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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Victoria (Brazil)

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​VICTORIA, a city and port of Brazil, capital of the state of Espirito Santo, on the W. side of an island at the head of the Bay of Espirito Santo, 270 m. N.E. of Rio de Janeiro, in lat. 20° 18′ S., long. 40° 20′ W. Pop. (1902, estimated) 9000. The city occupies the beach and talus at the base of a high, wooded mountain. The principal streets follow the water-line, rising in terraces from the shore, and are crossed by narrow, steep, roughly paved streets. The buildings are old and of the colonial type. The governor's residence is an old convent, with its church at one side. The entrance to the bay is rather tortuous and difficult, but is sufficiently deep for the largest vessels. It is defended by five small forts. The harbour is not large, but is safe and deep, being completely shut in by hills. A large quay, pier, warehouses, &c., facilitate the handling of cargoes, which were previously transported to and from the anchorage by lighters. Victoria is a port of call for coasting steamers and a shipping port in the coffee trade. The other exports are sugar, rice and mandioca (manioc) to home ports.
Victoria was founded in 1535 by Vasco Fernando Coutinho, on the S. side and nearer the entrance to the bay, and received the name of Espirito Santo. The old site is still occupied, and is known as Villa Velha (Old Town). The name of Victoria was adopted in 1558 in commemoration of a crushing defeat inflicted by Fernando da Sa on the allied tribes of the Aimorés, Tapininguins and Goitacazes in that year. It was attacked (1592) by the freebooter Cavendish, who was repelled by one of the forts at the entrance to the bay.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Victual

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​VICTUAL, food, provisions, most commonly in the plural, “victuals.” The word and its pronunciation came into English from the O. Fr. vitaille. The modern French and English spelling are due to a pedantic approximation to the Latin original, victualia, a neuter plural substantive formed from victualis, victus, nourishment, provisions (vivere, to live). The most familiar use of the term is in “licensed victualler,” to which the Licensing Act 1872 (§ 27) has applied the wide significance of any person selling any intoxicating liquor under a licence from a justice of the peace. Properly a “victualling house” is one where persons are provided with food and drink but not lodgings, and is thus distinct from an inn, which also provides the last.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vidin

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​VIDIN (formerly written Widin or Widdin), a fortified river-port and the capital of a department in the extreme N.E. of Bulgaria; on the right bank of the river Danube, near the Servian frontier and 151 m. W.N.W. of Sofia. Pop. (1906) 16,168, including about 3000 Turks and 1500 Spanish Jews—descendants of the refugees who fled hither from the Inquisition in the 16th century. Vidin is an episcopal see and the headquarters of a brigade; it was formerly a stronghold of some importance, and was rendered difficult to besiege by the surrounding marshes, formed where the Topolovitza and other streams join the Danube. A steam ferry connects it with Calafat, on the Rumanian bank of the Danube, and there is a branch railway to Mezdra, on the main line Sofia-Plevna. The city consists of three divisions—the modern suburbs extending beside the Danube, the citadel and the old town, still surrounded by walls, though only four of its nine towers remain standing. The old town, containing several mosques and synagogues and a bazaar, preserves its oriental appearance; the citadel is used as a military magazine. There are a modern cathedral, a school of viticulture and a high school, besides an ancient clock-tower and the palace (Konak) formerly occupied by the Turkish pashas. Vidin exports cereals and fruit, and is locally celebrated for its gold and silver filigree. It has important fisheries and manufactures of spirits, beer and tobacco.
Vidin stands on the site of the Roman town of Bononia in Moesia Superior, not to be confounded with the Pannonian Bononia, which stood higher up the Danube to the north of Sirmium. Its name figures conspicuously in the military annals of medieval and recent times; and it is specially memorable for the overthrow of the Turks by the imperial forces in 1689 and for the crushing defeat of the hospodar Michael Sustos by Pasvan Oglu in 1801. It was again the scene of stirring events during the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1854-55 and 1877-78, and successfully resisted the assaults of the Servians in the Servo-Bulgarian War of 1886-87 .
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Victorinus, Gaius Marius

