OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Firmicus, Maternus Julius

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​FIRMICUS, MATERNUS JULIUS, a Latin writer, who lived in the reign of Constantine and his successors. About the year 346 he composed a work entitled De erroribus profanarum religionum, which he inscribed to Constantius and Constans, the sons of Constantine, and which is still extant. In the first part (chs. 1-17) he attacks the false objects of worship among the Oriental cults; in the second (chs. 18-29) he discusses a number of formulae and rites connected with the mysteries. The whole tone of the work is fanatical and declamatory rather than argumentative, and is thus in such sharp contrast with the eight books on astronomy (Libri VIII. Matheseos) bearing the same author’s name, that the two works have usually been attributed to different writers. Mommsen (Hermes vol. 29, pp. 468-472) has, however, shown that the astronomy—a work interfused with an urbane Neoplatonic spirit—was composed about 336 and not in 354 as was formerly held. When we add to this the similarity of style, and the fact that each betrays a connexion with Sicily, there is the strongest reason for claiming the same author for the two books, though it shows that in the 4th century acceptance of Christianity did not always mean an advance in ethical standpoint.
The Christian work is preserved in a Palatine MS. in the Vatican library. It was first printed at Strassburg in 1562, and has been reprinted several times, both separately and along with the writings of Minucius Felix, Cyprian or Arnobius. The most correct editions are those by Conr. Bursian (Leipzig, 1856), and by C. Halm, in his Minucius Felix (Corp. Scr. Eccl. Lat. ii.), (Vienna, 1867). The Neoplatonist work was first printed by Aldus Manutius in 1501, and has often been reprinted. For full discussions see G. Ebert, Gesch. der chr. lat. Litt., ed. 1889, p. 129 ff.; O. Bardenhewer, Patrologie, ed. 1901, p. 354.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/First-foot

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​FIRST-FOOT, in British folklore, especially that of the north and Scotland, the first person who crosses the threshold on Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Good or ill luck is believed to be brought the house by First-Foot, and a female First-Foot is regarded with dread. In Lancashire a light-haired man is as unlucky as a woman, and it became a custom for dark-haired males to hire themselves out to “take the New Year in.” In Worcestershire luck is ensured by stopping the first carol-singer who appears and leading him through the house. In Yorkshire it must always be a male who enters the house first, but his fairness is no objection. In Scotland first-footing was always more elaborate than in England, involving a subsequent entertainment.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Firman

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​FIRMAN (an adaptation of the Per. fermān, a mandate or patent, cognate with the Sanskrit pramāna, a measure, authority), an edict of an oriental sovereign, used specially to designate decrees, grants, passports, &c., issued by the sultan of Turkey and signed by one of his ministers. A decree bearing the sultan’s sign-manual and drawn up with special formalities is termed a hatti-sherif, Arabic words meaning a line, writing or command, and lofty, noble. A written decree of an Ottoman sultan is also termed an irade, the word being taken from the Arab. irādā, will, volition, order.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Liebermann, Max

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​LIEBERMANN, MAX (1849– ), German painter and etcher, was born in Berlin. After studying under Steffeck, he entered the school of art at Weimar in 1869. Though the straightforward simplicity of his first exhibited picture, “Women plucking Geese,” in 1872, presented already a striking contrast to the conventional art then in vogue, it was heavy and bituminous in colour, like all the artist’s paintings before his visit to Paris at the end of 1872. A summer spent at Barbizon in 1873, where he became personally acquainted with Millet and had occasion to study the works of Corot, Troyon, and Daubigny, resulted in the clearing and brightening of his palette, and taught him to forget the example of Munkacsy, under whose influence he had produced his first pictures in Paris. He subsequently went to Holland, where the example of Israels confirmed him in the method he had adopted at Barbizon; but on his return to Munich in 1878 he caused much unfavourable criticism by his realistic painting of “Christ in the Temple,” which was condemned by the clergy as irreverent and remained his only attempt at a scriptural subject. Henceforth he devoted himself exclusively to the study of free-light and to the painting of the life of humble folk. He found his best subjects in the orphanages and asylums for the old in Amsterdam, among the peasants in the fields and village streets of Holland, and in the beer-gardens, factories, and workrooms of his own country. Germany was reluctant, however, in admitting the merit of an artist whose style and method were so markedly at variance with the time-honoured academic tradition. Only when his fame was echoed back from France, Belgium, and Holland did his compatriots realize the eminent position which is his due in the history of German art. It is hardly too much to say that Liebermann has done for his country what Millet did for France. His pictures hold the fragrance of the soil and the breezes of the heavens. His people move in their proper atmosphere, and their life is stated in all its monotonous simplicity, without artificial pathos or melodramatic exaggeration. His first success was a medal awarded him for “An Asylum for Old Men” at the 1881 Salon. In 1884 he settled again in Berlin, where he became professor of the Academy in 1898. He became a member of the Société nationale des Beaux Arts, of the Société royale belge des Aquarellistes, and of the Cercle des Aquarellistes at the Hague. Liebermann is represented in most of the German and other continental galleries. The Berlin National Gallery owns “The Flax-Spinners”; the Munich Pinakothek, “The Woman with Goats”; the Hamburg Gallery, “The Net-Menders”; the Hanover Gallery, the “Village Street in Holland.” “The Seamstress” is at the Dresden Gallery; the “Man on the Dunes” at Leipzig; “Dutch Orphan Girls” at Strassburg; “Beer-cellar at Brandenburg” at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, and the “Knöpflerinnen” in Venice. His etchings are to be found in the leading print cabinets of Europe.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lie, Marius Sophus

