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

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​BRUNHILDA (Brunechildis), queen of Austrasia (d. 613), was a daughter of Athanagild, king of the Visigoths. In 567 she was asked in marriage by Sigebert, who was reigning at Metz. She now abjured Arianism and was converted to the orthodox faith, and the union was celebrated at Metz; on which occasion Fortunatus, an Italian poet, who was then at the Frankish court, composed the epithalamium. Chilperic, brother of Sigebert, and king of the west Frankish kingdom, jealous of the renown which this marriage brought to his elder brother, hastened to ask the hand of Galswintha, sister of Brunhilda; but at the instigation of his mistress Fredegond, he assassinated his wife. Sigebert was anxious to avenge his sister-in-law, but on the intervention of Guntram, he accepted the compensation offered by Chilperic, namely the cities of Bordeaux, Cahors and Limoges, with Béarn and Bigorre.
This treaty did not prevent war soon again breaking out between Sigebert and Chilperic. So long as her husband lived, Brunhilda played a secondary part, but having been made captive by Chilperic after her husband’s assassination (575), she succeeded in escaping from her prison at Rouen, after a series of extraordinary adventures, by means of a marriage with Merovech, the son of her conqueror. From this time on, she took the lead; in Austrasia she engaged in a desperate struggle against the nobles, who wished to govern in the name of her son Childebert II.; but she was worsted in the conflict and for some time had to seek refuge in Burgundy. After the death of Childebert II. (597) she aspired to govern Austrasia and Burgundy in the name of her grandsons Theudebert and Theuderich II. She was expelled from Austrasia, and then stirred up Theuderich II. against his brother, whom he defeated at Toul and Tolbiac, and put to death. Theuderich II. died shortly after this victory, and Brunhilda caused one of her great-grandchildren to be proclaimed king. The nobles of Austrasia and Burgundy, however, now summoned Clotaire II., son of Fredegond, and king of Neustria, to help them against the queen. Brunhilda was given up to him, and died a terrible death, being dragged at the heels of a wild horse (613).
Brunhilda seems to have had political ideas, and to have wished to attain to the royal power. She was a protectress of the Church, and Pope Gregory I. (590–604) addressed a series of letters to her, in which he showered praises upon her. She took it upon herself, however, to supervise the bishoprics and monasteries, and came into conflict with Columban (Columbanus), abbot of Luxeuil. As Brunhilda was a great queen, tradition ascribes to her the construction of many old castles, and a number of old Roman roads are also known by the name of Chaussées de Brunehaut.
Authorities.—Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, bks. iv.-x.; the so-called Chronicle of Fredegarius; Aug. Thierry, Récits des temps mérovingiens (2 vols., Paris, 8th ed., 1864); G. Kurth, “La Reine Brunehaut,” in the Revue des questions historiques, vol. xxvi. (1891).  (C. Pf.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bruni, Leonardo

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​BRUNI, LEONARDO (1369–1444), Italian scholar, author of the History of Florence, was born at Arezzo, and is generally known as Leonardo Aretino. He was secretary to the papal chancery under Innocent VII. and John XXII. From 1427 to his death in 1444 he was chancellor to the republic of Florence. He was buried at the expense of the state in Sta Croce, where his laurelled statue is still to be seen. He was the first to free the history of Florence from its fabulous elements, but his book, though not unintelligent, only repays very laborious study. The only Latin edition is Historiarum Florentinarum libri xii . . . exempto in lucem edit. stud, et op. Sixti Brunonis (Argentor. 1610, fol.). A translation into Tuscan was published by Donato Acciajuoli in 1476 at Venice, was republished at Florence in 1492, and again, with Sansovino’s continuation, at Venice in 1561.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bruno

