The population (76,111 in 1891; 67,497 in 1901) suffers a large decrease, considerably above the average of Irish counties, and emigration is heavy. Nearly 93% are Roman Catholics. The chief towns are Navan (pop. 3839), Kells (2428) and Trim (1513), the county town. Lesser market towns are Oldcastle and Athboy, an ancient town which received a charter from Henry IV. The county includes eighteen baronies. Assizes are held at Trim, and quarter sessions at Kells, Navan and Trim. The county is in the Protestant dioceses of Armagh, Kilmore and Meath, and in the Roman Catholic dioceses of Armagh and Meath. Before the Union in 1800 it sent fourteen members to parliament, but now only two members are returned, for the north and south divisions of the county respectively.
History and Antiquities.—A district known as Meath (Midhe), and including the present county of Meath as well as Westmeath and Longford, with parts of Cavan, Kildare and King’s County, was formed by Tuathal (c. 130) into a kingdom to serve as mensal land or personal estate of the Ard Ri or over-king of Ireland. Kings of Meath reigned until 1173, and the title was claimed as late as the 15th century by their descendants, but at the date mentioned Hugh de Lacy obtained the lordship of the country and was confirmed in it by Henry II. Meath thus came into the English “Pale.” But though it was declared a county in the reign of Edward I. (1296), and though it came by descent into the possession of the Crown in the person of Edward IV., it was long before it was fully subdued and its boundaries clearly defined. In 1543 Westmeath was created a county apart from that of Meath, but as late as 1598 Meath was still regarded as a province by some, who included in it the counties Westmeath, East Meath, Longford and Cavan. In the early part of the 17th century it was at last established as a county, and no longer considered as a fifth province of Ireland.
There are two ancient round towers, the one at Kells and the other in the churchyard of Donaghmore, near Navan. By the river Boyne near Slane there is an extensive ancient burial-place called Brugh. Here are some twenty burial mounds, the largest of which is that of New Grange, a domed tumulus erected above a circular chamber, which is entered by a narrow passage enclosed by great upright blocks of stone, covered with carvings. The mound is surrounded by remains of a stone circle, and the whole forms one of the most remarkable extant erections of its kind. Tara (q.v.) is famous in history, especially as the seat of a royal palace referred to in the well-known lines of Thomas Moore. Monastic buildings were very numerous in Meath, among the more important ruins being those of Duleek, which is said to have been the first ecclesiastical building in Ireland of stone and mortar; the extensive remains of Bective Abbey; and those of Clonard, where also were a cathedral and a famous college. Of the old fortresses, the castle of Trim still presents an imposing appearance. There are many fine old mansions.
MEAUX, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Seine-et-Marne, and chief town of the agricultural region of Brie, 28 m. E.N.E. of Paris by rail. Pop. (1906), 11,089. The town proper stands on an eminence on the right bank of the Marne; on the left bank lies the old suburb of Le Marché, with which it is united by a bridge of the 16th century. Two rows of picturesque mills of the same period are built across the river. The cathedral of St Stephen dates from the 12th to the 16th centuries, and was restored in the 19th century. Of the two western towers, the completed one is that to the north of the façade, the other being disfigured by an unsightly slate roof. The building, which is 275 ft. long and 105 ft. high, consists of a short nave, with aisles, a fine transept, a choir and a sanctuary. The choir contains the statue and the tomb of Bossuet, bishop from 1681 to 1704, and the pulpit of the cathedral has been reconstructed with the panels of that from which the “eagle of Meaux” used to preach. The transept terminates at each end in a fine portal surmounted by a rose-window. The episcopal palace (17th century) has several curious old rooms; the buildings of the choir school are likewise of some archaeological interest. A statue of General Raoult (1870) stands in one of the squares.
Meaux is the centre of a considerable trade in cereals, wool, Brie cheeses, and other farm-produce, while its mills provide much of the flour with which Paris is supplied. Other industries are saw-milling, metal-founding, distilling, the preparation of vermicelli and preserved vegetables, and the manufacture of mustard, hosiery, plaster and machinery. There are nursery-gardens in the vicinity. The Canal de l’Ourcq, which surrounds the town, and the Marne furnish the means of transport. Meaux is the seat of a bishopric dating from the 4th century, and has among its public institutions a sub-prefecture, and tribunals of first instance and of commerce.
