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

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​BANNERET (Fr. banneret, from bannière, banner, elliptical for seigneur or chevalier banneret, Med. Lat. banneretus), in feudalism, the name given to those nobles who had the right to lead their vassals to battle under their own banner. Ultimately bannerets obtained a place in the feudal hierarchy between ​barons and knights bachelors, which has given rise to the idea that they are the origin of King James I.’s order of baronets. Selden, indeed, points out that “the old stories” often have baronetti for bannereti, and he points out that in France the title had become hereditary; but he himself is careful to say (p. 680) that banneret “hath no relation to this later title.” The title of knight banneret, with the right to display the private banner, came to be granted for distinguished service in the field. “No knight banneret,” says Selden, of the English custom, “can be created but in the field, and that, when either the king is present, or at least his royal standard is displayed. But the creation is almost the self-same with that in the old French ceremonies by the solemn delivery of a banner charged with the arms of him that is to be created, and the cutting of the end of the pennon or streamer to make it a square or into the shape of a banner in case that he which is to be created had in the field his arms on a streamer before the creation.” The creation of bannerets is traceable, according to Selden, to the time of Edward I. “Under these bannerets,” he adds, “divers knights bachelors and esquires usually served; and according to the number of them, the bannerets received wages.” The last authentic instance of the creation of a knight banneret was that of John Smith, created banneret at the battle of Edgehill by Charles I. for rescuing the royal standard from the enemy.
See Selden, Titles of Honor (3rd ed., London, 1672), p. 656; Du Cange, Glassarium (Niort, 1883), s.v. “Bannereti.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bannister, Charles

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​BANNISTER, CHARLES (1738–1804), English actor and singer, was born in Gloucestershire, and after some amateur and provincial experience made his first London appearance in 1762 as Will in The Orators at the Haymarket. Gifted with a fine bass voice, Bannister acquired a reputation as a singer at Ranelagh and elsewhere, as well as an actor, and was received with such favour that Garrick engaged him for Drury Lane. He died on the 26th of October 1804.
His son John Bannister (1760–1836), born at Deptford on the 12th of May 1760, first studied to be a painter, but soon took to the stage. His first formal appearance was at the Haymarket in 1778 as Dick in The Apprentice. The same year at Drury Lane he played in James Miller’s version of Voltaire’s Mahomet the part of Zaphna, which he had studied under Garrick. The Palmira of the cast was Mrs Robinson (“Perdita”). Bannister was the best low comedian of his day. As manager of Drury Lane (1802) he was no less successful. He retired in 1815 and died on the 7th of November 1836. He never gave up his taste for painting, and Gainsborough, Morland and Rowlandson were among his friends.
See Adolphus’s Memoirs of John Bannister (2 vols., 1838).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bankura

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​BANKURA, a town and district of British India, within the Burdwan division of Bengal. The town has a population of 20,737. The district has an area of 2621 sq. m., and in 1901 its population was 1,116,411, showing an increase of 4% in the decade. It is bounded on the N. and E. by Burdwan district; on the S. by Midnapur district; and on the W. by Manbhum district. Bankura forms a connecting link between the delta of the Ganges on the E. and the mountainous highlands of Chota Nagpur on the W. Along its eastern boundary adjoining Burdwan district the country is flat and alluvial, presenting the appearance of the ordinary paddy lands of Bengal. Going N. and W., however, the surface gradually rises into long undulating tracts; rice lands and swamps give way to a region of low thorny jungle or forest trees; the hamlets become smaller and more scattered, and nearly disappear altogether in the wild forests along the western boundary. Large quantities of lac and tussur silk are gathered in the hilly tract. The stone quarries and minerals are little worked. There are indigo factories and two coal-mines. Both cotton and silk are woven, and plates, &c., are carved from soap-stone. The old capital of the country was at Bishnupur, which is still the chief centre of local industries. The north-east part of the district is skirted by the East Indian railway beyond the river Damodar. The Midnapur-Jherria line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway passes through the district, and there is a line from Howrah to Bankura. The climate of Bankura is generally healthy, the cold season being bracing, the air wholesome and dry, and fogs of rare occurrence. The district is exposed to drought and also to destructive floods. It suffered in the famines of 1866, 1874–1875 and 1896–1897. The temperature in the hot season is very oppressive and relaxing. The Bishnupur raj was one of the largest estates in Bengal in the end of the 18th century, but it was sold for arrears of revenue shortly after the conclusion of the permanent settlement in 1793.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bannatyne, George