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​BRUNO, or Brun (925–965), archbishop of Cologne, third son of the German king, Henry I., the Fowler, by his second wife Matilda, was educated for the church at Utrecht, where he ​distinguished himself by his studious zeal. In 940 his brother, King Otto, afterwards the emperor Otto the Great, appointed him chancellor, and some years later arch-chaplain, and under his leadership the chancery was reformed and became a training ground for capable administrators. He rendered valuable assistance to his brother Otto in his efforts to suppress the risings which marked the earlier part of his reign, services which were rewarded in 953 when Bruno was made archbishop of Cologne, and about the same time duke of Lorraine. Bruno is chiefly renowned as a scholar and a patron of learning. He consorted eagerly with learned foreigners, tried to secure a better education for the clergy, and was mainly instrumental in making his brother’s court a centre of intellectual life. He built many churches, and, aided by the tendency of the time, sought to purify monastic life. He died at Reims on the 11th of October 965, and was buried in the church of St Pantaleon at Cologne.
See Ruotger, “Vita Brunonis archiepiscopi Coloniensis,” in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptures, Band iv. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826–1892); E. Meyer, De Brunone I. Archiepiscopo Coloniensi (Berlin, 1867); J. P. Pfeiffer, Historisch-Kritische Beiträge zur Geschichte Bruns I. (Cologne, 1870); K. Martin, Beiträge zur Geschichte Brunos I. von Köln (Jena, 1878).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brunet, Jacques Charles

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​BRUNET, JACQUES CHARLES (1780–1867), French bibliographer, was born in Paris on the 2nd of November 1780. He was the son of a bookseller, and in 1802 he printed a supplement to the Dictionnaire bibiographique de livres rares (1790) of Duclos and Cailleau. In 1810 there appeared the first edition of his Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur des livres (3 vols.). Brunet published successive editions of his great bibliographical dictionary, which rapidly came to be recognized as the first book of its class in European literature. He died on the 14th of November 1867. Among his other works are Nouvelles Recherches bibliographiques (1834), Recherches . . . sur les éditions originales . . . de Rabelais (1852), and an edition of the French poems of J. G. Alione d’Asti, dating from the beginning of the 16th century (1836).
See also a notice by Le Roux de Lincy, prefixed to the catalogue (1868) of his own valuable library. A supplement to the 5th edition (1860–1865) of the Manuel du libraire was published (1878–1880) by P. Deschamps and G. Brunet.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bruno of Querfurt, Saint

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​BRUNO (Brun, Bruns) OF QUERFURT, SAINT (c. 975–1009), German missionary bishop and martyr, belonged to the family of the lords of Querfurt in Saxony. He was educated at the famous cathedral school at Magdeburg, and at the age of twenty was attached to the clerical household of the emperor Otto III. In 996 he accompanied the emperor to Rome, and there gave up his post and entered the monastery of SS. Alexius and Bonifacius on the Aventine, taking “in religion” the name of Bonifacius. When the news reached Rome of the martyrdom of Adalbert, bishop of Prague (997), Bruno determined to take his place, and in 1004, after being consecrated by the pope as archbishop of the eastern heathen, he set out for Germany to seek aid of the emperor Henry II. The emperor, however, being at war with Boleslaus of Poland, opposed his enterprise, and he went first to the court of St Stephen of Hungary, and, finding but slight encouragement there, to that of the grand prince Vladimir at Kiev. He made no effort to win over Vladimir to the Roman obedience, but devoted himself to the conversion of the pagan Pechenegs who inhabited the country between the Don and the Danube. In this he was so far successful that they made peace with the grand prince and were for a while nominally Christians. In 1008 Bruno went to the court of Boleslaus, and, after a vain effort to persuade the emperor to end the war between Germans and Poles, determined at all hazards to proceed with his mission to the Prussians. With eighteen companions he set out; but on the borders of the Russian (Lithuanian) country he and all his company were massacred by the heathens (February 14, 1009).
During his stay in Hungary (1004) Bruno wrote a life of St Adalbert, the best of the three extant biographies of the saint (in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. Scriptores, iv. pp. 577, 596–612), described by A. Potthast (Bibliotheca hist. med. aev.) as “in the highest degree attractive both in manner and matter.”
A life of St Bruno was written by Dietmar, bishop of Merseburg (976–1019). This, with additions from the life of St Romuald, is published in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (June 19), vi. 1, pp. 223-225. See further U. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques, Bio-Bibliographie (Paris, 1904), s.v. “Brunon de Querfurt.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buttery

