OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Court Leet

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​COURT LEET, an English petty criminal court for the punishment of small offences. It has been usual to make a distinction between court baron and court leet as being separate courts, but in the early history of the court leet no such distinction ​can be drawn. At a very early time the lords of manors exercised or claimed certain jurisdictional franchises. Of these the most important was the “view of frankpledge” and its attendant police jurisdiction. Some time in the later middle ages the court baron when exercising these powers gained the name of leet, and, later, of “court leet.” The quo warranto proceedings of Edward I. established a sharp distinction between the court baron, exercising strictly manorial rights, and the court leet, depending for its jurisdiction upon royal franchise. The court leet was a court of record, and its duty was not only to view the pledges but to present by jury all crimes that might happen within the jurisdiction, and punish the same. The steward of the court acted as judge, presiding wholly in a judicial character, the ministerial acts being executed by the bailiff. The court leet began to decline in the 14th century, being superseded by the more modern courts of the justices, but in many cases courts leet were kept up until nearly the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, it cannot be said that they are now actually extinct, as many still survive for formal purposes, and by s. 40 of the Sheriffs Act 1887 they are expressly kept up.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Court de Gebelin, Antoine

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​COURT DE GEBELIN, ANTOINE (1728–1784), French scholar, son of Antoine Court (q.v.), was born at Nîmes in 1728. He received a good education, and became, like his father, a pastor of the Reformed Church. This office, however, he soon relinquished, to devote himself entirely to literary work. He had conceived the project of a work which should set in a new light the phenomena, especially the languages and mythologies, of the ancient world; and, after his father’s death, he went to Paris in order to be near the necessary books. After long years of research, he published in 1775 the first volume of his vast undertaking under the title of Le Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne. The ninth volume appeared in 1784, leaving the work still unfinished. The literary world marvelled at the encyclopaedic learning displayed by the author, and supposed that the French Academy, or some other society of scholars, must have combined their powers in its production. Now, however, the world has well-nigh forgotten the huge quartos. These learned labours did not prevent Gebelin from pleading earnestly the cause of religious tolerance. In 1760 he published a work entitled Les Toulousaines, advocating the rights of the Protestants; and he afterwards established at Paris an agency for collecting information as to their sufferings, and for exciting general interest in their cause. He co-operated with Franklin and others in the periodical work entitled Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique (1776, sqq.), which was devoted to the support of American independence. He was also a supporter of the principles of the economists, and Quesnay called him his well-beloved disciple. In the last year of his life he became acquainted with Mesmer, and published a Lettre sur le magnétisme animal. He was imposed upon by speculators in whom he placed confidence, and was reduced to destitution by the failure of a scheme in which they engaged him. He died at Paris on the 10th of May 1784.
See La France protestante, by the brothers Haag, tome iv.; Charles Dardier, Court de Gebelin (Nîmes, 1890).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Court Baron

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​COURT BARON, an English manorial court dating from the middle ages and still in existence. It was laid down by Coke that a manor had two courts, “the first by the common law, and is called a court baron,” the freeholders (“barons”) being its suitors; the other a customary court for the copyholders. Stubbs adopted this explanation, but the latest learning, expounded by Professor Maitland, holds that court baron means curia baronis, “la court de seigneur,” and that there is no evidence for there being more than one court. The old view that at least two freeholders were required for its composition is also now discarded. Prof. Maitland’s conclusion is that the “court baron” was not even differentiated from the “court-leet” at the close of the 13th century, but that there was a distinction of jurisdictional rights, some courts having only feudal rights, while others had regalities as well. When the court-leet was differentiated, the court baron remained with feudal rights alone. These rights he was disposed to trace to a lord’s jurisdiction over his men rather than to his possession of the manor, although in practice, from an early date, the court was associated with the manor. Its chief business was to administer the “custom of the manor” and to admit fresh tenants who had acquired copyholds by inheritance or purchase, and had to pay, on so doing, a “fine” to the lord of the manor. It is mainly for the latter purpose that the court is now kept. It is normally presided over by the steward of the lord of the manor, who is a lawyer, and its proceedings are recorded on “the court rolls,” of which the older ones are now valuable for genealogical as well as for legal purposes.
See Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts, vol. i., and The Court Baron (Selden Society).  (J. H. R.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Courtenay, Richard

