Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Kite-Flying" to "Kyshtym"
by Various · English · Gutenberg #40641 · 1,133,131 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Kite-Flying" to "Kyshtym"
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Kite-Flying" to "Kyshtym"
Author: Various
Release date: September 1, 2012 [eBook #40641]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40641
Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "KITE-FLYING" TO "KYSHTYM" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE KIU-KIANG FU: "Unfortunately, however, it stands above
instead of below the outlet of the Po-yang lake, and this has
proved to be a decided drawback to its success as a commercial
port." ''commercial'' amended from ''commerical''.
ARTICLE KLONDIKE: "Gold is practically the only economic product of
the Klondike, though small amounts of tin ore occur, and lignite
coal has been mined lower down on the Yukon." ''practically''
amended from ''practially''.
ARTICLE KNARESBOROUGH: "In 1317 John de Lilleburn, who was holding
the castle of Knaresborough for Thomas duke of Lancaster against
the king, surrendered under conditions to William de Ros of Hamelak
..." ''Knaresborough'' amended from ''Knaresburgh''.
ARTICLE KNUTSFORD: "... on the Cheshire Lines and London &
North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 5172."
''Cheshire'' amended from ''Chesire''.
ARTICLE KOREA: "Buddhism, a forceful civilizing element, reached
Hiaksai in A.D. 384, and from it the sutras and images of northern
Buddhism were carried to Japan, as well as Chinese letters and
ethics." ''Buddhism'' amended from ''Buddism''.
ARTICLE KUEN-LUN: "... have the appearance of comparatively gentle
swellings of the earth's surface rather than of well-defined
mountain ranges." ''surface'' amended from ''service''.
ARTICLE KURDISTAN: "... like another Saladin, the bey ruled in
patriarchal state, surrounded by an hereditary nobility, regarded
by his clansmen with reverence and affection, and attended by a
bodyguard of young Kurdish warriors ..." ''patriarchal'' amended
from ''partriarchal''..
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XV, SLICE VIII
Kite-Flying to Kyshtym
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
KITE-FLYING KOSTER, LAURENS
KIT-FOX KOSTROMA (government of Russia)
KITTO, JOHN KOSTROMA (town of Russia)
KITTUR KÖSZEG
KITZINGEN KOTAH
KIU-KIANG FU KOTAS
KIUSTENDIL KOTKA
KIVU KOTRI
KIWI KOTZEBUE, AUGUST FRIEDRICH VON
KIZILBASHES KOTZEBUE, OTTO VON
KIZIL IRMAK KOUMISS
KIZLYAR KOUMOUNDOUROS, ALEXANDROS
KIZYL-KUM KOUSSO
KJERULF, HALFDAN KOVALEVSKY, SOPHIE
KJERULF, THEODOR KOVNO (government of Russia)
KLADNO KOVNO (town of Russia)
KLAFSKY, KATHARINA KOVROV
KLAGENFURT KOWTOW
KLAJ, JOHANN KOZLOV
KLAMATH KRAAL
KLAPKA, GEORG KRAFFT, ADAM
KLAPROTH, HEINRICH JULIUS KRAGUYEVATS
KLAPROTH, MARTIN HEINRICH KRAKATOA
KLÉBER, JEAN BAPTISTE KRAKEN
KLEIN, JULIUS LEOPOLD KRALYEVO
KLEIST, BERND HEINRICH VON KRANTZ, ALBERT
KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON KRASNOVODSK
KLERKSDORP KRASNOYARSK
KLESL, MELCHIOR KRASZEWSKI, JOSEPH IGNATIUS
KLINGER, FRIEDRICH VON KRAUSE, KARL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH
KLINGER, MAX KRAWANG
KLIPSPRINGER KRAY VON KRAJOVA, PAUL
KLONDIKE KREMENCHUG
KLOPP, ONNO KREMENETS
KLOPSTOCK, GOTTLIEB FRIEDRICH KREMS
KLOSTERNEUBURG KREMSIER
KLOTZ, REINHOLD KREUTZER, KONRADIN
KNARESBOROUGH KREUTZER, RUDOLPH
KNAVE KREUZBURG
KNEBEL, KARL LUDWIG VON KREUZNACH
KNEE KRIEGSPIEL
KNELLER, SIR GODFREY KRIEMHILD
KNICKERBOCKER, HARMEN JANSEN KRILOFF, IVAN ANDREEVICH
KNIFE KRISHNA
KNIGGE, ADOLF FRANZ FRIEDRICH KRISHNAGAR
KNIGHT, CHARLES KRISTIANSTAD
KNIGHT, DANIEL RIDGWAY KRIVOY ROG
KNIGHT, JOHN BUXTON KROCHMAL, NAHMAN
KNIGHTHOOD and CHIVALRY KRONENBERG
KNIGHT-SERVICE KRONSTADT
KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE KROONSTAD
KNIPPERDOLLINCK, BERNT KROPOTKIN, PETER ALEXEIVICH
KNITTING KROTOSCHIN
KNOBKERRIE KRÜDENER, BARBARA JULIANA
KNOLLES, RICHARD KRUG, WILHELM TRAUGOTT
KNOLLES, SIR ROBERT KRUGER, STEPHANUS JOHANNES PAULUS
KNOLLYS KRUGERSDORP
KNOT (bird) KRUMAU
KNOT (loop of rope) KRUMBACHER, CARL
KNOUT KRUMEN
KNOWLES, SIR JAMES KRUMMACHER, FRIEDRICH ADOLF
KNOWLES, JAMES SHERIDAN KRUPP, ALFRED
KNOW NOTHING PARTY KRUSENSTERN, ADAM IVAN
KNOX, HENRY KRUSHEVATS
KNOX, JOHN KSHATTRIYA
KNOX, PHILANDER CHASE KUBAN (river of Russia)
KNOXVILLE KUBAÑ (province of Russia)
KNUCKLE KUBELIK, JAN
KNUCKLEBONES KUBERA
KNUTSFORD KUBLAI KHAN
KOALA KUBUS
KOBDO KUCHAN
KOBELL, WOLFGANG XAVER FRANZ KUCH BEHAR
KOCH, ROBERT KUDU
KOCH (tribe) KUENEN, ABRAHAM
KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE KUEN-LUN
KODAIKANAL KUFA
KODAMA, GENTARO KUHN, FRANZ FELIX ADALBERT
KODUNGALUR KÜHNE, WILLY
KOENIG, KARL DIETRICH EBERHARD KUKA
KOESFELD KU KLUX KLAN
KOHAT KUKU KHOTO
KOHAT PASS KULJA
KOHISTAN KULM
KOHL KULMBACH
KOHLHASE, HANS KULMSEE
KOKOMO KULP
KOKO-NOR KULU
KOKSHAROV, NIKOLAÍ VON KUM
KOKSTAD KUMAIT IBN ZAID
KOLA KUMAON
KOLABA KUMASI
KOLAR KUMISHAH
KOLBE, ADOLPHE WILHELM HERMANN KUMQUAT
KOLBERG KUMTA
KÖLCSEY, FERENCZ KUMYKS
KOLDING KUNAR
KOLGUEV KUNBIS
KOLHAPUR KUNDT, AUGUST ADOLPH EDUARD EBERHARD
KOLIN KUNDUZ
KOLIS KUNENE
KÖLLIKER, RUDOLPH ALBERT VON KUNERSDORF
KOLLONTAJ, HUGO KUNGRAD
KOLOMEA KUNGUR
KOLOMNA KUNKEL VON LOWENSTJERN, JOHANN
KOLOZSVÁR KUNLONG
KOLPINO KUNZITE
KOLS KUOPIO (province of Finland)
KOLYVAÑ KUOPIO (city of Finland)
KOMÁROM KUPRILI
KOMATI KURAKIN, BORIS IVANOVICH
KOMOTAU KURBASH
KOMURA, JUTARO KURDISTAN (country)
KONARAK KURDISTAN (province of Persia)
KONG KURGAN
KONGSBERG KURIA MURIA ISLANDS
KONIA KURILES
KONIECPOLSKI, STANISLAUS KURISCHES HAFF
KÖNIG, KARL RUDOLPH KURNOOL
KÖNIGGRÄTZ KUROKI, ITEI
KÖNIGINHOF KUROPATKIN, ALEXEI NIKOLAIEVICH
KÖNIGSBERG KURO SIWO
KÖNIGSBORN KURRAM
KÖNIGSHÜTTE KURSEONG
KÖNIGSLUTTER KURSK (government of Russia)
KÖNIGSMARK, MARIA AURORA KURSK (town of Russia)
KÖNIGSMARK, PHILIPP CHRISTOPH KURTZ, JOHANN HEINRICH
KÖNIGSSEE KURUMAN
KÖNIGSTEIN KURUMBAS and KURUBAS
KÖNIGSWINTER KURUNEGALA
KONINCK, LAURENT GUILLAUME DE KURUNTWAD
KONINCK, PHILIP DE KURZ, HERMANN
KONITZ KUSAN
KONKAN KUSHALGARH
KONTAGORA KUSHK
KOORINGA KUSTANAISK
KÖPENICK KÜSTENLAND
KOPISCH, AUGUST KUTAIAH
KOPP, HERMANN FRANZ MORITZ KUTAIS (government of Russia)
KOPRÜLÜ KUTAIS (town of Russia)
KORA KUT-EL-AMARA
KORAN KUTENAI
KORAT KUTTALAM
KORDOFAN KUTTENBERG
KOREA (country) KUTUSOV, MIKHAIL LARIONOVICH
KOREA (Indian tributary state) KUWET
KORESHAN ECCLESIA, THE KUZNETSK
KORIN, OGATA KVASS
KORKUS KWAKIUTL
KÖRMÖCZBÁNYA KWANGCHOW BAY
KÖRNER, KARL THEODOR KWANG-SI
KORNEUBURG KWANG-TUNG
KOROCHA KWANZA
KORSÖR KWEI-CHOW
KORTCHA KYAUKPYU
KORYAKS KYAUKSE
KOSCIUSCO KYD, THOMAS
KOSCIUSZKO, TADEUSZ BONAWENTURA KYFFHÄUSER
KÖSEN KYNASTON, EDWARD
KOSHER KYNETON
KÖSLIN KYOSAI, SHO-FU
KOSSOVO KYRIE
KOSSUTH, FERENCZ LAJOS AKOS KYRLE, JOHN
KOSSUTH, LAJOS KYSHTYM
KITE-FLYING, the art of sending up into the air, by means of the wind,
light frames of varying shapes covered with paper or cloth (called
kites, after the bird--in German _Drache_, dragon), which are attached
to long cords or wires held in the hand or wound on a drum. When made in
the common diamond form, or triangular with a semicircular head, kites
usually have a pendulous tail appended for balancing purposes. The
tradition is that kites were invented by Archytas of Tarentum four
centuries before the Christian era, but they have been in use among
Asiatic peoples and savage tribes like the Maoris of New Zealand from
time immemorial. Kite-flying has always been a national pastime of the
Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Tonkinese, Annamese, Malays and East
Indians. It is less popular among the peoples of Europe. The origin of
the sport, although obscure, is usually ascribed to religion. With the
Maoris it still retains a distinctly religious character, and the ascent
of the kite is accompanied by a chant called the kite-song. The Koreans
attribute its origin to a general, who, hundreds of years ago,
inspirited his troops by sending up a kite with a lantern attached,
which was mistaken by his army for a new star and a token of divine
succour. Another Korean general is said to have been the first to put
the kite to mechanical uses by employing one to span a stream with a
cord, which was then fastened to a cable and formed the nucleus of a
bridge. In Korea, Japan and China, and indeed throughout Eastern Asia,
even the tradespeople may be seen indulging in kite-flying while waiting
for customers. Chinese and Japanese kites are of many shapes, such as
birds, dragons, beasts and fishes. They vary in size, but are often as
much as 7 ft. in height or breadth, and are constructed of bamboo strips
covered with rice paper or very thin silk. In China the ninth day of the
ninth month is "Kites' Day," when men and boys of all classes betake
themselves to neighbouring eminences and fly their kites. Kite-fighting
is a feature of the pastime in Eastern Asia. The cord near the kite is
usually stiffened with a mixture of glue and crushed glass or porcelain.
The kite-flyer manoeuvres to get his kite to windward of that of his
adversary, then allows his cord to drift against his enemy's, and by a
sudden jerk to cut it through and bring its kite to grief. The Malays
possess a large variety of kites, mostly without tails. The Sultan of
Johor sent to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 a collection
of fifteen different kinds. Asiatic musical kites bear one or more
perforated reeds or bamboos which emit a plaintive sound that can be
heard for great distances. The ignorant, believing that these kites
frighten away evil spirits, often keep them flying all night over their
houses.
There are various metaphorical uses of the term "kite-flying," such as
in commercial slang, when "flying a kite" means raising money on credit
(cf. "raising the wind"), or in political slang for seeing "how the wind
blows." And "flying-kites," in nautical language, are the topmost sails.
Kite-flying for scientific purposes began in the middle of the 18th
century. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin made his memorable kite experiment,
by which he attracted electricity from the air and demonstrated the
electrical nature of lightning. A more systematic use of kites for
scientific purposes may, however, be said to date from the experiments
made in the last quarter of the 19th century. (E. B.)
_Meteorological Use._--Many European and American meteorological
services employ kites regularly, and obtain information not only of the
temperature, but also of the humidity and velocity of the air above. The
kites used are mostly modifications of the so-called box-kites, invented
by L. Hargrave. Roughly these kites may be said to resemble an ordinary
box with the two ends removed, and also the middle part of each of the
four sides. The original Hargrave kite, the form generally used, has a
rectangular section; in Russia a semicircular section with the curved
part facing the wind is most in favour; in England the diamond-shaped
section is preferred for meteorological purposes owing to its simplicity
of construction. Stability depends on a multitude of small details of
construction, and long practice and experience are required to make a
really good kite. The sizes most in use have from 30 to 80 sq. ft. of
sail area. There is no difficulty about raising a kite to a vertical
height of one or even two miles on suitable days, but heights exceeding
three miles are seldom reached. On the 29th of November 1905 at
Lindenberg, the Prussian Aeronautical Observatory, the upper one of a
train of six kites attained an altitude of just four miles. The total
lifting surface of these six kites was nearly 300 sq. ft., and the
length of wire a little over nine miles. The kites are invariably flown
on a steel wire line, for the hindrance to obtaining great heights is
not due so much to the weight of the line as to the wind pressure upon
it, and thus it becomes of great importance to use a material that
possesses the greatest possible strength, combined with the smallest
possible size. Steel piano wire meets this requirement, for a wire of
1/32 in. diameter will weigh about 16 lb. to the mile, and stand a
strain of some 250-280 lb. before it breaks. Some stations prefer to use
one long piece of wire of the same gauge throughout without a join,
others prefer to start with a thin wire and join on thicker and thicker
wire as more kites are added. The process of kite-flying is as follows.
The first kite is started either with the self-recording instruments
secured in it, or hanging from the wire a short distance below it. Wire
is then paid out, whether quickly or slowly depends on the strength of
the wind, but the usual rate is from two to three miles per hour. The
quantity that one kite will take depends on the kite and on the wind,
but roughly speaking it may be said that each 10 sq. ft. of lifting
surface on the kite should carry 1000 ft. of 1/32 in. wire without
difficulty. When as much wire as can be carried comfortably has run out
another kite is attached to the line, and the paying out is continued;
after a time a third is added, and so on. Each kite increases the strain
upon the wire, and moreover adds to the height and makes it more
uncertain what kind of wind the upper kites will encounter; it also adds
to the time that is necessary to haul in the kites. In each way the risk
of their breaking away is increased, for the wind is very uncertain and
is liable to alter in strength. Since to attain an exceptional height
the wire must be strained nearly to its breaking point, and under such
conditions a small increase in the strength of the wind will break the
wire, it follows that great heights can only be attained by those who
are willing to risk the trouble and expense of frequently having their
wire and train of kites break away. The weather is the essential factor
in kite-flying. In the S.E. of England in winter it is possible on about
two days out of three, and in summer on about one day out of three. The
usual cause of failure is want of wind, but there are a few days when
the wind is too strong. (For meteorological results, &c., see
METEOROLOGY.) (W. H. Di.)
_Military Use._--A kite forms so extremely simple a method of lifting
anything to a height in the air that it has naturally been suggested as
being suitable for various military purposes, such as signalling to a
long distance, carrying up flags, or lamps, or semaphores. Kites have
been used both in the army and in the navy for floating torpedoes on
hostile positions. As much as two miles of line have been paid out. For
purposes of photography a small kite carrying a camera to a considerable
height may be caused to float over a fort or other place of which a
bird's-eye view is required, the shutter being operated by electric
wire, or slow match, or clockwork. Many successful photographs have been
thus obtained in England and America.
The problem of lifting a man by means of kites instead of by a captive
balloon is a still more important one. The chief military advantages to
be gained are: (1) less transport is required; (2) they can be used in a
strong wind; (3) they are not so liable to damage, either from the
enemy's fire or from trees, &c., and are easier to mend; (4) they can be
brought into use more quickly; (5) they are very much cheaper, both in
construction and in maintenance, not requiring any costly gas.
Captain B. F. S. Baden-Powell, of the Scots Guards, in June 1894
constructed, at Pirbright Camp, a huge kite 36 ft. high, with which he
successfully lifted a man on different occasions. He afterwards improved
the contrivance, using five or six smaller kites attached together in
preference to one large one. With this arrangement he frequently
ascended as high as 100 ft. The kites were hexagonal, being 12 ft. high
and 12 ft. across. The apparatus, which could be packed in a few minutes
into a simple roll, weighed in all about 1 cwt. This appliance was
proved to be capable of raising a man even during a dead calm, the
retaining line being fixed to a wagon and towed along. Lieut. H. D. Wise
made some trials in America in 1897 with some large kites of the
Hargrave pattern (Hargrave having previously himself ascended in
Australia), and succeeded in lifting a man 40 ft. above the ground. In
the Russian army a military kite apparatus has also been tried, and was
in evidence at the manoeuvres in 1898. Experiments have also been
carried out by most of the European powers. (B. F. S. B.-P.)
KIT-FOX (_Canis [Vulpes] velox_), a small fox, from north-western
America, measuring less than a yard in length, with a tail of nearly a
third this length. There is a good deal of variation in the colour of
the fur, the prevailing tint being grey. A specimen in the Zoological
Gardens of London had the back and tail dark grey, the tail tipped with
black, and a rufous wash on the cheeks, shoulders, flanks and outer
surface of the limbs, with the under surface white. The specific name
was given on account of the extraordinary swiftness of the animal. (See
CARNIVORA.)
KITTO, JOHN (1804-1854), English biblical scholar, was the son of a
mason at Plymouth, where he was born on the 4th of December 1804. An
accident brought on deafness, and in November 1819 he was sent to the
workhouse, where he was employed in making list shoes. In 1823 a fund
was raised on his behalf, and he was sent to board with the clerk of the
guardians, having his time at his own disposal, and the privilege of
making use of a public library. After preparing a small volume of
miscellanies, which was published by subscription, he studied dentistry
with Anthony Norris Groves in Exeter. In 1825 he obtained congenial
employment in the printing office of the Church Missionary Society at
Islington, and in 1827 was transferred to the same society's
establishment at Malta. There he remained for eighteen months, but
shortly after his return to England he accompanied Groves and other
friends on a private missionary enterprise to Bagdad, where he obtained
personal knowledge of Oriental life and habits which he afterwards
applied with tact and skill in the illustration of biblical scenes and
incidents. Plague broke out, the missionary establishment was broken up,
and in 1832 Kitto returned to England. On arriving in London he was
engaged in the preparation of various serial publications of the Society
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the most important of which were
the _Pictorial History of Palestine_ and the _Pictorial Bible_. The
_Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature_, edited under his superintendence,
appeared in two volumes in 1843-1845 and passed through three editions.
His _Daily Bible Illustrations_ (8 vols. 1849-1853) received an
appreciation which is not yet extinct. In 1850 he received an annuity of
£100 from the civil list. In August 1854 he went to Germany for the
waters of Cannstatt on the Neckar, where on the 25th of November he
died.
See Kitto's own work, _The Lost Senses_ (1845); J. E. Ryland's
_Memoirs of Kitto_ (1856); and John Eadie's _Life of Kitto_ (1857).
KITTUR, a village of British India, in the Belgaum district of Bombay;
pop. (1901), 4922. It contains a ruined fort, formerly the residence of
a Mahratta chief. In connexion with a disputed succession to this
chiefship in 1824, St John Thackeray, an uncle of the novelist, was
killed when approaching the fort under a flag of truce; and a nephew of
Sir Thomas Munro, governor of Madras, fell subsequently when the fort
was stormed.
KITZINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria on the Main, 95
m. S.E. of Frankfort-on-Main by rail, at the junction of the main-lines
to Passau, Würzburg and Schweinfurt. Pop. (1900), 8489. A bridge, 300
yards long, connects it with its suburb Etwashausen on the left bank of
the river. A railway bridge also spans the Main at this point. Kitzingen
is still surrounded by its old walls and towers, and has an Evangelical
and two Roman Catholic churches, two municipal museums, a town-hall, a
grammar school, a richly endowed hospital and two old convents. Its
chief industries are brewing, cask-making and the manufacture of cement
and colours. Considerable trade in wine, fruit, grain and timber is
carried on by boats on the Main. Kitzingen possessed a Benedictine abbey
in the 8th century, and later belonged to the bishopric of Würzburg.