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​BUTTERY (from O. Fr. boterie, Late Lat. botaria, a place where liquor is stored, from butta, a cask), a place for storing wine; later, with a confusion with “butter,” a pantry or storeroom for food; especially, at colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the place where food other than meat, especially bread and butter, ale and wines, &c., are kept.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buttmann, Philipp Karl

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​BUTTMANN, PHILIPP KARL (1764–1829), German philologist, was born at Frankfort-on-Main in 1764. He was educated in his native town and at the university of Göttingen. In 1789 he obtained an appointment in the library at Berlin, and for some years he edited Speners Journal. In 1796 he became professor at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin, a post which he held for twelve years. In 1806 he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences, and in 1811 was made secretary of the Historico-Philological Section. He died in 1829. Buttmann’s writings gave a great impetus to the scientific study of the Greek language. His Griechische Grammatik (1792) went through many editions, and was translated into English. His Lexilogus, a valuable study on some words of difficulty occurring principally in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, was published in 1818–1825, and was translated into English. Buttmann’s other works were Ausführliche griechische Sprachlehre (2 vols., 1819–1827); Mythologus, a collection of essays (1828–1829); and editions of some classical authors, the most important being Demosthenes in Midiam (1823) and the continuation of Spalding’s Quintilian.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buxton, Jedediah

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​BUXTON, JEDEDIAH (1707–1772), English arithmetician, was born on the 20th of March 1707 at Elmton, near Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. Although his father was schoolmaster of the parish, and his grandfather had been the vicar, his education had been so neglected that he could not write; and his knowledge, except of numbers, was extremely limited. How he came first to know the relative proportions of numbers, and their progressive denominations, he did not remember; but on such matters his attention was so constantly riveted, that he frequently took no cognizance of external objects, and when he did, it was only with reference to their numbers. He measured the whole lordship of Elmton, consisting of some thousand acres, simply by striding over it, and gave the area not only in acres, roods and perches, but even in square inches. After this, he reduced them into square hairs'-breadths, reckoning forty-eight to each side of the inch. His memory was so great, that in resolving a question he could leave off and resume the operation again at the same point after the lapse of a week, or even of several months. His perpetual application to figures prevented the smallest acquisition of any other knowledge. His wonderful faculty was tested in 1754 by the Royal Society of London, who acknowledged their satisfaction by presenting him with a handsome gratuity. During his visit to the metropolis he was taken to see the tragedy of Richard III. performed at Drury Lane theatre, but his whole mind was given to the counting of the words uttered by David Garrick. Similarly, he set himself to count the steps of the dancers; and he declared that the innumerable sounds produced by the musical instruments had perplexed him beyond measure. He died in 1772.
A memoir appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine for June 1754, to which, probably through the medium of a Mr Holliday, of Haughton Hall, Nottinghamshire, Buxton had contributed several letters. In this memoir, his age is given as forty-nine, which points to his birth in 1705; the date adopted above is on the authority of Lysons’ Magna Britannia (Derbyshire).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Butterwort

