About this time the Turks proposed at the instigation of the French ambassador to send a chiaus into France, England, and Holland, to acquaint those princes with the advancement of Sultan Solyman to the throne.—Rycaut, History of the Turks, vol. iii. p. 261.
Dapper. What do you think of me,
That I am a chiaus?
Face. What’s that?
Dapper. The Turk was here;
As one would say, do you think I am a Turk?
Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, act i. sc. 1.
| Christen, | } |
| Christendom. |
By ‘Christendom’ we now understand that portion of the world which makes profession of the faith of Christ, as contradistinguished from all heathen and Mahomedan lands. But it was often used by our early writers as itself the profession of Christ’s faith, or sometimes for baptism, inasmuch as in that this profession was made; which is also the explanation of the use of ‘christen’ as equivalent to ‘christianize’ below. In Shakespeare our present use of ‘Christendom’ very much predominates, but once or twice he uses it in its earlier sense, as do authors much later than he.
Most part of England in the reigne of King Ethelbert was christened, Kent onely except, which remayned long after in mysbeliefe and unchristened.—E. K., Glossary to Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar, September.[12]