OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Grimthorpe, Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron

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​GRIMTHORPE, EDMUND BECKETT, 1st Baron (1816–1905), son of Sir Edmund Beckett Denison, was born on the 12th of May 1816. He was educated at Doncaster and Eton, whence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated thirtieth wrangler in 1838. He was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1841. Upon succeeding to the baronetcy in 1874 he dropped the name of Denison, which his father had assumed in 1816. From 1877 to 1900 he was chancellor and vicar-general of York, and he was raised to the peerage in 1886. He was made a Q.C. in 1854, and was for many years a leader of the Parliamentary Bar. He devoted himself to the study of astronomy, horology and architecture, more especially Gothic ecclesiastical architecture. As early as 1850 he had become a recognized authority on clocks, watches and bells, and in particular on the construction of turret clocks, for he had designed Dent’s Great Exhibition clock, and his Rudimentary Treatise had gone through many editions. In 1851 he was called upon, in conjunction with the astronomer royal (Mr, afterwards Sir, G. B. Airy) and Mr Dent, to design a suitable clock for the new Houses of Parliament. The present tower clock, popularly known as “Big Ben,” was constructed after Lord Grimthorpe’s designs. In a number of burning questions during his time Lord Grimthorpe took a prominent part. It is, however, in connexion with the restoration of St Albans Abbey that he is most widely known. The St Albans Abbey Reparation Committee, which had been in existence since 1871, and for which Sir Gilbert Scott had carried out some admirable repairs, obtained a faculty from the Diocesan Court in 1877 to repair and restore the church and fit it for cathedral and parochial services. Very soon, however, the committee found itself unable to raise the necessary funds, and it was at this juncture that a new faculty was granted to Lord Grimthorpe (then Sir Edmund Beckett) to “restore, repair and refit” the abbey at his own expense. Lord Grimthorpe made it an express stipulation that the work should be done according to his own designs and under his own supervision. His public spirit in undertaking the task was undeniable, but his treatment of the roof, the new west front, and the windows inserted in the terminations of the transepts, excited a storm of adverse criticism, and was the subject of vigorous protests from the professional world of architecture. He died on the 29th of April 1905, being succeeded as 2nd baron by his nephew, E. W. Beckett (b. 1856), who had sat in parliament as conservative member for the Whitby division of Yorkshire from 1885.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Laymen, Houses of

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​LAYMEN, HOUSES OF, deliberative assemblies of the laity of the Church of England, one for the province of Canterbury, and the other for the province of York. That of Canterbury was formed in 1886, and that of York shortly afterwards. They are merely consultative bodies, and the primary intention of their foundation was to associate the laity in the deliberations of convocation. They have no legal status. The members are elected by the various diocesan conferences, which are in turn elected by the laity of their respective parishes or rural deaneries. Ten members are appointed for the diocese of London, six for each of the dioceses of Winchester, Rochester, Lichfield and Worcester; and four for each of the remaining dioceses. The president of each house has the discretionary power of appointing additional laymen, not exceeding ten in number.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Laynez, Diego

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​LAYNEZ (or Lainez), DIEGO (1512–1565), the second general of the Society of Jesus, was born in Castile, and after studying at Alcala joined Ignatius of Loyola in Paris, being one of the six who with Loyola in August 1534 took the vow of missionary work in Palestine in the Montmartre church. This plan fell through, and Laynez became professor of scholastic theology at Sapienza. After the order had been definitely established (1540) Laynez was sent to Germany. He was one of the pope’s theologians at the council of Trent (q.v.), where he played a weighty and decisive part. When Loyola died in 1556 Laynez acted as vicar of the society, and two years later became general. Before his death at Rome, on the 19th of January 1565, he had immensely strengthened the despotic constitution of the order and developed its educational activities (see Jesuits).
His Disputationes Tridentinae were published in 2 volumes in 1886. Lives by Michel d’Esne (Douai, 1597) and Pet. Ribadeneira (Madrid, 1592; Lat. trans. by A. Schott, Antwerp, 1598). See also H. Müller, Les Origines de la Compagnie de Jésus: Ignace et Lainez (1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lazar

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​LAZAR, one afflicted with the disease of leprosy (q.v.). The term is an adaptation in medieval Latin of the name of Lazarus (q.v.), in Luke xvi. 20, who was supposed to be a leper. The word was not confined to persons suffering from leprosy; thus Caxton (The Life of Charles the Great, 37), “there atte laste were guarysshed and heled viij lazars of the palesey.”
Lazaretto or Lazar-House is a hospital for the reception of poor persons suffering from the plague, leprosy or other infectious or contagious diseases. A peculiar use of “lazaretto” is found in the application of the term, now obsolete, to a place in the after-part of a merchant vessel for the storage of provisions, &c. ​Lazzarone, a name now often applied generally to beggars, is an Italian term, particularly used of the poorest class of Neapolitans, who, without any fixed abode, live by odd jobs and fishing, but chiefly by begging.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lazarus

