, hastened to London, where he died of grief
in the following year. The blow fell on the whole city. …
Both houses began at once to liquidate, and the prevailing
disturbance contributed not a little to the early success of
the ambitious plans of the Duke of Athens. The real bankruptcy
ensued, however, in January 1346, when new losses had occurred
in Sicily. … The banks of the Acciaiuoli, Bonuccorsi,
Cocchi, Antellesi, Corsini, da Uzzano, Perendoli, and many
smaller ones, as well as numerous private persons, were
involved in the ruin. 'The immense loans to foreign
sovereigns,' adds Villani, 'drew down ruin upon our city, the
like of which it had never known.' There was a complete lack
of cash. Estates in the city found no purchasers at a third of
their former value. … The famine and pestilence of 1347 and
1348, the oppressions of the mercenary bands and the heavy
expenses caused by them, the cost of the war against Pope
Gregory XI., and finally the tumult of the Ciompi, left
Florence no peace for a long time. … At the beginning of the
fifteenth century industry was again flourishing in all its
branches in Florence, financial operations were extended, and
foreign countries filled with Florentine banks and mercantile
houses. … In London the most important firms had their
representatives, Bruges was the chief place for Flanders, and
we shall see how these connections lasted to the time of the
greatest splendour of the Medici. France is frequently
mentioned. The official representatives of the Florentine
nation resided in the capital, while numerous houses
established themselves in Lyons, in Avignon (since the removal
of the Papal chair to this town), in Nismes, Narbonne,
Carcassonne, Marseilles, &c. … The house of the Peruzzi
alone had sixteen counting-houses in the fourteenth century,
from London to Cyprus."
A. van Reumont,
Lorenzo de' Medici,
book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).
"The three principal branches of industry which enriched the
Florentines were—banking, the manufacture of cloth, and the
dyeing of it, and the manufacture of silk. The three most
important guilds of the seven 'arti maggiori' were those which
represented these three industries. Perhaps the most important
in the amount of its gains, as well as that which first rose
to a high degree of importance, was the 'Arte del Cambio,' or

banking. The earliest banking operations seem to have arisen
from the need of the Roman court to find some means of causing
the dues to which it laid claim in distant parts of Europe to
be collected and transmitted to Rome. When the Papal Court was
removed to Avignon, its residence there occasioned a greatly
increased sending backwards and forwards of money between
Italy and that city. And of all this banking business, the
largest and most profitable portion was in the hands of
Florentine citizens, whether resident in Florence or in the
various commercial cities of Europe. We find Florentines
engaged in lending money at interest to sovereign princes as
early as the first quarter of the twelfth century."
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).
{2207}
MONEY AND BANKING:
Genoa.
The Bank of St. George.
"The Bank of St. George, its constitution, its building, and
its history, forms one of the most interesting relies of
mediæval commercial activity. Those old grey walls, as seen
still in Genoa, begrimed with dirt and fast falling into
decay, are the cradle of modern commerce, modern banking
schemes, and modern wealth. … This Bank of St. George is
indeed a most singular political phenomenon. Elsewhere than in
Genoa we search in vain for a parallel for the existence of a
body of citizens distinct from the government—with their own
laws, magistrates, and independent authority—a state within a
state, a republic within a republic. All dealings with the
government were voluntary on the part of the bank. … But,
far from working without harmony, we always find the greatest
unanimity of feeling between these two forms of republics
within the same city walls. The government of Genoa always
respected the liberties of the bank, and the bank always did
its best to assist the government when in pecuniary distress.
… To define an exact origin for the bank is difficult; it
owed its existence to the natural development of commercial
enterprise rather than to the genius of anyone man, or the
shrewdness of any particular period in Genoese history. The
Crusades, and the necessary preparation of galleys, brought
into Genoa the idea of advancing capital for a term of years
as a loan to the government on the security of the taxes and
public revenues; but in those cases the profits were quickly
realized, and the debts soon cancelled by the monarchs who
incurred them. However, the expeditions against the Saracens
and the Moors were otherwise, and were undertaken at some risk
to Genoa herself. … Now large sums of money were advanced,
the profits on which were not spontaneous; it was more an
investment of capital for a longer term of years, which was
secured by the public revenues, but the profits of which
depended on the success of the expedition. In 1148 was the
first formal debt incurred by the government, and to meet the
occasion the same system was adopted which continued in vogue,
subject only to regulations and improvements which were found
necessary as time went on, until the days of the French
Revolution. The creditors nominated from amongst themselves a
council of administration to watch over the common interests,
and to them the government conceded a certain number of the
custom duties for a term of years until the debt should be
extinguished. This council of administration elected their own
consuls, after the fashion of the Republic governors. Every
hundred francs was termed a share (luogo) and every creditor a
shareholder (luogatorio). … Each separate loan was termed a
'compera,' and these loans were collectively known as the
'compere of St. George,' which in later years became the
celebrated bank. Each loan generally took the name of the
object for which it was raised, or the name of the saint on
whose day the contract was signed; and when an advance of
money was required, it was done by public auction in the
streets, when the auctioneer sold the investment to the ever
ready merchants, who collected outside the 'loggia,' or other
prominent position chosen for the sale. In a loud voice was
proclaimed the name and object of the loan, and the tax which
was to be handed over to the purchasers to secure its
repayment. So numerous did these loans become by 1252, that it
was found necessary to unite them under one head, with a
chancellor and other minor officials to watch over them. And
as time went on, so great was the credit of Genoa, and so easy
was this system found for raising money, that the people began
to grow alarmed at the extent of the liabilities. So, in 1302,
commissioners were appointed at a great assembly, two hundred
and seventy-one articles and regulations were drown up to give
additional security to investors, and henceforth no future
loan could be effected without the sanction of the consuls and
the confirmation of the greater council of the shareholders.
… During the days of the first doge, Simone Boccanegra,
great changes were to be effected in the working system of the
'compere of St. George.' To this date many have assigned the
origin of the Bank of St. George, but it will be seen only to
be a further consolidation of the same system, which had
already been at work two centuries. … In 1339, … at the
popular revolution, all the old books were burnt, and a new
commission appointed to regulate the 'compere.' … Instead
… of being the origin of the bank, it was only another step
in the growing wish for consolidation, which the expanding
tendency of the 'compere' rendered necessary; which
consolidation took final effect in 1407, when the Bank was
thoroughly organized on the same footing which lasted till the
end. Every year and every event tended towards this system of
blending the loans together, to which fact is due the
extensive power which the directors of the bank eventually
wielded, when all interests and all petty disputes were merged
together in one. … As time went on, and the French governor,
Boucicault, weighed on the treasury the burden of fresh
fortifications, and an expensive war; when Corsican troubles,
and the Turks in the East, caused the advance of money to be
frequent, an assembly of all the shareholders in all the loans
decided that an entire reorganization of the public debts
should take place. Nine men were elected to draw up a new
scheme, in 1407, and by their instrumentality all the shares
were united; the interest for all was to be seven per cent.,
and fresh officials were appointed to superintend the now
thoroughly constituted and re-named 'Bank of St. George.' And
at length we behold this celebrated bank. Its credit never
failed, and no anxiety was ever felt by any shareholder about
his annual income, until the days of the French Revolution.
… This Bank of St. George was essentially one of the times,
and not one which could have existed on modern ideas of
credit; for it was a bank which would only issue paper for the
coin in its actual possession, and would hardly suit the
dictates of modern commerce. It was not a bank for borrowers
but for capitalists, who required enormous security for
immense sums until they could employ them themselves. … One
of the most interesting features in connection with the
dealings of the bank with the Genoese government, and a
conclusive proof of the perfect accord which existed between
them, was the cession from time to time of various colonies
and provinces to the directors of the bank when the government
felt itself too weak and too poor to maintain them. In this
manner were the colonies in the Black Sea made over to the
bank when the Turkish difficulties arose.
{2208}
Corsica and Cyprus, also towns on the Riviera, such as
Sarzana, Ventimiglia, Levanto, found themselves at various
times under the direct sovereignty of the bank. … It is
melancholy to have to draw a veil over the career of this
illustrious bank with the Revolution of 1798. The new order of
things which Genoa had learnt from France deemed it
inconsistent with liberty that the taxes, the property of the
Republic, should remain in the hands of the directors of St.
George; it was voted a tyranny on a small scale, and the
directors were compelled to surrender them; and inasmuch as
the taxes represented the sole source from which their income
was derived, they soon discovered that their bank notes were
useless, and the building was closed shortly afterwards. In
1804 and 1814 attempts were made to resuscitate the fallen
fortunes of St. George, but without avail; and so this bank,
the origin of which was shrouded in the mysteries of bygone
centuries, fell under the sweeping scythe of the French
Revolution."
J. T. Bent,
Genoa,
chapter 11.
See, also, GENOA: A. D. 1407-1448.
MONEY AND BANKING: 16-17th Centuries.
Monetary effects of the Discovery of America.
"From 1492, the year of the discovery of the New World, to
1500, it is doubtful whether [the mines of Mexico and Peru]
… yielded on an average a prey of more than 1,500,000 francs
(£60,000) a year. From 1500 to 1545, if we add to the treasure
produced from the mines the amount of plunder found in the
capital of the Montezumas, Ténochtitlan (now the city of
Mexico), as well as in the temples and palaces of the kingdom
of the Incas, the gold and silver drawn from America did not
exceed an average of sixteen million francs (£640,000) a year.
From 1545, the scene changes. In one of the gloomiest deserts
on the face of the globe, in the midst of the rugged and
inhospitable mountain scenery of Upper Peru, chance revealed
to a poor Indian, who was guarding a flock of llamas, a mine
of silver of incomparable richness. A crowd of miners was
instantly attracted by the report of the rich deposits of ore
spread over the sides of this mountain of Potocchi—a name
which for euphony the European nations have since changed to
Potosi. The exportation of the precious metals from America to
Europe now rose rapidly to an amount which equalled, weight
for weight, sixty millions of francs (£2,400,000) of our day,
and it afterwards rose even to upwards of eighty millions. At
that time such a mass of gold and silver represented a far
greater amount of riches than at present. Under the influence
of so extraordinary a supply, the value of these precious
metals declined in Europe, in comparison with every other
production of human industry, just as would be the case with
iron or lead, if mines were discovered which yielded those
metals in superabundance, as compared with their present
consumption, and at a much less cost of labour than
previously, just in fact as occurs in the case of manufactures
of every kind, whenever, by improved processes, or from
natural causes of a novel kind, they can be produced in
unusual quantities, and at a great reduction of cost. This
fall in the value of gold and silver, in comparison with all
other productions, revealed itself by the increased quantity
of coined metal which it was necessary to give in exchange for
the generality of other articles. And it was thus that the
working of the mines of America had necessarily for effect a
general rise of prices, in other words, it made all other
commodities dearer. The fall in the value of the precious
metals, or that which means the same thing, the general rise
of prices, does not appear to have been very great, out of
Spain, till after the middle of the 16th century. Shortly
after the commencement of the 17th century, the effects of the
productiveness of the new mines and of the diminished cost of
working them were realised in all parts of Europe. For the
silver, which had been extracted in greater proportion than
the gold, and on more favourable terms, the fall in value had
been in the proportion of 1 to 3. In transactions where
previously one pound of silver, or a coin containing a given
quantity of this metal, had sufficed, henceforth three were
required. … After having been arrested for awhile in this
downward course, and even after having witnessed for a time a
tendency to an upward movement, the fall in the value of the
precious metals, and the corresponding rise in prices, resumed
their course, under the influence of the same causes, until
towards the end of the 18th century, without however
manifesting their influence so widely or intensely as had been
witnessed after the first development of the great American
mines. We find, as the result, that during the first half of
the 19th century, the value of silver fell to about the sixth
of what it was before the discovery of America, when compared
with the price of corn."
M. Chevalier,
On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold
(translated by Cobden),
section 1, chapter 1.
MONEY AND BANKING: 17th Century.
The Bank of Amsterdam.
"In 1609, the great Bank of Amsterdam was founded, and its
foundation not only testifies to the wealth of the republic,
but marks an epoch in the commercial history of Northern
Europe. Long before this period, banks had been established in
the Italian cities, but, until late in the history of the Bank
of England, which was not founded until nearly a century
later, nothing was known on such a scale as this. It was
established to meet the inconvenience arising from the
circulation of currency from all quarters of the globe, and to
accommodate merchants in their dealings. Anyone making a
deposit of gold or silver received notes for the amount, less
a small commission, and these notes commanded a premium in all
countries. Before the end of the century its deposits of this
character amounted to one hundred and eighty million dollars,
an amount of treasure which bewildered financiers in every
other part of Europe."
D. Campbell,
The Puritan in Holland, England, and America,
volume 2, pages 323-324.
MONEY AND BANKING: 17th Century.
Indian Money used in the American Colonies.
Sea shells, strung or embroidered on belts and garments,
formed the "wampum" which was the money of the North American
Indians (see WAMPUM). "Tradition gives to the Narragansetts
the honor of inventing these valued articles, valuable both
for use and exchange. This tribe was one of the most powerful,
and it is asserted that their commercial use of wampum gave
them their best opportunities of wealth. The Long Island
Indians manufactured the beads in large quantities and then
were forced to pay them away in tribute to the Mohawks and the
fiercer tribes of the interior.
{2209}
Furs were readily exchanged for these trinkets, which carried
a permanent value, through the constancy of the Indian desire
for them. The holder of wampum always compelled trade to come
to him. After the use of wampum was established in colonial
life, contracts were made payable at will in wampum, beaver,
or silver. … The use began in New England in 1627. It was a
legal tender until 1661, and for more than three quarters of a
century the wampum was current in small transactions. For more
than a century, indeed; this currency entered into the
intercourse of Indian and colonist. … Labor is a chief
factor in civilized society and the labor of the Indian was
made available through wampum. As Winthrop shows, 10,000
beaver skins annually came to the Dutch from the Great Lake.
The chase was the primitive form of Indian industry and furs
were the most conspicuous feature of foreign trade, as gold is
to-day, but wampum played a much larger part in the vital
trade of the time. Wampum, or the things it represented,
carried deer meat and Indian corn to the New England men. Corn
and pork went for fish; fish went for West India rum,
molasses, and the silver which Europe coveted. West India
products, or the direct exchange of fish with the Catholic
countries of Europe, brought back the goods needed to
replenish and extend colonial industries and trade. … As
long as the natives were active and furs were plenty, there
appears to have been no difficulty in passing any quantity of
wampum in common with other currencies. The Bay annulled its
statutes, making the beads a legal tender in 1661. Rhode
Island and Connecticut followed this example soon after. …
New York continued the beads in circulation longer than the
regular use prevailed in New England. In 1693 they were
recognized in the definite rates of the Brooklyn ferry. They
continued to be circulated in the more remote districts of New
England through the century, and even into the beginning of
the eighteenth."
W. B. Weeden,
Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization,
pages 5-30.
MONEY AND BANKING: 17th Century.
Colonial Coinage in America.
"The earliest coinage for America is said to have been
executed in 1612, when the Virginia Company was endeavoring to
establish a Colony on the Summer Islands (the Bermudas). This
coin was of the denomination of a shilling, and was struck in
brass." The "pine-tree" money of Massachusetts" was instituted
by the Colonial Assembly in 1652, after the fall of Charles I.
… This coinage was not discontinued until 1686; yet they
appear to have continued the use of the same date, the
shillings, sixpences, and threepences all bearing the date
1652, while the twopenny pieces are all dated 1662. … After
the suppression of their mint, the Colony of Massachusetts
issued no more coins until after the establishment of the
Confederacy. … The silver coins of Lord Baltimore, Lord
Proprietor of Maryland, were the shilling, sixpence, and
fourpence, or groat."
J. R. Snowden,
Description of Ancient and Modern Coins,
pages 85-87.
See PINE TREE MONEY.
MONEY AND BANKING: 17-18th Centuries.
Banking in Great Britain.
Origin and influence of the Bank of England.
"In the reign of William old men were still living who could
remember the days when there was not a single banking house in
the city of London. So late as the time of the Restoration
every trader had his own strong box in his own house, and,
when an acceptance was presented to him, told down the crowns
and Caroluses on his own counter. But the increase of wealth
had produced its natural effect, the subdivision of labour.
Before the end of the reign of Charles II. a new mode of
paying and receiving money had come into fashion among the
merchants of the capital. A class of agents arose, whose
office was to keep the cash of the commercial houses. This new
branch of business naturally fell into the hands of the
goldsmiths, who were accustomed to traffic largely in the
precious metals, and who had vaults in which great masses of
bullion could lie secure from fire and from robbers. It was at
the shops of the goldsmiths of Lombard Street that all the
payments in coin were made. Other traders gave and received
nothing but paper. This great change did not take place
without much opposition and clamour. … No sooner had banking
become a separate and important trade, than men began to
discuss with earnestness the question whether it would be
expedient to erect a national bank. … Two public banks had
long been renowned throughout Europe, the Bank of Saint George
at Genoa, and the Bank of Amsterdam. … Why should not the
Bank of London be as great and as durable as the Banks of
Genoa and Amsterdam? Before the end of the reign of Charles
II. several plans were proposed, examined, attacked and
defended. Some pamphleteers maintained that a national bank
ought to be under the direction of the King. Others thought
that the management ought to be entrusted to the Lord Mayor,
Alderman and Common Council of the capital. After the
Revolution the subject was discussed with an animation before
unknown. … A crowd of plans, some of which resemble the
fancies of a child or the dreams of a man in a fever, were
pressed on the government. Pre-eminently conspicuous among the
political mountebanks, whose busy faces were seen every day in
the lobby of the House of Commons, were John Briscoe and Hugh
Chamberlayne, two projectors worthy to have been members of
that Academy which Gulliver found at Lagado. These men
affirmed that the one cure for every distemper of the State
was a Land Bank. A Land Bank would work for England miracles
such as had never been wrought for Israel. … These blessed
effects the Land Bank was to produce simply by issuing
enormous quantities of notes on landed security. The doctrine
of the projectors was that every person who had real property
ought to have, besides that property, paper money to the full
value of that property. Thus, if his estate was worth two
thousand pounds, he ought to have his estate and two thousand
pounds in paper money. Both Briscoe and Chamberlayne
treated with the greatest contempt the notion that there could
be an over-issue of paper as long as there was, for every ten
pound note, a piece of land in the country worth ten pounds.
… All the projectors of this busy time, however, were not so
absurd as Chamberlayne. One among them, William Paterson, was
an ingenious, though not always a judicious speculator. Of his
early life little is known except that he was a native of
Scotland, and that he had been in the West Indies. … This
man submitted to the government, in 1691, a plan of a national
bank; and his plan was favourably received both by statesmen
and by merchants.
{2210}
But years passed away; and nothing was done, till, in the
spring of 1694, it became absolutely necessary to find some
new mode of defraying the charges of the war. Then at length
the scheme devised by the poor and obscure Scottish adventurer
was taken up in earnest by Montague [Charles Montague, then
one of the lords of the treasury and subsequently Chancellor
of the Exchequer]. With Montague was closely allied Michael
Godfrey. … Michael was one of the ablest, most upright and
most opulent of the merchant princes of London. … By these
two distinguished men Paterson's scheme was fathered. Montague
undertook to manage the House of Commons, Godfrey to manage
the City. An approving vote was obtained from the Committee of
Ways and Means; and a bill, the title of which gave occasion
to many sarcasms, was laid on the table. It was indeed not
easy to guess that a bill, which purported only to impose a
new duty on tonnage for the benefit of such persons as should
advance money towards carrying on the war, was really a bill
creating the greatest commercial institution that the world
had ever seen. The plan was that £1,200,000 should be borrowed
by the government on what was then considered as the moderate
interest of eight per cent. In order to induce capitalists to
advance the money promptly on terms so favourable to the
public, the subscribers were to be incorporated by the name of
the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. The
corporation was to have no exclusive privilege, and was to be
restricted from trading in any thing but bills of exchange,
bullion and forfeited pledges. As soon as the plan became
generally known, a paper war broke out. … All the goldsmiths
and pawnbrokers set up a howl of rage. Some discontented
Tories predicted ruin to the monarchy. … Some discontented
Whigs, on the other hand, predicted ruin to our liberties. …
The power of the purse, the one great security for all the
rights of Englishmen, will be transferred from the House of
Commons to the Governor and Directors of the new Company. This
last consideration was really of some weight, and was allowed
to be so by the authors of the bill. A clause was therefore
most properly inserted which inhibited the Bank from advancing
money to the Crown without authority from Parliament. Every
infraction of this salutary rule was to be punished by
forfeiture of three times the sum advanced; and it was
provided that the King should not have power to remit any part
of the penalty. The plan, thus amended, received the sanction
of the Commons more easily than might have been expected from
the violence of the adverse clamour. In truth, the Parliament
was under duress. Money must be had, and could in no other way
be had so easily. … The bill, however, was not safe when it
had reached the Upper House," but it was passed, and received
the royal assent. "In the City the success of Montague's plan
was complete. It was then at least as difficult to raise a
million at eight per cent. as it would now be to raise forty
millions at four per cent. It had been supposed that
contributions would drop in very slowly: and a considerable
time had therefore been allowed by the Act. This indulgence
was not needed. So popular was the new investment that on the
day on which the books were opened £300,000 were subscribed;
300,000 more were subscribed during the next 48 hours; and, in
ten days, to the delight of all the friends of the government,
it was announced that the list was full. The whole sum which
the Corporation was bound to lend to the State was paid into
the Exchequer before the first instalment was due. Somers
gladly put the Great Seal to a charter framed in conformity
with the terms prescribed by Parliament; and the Bank of
England commenced its operations in the house of the Company
of Grocers. … It soon appeared that Montague had, by
skilfully availing himself of the financial difficulties of
the country, rendered an inestimable service to his party.
During several generations the Bank of England was
emphatically a Whig body. It was Whig, not accidentally, but
necessarily. It must have instantly stopped payment if it had
ceased to receive the interest on the sum which it had
advanced to the government; and of that, interest James would
not have paid one farthing."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 20.
"For a long time the Bank of England was the focus of London
Liberalism, and in that capacity rendered to the State
inestimable services. In return for these substantial benefits
the Bank of England received from the Government, either at
first or afterwards, three most important privileges. First.
The Bank of England had the exclusive possession of the
Government balances. In its first period … the Bank gave
credit to the Government, but afterwards it derived credit
from the Government. There is a natural tendency in men to
follow the example of the Government under which they live.
The Government is the largest, most important, and most
conspicuous entity with which the mass of any people are
acquainted; its range of knowledge must always lie infinitely
greater than the average of their knowledge, and therefore,
unless there is a conspicuous warning to the contrary, most
men are inclined to think their Government right, and, when
they can, to do what it does. Especially in money matters a
man might fairly reason—'If the Government is right in
trusting the Bank of England with the great balance of the
nation, I cannot be wrong in trusting it with my little
balance.' Second, The Bank of England had, till lately, the
monopoly of limited liability in England. The common law of
England knows nothing of any such principle. It is only
possible by Royal Charter or Statute Law. And by neither of
these was any real bank … permitted with limited liability
in England till within these few years. … Thirdly. The Bank
of England had the privilege of being the sole joint stock
company permitted to issue bank notes in England. Private
London bankers did indeed issue notes down to the middle of
the last century, but no joint stock company could do so. The
explanatory clause of the Act of 1742 sounds most curiously to
our modern ears. … 'It is the true intent and meaning of the
said Act that no other bank shall be created, established, or
allowed by Parliament, and that it shall not be lawful for any
body politic or corporate whatsoever created or to be created,
or for any other persons whatsoever united or to be united in
covenants or partnership exceeding the number of six persons
in that part of Great Britain called England, to borrow, owe,
or take up any sum or sums of money on their bills or notes
payable on demand or at any less time than six months from the
borrowing thereof during the continuance of such said
privilege to the said governor and company, who are hereby
declared to be and remain a corporation with the privilege of
exclusive banking, as before recited.'
{2211}
To our modern ears these words seem to mean more than they
did. The term banking was then applied only to the issue of
notes and the taking up of money on bills on demand. Our
present system of deposit banking, in which no bills or
promissory notes are issued, was not then known on a great
scale, and was not called banking. But its effect was very
important. It in time gave the Bank of England the monopoly of
the note issue of the Metropolis. It had at that time no
branches, and so it did not compete for the country
circulation. But in the Metropolis, where it did compete, it
was completely victorious. No company but the Bank of England
could issue notes, and unincorporated individuals gradually
gave way, and ceased to do so. Up to 1844 London private
bankers might have issued notes if they pleased, but almost a
hundred years ago they were forced out of the field. The Bank
of England had so long had a practical monopoly of the
circulation, that it is commonly believed always to have had a
legal monopoly. And the practical effect of the clause went
further: it was believed to make the Bank of England the only
joint stock company that could receive deposits, as well as
the only company that could issue notes. The gift of
'exclusive banking' to the Bank of England was read in its
most natural modern sense: it was thought to prohibit any
other banking company from carrying on our present system of
banking. After joint stock banking was permitted in the
country, people began to inquire why it should not exist in
the Metropolis too? And then it was seen that the words I have
quoted only forbid the issue of negotiable instruments, and
not the receiving of money when no such instrument is given.
Upon this construction, the London and Westminster Bank and
all our older joint stock banks were founded. But till they
began, the Bank of England had among companies not only the
exclusive privilege of note issue, but that of deposit banking
too. It was in every sense the only banking company in London.
With so many advantages over all competitors, it is quite
natural that the Bank of England should have far outstripped
them all. … All the other bankers grouped themselves round
it, and lodged their reserve with it. Thus our one-reserve
system of banking was not deliberately founded upon definite
reasons; it was the gradual consequence of many singular
events, and of an accumulation of legal privileges on a single
bank which has now been altered, and which no one would now
defend. … For more than a century after its creation
(notwithstanding occasional errors) the Bank of England, in
the main, acted with judgment and with caution. Its business
was but small as we should now reckon, but for the most part
it conducted that business with prudence and discretion. In
1696, it had been involved in the most serious difficulties,
and had been obliged to refuse to pay some of its notes. For a
long period it was in wholesome dread of public opinion, and
the necessity of retaining public confidence made it cautious.
