THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XVI SLICE II
Lamennais, Robert de to Latini, Brunetto

Articles in This Slice

LAMENNAIS, HUGUES FÉLICITÉ ROBERT DE (1782-1854), French priest, and philosophical and political writer, was born at Saint Malo, in Brittany, on the 19th of June 1782. He was the son of a shipowner of Saint Malo ennobled by Louis XVI. for public services, and was intended by his father to follow mercantile pursuits. He spent long hours in the library of an uncle, devouring the writings of Rousseau, Pascal and others. He thereby acquired a vast and varied, though superficial, erudition, which determined his subsequent career. Of a sickly and sensitive nature, and impressed by the horrors of the French Revolution, his mind was early seized with a morbid view of life, and this temper characterized him throughout all his changes of opinion and circumstance. He was at first inclined towards rationalistic views, but partly through the influence of his brother Jean Marie (1775-1861), partly as a result of his philosophical and historical studies, he felt belief to be indispensable to action and saw in religion the most powerful leaven of the community. He gave utterance to these convictions in the Réflexions sur l’état de l’église en France pendant le 18ième siècle et sur sa situation actuelle, published anonymously in Paris in 1808. Napoleon’s police seized the book as dangerously ideological, with its eager recommendation of religious revival and active clerical organization, but it awoke the ultramontane spirit which has since played so great a part in the politics of churches and of states.

As a rest from political strife, Lamennais devoted most of the following year to a translation, in exquisite French, of the Speculum Monachorum of Ludovicus Blosius (Louis de Blois) which he entitled Le Guide spirituel (1809). In 1811 he received the tonsure and shortly afterwards became professor of mathematics in an ecclesiastical college founded by his brother at Saint Malo. Soon after Napoleon had concluded the Concordat with Pius VII. he published, in conjunction with his brother, De la tradition de l’église sur l’institution des évêques (1814), a writing occasioned by the emperor’s nomination of Cardinal Maury to the archbishopric of Paris, in which he strongly condemned the Gallican principle which allowed bishops to be created irrespective of the pope’s sanction. He was in Paris at the first Bourbon restoration in 1814, which he hailed with satisfaction, less as a monarchist than as a strenuous apostle of religious regeneration. Dreading the Cent Jours, he escaped to London, where he obtained a meagre livelihood by giving French lessons in a school founded by the abbé Jules Carron for French émigrés; he also became tutor at the house of Lady Jerningham, whose first impression of him as an imbecile changed into friendship. On the final overthrow of Napoleon in 1815 he returned to Paris, and in the following year, with many misgivings as to his calling, he yielded to his brother’s and Carron’s advice, and was ordained priest by the bishop of Rennes.

The first volume of his great work, Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion, appeared in 1817 (Eng. trans. by Lord Stanley of Alderley, London, 1898), and affected Europe like a spell, investing, in the words of Lacordaire, a humble priest with all the authority once enjoyed by Bossuet. Lamennais denounced toleration, and advocated a Catholic restoration to belief. The right of private judgment, introduced by Descartes and Leibnitz into philosophy and science, by Luther into religion and by Rousseau and the Encyclopaedists into politics and society, had, he contended, terminated in practical atheism and spiritual death. Ecclesiastical authority, founded on the absolute revelation delivered to the Jewish people, but supported by the universal tradition of all nations, he proclaimed to be the sole hope of regenerating the European communities. Three more volumes (Paris, 1818-1824) followed, and met with a mixed reception from the Gallican bishops and monarchists, but with the enthusiastic adhesion of the younger clergy. The work was examined by three Roman theologians, and received the formal approval of Leo XII. Lamennais visited Rome at the pope’s request, and was offered a place in the Sacred College, which he refused. On his return to France he took a prominent part in political work, and together with Chateaubriand, the vicomte de Villèle, was a regular contributor to the Conservateur, but when Villèle became the chief of the supporters of absolute monarchy, Lamennais withdrew his support and started two rival organs, Le Drapeau blanc and Le Mémorial catholique. Various other minor works, together with De la religion considérée dans ses rapports avec l’ordre civil et politique (2 vols., 1825-1826), kept his name before the public.

He retired to La Chênaie and gathered round him a host of brilliant disciples, including C. de Montalembert, Lacordaire and Maurice de Guérin, his object being to form an organized body of opinion to persuade the French clergy and laity to throw off the yoke of the state connexion. With Rome at his back, as he thought, he adopted a frank and bold attitude in denouncing the liberties of the Gallican church. His health broke down and he went to the Pyrenees to recruit. On his return to La Chênaie in 1827 he had another dangerous illness, which powerfully impressed him with the thought that he had only been dragged back to life to be the instrument of Providence. Les Progrès de la révolution et de la guerre contre l’église (1828) marked Lamennais’s complete renunciation of royalist principles, and henceforward he dreamt of the advent of a theocratic democracy. To give effect to these views he founded L’Avenir, the first number of which appeared on the 16th of October 1830, with the motto “God and Liberty.” From the first the paper was aggressively democratic; it demanded rights of local administration, an enlarged suffrage, universal freedom of conscience, freedom of instruction, of meeting, and of the press. Methods of worship were to be criticized, improved or abolished in absolute submission to the spiritual, not to the temporal authority. With the help of Montalembert, he founded the Agence générale pour la défense de la liberté religieuse, which became a far-reaching organization, it had agents all over the land who noted any violations of religious freedom and reported them to headquarters. As a result, L’Avenir’s career was stormy, and the opposition of the Conservative bishops checked its circulation; Lamennais, Montalembert and Lacordaire resolved to suspend it for a while, and they set out to Rome in November 1831 to obtain the approval of Gregory XVI. The “pilgrims of liberty” were, after much opposition, received in audience by the pope, but only on the condition that the object which brought them to Rome should not be mentioned. This was a bitter disappointment to such earnest ultramontanes, who received, a few days after the audience, a letter from Cardinal Pacca, advising their departure from Rome and suggesting that the Holy See, whilst admitting the justice of their intentions, would like the matter left open for the present. Lacordaire and Montalembert obeyed; Lamennais, however, remained in Rome, but his last hope vanished with the issue of Gregory’s letter to the Polish bishops, in which the Polish patriots were reproved and the tsar was affirmed to be their lawful sovereign. He then “shook the dust of Rome from off his feet.” At Munich, in 1832, he received the encyclical Mirari vos, condemning his policy; as a result L’Avenir ceased and the Agence was dissolved.

Lamennais, with his two lieutenants, submitted, and deeply wounded, retired to La Chênaie. His genius and prophetic insight had turned the entire Catholic church against him, and those for whom he had fought so long were the fiercest of his opponents. The famous Paroles d’un croyant, published in 1834 through the intermediary of Sainte-Beuve, marks Lamennais’s severance from the church. “A book, small in size, but immense in its perversity,” was Gregory’s criticism in a new encyclical letter. A tractate of aphorisms, it has the vigour of a Hebrew prophecy and contains the choicest gems of poetic feeling lost in a whirlwind of exaggerations and distorted views of kings and rulers. The work had an extraordinary circulation and was translated into many European languages. It is now forgotten as a whole, but the beautiful appeals to love and human brotherhood are still reprinted in every hand-book of French literature.

Henceforth Lamennais was the apostle of the people alone. Les Affaires de Rome, des maux de l’église et de la société (1837) came from old habit of religious discussions rather than from his real mind of 1837, or at most it was but a last word. Le Livre du peuple (1837), De l’esclavage moderne (1839), Politique à l’usage du peuple (1839), three volumes of articles from the journal of the extreme democracy, Le Monde, are titles of works which show that he had arrived among the missionaries of liberty, equality and fraternity, and he soon got a share of their martyrdom. Le Pays et le gouvernement (1840) caused him a year’s imprisonment. He struggled through difficulties of lost friendships, limited means and personal illnesses, faithful to the last to his hardly won dogma of the sovereignty of the people, and, to judge by his contribution to Louis Blanc’s Revue du progrès was ready for something like communism. He was named president of the “Société de la solidarité républicaine,” which counted half a million adherents in fifteen days. The Revolution of 1848 had his sympathies, and he started Le Peuple constituant; however, he was compelled to stop it on the 10th of July, complaining that silence was for the poor, but again he was at the head of La Révolution démocratique et sociale, which also succumbed. In the constituent assembly he sat on the left till the coupe d’état of Napoleon III. in 1851 put an end to all hopes of popular freedom. While deputy he drew up a constitution, but it was rejected as too radical. Thereafter a translation of Dante chiefly occupied him till his death, which took place in Paris on the 27th of February 1854. He refused to be reconciled to the church, and was buried according to his own directions at Père La Chaise without funeral rites, being mourned by a countless concourse of democratic and literary admirers.

During the most difficult time of his republican period he found solace for his intellect in the composition of Une voix de prison, written during his imprisonment in a similar strain to Les paroles d’un croyant. This is an interesting contribution to the literature of captivity; it was published in Paris in 1846. He also wrote Esquisse de philosophie (1840). Of the four volumes of this work the third, which is an exposition of art as a development from the aspirations and necessities of the temple, stands pre-eminent, and remains the best evidence of his thinking power and brilliant style.

There are two so-called Œuvres complètes de Lamennais, the first in 10 volumes (Paris, 1836-1837), and the other in 10 volumes (Paris, 1844); both these are very incomplete and only contain the works mentioned above. The most noteworthy of his writings subsequently published are: Amschaspands et Darvands (1843), Le Deuil de la Pologne (1846), Mélanges philosophiques et politiques (1856), Les Évangiles (1846) and La Divine Comédie, these latter being translations of the Gospels and of Dante.

Part of his voluminous correspondence has also appeared. The most interesting volumes are the following: Correspondance de F. de Lamennais, edited by E. D. Forgues (2 vols., 1855-1858); Œuvres inédites de F. Lamennais, edited by Ange Blaize (2 vols., 1866); Correspondance inédite entre Lamennais et le baron de Vitrolles, edited by E. D. Forgues (1819-1853); Confidences de Lamennais, lettres inédites de 1821 à 1848, edited by A. du Bois de la Villerabel (1886); Lamennais d’après des documents inédits, by Alfred Roussel (Rennes, 2 vols., 1892); Lamennais intime, d’après une correspondance inédite, by A. Roussel (Rennes, 1897); Un Lamennais inconnu, edited by A. Laveille (1898); Lettres de Lamennais à Montalembert, edited by E. D. Forgues (1898); and many other letters published in the Revue bleue, Revue britannique, &c.

A list of lives or studies on Lamennais would fill several columns. The following may be mentioned. A Blaize, Essai biographique sur M. de Lamennais (1858); E. D. Forgues, Notes et souvenirs (1859); F. Brunetière, Nouveaux essais sur la littérature contemporaine (1893); E. Faguet, Politiques et moralistes, ii. (1898); P. Janet, La Philosophie de Lamennais (1890); P. Mercier, S.J., Lamennais d’après sa correspondance et les travaux les plus récents (1893); A. Mollien et F. Duine, Lamennais, sa vie et ses idées; Pages choisies (Lyons, 1898); The Hon. W. Gibson, The Abbé de Lammenais and the Liberal Catholic Movement in France (London, 1896); E. Renan Essais de morale et de critique (1857); E. Schérer, Mélanges de critique religieuse (1859); G. E. Spuller, Lamennais, étude d’histoire et de politique religieuse (1892); Mgr. Ricard, L’école menaisienne (1882), and Sainte-Beuve, Portraits contemporains, tome i. (1832), and Nouveaux Lundis, tome i. p. 22; tome xi. p. 347.

LAMENTATIONS (Lamentations of Jeremiah), a book of the Old Testament. In Hebrew MSS. and editions this little collection of liturgical poems is entitled איכה Ah how!, the first word of ch. i. (and chs. ii., iv.); cf. the books of the Pentateuch, and the Babylonian Epic of Creation (a far older example). In the Septuagint it is called Θρῆνοι, “Funeral-songs” or “Dirges,” the usual rendering of Heb. קינות (Am. v. 1; Jer. vii. 29; 2 Sam. i. 17), which is, in fact, the name in the Talmud (Baba Bathra 15a) and other Jewish writings; and it was known as such to the Fathers (Jerome, Cinoth). The Septuagint (B) introduces the book thus: “And it came to pass, after Israel was taken captive and Jerusalem laid waste, Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said...,” a notice which may have related originally to the first poem only. Some Septuagint MSS., and the Syriac and other versions, have the fuller title Lamentations of Jeremiah. In the Hebrew Bible Lamentations is placed among the Cetubim or Hagiographa, usually as the middle book of the five Megilloth or Ferial Rolls (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther) according to the order of the days on which they are read in the Synagogue, Lamentations being read on the 9th of Ab (6th of August), when the destruction of the Temple is commemorated (Mass. Sopherim 18). But the Septuagint appends the book to Jeremiah (Baruch intervening), just as it adds Ruth to Judges; thus making the number of the books of the Hebrew Canon the same as that of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, viz. twenty-two (so Jos. c. Ap. i. 8), instead of the Synagogal twenty-four (see Baba Bathra 14b).

External features and poetical structure.—These poems exhibit a peculiar metre, the so-called “limping verse,” of which Am. v. 2 is a good instance:

A longer line, with three accented syllables, is followed by a shorter with two. Chs. i.-iii. consist of stanzas of three such couplets each; chs. iv. and v. of two like Am. v. 2. This metre came in time to be distinctive of elegy. The text of Lamentations, however, so often deviates from it, that we can only affirm the tendency of the poet to cast his couplets into this type (Driver). Some anomalies, both of metre and of sense, may be removed by judicious emendation; and many lines become smooth enough, if we assume a crasis of open vowels of the same class, or a diphthongal pronunciation of others, or contraction or silence of certain suffixes as in Syriac. The oldest elegiac utterances are not couched in this metre; e.g. David’s (2 Sam. iii. 33 f. Abner; ib. i. 19-27 Saul and Jonathan). Yet the refrain of the latter, ’Eik náf ’lu gíbborím, “Ah how are heroes fallen!” agrees with our longer line. The remote ancestor of this Hebrew metre may be recognized in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, written at least a thousand years earlier:—

and again:—

Like a few of the Psalms, Lamentations i.-iv. are alphabetical acrostics. Each poem contains twenty-two stanzas, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet; and each stanza begins with its proper letter. (In ch. iii. each of the three couplets in a stanza begins with the same letter, so that the alphabet is repeated thrice: cf. Psalm cxix. for an eight-fold repetition.) The alphabet of Lamentations ii. iii. iv. varies from the usual order of the letters by placing Pe before Ain. The same was doubtless the case in ch. i. also until some scribe altered it. He went no further, because the sense forbade it in the other instances. The variation may have been one of local use, either in Judea or in Babylonia; or the author may have had some fanciful reason for the transposition, such as, for example, that Pe following Samech (ספ) might suggest the word ספדו, “Wail ye!” (2 Sam. iii. 31). Although the oldest Hebrew elegies are not alphabetic acrostics, it is a curious fact that the word הידך, “Was he a coward?” (Sc. לבו; Is. vii. 4), is formed by the initial letters of the four lines on Abner (om. ו, line 3); and the initials of the verses of David’s great elegy are הא המשכ אצא, which may be read as a sentence meaning, perhaps, “Lo, I the Avenger” (cf. Deut. xxxii. 41, 43) “will go forth!”; or the first two letters (ה′א′) may stand for הוי אחי, “Alas, my brother!” (Jer. xxii. 18; cf. xxxiv. 5). In cryptic fashion the poet thus registers a vow of vengeance on the Philistines. Both kinds of acrostic occur side by side in the Psalms. Psalm cx., an acrostic of the same kind as David’s elegy, is followed by Psalms cxi. cxii., which are alphabetical acrostics, like the Lamentations. Such artifices are not in themselves greater clogs on poetic expression than the excessive alliteration of old Saxon verse or the strict rhymes of modern lyrics. (Alliteration, both initial and internal, is common in Lamentations.)

As the final piece, ch. v. may have suffered more in transmission than those which precede it—even to the extent of losing the acrostic form (like some of the Psalms and Nahum i.), besides half of its stanzas. If we divide the chapter into quatrains, like ch. iv., we notice several vestiges of an acrostic. The Aleph stanza (verses 7, 8) still precedes the Beth (verses 9, 10), and the Ain is still quite clear (verses 17, 18; cf. i. 16). Transposing verses 5, 6, and correcting their text, we see that the Jod stanza (verses 3, 4) precedes the Lamed (verses 6, 5), Caph having disappeared between them. With this clue, we may rearrange the other quatrains in alphabetical sequence, each according to its initial letter. We thus get a broken series of eleven stanzas, beginning with the letters

א (verses 7, 8), ב (9, 10), ה (21, 22), ו (19, cf. Psalm cii. 13; and 20), ן (1, 2), ח

(13, חורים; 14),

י (3, 4), ל

(6, לצרים; 5, הכבידו ... על),

נ (11, 12), ע (17, 18), and ש (15, 16), successively. An internal connexion will now be apparent in all the stanzas.

General subject and outline of contents.—The theme of Lamentations is the final siege and fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), and the attendant and subsequent miseries of the Jewish people.

In ch. i. we have a vivid picture of the distress of Zion, after all is over. The poet does not describe the events of the siege, nor the horrors of the capture, but the painful experience of subjection and tyranny which followed. Neither this nor ch. ii. is strictly a “dirge.” Zion is not dead. She is personified as a widowed princess, bereaved and desolate, sitting amid the ruins of her former joys, and brooding over her calamities. From verse 11c to the end (except verse 17) she herself is the speaker:—

She images her sorrows under a variety of metaphors (cf. ch. iii. 1-18); ascribing all her woes to Yahweh’s righteous wrath, provoked by her sins, and crying for vengeance on the malicious rivals who had rejoiced at her overthrow.

The text has suffered much. Verse 5c read: בשבי (v. 18), “into captivity,” צרים (v. 7), “adversaries.” For verse 7, see Budde, V. 14: נשקד, read נקשר, “was bound.” Verse 19c read: אבל להשיב נפש ולא מצאו כי בקשו “For they sought food to restore life, and found it not:” cf. Septuagint; and verses 11, 16. Verse 20: the incongruous כי מרו מריתי, “For I grievously rebelled,” should be נכמרו רחמי, “My inwards burn”; Hos. xi. 8. Verses 21 f.: “All my foes heard, rejoiced That IT” (cf. Psalm ix. 13), “Thou didst. Bring Thou” (הבא את), “the Day Thou hast proclaimed; Let them become like me! Let the time” (עת; see Septuagint) “of their calamity come!”

Chapter ii.—“Ah how in wrath the Lord | Beclouds Bath-Sion!” The poet laments Yahweh’s anger as the true cause which destroyed city and kingdom, suspended feast and Sabbath, rejected altar and sanctuary. He mentions the uproar of the victors in the Temple; the dismantling of the walls; the exile of king and princes (verses 1-9). He recalls the mourning in the doomed city; the children dying of hunger in the streets; the prophets deluding the people with vain hopes. Passers-by jeered at the fallen city; and all her enemies triumphed over her (verses 10-17). Sion is urged to cry to the Lord in protest against His pitiless work (verses 18-22).

Here too emendation is necessary. Verse 4a: הציב הצו, “He fixed His arrow,” sc. on the string (Septuagint, ἐστερέωσεν); cf. Psalm xi. 2. Add at the end כלה (את) אפו, “He spent His anger:” see iv. 11; Ezek. vii. 8, xx. 8, 21. Verse 6: ויפרץ גדר משכנו, “And He broke down the wall of His dwelling-place” (Septuagint τὸ σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ; cf. Psalm lxxxiv. 7f., where מועד follows, as here). Is. v. 5; Psalms lxxx. 13, lxxxix. 41. Perhaps ויהרס, verses 2, 17. But Septuagint καὶ διεπέτασεν = ויפרש (i. 13, 17) = ויפרס (iv. 4) or even ויפרץ. Verse 9, perhaps: “He sunk (טבע) her gates in the ground,—He shattered her bars; He made her king and her princes wander (אבר, Jer. xxiii. 1)—Among the nations without Torah” (cf. Ezek. vii. 26 f.). Verse 18: “Cry much” (רבת; or bitterly, מר, Zeph. i. 14) “unto the Lord, O Virgin Daughter of Zion!” Verse 19 is metrically redundant, and the last clauses do not agree with what follows. “For the life of thy children” was altered from “for what He hath done to thee” (על שעולל לך); and then the rest was added. The uniform gloom of this, the most dirge-like of all the pieces, is unrelieved by a single ray of hope, even the hope of vengeance; cf. chapters i. iii. iv. ad fin.

Chapter iii.—Here the nation is personified as a man (cf. Hos. xi. 1), who laments his own calamities. In view of i. 12-22, ii. 20-22, this is hardly a serious deviation from the strict form of elegy (Klagelied). Budde makes much of “the close external connexion with ch. ii.” The truth is that the break is as great as between any two of these poems. Chapter ii. ends with a mother’s lament over her slaughtered children; chapter iii. makes an entirely new beginning, with its abruptly independent “I am the Man!” The suppression of the Divine Name is intentional. Israel durst not breathe it, until compelled by the climax, verse 18: cf. Am. vi. 10. Contrast its frequency afterwards, when ground of hope is found in the Divine pity and purpose (verses 22-40), and when the contrite nation turns to its God in prayer (verses 55-66). The spiritual aspect of things is now the main topic. The poet deals less with incident, and more with the moral significance of the nation’s sufferings. It is the religious culmination of the book. His poem is rather lyrical than narrative, which may account for some obscurities in the connexion of thought; but his alphabetic scheme proves that he designed twenty-two stanzas, not sixty-six detached couplets. There is something arresting in that bold “I am the Man”; and the lyrical intensity, the religious depth and beauty of the whole, may well blind us to occasional ruggedness of metre and language, abrupt transitions from figure to figure and other alleged blemishes, some of which may not have seemed such to the poet’s contemporaries (e.g. the repetition of the acrostic word, far more frequent in Psalm cxix.); and some disappear on revision of the text.

Verse 5, perhaps: “He swallowed me up” (Jer. li. 34) “and begirt my head” (Septuagint) “with gloom” (אפלה Is. lviii. 10, cf. verse 6, yet cf. also הלאה, Neh. ix. 32). Verse 14: “all my people,” rather all peoples (Heb. MSS. and Syr.). Verse 16b, rd. הפלישני, “He made me bore” (i.e. grovel) “in the ashes:” cf. Jer. vi. 26; Ezek. xxvii. 30. Verse 17a should be: ויזנח לעולם נפשי “And He cast off my soul for ever:” see verse 31; Psalm lxxxviii. 15. Verse 26: “It is good to wait” להחיל “in silence” (דומם Is. xlvii. 5); or “It is good that he wait and be silent” (כי יחיל ודמם; cf. verse 27). Verse 31, add נפשו, “his soul.” The verse is a reply to 17a. Verses 34-36 render: “To crush under His feet ... Adonai purposed not” (Gen. xx. 10; Psalm lxvi. 18). Verse 39, חי (Gen. v. 5; or חיה Neh. ix. 29) is the necessary second verb: “Why doth a mortal complain?” (or “What ... lament?”). “Doth a man live by his sins?”: Man “lives by” righteousness (Ezek. xxxiii. 19). For the wording, cf. Psalm lxxxix. 49. Verse 43a: “Thou didst encompass with” (rg. סבותה; Hos. xii. 1) “anger and pursue us.” Syntax as verse 66a. Verse 49, rd. תפונה (cf. ii. 18 also). Verse 51: “Mine eye did hurt to herself” (לנפשה), “By weeping over my people:” Verse 48: ch. i. 16; Jer. xxxi. 15. Verse 52: “They quelled my life in the pit” (Sheol; Psalms xxx. 4, lxxxviii. 4, 7; verse 55); “They brought me down to Abaddon” (הרידוני אבדון; cf. Psalm lxxxviii. 12). Verse 58: “O plead, Lord, the cause of my soul! O redeem my life!”; cf. Psalm cxix. 154. If the prayer for vengeance begins here, Budde’s “deep division in the middle of an acrostic letter-group” vanishes. Verse 59, rd. עותי, “my perverting;” inf. pi. c. suff. obj.; cf. verse 36. Verse 61b repeated by mistake from 60b. Perhaps: “Wherewith they dogged my steps:” שחרפו עקבתי: Psalm lxxxix. 51 f. Verse 63, rd. קומם, as usual, and נגינתם, as in verse 14 and Job xxx. 9. Verse 65: “Thou wilt give them madness” (cf. Arab. gunûn; magnûn, mad) “of heart; Thou wilt curse and consume them!” (תאר תכלם).

Chapter iv.

The poet shows how famine and the sword desolated Zion (verses 1-10). All was Yahweh’s work; a wonder to the heathen world, but accounted for by the crimes of prophets and priests (Jer. xxiii. 11, 14, xxvi. 8, 20 ff., xxix. 21-23), who, like Cain, became homeless wanderers and outcasts (verses 11-16). Vainly did the besieged watch for succours from Egypt (Jer. xxxvii. 5 ff.); and even the last forlorn hope, the flight of “Yahweh’s Anointed,” King Zedekiah, was doomed to fail (verses 17-20; Jer. xxxix. 4 ff). Edom rejoiced in her ruin (Ezek. xxv. 12; xxxv. 15; Obad.; Psalm cxxxvii. 7); but Zion’s sin is now atoned for (cf. Is. xl. 2), and she may look forward to the judgment of her foe (verses 21-22).

Verse 6d, perhaps: “And their ruin tarried not” (פירס ולא יחל); cf. Pro. xxiv. 22. Verse 7d: “Their body” (rd. נויחם) “was a sapphire:” see Ct. v. 14; Dn. x. 6. Verse 9: “Happier were the slain of the sword Than the slain of famine! For they” (Septuagint om.), “they passed away” (הלכו Septuagint; Psalm xxxix. 14) “with a stab” (Ju. ix. 54; Is. xiii. 15; Jer. li. 4), “Suddenly, in the field” (פתאם בש′; Jer. xiv. 18). Verse 13, add היא after נביאיה; cf. Ju. xiv. 4; Jer. xxii. 16. Verse 17c: “While we watched” (Septuagint) “continually:” בצפותנו צפו. Verse 18: “Our steps were curbed” (צרו MSS.; see Pro. iv. 12; Job xviii. 7) “from walking In our open places” (before the city gates: Neh. viii. 1, 3); “The completion of our days drew nigh” (קרב יום מלאות ימינו; cf. Lev. viii. 33; Job xx. 22), “For our end was come” (Ezek. vii. 2, 6, &c.). Verse 21, Septuagint om. Uz (dittogr.?); “Settler in the Land!” (i.e. of Judah; cf. Ezek. xxxv. 10, xxxvi. 5. Perhaps יורשתי הא′ “Seizer of the Land”).

Chapter v.—A sorrowful supplication, in which the speakers deplore, not the fall of Jerusalem, but their own state of galling dependence and hopeless poverty. They are still suffering for the sins of their fathers, who perished in the catastrophe (verse 7). They are at the mercy of “servants” (verse 8; cf. 2 Kings xxv. 24; Neh. v. 15: “Yea, even their ‘boys’ lorded it over the people”), under a tyranny of pashas of the worst type (verses 11 f.). The soil is owned by aliens; and the Jews have to buy their water and firewood (verses 2, 4; cf. Neh. ix. 36 f.). While busy harvesting, they are exposed to the raids of the Bedouins (verse 9). Jackals prowl among the ruins of Zion (verse 18; cf. Neh. iv. 3). And this condition of things has already lasted a very long time (verse 20).