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* A, leaf of Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) with left margin inflected over a row of small flies. (After Darwin.) B, glands from surface of leaf by which the sticky liquid is secreted and by means of which the products of digestion are absorbed.
BUTTERWORT, the popular name of a small insectivorous plant, Pinguicula vulgaris, which grows in wet, boggy land. It is a herb with a rosette of fleshy, oblong leaves, 1 to 3 in. long, appressed to the ground, of a pale colour and with a sticky surface. Small insects settle on the leaves and are caught in the viscid excretion. This, like the excretion of the sundew and other insectivorous plants, contains a digestive ferment (or enzyme) which renders the nitrogenous substances of the body of the insect soluble, and capable of absorption by the leaf. In this way the plant obtains nitrogenous food by means of its leaves. The leaves bear two sets of glands, the larger borne on usually unicellular pedicels, the smaller almost sessile (fig. B). When a fly is captured, the viscid excretion becomes strongly acid and the naturally incurved margins of the leaf curve still further inwards, rendering contact between the insect and the leaf-surface more complete. The plant is widely distributed in the north temperate zone, extending into the arctic zone.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Butyl Alcohols

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​BUTYL ALCOHOLS, C$_4$H$_9$OH. Four isomeric alcohols of this formula are known; two of these are primary, one secondary, and one tertiary (see Alcohols). Normal butyl alcohol, CH$_3$·(CH$_2$)$_2$·CH$_2$OH, is a colourless liquid, boiling at 116.8°, and formed by reducing normal butyl aldehyde with sodium, or by a peculiar fermentation of glycerin, brought about by a schizomycete. Isobutyl alcohol, (CH$_3$)$_2$CH·CH$_2$OH, the butyl alcohol of fermentation, is a primary alcohol derived from isobutane. It may be prepared by the general methods, and occurs in fusel oil, especially in potato spirit. It is a liquid, smelling like fusel oil and boiling at 108.4° C. Methyl ethyl carbinol, CH$_3$·C$_2$H$_5$·CHOH, is the secondary alcohol derived from n-butane. It is a strongly smelling liquid, boiling at 99°. Trimethyl carbinol or tertiary butyl alcohol, (CH$_3$)$_3$·COH, is the simplest tertiary alcohol, and was obtained by A. Butlerow in 1864 by acting with zinc methyl on acetyl chloride (see Alcohols). It forms rhombic prisms or plates which melt at 25° and boil at 83°, and has a spiritous smell, resembling that of camphor.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buttress

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​BUTTRESS (from the O. Fr. bouteret, that which bears a thrust, from bouter, to push, cf. Eng. “butt” and “abutment”), masonry projecting from a wall, provided to give additional strength to the same, and also to resist the thrust of the roof or wall, especially when concentrated at any one point. In Roman architecture the plans of the building, where the vaults were of considerable span and the thrust therefore very great, were so arranged as to provide cross-walls, dividing the aisles, as in the case of the Basilica of Maxentius, and, in the Thermae of Rome, the subdivisions of the less important halls, so that there were no visible buttresses. In the baths of Diocletian, however, these cross-walls rose to the height of the great vaulted hall, the tepidarium, and their upper portions were decorated with niches and pilasters. In a palace at Shuka in Syria, attributed to the end of the 2nd century A.D., where, in consequence of the absence of timber, it was necessary to cover over the building with slabs of stones, these latter were carried on arches thrown across the great hall, and this necessitated two precautions, viz. the provision of an abutment inside the building, and of buttresses outside, the earliest example in which the feature was frankly accepted. In Byzantine work there were no external buttresses, the plans being arranged to include them in cross-walls or interior abutments. The buttresses of the early Romanesque churches were only pilaster strips employed to break up the wall surface and decorate the exterior. At a slightly later period a greater depth was given to the lower portion of the buttresses, which was then capped with a deep sloping weathering. The introduction of ribbed vaulting, extended to the nave in the 12th century, and the concentration of thrusts on definite points of the structure, rendered the buttress an absolute necessity, and from the first this would seem to have been recognized, and the architectural treatment already given to the Romanesque buttress received ​a remarkable development. The buttresses of the early English period have considerable projection with two or three sets-off sloped at an acute angle dividing the stages and crowned by triangular heads; and slender columns (“buttress shafts”) are used at the angle. In later work pinnacles and niches are usually employed to decorate the summits of the buttresses, and in the still later Perpendicular work the vertical faces are all richly decorated with panelling.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buxar