But the English Government removed that necessity. In 1797,
Mr. Pitt feared that he might not be able to obtain sufficient
specie for foreign payments, in consequence of the low state
of the Bank reserve, and he therefore required the Bank not to
pay in cash. He removed the preservative apprehension which is
the best security of all Banks. For this reason the period
under which the Bank of England did not pay gold for its
notes—the period from 1797 to 1819—is always called the
period of the Bank 'restriction.' As the Bank during that
period did not perform, and was not compelled by law to
perform, its contract of paying its notes in cash, it might
apparently have been well called the period of Bank license.
But the word 'restriction' was quite right, and was the only
proper word as a description of the policy of 1797. Mr. Pitt
did not say that the Bank of England need not pay its notes in
specie; he 'restricted' them from doing so; he said that they
must not. In consequence, from 1797 to 1844 (when a new era
begins), there never was a proper caution on the part of the
Bank directors. At heart they considered that the Bank of
England had a kind of charmed life, and that it was above the
ordinary banking anxiety to pay its way. And this feeling was
very natural."
W. Bagehot,
Lombard Street,
chapters 3-4.
ALSO IN:
J. W. Gilbart,
History and Principles of Banking.
H. May,
The Bank of England
(Fortnightly Review, March, 1885).
MONEY AND BANKING: 17-18th Centuries.
Early Paper issues and Banks in the American Colonies.
"Previous to the Revolutionary War paper money was issued to a
greater or less extent by each one of the thirteen colonies.
The first issue was by Massachusetts in 1690, to aid in
fitting out the expedition against Canada. Similar issues had
been made by New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York, and New Jersey, previous to the year 1711. South
Carolina began to emit bills in 1712, Pennsylvania in 1723,
Maryland in 1734, Delaware in 1739, Virginia in 1755, and
Georgia in 1760. Originally the issues were authorized to meet
the necessities of the colonial treasuries. In Massachusetts,
in 1715, as a remedy for the prevailing embarrassment of
trade, a land bank was proposed with the right to issue
circulating notes secured by land. … The plan for the land
bank was defeated, but the issue of paper money by the
treasury was authorized to the extent of £50,000, to be loaned
on good mortgages in sums of not more than £500, nor less than
£50, to one person. The rate of interest was five per cent.,
payable with one-fifth of the principal annually. … In 1733
an issue of bills to the amount of £110,000 was made by the
merchants of Boston, which were to be redeemed at the end of
ten years, in silver, at the rate of 19 shillings per ounce.
In 1739, the commercial and financial embarrassment still
continuing, another land bank was started in Massachusetts.
… A specie bank was also formed in 1739, by Edward
Hutchinson and others, which issued bills to the amount of
£120,000, redeemable in fifteen years in silver, at 20
shillings per ounce, or gold pro rata. The payment of these
notes was guaranteed by wealthy and responsible merchants.
These notes, and those of a similar issue in 1733, were
largely hoarded and did not pass generally into circulation.
In 1740 Parliament passed a bill to extend the act of 1720,
known as the bubble act, to the American colonies, with the
intention of breaking up all companies formed for the purpose
of issuing paper money.
{2212}
Under this act both the land bank and the specie bank were
forced to liquidate their affairs, though not without some
resistance on the part of the former. … The paper money of
the colonies, whether issued by them or by the loan banks,
depreciated almost without exception as the amounts in
circulation increased. … The emission of bills by the
colonies and the banks was not regarded with favor by the
mother country, and the provincial governors were as a general
thing opposed to these issues. They were consequently
frequently embroiled with their legislatures."
J. J. Knox,
United States Notes,
pages 1-5.
MONEY AND BANKING: 17-19th Centuries.
Creation of the principal European Banks.
"The Bank of Vienna was founded as a bank of deposit in 1703,
and as a bank of issue in 1793; the Banks of Berlin and
Breslau in 1765 with state sanction; the Austrian National
Bank in 1816. In St. Petersburg three banks were set up; the
Loan Bank in 1772, advancing loans on deposits of bullion and
jewels; the Assignation Bank in 1768 (and in Moscow, 1770),
issuing government paper money; the Aid Bank in 1797, to
relieve estates from mortgage and advance money for
improvements. The Commercial Bank of Russia was founded in
1818. The Bank of Stockholm was founded in 1688. The Bank of
France was founded first in 1803 and reorganised in 1806, when
its capital was raised to 90,000,000 francs, held in 90,000
shares of 1,000 francs. It is the only authorised source of
paper money in France, and is intimately associated with the
government."
H. de B. Gibbins,
History of Commerce in Europe,
book 3, chapter 4.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1775-1780.
The Continental Currency of the American Revolution.
"The colonies … went into the Revolutionary War, many of
them with paper already in circulation, all of them making
issues for the expenses of military preparations. The
Continental Congress, having no power to tax, and its members
being accustomed to paper issues as the ordinary form of
public finance, began to issue bills on the faith of the
'Continent,' Franklin earnestly approving. The first issue was
for 300,000 Spanish dollars, redeemable in gold or silver, in
three years, ordered in May and issued in August, 1775. Paper
for nine million dollars was issued before any depreciation
began. The issues of the separate colonies must have affected
it, but the popular enthusiasm went for something. Pelatiah
Webster, almost alone as it seems, insisted on taxation, but a
member of Congress indignantly asked if he was to help tax the
people when they could go to the printing-office and get a
cartload of money. In 1776, when the depreciation began,
Congress took harsh measures to try to sustain the bills.
Committees of safety also took measures to punish those who
'forestalled' or 'engrossed,' these being the terms for
speculators who bought up for a rise."
W. G. Sumner,
History of American Currency,
pages 43-44.
"During the summer of 1780 this wretched 'Continental'
currency fell into contempt. As Washington said, it took a
wagon-load of money to buy a wagon-load of provisions. At the
end of the year 1778, the paper dollar was worth sixteen cents
in the northern states and twelve cents in the south. Early in
1780 its value had fallen to two cents, and before the end of
the year it took ten paper dollars to make a cent. In October,
Indian corn sold wholesale in Boston for $150 a bushel, butter
was $12 a pound, tea $90, sugar $10, beef $8, coffee $12, and
a barrel of flour cost $1,575. Samuel Adams paid $2,000 for a
hat and suit of clothes. The money soon ceased to circulate,
debts could not be collected, and there was a general
prostration of credit. To say that a thing was 'worth a
Continental' became the strongest possible expression of
contempt."
J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
Before the close of the year 1780, the Continental Currency
had ceased to circulate. Attempts were subsequently made to
have it funded or redeemed, but without success.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1780 (JANUARY-APRIL).
ALSO IN:
H. Phillips, Jr.,
Historical Sketches of American Paper Currency,
2d Series.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1780-1784.
The Pennsylvania Bank and the Bank of North America.
"The Pennsylvania Bank, which was organized in Philadelphia
during the Revolutionary War, was founded for the purpose of
facilitating the operations of the Government in transporting
supplies for the army. It began its useful work in 1780, and
continued in existence until after the close of the war;
finally closing its affairs toward the end of the year 1784.
But the need was felt of a national bank which should not only
aid the Government on a large scale by its money and credit,
but should extend facilities to individuals, and thereby
benefit the community as well as the state. Through the
influence and exertion of Robert Morris, then Superintendent
of Finance for the United States, the Bank of North America,
at Philadelphia, was organized with a capital of $400,000. It
was incorporated by Congress in December, 1781, and by the
State of Pennsylvania a few months afterward. Its success was
immediate and complete. It not only rendered valuable and
timely aid to the United States Government and to the State of
Pennsylvania, but it greatly assisted in restoring confidence
and credit to the commercial community, and afforded
facilities to private enterprise that were especially welcome.
… The success of the Bank of North America, and the
advantages which the citizens of Philadelphia enjoyed from the
facilities it offered them, naturally suggested the founding
of a similar enterprise in the city of New York." The Bank of
New York was accordingly founded in 1784.
H. W. Domett,
History of the Bank of New York,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
W. G. Sumner,
The Financier and the Finances of
the American Revolution,
chapter 17 (volume 2).
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1789-1796.
The Assignats of the French Revolution.
"The financial embarrassments of the government in 1789 were
extreme. Many taxes had ceased to be productive; the
confiscated estates not only yielded no revenue but caused a
large expense, and, as a measure of resource, the finance
committee of the Assembly reported in favor of issues based
upon the confiscated lands. But the bitter experience of
France through the Mississippi schemes of John Law, 1719-21,
made the Assembly and the nation hesitate. … Necker, the
Minister, stood firm in his opposition to the issue of paper
money, even as a measure of resource; but the steady pressure
of fiscal exigencies, together with the influence of the
fervid orators of the Assembly, gained a continually
increasing support to the proposition of the committee. …
{2213}
The leaders of the Assembly were secretly actuated by a
political purpose, viz., by widely distributing the titles to
the confiscated lands (for such the paper money in effect was)
to commit the thrifty middle class of France to the principles
and measures of the revolution. … Oratory, the force of
fiscal necessities, the half-confessed political design,
prevailed at last over the warnings of experience; and a
decree passed the Assembly authorizing an issue of notes to
the value of four hundred million francs, on the security of
the public lands. To emphasize this security the title of
'assignats' was applied to the paper. … The issue was made;
the assignats went into circulation; and soon came the
inevitable demand for more. … The decree for a further issue
of eight hundred millions passed, September, 1790. Though the
opponents of the issue had lost heart and voice, they still
polled 423 votes against 508. To conciliate a minority still
so large, contraction was provided for by requiring that the
paper when paid into the Treasury should be burned, and the
decree contained a solemn declaration that in no case should
the amount exceed twelve hundred millions. June 19, 1791, the
Assembly, against feeble resistance, violated this pledge and
authorized a further issue of six hundred millions. Under the
operation of Gresham's Law, specie now began to disappear from
circulation. … And now came the collapse of French industry.
… 'Everything that tariffs and custom-houses could do was
done. Still the great manufactories of Normandy were closed;
those of the rest of the kingdom speedily followed, and vast
numbers of workmen, in all parts of the country, were thrown
out of employment. … In the spring of 1791 no one knew
whether a piece of paper money, representing 100 francs,
would, a month later, have a purchasing power of 100 francs,
or 90 francs, or 80, or 60. The result was that capitalists
declined to embark their means in business. Enterprise
received a mortal blow. Demand for labor was still further
diminished. The business of France dwindled into a mere living
from hand to mouth.' … Towards the end of 1794 there had
been issued 7,000 millions in assignats; by May, 1795, 10,000
millions; by the end of July, 16,000 millions; by the
beginning of 1796, 45,000 millions, of which 36,000 millions
were in actual circulation. M. Bresson gives the following
table of depreciation: 24 livres in coin were worth in
assignats
April 1, 1795, 238;
May 1, 299;
June 1, 439;
July 1, 808;
Aug. 1, 807;
Sept. 1, 1,101;
Oct. 1, 1,205;
Nov. 1, 2,588;
Dec. 1, 3,575;
Jan. 1, 1796, 4,658;
Feb. 1, 5,337.
At the last 'an assignat professing to be worth 100 francs was
commonly exchanged for 5 sous 6 deniers: in other words, a
paper note professing to be worth £4 sterling passed current
for less than 3d. in money.' The downward course of the
assignats had unquestionably been accelerated by the extensive
counterfeiting of the paper in Belgium, Switzerland, and
England. … Now appears that last resort of finance under a
depreciating paper: an issue under new names and new devices.
… Territorial Mandates were ordered to be issued for
assignats at 30:1, the mandates to be directly exchangeable
for land, at the will of the holder, on demand. … For a
brief time after the first limited emission, the mandates rose
as high as 80 per cent. of their nominal value; but soon
additional issues sent them down even more rapidly than the
assignats had fallen."
F. A. Walker,
Money,
part 2, chapter 16.
ALSO IN:
Andrew D. White,
Paper-money Inflation in France.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1791-1816.
The First Bank of the United States.
On the organization of the government of the United States,
under its federal constitution, in 1789 and 1790, the lead in
constructive statesmanship was taken, as is well known, by
Alexander Hamilton. His plan "included a financial institution
to develop the national resources, strengthen the public
credit, aid the Treasury Department in its administration, and
provide a secure and sound circulating medium for the people.
On December 13, 1790, he sent into Congress a report on the
subject of a national bank. The Republican party, then in the
minority, opposed the plan as unconstitutional, on the ground
that the power of creating banks or any corporate body had not
been expressly delegated to Congress, and was therefore not
possessed by it. Washington's cabinet was divided; Jefferson
opposing the measure as not within the implied powers, because
it was an expediency and not a paramount necessity. Later he
used stronger language, and denounced the institution as 'one
of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles
and form of our Constitution,' nor did he ever abandon these
views. There is the authority of Mr. Gallatin for saying that
Jefferson 'died a decided enemy to our banking system
generally, and specially to a bank of the United States.' But
Hamilton's views prevailed. Washington, who in the weary years
of war had seen the imperative necessity of some national
organization of the finances, after mature deliberation
approved the plan, and on February 25, 1791, the Bank of the
United States was incorporated. The capital stock was limited
to twenty-five thousand shares of four hundred dollars each,
or ten millions of dollars, payable one fourth in gold and
silver, and three fourths in public securities bearing an
interest of six and three per cent. The stock was immediately
subscribed for, the government taking five thousand shares,
two millions of dollars, under the right reserved in the
charter. The subscription of the United States was paid in ten
equal annual instalments. A large proportion of the stock was
held abroad, and the shares soon rose above par. … Authority
was given the bank to establish offices of discount and
deposit within the United States. The chief bank was placed in
Philadelphia and branches were established in eight cities,
with capitals in proportion to their commercial importance. In
1809 the stockholders of the Bank of the United States
memorialized the government for a renewal of their charter,
which would expire on March 4, 1811; and on March 9, 1809, Mr.
Gallatin sent in a report in which he reviewed the operations
of the bank from its organization. Of the government shares,
five million dollars at par, two thousand four hundred and
ninety-three shares were sold in 1796 and 1797 at an advance
of 25 per cent., two hundred and eighty-seven in 1797 at an
advance of twenty per cent., and the remaining 2,220 shares in
1802, at an advance of 45 per cent., making together,
exclusive of the dividends, a profit of $671,680 to the United
States. Eighteen thousand shares of the bank stock were held
abroad, and seven thousand shares, or a little more than one
fourth part of the capital, in the United States.
{2214}
A table of all the dividends made by the bank showed that they
had on the average been at the rate of 8 3/8 (precisely 8
13/34) per cent. a year, which proved that the bank had not in
any considerable degree used the public deposits for the
purpose of extending its discounts. From a general view of the
debits and credits, as presented, it appeared that the affairs
of the Bank of the United States, considered as a moneyed
institution, had been wisely and skilfully managed. The
advantages derived by the government Mr. Gallatin stated to
be,
1, safe-keeping of the public moneys;
2, transmission of the public moneys;
3, collection of the revenue;
4, loans.
The strongest objection to the renewal of the charter lay in
the great portion of the bank stock held by foreigners. Not on
account of any influence over the institution, since they had
no vote; but because of the high rate of interest payable by
America to foreign countries. … Congress refused to prolong
its existence and the institution was dissolved. Fortunately
for the country, it wound up its affairs with such
deliberation and prudence as to allow of the interposition of
other bank credits in lieu of those withdrawn, and thus
prevented a serious shock to the interests of the community.
In the twenty years of its existence from 1791 to 1811 its
management was irreproachable. The immediate effect of the
refusal of Congress to recharter the Bank of the United States
was to bring the Treasury to the verge of bankruptcy. The
interference of Parish, Girard, and Astor alone saved the
credit of the government. … Another immediate effect of the
dissolution of the bank was the withdrawal from the country of
the foreign capital invested in the bank, more than seven
millions of dollars. This amount was remitted, in the twelve
months preceding the war, in specie. Specie was at that time a
product foreign to the United States, and by no means easy to
obtain. … The notes of the Bank of the United States,
payable on demand in gold and silver at the counters of the
bank, or any of its branches, were, by its charter, receivable
in all payments to the United States; but this quality was
also stripped from them on March 19, 1812, by a repeal of the
act according it. To these disturbances of the financial
equilibrium of the country was added the necessary withdrawal
of fifteen millions of bank credit and its transfer to other
institutions. This gave an extraordinary impulse to the
establishment of local banks, each eager for a share of the
profits. The capital of the country, instead of being
concentrated, was dissipated. Between January 1, 1811, and
1815, one hundred and twenty new banks were chartered, and
forty millions of dollars were added to the banking capital.
To realize profits, the issues of paper were pushed to the
extreme of possible circulation. Meanwhile New England kept
aloof from the nation. The specie in the vaults of the banks
of Massachusetts rose from $1,706,000 on June 1, 1811, to
$7,326,000 on June 1, 1814. … The suspension of the banks
was precipitated by the capture of Washington. It began in
Baltimore, which was threatened by the British, and was at
once followed in Philadelphia and New York. Before the end of
September all the banks south and west of New England had
suspended specie payment. … The depression of the local
currencies ranged from seven to twenty-five per cent. … In
November the Treasury Department found itself involved in the
common disaster. The refusal of the banks, in which the public
moneys were deposited, to pay their notes or the drafts upon
them in specie deprived the government of its gold and silver;
and their refusal, likewise, of credit and circulation to the
issues of banks in other States deprived the government also
of the only means it possessed for transferring its funds to
pay the dividends on the debt and discharge the treasury
notes. … On October 14, 1814, Alexander J. Dallas, Mr.
Gallatin's old friend, who had been appointed Secretary of the
Treasury on the 6th of the same month, in a report of a plan
to support the public credit, proposed the incorporation of a
national bank. A bill was passed by Congress, but returned to
it by Madison with his veto on January 15, 1815. … Mr.
Dallas again, as a last resort, insisted on a bank as the only
means by which the currency of the country could be restored
to a sound condition. In December, 1815, Dallas reported to
the Committee of the House of Representatives on the national
currency, of which John C. Calhoun was chairman, a plan for a
national bank, and on March 3, 1816, the second Bank of the
United States was chartered by Congress. The capital was
thirty-five millions, of which the government held seven
millions in seventy thousand shares of one hundred dollars
each. Mr. Madison approved the bill. … The second national
bank of the United States was located at Philadelphia, and
chartered for twenty years."
J. A. Stevens,
Albert Gallatin,
chapter 6.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1817-1833.
The Second Bank of the United States
and the war upon it.
"On the 1st of January, 1817, the bank opened for business,
with the country on the brink of a great monetary crisis, but
'too late to prevent the crash which followed.' The management
of the bank during the first two years of its existence was
far from satisfactory. It aggravated the troubles of the
financial situation instead of relieving them. Specie payments
were nominally resumed in 1817, but the insidious canker of
inflation had eaten its way into the arteries of business, and
in the crisis of 1819 came another suspension that lasted for
two years. … It was only by a desperate effort that the bank
finally weathered the storm brought on by its own
mismanagement and that of the State Banks. After the recovery,
a period of several years of prosperity followed, and the
management of the bank was thoroughly reorganized and sound.
From this time on until the great 'Bank War' its affairs seem
to have been conducted with a view to performing its duty to

the government as well as to its individual stockholders, and
it rendered such aid to the public, directly, and indirectly,
as entitled it to respect and fair treatment on the part of
the servants of the people. … But the bank controversy was
not yet over. It was about to be revived, and to become a
prominent issue in a period of our national politics more
distinguished for the bitterness of its personal animosities
than perhaps any other in our annals. … As already said, the
ten years following the revulsion of 1819-25 were years of
almost unbroken prosperity. … The question of the
continuance of the bank was not under discussion. In fact,
scarcely any mention of the subject was made until President
Jackson referred to it in his message of December, 1829.
{2215}
In this message he reopened the question of the
constitutionality of the bank, but the committee to which this
portion of the message was referred in the House of
Representatives made a report favorable to the institution.
There seems no reason to doubt the honesty of Jackson's
opinion that the bank was unconstitutional, and at first he
probably had no feeling in the matter except that which sprang
from his convictions on this point. Certain events, however,
increased his hostility to the bank, and strengthened his
resolution to destroy it. … When President Jackson first
attacked the bank, the weapon he chiefly relied on was the
alleged unconstitutionality of the charter."
D. Kinley,
The Independent Treasury of the United States,
chapter 1.
The question of the rechartering of the Bank was made an issue
in the presidential campaign of 1832, by Henry Clay. "Its
disinterested friends in both parties strongly dissuaded
Biddle [president of the Bank] from allowing the question of
recharter to be brought into the campaign. Clay's advisers
tried to dissuade him. The bank, however, could not oppose the
public man on whom it depended most, and the party leaders
deferred at last to their chief. Jackson never was more
dictatorial and obstinate than Clay was at this juncture."
Pending the election, a bill to renew the charter of the Bank
was passed through both houses of Congress. The President
promptly vetoed it. "The national republican convention met at
Baltimore, December 12, 1831. It … issued an address, in
which the bank question was put forward. It was declared that
the President 'is fully and three times over pledged to the
people to negative any bill that may be passed for
rechartering the bank, and there is little doubt that the
additional influence which he would acquire by a reelection
would be employed to carry through Congress the extraordinary
substitute which he has repeatedly proposed.' The appeal,
therefore, was to defeat Jackson in order to save the bank.
… Such a challenge as that could have but one effect on
Jackson. It called every faculty he possessed into activity to
compass the destruction of the bank. Instead of retiring from
the position he had taken, the moment there was a fight to be
fought, he did what he did at New Orleans. He moved his lines
up to the last point he could command on the side towards the
enemy. … The proceedings seemed to prove just what the
anti-bank men had asserted: that the bank was a great monster,
which aimed to control elections, and to set up and put down
Presidents. The campaign of 1832 was a struggle between the
popularity of the bank and the popularity of Jackson."
W. G. Sumner,
Andrew Jackson,
chapter 11.
Jackson was overwhelmingly elected, and feeling convinced that
his war upon the Bank had received the approval of the people,
he determined to remove the public deposits from its keeping
on his own responsibility. "With this view he removed (in the
spring of 1833) the Secretary of the Treasury, who would not
consent to remove the deposits, and appointed William J.
Duane, of Pennsylvania, in his place. He proved to be no more
compliant than his predecessor. After many attempts to
persuade him, the President announced to the Cabinet his final
decision that the deposits must be removed. The Reasons given
were that the law gave the Secretary, not Congress, control of
the deposits, that it was improper to leave them longer in a
bank whose charter would so soon expire, that the Bank's funds
had been largely used for political purposes, that its
inability to pay all its depositors had been shown by its
efforts to procure an extension of time from its creditors in
Europe, and that its four government directors had been
systematically kept from knowledge of its management.
Secretary Duane refused either to remove the deposits or to
resign his office, and pronounced the proposed removal
unnecessary, unwise, vindictive, arbitrary, and unjust. He was
at once removed from office, and Roger B. Taney, of Maryland,
appointed in his place. The necessary Orders for Removal were
given by Secretary Taney. It was not strictly a removal, for
all previous deposits were left in the Bank, to be drawn upon
until exhausted. It was rather a cessation. The deposits were
afterwards made in various State banks, and the Bank of the
United States was compelled to call in its loans. The
commercial distress which followed in consequence probably
strengthened the President in the end by giving a convincing
proof of the Bank's power as an antagonist to the Government."
A. Johnston,
History of American Politics,
chapter 13.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1837-1841.
The Wild Cat Banks of Michigan.
"Michigan became a State in January, 1837. Almost the first
act of her State legislature was the passage of a general
banking law under which any ten or more freeholders of any
county might organize themselves into a corporation for the
transaction of banking business. Of the nominal capital of a
bank only ten per cent. in specie was required to be paid when
subscriptions to the stock were made, and twenty per cent.
additional in specie when the bank began business. For the
further security of the notes which were to be issued as
currency, the stockholders were to give first mortgages upon
real estate, to be estimated at its cash value by at least
three county officers, the mortgages to be filed with the
auditor-general of the State. A bank commissioner was
appointed to superintend the organization of the banks, and to
attest the legality of their proceedings to the
auditor-general, who, upon receiving such attestation, was to
deliver to the banks circulating notes amounting to two and a
half times the capital certified to as having been paid in.
This law was passed in obedience to a popular cry that the
banking business had become an 'odious monopoly' that ought to
be broken up. Its design was to 'introduce free competition
into what was considered a profitable branch of business
heretofore monopolized by a few favored corporations.' Anybody
was to be given fair opportunities for entering the business
on equal terms with everybody else. The act was passed in
March, 1837, and the legislature adjourned till November 9
following. Before the latter date arrived, in fact before any
banks had been organized under the law, a financial panic
seized the whole country. An era of wild speculation reached a
climax, the banks in all the principal cities of the country
suspended specie payments, and State legislatures were called
together to devise remedies to meet the situation. That of
Michigan was convened in special session in June, and its
remedy for the case of Michigan was to leave the general
banking law in force, and to add to it full authority for
banks organized under it to begin the business of issuing
bills in a state of suspension—that is, to flood the State
with an irredeemable currency, based upon thirty per cent. of
specie and seventy per cent. of land mortgage bonds."
Cheap-Money Experiments
(from the Century Magazine),
pages 75-77.