Verses 5 f. transpose and read: “To adversaries” (לצרים) “we submitted, Saying” (לאמור), “’We shall be satisfied with bread’” (cf. Jer. xlii. 14); “The yoke of our neck they made heavy” (Neh. v. 15: הכבידו על העם); “We toil, and no rest is allowed us.” Verse 13: “Nobles endured to grind, And princes staggered under logs” (חורים for בחורים, which belongs to verse 14; שרים for נערים. Eccl. x. 7; Is. xxxiv. 12; Neh. iv. 14; v. 7; vi. 17). Verse 19, “But Thou...” Psalm cii. 13 (ו fell out after preceding ו, verse 18). Verse 22, omit אם; dittogr. of following מא.

Authorship and date.—The tradition of Jeremiah’s authorship cannot be traced higher than the Septuagint version. The prefatory note there may come from a Hebrew MS., but perhaps refers to chapter i. only (“Jeremiah sang this dirge”). The idea that Lamentations was originally appended to Jeremiah in the Hebrew Canon, as it is in the old versions, and was afterwards separated from it and added to the other Megilloth for the liturgical convenience of the Synagogue, rests on the fact that Josephus (Ap. i. 1, 8) and, following him, Jerome and Origen reckon 22 books, taking Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah; whereas the ordinary Jewish reckoning gives 24 books, as in our Hebrew Bibles. There is no evidence that this artificial reckoning according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet was ever much more than a fanciful suggestion. Even in the Septuagint the existing order may not be original. It appears likely that Lamentations was not translated by the same hand as Jeremiah (Nöldeke). Unlike the latter, the Septuagint Lamentations sticks closely to the Massoretic text. The two books can hardly have been united from the first. On the strength of 2 Chron. xxxv. 25, some ancient writers (e.g. Jerome ad Zech. xii. 11) held that Jeremiah composed Lamentations. When, however, Josephus (Ant. x. 5, 1) states that Jeremiah wrote an elegy on Josiah still extant in his day, he may be merely quoting a little too much of Chron. loc. cit.; and it is obvious that he need not mean our book (see Whiston’s note). It is urged, indeed, that the author of Chronicles could not have imagined a prophet to have sympathized with such a king as Zedekiah so warmly as is implied by Lamentations iv. 20; and, therefore, he must have connected the passage with Josiah, the last of the good kings. However that may have been, the Chronicler neither says that Jeremiah wrote all the elegies comprised in The Qinoth, nor does he imply that the entire collection consisted of only five pieces. Rather, the contrary; for he implies that The Qinoth contained not only Jeremiah’s single dirge on Josiah, but also the elegies of “all the singing men and singing women,” from the time of Josiah’s death (608) down to his own day (3rd century). The untimely fate of Josiah became a stock allusion in dirges. It is not meant that for three centuries the dirge-writers had nothing else to sing of; much less, that they sang of the fall of Jerusalem (presupposed by our book) before its occurrence. Upon the whole, it does not seem probable, either that the Chronicler mistook Lamentations iv. for Jeremiah’s dirge on Josiah, or that the book he calls The Qinoth was identical with our Qinoth. Later writers misunderstood him, because—on the ground of certain obtrusive similarities between Jeremiah and Lamentations (see Driver, L.O.T. p. 433 f.), and the supposed reference in Lamentations iii. 53 ff. to Jeremiah xxxviii. 6 ff., as well as the fact that Jeremiah was the one well-known inspired writer who had lived through the siege of Jerusalem—they naturally enough ascribed this little book to the prophet. It is certainly true that the same emotional temperament, dissolving in tears at the spectacle of the country’s woes, and expressing itself to a great extent in the same or similar language, is noticeable in the author(s) of Lamentations i.-iv. and in Jeremiah. And both refer these woes to the same cause, viz. the sins of the nation, and particularly of its prophets and priests.

This, however, is not enough to prove identity of authorship; and the following considerations militate strongly against the tradition. (i.) The language and style of Lamentations are in general very unlike those of Jeremiah (see the details in Nägelsbach and Löhr); whatever allowance may be made for conventional differences in the phraseology of elegiac poetry and prophetic prose, even of a more or less lyrical cast. (ii.) Lamentations i.-iv. show a knowledge of Ezekiel (cf. Lamentations ii. 4c; Ez. xx. 8, 21; Lam. ii. 14; Ez. xii. 24; xiii. 10, 14; Lam. ii. 15; Ez. xxvii. 3; xxviii. 12; Lam. iv. 20; Ez. xix. 4, 8) and of Is. xl.-lxvi. (Lam. i. 10, מחמדים; Is. lxiv. 10; Lam. i. 15; Is. lxiii. 2; Lam. ii. 1; Is. lxvi. 1; Lam. ii. 2c; Is. xliii. 28; Lam. ii. 13 the 3 verbs; Is. xl. 18, 25; Lam. ii. 15c; Is. lx. 15b; Lam. iii. 26 דומם; Is. xlvii. 5; Lam. iii. 30; Is. i. 6; Lam. iv. 14; Is. lix. 3, 10; Lam. iv. 15; Is. lii. 11; Lam. iv. 17c; Is. xlv. 20; Lam. iv. 22; Is. xl. 2). Jeremiah does not quote Ezekiel; and he could hardly have quoted writings of the age of Cyrus. (iii.) The coincidences of language between Lamentations and certain late Psalms, such as Psalms lxix., lxxiv., lxxx., lxxxviii., lxxxix., cxix., are numerous and significant, at least as a general indication of date. (iv.) The point of view of Lamentations sometimes differs from that of the prophet. This need not be the case in i. 21 f. where the context shows that the “enemies” are not the Chaldeans, but Judah’s ill neighbours, Edom, Ammon, Moab and the rest (cf. iv. 21 f.; iii. 59-66 may refer to the same foes). Ch. ii. 9c may refer to popular prophecy (“her prophets”; cf. verse 14), which would naturally be silenced by the overwhelming falsification of its comfortable predictions (iv. 14 ff.; cf. Jer. xiv. 13; Ezek. vii. 26 f.; Psalm lxxiv. 9). But though Jeremiah was by no means disloyal (Jer. xxxiv. 4 f.), he would hardly have spoken of Zedekiah in the terms of Lam. iv. 20; and the prophet never looked to Egypt for help, as the poet of iv. 17 appears to have done. It must be admitted that Lamentations exhibits, upon the whole, “a poet (more) in sympathy with the old life of the nation, whose attitude towards the temple and the king is far more popular than Jeremiah’s” (W. Robertson Smith); cf. i. 4, 10, 19, ii. 6, 7, 20c. (v.) While we find in Lamentations some things that we should not have expected from Jeremiah, we miss other things characteristic of the prophet. There is no trace of his confident faith in the restoration of both Israel and Judah (Jer. iii. 14-18, xxiii. 3-8, xxx.-xxxiii.), nor of his unique doctrine of the New Covenant (Jer. xxxi. 31-34), as a ground of hope and consolation for Zion. The only hope expressed in Lamentations i. is the hope of Divine vengeance on Judah’s malicious rivals (i. 21 f.); and even this is wanting from ch. ii. Chapter iii. finds comfort in the thought of Yahweh’s unfailing mercy; but ends with a louder cry for vengeance. Chapter iv. suggests neither hope nor consolation, until the end, where we have an assurance that Zion’s punishment is complete, and she will not again be exiled (iv. 21 f.). The last word is woe for Edom. In chapter v. we have a prayer for restoration: “Make us return, O Yahweh, and we shall return!” (i.e. to our pristine state). Had Jeremiah been the author, we should have expected something more positive and definitely prophetic in tone and spirit. (The author of chapter iii. seems to have felt this. It was apparently written in view of chapter ii. as a kind of religious counterpoise to its burden of despair, which it first takes up, verses 1-20, and then dissipates, verses 21 ff.). (vi.) It seems almost superfluous to add that, in the brief and troubled story of the prophet’s life after the fall of the city Jer. xxxix.-xliv.), it is difficult to specify an occasion when he may be supposed to have enjoyed the necessary leisure and quiet for the composition of these elaborate and carefully constructed pieces, in a style so remote from his ordinary freedom and spontaneity of utterance. And if at the very end of his stormy career he really found time and inclination to write anything of this nature, we may wonder why it was not included in the considerable and somewhat miscellaneous volume of his works, or at least mentioned in the chapters which relate to his public activity after the catastrophe.

Budde’s date, 550 B.C., might not be too early for chapter v., if it stood alone. But it was evidently written as the close of the book, and perhaps to complete the number of five divisions, after the model of the Pentateuch; which would bring it below the date of Ezra (457 B.C.). And this date is supported by internal indications. The Divine forgetfulness has already lasted a very long time since the catastrophe (“for ever,” verse 20); which seems to imply the lapse of much more than thirty-six years (cf. Zech. i. 12). The hill of Zion is still a deserted site haunted by jackals, as it was when Nehemiah arrived, 445 B.C. (Neh. i. 3, ii. 3, 13, 17, iv. 3). And the conditions, political and economic, seem to agree with what is told us by Nehemiah of the state of things which he found, and which prevailed before his coming: cf. esp. Neh. v. 2-5 with Lamentations v. 2, 10, and Neh. v. 15 with Lamentations v. 5, 8. There is nothing in chapter i. which Nehemiah himself might not have written, had he been a poet (cf. Neh. i. 4). The narrative of Neh. xiii. throws light on verse 10; and there are many coincidences of language, e.g. “The Province” (of Judea), Neh. i. 3, cf. verse 1; “adversaries” (צרים), of Judah’s hostile neighbours, verse 7, Neh. iv. 11; “made my strength stumble,” verse 14, cf. Neh. iv. 4 (Heb.); the prayers, verses 21 f., Neh. iv. 4 f. (Heb. iii. 36 f.), are similar. The memory of what is told in Neh. iv. 5 (11), Ezra iv. 23 f., v. 5, may perhaps have suggested the peculiar term משבת, stoppage, arrest, verse 7. With verse 3 “Judah migrated from oppression; From greatness of servitude; She settled among the nations, Without finding a resting-place,” cf. Neh. v. 18 end, Jer. xl. 11 f. The “remnant of the captivity” (Neh. i. 2 f.) became much attenuated (cf. verse 4), because all who could escape from the galling tyranny of the foreigner left the country (cf. verse 6). Verses 11, 19 (dearth of food), 20 (danger in the field, starvation in the house) agree curiously with Neh. v. 6, 9 f.

Chapters ii. and iv. can hardly be dated earlier than the beginning of the Persian period. They might then have been written by one who, as a young man of sixteen or twenty, had witnessed the terrible scenes of fifty years before. If, however, as is generally recognized, these poems are not the spontaneous and unstudied outpourings of passionate grief, but compositions of calculated art and studied effects, written for a purpose, it is obvious that they need not be contemporary. A poet of a later generation might have sung of the great drama in this fashion. The chief incidents and episodes would be deeply graven in the popular memory; and it is the poet’s function to make the past live again. There is much metaphor (i. 13-15, ii. 1-4, iii. 1-18, iv. 1 ff.), and little detail beyond the horrors usual in long sieges (see Deut. xxviii. 52 ff.; 2 Kings vi. 28 f.) Acquaintance with the existing literature and the popular reminiscences of the last days of Jerusalem would supply an ample foundation for all that we find in these poems.

Literature.—The older literature is fully given by Nägelsbach in Lange’s Bibelwerk A.T. xv. (1868, Eng. trans., 1871, p. 17). Among commentaries may be noticed those of Kalkar (in Latin) (1836); O. Thenius in Kurzgefasstes Exeg. Handbuch (1855), who ascribes chapters ii. and iv. to Jeremiah (comp. K. Budde in Z.A.T.W., 1882, p. 45); Vaihinger (1857); Neumann (1858); H. Ewald in his Dichter, vol. i. pt. ii. (2nd ed., 1866); Engelhardt (1867); Nägelsbach, op. cit. (1868); E. Gerlach, Die Klagelied. Jer. (1868); A. Kamphausen in Bunsen’s Bibelwerk iii. (1868); C. F. Keil (1872) (Eng. trans., 1874); Payne Smith in The Speaker’s Commentary; Reuss, La Bible: poésie lyrique (1879); T. K. Cheyne, at end of “Jeremiah,” Pulpit Commentary (1883-1885); E. H. Plumptre, in Ellicott’s O.T. for English Readers (1884); S. Oettli in Strack-Zöckler’s Kurzgef. Komm. A.T. vii. (1889); M. Löhr (1891) and again Handkommentar zum A.T. (1893); F. Baethgen ap. Kautzsch, Die Heilige Schrift d. A.T. (1894); W. F. Adeney, Expositor’s Bible (1895); S. Minocchi, Le Lamentazioni di Geremia (Rome, 1897); and K. Budde, “Fünf Megillot,” in Kurzer Hd.-Comm. zum A. T. (1898).

For textual and literary criticism see also Houbigant, Notae Criticae, ii. 477-483 (1777); E. H. Rodhe, Num Jeremias Threnos scripserit quaestiones (Lundae, 1871); F. Montet, Étude sur le livre des Lamentations (Geneva, 1875); G. Bickell, Carmina V. T. metrice, 112-120 (1882), and Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes, viii. 101 ff. (1894) (Cf. also his Dichtungen der Hebräer, i. 87-108, 1882); Merkel, Über das A.T. Buch der Klagelieder (Halle, 1889); J. Dyserinck, Theologisch Tijdschrift, xxvi. 359 ff. (1892); S. A. Fries, “Parallele zwischen Thr. iv., v. und der Makkabäerzeit,”Z.A.T.W., xiii. 110 ff. (1893) (chaps. iv. v. Maccabean; i.-iii. Jeremiah’s); and on the other side Löhr, Z.A.T.W. xiv. 51 ff. (1894); id. ib., p. 31 ff., Der Sprachgebrauch des Buches der Klagelieder; and Löhr, “Threni iii. und die jeremianische Autorschaft des Buches der Klagelieder,” Z.A.T.W., xxiv. 1 ff. (1904).

On the prosody, see (besides the works of Bickell and Dyserinck) K. Budde, “Das hebräische Klagelied,” Z.A.T.W., ii. 1 ff. (1882), iii. 299 ff. (1883), xi. 234 ff. (1891), xii. 31 ff. 261 ff. (1892); Preussische Jahrbücher, lxxiii. 461 ff. (1893); and C. J. Ball, “The Metrical Structure of Qinoth,” P.S.B.A. (March 1887). (The writer was then unacquainted with Budde’s previous labours.)

The following may also be consulted, Nöldeke, Die A.T. Literatur, pp. 142-148 (1868); Seinecke, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. 29 ff. (1884); Stade, Gesch. p. 701, n. 1 (1887); Smend in Z.A.T.W. (1888), p. 62 f.; Steinthal, “Die Klagelieder Jer.” in Bibel und Rel.-philosophie, 16-33 (1890); Driver, L.O.T. (1891), p. 428, “The Lamentations”; and Cheyne’s article “Lamentations (Book),” in Enc. Bibl. iii.

(C. J. B.*)

LAMETH, ALEXANDRE THÉODORE VICTOR, Comte de (1760-1829), French soldier and politician, was born in Paris on the 20th of October 1760. He served in the American War of Independence under Rochambeau, and in 1789 was sent as deputy to the States General by the nobles of the bailliage of Péronne. In the Constituent Assembly he formed with Barnave and Adrien Duport a sort of association called the “Triumvirate,” which controlled a group of about forty deputies forming the advanced left of the Assembly. He presented a famous report in the Constituent Assembly on the organization of the army, but is better known by his eloquent speech on the 28th of February 1791, at the Jacobin Club, against Mirabeau, whose relations with the court were beginning to be suspected, and who was a personal enemy of Lameth. However, after the flight of the king to Varennes, Lameth became reconciled with the court. He served in the army as maréchal-de-camp under Luckner and Lafayette, but was accused of treason on the 15th of August 1792, fled the country, and was imprisoned by the Austrians. After his release he engaged in commerce at Hamburg with his brother Charles and the duc d’Aiguillon, and did not return to France until the Consulate. Under the Empire he was made prefect successively in several departments, and in 1810 was created a baron. In 1814 he attached himself to the Bourbons, and under the Restoration was appointed prefect of Somme, deputy for Seine-Inférieure and finally deputy for Seine-et-Oise, in which capacity he was a leader of the Liberal opposition. He died in Paris on the 18th of March 1829. He was the author of an important History of the Constituent Assembly (Paris, 2 vols., 1828-1829).

Of his two brothers, Théodore Lameth (1756-1854) served in the American war, sat in the Legislative Assembly as deputy from the department of Jura, and became maréchal-de-camp; and Charles Malo François Lameth (1757-1832), who also served in America, was deputy to the States General of 1789, but emigrated early in the Revolution, returned to France under the Consulate, and was appointed governor of Würzburg under the Empire. Like Alexandre, Charles joined the Bourbons, succeeding Alexandre as deputy in 1829.

See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de l’Assemblée Constituante (Paris, 1905); also M. Tourneux, Bibliog. de l’histoire de Paris (vol. iv., 1906, s.v. “Lameth”).

LAMETTRIE, JULIEN OFFRAY DE (1709-1751), French physician and philosopher, the earliest of the materialistic writers of the Illumination, was born at St Malo on the 25th of December 1709. After studying theology in the Jansenist schools for some years, he suddenly decided to adopt the profession of medicine. In 1733 he went to Leiden to study under Boerhaave, and in 1742 returned to Paris, where he obtained the appointment of surgeon to the guards. During an attack of fever he made observations on himself with reference to the action of quickened circulation upon thought, which led him to the conclusion that psychical phenomena were to be accounted for as the effects of organic changes in the brain and nervous system. This conclusion he worked out in his earliest philosophical work, the Histoire naturelle de l’âme, which appeared about 1745. So great was the outcry caused by its publication that Lamettrie was forced to take refuge in Leiden, where he developed his doctrines still more boldly and completely, and with great originality, in L’Homme machine (Eng. trans., London, 1750; ed. with introd. and notes, J. Assézat, 1865), and L’Homme plante, treatises based upon principles of the most consistently materialistic character. The ethics of these principles were worked out in Discours sur le bonheur, La Volupté, and L’Art de jouir, in which the end of life is found in the pleasures of the senses, and virtue is reduced to self-love. Atheism is the only means of ensuring the happiness of the world, which has been rendered impossible by the wars brought about by theologians. The soul is only the thinking part of the body, and with the body it passes away. When death comes, the farce is over (la farce est jouée), therefore let us take our pleasure while we can. Lamettrie has been called “the Aristippus of modern materialism.” So strong was the feeling against him that in 1748 he was compelled to quit Holland for Berlin, where Frederick the Great not only allowed him to practise as a physician, but appointed him court reader. He died on the 11th of November 1751. His collected Œuvres philosophiques appeared after his death in several editions, published in London, Berlin and Amsterdam respectively.

The chief authority for his life is the Éloge written by Frederick the Great (printed in Assézat’s ed. of Homme machine). In modern times Lamettrie has been judged less severely; see F. A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus (Eng. trans. by E. C. Thomas, ii. 1880); Nérée Quépat (i.e. René Paquet), La Mettrie, sa vie et ses œuvres (1873, with complete history of his works); J. E. Poritzky, J. O. de Lamettrie, Sein Leben und seine Werke (1900); F. Picavet, “La Mettrie et la critique allemande,” in Compte rendu des séances de l’Acad. des Sciences morales et politiques, xxxii. (1889), a reply to German rehabilitations of Lamettrie.

LAMIA, in Greek mythology, queen of Libya. She was beloved by Zeus, and when Hera robbed her of her children out of jealousy, she killed every child she could get into her power (Diod. Sic. xx. 41; Schol. Aristophanes, Pax, 757). Hence Lamia came to mean a female bogey or demon, whose name was used by Greek mothers to frighten their children; from the Greek she passed into Roman demonology. She was represented with a woman’s face and a serpent’s tail. She was also known as a sort of fiend, the prototype of the modern vampire, who in the form of a beautiful woman enticed young men to her embraces, in order that she might feed on their life and heart’s blood. In this form she appears in Goethe’s Die Braut von Corinth, and Keats’s Lamia. The name Lamia is clearly the feminine form of Lamus, king of the Laestrygones (q.v.). At some early period, or in some districts, Lamus and Lamia (both, according to some accounts, children of Poseidon) were worshipped as gods; but the names did not attain general currency. Their history is remarkably like that of the malignant class of demons in Germanic and Celtic folk-lore. Both names occur in the geographical nomenclature of Greece and Asia Minor; and it is probable that the deities belong to that religion which spread from Asia Minor over Thrace into Greece.

LAMMAS (O. Eng. hlammaesse, hlafmaesse, from hlaf, loaf, and maesse, mass, “loaf-mass”), originally in England the festival of the wheat harvest celebrated on the 1st of August, O.S. It was one of the old quarter-days, being equivalent to midsummer, the others being Martinmas, equivalent to Michaelmas, Candlemas (Christmas) and Whitsuntide (Easter). Some rents are still payable in England at Lammastide, and in Scotland it is generally observed, but on the 12th of August, since the alteration of the calendar in George II.’s reign. Its name was in allusion to the custom that each worshipper should present in the church a loaf made of the new wheat as an offering of the first-fruits.

A relic of the old “open-field” system of agriculture survives in the so-called “Lammas Lands.” These were lands enclosed and held in severalty during the growing of corn and grass and thrown open to pasturage during the rest of the year for those who had common rights. These commoners might be the several owners, the inhabitants of a parish, freemen of a borough, tenants of a manor, &c. The opening of the fields by throwing down the fences took place on Lammas Day (12th of August) for corn-lands and on Old Midsummer Day (6th of July) for grass. They remained open until the following Lady Day. Thus, in law, “lammas lands” belong to the several owners in fee-simple subject for half the year to the rights of pasturage of other people (Baylis v. Tyssen-Amherst, 1877, 6 Ch. D., 50).

See further F. Seebohm, The English Village Community; C. I. Elton, Commons and Waste Lands; P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England.

LÄMMERGEYER (Ger. Lämmergeier, Lamm, lamb, and Geier, vulture), or bearded vulture, the Falco barbatus of Linnaeus and the Gypaetus barbatus of modern ornithologists, one of the grandest birds-of-prey of the Palaearctic region—inhabiting lofty mountain chains from Portugal to the borders of China, though within historic times it has been exterminated in several of its ancient haunts. Its northern range in Europe does not seem to have extended farther than the southern frontier of Bavaria, or the neighbourhood of Salzburg;[1] but in Asia it formerly reached a higher latitude, having been found even so lately as 1830 in the Amur region where, according to G. F. Radde (Beitr. Kenntn. Russ. Reichs, xxiii. p. 467), it has now left but its name. It is not uncommon on many parts of the Himalayas, where it breeds; and on the mountains of Kumaon and the Punjab, and is the “golden eagle” of most Anglo-Indians. It is found also in Persia, Palestine, Crete and Greece, the Italian Alps, Sicily, Sardinia and Mauritania.

In some external characters the lämmergeyer is intermediate between the families Vulturidae and Falconidae, and the opinion of systematists has from time to time varied as to its proper position. It is now generally agreed, however, that it is more closely allied with the eagles than with the vultures, and the sub-family Gypaëtinae of the Falconidae has been formed to contain it.

The whole length of the bird is from 43 to 46 in., of which, however, about 20 are due to the long cuneiform tail, while the pointed wings measure more than 30 in. from the carpal joint to the tip. The top of the head is white, bounded by black, which, beginning in stiff bristly feathers turned forwards over the base of the beak, proceeds on either side of the face in a well-defined band to the eye, where it bifurcates into two narrow stripes, of which the upper one passes above and beyond that feature till just in front of the scalp it suddenly turns upwards across the head and meets the corresponding stripe from the opposite side, enclosing the white forehead already mentioned, while the lower stripe extends beneath the eye about as far backwards and then suddenly stops. A tuft of black, bristly feathers projects beardlike from the base of the mandible, and gives the bird one of its commonest epithets in many languages. The rest of the head, the neck, throat and lower parts generally are clothed with lanceolate feathers of a pale tawny colour—sometimes so pale as to be nearly white beneath; while the scapulars, back and wing-coverts generally, are of a glossy greyish-black, most of the feathers having a white shaft and a median tawny line. The quill-feathers, both of the wings and tail, are of a dark blackish-grey. The irides are of a light orange, and the sclerotic tunics—equivalent to the “white of the eye” in most animals—which in few birds are visible, are in this very conspicuous and of a bright scarlet, giving it an air of great ferocity. In the young of the year the whole head, neck and throat are clothed in dull black, and most of the feathers of the mantle and wing-coverts are broadly tipped and mesially streaked with tawny or lightish-grey.

The lämmergeyer breeds early in the year. The nest is of large size, built of sticks, lined with soft material and placed on a ledge of rock—a spot being chosen, and often occupied for many years, which is nearly always difficult of access. Here in the month of February a single egg is usually laid. This is more than 3 in. in length by nearly 2½ in breadth, of a pale but lively brownish-orange. The young when in the nest are clad in down of a dirty white, varied with grey on the head and neck, and with ochraceous in the iliac region.

There is much discrepancy as to the ordinary food of the lämmergeyer, some observers maintaining that it lives almost entirely on carrion, offal and even ordure; but there is no question of its frequently taking living prey, and it is reasonable to suppose that this bird, like so many others, is not everywhere uniform in its habits. Its name shows it to be the reputed enemy of shepherds, and it is in some measure owing to their hostility that it has been exterminated in so many parts of its European range. But the lämmergeyer has also a great partiality for bones, which when small enough it swallows. When they are too large, it is said to soar with them to a great height and drop them on a rock or stone that they may be broken into pieces of convenient size. Hence its name ossifrage,[2] by which the Hebrew Peres is rightly translated in the Authorized Version of the Bible (Lev. xi. 13; Deut. xiv. 12)—a word corrupted into osprey, and applied to a bird which has no habit of the kind.

The lämmergeyer of north-eastern and south Africa is specifically distinct, and is known as Gypaetus meridionalis or G. nudipes. In habits it resembles the northern bird, from which it differs in little more than wanting the black stripe below the eye and having the lower part of the tarsus bare of feathers. It is the “golden eagle” of Bruce’s Travels, and has been beautifully figured by Joseph Wolf in E. Rüppell’s Syst. Übers. der Vögel Nord-Ost-Afrika’s (Taf. 1).

(A. N.)

[1] See a paper by Dr Girtanner on this bird in Switzerland (Verhandl. St-Gall. naturw. Gesellschaft, 1869-1870, pp. 147-244).

[2] Among other crimes attributed to the species is that, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. x. cap. 3), of having caused the death of the poet Aeschylus, by dropping a tortoise on his bald head! In the Atlas range the food of this bird is said to consist chiefly of the Testudo mauritanica, which “it carries to some height in the air, and lets fall on a stone to break the shell” (Ibis, 1859, p. 177). It was the ἄρπη and φήνη of Greek classical writers.

LAMOIGNON, a French family, which takes its name from Lamoignon, a place said to have been in its possession since the 13th century. One of its several branches is that of Lamoignon de Malesherbes. Several of the Lamoignons have played important parts in the history of France and the family has been specially distinguished in the legal profession. Guillaume de Lamoignon (1617-1677), attained eminence as a lawyer and became president of the parlement of Paris in 1658. First on the popular, and later on the royalist side during the Fronde, he presided at the earlier sittings of the trial of Fouquet, whom he regarded as innocent, and he was associated with Colbert, whom he was able more than once to thwart. Lamoignon tried to simplify the laws of France and sought the society of men of letters like Boileau and Racine. Having received rich rewards for his public services, he died in Paris on the 10th of December 1677. Guillaume’s second son, Nicolas de Lamoignon (1648-1724), took the surname of Basville. Following his hereditary calling he filled many public offices, serving as intendant of Montauban, of Pau, of Poitiers and of Languedoc before his retirement in 1718. His administration of Languedoc was chiefly remarkable for vigorous measures against the Camisards and other Protestants, but in other directions his work in the south of France was more beneficent, as, following the example of Colbert, he encouraged agriculture and industry generally and did something towards improving the means of communication. He wrote a Mémoire, which contains much interesting information about his public work. This was published at Amsterdam in 1724. Lamoignon, who is called by Saint Simon, “the king and tyrant of Languedoc,” died in Paris on the 17th of May 1724. Chrétien François de Lamoignon (1735-1789) entered public life at an early age and was an actor in the troubles which heralded the Revolution. First on the side of the parlement and later on that of the king he was one of the assistants of Loménie de Brienne, whose unpopularity and fall he shared. He committed suicide on the 15th of May 1789.