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​BUXAR, or Baxar, a town of India, in the district of Shahabad, Bengal, on the south bank of the Ganges, and on the East Indian railway. Pop. (1901) 13,945. There is a dismantled fort of small size which was important from its commanding the Ganges. A celebrated victory was gained here on the 23rd of October 1764 by the British forces under Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, over the united armies of Shuja-ud-Dowlah and Kasim Ali Khan. The action raged from 9 o’clock till noon, when the enemy gave way. Pursuit was, however, frustrated by Shuja-ud-Dowlah sacrificing a part of his army to the safety of the remainder. A bridge of boats had been constructed over a stream about 2 m. distant from the field of battle, and this the enemy destroyed before their rear had passed over. Through this act 2000 troops were drowned, or otherwise lost; but destructive as was this proceeding, it was, said Major Munro, “the best piece of generalship Shuja-ud-Dowlah showed that day, because if I had crossed the rivulet with the army, I should either have taken or drowned his whole army in the Karamnasa, and come up with his treasure and jewels, and Kasim Ali Khan’s jewels, which I was informed amounted to between two and three millions.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Butyric Acid

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​BUTYRIC ACID, C$_4$H$_8$O$_2$. Two acids are known corresponding to this formula, normal butyric acid, CH$_3$·CH$_2$·CH$_2$·COOH, and isobutyric acid, (CH$_3$)$_2$·CH·COOH. Normal butyric acid or fermentation butyric acid is found in butter, as an hexyl ester in the oil of Heracleum giganteum and as an octyl ester in parsnip (Pastinaca sativa); it has also been noticed in the fluids of the flesh and in perspiration. It may be prepared by the hydrolysis of ethyl acetoacetate, or by passing carbon monoxide over a mixture of sodium acetate and sodium ethylate at 205° C. (A. Geuther, Ann., 1880, 202, p.306), C$_2$H$_5$ONa + CH$_3$COONa + CO = H·CO$_2$Na + CH$_3$·CH$_2$·CH$_2$·COONa. It is ordinarily prepared by the fermentation of sugar or starch, brought about by the addition of putrefying cheese, calcium carbonate being added to neutralize the acids formed in the process. A. Fitz (Ber., 1878, 11 p. 52) found that the butyric fermentation of starch is aided by the direct addition of Bacillus subtilis. The acid is an oily liquid of unpleasant smell, and solidifies at −19° C.; it boils at 162.3° C., and has a specific gravity of 0.9746 (0° C.). It is easily soluble in water and alcohol, and is thrown out of its aqueous solution by the addition of calcium chloride. Potassium bichromate and sulphuric acid oxidize it to carbon dioxide and acetic acid, while alkaline potassium permanganate oxidizes it to carbon dioxide. The calcium salt, Ca(C$_4$H$_7$O$_2$)$_2$·H$_2$O, is less soluble in hot water than in cold.
Isobutyric acid is found in the free state in carobs (Ceratonia siliqua) and in the root of Arnica dulcis, and as an ethyl ester in croton oil. It may be artificially prepared by the hydrolysis of isopropylcyanide with alkalies, by the oxidation of isopropyl alcohol with potassium bichromate and sulphuric acid (I. Pierre and E. Puchot, Ann. de chim. et de phys., 1873, [4] 28, p. 366), or by the action of sodium amalgam on methacrylic acid, CH$_2$·C(CH$_3$)·COOH. It is a liquid of somewhat unpleasant smell, boiling at 155.5° C. Its specific gravity is 0.9697 (0°). Heated with chromic acid solution to 140° C., it gives carbon dioxide and acetone. Alkaline potassium permanganate oxidizes it to α-oxyisobutyric acid, (CH$_3$)$_2$·C(OH)·COOH, whilst concentrated nitric acid converts it into dinitroisopropane. Its salts are more soluble in water than those of the normal acid.