{2216}
"Wild lands that had been recently bought of the government at
one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre were now valued at
ten or twenty times that amount, and lots in villages that
still existed only on paper had a worth for banking purposes
only limited by the conscience of the officer who was to take
the securities. Any ten freeholders of a county must be poor
indeed if they could not give sufficient security to answer
the purpose of the general banking law. The requirement of the
payment of thirty per cent. of the capital stock in specie was
more difficult to be complied with. But as the payment was to
be made to the bank itself, the difficulty was gotten over in
various ingenious ways, which the author of the general
banking law could hardly have anticipated. In some cases,
stock notes in terms payable in specie, or the certificates of
individuals which stated—untruly—that the maker held a
specified sum of specie for the bank, were counted as specie
itself; in others, a small sum of specie was paid in and taken
out, and the process repeated over and over until the
aggregate of payments equaled the sum required; in still
others, the specie with which one bank was organized was
passed from town to town and made to answer the purposes of
several. By the first day of January, 1838, articles of
association for twenty-one banks had been filed, making, with
the banks before in existence, an average of one to less than
five thousand people. Some of them were absolutely without
capital, and some were organized by scheming men in New York
and elsewhere, who took the bills away with them to circulate
abroad, putting out none at home. For some, locations as
inaccessible as possible were selected, that the bills might
not come back to plague the managers. The bank commissioners
say in their report for 1838, of their journey for inspection:
'The singular spectacle was presented of the officers of the
State seeking for banks in situations the most inaccessible
and remote from trade, and finding at every step an increase
of labor by the discovery of new and unknown organizations.
Before they could be arrested the mischief was done: large
issues were in circulation and no adequate remedy for the
evil.' One bank was found housed in a saw-mill, and it was
said with pardonable exaggeration in one of the public papers.
'Every village plat with a house, or even without a house, if
it had a hollow stump to serve as a vault, was the site of a
bank.' … The governor, when he delivered his annual message
in January, 1838, still had confidence in the general banking
law, which he said 'offered to all persons the privilege of
banking under certain guards and restrictions,' and he
declared that 'the principles upon which this law is based are
certainly correct, destroying as they do the odious feature of
a banking monopoly, and giving equal rights to all classes of
the community.' … The aggregate amount of private
indebtedness had by this time become enormous, and the
pressure for payment was serious and disquieting. … The
people must have relief; and what relief could be so certain
or so speedy as more banks and more money? More banks
therefore continued to be organized, and the paper current
flowed out among the people in increasing volume. … At the
beginning of 1839 the bank commissioners estimated that there
were a million dollars of bills of insolvent banks in the
hands of individuals and unavailable. Yet the governor, in his
annual message delivered in January, found it a 'source of
unfeigned gratification to be able to congratulate [the
legislature] on the prosperous condition to which our rising
commonwealth has attained.' … Then came stay laws, and laws
to compel creditors to take lands at a valuation. They were
doubtful in point of utility, and more than doubtful in point
of morality and constitutionality. The federal bankrupt act of
1841 first brought substantial relief: it brought almost no
dividends to creditors, but it relieved debtors from their
crushing burdens and permitted them, sobered and in their
right minds, to enter once more the fields of industry and
activity. The extraordinary history of the attempt to break up
an 'odious monopoly' in banking by making everybody a banker,
and to create prosperity by unlimited issues of paper
currency, was brought at length to a fit conclusion."
T. M. Cooley,
Michigan,
chapter 13.
See WILD CAT BANKS.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1838.
Free Banking Law of New York.
"On April 18th, 1838, the monopoly of banking under special
charters, was brought to a close in the State of New York, by
the passage of the act 'to authorize the business of Banking.'
Under this law Associations for Banking purposes and
Individual Bankers, were authorized to carry on the business
of Banking, by establishing offices of deposit, discount and
circulation. Subsequently a separate Department was organized
at Albany, called 'The Bank Department,' with a
Superintendent, who was charged with the supervision of all
the banks in the State. Under this law institutions could be
organized simply as banks of 'discount and deposit,' and might
also add the issuing of a paper currency to circulate as
money. At first the law provided that State and United States
stocks for one-half, and bonds and mortgages for the other
half, might be deposited as security for the circulating notes
to be issued by Banks and individual Bankers. Upon a fair
trial, however, it was found that when a bank failed, and the
Bank Department was called upon to redeem the circulating
notes of such bank, the mortgages could not be made available
in time to meet the demand. … By an amendment of the law the
receiving of mortgages as security for circulating notes was
discontinued."
E. G. Spaulding,
One Hundred Years of Progress
in the Business of Banking,
page 48.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1844.
The English Bank Charter Act.
"By an act of parliament passed in 1838, conferring certain
privileges on the Bank of England, it was provided that the
charter granted to that body should expire in 1855, but the
power was reserved to the legislature, on giving six months'
notice, to revise the charter ten years earlier. Availing
themselves of this option, the government proposed a measure
for regulating the entire monetary system of the country."
W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapter 7.
{2217}
"The growth of commerce, and in particular the establishment
of numerous joint-stock banks had given a dangerous impulse to
issues of paper money, which were not then restricted by law.
Even the Bank of England did not observe any fixed proportion
between the amount of notes which it issued and the amount of
bullion which it kept in reserve. When introducing this
subject to the House of Commons, Peel remarked that within the
last twenty years there had been four periods when a
contraction of issues had been necessary in order to maintain
the convertibility of paper, and that in none of these had the
Bank of England acted with vigour equal to the emergency. In
the latest of these periods, from June of 1838 to June of
1839, the amount of bullion in the Bank had fallen to little
more than £4,000,000, whilst the total of paper in circulation
had risen to little less than £30,000,000. … Peel was not
the first to devise the methods which he adopted. Mr. Jones
Loyd, afterwards Lord Overstone, who impressed the learned
with his tracts and the vulgar with his riches, had advised
the principal changes in the law relating to the issue of
paper money which Peel effected by the Bank Charter Act. These
changes were three in number. The first was to separate
totally the two departments of the Bank of England, the
banking department and the issue department. The banking
department was left to be managed as best the wisdom of the
directors could devise for the profit of the shareholders. The
issue department was placed under regulations which deprived
the Bank of any discretion in its management, and may almost
be said to have made it a department of the State. The second
innovation was to limit the issue of paper by the Bank of
England to an amount proportioned to the value of its assets.
The Bank was allowed to issue notes to the amount of
£14,000,000 against Government securities in its possession.
The Government owed the Bank a debt of £11,000,000, besides
which the Bank held Exchequer Bills. But the amount over
£14,000,000 which the Bank could issue was not, henceforwards,
to be more than the equivalent of the bullion in its
possession. By this means it was made certain that the Bank
would be able to give coin for any of its notes which might be
presented to it. The third innovation was to limit the issues
of the country banks. The power of issuing notes was denied to
any private or joint-stock banks founded after the date of the
Act. It was recognized in those banks which already possessed
it, but limited to a total sum of £8,500,000, the average
quantity of such notes which had been in circulation during
the years immediately preceding. It was provided that if any
of the banks which retained this privilege should cease to
exist or to issue notes, the Bank of England should be
entitled to increase its note circulation by a sum equal to
two-thirds of the amount of the former issues of the bank
which ceased to issue paper. The Bank of England was required
in this contingency to augment the reserve fund. By Acts
passed in the succeeding year, the principles of the English
Bank Charter Act were applied to Scotland and Ireland, with
such modifications as the peculiar circumstances of those
kingdoms required. The Bank Charter Act has ever since been
the subject of voluminous and contradictory criticism, both by
political economists and by men of business."
F. C. Montague,
Life of Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
Bonamy Price,
The Bank Charter Act of 1844
(Fraser's Magazine, June, 1865).
W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapter 7.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1848-1893.
Production of the Precious Metals
in the last half-century.
The Silver Question in the United States.
"The total (estimated) stock of gold in the world in 1848, was
£560,000,000. As for the annual production, it had varied
considerably since the beginning of the century [from
£3,000,000 to £8,000,000]. Such was the state of things
immediately preceding 1848. In that year the Californian
discoveries took place, and these were followed by the
discoveries in Australia in 1851.
See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1848-1849;
and AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1839-1855.
For these three years the annual average production is set
down by the Economist at £9,000,000, but from this date the
production suddenly rose to, for 1852, £27,000.000, and
continued to rise till 1856, when it attained its maximum of
£32,250,000. At this stage a decline in the returns occurred,
the lowest point reached being in 1860, when they fell to
£18,683,000, but from this they rose again, and for the last
ten years [before 1873] have maintained an average of about
£20,500,000; the returns for the year 1871 being £20,811,000.
The total amount of gold added to the world's stock by this
twenty years' production has been about £500,000,000, an
amount nearly equal to that existing in the world at the date
of the discoveries: in other words, the stock of gold in the
world has been nearly doubled since that time."
J. E. Cairnes,
Essays in Political Economy,
pages 160-161.
"The yearly average of gold production in the twenty-five
years from 1851-75 was $127,000,000. The yearly average
product of silver for the same period was $51,000,000. The
average annual product of gold for the fifteen years from
1876 to 1890 declined to $108,000,000; a minus of 15 per
cent. The average annual product of silver for the same
period increased to $116,000,000; a plus of 127 per cent.
There is the whole silver question."
L. R. Ehrich,
The Question of Silver,
page 21.
"From 1793—the date of the first issue of silver coin by the
United States—to 1834 the silver and the gold dollar were
alike authorized to be received as legal tender in payment of
debt, but silver alone circulated. Subsequently, however,
silver was not used, except in fractional payments, or, since
1853, as a subsidiary coin. The silver coin, as a coin of
circulation, had become obsolete. The reason why, prior to
1834, payments were made exclusively in silver, and
subsequently to that date in gold, is found in the fact that
prior to the legislation of 1834 … the standard silver coins
were relatively the cheaper, and consequently circulated to
the exclusion of the gold; while during the later period the
standard gold coins were the cheaper, circulating to the
exclusion of the silver. The Coinage Act of 1873, by which the
coinage of the silver dollar was discontinued, became a law on
February 12th of that year. The act of February 28, 1878,
which passed Congress by a two-thirds vote over the veto of
President Hayes, again provided for the coinage of a silver
dollar of 412.5 grains, the silver bullion to be purchased at
the market price by the Government, and the amount so
purchased and coined not to be less than two millions of
dollars per month. During the debate on this bill the charge
was repeatedly made, in and out of Congress, that the previous
act of 1873, discontinuing the free coinage of the silver
dollar, was passed surreptitiously.
{2218}
This statement has no foundation in fact. The report of the
writer, who was then Deputy Comptroller of the Currency,
transmitted to Congress in 1870 by the Secretary, three times
distinctly stated that the bill accompanying it proposed to
discontinue the issue of the silver dollar-piece. Various
experts, to whom it had been submitted, approved this feature
of the bill, and their opinions were printed by order of
Congress."
J. J. Knox,
United States Notes,
chapter 10.
"The bill of 1878, generally spoken of as the 'Bland' bill,
directed the secretary of the treasury to purchase not less
than two million nor more than four million dollars' worth of
silver bullion per month, to coin it into silver dollars, said
silver dollars to be full legal tender at 'their nominal
value.' Also, that the holder of ten or more of these silver
dollars could exchange them for silver certificates, said
certificates being 'receivable for customs, taxes, and all
public dues.' The bill was pushed and passed by the efforts,
principally, of the greenback inflationists and the
representatives of the silver States. … Since 1878 [to
1891], 405,000,000 silver dollars have been coined. Of these
348,000,000 are still lying in the treasury vaults. No comment
is needed. The Bland-Allison act did not hold up silver. In
1870 it was worth $1.12 an ounce, in 1880 $1.14, '81 $1.13,
'82 $1.13, '83 $1.11, '86 99 cents, until in '89 it reached
93½ cents an ounce. That is, in 1880 the commercial ratio was
22:1 and the coin value of the Bland-Allison silver dollar was
72 cents. In March, 1800, a bill was reported to the House by
the committee of 'coinage, weights and measures,' based on a
plan proposed by Secretary Windom. … The bill passed the
House. The Senate passed it with an amendment making provision
for free and unlimited coinage. It finally went to a
conference committee which reported the bill that became a
law, July 14, 1890. This bill directs the secretary of the
treasury to purchase four and one-half million ounces of
silver a month at the market price, to give legal tender
treasury notes therefor, said notes being redeemable in gold
or silver coin at the option of the government, 'it being the
established policy of the United States to maintain the two
metals on a parity with each other upon the present legal
ratio.' It was believed that this bill would raise the price
of silver. … To-day [December 8, 1891] the silver in our
dollar is actually worth 73 cents."
L. R. Ehrich,
The Question of Silver,
pages 21-25.
See, also,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1873, 1878, and 1890-1893.
In the summer of 1893, a financial crisis, produced in the
judgment of the best informed by the operation of the
silver-purchase law of 1890 (known commonly as the Sherman
Act) became so serious that President Cleveland called a
special session of Congress to deal with it. In his Message to
Congress, at the opening of its session, the President said:
"With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative
production and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe
investment, and with satisfactory assurance to business
enterprise, suddenly financial fear and distrust have sprung
up on every side. Numerous moneyed institutions have suspended
because abundant assets were not immediately available to meet
the demands of the frightened depositors. Surviving
corporations and individuals are content to keep in hand the
money they are usually anxious to loan, and those engaged in
legitimate business are surprised to find that the securities
they offer for loans, though heretofore satisfactory, are no
longer accepted. Values supposed to be fixed are fast becoming
conjectural, and loss and failure have involved every branch
of business. I believe these things are principally chargeable
to congressional legislation touching the purchase and coinage
of silver by the General Government. This legislation is
embodied in a statute passed on the 14th day of July, 1890,
which was the culmination of much agitation on the subject
involved, and which may be considered a truce, after a long
struggle between the advocates of free silver coinage and
those intending to be more conservative." A bill to repeal the
act of July 14, 1890 (the Sherman law, so called), was passed
by both houses and received the President's signature, Nov. 1,
1893.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1853-1874.
The Latin Union and the Silver Question.
"The gold discoveries of California and Australia were
directly the cause of the Latin Union. … In 1853, when the
subsidiary silver of the United States had disappeared before
the cheapened gold, we reduced the quantity of silver in the
small coins sufficiently to keep them dollar for dollar below
the value of gold. Switzerland followed this example of the
United States in her law of January 31, 1860; but, instead of
distinctly reducing the weight of pure silver in her small
coins, she accomplished the same end by lowering the fineness
of standard for these coins to 800 thousandths fine. …
Meanwhile France and Italy had a higher standard for their
coins than Switzerland, and as the neighboring states, which
had the franc system of coinage in common, found each other's
coins in circulation within their own limits, it was clear
that the cheaper Swiss coins, according to Gresham's law, must
drive out the dearer French and Italian coins, which contained
more pure silver, but which passed current at the same nominal
value. The Swiss coins of 800 thousandths fine began to pass
the French frontier and to displace the French coins of a
similar denomination; and the French coins were exported,
melted, and recoined in Switzerland at a profit. This, of
course, brought forth a decree in France (April 14, 1864),
which prohibited the receipt of these Swiss coins at the
public offices of France, the customs-offices, etc., and they
were consequently refused in common trade among individuals.
Belgium also, as well as Switzerland, began to think it
necessary to deal with the questions affecting her silver
small coins, which were leaving that country for the same
reason that they were leaving Switzerland. Belgium then
undertook to make overtures to France, in order that some
concerted action might be undertaken by the four countries
using the franc system—Italy, Belgium, France, and
Switzerland—to remedy the evil to which all were exposed by
the disappearance of their silver coin needed in every-day
transactions. The discoveries of gold had forced a
reconsideration of their coinage systems. In consequence of
these overtures, a conference of delegates representing the
Latin states just mentioned assembled in Paris, November
20, 1865. … The Conference, fully realizing the effects of
the fall of gold in driving out their silver coins, agreed to
establish a uniform coinage in the four countries, on the
essential principles adopted by the United States in 1853.
{2219}
They lowered the silver pieces of two francs, one franc, fifty
centimes, and twenty centimes from a standard of 900
thousandths fine to a uniform fineness of 835 thousandths,
reducing these coins to the position of a subsidiary currency.
They retained for the countries of the Latin Union, however,
the system of bimetallism. Gold pieces of one hundred, fifty,
twenty, ten, and five francs were to be coined, together with
five-franc pieces of silver, and all at a standard of 900
thousandths fine. Free coinage at a ratio of 15½:1, was
thereby granted to any holder of either gold or silver bullion
who wanted silver coins of five francs, or gold coins from
five francs and upward. … The subsidiary silver coins (below
five francs) were made a legal tender between individuals of
the state which coined them to the amount of fifty francs. …
The treaty was ratified, and went into effect August 1, 1866,
to continue until January 1, 1880, or about fifteen years. …
The downward tendency of silver in 1873 led the Latin Union to
fear that the demonetized silver of Germany would flood their
own mints if they continued the free coinage of five-franc
silver pieces at a legal ratio of 15½:1. … This condition of
things led to the meeting of delegates from the countries of
the Latin Union at Paris, January 30, 1874, who there agreed
to a treaty supplementary to that originally formed in 1865,
and determined on withdrawing from individuals the full power
of free coinage by limiting to a moderate sum the amount of
silver five-franc pieces which should be coined by each state
of the Union during the year 1874. The date of this suspension
of coinage by the Latin Union is regarded by all authorities
as of great import in regard to the value of silver."
J. L. Laughlin,
The History of Bimetallism in the United States,
pages 146-155.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1861-1878.
The Legal-tender notes, or Greenbacks, the
National Bank System, of the American Civil War.
"In January, 1861, the paper currency of the United States was
furnished by 1,600 private corporations, organized under
thirty-four different State laws. The circulation of the banks
amounted to $202,000,000, of which only about $50,000,000 were
issued in the States which in April, 1861, undertook to set up
an independent government. About $150,000,000 were in
circulation in the loyal States, including West Virginia. When
Congress met in extraordinary session on the 4th of July, the
three-months volunteers, who had hastened to the defence of
the capital, were confronting the rebel army on the line of
the Potomac, and the first great battle at Bull Run was
impending. President Lincoln called upon Congress to provide
for the enlistment of 400,000 men, and Secretary Chase
submitted estimates for probable expenditures amounting to
$318,000,000. The treasury was empty, and the expenses of the
government were rapidly approaching a million dollars a day.
The ordinary expenses of the government, during the year
ending on the 30th of June, 1861, had been $62,000,000, and
even this sum had not been supplied by the revenue, which
amounted to only $41,000,000. The rest had been borrowed. It
was now necessary to provide for an expenditure increased
fivefold, and amounting to eight times the income of the
country, Secretary Chase advised that $80,000,000 be provided
by taxation, and $240,000,000 by loans; and that, in
anticipation of revenue, provision be made for the issue of
$50,000,000 of treasury notes, redeemable on demand in coin.
'The greatest care will, however, be requisite,' he said, 'to
prevent the degradation of such issues into an irredeemable
paper currency, than which no more certainly fatal expedient
for impoverishing the masses and discrediting the government
of any country can well be devised.' The desired authority was
granted by Congress. The Secretary was authorized to borrow,
on the credit of the United States, not exceeding
$250,000,000, and, 'as a part of the above loan,' to issue an
exchange for coin, or pay for salaries or other dues from the
United States, not over $50,000,000 of treasury notes, bearing
no interest, but payable on demand at Philadelphia, New York,
or Boston. The act does not say, 'payable in coin,' for nobody
had then imagined that any other form of payment was possible.
Congress adjourned on the 6th of August, after passing an act
to provide an increased revenue from imports, and laying a
direct tax of $20,000,000 upon the States, and a tax of 3 per
cent. upon the excess of all private incomes above $800. The
Secretary immediately invited the banks of Philadelphia, New
York, and Boston to assist in the negotiation of the proposed
loans, and they loyally responded. On the 19th of August they
took $50,000,000 of three years 7-30 bonds at par; on the 1st
of October, $50,000,000 more of the same securities at par;
and on the 16th of November, $50,000,000 of twenty years 6 per
cents., at a rate making the interest equivalent to 7 per
cent. These advances relieved the temporary necessities of the
treasury, and, when Congress reassembled in December,
Secretary Chase was prepared to recommend a permanent
financial policy. The solid basis of this policy was to be
taxation. … It was estimated, a revenue of $90,000,000 would
be needed; and to secure that sum, the Secretary advised that
the duties on tea, coffee, and sugar be increased; that a
direct tax of $20,000,000 be assessed on the States; that the
income tax be modified so as to produce $10,000,000, and that
duties be laid on liquors, tobacco, carriages, legacies,
bank-notes, bills payable, and conveyances. For the
extraordinary expenses of the war it was necessary to depend
upon loans, and the authority to be granted for this purpose
the Secretary left 'to the better judgment of Congress,' only
suggesting that the rate of interest should be regulated by
law, and that the time had come when the government might
properly claim a part, at least, of the advantage of the paper
circulation, then constituting a loan without interest from
the people to the banks. There were two ways, Secretary Chase
said, in which this advantage might be secured: 1. By
increasing the issue of United States notes, and taxing the
bank-notes out of existence. 2. By providing a national
currency, to be issued by the banks but secured by the pledge
of United States bonds. The former plan the Secretary did not
recommend, regarding the hazard of a depreciating and finally
worthless currency as far outweighing the probable benefits of
the measure. … Congress had hardly begun to consider these
recommendations, when the situation was completely changed by
the suspension of specie payments, on the 28th of December, by
the banks of New York, followed by the suspension of the other
banks in the country, and compelling the treasury also to
suspend.
{2220}
This suspension was the result of a panic occasioned by the
shadow of war with England. … To provide for the pressing
wants of the treasury, Congress, on the 12th of February,
1862, authorized the issue of $10,000,000 more of demand
notes. Before the end of the session further issues were
provided for, making the aggregate of United States notes
$300,000,000, besides fractional currency. There was a long
debate upon the propriety of making these notes a legal tender
for private debts, and it seemed for a time that the measure
would be defeated by this dispute. [The bill authorizing the
issue of legal tender notes known afterwards as 'Greenbacks'
was prepared by the Hon. E. G. Spaulding, who subsequently
wrote the history of the measure.] Secretary Chase finally
advised the concession of this point; nevertheless, 55 votes
in the House of Representatives … were recorded against the
provision making the notes a tender for private debts.
Congress also empowered the Secretary to borrow $500,000,000
on 5-20 year 6 per cent. bonds, besides a temporary loan of
$100,000,000, and provided that the interest on the bonds
should be paid in coin, and that the customs should be
collected in coin for that purpose. Nothing was said about the
principal, for it was taken for granted that specie payments
would be resumed before the payment of the principal of the
debt would be undertaken. … Congress had thus adopted the
plan which the Secretary of the Treasury did not recommend,
and neglected the proposition which he preferred. … When
Congress met in December, 1862, the magnitude of the war had
become fully apparent. … The enormous demands upon the
treasury … had exhausted the resources provided by Congress.
The disbursements in November amounted to $59,847,077—two
millions a day. Unpaid requisitions had accumulated amounting
to $46,000,000. The total receipts for the year then current,
ending June 30, 1863, were estimated at $511,000,000; the
expenditures at $788,000,000; leaving $277,000,000 to be
provided for. There were only two ways to obtain this sum—by
a fresh issue of United States notes, or by new
interest-bearing loans. But the gold premium had advanced in
October to 34; the notes were already at a discount of 25 per
cent. The consequences of an addition of $277,000,000 to the
volume of currency, the Secretary said, would be 'inflation of
prices, increase of expenditures, augmentation of debt, and,
ultimately, disastrous defeat of the very purposes sought to
be obtained by it.' He therefore recommended an increase in
the amount authorized to be borrowed on the 5-20 bonds. … In
order to create a market for the bonds, he again recommended
the creation of banking associations under a national law
requiring them to secure their circulation by a deposit of
government bonds. The suggestion thus renewed was not received
with favor by Congress. … On the 7th of January Mr. Hooper
offered again his bill to provide a national currency, secured
by a pledge of United States bonds, but the next day Mr.
Stevens, of Pennsylvania, submitted the bill with an adverse
report from the committee on ways and means. On the 14th of
January Mr. Stevens reported a resolution authorizing the
Secretary of the Treasury to issue $100,000,000 more of United
States notes for the immediate payment of the army and navy.
The resolution passed the House at once, and the Senate the
next day. … On the 19th of January President Lincoln sent a
special message to the House, announcing that he had signed
the joint resolution authorizing a new issue of United States
notes, but adding that he considered it his duty to express
his sincere regret that it had been found necessary to add
such a sum to an already redundant currency, while the
suspended banks were still left free to increase their
circulation at will. He warned Congress that such a policy
must soon produce disastrous consequences, and the warning was
effective. On the 25th of January Senator Sherman offered a
bill to provide a national currency, differing in some
respects from Mr. Hooper's in the House. The bill passed the
Senate on the 12th of February, 23 to 21, and the House on the
20th, 78 to 64. … It was signed by the President on the 25th
of February, 1863."
H. W. Richardson,
The National Banks,
chapter 2.
"One immediate effect of the Legal Tender Act was to destroy
our credit abroad. Stocks were sent home for sale, and, as
Bagebot shows, Lombard Street was closed to a nation which had
adopted legal tender paper money. … By August all specie had
disappeared from circulation, and postage-stamps and private
note-issues took its place. In July a bill was passed for
issuing stamps as fractional currency, but in March 1863,
another act was passed providing for an issue of 50,000,000 in
notes for fractional parts of a dollar—not legal tender. For
many years the actual issue was only 30,000,000, the amount of
silver fractional coins in circulation in the North, east of
the Rocky Mountains, when the war broke out. … Gold rose to
200-220 or above, making the paper worth 45 or 50 cts., at
which point the 5 per cent. ten-forties floated. The amount
sold up to October 31st, 1865, was $172,770,100. Mr. Spaulding
reckons up the paper issues which acted more or less as
currency, on January 30th, 1864, at $1,125,877,034;
812,000,000 bore no interest."
W. G. Sumner,
History of American Currency,
pages 204-208.