LAMONT, JOHANN VON (1805-1879), Scottish-German astronomer and magnetician, was born at Braemar, Aberdeenshire, on the 13th of December 1805. He was sent at the age of twelve to be educated at the Scottish monastery in Regensburg, and apparently never afterwards returned to his native country. His strong bent for scientific studies was recognized by the head of the monastery, P. Deasson, on whose recommendation he was admitted in 1827 to the then new observatory of Bogenhausen (near Munich), where he worked under J. Soldner. After the death of his chief in 1835 he was, on H. C. Schumacher’s recommendation, appointed to succeed him as director of the observatory. In 1852 he became professor of astronomy at the university of Munich, and held both these posts till his death, which took place on the 6th of August 1879. Lamont was a member of the academies of Brussels, Upsala and Prague, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and of many other learned corporations. Among his contributions to astronomy may be noted his eleven zone-catalogues of 34,674 stars, his measurements, in 1836-1837, of nebulae and clusters, and his determination of the mass of Uranus from observations of its satellites (Mem. Astron. Soc. xi. 51, 1838). A magnetic observatory was equipped at Bogenhausen in 1840 through his initiative; he executed comprehensive magnetic surveys 1849-1858; announced the magnetic decennial period in 1850, and his discovery of earth-currents in 1862. His Handbuch des Erdmagnetismus (Berlin, 1849) is a standard work on the subject.

See Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (S. Günther); V. J. Schrift, Astr. Gesellschaft, xv. 60; Monthly Notices Roy. Astr. Society, xl. 203; Nature, xx. 425; Quart. Journal Meteor. Society, vi. 72; Proceedings Roy. Society of Edinburgh, x. 358; The Times (12 Aug., 1879); Sir F. Ronalds’s Cat. of Books relating to Electricity and Magnetism, pp. 281-283; Royal Society’s Cat. of Scientific Papers, vols. iii. vii.

LAMORICIÈRE, CHRISTOPHE LÉON LOUIS JUCHAULT DE (1806-1865), French general, was born at Nantes on the 11th of September 1806, and entered the Engineers in 1828. He served in the Algerian campaigns from 1830 onwards, and by 1840 he had risen to the grade of maréchal-de-camp (major-general). Three years later he was made a general of division. He was one of the most distinguished and efficient of Bugeaud’s generals, rendered special service at Isly (August 14, 1844), acted temporarily as governor-general of Algeria, and finally effected the capture of Abd el-Kader in 1847. Lamoricière took some part in the political events of 1848, both as a member of the Chamber of Deputies and as a military commander. Under the régime of General Cavaignac he was for a time minister of war. From 1848 to 1851 Lamoricière was one of the most conspicuous opponents of the policy of Louis Napoleon, and at the coup d’état of the 2nd of December 1851 he was arrested and exiled. He refused to give in his allegiance to the emperor Napoleon III., and in 1860 accepted the command of the papal army, which he led in the Italian campaign of 1860. On the 18th of September of that year he was severely defeated by the Italian army at Castelfidardo. His last years were spent in complete retirement in France (he had been allowed to return in 1857), and he died at Prouzel (Somme) on the 11th of September 1865.

See E. Keller, Le Général de Lamoricière (Paris, 1873).

LA MOTHE LE VAYER, FRANÇOIS DE (1588-1672), French writer, was born in Paris of a noble family of Maine. His father was an avocat at the parlement of Paris and author of a curious treatise on the functions of ambassadors, entitled Legatus, seu De legatorum privilegiis, officio et munere libellus (1579) and illustrated mainly from ancient history. François succeeded his father at the parlement, but gave up his post about 1647 and devoted himself to travel and belles lettres. His Considérations sur l’éloquence française (1638) procured him admission to the Academy, and his De l’instruction de Mgr. le Dauphin (1640) attracted the attention of Richelieu. In 1649 Anne of Austria entrusted him with the education of her second son and subsequently with the completion of Louis XIV.’s education, which had been very much neglected. The outcome of his pedagogic labours was a series of books comprising the Géographie, Rhétorique, Morale, Économique, Politique, Logique, and Physique du prince (1651-1658). The king rewarded his tutor by appointing him historiographer of France and councillor of state. La Mothe Le Vayer died in Paris. Modest, sceptical, and occasionally obscene in his Latin pieces and in his verses, he made himself a persona grata at the French court, where libertinism in ideas and morals was hailed with relish. Besides his educational works, he wrote Jugement sur les anciens et principaux historiens grecs et latins (1646); a treatise entitled Du peu de certitude qu’il y a en histoire (1668), which in a sense marks the beginning of historical criticism in France; and sceptical Dialogues, published posthumously under the pseudonym of Orosius Tubero. An incomplete edition of his works was published at Dresden in 1756-1759.

See Bayle, Dictionnaire critique, article “Vayer”; L. Étienne, Essai sur La Mothe Le Vayer (Paris, 1849).

LA MOTTE, ANTOINE HOUDAR DE (1672-1731), French author, was born in Paris on the 18th of January 1672. In 1693 his comedy Les Originaux proved a complete failure, which so depressed the author that he contemplated joining the Trappists, but four years later he again began writing operas and ballets, e.g. L’Europe galante (1697), and tragedies, one of which, Inès de Castro (1723), was produced with immense success at the Théâtre Français. He was a champion of the moderns in the revived controversy of the ancients and moderns. Madame Dacier had published (1699) a translation of the Iliad, and La Motte, who knew no Greek, made a translation (1714) in verse founded on her work. The nature of his work may be judged from his own expression: “I have taken the liberty to change what I thought disagreeable in it.” He defended the moderns in the Discours sur Homère prefixed to his translation, and in his Réflexions sur la critique (1716). Apart from the merits of the controversy, it was conducted on La Motte’s side with a wit and politeness which compared very favourably with his opponent’s methods. He was elected to the Academy in 1710, and soon after became blind. La Motte carried on a correspondence with the duchesse du Maine, and was the friend of Fontenelle. He had the same freedom from prejudice, the same inquiring mind as the latter, and it is on the excellent prose in which his views are expressed that his reputation rests. He died in Paris on the 26th of December 1731.

His Œuvres du théâtre (2 vols.) appeared in 1730, and his Œuvres (10 vols.) in 1754. See A. H. Rigault, Histoire de la querelle des anciens et des modernes (1859).

LAMOUREUX, CHARLES (1834-1899), French conductor and violinist, was born at Bordeaux on the 28th of September 1834. He studied at the Pau Conservatoire, was engaged as violinist at the Opéra, and in 1864 organized a series of concerts devoted to chamber music. Having journeyed to England and assisted at a Handel festival, he thought he would attempt something similar in Paris. At his own expense he founded the “Société de l’Harmonie Sacrée,” and in 1873 conducted the first performance in Paris of Handel’s Messiah. He also gave performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, Gounod’s Gallia, and Massenet’s Eve. In 1875 he conducted the festival given at Rouen to celebrate the centenary of Boïeldieu. The following year he became chef d’orchestre at the Opéra Comique. In 1881 he founded the famous concerts associated with his name, which contributed so much to popularize Wagner’s music in Paris. The performances of detached pieces taken from the German master’s works did not, however, satisfy him, and he matured the project to produce Lohengrin, which at that time had not been heard in Paris. For this purpose he took the Eden Theatre, and on the 3rd of May 1887 he conducted the first performance of Wagner’s opera in the French capital. Owing to the opposition of the Chauvinists, the performance was not repeated; but it doubtless prepared the way for the production of the same masterpiece at the Paris Opéra a few years later. Lamoureux was successively second chef d’orchestre at the Conservatoire, first chef d’orchestre at the Opéra Comique, and twice first chef d’orchestre at the Opéra. He visited London on several occasions, and gave successful concerts at the Queen’s Hall. Lamoureux died at Paris on the 21st of December 1899. Tristan und Isolde had been at last heard in Paris, owing to his initiative and under his direction. After conducting one of the performances of this masterpiece he was taken ill and succumbed in a few days, having had the consolation before his death of witnessing the triumph of the cause he had so courageously championed.

LAMP (from Gr. λαμπάς, a torch, λάμπειν, to shine), the general term for an apparatus in which some combustible substance, generally for illuminating purposes, is held. Lamps are usually associated with lighting, though the term is also employed in connexion with heating (e.g. spirit-lamp); and as now employed for oil, gas and electric light, they are dealt with in the article on [Lighting]. From the artistic point of view, in modern times, their variety precludes detailed reference here; but their archaeological history deserves a fuller account.

Fig. 1. Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

Ancient Lamps.—Though Athenaeus states (xv. 700) that the lamp (λύχνος) was not an ancient invention in Greece, it had come into general use there for domestic purposes by the 4th century B.C., and no doubt had long before been employed for temples or other places where a permanent light was required in room of the torch of Homeric times. Herodotus (ii. 62) sees nothing strange in the “festival of lamps,” Lychnokaie, which was held at Sais in Egypt, except in the vast number of them. Each was filled with oil so as to burn the whole night. Again he speaks of evening as the time of lamps (περὶ λύχνων, vii. 215). Still, the scarcity of lamps in a style anything like that of an early period, compared with the immense number of them from the late Greek and Roman age, seems to justify the remark of Athenaeus. The commonest sort of domestic lamps were of terra-cotta and of the shape seen in figs. 1 and 2 with a spout or nozzle (μυκτήρ) in which the wick (θρυαλλίς) burned, a round hole on the top to pour in oil by, and a handle to carry the lamp with. A lamp with two or more spouts was δίμυξος, τρίμυξος, &c., but these terms would not apply strictly to the large class of lamps with numerous holes for wicks but without nozzles. Decoration was confined to the front of the handle, or more commonly to the circular space on the top of the lamp, and it consisted almost always of a design in relief, taken from mythology or legend, from objects of daily life or scenes such as displays of gladiators or chariot races, from animals and the chase. A lamp in the British Museum has a view of the interior of a Roman circus with spectators looking on at a chariot race. In other cases the lamp is made altogether of a fantastic shape, as in the form of an animal, a bull’s head, or a human foot. Naturally colour was excluded from the ornamentation except in the form of a red or black glaze, which would resist the heat. The typical form of hand lamp (figs. 1, 2) is a combination of the flatness necessary for carrying steady and remaining steady when set down, with the roundness evolved from the working in clay and characteristic of vessels in that material. In the bronze lamps this same type is retained, though the roundness was less in keeping with metal. Fanciful shapes are equally common in bronze. The standard form of handle consists of a ring for the forefinger and above it a kind of palmette for the thumb. Instead of the palmette is sometimes a crescent, no doubt in allusion to the moon. It would only be with bronze lamps that the cover protecting the flame from the wind could be used, as was the case out of doors in Athens. Such a lamp was in fact a lantern. Apparently it was to the lantern that the Greek word lampas, a torch, was first transferred, probably from a custom of having guards to protect the torches also. Afterwards it came to be employed for the lamp itself (λύχνος, lucerna). When Juvenal (Sat. iii. 277) speaks of the aenea lampas, he may mean a torch with a bronze handle, but more probably either a lamp or a lantern. Lamps used for suspension were mostly of bronze, and in such cases the decoration was on the under part, so as to be seen from below. Of this the best example is the lamp at Cortona, found there in 1840 (engraved, Monumenti d. inst. arch. iii. pls. 41, 42, and in Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 2nd ed. ii. p. 403). It is set round with sixteen nozzles ornamented alternately with a siren and a satyr playing on a double flute. Between each pair of nozzles is a head of a river god, and on the bottom of the lamp is a large mask of Medusa, surrounded by bands of animals. These designs are in relief, and the workmanship, which appears to belong to the beginning of the 5th century B.C., justifies the esteem in which Etruscan lamps were held in antiquity (Athenaeus xv. 700). Of a later but still excellent style is a bronze lamp in the British Museum found in the baths of Julian in Paris (figs. 3, 4, 5). The chain is attached by means of two dolphins very artistically combined. Under the nozzles are heads of Pan (fig. 3); and from the sides project the foreparts of lions (fig. 5). To what extent lamps may have been used in temples is unknown. Probably the Erechtheum on the acropolis of Athens was an exception in having a gold one kept burning day and night, just as this lamp itself must have been an exception in its artistic merits. It was the work of the sculptor Callimachus, and was made apparently for the newly rebuilt temple a little before 400 B.C. When once filled with oil and lit it burned continuously for a whole year. The wick was of a fine flax called Carpasian (now understood to have been a kind of cotton), which proved to be the least combustible of all flax (Pausanias i. 26. 7). Above the lamp a palm tree of bronze rose to the roof for the purpose of carrying off the fumes. But how this was managed it is not easy to determine unless the palm be supposed to have been inverted and to have hung above the lamp spread out like a reflector, for which purpose the polished bronze would have served fairly well. The stem if left hollow would collect the fumes and carry them out through the roof. This lamp was refilled on exactly the same day each year, so that there seems to have been an idea of measuring time by it, such as may also have been the case in regard to the lamp stand (λύχνειον) capable of holding as many lamps as there were days of the year, which Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant placed in the Prytaneum of Tarentum. At Pharae in Achaia there was in the market-place an oracular statue of Hermes with a marble altar before it to which bronze lamps were attached by means of lead. Whoever desired to consult the statue went there in the evening and first filled the lamps and lit them, placing also a bronze coin on the altar. A similar custom prevailed at the oracle of Apis in Egypt (Pausanias vii. 22. 2). At Argos he speaks of a chasm into which it was a custom continued to his time to let down burning lamps, with some reference to the goddess of the lower world, Persephone (ii. 22. 4). At Cnidus a large number of terra-cotta lamps were found crowded in one place a little distance below the surface, and it was conjectured that there must have been there some statue or altar at which it had been a custom to leave lamps burning at night (Newton, Discoveries at Halicarnassus, &c., ii. 394). These lamps are of terra-cotta, but with little ornamentation, and so like each other in workmanship that they must all have come from one pottery, and may have been all brought to the spot where they were found on one occasion, probably the funeral of a person with many friends, or the celebration of a festival in his honour, such as the parentalia among the Romans, to maintain which it was a common custom to bequeath property. For example, a marble slab in the British Museum has a Latin inscription describing the property which had been left to provide among other things that a lighted lamp with incense on it should be placed at the tomb of the deceased on the kalends, nones and ides of each month (Mus. Marbles, v. pl. 8, fig. 2). For birthday presents terra-cotta lamps appear to have been frequently employed, the device generally being that of two figures of victory holding between them a disk inscribed with a good wish for the new year: ANNV NOV FAVSTV FELIX. This is the inscription on a lamp in the British Museum, which besides the victories has among other symbols a disk with the head of Janus. As the torch gave way to the lamp in fact, so also it gave way in mythology. In the earlier myths, as in that of Demeter, it is a torch with which she goes forth to search for her daughter, but in the late myth of Cupid and Psyche it is an oil lamp which Psyche carries, and from which to her grief a drop of hot oil falls on Cupid and awakes him. Terra-cotta lamps have very frequently the name of the maker stamped on the foot. Clay moulds from which the lamps were made exist in considerable numbers.

(A. S. M.)

LAMP-BLACK, a deep black pigment consisting of carbon in a very fine state of division, obtained by the imperfect combustion of highly carbonaceous substances. It is manufactured from scraps of resin and pitch refuse and inferior oils and fats, and other similar combustible bodies rich in carbon, the finest lamp-black being procured by the combustion of oils obtained in coal-tar distillation (see [Coal-Tar]). Lamp-black is extensively used in the manufacture of printing ink, as a pigment for oil painting and also for “ebonizing” cabinet work, and in the waxing and lacquering of leather. It is the principal constituent of China ink.

LAMPEDUSA, a small island in the Mediterranean, belonging to the province of Girgenti, from which it is about 112 m. S.S.W. Pop. (1901, with Linosa—see below) 2276. Its greatest length is about 7 m., its greatest width about 2 m.; the highest point is 400 ft. above sea-level. Geologically it belongs to Africa, being situated on the edge of the submarine platform which extends along the east coast of Tunisia, from which (at Mahadia) it is 90 m. distant eastwards. The soil is calcareous; it was covered with scrub (chiefly the wild olive) until comparatively recent times, but this has been cut, and the rock is now bare. The valleys are, however, fairly fertile. On the south, near the only village, is the harbour, which has been dredged to a depth of 13 ft. and is a good one for torpedo boats and small craft.

The island was, as remains of hut foundations show, inhabited in prehistoric times. Punic tombs and Roman buildings also exist near the harbour. The island is the Lopadusa of Strabo, and the Lipadosa of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, the scene of the landing of Roger of Sicily and of his conversion by the hermit. A thousand slaves were taken from its population in 1553. In 1436 it was given by Alfonso of Aragon to Don Giovanni de Caro, baron of Montechiaro. In 1661, Ferdinand Tommasi, its then owner, received the title of prince from Charles II. of Spain. In 1737 the earl of Sandwich found only one inhabitant upon it; in 1760 some French settlers established themselves there. Catherine II. of Russia proposed to buy it as a Russian naval station, and the British government thought of doing the same if Napoleon had succeeded in seizing Malta. In 1800 a part of it was leased to Salvatore Gatt of Malta, who in 1810 sublet part of it to Alessandro Fernandez. In 1843 onwards Ferdinand II. of Naples established a colony there. There is now an Italian penal colony for domicilio coatto, with some 400 convicts (see B. Sanvisente, L’Isola di Lampedusa eretta a colonia, Naples, 1849). Eight miles W. is the islet of Lampione. Linosa, some 30 m. to the N.N.E., measures about 2 by 2 m., and is entirely volcanic; its highest point is 610 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) about 200. It has landing-places on the S. and W., and is more fertile than Lampedusa; but it suffers from the lack of springs. Sanvisente says the water in Lampedusa is good. A few fragments of undoubtedly Roman pottery and some Roman coins have been found there, but the cisterns and the ruins of houses are probably of later date (P. Calcara, Descrizione dell’ isola di Linosa, Palermo, 1851, 29).

(T. As.)

LAMPERTHEIM, a town in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, 8 m. N. from Mannheim by the railway to Frankfort-on-Main via Biblis, and at the junction of lines to Worms and Weinheim. It contains a Roman Catholic church and a fine Evangelical church, and has chemical and cigar factories. Pop. (1900) 8020.

LAMPETER (Llanbedr-pont-Stephan), a market town, municipal borough and assize town of Cardiganshire, Wales, on the right bank of the Teifi, here crossed by an ancient stone bridge. Pop. (1901) 1722. Lampeter is a station on the so-called Manchester-and-Milford branch line of the Great Western railway. Though of ancient origin, the town is entirely modern in appearance, its most conspicuous object being the Gothic buildings of St David’s College, founded in 1822, which cover a large area and contain a valuable library of English, Welsh and foreign works (see [Universities]). The modernized parish church of St Peter, or Pedr, contains some old monuments of the Lloyd family. North of the town are the park and mansion of Falcondale, the seat of the Harford family.

The name of Llanbedr-pont-Stephan goes to prove the early foundation of the place by St Pedr, a Celtic missionary of the 6th century, while one Stephen was the original builder of the bridge over the Teifi. As an important outpost in the upper valley of the Teifi, Lampeter possessed a castle, which was demolished by Owen Gwynedd in the 12th century. In 1188 the town was visited by Archbishop Baldwin on his way from Cardigan to Strata-Florida Abbey, and the Crusade was vigorously preached at this spot. Lampeter was first incorporated under Edward II., but the earliest known charter dates from the reign of Henry VI., whereby the principal officer of the town, a portreeve, was to be appointed annually at the court-leet of the manor. The town was subsequently governed under a confirmatory charter of 1814, but in 1884 a new charter was obtained, whereby the corporation was empowered to consist of a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Although only a small agricultural centre, Lampeter has since 1886 become the assize town of Cardiganshire owing to its convenient position. Until the Redistribution Act of 1885 Lampeter formed one of the group of boroughs comprising the Cardigan parliamentary district.

LAMPOON, a virulent satire either in prose or verse; the idea of injustice and unscrupulousness seems to be essential to its definition. Although in its use the word is properly and almost exclusively English, the derivation appears to be French. Littré derives it from a term of Parisian argot, lamper, to drink, greedily, in great mouthfuls. This word appears to have begun to be prevalent in the middle of the 17th century, and Furetière has preserved a fragment from a popular song, which says:—

—that is to say, let us drink heavily, and begone dull care. Scarron speaks of a wild troop, singing leridas and lampons. There is, also, a rare French verb, lamponner, to attack with ridicule, used earlier in the 17th century by Brantôme. In its English form, lampoon, the word is used by Evelyn in 1645, “Here they still paste up their drolling lampoons and scurrilous papers,” and soon after it is a verb,—“suppose we lampooned all the pretty women in Town.” Both of these forms, the noun and the verb, have been preserved ever since in English, without modification, for violent and reckless literary censure. Tom Brown (1663-1704) was a past master in the art of lampooning, and some of his attacks on the celebrities of his age have a certain vigour. When Dryden became a Roman Catholic, Brown wrote:—

Several of the heroes of the Dunciad, and in particular John Oldmixon (1673-1742), were charged without unfairness with being professional lampooners. The coarse diatribes which were published by Richard Savage (1697-1743), mainly against Lady Macclesfield, were nothing more nor less than lampoons, and the word may with almost equal justice be employed to describe the coarser and more personal portions of the satires of Churchill. As a rule, however, the lampoon possessed no poetical graces, and in its very nature was usually anonymous. The notorious Essay on Woman (1764) of John Wilkes was a lampoon, and was successfully proceeded against as an obscene libel. The progress of civilization and the discipline of the law made it more and more impossible for private malice to take the form of baseless and scurrilous attack, and the lampoon, in its open shape, died of public decency in the 18th century. Malice, especially in an anonymous form, and passing in manuscript from hand to hand, has continued, however, to make use of this very unlovely form of literature. It has constantly reappeared at times of political disturbance, and the French have seldom failed to exercise their wicked wit upon their unpopular rulers. See also [Pasquinade].

(E. G.)

LAMPREY, a fish belonging to the family Petromyzontidae (from πέτρος and μύζω, literally, stone-suckers), which with the hag-fishes or Myxinidae forms a distinct subclass of fishes, the Cyclostomata, distinguished by the low organization of their skeleton, which is cartilaginous, without vertebral segmentation, without ribs or real jaws, and without limbs. The lampreys are readily recognized by their long, eel-like, scaleless body, terminating anteriorly in the circular, suctorial mouth characteristic of the whole sub-class. On each side, behind the head, there is a row of seven branchial openings, through which the water is conveyed to and from the gills. By means of their mouth they fasten to stones, boats, &c., as well as to other fishes, their object being to obtain a resting-place on the former, whilst they attach themselves to the latter to derive nourishment from them. The inner surface of their cup-shaped mouth is armed with pointed teeth, with which they perforate the integuments of the fish attacked, scraping off particles of the flesh and sucking the blood. Mackerel, cod, pollack and flat-fishes are the kinds most frequently attacked by them in the sea; of river-fish the migratory Salmonidae and the shad are sometimes found with the marks of the teeth of the lamprey, or with the fish actually attached to them. About fifteen species are known from the coasts and rivers of the temperate regions of the northern and southern hemispheres. In Great Britain and Europe generally three species occur, viz. the large spotted sea-lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), the river-lamprey or lampern (P. fluviatilis), and the small lampern or “pride” or “sand-piper” (P. branchialis). The first two are migratory, entering rivers in the spring to spawn; of the river-lamprey, however, specimens are met with in fresh water all the year round. In North America about ten species of lamprey occur, while in South America and Australasia still others are found. Lampreys, especially the sea-lamprey, are esteemed as food, formerly more so than at present; but their flesh is not easy of digestion. Henry I. of England is said to have fallen a victim to this, his favourite dish. The species of greatest use is the river-lamprey, which as bait is preferred to all others in the cod and turbot fisheries of the North Sea. Yarrell states that formerly the Thames alone supplied from 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 lamperns annually, but their number has so much fallen off that, for instance, in 1876 only 40,000 were sold to the cod-fishers. That year, however, was an unusually bad year; the lamperns, from their scarcity, fetched £8, 10s. a thousand, whilst in ordinary years £5 is considered a fair price. The season for catching lamperns closes in the Thames about the middle of March. The origin of the name lamprey is obscure; it is an adaptation of Fr. lamproie, Med. Lat. lampreda; this has been taken as a variant of another Med. Lat. form Lampetra, which occurs in ichthyological works of the middle ages; the derivation from lambere petras, to lick stones, is a specimen of etymological ingenuity. The development of lampreys has received much attention on the part of naturalists, since Aug. Müller discovered that they undergo a metamorphosis, and that the minute worm-like lamperns previously known under the name of Ammocoetes, and abundant in the sand and mud of many streams, were nothing but the undeveloped young of the river-lampreys and small lamperns. See [Cyclostomata].

LAMPROPHYRES (from Gr. λαμπρός, bright, and the terminal part of the word porphyry, meaning rocks containing bright porphyritic crystals), a group of rocks containing phenocrysts, usually of biotite and hornblende (with bright cleavage surfaces), often also of olivine and augite, but not of felspar. They are thus distinguished from the porphyries and porphyrites in which the felspar has crystallized in two generations. They are essentially “dike rocks,” occurring as dikes and thin sills, and are also found as marginal facies of plutonic intrusions. They furnish a good example of the correlation which often exists between petrographical types and their mode of occurrence, showing the importance of physical conditions in determining the mineralogical and structural characters of rocks. They are usually dark in colour, owing to the abundance of ferro-magnesian silicates, of relatively high specific gravity and liable to decomposition. For these reasons they have been defined as a melanocrate series (rich in the dark minerals); and they are often accompanied by a complementary leucocrate series (rich in the white minerals felspar and quartz) such as aplites, porphyries and felsites. Both have been produced by differentiation of a parent magma, and if the two complementary sets of rocks could be mixed in the right proportions, it is presumed that a mass of similar chemical composition to the parent magma would be produced.

Both in the hand specimens and in microscopic slides of lamprophyric rocks biotite and hornblende are usually conspicuous. Though black by reflected light they are brown by transmitted light and highly pleochroic. In some cases they are yellow-brown, in other cases chestnut-brown and reddish brown; in the same rock the two minerals have strikingly similar colour and pleochroism. Augite, when it occurs, is sometimes green, at other times purple. Felspar is restricted to the ground mass; quartz occurs sometimes but is scarce. Although porphyritic structure is almost universal, it is sometimes not very marked. The large biotites and hornblendes are not sharply distinct from those of intermediate size, which in turn graduate into the small crystals of the same minerals in the ground mass. As a rule all the ingredients have rather perfect crystalline forms (except quartz), hence these rocks have been called “panidiomorphic.” In many lamprophyres the pale quartz and felspathic ingredients tend to occur in rounded spots, or ocelli, in which there has been progressive crystallization from the margins towards the centre. These spots may consist of radiate or brush-like felspars (with some mica and hornblende) or of quartz and felspar. A central area of quartz or of analcite probably represents an original miarolitic cavity infilled at a later period.