See F. Bernbeck, _Kitzinger Chronik 745-1565_ (Kitzingen, 1899).
KIU-KIANG FU, a prefecture and prefectural city in the province of
Kiang-si, China. The city, which is situated on the south bank of the
Yangtsze-kiang, 15 m. above the point where the Kan Kiang flows into
that river from the Po-yang lake, stands in 29° 42´ N. and 116° 8´ E.
The north face of the city is separated from the river by only the width
of a roadway, and two large lakes lie on its west and south fronts. The
walls are from 5 to 6 m. in circumference, and are more than usually
strong and broad. As is generally the case with old cities in China,
Kiu-Kiang has repeatedly changed its name. Under the Tsin dynasty (A.D.
265-420), it was known as Sin-Yang, under the Liang dynasty (502-557) as
Kiang Chow, under the Suy dynasty (589-618) as Kiu-Kiang, under the Sung
dynasty (960-1127) as Ting-Kiang, and under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
it assumed the name it at present bears. Kiu-Kiang has played its part
in the history of the empire, and has been repeatedly besieged and
sometimes taken, the last time being in February 1853, when the
T'ai-p'ing rebels gained possession of the city. After their manner they
looted and utterly destroyed it, leaving only the remains of a single
street to represent the once flourishing town. The position of Kiu-Kiang
on the Yangtsze-kiang and its proximity to the channels of internal
communication through the Po-yang lake, more especially to those leading
to the green-tea-producing districts of the provinces of Kiang-si and
Ngan-hui, induced Lord Elgin to choose it as one of the treaty ports to
be opened under the terms of his treaty (1861). Unfortunately, however,
it stands above instead of below the outlet of the Po-yang lake, and
this has proved to be a decided drawback to its success as a commercial
port. The immediate effect of opening the town to foreign trade was to
raise the population in one year from 10,000 to 40,000. The population
in 1908, exclusive of foreigners, was officially estimated at 36,000.
The foreign settlement extends westward from the city, along the bank of
the Yangtsze-kiang, and is bounded on its extreme west by the P'un
river, which there runs into the Yangtsze. The bund, which is 500 yards
long, was erected by the foreign community. The climate is good, and
though hot in the summer months is invariably cold and bracing in the
winter. According to the customs returns the value of the trade of the
port amounted in 1902 to £2,854,704, and in 1904 to £3,489,816, of which
£1,726,506 were imports and £1,763,310 exports. In 1904 322,266 lb. of
opium were imported.
KIUSTENDIL, the chief town of a department in Bulgaria, situated in a
mountainous country, on a small affluent of the Struma, 43 m. S.W. of
Sofia by rail. Pop. (1906), 12,353. The streets are narrow and uneven,
and the majority of the houses are of clay or wood. The town is chiefly
notable for its hot mineral springs, in connexion with which there are
nine bathing establishments. Small quantities of gold and silver are
obtained from mines near Kiustendil, and vines, tobacco and fruit are
largely cultivated. Some remains survive of the Roman period, when the
town was known as Pautalia, Ulpia Pautalia, and Pautalia Aurelii. In the
10th century it became the seat of a bishopric, being then and during
the later middle ages known by the Slavonic name of Velbuzhd. After the
overthrow of the Servian kingdom it came into the possession of
Constantine, brother of the despot Yovan Dragash, who ruled over
northern Macedonia. Constantine was expelled and killed by the Turks in
1394. In the 15th century Kiustendil was known as Velbushka Banya, and
more commonly as Konstantinova Banya (Constantine's Bath), from which
has developed the Turkish name Kiustendil.
KIVU, a considerable lake lying in the Central African (or Albertine)
rift-valley, about 60 m. N. of Tanganyika, into which it discharges its
waters by the Rusizi River. On the north it is separated from the basin
of the Nile by a line of volcanic peaks. The length of the lake is about
55 m., and its greatest breadth over 30, giving an area, including
islands, of about 1100 sq. m. It is about 4830 ft. above sea-level and
is roughly triangular in outline, the longest side lying to the west.
The coast-line is much broken, especially on the south-east, where the
indentations present a fjord-like character. The lake is deep, and the
shores are everywhere high, rising in places in bold precipitous cliffs
of volcanic rock. A large island, Kwijwi or Kwichwi, oblong in shape and
traversed by a hilly ridge, runs in the direction of the major axis of
the lake, south-west of the centre, and there are many smaller islands.
The lake has many fish, but no crocodiles or hippopotami. South of Kivu
the rift-valley is blocked by huge ridges, through which the Rusizi now
breaks its way in a succession of steep gorges, emerging from the lake
in a foaming torrent, and descending 2000 ft. to the lacustrine plain at
the head of Tanganyika. The lake fauna is a typically fresh-water one,
presenting no affinities with the marine or "halolimnic" fauna of
Tanganyika and other Central African lakes, but is similar to that shown
by fossils to have once existed in the more northern parts of the
rift-valley. The former outlet or extension in this direction seems to
have been blocked in recent geological times by the elevation of the
volcanic peaks which dammed back the water, causing it finally to
overflow to the south. This volcanic region is of great interest and has
various names, that most used being Mfumbiro (q.v.), though this name is
sometimes restricted to a single peak. Kivu and Mfumbiro were first
heard of by J. H. Speke in 1861, but not visited by a European until
1894, when Count von Götzen passed through the country on his journey
across the continent. The lake and its vicinity were subsequently
explored by Dr R. Kandt, Captain Bethe, E. S. Grogan, J. E. S. Moore,
and Major St Hill Gibbons. The ownership of Kivu and its neighbourhood
was claimed by the Congo Free State and by Germany, the dispute being
settled in 1910, after Belgium had taken over the Congo State. The
frontier agreed upon was the west bank of the Rusizi, and the west shore
of the lake. The island of Kwijwi also fell to Belgium.
See R. Kandt, _Caput Nili_ (Berlin, 1904), and _Karte des Kivusees_,
1: 285,000, with text by A. v. Bockelmann (Berlin, 1902); E. S. Grogan
and A. H. Sharpe, _From the Cape to Cairo_ (London, 1900); J. E. S.
Moore, _To the Mountains of the Moon_ (London, 1901); A. St H.
Gibbons, _Africa from South to North_, ii. (London, 1904).
KIWI, or KIWI-KIWI, the Maori name--first apparently introduced to
zoological literature by Lesson in 1828 (_Man. d'Ornithologie_, ii.
210, or _Voy. de la "Coquille," zoologie_, p. 418), and now very
generally adopted in English--of one of the most characteristic forms of
New Zealand birds, the _Apteryx_ of scientific writers. This remarkable
bird was unknown till George Shaw described and figured it in 1813
(_Nat. Miscellany_, pls. 1057, 1058) from a specimen brought to him from
the southern coast of that country by Captain Barcley of the ship
"Providence." At Shaw's death, in the same year, it passed into the
possession of Lord Stanley, afterwards 13th earl of Derby, and president
of the Zoological Society, and it is now with the rest of his collection
in the Liverpool Museum. Considering the state of systematic ornithology
at the time, Shaw's assignment of a position to this new and strange
bird, of which he had but the skin, does him great credit, for he said
it seemed "to approach more nearly to the Struthious and Gallinaceous
tribes than to any other." And his credit is still greater when we find
the venerable John Latham, who is said to have examined the specimen
with Shaw, placing it some years later among the penguins (_Gen. Hist.
Birds_, x. 394), being apparently led to that conclusion through its
functionless wings and the backward situation of its legs. In this false
allocation, James Francis Stephens also in 1826 acquiesced (_Gen.
Zoology_, xiii. 70). Meanwhile in 1820 K. J. Temminck, who had never
seen a specimen, had assorted it with the dodo in an order to which he
applied the name of _Inertes_ (_Man. d'Ornithologie_, i. cxiv.). In 1831
R. P. Lesson, who had previously (_loc. cit._) made some blunders about
it, placed it (_Traité d'Ornithologie_, p. 12), though only, as he says,
"par analogie et _a priori_," in his first division of birds, "Oiseaux
Anomaux," which is equivalent to what we now call _Ratitae_, making of
it a separate family "Nullipennes." At that time no second example was
known, and some doubt was felt, especially on the Continent, as to the
very existence of such a bird [1]--though Lesson had himself when in the
Bay of Islands in April 1824 (_Voy. "Coquille," ut supra_) heard of it;
and a few years later J. S. C. Dumont d'Urville had seen its skin, which
the naturalists of his expedition procured, worn as a tippet by a Maori
chief at Tolaga Bay (Houa-houa),[2] and in 1830 gave what proves to be
on the whole very accurate information concerning it (_Voy.
"Astrolabe,"_ ii. 107). To put all suspicion at rest, Lord Derby sent
his unique specimen for exhibition at a meeting of the Zoological
Society, on the 12th of February 1833 (_Proc. Zool. Society_, 1833, p.
24), and a few months later (_tom. cit._, p. 80) William Yarrell
communicated to that body a complete description of it, which was
afterwards published in full with an excellent portrait (_Trans. Zool.
Society_, vol. i. p. 71, pl. 10). Herein the systematic place of the
species, as akin to the Struthious birds, was placed beyond cavil, and
the author called upon all interested in zoology to aid in further
research as to this singular form. In consequence of this appeal a
legless skin was within two years sent to the society (_Proceedings_,
1835, p. 61) obtained by W. Yate of Waimate, who said it was the second
he had seen, and that he had kept the bird alive for nearly a fortnight,
while in less than another couple of years additional information (_op.
cit._, 1837, p. 24) came from T. K. Short to the effect that he had seen
two living, and that all Yarrell had said was substantially correct,
except underrating its progressive powers. Not long afterwards Lord
Derby received and in March 1838 transmitted to the same society the
trunk and viscera of an _Apteryx_, which, being entrusted to Sir R.
Owen, furnished that eminent anatomist, in conjunction with other
specimens of the same kind received from Drs Lyon and George Bennett,
with the materials of the masterly monograph laid before the society in
instalments, and ultimately printed in its _Transactions_ (ii. 257; iii.
277). From this time the whole structure of the kiwi has certainly been
far better known than that of nearly any other bird, and by degrees
other examples found their way to England, some of which were
distributed to the various museums of the Continent and of America.[3]
[Illustration: Kiwi.]
In 1847 much interest was excited by the reported discovery of another
species of the genus (_Proceedings_, 1847, p. 51); and though the story
was not confirmed, a second species was really soon after made known by
John Gould (_tom. cit._, p. 93; _Transactions_, vol. iii, p. 379, pl.
57) under the name of _Apteryx oweni_--a just tribute to the great
master who had so minutely explained the anatomy of the group. Three
years later A. D. Bartlett drew attention to the manifest difference
existing among certain examples, all of which had hitherto been regarded
as specimens of _A. australis_, and the examination of a large series
led him to conclude that under that name two distinct species were
confounded. To the second of these, the third of the genus (according to
his views), he gave the name of _A. mantelli_ (_Proceedings_, 1850, p.
274), and it soon turned out that to this new form the majority of the
specimens already obtained belonged. In 1851 the first kiwi known to
have reached England alive was presented to the Zoological Society by
Eyre, then lieutenant-governor of New Zealand. This was found to belong
to the newly described _A. mantelli_, and some careful observations on
its habits in captivity were published by John Wolley and another
(_Zoologist_, pp. 3409, 3605).[4] Subsequently the society has received
several other live examples of this form, besides one of the real _A.
australis_ (_Proceedings_, 1872, p. 861), some of _A. oweni_, and one of
a supposed fourth species, _A. haasti_, characterized in 1871 by Potts
(_Ibis_, 1872, p. 35; _Trans. N. Zeal. Institute_, iv. 204; v. 195).[5]
The kiwis form a group of the subclass _Ratitae_ to which the rank of an
order may fitly be assigned, as they differ in many important
particulars from any of the other existing forms of Ratite birds. The
most obvious feature the _Apteryges_ afford is the presence of a back
toe, while the extremely aborted condition of the wings, the position of
the nostrils--almost at the tip of the maxilla--and the absence of an
after-shaft in the feathers, are characters nearly as manifest, and
others not less determinative, though more recondite, will be found on
examination. The kiwis are peculiar to New Zealand, and it is believed
that _A. mantelli_ is the representative in the North Island of the
southern _A. australis_, both being of a dark reddish-brown,
longitudinally striped with light yellowish-brown, while _A. oweni_, of
a light greyish-brown transversely barred with black, is said to occur
in both islands. About the size of a large domestic fowl, they are birds
of nocturnal habit, sleeping, or at least inactive, by day, feeding
mostly on earth-worms, but occasionally swallowing berries, though in
captivity they will eat flesh suitably minced. Sir Walter Buller writes
(_B. of New Zealand_, p. 362):--
"The kiwi is in some measure compensated for the absence of wings by
its swiftness of foot. When running it makes wide strides and carries
the body in an oblique position, with the neck stretched to its full
extent and inclined forwards. In the twilight it moves about
cautiously and as noiselessly as a rat, to which, indeed, at this time
it bears some outward resemblance. In a quiescent posture, the body
generally assumes a perfectly rotund appearance; and it sometimes, but
only rarely, supports itself by resting the point of its bill on the
ground. It often yawns when disturbed in the daytime, gaping its
mandibles in a very grotesque manner. When provoked it erects the
body, and, raising the foot to the breast, strikes downwards with
considerable force and rapidity, thus using its sharp and powerful
claws as weapons of defence.... While hunting for its food the bird
makes a continual sniffing sound through the nostrils, which are
placed at the extremity of the upper mandible. Whether it is guided as
much by touch as by smell I cannot safely say; but it appears to me
that both senses are used in the action. That the sense of touch is
highly developed seems quite certain, because the bird, although it
may not be audibly sniffing, will always first touch an object with
the point of its bill, whether in the act of feeding or of surveying
the ground; and when shut up in a cage or confined in a room it may be
heard, all through the night, tapping softly at the walls.... It is
interesting to watch the bird, in a state of freedom, foraging for
worms, which constitute its principal food: it moves about with a slow
action of the body; and the long, flexible bill is driven into the
soft ground, generally home to the very root, and is either
immediately withdrawn with a worm held at the extreme tip of the
mandibles, or it is gently moved to and fro, by an action of the head
and neck, the body of the bird being perfectly steady. It is amusing
to observe the extreme care and deliberation with which the bird draws
the worm from its hiding-place, coaxing it out as it were by degrees,
instead of pulling roughly or breaking it. On getting the worm fairly
out of the ground, it throws up its head with a jerk, and swallows it
whole."
The foregoing extract refers to _A. mantelli_, but there is little doubt
of the remarks being equally applicable to _A. australis_, and probably
also to _A. oweni_, though the different proportion of the bill in the
last points to some diversity in the mode of feeding. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cuvier in the second edition of his _Règne Animal_ only referred
to it in a footnote (i. 498).
[2] Cruise in 1822 (_Journ. Residence in New Zealand_, p. 313) had
spoken of an "emeu" found in that island, which must of course have
been an _Apteryx_.
[3] In 1842, according to Broderip (_Penny Cyclopaedia_, xxiii. 146),
two had been presented to the Zoological Society by the New Zealand
Company, and two more obtained by Lord Derby, one of which he had
given to Gould. In 1844 the British Museum possessed three, and the
sale catalogue of the Rivoli Collection, which passed in 1846 to the
Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, includes a single
specimen--probably the first taken to America.
[4] This bird in 1859 laid an egg, and afterwards continued to lay
one or two more every year. In 1865 a male of the same species was
introduced, but though a strong disposition to breed was shown on the
part of both, and the eggs, after the custom of the _Ratitae_, were
incubated by him, no progeny was hatched (_Proceedings_, 1868, p.
329).
[5] A fine series of figures of all these supposed species is given
by Rowley (_Orn. Miscellany_, vol. i. pls. 1-6). Some others, as _A.
maxima_, _A. mollis_, and _A. fusca_ have also been indicated, but
proof of their validity has yet to be adduced.
KIZILBASHES (Turkish, "Red-Heads"), the nickname given by the Orthodox
Turks to the Shiitic Turkish immigrants from Persia, who are found
chiefly in the plains from Kara-Hissar along Tokat and Amasia to Angora.
During the wars with Persia the Turkish sultans settled them in these
districts. They are strictly speaking persianized Turks, and speak pure
Persian. There are many Kizilbashes in Afghanistan. Their immigration
dates only from the time of Nadir Shah (1737). They are an industrious
honest folk, chiefly engaged in trade and as physicians, scribes, and so
on. They form the bulk of the amir's cavalry. Their name seems to have
been first used in Persia of the Shiites in allusion to their red caps.
See Ernest Chantre, _Recherches anthropologiques dans l'Asie
occidentale_ (Lyons, 1895).
KIZIL IRMAK, i.e. "Red River" (anc. _Halys_), the largest river in Asia
Minor, rising in the Kizil Dagh at an altitude of 6500 ft., and running
south-west past Zara to Sivas. Below Sivas it flows south to the
latitude of Kaisarieh, and then curves gradually round to the north.
Finally, after a course of about 600 m., it discharges its waters into
the Black Sea between Sinope and Samsun, where it forms a large delta.
The only important tributaries are the Delije Irmak on the right and the
Geuk Irmak on the left bank.
KIZLYAR (KIZLIAR, or KIZLAR), a town of Russia, in Caucasia, in the
province of Terek, 120 m. N.E. of Vladikavkaz, in the low-lying delta of
the river Terek, about 35 m. from the Caspian. The population decreased
from 8309 in 1861 to 7353 in 1897. The town lies to the left of the main
stream between two of the larger secondary branches, and is subject to
flooding. The town proper, which spreads out round the citadel, has
Tatar, Georgian and Armenian quarters. The public buildings include the
Greek cathedral, dating from 1786; a Greek nunnery, founded by the
Georgian chief Daniel in 1736; the Armenian church of SS Peter and Paul,
remarkable for its size and wealth. The population is mainly supported
by the gardens and vineyards irrigated by canals from the river. A
government vineyard and school of viticulture are situated 3½ m. from
the town. About 1,200,000 gallons of Kizlyar wine are sold annually at
the fair of Nizhniy-Novgorod. Silk and cotton are woven. Kizlyar is
mentioned as early as 1616, but the most notable accession of
inhabitants (Armenians, Georgians and Persians) took place in 1715. Its
importance as a fortress dates from 1736, but the fortress is no longer
kept in repair.
KIZYL-KUM, a desert of Western Asia, stretching S.E. of the Aral Lake
between the river Syr-darya on the N.E. and the river Amu-darya on the
S.W. It measures some 370 by 220 m., and is in part covered with
drift-sand or dunes, many of which are advancing slowly but steadily
towards the S.W. In character they resemble those of the neighbouring
Kara-kum desert (see KARA-KUM). On the whole the Kizyl-kum slopes S.W.
towards the Aral Lake, where its altitude is only about 160 ft. as
compared with 2000 in the S.E. In the vicinity of that lake the surface
is covered with Aralo-Caspian deposits; but in the S.E., as it ascends
towards the foothills of the Tian-shan system, it is braided with deep
accumulations of fertile loess.
KJERULF, HALFDAN (1815-1868), Norwegian musical composer, the son of a
high government official, was born at Christiania on the 15th of
September 1815. His early education was at Christiania University, for a
legal career, and not till he was nearly 26--on the death of his
father--was he able to devote himself entirely to music. As a fact, he
actually started on his career as a music teacher and composer of songs
before ever having seriously studied music at all, and not for ten years
did he attract any particular notice. Then, however, his Government paid
for a year's instruction for him at Leipzig. For many years after his
return to Norway Kjerulf tried in vain to establish serial classical
concerts, while he himself was working with Björnson and other writers
at the composition of lyrical songs. His fame rests almost entirely on
his beautiful and manly national part-songs and solos; but his
pianoforte music is equally charming and simple. Kjerulf died at
Grefsen, on the 11th of August 1868.
KJERULF, THEODOR (1825-1888), Norwegian geologist, was born at
Christiania on the 30th of March 1825. He was educated in the university
at Christiania, and subsequently studied at Heidelberg, working in
Bunsen's laboratory. In 1858 he became professor of geology in the
university of his native city, and he was afterwards placed in charge of
the geological survey of the country, then established mainly through
his influence. His contributions to the geology of Norway were numerous
and important, especially in reference to the southern portion of the
country, and to the structure and relations of the Archaean and
Palaeozoic rocks, and the glacial phenomena. His principal results were
embodied in his work _Udsigt over det sydlige Norges Geologi_ (1879). He
was author also of some poetical works. He died at Christiania on the
25th of October 1888.
KLADNO, a mining town of Bohemia, Austria, 18 m. W.N.W. of Prague by
rail. Pop. (1900), 18,600, mostly Czech. It is situated in a region very
rich in iron-mines and coal-fields and possesses some of the largest
iron and steel works in Bohemia. Near it is the mining town of
Buschtehrad (pop. 3510), situated in the centre of very extensive
coal-fields. Buschtehrad was originally the name of the castle only.