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​LAZARUS (a contracted form of the Heb. name Eleazar, “God has helped,” Gr. Λάζαρος), a name which occurs in the New Testament in two connexions.
1. Lazarus of Bethany, brother of Martha and Mary. The story that he died and after four days was raised from the dead is told by John (xi., xii.) only, and is not mentioned by the Synoptists. By many this is regarded as the greatest of Christ’s miracles. It produced a great effect upon many Jews; the Acta Pilati says that Pilate trembled when he heard of it, and, according to Bayle’s Dictionary, Spinoza declared that if he were persuaded of its truth he would become a Christian. The story has been attacked more vigorously than any other portion of the Fourth Gospel, mainly on two grounds, (i.) the fact that, in spite of its striking character, it is omitted by the Synoptists, and (ii.) its unique significance. The personality of Lazarus in John’s account, his relation to Martha and Mary, and the possibility that John reconstructed the story by the aid of inferences from the story of the supper in Luke x. 40, and that of the anointing of Christ in Bethany given by Mark and Matthew, are among the chief problems. The controversy has given rise to a great mass of literature, discussions of which will be found in the lives of Christ, the biblical encyclopaedias and the commentaries on St John.
2. Lazarus is also the name given by Luke (xvi. 20) to the beggar in the parable known as that of “Lazarus and Dives,” illustrating the misuse of wealth. There is little doubt that the name is introduced simply as part of the parable, and not with any idea of identifying the beggar with Lazarus of Bethany. It is curious, not only that Luke’s story does not appear in the other gospels, but also that in no other of Christ’s parables is a name given to the central character. Hence it was in early times thought that the story was historical, not allegorical (see Lazar).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Laya, Jean Louis

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​LAYA, JEAN LOUIS (1761–1833), French dramatist, was born in Paris on the 4th of December 1761 and died in August 1833. He wrote his first comedy in collaboration with Gabriel M. J. B. Legouvé in 1785, but the piece, though accepted by the Comédie Française, was never represented. In 1789 he produced a plea for religious toleration in the form of a five-act tragedy in verse, Jean Calas; the injustice of the disgrace cast on a family by the crime of one of its members formed the theme of Les Dangers de l’opinion (1790); but it is by his Ami des lois (1793) that Laya is remembered. This energetic protest against mob-rule, with its scarcely veiled characterizations of Robespierre as Nomophage and of Marat as Duricrâne, was an act of the highest courage, for the play was produced at the Théâtre Français (temporarily Théâtre de la Nation) only ​nineteen days before the execution of Louis XVI. Ten days after its first production the piece was prohibited by the commune, but the public demanded its representation; the mayor of Paris was compelled to appeal to the convention, and the piece was played while some 30,000 Parisians guarded the hall. Laya went into hiding, and several persons convicted of having a copy of the obnoxious play in their possession were guillotined. At the end of the Terror Laya returned to Paris. In 1813 he replaced Delille in the Paris chair of literary history and French poetry; he was admitted to the Academy in 1817. Laya produced in 1797 Les Deux Stuarts, and in 1799 Falkland, the title-rôle of which provided Talma with one of his finest opportunities. Laya’s works, which chiefly owe their interest to the circumstances attending their production, were collected in 1836–1837.
See Notice biographique sur J. L. Laya (1833); Ch. Nodier, Discours de réception, 26th December (1833); Welschinger, Théâtre de la révolution (1880).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lazarus, Emma