There are two great groups of lamprophyres differing in composition while retaining the general features of the class. One of these accompanies intrusions of granite and diorite and includes the minettes, kersantites, vogesites and spessartites. The other is found in association with nepheline syenites, essexites and teschenites, and is exemplified by camptonites, monchiquites and alnoites. The complementary facies of the first group is the aplites, porphyrites and felsites; that of the second group includes bostonites, tinguaites and other rocks.

The granito-dioritic-lamprophyres (the first of these two groups) are found in many districts where granites and diorites occur, e.g. the Scottish Highlands and Southern Uplands, the Lake district, Ireland, the Vosges, Black Forest, Harz, &c. As a rule they do not proceed directly from the granite, but form separate dikes which may be later than, and consequently may cut, the granites and diorites. In other districts where granites are abundant no rocks of this class are known. It is rare to find only one member of the group present, but minettes, vogesites, kersantites, &c., all appear and there are usually transitional forms. For this reason these rock species must not be regarded as sharply distinct from one another. The group as a whole is a well-characterized one and shows few transitions to porphyries, porphyrites and other dike types; its subdivisions, however, tend to merge into one another and especially when they are weathered are hard to differentiate. The presence or absence of the four dominant minerals, orthoclase, plagioclase, biotite and hornblende, determines the species. Minettes contain biotite and orthoclase; kersantites, biotite and plagioclase. Vogesites contain hornblende and orthoclase; spessartites, hornblende and plagioclase. Each variety of lamprophyre may and often does contain all four minerals but is named according to the two which preponderate. These rocks contain also iron oxides (usually titaniferous), apatite, sometimes sphene, augite and olivine. The hornblende and biotite are brown or greenish brown, and as a rule their crystals even when small are very perfect and give the micro-sections an easily recognizable character. Green hornblende occurs in some of these rocks. The augite builds eumorphic crystals of pale green colour, often zonal and readily weathering. Olivine in the fresh state is rare; it forms rounded, corroded grains; in many cases it is decomposed to green or colourless hornblende in radiating nests (pilite). The plagioclase occurs as small rectangular crystals; orthoclase may have similar shapes or may be fibrous and grouped in sheaflike aggregates which are narrow in the middle and spread out towards both ends. If quartz is present it is the last product of crystallization and the only mineral devoid of idiomorphism; it fills up the spaces between the other ingredients of the rock. As all lamprophyres are prone to alteration by weathering a great abundance of secondary minerals is usually found in them; the principal are calcite and other carbonates, limonite, chlorite, quartz and kaolin.

Ocellar structure is common; the ocelli consist mainly of orthoclase and quartz, and may be a quarter of an inch in diameter. Another feature of these rocks is the presence of large foreign crystals or xenocrysts of felspar and of quartz. Their forms are rounded, indicating partial resorption by the solvent action of the lamprophyric magma; and the quartz may be surrounded by corrosion borders of minerals such as augite and hornblende produced where the magma is attacking the crystal. These crystals are of doubtful origin; they are often of considerable size and may be conspicuous in hand-specimens of the rocks. It is supposed that they did not crystallize in the lamprophyre dike but in some way were caught up by it. Other enclosures, more certainly of foreign origin, are often seen, such as quartzite, schists, garnetiferous rocks, granite, &c. These may be baked and altered or in other cases partly dissolved. Cordierite may be formed either in the enclosure or in the lamprophyre, where it takes the shape of hexagonal prisms which in polarized light break up into six sectors, triangular in shape, diverging from the centre of the crystal.

The second group of lamprophyric dike rocks (the camptonite, monchiquite, alnoite series) is much less common than those above described. As a rule they occur together, and there are transitions between the different sub-groups as in the granito-dioritic lamprophyres. In Sweden, Brazil, Portugal, Norway, the north of Scotland, Bohemia, Arkansas and other places this assemblage of rock types has been met with, always presenting nearly identical features. In most cases, though not in all, they have a close association with nepheline or leucite syenites and similar rocks rich in alkalies. This indicates a genetic affinity like that which exists between the granites and the minettes, &c., and further proof of this connexion is furnished by the occasional occurrence in those lamprophyres of leucite, haüyne and other felspathoid minerals.

The camptonites (called after Campton, New Hampshire) are dark brown, nearly black rocks often with large hornblende phenocrysts. Their essential minerals in thin section are hornblende of a strong reddish-brown colour; augite purple, pleochroic and rich in titanium, olivine and plagioclase felspar. They have the porphyritic and panidiomorphic structures described in the rocks of the previous group, and like them also have an ocellar character, often very conspicuous under the microscope. The accessory minerals are biotite, apatite, iron oxides and analcite. They decompose readily and are then filled with carbonates. Many of these rocks prove on analysis to be exceedingly rich in titanium; they may contain 4 or 5% of titanium dioxide.

The monchiquites (called after the Serra de Monchique, Portugal) are fine-grained and devoid of felspar. Their essential constituents are olivine and purplish augite. Brown hornblende, like that of the camptonites, occurs in many of them. An interstitial substance is present, which may sometimes be a brown glass, but at other times is colourless and is believed by some petrographers to be primary crystalline analcite. They would define the monchiquites as rocks consisting of olivine, augite and analcite; others regard the analcite as secondary, and consider the base as essentially glassy. Some monchiquites contain haüyne; while in others small leucites are found. Ocellar structure is occasionally present, though less marked than in the camptonites. A special group of monchiquites rich in deep brown biotite has been called fourchites (after the Fourche Mountains, Arkansas).

The alnoites (called after the island of Alnö in Norway) are rare rocks found in Norway, Montreal and other parts of North America and in the north of Scotland. They contain olivine, augite, brown biotite and melilite. They are free from felspar, and contain very low percentages of silica.

The chemical composition of some of these rocks will be indicated by the analyses of certain well-known examples.

In addition to the oxides given these rocks contain small quantities of water (combined and hygroscopic), CO2, S, MnO, P2O5, Ca2O3, &c.

(J. S. F.)

[1] I. Minette (Weiler, Alsace). II. Kersantite (Neubrunn, Thuringia). III. Vogesite (Castle Mountain, Montana). IV. Spessartite (Waldmichael, Spessart). V. Camptonite (Campton Falls). VI. Monchiquite (Ria do Ouro, Serra de Tingua). VII. Alnöite (Alnö, Sweden).

LAMPSACUS, an ancient Greek colony in Mysia, Asia Minor, known as Pityusa or Pityussa before its colonization by Ionian Greeks from Phocaea and Miletus, was situated on the Hellespont, opposite Callipolis (Gallipoli) in Thrace. It possessed a good harbour; and the neighbourhood was famous for its wine, so that, having fallen into the hands of the Persians during the Ionian revolt, it was assigned by Artaxerxes I. to Themistocles to provide him with wine, as Percote did with meat and Magnesia with bread. After the battle of Mycale (479 B.C.), Lampsacus joined the Athenians, but, having revolted from them in 411, was reduced by force. It was defended in 196 B.C. against Antiochus the Great of Syria, after which its inhabitants were received as allies of Rome. Lampsacus was the chief seat of the worship of Priapus, a gross nature-god closely connected with the culture of the vine. The ancient name is preserved in that of the modern village of Lapsaki, but the Greek town possibly lay at Chardak immediately opposite Gallipoli.

See A. L. Castellan, Lettres sur la Morée, l’Hellespont, &c. (Paris, 1820); Choiseul Gouffier, Voyage pittoresque dans l’empire ottoman (1842).

LAMPSTAND, a pillar, tripod or figure extending to the floor for supporting or holding a lamp. The lampstand (lampadère) is probably of French origin; it appears to have been in use in France before the end of the 17th century.

LANARK, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and county town of Lanarkshire, Scotland, standing on high ground about half a mile from the right bank of the Clyde, 31 m. S.E. of Glasgow by the Caledonian railway. Pop. (1901) 6440. It is a favourite holiday resort, being the point from which the falls of the Clyde are usually visited. The principal buildings are the town hall, the county buildings, the assembly rooms, occupying the site of an old Franciscan monastery, three hospitals, a convalescent home, the Smyllum orphanage and the Queen Victoria Jubilee fountain. The industries include cotton-spinning, weaving, nail-making and oilworks, and there are frequent markets for cattle and sheep. Lanark is a place of considerable antiquity. Kenneth II. held a parliament here in 978, and it was sometimes the residence of the Scottish kings, one of whom, William the Lion (d. 1214), granted it a charter. Several of the earlier exploits of William Wallace were achieved in the neighbourhood. He burned the town and slew the English sheriff William Hezelrig. About 1 m. N.W. are Cartland Craigs, where Mouse Water runs through a precipitous red sandstone ravine, the sides of which are about 400 ft. high. The stream is crossed by a bridge of single span, supposed to be Roman, and by a three-arched bridge, designed by Thomas Telford and erected in 1823. On the right bank, near this bridge, is the cave in which Wallace concealed himself after killing Hezelrig and which still bears his name. Lanark was the centre of much activity in the days of the Covenanters. William Lithgow (1582-1645), the traveller, William Smellie (1697-1763), the obstetrician and Gavin Hamilton (1730-1797), the painter, were born at Lanark. The town is one of the Falkirk district group of parliamentary burghs, the other constituents being Airdrie, Hamilton, Falkirk and Linlithgow.

New Lanark (pop. 795), 1 m. S., is famous in connexion with the socialist experiments of Robert Owen. The village was founded by David Dale (1739-1806) in 1785, with the support of Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning-frame, who thought the spot might be made the Manchester of Scotland. In ten years four cotton mills were running, employing nearly 1400 hands. They were sold in 1799 to a Manchester company, who appointed Owen manager. In the same year he married Dale’s daughter. For many years the mills were successfully conducted, but friction ultimately arose and Owen retired in 1828. The mills, however, are still carried on.

There are several interesting places near Lanark. Braxfield, on the Clyde, gave the title of Lord Braxfield to Robert Macqueen (1722-1799), who was born in the mansion and acquired on the bench the character of the Scottish Jeffreys. Robert Baillie, the patriot who was executed for conscience’ sake (1684), belonged to Jerviswood, an estate on the Mouse. Lee House, the home of the Lockharts, is 3 m. N.W. The old castle was largely rebuilt in the 19th century. It contains some fine tapestry and portraits, and the Lee Penny—familiar to readers of Sir Walter Scott’s Talisman—which was brought from Palestine in the 14th century by the Crusading knight, Sir Simon Lockhart. It is described as a cornelian encased in a silver coin. Craignethan Castle on the Nethan, a left-hand tributary joining the Clyde at Crossford, is said to be the original of the “Tillietudiem” of Scott’s Old Mortality.

LANARKSHIRE, a south-western county of Scotland, bounded N. by the shires of Dumbarton and Stirling, E. by Linlithgowshire, Mid-Lothian and Peeblesshire, S. by Dumfriesshire and W. by the counties of Ayr, Renfrew and Dumbarton. Its area is 879 sq. m. (562,821 acres). It may be described as embracing the valley of the Clyde; and, in addition to the gradual descent from the high land in the south, it is also characterized by a gentle slope towards both banks of the river. The shire is divided into three wards, the Upper, comprising all the southern section, or more than half the whole area (over 330,000 acres); the Middle, with Hamilton for its chief town, covering fully 190,000 acres; and the Lower, occupying the northern area of about 40,000 acres. The surface falls gradually from the uplands in the south to the Firth of Clyde. The highest hills are nearly all on or close to the borders of Peeblesshire and Dumfriesshire, and include Culter Fell (2454 ft.) and Lowther Hill (2377). The loftiest heights exclusively belonging to Lanarkshire are Green Lowther (2403), Tinto (2335), Ballencleuch Law (2267), Rodger Law (2257), Dun Law (2216), Shiel Dod (2190), Dungrain Law (2186) and Comb Law (2107). The principal rivers are the Clyde and its head waters and affluents (on the right, the Medwin, Mouse, South Calder, North Calder and Kelvin; on the left, the Douglas, Nethan, Avon, Rotten Calder and Cart). There are no lochs of considerable size, the few sheets of water in the north—Woodend Reservoir, Bishop Loch, Hogganfield Loch, Woodend Loch, Lochend Loch—mainly feeding the Monkland and the Forth and Clyde Canals. The most famous natural features are the Falls of Clyde at Bonnington, Corra, Dundaff and Stonebyres.

Geology.—The southern upland portion is built up of Silurian and Ordovician rocks; the northern lower-lying tracts are formed of Carboniferous and Old Red Sandstone rocks. Ordovician strata cross the county from S.W. to N.E. in a belt 5-7 m. in breadth which is brought up by a fault against the Old Red and the Silurian on the northern side. This fault runs by Lamington, Roberton and Crawfordjohn. The Ordovician rocks lie in a synclinal fold with beds of Caradoc age in the centre flanked by graptolitic shales, grits and conglomerates, including among the last-named the local “Haggis-rock”; the well-known lead mines of Leadhills are worked in these formations. Silurian shales and sandstones, &c., extend south of the Ordovician belt to the county boundary; and again, on the northern side of the Ordovician belt two small tracts appear through the Old Red Sandstone on the crests of anticlinal folds. The Old Red Sandstone covers an irregular tract north of the Ordovician belt; a lower division consisting of sandstone, conglomerates and mud-stones is the most extensively developed; above this is found a series of contemporaneous porphyrites and melaphyres, conformable upon the lower division in the west of the county but are not so in the east. An upper series of sandstones and grits is seen for a short distance west of Lamington. Lanark stands on the Old Red Sandstone and the Falls of Clyde occur in the same rocks. Economically the most important geological feature is the coal basin of the Glasgow district. The axis of this basin lies in a N.E.-S.W. direction; in the central part, including Glasgow, Airdrie, Motherwell, Wishaw, Carluke, lie the coal-measures, consisting of sandstones, shales, marls and fireclays with seams of coal and ironstone. There are eleven beds of workable coal, the more important seams being the Ell, Main, Splint, Pyotshaw and Virtuewell. Underlying the coal-measures is the Millstone Grit seen on the northern side between Glenboig and Hogganfield—here the fireclays of Garnkirk, Gartcosh and Glenboig are worked—and on the south and south-east of the coal-measures, but not on the western side, because it is there cut out by a fault. Beneath the last-named formation comes the Carboniferous Limestone series with thin coals and ironstones, and again beneath this is the Calciferous Sandstone series which in the south-east consists of sandstones, shales, &c., but in the west the greater part of the series is composed of interbedded volcanic rocks—porphyrites and melaphyres. It will be observed that in general the younger formations lie nearer the centre of the basin and the older ones crop out around them. Besides the volcanic rocks mentioned there are intrusive basalts in the Carboniferous rocks like that in the neighbourhood of Shotts, and the smaller masses at Hogganfield near Glasgow and elsewhere. Volcanic necks are found in the Carluke and Kilcadzow districts, marking the vents of former volcanoes and several dikes of Tertiary age traverse the older rocks. An intrusion of pink felsite in early Old Red times has been the cause of Tinto Hill. Evidences of the Glacial period are abundant in the form of kames and other deposits of gravel, sand and boulder clay. The ice in flowing northward and southward from the higher ground took an easterly direction when it reached the lower ground. In the lower reaches of the Clyde the remains of old beaches at 25, 50 and 100 ft. above the present sea-level are to be observed.

Climate and Agriculture.—The rainfall averages 42 in. annually, being higher in the hill country and lower towards the north. The temperature for the year averages 48° F., for January 38° and for July 59°. The area under grain has shown a downward tendency since 1880. Oats is the principal crop, but barley and wheat are also grown. Potatoes and turnips are raised on a large scale. In the Lower Ward market-gardening has increased considerably, and the quantity of vegetables, grapes and tomatoes reared under glass has reached great proportions. An ancient industry in the vale of the Clyde for many miles below Lanark is the cultivation of fruit, several of the orchards being said to date from the time of Bede. The apples and pears are of good repute. There has been a remarkable extension in the culture of strawberries, hundreds of acres being laid down in beds. The sheep walks in the upper and middle wards are heavily stocked and the herds of cattle are extensive, the favoured breeds being Ayrshire and a cross between this and “improved Lanark.” Dairy-farming flourishes, the cheeses of Carnwath and Lesmahagow being in steady demand. Clydesdale draught-horses are of high class. They are supposed to have been bred from Flanders horses imported early in the 18th century by the 5th duke of Hamilton. Most of the horses are kept for agricultural work, but a considerable number of unbroken horses and mares are maintained for stock. Pigs are numerous, being extensively reared by the miners. The largest farms are situated in the Upper Ward, but the general holding runs from 50 to 100 acres. More than 21,000 acres are under wood.

Other Industries.—The leading industries are those in connexion with the rich and extensive coal and iron field to the east and southeast of Glasgow; the shipbuilding at Govan and Partick and in Glasgow harbour; the textiles at Airdrie, Blantyre, Hamilton, Lanark, New Lanark, Rutherglen and Glasgow; engineering at Cambuslang, Carluke, Coatbridge, Kinning Park, Motherwell and Wishaw, and the varied and flourishing manufactures centred in and around Glasgow.

Communications.—In the north of the county, where population is most dense and the mineral field exceptionally rich, railway facilities are highly developed, there being for 10 or 12 m. around Glasgow quite a network of lines. The Caledonian Railway Company’s main line to the south runs through the whole length of the shire, sending off branches at several points, especially at Carstairs Junction. The North British Railway Company serves various towns in the lower and middle wards and its lines to Edinburgh cross the northwestern corner and the north of the county. Only in the immediate neighbourhood of Glasgow does the Glasgow and South Western system compete for Lanarkshire traffic, though it combines with the Caledonian to work the Mid-Lanarkshire and Ayrshire railway. The Monkland Canal in the far north and the Forth and Clyde Canal in the north and north-west carry a considerable amount of goods, and before the days of railways afforded one of the principal means of communication between east and west.

Population and Administration.—The population amounted in 1891 to 1,105,899 and in 1901 to 1,339,327, or 1523 persons to the sq. m. Thus though only tenth in point of extent, it is much the most populous county in Scotland, containing within its bounds nearly one-third of the population of the country. In 1901 there were 104 persons speaking Gaelic only, and 26,905 speaking Gaelic and English. The chief towns, with populations in 1901, apart from Glasgow, are Airdrie (22,288), Cambuslang (12,252), Coatbridge (36,991), Govan (82,174), Hamilton (32,775), Kinning Park (13,852), Larkhall (11,879), Motherwell (30,418), Partick (54,298), Rutherglen (17,220), Shettleston (12,154), Wishaw (20,873). Among smaller towns are Bellshill, Carluke, Holytown, Lanark, Stonefield, Tollcross and Uddingston; and Lesmahagow and East Kilbride are populous villages and mining centres. The county is divided into six parliamentary divisions:—North-east, North-west, Mid and South Lanark, Govan and Partick each returning one member. The royal burghs are Glasgow, Lanark and Rutherglen; the municipal and police burghs Airdrie, Biggar, Coatbridge, Glasgow, Govan, Hamilton, Kinning Park, Lanark, Motherwell, Partick, Rutherglen and Wishaw. Glasgow returns seven members to Parliament; Airdrie, Hamilton and Lanark belong to the Falkirk group and Rutherglen to the Kilmarnock group of parliamentary burghs. Lanarkshire is a sheriffdom, whose sheriff-principal is confined to his judicial duties in the county, and he has eight substitutes, five of whom sit constantly in Glasgow, and one each at Airdrie, Hamilton and Lanark. The shire is under school-board jurisdiction, many schools earning grants for higher education. For advanced education, besides the university and many other institutions in Glasgow there are a high school in Hamilton, and technical schools at Coatbridge and Wishaw. The county council expends the “residue” grant in supporting lectures and classes in agriculture and agricultural chemistry, mining, dairying, cookery, laundry work, nursery and poultry-keeping, in paying fees and railway fares and providing bursaries for technical students, and in subsidizing science and art and technical classes in day and evening schools. A director of technical education is maintained by the council. Lanark, Motherwell and Biggar entrust their shares of the grant to the county council, and Coatbridge and Airdrie themselves subsidize science and art and evening classes and continuation schools.

History.—At an early period Lanarkshire was inhabited by a Celtic tribe, the Damnonii, whose territory was divided by the wall of Antoninus between the Forth and Clyde (remains of which are found in the parish of Cadder), but who were never wholly subjugated by the Romans. Traces of their fortifications, mounds and circles exist, while stone axes, bronze celts, querns and urns belonging to their age are occasionally unearthed. Of the Romans there are traces in the camp on Beattock summit near Elvanfoot, in the fine bridge over the Mouse near Lanark, in the road to the south of Strathaven, in the wall already mentioned and in the coins and other relics that have been dug up. After their departure the country which included Lanarkshire formed part of the kingdom of Strathclyde, which, in the 7th century, was subdued by Northumbrian Saxons, when great numbers of the Celts migrated into Wales. The county once embraced a portion of Renfrewshire, but this was disjoined in the time of Robert III. The shire was then divided into two wards, the Over (with Lanark as its chief town) and the Nether (with Rutherglen as its capital). The present division into three wards was not effected till the 18th century. Independently of Glasgow, Lanarkshire has not borne any part continuously in the general history of Scotland, but has been the scene of several exciting episodes. Many of Wallace’s daring deeds were performed in the county, Queen Mary met her fate at Langside (1568) and the Covenanters received constant support from the people, defeating Claverhouse at Drumclog (1679), but suffering defeat themselves at Bothwell Brig (1679).

See W. Hamilton, Description of the Sheriffdoms of Lanark and Renfrew, Maitland Club (1831); C. V. Irving and A. Murray, The Upper Ward of Lanarkshire (Glasgow, 1864); The Clydesdale Stud Book (Glasgow); W. A. Cowan, History of Lanark (Lanark, 1867); Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Lanark (Glasgow, 1893).

LANCASHIRE, a north-western county of England, bounded N.E. by Westmorland, E. by Yorkshire, S. by Cheshire, W. by the Irish Sea and N.W. by Cumberland. The area is 1880.2 sq. m., the county being the sixth in size in England. The coast is generally flat, and broken by great inlets, with wide expanses of sandy foreshore at low tide. The chief inlets, from N. to S., are—the estuary of the river Duddon, which, with the river itself, separates the county from Cumberland; Morecambe Bay; and the estuaries of the Ribble and the Mersey. Morecambe Bay receives the rivers Crake and Leven in a common estuary, and the Kent from Westmorland; while the Lune and the Wyre discharge into Lancaster Bay, which is only partially separated from Morecambe Bay by the promontory of Red Nab. Morecambe Bay also detaches from the rest of the county the district of Furness (q.v.), extending westward to the Duddon, and having off its coast the island of Walney, 8 m. in length, and several small isles within the strait between Walney and the mainland. The principal seaside resorts and watering-places, from S. to N., are Southport, Lytham, St Anne’s-on-the-Sea, Blackpool, Fleetwood and Morecambe; while at the head of Morecambe Bay are several pleasant villages frequented by visitors, such as Arnside and Grange. Of the rivers the Mersey (q.v.), separating the county from Cheshire, is the principal, and receives from Lancashire the Irwell, Sankey and other small streams. The Ribble, which rises in the mountains of the West Riding of Yorkshire, forms for a few miles the boundary with that county, and then flows S.W. to Preston, receiving the Hodder from the N. and the Calder and Darwen from the S. Lancashire has a share in two of the English districts most famous for their scenery, but does not include the finest part of either. Furness, entirely hilly except for a narrow coastal tract, extends N. to include the southern part of the Lake District (q.v.); it contains Coniston Lake and borders Windermere, which are drained respectively by the Leven and Crake, with some smaller lakes and such mountains as the Old Man and Wetherlam. Another elevated district, forming part of a mountainous chain stretching from the Scottish border, covered by the name of Pennine uplands in its broader application, runs along the whole eastern boundary of the main portion of the county, and to the south of the Ribble occupies more than half the area, stretching west nearly to Liverpool. The moorlands in the southern district are generally bleak and covered with heather. Towards the north the scenery is frequently beautiful, the green rounded elevated ridges being separated by pleasant cultivated valleys variegated by woods and watered by rivers. None of the summits of the range within Lancashire attains an elevation of 2000 ft., the highest being Blackstone Edge (1523 ft.), Pendle Hill (1831 ft.) and Boulsworth Hill (1700 ft.).

Along the sea-coast from the Mersey to Lancaster there is a continuous plain formerly occupied by peat mosses, many of which have been reclaimed. The largest is Chat Moss between Liverpool and Manchester. In some instances these mosses have exhibited the phenomenon of a moving bog. A large district in the north belonging to the duchy of Lancaster was at one time occupied by forests, but these have wholly disappeared, though their existence is recalled in nomenclature, as in the Forest of Rossendale, near the Yorkshire boundary somewhat south of the centre.

Geology.—The greater part of Lancashire, the central and eastern portions, is occupied by Carboniferous rocks; a broad belt of Triassic strata fringes the west and south; while most of the detached northern portion is made up of Silurian and Ordovician formations. The Carboniferous system includes the great coal-field in which are gathered all the principal manufacturing towns, Colne, Burnley, Blackburn, Chorley, Wigan, Bolton, Preston, Oldham, Rochdale and Manchester. In the centre of the coal-field is an elevated moorland tract formed of the grits and shales of the Millstone Grit series. Part of the small coal-field of Ingleton also lies within the county. Between these two coal basins there is a moderately hilly district in which grits and black shales predominate, with a broad tract of limestone and shales which are well exposed in the quarries at Clitheroe and at Longridge, Chipping, Whalley and Downham. The limestone again appears in the north at Bolton-le-Sands, Burton-in-Kendall, Grange, Ulverston and Dalton-in-Furness. Large pockets of rich iron ore are worked in the limestone in the Furness district. The belt of Trias includes the Bunter sandstone and conglomerate, which ranges from Barrow-in-Furness, through Garstang, Preston, Ormskirk, Liverpool, Warrington and Salford; and Keuper marls, which underlie the surface between the Bunter outcrop and the sea. On the coast there is a considerable development of blown sand between Blackpool and Lytham and between Southport and Seaforth. North of Broughton-in-Furness, Ulverston and Cartmel are the Silurian rocks around Lakes Windermere and Coniston Water, including the Coniston grits and flags and the Brathay flags. These rocks are bounded by the Ordovician Coniston limestone, ranging north-east and south-west, and the volcanic series of Borrowdale. A good deal of the solid geology is obscured in many places by glacial drift, boulder clay and sands.

The available coal supply of Lancashire has been estimated at about five thousand millions of tons. In 1852 the amount raised was 8,225,000 tons; in 1899 it was 24,387,475 tons. In the production of coal Lancashire vies with Yorkshire, but each is about one-third below Durham. There are also raised in large quantities—fireclay, limestone, sandstone, slate and salt, which is also obtained from brine. The red hematitic iron obtained in the Furness district is very valuable, but is liable to decrease. The district also produces a fine blue slate. Metals, excepting iron, are unimportant.

Climate and Agriculture.—The climate in the hilly districts is frequently cold, but in the more sheltered parts lying to the south and west it is mild and genial. From its westerly situation and the attraction of the hills there is a high rainfall in the hilly districts (e.g. at Bolton the average is 58.71 in.), while the average for the other districts is about 35. The soil after reclamation and drainage is fertile; but, as it is for the most part a strong clayey loam it requires a large amount of labour. In some districts it is more of a peaty nature, and in the Old Red Sandstone districts of the Mersey there is a tract of light sandy loam, easily worked, and well adapted for wheat and potatoes. In many districts the ground has been rendered unfit for agricultural operations by the rubbish from coal-pits. A low proportion (about seven-tenths) of the total area is under cultivation, and of this nearly three-fourths is in permanent pasture, cows being largely kept for the supply of milk to the towns, while in the uplands many sheep are reared. In addition to the cultivated area, about 92,000 acres are under hill pasturage. A gradual increase is noticeable in the acreage under oats, which occupy more than seven-tenths of the area under grain crops, and in that under wheat, to the exclusion of the cultivation of barley. Of green crops the potato is the chief.