The paper-money issues of the Civil War were not brought to
parity of value with gold until near the close of the year
1878. The 1st day of January, 1879, had been fixed for
resumption by an act passed in 1875; but that date was
generally anticipated in practical business by a few months.
A. S. Bolles,
Financial History of the United States, 1861-1885,
book 1, chapters 4, 5, 8, and 11,
and book 2, chapter 2.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1871-1873.
Adoption of the Gold Standard by Germany.
"At the close of the Franco-Prussian war the new German Empire
found the opportunity … for the establishment of a uniform
coinage throughout its numerous small states, and was
essentially aided in its plan at this time by the receipt of
the enormous war-indemnity from France, of which $54,600,000
was paid to Germany in French gold coin. Besides this, Germany
received from France bills of exchange in payment of the
indemnity which gave Germany the title to gold in places, such
as London, on which the bills were drawn. Gold in this way
left London for Berlin. With a large stock of gold on hand,
Germany began a series of measures to change her circulation
from silver to gold.
{2221}
Her circulation in 1870, before the change was made, was
composed substantially of silver and paper money, with no more
than 4 per cent of the whole circulation in gold. … The
substitution of gold instead of silver in a country like
Germany which had a single silver medium was carried out by a
path which led first to temporary bimetallism and later to
gold monometallism. And for this purpose the preparatory
measures were passed December 4, 1871. … This law of 1871
created new gold coins, current equally with existing silver
coins, at rates of exchange which were based on a ratio
between the gold and silver coins of 1:15½. The silver coins
were not demonetized by this law; their coinage was for the
present only discontinued; but there was no doubt as to the
intention of the Government in the future. … The next and
decisive step toward a single gold standard was taken by the
act of July 9, 1873. … By this measure gold was established
as the monetary standard of the country, with the 'mark' as
the unit, and silver was used, as in the United States in
1853, in a subsidiary service. … Under the terms of this
legislation Germany began to withdraw her old silver coinage,
and to sell as bullion whatever silver was not recoined into
the new subsidiary currency."
J. L. Laughlin,
History of Bimetallism in the United States,
pages 136-140.
MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1893.
Stoppage of the free Coinage of Silver in India.
The free coinage of silver in India was stopped by the
Government in June, 1893, thus taking the first step toward
the establishment of the gold standard in that country.
----------MONEY AND BANKING: End----------
----------MONGOLS: Start--------
MONGOLS:
Origin and earliest history.
"The name Mongol (according to Schmidt) is derived from the
word Mong, meaning brave, daring, bold, an etymology which is
acquiesced in by Dr. Schott. Ssanang Setzen says it was first
given to the race in the time of Jingis Khan, but it is of
much older date than his time, as we know from the Chinese
accounts. … They point further, as the statements of Raschid
do, to the Mongols having at first been merely one tribe of a
great confederacy, whose name was probably extended to the
whole when the prowess of the Imperial House which governed it
gained the supremacy. We learn lastly from them that the
generic name by which the race was known in early times to the
Chinese was Shi wei, the Mongols having, in fact, been a tribe
of the Shi wei. … The Shi wei were known to the Chinese from
the 7th century; they then consisted of various detached
hordes, subject to the Thu kiu, or Turks. … After the fall
of the Yuan-Yuan, the Turks, by whom they were overthrown,
acquired the supreme control of Eastern Asia. They had, under
the name of Hiong nu, been masters of the Mongolian desert and
its border land from a very early period, and under their new
name of Turks they merely reconquered a position from which
they had been driven some centuries before. Everywhere in
Mongol history we find evidence of their presence, the titles
Khakan, Khan, Bigui or Beg, Terkhan, &c., are common to both
races, while the same names occur among Mongol and Turkish
chiefs. … This fact of the former predominance of Turkish
influence in further Asia supports the traditions collected by
Raschid, Abulghazi, &c., … which trace the race of Mongol
Khans up to the old royal race of the Turks."
H. H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
volume 1, pages 27-32.
"Here [in the eastern portion of Asia known as the desert of
Gobi], from time immemorial, the Mongols, a people nearly akin
to the Turks in language and physiognomy, had made their home,
leading a miserable nomadic life in the midst of a wild and
barren country, unrecognised by their neighbours, and their
very name unknown centuries after their kinsmen, the Turks,
had been exercising an all-powerful influence over the
destinies of Western Asia."
A. Vámbéry,
History of Bokhara,
chapter 8.
A. Vámbéry,
Travels in Central Asia
www.gutenberg.org #41751
See also, TARTARS.
MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.
Conquests of Jingiz Khan.
"Jingiz-Khan [or Genghis, or Zingis], whose original name was
Tamujin, the son of a Tatar chief, was born in the year 1153
A. D. In 1202, at the age of 49, he had defeated or
propitiated all his enemies, and in 1205 was proclaimed, by a
great assembly, Khakan or Emperor of Tartary. His capital, a
vast assemblage of tents, was at Kara-Korum, in a distant part
of Chinese Tartary; and from thence he sent forth mighty
armies to conquer the world. This extraordinary man, who could
neither read nor write, established laws for the regulation of
social life and for the chase; and adopted a religion of pure
Theism. His army was divided into Tumans of 10,000 men,
Hazarehs of 1,000, Sedehs of 100, and Dehehs of 10, each under
a Tatar officer, and they were armed with bows and arrows,
swords, and iron maces. Having brought the whole of Tartary
under his sway, he conquered China, while his sons, Oktai and
Jagatai, were sent [A. D. 1218] with a vast army against
Khuwarizm [whose prince had provoked the attack by murdering a
large number of merchants who were under the protection of
Jingiz]. The country was conquered, though bravely defended by
the king's son, Jalalu-'d-Din; 100,000 people were put to the
sword, the rest sold as slaves. … The sons of Jingiz-Khan
then returned in triumph to their father; but the brave young
prince, Jalalu-'d-Din, still held out against the conquerors
of his country. This opposition roused Jingiz-Khan to fury;
Balk was attacked for having harboured the fugitive prince in
1221, and, having surrendered, the people were all put to
death. Nishapur shared the same fate, and a horrible massacre
of all the inhabitants took place." Jalalu-'d-Din, pursued to
the banks of the Indus and defeated in a desperate battle
fought there, swam the liver on horseback, in the face of the
enemy, and escaped into India. "The Mongol hordes then overran
Kandahar and Multan, Azerbaijan and 'Irak; Fars was only saved
by the submission of its Ata-beg, and two Mongol generals
marched round the Caspian Sea. Jingiz-Khan returned to Tartary
in A. D. 1222, but in these terrible campaigns he lost no less
than 200,000 men. As soon as the great conqueror had retired
out of Persia, the indefatigable Jalalu-'d-Din recrossed the
Indus with 4,000 followers, and passing through Shiraz and
Isfaham drove the Mongols out of Tubriz. But he was defeated
by them in 1226; and though he kept up the war in Azerbaijan
for a short time longer, he was at length utterly routed, and
flying into Kurdistan was killed in the house of a friend
there, four years afterwards. … Jingiz-Khan died in the year
1227."
C. R. Markham,
History of Persia,
chapter 7.
{2222}
In 1224 Jingiz "divided his gigantic empire amongst his sons
as follows: China and Mongolia were given to Oktai, whom he
nominated as his successor; Tchaghatai received a part of the
Uiguric passes as far as Khahrezm, including Turkestan and
Transoxania; Djudi had died in the meantime, so Batu was made
lord of Kharezm, Desht i-Kiptchak of the pass of Derbend and
Tuli was placed over Khorasan, Persia, and India."
A. Vámbéry,
History of Bokhara,
chapter 8.
"Popularly he [Jingis-Khan] is mentioned with Attila and with
Timur as one of the 'Scourges of God.' … But he was far more
than a conqueror. … In every detail of social and political
economy he was a creator; his laws and his administrative
rules are equally admirable and astounding to the student. …
He may fairly claim to have conquered the greatest area of the
world's surface that was ever subdued by one hand. … Jingis
organised a system of intelligence and espionage by which he
generally knew well the internal condition of the country he
was about to attack. He intrigued with the discontented and
seduced them by fair promises. … The Mongols ravaged and
laid waste the country all round the bigger towns, and they
generally tried to entice a portion of the garrison into an
ambuscade. They built regular siege-works armed with
catapults; the captives and peasants were forced to take part
in the assault; the attack never ceased night or day; relief
of troops keeping the garrison in perpetual terror. They
employed Chinese and Persians to make their war engines. …
They rarely abandoned the siege of a place altogether, and
would sometimes continue a blockade for years. They were bound
by no oath, and however solemn their promise to the
inhabitants who would surrender, it was broken, and a general
massacre ensued. It was their policy to leave behind them no
body of people, however submissive, who might inconvenience
their communications. … His [Jingis'] creed was to sweep
away all cities, as the haunts of slaves and of luxury; that
his herds might freely feed upon grass whose green was free
from dusty feet. It does make one hide one's face in terror to
read that from 1211 to 1223, 18,470,000 human beings perished
in China and Tangut alone, at the hands of Jingis and his
followers."
H. H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
volume 1, pages 49, 108-113.
"He [Jingiz-Khan] was … a military genius of the very first
order, and it may be questioned whether either Cæsar or
Napoleon can, as commanders, be placed on a par with him. The
manner in which he moved large bodies of men over vast
distances without an apparent effort, the judgment he showed
in the conduct of several wars in countries far apart from
each other, his strategy in unknown regions, always on the
alert yet never allowing hesitation or over-caution to
interfere with his enterprises, the sieges which he brought to
a successful termination, his brilliant victories … —all
combined, make up the picture of a career to which Europe can
offer nothing that will surpass, if indeed she has anything to
bear comparison with it."
D. C. Boulger,
History of China,
volume 1, chapter 21.
See, also,
CHINA: A. D. 1205-1234;
KHORASSAN;
BOKHARA: A. D. 1219;
SAMARKAND;
MERV;
BALKH;
KHUAREZM,
MONGOLS: A. D. 1202.
Overthrow of the Keraït, or the kingdom of Prester John.
See PRESTER JOHN, THE KINGDOM OF.
MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.
Conquests of the successors of Jingiz Khan.
"Okkodai [or Ogotai or Oktai], the son and successor of
Chinghiz, followed up the subjugation of China, extinguished
the Kin finally in 1234 and consolidated with his empire all
the provinces north of the Great Kiang. … After establishing
his power over so much of China as we have said, Okkodai
raised a vast army and set it in motion towards the west. One
portion was directed against Armenia, Georgia, and Asia Minor,
whilst another great host under Batu, the nephew of the Great
Khan, conquered the countries north of Caucasus, overran
Russia making it tributary, and still continued to carry fire
and slaughter westward. One great detachment under a
lieutenant of Batu's entered Poland, burned Cracow, found
Breslaw in ashes and abandoned by its people, and defeated
with great slaughter at Wahlstadt near Lignitz (April 12th,
1241) the troops of Poland, Moravia and Silesia, who had
gathered under Duke Henry of the latter province to make head
against this astounding flood of heathen. Batu himself with
the main body of his army was ravaging Hungary. …
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301].
Pesth was now taken and burnt and all its people put to
the sword. The rumours of the Tartars and their frightful
devastations had scattered fear through Europe, which the
defeat at Lignitz raised to a climax. Indeed weak and
disunited Christendom seemed to lie at the foot of the
barbarians. The Pope to be sure proclaimed crusade, and wrote
circular letters, but the enmity between him and the Emperor
Frederic II. was allowed to prevent any co-operation, and
neither of them responded by anything better than words to the
earnest calls for help which came from the King of Hungary. No
human aid merited thanks when Europe was relieved by hearing
that the Tartar host had suddenly retreated eastward. The

Great Khan Okkodai was dead [A. D. 1241] in the depths of
Asia, and a courier had come to recall the army from Europe.
In 1255 a new wave of conquest rolled westward from Mongolia,
this time directed against the Ismaelians or 'Assassins' on
the south of the Caspian, and then successively against the
Khalif of Baghdad and Syria. The conclusion of this expedition
under Hulagu may be considered to mark the climax of the
Mongol power. Mangu Khan, the emperor then reigning, and who
died on a campaign in China in 1259, was the last who
exercised a sovereignty so nearly universal. His successor
Kublai extended indeed largely the frontiers of the Mongol
power in China [see CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294], which he brought
entirely under the yoke, besides gaining conquests rather
nominal than real on its southern and southeastern borders,
but he ruled effectively only in the eastern regions of the
great empire, which had now broken up into four. (1) The
immediate Empire of the Great Khan, seated eventually at
Khanbalik or Peking, embraced China, Corea, Mongolia, and
Manchuria, Tibet, and claims at least over Tunking and
countries on the Ava frontier; (2), the Chagatai Khanate, or
Middle Empire of the Tartars, with its capital at Almalik,
included the modern Dsungaria, part of Chinese Turkestan,
Transoxiana, and Afghanistan; (3), the Empire of Kipchak, or
the Northern Tartars, founded on the conquests of Batu, and
with its chief seat at Sarai, on the Wolga, covered a large
part of Russia, the country north of Caucasus, Khwarizm, and a
part of the modern Siberia; (4), Persia, with its capital
eventually at Tabriz, embraced Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan
and part of Asia Minor, all Persia, Arabian Irak, and
Khorasan."
H. Yule,
Cathay and the way Thither: Preliminary Essay,
sections 92-94 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
H. H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
chapters 4-5.
{2223}

{2224}
MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.
The Kipchak empire.
The Golden Horde.
"It was under Toushi [or Juchi], son of Tschingis, that the
great migration of the Moguls effected an abiding settlement
in Russia. … Toushi, with half a million of Moguls, entered
Europe close by the Sea of Azof. On the banks of the river
Kalka he encountered the united forces of the Russian princes.
The death of Toushi for awhile arrested the progress of the
Tatar arms. But in 1236, Batu, the son of Toushi, took the
command, and all the principalities and cities of Russia, with
the exception of Novogorod, were desolated by fire and sword
and occupied by the enemy. For two centuries Russia was held
cabined, cribbed, confined by this encampment or horde. The
Golden Horde of the Deshti Kipzak, or Steppe of the Hollow
Tree. Between the Volga and the Don, and beyond the Volga,
spreads this limitless region the Deshti Kipzak. It was
occupied in the first instance, most probably, by Hun-Turks,
who first attracted and then were absorbed by fresh
immigrants. From this region an empire took its name. By the
river Akhtuba, a branch of the lower Volga, at Great Serai,
Batu erected his golden tent; and here it was he received the
Russian princes whom he had reduced to vassalage. Here he
entertained a king of Armenia; and here, too, he received the
ambassadors of S. Louis. … With the exception of Novogorod,
which had joined the Hanseatic League in 1276, and rose
rapidly in commercial prosperity, all Russia continued to
endure, till the extinction of the house of Batu, a degrading
and hopeless bondage. When the direct race came to an end, the
collateral branches became involved in very serious conflicts;
and in 1380, Temnik-Mami was overthrown near the river Don by
Demetrius IV., who, with the victory, won a title of honour,
Donski, which outlasted the benefits of the victory; although
it is from this conflict that Russian writers date the
commencement of their freedom. … After an existence of more
than 250 years the Golden Horde was finally dissolved in 1480.
Already, in 1468, the khanate of Kusan [or Kazan] was
conquered and absorbed by the Grand Duke Ivan; and, after the
extinction of the horde, Europeans for the first time exacted
tribute of the Tatar, and ambassadors found their way
unobstructed to Moscow. But the breaking up of the Golden
Horde did not carry with it the collapse of all Tatar power in
Russia. Rather the effect was to create a concentration of all
their residuary resources in the Crimea."
C. I. Black,
The Proselytes of Ishmael,
part 3, chapter 4.
"The Mongol word yurt meant originally the domestic fireplace,
and, according to Van Hammer, the word is identical with the
German herde and the English hearth, and thence came in a
secondary sense to mean house or home, the chief's house being
known as Ulugh Yurt or the Great House. An assemblage of
several yurts formed an ordu or orda, equivalent to the German
hort and the English horde, which really means a camp. The
chief camp where the ruler of the nation lived was called the
Sir Orda, i. e., the Golden Horde. … It came about that
eventually the whole nation was known as the Golden Horde."
The power of the Golden Horde was broken by the conquests of
Timour (A. D. 1389-1391). It was finally broken into several
fragments, the chief of which, the Khanates of Kazan, of
Astrakhan, and of Krim, or the Crimea, maintained a long
struggle with Russia, and were successively overpowered and
absorbed in the empire of the Muscovite.
H. H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
part 2, pages 1 and x.
See, also, above: A. D. 1229-1294;
KIPCHAKS; and RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.
MONGOLS: A. D. 1257-1258.
Khulagu's overthrow of the Caliphate.
See BAGDAD: A. D. 1258.
MONGOLS: A. D. 1258-1393.
The empire of the Ilkhans.
See PERSIA: A. D. 1258-1393.
MONGOLS: A. D. 1371-1405.
The conquests of Timour.
See TIMOUR.
MONGOLS: A. D. 1526-1605.
Founding of the Mogul (Mongol) empire in India.
See INDIA.: A. D. 1399-1605.
----------MONGOLS: End----------
MONITOR AND MERRIMAC, Battle of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MARCH).
MONKS.
See
AUSTIN CANONS;
BENEDICTINE ORDERS;
CAPUCHINS;
CARMELITE FRIARS;
CARTHUSIAN ORDER;
CISTERCIAN ORDER;
CLAIRVAUX;
CLUGNY;
MENDICANT ORDERS;
RECOLLECTS;
SERVITES;
THEATINES;
TRAPPISTS.
MONMOUTH, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JUNE).
MONMOUTH'S REBELLION.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (MAY-JULY).
MONOCACY, Battle of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (JULY: VIRGINIA-MARYLAND).
MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.
See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY;
also, JACOBITE CHURCH.
MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY, The.
"The Council of Chalcedon having decided that our Lord
possessed two natures, united but not confused, the Eutychian
error condemned by it is supposed to have been virtually
reproduced by the Monothelites, who maintained that the two
natures were so united as to have but one will. This heresy is
ascribed to Heraclius the Greek emperor, who adopted it as a
political project for reconciling and reclaiming the
Monophysites to the Church, and thus to the empire. The
Armenians as a body had held, for a long time, the Monophysite
(a form of the Eutychian) heresy, and were then in danger of
breaking their allegiance to the emperor, as they had done to
the Church; and it was chiefly to prevent the threatened
rupture that Heraclius made a secret compromise with some of
their principal men. … Neither … the strenuous efforts of
the Greek emperors Heraclius and Constans, nor the concession
of Honorius the Roman pontiff to the soundness of the
Monothelite doctrine, could introduce it into the Church.
Heraclius published in A. D. 639 an Ecthesis, or a formula, in
which Monotheism was covertly introduced. The sixth general
council, held in Constantinople A. D. 680, condemned both the
heresy and Honorius, the Roman pontiff who had countenanced it.
{2225}
'The doctrine of the Monothelites, thus condemned and exploded
by the Council of Constantinople, found a place of refuge
among the Mardaites, a people who inhabited the mountains of
Libanus and Anti-Libanus, and who, about the conclusion of
this century, received the name of Maronites from John Maro,
their first bishop-a name which they still retain.' … In the
time of the Crusaders, the Maronites united with them in their
wars against the Saracens, and subsequently (A. D. 1182) in
their faith. After the evacuation of Syria by the Crusaders,
the Maronites, as their former allies, had to bear the
vengeance of the Saracenic kings; and for a long time they
defended themselves as they could, sometimes inflicting
serious injury on the Moslem army, and at others suffering the
revengeful fury of their enemies. They ultimately submitted to
the rule of their Mohammedan masters, and are now good
subjects of the sultan. … The Maronites now … are entirely
free from the Monothelite heresy, which they doubtless
followed in their earlier history; nor, indeed, does there
appear a single vestige of it in their histories, theological
books, or liturgies. Their faith in the person of Christ and
in all the articles of religion is now, as it has been for a
long time past, in exact uniformity with the doctrines of the
Roman Church."
J. Wortabet,
Researches into the Religions of Syria,
pages 103-111; with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
H. F. Tozer,
The Church and the Eastern Empire,
chapter 5.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 47.
P. Schaff,
History of the Christian Church,
volume 4, chapter 11, sections 109-111.
MONROE, James,
Opposition to the Federal Constitution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.
Presidential election and administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816, to 1825.
MONROE DOCTRINE, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1823.
MONROVIA.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1816-1847.
----------MONS: Start--------
MONS: A. D. 1572.
Capture by Louis of Nassau, recovery by the Spaniards,
and massacre.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572-1573.
MONS: A. D. 1691.
Siege and surrender to Louis XIV.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691.
MONS: A. D. 1697.
Restored to Spain.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.
MONS: A. D. 1709.
Siege and reduction by Marlborough and Prince Eugene.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709.
MONS: A. D. 1713.
Transferred to Holland.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
MONS: A. D 1746-1748.
Taken by the French and restored to Austria.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747;
and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, THE CONGRESS.
----------MONS: End--------
MONS GRAMPIUS, Battle of.
See GRAMPIANS.
MONS SACER, Secession of the Roman Plebeians to.
See ROME: B. C. 494-492.
MONS TARPEIUS.
See CAPITOLINE HILL.
MONSIEUR.
Under the old regime, in France, this was the special
designation of the elder among the king's brothers.
MONT ST. JEAN, Battle of.
The battle of Waterloo—
is sometimes so called by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE).
MONTAGNAIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY,
and ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.
MONTAGNARDS, OR THE MOUNTAIN.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER);
1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER);
and after, to 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).
MONTAGNE NOIRE, Battle of (1794).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).
----------MONTANA: Start--------
MONTANA: A. D. 1803,
Partly or wholly embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.
The question.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
MONTANA: A. D. 1864-1889.
Organization as a Territory and admission as a State.
Montana received its Territorial organization in 1864, and was
admitted to the Union as a State in 1889.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1889-1890.
----------MONTANA: End--------
MONTANISTS.
A name given to the followers of Montanus, who appeared in the
2d century, among the Christians of Phrygia, claiming that the
Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, "had, by divine appointment,
descended upon him for the purpose of foretelling things of
the greatest moment that were about to happen, and
promulgating a better and more perfect discipline of life and
morals. … This sect continued to flourish down to the 5th
century."
J. L. von Mosheim,
Historical Commentaries, 2d Century,
section. 66.
MONTAPERTI, Battle of (1260).
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.
MONTAUBAN, Siege of (1621).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.
MONTAUKS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
MONTBÉLIARD, Battle of (1871).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.
MONTCALM, and the defense of Canada.
See CANADA: A. D. 1756, to 1759.
MONTE CASEROS, Battle of (1852).
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1819-1874.
MONTE CASINO, The Monastery of.
See BENEDICTINE ORDERS.
MONTE ROTUNDO, Battle of (1867).
See ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870.
MONTE SAN GIOVANNI, Battle and massacre (1495).
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
MONTEBELLO,
Battle of (1800).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
Battle of (1859.)
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859.
MONTECATINI, Battle of (1315).
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
MONTENEGRO.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
MONTENOTTE, Battles at (1796).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).
MONTEREAU, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).
MONTEREAU, The Bridge of (1419).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1415-1419.
MONTEREY, California:
Possession taken by the American fleet (1846).
See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847.
MONTEREY, Mexico:
Siege by the Americans (1846).
See MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847.
MONTEREY, Pennsylvania, The Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA).
MONTEVIDEO: Founding of the city.
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.
{2226}
MONTEZUMA, The so-called Empire of.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1325-1502.
MONTFORT, Simon de (the elder), The Crusade of.
See CRUSADES: A. D.1201-1203.
MONTFORT, Simon de (the younger),
The English Parliament and the Barons' war.
See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH: EARLY STAGES IN ITS EVOLUTION;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
MONTGOMERY, General Richard, and his expedition against Quebec.
See CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776.
MONTGOMERY CONSTITUTION and Government.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY).
MONTI OF SIENA, The.
See SIENA.
MONTLEHERY, Battle of (1465).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1461-1468.
----------MONTMÉDY: Start--------
MONTMÉDY: A. D. 1657.
Siege and capture by the French and English.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.
MONTMÉDY: A. D. 1659.
Cession to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.
----------MONTMÉDY: End--------
MONTMIRAIL, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).
MONTPELIER, Treaty of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.
MONTPELIER, Second Treaty of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
MONTPENSIER, Mademoiselle, and the Fronde.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1653.
----------MONTREAL: Start--------
MONTREAL: A. D. 1535.
The Naming of the Island.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535.
MONTREAL: A. D. 1611.
The founding of the City by Champlain.
See CANADA: A. D. 1611-1616.
MONTREAL: A. D. 1641-1657.
Settlement under the seigniory of the Sulpicians.
See CANADA: A.D. 1637-1657.
MONTREAL: A. D. 1689.
Destructive attack by the Iroquois.
See CANADA: A. D. 1640-1700.
MONTREAL: A. D. 1690.
Threatened by the English Colonists.
See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.
MONTREAL: A. D. 1760.
The surrender of the city and of all Canada to the English.
See CANADA: A. D. 1760.
MONTREAL: A. D. 1775-1776.
Taken by the Americans and recovered by the British.
See CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776.
MONTREAL: A. D. 1813.
Abortive expedition of American forces against the city.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
----------MONTREAL: End--------
MONTROSE, and the Covenanters.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638-1640; and 1644-1645.
MONZA, Battle of (1412).
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
MONZON,
MONÇON, Treaty of (1626).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
MOODKEE, Battle of (1845).
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
MOOKERHYDE, Battle of (1574).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574.
MOOLTAN,
MULTAN: A. D. 1848-1849.
Siege and capture by the English.
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
MOORE, Sir John:
Campaign in Spain and death.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).
MOORE'S CREEK, Battle of (1776).
