ELMACIN (Elmakin or Elmacinus), GEORGE (c. 1223-1274), author of a history of the Saracens, which extends from the time of Mahomet to the year 1118 of our era. He was a Christian of Egypt, where he was born; is known in the east as Ibn-Amid; and after holding an official position under the sultans of Egypt, died at Damascus. His history is principally occupied with the affairs of the Saracen empire, but it contains passages which relate to the Eastern Christians. It was published in Arabic and Latin at Leiden in 1625. The Latin version is a translation by Erpenius, under the title, Historia saracenica, and from this a French translation was made by Wattier as L’Histoire mahométane (Paris, 1657).
ELMALI (“apple-town”), a small town of Asia Minor in the vilayet of Konia, the present administrative centre of the ancient Lycia, but not itself corresponding to any known ancient city. It lies about 25 m. inland, at the head of a long upland valley (5000 ft.) inhabited by direct descendants of the ancient Lycians, who have preserved a distinctive facial type, noticeable at once in the town population. There are about fifty Greek families, the rest of the population (4000) being Moslem. The district is agricultural and has no manufactures of importance.
ELMES, HARVEY LONSDALE (1813-1847), British architect, son of James Elmes (q.v.), was born at Chichester in 1813. After serving some time in his father’s office, and under a surveyor at Bedford and an architect at Bath, he became partner with his father in 1835, and in the following year he was successful among 86 competitors for a design for St George’s Hall, Liverpool. The foundation stone of this building was laid en the 28th of June 1838, but, Elmes being successful in a competition for the Assize Courts in the same city, it was finally decided to include the hall and courts in a single building. In accordance with this idea, Elmes prepared a fresh design, and the work of erection commenced in 1841. He superintended its progress till 1847, when from failing health he was compelled to delegate his duties to Charles Robert Cockerell, and leave for Jamaica, where he died of consumption on the 26th of November 1847.
ELMES, JAMES (1782-1862), British architect, civil engineer, and writer on the arts, was born in London on the 15th of October 1782. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, and, after studying building under his father, and architecture under George Gibson, became a student at the Royal Academy, where he gained the silver medal in 1804. He designed a large number of buildings in the metropolis, and was surveyor and civil engineer to the port of London, but is best known as a writer on the arts. In 1809 he became vice-president of the Royal Architectural Society, but this office, as well as that of surveyor of the port of London, he was compelled through partial loss of sight to resign in 1828. He died at Greenwich on the 2nd of April 1862. His publications were:—Sir Christopher Wren and his Times (1823); Lectures on Architecture (1823); The Arts and Artists (1825); General and Biographical Dictionary of the Fine Arts (1826); Treatise on Architectural Jurisprudence (1827), and Thomas Clarkson: a Monograph (1854).
ELMHAM, THOMAS (d. c. 1420), English chronicler, was probably born at North Elmham in Norfolk. He became a Benedictine monk at Canterbury, and then joining the Cluniacs, was prior of Lenton Abbey, near Nottingham; he was chaplain to Henry V., whom he accompanied to France in 1415, being present at Agincourt. Elmham wrote a history of the monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury, which has been edited by C. Hardwick for the Rolls Series (1858); and a Liber metricus de Henrico V., edited by C.A. Cole in the Memorials of Henry V. (1858). It is very probable that Elmham wrote the famous Gesta Henrici Quinti, which is the best authority for the life of Henry V. from his accession to 1416. This work, often referred to as the “chaplain’s life,” and thought by some to have been written by Jean de Bordin, has been published for the English Historical Society by B. Williams (1850). Elmham, however, did not write the Vita et Gesta Henrici V., which was attributed to him by T. Hearne and others.
See C.L. Kingsford, Henry V. (1901).