Industries and Trade.—South Lancashire is the principal seat of the cotton manufacture in the world, the trade centring upon Manchester, Oldham and the neighbouring densely populated district. It employs upwards of 400,000 operatives. The worsted, woollen and silk manufactures, flax, hemp and jute industries, though of less importance, employ considerable numbers. Non-textile factories employ about 385,000 hands. The manufacture of machines, appliances, conveyances, tools, &c., are very important, especially in supplying the needs of the immense weaving and spinning industries. For the same purpose there is a large branch of industry in the manufacture of bobbins from the wood grown in the northern districts of the county. Of industries principally confined to certain definite centres there may be mentioned—the manufacture of iron and steel at Barrow-in-Furness, a town of remarkably rapid growth since the middle of the 19th century; the great glass works at St Helens; the watch-making works at Prescot and the leather works at Warrington. Printing, bleaching and dyeing works, paper and chemical works, india-rubber and tobacco manufactures are among the chief of the other resources of this great industrial region. Besides the port of Liverpool, of worldwide importance, the principal ports are Manchester, brought into communication with the sea by the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, Barrow-in-Furness and Fleetwood, while Preston and Lancaster have docks and a considerable shipping trade by the rivers Lune and Ribble respectively. The sea fisheries, for which Fleetwood and Liverpool are the chief ports, are of considerable value.

Communications.—Apart from the Manchester Ship Canal, canal-traffic plays an important part in the industrial region. In 1760 the Sankey canal, 10 m. long, the first canal opened in Britain (apart from very early works), was constructed to carry coal from St Helens to Liverpool. Shortly afterwards the duke of Bridgewater projected the great canal from Manchester across the Irwell to Worsley, completed in 1761 and bearing the name of its originator. The Leeds and Liverpool canal, begun in 1770, connects Liverpool and other important towns with Leeds by a circuitous route of 130 m. The other principal canals are the Rochdale, the Manchester (to Huddersfield) and the Lancaster, connecting Preston and Kendal. A short canal connects Ulverston with Morecambe Bay. A network of railways covers the industrial region. The main line of the London and North Western railway enters the county at Warrington, and runs north through Wigan, Preston, Lancaster and Carnforth. It also serves Liverpool and Manchester, providing the shortest route to each of these cities from London, and shares with the Lancashire and Yorkshire company joint lines to Southport, to Blackpool and to Fleetwood, whence there is regular steamship communication with Belfast. The Lancashire and Yorkshire line serves practically all the important centres as far north as Preston and Fleetwood. All the northern trunk lines from London have services to Manchester and Liverpool. The Cheshire Lines system, worked by a committee of the Great Northern, Great Central and Midland companies, links their systems with the South Lancashire district generally, and maintains lines between Liverpool and Manchester, both these cities with Southport, and numerous branches. Branches of the Midland railway from its main line in Yorkshire serve Lancaster, Morecambe, and Heysham and Carnforth, where connexion is made with the Furness railway to Ulverston, Barrow, Lake Side, Coniston, &c.

Population and Administration.—The area of the ancient county is 1,203,365 acres. Its population in 1801 was 673,486; in 1891, 3,926,760; and in 1901, 4,406,409. The area of the administrative county is 1,196,753 acres. The distribution of the industrial population may be best appreciated by showing the parliamentary divisions, parliamentary, county and municipal boroughs and urban districts as placed among the four divisions of the ancient county. In the case of urban districts the name of the great town to which each is near or adjacent follows where necessary. The figures show population in 1901.

Northern Division.—This embraces almost all the county N. of the Ribble, including Furness, and a small area S. of the Ribble estuary. It is considerably the largest of the divisions. Parliamentary divisions, from N. to S.—North Lonsdale, Lancaster, Blackpool, Chorley. Parliamentary, county and municipal boroughs—Barrow-in-Furness (57,586; one member); Preston (112,989; two members). Municipal boroughs—Blackpool (county borough; 47,348), Chorley (26,852), Lancaster (40,329; county town), Morecambe (11,798). Urban districts—Adlington (4523; Chorley), Bispham-with-Norbreck (Blackpool), Carnforth (3040; Lancaster), Croston (2102; Chorley), Dalton-in-Furness (13,020), Fleetwood (12,082), Fulwood (5238; Preston), Grange (1993), Heysham (3381; Morecambe), Kirkham (3693; Preston), Leyland (6865; Chorley), Longridge (4304; Preston), Lytham (7185), Poulon-le-Fylde (2223; Blackpool). Preesall-with-Hackinsall (1423; Fleetwood), St Anne’s-on-the-Sea (6838, a watering-place between Blackpool and Lytham), Thornton (3108; Fleetwood), Ulverston (10,064, in Furness), Withnell (3349; Chorley).

North-Eastern-Division.—This lies E. of Preston, and is the smallest of the four. Parliamentary divisions—Accrington, Clitheroe, Darwen, Rossendale. Parliamentary, county and municipal boroughs—Blackburn (127,626; two members); Burnley (97,043; one member). Municipal boroughs—Accrington (43,122), Bacup (22,505), Clitheroe (11,414), Colne (23,000), Darwen (38,212), Haslingden (18,543, extending into South-Eastern division), Nelson (32,816), Rawtenstall (31,053). Urban districts—Barrowford (4959; Colne), Brierfield (7288; Burnley), Church (6463; Accrington), Clayton-le-Moors (8153; Accrington), Great Harwood (12,015; Blackburn), Oswaldtwistle (14,192; Blackburn), Padiham (12,205; Burnley), Rishton (7031; Blackburn), Trawden (2641; Colne), Walton-le-Dale (11,271; Preston).

South-Western Division.—This division represents roughly a quadrant with radius of 20 m. drawn from Liverpool. Parliamentary divisions—Bootle, Ince, Leigh, Newton, Ormskirk, Southport, Widnes. Parliamentary boroughs—the city and county and municipal borough of Liverpool (684,958; nine members); the county and municipal boroughs of St Helens (84,410; one member); Wigan (60,764; one member), Warrington (64,242; a part only of the parliamentary borough is in this county). Municipal boroughs—Bootle (58,566), Leigh (40,001), Southport (county borough; 48,083), Widnes (28,580). Urban districts—Abram (6306; Wigan), Allerton (1101; Liverpool), Ashton-in-Makerfield (18,687), Atherton (16,211), Billinge (4232; Wigan), Birkdale (14,197; Southport), Childwall (219; Liverpool), Formby (6060), Golborne (6789; St Helens), Great Crosby (7555; Liverpool), Haydock (8575; St Helens), Hindley (23,504; Wigan), Huyton-with-Roby (4661; St Helens), Ince-in-Makerfield (21,262), Lathom-and-Burscough (7113; Ormskirk), Litherland (10,592; Liverpool), Little Crosby (563; Liverpool), Little Woolton (1091; Liverpool), Much Woolton (4731; Liverpool), Newton-in-Makerfield (16,699), Ormskirk (6857), Orrell (5436; Wigan), Prescot (7855; St Helens), Rainford (3359; St Helens), Skelmersdale (5699; Ormskirk), Standish-with-Langtree (6303; Wigan), Tyldesley-with-Shakerley (14,843), Upholland (4773; Wigan), Waterloo-with-Seaforth (23,102; Liverpool).

South-Eastern Division.—This is of about the same area as the South-Western division, and it constitutes the heart of the industrial region. Parliamentary divisions—Eccles, Gorton, Heywood, Middleton, Prestwich, Radcliffe-cum-Farnworth, Stretford, Westhoughton. Parliamentary boroughs—the city and county of a city of Manchester (543,872; six members); with which should be correlated the adjoining county and municipal borough of Salford (220,957; three members), also the county and municipal boroughs of Bolton (168,215; two members), Bury (58,029; one member), Rochdale (83,114; one member), Oldham (137,246; two members), and the municipal borough of Ashton-under-Lyne (43,890). Part only of the last parliamentary borough is within the county, and this division also contains part of the parliamentary boroughs of Stalybridge and Stockport. Municipal boroughs—Eccles (34,369), Heywood (25,458), Middleton (25,178), Mossley (13,452). Urban districts—Aspull (8388; Wigan), Audenshaw (7216; Ashton-under-Lyne), Blackrod (3875; Wigan), Chadderton (24,892; Oldham), Crompton (13,427; Oldham), Denton (14,934; Ashton-under-Lyne), Droylsden (11,087; Manchester), Failsworth (14,152; Manchester), Farnworth (25,925; Bolton), Gorton (26,564; Manchester), Heaton Norris (9474; Stockport). Horwich (15,084; Bolton), Hurst (7145; Ashton-under-Lyne), Irlam (4335; Eccles), Kearsley (9218; Bolton), Lees (3621; Oldham), Levenshulme (11,485; Manchester), Littleborough (11,166; Rochdale), Little Hulton (7294; Bolton), Little Lever (5119; Bolton), Milnrow (8241; Rochdale), Norden (3907; Rochdale), Prestwich (12,839; Manchester), Radcliffe (25,368; Bury), Ramsbottom (15,920; Bury), Royton (14,881; Oldham), Stretford (30,436; Manchester), Swinton-and-Pendlebury (27,005; Manchester), Tottington (6118; Bury), Turton (12,355; Bolton), Urmston (6594; Manchester), Wardle (4427; Rochdale), Westhoughton (14,377; Bolton), Whitefield or Stand (6588; Bury), Whitworth (9578; Rochdale), Worsley (12,462; Eccles).

Lancashire is one of the counties palatine. It is attached to the duchy of Lancaster, a crown office, and retains the chancery court for the county palatine. The chancery of the duchy of Lancaster was once a court of appeal for the chancery of the county palatine, but now even its jurisdiction in regard to the estates of the duchy is merely nominal. The chancery of the county palatine has concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court of Chancery in all matters of equity within the county palatine, and independent jurisdiction in regard to a variety of other matters. The county palatine comprises six hundreds.

Lancashire is in the northern circuit, and assizes are held at Lancaster for the north, and at Liverpool and Manchester for the south of the county. There is one court of quarter sessions, and the county is divided into 33 petty sessional divisions. The boroughs of Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Salford and Wigan have separate commissions of the peace and courts of quarter sessions; and those of Accrington, Ashton-under-Lyne, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackpool, Bolton, Bury, Clitheroe, Colne, Darwen, Eccles, Heywood, Lancaster, Middleton, Mossley, Nelson, Preston, Rochdale, St Helens, Southport and Warrington have separate commissions of the peace only. There are 430 civil parishes. Lancashire is mainly in the diocese of Manchester, but parts are in those of Liverpool, Carlisle, Ripon, Chester and Wakefield. There are 787 ecclesiastical parishes or districts wholly or in part within the county.

Manchester and Liverpool are each seats of a university and of other important educational institutions. Within the bounds of the county there are many denominational colleges, and near Clitheroe is the famous Roman Catholic college of Stonyhurst. There is a day training college for schoolmasters in connexion with University College, Liverpool, and a day training college for both schoolmasters and schoolmistresses in connexion with Owens College, Manchester. At Edgehill, Liverpool, there is a residential training college for schoolmistresses which takes day pupils, at Liverpool a residential Roman Catholic training college for schoolmasters, and at Warrington a residential training college (Chester, Manchester and Liverpool diocesan) for schoolmistresses.

History.—The district afterwards known as Lancashire was after the departure of the Romans for many years apparently little better than a waste. It was not until the victory of Æthelfrith, king of Deira, near Chester in 613 cut off the Britons of Wales from those of Lancashire and Cumberland that even Lancashire south of the Ribble was conquered. The part north of the Ribble was not absorbed in the Northumbrian kingdom till the reign of Ecgfrith (670-685). Of the details of this long struggle we know nothing, but to the stubborn resistance made by the British leaders are due the legends of Arthur; and of the twelve great battles he is supposed to have fought against the English, four are traditionally, though probably erroneously, said to have taken place on the river Douglas near Wigan. In the long struggle for supremacy between Mercia and Northumbria, the country between the Mersey and Ribble was sometimes under one, sometimes under the other kingdom. During the 9th century Lancashire was constantly invaded by the Danes, and after the peace of Wedmore (878) it was included in the Danish kingdom of Northumbria. The A.S. Chronicle records the reconquest of the district between the Ribble and Mersey in 923 by the English king, when it appears to have been severed from the kingdom of Northumbria and united to Mercia, but the districts north of the Ribble now comprised in the county belonged to Northumbria until its incorporation with the kingdom of England. The names on the Lancashire coast ending in by, such as Crosby, Formby, Roby, Kirkby, Derby, show where the Danish settlements were thickest. William the Conqueror gave the lands between the Ribble and Mersey, and Amounderness to Roger de Poictou, but at the time of Domesday Book these had passed out of his hand and belonged to the king.

The name Lancashire does not appear in Domesday; the lands between the Ribble and Mersey were included in Cheshire and those north of the Ribble in Yorkshire. Roger de Poictou soon regained his lands, and Rufus added to his possessions the rest of Lonsdale south of the Sands, of which he already held a part; and as he had the Furness fells as well, he owned all that is now known as Lancashire. In 1102 he finally forfeited all his lands, which Henry I. held till, in 1118, he created the honour of Lancaster by incorporating with Roger’s forfeited lands certain escheated manors in the counties of Nottingham, Derby and Lincoln, and certain royal manors, and bestowed it upon his nephew Stephen, afterwards king. During Stephen’s reign the history of the honour presents certain difficulties, for David of Scotland held the lands north of the Ribble for a time, and in 1147 the earl of Chester held the district between the Ribble and Mersey. Henry II. gave the whole honour to William, Stephen’s son, but in 1164 it came again into the king’s hands until 1189, when Richard I. granted it to his brother John. In 1194, owing to John’s rebellion, it was confiscated and the honour remained with the crown till 1267. In 1229, however, all the crown demesne between the Ribble and Mersey was granted to Ranulf, earl of Chester, and on his death in 1232 came to William Ferrers, earl of Derby, in right of his wife Agnes, sister and co-heir of Ranulf. The Ferrers held it till 1266, when it was confiscated owing to the earl’s rebellion. In 1267 Henry III. granted the honour and county and all the royal demesne therein to his son Edmund, who was created earl of Lancaster. His son, Earl Thomas, married the heiress of Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and thus obtained the great estates belonging to the de Lacys in Lancashire. On the death of Henry, the first duke of Lancaster, in 1361, the estates, title and honour fell to John of Gaunt in right of his wife Blanche, the duke’s elder daughter, and by the accession of Henry IV., John of Gaunt’s only son, to the throne, the duchy and honour became merged in the crown.

The county of Lancaster is first mentioned in 1169 as contributing 100 marks to the Royal Exchequer for defaults and fines. The creation of the honour decided the boundaries, throwing into it Furness and Cartmel, which geographically belong to Westmorland; Lonsdale and Amounderness, which in Domesday had been surveyed under Yorkshire; and the land between the Ribble and Mersey. In Domesday this district south of the Ribble was divided into the six hundreds of West Derby, Newton, Warrington, Blackburn, Salford and Leyland, but before Henry II.’s reign the hundreds of Warrington and Newton were absorbed in that of West Derby. Neither Amounderness nor Lonsdale was called a hundred in Domesday, but soon after that time the former was treated as a hundred. Ecclesiastically the whole of the county originally belonged to the diocese of York, but after the reconquest of the district between the Ribble and Mersey in 923 this part was placed under the bishop of Lichfield in the archdeaconry of Chester, which was subdivided into the rural deaneries of Manchester, Warrington and Leyland. Up to 1541 the district north of the Ribble belonged to the archdeaconry of Richmond in the diocese of York, and was subdivided into the rural deaneries of Amounderness, Lonsdale and Coupland. In 1541 the diocese of Chester was created, including all Lancashire, which was divided into two archdeaconries: Chester, comprising the rural deaneries of Manchester, Warrington and Blackburn, and Richmond, comprising the deaneries of Amounderness, Furness, Lonsdale and Kendal. In 1847 the diocese of Manchester was created, which included all Lancashire except parts of West Derby, which still belonged to the diocese of Chester, and Furness and Cartmel, which were added to Carlisle in 1856. In 1878 by the creation of the diocese of Liverpool the south-eastern part of the county was subtracted from the Manchester diocese.

No shire court was ever held for the county, but as a duchy and county palatine it has its own special courts. It may have enjoyed palatine jurisdiction under Earl Morcar before the Conquest, but these privileges, if ever exercised, remained in abeyance till 1351, when Henry, duke of Lancaster, received power to have a chancery in the county of Lancaster and to issue writs therefrom under his own seal, as well touching pleas of the crown as any other relating to the common laws, and to have all Jura Regalia belonging to a county palatine. In 1377 the county was erected into a palatinate for John of Gaunt’s life, and in 1390 these rights of jurisdiction were extended and settled in perpetuity on the dukes of Lancaster. The county palatine courts consist of a chancery which dates back at least to 1376, a court of common pleas, the jurisdiction of which was transferred in 1873 by the Judicature Act to the high court of justice, and a court of criminal jurisdiction which in no way differs from the king’s ordinary court. In 1407 the duchy court of Lancaster was created, in which all questions of revenue and dignities affecting the duchy possessions are settled. The chancery of the duchy has been for years practically obsolete. The duchy and county palatine each has its own seal. The office of chancellor of the duchy and county palatine dates back to 1351.

Lancashire is famed for the number of old and important county families living within its borders. The most intimately connected with the history of the county are the Stanleys, whose chief seat is Knowsley Hall. Sir John Stanley early in the 15th century married the heiress of Lathom and thus obtained possession of Lathom and Knowsley. In 1456 the head of the family was created a peer by the title of Baron Stanley and in 1485 raised to the earldom of Derby. The Molyneuxes of Sephton and Croxteth are probably descended from William de Molines, who came to England with William the Conqueror, and is on the roll of Battle Abbey. Roger de Poictou gave him the manor of Sephton, and Richard de Molyneux who held the estate under Henry II. is undoubtedly an ancestor of the family. In 1628 Sir Richard Molyneux was advanced to the peerage of Ireland by the title of Viscount Maryborough, and in 1771 Charles, Lord Maryborough, became earl of Sefton in the peerage of Ireland. His son was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Sefton of Croxteth. The Bootle Wilbrahams, earls of Lathom, are, it is said, descended from John Botyll of Melling, who was alive in 1421, and from the Wilbrahams of Cheshire, who date back at least to Henry III.’s reign. In 1755 the two families intermarried. In 1828 the title of Baron Skelmersdale was bestowed on the head of the family and in 1880 that of earl of Lathorn. The Gerards of Bryn are said to be descended from an old Tuscan family, one of whom came to England in Edward the Confessor’s time, and whose son is mentioned in Domesday. Bryn came into this family by marriage early in the 14th century. Sir Thomas Gerard was created a baronet by James I. in 1611, and in 1876 a peerage was conferred on Sir Robert Gerard. The Gerards of Ince were a collateral branch. The Lindsays, earls of Crawford and Balcarres, are representative on the female side of the Bradshaighs of Haigh Hall, who are said to be of Saxon origin. Other great Lancashire families are the Hoghtons of Hoghton Tower, dating back to the 12th century, the Blundells of Ince Blundell, who are said to have held the manor since the 12th century, now represented by the Weld-Blundells, the Tyldesleys of Tyldesley, now extinct, and the Butlers of Bewsey, barons of Warrington, of whom the last male heir died in 1586.

At the close of the 12th and during the 13th century there was a considerable advance in the importance of the towns; in 1199 Lancaster became a borough, in 1207 Liverpool, in 1230 Salford, in 1246 Wigan, and in 1301 Manchester. The Scottish wars were a great drain to the county, not only because the north part was subject to frequent invasions, as in 1322, but because some of the best blood was taken for these wars. In 1297 Lancashire raised 1000 men, and at the battle of Falkirk (1298) 1000 Lancashire soldiers were in the vanguard, led by Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln. In 1349 the county was visited by the Black Death and a record exists of its ravages in Amounderness. In ten parishes between September 1349 and January 1350, 13,180 persons perished. At Preston 3000 died, at Lancaster 3000, at Garstang 2000 and at Kirkham 3000. From the effects of this plague Lancashire was apparently slow to recover; its boroughs ceased to return members early in the 14th century and trade had not yet made any great advance. The drain of the Wars of the Roses on the county must also have been heavy, although none of the battles was fought within its borders; Lord Stanley’s force of 5000 raised in Lancashire and Cheshire virtually decided the battle of Bosworth Field. The poverty of the county is shown by the fact that out of £40,000 granted in 1504 by parliament to the king, Lancashire’s share was only £318. At the battle of Flodden (1513) the Lancashire archers led by Sir Edward Stanley almost totally destroyed the Highlanders on the right Scottish wing and greatly contributed to the victory. Under the Tudors the county prospered; the parliamentary boroughs once more began to return members, the towns increased in size, many halls were built by the gentry and trade increased.

In 1617 James I. visited Lancashire, and in consequence of a petition presented to him at Hoghton, complaining of the restrictions imposed upon Sunday amusements, he issued in 1618 the famous Book of Sports. Another of James’s works, the Daemonologie, is closely connected with the gross superstitions concerning witches which were specially prevalent in Lancashire. The great centre of this witchcraft was Pendle Forest, in the parish of Whalley, and in 1612 twelve persons from Pendle and eight from Samlesbury were tried for witchcraft, nine of whom were hanged. In 1633 another batch of seventeen witches from Pendle were tried and all sentenced to be executed, but the king pardoned them. This was the last important case of witchcraft in Lancashire.

In the assessment of ship money in 1636 the county was put down for £1000, towards which Wigan was to raise £50, Preston £40, Lancaster £30, and Liverpool £25, and these figures compared with the assessments of £140 on Hull and £200 on Leeds show the comparative unimportance of the Lancashire boroughs. On the eve of the Great Rebellion in 1641 parliament resolved to take command of the militia, and Lord Strange, Lord Derby’s eldest son, was removed from the lord lieutenancy. On the whole, the county was Royalist, and the moving spirit among the Royalists was Lord Strange, who became Lord Derby in 1642. Manchester was the headquarters of the Parliamentarians, and was besieged by Lord Derby in September 1642 for seven days, but not taken. Lord Derby himself took up his headquarters at Warrington and garrisoned Wigan. At the opening of 1643 Sir Thomas Fairfax made Manchester his headquarters. Early in February the Parliamentarians from Manchester successfully assaulted Preston, which was strongly Royalist; thence the Parliamentarians marched to Hoghton Tower, which they took, and within a few days captured Lancaster. On the Royalist side Lord Derby made an unsuccessful attack on Bolton from Wigan. In March a large Spanish ship, laden with ammunition for the use of parliament, was driven by a storm on Rossall Point and seized by the Royalists; Lord Derby ordered the ship to be burned, but the parliament forces from Preston succeeded in carrying off some of the guns to Lancaster castle. In March Lord Derby captured the town of Lancaster but not the castle, and marching to Preston regained it for the king, but was repulsed in an attack on Bolton. In April Wigan, one of the chief Royalist strongholds in the county, was taken by the parliament forces, who also again captured Lancaster, and the guns from the Spanish ship were moved for use against Warrington, which was obliged to surrender in May after a week’s siege. Lord Derby also failed in an attempt on Liverpool, and the tide of war had clearly turned against the Royalists in Lancashire. In June Lord Derby went to the Isle of Man, which was threatened by the king’s enemies. Soon after, the Parliamentarians captured Hornby castle, and only two strongholds, Thurland castle and Lathom house, remained in Royalist hands. In the summer, after a seven weeks’ siege by Colonel Alexander Rigby, Thurland castle surrendered and was demolished. In February 1644 the Parliamentarians, under Colonel Rigby, Colonel Ashton and Colonel Moore, besieged Lathom house, the one refuge left to the Royalists, which was bravely defended by Lord Derby’s heroic wife, Charlotte de la Trémoille. The siege lasted nearly four months and was raised on the approach of Prince Rupert, who marched to Bolton and was joined on his arrival outside the town by Lord Derby. Bolton was carried by storm; Rupert ordered that no quarter should be given, and it is usually said at least 1500 of the garrison were slain. Prince Rupert advanced without delay to Liverpool, which was defended by Colonel Moore, and took it after a siege of three weeks. After the battle of Marston Moor Prince Rupert again appeared in Lancashire and small engagements took place at Ormskirk, Upholland and Preston; in November Liverpool surrendered to the Parliamentarians. Lathom house was again the only strong place in Lancashire left to the Royalists, and in December 1645 after a five months’ siege it was compelled to surrender through lack of provisions, and was almost entirely destroyed. For the moment the war in Lancashire was over. In 1648, however, the Royalist forces under the duke of Hamilton and Sir Marmaduke Langdale marched through Lancaster to Preston, hoping to reach Manchester; but near Preston were defeated by Cromwell in person. The remnant retreated through Wigan towards Warrington, and after being again defeated at Winwick surrendered at Warrington. In 1651 Charles II. advanced through Lancaster, Preston and Chorley on his southward march, and Lord Derby after gathering forces was on his way to meet him when he was defeated at Wigan. In 1658, after Cromwell’s death, a Royalist rebellion was raised in which Lancashire took a prominent part, but it was quickly suppressed. During the Rebellion of 1715 Manchester was the chief centre of Roman Catholic and High Church Toryism. On the 7th of November the Scottish army entered Lancaster, where the Pretender was proclaimed king, and advanced to Preston, at which place a considerable body of Roman Catholics joined it. The rebels remained at Preston a few days, apparently unaware of the advance of the government troops, until General Wills from Manchester and General Carpenter from Lancaster surrounded the town, and on the 13th of November the town and the rebel garrison surrendered. Several of the rebels were hanged at Preston, Wigan, Lancaster and other places. In 1745 Prince Charles Edward passed through the county and was joined by about 200 adherents, called the Manchester regiment and placed under the command of Colonel Townley, who was afterwards executed.

The first industry established in Lancashire was that of wool, and with the founding of Furness abbey in 1127 wool farming on a large scale began here, but the bulk of the wool grown was exported, not worked up in England. In 1282, however, there was a mill for fulling or bleaching wool in Manchester, and by the middle of the 16th century there was quite a flourishing trade in worsted goods. In an act of 1552 Manchester “rugs and frizes” are specially mentioned, and in 1566 another act regulated the fees of the aulnager who was to have his deputies at Manchester, Rochdale, Bolton, Blackburn and Bury; the duty of the aulnagers was to prevent “cottons, frizes and rugs” from being sold unsealed, but it must be noted that by cottons is not meant what we now understand by the word, but woollen goods. The 17th century saw the birth of the class of clothiers, who purchased the wool in large quantities or kept their own sheep, and delivered it to weavers who worked it up into cloth in their houses and returned it to the employers. The earliest mention of the manufacture of real cotton goods is in 1641, when Manchester made fustians, vermilions and dimities, but the industry did not develop to any extent until after the invention of the fly shuttle by John Kay in 1733, of the spinning jenny by James Hargreaves of Blackburn in 1765, of the water frame throstle by Richard Arkwright of Bolton in 1769, and of the mule by Samuel Crompton of Hall-in-the-Wood near Bolton in 1779. So rapid was the development of the cotton manufacture that in 1787 there were over forty cotton mills in Lancashire, all worked by water power. In 1789, however, steam was applied to the industry in Manchester, and in 1790 in Bolton a cotton mill was worked by steam. The increase in the import of raw cotton from 3,870,000 ℔ in 1769 to 1,083,600,000 in 1860 shows the growth of the industry. The rapid growth was accompanied with intermittent periods of depression, which in 1819 in particular led to the formation of various political societies and to the Blanketeers’ Meeting and the Peterloo Massacre. During the American Civil War the five years’ cotton famine caused untold misery in the county, but public and private relief mitigated the evils, and one good result was the introduction of machinery capable of dealing with the shorter staple of Indian cotton, thus rendering the trade less dependent for its supplies on America.

