The brigand life has been made the subject of much romance. But when stripped of fiction it appears that the bands have been mostly recruited by men who had been guilty of homicide, out of jealousy or in a gambling quarrel, and who remained in them not from love of the life, but from fear of the gallows. A reformed brigand, known as Passo di Lupo (Wolf's Step), confessed to Mr McFarlane about 1820 that the weaker members of the band were terrorized and robbed by the bullies, and that murderous conflicts were constant among them.
The "dacoits" or brigands of India were of the same stamp as their European colleagues. The Pindaris were more than brigands, and the Thugs were a religious sect.
Authorities.—The literature of brigandage, apart from pure romances, or official reports of trials, is naturally extensive. Mr
McFarlane's Lives and Exploits of Banditti and Robbers (London, 1837) is a useful introduction to the subject. The author saw a part of what he wrote about, and gives many references, particularly for Italy. A good bibliography of Spanish brigandage will be found in the Reseña Historica de la Guardia Civil of Eugenio de la Iglesia (Madrid, 1898). For actual pictures of the life, nothing is better than the English Travellers and Italian Brigands of W.J.C. Moens (London, 1866), and The Brigands of the Morea, by S. Soteropoulos, translated by the Rev. J.O. Bagdon (London, 1868).
(D. H.)
BRIGANDINE, a French word meaning the armour for the brigandi or brigantes, light-armed foot soldiers; part of the armour of a foot soldier in the middle ages, consisting of a padded tunic of canvas, leather, &c., and lined with closely sewn scales or rings of iron.
BRIGANTES (Celtic for "mountaineers" or "free, privileged"), a people of northern Britain, who inhabited the country from the mouth of the Abus (Humber) on the east and the Belisama (Mersey; according to others, Ribble) on the west as far northwards as the Wall of Antoninus. Their territory thus included most of Yorkshire, the whole of Lancashire, Durham, Westmorland, Cumberland and part of Northumberland. Their chief town was Eburacum (or Eboracum; York). They first came into contact with the Romans during the reign of Claudius, when they were defeated by Publius Ostorius Scapula. Under Vespasian they submitted to Petillius Cerealis, but were not finally subdued till the time of Antoninus Pius (Tac. Agricola, 17; Pausan. viii. 43. 4). The name of their eponymous goddess Brigantia is found on inscriptions (Corp. Inscr. Lat. vii. 200, 875, 1062; F. Haverfield in Archaeological Journal, xlix., 1892), and also that of a god Bergans = Brigans (Ephemeris Epigraphica, vii. No. 920). A branch of the Brigantes also settled in the south-east corner of Ireland, near the river Birgus (Barrow).
See A. Holder, Altceltischer Sprachschatz, i. (1896), for ancient authorities; J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (3rd ed., 1904); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, iii. pt. i. (1897).
BRIGG (properly Glanford Briggs or Glamford Bridge), a market town in the North Lindsey or Brigg parliamentary division of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the river Ancholme, which affords water communication with the Humber. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3137. It is 23 m. by road north of Lincoln, and is served by the Grimsby line of the Great Central railway. Trade is principally agricultural. In 1885 a remarkable boat, assigned to early British workmanship, was unearthed near the river; it is hollowed out of the trunk of an oak, and measures 48 ft. 6 in. by about 5 ft. Other prehistoric relics have also been discovered.
BRIGGS, CHARLES AUGUSTUS (1841- ), American Hebrew scholar and theologian, was born in New York City on the 15th of January 1841. He was educated at the university of Virginia (1857-1860), graduated at the Union Theological Seminary in 1863, and studied further at the university of Berlin. He was pastor of the Presbyterian church of Roselle, New Jersey, 1869-1874, and professor of Hebrew and cognate languages in Union Theological Seminary 1874-1891, and of Biblical theology there from 1891 to 1904, when he became professor of theological encyclopaedia and symbolics. From 1880 to 1890 he was an editor of the Presbyterian Review. In 1892 he was tried for heresy by the presbytery of New York and acquitted. The charges were based upon his inaugural address of the preceding year. In brief they were as follows: that he had taught that reason and the Church are each a "fountain of divine authority which apart from Holy Scripture may and does savingly enlighten men"; that "errors may have existed in the original text of the Holy Scripture"; that "many of the Old Testament predictions have been reversed by history" and that "the great body of Messianic prediction has not and cannot be fulfilled"; that "Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch," and that "Isaiah is not the author of half of the book which bears his name"; that "the processes of redemption extend to the world to come"—he had considered it a fault of Protestant theology that it limits redemption to this world—and that "sanctification is not complete at death." The general assembly, to which the case was appealed, suspended Dr Briggs in 1893, being influenced, it would seem, in part, by the manner and tone of his expressions—by what his own colleagues in the Union Theological Seminary called the "dogmatic and irritating" nature of his inaugural address. He was ordained a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1899. His scholarship procured for him the honorary degree of D.D. from Edinburgh (1884) and from Glasgow (1901), and that of Litt.D. from Oxford (1901). With S.R. Driver and Francis Brown he prepared a revised Hebrew and English Lexicon (1891-1905), and with Driver edited the "International Commentary Series." His publications include Biblical Study: Its Principles, Methods and History (1883); Hebrew Poems of the Creation (1884); American Presbyterianism: Its Origin and Early History (1885); Messianic Prophecy (1886); Whither? A Theological Question for the Times (1889); The Authority of the Holy Scripture (1891); The Bible, the Church and the Reason (1892); The Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch (1893); The Messiah of the Gospels (1804), The Messiah of the Apostles (1894); New Light on the Life of Jesus (1904); The Ethical Teaching of Jesus (1904); A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms (2 vols., 1906-1907), in which he was assisted by his daughter; and The Virgin Birth of Our Lord (1909).