This was from the 15th century to 1630 the property of the lords of
Kolovrat, and came by devious inheritance through the grand-dukes of
Tuscany, to the emperor Francis Joseph. The name Buschtehrad was first
given to the railway, and then to the town, which had been called Buckow
since its foundation in 1700. There is another castle of Buschtehrad
near Horic. Kladno, which for centuries had been a village of no
importance, was sold in 1705 by the grand-duchess Anna Maria of Tuscany
to the cloister in Brewnow, to which it still belongs. The mining
industry began in 1842.
KLAFSKY, KATHARINA (1855-1896), Hungarian operatic singer, was born at
Szt János, Wieselburg, of humble parents. Being employed at Vienna as a
nurserymaid, her fine soprano voice led to her being engaged as a chorus
singer, and she was given good lessons in music. By 1882 she became
well-known in Wagnerian rôles at the Leipzig theatre, and she increased
her reputation at other German musical centres. In 1892 she appeared in
London, and had a great success in Wagner's operas, notably as
Brünnhilde and as Isolde, her dramatic as well as vocal gifts being of
an exceptional order. She sang in America in 1895, but died of brain
disease in 1896.
A _Life_, by L. Ordemann, was published in 1903 (Leipzig).
KLAGENFURT (Slovene, _Celovec_), the capital of the Austrian duchy of
Carinthia, 212 m. S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 24,314. It is
picturesquely situated on the river Glan, which is in communication with
the Wörther-see by the 3 m. long Lend canal. Among the more noteworthy
buildings are the parish church of St Ægidius (1709), with a tower 298
ft. in height; the cathedral of SS Peter and Paul (1582-1593, burnt
1723, restored 1725); the churches of the Benedictines (1613), of the
Capuchins (1646), and of the order of St Elizabeth (1710). To these must
be added the palace of the prince-bishop of Gurk, the _burg_ or castle,
existing in its present form since 1777; and the _Landhaus_ or house of
assembly, dating from the end of the 14th century, and containing a
museum of natural history, and collection of minerals, antiquities,
seals, paintings and sculptures. The most interesting public monument is
the great _Lindwurm_ or Dragon, standing in the principal square (1590).
The industrial establishments comprise white lead factories, machine and
iron foundries, and commerce is active, especially in the mineral
products of the region.
Upon the Zollfeld to the north of the city once stood the ancient Roman
town of Virunum. During the Middle Ages Klagenfurt became the property
of the crown, but by a patent of Maximilian I. of the 24th of April
1518, it was conceded to the Carinthian estates, and has since then
taken the place of St Veit as capital of Carinthia. In 1535, 1636, 1723
and 1796 Klagenfurt suffered from destructive fires, and in 1690 from
the effects of an earthquake. On the 29th of March 1797 the French took
the city, and upon the following day it was occupied by Napoleon as his
headquarters.
KLAJ (latinized CLAJUS), JOHANN (1616-1656), German poet, was born at
Meissen in Saxony. After studying theology at Wittenberg he went to
Nuremberg as a "candidate for holy orders," and there, in conjunction
with Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, founded in 1644 the literary society
known as the Pegnitz order. In 1647 he received an appointment as master
in the Sebaldus school in Nuremberg, and in 1650 became preacher at
Kitzingen, where he died in 1656. Klaj's poems consist of dramas,
written in stilted language and redundant with adventures, among which
are _Höllen- und Himmelfahrt Christi_ (Nuremberg, 1644), and _Herodes,
der Kindermörder_ (Nuremberg, 1645), and a poem, written jointly with
Harsdörffer, _Pegnesische Schäfergedicht_ (1644), which gives in
allegorical form the story of his settlement in Nuremberg.
See Tittmann, _Die Nürnberger Dichterschule_ (Göttingen, 1847).
KLAMATH, a small tribe of North American Indians of Lutuamian stock.
They ranged around the Klamath river and lakes, and are now on the
Klamath reservation, southern Oregon.
See A. S. Gatschet, "Klamath Indians of Oregon," _Contributions to
North American Ethnology_, vol. ii. (Washington, 1890).
KLAPKA, GEORG (1820-1892), Hungarian soldier, was born at Temesvár on
the 7th of April 1820, and entered the Austrian army in 1838. He was
still a subaltern when the Hungarian revolution of 1848 broke out, and
he offered his services to the patriot party. He served in important
staff appointments during the earlier part of the war which followed;
then, early in 1849, he was ordered to replace General Mészáros, who had
been defeated at Kaschau, and as general commanding an army corps he
had a conspicuous share in the victories of Kapólna, Isaszeg, Waitzen,
Nagy Sarlo and Komárom. Then, as the fortune of war turned against the
Hungarians, Klapka, after serving for a short time as minister of war,
took command at Komárom, from which fortress he conducted a number of
successful expeditions until the capitulation of Világos in August put
an end to the war in the open field. He then brilliantly defended
Komárom for two months, and finally surrendered on honourable terms.
Klapka left the country at once, and lived thenceforward for many years
in exile, at first in England and afterwards chiefly in Switzerland. He
continued by every means in his power to work for the independence of
Hungary, especially at moments of European war, such as 1854, 1859 and
1866, at which an appeal to arms seemed to him to promise success. After
the war of 1866 (in which as a Prussian major-general he organized a
Hungarian corps in Silesia) Klapka was permitted by the Austrian
government to return to his native country, and in 1867 was elected a
member of the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies, in which he belonged to the
Deák party. In 1877 he made an attempt to reorganize the Turkish army in
view of the war with Russia. General Klapka died at Budapest on the 17th
of May 1892. A memorial was erected to his memory at Komárom in 1896.
He wrote _Memoiren_ (Leipzig, 1850); _Der Nationalkrieg in Ungarn_,
&c. (Leipzig, 1851); a history of the Crimean War, _Der Krieg im
Orient ... bis Ende Juli 1855_ (Geneva, 1855); and _Aus meinen
Erinnerungen_ (translated from the Hungarian, Zürich, 1887).
KLAPROTH, HEINRICH JULIUS (1783-1835), German Orientalist and traveller,
was born in Berlin on the 11th of October 1783, the son of the chemist
Martin Heinrich Klaproth (q.v.). He devoted his energies in quite early
life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his
_Asiatisches Magazin_ (Weimar, 1802-1803). He was in consequence called
to St Petersburg and given an appointment in the academy there. In 1805
he was a member of Count Golovkin's embassy to China. On his return he
was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus on an ethnographical and
linguistic exploration (1807-1808), and was afterwards employed for
several years in connexion with the academy's Oriental publications. In
1812 he moved to Berlin; but in 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816
Humboldt procured him from the king of Prussia the title and salary of
professor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain
in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. He
died in that city on the 28th of August 1835.
The principal feature of Klaproth's erudition was the vastness of the
field which it embraced. His great work _Asia polyglotta_ (Paris, 1823
and 1831, with _Sprachatlas_) not only served as a _résumé_ of all
that was known on the subject, but formed a new departure for the
classification of the Eastern languages, more especially those of the
Russian Empire. To a great extent, however, his work is now
superseded. The _Itinerary of a Chinese Traveller_ (1821), a series of
documents in the military archives of St Petersburg purporting to be
the travels of George Ludwig von ----, and a similar series obtained
from him in the London foreign office, are all regarded as spurious.
Klaproth's other works include: _Reise in den Kaukasus und Georgien in
den Jahren 1807 und 1808_ (Halle, 1812-1814; French translation,
Paris, 1823); _Geographisch-historische Beschreibung des östlichen
Kaukasus_ (Weimar, 1814); _Tableaux historiques de l'Asie_ (Paris,
1826); _Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie_ (Paris, 1824-1828); _Tableau
historique, geographique, ethnographique et politique de Caucase_
(Paris, 1827); and _Vocabulaire et grammaire de la langue géorgienne_
(Paris, 1827).
KLAPROTH, MARTIN HEINRICH (1743-1817), German chemist, was born at
Wernigerode on the 1st of December 1743. During a large portion of his
life he followed the profession of an apothecary. After acting as
assistant in pharmacies at Quedlinburg, Hanover, Berlin and Danzig
successively he came to Berlin on the death of Valentin Rose the elder
in 1771 as manager of his business, and in 1780 he started an
establishment on his own account in the same city, where from 1782 he
was pharmaceutical assessor of the Ober-Collegium Medicum. In 1787 he
was appointed lecturer in chemistry to the Royal Artillery, and when the
university was founded in 1810 he was selected to be the professor of
chemistry. He died in Berlin on the 1st of January 1817. Klaproth was
the leading chemist of his time in Germany. An exact and conscientious
worker, he did much to improve and systematize the processes of
analytical chemistry and mineralogy, and his appreciation of the value
of quantitative methods led him to become one of the earliest adherents
of the Lavoisierian doctrines outside France. He was the first to
discover uranium, zirconium and titanium, and to characterize them as
distinct elements, though he did not obtain any of them in the pure
metallic state; and he elucidated the composition of numerous substances
till then imperfectly known, including compounds of the then newly
recognized elements: tellurium, strontium, cerium and chromium.
His papers, over 200 in number, were collected by himself in _Beiträge
zur chemischen Kenntniss der Mineralkörper_ (5 vols., 1795-1810) and
_Chemische Abhandlungen gemischten Inhalts_ (1815). He also published
a _Chemisches Wörterbuch_ (1807-1810), and edited a revised edition of
F. A. C. Gren's _Handbuch der Chemie_ (1806).
KLÉBER, JEAN BAPTISTE (1753-1800), French general, was born on the 9th
of March 1753, at Strassburg, where his father was a builder. He was
trained, partly at Paris, for the profession of architect, but his
opportune assistance to two German nobles in a tavern brawl obtained for
him a nomination to the military school of Munich. Thence he obtained a
commission in the Austrian army, but resigned it in 1783 on finding his
humble birth in the way of his promotion. On returning to France he was
appointed inspector of public buildings at Belfort, where he studied
fortification and military science. In 1792 he enlisted in the Haut-Rhin
volunteers, and was from his military knowledge at once elected adjutant
and soon afterwards lieutenant-colonel. At the defence of Mainz he so
distinguished himself that though disgraced along with the rest of the
garrison and imprisoned, he was promptly reinstated, and in August 1793
promoted general of brigade. He won considerable distinction in the
Vendéan war, and two months later was made a general of division. In
these operations began his intimacy with Marceau, with whom he defeated
the Royalists at Le Mans and Savenay. For openly expressing his opinion
that lenient measures ought to be pursued towards the Vendéans he was
recalled; but in April 1794 he was once more reinstated and sent to the
Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse. He displayed his skill and bravery in the
numerous actions around Charleroi, and especially in the crowning
victory of Fleurus, after which in the winter of 1794-95 he besieged
Mainz. In 1795 and again in 1796 he held the chief command of an army
temporarily, but declined a permanent appointment as commander-in-chief.
On the 13th of October 1795 he fought a brilliant rearguard action at
the bridge of Neuwied, and in the offensive campaign of 1796 he was
Jourdan's most active and successful lieutenant. Having, after the
retreat to the Rhine (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS), declined the chief
command, he withdrew into private life early in 1798. He accepted a
division in the expedition to Egypt under Bonaparte, but was wounded in
the head at Alexandria in the first engagement, which prevented his
taking any further part in the campaign of the Pyramids, and caused him
to be appointed governor of Alexandria. In the Syrian campaign of 1799,
however, he commanded the vanguard, took El-Arish, Gaza and Jaffa, and
won the great victory of Mount Tabor on the 15th of April 1799. When
Napoleon returned to France towards the end of 1799 he left Kléber in
command of the French forces. In this capacity, seeing no hope of
bringing his army back to France or of consolidating his conquests, he
made the convention of El-Arish. But when Lord Keith, the British
admiral, refused to ratify the terms, he attacked the Turks at
Heliopolis, though with but 10,000 men against 60,000, and utterly
defeated them on the 20th of March 1800. He then retook Cairo, which had
revolted from the French. Shortly after these victories he was
assassinated at Cairo by a fanatic on the 14th of June 1800, the same
day on which his friend and comrade Desaix fell at Marengo. Kléber was
undoubtedly one of the greatest generals of the French revolutionary
epoch. Though he distrusted his powers and declined the responsibility
of supreme command, there is nothing in his career to show that he would
have been unequal to it. As a second in command he was not excelled by
any general of his time. His conduct of affairs in Egypt at a time when
the treasury was empty and the troops were discontented for want of pay,
shows that his powers as an administrator were little--if at
all--inferior to those he possessed as a general.
Ernouf, the grandson of Jourdan's chief of staff, published in 1867 a
valuable biography of Kléber. See also Reynaud, _Life of Merlin de
Thionville_; Ney, Memoirs; Dumas, _Souvenirs_; Las Casas, _Memorial de
Ste Hélène_; J. Charavaray, _Les Généraux morts pour la patrie_;
General Pajol, _Kléber_; lives of Marceau and Desaix; M. F. Rousseau,
_Kléber et Menou en Egypte_ (Paris, 1900).
KLEIN, JULIUS LEOPOLD (1810-1876), German writer of Jewish origin, was
born at Miskolcz, in Hungary. He was educated at the gymnasium in Pest,
and studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin. After travelling in Italy and
Greece, he settled as a man of letters in Berlin, where he remained
until his death on the 2nd of August 1876. He was the author of many
dramatic works, among others the historical tragedies _Maria von Medici_
(1841); _Luines_ (1842); _Zenobia_ (1847); _Moreto_ (1859); _Maria_
(1860); _Strafford_ (1862) and _Heliodora_ (1867); and the comedies _Die
Herzogin_ (1848); _Ein Schützling_ (1850); and _Voltaire_ (1862). The
tendency of Klein as a dramatist was to become bombastic and obscure,
but many of his characters are vigorously conceived, and in nearly all
his tragedies there are passages of brilliant rhetoric. He is chiefly
known as the author of the elaborate though uncompleted _Geschichte des
Dramas_ (1865-1876), in which he undertook to record the history of the
drama from the earliest times. He died when about to enter upon the
Elizabethan period, to the treatment of which he had looked forward as
the chief part of his task. The work, which is in thirteen bulky
volumes, gives proof of immense learning, but is marred by
eccentricities of style and judgment.
Klein's _Dramatische Werke_ were collected in 7 vols. (1871-1872).
KLEIST, BERND HEINRICH WILHELM VON (1777-1811), German poet, dramatist
and novelist, was born at Frankfort-on-Oder on the 18th of October 1777.
After a scanty education, he entered the Prussian army in 1792, served
in the Rhine campaign of 1796 and retired from the service in 1799 with
the rank of lieutenant. He next studied law and philosophy at the
university of Frankfort-on-Oder, and in 1800 received a subordinate post
in the ministry of finance at Berlin. In the following year his roving,
restless spirit got the better of him, and procuring a lengthened leave
of absence he visited Paris and then settled in Switzerland. Here he
found congenial friends in Heinrich Zschokke (q.v.) and Ludwig Friedrich
August Wieland (1777-1819), son of the poet; and to them he read his
first drama, a gloomy tragedy, _Die Familie Schroffenstein_ (1803),
originally entitled _Die Familie Ghonorez_. In the autumn of 1802 Kleist
returned to Germany; he visited Goethe, Schiller and Wieland in Weimar,
stayed for a while in Leipzig and Dresden, again proceeded to Paris, and
returning in 1804 to his post in Berlin was transferred to the
_Domänenkammer_ (department for the administration of crown lands) at
Königsberg. On a journey to Dresden in 1807 Kleist was arrested by the
French as a spy, and being sent to France was kept for six months a
close prisoner at Châlons-sur-Marne. On regaining his liberty he
proceeded to Dresden, where in conjunction with Adam Heinrich Müller
(1779-1829) he published in 1808 the journal _Phöbus_. In 1809 he went
to Prague, and ultimately settled in Berlin, where he edited (1810-1811)
the _Berliner Abendblätter_. Captivated by the intellectual and musical
accomplishments of a certain Frau Henriette Vogel, Kleist, who was
himself more disheartened and embittered than ever, agreed to do her
bidding and die with her, carrying out this resolution by first shooting
the lady and then himself on the shore of the Wannsee near Potsdam, on
the 21st of November 1811. Kleist's whole life was filled by a restless
striving after ideal and illusory happiness, and this is largely
reflected in his work. He was by far the most important North German
dramatist of the Romantic movement, and no other of the Romanticists
approaches him in the energy with which he expresses patriotic
indignation.
His first tragedy, _Die Familie Schroffenstein_, has been already
referred to; the material for the second, _Penthesilea_ (1808), queen
of the Amazons, is taken from a Greek source and presents a picture of
wild passion. More successful than either of these was his romantic
play, _Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, oder Die Feuerprobe_ (1808), a
poetic drama full of medieval bustle and mystery, which has retained
its popularity. In comedy, Kleist made a name with _Der zerbrochene
Krug_ (1811), while _Amphitryon_ (1808), an adaptation of Molière's
comedy, is of less importance. Of Kleist's other dramas, _Die
Hermannschlacht_ (1809) is a dramatic treatment of an historical
subject and is full of references to the political conditions of his
own times. In it he gives vent to his hatred of his country's
oppressors. This, together with the drama _Prinz Friedrich von
Homburg_, the latter accounted Kleist's best work, was first published
by Ludwig Tieck in _Kleists hinterlassene Schriften_ (1821). _Robert
Guiskard_, a drama conceived on a grand plan, was left a fragment.
Kleist was also a master in the art of narrative, and of his
_Gesammelte Erzählungen_ (1810-1811), _Michael Kohlhaas_, in which the
famous Brandenburg horse dealer in Luther's day (see KOHLHASE) is
immortalized, is one of the best German stories of its time. He also
wrote some patriotic lyrics. His _Gesammelte Schriften_ were published
by Ludwig Tieck (3 vols. 1826) and by Julian Schmidt (new ed. 1874);
also by F. Muncker (4 vols. 1882); by T. Zolling (4 vols. 1885); by K.
Siegen, (4 vols. 1895); and in a critical edition by E. Schmidt (5
vols. 1904-1905). His _Ausgewählte Dramen_ were published by K. Siegen
(Leipzig, 1877); and his letters were first published by E. von Bülow,
_Heinrich von Kleists Leben und Briefe_ (1848).
See further A. Wilbrandt, _Heinrich von Kleist_ (1863); O. Brahm,
_Heinrich von Kleist_ (1884); R. Bonafous, _Henri de Kleist, sa vie et
ses oeuvres_ (1894); H. Conrad, _Heinrich von Kleist als Mensch und
Dichter_ (1896); G. Minde-Pouet, _Heinrich von Kleist, seine Sprache
und sein Stil_ (1897); R. Steig, _Heinrich von Kleists Berliner
Kämpfe_ (1901); F. Servaes, _Heinrich von Kleist_ (1902); S.
Wukadinowic, _Kleist-Studien_ (1904); S. Rahmer, _H. von Kleist als
Mensch und Dichter_ (1909).
KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON (1715-1759), German poet, was born at
Zeblin, near Köslin in Pomerania, on the 7th of March 1715. After
attending the Jesuit school in Deutschkrona and the gymnasium in Danzig,
he proceeded in 1731 to the university of Königsberg, where he studied
law and mathematics. On the completion of his studies, he entered the
Danish army, in which he became an officer in 1736. Recalled to Prussia
by Frederick II. in 1740, he was appointed lieutenant in a regiment
stationed at Potsdam, where he became acquainted with J. W. L. Gleim
(q.v.), who interested him in poetry. After distinguishing himself at
the battle of Mollwitz (April 10, 1741) and the siege of Neisse (1741),
he was promoted captain in 1749 and major in 1756. Quartered during the
winter of 1757-1758 in Leipzig, he found relief from his irksome
military duties in the society of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (q.v.).
Shortly afterwards in the battle of Kunersdorf, on the 12th of August
1759, he was mortally wounded while leading the attack, and died at
Frankfort-on-Oder on the 24th of August following.
Kleist's chief work is a poem in hexameters, _Der Frühling_ (1749), for
which Thomson's _Seasons_ largely supplied ideas. In his description of
the beauties of nature Kleist shows real poetical genius, an almost
modern sentiment and fine taste. He also wrote some charming odes,
idylls and elegies, and a small epic poem _Cissides und Paches_ (1759),
the subject being two Thessalian friends who die an heroic death for
their country in a battle against the Athenians.
Kleist published in 1756 the first collection of his _Gedichte_, which
was followed by a second in 1758. After his death his friend Karl
Wilhelm Ramler (q.v.) published an edition of _Kleists sämtliche
Werke_ in 2 vols. (1760). A critical edition was published by A.
Sauer, in 3 vols. (1880-1882). Cf. further, A. Chuquet, _De Ewaldi
Kleistii vita et scriptis_ (Paris, 1887), and H. Pröhle, _Friedrich
der Grosse und die deutsche Literatur_ (1872).
KLERKSDORP, a town of the Transvaal, 118 m. S.W. of Johannesburg and 192
m. N.E. of Kimberley by rail. Pop. (1904), 4276 of whom 2203 were
whites. The town, built on the banks of the Schoonspruit 10 m. above its
junction with the Vaal, possesses several fine public buildings. In the
neighbourhood are gold-mines, the reef appearing to form the western
boundary of the Witwatersrand basin. Diamonds (green in colour) and coal
are also found in the district. Klerksdorp was one of the villages
founded by the first Boers who crossed the Vaal, dating from 1838. The
modern town, which is on the side of the _spruit_ opposite the old
village, was founded in 1888.
