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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alençon, Counts and Dukes of

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​ALENÇON, COUNTS AND DUKES OF. The first line of the counts of Alençon was founded by Yves, lord of Bellesme, who in the middle of the 10th century possessed and fortified the town of Alençon. His successors, involved in all the wars of the kings of England in Normandy, were alternately deprived and ​repossessed of their domains, according to the fluctuations of fortune between the rival parties. Mabille, countess of Alençon and heiress of this family (d. 1082), married Roger of Montgomery, and from them descended a second house of Alençon which became extinct in the person of Robert IV.; the county of Alençon was then joined to the royal domain. It was successively granted as an appanage to Peter, son of St Louis (1268), and to Charles, count of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair (1293). The third house of Alençon sprang from Charles, second son of the count Valois, who was killed at the battle of Crécy in 1346. The countship of Alençon was raised to a peerage in 1367 and into a dukedom in 1414. John, 1st duke of Alençon, was killed at Agincourt on the 25th of October 1415, after having with his own hand slain the duke of York. His son, also named John, was dispossessed of his duchy by the king of England, but reconquered it in 1449. In 1524 the dukedom of Alençon reverted to the crown, in consequence of the death of the duke Charles IV. without issue of his marriage with Margaret, sister of Francis I. It was given as a jointure to Catherine de’ Medici in 1559, and as an appanage to her son Francis in 1566. It was pawned by Henry IV. to the duke of Württemberg, and subsequently it passed to Gaston, duke of Orleans, duchess of Guise; to Charles, duke of Berry, grandson of Louis XIV. (1710); and to Monsieur (Louis XVIII.), brother of Louis XVI.
The title of duc d’Alençon was given to Ferdinand of Orleans, son of the duc de Nemours, and grandson of Louis-Philippe.  (M.P.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alembic

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​ALEMBIC (Arab. al, definite article, anbiq, a still; cognate to the Gr. ἄμβιξ, a cup), an apparatus for distillation, used chiefly by the alchemists, and now superseded by the retort and the worm-still. It varied considerably in form and construction, but consisted essentially of three parts—a vessel containing the material to be distilled and called, from its gourd-like shape, the cucurbit or mattrass; a vessel to receive and condense the vapour, called the head or capital; and a receiver for the spirit, connected by a pipe with the capital. The entire apparatus was sometimes constructed of glass, but it was more usual to make the cucurbit of copper or earthenware and the capital alone of glass.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alessandri, Alessandro

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​ALESSANDRI, ALESSANDRO (Alexander ab Alexandro) (1461–1523), Italian jurist, was born at Naples about the year 1461. He studied law at Naples and Rome, and afterwards practised for a time as advocate in both cities. He is said to have been royal proto-notary at Naples in 1490. Dissatisfied, according to his own account, with the corrupt administration of justice, he at length quitted the bar and devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits, especially to the study of philology and antiquities. A sinecure appointment, which he owed to the favour of the pope, enabled him to lead a life of learned leisure at Rome, where he died on the 2nd of October 1523. His work entitled Dies Geniales appeared at Rome in 1522, and was constructed after the model of the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius. It consists of a confused mass of heterogeneous materials relating to philology, antiquities, law, dreams, spectres, &c., and is characterized by considerable credulity.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alençon

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​ALENÇON, a town of north-western France, capital of the department of Orne, 36 m. N. of Le Mans on a branch line of the Western railway. Pop. (1906) 14,378. Alençon, a clean, regularly built town with broad handsome streets, is situated in a wide and fertile plain, on the Sarthe at its confluence with the Briante. The only remains of the ancient castle of Alençon are two towers of the 15th century, which serve as a prison, and a third of the 14th century known as the Tour Couronnée, to which they are united. Notre-Dame, the chief church, dates from the 15th century. It is remarkable for a porch ornamented in the richest Gothic style, and for its stained windows of the 16th century. Alençon has a large circular corn-market and a cloth-market. The manufacture of the point d’Alençon lace has greatly diminished. The weaving and bleaching of cloth, which is of less importance than formerly, the manufacture of vehicles, and tanning are carried on; there is a large trade in the horses of the district, and granite is worked in the neighbourhood. Alençon is the seat of a prefect and a court of assizes. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a lycée, training-colleges and a chamber of arts and manufactures.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alesia

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​ALESIA, the ancient name for a hill in central France, now Alise-Ste-Reine (department Côte d’Or), where in 52 B.C. Caesar besieged the Gaulish national leader Vercingetorix within enormous entrenchments, forced him to surrender, and thus practically ended his conquest of Gaul. The siege-works have been excavated by Napoleon III. and others, down to the present day. The site seems to have been inhabited also during the Roman empire, but its importance is limited to Caesar’s siege.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alemán, Mateo

