Escheat (es-chēt´), in law, a species of reversion arising from default of heirs. Lands, if freehold, escheat to the king or other lord of the manor; if copyhold, to the lord of the manor. By modern legislation there can be no escheat on failure of the whole blood wherever there are persons of the half-blood capable of inheriting.
Eschenbach (esh´en-ba˙h), Wolfram von, German mediæval poet or minnesinger, flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. The most esteemed of his numerous works are: The Parzival (printed 1477); The Titurel, or The Guardian of the Graal (printed 1477); and The Willehalm, a poem on the deeds of William of Orange, a contemporary of Charlemagne.
Eschscholtzia (esh-sholt´si-a), a small genus of glabrous whitish plants, of the poppy order, natives of California and the neighbouring regions. They have divided leaves, and yellow peduncled flowers. The sepals cohere and fall off as the flower opens in the form of a cap. They are now common in the gardens of Great Britain.
Eschwege (esh´vā-ge), a town of Prussia, province of Hesse-Nassau, on the Werra, 26 miles E.S.E. of Cassel. Pop. 12,540.
Eschweiler (esh´vī-lėr), a town of Prussia, in the province of Rheinland, 9 miles E.N.E. of Aix-la-Chapelle, on the Inde. It is the seat of large and varied manufacturing industries, especially in iron, copper, and zinc, and has coal-mines. Pop. 24,718.
Escobar y Mendoza (es-ko-bär´ ē men-do´-tha˙), Antonio, a Spanish casuist and Jesuit, born 1589, died 1669. His principal works are: Summula Casuum Conscientiæ, and several scriptural commentaries. His casuistry was severely criticized by Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales, and the extreme laxity of his moral principles was ridiculed by Boileau, Molière, and La Fontaine.
Escrow´, a legal writing delivered to a third person to be delivered by him to the person whom it purports to benefit, when some condition is performed. Upon the performance of this condition it becomes an absolute deed, but if the condition be not performed, it remains an escrow or scroll.
Escu´rial (Sp. el Escorial), a remarkable building in Spain, comprising at once a palace, a convent, a church, and a mausoleum. It is distant from Madrid about 24 miles in a north-westerly direction, and situated on the acclivity of the Sierra Guadarrama, the range of mountains which divides New from Old Castile. It was built by Philip II, and dedicated to St. Lawrence, in commemoration of the victory of St. Quentin, fought on the festival of the saint in 1557. It is popularly considered to be built on the plan of a gridiron, from the fact that St. Lawrence is said to have been broiled alive on a sort of large gridiron. The building is a rectangular parallelogram measuring 744 feet in length by 580 feet in breadth. The interior is divided into courts, formerly inhabited by monks and ecclesiastics, while a projection 460 feet in length (the handle of the gridiron) contains the royal palace. It was begun in 1563 and finished in 1584. It is of moderate height, and its innumerable windows (said to be 11,000) give it (apart from the church) somewhat the aspect of a large mill or barracks. The church is the finest portion of the whole building. The dome is 60 feet in diameter, and its height at the centre is about 320 feet. Under it is the Pantheon or family vault of the Spanish sovereigns. The library contains a valuable collection, including a rich store of Arabic MSS. The Escurial was partly burned in 1671, when many MSS. were destroyed, and was pillaged by the French in 1808 and 1813. It was restored by Ferdinand VII, but the monks, with their revenues which supported it, have long since disappeared. In 1872 it was fired by lightning, and suffered serious damage.—Cf. A. F. Calvert, The Escorial.
Esdraë´lon, Plain of, a fertile plain in Northern Palestine, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, drained by the River Kishon, and now traversed by the railway from Haifa to Damascus. This plain is celebrated for four battles having been fought there. Sisera was defeated there; Gideon and his three hundred won a battle there; Saul and Jonathan fought there; and it was there that Josiah was killed, In the centre of the plain is Megiddo (q.v.), identified with Armageddon (Rev. xvi, 16). Allenby won a great victory here in Sept., 1918.