OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Green, Duff

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​GREEN, DUFF (1791–1875), American politician and journalist, was born in Woodford county, Kentucky, on the 15th of August 1791. He was a school teacher in his native state, served during the War of 1812 in the Kentucky militia, and then settled in Missouri, where he worked as a schoolmaster and practised law. He was a member of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1820, and was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1820 and to the state Senate in 1822, serving one term in each house. Becoming interested in journalism, he purchased and for two years edited the St Louis Enquirer. In 1825 he bought and afterwards edited in Washington, D.C., The United States Telegraph, which soon became the principal organ of the Jackson men in opposition to the Adams administration. Upon Andrew Jackson’s election to the presidency, the Telegraph became the principal mouthpiece of the administration, and received printing patronage estimated in value at $50,000 a year, while Green became one of the coterie of unofficial advisers of Jackson known as the “Kitchen Cabinet.” In the quarrel between Jackson and John C. Calhoun, Green supported the latter, and through the columns of the Telegraph violently attacked the administration. In consequence, his paper was deprived of the government printing in the spring of 1831. Green, however, continued to edit it in the Calhoun interest until 1835, and gave vigorous support to that leader’s nullification views. From 1835 to 1838 he edited The Reformation, a radically partisan publication, devoted to free trade and the extreme states’ rights theory. In 1841–1843 he was in Europe on behalf of the Tyler administration, and he is said to have been instrumental in causing the appointment of Lord Ashburton to negotiate in Washington concerning the boundary dispute between Maine and Canada. In January 1843 Green established in New York City a short-lived journal, The Republic, to combat the spoils system and to advocate free trade. In September 1844 Calhoun, then secretary of state, sent Green to Texas ostensibly as consul at Galveston, but actually, it appears, to report to the administration, then considering the question of the annexation of Texas, concerning the political situation in Texas and Mexico. After the close of the war with Mexico Green was sent to that country in 1849 by President Taylor to negotiate concerning the moneys which, by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States had agreed to pay; and he saved his country a considerable sum by arranging for payment in exchange instead of in specie. Subsequently Green was engaged in railway building in Georgia and Alabama. On the 10th of June 1875 he died in Dalton, Georgia, a city which in 1848 he had helped to found.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Green, William Henry

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​GREEN, WILLIAM HENRY (1825–1900), American Hebrew scholar, was born in Groveville, near Bordentown, New Jersey, on the 27th of January 1825. He was descended in the sixth generation from Jonathan Dickinson, first president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and his ancestors had been closely connected with the Presbyterian church. He graduated in 1840 from Lafayette College, where he was tutor in mathematics (1840–1842) and adjunct professor (1843–1844). In 1846 he graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary, and was instructor in Hebrew there in 1846–1849. He was ordained in 1848 and was pastor of the Central Presbyterian church of Philadelphia in 1849–1851. From August 1851 until his death, in Princeton, New Jersey, on the 10th of February 1900, he was professor of Biblical and Oriental Literature in Princeton Theological Seminary. From 1859 the title of his chair was Oriental and Old Testament Literature. In 1868 he refused the presidency of Princeton College; as senior professor he was long acting head of the Theological Seminary. He was a great Hebrew teacher: his Grammar of the Hebrew Language (1861, revised 1888) was a distinct improvement in method on Gesenius, Roediger, Ewald and Nordheimer. All his knowledge of Semitic languages he used in a “conservative Higher Criticism,” which is maintained in the following works: The Pentateuch Vindicated from the Aspersions of Bishop Colenso (1863), Moses and the Prophets (1883), The Hebrew Feasts in their Relation to Recent Critical Hypotheses Concerning the Pentateuch (1885), The Unity of the Book of Genesis (1895), The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (1895), and A General Introduction to the Old Testament, vol. i. Canon (1898), vol. ii. Text (1899). He was the scholarly leader of the orthodox wing of the Presbyterian church in America, and was moderator of the General Assembly of 1891. Green was chairman of the Old Testament committee of the Anglo-American Bible revision committee.
See the articles by John D. Davis in The Biblical World, new series, vol. xv., pp. 406-413 (Chicago, 1900), and The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, vol. xi. pp. 377-396 (Philadelphia, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ermelo

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​ERMELO, a district and town of the Transvaal. The district lies in the south-east of the province and is traversed by the Drakensberg. In it are Lake Chrissie, the only true lake in the country, and the sources of the Vaal, Olifants, Komati, and Usuto rivers, which rise within 30 m. of one another. The region has a general elevation of about 5500 ft. and is fine agricultural and pastoral country, besides containing valuable minerals, including coal and gold. Ermelo town, pop. (1904) 1451, is by rail 175 m. S.E. of Johannesburg, and 74 m. S.S.W. of Machadodorp on the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway. A government experimental farm, with some 1000 acres of plantations, is maintained here.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Erle, Sir William