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​ALEMÁN, MATEO (1547–1609?), Spanish novelist and man of letters, was born at Seville in 1547. He graduated at Seville University in 1564, studied later at Salamanca and Alcalá, and from 1571 to 1588 held a post in the treasury; in 1594 he was arrested on suspicion of malversation, but was speedily released. In 1599 he published the first part of Guzmán de Alfarache, a celebrated picaresque novel which passed through not less than sixteen editions in five years; a spurious sequel was issued in 1602, but the authentic continuation did not appear till 1604. In 1608 Alemán emigrated to America, and is said to have carried on business as a printer in Mexico; his Ortografia castellana (1609), published in that city, contains ingenious and practical proposals for the reform of Spanish spelling. Nothing is recorded of Alemán after 1609, but it is sometimes asserted that he was still living in 1617. He married, unhappily, Catalina de Espinosa in 1571, and was constantly in money difficulties, being imprisoned for debt at Seville at the end of 1602. He is the author of a life (1604) of St Antony of Padua, and versions of two odes of Horace bear witness to his taste and metrical accomplishment. His chief title to remembrance, however, is Guzmán de Alfarache, which was translated into French in 1600, into English in 1623 and into Latin in 1623.
See J. Hazañas y la Rua, Discursos leidos en la Real Academia Sevillana de Buenas letras el 25 de marzo de 1892 (Sevilla, 1892); J. Gestoso y Perez, Nuevos datos para ilustrar las biografias del Maestro Juan de Malara y de Mateo Alemán (Sevilla, 1896).  (J. F.-K.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alenio, Giulio

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​ALENIO, GIULIO (1582–1649), Italian Jesuit missionary, was born at Brescia. He entered the Society of Jesus and was sent to the East. He landed at Macao in 1610, and while waiting a favourable opportunity to penetrate into China busied himself for three years in teaching mathematics. His thirty years' residence in China was marked by unceasing zeal and considerable success. He adopted the dress and manners of the country, was the first Christian missionary in Kiang-si, and built several churches in Fo-Kien. He wrote in Chinese a Life of Christ (Pekin, 1635–1637, 8 vols.; often reprinted, e.g. in 1887 in 3 vols., and used even by Protestant missionaries) and a cosmography (Iche fang wai ki Hang-chow, 1623, 6 vols.), which was translated into Manchu under the title The True Origin of 10,000 Things, a copy of which was sent from Pekin to Paris in 1789. Alenio died at Fu-chow in 1649.
For bibliography see de Backer and Sommervogel, Bibl. de la Cie. de Jésus, i. 158-160.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asser

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​ASSER, or Asserius Menevensis (d. c. 910), English bishop, and author of a life of Alfred the Great, was a native of the western part of Wales, and was related to Nobis, bishop of St David’s. He became a monk at St David’s, and having acquired some reputation for learning, he was invited by King Alfred to his court. The king met the monk at Denu (probably East or West Dean, near Seaford in Sussex), but Asser did not at once accept the invitation of Alfred, and returned to Wales to consult his colleagues. He then agreed to spend six months of each year with the king and six months in his own land; but his first stay at the royal court extended to eight months, and it is probable ​that the annual visit to Wales was curtailed if not altogether discontinued. It is difficult to fix the date of Asser's arrival in England, but it was probably about 885. He assisted the king in his studies, received from him the monasteries of Congresbury and Banwell, and sometime later “Exeter and its diocese in Saxonland and Cornwall.” He became bishop of Sherborne before 900, and his death is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 910, although it is possible that it occurred a year or two earlier. The scanty details of Asser's life are taken from his biography of Alfred, from which it is inferred that he was acquainted with one or two Frankish biographies, and possibly had visited the continent of Europe.
Asser's work, Annales rerum gestarum Alfredi magni, was written about 893, and consists of a chronicle of English history from 849 to 887, and an account of Alfred's life, largely drawn from personal knowledge, down to 887. The only manuscript of which there is any record dates from about 1000, and was destroyed by fire in 1731. From this manuscript an edition was printed in 1574 under the direction of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury; but this contained many interpolations and alterations which were copied by subsequent editors. The text has since been the subject of careful study, and the edition edited by W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904) distinguishes between the original work of Asser and the later additions. Some doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the work, especially by T. Wright in the Biographia Britannica literaria (London, 1842), who ascribes the life to a monk of St Neots; but the latest scholarship regards it as the work of Asser, although all the difficulties which surround the authorship have not been removed. The life was largely used by subsequent chroniclers, among others by Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Roger of Hoveden, and William of Malmesbury.
See W. H. Stevenson, Introduction to Asser's Life of King Alfred (Oxford, 1904); R. Pauli, Introduction to König Aelfred (Berlin, 1851).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Assignment