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​VICTORINUS, GAIUS MARIUS (4th century A.D.), Roman grammarian, rhetorician and neo-Platonic philosopher, an African by birth (whence his surname Afer), lived during the reign of Constantius II. He taught rhetoric at Rome (one of his pupils being Jerome), and in his old age became a convert to Christianity. His conversion is said to have greatly influenced that of Augustine. When Julian published an edict forbidding Christians to lecture on polite literature, Victorinus closed his school. A statue was erected in his honour as a teacher in the Forum Trajanum.
His translations of platonic writers are lost, but the treatise De Definitionibus (ed. T. Stangl in Tulliana et Mario-Victoriniana, Munich, 1888) is probably by him and not by Boetius, to whom it was formerly attributed. His manual of prosody, in four books, taken almost literally from the work of Aphthonius, is extant (H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, vi.). It is doubtful whether he is the author of certain other extant treatises attributed to him on metrical and grammatical subjects, which will be found in Keil. His commentary on Cicero's De Inventione (in Halm's Rhetores Latini Minores, 1863) is very diffuse, and is itself in need of commentary. His extant theological writings, which will be found in J. P. Migne, Cursus Patrologiae Latinae, viii., include commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians; De Trinitate contra Arium; Ad Justinum Manichaeum de Vera Carne Christi; and a little tract on “The Evening and the Morning were one day” (the genuineness of the last two is doubtful). Some Christian poems under the name of Victorinus are probably not his.
See G. Geiger, C. Marius Victorinus Afer, ein neuplatonischer Philosoph (Metten, 1888); G. Koffmann, De Mario Victorino philosopho Christiano (Breslau, 1880); R. Schmid, Marius Victorinus Rhetor und seine Beziehungen zu Augustin (Kiel, 1895); Gore in Dictionary of Christian Biography, iv.; M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, iv. 1 (1904); Teuffel, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. tr., 1900), 408.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vidame

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​VIDAME (Lat. vice-dominus), a French feudal title. The vidame was originally, like the avoué (advocatus), an official chosen by the bishop of the diocese, with the consent of the count (see Advocate) Unlike the advocate, however, the vice-dominus was at the outset an ecclesiastic, who acted as the bishop's lieutenant (locum tenens) or vicar But the causes that changed the character of the advocatus operated also in the case of the vidame. During the Carolingian epoch, indeed, advocatus and vice-dominus were interchangeable terms, and it was only in the 11th century that they became generally differentiated: the title of avoué being commonly reserved for nobles charged with the protection of an abbey, that of vidame for those guarding an episcopal see. With the crystallization of the feudal system in the 12th century the office of vidame, like that of avoué, had become an hereditary fief. As a title, however, it was much less common and also less dignified than that of avoué. The advocati were often great barons who added their function of protector of an abbey to their own temporal sovereignty, whereas the vidames were usually petty nobles, who exercised their office in strict subordination to the bishop. Their chief functions were: to protect the temporalities of the see, to represent the bishop at the count's court of justice, to exercise the bishop's temporal jurisdiction in his name (placitum or curia vice-domini) and to lead the episcopal levies to war. In return they usually had a house near the episcopal palace, a domain within and without the city, and sometimes the right to levy certain dues on the city. The vidames usually took their title from the see they represented, but not infrequently they styled themselves, not after their official fief, but after ​their private seigneuries. Thus the vidame de Picquigny was the representative of the bishop of Amiens, the vidame de Gerberoy of the bishop of Beauvais. In many sees there were no vidames, their function being exercised by viscounts or châtelaines. With the growth of the central power and of that of the municipalities the vidames gradually lost all importance, and the title became merely honorary.
See A. Luchaire, Manuel des institutions françaises (Paris, 1892); Du Cange, Glossarium (ed. Niort, 1887), s. “Vice-dominus”; A. Mallet, “Étude hist. sur les avoués et les vidames,” in Position des theses de l'École des chartes (an. 1870-72).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vida, Marco Girolamo