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​COURTENAY, RICHARD (d. 1415), English prelate, was a son of Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham Castle, near Exeter, and a grandson of Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon (d. 1377). He ​was a nephew of William Courtenay, archbishop of Canterbury, and a descendant of Edward I. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he entered the church, where his advance was rapid. He held several prebends, was dean of St Asaph and then dean of Wells, and became bishop of Norwich in 1413. As chancellor of the university of Oxford, an office to which he was elected in 1407 and again in 1410, Courtenay asserted the independence of the university against Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1411; but the archbishop, supported by Henry IV. and Pope John XXIII, eventually triumphed. Courtenay was a personal friend of Henry V. both before and after he came to the throne; and in 1413, immediately after Henry’s accession, he was made treasurer of the royal household. On two occasions he went on diplomatic errands to France, and he was also employed by Henry on public business at home. Having accompanied the king to Harfleur in August 1415, Courtenay was attacked by dysentery and died on the 15th of September 1415, his body being buried in Westminster Abbey.
Another member of this family, Peter Courtenay (d. 1492), a grandnephew of Richard, also attained high position in the English Church. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, Peter became dean of Windsor, then dean of Exeter; in 1478 bishop of Exeter; and in 1487 bishop of Winchester in succession to William of Waynflete. With Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, and others he attempted to raise a rebellion against Richard III. in 1483, and fled to Brittany when this enterprise failed. Courtenay was restored to his dignities and estates in 1485 by Henry VII., whom he had accompanied to England, and he died on the 23rd of September 1492.
See J. H. Wylie, History of England under Henry IV. (London, 1884–1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damask Steel

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​DAMASK STEEL, or Damascus Steel, a steel with a peculiar watered or streaked appearance, as seen in the blades of fine swords and other weapons of Oriental manufacture. One way of producing this appearance is to twist together strips of iron and steel of different quality and then weld them into a solid mass. A similar but inferior result may be obtained by etching with acid the surface of a metal; parts of which are protected by some greasy substance in such a way as to give the watered pattern desired. The art of producing damask steel has been generally practised in Oriental countries from a remote period, the most famous blades having come from Isfahan, Khorasan, and Shiraz in Persia.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maubeuge

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​MAUBEUGE, a town of northern France, in the department of Nord, situated on both banks of the Sambre, here canalized, 231/2 m. by rail E. by S. of Valenciennes, and about 2 m. from the Belgian frontier. Pop. (1906), town 13,569, commune 21,520. As a fortress Maubeuge has an old enceinte of bastion trace which serves as the centre of an important entrenched camp of 18 m. perimeter, constructed for the most part after the war of 1870, but since modernized and augmented. The town has a board of trade arbitration, a communal college, a commercial and industrial school; and there are important foundries, forges and blast-furnaces, together with manufactures of machine-tools, porcelain, &c. It is united by electric tramway with Hautmont (pop. 12,473), also an important metallurgical centre.
Maubeuge (Malbodium) owes its origin to a double monastery, for men and women, founded in the 7th century by St Aldegonde relics of whom are preserved in the church. It subsequently belonged to the territory of Hainault. It was burnt by Louis XI., by Francis I., and by Henry II., and was finally assigned to France by the Treaty of Nijmwegen. It was fortified at Vauban by the command of Louis XIV., who under Turenne first saw military service there. Besieged in 1793 by Prince Josias of Coburg, it was relieved by the victory of Wattignies, which is commemorated by a monument in the town. It was unsuccessfully besieged in 1814, but was compelled to capitulate, after a vigorous resistance, in the Hundred Days.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maule