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​ERLE, SIR WILLIAM (1793–1880), English lawyer and judge, was born at Fifehead-Magdalen, Dorset, on the 1st of October 1793, and was educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford. Having been called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1819 he went the western circuit, became counsel to the Bank of England, sat in parliament from 1837 to 1841 for the city of Oxford, and, although of opposite politics to Lord Lyndhurst, was made by him a judge of the common pleas in 1845. He was transferred to the queen’s bench in the following year, and in 1859 came back to the common pleas as chief justice upon the promotion of Sir Alexander Cockburn. He retired in 1866, receiving the highest eulogiums for the ability and impartiality with which he had discharged the judicial office. He died at his estate at Bramshott, Hampshire, on the 28th of January ​1880, and a monument without his name but in his memory (sometimes erroneously supposed to mark the place where an old gibbet was) stands on the top of Hindhead.
See E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ermine

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* Ermine or Stoat (Putorius ermineus).
ERMINE, an alternative name for the stoat (Putorius ermineus), apparently applicable in its proper sense only when the animal is in its white winter coat. This animal measures 10 in. in length exclusive of the tail, which is about 4 in. long, and becomes bushy towards the point. The fur in summer is reddish brown above and white beneath, changing in the winter of northern latitudes to snowy whiteness, except at the tip of the tail, which at all seasons is black. In Scottish specimens this change in winter is complete, but in those found in the southern districts of England it is usually only partial, the ermine presenting during winter a piebald appearance. The white colour is evidently protective, enabling the animals to elude the observations of their enemies, and to steal unobserved on their prey. It also retains heat better than a dark covering, and may thus serve to maintain an equable temperature at all seasons within the body. The colour change seems to be due to phagocytes devouring the pigment-bodies of the hair, and not to a moult.
The species is a native of the temperate and subarctic zones of the Old World, and is represented in America by a form which can scarcely be regarded as specifically distinct. It inhabits thickets and stony places, and frequently makes use of the deserted burrows of moles and other underground mammals. Exceedingly sanguinary in disposition, and agile in its movements, it feeds principally on rats, water-rats and rabbits, which it pursues with pertinacity and boldness, hence the name stoat, signifying bold, by which it is commonly known. It takes readily to water, and will even climb trees in pursuit of prey. It is particularly destructive to poultry and game, and has often been known to attack hares, fixing itself to the throat of its victim, and defying all the efforts of the latter to disengage it. The female brings forth five young ones about the beginning of summer. The winter coat of the ermine forms one of the most valuable of commercial furs, and is imported in enormous quantities from Norway, Sweden, Russia and Siberia. It is largely used for muffs and tippets, and as a trimming for state robes, the jet black points of the tails being inserted at regular intervals as an ornament. In the reign of Edward III. the wearing of ermine was restricted to members of the royal family; but it now enters into almost all state robes, the rank and position of the wearer being in many cases indicated by the presence or absence, and the disposition, of the black spots. (See also Fur.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Erlkönig

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​ERLKÖNIG, or Erl-King, a mythical character in modern German literature, represented as a gigantic bearded man with a golden crown and trailing garments, who carries children away to that undiscovered country where he himself abides. There is no such personage in ancient German mythology, and the name is linguistically nothing more than the perpetuation of a blunder. It first appeared in Herder’s Stimmen der Völker (1778), where it is used in the translation of the Danish song of the Elf-King’s Daughter as equivalent to the Danish ellerkonge, or ellekonge, that is, elverkonge, the king of the elves; and the true German word would have been Elbkönig or Elbenkönig, afterwards used under the modified form of Elfenkönig by Wieland in his Oberon (1780). Herder was probably misled by the fact that the Danish word elle signifies not only elf, but also alder tree (Ger. Erle). His mistake at any rate has been perpetuated by both English and French translators, who speak of a “king of the alders,” “un roi des aunes,” and find an explanation of the myth in the tree-worship of early times, or in the vapoury emanations that hang like weird phantoms round the alder trees at night. The legend was adopted by Goethe as the subject of one of his finest ballads, rendered familiar to English readers by the translations of Lewis and Sir Walter Scott; and since then it has been treated as a musical theme by Reichardt and Schubert.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ermeland