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​VIDA, MARCO GIROLAMO (c. 1489-1566), Italian scholar and Latin poet, was born at Cremona shortly before the year 1490. He received the name of Marcantonio in baptism, but changed this to Marco Girolamo when he entered the order of the Canonici Regolari Lateranensi. During his early manhood he acquired considerable fame by the composition of two didactic poems in the Latin tongue, on the Game of Chess (Scacchiae Ludus) and on the Silkworm (Bombyx). This reputation induced him to seek the papal court in Rome, which was rapidly becoming the headquarters of polite learning, the place where students might expect advancement through their literary talents. Vida reached Rome in the last years of the pontificate of Julius II. Leo X, on succeeding to the papal chair (1513), treated him with marked favour, bestowed on him the priory of St Sylvester at Frascati, and bade him compose a heroic Latin poem on the life of Christ. Such was the origin of the Christiad, Vida's most celebrated, if not his best, performance. It did not, however, see the light in Leo's lifetime. Between the years 1520 and 1527 Vida produced the second of his masterpieces in Latin hexameters, a didactic poem on the Art of Poetry (see Baldi's edition, Würzburg, 1881). Clement VII raised him to the rank of apostolic protonotary, and in 1532 conferred on him the bishopric of Alba. It is probable that he took up his residence in this town soon after the death of Clement; and here he spent the greater portion of his remaining years. Vida attended the council of Trent, where he enjoyed the society of Cardinals Cervini, Pole and Del Monte, together with his friend the poet Flaminio. A record of their conversations may be studied in Vida's Latin dialogue De Republica. Among his other writings should be mentioned three eloquent orations in defence of Cremona against Pavia, composed upon the occasion of some dispute as to precedency between those two cities. Vida died at Alba on the 27th of September 1566.
See the Life by Lancetti (Milan, 1840).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walthamstow

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​WALTHAMSTOW, a suburb of London in the Walthamstow parliamentary division of Essex, England, a short distance E. of the river Lea, with several stations on a branch of the Great Eastern railway, 6 m. N. of Liverpool Street station. Pop. of urban district (1891) 46,346; (1901) 95,131. It is sheltered on the north and east by low hills formerly included in Epping Forest. The church of St Mary existed at a very early period, but the present building, chiefly of brick, was erected in 1535 by Robert Thorne, a merchant, and Sir George Monoux, lord mayor of London, and has undergone frequent alteration. Besides other old brasses it contains in the north aisle the effigies in brass of Sir George Monoux (d. 1543) and Anne his wife. There are a number of educational institutions, including a school of art; Forest School, founded in 1834 in connexion with King's College, now ranks as one of the well-known English public schools. Brewing is extensively carried on.
In the reign of Edward the Confessor Walthamstow belonged to Waltheof, son of Siward, earl of Northumberland, who married Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, who betrayed him to his death in 1073. The estate subsequently passed in 1309 to Guy de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and on the attainder of Earl Thomas in 1396 reverted to the crown. Afterwards it came into the possession of Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset; from the Somersets it passed to Sir George Rodney, and in 1639 came to the Maynard family. It is supposed to have been the birthplace of George Gascoigne the poet (d. 1577). Sir William Batten, commissioner of the navy (d. 1667), the friend of Pepys, had his seat at Walthamstow, and was frequently visited here by Pepys.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walton-on-Thames

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​WALTON-ON-THAMES, an urban district in the Epsom parliamentary division of Surrey, England, pleasantly situated on the right bank of the Thames, 17 m. W.S.W. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 10,329. The church of St Mary has late Norman portions, and contains numerous memorials, including examples of the work of Chantrey and Roubiliac. A verse inscribed upon a pillar is reputed to be Queen Elizabeth's profession of faith as regards transubstantiation. The queen was a frequent resident at Henry VIII.'s palace of Oatlands Park, which was destroyed during the civil wars of the 17th century. The property subsequently passed through various hands, and the park is reduced in extent by the modern growth of villas surrounding it. It contains, however, a remarkable grotto built of mineral and stalactitic rock, shells and other similar materials, by one of the earls of Lincoln when owner. Ashley Park, a Tudor mansion (in the main modernized), attributed to Cardinal Wolsey, was at times the residence of Cromwell; while John Bradshaw, who, as lord president of the court, sentenced Charles I. to death, occupied the old manor house of Walton. Walton is a favourite resort of anglers and boating parties.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Waltheof