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​MAULE, a coast province of central Chile, bounded N. by Talea, E. by Linares and Nuble, and S. by Concepción, and lying between the rivers Maule and Itata, which form its northern and southern boundaries. Pop. (1895), 119,791; area, 2475 sq. m. Maule is traversed from north to south by the coast range and its surfaces are much broken. The Buchupureo river flows westward across the province. The climate is mild and healthy. Agriculture and stock-raising are the principal occupations, and hides, cattle, wheat and timber are exported. Transport facilities are afforded by the Maule and the Itata, which are navigable, and by a branch of the government railway from Cauquenes to Parral, an important town of southern Linares. The provincial capital, Cauquenes (pop., in 1895, 8574; 1902 estimate, 9895), is centrally situated on the Buchupureo river, on the eastern slopes of the coast cordilleras. The town and port of Constitución (pop., in 1900, about 7000) on the south bank of the Maule, one mile above its mouth, was formerly the capital of the province. The port suffers from a dangerous bar at the mouth of the river, but is connected with Talca by rail and has a considerable trade.
The Maule river, from which the province takes its name, is of historic interest because it is said to have marked the southern limits of the Inca Empire. It rises in the Laguna del Maule, an Andean lake near the Argentine frontier, 7218 ft. above sea-level, and flows westward about 140 m. to the Pacific, into which it discharges in 35° 18′ S. The upper part of its drainage basin, to which the Anuario Hydrografico gives an area of 8000 sq. m., contains the volcanoes of San Pedro (11,800 ft.), the Descabezado (12,795 ft.), and others of the same group of lower elevations. The upper course and tributaries of the Maule, principally in the province of Linares, are largely used for irrigation.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mauch Chunk

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​MAUCH CHUNK, a borough and the county-seat of Carbon county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Lehigh river and on the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company’s Canal, 46 m. by rail W.N.W. of Easton. Pop. (1800), 4101; (1900), 4029 (571 foreign-born); (1910), 3952. Mauch Chunk is served by the Central of New Jersey railway and, at East Mauch Chunk, across the river, connected by electric railway, by the Lehigh Valley railway. The borough lies in the valley of the Lehigh river, along which runs one of its few streets and in another deeply cut valley at right angles to the river; through this second valley east and west runs the main street, on which is an electric railway; parallel to it on the south is High Street, formerly an Irish settlement; half way up the steep hill, and on the north at the top of the opposite hill is the ward of Upper Mauch Chunk, reached by the electric railway. An incline railway, originally used to transport coal from the mines to the river and named the “Switch-Back,” now carries tourists up the steep slopes of Mount Pisgah and Mount Jefferson, to Summit Hill, a rich anthracite coal region, with a famous “burning mine,” which has been on fire since 1832, and then back. An electric railway to the top of Flagstaff Mountain, built in 1900, was completed in 1901 to Lehighton, 4 m. south-east ​of Mauch Chunk, where coal is mined and silk and stoves are manufactured, and which had a population in 1900 of 4629, and in 1910 of 5316. Immediately above Mauch Chunk the river forms a horseshoe; on the opposite side, connected by a bridge, is the borough of East Mauch Chunk (pop. 1900, 3458; 1910, 3548); and 2 m. up the river is Glen Onoko, with fine falls and cascades. The principal buildings in Mauch Chunk are the county court house, a county gaol, a Young Men’s Christian Association building, and the Dimmick Memorial Library (1890). The borough was long a famous shipping point for coal. It now has ironworks and foundries, and in East Mauch Chunk there are silk mills. The name is Indian and means “Bear Mountain,” this English name being used for a mountain on the east side of the river. The borough was founded by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company in 1818. This company began in 1827 the operation of the “Switch-Back,” probably the first railway in the country to be used for transporting coal. In 1831 the town was opened to individual enterprise, and in 1850 it was incorporated as a borough. Mauch Chunk was for many years the home of Asa Packer, the projector and builder of the Lehigh Valley railroad from Mauch Chunk to Easton.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maulstick

