OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/William II. of Sicily

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​WILLIAM II. (d. 1189), king of Sicily, was only thirteen years old at the death of his father William I. when he was placed under the regency of his mother, Marguerite of Navarre. Until the king came of age in 1171 the government was controlled first by the chancellor Stephen of Perche, cousin of Marguerite (1166-1168), and then by Walter Ophamil, archbishop of Palermo, and Matthew d'Ajello, the vice-chancellor. William's character is very indistinct. Lacking in military enterprise, secluded and pleasure-loving, he seldom emerged from his palace life at Palermo. Yet his reign is marked by an ambitious foreign policy and a vigorous diplomacy. Champion of the papacy and in secret league with the Lombard cities he was able to defy the common enemy, Frederick II. In 1174 and 1175 he made treaties with Genoa and Venice and his marriage in February 1177 with Joan, daughter of Henry II. of England, marks his high position in European politics. To secure peace with the emperor he sanctioned the marriage of his aunt Constance, daughter of Roger II., with Frederick's son Henry, afterwards the emperor Henry VI., causing a general oath to be taken to her as his successor in case of his death without heirs. This step, fatal to the Norman kingdom, was possibly taken that William might devote himself to foreign conquests.
Unable to revive the African dominion, William directed his attack on Egypt, from which Saladin threatened the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. In July 1174, 50,000 men were landed before Alexandria, but Saladin's arrival forced the Sicilians to re-embark in disorder. A better prospect opened in the confusion in Byzantine affairs which followed the death of Manuel Comnenus (1180), and William took up the old design and feud against Constantinople. Durazzo was captured (11th June 1185) and in August Thessalonica surrendered to the joint attack of the Sicilian fleet and army. The troops then marched upon the capital, but the troop of the emperor Isaac Angelus overthrew the invaders on the banks of the Strymon (7th Sept. 1185). Thessalonica was at once abandoned and in 1189 William made peace with Isaac, abandoning all the conquests. He was now planning to induce the crusading armies of the West to pass through his territories, and seemed about to play a leading part in the third Crusade. His admiral Margarito, a naval genius equal to George of Antioch, with 600 vessels kept the eastern Mediterranean open for the Franks, and forced the all-victorious Saladin to retire from before Tripoli in the spring of 1188. In November 1189 William died, leaving no children. His title of “the Good” is due perhaps less to his character than to the cessation of internal troubles in his reign. The “Voyage” of Ibn-Giobair, a traveller in Sicily in 1183-1185, shows William surrounded by Moslem women and eunuchs, speaking and reading Arabic and living like “a Moslem king.”  (E. Cu.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/William IV. of Hesse

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​WILLIAM IV., landgrave of Hesse (1532–1592), was the son and successor of the landgrave Philip the Magnanimous. He took a leading part in safeguarding the results of the Reformation and was indefatigable in his endeavours to unite the different sections of Protestantism for the sake of effective resistance against the Catholic reaction. His counsels were marred by his reluctance to appeal to arms at the critical moments of action, and by the slenderness of his own resources, but they deserve attention for their broad common sense and spirit of tolerance. As an administrator of his principality he displayed rare energy, issuing numerous ordinances, appointing expert officials, and in particular establishing the finances on a scientific basis. By a law of primogeniture he secured his land against such testamentary divisions as had diminished his own portion of his father's estate. He not only patronized art and science, but continued as ruler the intercourse with scholars which he had cultivated in his youth.
William was a pioneer in astronomical research and perhaps owes his most lasting fame to his discoveries in this branch of study. Most of the mechanical contrivances which made Tycho Brahe’s instruments so superior to those of his contemporaries were adopted at Cassel about 1584, and from that time the observations made there seem to have been about as accurate as Tycho’s; but the resulting longitudes were 6′ too great in consequence of the adopted solar parallax of 3′. The principal fruit of the observations was a catalogue of about a thousand stars, the places of which were determined by the methods usually employed in the 16th century, connecting a fundamental star by means of Venus with the sun, and thus finding its longitude and latitude, while other stars could at any time be referred to the fundamental star. It should be noticed that clocks, on which Tycho Brahe depended very little, were used at Cassel for finding the difference of right ascension between Venus and the sun before sunset; Tycho preferred observing the angular distance between the sun and Venus when the latter was visible in the daytime. The Hessian star catalogue was published in Lucius Barettus’s Historia coelestis (Augsburg, 1668), and a number of other observations are to be found in Coeli et siderum in eo errantium observationes Hassiacae (Leiden, 1618), edited by Willebrord Snell. R. Wolf, in his “Astronomische Mittheilungen,” No. 45 (Vierteljahrsschrift der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich, 1878), has given a résumé of the manuscripts still preserved at Cassel, which throw much light on the methods adopted in the observations and reductions.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/William III., King of the Netherlands