KLESL (or KHLESL), MELCHIOR (1552-1630), Austrian statesman and
ecclesiastic, was the son of a Protestant baker, and was born in Vienna.
Under the influence of the Jesuits he was converted to Roman
Catholicism, and having finished his education at the universities of
Vienna and Ingolstadt, he was made chancellor of the university of
Vienna; and as official and vicar-general of the bishop of Passau he
exhibited the zeal of a convert in forwarding the progress of the
counter-reformation in Austria. He became bishop of Vienna in 1598; but
more important was his association with the archduke Matthias which
began about the same time. Both before and after 1612, when Matthias
succeeded his brother Rudolph II. as emperor, Klesl was the originator
and director of his policy, although he stoutly opposed the concessions
to the Hungarian Protestants in 1606. He assisted to secure the election
of Matthias to the imperial throne, and sought, but without success, to
strengthen the new emperor's position by making peace between the
Catholics and the Protestants. When during the short reign of Matthias
the question of the imperial succession demanded prompt attention, the
bishop, although quite as anxious as his opponents to retain the empire
in the house of Habsburg and to preserve the dominance of the Roman
Catholic Church, advised that this question should be shelved until some
arrangement with the Protestant princes had been reached. This counsel
was displeasing to the archduke Maximilian and to Ferdinand, afterwards
the emperor Ferdinand II. who believed that Klesl was hostile to the
candidature of the latter prince. It was, however, impossible to shake
his influence with the emperor; and in June 1618, a few months before
the death of Matthias, he was seized by order of the archdukes and
imprisoned at Ambras in Tirol. In 1622 Klesl, who had been a cardinal
since 1615, was transferred to Rome by order of Pope Gregory XV., and
was released from imprisonment. In 1627 Ferdinand II. allowed him to
return to his episcopal duties in Vienna, where he died on the 18th of
September 1630.
See J. Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, _Khlesls Leben_ (Vienna,
1847-1851); A. Kerschbaumer, _Kardinal Klesl_ (Vienna, 1865); and
_Klesls Briefe an Rudolfs II. Obersthofmeister A. Freiherr von
Dietrichstein_, edited by V. Bibl. (Vienna, 1900).
KLINGER, FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN VON (1752-1831), German dramatist and
novelist, was born of humble parentage at Frankfort-on-Main, on the 17th
of February 1752. His father died when he was a child, and his early
years were a hard struggle. He was enabled, however, in 1774 to enter
the university of Giessen, where he studied law; and Goethe, with whom
he had been acquainted since childhood, helped him in many ways. In 1775
Klinger gained with his tragedy _Die Zwillinge_ a prize offered by the
Hamburg theatre, under the auspices of the actress Sophie Charlotte
Ackermann (1714-1792) and her son the famous actor and playwright,
Friedrich Ludwig Schröder (1744-1816). In 1776 Klinger was appointed
_Theaterdichter_ to the "Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft" and held
this post for two years. In 1778 he entered the Austrian military
service and took part in the Bavarian war of succession. In 1780 he went
to St Petersburg, became an officer in the Russian army, was ennobled
and attached to the Grand Duke Paul, whom he accompanied on a journey to
Italy and France. In 1785 he was appointed director of the corps of
cadets, and having married a natural daughter of the empress Catharine,
was made praeses of the Academy of Knights in 1799. In 1803 Klinger was
nominated by the emperor Alexander curator of the university of Dorpat,
an office he held until 1817; in 1811 he became lieutenant-general. He
then gradually gave up his official posts, and after living for many
years in honourable retirement, died at Dorpat on the 25th of February
1831.
Klinger was a man of vigorous moral character and full of fine feeling,
though the bitter experiences and deprivations of his youth are largely
reflected in his dramas. It was one of his earliest works, _Sturm und
Drang_ (1776), which gave its name to this literary epoch. In addition
to this tragedy and _Die Zwillinge_ (1776), the chief plays of his early
period of passionate fervour and restless "storm and stress" are _Die
neue Arria_ (1776), _Simsone Grisaldo_ (1776) and _Stilpo und seine
Kinder_ (1780). To a later period belongs the fine double tragedy of
_Medea in Korinth_ and _Medea auf dem Kaukasos_ (1791). In Russia he
devoted himself mainly to the writing of philosophical romances, of
which the best known are _Fausts Leben, Taten und Höllenfahrt_ (1791),
_Geschichte Giafars des Barmeciden_ (1792) and _Geschichte Raphaels de
Aquillas_ (1793). This series was closed in 1803 with _Betrachtungen und
Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände der Welt und der Literatur_. In
these works Klinger gives calm and dignified expression to the leading
ideas which the period of _Sturm und Drang_ had bequeathed to German
classical literature.
Klinger's works were published in twelve volumes (1809-1815), also
1832-1833 and 1842. The most recent edition is in eight volumes
(1878-1880); but none of these is complete. A selection will be found
in A. Sauer, _Stürmer und Dränger_, vol. i. (1883). See E. Schmidt,
_Lenz und Klinger_ (1878); M. Rieger, _Klinger in der Sturm- und
Drangperiode_ (1880); and _Klinger in seiner Reife_ (1896).
KLINGER, MAX (1857- ), German painter, etcher and sculptor, was born at
Plagwitz near Leipzig. He attended the classes at the Carlsruhe art
school in 1874, and went in the following year to Berlin, where in 1878
he created a sensation at the Academy exhibition with two series of
pen-and-ink drawings--the "Series upon the Theme of Christ" and
"Fantasies upon the Finding of a Glove." The daring originality of these
imaginative and eccentric works caused an outburst of indignation, and
the artist was voted insane; nevertheless the "Glove" series was bought
by the Berlin National Gallery. His painting of "The Judgment of Paris"
caused a similar storm of indignant protest in 1887, owing to its
rejection of all conventional attributes and the naïve directness of the
conception. His vivid and somewhat morbid imagination, with its leaning
towards the gruesome and disagreeable, and the Goyaesque turn of his
mind, found their best expression in his "cycles" of etchings:
"Deliverances of Sacrificial Victims told in Ovid," "A Brahms Phantasy,"
"Eve and the Future," "A Life," and "Of Death"; but in his use of the
needle he does not aim at the technical excellence of the great masters;
it supplies him merely with means of expressing his ideas. After 1886
Klinger devoted himself more exclusively to painting and sculpture. In
his painting he aims neither at classic beauty nor modern truth, but at
grim impressiveness not without a touch of mysticism. His "Pietà" at the
Dresden Gallery, the frescoes at the Leipzig University, and the "Christ
in Olympus," at the Modern Gallery in Vienna, are characteristic
examples of his art. The Leipzig Museum contains his sculptured "Salome"
and "Cassandra." In sculpture he favours the use of varicoloured
materials in the manner of the Greek chryselephantine sculpture. His
"Beethoven" is a notable instance of his work in this direction.
KLIPSPRINGER, the Boer name of a small African mountain-antelope
(_Oreotragus saltator_), ranging from the Cape through East Africa to
Somaliland and Abyssinia, and characterized by its blunt rounded hoofs,
thick pithy hair and gold-spangled colouring. The klipspringer
represents a genus by itself, the various local forms not being worthy
of more than racial distinction. The activity of these antelopes is
marvellous.
KLONDIKE, a district in Yukon Territory, north-western Canada,
approximately in 64° N. and 140° W. The limits are rather indefinite,
but the district includes the country to the south of the Klondike
River, which comes into the Yukon from the east and has several
tributaries, as well as Indian River, a second branch of the Yukon,
flowing into it some distance above the Klondike. The richer
gold-bearing gravels are found along the creeks tributary to these two
rivers within an area of about 800 sq. m. The Klondike district is a
dissected peneplain with low ridges of rounded forms rising to 4250 ft.
above the sea at the Dome which forms its centre. All of the
gold-bearing creeks rise not far from the Dome and radiate in various
directions toward the Klondike and Indian rivers, the most productive
being Bonanza with its tributary Eldorado, Hunker, Dominion and Gold
Run. Of these, Eldorado, for the two or three miles in which it was
gold-bearing, was much the richest, and for its length probably
surpassed any other known placer deposit. Rich gravel was discovered on
Bonanza Creek in 1896, and a wild rush to this almost inaccessible
region followed, a population of 30,000 coming in within the next three
or four years with a rapidly increasing output of gold, reaching in 1900
the climax of $22,000,000. Since then the production has steadily
declined, until in 1906 it fell to $5,600,000. The richest gravels were
worked out before 1910, and most of the population had left the Klondike
for Alaska and other regions; so that Dawson, which for a time was a
bustling city of more than 10,000, dwindled to about 3000 inhabitants.
As the ground was almost all frozen, the mines were worked by a thawing
process, first by setting fires, afterwards by using steam, new methods
being introduced to meet the unusual conditions. Later dredges and
hydraulic mining were resorted to with success.
The Klondike, in spite of its isolated position, brought together miners
and adventurers from all parts of the world, and it is greatly to the
credit of the Canadian government and of the mounted police, who were
entrusted with the keeping of order, that life and property were as safe
as elsewhere and that no lawless methods were adopted by the miners as
in placer mining camps in the western United States. The region was at
first difficult of access, but can now be reached with perfect comfort
in summer, travelling by well-appointed steamers on the Pacific and the
Yukon River. Owing to its perpetually frozen soil, summer roads were
excessively bad in earlier days, but good wagon roads have since been
constructed to all the important mining centres. Dawson itself has all
the resources of a civilized city in spite of being founded on a frozen
peat-bog; and is supplied with ordinary market vegetables from farms
just across the river. During the winter, when for some time the sun
does not appear above the hills, the cold is intense, though usually
without wind, but the well-chinked log houses can be kept comfortably
warm. When winter travel is necessary dog teams and sledges are
generally made use of, except on the stage route south to White Horse,
where horses are used. A telegraph line connects Dawson with British
Columbia, but the difficulties in keeping it in order are so great over
the long intervening wilderness that communication is often broken. Gold
is practically the only economic product of the Klondike, though small
amounts of tin ore occur, and lignite coal has been mined lower down on
the Yukon. The source of the gold seems to have been small stringers of
quartz in the siliceous and sericitic schists which form the bed rock of
much of the region, and no important quartz veins have been discovered;
so that unlike most other placer regions the Klondike has not developed
lode mines to continue the production of gold when the gravels are
exhausted.
KLOPP, ONNO (1822-1903), German historian, was born at Leer on the 9th
of October 1822, and was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin
and Göttingen. For a few years he was a teacher at Leer and at
Osnabrück; but in 1858 he settled at Hanover, where he became intimate
with King George V., who made him his _Archivrat_. Thoroughly disliking
Prussia, he was in hearty accord with George in resisting her aggressive
policy; and after the annexation of Hanover in 1866 he accompanied the
exiled king to Hietzing. He became a Roman Catholic in 1874. He died at
Penzing, near Vienna, on the 9th of August 1903. Klopp is best known as
the author of _Der Fall des Hauses Stuart_ (Vienna, 1875-1888), the
fullest existing account of the later Stuarts.
His _Der König Friedrich II. und seine Politik_ (Schaffhausen, 1867)
and _Geschichte Ostfrieslands_ (Hanover, 1854-1858) show his dislike
of Prussia. His other works include _Der dreissigjährige Krieg bis zum
Tode Gustav Adolfs_ (Paderborn, 1891-1896); a revised edition of his
_Tilly im dreissigjährigen Kriege_ (Stuttgart, 1861); a life of George
V., _König Georg V._ (Hanover, 1878); _Phillipp Melanchthon_ (Berlin,
1897). He edited _Corrispondenza epistolare tra Leopoldo I. imperatore
ed il P. Marco l'Aviano capuccino_ (Gratz, 1888). Klopp also wrote
much in defence of George V. and his claim to Hanover, including the
_Offizieller Bericht über die Kriegsereignisse zwischen Hannover und
Preussen im Juni 1866_ (Vienna, 1867), and he edited the works of
Leibnitz in eleven volumes (1861-1884).
See W. Klopp, _Onno Klopp: ein Lebenslauf_ (Wehberg, 1907).
KLOPSTOCK, GOTTLIEB FRIEDRICH (1724-1803), German poet, was born at
Quedlinburg, on the 2nd of July 1724, the eldest son of a lawyer, a man
of sterling character and of a deeply religious mind. Both in his
birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father
later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more
attention having been given to his physical than to his mental
development he grew up a strong healthy boy and was an excellent horseman
and skater. In his thirteenth year Klopstock returned to Quedlinburg
where he attended the gymnasium, and in 1739 proceeded to the famous
classical school of Schulpforta. Here he soon became an adept in Greek
and Latin versification, and wrote some meritorious idylls and odes in
German. His original intention of making the emperor Henry I. ("The
Fowler") the hero of an epic, was, under the influence of Milton's
_Paradise Lost_, with which he became acquainted through Bodmer's
translation, abandoned in favour of the religious epic. While yet at
school, he had already drafted the plan of _Der Messias_, upon which his
fame mainly rests. On the 21st of September 1745 he delivered on quitting
school a remarkable "leaving oration" on epic poetry--_Abschiedsrede über
die epische Poesie, kultur- und literargeschichtlich erläutert_--and next
proceeded to Jena as a student of theology, where he elaborated the first
three cantos of the _Messias_ in prose. The life at this university being
uncongenial to him, he removed in the spring of 1746 to Leipzig, and here
joined the circle of young men of letters who contributed to the _Bremer
Beiträge_. In this periodical the first three cantos of the _Messias_ in
hexameters were anonymously published in 1748. A new era in German
literature had commenced, and the name of the author soon became known.
In Leipzig he also wrote a number of odes, the best known of which is _An
meine Freunde_ (1747), afterwards recast as _Wingolf_ (1767). He left the
university in 1748 and became a private tutor in the family of a relative
at Langensalza. Here unrequited love for a cousin (the "Fanny" of his
odes) disturbed his peace of mind. Gladly therefore he accepted in 1750
an invitation from Jakob Bodmer (q.v.), the translator of _Paradise
Lost_, to visit him in Zürich. Here Klopstock was at first treated with
every kindness and respect and rapidly recovered his spirits. Bodmer,
however, was disappointed to find in the young poet of the _Messias_ a
man of strong worldly interests, and a coolness sprang up between the two
friends.
At this juncture Klopstock received from Frederick V. of Denmark, on the
recommendation of his minister Count von Bernstorff (1712-1772), an
invitation to settle at Copenhagen, with an annuity of 400 talers, with
a view to the completion of the _Messias_. The offer was accepted; on
his way to the Danish capital Klopstock met at Hamburg the lady who in
1754 became his wife, Margareta (Meta) Moller, (the "Cidli" of his
odes), an enthusiastic admirer of his poetry. His happiness was short;
she died in 1758, leaving him almost broken-hearted. His grief at her
loss finds pathetic expression in the 15th canto of the _Messias_. The
poet subsequently published his wife's writings, _Hinterlassene Werke
von Margareta Klopstock_ (1759), which give evidence of a tender,
sensitive and deeply religious spirit. Klopstock now relapsed into
melancholy; new ideas failed him, and his poetry became more and more
vague and unintelligible. He still continued to live and work at
Copenhagen, and next, following Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (q.v.),
turned his attention to northern mythology, which he conceived should
replace classical subjects in a new school of German poetry. In 1770, on
the dismissal by King Christian VII. of Count Bernstorff from office, he
retired with the latter to Hamburg, but retained his pension together
with the rank of councillor of legation. Here, in 1773, he issued the
last five cantos of the _Messias_. In the following year he published
his strange scheme for the regeneration of German letters, _Die
Gelehrtenrepublik_ (1774). In 1775 he travelled south, and making the
acquaintance of Goethe on the way, spent a year at the court of the
margrave of Baden at Karlsruhe. Thence, in 1776, with the title of
_Hofrat_ and a pension from the margrave, which he retained together
with that from the king of Denmark, he returned to Hamburg where he
spent the remainder of his life. His latter years he passed, as had
always been his inclination, in retirement, only occasionally relieved
by association with his most intimate friends, busied with philological
studies, and hardly interesting himself in the new developments of
German literature. The American War of Independence and the Revolution
in France aroused him, however, to enthusiasm. The French Republic sent
him the diploma of honorary citizenship; but, horrified at the terrible
scenes the Revolution had enacted in the place of liberty, he returned
it. When 67 years of age he contracted a second marriage with Johanna
Elisabeth von Winthem, a widow and a niece of his late wife, who for
many years had been one of his most intimate friends. He died at Hamburg
on the 14th of March 1803, mourned by all Germany, and was buried with
great pomp and ceremony by the side of his first wife in the churchyard
of the village of Ottensen.
Klopstock's nature was best attuned to lyrical poetry, and in it his
deep, noble character found its truest expression. He was less suited
for epic and dramatic representation; for, wrapt up in himself, a
stranger to the outer world, without historical culture, and without
even any interest in the events of his time, he was lacking in the art
of plastic representation such as a great epic requires. Thus the
_Messias_, despite the magnificent passages which especially the
earlier cantos contain, cannot satisfy the demands such a theme must
necessarily make. The subject matter, the Redemption, presented
serious difficulties to adequate epic treatment. The Gospel story was
too scanty, and what might have been imported from without and
interwoven with it was rejected by the author as profane. He had
accordingly to resort to Christian mythology; and here again,
circumscribed by the dogmas of the Church, he was in danger of
trespassing on the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The
personality of Christ could scarcely be treated in an individual form,
still less could angels and devils--and in the case of God Himself it
was impossible. The result was that, despite the groundwork--the
Gospels, the _Acts of the Apostles_, the _Revelation of St John_, and
the model ready to hand in Milton's _Paradise Lost_--material elements
are largely wanting and the actors in the poem, Divine and human, lack
plastic form. That the poem took twenty-five years to complete could
not but be detrimental to its unity of design; the original enthusiasm
was not sustained until the end, and the earlier cantos are far
superior to the later. Thus the intense public interest the work
aroused in its commencement had almost vanished before its completion.
It was translated into seventeen languages and led to numerous
imitations. In his odes Klopstock had more scope for his peculiar
talent. Among the best are _An Fanny_; _Der Zürchersee_; _Die tote
Klarissa_; _An Cidli_; _Die beiden Musen_; _Der Rheinwein_; _Die
frühen Gräber_; _Mein Vaterland_. His religious odes mostly take the
form of hymns, of which the most beautiful is _Die Frühlingsfeier_.
His dramas, in some of which, notably _Hermanns Schlacht_ (1769) and
_Hermann und die Fürsten_ (1784), he celebrated the deeds of the
ancient German hero Arminius, and in others, _Der Tod Adams_ (1757)
and _Salomo_ (1764), took his materials from the Old Testament, are
essentially lyrical in character and deficient in action. In addition
to _Die Gelehrtenrepublik_, he was also the author of _Fragmente über
Sprache und Dichtkunst_ (1779) and _Grammatische Gespräche_ (1794),
works in which he made important contributions to philology and to the
history of German poetry.
Klopstock's _Werke_ first appeared in seven quarto volumes
(1798-1809). At the same time a more complete edition in twelve octavo
volumes was published (1798-1817), to which six additional volumes
were added in 1830. More recent editions were published in 1844-1845,
1854-1855, 1879 (ed. by R. Boxberger), 1884 (ed. by R. Hamel) and 1893
(a selection edited by F. Muncker). A critical edition of the _Odes_
was published by F. Muncker and J. Pawel in 1889; a commentary on
these by H. Düntzer (1860; 2nd ed., 1878). For Klopstock's
correspondence see K. Schmidt, _Klopstock und seine Freunde_ (1810);
C. A. H. Clodius, _Klopstocks Nachlass_ (1821); J. M. Lappenberg,
_Briefe von und an Klopstock_ (1867). Cf. further K. F. Cramer,
_Klopstock, er und über ihn_ (1780-1792); J. G. Gruber, _Klopstocks
Leben_ (1832); R. Hamel, _Klopstock-Studien_ (1879-1880); F. Muncker,
_F. G. Klopstock_, the most authoritative biography, (1888); E.
Bailly, _Étude sur la vie et les oeuvres de Klopstock_ (Paris, 1888).
KLOSTERNEUBURG, a town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 5-½ m. N.W. of
Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 11,595. It is situated on the right bank of
the Danube, at the foot of the Kahlenberg, and is divided by a small
stream into an upper and a lower town. As an important pioneer station
Klosterneuburg has various military buildings and stores, and among the
schools it possesses an academy of wine and fruit cultivation.
On a hill rising directly from the banks of the Danube stand the
magnificent buildings (erected 1730-1834) of the Augustine canonry,
founded in 1106 by Margrave Leopold the Holy. This foundation is the
oldest and richest of the kind in Austria; it owns much of the land
upon which the north-western suburbs of Vienna stand. Among the points
of interest within it are the old chapel of 1318, with Leopold's tomb
and the altar of Verdun, dating from the 12th century, the treasury and
relic-chamber, the library with 30,000 volumes and many MSS., the
picture gallery, the collection of coins, the theological hall, and the
wine-cellar, containing an immense tun like that at Heidelberg. The
inhabitants of Klosterneuburg are mainly occupied in making wine, of
excellent quality. There is a large cement factory outside the town. In
Roman times the castle of Citium stood in the region of Klosterneuburg.
The town was founded by Charlemagne, and received its charter as a town
in 1298.