During the 18th century the only town where maritime trade increased was Liverpool, where in the last decade about 4500 ships arrived annually of a tonnage about one-fifth that of the London shipping. The prosperity of Liverpool was closely bound up with the slave trade, and about one-fourth of its ships were employed in this business. With the increase of trade the means of communication improved. In 1758 the duke of Bridgewater began the Bridgewater canal from Worsley to Salford and across the Irwell to Manchester, and before the end of the century the county was intersected by canals. In 1830 the first railway in England was opened between Manchester and Liverpool, and other railways rapidly followed.

The first recorded instance of parliamentary representation in Lancashire was in 1295, when two knights were returned for the county and two burgesses each for the boroughs of Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Liverpool. The sheriff added to this return “There is no city in the county of Lancaster.” The boroughs were, however, excused one after another from parliamentary representation, which was felt as a burden owing to the compulsory payment of the members’ wages. Lancaster ceased to send members in 1331 after making nineteen returns, but renewed its privileges in 1529; from 1529 to 1547 there are no parliamentary returns, but from 1547 to 1867 Lancaster continued to return two members. Preston similarly was excused after 1331, after making eleven returns, but in 1529 and from 1547 onwards returned two members. Liverpool and Wigan sent members in 1295 and 1307, but not again till 1547. To the writ issued in 1362 the sheriff in his return says: “There is not any City or Borough in this County from which citizens or burgesses ought or are accustomed to come as this Writ requires.” In 1559 Clitheroe and Newton-le-Willows first sent two members. Thus in all Lancashire returned fourteen members, and, with a brief exception during the Commonwealth, this continued to be the parliamentary representation till 1832. By the Reform Act of 1832 Lancashire was assigned four members, two for the northern and two for the southern division. Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Liverpool continued to send two members, Clitheroe returned one and Newton was disfranchised. The following new boroughs were created: Manchester, Bolton, Blackburn, Oldham, returning two members each; Ashton-under-Lyne, Bury, Rochdale, Salford and Warrington, one each. In 1861 a third member was given to South Lancashire and in 1867 the county was divided into four constituencies, to each of which four members were assigned; since 1885 the county returns twenty-three members. The boroughs returned from 1867 to 1885 twenty-five members, and since 1885 thirty-four.

Antiquities.—The Cistercian abbey of Furness (q.v.) is one of the finest and most extensive ecclesiastical ruins in England. Whalley abbey, first founded at Stanlawe in Cheshire in 1178, and removed in 1296, belonged to the same order. There was a priory of Black Canons at Burscough, founded in the time of Richard I., one at Conishead dating from Henry II.’s reign, and one at Lancaster. A convent of Augustinian friars was founded at Cartmel in 1188, and one at Warrington about 1280. There are some remains of the Benedictine priory of Upholland, changed from a college of secular priests in 1318; and the same order had a priory at Lancaster founded in 1094, a cell at Lytham, of the reign of Richard I., and a priory at Penwortham, founded shortly after the time of the Conqueror. The Premonstratensians had Cockersand abbey, changed in 1190 from a hospital founded in the reign of Henry II., of which the chapter-house remains. At Kersal, near Manchester, there was a cell of Cluniac monks founded in the reign of John, while at Lancaster there were convents of Dominicans and Franciscans, and at Preston a priory of Grey Friars built by Edmund, earl of Lancaster, son of Henry III.

Besides the churches mentioned under the several towns, the more interesting are those of Aldingham, Norman doorway; Aughton; Cartmel priory church (see Furness); Hawkshead; Heysham, Norman with traces of earlier date; Hoole; Huyton; Kirkby, rebuilt, with very ancient font; Kirkby Ireleth, late Perpendicular, with Norman doorway; Leyland; Melling (in Lonsdale), Perpendicular, with stained-glass windows; Middleton, rebuilt in 1524, but containing part of the Norman church and several monuments; Ormskirk, Perpendicular with traces of Norman, having two towers, one of which is detached and surmounted by a spire; Overton, with Norman doorway; Radcliffe, Norman; Sefton, Perpendicular, with fine brass and recumbent figures of the Molyneux family, also a screen exquisitely carved; Stidd, near Ribchester, Norman arch and old monuments; Tunstall, late Perpendicular; Upholland priory church, Early English, with low massy tower; Urswick, Norman, with embattled tower and several old monuments; Walton-on-the-hill, anciently the parish church of Liverpool; Walton-le-Dale; Warton, with old font; Whalley abbey church, Decorated and Perpendicular, with Runic stone monuments.

The principal old castles are those of Lancaster; Dalton, a small rude tower occupying the site of an older building; two towers of Gleaston castle, built by the lords of Aldingham in the 14th century; the ruins of Greenhalgh castle, built by the first earl of Derby, and demolished after a siege by order of parliament in 1649; the ruins of Fouldrey in Piel Island near the entrance to Barrow harbour, erected in the reign of Edward III., now most dilapidated. There are many old timber houses and mansions of interest, as well as numerous modern seats.

See Victoria History of Lancashire (1906-1907); E. Baines, The History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster (1888); H. Fishwick, A History of Lancashire (1894); W. D. Pink and A. B. Beavan, The Parliamentary Representation of Lancashire (1889).

LANCASTER, HOUSE OF. The name House of Lancaster is commonly used to designate the line of English kings immediately descended from John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III. But the history of the family and of the title goes back to the reign of Henry III., who created his second son, Edmund, earl of Lancaster in 1267. This Edmund received in his own day the surname of Crouchback, not, as was afterwards supposed, from a personal deformity, but from having worn a cross upon his back in token of a crusading vow. He is not a person of much importance in history except in relation to a strange theory raised in a later age about his birth, which we shall notice presently. His son Thomas, who inherited the title, took the lead among the nobles of Edward II.’s time in opposition to Piers Gaveston and the Despensers, and was beheaded for treason at Pontefract. At the commencement of the following reign his attainder was reversed and his brother Henry restored to the earldom; and Henry being appointed guardian to the young king Edward III., assisted him to throw off the yoke of Mortimer. On this Henry’s death in 1345 he was succeeded by a son of the same name, sometimes known as Henry Tort-Col or Wryneck, a very valiant commander in the French wars, whom the king advanced to the dignity of a duke. Only one duke had been created in England before, and that was fourteen years previously, when the king’s son Edward, the Black Prince, was made duke of Cornwall. This Henry Wryneck died in 1361 without heir male. His second daughter, Blanche, became the wife of John of Gaunt, who thus succeeded to the duke’s inheritance in her right; and on the 13th of November 1362, when King Edward attained the age of fifty, John was created duke of Lancaster, his elder brother, Lionel, being at the same time created duke of Clarence. It was from these two dukes that the rival houses of Lancaster and York derived their respective claims to the crown. As Clarence was King Edward’s third son, while John of Gaunt was his fourth, in ordinary course on the failure of the elder line the issue of Clarence should have taken precedence of that of Lancaster in the succession. But the rights of Clarence were conveyed in the first instance to an only daughter, and the ambition and policy of the house of Lancaster, profiting by advantageous circumstances, enabled them not only to gain possession of the throne but to maintain themselves in it for three generations before they were dispossessed by the representatives of the elder brother.

As for John of Gaunt himself, it can hardly be said that this sort of politic wisdom is very conspicuous in him. His ambition was generally more manifest than his discretion; but fortune favoured his ambition, even as to himself, somewhat beyond expectation, and still more in his posterity. Before the death of his father he had become the greatest subject in England, his three elder brothers having all died before him. He had even added to his other dignities the title of king of Castile, having married, after his first wife’s death, the daughter of Peter the Cruel. The title, however, was an empty one, the throne of Castile being actually in the possession of Henry of Trastamara, whom the English had vainly endeavoured to set aside. His military and naval enterprises were for the most part disastrous failures, and in England he was exceedingly unpopular. Nevertheless, during the later years of his father’s reign the weakness of the king and the declining health of the Black Prince threw the government very much into his hands. He even aimed, or was suspected of aiming, at the succession to the crown; but in this hope he was disappointed by the action of the Good Parliament a year before Edward’s death, in which it was settled that Richard the son of the Black Prince should be king after his grandfather. Nevertheless the suspicion with which he was regarded was not altogether quieted when Richard came to the throne, a boy in the eleventh year of his age. The duke himself complained in parliament of the way he was spoken of out of doors, and at the outbreak of Wat Tyler’s insurrection the peasants stopped pilgrims on the road to Canterbury and made them swear never to accept a king of the name of John. On gaining possession of London they burnt his magnificent palace of the Savoy. Richard found a convenient way to get rid of John of Gaunt by sending him to Castile to make good his barren title, and on this expedition he was away three years. He succeeded so far as to make a treaty with his rival, King John, son of Henry of Trastamara, for the succession, by virtue of which his daughter Catherine became the wife of Henry III. of Castile some years later. After his return the king seems to have regarded him with greater favour, created him duke of Aquitaine, and employed him in repeated embassies to France, which at length resulted in a treaty of peace, and Richard’s marriage to the French king’s daughter.

Another marked incident of his public life was the support which he gave on one occasion to the Reformer Wycliffe. How far this was due to religious and how far to political considerations may be a question; but not only John of Gaunt but his immediate descendants, the three kings of the house of Lancaster, all took deep interest in the religious movements of the times. A reaction against Lollardy, however, had already begun in the days of Henry IV., and both he and his son felt obliged to discountenance opinions which were believed to be politically and theologically dangerous.

Accusations had been made against John of Gaunt more than once during the earlier part of Richard II.’s reign of entertaining designs to supplant his nephew on the throne. But these Richard never seems to have wholly credited, and during his three years’ absence his younger brother, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, showed himself a far more dangerous intriguer. Five confederate lords with Gloucester at their head took up arms against the king’s favourite ministers, and the Wonderful Parliament put to death without remorse almost every agent of his former administration who had not fled the country. Gloucester even contemplated the dethronement of the king, but found that in this matter he could not rely on the support of his associates, one of whom was Henry, earl of Derby, the duke of Lancaster’s son. Richard soon afterwards, by declaring himself of age, shook off his uncle’s control, and within ten years the acts of the Wonderful Parliament were reversed by a parliament no less arbitrary. Gloucester and his allies were then brought to account; but the earl of Derby and Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, were taken into favour as having opposed the more violent proceedings of their associates. As if to show his entire confidence in both these noblemen, the king created the former duke of Hereford and the latter duke of Norfolk. But within three months from this time the one duke accused the other of treason, and the truth of the charge, after much consideration, was referred to trial by battle according to the laws of chivalry. But when the combat was about to commence it was interrupted by the king, who, to preserve the peace of the kingdom, decreed by his own mere authority that the duke of Hereford should be banished for ten years—a term immediately afterwards reduced to five—and the duke of Norfolk for life.

This arbitrary sentence was obeyed in the first instance by both parties, and Norfolk never returned. But Henry, duke of Hereford, whose milder sentence was doubtless owing to the fact that he was the popular favourite, came back within a year, having been furnished with a very fair pretext for doing so by a new act of injustice on the part of Richard. His father, John of Gaunt, had died in the interval, and the king, troubled with a rebellion in Ireland, and sorely in want of money, had seized the duchy of Lancaster as forfeited property. Henry at once sailed for England, and landing in Yorkshire while King Richard was in Ireland, gave out that he came only to recover his inheritance. He at once received the support of the northern lords, and as he marched southwards the whole kingdom was soon practically at his command. Richard, by the time he had recrossed the channel to Wales, discovered that his cause was lost. He was conveyed from Chester to London, and forced to execute a deed by which he resigned his crown. This was recited in parliament, and he was formally deposed. The duke of Lancaster then claimed the kingdom as due to himself by virtue of his descent from Henry III.

The claim which he put forward involved, to all appearance, a strange falsification of history, for it seemed to rest upon the supposition that Edmund of Lancaster, and not Edward I., was the eldest son of Henry III. A story had gone about, even in the days of John of Gaunt, who, if we may trust the rhymer John Hardyng (Chronicle, pp. 290, 291), had got it inserted in chronicles deposited in various monasteries, that this Edmund, surnamed Crouchback, was really hump-backed, and that he was set aside in favour of his younger brother Edward on account of his deformity. No chronicle, however, is known to exist which actually states that Edmund Crouchback was thus set aside; and in point of fact he had no deformity at all, while Edward was six years his senior. Hardyng’s testimony is, moreover, suspicious as reflecting the prejudices of the Percys after they had turned against Henry IV., for Hardyng himself expressly says that the earl of Northumberland was the source of his information (see note, p. 353 of his Chronicle). But a statement in the continuation of the chronicle called the Eulogium (vol. iii. pp. 369, 370) corroborates Hardyng to some extent; for we are told that John of Gaunt had once desired in parliament that his son should be recognized on this flimsy plea as heir to the crown; and when Roger Mortimer, earl of March, denied the story and insisted on his own claim as descended from Lionel, duke of Clarence, Richard imposed silence on both parties. However this may be, it is certain that this story, though not directly asserted to be true, was indirectly pointed at by Henry when he put forward his claim, and no one was then bold enough to challenge it.

This was partly due, no doubt, to the fact that the true lineal heir after Richard was then a child, Edmund, who had just succeeded his father as earl of March. Another circumstance was unfavourable to the house of Mortimer—that it derived its title through a woman. No case precisely similar had as yet arisen, and, notwithstanding the precedent of Henry II., it might be doubted whether succession through a female was favoured by the constitution. If not, Henry could say with truth that he was the direct heir of his grandfather, Edward III. If, on the other hand, succession through females was valid, he could trace his descent through his mother from Henry III. by a very illustrious line of ancestors. And, in the words by which he formally made his claim, he ventured to say no more than that he was descended from the king last mentioned “by right line of the blood.” In what particular way that “right line” was to be traced he did not venture to indicate.

A brief epitome of the reigns of the three successive kings belonging to the house of Lancaster (Henry IV., V. and VI.) will be found elsewhere. With the death of Henry VI. the direct male line of John of Gaunt became extinct. But by his daughters he became the ancestor of more than one line of foreign kings, while his descendants by his third wife, Catherine Swynford, conveyed the crown of England to the house of Tudor. It is true that his children by this lady were born before he married her; but they were made legitimate by act of parliament, and, though Henry IV. in confirming the privilege thus granted to them endeavoured to debar them from the succession to the crown, it is now ascertained that there was no such reservation in the original act, and the title claimed by Henry VII. was probably better than he himself supposed.

We show on the following page a pedigree of the royal and illustrious houses that traced their descent from John of Gaunt.

(J. Ga.)

LANCASTER, HENRY, Earl of (c. 1281-1345), was the second son of Edmund, earl of Lancaster (d. 1296), and consequently a grandson of Henry III. During his early days he took part in campaigns in Flanders, Scotland and Wales, but was quite overshadowed by his elder brother Thomas (see below). In 1324, two years after Thomas had lost his life for opposing the king, Henry was made earl of Leicester by his cousin, Edward II., but he was not able to secure the titles and estates of Lancaster to which he was heir, and be showed openly that his sympathies were with his dead brother. When Queen Isabella took up arms against her husband in 1326 she was joined at once by the earl, who took a leading part in the proceedings against the king and his favourites, the Despensers, being Edward’s gaoler at Kenilworth castle. Edward III. being now on the throne, Leicester secured the earldom of Lancaster and his brother’s lands, becoming also steward of England; he knighted the young king and was the foremost member of the royal council, but he was soon at variance with Isabella and her paramour, Roger Mortimer, and was practically deprived of his power. In 1328 his attempt to overthrow Mortimer failed, and he quietly made his peace with the king; a second essay against Mortimer was more successful. About this time Lancaster became blind; he retired from public life and died on the 22nd of September, 1345.

His son and successor, Henry, 1st duke of Lancaster (c. 1300-1361), was a soldier of unusual distinction. Probably from his birthplace in Monmouthshire he was called Henry of Grosmont. He fought in the naval fight off Sluys and in the one off Winchelsea in 1350; he led armies into Scotland, Gascony and Normandy, his exploits in Gascony in 1345 and 1346 being especially successful; he served frequently under Edward III. himself; and he may be fairly described as one of the most brilliant and capable of the English warriors during the earlier part of the Hundred Years’ War. During a brief respite from the king’s service he led a force into Prussia and he was often employed on diplomatic business. In 1354 he was at Avignon negotiating with Pope Innocent VI., who wished to make peace between England and France, and one of his last acts was to assist in arranging the details of the treaty of Brétigny in 1360. In 1337 he was made earl of Derby; in 1345 he succeeded to his father’s earldoms of Lancaster and Leicester; in 1349 he was created earl of Lincoln, and in 1351 he was made duke of Lancaster. He was steward of England and one of the original knights of the order of the garter. He died at Leicester on the 13th of March 1361. He left no sons; one of his daughters, Maud (d. 1362), married William V., count of Holland, a son of the emperor Louis the Bavarian, and the other, Blanche (d. 1369), married Edward III.’s son, John of Gaunt, who obtained his father-in-law’s titles and estates.

LANCASTER, SIR JAMES (fl. 1591-1618), English navigator and statesman, one of the foremost pioneers of the British Indian trade and empire. In early life he fought and traded in Portugal. On the 10th of April 1591 he started from Plymouth, with Raymond and Foxcroft, on his first great voyage to the East Indies; this fleet of three ships is the earliest of English oversea Indian expeditions. Reaching Table Bay (1st of August 1591), and losing one ship off Cape Corrientes on the 12th of September, the squadron rested and refitted at Zanzibar (February 1592), rounded Cape Comorin in May following, and was off the Malay Peninsula in June. Crossing later to Ceylon, the crews insisted on returning home; the voyage back was disastrous; only twenty-five officers and men reappeared in England in 1594. Lancaster himself reached Rye on the 24th of May 1594; in the same year he led a military expedition against Pernambuco, without much success; but his Indian voyage, like Ralph Fitch’s overland explorations and trading, was an important factor in the foundation of the East India Company. In 1600 he was given command of the company’s first fleet (which sailed from Torbay towards the end of April 1601); he was also accredited as Queen Elizabeth’s special envoy to various Eastern potentates. Going by the Cape of Good Hope (1st of November 1601) Lancaster visited the Nicobars (from the 9th of April 1602), Achin and other parts of Sumatra (from the 5th of June 1602), and Bantam in Java; an alliance was concluded with Achin, a factory established at Bantam and a commercial mission despatched to the Moluccas. The return voyage (20th of February to 11th of September 1603) was speedy and prosperous, and Lancaster (whose success both in trade and in diplomacy had been brilliant) was rewarded with knighthood (October 1603). He continued to be one of the chief directors of the East India Company till his death in May 1618; most of the voyages of the early Stuart time both to India and in search of the North-West passage were undertaken under his advice and direction; Lancaster Sound, on the north-west of Baffin’s Bay (in 74° 20′ N.), was named by William Baffin after Sir James (July 1616).

See Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 102-110, vol. iii. pp. 708-715 (1599); Purchas, Pilgrims, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 147-164; also The Voyages of Sir James Lancaster ... to the East Indies ..., ed. Sir Clements Markham, Hakluyt Soc. (1877), Calendars of State Papers, East Indies. The original journals of Lancaster’s voyage of 1601-1603 have disappeared, and here we have only Purchas to go on.

LANCASTER, JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of (1340-1399), fourth son of Edward III. and Queen Philippa, was born in March 1340 at Ghent, whence his name. On the 29th of September 1342 he was made earl of Richmond; as a child he was present at the sea fight with the Spaniards in August 1350, but his first military service was in 1355, when he was knighted. On the 19th of May 1359 he married his cousin Blanche, daughter and ultimately sole heiress of Henry, duke of Lancaster. In her right he became earl of Lancaster in 1361, and next year was created duke. His marriage made him the greatest lord in England, but for some time he took no prominent part in public affairs. In 1366 he joined his eldest brother, Edward the Black Prince, in Aquitaine, and in the year after led a strong contingent to share in the campaign in support of Pedro the Cruel of Castile. With this began the connexion with Spain, which was to have so great an influence on his after-life. John fought in the van at Najera on the 3rd of April 1367, when the English victory restored Pedro to his throne. He returned home at the end of the year. Pedro proved false to his English allies, and was finally overthrown and killed by his rival, Henry of Trastamara, in 1369. The disastrous Spanish enterprise led directly to renewed war between France and England. In August 1369 John had command of an army which invaded northern France without success. In the following year he went again to Aquitaine, and was present with the Black Prince at the sack of Limoges. Edward’s health was broken down, and he soon after went home, leaving John as his lieutenant. For a year John maintained the war at his own cost, but whilst in Aquitaine a greater prospect was opened to him. The duchess Blanche had died in the autumn of 1369 and now John married Constance (d. 1394), the elder daughter of Pedro the Cruel, and in her right assumed the title of king of Castile and Leon. For sixteen years the pursuit of his kingdom was the chief object of John’s ambition. No doubt he hoped to achieve his end, when he commanded the great army which invaded France in 1373. But the French would not give battle, and though John marched from Calais right through Champagne, Burgundy and Auvergne, it was with disastrous results; only a shattered remnant of the host reached Bordeaux.

The Spanish scheme had to wait, and when John got back to England he was soon absorbed in domestic politics. The king was prematurely old, the Black Prince’s health was broken. John, in spite of the unpopularity of his ill-success, was forced into the foremost place. As head of the court party he had to bear the brunt of the attack on the administration made by the Good Parliament in 1376. It was not perhaps altogether just, and John was embittered by reflections on his loyalty. As soon as the parliament was dissolved he had its proceedings reversed, and next year secured a more subservient assembly. There came, however, a new development. The duke’s politics were opposed by the chief ecclesiastics, and in resisting them he had made use of Wycliffe. With Wycliffe’s religious opinions he had no sympathy. Nevertheless when the bishops arraigned the reformer for heresy John would not abandon him. The conflict over the trial led to a violent quarrel with the Londoners, and a riot in the city during which John was in danger of his life from the angry citizens. The situation was entirely altered by the death of Edward III. on the 21st of June. Though his enemies had accused him of aiming at the throne, John was without any taint of disloyalty. In his nephew’s interests he accepted a compromise, disclaimed before parliament the truth of the malicious rumours against him, and was reconciled formally with his opponents. Though he took his proper place in the ceremonies at Richard’s coronation, he showed a tactful moderation by withdrawing for a time from any share in the government. However, in the summer of 1378, he commanded in an attack on St Malo, which through no fault of his failed. To add to this misfortune, during his absence some of his supporters violated the sanctuary at Westminster. He vindicated himself somewhat bitterly in a parliament at Gloucester, but still avoiding a prominent part in the government, accepted the command on the Scottish border. He was there engaged when his palace of the Savoy in London was burnt during the peasants’ revolt in June 1381. Wild reports that even the government had declared him a traitor made him seek refuge in Scotland. Richard had, however, denounced the calumnies, and at once recalled his uncle.

John’s self-restraint had strengthened his position, and he began again to think of his Spanish scheme. He urged its undertaking in parliament in 1382, but nearer troubles were more urgent, and John himself was wanted on the Scottish border. There he sought to arrange peace, but against his will was forced into an unfortunate campaign in 1384. His ill-success renewed his unpopularity, and the court favourites of Richard II. intrigued against him. They were probably responsible for the allegation, made by a Carmelite, called Latemar, that John was conspiring against his nephew. Though Richard at first believed it, the matter was disposed of by the friar’s death. However, the court party soon after concocted a fresh plot for the duke’s destruction; John boldly denounced his traducers, and the quarrel was appeased by the intervention of the king’s mother. The intrigue still continued, and broke out again during the Scottish campaign in 1385. John was not the man to be forced into treason to his family, but the impossibility of the position at home made his foreign ambitions more feasible.

The victory of John of Portugal over the king of Castile at Aljubarrota, won with English help, offered an opportunity. In July 1386 John left England with a strong force to win his Spanish throne. He landed at Corunna, and during the autumn conquered Galicia. Juan, who had succeeded his father Henry as king of Castile, offered a compromise by marriage. John of Gaunt refused, hoping for greater success with the help of the king of Portugal, who now married the duke’s eldest daughter Philippa. In the spring the allies invaded Castile. They could achieve no success, and sickness ruined the English army. The conquests of the previous year were lost, and when Juan renewed his offers, John of Gaunt agreed to surrender his claims to his daughter by Constance of Castile, who was to marry Juan’s heir. After some delay the peace was concluded at Bayonne in 1388. The next eighteen months were spent by John as lieutenant of Aquitaine, and it was not till November 1389 that he returned to England. By his absence he had avoided implication in the troubles at home. Richard, still insecure of his own position, welcomed his uncle, and early in the following year marked his favour by creating him duke of Aquitaine. John on his part was glad to support the king’s government; during four years he exercised his influence in favour of pacification at home, and abroad was chiefly responsible for the conclusion of a truce with France. Then in 1395 he went to take up the government of his duchy; thanks chiefly to his lavish expenditure his administration was not unsuccessful, but the Gascons had from the first objected to government except by the crown, and secured his recall within less than a year. Almost immediately after his return John married as his third wife Catherine Swynford; Constance of Castile had died in 1394. Catherine had been his mistress for many years, and his children by her, who bore the name of Beaufort, were now legitimated. In this and in other matters Richard found it politic to conciliate him. But though John presided at the trial of the earl of Arundel in September 1397, he took no active part in affairs. The exile of his son Henry in 1398 was a blow from which he did not recover. He died on the 3rd of February 1399, and was buried at St Paul’s near the high altar.

John was neither a great soldier nor a statesman, but he was a chivalrous knight and loyal to what he believed were the interests of his family. In spite of opportunities and provocations he never lent himself to treason. He deserves credit for his protection of Wycliffe, though he had no sympathy with his religious or political opinions. He was also the patron of Chaucer, whose Boke of the Duchesse was a lament for Blanche of Lancaster.

The chief original sources for John’s life are Froissart, the maliciously hostile Chronicon Angliae (1328-1388), and the eulogistic Chronicle of Henry Knighton (both the latter in the Rolls Series). But fuller information is to be found in the excellent biography by S. Armytage-Smith, published in 1904. For his descendants see the table under [Lancaster, House of].

(C. L. K.)