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​ASSIGNMENT, Assignation, Assignee (from Lat. assignare, to mark out), terms which, as derivatives of the verb “to assign,” are of frequent technical use in law. To assign is to make over, and the term is generally used to express a transference by writing, in contradistinction to a transference by actual delivery. In England the usual expression is assignment, in Scotland it is assignation. The person making over is called the assignor or cedent; the recipient, the assign or assignee. An assignee may be such either by deed, as when a lessee assigns his lease to another, or in law, as when property devolves upon an executor. The law as to assignment in connexion with each particular subject, as the assignment of a chose in action, assignment in contract, of dower, of errors, of a lease, &c., will be found under the respective headings. In a colloquial sense, “assignation” means a secretly contrived meeting between lovers.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Assiniboin

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​ASSINIBOIN (“Stone-Cookers”), a tribe of North American Indians of Siouan stock. Their name (see above) is said to refer to their method of boiling water by dropping red-hot stones into it. Their former range was between the Missouri and the middle Saskatchewan on both sides of the Canadian frontier. In 1904 there were 1234 in the United States, all on reservations in Montana; and in 1902 there were 1371 in Canada.
See Handbook of American Indians, ed. F. W. Hodge (Washington, 1907).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Assen

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​ASSEN, the capital of the province of Drente, Holland, 16 m. by rail S. of Groningen, at the junction of the two canals which run north and south to Groningen and Meppel respectively. Pop. (1900) 11,329. It is partly surrounded by a small forest belonging to the state. Assen possesses schools (a gymnasium and burgher school), a chamber of commerce, a museum of antiquities and a court-house. Peat-cutting forms a considerable industry. Many prehistoric remains found in the neighbourhood are in the museum at Leiden. Until the 19th century Assen was a small place built round the convent in which Otto II. (of Lippe), bishop of Utrecht, was murdered after being taken prisoner at Koevorden in 1237.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Assideans

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​ASSIDEANS (the Anglicized form, derived through the Greek, of the Hebrew Ḥasidim, “the pious”), the name of a party or sect which stood out against the Hellenization of the Jews in the 2nd century B.C. After the massacre of those who fled from the forces of Antiochus Epiphanes and would not resist on the sabbath, Mattathias (or Judas) decided to set aside the law and was joined by a company of Assideans, brave men of Israel every one, who offered themselves willingly for the law (1 Macc. ii. 42, cf. 2 Macc. viii. 1). On the appointment of Alcimus (162 B.C.), “a descendant of Aaron” as high-priest, “the Assideans were the first who sought peace” (1 Macc. vii. 13 f.); but the treacherous murder of sixty of them (ib. 16) threw them back into the arms of Judas. According to 2 Macc. xiv., Alcimus identified them with the whole party of the rebels, of which they were only one, though the most important, section.
See Schurer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, i. 203; art. in Jewish Encyclopaedia, s.v. “Ḥasidim” (S. M. Dubnow). (J. H. A. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Assiniboia

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​ASSINIBOIA, a name formerly applied to two districts of Canada, but not now held by any. (1) A district formed in 1835 by the Hudson’s Bay Company, having in it Fort Garry at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in Rupert’s Land, North America. It extended over a circular area, with a radius of 50 m. from Fort Garry. It was governed by a local council nominated by the Hudson’s Bay Company. It ceased to exist when Rupert’s Land was transferred to Canada in 1870. (2) A district of the North-west Territories, which was given definite existence by an act of the Dominion parliament in 1875. Assiniboia extended from the western boundary of Manitoba (99° W. in 1875, and 101° 25′ W. in 1881) to 111° W., and from 49° N. to 52° N. The name was a misnomer, as it barely touched the Assiniboine river. To the north of the district lay the district of Saskatchewan, so that when the two were united by the Dominion act of 1905, they were somewhat changed in boundaries and the name Saskatchewan was given to the new province. The derivation of Assiniboia is from two Ojibway words, assini meaning a stone, and the termination “to cook by roasting”; from these came a name first applied to a Dakota or Sioux tribe living on the Upper Red river; afterwards when this tribe separated from the Dakotas, its name was given to the branch of the Red river which the tribe visited, the river being known as the Assiniboine and the tribe as Assiniboin.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Assessment

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​ASSESSMENT, (from Lat. assessare, to sit beside, to judge), a term expressing either an official valuation of income or property for purposes of taxation, or the amount so determined (see Taxation and Valuation). It is also applied to the amount of damages fixed by a jury in a court of law (see Damages).
An assessment committee is a statutory committee appointed under the Union Assessment Acts 1862, 1880, for the purpose of making out the valuation lists upon which the poor-law rate is based.
An assessment policy, in life insurance, is a policy issued at a fixed premium, the excess of which over the portion necessary to meet current claims and expenses goes to form a reserve fund which is devoted to various forms of benefit for the policy-holders. See Insurance and Friendly Societies.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Assessor