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​LIE, MARIUS SOPHUS (1842–1899), Norwegian mathematician, was born at Nordfjordeif, near Bergen, on the 17th of December 1842, and was educated at the university of Christiania, where he took his doctor’s degree in 1868 and became extraordinary professor of mathematics (a chair created specially for him) four years later. In 1886 he was chosen to succeed Felix Klein in the chair of geometry at Leipzig, but as his fame grew a special post was arranged for him in Christiania. But his health was broken down by too assiduous study, and he died at Christiania on the 18th of February 1899, six months after his return. Lie’s work exercised a great influence on the progress of mathematical science during the later decades of the 19th century. His primary aim has been declared to be the advancement and elaboration of the theory of differential equations, and it was with this end in view that he developed his theory of transformation groups, set forth in his Theorie der Transformationsgruppen (3 vols., Leipzig, 1888–1893), a work of wide range and great originality, by which probably his name is best known. A special application of his theory of continuous groups was to the general problem of non-Euclidean geometry. The latter part of the book above mentioned was devoted to a study of the foundations of geometry, considered from the standpoint of B. Riemann and H. von Helmholtz; and he intended to publish a systematic exposition of his geometrical investigations, in conjunction with Dr G. Scheffers, but only one volume made its appearance (Geometrie der Berührungstransformationen, Leipzig, 1896). Lie was a foreign member of the Royal Society, as well as an honorary member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and the London Mathematical Society, and his geometrical inquiries gained him the much-coveted honour of the Lobatchewsky prize.
An analysis of Lie’s works is given in the Bibliotheca Mathematica (Leipzig, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Liege

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​LIEGE, an adjective implying the mutual relationship of a feudal superior and his vassal; the word is used as a substantive of the feudal superior, more usually in this sense, however, in the form “liege lord,” and also of the vassals, his “lieges.” Hence the word is often used of the loyal subjects of a sovereign, with no reference to feudal ties. It appears that ligeitas or ligentia, the medieval Latin term for this relationship, was restricted to a particular form of homage. According to N. Broussel (Nouvel examen de l’usage général des fiefs en France, 1727) the homage of a “liege” was a stronger form of the ordinary homage, the especial distinction being that while the ordinary vassal only undertook forty days’ military service, the liege promised to serve as long as the war might last, in which his superior was engaged (cf. Ducange, Glossarium, s.v. “Ligius”).
The etymology of the word has been much discussed. It comes into English through the O. Fr. lige or liege, Med. Lat. ligius. This was early connected with the Lat. ligatus, bound, ligare, to bind, from the sense of the obligation of the vassal to his lord, but this has been generally abandoned. Broussel takes the Med. Lat. liga, i.e., foedus, confederatio, the English “league,” as the origin. Ducange connects it with the word lities, which appears in a gloss of the Salic law, and is defined as a scriptitius, servus glebae. The more usually accepted derivation is now from the Old High Ger. ledic, or ledig, meaning “free” (Mod. Ger. ledig means unoccupied, vacuus). This is confirmed by the occurrence in a charter of Otto of Benthem, 1253, of a word “ledigh-man” (quoted in Ducange, Glossarium, s.v.), Proinde affecti sumus ligius homo, quod Teutonice dictur Ledighman. Skeat, in explaining the application of “free” to such a relationship as that subsisting between a feudal superior and his vassal, says “’a liege lord’ seems to have been the lord of a free band; and his lieges, though serving under him, were privileged men, free from all other obligations; their name being due to their freedom, not to their service” (Etym. Dict., ed. 1898). A. Luchaire (Manuel des institutions françaises, 1892, p. 189, n. 1) considers it difficult to call a man “free” who is under a strict obligation to another; further that the “liege” was not free from all obligation to a third party, for the charters prove without doubt that the “liege men” owed duty to more than one lord.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Liddesdale