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​WILLIAM III. (1817–1890), king of the Netherlands, son of William II., was born at Brussels on the 19th of February 1817. He married in 1839 Sophia, daughter of William I., king of Württemberg. Sophia was an accomplished woman of high intelligence, but unfortunately the relations between the royal pair were far from cordial and finally ended in complete disagreement, and the breach between them continued until the death of the queen in 1877. The private life of the king in fact gave rise to much scandal; nevertheless he was an excellent constitutional monarch, and, though he never sought to win popular favour, succeeded in winning and retaining in a remarkable degree his people’s affectionate loyalty. He had no sympathy with political liberalism, but throughout his long reign of forty-two years, with a constant interchange of ministries and many ministerial crises, he never had a serious conflict with the states-general, and his ministers could always count upon his fair-mindedness and an earnest desire to help them to further the national welfare. He was economical, and gave up a third of his civil list in order to help forward the task of establishing an equilibrium in the annual budget, and he was always ready from his large private fortune to help forward all schemes for the social or industrial progress of the country. It was largely due to his prudent diplomacy that Holland passed pacifically through the difficult period of the Luxemburg settlement in 1866 and the Franco-German War of 1870.
William III. had two sons by bis marriage with Sophia of Württemberg, William (1841–1879), and Alexander (1843–1884). Both of them died unmarried. The decease of Prince Alexander left the house of Orange without a direct heir male, but the prospect of a disputed succession had fortunately been averted by the marriage of the king in 1879 with the princess Emma of Waldcck-Pyrmont. From this union a daughter, Wilhelmina, was born in 1880. On her father’s death at the Loo, on the 23rd of November 1890, she succeeded as queen of the Netherlands under the regency of her mother.
William was grand duke of Luxemburg by a personal title, and his death severed the dynastic relation between the kingdom of the Netherlands and the grand duchy. The sovereignty of the Luxemburg duchy passed to the next heir male of the house of Nassau, Adolphus, ex-duke of Nassau.
See J. A. Bruijne, Geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd. (5 vols., Schiedam, 1889–1906); P. Blok, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Volk (Leiden, 1908), vol. viii.; and G. L. Keppers, De regeering van Koning Willem III. (Groningen, 1887).  (G. E.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/William of Nangis

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​WILLIAM OF NANGIS (d. 1300), French chronicler, was a monk in the abbey of St Denis. About 1285 he was placed in charge of the abbey library as custos cartarum, and he died in June or July 1300. Having doubtless done some work on the Latin manuscripts on which the Grandes Chroniques de France are based. William wrote a long Chronicon, dealing with the history of the world from the creation until 1300. For the period before 1113 this work merely repeats that of Sigebert of Gembloux and others; but after this date it contains some new and valuable matter.
William's other writings are: Gesta Ludovico IX.; Gesta Philippi III., sive Audacis; Chronicon abbreviatum regum Francorum; and a French translation of the same work written for the laity. Making use of the large store of manuscripts at St Denis, William was a compiler rather than an author, and with the exception of the latter part of the Chronicon his writings do not add materially to our knowledge of the time. Both his chronicles, however, became very popular and found several continuators, Jean de Joinville being among those who made use of the Chronicon. This work from 1113 to 1300, with continuations to 1368, has been edited by H. Géraud for the Société de l'histoire de France (Paris, 1843), and practically all William's writings are found in tome xx. of Dom Bouquet's Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France (Paris, 1738–1876). A French translation of the Chronicon is in tome xiii. of Guizot's Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France (Paris, 1823–1835).
See A. Potthast, Bibliotheca historica (Berlin, 1896); and A. Molinier, Les Sources de l'histoire de France, tome iii. (Paris, 1903).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/William of Newburgh

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​WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH (d. c. 1198), or, as he is sometimes styled, Guillelmus Parvus, English ecclesiastic and chronicler, was a canon of the Augustinian priory of Newburgh in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He was born about 1136, and lived at Newburgh from his boyhood. Shortly before 1196 he began his Historia rerum Anglicarum. This work, divided into five books, covers the period 1066–1198. A great part of it is derived from known sources, especially from Henry of Huntingdon, Jordan Fantosme, the Itinerarium regis Ricardi, or its French original, and a lost account, by Anselm the chaplain, of the captivity of Richard I. The value of Newburgh's work lies in his estimates of men and situations. Except for the years 1154–1173 and the reign of Richard he records few facts which cannot be found elsewhere; and in matters of detail he is prone to inaccuracy. But his political insight and his impartiality entitle him to a high place among the historians of the 12th century.
See the editions of the Historia by H. C. Hamilton (2 vols., London, 1856) and by R. Howlett in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, &c. (“Rolls” series, 1884-1885), vols. i. and ii. In the latter edition a continuation, the Annales Furnesienses (1190–1298), composed by a monk of Furness Abbey, Lancashire, is also given. See also Sir T. D. Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue (“Rolls” series, 1865), ii. p. 512; and H. E. Salter in the English Historical Review, vol. xxii. (1907).  (H. W. C. D.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Ives (Cornwall)

