BATTISHILL, JONATHAN (1738-1801), one of the best 18th century English composers of church music. Until 1764 he wrote chiefly for the theatre (incidental songs, pantomime music, and an opera in collaboration with Michael Arne, the son of Thomas Arne), but his later compositions are chiefly glees, part-songs and church music. In 1763 he had married a singer at Covent Garden theatre where he was harpsichordist. She retired from her profession when she married; and her death in 1777 so crushed him that he composed no more.
BATTLE, a market-town in the Rye parliamentary division of Sussex, England, 54½ m. S.E. by S. from London by the South Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2996. It is pleasantly situated in an undulating well-wooded district, 7 m. from the sea at Hastings. Its name is derived from the conflict in 1066, which insured to William the Norman the crown of England (see also [Battle Abbey Roll]). Before the battle, in which King Harold fell, William vowed to build an abbey on the spot if he should prove victorious, and in 1094 the consecration took place with great pomp. The gatehouse, forming a picturesque termination to the main street of the town, is Decorated; and there also remain parts of the foundations of the Norman church, of the Perpendicular cloisters, and of the Early English refectory. A mansion occupies part of the site, and incorporates some of the ancient building. The church of St Mary is of various dates, the earliest portions being transitional Norman.
See Chronicles of Battle Abbey. 1066-1176, translated, &c., by M.A. Lower (London, 1851).
BATTLE, a general engagement between the armed forces, naval or military, of enemies. The word is derived from the Fr. bataille, and this, like the Ital. battaglia, and Span. batalla, comes from the popular Lat. battalia for battualia. Cassiodorus Senator (480-?575) says: Battualia quae vulgo Batalia dicuntur ... exercitationes militum vel gladiatorum significant (see Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. Batalia). The verb battuere, cognate with “beat,” is a rare word, found in Pliny, used of beating in a mortar or of meat before cooking. Suetonius (Caligula, 54-32) uses it of fencing, battuebat pugnatoriis armis, i.e. not with blunted weapons or foils. Battalia or batalia was used for the array of troops for battle, and hence was applied to the body of troops so arranged, or to a division of an army, whence the use of the word “battalion” (q.v.).
A “pitched battle,” loosely used as meaning almost a decisive engagement, is strictly, as the words imply, one that is fought on ground previously selected (“pitched” meaning arranged in a fixed order) and in accordance with the intentions of the commanders of both sides; the French equivalent is bataille arrangée, opposed to bataille manœuvrée, which is prearranged but may come off on any ground. With “battle,” in its usual meaning of a general engagement of hostile forces, are contrasted “skirmish,”[1] a fight between small bodies (“skirmishing” technically means fighting by troops in extended or irregular order), and “action,” a more or less similar engagement between large bodies of troops. (See also [Tactics] and [Strategy].)