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​LAZARUS, EMMA (1849–1887), American Jewish poetess, was born in New York. When the Civil War broke out she was soon inspired to lyric expression. Her first book (1867) included poems and translations which she wrote between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. As yet her models were classic and romantic. At the age of twenty-one she published Admetus and other Poems (1871). Admetus is inscribed to Emerson, who greatly influenced her, and with whom she maintained a regular correspondence for several years. She led a retired life, and had a modest conception of her own powers. Much of her next work appeared in Lippincott’s Magazine, but in 1874 she published a prose romance (Alide) based on Goethe’s autobiography, and received a generous letter of admiration from Turgeniev. Two years later she visited Concord and made the acquaintance of the Emerson circle, and while there read the proof-sheets of her tragedy The Spagnoletto. In 1881 she published her excellent translations of Heine’s poems. Meanwhile events were occurring which appealed to her Jewish sympathies and gave a new turn to her feeling. The Russian massacres of 1880–1881 were a trumpet-call to her. So far her Judaism had been latent. She belonged to the oldest Jewish congregation of New York, but she had not for some years taken a personal part in the observances of the synagogue. But from this time she took up the cause of her race, and “her verse rang out as it had never rung before, a clarion note, calling a people to heroic action and unity; to the consciousness and fulfilment of a grand destiny.” Her poems, “The Crowing of the Red Cock” and “The Banner of the Jew” (1882) stirred the Jewish consciousness and helped to produce the new Zionism (q.v.). She now wrote another drama, the Dance to Death, the scene of which is laid in Nordhausen in the 14th century; it is based on the accusation brought against the Jews of poisoning the wells and thus causing the Black Death. The Dance to Death was included (with some translations of medieval Hebrew poems) in Songs of a Semite (1882), which she dedicated to George Eliot. In 1885 she visited Europe. She devoted much of the short remainder of her life to the cause of Jewish nationalism. In 1887 appeared By the waters of Babylon, which consists of a series of “prose poems,” full of prophetic fire. She died in New York on the 19th of November 1887. A sonnet by Emma Lazarus is engraved on a memorial tablet on the colossal Bartholdi statue of Liberty, New York.
See article in the Century Magazine, New Series, xiv. 875 (portrait p. 803), afterwards prefixed as a Memoir to the collected edition of The poems of Emma Lazarus (2 vols., 1889).  (I. A.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matrix

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​MATRIX, a word of somewhat wide application, chiefly used in the sense of a bed or enclosing mass in which something is shaped or formed (Late Lat. matrix, womb; in classical Latin matrix was only applied to an animal kept for breeding). Matrix is thus used of a mould of metal or other substance in which a design or pattern is made in intaglio, and from which an impression in relief is taken. In die-sinking and coining, the matrix is the hardened steel mould from which ​the die-punches are taken. The term “seal” should strictly be applied to the impression only on wax of the design of the matrix, but is often used both of the matrix and of the impression (see Seals). In mineralogy, the matrix is the mass in which a crystal mineral or fossil is embedded. In mathematics, the name “matrix” is used of an arrangement of numbers or symbols in a rectangular or square figure. (See Algebraic Forms.)
In med. Latin matrix and the diminutive matricula had the meaning of a roll or register, particularly one containing the names of the members of an institution, as of the clergy belonging to a cathedral, collegiate or other church, or of the members of a university. From this use is derived “matriculation,” the admission to membership of a university, also the name of the examination for such admission. Matricula was also the name of the contributions in men and money made by the various states of the Holy Roman Empire, and in the modern German Empire the contributions made by the federal states to the imperial finances are called Matrikularbeiträge, matricular contributions. (See Germany: Finance.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matross

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​MATROSS, the name (now obsolete) for a soldier of artillery, who ranked next below a gunner. The duty of a matross was to assist the gunners in loading, firing and sponging the guns. They were provided with firelocks, and marched with the store-wagons, acting as guards. In the American army a matross ranked as a private of artillery. The word is probably derived from Fr. matelot, a sailor.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matos Fragoso, Juan de

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​MATOS FRAGOSO, JUAN DE (1614?–1689), Spanish dramatist, of Portuguese descent, was born about 1614 at Alsito (Alemtejo). After taking his degree in law at the university of Evora, he proceeded to Madrid, where he made acquaintance with Perez de Montalbán, and thus obtained an introduction to the stage. He quickly displayed great cleverness in hitting the public taste, and many contemporaries of superior talent eagerly sought his aid as a collaborator. The earliest of his printed plays is La Defensa de la fé y principe prodigioso (1651), and twelve more pieces were published in 1658. But though his popularity continued long after his death (January 4, 1689), Matos Fragoso’s dramas do not stand the test of reading. His emphatic preciosity and sophistical insistence on the “point of honour” are tedious and unconvincing; in La Venganza en el despeño, in Á lo que obliga un agravio, and in other plays, he merely recasts, very adroitly, works by Lope de Vega.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matrass

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​MATRASS (mod. Lat. matracium), a glass vessel with a round or oval body and a long narrow neck, used in chemistry, &c., as a digester or distiller. The Florence flask of commerce is frequently used for this purpose. The word is possibly identical with an old name “matrass” (Fr. materas, matelas) for the bolt or quarrel of a cross-bow. If so, some identity of shape is the reason for the application of the word; “bolt-head” is also used as a name for the vessel. Another connexion is suggested with the Arabic matra, a leather bottle.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matriarchate

