See articles on corn and Zea Mays in L. H. Bailey’s Cyclopaedia of American Horticulture (1900-1902); and for cultivation in India, Watt’s Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, vi. (1893).
MAJESTY (Fr. majesté; Lat. majestas, grandeur, greatness, from the base mag-, as in magnus, great, major, greater, &c.), dignity, greatness, a term especially used to express the dignity and power of a sovereign. This application is to be traced to the use of majestas in Latin to express the supreme sovereign dignity of the Roman state, the majestas reipublicae or populi Romani, hence majestatem laedere or minuere, was to commit high treason, crimen majestatis. (For the modern law and usage of laesa majestas, lèse majesté, Majestätsbeleidigung, see [Treason].) From the republic majestas was transferred to the emperors, and the majestas populi Romani became the majestas imperii, and augustalis majestas is used as a term to express the sovereign person of the emperor. Honorius and Theodosius speak of themselves in the first person as nostra majestas. The term “majesty” was strictly confined in the middle ages to the successors of the Roman emperors in the West, and at the treaty of Cambrai (1529) it is reserved for the emperor Charles V. Later the word is used of kings also, and the distinction is made between imperial majesty (caesareana majestas) and kingly or royal majesty. From the 16th century dates the application of “Most Christian and Catholic Majesty” to the kings of France, of “Catholic Majesty” to the kings of Spain, of “Most Faithful Majesty” to the kings of Portugal, and “Apostolic Majesty” to the kings of Hungary. In England the use is generally assigned to the reign of Henry VIII., but it is found, though not in general usage, earlier; thus the New English Dictionary quotes from an Address of the Kings Clerks to Henry II. in 1171 (Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket, vii. 471, Rolls Series, 1885), where the king is styled vestra majestas, and Selden (Titles of Honour, part i. ch. 7, p. 98, ed. 1672) finds many early uses in letters to Edward I., in charters of creation of peers, &c. The fullest form in English usage is “His Most Gracious Majesty”; another form is “The King’s Most Excellent Majesty,” as in the English Prayer-book. “His Sacred Majesty” was common in the 17th century; and of this form Selden says: “It is true, I think, that in our memory or the memory of our fathers, the use of it first began in England.” “His Majesty,” abbreviated H.M., is now the universal European use in speaking of any reigning king, and “His Imperial Majesty,” H.I.M., of any reigning emperor.
From the particular and very early use of “majesty” for the glory and splendour of God, the term has been used in ecclesiastical art of the representation of God the Father enthroned in glory, sometimes with the other persons of the Trinity, and of the Saviour alone, enthroned with an aureole.
MAJLÁTH, JÁNOS, or John, Count (1786-1855), Hungarian historian and poet, was born at Pest on the 5th of October 1786. First educated at home, he subsequently studied philosophy at Eger (Erlau) and law at Györ (Raab), his father, Count Joseph Majláth, an Austrian minister of state, eventually obtaining for him an appointment in the public service. Majláth devoted himself to historical research and the translation into German of Magyar folk-tales, and of selections from the works of the best of his country’s native poets. Moreover, as an original lyrical writer, and as an editor and adapter of old German poems, Majláth showed considerable talent. During the greater part of his life he resided either at Pest or Vienna, but a few years before his death he removed to Munich, where he fell into a state of destitution and extreme despondency. Seized at last by a terrible infatuation, he and his daughter Henriette, who had long been his constant companion and amanuensis, drowned themselves in the Lake of Starnberg, a few miles south-west of Munich, on the 3rd of January 1855.
Of his historical works the most important are the Geschichte der Magyaren (Vienna, 1828-1831, 5 vols.; 2nd ed., Ratisbon, 1852-1853) and his Geschichte des österreichischen Kaiserstaats (Hamburg, 1834-1850, 5 vols.). Specially noteworthy among his metrical translations from the Hungarian are the Magyarische Gedichte (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1825); and Himfy’s auserlesene Liebeslieder (Pest, 1829; 2nd ed., 1831). A valuable contribution to folk-lore appeared in the Magyarische Sagen, Märchen und Erzählungen (Brünn, 1825; 2nd ed., Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1837, 2 vols.).
MAJOLICA, a name properly applied to a species of Italian ware in which the body is coated with a tin-enamel, on which is laid and fired a painted decoration. It is also applied to similar wares made in imitation of the Italian ware in other countries. The word in Italian is maiolica. Du Cange (Gloss. s.v. “Majorica”) quotes from a chronicle of Verona of 1368, in which the form majolica occurs for the more usual Latin form majorica. It has usually been supposed that this type of pottery was first made in the island of Majorca, but it is more probable that the name was given by the Italians to the lustred Spanish ware imported by ships hailing from the Balearic Islands. (See [Ceramics]: Medieval and Later Italian.)