GLASSIUS, SALOMO (1593-1656), theologian and biblical critic, was born at Sondershausen, in the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, on the 20th of May 1593. In 1612 he entered the university of Jena. In 1615, with the idea of studying law, he moved to Wittenberg. In consequence of an illness, however, he returned to Jena after a year. Here, as a student of theology under Johann Gerhard, he directed his attention especially to Hebrew and the cognate dialects; in 1619 he was made an “adjunctus” of the philosophical faculty, and some time afterwards he received an appointment to the chair of Hebrew. From 1625 to 1638 he was superintendent in Sondershausen; but shortly after the death of Gerhard (1637) he was, in accordance with Gerhard’s last wish, appointed to succeed him at Jena. In 1640, however, at the earnest invitation of Duke Ernest the Pious, he removed to Gotha as court preacher and general superintendent in the execution of important reforms which had been initiated in the ecclesiastical and educational establishments of the duchy. The delicate duties attached to this office he discharged with tact and energy; and in the “syncretistic” controversy, by which Protestant Germany was so long vexed, he showed an unusual combination of firmness with liberality, of loyalty to the past with a just regard to the demands of the present and the future. He died on the 27th of July 1656.
His principal work, Philologia sacra (1623), marks the transition from the earlier views on questions of biblical criticism to those of the school of Spener. It was more than once reprinted during his lifetime, and appeared in a new and revised form, edited by J. A. Dathe (1731-1791) and G. L. Bauer at Leipzig. Glassius succeeded Gerhard as editor of the Weimar Bibelwerk, and wrote the commentary on the poetical books of the Old Testament for that publication. A volume of his Opuscula was printed at Leiden in 1700.
See the article in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie.
GLASSWORT, a name given to Salicornia herbacea (also known as marsh samphire), a salt-marsh herb with succulent, jointed, leafless stems, in reference to its former use in glass-making, when it was burnt for barilla. Salsola Kali, an allied plant with rigid, fleshy, spinous-pointed leaves, which was used for the same purpose, was known as prickly glasswort. Both plants are members of the natural order Chenopodiaceae.
GLASTONBURY, a market town and municipal borough in the Eastern parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, on the main road from London to Exeter, 37 m. S.W. of Bath by the Somerset & Dorset railway. Pop. (1901) 4016. The town lies in the midst of orchards and water-meadows, reclaimed from the fens which encircled Glastonbury Tor, a conical height once an island, but now, with the surrounding flats, a peninsula washed on three sides by the river Brue.
The town is famous for its abbey, the ruins of which are fragmentary, and as the work of destruction has in many places descended to the very foundations it is impossible to make out the details of the plan. Of the vast range of buildings for the accommodation of the monks hardly any part remains except the abbot’s kitchen, noteworthy for its octagonal interior (the exterior plan being square, with the four corners filled in with fireplaces and chimneys), the porter’s lodge and the abbey barn. Considerable portions are standing of the so-called chapel of St Joseph at the west end, which has been identified with the Lady chapel, occupying the site of the earliest church. This chapel, which is the finest part of the ruins, is Transitional work of the 12th century. It measures about 66 ft. from east to west and about 36 from north to south. Below the chapel is a crypt of the 15th century inserted beneath a building which had no previous crypt. Between the chapel and the great church is an Early English building which appears to have served as a Galilee porch. The church itself was a cruciform structure with a choir, nave and transepts, and a tower surmounting the centre of intersection. From east to west the length was 410 ft. and the breadth of the nave was about 80 ft. The nave had ten bays and the choir six. Of the nave three bays of the south side are still standing, and the windows have pointed arches externally and semicircular arches internally. Two of the tower piers and a part of one arch give some indication of the grandeur of the building. The foundations of the Edgar chapel, discovered in 1908, make the whole church the longest of cathedral or monastic churches in the country. The old clock, presented to the abbey by Adam de Sodbury (1322-1335), and noteworthy as an early example of a clock striking the hours automatically with a count-wheel, was once in Wells cathedral, but is now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Glastonbury thorn, planted, according to the legend, by Joseph of Arimathea, has been the object of considerable comment. It is said to be a distinct variety, flowering twice a year. The actual thorn visited by the pilgrims was destroyed about the Reformation time, but specimens of the same variety are still extant in various parts of the country.