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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gerard of Cremona

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​GERARD OF CREMONA (c. 1114–1187), the medieval translator of Ptolemy’s Astronomy, was born at Cremona, Lombardy, in or about 1114. Dissatisfied with the meagre philosophies of his Italian teachers, he went to Toledo to study in Spanish Moslem schools, then so famous as depositories and interpreters of ancient wisdom; and, having thus acquired a knowledge of the Arabic language, he appears to have devoted the remainder of his life to the business of making Latin translations from its literature. The date of his return to his native town is uncertain, but he is known to have died there in 1187. His most celebrated work is the Latin version by which alone Ptolemy’s Almagest was known to Europe until the discovery of the original Μεγάλη Σύνταξις. In addition to this, he translated various other treatises, to the number, it is said, of sixty-six; among these were the Tables of “Arzakhel,” or Al Zarkala of Toledo, Al Farabi On the Sciences (De scientiis), Euclid’s Geometry, Al Farghani’s Elements of Astronomy, and treatises on algebra, arithmetic and astrology. In the last-named latitudes are reckoned from Cremona and Toledo. Some of the works, however, with which he has been credited (including the Theoria or Theorica planetarum, and the versions of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine—the basis of the numerous subsequent Latin editions of that well-known work—and of the Almansorius of Abu Bakr Razi) are probably due to a later Gerard, of the 13th century, also called Cremonensis but more precisely de Sabloneta (Sabbionetta). This writer undertook the task of interpreting to the Latin world some of the best work of Arabic physicians, and his translation of Avicenna is said to have been made by order of the emperor Frederic II.
See Pipini, “Cronica,” in Muratori, Script. rer. Ital. vol. ix.; Nicol. Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana vetus, vol. ii.; Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura Italiana, vols. iii. (333) and iv.; Arisi, Cremona literata; Jourdain, Recherches sur . . . l’origine des traductions latines d’Aristote; Chasles, Aperçu historique des méthodes en géométrie, and in Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. xiii. p. 506; J. T. Reinaud, Géographie d’Aboulféda, introduction, vol. i. pp. ccxlvi.-ccxlviii.; Boncompagni, Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese e di Gherardo da Sabbionetta (Rome, 1851). Much of the work of both the Gerards remains in manuscript, as in Paris, National Library, MSS. Lat. 7400, 7421; MSS. Suppl. Lat. 49; Rome, Vatican library, 4083, and Ottobon, 1826; Oxford, Bodleian library, Digby, 47, 61. The Vatican MS. 2392 is stated to contain a eulogy of “Gerard of Cremona” and a list of “his” translations, apparently confusing the two scholars. The former’s most valuable work was in astronomy; the latter’s in medicine. (C. R. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gerber, Ernst Ludwig

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​GERBER, ERNST LUDWIG (1746–1819), German musician, author of a famous dictionary of musicians, was born at Sondershausen in the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen on the 29th of September 1746. His father, Henry Nicolas Gerber (1702–1775), a pupil of J. S. Bach, was an organist and composer of some distinction, and under his direction Ernst Ludwig at an early age had made great progress in his musical studies. In 1765 he went to Leipzig to study law, but the claims of music, which had gained additional strength from his acquaintanceship with J. A. Hiller, soon came to occupy almost his sole attention. On his return to Sondershausen he was appointed music teacher to the children of the prince, and in 1775 he succeeded his father as court organist. Afterwards he devoted much of his time to the study of the literature and history of music, and with this view he made himself master of several modern languages. His Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler appeared in 1790 and 1792 in two volumes; and the first volume of what was virtually an improved and corrected edition of this work was published in 1810 under the title Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler, followed by other three volumes in 1812, 1813 and 1814. Gerber also contributed a number of papers to musical periodicals, and published several minor musical compositions. He died at Sondershausen on the 30th of June 1819.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gerberon, Gabriel