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775-1776.
MOORISH SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES.
See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.
----------MOORS: Start--------
MOORS, OR MAURI,
Origin.
See NUMIDIANS.
MOORS: A. D. 698-709.
Arab conquest.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 647-709;
and MAROCCO.
MOORS: A. D. 711-713.
Conquest of Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713, and after.
MOORS: 11-13th Centuries.
The Almoravides and Almohades in Morocco.
See ALMORAVIDES; and ALMOHADES.
MOORS: A. D. 1492-1609.
Persecution and final expulsion from Spain.
The deadly effect upon that country.
"After the reduction … of the last Mohammedan kingdom in
Spain, the great object of the Spaniards became to convert
those whom they had conquered [in violation of the treaty made
on the surrender of Granada]. … By torturing some, by burning
others, and by threatening all, they at length succeeded; and
we are assured that, after the year 1526, there was no
Mohammedan in Spain, who had not been converted to
Christianity. Immense numbers of them were baptized by force;
but being baptized, it was held that they belonged to the
Church, and were amenable to her discipline. That discipline
was administered by the Inquisition, which, during the rest of
the 16th century, subjected these new Christians, or Moriscoes,
as they were now called, to the most barbarous treatment. The
genuineness of their forced conversions was doubted; it
therefore became the business of the Church to inquire into
their sincerity. The civil government lent its aid; and among
other enactments, an edict was issued by Philip II., in 1566,
ordering the Moriscoes to abandon everything which by the
slightest possibility could remind them of their former
religion. They were commanded, under severe penalties, to
learn Spanish, and to give up all their Arabic books. They
were forbidden to read their native language, or to write it,
or even to speak it in their own houses. Their ceremonies and
their very games were strictly prohibited. They were to
indulge in no amusements which had been practised by their
fathers; neither were they to wear such clothes as they had
been accustomed to. Their women were to go unveiled; and, as
bathing was a heathenish custom, an public baths were to be
destroyed, and even an baths in private houses. By these and
similar measures, these unhappy people were at length goaded
into rebellion; and in 1568 they took the desperate step of
measuring their force against that of the whole Spanish
monarchy. The result could hardly be doubted; but the
Moriscoes maddened by their sufferings, and fighting for their
all, protracted the contest till 1571, when the insurrection was
finally put down. By this unsuccessful effort they were
greatly reduced in numbers and in strength; and during the
remaining 27 years of the reign of Philip II. we hear
comparatively little of them. Notwithstanding an occasional
outbreak, the old animosities were subsiding, and in the
course of time would probably have disappeared. At all events,
there was no pretence for violence on the part of the Spaniards,
since it was absurd to suppose that the Moriscoes, weakened in
every way, humbled, broken, and scattered through the kingdom,
could, even if they desired it, effect anything against the
resources of the executive government.
{2227}
But, after the death of Philip II., that movement began …
which, contrary to the course of affairs in other nations,
secured to the Spanish clergy in the 17th century, more power
than they had possessed in the 16th. The consequences of this
were immediately apparent. The clergy did not think that the
steps taken by Philip II. against the Moriscoes were
sufficiently decisive. … Under his successor, the clergy …
gained fresh strength, and they soon felt themselves
sufficiently powerful to begin another and final crusade
against the miserable remains of the Moorish nation. The
Archbishop of Valencia was the first to take the field. In
1602, this eminent prelate presented a memorial to Philip III.
against the Moriscoes; and finding that his views were
cordially supported by the clergy, and not discouraged by the
crown, he followed up the blow by another memorial having the
same object. … He declared that the Armada, which Philip II.
sent against England in 1588, had been destroyed, because God
would not allow even that pious enterprise to succeed, while
those who undertook it, left heretics undisturbed at home. For
the same reason, the late expedition to Algiers had failed; it
being evidently the will of Heaven that nothing should prosper
while Spain was inhabited by apostates. He, therefore,
exhorted the king to exile all the Moriscoes, except some whom
he might condemn to work in the galleys, and others who could
become slaves, and labour in the mines of America. This, he
added, would make the reign of Philip glorious to all
posterity, and would raise his fame far above that of his
predecessors, who in this matter had neglected their obvious
duty. … That they should all be slain, instead of being
banished, was the desire of a powerful party in the Church,
who thought that such signal punishment would work good by
striking terror into the heretics of every nation. Bleda, the
celebrated Dominican, one of the most influential men of his
time, wished this to be done, and to be done thoroughly. He
said, that, for the sake of example, every Morisco in Spain
should have his throat cut; because it was impossible to tell
which of them were Christians at heart, and it was enough to
leave the matter to God, who knew his own, and who would
reward in the next world those who were really Catholics. …
The religious scruples of Philip III. forbade him to struggle
with the Church; and his minister Lerma would not risk his own
authority by even the show of opposition. In 1609 he announced
to the king, that the expulsion of the Moriscoes had become
necessary. 'The resolution,' replied Philip, 'is a great one;
let it be executed.' And executed it was, with unflinching
barbarity. About 1,000,000 of the most industrious inhabitants
of Spain were hunted out like wild beasts, because the
sincerity of their religious opinions was doubtful. Many were
slain, as they approached the coast; others were beaten and
plundered; and the majority, in the most wretched plight,
sailed for Africa. During the passage, the crew, in many of
the ships, rose upon them, butchered the men, ravished the
women, and threw the children into the sea. Those who escaped
this fate, landed on the coast of Barbary, where they were
attacked by the Bedouins, and many of them put to the sword.
Others made their way into the desert, and perished from
famine. Of the number of lives actually sacrificed, we have no
authentic account; but it is said, on very good authority,
that in one expedition, in which 140,000 were carried to
Africa, upwards of 100,000 suffered death in its most
frightful forms within a few months after their expulsion from
Spain. Now, for the first time, the Church was really
triumphant. For the first time there was not a heretic to be
seen between the Pyrenees and the Straits of Gibraltar. All
were orthodox, and all were loyal. Every inhabitant of that
great country obeyed the Church, and feared the king. And from
this happy combination, it was believed that the prosperity
and grandeur of Spain were sure to follow. … The effects
upon the material prosperity of Spain may be stated in a few
words. From nearly every part of the country, large bodies of
industrious agriculturists and expert artificers were suddenly
withdrawn. The best systems of husbandry then known, were
practised by the Moriscoes, who tilled and irrigated with
indefatigable labour. The cultivation of rice, cotton, and
sugar, and the manufacture of silk and paper were almost
confined to them. By their expulsion all this was destroyed at
a blow, and most of it was destroyed for ever. For the Spanish
Christians considered such pursuits beneath their dignity. In
their judgment, war and religion were the only two avocations
worthy of being followed. To fight for the king, or to enter
the Church was honourable; but everything else was mean and
sordid. When, therefore, the Moriscoes were thrust out of
Spain, there was no one to fill their place; arts and
manufactures either degenerated, or were entirely lost, and
immense regions of arable land were left uncultivated. …
Whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the
present day have never been repeopled. These solitudes gave
refuge to smugglers and brigands, who succeeded the
industrious inhabitants formerly occupying them; and it is
said that from the expulsion of the Moriscoes is to be dated
the existence of those organized bands of robbers, which,
after this period, became the scourge of Spain, and which no
subsequent government has been able entirely to extirpate. To
these disastrous consequences, others were added, of a
different, and, if possible, of a still more serious kind. The
victory gained by the Church increased both her power and her
reputation. … The greatest men, with hardly an exception,
became ecclesiastics, and all temporal considerations, all
views of earthly policy, were despised and set at nought. No
one inquired; no one doubted; no one presumed to ask if all
this was right. The minds of men succumbed and were prostrate.
While every other country was advancing, Spain alone was
receding. Every other country was making some addition to
knowledge, creating some art, or enlarging some science, Spain
numbed into a death-like torpor, spellbound and entranced by
the accursed superstition which preyed on her strength,
presented to Europe a solitary instance of constant decay."
H. T. Buckle,
History of Civilization,
volume 2, chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
W. H. Prescott,
History of the Reign of Philip II.,
book 5, chapters 1-8 (volume 3).
R. Watson,
History of the Reign of Philip III.,
book 4.
J. Dunlop,
Memoirs of Spain, 1621-1700,
volume 1, chapter 1.
See, also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.
MOORS: 15-19th Centuries.
The kingdom of Marocco.
See MAROCCO.
----------MOORS: End--------
MOPH.
See MEMPHIS.
{2228}
MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY.
MOQUIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.
MORA, The.
The name of the ship which bore William the Conqueror to
England, and which was the gift of his wife, the Duchess
Matilda.
MORAT, Battle of (1476).
See BURGUNDY (THE FRENCH DUKEDOM): A. D. 1476-1477.
----------MORAVIA: Start--------
MORAVIA:
Its people and their early history.
See BOHEMIA: ITS PEOPLE, &c.
MORAVIA: 9th Century.
Conversion to Christianity.
The kingdom of Svatopluk and its obscure destruction.
"Moravia has not even a legendary history. Her name appears
for the first time at the beginning of the 9th century, under
its Slav form, Morava (German 'March,' 'Moehren'). It is used
to denote at the same time a tributary of the Danube and the
country it waters; it is met with again in the lower valley of
that stream, in Servia, and appears to have a Slav origin.
During the 7th and 8th centuries there is no doubt Moravia was
divided among several princes, and had a hard struggle against
the Avars. The first prince whose name is known was Moïmir,
who ruled at the beginning of the 9th century. … During his
reign Christianity made some progress in Moravia. … Moïmir
tried to withstand the Germans, but was not successful; and in
846 Louis the German invaded his country, deposed him, and
made his nephew Rostislav, whom the chroniclers call Rastiz,
ruler in his stead. … The new prince, Rostislav, determined
to secure both the political and moral freedom of his country.
He fortified his frontiers and then declared war against the
emperor. He was victorious, and when once peace was secured he
undertook a systematic conversion of his people. Thus came
about one of the great episodes in the history of the Slavs,
and their Church, the mission of the apostles Cyril and
Methodius. … After having struggled successfully for some
time against the Germans" Rostislav was "betrayed by his
nephew and vassal, Svatopluk, into the hands of Karloman, duke
of Carinthia and son of Louis the German, who put out his eyes
and shut him up in a monastery. Svatopluk believed himself
sure of the succession to his uncle as the price of his
treachery, but a very different reward fell to his lot, as
Karloman, trusting but little in his fidelity to the Germans,
threw him also into captivity. The German yoke was, however,
hateful to the Moravians; they soon rebelled, and Karloman
hoped to avert the danger by releasing Svatopluk and placing
him at the head of an army. Svatopluk marched against the
Moravians, then suddenly joined his forces to theirs and
attacked the Germans. This time the independence of Moravia
was secured, and was recognized by the treaty of Forcheim
(874). … Thenceforward peace reigned between Svatopluk and
Louis the German. … At one time he [Svatopluk] was the most
powerful monarch of the Slavs; Rome was in treaty with him,
Bohemia gravitated towards the orbit of Moravia, while Moravia
held the empire in check. … At this time [891] the kingdom
of Svatopluk … included, besides Moravia and the present
Austrian Silesia, the subject country of Bohemia, the Slav
tribes on the Elbe and the Vistula as far as the neighbourhood
of Magdeburg, part of Western Galicia, the country of the
Slovaks, and Lower Pannonia." But Svatopluk was ruined by war
with his neighbor, Arnulf, duke of Pannonia. The latter
"entered into an alliance with Braclav, a Slovene prince,
sought the aid of the king of the Bulgarians, and, what was of
far graver importance, summoned to his help the Magyars, who
had just settled themselves on the Lower Danube. Swabians,
Bavarians, Franks, Magyars, and Slovenes rushed simultaneously
upon Moravia. Overwhelmed by numbers, Svatopluk made no
attempt at resistance; he shut up his troops in fortresses,
and abandoned the open country to the enemy, who ravaged it
for four whole weeks. Then hostilities ceased; but no durable
peace could exist between the two adversaries. War began again
in the following year, when death freed Arnulf from Svatopluk.
… At his death he left three sons; he chose the eldest,
Moïmir II., as his heir, and assigned appanages to each of the
others. On his death-bed he begged them to live at peace with
one another, but his advice was not followed. … Bohemia soon
threw off those bonds which had attached her as a vassal to
Svatopluk; the Magyars invaded Moravian Pannonia, and forced
Moïmir into an alliance with them. … In the year 900 the
Bavarians, together with the Chekhs, invaded Moravia. In 903
the name of Moïmir disappears. As to the cause of his death,
as to how it was that suddenly and for ever the kingdom of
Moravia was destroyed, the chronicles tell us nothing. Cosmas
of Prague shows us Moravia at the mercy of Germans, Chekhs,
and Hungarians; then history is silent, towns and castles
crumble to pieces, churches are overthrown, the people are
scattered."
L. Leger,
History of Austro-Hungary,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
G. F. Maclear,
Conversion of the West: The Slavs,
chapter 4.
MORAVIA: A. D. 1355.
Absorption in the kingdom of Bohemia.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1355.
----------MORAVIA: End----------
MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum):
Origin and early history.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1434-1457; and 1621-1648.
MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum):
In Saxony and in America.
The Indian Missions.
"In 1722, and in the seven following years, a considerable
number of these 'Brethren,' led by Christian David, who were
persecuted in their homes, were received by Count Zinzendorf
on his estate at Berthelsdorf in Saxony. They founded a
village called Herrnhut, or 'the Watch of the Lord.' There
they were joined by Christians from other places in Germany,
and, after some time, Zinzendorf took up his abode among them,
and became their principal guide and pastor. … In 1737, he
consecrated himself wholly to the service of God in connection
with the Moravian settlement, and was ordained a bishop. …
Zinzendorf had before been received into the Lutheran
ministry. The peculiar fervor which characterized his
religious work, and certain particulars in his teaching,
caused the Saxon Government, which was wedded to the
traditional ways of Lutheranism, to exclude him from Saxony
for about ten years (1736-1747). He prosecuted his religious
labors in Frankfort, journeyed through Holland and England,
made a voyage to the West Indies, and, in 1741, another voyage
to America.
{2229}
New branches of the Moravian body he planted in the countries
which he visited. … It was a church within a church that
Zinzendorf aimed to establish. It was far from his purpose to
found a sect antagonistic to the national churches in the
midst of which the Moravian societies arose. … With a
religious life remarkable as combining warm emotion with a
quiet and serene type of feeling, the community of Zinzendorf
connected a missionary zeal not equalled at that time in any
other Protestant communion. Although few in number, they sent
their gospel messengers to all quarters of the globe."
G. P. Fisher,
History of the Christian Church,
pages 506-507.
The first settlement of the Moravians in America was planted
in Georgia, in 1735. "But Oglethorpe's border war with the
Spaniards compelled him to call every man in his colony to
arms, and the Moravians, rather than forsake their principles
[of non-resistance, and dependence upon prayer], abandoned
their lands and escaped to Pennsylvania [1740]. Here some of
their brethren were already fixed. Among the refugees was the
young David Zeisberger, the future head of the Ohio missions.
Bethlehem on the Lehigh became, and is yet, the centre in
America of their double system of missions and education. They
bought lands, laid out villages and farms, built houses,
shops, and mills, but everywhere, and first of all, houses of
prayer, in thankfulness for the peace and prosperity at length
found. The first mission established by Zinzendorf in the
colonies was in 1741, among the Mohican Indians, near the
borders of New York and Connecticut. The bigoted people and
authorities of the neighborhood by outrages and persecution
drove them off, so that they were forced to take refuge on the
Lehigh. The brethren established them in a new colony twenty
miles above Bethlehem, to which they gave the name of
Gnadenhütten (Tents of Grace). The prosperity of the Mohicans
attracted the attention and visits of the Indians beyond. The
nearest were the Delawares, between whom and the Mohicans
there were strong ties of affinity, as branches of the old
Lenni Lenape stock. Relations were thus formed between the
Moravians and the Delawares. And by the fraternization between
the Delawares and Shawanees … and their gradual emigration
to the West to escape the encroachments of Penn's people, it
occurred that the Moravian missionaries, Zeisberger foremost,
accompanied their Delaware and Mohican converts to the
Susquehanna in 1765, and again, when driven from there by the
cession at Fort Stanwix, journeyed with them across the
Alleghanies to Goshgoshink, a town established by the
unconverted Delawares far up the Alleghany River." In 1770,
having gained some important converts among the Delawares of
the Wolf clan, at Kuskuskee, on Big Beaver Creek, they
transferred themselves to that place, naming it Friedenstadt.
But there they were opposed with such hostility by warriors
and white traders that they determined "to plunge a step
further into the wilderness, and go to the head chief of the
Delawares at Gepelmukpechenk (Stillwater, or Tuscarawi) on the
Muskingum. It was near this village that Christian Frederick
Post, the brave, enterprising pioneer of the Moravians, had
established himself in 1761, with the approbation of the
chiefs. … By marriage with an Indian wife he had forfeited
his regular standing with the congregation. His intimate
acquaintance with the Indians, and their languages and
customs, so far gained upon them that in 1762 he was permitted
to take Heckewelder to share his cabin and establish a school
for the Indian children. But in the autumn the threatened
outburst of Pontiac's war had compelled them to flee." Early
in 1772 the Moravian colony "was invited by the council at
Tuscarawi, the Wyandots west of them approving it, to come
with all their Indian brethren from the Alleghany and
Susquehanna, and settle on the Muskingum (as the Tuscarawas
was then called), and upon any lands that they might choose."
The invitation was accepted. "The pioneer party, in the
removal from the Beaver to Ohio, consisted of Zeisberger and
five Indian families, 28 persons, who arrived at this
beautiful ground May 3, 1772. … The site was at the large
spring, and appropriately it was named for it Shoenbrun. In
August arrived the Missionaries Ettwein and Heckewelder, with
the main body of Christian Indians who had been invited from
the Alleghany and the Susquehanna, about 250 in number. …
This, and further accessions from the east in September, made
it advisable to divide the colony into two villages. The
second [named Gnadenhütten] was established ten miles below
Shoenbrun. … In April, 1773, the remnants of the mission on
the Beaver joined their brethren in Ohio. The whole body of
the Moravian Indians … was now united and at rest under the
shelter of the unconverted but … tolerant Delaware warriors.
… The population of the Moravian villages at the close of
1775 was 414 persons. … The calamity of the Moravians was
the war of the American Revolution. It developed the dangerous
fact that their villages … were close upon the direct line
between Pittsburgh and Detroit, the outposts of the two
contending forces." The peaceful settlement became an object
of hostility to the meaner spirits on both sides. In
September, 1781, by order of the British commander at Detroit,
they were expelled from their settlement, robbed of all their
possessions, and sent to Sandusky. In the following February,
a half-starved party of them, numbering 96, who had ventured
back to their ravaged homes, for the purpose of gleaning the
corn left standing in the fields, were massacred by a brutal
American force, from the Ohio. "So perished the Moravian
missions on the Muskingum. Not that the pious founders ceased
their labors, or that these consecrated scenes knew them no
more. But their Indian communities, the germ of their work,
the sign of what was to be accomplished by them in the great
Indian problem, were scattered and gone, Zeisberger, at their
head, labored with the remnants of their congregation for
years in Canada. They then transferred themselves temporarily
to settlements on the Sandusky, the Huron, and the Cuyahoga
rivers. At last he and Heckewelder, with the survivors of
these wanderings, went back to their lands on the Tuscarawas,
now surrounded by the whites, but fully secured to them by the
generosity of Congress."
R. King,
Ohio,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
D. Cranz,
History of the United Brethren.
F. Bovet,
The Banished Count (Life of Zinzendorf).
E. de Schweinitz,
Life and Times of David Zeisberger.
D. Zeisberger,
Diary.
D. Berger,
United Brethren
(American Church History),
volume 12.
{2230}
----------MOREA: Start--------
MOREA:
Origin of the name.
"The Morea must … have come into general use, as the name of
the peninsula [of the Peloponnesus] among the Greeks, after
the Latin conquest [of 1204-1205], even allowing that the term
was used among foreigners before the arrival of the Franks.
… The name Morea was, however, at first applied only to the
western coast of the Peloponnesus, or perhaps more
particularly to Elis, which the epitome of Strabo points out
as a district exclusively Sclavonian, and which, to this day,
preserves a number of Sclavonian names. … Originally the
word appears to be the same geographical denomination which
the Sclavonians of the north had given to a mountain district
of Thrace in the chain of Mount Rhodope. In the 14th century
the name of this province is written by the Emperor
Cantacuzenos, who must have been well acquainted with it
personally, Morrha. Even as late as the 14th century, the
Morea is mentioned in official documents relating to the Frank
principality as a province of the Peloponnesus, though the
name was then commonly applied to the whole peninsula."
G. Finlay,
History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders,
chapter 1, section 4.
MOREA:
The Principality of the.
See ACHAIA: A. D. 1205-1387.
----------MOREA: End--------
MOREAU, General,
The Campaigns and the military and political fortunes of.
See FRANCE:
A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER);
1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL);
1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER), (NOVEMBER);
1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY); and 1804-1805;
also, GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (AUGUST).
MORETON BAY DISTRICT.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1800-1840, and 1859.
MORGAN, General Daniel, and the War or the American Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.
MORGAN, General John H., and his raid into Ohio and Indiana.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: KENTUCKY).
MORGAN, William, The abduction of.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1826-1832.
MORGANATIC MARRIAGES.
"Besides the dowry which was given before the marriage
ceremony had been performed, it was customary [among some of
the ancient German peoples] for the husband to make his wife a
present on the morning after the first night. This was called
the 'morgengabe,' or morning gift, the presenting of which,
where no previous ceremony had been observed, constituted a
particular kind of connexion called matrimonium morganaticam,
or 'morganatic marriage. As the liberality of the husband was
apt to be excessive, we find the amount limited by the
Langobardian laws to one fourth of the bridegroom's
substance."
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 10.
MORGARTEN, Battle or (1315).
See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.
MORINI, The.
See BELGÆ.
MORISCOES.
This name was given to the Moors in Spain after their nominal
and compulsory conversion to Christianity.
See MOORS: A. D. 1492-1609.
MORMAERS,
MAARMORS.
A title, signifying great Maer or Steward, borne by certain
princes or sub-kings of provinces in Scotland in the 10th and
11th centuries. The Macbeth of history was Mormaer of Moray.
W. F. Skene,
Celtic Scotland,
volume 3, pages 49-51.
See, also, SCOTLAND: A. D. 1039-1054.
MORMANS, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).
----------MORMONISM: Start--------
MORMONISM: A. D. 1805-1830.
Joseph Smith and the Book or Mormon.
"Joseph Smith, Jr., who … appears in the character of the
first Mormon prophet, and the putative founder of Mormonism
and the Church of Latter Day Saints, was born in Sharon,
Windsor County, Vermont, December 13, 1805. He was the son of
Joseph Smith, Sr., who, with his wife Lucy and their family,
removed from Royalton, Vermont, to Palmyra, New York, in the
summer of 1816. The family embraced nine children, Joseph,
Jr., being the fourth in the order of their ages. … At
Palmyra, Mr. Smith, Sr., opened 'a cake and beer shop,' as
described by his signboard, doing business on a small scale,
by the profits of which, added to the earnings of an
occasional day's work on hire by himself and his elder sons,
for the village and farming people, he was understood to
secure a scanty but honest living for himself and family. …
In 1818 they settled upon a nearly wild or unimproved piece of
land, mostly covered with standing timber, situate about two
miles south of Palmyra. … Little improvement was made upon
this land by the Smith family in the way of clearing, fencing,
or tillage. … The larger proportion of the time of the
Smiths … was spent in hunting and fishing … and idly
lounging around the stores and shops in the village. … At
this period in the life and career of Joseph Smith, Jr., or
'Joe Smith,' as he was universally named, and the Smith
family, they were popularly regarded as an illiterate,
whiskey-drinking, shiftless, irreligious race of people—the
first named, the chief subject of this biography, being
unanimously voted the laziest and most worthless of the
generation. … Taciturnity was among his characteristic
idiosyncrasies, and he seldom spoke to anyone outside of his
intimate associates, except when first addressed by another;
and then, by reason of his extravagancies of statement, his
word was received with the least confidence by those who knew
him best. He could utter the most palpable exaggeration or
marvellous absurdity with the utmost apparent gravity. … He
was, however, proverbially good-natured, very rarely if ever
indulging in any combative spirit toward anyone, whatever
might be the provocation, and yet was never known to laugh.
Albeit, he seemed to be the pride of his indulgent father, who
has been heard to boast of him as the 'genus of the family,'
quoting his own expression. Joseph, moreover, as he grew in
years, had learned to read comprehensively, in which
qualification he was far in advance of his elder brother, and
even of his father. … As he … advanced in reading and
knowledge, he assumed a spiritual or religious turn of mind,
and frequently perused the Bible, becoming quite familiar with
portions thereof. … The final conclusion announced by him
was, that all sectarianism was fallacious, all the churches on
a false foundation, and the Bible a fable. … In September,
1819, a curious stone was found in the digging of a well upon
the premises of Mr. Clark Chase, near Palmyra. This stone
attracted particular notice on account of its peculiar shape,
resembling that of a child's foot. It was of a whitish, glassy
appearance, though opaque, resembling quartz.