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​BANNATYNE, GEORGE (1545–?1608), collector of Scottish poems, was a native of Newtyle, Forfarshire. He became an Edinburgh merchant and was admitted a burgess in 1587. Some years earlier, in 1568, when the “pest” raged in the capital, he retired to his native county and amused himself by writing out copies of poems by 15th and early 16th century Scots poets. His work extended to eight hundred folio pages, divided into five parts. The MS. descended to his only daughter Janet, and later to her husband’s family, the Foulises of Woodhall and Ravelston, near Edinburgh. From them it passed to the Advocates’ library, where it is still preserved. This MS., known as the “Bannatyne Manuscript,” constitutes with the “Asloan” and “Maitland Folio” MSS. the chief repository of Middle Scots poetry, especially for the texts of the greater poets Henryson, Dunbar, Lyndsay and Alexander Scott. Portions of it were reprinted (with modifications) by Allan Ramsay in his Ever Green (1724), and later, and more correctly, by Lord Hailes in his Ancient Scottish Poems (1770). The entire text was issued by the Hunterian Club (1873–1902) in a handsome and generally accurate form. The name of Bannatyne was honoured in 1823 by the foundation in Edinburgh of the Bannatyne Club, devoted to the publication of historical and literary material from Scottish sources. The thirty-third issue of the club (1829) was Memorials of George Bannatyne (1545–1608), with a memoir by Sir Walter Scott and an account of the MS. by David Laing.
See also Gregory Smith, Specimens of Middle Scots (1902).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Banksia

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​BANKSIA, an Australian genus of shrubs and trees (natural order Proteaceae), with leathery leaves often deeply cut and handsome dense spikes of flowers. It is named after Sir Joseph Banks (q.v.). The plants are grown in England for their handsome foliage as evergreen greenhouse shrubs.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Banners, Feast of

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​BANNERS, FEAST OF (Jap. Nobori-no-Sekku), a Japanese festival in honour of male children held on the 5th of May. Every householder who has sons fastens a bamboo pole over his door and hangs from it gaily-coloured paper fishes, one for each of his boys. These fishes are made to represent carp, which are in Japanese folklore symbolical of health and longevity. The day is recognized as a national holiday.
For banners in general see Flag.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bannock (Idaho)

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​BANNOCK, the name of a county in the south-east of the state of Idaho, U.S.A., and of a river in the same state, which runs northward in Oneida county into the Snake or Lewis river. It is taken from that of the Bannock Indians (see Banate), a corruption of the native Panaiti.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bannock (cake)

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​BANNOCK (adapted from the Gaelic, and apparently connected with Lat. panis, bread), the term used in Scotland and the north of England for a large, flattish, round sort of bun or cake, usually made of barley-meal, but also of wheat, and sometimes with currants.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arrack