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​GERBERON, GABRIEL (1628–1711), French Jansenist monk, was born on the 12th of August 1628 at St Calais, in the department of Sarthe. At the age of twenty he took the vows of the Benedictine order at the abbey of Ste Melaine, Rennes, and afterwards taught rhetoric and philosophy in several monasteries. His open advocacy of Jansenist opinions, however, caused his superiors to relegate him to the most obscure houses of the order, and finally to keep him under surveillance at the abbey of St Germain-des-Prés at Paris. Here he wrote a defence of the doctrine of the Real Presence against the Calvinists in the form of an apology for Rupert, abbot of Deutz (Apologia pro Ruperto abbate Tuitensi, Paris, 1669). In 1676 he published at Brussels, under the name of “Sieur Flore de Ste Foi” his Miroir de la piété chrétienne, an enlarged edition of which appeared at Liége in the following year. This was condemned by certain archbishops and theologians as the repetition of the five condemned propositions of Jansen, and Gerberon defended it, under the name of “Abbé Valentin” in Le Miroir sans tache (Paris, 1680). He had by this time aroused against him the full fury of the Jesuits, and at their instigation a royal provost was sent to Corbie to arrest him. He had, however, just time to escape, and fled to the Low Countries, where he lived in various towns. He was invited by the Jansenist clergy to Holland, where he wrote another controversial work against the Protestants: Défense de l’Église Romain contre la calomnie des Protestants (Cologne, 1688–1691). This produced unpleasantness with the Reformed clergy, and feeling himself no longer safe he returned to Brussels. In 1700 he published his history of Jansenism (Histoire générale du Jansénisme), a dry work, by which, however, he is best remembered. He adhered firmly to the Augustinian doctrine of Predestination, and on the 30th of May 1703 he was arrested at Brussels at the instance of the archbishop of Malines, and ordered to subscribe the condemnation of the five sentences of Jansen. On his refusal, he was handed over to his superiors and imprisoned in the citadel of Amiens and afterwards at Vincennes. Every sort of pressure was brought to bear upon him to make his submission, and at last, broken in health and spirit, he consented to sign a formula which the cardinal de Noailles claimed as a recantation. Upon this he was released in 1710. The first use he made of his freedom was to write a work (which, however, his friends prudently prevented him from publishing), Le Vaine Triomphe du cardinal de Noailles, containing a virtual withdrawal of the compulsory recantation. He died at the abbey of St Denis on the 29th of March 1711.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gerard, John

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​GERARD, JOHN (1545–1612), English herbalist and surgeon, was born towards the end of 1545 at Nantwich in Cheshire. He was educated at Wisterson, or Willaston, 2 m. from Nantwich, and eventually, after spending some time in travelling, took up his abode in London, where he exercised his profession. For more than twenty years he also acted as superintendent of the gardens in London and at Theobalds, in Hertfordshire, of William Cecil, Lord Burghley. In 1596 he published a catalogue of plants cultivated in his own garden in Holborn, London, 1039 in number, inclusive of varieties of the same species. Their English as well as their Latin names are given in a revised edition of the catalogue issued in 1599. In 1597 appeared Gerard’s well-known Herball, described by him in its preface as “the first fruits of these mine own labours,” but more truly an adaptation of the Stirpium historiae pemptades of Rembert Dodoens (1518–1585), published in 1583, or rather of a translation of the whole or part of the same by Dr Priest, with M. Lobel’s arrangement. Of the numerous illustrations of the Herball sixteen appear to be original, the remainder are mostly impressions from the wood blocks employed by Jacob Theodorus Tabernaemontanus in his Icones stirpium, published at Frankfort in 1590. A second edition of the Herball, with considerable improvements and additions, was brought out by Thomas Johnson in 1633, and reprinted in 1636. Gerard was elected a member of the court of assistants of the barber-surgeons in 1595, by which company he was appointed an examiner in 1598, junior warden in 1605, and master in 1608. He died in February 1612, and was buried at St Andrews, Holborn.
See Johnson’s preface to his edition of the Herball; and A Catalogue of Plants cultivated in the Garden of John Gerard in the years 1596–1599, edited with Notes, References to Gerard’s Herball, the Addition of modern Names, and a Life of the Author, by Benjamin Daydon Jackson, F.L.S., privately printed (London, 1876, 4to).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gerard (archbishop)