{2231}
Joseph Smith, Sr., and his elder sons Alvin and Hyrum, did the
chief labor of this well-digging, and Joseph, Jr., who had
been a frequenter in the progress of the work, as an idle
looker-on and lounger, manifested a special fancy for this
geological curiosity, and he carried it home with him. …
Very soon the pretension transpired that he could see
wonderful things by its aid. … The most glittering sights
revealed to the mortal vision of the young impostor, in the
manner stated, were hidden treasures of great value, including
enormous deposits of gold and silver sealed in earthen pots or
iron chests, and buried in the earth in the immediate vicinity
of the place where he stood. These discoveries finally became
too dazzling for his eyes in daylight, and he had to shade his
vision by looking at the stone in his hat! … The imposture
was renewed and repeated at frequent intervals from 1820 to
1827, various localities being the scenes of … delusive
searches for money [for carrying on which Smith collected
contributions from his dupes], as pointed out by the
revelations of the magic stone. … Numerous traces of the
excavations left by Smith are yet remaining as evidences of
his impostures and the folly of his dupes, though most of them
have become obliterated by the clearing off and tilling of the
lands where they were made." In the summer of 1827 "Smith had
a remarkable vision. He pretended that, while engaged in
secret prayer, alone in the wilderness, an 'angel of the Lord'
appeared to him, with the glad tidings that 'all his sins had
been forgiven'; … also that he had received a 'promise that
the true doctrine and the fulness of the doctrine and the
fulness of the gospel should at some future time be revealed

to him.' … In the fall of the same year Smith had yet a more
miraculous and astonishing vision than any preceding one. He
now arrogated to himself, by authority of 'the spirit of
revelation,' and in accordance with the previous 'promises'
made to him, a far higher sphere in the scale of human
existence, assuming to possess the gift and power of 'prophet,
seer, and revelator.' On this assumption he announced to his
family friends and the bigoted persons who had adhered to his
supernaturalism, that he was 'commanded,' upon a secretly
fixed day and hour, to go alone to a certain spot revealed to
him by the angel, and there take out of the earth a metallic
book of great antiquity in its origin, and of immortal
importance in its consequences to the world, which was a
record, in mystic letters or characters, of the long-lost
tribes of Israel, … who had primarily inhabited this
continent, and which no human being besides himself could see
and live; and the power to translate which to the nations of
the earth was also given to him only, as the chosen servant of
God. … Accordingly, when the appointed hour came, the
prophet, assuming his practised air of mystery, took in hand
his money-digging spade and a large napkin, and went off in
silence and alone in the solitude of the forest, and after an
absence of some three hours returned, apparently with his
sacred charge concealed within the folds of the napkin. …
With the book was also found, or so pretended, a huge pair of
spectacles in a perfect state of preservation, or the Urim and
Thummim, as afterward interpreted, whereby the mystic record
was to be translated and the wonderful dealings of God
revealed to man, by the superhuman power of Joseph Smith. …
The sacred treasure was not seen by mortal eyes, save those of
the one anointed, until after the lapse of a year or longer
time, when it was found expedient to have a new revelation, as
Smith's bare word had utterly failed to gain a convert beyond
his original circle of believers. By this amended revelation,
the veritable existence of the book was certified to by eleven
witnesses of Smith's selection. It was then heralded as the
Golden Bible, or Book of Mormon, and as the beginning of a new
gospel dispensation. … The spot from which the book is
alleged to have been taken is the yet partially visible pit
where the money speculators had previously dug for another
kind of treasure, which is upon the summit of what has ever
since been known as 'Mormon Hill,' now owned by Mr. Anson
Robinson, in the town of Manchester, New York. This book …
was finally described by Smith and his echoes as consisting of
metallic leaves or plates resembling gold, bound together in a
volume by three rings running through one edge of them, the
leaves opening like an ordinary paper book. … Translations
and interpretations were now entered upon by the prophet," and
in 1830 the "Book of Mormon" was printed and published at
Palmyra, New York, a well-to-do farmer, Martin Harris, paying
the expense. "In claiming for the statements herein set forth
the character of fairness and authenticity, it is perhaps
appropriate to add … that the locality of the malversations
resulting in the Mormon scheme is the author's birthplace;
that he was well acquainted with 'Joe Smith,' the first Mormon
prophet, and with his father and all the Smith family, since
their removal to Palmyra from Vermont … ; that he was
equally acquainted with Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery, and
with most of the earlier followers of Smith, either as
money-diggers or Mormons; that he established at Palmyra, in
1823, and was for many years editor and proprietor of the
'Wayne Sentinel,' and was editorially connected with that
paper at the printing by its press of the original edition of
the 'Book of Mormon' in 1830; that in the progress of the work
he performed much of the reading of the proof-sheets,
comparing the same with the manuscript copies, and in the
meantime had frequent and familiar interviews with the pioneer
Mormons."
P. Tucker,
Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism,
chapters 1-5, and preface.
It is believed by many that the groundwork of the Book of
Mormon was supplied by an ingenious romance, written about
1814 by the Rev. Solomon Spalding, a Presbyterian minister of
some learning and literary ability, then living at New Salem
(now Conneaut), Ohio. This romance, which was entitled "The
Manuscript Found," purported to narrate the history of a
migration of the lost ten tribes of Israel to America. It was
never published; but members of Mr. Spalding's family, and
other persons, who read it or heard it read, in manuscript,
claimed confidently, after the appearance of the Book of
Mormon that the main body of the narrative and the notable
names introduced in it were identical with those of the
latter. Some circumstances, moreover, seemed to indicate a
probability that Mr. Spalding's manuscript, being left during
several weeks with a publisher named Patterson, at Pittsburgh,
came there into the hands of one Sidney Rigdon, a young printer,
who appeared subsequently as one of the leading missionaries
of Mormonism, and who is believed to have visited Joseph
Smith, at Palmyra, before the Book of Mormon came to light.
{2232}
On the other hand, Mormon believers have, latterly, made much
of the fact that a manuscript romance without title, by
Solomon Spalding, was found, not many years since, in the
Sandwich Islands, by President Fairchild of Oberlin College,
Ohio, and proved to bear no resemblance to the Book of Mormon.
Spalding is said, however, to have written several romances,
and, if so, nothing is proved by this discovery.
T. Gregg,
The Prophet of Palmyra,
chapters 1-11 and 41-45.
ALSO IN:
E. E. Dickinson,
New Light on Mormonism.
J. M. Kennedy,
Early Days of Mormonism,
chapters 1-2.
MORMONISM: A. D. 1830-1846.
The First Hegira to Kirtland, Ohio, the Second to Missouri,
the Third to Nauvoo, Illinois.
The Danites.
The building of the city and its Temple.
Hostility of the Gentiles.
The slaying of the Prophet.
"Immediately after the publication of the Book the Church was
duly organized at Manchester. On April 6, 1830, six members
were ordained elders—Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph Smith, Jr.,
Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Knight.
The first conference was held at Fayette, Seneca county, in
June. A special 'revelation' at this time made Smith's wife
'the Elect Lady and Daughter of God,' with the high-sounding
title of 'Electa Cyria.' In later years this lady became
disgusted with her husband's religion. … Another revelation
was to the effect that Palmyra was not the gathering-place of
the Saints, after all, but that they should proceed to
Kirtland, in Ohio. Consequently, the early part of 1831 saw
them colonized in that place, the move being known as 'The
First Hegira.' Still another revelation (on the 6th of June)
stated that some point in Missouri was the reliable spot.
Smith immediately selected a tract in Jackson county, near
Independence. By 1833 the few Mormons who had moved thither
were so persecuted that they went into Clay county, and
thence, in 1838, into Caldwell county, naming their settlement
'Far West.' The main body of the Mormons, however, remained
in Kirtland from 1831 till they were forced to join their
Western brethren in 1838. Brigham Young, another native of
Vermont, joined at Kirtland in 1832, and was ordained an
elder. The conference of elders on May 3, 1833, repudiated the
name of Mormons and adopted that of 'Latter-Day Saints.' The
first presidency consisted of Smith, Rigdon, and Frederick G.
Williams. In May, 1835, the Twelve Apostles—among them
Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde—left on a
mission for proselytes. … The Mormons were driven from
Missouri by Governor Boggs's 'Extraordinary Order,' which
caused them to gain sympathy as having been persecuted in a
slave State. They moved to Hancock county, Illinois, in 1840,
and built up Nauvoo [on the Mississippi River, 14 miles above
Keokuk] by a charter with most unusual privileges."
F. G. Mather,
The Early Days of Mormonism
(Lippincott's Magazine, August 1880).
In the midst of the troubles of Smith and his followers in
Missouri, and before their removal to Nauvoo, there arose
among them "the mysterious and much dreaded band that finally
took the name of Danites, or sons of Dan, concerning which so
much has been said while so little is known, some of the
Mormons even denying its existence. But of this there is no
question. Says Burton: 'The Danite band, a name of fear in the
Mississippi Valley, is said by anti-Mormons to consist of men
between the ages of 17 and 49. They were originally termed
Daughters of Gideon, Destroying Angels—the gentiles say
devils—and, finally, Sons of Dan, or Danites, from one of
whom was prophesied he should be a serpent in the path. They
were organized about 1837 under D. W. Patten, popularly called
Captain Fearnot, for the purpose of dealing as avengers of
blood with gentiles; in fact they formed a kind of death
society, desperadoes, thugs, hashshashiyun—in plain English,
assassins in the name of the Lord. The Mormons declare
categorically the whole and every particular to be the
calumnious invention of the impostor and arch apostate, Mr.
John C. Bennett. John Hyde, a seceder, states that the Danite
band, or the United Brothers of Gideon, was organized on the
4th of July, 1838, and was placed under the command of the
apostle David Patten, who for the purpose assumed the name of
Captain Fearnot. It is the opinion of some that the Danite
band, or Destroying Angels as again they are called, was
organized at the recommendation of the governor of Missouri as
a means of self-defence against persecutions in that State."
H. H. Bancroft,
History of the Pacific States,
volume 21, pages 124-126.
"The Mormons first attracted national notice about the time
they quitted Missouri to escape persecution and took refuge in
Illinois. In that free State a tract of land was granted them
and a charter too carelessly liberal in terms. The whole body,
already numbering about 15,000, gathered into a new city of
their own, which their prophet, in obedience to a revelation,
named Nauvoo; here a body of militia was formed under the name
of the Nauvoo legion; and Joe Smith, as mayor, military
commander, and supreme head of the Church, exerted an
authority almost despotic. The wilderness blossomed and
rejoiced, and on a lofty height of this holy city was begun a
grotesque temple, built of limestone, with huge monolithic
pillars which displayed carvings of moons and suns. … Nauvoo
was well laid out, with wide streets which sloped towards
well-cultivated farms; all was thrift and sobriety, no
spirituous liquors were drunk, and the colonists here, as in
their former settlements, furnished the pattern of insect
industry. The wonderful proselyting work of this new sect
abroad had already begun, and recruits came over from the
overplus toilers in the British factory towns. … But there
was something in the methods of this sect, not to speak of the
jealousy they excited by their prosperity, which bred them
trouble here as everywhere else where they came in contact
with American commonplace life. It was whispered that the
hierarchy of impostors grew rich upon the toils of their
simple followers. Polygamy had not yet received the sanction
of a divine revelation; and yet the first step towards it was
practised in the theory of 'sealing wives' spiritually, which
Smith had begun in some mysterious way that it baffled the
gentile to discover. Sheriffs, too, were forbidden to serve
civil process in Nauvoo without the written permission of its
mayor.
{2233}
All these strange scandals of heathenish pranks, and more,
besides, stirred up the neighboring gentiles, plain Illinois
backwoodsmen; and the more so that, besides his 3,000 militia,
the Mormon prophet controlled 6,000 votes, which, in the close
Presidential canvass of 1844, might have been enough to decide
the election. Joe Smith, indeed, whose Church nominated him
for President, showed a fatal but thoroughly American
disposition at this time to carry his power into politics.
This king of plain speech, who dressed as a journeyman
carpenter, suppressed a newspaper which was set up by seceding
Mormons. When complaint was made he resisted Illinois process
and proclaimed martial law; the citizens of the surrounding
towns armed for a fight. Joe Smith was arrested and thrown
into jail at Carthage with his brother Hiram. The rumor
spreading that the governor was disposed to release these
prisoners, a disorderly band gathered at the jail and shot
them [June 27, 1844]. Thus perished Smith, the Mormon founder.
His death at first created terror and confusion among his
followers, but Brigham Young, his successor, proved a man of
great force and sagacity. The exasperated gentiles clamored
loudly to expel these religious fanatics from Illinois as they
had been expelled from Missouri; and finally, to prevent a
civil war, the governor of the State took forcible possession
of the holy city, with its unfinished temple, while the Mormon
charter of Nauvoo was repealed by the legislature. The Mormons
now determined [1846] upon the course which was most suited to
their growth, and left American pioneer society to found their
New Jerusalem on more enduring foundations west of the Rocky
Mountains."
J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
volume 4, pages 547-549.
ALSO IN:
T. Ford,
History of Illinois,
chapters 8 and 10-11.
A. Davidson and B. Stuvé,
History of Illinois,
chapter 41.
J. Remy and J. Brenchley,
Journey to Great Salt Lake City,
book 2, chapters 2-3 (volume 1).
R. F. Burton,
The City of the Saints,
page 359.
MORMONISM: A. D. 1846-1848.
The gentile attack on Nauvoo.
Exodus of "the Saints" into the wilderness of the West.
Their settlement on the Great Salt Lake.
"During the winter of 1845-46 the Mormons made the most
prodigious preparations for removal. All the houses in Nauvoo,
and even the temple, were converted into work-shops; and
before spring more than 12,000 wagons were in readiness. The
people from all parts of the country flocked to Nauvoo to
purchase houses and farms, which were sold extremely low,
lower than the prices at a sheriff's sale, for money, wagons,
horses, oxen, cattle, and other articles of personal property
which might be needed by the Mormons in their exodus into the
wilderness. By the middle of May it was estimated that 16,000
Mormons had crossed the Mississippi and taken up their line of
march with their personal property, their wives and little
ones, westward across the continent to Oregon or California;
leaving behind them in Nauvoo a small remnant of 1,000 souls,
being those who were unable to sell their property, or who
having no property to sell were unable to get away. The twelve
apostles went first with about 2,000 of their followers.
Indictments had been found against nine of them in the circuit
court of the United States for the district of Illinois at its
December term, 1845, for counterfeiting the current coin of
the United States. The United States Marshal had applied to me
[the writer being at that time Governor of Illinois] for a
militia force to arrest them; but in pursuance of the amnesty
agreed on for old offences, believing that the arrest of the
accused would prevent the removal of the Mormons, and that if
arrested there was not the least chance that any of them would
ever be convicted, I declined the application unless regularly
called upon by the President of the United States according to
law. … It was notorious that none of them could be
convicted; for they always commanded evidence and witnesses
enough to make a conviction impossible."
T. Ford,
History of Illinois,
chapter 13.
"The Saints who had as yet been unable to leave Nauvoo
continued to labour assiduously at the completion of the
temple, so as to accomplish one of the most solemn prophecies
of their well-beloved martyr. The sacred edifice was
ultimately entirely finished, at the end of April, 1846, after
having cost the Saints more than a million dollars. It was
consecrated with great pomp on the 1st and 2nd of May, 1846.
… The day after the consecration of the temple had been
celebrated, the Mormons withdrew from the building all the
sacred articles which adorned it, and satisfied with having
done their duty in accomplishing, though to no purpose
otherwise, a Divine command, they crossed the Mississippi to
rejoin those who had gone before them. Nauvoo was abandoned.
There remained within its deserted walls but some hundred
families, whom the want of means and the inability to sell
their effects had not allowed as yet to start upon the road to
emigration. The presence of those who were thus detained,
together with the bruit caused by the ceremony of dedication,
raised the murmurs of the gentiles, and seemed to keep alive
their animosity and alarm. Their eager desire to be entirely
rid of the Mormons made them extremely sensitive to every idle
story respecting the projects of the latter to return. They
imagined that the Saints had only left in detachments to seek
recruits among the red-skins, meaning to come back with
sufficient force once more to take possession of their
property in Illinois. These apprehensions rose to such a pitch
that the anti-Mormons plunged into fresh acts of illegality
and barbarism. … On the 10th of September, 1846, an army of
1,000 men, possessing six pieces of artillery, started to
begin the attack under the direction of a person named Carlin,
and of the Reverend Mr. Brockman. Nauvoo had only 300 men to
oppose to this force, and but five small cannon, made from the
iron of an old steamboat. The fire opened on the afternoon of
the 10th, and continued on the 11th, 12th and 13th of
September." Every attack of the besiegers was repulsed, until
they consented to terms under which the remnant of the Mormons
was to evacuate the town at the end of five days. "The Mormons
had only three men killed and a few wounded during the whole
affair; the loss of their enemies is unknown, but it would
seem that it was heavy. It was agreed that a committee of five
persons should remain at Nauvoo to attend to the interests of
the exiles, and on the 17th of September, while the enemy, to
the number of 1,625, entered the city to plunder, the remnant
of the Mormons crossed the Mississippi to follow 'the track of
Israel towards the west.' …
{2234}
About the end of June, 1846, the first column of the emigrants
arrived on the banks of the Missouri, a little above the point
of confluence of this immense river with the Platte, in the
country of the Pottawatamies, where it stopped to await the
detachments in its rear. This spot, now known by the name of
Council Bluffs, was christened Kanesville by the Mormons. …
At this place, in the course of July, the federal government
made an appeal to the patriotism of the Mormons, and asked
them to furnish a contingent of 500 men for the Mexican war.
Did the government wish to favour the Saints by affording them
an opportunity of making money by taking service, or did it
merely wish to test their fidelity? This we cannot decide. …
The Saints generally regarded this levy as a species of
persecution; however … they furnished a battalion of 520
men, and received $20,000 for equipment from the war
department." The head quarters of the emigration remained at
Kanesville through the winter of 1846-47, waiting for the
brethren who had been left behind. There were several
encampments, however, some of them about 200 miles in advance.
The shelters contrived were of every kind—huts, tents, and
caves dug in the earth. The suffering was considerable and
many deaths occurred. The Indians of the region were
Pottawatamies and Omahas, both hostile to the United States
and therefore friendly to the Mormons, whom they looked upon
as persecuted foes of the American nation. "On the 14th of
April [1847], Brigham Young and eight apostles, at the head of
143 picked men and 70 carts laden with grain and agricultural
implements, started in search of Eden in the far-west. … The
23rd of July, 1847, Orson Pratt, escorted by a small advanced
guard, was the first to reach the Great Salt Lake. He was
joined the following day by Brigham Young and the main body of
the pioneers. That day, the 24th of July, was destined to be
afterwards celebrated by the Mormons as the anniversary of
their deliverance. … Brigham Young declared, by divine
inspiration, that they were to establish themselves upon the
borders of the Salt Lake, in this region, which was nobody's
property, and wherein consequently his people could follow
their religion without drawing upon themselves the hatred of
any neighbours. He spent several weeks in ascertaining the
nature of the country, and then fixed upon a site for the holy
city. … When he had thus laid the foundations of his future
empire, he set off on his return to Council Bluffs, leaving on
the borders of the Salt Lake the greater portion of the
companions who had followed him in his distant search. During
the summer, a convoy of 566 waggons, laden with large
quantities of grain, left Kanesville and followed upon the
tracks of the pioneers. … On their arrival at the spot
indicated by the president of the Church, they set to work
without a moment's repose. Land was tilled, trees and hedges
planted, and grain sown before the coming frost." The main
body of the emigrants, led by Brigham Young, moved from the
banks of the Missouri about the 1st of May, 1848, and arrived
at the Salt Lake the following autumn.
J. Remy and J. Brenchley,
Journey to Great-Salt-Lake City,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).
"On the afternoon of the 22d [August, 1847] a conference was
held, at which it was resolved that the place should be called
the City of the Great Salt Lake. The term 'Great' was retained
for several years, until changed by legislative enactment. It
was so named in contradistinction to Little Salt Lake, a term
applied to a body of water some 200 miles to the south."
H. H. Bancroft,
History of the Pacific States,
volume 21, chapter 10.
MORMONISM: A. D. 1850.
Organization of the Territory of Utah.
See UTAH: A. D. 1849-1850.
MORMONISM: A. D. 1857-1859.
The rebellion in Utah.
See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.
MORMONISM: A. D. 1894.
Admission of Utah to the Union as a State.
See UTAH: A. D. 1894.
----------MORMONISM: End----------
MOROCCO.
See MAROCCO.
MORONA, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.
MORRILL TARIFF, The.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1861-1864 (UNITED STATES).
MORRIS, Gouverneur,
The framing of the Federal Constitution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.
The origin of the Erie Canal.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.
MORRIS, Robert, and the finances of the American Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.
MORRIS-DANCE, The.
"Both English and foreign glossaries, observes Mr. Douce,
uniformly ascribe the origin of this dance to the Moors,
although the genuine Moorish or Morisco dance was, no doubt,
very different from the European morris. … It has been
supposed that the morris-dance was first brought into England
in the reign of Edward III., and when John of Gaunt returned
from Spain: but it is much more probable that we had it from
our Gallic neighbours, or the Flemings."
H. Smith,
Festivals, Games, etc.,
chapter 18.
MORRIS ISLAND, Military operations on.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JULY: SOUTH CAROLINA).
MORRIS'S PURCHASE.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799.
MORRISTOWN, N. J.:
Washington in winter quarters (1777-1778).
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776-1777; and 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).
MORTARA, Battle of (1849).
See ITALY; A. D. 1848-1849.
MORTEMER, Battle of.
The French army invading Normandy, A. D. 1054, was surprised
by the Normans, in the town of Mortemer and utterly routed.
The town was destroyed and never rebuilt.
E. A. Freeman,
Norman Conquest,
chapter 12, section 2 (volume 3).
MORTIMER'S CROSS, Battle of (1461).
One of the battles in the "Wars of the Roses," fought Feb. 2,
1461, on a small plain called Kingsland Field, near Mortimer's
Cross, in Herefordshire, England. The Yorkists, commanded by
young Edward, Earl of March (soon afterwards King Edward IV.)
were greatly superior in numbers to the Lancastrians, under
the Earl of Pembroke, and won a complete victory.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.
MORTMAIN, The Statute of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1279.
MORTON, Thomas, at Merrymount.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1622-1628.
MORTUATH, The.
See TUATH, THE.
MOSA, The.
The ancient name of the river Meuse.
{2235}
----------MOSCOW: Start--------
MOSCOW: A. D. 1147.
Origin of the city.
"The name of Moscow appears for the first time in the
chronicles at the date of 1147. It is there said that the
Grand Prince George Dolgorouki, having arrived on the domain
of a boyard named Stephen Koutchko, caused him to be put to
death on some pretext, and that, struck by the position of one
of the villages situated on a height washed by the Moskowa,
the very spot whereon the Kremlin now stands, he built the
city of Moscow. … During the century following its
foundation, Moscow remained an obscure and insignificant
village of Souzdal. The chroniclers do not allude to it except
to mention that it was burned by the Tartars (1237), or that a
brother of Alexander Nevski, Michael of Moscow, was killed
there in a battle with the Lithuanians. The real founder of
the principality of the name was Daniel, a son of Alexander
Nevski, who had received this small town and a few villages as
his appanage. … He was followed, in due course, by his
brothers George and Ivan."
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
volume 1, chapter 12.
MOSCOW: A. D. 1362-1480.
Rise of the duchy which grew to be the Russian Empire.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.
MOSCOW: A. D. 1571.
Stormed and sacked by the Crim Tartars.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1569-1571.
MOSCOW: A. D. 1812.
Napoleon in possession.
The burning of the city.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER);
and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
----------MOSCOW: End--------
MOSKOWA,
BORODINO, Battle of the.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
MOSLEM.
See ISLAM;
also MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.
MOSQUITO INDIANS AND MOSQUITO COAST.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSQUITO,
or MOSQUITO INDIANS;
also NICARAGUA: A. D. 1850;
and CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.
MOTASSEM, Al, Caliph, A. D. 833-841.
MOTAWAKKEL, Al, Caliph, A. D. 847-861.
MOTYE, Siege of.
See SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396.
MOUGOULACHAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.
MOULEY-ISMAEL, Battle of (1835).
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1830-1846.
MOULTRIE, Colonel, and the defense of Charleston.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JUNE).
MOUND-BUILDERS OF AMERICA, The.
See AMERICA, PREHISTORIC.
MOUNT BADON, Battle of.
This battle was fought A. D. 520 and resulted in a crushing
defeat of the West Saxons by the Britons, arresting the
advance of the latter in their conquest of southwestern
England for a generation. It figures in some legends among the
victories of King Arthur.
J. R. Green,
The Making of England,
chapter 3.
MOUNT CALAMATIUS, Battle of.
See SPARTACUS, RISING OF.
MOUNT ETNA, Battle of (1849).
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
MOUNT GAURUS, Battle of.
See ROME: B. C. 343-290.
MOUNT TABOR, Battle of (1799).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).
MOUNT VESUVIUS, Battle of (B. C. 338).
See ROME: B. C. 339-338.
MOUNTAIN, The Party of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER);
1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER);
and after, to 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).
MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE, The (1857).
See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.
MOURU.
See MARGIANA.
MOXO, The Great.
See EL DORADO.
MOXOS,
MOJOS, The.
See BOLIVIA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS;
also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.
MOYTURA, Battle of.
Celebrated in the legendary history of Ireland and represented
as a fatal defeat of the ancient people in that country called
the Firbolgs by the new-coming Tuatha-de-Danaan. "Under the
name of the 'Battle of the Field of the Tower' [it], was long
a favourite theme of Irish song."
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
MOZARABES,
MOSTARABES.
The Christian people who remained in Africa and southern Spain
after the Moslem conquest, tolerated in the practice of their
religion, "were called Mostarabes or Mozarabes; they adopted
the Arabic language and customs. … The word is from the
Arabic 'musta'rab,' which means one 'who tries to imitate or
become an Arab in his manners and language.'"
H. Coppée,
History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors,
book 4, chapter 3 (volume 1), with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 51.
MOZART HALL.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1863-1871.
MUFTI.
See SUBLIME PORTE.
MUGELLO, Battle of (A. D. 542).
See ROME: A. D. 535-553.
MUGGLETONIANS.
See RANTERS.