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​ERMELAND, or Ermland (Varmia), a district of Germany, in East Prussia, extending from the Frisches Haff, a bay in the Baltic, inland towards the Polish frontier. It is a well-wooded sandy tract of country, has an area of about 1650 sq. m., a population of 240,000, and is divided into the districts of Braunsberg, Heilsberg, Rössel and Allenstein.
Ermeland was originally one of the eleven districts of old Prussia and was occupied by the Teutonic Knights (Deutscher Orden), being made in 1250 one of the four bishoprics of the country under their sway. The bishop of Ermeland shortly afterwards declared himself independent of the order, and became a prince of the Empire. In 1466 Ermeland, together with West Prussia, was by the peace of Thorn attached to the crown of Poland, and the bishop had a seat in the Polish senate. In 1772 it was again incorporated with Prussia. Among the bishops of the see, which still exists, with its seat in Frauenberg, may be mentioned Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., and Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius (1504–1579), the founder of the Jesuit college in Braunsberg.
See Hipler, Literaturgeschichte des Bisthums Ermeland (Braunsberg, 1873); the Monumenta historiae Warmiensis (Mainz, 1860–1864, and Braunsberg, 1866–1872, 4 vols.); and Buchholz, Abriss einer Geschichte des Ermlands (Braunsberg, 1903.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ermine Street

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​ERMINE STREET. Documents and writers of the 11th and succeeding centuries occasionally mention four “royal roads” in Britain—Icknield Street, Erning or Ermine Street, Watling Street and Foss Way—as standing apart from all other existing roads and enjoying the special protection of the king. Unfortunately these authorities are not at all agreed as to their precise course; the roads themselves do not occur as specially privileged in actual legal or other practice, and it is likely that the category of Four Roads is the invention of a lawyer or an antiquary. The names are, however, attested to some extent by early charters which name them among other roads, as boundaries. From these charters we know that Icknield Street ran along the Berkshire downs and the Chilterns, that Ermine Street ran more or less due north through Huntingdonshire, that Watling Street ran north-west across the midlands from London to Shrewsbury, and Foss diagonally to it from Lincoln or Leicester to Bath and mid-Somerset. This evidence only proves the existence of these roads in Saxon and Norman days. But they all seem to be much older. Icknield Street is probably a prehistoric ridgeway along the downs, utilized perhaps by the Romans near its eastern end, but in general not Roman. Ermine Street coincides with part of a line of Roman roads leading north from London through Huntingdon to Lincoln. This line is followed by the Old North Road through Cheshunt, Buntingford, Royston, and Huntingdon to Castor near Peterborough; and thence it can be traced through lanes and byways past Ancaster to Lincoln. Watling Street is the Roman highway from London by St Alban’s (Verulamium) to Wroxeter near Shrewsbury (Viroconium). Foss is the Roman highway from Lincoln to Bath and Exeter. Hence it has been supposed, and is still frequently alleged, that the Four Roads were the principal highways of Roman Britain. This, however, is not the case. Icknield Street is not Roman and the three roads which follow Roman lines, Ermine Street, Watling Street, and Foss, held no peculiar position in the Romano-British road system (see Britain: Roman). In later times, the names Ermine Street, Icknield Street and Watling Street have been applied to other roads of Roman or supposed Roman origin. This, however, is wholly the work of Elizabethan or subsequent antiquaries and deserves no credence.
The derivations of the four names are unknown. Icknield, Ermine and Watling may be from English personal names; Foss, originally Fos, seems to be the Lat. fossa in its occasional medieval sense of a bank of upcast earth or stones, such as the agger of a road.  (F. J. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ermoldus Nigellus

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​ERMOLDUS NIGELLUS, or Ermold the Black, was a monk of Aquitaine, who accompanied King Pippin, son of the emperor Louis I., on a campaign into Brittany in 824. Subsequently he was banished from Pippin’s court on a charge of inciting the king against his father, and retired to Strassburg, where he sought to regain the emperor’s favour by writing a poem on his life and deeds. About 830 he obtained his recall, and has been identified with Hermoldus, who appears as Pippin’s chancellor in 838. Ermoldus was a cultured man with a knowledge of the Latin poets, and his poem, In honorem Hludovici imperatoris, has some historical value. It consists of four books and deals with the life and exploits of Louis from 781 to 826. He also wrote two poems in imitation of Ovid, which were addressed to Pippin.
His writings are published in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores, Band 2 (Hanover, 1826 fol.); by J. P. Migne in the Patrologia Latina, tome 105 (Paris, 1844); and by E. Dümmler in the Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini, Band 2 (Berlin, 1881–1884). See W. O. Henkel, Über den historischen Werth der Gedichte des Ermoldus Nigellus (Eilenburg, 1876); W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Band 1 (Berlin, 1904); and A. Potthast, Bibliotheca historica, pp. 430-431 (Berlin, 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Erne