KLOTZ, REINHOLD (1807-1870), German classical scholar, was born near
Chemnitz in Saxony on the 13th of March 1807. In 1849 he was appointed
professor in the university of Leipzig in succession to Gottfried
Hermann, and held this post till his death on the 10th of August 1870.
Klotz was a man of unwearied industry, and devoted special attention to
Latin literature.
He was the author of editions of several classical authors, of which
the most important were: the complete works of Cicero (2nd ed.,
1869-1874); Clement of Alexandria (1831-1834); Euripides (1841-1867),
in continuation of Pflugk's edition, but unfinished; Terence
(1838-1840), with the commentaries of Donatus and Eugraphius. Mention
should also be made of: _Handwörterbuch der lateinischen Sprache_ (5th
ed., 1874); _Römische Litteraturgeschichte_ (1847), of which only the
introductory volume appeared; an edition of the treatise _De Graecae
linguae particulis_ (1835-1842) of Matthaeus Deverius (Devares), a
learned Corfiote (c. 1500-1570), and corrector of the Greek MSS. in
the Vatican; the posthumous _Index Ciceronianus_ (1872) and _Handbuch
der lateinischen Stilistik_ (1874). From 1831-1855 Klotz was editor of
the _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_ (Leipzig). During the troubled
times of 1848 and the following years he showed himself a strong
conservative.
A memoir by his son Richard will be found in the _Jahrbücher_ for
1871, pp. 154-163.
KNARESBOROUGH, a market town in the Ripon parliamentary division of the
West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 16½ m. W. by N. from York by a branch
of the North Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4979. Its
situation is most picturesque, on the steep left bank of the river Nidd,
which here follows a well-wooded valley, hemmed in by limestone cliffs.
The church of St John the Baptist is Early English, but has numerous
Decorated and Perpendicular additions; it is a cruciform building
containing several interesting monuments. Knaresborough Castle was
probably founded in 1070 by Serlo de Burgh. Its remains, however, are of
the 14th century, and include a massive keep rising finely from a cliff
above the Nidd. After the battle of Marston Moor it was taken by
Fairfax, and in 1648 it was ordered to be dismantled. To the south of
the castle is St Robert's chapel, an excavation in the rock constructed
into an ecclesiastical edifice in the reign of Richard I. Several of the
excavations in the limestone, which is extensively quarried, are
incorporated in dwelling-houses. A little farther down the river is St
Robert's cave, which is supposed to have been the residence of the
hermit, and in 1744 was the scene of the murder of Daniel Clarke by
Eugene Aram, whose story is told in Lytton's well-known novel. Opposite
the castle is the Dropping Well, the waters of which are impregnated
with lime and have petrifying power, this action causing the curious and
beautiful incrustations formed where the water falls over a slight
cliff. The Knaresborough free grammar school was founded in 1616. There
is a large agricultural trade, and linen and leather manufactures and
the quarries also employ a considerable number of persons.
Knaresborough (_Canardesburg_, _Cnarreburc_, _Cknareburg_), which
belonged to the Crown before the Conquest, formed part of William the
Conqueror's grant to his follower Serlo de Burgh. Being forfeited by his
grandson Eustace FitzJohn in the reign of Stephen, Knaresborough was
granted to Robert de Stuteville, from whose descendants it passed
through marriage to Hugh de Morville, one of the murderers of Thomas
Becket, who with his three accomplices remained in hiding in the castle
for a whole year. During the 13th and 14th centuries the castle and
lordship changed hands very frequently; they were granted successively
to Hubert de Burgh, whose son forfeited them after the battle of
Evesham, to Richard, earl of Cornwall, whose son Edmund died without
issue; to Piers Gaveston, and lastly to John of Gaunt, duke of
Lancaster, and so to the Crown as parcel of the duchy of Lancaster. In
1317 John de Lilleburn, who was holding the castle of Knaresborough for
Thomas duke of Lancaster against the king, surrendered under conditions
to William de Ros of Hamelak, but before leaving the castle managed to
destroy all the records of the liberties and privileges of the town
which were kept in the castle. In 1368 an inquisition was taken to
ascertain these privileges, and the jurors found that the burgesses held
"all the soil of their borough yielding 7s. 4d. yearly and doing suit at
the king's court." In the reign of Henry VIII. Knaresborough is said by
Leland to be "no great thing and meanely builded but the market there is
quik." During the civil wars Knaresborough was held for some time by the
Royalists, but they were obliged to surrender, and the castle was among
those ordered to be destroyed by parliament in 1646. A market on
Wednesday and a fortnightly fair on the same day from the Feast of St
Mark to that of St Andrew are claimed under a charter of Charles II.
confirming earlier charters. Lead ore was found and worked on
Knaresborough Common in the 16th century. From 1555 to 1867 the town
returned two members to parliament, but in the latter year the number
was reduced to one, and in 1885 the representation was merged in that of
the West Riding.
KNAVE (O.E. _cnafa_, cognate with Ger. _Knabe_, boy), originally a male
child, a boy (Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_: "Clerk's Tale," I. 388). Like
Lat. _puer_, the word was early used as a name for any boy or lad
employed as a servant, and so of male servants in general (Chaucer:
"Pardoner's Tale," 1. 204). The current use of the word for a man who is
dishonest and crafty, a rogue, was however an early usage, and is found
in Layamon (c. 1205). In playing-cards the lowest court card of each
suit, the "jack," representing a medieval servant, is called the
"knave." (See also VALET.)
KNEBEL, KARL LUDWIG VON (1744-1834), German poet and translator, was
born at the castle of Wallerstein in Franconia on the 30th of November
1744. After having studied law for a short while at Halle, he entered
the regiment of the crown prince of Prussia in Potsdam and was attached
to it as officer for ten years. Disappointed in his military career,
owing to the slowness of promotion, he retired in 1774, and accepting
the post of tutor to Prince Konstantin of Weimar, accompanied him and
his elder brother, the hereditary prince, on a tour to Paris. On this
journey he visited Goethe in Frankfort-on-Main, and introduced him to
the hereditary prince, Charles Augustus. This meeting is memorable as
being the immediate cause of Goethe's later intimate connexion with the
Weimar court. After Knebel's return and the premature death of his pupil
he was pensioned, receiving the rank of major. In 1798 he married the
singer Luise von Rudorf, and retired to Ilmenau; but in 1805 he removed
to Jena, where he lived until his death on the 23rd of February 1834.
Knebel's _Sammlung kleiner Gedichte_ (1815), issued anonymously, and
_Distichen_ (1827) contain many graceful sonnets, but it is as a
translator that he is best known. His translation of the elegies of
Propertius, _Elegien des Properz_ (1798), and that of Lucretius' _De
rerum natura_ (2 vols., 1831) are deservedly praised. Since their first
acquaintance Knebel and Goethe were intimate friends, and not the least
interesting of Knebel's writings is his correspondence with the eminent
poet, _Briefwechsel mit Goethe_ (ed. G. E. Guhrauer, 2 vols., 1851).
Knebel's _Literarischer Nachlass und Briefwechsel_ was edited by K. A.
Varnhagen von Ense and T. Mundt in 3 vols. (1835; 2nd ed., 1840). See
Hugo von Knebel-Döberitz, _Karl Ludwig von Knebel_ (1890).
KNEE (O.E. _cnéow_, a word common to Indo-European languages, cf. Ger.
_Knie_, Fr. _genou_, Span, _hinojo_, Lat. _genu_, Gr. [Greek: gonu],
Sansk. _janu_), in human anatomy, the articulation of the upper and
lower parts of the leg, the joint between the femur and the tibia (see
JOINTS). The word is also used of articulation resembling the knee-joint
in shape or position in other animals; it thus is applied to the carpal
articulation of the fore leg of a horse, answering to the ankle in man,
or to the tarsal articulation or heel of a bird's foot.
KNELLER, SIR GODFREY (1648-1723), a portrait painter whose celebrity
belongs chiefly to England, was born in Lübeck in the duchy of Holstein,
of an ancient family, on the 8th of August 1648. He was at first
intended for the army, and was sent to Leyden to learn mathematics and
fortification. Showing, however, a marked preference for the fine arts,
he studied in the school of Rembrandt, and under Ferdinand Bol in
Amsterdam. In 1672 he removed to Italy, directing his chief attention to
Titian and the Caracci; Carlo Maratta gave him some guidance and
encouragement. In Rome, and more especially in Venice, Kneller earned
considerable reputation by historical paintings as well as portraits. He
next went to Hamburg, painting with still increasing success. In 1674 he
came to England at the invitation of the duke of Monmouth, was
introduced to Charles II., and painted that sovereign, much to his
satisfaction, several times. Charles also sent him to Paris, to take the
portrait of Louis XIV. When Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Kneller, who
produced in England little or nothing in the historical department,
remained without a rival in the ranks of portrait painting; there was no
native-born competition worth speaking of. Charles appointed him court
painter; and he continued to hold the same post into the days of George
I. Under William III. (1692) he was made a knight, under George I.
(1715) a baronet, and by order of the emperor Leopold I. a knight of the
Roman Empire. Not only his court favour but his general fame likewise
was large: he was lauded by Dryden, Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell and
Pope. Kneller's gains also were very considerable; aided by habits of
frugality which approached stinginess, he left property yielding an
annual income of £2000. His industry was maintained till the last. His
studio had at first been in Covent Garden, but in his closing years he
lived in Kneller Hall, Twickenham. He died of fever, the date being
generally given as the 7th of November 1723, though some accounts say
1726. He was buried in Twickenham church, and has a monument in
Westminster Abbey. An elder brother, John Zachary Kneller, an ornamental
painter, had accompanied Godfrey to England, and had died in 1702. The
style of Sir Godfrey Kneller as a portrait painter represented the
decline of that art as practised by Vandyck; Lely marks the first grade
of descent, and Kneller the second. His works have much freedom, and are
well drawn and coloured; but they are mostly slight in manner, and to a
great extent monotonous, this arising partly from the habit which he had
of lengthening the oval of all his heads. The colouring may be called
brilliant rather than true. He indulged much in the common-places of
allegory; and, though he had a quality of dignified elegance not
unallied with simplicity, genuine simple nature is seldom to be traced
in his works. His fame has greatly declined, and could not but do so
after the advent of Reynolds. Among Kneller's principal paintings are
the "Forty-three Celebrities of the Kit-Cat Club," and the "Ten Beauties
of the Court of William III.," now at Hampton Court; these were painted
by order of the queen; they match, but match unequally, the "Beauties of
the Court of Charles II.," painted by Lely. He executed altogether the
likenesses of ten sovereigns, and fourteen of his works appear in the
National Portrait Gallery. It is said that Kneller's own favourite
performance was the portrait of the "Converted Chinese" in Windsor
Castle. His later works are confined almost entirely to England, not
more than two or three specimens having gone abroad after he had settled
here. (W. M. R.)
KNICKERBOCKER, HARMEN JANSEN (c. 1650-c. 1720), Dutch colonist of New
Netherland (New York), was a native of Wyhe (Wie), Overyssel, Holland.
Before 1683 he settled near what is now Albany, New York, and there in
1704 he bought through Harme Gansevoort one-fourth of the land in
Dutchess county near Red Hook, which had been patented in 1688 to Peter
Schuyler, who in 1722 deeded seven (of thirteen) lots in the upper
fourth of his patent to the seven children of Knickerbocker. The eldest
of these children, Johannes Harmensen, received from the common council
of the city of Albany a grant of 50 acres of meadow and 10 acres of
upland on the south side of Schaghticoke Creek. This Schaghticoke estate
was held by Johannes Harmensen's son Johannes (1723-1802), a colonel in
the Continental Army in the War of Independence, and by his son Harmen
(1779-1855), a lawyer, a federalist representative in Congress in
1809-1811, a member of the New York Assembly in 1816, and a famous
gentleman of the old school, who for his courtly hospitality in his
manor was called "the prince of Schaghticoke" and whose name was
borrowed by Washington Irving for use in his (Diedrich) _Knickerbocker's
History of New York_ (1809). Largely owing to this book, the name
"Knickerbockers" has passed into current use as a designation of the
early Dutch settlers in New York and their descendants. The son of
Johannes, David Buel Knickerbacker (1833-1894), who returned to the
earlier spelling of the family name, graduated at Trinity College in
1853 and at the General Theological Seminary in 1856, was a rector for
many years at Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in 1883 was consecrated
Protestant Episcopal bishop of Indiana.
See the series of articles by W. B. Van Alstyne on "The Knickerbocker
Family," beginning in vol. xxix., No. 1 (Jan. 1908) of the _New York
Genealogical and Biographical Record_.
KNIFE (O.E. _cníf_, a word appearing in different forms in many Teutonic
languages, cf. Du. _knijf_, Ger. _Kneif_, a shoemaker's knife, Swed.
_knif_; the ultimate origin is unknown; Skeat finds the origin in the
root of "nip," formerly "knip"; Fr. _canif_ is also of Teutonic origin),
a small cutting instrument, with the blade either fixed to the handle or
fastened with a hinge so as to clasp into the handle (see CUTLERY). For
the knives chipped from flint by prehistoric man see ARCHAEOLOGY and
FLINT IMPLEMENTS.
KNIGGE, ADOLF FRANZ FRIEDRICH, FREIHERR VON (1752-1796), German author,
was born on the family estate of Bredenbeck near Hanover on the 16th of
October 1752. After studying law at Göttingen he was attached
successively to the courts of Hesse-Cassel and Weimar as
gentleman-in-waiting. Retiring from court service in 1777, he lived a
private life with his family in Frankfort-on-Main, Hanau, Heidelberg and
Hanover until 1791, when he was appointed _Oberhauptmann_ (civil
administrator) in Bremen, where he died on the 6th of May 1796. Knigge,
under the name "Philo," was one of the most active members of the
_Illuminati_, a mutual moral and intellectual improvement society
founded by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) at Ingolstadt, and which later
became affiliated to the Freemasons. Knigge is known as the author of
several novels, among which _Der Roman meines Lebens_ (1781-1787; new
ed., 1805) and _Die Reise nach Braunschweig_ (1792), the latter a rather
coarsely comic story, are best remembered. His chief literary
achievement was, however, _Über den Umgang mit Menschen_ (1788), in
which he lays down rules to be observed for a peaceful, happy and useful
life; it has been often reprinted.
Knigge's _Schriften_ were published in 12 volumes (1804-1806). See K.
Goedeke, _Adolf, Freiherr von Knigge_ (1844); and H. Klencke, _Aus
einer alten Kiste_ (_Briefe, Handschriften und Dokumente aus dem
Nachlasse Knigges_) (1853).
KNIGHT, CHARLES (1791-1873), English publisher and author, the son of a
bookseller and printer at Windsor, was born on the 15th of March 1791.
He was apprenticed to his father, but on the completion of his
indentures he took up journalism and interested himself in several
newspaper speculations. In 1823, in conjunction with friends he had made
as publisher (1820-1821) of _The Etonian_, he started _Knight's
Quarterly Magazine_, to which W. M. Praed, Derwent Coleridge and
Macaulay contributed. The venture was brought to a close with its sixth
number, but it initiated for Knight a career as publisher and author
which extended over forty years. In 1827 Knight was compelled to give up
his publishing business, and became the superintendent of the
publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, for
which he projected and edited _The British Almanack and Companion_,
begun in 1828. In 1829 he resumed business on his own account with the
publication of _The Library of Entertaining Knowledge_, writing several
volumes of the series himself. In 1832 and 1833 he started _The Penny
Magazine_ and _The Penny Cyclopaedia_, both of which had a large
circulation. _The Penny Cyclopaedia_, however, on account of the heavy
excise duty, was only completed in 1844 at a great pecuniary sacrifice.
Besides many illustrated editions of standard works, including in 1842
_The Pictorial Shakespeare_, which had appeared in parts (1838-1841),
Knight published a variety of illustrated works, such as _Old England_
and _The Land we Live in_. He also undertook the series known as _Weekly
Volumes_. He himself contributed the first volume, a biography of
William Caxton. Many famous books, Miss Martineau's _Tales_, Mrs
Jameson's _Early Italian Painters_ and G. H. Lewes's _Biographical
History of Philosophy_, appeared for the first time in this series. In
1853 he became editor of _The English Cyclopaedia_, which was
practically only a revision of _The Penny Cyclopaedia_, and at about the
same time he began his _Popular History of England_ (8 vols.,
1856-1862). In 1864 he withdrew from the business of publisher, but he
continued to write nearly to the close of his long life, publishing _The
Shadows of the Old Booksellers_ (1865), an autobiography under the title
_Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century_ (2 vols., 1864-1865),
and an historical novel, _Begg'd at Court_ (1867). He died at
Addlestone, Surrey, on the 9th of March 1873.
See A. A. Clowes, _Knight, a Sketch_ (1892); and F. Espinasse, in _The
Critic_ (May 1860).
KNIGHT, DANIEL RIDGWAY (1845- ), American artist, was born at
Philadelphia, Penn., in 1845. He was a pupil at the École des
Beaux-Arts, Paris, under Gleyre, and later worked in the private studio
of Meissonier. After 1872 he lived in France, having a house and studio
at Poissy on the Seine. He painted peasant women out of doors with great
popular success. He was awarded the silver medal and cross of the Legion
of Honour, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889, and was made a knight of
the Royal Order of St Michael of Bavaria, Munich, 1893, receiving the
gold medal of honour from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
Philadelphia, 1893. His son, Ashton Knight, is also known as a landscape
painter.
KNIGHT, JOHN BUXTON (1843-1908), English landscape painter, was born at
Sevenoaks, Kent; he started as a schoolmaster, but painting was his
hobby, and he subsequently devoted himself to it. In 1861 he had his
first picture hung at the Academy. He was essentially an open-air
painter, constantly going on sketching tours in the most picturesque
spots of England, and all his pictures were painted out of doors. He
died at Dover on the 2nd of January 1908. The Chantrey trustees bought
his "December's Bareness Everywhere" for the nation in the following
month. Most of his best pictures had passed into the collection of Mr
Iceton of Putney (including "White Walls of Old England" and "Hereford
Cathedral"), Mr Walter Briggs of Burley in Wharfedale (especially
"Pinner"), and Mr S. M. Phillips of Wrotham (especially two
water-colours of Richmond Bridge).
KNIGHTHOOD and CHIVALRY. These two words, which are nearly but not quite
synonymous, designate a single subject of inquiry, which presents itself
under three different although connected and in a measure intermingled
aspects. It may be regarded in the first place as a mode or variety of
feudal tenure, in the second place as a personal attribute or dignity,
and in the third place as a scheme of manners or social arrangements.
The first of these aspects is discussed under the headings FEUDALISM and
KNIGHT SERVICE: we are concerned here only with the second and third.
For the more important religious as distinguished from the military
orders of knighthood or chivalry the reader is referred to the headings
ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF; TEUTONIC KNIGHTS; and TEMPLARS.
"The growth of knighthood" (writes Stubbs) "is a subject on which the
greatest obscurity prevails": and, though J. H. Round has done much to
explain the introduction of the system into England,[1] its actual
origin on the continent of Europe is still obscure in many of its most
important details.
The words _knight_ and _knighthood_ are merely the modern forms of the
Anglo-Saxon or Old English _cniht_ and _cnihthád_. Of these the primary
signification of the first was a boy or youth, and of the second that
period of life which intervenes between childhood and manhood. But some
time before the middle of the 12th century they had acquired the meaning
they still retain of the French _chevalier_ and _chevalerie_. In a
secondary sense _cniht_ meant a servant or attendant answering to the
German _Knecht_, and in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels a disciple is described
as a _leorning cniht_. In a tertiary sense the word appears to have been
occasionally employed as equivalent to the Latin _miles_--usually
translated by _thegn_--which in the earlier middle ages was used as the
designation of the domestic as well as of the martial officers or
retainers of sovereigns and princes or great personages.[2] Sharon
Turner suggests that _cniht_ from meaning an attendant simply may have
come to mean more especially a military attendant, and that in this
sense it may have gradually superseded the word thegn.[3] But the word
thegn itself, that is, when it was used as the description of an
attendant of the king, appears to have meant more especially a military
attendant. As Stubbs says "the thegn seems to be primarily the warrior
gesith"--the gesithas forming the chosen band of companions (_comites_)
of the German chiefs (_principes_) noticed by Tacitus--"he is probably
the gesith who had a particular military duty in his master's service";
and he adds that from the reign of Athelstan "the gesith is lost sight
of except very occasionally, the more important class having become
thegns, and the lesser sort sinking into the rank of mere servants of
the king."[4] It is pretty clear, therefore, that the word cniht could
never have superseded the word thegn in the sense of a military
attendant, at all events of the king. But besides the king, the
ealdormen, bishops and king's thegns themselves had their thegns, and to
these it is more than probable that the name of _cniht_ was applied.
Around the Anglo-Saxon magnates were collected a crowd of retainers and
dependants of all ranks and conditions; and there is evidence enough to
show that among them were some called _cnihtas_ who were not always the
humblest or least considerable of their number.[5] The testimony of
Domesday also establishes the existence in the reign of Edward the
Confessor of what Stubbs describes as a "large class" of landholders who
had commended themselves to some lord, and he regards it as doubtful
whether their tenure had not already assumed a really feudal character.