MUGHAL OR MOGUL EMPIRE.
See INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.
MUGWUMPS.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1884.
MUHAJIRIN, The.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.
MUHLBERG, Battle of (1547).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.
MÜHLDORF, OR MAHLDORF, Battle of (1322).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.
MULATTO.
See MESTIZO.
MULE, Crompton's, The invention of.
See COTTON MANUFACTURE.
MÜLHAUSEN, Battle of (1674).
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.
MULLAGHMAST, The Massacre of.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.
MULLIGAN, Colonel James A.:
Defense of Lexington, Missouri.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).
MULTAN, OR MOOLTAN:
Siege and capture by the English (1848-1849).
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
MUNDA, Battle of.
See ROME: B. C. 45.
MUNDRUCU, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: TUPI.
MUNERA GLADIATORIA.
See LUDI.
----------MUNICH: Start--------
MUNICH: 13th Century.
First rise to importance.
See BAVARIA: A. D. 1180-1356.
MUNICH: A. D. 1632.
Surrender to Gustavus Adolphus.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.
MUNICH: A. D. 1743.
Bombardment and capture by the Austrians.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.
----------MUNICH: End--------
MUNICIPAL CONSTITUTIONS AND FORMS.
See COMMUNE; BOROUGH; and GUILD.
{2236}
MUNICIPAL CURIA OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE.
See CURIA, MUNICIPAL.
MUNICIPIUM.
"The term Municipium appears to have been applied originally
to those conquered Italian towns which Rome included in her
dominion without conferring on the people the Roman suffrage
and the capacity of attaining the honours of the Roman state.
… If the inhabitants of such Municipia had everything Roman
except the right to vote and to be eligible to the Roman
magistracies, they had Commercium and Connubium. By virtue of
the first, such persons could acquire property within the
limits of the Roman state, and could dispose of it by sale,
gift, and testament. By virtue of the second, they could
contract a legal marriage with the daughter of a Roman
citizen."
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 2, chapter 14.
MUNSEES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: DELAWARES,
and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY;
also, MANHATTAN ISLAND.
----------MÜNSTER: Start--------
MÜNSTER: A. D. 1532-1536.
The reign of the Anabaptists.
See ANABAPTISTS OF MÜNSTER.
MÜNSTER: A. D. 1644-1648.
Negotiation of the Peace of Westphalia.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648;
and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1646-1648.
----------MÜNSTER: End--------
MUNYCHIA.
See PIRÆUS.
MUNYCHIA, Battle of (B. C. 403).
See ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.
MURA, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.
MURAD V., Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1876 (MAY-AUGUST).
MURAT, King of Naples, The career of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY),
1806 (JANUARY-OCTOBER);
GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER), to 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE);
SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER);
ITALY: A. D. 1808-1809;
RUSSIA: A. D. 1812;
GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813, 1813 (AUGUST), to (OCTOBER);
ITALY: A. D. 1814, and 1815.
MURCI.
A name given to degenerate Romans, in the later days of the
Empire, who escaped military service by cutting off the
fingers of their right hands.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 17.
MURET, Battle of (A. D. 1213).
See ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1210-1213;
and SPAIN: A. D. 1035-1258.
MURFREESBOROUGH,
STONE RIVER, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862-1863 (DECEMBER-JANUARY: TENNESSEE).
MURRAY, The Regent, Assassination of.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.
MURRHINE VASES.
"The highest prices were paid for the so-called Murrhine vases
(vasa Murrhina) brought to Rome from the East. Pompey, after
his victory over Mithridates, was the first to bring one of
them to Rome, which he placed in the temple of the Capitoline
Jupiter. Augustus, as is well known, kept a Murrhine goblet
from Cleopatra's treasure for himself, while all her gold
plate was melted. The Consularis T. Petronius, who owned one
of the largest collections of rare vases, bought a basin from
Murrha for 300,000 sestertii; before his death he destroyed
this matchless piece of his collection, so as to prevent Nero
from laying hold of it. Nero himself paid for a handled
drinking-goblet from Murrha a million sestertii. Crystal vases
also fetched enormous prices. There is some doubt about the
material of these Murrhine vases, which is the more difficult
to solve, as the only vase in existence which perhaps may lay
claim to that name is too thin and fragile to allow of closer
investigation. It was found in the Tyrol in 1837.
See
Neue Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums,
volume v. 1839.
Pliny describes the colour of the Murrhine vases as a mixture
of white and purple; according to some ancient writers, they
even improved the taste of the wine drunk out of them."
E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks and Romans,
section 91.
"I believe it is now understood that the murrha of the Romans
was not porcelain, as had been supposed from the line,
'Murrheaque in Parthis pocula cocta focis' (Propert. iv. 5.
26.), but an imitation in coloured glass of a transparent
stone."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 39, foot-note.
MURSA, Battle of (A. D. 351).
See ROME: A. D. 337-361.
MUSCADINS.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).
MUSCULUS, The.
A huge movable covered way which the Romans employed in siege
operations. Its construction, of heavy timbers, with a
roof-covering of bricks, clay and hides, is described in
Cæsar's account of the siege of Massilia.
Cæsar,
The Civil War,
book 2, chapter 10.
MUSEUM, British.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN: ENGLAND.
MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA, The.
See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246.
MUSKHOGEES, OR MASKOKALGIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.
MUSSULMANS.
See ISLAM.
MUSTAPHA I., Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1617-1618; and 1622-1623.
Mustapha II., Turkish Sultan, 1695-1703.
Mustapha III., Turkish Sultan, 1757-1774.
Mustapha IV., Turkish Sultan, 1807-1808.
MUTA, Battle of.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.
MUTHUL, Battle of the.
See NUMIDIA: B. C. 118-104.
MUTINA, Battle of (B. C. 72).
See SPARTACUS, RISING OF.
MUTINA, Battle of (B. C. 43).
See ROME: B. C. 44-42.
MUTINA AND PARMA.
On the final conquest of Cisalpine Gaul by the Romans, about
220 B. C. the Senate planted the colonies of Mutina (Modena)
and Parma on the line of the Æmilian Road and assigned the
territory of the Apuans to the new colony of Luca (Lucca).
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 5, chapter 41 (volume 2).
MUTINY ACTS, The English.
In 1689 the Parliament (called a Convention at first) which
settled the English crown upon William of Orange and Mary,
"passed the first Act for governing the army as a separate and
distinct body under its own peculiar laws, called 'The Mutiny
Act.' … The origin of the first Mutiny Act was this. France
had declared war against Holland, who applied under the treaty
of Nimeguen to England for troops. Some English regiments
refused to go, and it was felt that the common law could not
be employed to meet the exigency. The mutineers were for the
time by military force compelled to submit, happily without
bloodshed; but the necessity for soldiers to be governed by
their own code and regulations became manifest. Thereupon the
aid of Parliament was invoked, but cautiously.
{2237}
The first Mutiny Act was very short in enactments and to
continue only six months. It recited that standing armies and
courts martial were unknown to English law, and enacted that
no soldier should on pain of death desert his colours, or
mutiny. At the expiration of the six months another similar
Act was passed, also only for six months: and so on until the
present practice was established of regulating and governing
the army, now a national institution, by an annual Mutiny Act,
which is requisite for the legal existence of a recognised
force, whereby frequent meeting of Parliament is indirectly
secured, if only to preserve the army in existence."
W. H. Torriano,
William the Third,
chapter 7.
"These are the two effectual securities against military
power: that no pay can be issued to the troops without a
previous authorisation by the commons in a committee of
supply, and by both houses in an act of appropriation; and
that no officer or soldier can be punished for disobedience,
nor any court-martial held, without the annual re-enactment of
the mutiny bill."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 11 (volume 3).
MUTINY OF THE ENGLISH FLEET.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.
MUTINY OF THE PHILADELPHIA LINE.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1781 (JANUARY).
MUTINY OF THE SEPOYS.
See INDIA: A. D. 1857, to 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).
MUYSCAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CHIBCHAS.
MYCALE, Battle of.
See GREECE: B. C. 479.
MYCENÆ.
See GREECE: MYCENÆ: AND ITS KINGS;
also ARGOS; HERACLEIDÆ; and HOMER.
MYCIANS, The.
A race, so-called by the Greeks, who lived anciently on the
coast of the Indian Ocean, east of modern Kerman. They were
known to the Persians as Maka.
G. Rawlinson,
Five Great Monarchies: Persia,
chapter 1.
MYLÆ, Naval battle at (B. C. 260).
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
MYONNESUS, Battle of (B. C. 190).
See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187.
MYRMIDONS, The.
"Æakus was the son of Zeus, born of Ægina, daughter of Asopus,
whom the god had carried off and brought into the island to
which he gave her name. … Æakus was alone in Ægina: to
relieve him from this solitude, Zeus changed all the ants in
the island into men, and thus provided him with a numerous
population, who, from their origin, were called Myrmidons."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 1, chapter 10.
According to the legends, Peleus, Telamon and Phocus were the
sons of Æakus; Peleus migrated, with the Myrmidons, or some
part of them, to Thessaly, and from there the latter
accompanied his son Achilles to Troy.
MYSIANS, The.
See PHRYGIANS.—MYSIANS.
MYSORE, The founding of the kingdom of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769.
MYSORE WARS, with Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib.
See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769; 1780-1783; 1785-1793;
and 1798-1805.
MYSTERIES, Ancient Religious.
See ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES.
MYSTICISM.
QUIETISM.
"The peculiar form of devotional religion known under these
names was not, as most readers are aware, the offspring of the
17th century. It rests, in fact, on a substratum of truth
which is coeval with man's being, and expresses one of the
elementary principles of our moral constitution. … The
system of the Mystics arose from the instinctive yearning of
man's soul for communion with the Infinite and the Eternal.
Holy Scripture abounds with such aspirations—the Old
Testament as well as the New; but that which under the Law was
'a shadow of good things to come,' has been transformed by
Christianity into a living and abiding reality. The Gospel
responds to these longings for intercommunion between earth
and heaven by that fundamental article of our faith, the
perpetual presence and operation of God the Holy Ghost in the
Church, the collective 'body of Christ,' and in the individual
souls of the regenerate. But a sublime mystery like this is
not incapable of misinterpretation. … The Church has ever
found it a difficult matter to distinguish and adjudicate
between what may be called legitimate or orthodox Mysticism
and those corrupt, degrading, or grotesque versions of it
which have exposed religion to reproach and contempt. Some
Mystics have been canonized as saints; others, no less
deservedly, have been consigned to obloquy as pestilential
heretics. It was in the East—proverbially the fatherland of
idealism and romance—that the earliest phase of error in this
department of theology was more or less strongly developed. We
find that in the 4th century the Church was troubled by a sect
called Massalians or Euchites, who placed the whole of
religion in the habit of mental prayer; alleging as their
authority the Scripture precept 'That men ought always to
pray, and not to faint.' They were for the most part monks of
Mesopotamia and Syria; there were many of them at Antioch when
St. Epiphanius wrote his Treatise against heresies, A. D. 376.
They held that every man is from his birth possessed by an
evil spirit or familiar demon, who can only be cast out by the
practice of continual prayer. They disparaged the Sacraments,
regarding them as things indifferent: they rejected manual
labor; and, although professing to be perpetually engaged in
prayer, they slept, we are told, the greater part of the day,
and pretended that in that state they received revelations
from above. … The Massalians did not openly separate from
the Church; they were condemned, however, by two Councils—one
at Antioch in 391, the other at Constantinople in 426.
Delusions of the same kind were reproduced from time to time
in the Oriental Church; and, as is commonly the case, the
originators of error were followed by a race of disciples who
advanced considerably beyond them. The Hesychasts, or
Quietists of Mount Athos in the 14th century, seem to have
been fanatics of an extreme type. They imagined that, by a
process of profound contemplation, they could discern
internally the light of the Divine Presence—the 'glory of
God'—the very same which was disclosed to the Apostles on the
Mount of Transfiguration. Hence they were also called
Thaborites.
{2238}
The soul to which this privilege was vouchsafed had no need to
practise any of the external acts or rites of religion. …
The theory of abstract contemplation, with the extraordinary
fruits supposed to be derived from it, travelled in due course
into the West, and there gave birth to the far-famed school of
the Mystics, of which there were various ramifications. The
earliest exponent of the system in France was John Scotus
Erigena, the contemporary and friend of Charles the Bald. …
Erigena incurred the censures of the Holy See; but the results
of his teaching were permanent. … The Mystics, or
Theosophists as some style them, attained a position of high
renown and influence at Paris towards the close of the 12th
century. Here two of the ablest expositors of the learning of
the middle age, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, initiated
crowds of ardent disciples into the mysteries of the 'via
interna,' and of 'pure love'—that marvellous quality by which
the soul, sublimated and etherialized, ascends into the very
presence-chamber of the King of kings. … The path thus
traced was trodden by many who were to take rank eventually as
the most perfect masters of spiritual science; among them are
the venerated names of Thomas à Kempis, St. Bonaventure, John
Tauler of Strasburg, Gerson, and St. Vincent Ferrier. … But,
on the other hand, it is not less true that emotional religion
has been found to degenerate, in modern as well as in ancient
times, into manifold forms of moral aberration. … To exalt
above measure the dignity and privileges of the spiritual
element in man carries with it the danger of disparaging the
material part of our nature; and this results in the
preposterous notion that, provided the soul be absorbed in the
contemplation of things Divine, the actions of the body are
unimportant and indifferent. How often the Church has combated
and denounced this most insidious heresy is well known to all
who have a moderate acquaintance with its history. Under the
various appellations of Beghards, Fratricelli, Cathari,
Spirituals, Albigenses, Illuminati, Guerinets, and Quietists,
the self-same delusion has been sedulously propagated in
different parts of Christendom, and with the same ultimate
consequences. A revival of the last-named sect, the Quietists,
took place in Spain about the year 1675, when Michel de
Molinos, a priest of the diocese of Saragossa, published his
treatise called 'The Spiritual Guide,' or, in the Latin
translation, 'Manuductio spiritualis.' His leading principle,
like that of his multifarious predecessors, was that of
habitual abstraction of the mind from sensible objects, with a
view to gain, by passive contemplation, not only a profound
realisation of God's presence, but so perfect a communion with
Him as to end in absorption into His essence. … Persons of
the highest distinction—Cardinals, Inquisitors, nay, even
Pope Innocent himself—were suspected of sharing these
dangerous opinions. Molinos was arrested and imprisoned, and
in due time the Inquisition condemned sixty-eight propositions
from his works; a sentence which was confirmed by a Papal bull
in August, 1687. Having undergone public penance, he was
admitted to absolution; after which, in 'merciful'
consideration of his submission and repentance, he was
consigned for the rest of his days to the dungeons of the Holy

Office. Here he died in November, 1692. … 'The principles of
Quietism had struck root so deeply, that they were not to be
soon dislodged either by the terrors of the Inquisition, or by
the well-merited denunciations of the Vatican. The system was
irresistibly fascinating to minds of a certain order. Among
those who were dazzled by it was the celebrated Jeanne Marie
De la Mothe Guyon," whose ardent propagation of her mystic
theology in the court circles of France—where Fenelon,
Madame de Maintenon, and other important personages were
greatly influenced—gave rise to bitter controversies and
agitations. In the end, Madame Guyon was silenced and
imprisoned and Fenelon was subjected to humiliating papal
censures.
W. H. Jervis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 2, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
R. A. Vaughan,
Hours with the Mystics.
J. Bigelow,
Miguel Molinos, the Quietist.
T. C. Upham,
Life of M'me Guyon.
H. L. S. Lear,
Fenelon,
chapters 3-5.
S. E. Herrick,
Some Heretics of Yesterday,
chapter 1.
H. C. Lea,
Chapters from the Religious History of Spain: Mystics.
MYTILENE, Siege of.
See LESBOS.
N
N. S.
New Style.
See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.
NAARDEN: A. D. 1572.
Massacre by the Spaniards.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572-1573.
NABATHEANS, The.
"Towards the seventh century B. C., the name Edomite suddenly
disappears, and is used only by some of the Israelitish
prophets, who, in doing so, follow ancient traditions. Instead
of it is found the hitherto unknown word, Nabathean.
Nevertheless the two names, Nabathean and Edomite, undoubtedly
refer to the same people, dwelling in the same locality,
possessing the same empire, with the same boundaries, and the
same capital, Selah [Petra]. Whence arose this change of name?
According to an appearances from an internal revolution, of
which we have no record, a change in the royal race and in the
dominant tribe."
F. Lenormant,
Manual of Ancient History,
book 7, chapter 4.
"This remarkable nation [the Nabatheans, or Nabatæans] has
often been confounded with its eastern neighbours, the
wandering Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramæan
branch than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramæan
or, according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian
stock must have in very early times sent forth from its most
ancient settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the
sake of trade, to the northern end of the Arabian gulf; these
were the Nabatæans on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf
of Suez and Aila, in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In
their ports the wares of the Mediterranean were exchanged for
those of India; the great southern caravan-route, which ran
from Gaza to the mouth of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf,
passed through the capital of the Nabatæans—Petra—whose
still magnificent rock-palaces and rock-tombs furnish clearer
evidence of the Nabatæan civilization than does an almost
extinct tradition."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 5, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
volume 5, page 351.
{2239}
NABOB.
NAWAB.
Under the Moghul empire, certain viceroys or governors of
provinces bore the title of Nawab, as the Nawab Wuzeer or
Vizier of Oude, which became in English speech Nabob, and
acquired familiar use in England as a term applied to rich
Anglo-Indians.
NADIR SHAH, sovereign of Persia, A. D. 1736-1747.
NAEFELS, OR NÖFELS, Battle of (1388).
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1386-1388.
Battle of (1799).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
NAGPUR:
The British acquisition and annexation.
See INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819, and 1848-1856.
NAHANARVALI, The.
See LYGIANS.
NAHUA PEOPLES.
NAHUATL.
See MEXICO, ANCIENT.
NAIRS, The.
See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
NAISSUS, The Battle of.
See GOTHS: A. D. 268-270.
NAJARA, Battle of.
See NAVARETTE.
NAMANGAN, Battle of (1876).
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.
NAMAQUA, The.
See SOUTH AFRICA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
NAMNETES,
NANNETES, The.
See VENETI OF WESTERN GAUL.
----------NAMUR: Start--------
NAMUR: A. D. 1692.
Siege and capture by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1692.
NAMUR: A. D. 1695.
Siege and recovery by William of Orange.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1695-1696.
NAMUR: A. D. 1713.
Ceded to Holland.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714;
and NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1713-1715.
NAMUR: A. D. 1746-1748.
Taken by the French and ceded to Austria.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747;
and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: CONGRESS.
----------NAMUR: End--------
NANA SAHIB, and the Sepoy Revolt.
See INDIA: A. D. 1848-1856; 1857 (MAY-AUGUST);
and 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).
NANCY: Defeat and death of Charles the Bold (1477).
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1476-1477.
----------NANKING: Start--------
NANKING: A. D. 1842.
Treaty ending the Opium War and opening Chinese ports.
See CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842.
NANKING: A. D. 1853-1864.
The capital of the Taiping Rebels.
See CHINA: A. D. 1850-1864.
----------NANKING: End--------
----------NANTES: Start--------
NANTES:
Origin of the name.
See VENETI OF WESTERN GAUL.
NANTES: A. D. 1598.
The Edict of Henry IV.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1598-1599.
NANTES: A. D. 1685.
The Revocation of the Edict.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698.
NANTES: A. D. 1793.
Unsuccessful attack by the Vendeans.
The crushing of the revolt and the frightful
vengeance of the Terrorists.
The demoniac Carrier and his Noyades.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER);
THE CIVIL WAR; and 1793-1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
----------NANTES: End--------
NANTICOKES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
NANTWICH, Battle of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (JANUARY).
NAO.
See CARAVELS.
NAPATA.
See ETHIOPIA.
----------NAPLES: Start--------
NAPLES:
Origin of the city.
See NEAPOLIS AND PALÆPOLIS.
NAPLES: A. D. 536-543.
Siege and capture by Belisarius.
Recovery by the Goths.
See ROME: A. D. 535-553.
NAPLES: A. D. 554-800.
The dukedom.
See ROME: A. D. 554-800.
NAPLES: 8-9th Centuries.
The duchy of Beneventum.
See BENEVENTUM; also, AMALFI.
NAPLES: A. D. 1000-1080.
The Norman Conquest.
Grant by the Pope as a fief of the Church.
See ITALY: A. D. 1000-1090.
NAPLES: A. D. 1127.
Union of Apulia with Sicily and formation of the
kingdom of Naples or the Two Sicilies.
See ITALY: A. D. 1081-1194.
NAPLES: A. D. 1282-1300.
Separation from Sicily.
Continuance as a separate kingdom under the House of Anjou.
Adhesion to the name "Sicily."
See ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300;
also, TWO SICILIES.
NAPLES: A. D. 1312-1313.
Hostilities between King Robert and the Emperor, Henry VII.
See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
NAPLES: A. D. 1313-1328.
King Robert's leadership of the Guelf interest in Italy.
His part in the wars of Tuscany.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
NAPLES: A. D. 1343-1389.
The troubled reign of Joanna I.
Murder of her husband, Andrew of Hungary.
Political effects of the Great Schism in the Church.
War of Charles of Durazzo and Louis of Anjou.
Interfering violence of Pope Urban VI.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389.
NAPLES: A. D. 1386-1414.
Civil war between the Durazzo and the Angevin parties.
Success of Ladislas.
His capture, loss, and recapture of Rome.
See ITALY: A. D. 1386-1414.
NAPLES: A. D. 1414-1447.
Renewal of civil war.
Defeat of the Angevins and acquisition of the
crown by Alfonso, king of Aragon and Sicily.
League with Florence and Venice against Milan.
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
NAPLES: A. D.1447-1454.
Claim of King Alfonso to the duchy of Milan.
War with Milan and Florence.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
NAPLES: A. D. 1458.
Separation of the crown from those of Aragon and Sicily.
Left to an illegitimate son of Alfonso.
Revived French claims.
See ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.
NAPLES: A. D. 1494-1496.
Invasion and temporary conquest by Charles VIII. of France.
Retreat of the French.
Venetian acquisitions in Apulia.
See ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494, 1494-1496;
and VENICE: A. D. 1494-1503.
NAPLES: A. D. 1501-1504.
Perfidious treaty of partition between
Louis XII. of France and Ferdinand of Aragon.
Their joint conquest.
Their quarrel and war.
The French expelled.
The Spaniards in possession.
See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.
NAPLES: A. D. 1504-1505.
Relinquishment of French claims.
See ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506.
NAPLES: A. D. 1508-1509.
The League of Cambrai against Venice.
See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.
NAPLES: A. D. 1528.
Siege by the French and successful defense.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
NAPLES: A. D. 1528-1570.
Under the Spanish viceroys.
Ravages of the Turks along the coast.
The blockade and peril of the city.
Revolt against the Inquisition.
Alva's repulse of the French.
See ITALY: A. D. 1528-1570;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
{2240}
NAPLES: A. D. 1544.
Repeated renunciation of the claims of Francis I.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
NAPLES: A. D. 1647-1654.
Revolt of Masaniello.
Undertakings of the Duke of Guise and the French.
See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.
NAPLES: A. D. 1713.
The kingdom ceded to the House of Austria.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
NAPLES: A. D. 1734-1735.
Occupation by the Spaniards.
Cession to Spain, with Sicily, forming a kingdom for
Don Carlos, the first of the Neapolitan Bourbons.
See ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
NAPLES: A. D. 1742.
The neutrality of the kingdom in the War of the Austrian
Succession enforced by England.
See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.
NAPLES: A. D. 1744.
The War of the Austrian Succession.
Neutrality broken.
See ITALY: A. D. 1744.
NAPLES: A. D. 1749-1792.
Under the Spanish-Bourbon regime.
See ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792.
NAPLES: A. D. 1769.
Seizure of Papal territory.
Demand for the suppression of the Order of the Jesuits.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
NAPLES: A. D. 1793.
Joined in the Coalition against Revolutionary France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
NAPLES: A. D. 1796.
Armistice with Bonaparte.
Treaty of Peace.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER), and (OCTOBER).
NAPLES: A. D. 1798-1799.
The king's attack upon the French at Rome.
His defeat and flight.
French occupation of the capital.
Creation of the Parthenopeian Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).
NAPLES: A. D. 1799.
Expulsion of the French.
Restoration of the king.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
NAPLES: A. D. 1800-1801.
The king's assistance to the Allies.
Saved from Napoleon's vengeance by the intercession
of the Russian Czar.
Treaty of Foligno.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).
NAPLES: A. D. 1805 (April).
Joined in the Third Coalition against France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (JANUARY-APRIL).
NAPLES: A. D. 1805-1806.
Napoleon's edict of dethronement against the king and queen.
Its enforcement by French arms.
Joseph Bonaparte made king of the Two Sicilies.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER)
NAPLES: A. D. 1808.
The crown resigned by Joseph Bonaparte (now king of Spain),
and conferred on Joachim Murat.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).
NAPLES: A. D. 1808-1809.
Murat on the throne.
Expulsion of the English from Capri.
Popular discontent.
Rise of the Carbonari.
Civil war in Calabria.
See ITALY: A. D. 1808-1809.
NAPLES: A. D. 1814.
Desertion of Napoleon by Murat.
His treaty with the Allies.
See ITALY: A. D. 1814.
NAPLES: A. D. 1815.
Murat's attempt to head an Italian national movement.
His downfall and fate.
Restoration of the Bourbon Ferdinand.
See ITALY: A. D. 1815.
NAPLES: A. D. 1815.
Accession to the Holy Alliance.
See HOLY ALLIANCE.
NAPLES: A. D. 1820-1821.
Insurrection.
Concession of a Constitution.
Perjury and duplicity of the king.