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​ERNE, the name of a river and two lakes in the north-west of Ireland. The river rises in Lough Gowna, county Longford, 214 ft. above sea-level, flows north through Lough Oughter with a serpentine course and a direction generally northward, and then broadens into the Upper Lough Erne, a shallow irregular sheet of water 13 m. long, so beset with islands as to present the appearance of a number of water-channels ramifying through the land. The river then winds past the town of Enniskillen on its island, and enters Lough Erne, a beautiful lake nearly 18 m. long and 5 m. in extreme width, containing many islands, but less closely covered with them than the upper lough. One of them, Devenish, is celebrated for its antiquarian remains (see Enniskillen). The river then runs westward to Donegal Bay, forming a fine fall at Ballyshannon (q.v.). Lough Erne contains trout and pike. These waters admit of navigation by small steamers, but little trade is carried on. The area of ​the Erne basin, which includes a vast number of small loughs, is about 1600 sq. m., and it covers part of the counties Cavan, Longford, Leitrim, Fermanagh and Donegal. The length of the Erne valley is about 70 m.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aelia Capitolina

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​AELIA CAPITOLINA, the city built by the emperor Hadrian, A.D. 131, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem (q.v.), which was in ruins when he visited his Syrian dominions. Aelia is derived from the emperor’s family name, and Capitolina from that of Jupiter Capitolinus, to whom a temple was built on the site of the Jewish temple.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aelian (Claudius Aelinaus)

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​AELIAN (Claudius Aelianus), Roman author and teacher of rhetoric, born at Praeneste, flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus (d. 222). He spoke Greek so perfectly that he was called “honey-tongued” (μελίγλωσσος); although a Roman he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in Greek himself. His chief works are: On the Nature of Animals, curious and interesting stories of animal life, frequently used to convey moral lessons (ed. Schneider, 1784; Jacobs, 1832); Various History—for the most part preserved only in an abridged form—consisting mainly of anecdotes of men and customs (ed. Lünemann, 1811). Both works are valuable for the numerous excerpts from older writers. Considerable fragments of two other works On Providence and Divine Manifestations are preserved in Suidas; twenty Peasants’ Letters, after the manner of Alciphron but inferior, are also attributed to him.
Editio princeps of complete works by Gesner, 1556; Hercher, 1864–1866. English translation of the Various History only by Fleming, 1576, and Stanley, 1665; of the Letters by Quillard (French), 1895.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aelred

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​ÆLRED, Aired, Ethelred (1109–1166), English theologian, historical writer and abbot of Rievaulx, was born at Hexham about the year 1109. In his youth he was at the court of Scotland as an attendant of Henry, son of David I. He was in high favour with that sovereign, but renounced the prospect of a bishopric to enter the Cistercian house of Rievaulx in Yorkshire, which was founded in 1131 by Walter Espec. Here Ælred remained for some time as master of the novices, but between the years 1142 and 1146 was elected abbot of Revesby in Lincolnshire and migrated thither. In 1146 he became abbot of Rievaulx. He led a life of the severest asceticism, and was credited with the power of working miracles; owing to his reputation the numbers of Rievaulx were greatly increased. In 1164 he went as a missionary to the Picts of Galloway. He found their religion at a low ebb, the regular clergy apathetic and sensual, the bishop little obeyed, the laity divided by the family feuds of their rulers, unchaste and ignorant. He induced a Galwegian chief to take the habit of religion, and restored the peace of the country. Two years later he died of a decline, at Rievaulx, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. In the year 1191 he was canonized. His writings are voluminous and have never been completely published. Amongst them are homilies “on the burden of Babylon in Isaiah”; three books “on spiritual friendship”; a life of Edward the Confessor; an account of miracles wrought at Hexham, and the tract called Relatio de Standardo. This last is an account of the Battle of the Standard (1138), better known than the similar account by Richard of Hexham, but less trustworthy, and in places obscured by a peculiarly turgid rhetoric.
See Vita Alredi in John of Tynemouth’s Nova Legenda Anglie (ed. C. Horstmann, 1901, vol. i. p. 41), whence it was taken by Capgrave. From Capgrave the work passed into the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (Jan. ii p. 30). This life is anonymous, but of an early date. The most complete printed collection of Ælred’s works is in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, vol. cxcv.; but this does not include the Miracula Hagulstaldensis Ecclesiae which are printed in J. Raine’s Priory of Hexham, vol. i. (Surtees Society, 1864). A complete list of works attributed to Ælred is given in T. Tanner’s Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (1748), pp. 247-248. The Relatio de Standardo has been critically edited by R. Howlett in Chronicles, &c., of Stephen, Henry II. and Richard I., vol. iii. (Rolls Series, 1886). (H. W. C. D.)