But in any event it is manifest that their condition was in many
respects similar to that of a vast number of unquestionably feudal and
military tenants who made their appearance after the Norman Conquest. If
consequently the former were called _cnihtas_ under the Anglo-Saxon
régime, it seems sufficiently probable that the appellation should have
been continued to the latter--practically their successors--under the
Anglo-Norman régime. And if the designation of knights was first applied
to the military tenants of the earls, bishops and barons--who although
they held their lands of mesne lords owed their services to the
king--the extension of that designation to the whole body of military
tenants need not have been a very violent or prolonged process.
Assuming, however, that _knight_ was originally used to describe the
military tenant of a noble person, as _cniht_ had sometimes been used to
describe the thegn of a noble person, it would, to begin with, have
defined rather his social status than the nature of his services. But
those whom the English called _knights_ the Normans called _chevaliers_,
by which term the nature of their services was defined, while their
social status was left out of consideration. And at first _chevalier_ in
its general and honorary signification seems to have been rendered not
by _knight_ but by _rider_, as may be inferred from the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, wherein it is recorded under the year 1085 that William the
Conqueror "dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere."[6] But, as E. A. Freeman
says, "no such title is heard of in the earlier days of England. The
thegn, the ealdorman, the king himself, fought on foot; the horse might
bear him to the field, but when the fighting itself came he stood on
his native earth to receive the onslaught of her enemies."[7] In this
perhaps we may behold one of the most ancient of British insular
prejudices, for on the Continent the importance of cavalry in warfare
was already abundantly understood. It was by means of their horsemen
that the Austrasian Franks established their superiority over their
neighbours, and in time created the Western Empire anew, while from the
word _caballarius_, which occurs in the _Capitularies_ in the reign of
Charlemagne, came the words for knight in all the Romance languages.[8]
In Germany the chevalier was called _Ritter_, but neither _rider_ nor
_chevalier_ prevailed against _knight_ in England. And it was long after
_knighthood_ had acquired its present meaning with us that _chivalry_
was incorporated into our language. It may be remarked too in passing
that in official Latin, not only in England but all over Europe, the
word _miles_ held its own against both _eques_ and _caballarius_.
Origin of Medieval Knighthood.
Concerning the origin of knighthood or chivalry as it existed in the
middle ages--implying as it did a formal assumption of and initiation
into the profession of arms--nothing beyond more or less probable
conjecture is possible. The medieval knights had nothing to do in the
way of derivation with the "equites" of Rome, the knights of King
Arthur's Round Table, or the Paladins of Charlemagne. But there are
grounds for believing that some of the rudiments of chivalry are to be
detected in early Teutonic customs, and that they may have made some
advance among the Franks of Gaul. We know from Tacitus that the German
tribes in his day were wont to celebrate the admission of their young
men into the ranks of their warriors with much circumstance and
ceremony. The people of the district to which the candidate belonged
were called together; his qualifications for the privileges about to be
conferred upon him were inquired into; and, if he were deemed fitted and
worthy to receive them, his chief, his father, or one of his near
kinsmen presented him with a shield and a lance. Again, among the Franks
we find Charlemagne girding his son Louis the Pious, and Louis the Pious
girding his son Charles the Bald with the sword, when they arrived at
manhood.[9] It seems certain here that some ceremony was observed which
was deemed worthy of record not for its novelty, but as a thing of
recognized importance. It does not follow that a similar ceremony
extended to personages less exalted than the sons of kings and emperors.
But if it did we must naturally suppose that it applied in the first
instance to the mounted warriors who formed the most formidable portion
of the warlike array of the Franks. It was among the Franks indeed, and
possibly through their experiences in war with the Saracens, that
cavalry first acquired the pre-eminent place which it long maintained in
every European country. In early society, where the army is not a paid
force but the armed nation, the cavalry must necessarily consist of the
noble and wealthy, and cavalry and chivalry, as Freeman observes,[10]
will be the same. Since then we discover in the _Capitularies_ of
Charlemagne actual mention of "caballarii" as a class of warriors, it
may reasonably be concluded that formal investiture with arms applied to
the "caballarii" if it was a usage extending beyond the sovereign and
his heir-apparent. "But," as Hallam says, "he who fought on horseback
and had been invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner wanted
nothing more to render him a knight;" and so he concludes, in view of
the verbal identity of "chevalier" and "caballarius," that "we may refer
chivalry in a general sense to the age of Charlemagne."[11] Yet, if the
"caballarii" of the _Capitularies_ are really the precursors of the
later knights, it remains a difficulty that the Latin name for a knight
is "miles," although "caballarius" became in various forms the
vernacular designation.
Knighthood in England.
Before it was known that the chronicle ascribed to Ingulf of Croyland is
really a fiction of the 13th or 14th century, the knighting of Heward or
Hereward by Brand, abbot of Burgh (now Peterborough), was accepted from
Selden to Hallam as an historical fact, and knighthood was supposed, not
only to have been known among the Anglo-Saxons, but to have had a
distinctively religious character which was contemned by the Norman
invaders. The genuine evidence at our command altogether fails to
support this view. When William of Malmesbury describes the knighting of
Athelstan by his grandfather Alfred the Great, that is, his investiture
"with a purple garment set with gems and a Saxon sword with a golden
sheath," there is no hint of any religious observance. In spite of the
silence of our records, Dr Stubbs thinks that kings so well acquainted
with foreign usages as Ethelred, Canute and Edward the Confessor could
hardly have failed to introduce into England the institution of chivalry
then springing up in every country of Europe; and he is supported in
this opinion by the circumstance that it is nowhere mentioned as a
Norman innovation. Yet the fact that Harold received knighthood from
William of Normandy makes it clear either that Harold was not yet a
knight, which in the case of so tried a warrior would imply that
"dubbing to knighthood" was not yet known in England even under Edward
the Confessor, or, as Freeman thinks, that in the middle of the 11th
century the custom had grown in Normandy into "something of a more
special meaning" than it bore in England.
Regarded as a method of military organization, the feudal system of
tenures was always far better adapted to the purposes of defensive than
of offensive warfare. Against invasion it furnished a permanent
provision both in men-at-arms and strongholds; nor was it unsuited for
the campaigns of neighbouring counts and barons which lasted for only a
few weeks, and extended over only a few leagues. But when kings and
kingdoms were in conflict, and distant and prolonged expeditions became
necessary, it was speedily discovered that the unassisted resources of
feudalism were altogether inadequate. It became therefore the manifest
interest of both parties that personal services should be commuted into
pecuniary payments. Then there grew up all over Europe a system of
fining the knights who failed to respond to the sovereign's call or to
stay their full time in the field; and in England this fine developed,
from the reign of Henry II. to that of Edward II., into a regular
war-tax called _escuage_ or _scutage_ (q.v.). In this way funds for war
were placed at the free disposal of sovereigns, and, although the
feudatories and their retainers still formed the most considerable
portion of their armies, the conditions under which they served were
altogether changed. Their military service was now far more the result
of special agreement. In the reign of Edward I., whose warlike
enterprises after he was king were confined within the four seas, this
alteration does not seem to have proceeded very far, and Scotland and
Wales were subjugated by what was in the main, if not exclusively, a
feudal militia raised as of old by writ to the earls and barons and the
sheriffs.[12] But the armies of Edward III., Henry V. and Henry VI.
during the century of intermittent warfare between England and France
were recruited and sustained to a very great extent on the principle of
contract.[13] On the Continent the systematic employment of mercenaries
was both an early and a common practice.
The Crusades.
Besides consideration for the mutual convenience of sovereigns and their
feudatories, there were other causes which materially contributed
towards bringing about those changes in the military system of Europe
which were finally accomplished in the 13th and 14th centuries. During
the Crusades vast armies were set on foot in which feudal rights and
obligations had no place, and it was seen that the volunteers who
flocked to the standards of the various commanders were not less but
even more efficient in the field than the vassals they had hitherto been
accustomed to lead. It was thus established that pay, the love of
enterprise and the prospect of plunder--if we leave zeal for the sacred
cause which they had espoused for the moment out of sight--were quite as
useful for the purpose of enlisting troops and keeping them together as
the tenure of land and the solemnities of homage and fealty. Moreover,
the crusaders who survived the difficulties and dangers of an expedition
to Palestine were seasoned and experienced although frequently
impoverished and landless soldiers, ready to hire themselves to the
highest bidder, and well worth the wages they received. Again, it was
owing to the crusades that the church took the profession of arms under
her peculiar protection, and thenceforward the ceremonies of initiation
into it assumed a religious as well as a martial character.
Knighthood independent of Feudalism.
To distinguished soldiers of the cross the honours and benefits of
knighthood could hardly be refused on the ground that they did not
possess a sufficient property qualification--of which perhaps they had
denuded themselves in order to their equipment for the Holy War. And
thus the conception of knighthood as of something distinct from
feudalism both as a social condition and a personal dignity arose and
rapidly gained ground. It was then that the analogy was first detected
between the order of knighthood and the order of priesthood, and that an
actual union of monachism and chivalry was effected by the establishment
of the religious orders of which the Knights Templars and the Knights
Hospitallers were the most eminent examples. As comprehensive in their
polity as the Benedictines or Franciscans, they gathered their members
from, and soon scattered their possessions over, every country in
Europe. And in their indifference to the distinctions of race and
nationality they merely accommodated themselves to the spirit which had
become characteristic of chivalry itself, already recognized, like the
church, as a universal institution which knit together the whole warrior
caste of Christendom into one great fraternity irrespective alike of
feudal subordination and territorial boundaries. Somewhat later the
adoption of hereditary surnames and armorial bearings marked the
existence of a large and noble class who either from the subdivision of
fiefs or from the effects of the custom of primogeniture were very
insufficiently provided for. To them only two callings were generally
open, that of the churchman and that of the soldier, and the latter as a
rule offered greater attractions than the former in an era of much
licence and little learning. Hence the favourite expedient for men of
birth, although not of fortune, was to attach themselves to some prince
or magnate in whose military service they were sure of an adequate
maintenance and might hope for even a rich reward in the shape of booty
or of ransom.[14] It is probably to this period and these circumstances
that we must look for at all events the rudimentary beginnings of the
military as well as the religious orders of chivalry. Of the existence
of any regularly constituted companionships of the first kind there is
no trustworthy evidence until between two and three centuries after
fraternities of the second kind had been organized. Soon after the
greater crusading societies had been formed similar orders, such as
those of St James of Compostella, Calatrava and Alcantara, were
established to fight the Moors in Spain instead of the Saracens in the
Holy Land. But the members of these orders were not less monks than
knights, their statutes embodied the rules of the cloister, and they
were bound by the ecclesiastical vows of celibacy, poverty and
obedience. From a very early stage in the development of chivalry,
however, we meet with the singular institution of brotherhood in arms;
and from it the ultimate origin if not of the religious fraternities at
any rate of the military companionships is usually derived.[15] By this
institution a relation was created between two or more monks by
voluntary agreement, which was regarded as of far more intimacy and
stringency than any which the mere accident of consanguinity implied.
Brothers in arms were supposed to be partners in all things save the
affections of their "lady-loves." They shared in every danger and in
every success, and each was expected to vindicate the honour of another
as promptly and zealously as his own. The plot of the medieval romance
of _Amis and Amiles_ is built entirely on such a brotherhood. Their
engagements usually lasted through life, but sometimes only for a
specified period or during the continuance of specified circumstances,
and they were always ratified by oath, occasionally reduced to writing
in the shape of a solemn bond and often sanctified by their reception of
the Eucharist together. Romance and tradition speak of strange
rites--the mingling and even the drinking of blood--as having in remote
and rude ages marked the inception of these martial and fraternal
associations.[16] But in later and less barbarous times they were
generally evidenced and celebrated by a formal and reciprocal exchange
of weapons and armour. In warfare it was customary for knights who were
thus allied to appear similarly accoutred and bearing the same badges or
cognisances, to the end that their enemies might not know with which of
them they were in conflict, and that their friends might be unable to
accord more applause to one than to the other for his prowess in the
field. It seems likely enough therefore that there should grow up bodies
of knights banded together by engagements of fidelity, although free
from monastic obligations; wearing a uniform or livery, and naming
themselves after some special symbol or some patron saint of their
adoption. And such bodies placed under the command of a sovereign or
grand master, regulated by statutes, and enriched by ecclesiastical
endowments would have been precisely what in after times such orders as
the Garter in England, the Golden Fleece in Burgundy, the Annunziata in
Savoy and the St Michael and Holy Ghost in France actually were.[17]
Grades of Knighthood.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as somewhat earlier and
later, the general arrangements of a European army were always and
everywhere pretty much the same.[18] Under the sovereign the constable
and the marshal or marshals held the chief commands, their authority
being partly joint and partly several. Attendant on them were the
heralds, who were the officers of their military court, wherein offences
committed in the camp and field were tried and adjudged, and among whose
duties it was to carry orders and messages, to deliver challenges and
call truces, and to identify and number the wounded and the slain. The
main divisions of the army were distributed under the royal and other
principal standards, smaller divisions under the banners of some of the
greater nobility or of knights banneret, and smaller divisions still
under the pennons of knights or, as in distinction from knights banneret
they came to be called, knights bachelors. All knights whether bachelors
or bannerets were escorted by their squires. But the banner of the
banneret always implied a more or less extensive command, while every
knight was entitled to bear a pennon and every squire a pencel. All
three flags were of such a size as to be conveniently attached to and
carried on a lance, and were emblazoned with the arms or some portion of
the bearings of their owners. But while the banner was square the
pennon, which resembled it in other respects, was either pointed or
forked at its extremity, and the pencel, which was considerably less
than the others, always terminated in a single tail or streamer.[19]
If indeed we look at the scale of chivalric subordination from another
point of view, it seems to be more properly divisible into four than
into three stages, of which two may be called provisional and two final.
The bachelor and the banneret were both equally knights, only the one
was of greater distinction and authority than the other. In like manner
the squire and the page were both in training for knighthood, but the
first had advanced further in the process than the second. It is true
that the squire was a combatant while the page was not, and that many
squires voluntarily served as squires all their lives owing to the
insufficiency of their fortunes to support the costs and charges of
knighthood. But in the ordinary course of a chivalrous education the
successive conditions of page and squire were passed through in boyhood
and youth, and the condition of knighthood was reached in early manhood.
Every feudal court and castle was in fact a school of chivalry, and
although princes and great personages were rarely actually pages or
squires, the moral and physical discipline through which they passed was
not in any important particular different from that to which less
exalted candidates for knighthood were subjected.[20] The page, or, as
he was more anciently and more correctly called, the "valet" or
"damoiseau," commenced his service and instruction when he was between
seven and eight years old, and the initial phase continued for seven or
eight years longer. He acted as the constant personal attendant of both
his master and mistress. He waited on them in their hall and accompanied
them in the chase, served the lady in her bower and followed the lord to
the camp.[21] From the chaplain and his mistress and her damsels he
learnt the rudiments of religion, of rectitude and of love,[22] from his
master and his squires the elements of military exercise, to cast a
spear or dart, to sustain a shield, and to march with the measured tread
of a soldier; and from his master and his huntsmen and falconers the
"mysteries of the woods and rivers," or in other words the rules and
practices of hunting and hawking. When he was between fifteen and
sixteen he became a squire. But no sudden or great alteration was made
in his mode of life. He continued to wait at dinner with the pages,
although in a manner more dignified according to the notions of the age.
He not only served but carved and helped the dishes, proffered the first
or principal cup of wine to his master and his guests, and carried to
them the basin, ewer or napkin when they washed their hands before and
after meat. He assisted in clearing the hall for dancing or minstrelsy,
and laid the tables for chess or draughts, and he also shared in the
pastimes for which he had made preparation. He brought his master the
"vin de coucher" at night, and made his early refection ready for him in
the morning. But his military exercises and athletic sports occupied an
always increasing portion of the day. He accustomed himself to ride the
"great horse," to tilt at the quintain, to wield the sword and
battle-axe, to swim and climb, to run and leap, and to bear the weight
and overcome the embarrassments of armour. He inured himself to the
vicissitudes of heat and cold, and voluntarily suffered the pains or
inconveniences of hunger and thirst, fatigue and sleeplessness. It was
then too that he chose his "lady-love," whom he was expected to regard
with an adoration at once earnest, respectful, and the more meritorious
if concealed. And when it was considered that he had made sufficient
advancement in his military accomplishments, he took his sword to the
priest, who laid it on the altar, blessed it, and returned it to
him.[23] Afterwards he either remained with his early master, relegating
most of his domestic duties to his younger companions, or he entered the
service of some valiant and adventurous lord or knight of his own
selection. He now became a "squire of the body," and truly an "armiger"
or "scutifer," for he bore the shield and armour of his leader to the
field, and, what was a task of no small difficulty and hazard, cased and
secured him in his panoply of war before assisting him to mount his
courser or charger. It was his function also to display and guard in
battle the banner of the baron or banneret or the pennon of the knight
he served, to raise him from the ground if he were unhorsed, to supply
him with another or his own horse if his was disabled or killed, to
receive and keep any prisoners he might take, to fight by his side if he
was unequally matched, to rescue him if captured, to bear him to a place
of safety if wounded, and to bury him honourably when dead. And after he
had worthily and bravely, borne himself for six or seven years as a
squire, the time came when it was fitting that he should be made a
knight. This, at least, was the current theory; but it is specially
dangerous in medieval history to assume too much correspondence between
theory and fact. In many castles, and perhaps in most, the discipline
followed simply a natural and unwritten code of "fagging" and seniority,
as in public schools or on board men-of-war some hundred years or so
ago.
Modes of conferring Knighthood.
Two modes of conferring knighthood appear to have prevailed from a very
early period in all countries where chivalry was known. In both of them
the essential portion seems to have been the accolade or stroke of the
sword. But while in the one the accolade constituted the whole or nearly
the whole of the ceremony, in the other it was surrounded with many
additional observances. The former and simpler of these modes was
naturally that used in war: the candidate knelt before "the chief of the
army or some valiant knight," who struck him thrice with the flat of a
sword, pronouncing a brief formula of creation and of exhortation which
varied at the creator's will.[24]
In this form a number of knights were made before and after almost every
battle between the 11th and the 16th centuries, and its advantages on
the score of both convenience and economy gradually led to its general
adoption both in time of peace and time of war. On extraordinary
occasions indeed the more elaborate ritual continued to be observed. But
recourse was had to it so rarely that in England about the beginning of
the 15th century it came to be exclusively appropriated to a special
king of knighthood. When Segar, garter king of arms, wrote in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, this had been accomplished with such completeness
that he does not even mention that there were two ways of creating
knights bachelors. "He that is to be made a knight," he says, "is
striken by the prince with a sword drawn upon his back or shoulder, the
prince saying, 'Soys Chevalier,' and in times past was added 'Saint
George.' And when the knight rises the prince sayeth 'Avencez.' This is
the manner of dubbing knights at this present, and that term 'dubbing'
was the old term in this point, not 'creating.' This sort of knights are
by the heralds called knights bachelors." In our days when a knight is
personally made he kneels before the sovereign, who lays a sword drawn,
ordinarily the sword of state, on either of his shoulders and says,
"Rise," calling him by his Christian name with the addition of "Sir"
before it.
Very different were the solemnities which attended the creation of a
knight when the complete procedure was observed. "The ceremonies and
circumstances at the giving this dignity," says Selden, "in the elder
time were of two kinds especially, which we may call courtly and sacred.
The courtly were the feasts held at the creation, giving of robes, arms,
spurs and the like. The sacred were the holy devotions and what else was
used in the church at or before the receiving of the dignity."[25] But
the leading authority on the subject is an ancient tract written in
French, which will be found at length either in the original or
translated by Segar, Dugdale, Byshe and Nicolas, among other English
writers.[26] Daniel explains his reasons for transcribing it, "tant à
cause du detail que de la naïveté du stile et encore plus de la
bisarrerie des ceremonies que se faisoient pourtant alors fort
sérieusement," while he adds that these ceremonies were essentially
identical in England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
The process of inauguration was commenced in the evening by the
placing of the candidate under the care of two "esquires of honour
grave and well seen in courtship and nurture and also in the feats of
chivalry," who were to be "governors in all things relating to him."