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​ASSESSOR (Lat. assessare, assidere, to sit by), a Roman term originally applied to a trained lawyer who sat beside a governor of a province or other magistrate, to instruct him in the administration of the laws (see Roll, De assessoribus magistratuum Romanorum, Leipzig, 1872). The system is still exemplified in Scotland, where it is usual in the larger towns for municipal magistrates, in the administration of their civil jurisdiction, to have the aid of professional assessors. In England, by the Judicature Act 1873, the court of appeal and the High Court may in any cause or matter call in the aid of assessors. The Patents Act 1907 makes special provision for assessors in patent and trade-mark cases. By the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1891 the House of Lords may, in appeals in admiralty actions, call in the aid of assessors, while in the admiralty division of the High Court it is usual for the Elder Brethren of Trinity House to assist as nautical assessors. In admiralty cases in the county courts, too, the judge is frequently assisted by assessors of “nautical skill and experience” (County Court Admiralty Jurisdiction Act 1868). In the ecclesiastical courts assessors assist the bishop in proceedings under the Church Discipline Act 1840, s. 11, while under the Clergy Discipline Act 1892, s. 2, they assist the chancellor in determining questions of fact. By the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876, s. 14, the king in council may make rules for the attendance of archbishops and bishops as assessors in the hearing of ecclesiastical cases by the judicial committee of the privy council.
The term “assessor” is also very generally applied to persons appointed to ascertain and fix the value of rates, taxes, &c., and in this sense the word is used in the United States.
In France and in all European countries where the civil law system prevails, the term assesseur is applied to those assistant judges who, with a president, compose a judicial court.
In Germany an Assessor, or Beisitzer, is a member of the legal profession who has passed four years in actual practice and become qualified for the position of a judge.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Adabazar

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​ADABAZÁR, an important commercial town in the Khoja Ili sanjak of Asia Minor, situated on the old military road from Constantinople to the east, and connected by a branch line with the Anatolian railway. Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 10,000; Christians, 8000). It was founded in 1540 and enlarged in 1608 by the settlement in it of an Armenian colony. There are silk and linen industries, and an export of tobacco, walnut-wood, cocoons and vegetables for the Constantinople market. Imports are valued at £80,000 and exports at £480,000.
See V. Cuinet, Turquie d’Asie (Paris, 1890–1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Actuary

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​ACTUARY. The name of actuarius, sc. scriba, in ancient Rome, was given to the clerks who recorded the Acta Publica of the senate, and also to the officers who kept the military accounts and enforced the due fulfilment of contracts for military supplies. In its English form the word has undergone a gradual limitation of meaning. At first it seems to have denoted any clerk or registrar; then more particularly the secretary and adviser of any joint-stock company, but especially of an insurance company; and it is now applied specifically to one who makes those calculations as to the probabilities of human life, on which the practice of life assurance and the valuation of reversionary interests, deferred annuities, &c., are based. The first mention of the word in law is in the Friendly Societies Act of 1819, where it is used in the vague sense, “actuaries, or persons skilled in calculation,” but it has received still further recognition in the Friendly Societies Act of 1875 and the Life Assurance Companies Act of 1870. The word has been used with precision since the establishment of the “Institute of Actuaries of Great Britain and Ireland” in 1848. The Quarterly Journal, Charter of Incorporation, and by-laws of this society may be usefully consulted for particulars as to the requirements for membership (see also Annuity). The registrar in the Lower House of Convocation is also called the actuary.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Acuna, Christoval de

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​ACUÑA, CHRISTOVAL DE (1597–c. 1676), Spanish missionary and explorer, was born at Burgos in 1597. He was admitted a Jesuit in 1612, and afterwards sent on mission work to Chile and Peru, where he became rector of the college of Cuenca. In 1639 he accompanied Pedro Texiera in his second exploration of the Amazon, in order to take scientific observations, and draw up a report for the Spanish government. The journey lasted ten months; and on the explorer’s arrival in Peru, Acuña prepared his narrative, while awaiting a ship for Europe. The king of Spain, Philip IV., received the author coldly, and it is said even tried to suppress his book, fearing that the Portuguese, who had just revolted from Spain (1640), would profit by its information. After occupying the positions of procurator of the Jesuits at Rome and censor (calificador) of the Inquisition at Madrid, Acuña returned to South America, where he died, probably soon after 1675. His Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas was published at Madrid in 1641; French and English translations (the latter from the French) appeared in 1682 and 1698.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Acuminate

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​ACUMINATE (from Lat. acumen, point), sharpened or pointed, a word used principally in botany and ornithology, to denote the narrowing or lance-shaping of a leaf or of a bird’s feather into a point, generally at the tip, though sometimes (with regard to a leaf) at the base. The poet William Cowper used the word to denote sharp and keen despair, but other authors, Sir T. Browne, Bacon, Bulwer, &c., use it to explain a material pointed shape.