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​MAULSTICK, or Mahlstick, a stick with a soft leather or padded head, used by painters to support the hand that holds the brush. The word is an adaptation of the Dutch maalstok, i.e. the painter’s stick, from malen, to paint.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mauléon, Savari de

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​MAULÉON, SAVARI DE (d. 1236), French soldier, was the son of Raoul de Mauléon, vicomte de Thouars and lord of Mauléon (now Châtillon-sur-Sèvre). Having espoused the cause of Arthur of Brittany, he was captured at Mirebeau (1202), and imprisoned in the château of Corfe. But John set him at liberty in 1204, gained him to his side and named him seneschal of Poitou (1205). In 1211 Savari de Mauléon assisted Raymond VI. count of Toulouse, and with him besieged Simon de Montfort in Castelnaudary. Philip Augustus bought his services in 1212 and gave him command of a fleet which was destroyed in the Flemish port of Damme. Then Mauléon returned to John, whom he aided in his struggle with the barons in 1215. He was one of those whom John designated on his deathbed for a council of regency (1216). Then he went to Egypt (1219), and was present at the taking of Damietta. Returning to Poitou he was a second time seneschal for the king of England. He defended Saintonge against Louis VIII. in 1224, but was accused of having given La Rochelle up to the king of France, and the suspicions of the English again threw him back upon the French. Louis VIII. then turned over to him the defence of La Rochelle and the coast of Saintonge. In 1227 he took part in the rising of the barons of Poitiers and Anjou against the young Louis IX. He enjoyed a certain reputation for his poems in the langue d’oc.
See Chilhaud-Dumaine, “Savari de Mauléon,” in Positions des Thèses des élèves de l’École des Chartes (1877); Histoire littéraire de la France, xviii. 671–682.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mauchline

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​MAUCHLINE, a town in the division of Kyle, Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 1767. It lies 8 m. E.S.E. of Kilmarnock and 11 m. E. by N. of Ayr by the Glasgow and South-Western railway. It is situated on a gentle slope about 1 m. from the river Ayr, which flows through the south of the parish of Mauchline. It is noted for its manufacture of snuff-boxes and knick-knacks in wood, and of curling-stones. There is also some cabinet-making, besides spinning and weaving, and its horse fairs and cattle markets have more than local celebrity. The parish church, dating from 1829, stands in the middle of the village, and on the green a monument, erected in 1830, marks the spot where five Covenanters were killed in 1685. Robert Burns lived with his brother Gilbert on the farm of Mossgiel, about a mile to the north, from 1784 to 1788. Mauchline kirkyard was the scene of the “Holy Fair”; at “Poosie Nansie’s” (Agnes Gibson’s)—still, though much altered, a popular inn—the “Jolly Beggars” held their high jinks; near the church (in the poet’s day an old, barn-like structure) was the Whiteford Arms inn, where on a pane of glass Burns wrote the epitaph on John Dove, the landlord; “auld Nanse Tinnock’s” house, with the date of 1744 above the door, nearly faces the entrance to the churchyard; the Rev. William Auld was minister of Mauchline, and “Holy Willie,” whom the poet scourged in the celebrated “Prayer,” was one of “Daddy Auld’s” elders; behind the kirkyard stands the house of Gavin Hamilton, the lawyer and firm friend of Burns, in which the poet was married. The braes of Ballochmyle, where he met the heroine of his song, “The Lass o’ Ballochmyle,” lie about a mile to the south-east. Adjoining them is the considerable manufacturing town of Catrine (pop. 2340), with cotton factories, bleach fields and brewery, where Dr Matthew Stewart (1717–1785), the father of Dugald Stewart—had a mansion, and where there is a big water-wheel said to be inferior in size only to that of Laxey in the Isle of Man. Barskimming House, 2 m. south by west of Mauchline, the seat of Lord-President Miller (1717–1789), was burned down in 1882. Near the confluence of the Fail and the Ayr was the scene of Burns’s parting with Highland Mary.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maude, Cyril