Under their direction, to begin with, a barber shaved him and cut his
hair. He was then conducted by them to his appointed chamber, where a
bath was prepared hung within and without with linen and covered with
rich cloths, into which after they had undressed him he entered. While
he was in the bath two "ancient and grave knights" attended him "to
inform, instruct and counsel him touching the order and feats of
chivalry," and when they had fulfilled their mission they poured some
of the water of the bath over his shoulders, signing the left shoulder
with the cross, and retired. He was then taken from the bath and put
into a plain bed without hangings, in which he remained until his body
was dry, when the two esquires put on him a white shirt and over that
"a robe of russet with long sleeves having a hood thereto like unto
that of an hermit." Then the "two ancient and grave knights" returned
and led him to the chapel, the esquires going before them "sporting
and dancing" with "the minstrels making melody." And when they had
been served with wines and spices they went away leaving only the
candidate, the esquires, "the priest, the chandler and the watch," who
kept the vigil of arms until sunrise, the candidate passing the night
"bestowing himself in orisons and prayers." At daybreak he confessed
to the priest, heard matins, and communicated in the mass, offering a
taper and a piece of money stuck in it as near the lighted end as
possible, the first "to the honour of God" and the second "to the
honour of the person that makes him a knight." Afterwards he was taken
back to his chamber, and remained in bed until the knights, esquires
and minstrels went to him and aroused him. The knights then dressed
him in distinctive garments, and they then mounted their horses and
rode to the hall where the candidate was to receive knighthood; his
future squire was to ride before him bareheaded bearing his sword by
the point in its scabbard with his spurs hanging from its hilt. And
when everything was prepared the prince or subject who was to knight
him came into the hall, and, the candidate's sword and spurs having
been presented to him, he delivered the right spur to the "most noble
and gentle" knight present, and directed him to fasten it on the
candidate's right heel, which he kneeling on one knee and putting the
candidate's right foot on his knee accordingly did, signing the
candidate's knee with the cross, and in like manner by another "noble
and gentle" knight the left spur was fastened to his left heel. And
then he who was to create the knight took the sword and girded him
with it, and then embracing him he lifted his right hand and smote him
on the neck or shoulder, saying, "Be thou a good knight," and kissed
him. When this was done they all went to the chapel with much music,
and the new knight laying his right hand on the altar promised to
support and defend the church, and ungirding his sword offered it on
the altar. And as he came out from the chapel the master cook awaited
him at the door and claimed his spurs as his fee, and said, "If you
do anything contrary to the order of chivalry (which God forbid), I
shall hack the spurs from your heels."[27]
The full solemnities for conferring knighthood seem to have been so
largely and so early superseded by the practice of dubbing or giving the
accolade alone that in England it became at last restricted to such
knights as were made at coronations and some other occasions of state.
And to them the particular name of Knights of the Bath was assigned,
while knights made in the ordinary way were called in distinction from
them knights of the sword, as they were also called knights bachelors in
distinction from knights banneret.[28] It is usually supposed that the
first creation of knights of the Bath under that designation was at the
coronation of Henry IV.; and before the order of the Bath as a
companionship or capitular body was instituted the last creation of them
was at the coronation of Charles II. But all knights were also knights
of the spur or "equites aurati," because their spurs were golden or
gilt,--the spurs of squires being of silver or white metal,--and these
became their peculiar badge in popular estimation and proverbial speech.
In the form of their solemn inauguration too, as we have noticed, the
spurs together with the sword were always employed as the leading and
most characteristic ensigns of knighthood.[29]
With regard to knights banneret, various opinions have been entertained
as to both the nature of their dignity and the qualifications they were
required to possess for receiving it at different periods and in
different countries. On the Continent the distinction which is commonly
but incorrectly made between the nobility and the gentry has never
arisen, and it was unknown here while chivalry existed and heraldry was
understood. Here, as elsewhere in the old time, a nobleman and a
gentleman meant the same thing, namely, a man who under certain
conditions of descent was entitled to armorial bearings. Hence Du Cange
divides the medieval nobility of France and Spain into three classes:
first, barons or ricos hombres; secondly, chevaliers or caballeros; and
thirdly, écuyers or infanzons; and to the first, who with their several
special titles constituted the greater nobility of either country, he
limits the designation of banneret and the right of leading their
followers to war under a banner, otherwise a "drapeau quarré" or square
flag.[30] Selden shows especially from the parliament rolls that the
term banneret has been occasionally employed in England as equivalent to
baron.[31] In Scotland, even as late as the reign of James VI., lords of
parliament were always created bannerets as well as barons at their
investiture, "part of the ceremony consisting in the display of a
banner, and such 'barones majores' were thereby entitled to the
privilege of having one borne by a retainer before them to the field of
a quadrilateral form."[32] In Scotland, too, lords of parliament and
bannerets were also called bannerents, banrents or baronets, and in
England banneret was often corrupted to baronet. "Even in a patent
passed to Sir Ralph Fane, knight under Edward VI., he is called
'baronettus' for 'bannerettus.'"[33] In this manner it is not improbable
that the title of baronet may have been suggested to the advisers of
James I. when the order of Baronets was originally created by him, for
it was a question whether the recipients of the new dignity should be
designated by that or some other name.[34] But there is no doubt that as
previously used it was merely a corrupt synonym for banneret, and not
the name of any separate dignity. On the Continent, however, there are
several recorded examples of bannerets who had an hereditary claim to
that honour and its attendant privileges on the ground of the nature of
their feudal tenure.[35] And generally, at any rate to commence with, it
seems probable that bannerets were in every country merely the more
important class of feudatories, the "ricos hombres" in contrast to the
knights bachelors, who in France in the time of St Louis were known as
"pauvres hommes." In England all the barons or greater nobility were
entitled to bear banners, and therefore Du Cange's observations would
apply to them as well as to the barons or greater nobility of France and
Spain. But it is clear that from a comparatively early period bannerets
whose claims were founded on personal distinction rather than on feudal
tenure gradually came to the front, and much the same process of
substitution appears to have gone on in their case as that which we have
marked in the case of simple knights. According to the _Sallade_ and the
_Division du Monde_, as cited by Selden, bannerets were clearly in the
beginning feudal tenants of a certain magnitude and importance and
nothing more, and different forms for their creation are given in time
of peace and in time of war.[36] But in the French _Gesta Romanorum_ the
warlike form alone is given, and it is quoted by both Selden and Du
Cange. From the latter a more modern version of it is given by Daniel as
the only one generally in force.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
INSIGNIA OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD, DRAWN BY
GRACIOUS PERMISSION FROM THOSE IN THE POSSESSION OF HIS LATE MAJESTY
KING EDWARD VII AND ARRANGED IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS MAJESTY'S WISHES AND
COMMAND.
THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
(i.) THE GARTER; (ii) THE COLLAR AND GEORGE; (iii.) THE LESSER GEORGE
AND RIBBON; (iv.) STAR.
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
The knight bachelor whose services and landed possessions entitled him
to promotion would apply formally to the commander in the field for the
title of banneret. If this were granted, the heralds were called to cut
publicly the tails from his pennon: or the commander, as a special
honour, might cut them off with his own hands.[37] The earliest
contemporary mention of knights banneret is in France, Daniel says, in
the reign of Philip Augustus, and in England, Selden says in the reign
of Edward I. But in neither case is reference made to them in such a
manner as to suggest that the dignity was then regarded as new or even
uncommon, and it seems pretty certain that its existence on one side
could not have long preceded its existence on the other side of the
Channel. Sir Alan Plokenet, Sir Ralph Daubeney and Sir Philip Daubeney
are entered as bannerets on the roll of the garrison of Caermarthen
Castle in 1282, and the roll of Carlaverock records the names and arms
of eighty-five bannerets who accompanied Edward I. in his expedition
into Scotland in 1300.
What the exact contingent was which bannerets were expected to supply to
the royal host is doubtful.[38] But, however this may be, in the reign
of Edward III. and afterwards bannerets appear as the commanders of a
military force raised by themselves and marshalled under their banners:
their status and their relations both to the crown and to their
followers were mainly the consequences of voluntary contract not of
feudal tenure. It is from the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. also
that the two best descriptions we possess of the actual creation of a
banneret have been transmitted to us.[39] Sir Thomas Smith, writing
towards the end of the 16th century, says, after noticing the conditions
to be observed in the creation of bannerets, "but this order is almost
grown out of use in England";[40] and, during the controversy which
arose between the new order of baronets and the crown early in the 17th
century respecting their precedence, it was alleged without
contradiction in an argument on behalf of the baronets before the privy
council that "there are not bannerets now in being, peradventure never
shall be."[41] Sir Ralph Fane, Sir Francis Bryan and Sir Ralph Sadler
were created bannerets by the Lord Protector Somerset after the battle
of Pinkie in 1547, and the better opinion is that this was the last
occasion on which the dignity was conferred. It has been stated indeed
that Charles I. created Sir John Smith a banneret after the battle of
Edgehill in 1642 for having rescued the royal standard from the enemy.
But of this there is no sufficient proof. It was also supposed that
George III. had created several naval officers bannerets towards the end
of the last century, because he knighted them on board ship under the
royal standard displayed. This, however, is unquestionably an error.[42]
Existing Orders of Knighthood.
On the continent of Europe the degree of knight bachelor disappeared
with the military system which had given rise to it. It is now therefore
peculiar to the British Empire, where, although very frequently
conferred by letters patent, it is yet the only dignity which is still
even occasionally created--as every dignity was formerly created--by
means of a ceremony in which the sovereign and the subject personally
take part. Everywhere else dubbing or the accolade seems to have become
obsolete, and no other species of knighthood, if knighthood it can be
called, is known except that which is dependent on admission to some
particular order. It is a common error to suppose that baronets are
hereditary knights. Baronets are not knights unless they are knighted
like anybody else; and, so far from being knights because they are
baronets, one of the privileges granted to them shortly after the
institution of their dignity was that they, not being knights, and their
successors and their eldest sons and heirs-apparent should, when they
attained their majority, be entitled if they desired to receive
knighthood.[43] It is a maxim of the law indeed that, as Coke says, "the
knight is by creation and not by descent," and, although we hear of such
designations as the "knight of Kerry" or the "knight of Glin," they are
no more than traditional nicknames, and do not by any means imply that
the persons to whom they are applied are knights in a legitimate sense.
Notwithstanding, however, that simple knighthood has gone out of use
abroad, there are innumerable grand crosses, commanders and companions
of a formidable assortment of orders in almost every part of the
world.[44] (See the section on "Orders of Knighthood" below.)
The United Kingdom has eight orders of knighthood--the Garter, the
Thistle, St Patrick, the Bath, the Star of India, St Michael and St
George, the Indian Empire and the Royal Victorian Order; and, while the
first is undoubtedly the oldest as well as the most illustrious anywhere
existing, a fictitious antiquity has been claimed and is even still
frequently conceded to the second and fourth, although the third,
fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth appear to be as contentedly as they
are unquestionably recent.
Order of the Garter.
It is, however, certain that the "most noble" Order of the Garter at
least was instituted in the middle of the 14th century, when English
chivalry was outwardly brightest and the court most magnificent. But in
what particular year this event occurred is and has been the subject of
much difference of opinion. All the original records of the order until
after 1416 have perished, and consequently the question depends for its
settlement not on direct testimony but on inference from circumstances.
The dates which have been selected vary from 1344 (given by Froissart,
but almost certainly mistaken) to 1351. The evidence may be examined at
length in Nicolas and Beltz; it is indisputable that in the wardrobe
account from September 1347 to January 1349, the 21st and 23rd Edward
III., the issue of certain habits with garters and the motto embroidered
on them is marked for St George's Day; that the letters patent relating
to the preparation of the royal chapel of Windsor are dated in August
1348; and that in the treasury accounts of the prince of Wales there is
an entry in November 1348 of the gift by him of "twenty-four garters to
the knights of the Society of the Garter."[45] But that the order,
although from this manifestly already fully constituted in the autumn of
1348, was not in existence before the summer of 1346 Sir Harris Nicolas
proves pretty conclusively by pointing out that nobody who was not a
knight could under its statutes have been admitted to it, and that
neither the prince of Wales nor several others of the original
companions were knighted until the middle of that year.
Regarding the occasion there has been almost as much controversy as
regarding the date of its foundation. The "vulgar and more general
story," as Ashmole calls it, is that of the countess of Salisbury's
garter. But commentators are not at one as to which countess of
Salisbury was the heroine of the adventure, whether she was Katherine
Montacute or Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, while Heylyn rejects the legend
as "a vain and idle romance derogatory both to the founder and the
order, first published by Polydor Vergil, a stranger to the affairs of
England, and by him taken upon no better ground than fama vulgi, the
tradition of the common people, too trifling a foundation for so great a
building."[46]
Another legend is that contained in the preface to the Register or Black
Book of the order, compiled in the reign of Henry VIII., by what
authority supported is unknown, that Richard I., while his forces were
employed against Cyprus and Acre, had been inspired through the
instrumentality of St George with renewed courage and the means of
animating his fatigued soldiers by the device of tying about the legs of
a chosen number of knights a leathern thong or garter, to the end that
being thereby reminded of the honour of their enterprise they might be
encouraged to redoubled efforts for victory. This was supposed to have
been in the mind of Edward III. when he fixed on the garter as the
emblem of the order, and it was stated so to have been by Taylor, master
of the rolls, in his address to Francis I. of France on his investiture
in 1527.[47] According to Ashmole the true account of the matter is that
"King Edward having given forth his own garter as the signal for a
battle which sped fortunately (which with Du Chesne we conceive to be
that of Crécy), the victory, we say, being happily gained, he thence
took occasion to institute this order, and gave the garter (assumed by
him for the symbol of unity and society) preeminence among the ensigns
of it." But, as Sir Harris Nicolas points out--although Ashmole is not
open to the correction--this hypothesis rests for its plausibility on
the assumption that the order was established before the invasion of
France in 1346. And he further observes that "a great variety of
devices and mottoes were used by Edward III.; they were chosen from the
most trivial causes and were of an amorous rather than of a military
character. Nothing," he adds, "is more likely than that in a crowded
assembly a lady should accidentally have dropped her garter; that the
circumstance should have caused a smile in the bystanders; and that on
its being taken up by Edward he should have reproved the levity of his
courtiers by so happy and chivalrous an exclamation, placing the garter
at the same time on his own knee, as 'Dishonoured be he who thinks ill
of it.' Such a circumstance occurring at a time of general festivity,
when devices, mottoes and conceits of all kinds were adopted as
ornaments or badges of the habits worn at jousts and tournaments, would
naturally have been commemorated as other royal expressions seem to have
been by its conversion into a device and motto for the dresses at an
approaching hastilude."[48] Moreover, Sir Harris Nicolas contends that
the order had no loftier immediate origin than a joust or tournament. It
consisted of the king and the Black Prince, and 24 knights divided into
two bands of 12 like the tilters in a hastilude----at the head of the
one being the first, and of the other the second; and to the companions
belonging to each, when the order had superseded the Round Table and had
become a permanent institution, were assigned stalls either on the
sovereign's or the prince's side of St George's Chapel. That Sir Harris
Nicolas is accurate in this conjecture seems probable from the selection
which was made of the "founder knights." As Beltz observes, the fame of
Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir Walter Manny and the earls of Northampton,
Hereford and Suffolk was already established by their warlike exploits,
and they would certainly have been among the original companions had the
order been then regarded as the reward of military merit only. But,
although these eminent warriors were subsequently elected as vacancies
occurred, their admission was postponed to that of several very young
and in actual warfare comparatively unknown knights, whose claims to the
honour may be most rationally explained on the assumption that they had
excelled in the particular feats of arms which preceded the institution
of the order. The original companionship had consisted of the sovereign
and 25 knights, and no change was made in this respect until 1786, when
the sons of George III. and his successors were made eligible
notwithstanding that the chapter might be complete. In 1805 another
alteration was effected by the provision that the lineal descendants of
George II. should be eligible in the same manner, except the Prince of
Wales for the time being, who was declared to be "a constituent part of
the original institution"; and again in 1831 it was further ordained
that the privilege accorded to the lineal descendants of George II.
should extend to the lineal descendants of George I. Although, as Sir
Harris Nicolas observes, nothing is now known of the form of admitting
ladies into the order, the description applied to them in the records
during the 14th and 15th centuries leaves no doubt that they were
regularly received into it. The queen consort, the wives and daughters
of knights, and some other women of exalted position, were designated
"Dames de la Fraternité de St George," and entries of the delivery of
robes and garters to them are found at intervals in the Wardrobe
Accounts from the 50th Edward III. (1376) to the 10th of Henry VII.
(1495), the first being Isabel, countess of Bedford, the daughter of the
one king, and the last being Margaret and Elizabeth, the daughters of
the other king. The effigies of Margaret Byron, wife of Sir Robert
Harcourt, K.G., at Stanton Harcourt, and of Alice Chaucer, wife of
William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, K.G., at Ewelme, which date from
the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., have garters on their left arms.
(See further under "Orders of Knighthood" below.)
Persons empowered to confer Knighthood.
It has been the general opinion, as expressed by Sainte Palaye and
Mills, that formerly all knights were qualified to confer
knighthood.[49] But it may be questioned whether the privilege was thus
indiscriminately enjoyed even in the earlier days of chivalry. It is
true that as much might be inferred from the testimony of the romance
writers; historical evidence, however, tends to limit the proposition,
and the sounder conclusion appears to be, as Sir Harris Nicolas says,
that the right was always restricted in operation to sovereign princes,
to those acting under their authority or sanction, and to a few other
personages of exalted rank and station.[50] In several of the writs for
distraint of knighthood from Henry III. to Edward III. a distinction is
drawn between those who are to be knighted by the king himself or by the
sheriffs of counties respectively, and bishops and abbots could make
knights in the 11th and 12th centuries.[51] At all periods the
commanders of the royal armies had the power of conferring knighthood;
as late as the reign of Elizabeth it was exercised among others by Sir
Henry Sidney in 1583, and Robert, earl of Essex, in 1595, while under
James I. an ordinance of 1622, confirmed by a proclamation of 1623, for
the registration of knights in the college of arms, is rendered
applicable to all who should receive knighthood from either the king or
any of his lieutenants.[52] Many sovereigns, too, both of England and of
France, have been knighted after their accession to the throne by their
own subjects, as, for instance, Edward III. by Henry, earl of Lancaster,
Edward VI. by the lord protector Somerset, Louis XI. by Philip, duke of
Burgundy, and Francis I. by the Chevalier Bayard. But when in 1543 Henry
VIII. appointed Sir John Wallop to be captain of Guisnes, it was
considered necessary that he should be authorized in express terms to
confer knighthood, which was also done by Edward VI. in his own case
when he received knighthood from the duke of Somerset.[53] But at
present the only subject to whom the right of conferring knighthood
belongs is the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and to him it belongs merely
by long usage and established custom. But, by whomsoever conferred,
knighthood at one time endowed the recipient with the same status and
attributes in every country wherein chivalry was recognized. In the
middle ages it was a common practice for sovereigns and princes to dub
each other knights much as they were afterwards, and are now, in the
habit of exchanging the stars and ribbons of their orders. Henry II. was
knighted by his great-uncle David I. of Scotland, Alexander III. of
Scotland by Henry III., Edward I. when he was prince by Alphonso X. of
Castile, and Ferdinand of Portugal by Edmund of Langley, earl of
Cambridge.[54] And, long after the military importance of knighthood had
practically disappeared, what may be called its cosmopolitan character
was maintained: a knight's title was recognized in all European
countries, and not only in that country in which he had received it. In
modern times, however, by certain regulations, made in 1823, and
repeated and enlarged in 1855, not only is it provided that the
sovereign's permission by royal warrant shall be necessary for the
reception by a British subject of any foreign order of knighthood, but
further that such permission shall not authorize "the assumption of any
style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining to a
knight bachelor of the United Kingdom."[55]
Degradation.
Since knighthood was accorded either by actual investiture or its
equivalent, a counter process of degradation was regarded as necessary
for the purpose of depriving anybody who had once received it of the
rank and condition it implied.[56] The cases in which a knight has been
formally degraded in England are exceedingly few, so few indeed that two
only are mentioned by Segar, writing in 1602, and Dallaway says that
only three were on record in the College of Arms when he wrote in 1793.
The last case was that of Sir Francis Michell in 1621, whose spurs were
hacked from his heels, his sword-belt cut, and his sword broken over his
head by the heralds in Westminster Hall.[57]
Roughly speaking, the age of chivalry properly so called may be said to
have extended from the beginning of the crusades to the end of the Wars
of the Roses. Even in the way of pageantry and martial exercise it did
not long survive the middle ages. In England tilts and tourneys, in
which her father had so much excelled, were patronized to the last by
Queen Elizabeth, and were even occasionally held until after the death
of Henry, prince of Wales. But on the Continent they were discredited by
the fatal accident which befell Henry II. of France in 1559. The golden
age of chivalry has been variously located. Most writers would place it
in the early 13th century, but Gautier would remove it two or three
generations further back. It may be true that, in the comparative
scarcity of historical evidence, 12th-century romances present a more
favourable picture of chivalry at that earlier time; but even such
historical evidence as we possess, when carefully scrutinized, is enough
to dispel the illusion that there was any period of the middle ages in
which the unselfish championship of "God and the ladies" was anything
but a rare exception.
It is difficult to describe the true spirit and moral influence of
knighthood, if only because the ages in which it flourished differed so
widely from our own. At its very best, it was always hampered by the
limitations of medieval society. Moreover, many of the noblest precepts
of the knightly code were a legacy from earlier ages, and have survived
the decay of knighthood just as they will survive all transitory human
institutions, forming part of the eternal heritage of the race. Indeed,
the most important of these precepts did not even attain to their
highest development in the middle ages. As a conscious effort to bring
religion into daily life, chivalry was less successful than later
puritanism; while the educated classes of our own day far surpass the
average medieval knight in discipline, self-control and outward or
inward refinement. Freeman's estimate comes far nearer to the historical
facts than Burke's: "The chivalrous spirit is above all things a class
spirit. The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies towards
men and still more towards women of a certain rank; he may treat all
below that rank with any decree of scorn and cruelty. The spirit of
chivalry implies the arbitrary choice of one or two virtues to be
practised in such an exaggerated degree as to become vices, while the
ordinary laws of right and wrong are forgotten. The false code of honour
supplants the laws of the commonwealth, the law of God and the eternal
principles of right. Chivalry again in its military aspect not only
encourages the love of war for its own sake without regard to the cause
for which war is waged, it encourages also an extravagant regard for a
fantastic show of personal daring which cannot in any way advance the
objects of the siege or campaign which is going on. Chivalry in short is
in morals very much what feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely
personal obligations devised in the interests of an exclusive class, for
the more homely duties of an honest man and a good citizen" (_Norman
Conquest_, v. 482). The chivalry from which Burke drew his ideas was, so
far as it existed at all, the product of a far later age. In its own
age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of
ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour;[58] and if many of its most
brilliant outward attractions have now faded for ever, this is only
because modern civilization tends so strongly to remove social barriers.