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​GERARD (d. 1108), archbishop of York under Henry I., began his career as a chancery clerk in the service of William Rufus. He was one of the two royal envoys who, in 1095, persuaded Urban II. to send a legate and Anselm’s pallium to England. Although the legate disappointed the king’s expectations, Gerard was rewarded for his services with the see of Hereford (1096). On the death of Rufus he at once declared for Henry I., by whom he was nominated to the see of York. He made difficulties when required to give Anselm the usual profession of obedience; and it was perhaps to assert the importance of his see that he took the king’s side on the question of investitures. He pleaded Henry’s cause at Rome with great ability, and claimed that he had obtained a promise, on the pope’s part, to condone the existing practice of lay investiture. But this statement was contradicted by Paschal, and Gerard incurred the suspicion of perjury. About 1103 he wrote or inspired a series of tracts which defended the king’s prerogative and attacked the oecumenical pretensions of the papacy with great freedom of language. He changed sides in 1105, becoming a stanch friend and supporter of Anselm. Gerard was a man of considerable learning and ability; but the chroniclers accuse him of being lax in his morals, an astrologer and a worshipper of the devil.
See the Tractatus Eboracenses edited by H. Bochmer in Libelli de lite Sacerdotii et Imperii, vol. iii. (in the Monumenta hist. Germaniae, quarto series), and the same author’s Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899). (H. W. C. D.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gerasa

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​GERASA (mod. Gerash or Jerash), a city of Palestine, and a member of the league known as the Decapolis (q.v.), situated amid the mountains of Gilead, about 1757 ft. above the sea, 20 m. from the Jordan and 21 m. N. of Philadelphia. Of its origin nothing is known; it has been suggested that it represents the biblical Ramoth Gilead. From Josephus we learn that it ​was captured by Alexander Jannaeus (c. 83 B.C.), rebuilt by the Romans (c. A.D. 65), burned by the Jews in revenge for the massacre at Caesarea, and again plundered and depopulated by Annius, the general of Vespasian; but, in spite of these disasters, it was still in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Christian era one of the wealthiest and most flourishing cities of Palestine. It was a centre of Greek civilization, devoted especially to the worship of Artemis, and producing famous teachers, of whom Stephen the Byzantine mentions Ariston, Kerykos and Plato. As late as 1121 the soldiers of Baldwin II. found it defended by a castle built by a king of Damascus; but at the beginning of the following century the Arabian geographer Yaqut speaks of it as deserted and overthrown. The ruins of Jerash, discovered about 1806, and since then frequently visited and described, still attest the splendour of the Roman city. They are distributed along both banks of the Kerwan, a brook which flows south through the Wadi-ed-Dēr to join the Zerka or Jabbok; but all the principal buildings are situated on the level ground to the right of the stream. The town walls, which can still be traced and indeed are partly standing, had a circuit of not more than 2 m., and the main street was less than half a mile in length; but remains of buildings on the road for fully a mile beyond the south gate, show that the town had outgrown the limit of its fortifications. The most striking feature of the ruins is the profusion of columns, no fewer than 230 being even now in position; the main street is a continuous colonnade, a large part of which is still entire, and it terminates to the south in a forum of similar formation. Among the public buildings still recognizable are a theatre capable of accommodating 6000 spectators, a naumachia (circus for naval combats) and several temples, of which the largest was probably the grandest structure in the city, possessing a portico of Corinthian pillars 38 ft. high. The desolation of the city is probably due to earthquake; and the absence of Moslem erections or restorations seems to show that the disaster took place before the Mahommedan period.
The town is now occupied by a colony of Circassians, whose houses have been built with materials from the earlier buildings, and there has been much destruction of the interesting ruins. “The country of the Gerasenes” (Matt. viii. 28 and parallels; other readings, Gadarenes, Gergesenes) must be looked for in another quarter—on the E. coast of the Sea of Galilee, probably in the neighbourhood of the modern Khersa (C. W. Wilson in Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 369). (R. A. S. M.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Esrronceda, Jose Ignacio Javier Oriol Encarnacion de