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​LIDDESDALE, the valley of Liddel Water, Roxburghshire, Scotland, extending in a south-westerly direction from the vicinity of Peel Fell to the Esk, a distance of 21 m. The Waverley route of the North British railway runs down the dale, and the Catrail, or Picts’ Dyke, crosses its head. At one period the points of vantage on the river and its affluents were occupied with freebooters’ peel-towers, but many of them have disappeared and the remainder are in decay. Larriston Tower belonged to the Elliots, Mangerton to the Armstrongs and Park to “little Jock Elliot,” the outlaw who nearly killed Bothwell in an encounter in 1566. The chief point of interest in the valley, however, is Hermitage Castle, a vast, massive H-shaped fortress of enormous strength, one of the oldest baronial buildings in Scotland. It stands on a hill overlooking Hermitage Water, a tributary of the Liddel. It was built in 1244 by Nicholas de Soulis and was captured by the English in David II.’s reign. It was retaken by Sir William Douglas, who received a grant of it from the king. In 1492 Archibald Douglas, 5th earl of Angus, exchanged it for Bothwell Castle on the Clyde with Patrick Hepburn, 1st earl of Bothwell. It finally passed to the duke of Buccleuch, under whose care further ruin has been arrested. It was here that Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie was starved to death by Sir William Douglas in 1342, and that James Hepburn, 4th earl of Bothwell, was visited by Mary, queen of Scots, after the assault referred to.
To the east of the castle is Ninestane Rig, a hill 943 ft. high, 4 m. long and 1 m. broad, where it is said that William de Soulis, hated for oppression and cruelty, was (in 1320) boiled by his own vassals in a copper cauldron, which was supported on two of the nine stones which composed the “Druidical” circle that gave the ridge its name. Only five of the stones remain. James Telfer (1802–1862), the writer of ballads, who was born in the parish of Southdean (pronounced Soudan), was for several years schoolmaster of Saughtree, near the head of the valley. The castle of the lairds of Liddesdale stood near the junction of Hermitage Water and the Liddel and around it grew up the village of Castleton.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lieber, Francis

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​LIEBER, FRANCIS (1800–1872), German-American publicist, was born at Berlin on the 18th of March 1800. He served with his two brothers under Blücher in the campaign of 1815, fighting at Ligny, Waterloo and Namur, where he was twice dangerously wounded. Shortly afterwards he was arrested for his political sentiments, the chief evidence against him being several songs of liberty which he had written. After several months he was discharged without a trial, but was forbidden to pursue his studies at the Prussian universities. He accordingly went to Jena, where he took his degrees in 1820, continuing his studies at Halle and Dresden. He subsequently took part in the Greek War of Independence, publishing his experiences in his Journal in Greece (Leipzig, 1823, and under the title The German Anacharsis, Amsterdam, 1823). For a year he was in Rome as tutor to the son of the historian Niebuhr, then Prussian ambassador. Returning to Berlin in 1823, he was imprisoned at Koepenik, but was released after some months through the influence of Niebuhr. In 1827 he went to the United States and as soon as possible was naturalized as a citizen. He settled at Boston, and for five years edited The Encyclopaedia Americana (13 vols.). From 1835 to 1856 he was professor of history and political economy in South Carolina College at Columbia, S.C., and during this period wrote his three chief works, Manual of Political Ethics (1838), Legal and Political Hermeneutics (1839), and Civil Liberty and Self Government (1853). In 1856 he resigned and next year was elected to a similar post in Columbia College, New York, and in 1865 became professor of constitutional history and public law in the same institution. During the Civil War Lieber rendered services of great value to the government. He was one of the first to point out the madness of secession, and was active in upholding the Union. He prepared, upon the requisition of the president, the important Code of War for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field, which was promulgated by the Government in General Orders No. 100 of the war department. This code suggested to Bluntschli his codification of the law of nations, as may be seen in the preface to his Droit International Codifié. During this period also Lieber wrote his Guerilla Parties with Reference to the Laws and Usages of War. At the time of his death he was the umpire of the commission for the adjudication of Mexican claims. He died on the 2nd of October 1872. His books were acquired by the University of California, and his papers were placed in the Johns Hopkins University.
His Miscellaneous Writings were published by D. C. Gilman (Philadelphia, 1881). See T. S. Perry, Life and Letters (1882), and biography by Harby (1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Larra, Mariano José de