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​WALTHEOF (d. 1076), earl of Northumbria, was a son of Earl Siward of Northumbria, and, although he was probably educated for a monastic life, became earl of Huntingdon and Northampton about 1065. After the battle of Hastings he submitted to William the Conqueror; but when the Danes invaded the north of England in 1069 he joined them and took part in the attack on York, only, however, to make a fresh submission after their departure in 1070. Then, restored to his earldom, he married William’s niece, Judith, and in 1072 was appointed earl of Northumbria. In 1075 Waltheof joined the conspiracy against the king arranged by the earls of Norfolk and Hereford; but soon repenting of his action he confessed his guilt to Archbishop Lanfranc, and then to William, who was in Normandy. Returning to England with William he was arrested, and after being brought twice before the king’s court was sentenced to death. On the 31st of May 1076 he was beheaded on St Giles’s Hill, near Winchester. Weak and unreliable in character, Waltheof, like his father, is said to have been a man of immense bodily strength. Devout and charitable, he was regarded by the English as a martyr, and miracles were said to have been worked at his tomb at Crowland. The earl left three daughters, the eldest of whom, Matilda, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I., king of Scotland. One of Waltheof’s grandsons was Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of Melrose.
See E. A. Freeman, The Norman Conquest, vols, ii., iii. and iv. (1870–1876).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walther, Bernhard

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​WALTHER, BERNHARD (1430-1504), German astronomer, was born at Nuremberg in 1430. He was a man of large means, which he devoted to scientific pursuits. When Regiomontanus (q.v.) settled at Nuremberg in 1471, Walther built for their common use an observatory at which in 1484 clocks driven by weights were first used in astronomical determinations. He further brought into prominence the effects of refraction in altering the apparent places of the heavenly bodies, and substituted Venus for the moon as a connecting-link between observations of the sun and stars. Walther established a printing-press, from which some of the earliest editions of astronomical works were issued. His observations, begun in 1475 and continued until his death in May 1504, were published by J. Schöner in 1544, and by W. Snell in 1618, as an appendix to his Observationes Hassiaceae.
See J. G. Doppelmayr, Hist. Nachricht von den nürnbergischen Mathematicis, p. 23 (1730); G. A. Will, Nürnbergisches Gelehrten-Lexikon, vii. 381 (1806); J. F. Montucla, Hist. des mathématiques, i. 546; J. S. Bailly, Hist. de l’astr. moderne, i. 319; E. F. Apelt, Die Reformation der Sternkunde, p. 54; J. P. von Wurzelbaur, Uranies Noricae basis astronomica (1719); J. F. Weidler, Hist. astronomiae, p. 322; A. G. Kästner, Geschichte der Mathematik, ii. 324; Mitteilungen des Vereins für Gesch. der Stadt Nürnberg, vii. 237 (1888) (H. Petz); R. Wolf, Gesch. der Astr. p. 92, &c.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walton-le-Dale

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​WALTON-LE-DALE, an urban district in the Darwen parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, on the S. bank of the Ribble, immediately above Preston. Pop. (1901) 11,271. The church of St Leonard, situated on an eminence to the east of the town, was originally erected in the 11th century. The earliest portions of the present building are the Perpendicular chancel and tower, the nave having been rebuilt in 1798, while the transepts were erected in 1816. There are a number of interesting old brasses and monuments. Cotton-spinning is carried on, and there are market-gardens in the vicinity. Roman remains have been found here, and there was perhaps a roadside post on the site. The manor of Walton was granted by Henry de Lacy about 1130 to Robert Banastre. It afterwards passed by marriage to the Langtons, and about 1392 to the Hoghtons of Hoghton. Walton was the principal scene of the great battle of Preston, fought on the 17th of August 1648 between Cromwell and the duke of Hamilton. In 1701 the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Derwentwater and other Jacobites incorporated the town by the style of the “mayor and corporation of the ancient borough of Walton.” In 1715 the passage of the Ribble was bravely defended against the Jacobites by Parson Woods and his parishioners of Atherton (q.v.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vranya