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​ESPRONCEDA, JOSÉ IGNACIO JAVIER ORIOL ENCARNACIÓN DE (1808–1842), Spanish poet, son of an officer in the Bourbon regiment, was born at or near Almendralejo de los Barros on the 25th of March 1808. On the close of the war he was sent to the preparatory school of artillery at Segovia, and later became a pupil of the poet Lista, then professor of literature at St Matthew’s College in Madrid. In his fourteenth year he had attracted his master’s attention by his verses, and had joined a secret society. Sentenced to five years’ seclusion in the Franciscan convent at Guadalajara, he began an epic poem entitled Pelayo, of which fragments survive. He escaped to Portugal and thence to England, where he found the famous Teresa whom he had met at Lisbon; here, too, he became a student of Shakespeare, Milton and Byron. In 1830 he eloped with Teresa to Paris, took part in the July revolution, and soon after joined the raid of Chapalangarra on Navarre. In 1833 he returned to Spain and obtained a commission in the queen’s guards. This, however, he soon forfeited by a political song, and he was banished to Cuéllar, where he wrote a poor novel entitled Sancho Saldaña ó el Castellano de Cuéllar (1834). He took an active part in the revolutionary risings of 1835 and 1836, and, on the accession to power of the Liberal party in 1840, was appointed secretary of legation at the Hague; in 1842 he was elected deputy for Almería, and seemed likely to play a great part in parliamentary life. But his constitution was undermined, and, after a short illness, he died at Madrid on the 23rd of May 1842. His poems, first published in 1840, at once gained for him a reputation which still continues undiminished. The influence of Byron pervades Espronceda’s life and work. It is present in an ambitious variant on the Don Juan legend, El Estudiante de Salamanca, Elvira’s letter being obviously modelled on Julia’s letter in Don Juan; the Canción del Pirata is suggested by The Corsair; and the Byronic inspiration is not wanting even in the noble fragment entitled El Diablo Mundo, based on the story of Faust. But in El Mendigo, in El Reo de Muerte, in El Verdugo, and in the sombre vehement lines, A Jarifa en una orgía, Espronceda approves himself the most potent and original lyrical poet produced by Spain during the 19th century.
Bibliography.—Obras poéticas y escritos en prosa (Madrid, 1884), edited by Blanca Espronceda de Escosura, the poet’s daughter (the second volume has not been published); E. Rodriguez Solís, Espronceda; su tiempo, su vida, y sus obras (Madrid, 1883); E. Piñeyro, El Romanticismo en España (Paris, 1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Esparto

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​ESPARTO, or Spanish Grass, Stipa tenacissima, a grass resembling the ornamental feather-grass of gardens. It is indigenous to the south of Spain and the north of Africa (where it is known as Halfa or Alfa), and is especially abundant in the sterile and rugged parts of Murcia and Valencia, and in Algeria, flourishing best in sandy, ferruginous soils, in dry, sunny situations on the sea coast. Pliny (N.H. xix. 2) described what appears to have been the same plant under the name of spartum, whence the designation campus spartarius for the region surrounding New Carthage. It attains a height of 3 or 4 ft. The stems are cylindrical, and clothed with short hair, and grow in clusters of from 2 to 10 ft. in circumference; when young they serve as food for cattle, but after a few years’ growth acquire great toughness of texture. The leaves vary from 6 in. to 3 ft. in length, and are grey-green in colour; on account of their tenacity of fibre and flexibility they have for centuries been employed for the making of ropes, sandals, baskets, mats and other articles. Ships’ cables of esparto, being light, have the quality of floating on water, and have long been in use in the Spanish navy.
Esparto leaves contain 56% by weight of fibre, or about 10% more than straw, and hence have come into requisition as a substitute for linen rags in the manufacture of paper. For this purpose they were first utilized by the French, and in 1857 were introduced into Great Britain. When required for paper-making the leaves should be gathered before they are quite matured; if, however, they are obtained too young, they furnish a paper having an objectionable semi-transparent appearance. The leaves are gathered by hand, and from 2 to 3 cwt. may be collected in a day by a single labourer. They are generally obtained during the dry summer months, as at other times their adherence to the stems is so firm as often to cause the uprooting of the plants in the attempt to remove them. Esparto may be raised from seed, but cannot be harvested for twelve or fifteen years after sowing.
Another grass, Lygeum Spartum, with stiff rush-like leaves, growing in rocky soil on the high plains of countries bordering on the Mediterranean, especially of Spain and Algeria, is also a source of esparto.
For the processes of the paper manufacturer esparto is used in the dry state, and without cutting; roots and flowers and stray weeds are first removed, and the material is then boiled with caustic soda, washed, and bleached with chlorine solution. Sundry experiments have been made to adapt esparto for use in the coarser textile fabrics. Messrs A. Edger and B. Proctor in 1877 directed attention to the composition of the slag resulting from the burning of esparto, which they found to be strikingly similar to that of average medical bottle glass, the latter yielding on analysis 66·3% of silica and 25·1% of alkalies and alkaline earths, and the slag 64·6 and 27·45% of the same respectively.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Esquiros, Henri François Alphonse