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​MAUDE, CYRIL (1862– ), English actor, was born in London and educated at Charterhouse. He began his career as an actor in 1883 in America, and from 1896 to 1905 was co-manager with F. Harrison of the Haymarket Theatre, London. There he became distinguished for his quietly humorous acting in many parts. In 1906 he went into management on his own account, and in 1907 opened his new theatre The Playhouse. In 1888 he married the actress Winifred Emery (b. 1862), who had made her London début as a child in 1875, and acted with Irving at the Lyceum between 1881 and 1887. She was a daughter of Samuel Anderson Emery (1817–1881) and granddaughter of John Emery (1777–1822), both well-known actors in their day.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matvyeev, Artamon Sergyeevich

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​MATVYEEV, ARTAMON SERGYEEVICH ( –1682), Russian statesman and reformer, was one of the greatest of the precursors of Peter the Great. His parentage and the date of his birth are uncertain. Apparently his birth was humble, but when the obscure figure of the young Artamon emerges into the light of history we find him equipped at all points with the newest ideas, absolutely free from the worst prejudices of his age, a ripe scholar, and even an author of some distinction. In 1671 the tsar Alexius and Artamon were already on intimate terms, and on the retirement of Orduin-Nashchokin Matvyeev became the tsar’s chief counsellor. It was at his house, full of all the wondrous, half-forbidden novelties of the west, that Alexius, after the death of his first consort, Martha, met Matvyeev’s favourite pupil, the beautiful Natalia Naruishkina, whom he married on the 21st of January 1672. At the end of the year Matvyeev was raised to the rank of okolnichy, and on the 1st of September 1674 attained the still higher dignity of boyar. Matvyeev remained paramount to the end of the reign and introduced play-acting and all sorts of refining western novelties into Muscovy. The deplorable physical condition of Alexius’s immediate successor, Theodore III. suggested to Matvyeev the desirability of elevating to the throne the sturdy little tsarevich Peter, then in his fourth year. He purchased the allegiance of the stryeltsi, or musketeers, and then, summoning the boyars of the council, earnestly represented to them that Theodore, scarce able to live, was surely unable to reign, and urged the substitution of little Peter. But the reactionary boyars, among whom were the near kinsmen of Theodore, proclaimed him tsar and Matvyeev was banished to Pustozersk, in northern Russia, where he remained till Theodore’s death (April 27, 1682). Immediately afterwards Peter was proclaimed tsar by the patriarch, and the first ukaz issued in Peter’s name summoned Matvyeev to return to the capital and act as chief adviser to the tsaritsa Natalia. He reached Moscow on the 15th of May, prepared “to lay down his life for the tsar,” and at once proceeded to the head of the Red Staircase to meet and argue with the assembled stryeltsi, who had been instigated to rebel by the anti-Petrine faction. He had already succeeded in partially pacifying them, when one of their colonels began to abuse the still hesitating and suspicious musketeers. Infuriated, they seized and flung Matvyeev into the square below, where he was hacked to pieces by their comrades.
See R. Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905); M. P. Pogodin, The First Seventeen Years of the Life of Peter the Great (Rus.), (Moscow, 1875); S. M. Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.), (vols. 12, 13, (St Petersburg, 1895, &c.); L. Shehepotev, A. S. Matvyeev as an Educational and Political Reformer (Rus.), (St Petersburg, 1906). (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mau Ranipur

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​MAU RANIPUR, a town of British India in Jahnsi district, in the United Provinces. Pop. (1901), 17,231. It contains a large community of wealthy merchants and bankers. A special variety of red cotton cloth, known as kharua, is manufactured and exported to all parts of India. Trees line many of the streets, and handsome temples ornament the town.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maksoora

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​MAKSOORA, the term in Mahommedan architecture given to the sanctuary or praying-chamber in a mosque, which was sometimes enclosed with a screen of lattice-work; the word is occasionally used for a similar enclosure round a tomb.