Among the many volumes published under his name only two appear to have had the benefit of his revision, namely, Der Seelen Paradies von waren und volkomnen Tugenden, and that entitled Das irrig Schaf. Of the rest, probably the best-known is a series of lectures on his friend Seb. Brant’s work, Das Narrenschiff or the Navicula or Speculum fatuorum, of which an edition was published at Strassburg in 1511 under the following title:—Navicula sive speculum fatuorum praestantissimi sacrarum literarum doctoris Joannis Geiler Keysersbergii.
See F.W. von Ammon, Geyler’s Leben, Lehren und Predigten (1826); L. Dacheux, Un Réformateur catholique à la fin du XVe siècle, J.G. de K. (Paris, 1876); R. Cruel, Gesch. der deutschen Predigt, pp. 538-576 (1879); P. de Lorenzi, Geiler’s ausgewählte Schriften (4. vols., 1881); T.M. Lindsay, History of the Reformation, i. 118 (1906); and G. Kawerau in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, vi. 427.
GEINITZ, HANS BRUNO (1814-1900), German geologist, was born at Altenburg, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Altenburg, on the 16th of October 1814. He was educated at the universities of Berlin and Jena, and gained the foundations of his geological knowledge under F.A. Quenstedt. In 1837 he took the degree of Ph.D. with a thesis on the Muschelkalk of Thuringia. In 1850 he became professor of geology and mineralogy in the Royal Polytechnic School at Dresden, and in 1857 he was made director of the Royal Mineralogical and Geological Museum; he held these posts until 1894. He was distinguished for his researches on the Carboniferous and Cretaceous rocks and fossils of Saxony, and in particular for those relating to the fauna and flora of the Permian or Dyas formation. He described also the graptolites of the local Silurian strata; and the flora of the Coal-formation of Altai and Nebraska. From 1863 to 1878 he was one of the editors of the Neues Jahrbuch. He was awarded the Murchison medal by the Geological Society of London in 1878. He died at Dresden on the 28th of January 1900. His son Franz Eugene Geinitz (b. 1854), professor of geology in the university of Rostock, became distinguished for researches on the geology of Saxony, Mecklenburg, &c.
H.B. Geinitz’s publications were Das Quadersandsteingebirge oder Kreidegebirge in Deutschland (1849-1850); Die Versteinerungen der Steinkohlenformation in Sachsen (1855); Dyas, oder die Zechsteinformation und das Rothliegende (1861-1862); Das Elbthalgebirge in Sachsen (1871-1875).
GEISHA (a Chino-Japanese word meaning “person of pleasing accomplishments”), strictly the name of the professional dancing and singing girls of Japan. The word is, however, often loosely used for the girls and women inhabiting Shin Yoshiwara, the prostitutes’ quarter of Tokyo. The training of the true Geisha or singing girl, which includes lessons in dancing, begins often as early as her seventh year. Her apprenticeship over, she contracts with her employer for a number of years, and is seldom able to reach independence except by marriage. There is a capitation fee of two yen per month on the actual singing girls, and of one yen on the apprentices.
See Jukichi Inouye, Sketches of Tokyo Life.
GEISLINGEN, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Württemberg, on the Thierbach, 38 m. by rail E.S.E. of Stuttgart. Pop. (1905) 7050. It has shops for the carving and turning of bone, ivory, wood and horn, besides iron-works, machinery factories, glass-works, brewing and bleaching works, &c. The church of St Mary contains wood-carving by Jörg Syrlin the Younger. Above the town lie the ruins of the castle of Helfenstein, which was destroyed in 1552. Having been for a few years in the possession of Bavaria, the town passed to Württemberg in 1810.