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​ESQUIROS, HENRI FRANÇOIS ALPHONSE (1812–1876), French writer, was born in Paris on the 23rd of May 1812. After some minor publications he produced L’Évangile du peuple (1840), an exposition of the life and character of Jesus as a social reformer. This work was considered an offence against religion and decency, and Esquiros was fined and imprisoned. He was elected in 1850 as a social democrat to the Legislative Assembly, but was exiled in 1851 for his opposition to the Empire. Returning to France in 1869 he was again a member of the Legislative Assembly, and in 1876 was elected to the senate. He died at Versailles on the 12th of May 1876. He turned to account his residence in England in L’Angleterre et la vie anglaise (5 vols., 1859–1869). Among his numerous works on social subjects may be noted:—Histoire des Montagnards (2 vols., 1847); Paris, ou les sciences, les institutions et les mœurs au XIX$^e$ siècle (2 vols., 1847); and Histoire des martyrs de la liberté (1851).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Esquirol, Jean Étienne Dominique

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​ESQUIROL, JEAN ÉTIENNE DOMINIQUE (1772–1840), French alienist, was born at Toulouse on the 3rd of February 1772. In 1794 he became a pupil of the military hospital of Narbonne, and subsequently studied in Paris at the Salpêtrière under P. Pinel, whose assistant he became. In 1811 he was chosen physician to the Salpêtrière, and in 1817 he began a course of lectures on the treatment of the insane, in which he made such revelations of the abuses existing in the lunatic asylums of France that the government appointed a commission to inquire into the subject. Esquirol in this and other ways greatly assisted Pinel’s efforts for the introduction of humaner methods. The asylums of Rouen, Nantes and Montpellier were built in accordance with his plans. In 1823 he became inspector-general of the university of Paris for the faculties of medicine, and in 1826 chief physician of the asylum at Charenton. He died at Paris on the 13th of December 1840. Besides contributing to the Dictionnaire des sciences médicales and the Encyclopédie des gens du monde, Esquirol wrote Des maladies mentales, considérées sous les rapports médical, hygiénique, et médico-légal (2 vols., Paris, 1838).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Esperance

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​ESPERANCE, a small seaport on a fine natural harbour on the south coast of West Australia, 275 m. north-east from Albany. It is a summer resort, and in the neighbourhood are interesting caves. Its importance as a seaport is due to its being on the high road between the eastern states and the gold-fields, and the nearest place for the shipment of gold from the Coolgardie fields.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Espinay, Timoléon D'

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​ESPINAY, TIMOLÉON D’ (1580–1644), French soldier, was the eldest of the four sons of François d’Espinay, seigneur de Saint Luc (1554–1597), and was himself marquis de Saint Luc. In 1603 he accompanied Sully in his embassy to London. In 1622, in his capacity as vice-admiral of France, he gained some advantages over the defenders of La Rochelle, obliging the Huguenot commander, Benjamin de Rohan, seigneur de Soubise, to evacuate the islands of Ré and Oléron. In 1627 he was named lieutenant-general of Guienne and marshal of France.