LANCASTER, JOSEPH (1778-1838), English educationist, was born in Southwark in 1778, the son of a Chelsea pensioner. He had few opportunities of regular instruction, but he very early showed unusual seriousness and desire for learning. At sixteen he looked forward to the dissenting ministry; but soon after his religious views altered, and he attached himself to the Society of Friends, with which he remained associated for many years, until long afterwards he was disowned by that body. At the age of twenty he began to gather a few poor children under his father’s roof, and to give them the rudiments of instruction, without a fee, except in cases in which the parent was willing to pay a trifle. Soon a thousand children were assembled in the Borough Road; and, the attention of the duke of Bedford, Mr Whitbread, and others having been directed to his efforts, he was provided with means for building a schoolroom and supplying needful materials. The main features of his plan were the employment of older scholars as monitors, and an elaborate system of mechanical drill, by means of which these young teachers were made to impart the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic to large numbers at the same time. The material appliances for teaching were very scanty—a few leaves torn out of spelling-books and pasted on boards, some slates and a desk spread with sand, on which the children wrote with their fingers. The order and cheerfulness of the school and the military precision of the children’s movements began to attract much public observation at a time when the education of the poor was almost entirely neglected. Lancaster inspired his young monitors with fondness for their work and with pride in the institution of which they formed a part. As these youths became more trustworthy, he found himself at leisure to accept invitations to expound what he called “his system” by lectures in various towns. In this way many new schools were established, and placed under the care of young men whom he had trained. In a memorable interview with George III., Lancaster was encouraged by the expression of the king’s wish that every poor child in his dominions should be taught to read the Bible. Royal patronage brought in its train resources, fame and public responsibility, which proved to be beyond Lancaster’s own powers to sustain or control. He was vain, reckless and improvident. In 1808 a few noblemen and gentlemen paid his debts, became his trustees and founded the society at first called the Royal Lancasterian Institution, but afterwards more widely known as the British and Foreign School Society. The trustees soon found that Lancaster was impatient of control, and that his wild impulses and heedless extravagance made it impossible to work with him. He quarrelled with the committee, set up a private school at Tooting, became bankrupt, and in 1818 emigrated to America. There he met at first a warm reception, gave several courses of lectures which were well attended, and wrote to friends at home letters full of enthusiasm. But his fame was short-lived. The miseries of debt and disappointment were aggravated by sickness, and he settled for a time in the warmer climate of Carácas. He afterwards visited St Thomas and Santa Cruz, and at length returned to New York, the corporation of which city made him a public grant of 500 dollars in pity for the misfortunes which had by this time reduced him to lamentable poverty. He afterwards visited Canada, where he gave lectures at Montreal, and was encouraged to open a school which enjoyed an ephemeral success, but was soon abandoned. A small annuity provided by his friends in England was his only means of support. He formed a plan for returning home and giving a new impetus to his “system,” by which he declared it would be possible “to teach ten thousand children in different schools, not knowing their letters, all to read fluently in three weeks to three months.” But these visions were never realized. He was run over by a carriage in the streets of New York on the 24th of October 1838, and died in a few hours.

As one of the two rival inventors of what was called the “monitorial” or “mutual” method of instruction, Lancaster’s name was prominent for many years in educational controversy. Dr Andrew Bell (q.v.) had in 1797 published an account of his experiments in teaching; and Lancaster in his first pamphlet, published in 1803, frankly acknowledges his debt to Bell for some useful hints. The two worked independently, but Lancaster was the first to apply the system of monitorial teaching on a large scale. As an economical experiment his school at the Borough Road was a signal success. He had one thousand scholars under discipline, and taught them to read, write and work simple sums at a yearly cost of less than 5s. a head. His tract Improvements in Education described the gradation of ranks, the system of signals and orders, the functions of the monitors, the method of counting and of spelling and the curious devices he adopted for punishing offenders. Bell’s educational aims were humbler, as he feared to “elevate above their station those who were doomed to the drudgery of daily labour,” and therefore did not desire to teach even writing and ciphering to the lower classes. The main difference between them was that the system of the one was adopted by ecclesiastics and Conservatives,—the “National Society for the Education of the Poor in the principles of the Established Church” having been founded in 1811 for its propagation; while Lancaster’s method was patronized by the Edinburgh Review, by Whig statesmen, by a few liberal Churchmen and by Nonconformists generally. It was the design of Lancaster and his friends to make national education Christian, but not sectarian,—to cause the Scriptures to be read, explained and reverenced in the schools, without seeking by catechisms or otherwise to attract the children to any particular church or sect. This principle was at first vehemently denounced as deistic and mischievous, and as especially hostile to the Established Church. To do them justice, it must be owned that the rival claims and merits of Bell and Lancaster were urged with more passion and unfairness by their friends than by themselves. Yet neither is entitled to hold a very high place among the world’s teachers. Bell was cold, shrewd and self-seeking. Lancaster had more enthusiasm, a genuine and abounding love for children, and some ingenuity in devising plans both for teaching and governing. But he was shiftless, wayward and unmethodical, and incapable of sustained and high-principled personal effort. His writings were not numerous. They consist mainly of short pamphlets descriptive of the successes he attained at the Borough Road. His last publication, An Epitome of the Chief Events and Transactions of my Own Life, appeared in America in 1833, and is characterized, even more strongly than his former writings, by looseness and incoherency of style, by egotism and by a curious incapacity for judging fairly the motives either of his friends or his foes. We have since come to believe that intelligent teaching requires skill and previous training, and that even the humblest rudiments are not to be well taught by those who have only just acquired them for themselves, or to be attained by mere mechanical drill. But in the early stages of national education the monitorial method served a valuable purpose. It brought large numbers of hitherto neglected children under discipline, and gave them elementary instruction at a very cheap rate. Moreover, the little monitors were often found to make up in brightness, tractability and energy for their lack of experience, and to teach the arts of reading, writing and computing with surprising success. And one cardinal principle of Bell and Lancaster is of prime importance. They regarded a school, not merely as a place to which individual pupils should come for guidance from teachers, but as an organized community whose members have much to learn from each other. They sought to place their scholars from the first in helpful mutual relations, and to make them feel the need of common efforts towards the attainment of common ends.

(J. G. F.)

LANCASTER, THOMAS, Earl of (c. 1277-1322), was the eldest son of Edmund, earl of Lancaster and titular king of Sicily, and a grandson of the English king, Henry III.; while he was related to the royal house of France both through his mother, Blanche, a granddaughter of Louis VIII., and his step-sister, Jeanne, queen of Navarre, the wife of Philip IV. A minor when Earl Edmund died in 1296, Thomas received his father’s earldoms of Lancaster and Leicester in 1298, but did not become prominent in English affairs until after the accession of his cousin, Edward II., in July 1307. Having married Alice (d. 1348), daughter and heiress of Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and added the earldom of Derby to those which he already held, he was marked out both by his wealth and position as the leader of the barons in their resistance to the new king. With his associates he produced the banishment of the royal favourite, Piers Gaveston, in 1308; compelled Edward in 1310 to surrender his power to a committee of “ordainers,” among whom he himself was numbered; and took up arms when Gaveston returned to England in January 1312. Lancaster, who had just obtained the earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury on the death of his father-in-law in 1311, drove the king and his favourite from Newcastle to Scarborough, and was present at the execution of Gaveston in June 1312. After lengthy efforts at mediation, he made his submission and received a full pardon from Edward in October 1313; but he refused to accompany the king on his march into Scotland, which ended at Bannockburn, and took advantage of the English disaster to wrest the control of affairs from the hands of Edward. In 1315 he took command of the forces raised to fight the Scots, and was soon appointed to the “chief place in the council,” while his supporters filled the great offices of state, but his rule was as feeble as that of the monarch whom he had superseded. Quarrelling with some of the barons, he neglected both the government and the defence of the kingdom, and in 1317 began a private war with John, Earl Warrenne, who had assisted his countess to escape from her husband. The capture of Berwick by the Scots, however, in April 1318 led to a second reconciliation with Edward. A formal treaty, made in the following August, having been ratified by parliament, the king and earl opened the siege of Berwick; but there was no cohesion between their troops, and the undertaking was quickly abandoned. On several occasions Lancaster was suspected of intriguing with the Scots, and it is significant that his lands were spared when Robert Bruce ravaged the north of England. He refused to attend the councils or to take any part in the government until 1321, when the Despensers were banished, and war broke out again between himself and the king. Having conducted some military operations against Lancaster’s friends on the Welsh marches, Edward led his troops against the earl, who gradually fell back from Burton-on-Trent to Pontefract. Continuing this movement, Lancaster reached Boroughbridge, where he was met by another body of royalists under Sir Andrew Harclay. After a skirmish he was deserted by his troops, and was obliged to surrender. Taken to his own castle at Pontefract, where the king was, he was condemned to death as a rebel and a traitor, and was beheaded near the town on the 22nd of March 1322. He left no children.

Although a coarse, selfish and violent man, without any of the attributes of a statesman, Lancaster won a great reputation for patriotism; and his memory was long cherished, especially in the north of England, as that of a defender of popular liberties. Over a hundred years after his death miracles were said to have been worked at his tomb at Pontefract; thousands visited his effigy in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and it was even proposed to make him a saint.

See Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., edited with introduction by W. Stubbs (London, 1882-1883); and W. Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii. (Oxford, 1896).

LANCASTER, a market town and municipal borough, river port, and the county town of Lancashire, England, in the Lancaster parliamentary division, 230 m. N.W. by N. from London by the London & North-Western railway (Castle Station); served also by a branch of the Midland railway (Green Ayre station). Pop. (1891) 33,256; (1901) 40,329. It lies at the head of the estuary of the river Lune, mainly on its south bank, 7 m. from the sea. The site slopes sharply up to an eminence crowned by the castle and the church of St Mary. Fine views over the rich valley and Morecambe Bay to the west are commanded from the summit. St Mary’s church was originally attached by Roger de Poictou to his Benedictine priory founded at the close of the 11th century. It contains some fine Early English work in the nave arcade, but is of Perpendicular workmanship in general appearance, while the tower dates from 1759. There are some beautiful Decorated oak stalls in the chancel, brought probably from Cockersand or Furness Abbey.

The castle occupies the site of a Roman castrum. The Saxon foundations of a yet older structure remain, and the tower at the south-west corner is supposed to have been erected during the reign of Hadrian. The Dungeon Tower, also supposed to be of Roman origin, was taken down in 1818. The greater part of the old portion of the present structure was built by Roger de Poictou, who utilized some of the Roman towers and the old walls. In 1322 much damage was done to the castle by Robert Bruce, whose attack it successfully resisted, but it was restored and strengthened by John of Gaunt, who added the greater part of the Gateway Tower as well as a turret on the keep or Lungess Tower, which on that account has been named “John o’ Gaunt’s Chair.” During the Civil War the castle was captured by Cromwell. Shortly after this it was put to public use, and now, largely modernized, contains the assize courts and gaol. Its appearance, with massive buildings surrounding a quadrangle, is picturesque and dignified. Without the walls is a pleasant terrace walk. Other buildings include several handsome modern churches and chapels (notably the Roman Catholic church); the Storey Institute with art gallery, technical and art schools, museum and library, presented to the borough by Sir Thomas Storey in 1887; Palatine Hall, Ripley hospital (an endowed school for the children of residents in Lancaster and the neighbourhood), the asylum, the Royal Lancaster infirmary and an observatory in the Williamson Park. A new town hall, presented by Lord Ashton in 1909, is a handsome classical building from designs of E. W. Mountford. The Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park, commemorating members of the Ashton family, is a lofty domed structure. The grammar school occupies modern buildings, but its foundation dates from the close of the 15th century, and in its former Jacobean house near the church William Whewell and Sir Richard Owen were educated. A horseshoe inserted in the pavement at Horseshoe Corner in the town, and renewed from time to time, is said to mark the place where a shoe was cast by John of Gaunt’s horse.

The chief industries are cotton-spinning, cabinet-making, oil cloth-making, railway wagon-building and engineering. Glasson Dock, 5 m. down the Lune, with a graving dock, is accessible to vessels of 600 tons. The Kendal and Lancaster canal reaches the town by an aqueduct over the Lune, which is also crossed by a handsome bridge dated 1788. The town has further connexion by canal with Preston. The corporation consists of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area, 3506 acres.

History.—Lancaster (Lone-caster or Lunecastrum) was an important Roman station, and traces of the Roman fortification wall remain. The Danes left few memorials of their occupation, and the Runic Cross found here, once supposed to be Danish, is now conclusively proved to be Anglo-Saxon. At the Conquest, the place, reduced in size and with its Roman castrum almost in ruins, became a possession of Roger de Poictou, who founded or enlarged the present castle on the old site. The town and castle had a somewhat chequered ownership till in 1266 they were granted by Henry III. to his son Edmund, first earl of Lancaster, and continued to be a part of the duchy of Lancaster till the present time. A town gathered around the castle, and in 1193 John, earl of Mertoun, afterwards king, granted it a charter, and another in 1199 after his accession. Under these charters the burgesses claimed the right of electing a mayor, of holding a yearly fair at Michaelmas and a weekly market on Saturday. Henry III. in 1226 confirmed the charter of 1199; in 1291 the style of the corporation is first mentioned as Ballivus et communitas burgi, and Edward III.’s confirmation and extension (1362) is issued to the mayor, bailiffs and commonalty. Edward III.’s charter was confirmed by Richard II. (1389), Henry IV. (1400), Henry V. (1421), Henry VII. (1488) and Elizabeth (1563). James I. (1604) and Charles II. (1665 and 1685) ratified, with certain additions, all previous charters, and again in 1819 a similar confirmation was issued. John of Gaunt in 1362 obtained a charter for the exclusive right of holding the sessions of pleas for the county in Lancaster itself, and up to 1873 the duchy appointed a chief justice and a puisne justice for the court of common pleas at Lancaster. In 1322 the Scots burnt the town, the castle alone escaping; the town was rebuilt but removed from its original position on the hill to the slope and foot. Again in 1389, after the battle of Otterburn, it was destroyed by the same enemy. At the outbreak of the Great Rebellion the burgesses sided with the king, and the town and castle were captured in February 1643 by the Parliamentarians. In March 1643 Lord Derby assaulted and took the town with great slaughter, but the castle remained in the hands of the Parliamentarians. In May and June of the same year the castle was again besieged in vain, and in 1648 the Royalists under Sir Thomas Tyldesley once more fruitlessly besieged it. During the rebellion of 1715 the northern rebels occupied Lancaster for two days and several of them were later executed here. During the 1745 rebellion Prince Charles Edward’s army passed through the town in its southward march and again in its retreat, but the inhabitants stood firm for the Hanoverians.

Two chartered markets are held weekly on Wednesday and Saturday and three annual fairs in April, July and October. A merchant gild existed here, which was ratified by Edward III.’s charter (1362), and in 1688 six trade companies were incorporated. The chief manufactures used to be sailcloth, cabinet furniture, candles and cordage. The borough returned two members to parliament from 1295 to 1331 and again from some time in Henry VIII.’s reign before 1529 till 1867, when it was merged in the Lancaster division of north Lancashire. A church existed here, probably on the site of the parish church of St Mary’s, in Anglo-Saxon times, but the present church dates from the early 15th century. An act of parliament was passed in 1792 to make the canal from Kendal through Lancaster and Preston, which is carried over the Lune about a mile above Lancaster by a splendid aqueduct.

See Fleury, Time-Honoured Lancaster (1891); E. Baines, History of Lancashire (1888).

LANCASTER, a city and the county-seat of Fairfield county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Hocking river (non-navigable), about 32 m. S.E. of Columbus. Pop. (1900) 8991, of whom 442 were foreign-born and 212 were negroes; (1910 census) 13,093. Lancaster is served by the Hocking Valley, the Columbus & Southern and the Cincinnati & Muskingum Valley (Pennsylvania Lines) railways, and by the electric line of the Scioto Valley Traction Company, which connects it with Columbus. Near the centre of the city is Mt. Pleasant, which rises nearly 200 ft. above the surrounding plain and about which cluster many Indian legends; with 70 acres of woodland and fields surrounding it, this has been given to the city for a park. On another hill is the county court house. Lancaster has a public library and a children’s home; and 6 m. distant is the State Industrial School for Boys. The manufactures include boots and shoes, glass and agricultural implements. The total value of the city’s factory product in 1905 was $4,159,410, being an increase of 118.3% over that of 1900. Lancaster is the trade centre of a fertile agricultural region, has good transportation facilities, and is near the Hocking Valley and Sunday Creek Valley coal-fields; its commercial and industrial importance increased greatly, after 1900, through the development of the neighbouring natural gas fields and, after 1907-1908, through the discovery of petroleum near the city. Good sandstone is quarried in the vicinity. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks and natural gas plant. Lancaster was founded in 1800 by Ebenezer Zane (1747-1811), who received a section of land here as part compensation for opening a road, known as “Zane’s Trace,” from Wheeling, West Virginia, to Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky. Some of the early settlers were from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, whence the name. Lancaster was incorporated as a village in 1831 and twenty years later became a city of the third class.

LANCASTER, a city and the county-seat of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Conestoga river, 68 m. W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1900) 41,459, of whom 3492 were foreign-born and 777 were negroes; (1910 census) 47,227. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia & Reading and the Lancaster, Oxford & Southern railways, and by tramways of the Conestoga Traction Company, which had in 1909 a mileage of 152 m. Lancaster has a fine county court house, a soldiers’ monument about 43 ft. in height, two fine hospitals, the Thaddeus Stevens Industrial School (for orphans), a children’s home, the Mechanics’ Library, and the Library of the Lancaster Historical Society. It is the seat of Franklin and Marshall College (Reformed Church), of the affiliated Franklin and Marshall Academy, and of the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church, conducted in connexion with the college. The college was founded in 1852 by the consolidation of Franklin College, founded at Lancaster in 1787, and Marshall College, founded at Mercersburg in 1836, both of which had earned a high standing among the educational institutions of Pennsylvania. Franklin College was named in honour of Benjamin Franklin, an early patron; Marshall College was founded by the Reformed Church and was named in honour of John Marshall. The Theological Seminary was opened in 1825 at Carlisle, Pa., and was removed to York, Pa., in 1829, to Mercersburg, Pa., in 1837 and to Lancaster in 1871; in 1831 it was chartered by the Pennsylvania legislature. Among its teachers have been John W. Nevin and Philip Schaff, whose names, and that of the seminary, are associated with the so-called “Mercersburg Theology.” At Millersville, 4 m. S.W. of Lancaster, is the Second Pennsylvania State Normal School. At Lancaster are the graves of General John F. Reynolds, who was born here; Thaddeus Stevens, who lived here after 1842; and President James Buchanan, who lived for many years on an estate, “Wheatland,” near the city and is buried in the Woodward Hill Cemetery. The city is in a productive tobacco and grain region, and has a large tobacco trade and important manufactures. The value of the city’s factory products increased from $12,750,429 in 1900 to $14,647,681 in 1905, or 14.9%. In 1905 the principal products were umbrellas and canes (valued at $2,782,879), cigars and cigarettes ($1,951,971), and foundry and machine-shop products ($1,036,526). Lancaster county has long been one of the richest agricultural counties in the United States, its annual products being valued at about $10,000,000; in 1906 the value of the tobacco crop was about $3,225,000, and there were 824 manufactories of cigars in the county.

Lancaster was settled about 1717 by English Quakers and Germans, was laid out as a town in 1730, incorporated as a borough in 1742, and chartered as a city in 1818. An important treaty with the Iroquois Indians was negotiated here by the governor of Pennsylvania and by commissioners from Maryland and Virginia in June 1744. Some of General Burgoyne’s troops, surrendered at Saratoga, were confined here after the autumn of 1780. The Continental Congress sat here on the 27th of September 1777 after being driven from Philadelphia by the British; and subsequently, after the organization of the Federal government, Lancaster was one of the places seriously considered when a national capital was to be chosen. From 1799 to 1812 Lancaster was the capital of Pennsylvania.

LANCE, a form of spear used by cavalry (see [Spear]). The use of the lance, dying away on the decay of chivalry and the introduction of pistol-armed cavalry, was revived by the Polish and Cossack cavalry who fought against Charles XII. and Frederick the Great. It was not until Napoleon’s time, however, that lancer regiments appeared in any great numbers on European battlefields. The effective use of the weapon—long before called by Montecucculi the “queen of weapons”—by Napoleon’s lancers at Waterloo led to its introduction into the British service, and except for a short period after the South African War, in which it was condemned as an anachronism, it has shared, or rather contested, with the sword the premier place amongst cavalry arms. In Great Britain and other countries lances are carried by the front rank of cavalry, except light cavalry, regiments, as well as by lancer regiments. In Germany, since 1889, the whole of the cavalry has been armed with the lance. In Russia, on the other hand, line cavalry being, until recently, considered as a sort of mounted infantry or dragoons, the lance was restricted to the Cossacks, and in Austria it enjoys less favour than in Germany. Altogether there are few questions of armament or military detail more freely disputed, in the present day as in the past, than this of sword versus lance.

The lances used in the British service are of two kinds, those with ash and those with bamboo staves. The latter are much preferred and are generally used, the “male” bamboo being peculiarly tough and elastic. The lance is provided with a sling, through which the trooper passes his right arm when the lance is carried slung, the point of the steel shoe fitting into a bucket attached to the right stirrup. A small “dee” loop is also provided, by which the lance can be attached to the saddle when the trooper dismounts. The small flag is removed on service. The head is of the best steel. The Germans, doubtless owing to difficulty in obtaining bamboos, or ash in large quantity straight enough in the grain over a considerable length, for lance staves, have adopted a stave of steel tubing as well as one of pine (figs. 2, 3 and 4).

As to the question of the relative efficiency of the lance and the sword as the principal arm for cavalry, it is alleged that the former is heavy and fatiguing to carry, conspicuous, and much in the way when reconnoitring in close country, working through woods and the like; that, when unslung ready for the charge, it is awkward to handle, and may be positively dangerous if a horse becomes restive and the rider has to use both hands on the reins; that unless the thrust be delivered at full speed, it is easily parried; and, lastly, that in the mêlée, when the trooper has not room to use his lance, he will be helpless until he either throws it away or slings it, and can draw his sword. While admitting the last-mentioned objection, those who favour the lance contend that success in the first shock of contact is all-important, and that this success the lancer will certainly obtain, owing to his long reach enabling him to deliver a blow before the swordsman can retaliate, while, when the mêlée commences, the rear rank will come to the assistance of the front rank. Further, it is claimed that the power of delivering the first blow gives confidence to the young soldier; that the appearance of a lancer regiment, preceded as it were by a hedge of steel, has an immense moral effect; that in single combat a lancer, with room to turn, can always defeat an opponent armed with a sword; and, lastly, that in pursuit a lancer is terrible to an enemy, whether the latter be mounted or on foot. As in the case of the perennial argument whether a sword should be designed mainly for cutting or thrusting, it is unlikely that the dispute as to the merits of the lance over the sword will ever be definitely settled, since so many other factors—horsemanship, the training of the horse, the skill and courage of the adversary—determine the trooper’s success quite as much as the weapon he happens to wield. The following passage from Cavalry: its History and Tactics (London, 1853), by Captain Nolan, explains how the lance gained popularity in Austria:—“In the last Hungarian war (1848-49) the Hungarian Hussars were ... generally successful against the Austrian heavy cavalry—cuirassiers and dragoons; but when they met the Polish Lancers, the finest regiments of light horse in the Austrian service, distinguished for their discipline, good riding, and, above all, for their esprit de corps and gallantry in action, against those the Hungarians were not successful, and at once attributed this to the lances of their opponents. The Austrians then extolled the lance above the sword, and armed all their light cavalry regiments with it.”

The lancer regiments in the British service are the 5th, the 9th, the 12th, the 16th, the 17th and the 21st. All these were converted at different dates from hussars and light dragoons, the last-named in 1896. The typical lancer uniform is a light-fitting short-skirted tunic with a double-breasted front, called the plastron, of a different colour, a girdle, and a flat-topped lancer “cap,” adapted from the Polish czapka (see [Uniforms]: Naval and Military). The British lancers, with the exception of the 16th, who wear scarlet with blue facings, are clad in blue, the 5th, 9th and 12th having scarlet facings and green, black and red plumes respectively, the 17th (famous as the “death or glory boys” and wearing a skull and crossbones badge) white facings and white plume, and the 21st light-blue facings and plume.

LANCELOT (Lancelot du Lac, or Lancelot of the Lake), a famous figure in the Arthurian cycle of romances. To the great majority of English readers the name of no knight of King Arthur’s court is so familiar as is that of Sir Lancelot. The mention of Arthur and the Round Table at once brings him to mind as the most valiant member of that brotherhood and the secret lover of the Queen. Lancelot, however, is not an original member of the cycle, and the development of his story is still a source of considerable perplexity to the critic.

Briefly summarized, the outline of his career, as given in the German Lanzelet and the French prose Lancelot, is as follows: Lancelot was the only child of King Ban of Benoic and his queen Helaine. While yet an infant, his father was driven from his kingdom, either by a revolt of his subjects, caused by his own harshness (Lanzelet), or by the action of his enemy Claudas de la Deserte (Lancelot). King and queen fly, carrying the child with them, and while the wife is tending her husband, who dies of a broken heart on his flight, the infant is carried off by a friendly water-fairy, the Lady of the Lake, who brings the boy up in her mysterious kingdom. In the German poem this is a veritable “Isle of Maidens,” where no man ever enters, and where it is perpetual spring. In the prose Lancelot, on the other hand, the Lake is but a mirage, and the Lady’s court does not lack its complement of gallant knights; moreover the boy has the companionship of his cousins, Lionel and Bohort, who, like himself, have been driven from their kingdom by Claudas. When he reaches the customary age (which appears to be fifteen), the young Lancelot, suitably equipped, is sent out into the world. In both versions his name and parentage are concealed, in the Lanzelet he is genuinely ignorant of both; here too his lack of all knightly accomplishments (not unnatural when we remember he has here been brought up entirely by women) and his inability to handle a steed are insisted upon. Here he rides forth in search of what adventure may bring. In the prose Lancelot his education is complete, he knows his name and parentage, though for some unexplained reason he keeps both secret, and he goes with a fitting escort and equipment to Arthur’s court to demand knighthood. The subsequent adventures differ widely: in the Lanzelet he ultimately reconquers his kingdom, and, with his wife Iblis, reigns over it in peace, both living to see their children’s children, and dying on the same day, in good old fairy-tale fashion. In fact, the whole of the Lanzelet has much more the character of a fairy or folk-tale than that of a knightly romance.

In the prose version, Lancelot, from his first appearance at court, conceives a passion for the queen, who is very considerably his senior, his birth taking place some time after her marriage to Arthur. This infatuation colours all his later career. He frees her from imprisonment in the castle of Meleagant, who has carried her off against her will—(a similar adventure is related in Lanzelet, where the abductor is Valerîn, and Lanzelet is not the rescuer)—and, although he recovers his kingdom from Claudas, he prefers to remain a simple knight of Arthur’s court, bestowing the lands on his cousins and half-brother Hector. Tricked into a liaison with the Fisher King’s daughter Elaine, he becomes the father of Galahad, the Grail winner, and, as a result of the queen’s jealous anger at his relations with the lady, goes mad, and remains an exile from the court for some years. He takes part, fruitlessly, in the Grail quest, only being vouchsafed a fleeting glimpse of the sacred Vessel, which, however, is sufficient to cast him into unconsciousness, in which he remains for as many days as he has spent years in sin. Finally, his relations with Guenevere are revealed to Arthur by the sons of King Lot, Gawain, however, taking no part in the disclosure. Surprised together, Lancelot escapes, and the queen is condemned to be burnt alive. As the sentence is about to be carried into execution Lancelot and his kinsmen come to her rescue, but in the fight that ensues many of Arthur’s knights, including three of Gawain’s brothers, are slain. Thus converted into an enemy, Gawain urges his uncle to make war on Lancelot, and there follows a desperate struggle between Arthur and the race of Ban. This is interrupted by the tidings of Mordred’s treachery, and Lancelot, taking no part in the last fatal conflict, outlives both king and queen, and the downfall of the Round Table. Finally, retiring to a hermitage, he ends his days in the odour of sanctity.

The process whereby the independent hero of the Lanzelet (who, though his mother is Arthur’s sister, has but the slightest connexion with the British king), the faithful husband of Iblis, became converted into the principal ornament of Arthur’s court, and the devoted lover of the queen, is by no means easy to follow, nor do other works of the cycle explain the transformation. In the pseudo-chronicles, the Historia of Geoffrey and the translations by Wace and Layamon, Lancelot does not appear at all; the queen’s lover, whose guilty passion is fully returned, is Mordred. Chrétien de Troyes’ treatment of him is contradictory; in the Erec, his earliest extant poem, Lancelot’s name appears as third on the list of the knights of Arthur’s court. (It is well, however, to bear in mind the possibility of later addition or alteration in such lists.) In Cligés he again ranks as third, being overthrown by the hero of the poem. In Le Chevalier de la Charrette, however, which followed Cligés, we find Lancelot alike as leading knight of the court and lover of the queen, in fact, precisely in the position he occupies in the prose romance, where, indeed, the section dealing with this adventure is, as Gaston Paris clearly proved, an almost literal adaptation of Chrétien’s poem. The subject of the poem is the rescue of the queen from her abductor Meleagant; and what makes the matter more perplexing is that Chrétien handles the situation as one with which his hearers are already familiar; it is Lancelot, and not Arthur or another, to whom the office of rescuer naturally belongs. After this it is surprising to find that in his next poem, Le Chevalier au Lion, Lancelot is once, and only once, casually referred to, and that in a passing reference to his rescue of the queen. In the Perceval, Chrétien’s last work, he does not appear at all, and yet much of the action passes at Arthur’s court.