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​ARRACK, Rack or Rak, a generic name applied to a variety of spirituous liquors distilled in the Far East. According to some authorities the word is derived from the Arabic arak (perspiration), but according to others (see Morewood’s History of Inebriating Liquors, 1834, p. 140) it is derived from the areca-nut, a material from which a variety of arrack was long manufactured, and is of Indian origin. The liquor to which this or a similar name is applied is (or was, since the introduction of European spirits and methods of manufacture is gradually causing the native spirit industries on the old lines to decay) manufactured in India, Ceylon, Siam, Java, Batavia, China, Corea, &c., and its manufacture still constitutes a considerable industry. The term arrack as designating a distilled liquor does not, however, appear to have been confined to the Far East, as, in Timkowski’s Travels, it is stated that a spirit distilled from koumiss (q.v.) by the Tatars, Mongols and presumably the Caucasian races generally, is called arrack, araka or ariki. In Ceylon arrack is distilled chiefly from palm toddy, which is the fermented juice drawn from the unexpanded flower-spathes of various palms, such as the Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliformis) and the cocoa palm (Cocos nucifera). At the beginning of the 19th century the arrack industry of Ceylon was of considerable dimensions, whole woods being set apart for no other purpose than that of procuring toddy, and the distillation of the spirit took place at every village round the coast. The land rents in 1831 included a sum of £35,573 on the cocoa-nut trees, and the duties on the manufacture and retail of the spirit amounted to over £30,000. On the Indian continent arrack is made from palm toddy, rice and the refuse of the sugar refineries, but mainly from the flowers of the muohwa or mahua tree (Bassia latifolia). The mahua flowers are very rich in sugar, and may, according to H. H. Mann, contain as much as 58% of fermentable sugar, calculated on the total solids. Even at the present day the process of manufacture is very primitive, the fermentation as a rule being carried on in so concentrated a liquid that complete fermentation rarely takes place. According to Mann, the total sugar in the liquor ready for fermentation may reach 20%. The ferment employed (it is so impure that it can scarcely be called yeast) is obtained from a previous fermentation, and, as the latter is never vigorous, it is not surprising that the resulting spirit contains, compared with the more scientifically prepared European spirits, a very high proportion of by-products (acid, fusel oil, &c.). The injurious nature of these native spirits has long been known and has been frequently set down to the admixture of drugs, such as hemp (ganga), but a recent investigation of this question appears to show that this is not generally the case. The chemical constitution of these liquors alone affords sufficient proof of their inferior and probably injurious character.
See H. H. Mann, The Analyst (1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arrant

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​ARRANT (a variant of “errant,” from Lat. errare, to wander), a word at first used in its original meaning of wandering, as in “knight-errant,” thus an arrant or itinerant preacher, an arrant thief, one outlawed and wandering at large; the meaning easily passed to that of self-declared, notorious, and by the middle of the 16th century was confined, as an intensive adjective, to words of opprobrium and abuse, an arrant coward meaning thus a self-declared, downright coward.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arraignment

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​ARRAIGNMENT (from Lat. ad, to, and rationare, to reason, call to account), a law term, properly denoting the calling of a person to answer in form of law upon an indictment. After a true bill has been found against a prisoner by the grand jury, he is called by name to the bar, the indictment is read over to him, and he is asked whether he be guilty or not of the offence charged. This is the arraignment. Formerly, it was usual to require the prisoner to hold up his hand, in order to identify him the more completely, but this practice is now obsolete, as well as that of asking him how he will be tried. His plea in answer to the charge is then entered, or a plea of not guilty is entered for him if he stands mute of malice and refuses to plead. If a person is mute by the visitation of God (i.e. deaf and dumb), it will be no bar to an arraignment if intelligence can be conveyed to him by signs or symbols. If he pleads guilty, sentence may be passed forthwith; if he pleads not guilty, he is then given in charge to a jury of twelve men to inquire into the truth of the indictment. He may also plead in abatement, or to the jurisdiction, or demur on a point of law. Several defendants, except those entitled to the privilege of peerage, charged on the same indictment, are arraigned together.
In Scots law the term for arraignment is calling the diet.
The Clerk of Arraigns is a subordinate officer attached to assize courts and to the Old Bailey. He is appointed by the clerk of assize (see Assize) and acts as his deputy. He assists at the arraignment of prisoners, and puts the formal questions to the jury when delivering their verdict.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Array