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​ST IVES, a market town, municipal borough and seaport in the St Ives parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, 10 m. N.N.E. of Penzance, on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 6699. It lies near the W. horn of St Ives Bay on the N. coast. The older streets near the harbour are narrow and irregular, but on the upper slopes there are modern terraces with good houses. The small harbour, protected by a breakwater, originally built by John Smeaton in 1767, has suffered from the accumulation of sand, and at the lowest tides is dry. The fisheries for pilchard, herring and mackerel are important. Boat-building and sail-making are carried on. An eminence south of the town is marked by a granite monument erected in 1782 by John Knill, a native of the town, who intended to be buried here; to maintain a quinquennial celebration on the spot he bequeathed property to the town authorities. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 1890 acres.
The town takes name from St Hya, or Ia, an Irish virgin and martyr, who is said to have accompanied St Piran on his missionary journey to Cornwall in the 5th century, and to have landed near this place. The Patent Rolls disclose an almost continuous series of trials for piracy and plunder by St Ives sailors from the beginning of the 14th to the end of the 16th century. A mere chapelry of Lelant and the less important member of the distant manor of Ludgvan Leaze, which in Domesday Book appears as Luduam, it had no fostering hand to minister to its growth. In order to augment the influence of the Tudors in the House of Commons, Philip and Mary in 1558 invested it with the privilege of returning 2 members. Its affairs were at that time administered by a head warden, who after 1598 appears under the name of port reeve, 12 chief burgesses and 24 ordinary burgesses. The port reeve was elected by the 24; the 12 by the chief inhabitants. This body had control over the fishing, the harbour and harbour dues, the fabric of the church, sanitation and the poor. In 1639 a charter of incorporation was granted under which the portreeve became mayor, the 12 became aldermen, and the 24 were styled burgesses. Provision was made for four fairs and for markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, also for a grammar school. This charter was surrendered to Charles II. and a new one granted in 1685, the latter reducing the number of aldermen to 10 and of burgesses also to 10. It ratified the parliamentary franchise and the fairs and markets, and provided a court of pie-powder; it also contained a clause safeguarding the rights of the marquess of Winchester, lord of the manor of Ludgvan Leaze and Porthia. In 1835 a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors were invested with the administration of the borough. In 1832 St Ives lost one of its members, and in 1885 the other. Both markets are now held, but only one of the fairs. This takes place on the Saturday nearest St Andrew's day.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Hyacinthe

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​ST HYACINTHE, a city and port of entry of Quebec, Canada, and capital of St Hyacinthe county, 32 m. E.N.E. of Montreal, on the left bank of the river Yamaska and on the Grand Trunk, Canadian Pacific, Intercolonial, and Quebec Southern railways. Pop. (1901) 9210. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, and contains a classical college, dairy school, two monasteries and several other educational and charitable institutions. It has manufactures of organs, leather, woollens and agricultural implements, and is an important distributing centre for the surrounding district.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Gotthard Pass

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​ ST GOTTHARD PASS, the principal route from northern Europe to Italy. It takes its name (it is not known wherefore) from St Gotthard, bishop of Hildesheim (d. 1038), but does not seem to be mentioned before the early 13th century, perhaps because the access to it lies through two very narrow Alpine ​valleys, much exposed to avalanches. The hospice on the summit is first mentioned in 1331, and from 1683 onwards was in charge of two Capuchin friars. But in 1775 the buildings near it were damaged by an avalanche, while in 1799-1800 everything was destroyed by the French soldiery. Rebuilt in 1834, the hospice was burnt in March 1905. The mule path (dating from about 1293) across the pass served for many centuries, for though Mr Greville, in 1775, succeeded in taking a light carriage across, the carriage-road was only constructed between 1820 and 1830. Now the pass is deserted in favour of the great tunnel (pierced in 1872-1880, 9¼ m. in length, and attaining a height of 3786 ft.), through which runs the railway (opened in 1882) from Lucerne to Milan (175½ m.), one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century. It runs mainly along the eastern shore of the Lake of Lucerne, from Lucerne to Fliielen (32¼ m.), and then up the Reuss valley past Altdorf and Wassen, near which is the first of the famous spiral tunnels, to Goeschenen (56 m. from Lucerne). Here the line leaves the Reuss valley to pass through the tunnel and so gain, at Airolo, the valley of the Ticino or the Val Leventina, which it descends, through several spiral tunnels, till at Biasca (38 m. from Goeschenen) it reaches more level ground. Thence it runs past Bellinzona to Lugano (30½ m. from Biasca) and reaches Italian territory at Chiasso, 35 m. from Milan. In 1909 the Swiss government exercised the right accorded to it by the agreement of 1879 of buying the St Gotthard Railway from the company which built it within thirty years of that date. (W.A.B.C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Goar