In the continuations added at various times to Chrétien’s unfinished work the rôle assigned to Lancelot is equally modest. Among the fifteen knights selected by Arthur to accompany him to Chastel Orguellous he only ranks ninth. In the version of the Luite Tristran inserted by Gerbert in his Perceval, he is publicly overthrown and shamed by Tristan. Nowhere is he treated with anything approaching the importance assigned to him in the prose versions. Welsh tradition does not know him; early Italian records, which have preserved the names of Arthur and Gawain, have no reference to Lancelot; among the group of Arthurian knights figured on the architrave of the north doorway of Modena cathedral (a work of the 12th century) he finds no place; the real cause for his apparently sudden and triumphant rise to popularity is extremely difficult to determine. What appears the most probable solution is that which regards Lancelot as the hero of an independent and widely diffused folk-tale, which, owing to certain special circumstances, was brought into contact with, and incorporated in, the Arthurian tradition. This much has been proved certain of the adventures recounted in the Lanzelet; the theft of an infant by a water-fairy; the appearance of the hero three consecutive days, in three different disguises, at a tournament; the rescue of a queen, or princess, from an Other-World prison, all belong to one well-known and widely-spread folk-tale, variants of which are found in almost every land, and of which numerous examples have been collected alike by M. Cosquin in his Contes Lorrains, and by Mr J. F. Campbell in his Tales of the West Highlands.

The story of the loves of Lancelot and Guenevere, as related by Chrétien, has about it nothing spontaneous and genuine; in no way can it be compared with the story of Tristan and Iseult. It is the exposition of a relation governed by artificial and arbitrary rules, to which the principal actors in the drama must perforce conform. Chrétien states that he composed the poem (which he left to be completed by Godefroi de Leigni) at the request of the countess Marie of Champagne, who provided him with matière et san. Marie was the daughter of Louis VII. of France and of Eleanor of Aquitaine, subsequently wife of Henry II. of Anjou and England. It is a matter of history that both mother and daughter were active agents in fostering that view of the social relations of the sexes which found its most famous expression in the “Courts of Love,” and which was responsible for the dictum that love between husband and wife was impossible. The logical conclusion appears to be that the Charrette poem is a “Tendenz-Schrift,” composed under certain special conditions, in response to a special demand. The story of Tristan and Iseult, immensely popular as it was, was too genuine—(shall we say too crude?)—to satisfy the taste of the court for which Chrétien was writing. Moreover, the Arthurian story was the popular story of the day, and Tristan did not belong to the magic circle, though he was ultimately introduced, somewhat clumsily, it must be admitted, within its bounds. The Arthurian cycle must have its own love-tale; Guenevere, the leading lady of that cycle, could not be behind the courtly ladies of the day and lack a lover; one had to be found for her. Lancelot, already popular hero of a tale in which an adventure parallel to that of the Charrette figured prominently, was pressed into the service, Modred, Guenevere’s earlier lover, being too unsympathetic a character; moreover, Modred was required for the final rôle of traitor.

But to whom is the story to be assigned? Here we must distinguish between the Lancelot proper and the Lancelot-Guenevere versions; so far as the latter are concerned, we cannot get behind the version of Chrétien,—nowhere, prior to the composition of the Chevalier de la Charrette is there any evidence of the existence of such a story. Yet Chrétien does not claim to have invented the situation. Did it spring from the fertile brain of some court lady, Marie, or another? The authorship of the Lancelot proper, on the other hand, is invariably ascribed to Walter Map (see [Map]), the chancellor of Henry II., but so also are the majority of the Arthurian prose Romances. The trend of modern critical opinion is towards accepting Map as the author of a Lancelot romance, which formed the basis for later developments, and there is a growing tendency to identify this hypothetical original Lancelot with the source of the German Lanzelet. The author, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, tells us that he translated his poem from a French (welsches) book in the possession of Hugo de Morville, one of the English hostages, who, in 1194, replaced Richard Cœur de Lion in the prison of Leopold of Austria. Further evidence on the point is, unfortunately, not at present forthcoming. To the student of the original texts Lancelot is an infinitely less interesting hero than Gawain, Perceval or Tristan, each of whom possesses a well-marked personality, and is the centre of what we may call individual adventures. Saving and excepting the incident of his being stolen and brought up by a water-fairy (from a Lai relating which adventure the whole story probably started), there is absolutely nothing in Lancelot’s character or career to distinguish him from any other romantic hero of the period. The language of the prose Lancelot is good, easy and graceful, but the adventures lack originality and interest, and the situations repeat themselves in a most wearisome manner. English readers, who know the story only through the medium of Malory’s noble prose and Tennyson’s melodious verse, carry away an impression entirely foreign to that produced by a study of the original literature. The Lancelot story, in its rise and development, belongs exclusively to the later stage of Arthurian romance; it was a story for the court, not for the folk, and it lacks alike the dramatic force and human appeal of the genuine “popular” tale.

The prose Lancelot was frequently printed; J. C. Brunet chronicles editions of 1488, 1494, 1513, 1520 and 1533—of this last date there are two, one published by Jehan Petit, the other by Philippe Lenoire, this last by far the better, being printed from a much fuller manuscript. There is no critical edition, and the only version available for the general reader is the modernized and abridged text published by Paulin Paris in vols. iii. to v. of Romans de la Table Ronde. A Dutch verse translation of the 13th century was published by M. W. J. A. Jonckbloet in 1850, under the title of Roman van Lanceloet. This only begins with what Paulin Paris terms the Agravain section, all the part previous to Guenevere’s rescue from Meleagant having been lost; but the text is an excellent one, agreeing closely with the Lenoire edition of 1533. The Books devoted by Malory to Lancelot are also drawn from this latter section of the romance; there is no sign that the English translator had any of the earlier part before him. Malory’s version of the Charrette adventure differs in many respects from any other extant form, and the source of this special section of his work is still a question of debate among scholars. The text at his disposal, especially in the Queste section, must have been closely akin to that used by the Dutch translator and the compiler of Lenoire, 1533. Unfortunately, Dr Sommer, in his study on the Sources of Malory, omitted to consult these texts, with the result that the sections dealing with Lancelot and Queste urgently require revision.

Bibliography.—Lanzelet (ed. Hahn, 1845, out of print and extremely difficult to obtain). Chrétien’s poem has been published by Professor Wendelin Foerster, in his edition of the works of that poet, Der Karrenritter (1899). A Dutch version of a short episodic poem, Lancelot et le cerf au pied blanc will be found in M. Jonckbloet’s volume, and a discussion of this and other Lancelot poems, by Gaston Paris, is contained in vol. xxx. of Histoire littéraire de la France. For critical studies on the subject cf. Gaston Paris’s articles in Romania, vols. x. and xii.; Wechssler, Die verschiedenen Redaktionen des Graal-Lancelot Cyklus; J. L. Weston, The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac (Grimm Library, vol. xii.); and The Three Days’ Tournament (Grimm Library, vol. xv.) an appendix to the (J. L. W.) previous vol.

LANCET (from Fr. lancette, dim. of lance, lance), the name given to a surgical instrument, with a narrow two-edged blade and a lance-shaped point, used for opening abscesses, &c. The term is applied, in architecture, to a form of the pointed arch, and to a window of which the head is a lancet-arch.

LANCEWOOD, a straight-grained, tough, light elastic wood obtained from the West Indies and Guiana. It is brought into commerce in the form of taper poles of about 20 ft. in length and from 6 to 8 in. in diameter at the thickest end. Lancewood is used by carriage-builders for shafts; but since the practice of employing curved shafts has come largely into use it is not in so great demand as formerly. The smaller wood is used for whip-handles, for the tops of fishing-rods, and for various minor purposes where even-grained elastic wood is a desideratum. The wood is obtained from two members of the natural order Anonaceae. The black lancewood or carisiri of Guiana (Guatteria virgata) grows to a height of 50 ft., is of remarkably slender form, and seldom yields wood more than 8 in. diameter. The yellow lancewood tree (Duguetia quitarensis, yari-yari, of Guiana) is of similar dimensions, found in tolerable abundance throughout Guiana, and used by the Indians for arrow-points, as well as for spars, beams, &c.

LAN-CHOW-FU, the chief town of the Chinese province of Kan-suh, and one of the most important cities of the interior part of the empire, on the right bank of the Hwang-ho. The population is estimated at 175,000. The houses, with very few exceptions, are built of wood, but the streets are paved with blocks of granite and marble. Silks, wood-carvings, silver and jade ornaments, tin and copper wares, fruits and tobacco are the chief articles of the local trade. Tobacco is very extensively cultivated in the vicinity.

LANCIANO (anc. Anxanum), a town and episcopal see of the Abruzzi, Italy, in the province of Chieti, situated on three hills, 984 ft. above sea-level, about 8 m. from the Adriatic coast and 12 m. S.E. of Chieti. Pop. (1901) 7642 (town), 18,316 (commune). It has a railway station on the coast railway, 19 m. S.E. of Castellammare Adriatico. It has broad, regular streets, and several fine buildings. The cathedral, an imposing structure with a fine clock-tower of 1619, is built upon bridges of brickwork, dating perhaps from the Roman period (though the inscription attributing the work to Diocletian is a forgery), that span the gorge of the Feltrino, and is dedicated to S. Maria del Ponte, Our Lady of the Bridge. The Gothic church of S. Maria Maggiore dates from 1227 and has a fine façade, with a portal of 1317 by a local sculptor. The processional cross by the silversmith Nicola di Guardiagrele (1422) is very beautiful. In S. Nicola is a fine reliquary of 1445 by Nicola di Francavilla. The church of the Annunziata has a good rose window of 1362. The industries of the town, famous in the middle ages, have declined. Anxanum belonged originally to the tribe of the Frentani and later became a municipium. It lay on the ancient highroad, which abandoned the coast at Ortona 10 m. to the N. and returned to it at Histonium (Vasto). Remains of a Roman theatre exist under the bishop’s palace.

See V. Bindi, Monumenti degli Abruzzi (Naples, 1889, 690 sqq.), and for discoveries in the neighbourhood see A. de Nino in Notizie degli scavi (1884), 431.

(T. As.)

LANCRET, NICOLAS (1660-1743), French painter, was born in Paris on the 22nd of January 1660, and became a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society under the regent Orleans. His first master was Pierre d’Ulin, but his acquaintance with and admiration for Watteau induced him to leave d’Ulin for Gillot, whose pupil Watteau had been. Two pictures painted by Lancret and exhibited on the Place Dauphine had a great success, which laid the foundation of his fortune, and, it is said, estranged Watteau, who had been complimented as their author. Lancret’s work cannot now, however, be taken for that of Watteau, for both in drawing and in painting his touch, although intelligent, is dry, hard and wanting in that quality which distinguished his great model; these characteristics are due possibly in part to the fact that he had been for some time in training under an engraver. The number of his paintings (of which over eighty have been engraved) is immense; he executed a few portraits and attempted historical composition, but his favourite subjects were balls, fairs, village weddings, &c. The British Museum possesses an admirable series of studies by Lancret in red chalk, and the National Gallery, London, shows four paintings—the “Four Ages of Man” (engraved by Desplaces and l’Armessin), cited by d’Argenville amongst the principal works of Lancret. In 1719 he was received as Academician, and became councillor in 1735; in 1741 he married a grandchild of Boursault, author of Aesop at Court. He died on the 14th of September 1743.

See d’Argenville, Vies des peintres; and Ballot de Sovot, Éloge de M. Lancret (1743, new ed. 1874).

LAND, the general term for that part of the earth’s surface which is solid and dry as opposed to sea or water. The word is common to Teutonic languages, mainly in the same form and with essentially the same meaning. The Celtic cognate forms are Irish lann, Welsh llan, an enclosure, also in the sense of “church,” and so of constant occurrence in Welsh place-names, Cornish lan and Breton lann, health, which has given the French lande, an expanse or tract of sandy waste ground. The ultimate root is unknown. From its primary meaning have developed naturally the various uses of the word, for a tract of ground or country viewed either as a political, geographical or ethnographical division of the earth, as property owned by the public or state or by a private individual, or as the rural as opposed to the urban or the cultivated as opposed to the built on part of the country; of particular meanings may be mentioned that of a building divided into tenements or flats, the divisions being known as “houses,” a Scottish usage, and also that of a division of a ploughed field marked by the irrigating channels, hence transferred to the smooth parts of the bore of a rifle between the grooves of the rifling.

For the physical geography of the land, as the solid portion of the earth’s surface, see [Geography]. For land as the subject of cultivation see [Agriculture] and [Soil], also [Reclamation of Land]. For the history of the holding or tenure of land see [Village Communities] and [Feudalism]; a particular form of land tenure is dealt with under [Métayage]. The article [Agrarian Laws] deals with the disposal of the public land (Ager publicus) in Ancient Rome, and further information with regard to the part played by the land question in Roman history will be found under [Rome]: § History. The legal side of the private ownership of land is treated under [Real Property] and [Conveyancing] (see also [Landlord and Tenant], and [Land Registration]).

LANDAU, a town in the Bavarian Palatinate, on the Queich, lying under the eastern slope of the Hardt Mountains, 32 m. by rail S.W. from Mannheim, at the junction of lines to Neustadt an der Hardt, Weissenburg and Saarbrücken. Pop. (1905) 17,165. Among its buildings are the Gothic Evangelical church, dating from 1285; the chapel of St Catherine built in 1344; the church of the former Augustinian monastery, dating from 1405; and the Augustinian monastery itself, founded in 1276 and now converted into a brewery. There are manufactures of cigars, beer, hats, watches, furniture and machines, and a trade in wine, fruit and cereals. Large cattle-markets are held here. Landau was founded in 1224, becoming an imperial city fifty years later. This dignity was soon lost, as in 1317 it passed to the bishopric of Spires and in 1331 to the Palatinate, recovering its former position in 1511. Captured eight times during the Thirty Years’ War the town was ceded to France by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, although with certain ill-defined reservations. In 1679 Louis XIV. definitely took possession of Landau. Its fortifications were greatly strengthened; nevertheless it was twice taken by the Imperialists and twice recovered by the French during the Spanish Succession War. In 1815 it was given to Austria and in the following year to Bavaria. The fortifications were finally dismantled in 1871.

The town is commonly supposed to have given its name to the four-wheeled carriage, with an adjustable divided top for use either open or closed, known as a “landau” (Ger. Landauer). But this derivation is doubtful, the origin of the name being also ascribed to that of an English carriage-builder, Landow, who introduced this form of equipage.

See E. Heuser, Die Belagerungen von Landau in den Jahren 1702 und 1703 (Landau, 1894); Lehmann, Geschichte der ehemaligen freien Reichsstadt Landau (1851); and Jost, Interessante Daten aus der 600 jährigen Geschichte der Stadt Landau (Landau, 1879).

LANDECK, a town and spa in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the Biele, 73 m. by rail S. of Breslau and close to the Austrian frontier. Pop. (1905) 3,481. It is situated at an altitude of 1400 ft. It has manufactures of gloves. Landeck is visited by nearly 10,000 people annually on account of its warm sulphur baths, which have been known since the 13th century. In the neighbourhood are the ruins of the castle of Karpenstein.

See Langner, Bad Landeck (Glatz, 1872); Schütze, Die Thermen von Landeck (Berlin, 1895); Wehse, Bad Landeck (Breslau, 1886); Joseph, Die Thermen von Landeck (Berlin, 1887), and Patschovsky, Führer durch Bad Landeck und Umgebung (Schweidnitz, 1902).

LANDEN, JOHN (1719-1790), English mathematician, was born at Peakirk near Peterborough in Northamptonshire on the 23rd of January 1719, and died on the 15th of January 1790 at Milton in the same county. He lived a very retired life, and saw little or nothing of society; when he did mingle in it, his dogmatism and pugnacity caused him to be generally shunned. In 1762 he was appointed agent to the Earl Fitzwilliam, and held that office to within two years of his death. He was first known as a mathematician by his essays in the Ladies’ Diary for 1744. In 1766 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He was well acquainted with the works of the mathematicians of his own time, and has been called the “English d’Alembert.” In his Discourse on the “Residual Analysis,” he proposes to avoid the metaphysical difficulties of the method of fluxions by a purely algebraical method. The idea may be compared with that of Joseph Louis Lagrange’s Calcul des Fonctions. His memoir (1775) on the rotatory motion of a body contains (as the author was aware) conclusions at variance with those arrived at by Jean le Rond, d’Alembert and Leonhard Euler in their researches on the same subject. He reproduces and further develops and defends his own views in his Mathematical Memoirs, and in his paper in the Philosophical Transactions for 1785. But Landen’s capital discovery is that of the theorem known by his name (obtained in its complete form in the memoir of 1775, and reproduced in the first volume of the Mathematical Memoirs) for the expression of the arc of an hyperbola in terms of two elliptic arcs. His researches on elliptic functions are of considerable elegance, but their great merit lies in the stimulating effect which they had on later mathematicians. He also showed that the roots of a cubic equation can be derived by means of the infinitesimal calculus.

The list of his writings is as follows:—Ladies’ Diary, various communications (1744-1760); papers in the Phil. Trans. (1754, 1760, 1768, 1771, 1775, 1777, 1785); Mathematical Lucubrations (1755); A Discourse concerning the Residual Analysis (1758); The Residual Analysis, book i. (1764); Animadversions on Dr Stewart’s Method of computing the Sun’s Distance from the Earth (1771); Mathematical Memoirs (1780, 1789).

LANDEN, a town in the province of Liége, Belgium, an important junction for lines of railway from Limburg, Liége and Louvain. Pop. (1904) 2874. It is the birthplace of the first Pippin, distinguished as Pippin of Landen from his grandson Pippin of Herstal. In 1693 the French under Marshal Luxemburg defeated here the Anglo-Dutch army under William III. This battle is also called Neerwinden from a village 3 m. W. of Landen. Here in 1793 the Austrians under Frederick of Saxe-Coburg and Clerfayt defeated the French under Dumouriez.

LANDER, RICHARD LEMON (1804-1834) and JOHN (1807-1839), English explorers of the Niger, were natives of Cornwall, sons of an innkeeper at Truro. At the age of eleven Richard went to the West Indies in the service of a merchant. Returning to England after an absence of three years he took service with various wealthy families, with whom he travelled on the continent. In 1823-1824 he accompanied Major (afterwards General Sir) W. M. Colebrooke, on a tour through Cape Colony. In 1825 Richard offered his services to Hugh Clapperton, then preparing for his second expedition to West Africa. He was Clapperton’s devoted servant and companion in this expedition, and on Clapperton’s death near Sokoto in April 1827 Richard Lander, after visiting Kano and other parts of the Hausa states, returned to the Guinea coast through Yoruba bringing with him Clapperton’s journal. To this on its publication (1829) was added The Journal of Richard Lander from Kano to the Coast, and in the next year Lander published another account of the expedition entitled Records of Captain Clapperton’s Last Expedition to Africa ... with the subsequent Adventures of the Author. To this narrative he prefixed an autobiographical note. Richard Lander, though without any scientific attainments, had exhibited such capacity for exploration that the British government decided to send him out to determine the course of the lower Niger. In the expedition he was accompanied by his brother John, by trade a printer, and better educated than Richard, who went as an unsalaried volunteer. Leaving England in January 1830, the brothers landed at Badagry on the Guinea coast on the 22nd of March. They then travelled by the route previously taken by Clapperton to Bussa on the right bank of the Niger, reached on the 17th of June. Thence they ascended the river for about 100 m. Going back to Bussa the travellers began, on the 20th of September, the descent of the river, not knowing whither it would lead them. They journeyed in canoes accompanied by a few negroes, their only scientific instrument a common compass. They discovered the Benue river, ascertaining when passing its confluence, by paddling against its stream, that their course was not in that direction. At the beginning of the delta they were captured by the Ibos, from whom they were ransomed by “King Boy” of Brass Town; by him they were taken to the Nun mouth of the river, whence a passage was obtained to Fernando Po, reached on the 1st of December. The Landers were thus able to lay down with approximate correctness the lower course of the Niger—a matter till then as much in dispute as was the question of the Nile sources. In the attack by the Ibos the Landers lost many of their records, but they published a narrative of their discoveries in 1832, in three small volumes—Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the Niger. In recognition of his services the Royal Geographical Society—formed two years previously—granted Richard Lander in 1832 the royal medal, he being the first recipient of such an award. In the same year Richard went to Africa again as leader of an expedition organized by Macgregor Laird and other Liverpool merchants to open up trade on the Niger and to found a commercial settlement at the junction of the Benue with the main stream. The expedition encountered many difficulties, suffered great mortality from fever, and was not able to reach Bussa. Lander made several journeys up and down stream, and while going up the river in a canoe was attacked by the natives on the 20th of January 1834 at a spot about 84 m. above the Nun mouth, and wounded by a musket ball in the thigh. He was removed to Fernando Po, where he died on the 6th of February. John Lander, who on his return to England in 1831 obtained a situation at the London customs house, died on the 16th of November 1839 of a disease contracted in Africa.

See, besides the books mentioned, the Narrative of the Niger expedition of 1832-1834, published in 1837 by Macgregor Laird and R. A. K. Oldfield.

LANDES, a department in the south-west of France, formed in 1790 of portions of the ancient provinces of Guyenne (Landes, Condomios Chalosse), Gascony and Béarn, and bounded N. by Gironde, E. by Lot-et-Garonne and Gers, S. by Basses Pyrenées, and W. (for 68 m.) by the Bay of Biscay. Pop. (1906) 293,397. Its area, 3615 sq. m., is second only to that of the department of Gironde. The department takes its name from the Landes, which occupy three-quarters of its surface, or practically the whole region north of the Adour, the chief river of the department. They are separated from the sea by a belt of dunes fringed on the east by a chain of lakes. South of the Adour lies the Chalosse—a hilly region, intersected by the Gabas, Luy and Gave de Pau, left-hand tributaries of the Adour, which descend from the Pyrenees. On the right the Adour is joined by the Midouze, formed by the junction of the Douze and the Midou. The climate of Landes is the Girondine, which prevails from the Loire to the Pyrenees. Snow is almost unknown, the spring is rainy, the summer warm and stormy. The prevailing wind is the south-west, and the mean temperature of the year is 53° F., the thermometer hardly ever rising above 82° or falling below 14°. The annual rainfall in the south of the department in the neighbourhood of the sea reaches 55 in., but diminishes by more than half towards the north-east.

The fertility of La Chalosse is counterbalanced by the comparative poorness of the soil of the Landes, and small though the population is, the department does not produce wheat enough for its own consumption. The chief cereal is maize; next in importance are rye, wheat and millet. Of vegetables, the bean is most cultivated. The vine is grown in the Chalosse, sheep are numerous, and the “Landes” breed of horses is well known. Forests, chiefly composed of pines, occupy more than half the department, and their exploitation forms the chief industry. The resin of the maritime pine furnishes by distillation essence of turpentine, and from the residue are obtained various qualities of resin, which serve to make varnish, tapers, sealing-wax and lubricants. Tar, and an excellent charcoal for smelting purposes, are also obtained from the pine-wood. The department has several mineral springs, the most important being those of Dax, which were frequented in the time of the Romans, and of Eugénie-les-Bains and Préchacq. The cultivation of the cork tree is also important. There are salt-workings and stone quarries. There are several iron-works in the department; those at Le Boucau, at the mouth of the Adour, are the most important. There are also saw-mills, distilleries, flour-mills, brick and tile works and potteries. Exports include resinous products, pine-timber, metal, brandy; leading imports are grain, coal, iron, millinery and furniture. In its long extent of coast the department has no considerable port. Opposite Cape Breton, however, where the Adour formerly entered the sea, there is, close to land, a deep channel where there is safe anchorage. It was from this once important harbour of Capbreton that the discoverers of the Canadian island of that name set out. Landes includes three arrondissements (Mont-de-Marsan, Dax and St Sever), 28 cantons and 334 communes.

Mont-de-Marsan is the capital of the department, which comes within the circumscription of the appeal court of Pau, the académie (educational division) of Bordeaux and the archbishopric of Auch, and forms part of the region of the 18th army corps. It is served by the Southern railway; there is some navigation on the Adour, but that upon the other rivers is of little importance. Mont-de-Marsan, Dax, St Sever and Aire-sur-l’Adour, the most noteworthy towns, receive separate notice. Hagetmau has a church built over a Romanesque crypt, the roof of which is supported on columns with elaborately-carved capitals. Sorde has an interesting abbey-church of the 13th and 14th centuries.

LANDES, an extensive natural region of south-western France, known more strictly as the Landes de Gascogne. It has an area of 5400 sq. m., and occupies three-quarters of the department of Landes, half of that of Gironde, and some 175,000 acres of Lot-et-Garonne. The Landes, formerly a vast tract of moorland and marsh, now consist chiefly of fields and forests of pines. They form a plateau, shaped like a triangle, the base of which is the Atlantic coast while the apex is situated slightly west of Nérac (Lot-et-Garonne). Its limits are, on the S. the river Adour; on the E. the hills of Armagnac, Eauzan, Condomois, Agenais and Bazadais; and on the N.E. the Garonne, the hills of Médoc and the Gironde. The height of the plateau ranges in general from 130 to 260 ft.; the highest altitude (498 ft.) is found in the east near Baudignan (department of Landes), from which point there is a gradual slope towards north, south, east and west. The soil is naturally sterile. It is composed of fine sand resting on a subsoil of tufa (alios) impermeable by water; for three-quarters of the year, consequently, the waters, settling on the almost level surface and unable to filter through, used to transform the country into unwholesome swamps, which the Landesats could only traverse on stilts. About the middle of the 18th century an engineer, François Chambrelent, instituted a scheme of draining and planting to remedy these evils. As a result about 1600 m. of ditches have been dug which carry off superficial water either to streams or to the lakes which fringe the landes on the west, and over 1,600,000 acres have been planted with maritime pines and oaks. The coast, for a breadth of about 4 m., and over an area of about 225,000 acres, is bordered by dunes, in ranges parallel to the shore, and from 100 to 300 ft. in height. Driven by the west wind, which is most frequent in these parts, the dunes were slowly advancing year by year towards the east, burying the cultivated lands and even the houses. Nicolas Thomas Brémontier, towards the end of the 18th century, devised the plan of arresting this scourge by planting the dunes with maritime pines. Upwards of 210,000 acres have been thus treated. In the south-west, cork trees take the place of the pines. To prevent the formation of fresh dunes, a “dune littorale” has been formed by means of a palisade. This barrier, from 20 to 30 ft. high, presents an obstacle which the sand cannot cross. On the eastern side of the dunes is a series of lakes (Hourtin et Carcans, Lacanau, Cazau or Sanguinet, Biscarrosse, Aureilhan, St Julien, Léon and Soustons) separated from the sea by the heaping up of the sand. The salt water has escaped by defiltration, and they are now quite fresh. The Basin of Arcachon, which lies midway between the lakes of Lacanau and Cazau, still communicates with the ocean, the current of the Leyre which flows into it having sufficient force to keep a passage open.