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​VRANYA, or Vranyé, the most southerly town of the kingdom of Servia, 71 m. from the Macedonian frontier, on a slope descending from Mount Placevitza to the plain of the Upper Morava, in a picturesque and fertile country. Pop. (1900) 11,921. In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 it was captured by the Servian army from the Turks, and subsequently was incorporated in the kingdom. It is the capital of a department of the same name, and is an important station on the railway from Nish to Salonica, with a custom house, principally for merchandise imported into Servia via Salonica. Its inhabitants are employed chiefly in the cultivation of flax and hemp, and in the making of ropes. There is a much frequented summer resort 41/2 m. E., called Vranyska Banya, with baths of hot sulphurous mineral water.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vriendt, Juliaen Joseph de and Albrecht François Lieven de

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​VRIENDT, JULIAEN JOSEPH DE (1842–), and ALBRECHT FRANÇOIS LIEVEN DE (1843–1900), Belgian painters, both born at Ghent, sons of a decorative painter. The two brothers were close friends, and their works show marked signs of resemblance. Having received their early training from their father at Ghent, they removed to Antwerp, where they soon yielded to the influence of the painter Baron Henri Leys. Albrecht became director of the Academy of Fine Arts at Antwerp and was succeeded by his brother. Albrecht’s principal works are “Jacqueline of Bavaria imploring Philip the Good to pardon her Husband” (1871, Liége Gallery), “The Excommunication of Bouchard d’Avesnes” (1877, Brussels Gallery), “The Angelus” (1877, acquired by Leopold II., king of the Belgians), “Pope Paul III. before Luther’s Portrait” (1883, Antwerp Gallery), “The Citizens of Ghent paying homage to the child Charles V.” (1885, Brussels Gallery), “Philip the Handsome swearing fidelity to the privileges of the Town of Fumes” (1893, Furnes town hall), “The Virgin of St Luc” (1894, triptych in Antwerp Cathedral), and the decoration of the municipal hall at Bruges, which was completed by his brother. Among Juliaen’s more notable works are “The Citizens of Eisenach driving out St Elizabeth of Hungary” (1871, Liége Gallery), “Jairus’s Daughter” (1888, Antwerp Gallery), mural paintings in the Palais de Justice at Antwerp (1893), and “The Christmas Carol” (1894, Brussels Gallery).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vryheid

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​Vryheid, a town of northern Natal, 291 m. by rail N. by W. of Durban. Pop. (1904) 2287, of whom 1344 were whites. It is the chief town of a district, of the same name, rich in mineral wealth, including copper, coal and gold. The coalfields of Hlobane are S.E. of the town. Originally part of Zululand the district of Vryheid was ceded by Dinizulu to a party of Boers under Lucas Meyer, who aided him to crush his opponents, and was proclaimed an independent state under the title of the New Republic in 1884. In 1888 it was incorporated with the Transvaal and in 1903 annexed to Natal (see Transvaal, § History; and Zululand, § History).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vulgate

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​Vulgate (from Lat. vulgus, the common people), a Latin version of the Bible prepared in the 4th century by St Jerome, and so called from its common use in the Roman Catholic Church (see Bible: Texts and Versions). Pius X. in 1908 entrusted to the Benedictine Order the task of revising the text, beginning with the Old Testament.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vrancx, Sebastian

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​VRANCX, SEBASTIAN, born about 1572, was a painter of the Antwerp school, of very moderate ability. Most of his pictures represent scenes of war, such as the sack of towns, cavalry combats and the like. Though occasionally vigorous in drawing, his paintings are dull and heavy in tone. The date of his death is uncertain.