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​MATRIARCHATE (“rule of the mother”), a term used to express a supposed earliest and lowest form of family life, typical of primitive societies, in which the promiscuous relations of the sexes result in the child’s father being unknown (see Family). In such communities the mother took precedence of the father in certain important respects, especially in line of descent and inheritance. Matriarchate is assumed on this theory to have been universal in prehistoric times. The prominent position then naturally assigned women did not, however, imply any personal power, since they were in the position of mere chattels: it simply constituted them the sole relatives of their children and the only centre of any such family life as existed. The custom of tracing descent through the female is still observed among certain savage tribes. In Fiji father and son are not regarded as relatives. Among the Bechuanas the chieftainship passes to a brother, not to a son. In Senegal, Loango, Congo and Guinea, relationship is traced through the female. Among the Tuareg Berbers a child takes rank, freeman’s or slave’s, from its mother.
Bibliography.—J. F. McLennan, Patriarchal Theory (London, 1885); T. T. Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht (Stuttgart, 1861); E. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage (1894); A. Giraud-Teulon, La Mère chez certains peuples de l’antiquité (Paris, 1867); Les Origines du mariage et de la famille (Geneva and Paris, 1884); C. S. Wake, The Development of Marriage and Kinship (London, 1889); Ch. Letourneau, L’Évolution du mariage et de la famille (Paris, 1888); L. H. Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of Human Family, “Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge,” vol. xvii. (Washington, 1871); C. N. Starcke, The Primitive Family (London, 1889).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matrimony

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​MATRIMONY (Lat. matrimonium, marriage, which is the ordinary English sense), a game at cards played with a full whist pack upon a table divided into three compartments labelled “Matrimony,” “Intrigue” and “Confederacy,” and two smaller spaces, “Pair” and “Best.” These names indicate combinations of two cards, any king and queen being “Matrimony,” any queen and knave “Intrigue,” any king and knave “Confederacy”; while any two cards of the same denomination form a “Pair” and the diamond ace is “Best.” The dealer distributes a number of counters, to which an agreed value has been given, upon the compartments, and the other players do likewise. The dealer then gives one card to each player, face down, and a second, face up. If any turned-up card is the diamond ace, the player holding it takes everything on the space and the deal passes. If not turned, the diamond ace has only the value of the other three aces. If it is not turned, the players, beginning with the eldest hand, expose their second cards, and the resulting combinations, if among the five successful ones, win the counters of the corresponding spaces. If the counters on a space are not won, they remain until the next deal.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matteawan

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​MATTEAWAN, a village of Fishkill township, Dutchess county, New York, U.S.A., on the eastern bank of the Hudson river, opposite Newburgh and 15 m. S. of Poughkeepsie. Pop. (1890), 4278; (1900), 5807 (1044 foreign-born); (1905, state census), 5584; (1910), 6727. The village is served by the Central New England railway, and is the seat of the Matteawan state hospital for the criminal insane, the Highland hospital, and the Sargeant industrial school. The Teller House dates back to the beginning of the 18th century. Near Matteawan is Beacon Hill, the highest of the highlands, which has an electric railway to its summit. There are manufactures of hats, rubber goods, machinery (notably “fuel-economizers”), &c., water-power being furnished by Fishkill Creek. The village owns its water-works, the supply for which is derived from Beacon Hill. Matteawan was incorporated as a village in 1886.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kum

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​KUM, a small province in Persia, between Teheran on the N. and Kashan on the S. It is divided into seven bulūk (districts): (1) Humeh, with town; (2) Kumrud; (3) Vazkerud; (4) Kinar Rud Khaneh; (5) Kuhistan; (6) Jasb; (7) Ardahal; has a population of 45,000 to 50,000, and pays a yearly revenue of about £8000. The province produces much grain and a fine quality of cotton with a very long staple.
Kum, the capital, in 34° 39′ N. and 50° 55′ E., on the Anarbar river, which rises near Khunsar, has an elevation of 3100 ft. It owes much of its importance to the fact that it contains the tomb of Imam Reza’s sister Fatmeh, who died there A.D. 816, and large numbers of pilgrims visit the city during six or seven months of the year. The fixed population is between 25,000 and 30,000. A carriage road 92 m. in length, constructed in 1890–1893, connects the city with Teheran. It has post and telegraph offices.
See Eastern Persian Irak, R. G. S. suppl. (London, 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kumait Ibn Zaid

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​KUMAIT IBN ZAID (679–743), Arabian poet, was born in the reign of the first Omayyad caliph and lived in the reigns of nine others. He was, however, a strong supporter of the house of Hāshim and an enemy of the South Arabians. He was imprisoned by the caliph Hishām for his verse in praise of the Hāshimites, but escaped by the help of his wife and was pardoned by the intercession of the caliph’s son Maslama. Taking part in a rebellion, he was killed by the troops of Khālid ul-Qasrī.
His poems, the Hāshimīyyāt, have been edited by J. Horovitz (Leiden, 1904). An account of him is contained in the Kitāb ul-Aghāni, xv. 113–130. (G. W. T.)