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​LARRA, MARIANO JOSÉ DE (1809–1837), Spanish satirist, was born at Madrid in 1809. His father served as a regimental doctor in the French army, and was compelled to leave the ​Peninsula with his family in 1812. In 1817 Larra returned to Spain, knowing less Spanish than French. His nature was disorderly, his education was imperfect, and, after futile attempts to obtain a degree in medicine or law, he made an imprudent marriage at the age of twenty, broke with his relatives and became a journalist. On the 27th of April 1831 he produced his first play, No más mostrador, based on two pieces by Scribe and Dieulafoy. Though wanting in originality, it is brilliantly written, and held the stage for many years. On the 24th of September 1834 he produced Macías, a play based on his own historical novel, El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente (1834). The drama and novel are interesting as experiments, but Larra was essentially a journalist, and the increased liberty of the press after the death of Ferdinand VII. gave his caustic talent an ampler field. He was already famous under the pseudonyms of “Juan Pérez de Munguía” and “Figaro” which he used in El Pobrecito Hablador and La Revista Española respectively. Madrid laughed at his grim humour; ministers feared his vitriolic pen and courted him assiduously; he was elected as deputy for Ávila, and a great career seemed to lie before him. But the era of military pronunciamientos ruined his personal prospects and patriotic plans. His writing took on a more sombre tinge; domestic troubles increased his pessimism, and, in consequence of a disastrous love-affair, he committed suicide on the 13th of February 1837. Larra lived long enough to prove himself the greatest prose-writer that Spain can boast during the 19th century. He wrote at great speed with the constant fear of the censor before his eyes, but no sign of haste is discernible in his work, and the dexterity with which he aims his venomous shafts is amazing. His political instinct, his abundance of ideas and his forcible, mordant style would have given him a foremost position at any time and in any country; in Spain, and in his own period, they placed him beyond all rivalry. (J. F.-K.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Larkhall

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​LARKHALL, a mining and manufacturing town of Lanarkshire, Scotland, near the left bank of the Clyde, 1 m. S.E. of Glasgow by the Caledonian railway. Pop. (1901) 11,879. The highest bridge in Scotland has been thrown across the river Avon, which flows close by. Brick-making is carried on at several of the adjoining collieries. Other industries include bleaching, silk-weaving, fire-clay and enamelling works, and a sanitary appliances factory. The town has a public hall and baths.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Larkhana

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​LARKHANA, a town and district of British India, in Sind, Bombay. The town is on a canal not far from the Indus, and has a station on the North-Western railway, 281 m. N. by E. of Karachi. It is pleasantly situated in a fertile locality, and is well laid out with wide streets and spacious gardens. It is a centre of trade, with manufactures of cotton, silk, leather, metal-ware and paper. Pop. (1901) 14,543.
The District of Larkhana, lying along the right bank of the Indus, was formed out of portions of Sukkur and Karachi districts in 1901, and has an area of 5091 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 656,083, showing an increase of 10% in the decade. Its western part is mountainous, but the remainder is a plain of alluvium watered by canals and well cultivated, being the most fertile part of Sind. The staple grain-crops are rice, wheat and millets, which are exported, together with wool, cotton and other agricultural produce. Cotton cloth, carpets, salt and leather goods are manufactured, and dyeing is an important industry. The district is served by the North-Western railway.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lartet, Edouard

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​LARTET, EDOUARD (1801–1871), French archaeologist, was born in 1801 near Castelnau-Barbarens, department of Gers, France, where his family had lived for more than five hundred years. He was educated for the law at Auch and Toulouse, but having private means elected to devote himself to science. The then recent work of Cuvier on fossil mammalia encouraged Lartet in excavations which led in 1834 to his first discovery of fossil remains in the neighbourhood of Auch. Thenceforward he devoted his whole time to a systematic examination of the French caves, his first publication on the subject being The Antiquity of Man in Western Europe (1860), followed in 1861 by New Researches on the Coexistence of Man and of the Great Fossil Mammifers characteristic of the Last Geological Period. In this paper he made public the results of his discoveries in the cave of Aurignac, where evidence existed of the contemporaneous existence of man and extinct mammals. In his work in the Périgord district Lartet had the aid of Henry Christy (q.v.). The first account of their joint researches appeared in a paper descriptive of the Dordogne caves and contents, published in Revue archéologique (1864). The important discoveries in the Madeleine cave and elsewhere were published by Lartet and Christy under the title Reliquiae Aquitanicae, the first part appearing in 1865. Christy died before the completion of the work, but Lartet continued it until his breakdown in health in 1870. The most modest and one of the most illustrious of the founders of modern palaeontology, Lartet’s work had previously been publicly recognized by his nomination as an officer of the Legion of Honour; and in 1848 he had had the offer of a political post. In 1857 he had been elected a foreign member of the Geological Society of London, and a few weeks before his death he had been made professor of palaeontology at the museum of the Jardin des Plantes. He died at Seissan in January 1871.