Intervention of Austria to overthrow the Constitution.
Merciless re-establishment of despotism.
See ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821.
NAPLES: A. D. 1820-1822.
The Congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona.
Austrian intervention sanctioned.
See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.
NAPLES: A. D. 1830.
Death of Francis I.
Accession of Ferdinand II.
See ITALY: A. D.1830-1832.
NAPLES: A. D. 1848.
Abortive revolt.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
NAPLES: A. D. 1859-1861.
Death of Ferdinand II.
Accession of Francis II.
The overthrow of his kingdom by Garibaldi.
Its absorption in the kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.
----------NAPLES: End--------
NAPO,
QUIJO, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.
NAPOLEON I.:
His career.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER);
and 1795 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), to 1815 (JUNE-AUGUST).
NAPOLEON III.:
His career as conspirator, President of the
French Republic, and Emperor.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1830-1840;
and 1848 (APRIL-DECEMBER), to 1870 (SEPTEMBER).
----------NARBONNE: Start--------
NARBONNE:
Founding of the city.
"In the year B. C. 118 it was proposed to settle a Roman
colony in the south of France at Narbo (Narbonne). … The
Romans must have seized some part of this country, or they
could not have made a colony, which implies the giving of land
to settlers. Narbo was an old native town which existed at
least as early as the latter part of the sixth century before
the Christian era. … The possession of Narbo gave the Romans
easy access to the fertile valley of the Garonne, and it was
not long before they took and plundered Tolosa (Toulouse),
which is on that river. … Narbo also commanded the road into
Spain."
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 1, chapter 22.
NARBONNE: A. D. 437.
Besieged by the Goths.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 419-451.
NARBONNE: A. D. 525-531.
The capital of the Visigoths.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-711.
NARBONNE: A. D. 719.
Capture and occupation by the Moslems.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-732.
NARBONNE: A. D. 752-759.
Siege and recovery from the Moslems.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 752-759.
----------NARBONNE: End--------
NARISCI, The.
See MARCOMANNI.
NARRAGANSETTS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY;
RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636;
and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637, 1674-1675,
1675, and 1676-1678.
NARSES, Campaigns of.
See ROME: A. D. 535-553.
NARVA, Siege and Battle of (1700).
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1697-1700.
NARVAEZ, Expedition of.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.
NASEBY, Battle of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE).
----------NASHVILLE, Tennessee: Start--------
NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A. D. 1779-1784.
Origin and name of the city.
See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785-1796.
{2241}
NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A. D. 1862.
Occupied by the Union forces.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE);
and (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE).
NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A. D. 1864.
Under siege.
Defeat of Hood's army.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A D. 1864 (DECEMBER: TENNESSEE).
----------NASHVILLE, Tennessee: End--------
NASI, The.
This was the title of the President of the Jewish Sanhedrin.
NASR-ED-DEEN, Shah of Persia, A. D. 1848-.
NASSAU, The House of.
"We find an Otho, Count of Nassau, so long ago as the
beginning of the 10th century, employed as general under the
Emperor Henry I … in subduing a swarm of savage Hungarians,
who for many years had infested Germany. … The same
fortunate warrior had a principal hand afterwards in reducing
the Vandals, Danes, Sclavonians, Dalmatians, and Bohemians.
Among the descendants of Otho of Nassau, Walram I and III more
particularly distinguished themselves in the cause of the
German Emperors; the former under the victorious Otho I, the
latter under Conrad II. It was to these faithful services of
his progenitors that, in a great measure, were owing the large
possessions of Henry, surnamed the Rich, third in descent from
the last mentioned Walram, and grandfather to the brave but
unhappy Emperor Adolphus [deposed and slain at the battle of
Gelheim, in 1298.]
See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
The accession, by marriage, of Breda, Vianden, and other
lordships in the Netherlands, gave the Nassaus such a weight
in those provinces that John II of Nassau-Dillemburg, and his
son Engelbert II, were both successively appointed Governors
of Brabant by the Sovereigns of that State [Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy, and his son-in-law, the Emperor Maximilian].
… The last, who was likewise honoured with the commission of
Maximilian I's Lieutenant-General in the Low-Countries,
immortalized his fame, at the same time that he secured his
master's footing there, by the glorious victory of
Guinegaste,"—or Guinegate, or the "Battle of the Spurs."
See FRANCE: A. D. 1513—1515.
J. Breval,
History of the House of Nassau,
pages 2-3.
Engelbert II. dying childless, "was succeeded by his brother
John, whose two sons, Henry and William, of Nassau, divided
the great inheritance after their father's death. William
succeeded to the German estates, became a convert to
Protestantism, and introduced the Reformation into his
dominions. Henry, the eldest son, received the family
possessions and titles in Luxembourg, Brabant, Flanders and
Holland, and distinguished himself as much as his uncle
Engelbert, in the service of the Burgundo-Austrian house. The
confidential friend of Charles V., whose governor he had been
in that Emperor's boyhood, he was ever his most efficient and
reliable adherent. It was he whose influence placed the
imperial crown upon the head of Charles. In 1515 he espoused
Claudia de Chalons, sister of Prince Philibert of Orange, 'in
order,' as he wrote to his father, 'to be obedient to his
imperial Majesty, to please the King of France, and more
particularly for the sake of his own honor and profit.' His
son Rene de Nassau-Chalons succeeded Philibert. The little
principality of Orange, so pleasantly situated between
Provence and Dauphiny, but in such, dangerous proximity to the
seat of the 'Babylonian captivity' of the popes at Avignon,
thus passed to the family of Nassau. The title was of high
antiquity. Already in the reign of Charlemagne, Guillaume au
Court-Nez, or 'William with the Short Nose,' had defended the
little town of Orange against the assaults of the Saracens.
The interest and authority acquired in the demesnes thus
preserved by his valor became extensive, and in process of
time hereditary in his race. The principality became an
absolute and free sovereignty, and had already descended, in
defiance of the Salic law, through the three distinct families
of Orange, Baux, and Chalons. In 1544, Prince Rene died at the
Emperor's feet in the trenches of Saint Dizier. Having no
legitimate children, he left all his titles and estates to his
cousin-german, William of Nassau [the great statesman and
soldier, afterwards known as William the Silent], son of his
father's brother William, who thus at the age of eleven years
became William the Ninth of Orange."
J. L. Motley,
The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
part 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
The Dutch branch of the House of Nassau is now represented by
the royal family of Holland. The possessions of the German
branch, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, after
frequent partitioning, was finally gathered into a duchy,
which Prussia extinguished and absorbed in 1866.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
Orange
(Macmillan's Magazine, February, 1875).
Baron Maurier,
Lives of all the Princes of Orange.
See, also, ORANGE;
and GUELDERLAND: A. D. 1079-1473.
NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.
----------NATAL: Start--------
NATAL: The Name.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.
NATAL: A. D. 1834-1843.
Founding of the colony as a Dutch republic.
Its absorption in the British dominions.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.
----------NATAL: End--------
NATALIA, Queen of Servia.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1879-1889.
NATCHEZ, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
NATCHESAN FAMILY, and MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.
NATCHEZ: A. D. 1862.
Taken by the National forces.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
NATCHITOCHES, The.
See TEXAS: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, French Revolution.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JUNE).
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, German Revolution.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
NATIONAL BANK SYSTEM.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1861-1878.
NATIONAL CONVENTION, French, End of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FRANCE.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN: FRANCE.
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1825-1828.
NATIONALISTS, OR HOME RULERS, Irish.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.
{2242}
NATIONALITY, The Principle of.
"Among the French a nationality is regarded as the work of
history, ratified by the will of man. The elements composing
it may be very different in their origin. The point of
departure is of little importance; the only essential thing is
the point reached. The Swiss nationality is the most complete.
It embraces three families of people, each of which speaks its
own language. Moreover, since the Swiss territory belongs to
three geographical regions, separated by high mountains,
Switzerland, which has vanquished the fatality of nature, from
both the ethnographical and geographical point of view, is a
unique and wonderful phenomenon. But she is a confederation,
and for a long time has been a neutral country. Thus her
constitution has not been subjected to the great ordeal of
fire and sword. France, despite her diverse races—Celtic,
German, Roman, and Basque—has formed a political entity that
most resembles a moral person. The Bretons and Alsacians, who
do not all understand the language of her government, have not
been the least devoted of her children in the hour of
tribulation. Among the great nations France is the nation par
excellence. Elsewhere the nationality blends, or tends to
blend, with the race, a natural development and, hence, one
devoid of merit. All the countries that have not been able to
unite their races into a nation, have a more or less troubled
existence. Prussia has not been able to nationalize (that is
the proper word to use) her Polish subjects; hence she has a
Polish question, not to mention at present any other. England
has an Irish question. Both Turkey and Austria have a number
of such questions. Groups of people in various parts of the
Austrian Empire demand from the Emperor that they may be
allowed to live as Germans, Hungarians, Tsechs, Croatians, in
fact, even as Italians. They do not revolt against him; on the
contrary, each of them offers him a crown. The time is,
however, past when a single head can wear several crowns;
to-day every crown is heavy. These race claims are not merely
a cause of internal troubles; the agitations that they arouse
may lead to great wars. Evidently no state will ever interpose
between Ireland and England, but, while quarrels take place
between Germans and Slavs, there will intervene the two
conflicting forces of Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism,
formidable results and final consequences of ethnographical
patriotism. Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism are, indeed, not
forces officially acknowledged and organized. The Emperor of
Germany can honestly deny that he is a Pan-Germanist, and the
Tsar that he is a Pan-Slavist. Germans and Slavs of Austria,
and Slavs of the Balkans, may, for their part, desire to
remain Austrian or independent, as they are to-day. It is none
the less true, however, that there is in Europe an old quarrel
between two great races, that each of them is represented by a
powerful empire, and that these empires cannot forever remain
unconcerned about the quarrels of the two races. … The chief
application of the principle of nationality has been the
formation of the Italian and German nations. In former times
the existence, in the centre of the Continent, of two objects
of greed was a permanent cause of war. Will the substitution
of two important states for German anarchy and Italian
polyarchy prove a guaranty of future peace?"
E. Lavisse,
General View of the Political History of Europe,
chapter 5, sections 6-7.
NATIONALRATH, The.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.
NATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITIES.
See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.
NATIVE STATES OF INDIA.
See INDIA: A. D. 1877.
NATIVI.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL, &c.: ENGLAND.
NAUARCHI.
The title given in ancient Sparta to the commanders of the
fleet. At Athens "the term Nauarchi seems to have been
officially applied only to the commanders of the so-called
sacred triremes."
G. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapters 1, and 3.
NAUCRATIS.
See NAUKRATIS.
NAUKRARIES.
See PHYLÆ.
NAUKRATIS.
"Naukratis was for a long time the privileged port [in Egypt]
for Grecian commerce with Egypt. No Greek merchant was
permitted to deliver goods in any other part (port), or to
enter any other of the mouths of the Nile except the Kanôpic.
If forced into any of them by stress of weather, he was
compelled to make oath that his arrival was a matter of
necessity, and to convey his goods round by sea into the
Kanôpic branch to Naukratis; and if the weather still forbade
such a proceeding, the merchandise was put into barges and
conveyed round to Naukratis by the internal canals of the
delta. Such a monopoly, which made Naukratis in Egypt
something like Canton in China or Nangasaki in Japan, no
longer subsisted in the time of Herodotus. … At what precise
time Naukratis first became licensed for Grecian trade, we
cannot directly make out. But there seems reason to believe
that it was the port to which the Greek merchants first went,
so soon as the general liberty of trading with the country was
conceded to them; and this would put the date of such grant at
least as far back as the foundation of Kyrene, … about 630
B. C., during the reign of Psammetichus. … [About a century
later, Amasis] sanctioned the constitution of a formal and
organised emporium or factory, invested with commercial
privileges, and armed with authority exercised by presiding
officers regularly chosen. This factory was connected with,
and probably grew out of, a large religious edifice and
precinct, built at the joint cost of nine Grecian cities: four
of them Ionic,—Chios, Teos, Phokæa and Klazomenæ; four
Doric,—Rhodes, Knidus, Halikarnassus, and Phaselis; and one
Æolic,—Mitylene. By these nine cities the joint temple and
factory was kept up and its presiding magistrates chosen; but
its destination, for the convenience of Grecian commerce
generally, seems revealed by the imposing title of The
Hellênion."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 20.
The site of Naukratis has been determined lately by the
excavations of Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, begun in 1885, the
results of which are appearing in the publications of the
"Egypt Exploration Fund." The ruins of the ancient city are
found buried under a mound called Nebireh. Its situation was
west of the Canobic branch of the Nile, on a canal which
connected it with that stream.
See EGYPT: B. C. 670-525.
NAULOCHUS, Battle of.
A naval battle fought near Naulochus, on the coast of Sicily,
in which Agrippa, commanding for the triumvir Octavius,
defeated and destroyed the fleet of Sextus Pompeius, B. C. 36.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 27.
{2243}
NAUMACHIÆ.
The naumachiæ of the Romans were structures resembling
excavated amphitheatres, but having the large central space
filled with water, for the representation of naval combats.
"The great Naumachia of Augustus was 1,800 feet long and 1,200
feet broad."
R. Burn.
Rome and the Campagna,
introduction.
NAUPACTUS.
See MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD;
and GREECE: B. C. 357-336.
NAUPACTUS, Battle of (B. C. 429).
See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.
NAUPACTUS, Treaty of.
A treaty, concluded B. C. 217, which terminated what was
called the Social War, between the Achæan League, joined with
Philip of Macedonia, and the Ætolian League, in alliance with
Sparta.
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 63.
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
History of Federal Government,
chapter 8, section 1.
NAUPLIA.
See ARGOS.
NAURAGHI.
See SARDINIA, THE ISLAND: NAME AND EARLY HISTORY.
NAUSETS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
NAUVOO, The Mormon city of.
See MORMONISM: A. D. 1830-1846, and 1846-1848.
NAVAJOS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
ATHAPASCAN FAMILY and APACHE GROUP.
NAVARETTE
NAJARA, Battle of.
Won, April 3, 1367, by the English Black Prince over a Spanish
and French army, in a campaign undertaken to restore Peter the
Cruel to the throne of Castile.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1366-1369,
and FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380.
----------NAVARINO: Start--------
NAVARINO: B. C. 425.
An ancient episode in the harbor.
See GREECE: B. C. 425.
NAVARINO: A. D. 1686.
Taken by the Venetians.
See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.
NAVARINO: A. D. 1827.
Battle and destruction of the Turkish fleet.
See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.
----------NAVARINO: End--------
----------NAVARRE: Start--------
NAVARRE:
Aboriginal inhabitants.
See BASQUES.
NAVARRE:
Origin of the kingdom.
"No historical subject is wrapt in greater obscurity than the
origin and early history of the kingdom of Navarre. Whether,
during a great portion of the eighth and ninth centuries, the
country was independent or tributary; and, if dependent,
whether it obeyed the Franks, the Asturians, or the Arabs, or
successively all three, are speculations which have long
exercised the pens of the peninsular writers. … It seems
undoubted that, in just dread of the Mohammedan domination,
the inhabitants of these regions, as well as those of
Catalonia, applied for aid to the renowned emperor of the
Franks [Charlemagne]; and that he, in consequence, in 778,
poured his legions into Navarre, and seized Pamplona. It seems
no less certain that, from this period, he considered the
country as a fief of his crown; and that his pretensions,
whether founded in violence or in the voluntary submission of
the natives, gave the highest umbrage to the Asturian kings:
the feudal supremacy thenceforth became an apple of discord
between the two courts, each striving to gain the homage of
the local governors. … Thus things remained until the time
of Alfonso III., who … endeavoured to secure peace both with
Navarre and France by marrying a princess related to both
Sancho Iñigo, count of Bigorre, and to the Frank sovereign,
and by consenting that the province should be held as an
immovable fief by that count. This Sancho Iñigo, besides his
lordship of Bigorre, for which he was the vassal of the French
king, had domains in Navarre, and is believed, on apparently
good foundation, to have been of Spanish descent. He is said,
however, not to have been the first count of Navarre; that his
brother Aznar held the fief before him, nominally dependent on
king Pepin, but successfully laying the foundation of
Navarrese independence. If the chronology which makes Sancho
succeed Aznar in 836, and the event itself, be correct,
Alfonso only confirmed the count in the lordship. In this
case, the only remaining difficulty is to determine whether
the fief was held from Charles or Alfonso. … But whichever
of the princes was acknowledged for the time the lord
paramount of the province, there can be little doubt that both
governor and people were averse to the sway of either; both
had long aspired to independence, and that independence was at
hand. The son of this Sancho Iñigo was Garcia, father of
Sancho Garces, and the first king of Navarre [assuming the
crown about 885-891]; the first, at least, whom … historic
criticism can admit."
S. A. Dunham,
History of Spain and Portugal,
book 3, section 2, chapter 2.
See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 713-910.
NAVARRE: A. D. 1026.
Acquisition of the crown of Castile by King Sancho el Mayor.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1026-1230.
NAVARRE: A. D. 1234.
Succession of Thibalt, Count of Champagne, to the throne.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238.
NAVARRE: A. D. 1284-1328.
Union with France, and separation.
In 1284, the marriage of Jeanne, heiress of the kingdom of
Navarre and of the counties of Champagne and Brie, to Philip
IV. of France, united the crown of Navarre to that of France.
They were separated in 1328, on the death of her last
surviving son, Charles IV., without male issue. Philip of
Valois secured the French crown, under the so called Salic
law, but that of Navarre passed to Jeanne's grand-daughter, of
her own name.
NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521.
Usurpation of John II. of Aragon.
The House of Foix and the D'Albrets.
Conquest by Ferdinand.
Incorporation in the kingdom of Castile.
Blanche, daughter of Charles III. of Navarre and heiress of
the kingdom, married John II. of Aragon, to whom she gave
three children, namely, Don Carlos, or Charles, "who, as heir
apparent, bore the title of Prince of Viana, and two
daughters, Blanche and Eleanor. Don Carlos is known by his
virtues and misfortunes. At the death of his mother Blanche
[1442], he should have succeeded to the throne of Navarre; but
John II. was by no means disposed to relinquish the title
which he had acquired by marriage, and Carlos consented to be
his father's viceroy. But even this dignity he was not
permitted to enjoy unmolested." Persecuted through life,
sometimes imprisoned, sometimes in exile, he died at the age
of forty, in 1461.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1368-1479.
{2244}
"By the death of Don Carlos, the succession to the crown of
Navarre devolved to his sister Blanche, the divorced wife of
Henry IV. of Castile; and that amiable princess now became an
object of jealousy not only to her father but also to her
younger sister, Eleanor, married to the Count of Foix, to whom
John II. had promised the reversion of Navarre after his own
death. Gaston de Foix, the offspring of this union, had
married a sister of Louis XI.; and it had been provided in a
treaty between that monarch and John II., that in order to
secure the succession of the House of Foix to Navarre, Blanche
should be delivered into the custody of her sister. John
executed this stipulation without remorse. Blanche was
conducted to the Castle of Orthès in Bearn (April 1462),
where, after a confinement of nearly two years, she was
poisoned by order of her sister Eleanor." After committing
this crime, the latter waited nearly fifteen years for the
crown which it was expected to win, and then enjoyed it but
three weeks. Her father reigned until the 20th of January,
1479, when he died; the guilty daughter soon followed him.
"After Eleanor's brief reign … the blood-stained sceptre of
Navarre passed to her grandson Phœbus, 1479, who, however,
lived only four years, and was succeeded by his sister
Catherine. Ferdinand and Isabella [now occupying the thrones
of Aragon and Castile] endeavoured to effect a marriage
between Catherine and their own heir; but this scheme was
frustrated by Magdalen, the queen-mother, a sister of Louis
XI. of France, who brought about a match between her daughter
and John d'Albret, a French nobleman who had large possessions
on the borders of Navarre (1485). Nevertheless the Kings of
Spain supported Catherine and her husband against her uncle,
John de Foix, viscount of Narbonne, who pretended to the
Navarese crown on the ground that it was limited to male
heirs; and after the death of John, the alliance with Spain
was drawn still closer by the avowed purpose of Louis XII. to
support his nephew, Gaston de Foix, in the claims of his
father. After the fall of that young hero at Ravenna [see
ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513], his pretensions to the throne of
Navarre devolved to his sister, Germaine de Foix, the second
wife of King Ferdinand [see SPAIN: A. D. 1496-1517], an event
which entirely altered the relations between the courts of
Spain and Navarre. Ferdinand had now an interest in supporting
the claims of the house of Foix-Narbonne; and Catherine, who
distrusted him, despatched in May 1512, plenipotentiaries to
the French court to negotiate a treaty of alliance." But it
was too late. Ferdinand had already succeeded in diverting to
Navarre an expedition which his son-in-law, Henry VIII. of
England, acting in the Holy League against Louis XII., which
Ferdinand now joined (see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513), had sent
against Guienne. With this aid he took possession of Upper
Navarre. "In the following year, he effected at Orthès a
year's truce with Louis XII. (April 1st 1513), by which Louis
sacrificed his ally, the King of Navarre, and afterwards, by
renewing the truce, allowed Ferdinand permanently to settle
himself in his new conquest. The States of Navarre had
previously taken the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand as their
King, and on the 15th of June 1515, Navarre was incorporated
into the kingdom of Castile by the solemn act of the Cortès.
The dominions of John d'Albret and Catherine were now reduced
to the little territory of Bearn, but they still retained the
title of sovereigns of Navarre." Six years later, in 1521, the
French invaded Navarre and overran the whole kingdom.
"Pampeluna alone, animated by the courage of Ignatius Loyola,
made a short resistance. To this siege, the world owes the
Order of the Jesuits. Loyola, whose leg had been shattered by
a cannon ball, found consolation and amusement during his
convalescence in reading the lives of the saints, and was thus
thrown into that state of fanatical exaltation which led him
to devote his future life to the service of the Papacy."
Attempting to extend their invasion beyond Navarre, the French
were defeated at Esquiros and driven back, losing the whole of
their conquests.
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 1, chapters 4 and 7,
and book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. H. Prescott,
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,
chapters 2 and 23 (volumes 1 and 3).
NAVARRE: A. D. 1528-1563.
The kingdom remaining on the French side of the Pyrenees.
Jeanne d'Albret's Bourbon marriage and the issue of it.
Establishment of Protestantism in Béarn.
Besides the Spanish province which Ferdinand the Catholic
appropriated and joined to Castile, and which gave its name to
the Kingdom of Navarre, "that kingdom embraced a large tract
of country lying on the French side of the Pyrenees, including
the principality of Béarn and the counties of Foix, Armagnac,
Albret, Bigorre, and Comminges. Catherine de Foix, the heiress
of this kingdom, had in 1491 carried it by marriage into the
house of D'Albret. Henry, the second king of Navarre belonging
to this house, was in 1528 united to Marguerite d'Angoulême,
the favourite and devoted sister of Francis I. of France.
Pampeluna, the ancient capital of their kingdom, being in the
hands of the King of Spain, Henry and Marguerite held their
Court at Nérac, the chief town of the duchy belonging to the
family of D'Albret. It was at Nérac that Marguerite, herself
more than half a Huguenot, opened an asylum to her persecuted
fellow-countrymen [see PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535]. Farel,
Calvin, Beza sought temporary refuge and found glad welcome
there, while to Lefevre, Clement Marot, and Gerard Roussel it
became a second home. Marguerite died in 1549, leaving only
one child, a daughter, who, in the event of her father having
no issue by any second marriage, became heiress to the crown
of Navarre. Born in 1528, Jeanne d'Albret had early and bitter
experience of what heirship to such a crown involved. The
Emperor Charles V. was believed to have early fixed his eye on
her as a fit consort for Philip, his son and successor." To
prevent this marriage, she was shut up for years, by her
uncle, the French king, Francis I., in the gloomy castle of
Plessis-les-Tours. When she was twelve years old he affianced
her to the Duke of Cleves, notwithstanding her vigorous
protests; but the alliance was subsequently broken off. "The
next hand offered to Jeanne, and which she accepted, was that
of Antoine, elder brother of the Prince of Condé, and head of
the Bourbon family. They were married in 1548, a year after
the death of Francis I., and a year before that of his sister
Marguerite, Jeanne's mother. The marriage was an unfortunate
one. Ambitious, yet weak and vain; frivolous and vacillating,
yet headstrong and impetuous, faithless to his wife, faithless
to his principles, faithless to his party, Antoine became the
butt and victim of the policy of the Court. But though
unfortunate in so many respects, this marriage gave to France,
if not the greatest, the most fortunate, the most popular, the
most beloved of all her monarchs"—namely, Henry IV.—Henry of
Navarre—the first of the Bourbon dynasty of French kings.
{2245}
"Antoine of Navarre died at the siege of Rouen in 1562. The
first use that the Queen made of the increased measure of
freedom she thus acquired was to publish an edict establishing
the Protestant and interdicting the exercise of the Roman
Catholic worship in Béarn. So bold an act by so weak a
sovereign—by one whose political position was so perilous and
insecure—drew down upon her the instant and severe
displeasure of the Pope," who issued against her a Bull of
excommunication, in October, 1563, and assumed the right to
dispose of her kingdom. This assumption was more than the
French Court could permit. "The Pope had to give way, and the
Bull was expunged from the ecclesiastical ordinances of the
Pontificate."
W. Hanna,
The Wars of the Huguenots,
chapter 4.
NAVARRE: A. D. 1568-1569.
The queen joins the Huguenots in France, with Prince Henry.
Invasion by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.
NAVARRE: A. D. 1620-1622.
Protestant intolerance.
Enforcement of Catholic rights.
The kingdom incorporated and absorbed in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.
NAVARRE: A. D. 1876.
Disappearance of the last municipal and provincial
privileges of the old kingdom.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1873-1885.