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​ ST GOAR, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine Province, on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite St Goarshausen and just below the famous Lorelei, 12 m. above Boppard by the railway from Coblenz to Mainz. Pop. (1905) 1475. It is in part surrounded by the ruins of its old walls, and contains an Evangelical church, with some Renaissance monuments, and a Roman Catholic church with an image of St Goar of Aquitania, around whose chapel the place originally arose. Below the town, high on an eminence above the Rhine, stands Schloss Rheinfels, the property of the king of Prussia, the most perfect of the feudal castles on the banks of the river. In the later middle ages St Goar was the capital of the county of Katzenelnbogen, and on the extinction of this family it passed to Hesse-Cassel. It came into the possession of Prussia in 1815.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Helier

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​ST HELIER, the chief town of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. Pop. (1901) 27,866. It lies on the south coast of the island on the eastern side of St Aubin's Bay. The harbour is flanked on the W. by a rocky ridge on which stands Elizabeth Castle, and commanded on the east by Fort Regent on its lofty promontory. The parish church is a cruciform building with embattled tower, dating in part from the 14th century. It contains a monument to Major Peirson, who on the occasion of a French attack on Jersey in 1781 headed the militia to oppose them, and forced them to surrender, but was killed as his followers were at the point of victory. The French leader, Baron de Rullecourt, is buried in the churchyard. The spot where Peirson fell, in what is now called Peirson Place, is marked by a tablet. A large canvas by John Singleton Copley depicting the scene is in the National Galleny, London, and a copy is in the court house of St Helier. This building (la Cohue), in Royal Square, is the meeting-place of the royal court and deliberative States of Jersey. Victoria College was opened in 1852 and commemorates a visit of Queen Victoria and the prince consort to the island in 1846. A house in Marine Terrace is distinguished as the residence of Victor Hugo (1851–1855). Elizabeth Castle, which is connected with the mainland by a causeway, dates from 1551–1590; and in 1646 and 1649 Prince Charles resided here. In 1649 he was proclaimed king, as Charles II., in Jersey by the royalist governor George Carteret. On actually coming to the throne he gave the island the mace which is still used at the meetings of the court and States. Close to the castle are remnants of a chapel or cell, from which the rock on which it stands is known as the Hermitage, dating probably from the 9th or 10th century, and traditionally connected with the patron saint Helerius.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Hubert

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​ST HUBERT, a small town of Belgium in the province of Luxemburg and in the heart of the Ardennes. Pop. (1904) 3204. It is famous for its abbey church containing the shrine of St Hubert, and for its annual pilgrimage. According to tradition the church and a monastery attached to it were founded in the 7th century by Plectrude, wife of Pippin of Herstal. The second church was built in the 12th century, but burnt by a French army under Condé in the 16th century. The present building is its successor, but has been restored in modern times and presents no special feature. The tomb of St Hubert—a marble sarcophagus ornamented with bas-reliefs and having four statuettes of other saints at the angles—stands in one of the side Chapels. The legend of the conversion of St Hubert—a hunter before he was a saint—by his meeting in the forest a stag with a crucifix between its antlers, is well known, and explains how he became the patron saint of huntsmen. The place where he is supposed to have met the stag is still known as “la converserie” and is almost 5 m. from St Hubert on the road to La Roche. The pilgrimage of St Hubert in May attracts annually between thirty and fifty thousand pilgrims. The buildings of the old monastery- have been utilized for a state training-school for waifs and strays, which contains on an average five hundred pupils. In the middle ages the abbey of St Hubert was one of the most important in Europe, owning forty villages with an annual income of over 80,000 crowns. During the French Revolution, when Belgium was divided into several departments, the possessions of the abbey were sold for £75,000, but the bishop of Namur was permitted to buy the church itself for £1350.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Ingbert

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​ST INGBERT, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria on the Rohrbach, 14 m. by rail W. of Zweibrücken. Pop. (1905) 15,521. It has coal-mines and manufactures of glass and machinery. There are also large iron and steel works in the town, and other industries are the making of powder, leather, cigars, soap and cotton. St Ingbert is named after the Irish saint, St Ingobert, and belonged for 300 years to the electorate of Trier.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Girons

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​ ST GIRONS, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Ariège, 29 m. W. of Foix by rail. Pop. (1906) 5216. The town is situated on the Salat at the foot of the Pyrenees. There are mineral springs at Audinac in the vicinity, and the watering-place of Aulus, about 20 m. to the S.S.E., is reached by road from St Girons. St Lizier-de-Couserans (q.v.), an ancient episcopal town, is 1 m. N.N.W.