The knightly ages will always enjoy the glory of having formulated a
code of honour which aimed at rendering the upper classes worthy of
their exceptional privileges; yet we must judge chivalry not only by its
formal code but also by its practical fruits. The ideal is well summed
up by F. W. Cornish: "Chivalry taught the world the duty of noble
service willingly rendered. It upheld courage and enterprise in
obedience to rule, it consecrated military prowess to the service of the
Church, glorified the virtues of liberality, good faith, unselfishness
and courtesy, and above all, courtesy to women. Against these may be set
the vices of pride, ostentation, love of bloodshed, contempt of
inferiors, and loose manners. Chivalry was an imperfect discipline, but
it was a discipline, and one fit for the times. It may have existed in
the world too long: it did not come into existence too early; and with
all its shortcomings it exercised a great and wholesome influence in
raising the medieval world from barbarism to civilization" (p. 27). This
was the ideal, but to give the reader a clear view of the actual
features of knightly society in their contrast with that of our own day,
it is necessary to bring out one or two very significant shadows.
Far too much has been made of the extent to which the knightly code, and
the reverence paid to the Virgin Mary, raised the position of women
(e.g. Gautier, p. 360). As Gautier himself admits, the feudal system
made it difficult to separate the woman's person from her fief: instead
of the freedom of Christian marriage on which the Church in theory
insisted, lands and women were handed over together, as a business
bargain, by parents or guardians. In theory, the knight was the defender
of widows and orphans; but in practice wardships and marriages were
bought and sold as a matter of everyday routine like stocks and shares
in the modern market. Lord Thomas de Berkeley (1245-1321) counted on
this as a regular and considerable source of income (Smyth, _Lives_, i.
157). Late in the 15th century, in spite of the somewhat greater liberty
of that age, we find Stephen Scrope writing nakedly to a familiar
correspondent "for very need [of poverty], I was fain to sell a little
daughter I have for much less than I should have done by possibility,"
i.e. than the fair market price (Gairdner, _Paston Letters_,
Introduction, p. clxxvi; cf. ccclxxi). Startling as such words are, it
is perhaps still more startling to find how frequently and naturally, in
the highest society, ladies were degraded by personal violence. The
proofs of this which Schultz and Gautier adduce from the _Chansons de
Geste_ might be multiplied indefinitely. The Knight of La Tour-Landry
(1372) relates, by way of warning to his daughters, a tale of a lady who
so irritated her husband by scolding him in company, that he struck her
to the earth with his fist and kicked her in the face, breaking her
nose. Upon this the good knight moralizes: "And this she had for her
euelle and gret langage, that she was wont to saie to her husbonde. And
therfor the wiff aught to suffre and lete her husbonde haue the wordes,
and to be maister, for that is her worshippe; for it is shame to here
striff betwene hem, and in especial before folke. But y saie not but
whanne thei be allone, but she may tolle hym with goodly wordes, and
counsaile hym to amende yef he do amys" (La Tour, chap. xviii.; cf.
xvii. and xix.). The right of wife-beating was formally recognized by
more than one code of laws, and it was already a forward step when, in
the 13th century, the _Coutumes du Beauvoisis_ provided "que le mari ne
doit battre sa femme que _raisonnablement_" (Gautier, p. 349). This was
a natural consequence not only of the want of self-control which we see
everywhere in the middle ages, but also of the custom of contracting
child-marriages for unsentimental considerations. Between 1288 and 1500
five marriages are recorded in the direct line of the Berkeley family in
which the ten contracting parties averaged less than eleven years of
age: the marriage contract of another Lord Berkeley was drawn up before
he was six years old. Moreover, the same business considerations which
dictated those early marriages clashed equally with the strict theory of
knighthood. In the same Berkeley family, the lord Maurice IV. was
knighted in 1338 at the age of seven to avoid the possible evils of
wardship, and Thomas V. for the same reason in 1476 at the age of five.
Smyth's record of this great family shows that, from the middle of the
13th century onwards, the lords were not only statesmen and warriors,
but still more distinguished as gentlemen-farmers on a great scale, even
selling fruit from the castle gardens, while their ladies would go round
on tours of inspection from dairy to dairy. The lord Thomas III.
(1326-1361), who was noted as a special lover of tournaments, spent in
two years only £90, or an average of about £15 per tournament; yet he
was then laying money by at the rate of £450 a year, and, a few years
later, at the rate of £1150, or nearly half his income! Indeed, economic
causes contributed much to the decay of romantic chivalry. The old
families had lost heavily from generation to generation, partly by
personal extravagances, but also by gradual alienations of land to the
Church and by the enormous expenses of the crusades. Already, in the
13th century, they were hard pressed by the growing wealth of the
burghers, and even the greatest nobles could scarcely keep up their
state without careful business management. It is not surprising
therefore, to find that at least as early as the middle of the 13th
century the commercial side of knighthood became very prominent.
Although by the code of chivalry no candidate could be knighted before
the age of twenty-one, we have seen how great nobles like the Berkeleys
obtained that honour for their infant heirs in order to avoid possible
pecuniary loss; and French writers of the 14th century complained of
this knighting of infants as a common and serious abuse.[59] Moreover,
after the knight's liability to personal service in war had been
modified in the 12th century by the scutage system, it became necessary
in the first quarter of the 13th to compel landowners to take up the
knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour--a
compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (_Distraint of
Knighthood_, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income. An
indirect effect of this system[60] was to break down another rule of the
chivalrous code--that none could be dubbed who was not of gentle
birth.[61] This rule, however, had often been broken before; even the
romances of chivalry speak not infrequently of the knighting of serfs or
_jongleurs_;[62] and other causes besides distraint of knighthood tended
to level the old distinctions. While knighthood was avoided by poor
nobles, it was coveted by rich citizens. It is recorded in 1298 as "an
immemorial custom" in Provence that rich burghers enjoyed the honour of
knighthood; and less than a century later we find Sacchetti complaining
that the dignity is open to any rich upstart, however disreputable his
antecedents.[63] Similar causes contributed to the decay of knightly
ideas in warfare. Even in the 12th century, when war was still rather
the pastime of kings and knights than a national effort, the strict
code of chivalry was more honoured in the breach than in the
observance.[64] But when the Hundred Years' War brought a real national
conflict between England and France, when archery became of supreme
importance, and a large proportion even of the cavalry were mercenary
soldiers, then the exigencies of serious warfare swept away much of that
outward display and those class-conventions on which chivalry had always
rested. Siméon Luce (chap. vi.) has shown how much the English successes
in this war were due to strict business methods. Several of the best
commanders (e.g. Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Thomas Dagworth) were of
obscure birth, while on the French side even Du Guesclin had to wait
long for his knighthood because he belonged only to the lesser nobility.
The tournament again, which for two centuries had been under the ban of
the Church, was often almost as definitely discouraged by Edward III. as
it was encouraged by John of France; and while John's father opened the
Crécy campaign by sending Edward a challenge in due form of chivalry,
Edward took advantage of this formal delay to amuse the French king with
negotiations while he withdrew his army by a rapid march from an almost
hopeless position. A couple of quotations from Froissart will illustrate
the extent to which war had now become a mere business. Much as he
admired the French chivalry, he recognized their impotence at Crécy.
"The sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their horses, and
many fell, horse and men.... And also among the Englishmen there were
certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they went in
among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they lay on the
ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of
England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken
prisoners." How far Edward's solicitude was disinterested may be gauged
from Froissart's parallel remark about the battle of Aljubarrota, where,
as at Agincourt, the handful of victors were obliged by a sudden panic
to slay their prisoners. "Lo, behold the great evil adventure that fell
that Saturday. For they slew as many good prisoners as would well have
been worth, one with another, four hundred thousand franks." In 1402
Lord Thomas de Berkeley bought, as a speculation, 24 Scottish prisoners.
Similar practical considerations forced the nobles of other European
countries either to conform to less sentimental methods of warfare and
to growing conceptions of nationality, or to become mere Ishmaels of the
type which outlived the middle ages in Götz von Berlichingen and his
compeers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Froissart is perhaps the source from which we may
gather most of chivalry in its double aspect, good and bad. The
brilliant side comes out most clearly in Joinville, the _Chronique de
Du Guesclin_, and the _Histoire de Bayart_; the darker side appears in
the earlier chronicles of the crusades, and is especially emphasized
by preachers and moralists like Jacques de Vitry, Étienne de Bourbon,
Nicole Bozon and John Gower. John Smyth's _Lives of the Berkeleys_
(Bristol and Gloucs. Archaeol. Soc, 2 vols.) and the _Book of the
Knight of La Tour-Landry_ (ed. A. de Montaiglon, or in the old English
trans. published by the Early English Text Soc.) throw a very vivid
light on the inner life of noble families. Of modern books, besides
those quoted by their full titles in the notes, the best are A.
Schultz, _Höfisches Leben z. Zeit der Minnesänger_ (Leipzig, 1879); S.
Luce, _Hist. de Du Guesclin et de son Époque_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1882),
masterly but unfortunately unfinished at the author's death; Léon
Gautier, _La Chevalerie_ (Paris, 1883), written with a strong
apologetic bias, but full and correct in its references; and F. W.
Cornish, _Chivalry_ (London, 1901), too little reference to the more
prosaic historical documents, but candid and without intentional
partiality. (G. G. Co.)
ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD
When orders ceased to be fraternities and became more and more marks of
favour and a means of recognizing meritorious services to the Crown and
country, the term "orders" became loosely applied to the insignia and
decorations themselves. Thus "orders," irrespective of the title or
other specific designation they confer, fall in Great Britain generally
into three main categories, according as the recipients are made
"knights grand cross," "knights commander," or "companions." In some
orders the classes are more numerous, as in the Royal Victorian, for
instance, which has five, numerous foreign orders a like number, some
six, while the Chinese "Dragon" boasts no less than eleven degrees.
Generally speaking, the insignia of the "knights grand cross" consist of
a star worn on the left breast and a badge, usually some form either of
the cross _patée_ or of the Maltese cross, worn suspended from a ribbon
over the shoulder or, in certain cases, on days of high ceremonial from
a collar. The "commanders" wear the badge from a ribbon round the neck,
and the star on the breast; the "companions" have no star and wear the
badge from a narrow ribbon at the button-hole.
Orders may, again, be grouped according as they are (1) PRIME ORDERS OF
CHRISTENDOM, conferred upon an exclusive class only. Here belong, _inter
alia_, the well-known orders of the _Garter_ (England), _Golden Fleece_
(Austria and Spain), _Annunziata_ (Italy), _Black Eagle_ (Prussia), _St
Andrew_ (Russia), _Elephant_ (Denmark) and _Seraphim_ (Sweden). Of these
the first three only, which are usually held to rank _inter se_ in the
order given, are historically identified with chivalry. (2) FAMILY
ORDERS, bestowed upon members of the royal or princely class, or upon
humbler individuals according to classes, in respect of "personal"
services rendered to the family. To this category belong such orders as
the Royal Victorian and the Hohenzollern (Prussia). (3) ORDERS OF MERIT,
whether military, civil or joint orders. Such have, as a rule, at least
three, oftener five classes, and here belong such as the _Order of the
Bath_ (British), _Red Eagle_ (Prussia), _Legion of Honour_ (France).
There are also certain orders, such as the recently instituted _Order of
Merit_ (British), and the _Pour le Mérite_ (Prussia), which have but one
class, all members being on an equality of rank within the order.
Of the three great military and religious orders, branches survive of
two, the Teutonic Order (_Der hohe deutsche Ritter Orden_ or _Marianen
Orden_) and the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (_Johanniter Orden_,
_Malteser Orden_), for the history of which and the present state see
TEUTONIC ORDER and ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF THE ORDER OF.
_Great Britain._--The history and constitution of the "most noble"
_Order of the Garter_ has been treated above. The officers of the order
are five--the prelate, chancellor, registrar, king of arms and
usher--the first, third and fifth having been attached to it from the
commencement, while the fourth was added by Henry V. and the second by
Edward IV. The prelate has always been the bishop of Winchester; the
chancellor was formerly the bishop of Salisbury, but is now the bishop
of Oxford; the registrarship and the deanery of Windsor have been united
since the reign of Charles I.; the king of arms, whose duties were in
the beginning discharged by Windsor herald, is Garter Principal King of
Arms; and the usher is the gentleman usher of the Black Rod. The chapel
of the order is St George's Chapel, Windsor. The insignia of the order
are illustrated on Plate I.
The "most ancient" _Order of the Thistle_, was founded by James II. in
1687, and dedicated to St Andrew. It consisted of the sovereign and
eight knights companions, and fell into abeyance at the Revolution of
1688. In 1703 it was revived by Queen Anne, when it was ordained to
consist of the sovereign and 12 knights companions, the number being
increased to 16 by statute in 1827. The officers of the order are the
dean, the secretary, Lyon King of Arms and the gentleman usher of the
Green Rod. The chapel, in St Giles's, Edinburgh, was begun in 1909. The
star, badge and ribbon of the order are illustrated on Plate II., figs.
5 and 6. The collar is formed of thistles, alternating with sprigs of
rue, and the motto is _Nemo me impune lacessit_.
[Illustration: PLATE II.
THE BATH. (i) STAR; (ii.) GRAND CROSS (Mil.); (iii) STAR; (iv.) GRAND
CROSS (Civ.); THE THISTLE. (v.) STAR; (vi.) BADGE. THE ST. PATRICK.
(vii.) BADGE; (viii.) STAR. THE ST. MICHAEL AND ST. GEORGE. (ix.) STAR;
(x.) GRAND CROSS.
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
The "most illustrious" _Order of St Patrick_ was instituted by George
III. in 1788, to consist of the sovereign, the lord lieutenant of
Ireland as grand master and 15 knights companions, enlarged to 22 in
1833. The chancellor of the order is the chief secretary to the lord
lieutenant of Ireland, and the king of arms is Ulster King of Arms;
Black Rod is the usher. The chapel is in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
The star, badge and ribbon are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 7 and 8.
The collar is formed of alternate roses with red and white leaves, and
gold harps linked by gold knots; the badge is suspended from a harp
surmounted by an imperial jewelled crown. The motto is _Quis separabit_?
The "most honourable" _Order of the Bath_ was established by George I.
in 1725, to consist of the sovereign, a grand master and 36 knights
companions. This was a pretended revival of an order supposed to have
been created by Henry IV. at his coronation in 1399. But, as has been
shown in the preceding section, no such order existed. Knights of the
Bath, although they were allowed precedence before knights bachelors,
were merely knights bachelors who were knighted with more elaborate
ceremonies than others and on certain great occasions. In 1815 the order
was instituted, in three classes, "to commemorate the auspicious
termination of the long and arduous contest in which the Empire has been
engaged"; and in 1847 the civil knights commanders and companions were
added. Exclusive of the sovereign, royal princes and distinguished
foreigners, the order is limited to 55 military and 27 civil knights
grand cross, 145 military and 108 civil knights commanders, and 705
military and 298 civil companions. The officers of the order are the
dean (the dean of Westminster), Bath King of Arms, the registrar, and
the usher of the Scarlet Rod. The ribbon and badges of the knights grand
cross (civil and military) and the stars are illustrated on Plate II.,
figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4.
The "most distinguished" _Order of St Michael and St George_ was founded
by the prince regent, afterwards George IV., in 1818, in commemoration
of the British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, "for natives of the
Ionian Islands and of the island of Malta and its dependencies, and for
such other subjects of his majesty as may hold high and confidential
situations in the Mediterranean." By statute of 1832 the lord high
commissioner of the Ionian Islands was to be the grand master, and the
order was directed to consist of 15 knights grand crosses, 20 knights
commanders and 25 cavaliers or companions. After the repudiation of the
British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, the order was placed on a
new basis, and by letters patent of 1868 and 1877 it was extended and
provided for such of "the natural born subjects of the Crown of the
United Kingdom as may have held or shall hold high and confidential
offices within her majesty's colonial possessions, and in reward for
services rendered to the crown in relation to the foreign affairs of the
Empire." It is now (by the enlargement of 1902) limited to 100 knights
grand cross, of whom the first or principal is grand master, exclusive
of extra and honorary members, of 300 knights commanders and 600
companions. The officers are the prelate, chancellor, registrar,
secretary and officer of arms. The chapel of the order, in St Paul's
Cathedral, was dedicated in 1906. The badge of the knights grand cross
and the ribbon are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 9 and 10. The star of
the knights grand cross is a seven-rayed star of silver with a small ray
of gold between each, in the centre is a red St George's cross bearing a
medallion of St Michael encountering Satan, surrounded by a blue fillet
with the motto _Auspicium melioris aevi_.
The _Order of St Michael and St George_ ranks between the "most exalted"
_Order of the Star of India_ and the "most eminent" _Order of the Indian
Empire_, of both of which the viceroy of India for the time being is _ex
officio_ grand master. Of these the first was instituted in 1861 and
enlarged in 1876, 1897 and 1903, in three classes, knights grand
commanders, knights commanders and companions, and the second was
established (for "companions" only) in 1878 and enlarged in 1887, 1892,
1897 and 1903, also in the same three classes, in commemoration of
Queen Victoria's assumption of the imperial style and title of the
Empress of India. The badges, stars and ribbons of the knights grand
commanders of the two orders are illustrated on Plate III., figs. 3, 4,
5 and 6. The collar of the _Star of India_ is composed of alternate
links of the lotus flower, red and white roses and palm branches
enamelled on gold, with an imperial crown in the centre; that of the
_Indian Empire_ is composed of elephants, peacocks and Indian roses.
The _Royal Victorian Order_ was instituted by Queen Victoria on the 25th
of April 1896, and conferred for personal services rendered to her
majesty and her successors on the throne. It consists of the sovereign,
chancellor, secretary and five classes--knights grand commanders,
knights commanders, commanders and members of the fourth and fifth
classes, the distinction between these last divisions lying in the badge
and in the precedence enjoyed by the members. The knights of this order
rank in their respective classes immediately after those of the _Indian
Empire_, and its numbers are unlimited. The badge, star and ribbon of
the knights grand cross are illustrated on Plate III., figs. 1 and 2.
To the class of orders without the titular appellation "knight" belongs
the _Order of Merit_, founded by King Edward VII. on the occasion of his
coronation. The order is founded on the lines of the Prussian _Ordre
pour le mérite_ (see below), yet more comprehensive, including those who
have gained distinction in the military and naval services of the
Empire, and such as have made themselves a great name in the fields of
science, art and literature. The number of British members has been
fixed at twenty-four, with the addition of such foreign persons as the
sovereign shall appoint. The names of the first recipients were: Earl
Roberts, Viscount Wolseley, Viscount Kitchener, Sir Henry Keppel, Sir
Edward Seymour, Lord Lister, Lord Rayleigh, Lord Kelvin, John Morley, W.
E. H. Lecky, G. F. Watts and Sir William Huggins. The only foreign
recipients up to 1910 were Field Marshals Yamagata and Oyama and Admiral
Togo. A lady, Miss Florence Nightingale, received the order in 1907. The
badge is a cross of red and blue enamel surmounted by an imperial crown;
the central blue medallion bears the inscription "For Merit" in gold,
and is surrounded by a wreath of laurel. The badge of the military and
naval members bears two crossed swords in the angles of the cross. The
ribbon is garter blue and crimson and is worn round the neck.
The _Distinguished Service Order_, an order of military merit, was
founded on the 6th of September 1886 by Queen Victoria, its object
being to recognize the special services of officers in the army and
navy. Its numbers are unlimited, and its designation the letters
D.S.O. It consists of one class only, who take precedence immediately
after the 4th class of the Royal Victorian Order. The badge is a white
and gold cross with a red centre bearing the imperial crown surrounded
by a laurel wreath. The ribbon is red edged with blue. The _Imperial
Service Order_ was likewise instituted on the 26th of June 1902, and
finally revised in 1908, to commemorate King Edward's coronation, and
is specially designed as a recognition of faithful and meritorious
services rendered to the British Crown by the administrative members
of the civil service in various parts of the Empire, and is to consist
of companions only. The numbers are limited to 475, of whom 250 belong
to the home and 225 to the civil services of the colonies and
protectorates (Royal Warrant, June 1909). Women as well as men are
eligible. The members of the order have the distinction of adding the
letters I.S.O. after their names. In precedence the order ranks after
the _Distinguished Service Order_. The badge is a gold medallion
bearing the royal cipher and the words "For Faithful Service" in blue;
for men it rests on a silver star, for women it is surrounded by a
silver wreath. The ribbon is one blue between two crimson stripes.
In addition to the above, there are two British orders confined to
ladies. The _Royal Order of Victoria and Albert_
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/40641