In the Roman period Meaux was the capital of the Meldi, a small Gallic tribe, and in the middle ages of the Brie. It formed part of the kingdom of Austrasia, and afterwards belonged to the counts of Vermandois and Champagne, the latter of whom established important markets on the left bank of the Marne. Its communal charter, received from them, is dated 1179. A treaty signed at Meaux in 1229 after the Albigensian War sealed the submission of Raymond VII., count of Toulouse. The town suffered much during the Jacquerie, the peasants receiving a severe check there in 1358; during the Hundred Years’ War; and also during the Religious Wars, in which it was an important Protestant centre. It was the first town which opened its gates to Henry IV. in 1594. On the high-road for invaders marching on Paris from the east of France, Meaux saw its environs ravaged by the army of Lorraine in 1652, and was laid under heavy requisitions in 1814, 1815 and 1870. In September 1567 Meaux was the scene of an attempt made by the Protestants to seize the French king Charles IX., and his mother Catherine de’ Medici. The plot, which is sometimes called the “enterprise of Meaux,” failed, the king and queen with their courtiers escaping to Paris. This conduct, however, on the part of the Huguenots had doubtless some share in influencing Charles to assent to the massacre of St Bartholomew.
MECCA (Arab. Makkah),[1] the chief town of the Hejaz in Arabia, and the great holy city of Islām. It is situated two camel marches (the resting-place being Bahra or Hadda), or about 45 m. almost due E., from Jidda on the Red Sea. Thus on a rough estimate Mecca lies in 21° 25′ N., 39° 50′ E. It is said in the Koran (Sur. xiv. 40) that Mecca lies in a sterile valley, and the old geographers observe that the whole Haram or sacred territory round the city is almost without cultivation or date palms, while fruit trees, springs, wells, gardens and green valleys are found immediately beyond. Mecca in fact lies in the heart of a mass of rough hills, intersected by a labyrinth of narrow valleys and passes, and projecting into the Tehāma or low country on the Red Sea, in front of the great mountain wall that divides the coast-lands from the central plateau, though in turn they are themselves separated from the sea by a second curtain of hills forming the western wall of the great Wādi Marr. The inner mountain wall is pierced by only two great passes, and the valleys descending from these embrace on both sides the Mecca hills.
Holding this position commanding two great routes between the lowlands and inner Arabia, and situated in a narrow and barren valley incapable of supporting an urban population, Mecca must have been from the first a commercial centre.[2] In the palmy days of South Arabia it was probably a station on the great incense route, and thus Ptolemy may have learned the name, which he writes Makoraba. At all events, long before Mahomet we find Mecca established in the twofold quality of a commercial centre and a privileged holy place, surrounded by an inviolable territory (the Haram), which was not the sanctuary of a single tribe but a place of pilgrimage, where religious observances were associated with a series of annual fairs at different points in the vicinity. Indeed in the unsettled state of the country commerce was possible only under the sanctions of religion, and through the provisions of the sacred truce which prohibited war for four months of the year, three of these being the month of pilgrimage, with those immediately preceding and following. The first of the series of fairs in which the Meccans had an interest was at Okaz on the easier road between Mecca and Taif, where there was also a sanctuary, and from it the visitors moved on to points still nearer Mecca (Majanna, and finally Dhul-Majāz, on the flank of Jebel Kabkab behind Arafa) where further fairs were held,[3] culminating in the special religious ceremonies of the great feast at ‘Arafa, Quzaḥ (Mozdalifa), and Mecca itself. The system of intercalation in the lunar calendar of the heathen Arabs was designed to secure that the feast should always fall at the time when the hides, fruits and other merchandise were ready for market,[4] and the Meccans, who knew how to attract the Bedouins by hospitality, bought up these wares in exchange for imported goods, and so became the leaders of the international trade of Arabia. Their caravans traversed the length and breadth of the peninsula. Syria, and especially Gaza, was their chief goal. The Syrian caravan intercepted, on its return, at Badr (see [Mahomet]) represented capital to the value of £20,000, an enormous sum for those days.[5]