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​ARRAY (from the O. Fr. areyer, Med. Lat. arredare, to get ready), an orderly arrangement, particularly the drawing up of an army in position of battle. From the 13th century onwards in England “Commissions of Array” issued from the king for the levy of military forces (see Militia). In English law the term is used for the setting in order, name by name, of the panel of a jury, which may be challenged as a whole, “to the array,” or individually, “to the polls.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arrenotokous, Arrenotoky

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​ARRENOTOKOUS, ARRENOTOKY (from Gr. ἄρρην, male, and τόκος from τίκτειν, to beget), biological terms proposed by Leuckart and Eduard von Siebold to denote those parthenogenetic females which produce male young, while “thelytokous” and “thelytoky” would denote their producing female young.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arrah

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​ARRAH, a town of British India, headquarters of Shahabad district, in the Patna division of Bengal, situated on a navigable canal connecting the river Sone with the Ganges. It is a station on the East Indian railway, 368 m. from Calcutta. In 1901 the population was 40,170. Arrah is famous for an incident in the Mutiny, when a dozen Englishmen, with 50 Sikhs, defended an ordinary house against 2000 Sepoys and a multitude of armed insurgents, perhaps four times that number. A British regiment, despatched to their assistance from Dinapur, was disastrously repulsed; but they were ultimately relieved, after eight days’ continuous fighting, by a small force under Major (afterwards Sir Vincent) Eyre.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asbury Park

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​ASBURY PARK. a city of Monmouth county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the Atlantic Ocean, about 35 m. S. of New York City (50 m. by rail). Pop. (1900) 4148; (1905) 4526; (1910) 10,150. ​It is served by the Central of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania railways, and by electric railway lines connecting it with other New Jersey coast resorts both north and south. Fresh-water lakes, one of which, Deal Lake, extends for some distance into the wooded country, form the northern and southern boundaries. It is one of the most popular seaside resorts on the Atlantic coast, its numerous hotels and cottages accommodating a summer population that approximates 50,000, and a large transient population in the autumn and winter months. There is an excellent beach, along which extends a board-walk about 1 m. long; the beach is owned and controlled by the municipality. The municipality owns and operates its water-works, water being obtained from artesian wells. Asbury Park was founded in 1869, was named in honour of the Rev. Francis Asbury, was incorporated as a borough in 1874, and was chartered as a city in 1897. In 1906 territory to the west with a population estimated at 6000 was annexed.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asafetida

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​ASAFETIDA (asa, Lat. form of Persian aza = mastic, and fetidus, stinking, so called in distinction to asa dulcis, which was a drug highly esteemed among the ancients as laser cyrenaicum, ​and is supposed to have been a gummy exudation from Thapsis garganica), a gum-resin obtained principally from the root of Ferula fetida, and probably also from one or two other closely allied species of umbelliferous plants. It is produced in eastern Persia and Afghanistan, Herat and Kandahar being centres of the trade. Ferula fetida grows to a height of from 5 to 6 ft., and when the plant has attained the age of four years it is ready for yielding asafetida. The stems are cut down close to the root, and the juice flows out, at first of a milky appearance, but quickly setting into a solid resinous mass. Fresh incisions are made as long as the sap continues to flow, a period which varies according to the size and strength of the plant. A freshly-exposed surface of asafetida has a translucent, pearly-white appearance, but it soon darkens in the air, becoming first pink and finally reddish-brown. In taste it is acrid and bitter; but what peculiarly characterizes it is the strong alliaceous odour it emits, from which it has obtained the name asafetida, as well as its German name Teufelsdreck (devil’s dung). Its odour is due to the presence of organic sulphur compounds. Asafetida is found in commerce in “lump” or in “tear,” the latter being the purer form. Medicinally, asafetida is given in doses of 5 to 15 grains and acts as a stimulant to the intestinal and respiratory tracts and to the nervous system. An enema containing it is useful in relieving flatus. It is sometimes useful in hysteria, which is essentially a lack of inhibitory power, as its nasty properties induce sufficient inhibitory power to render its readministration superfluous. It may also be used in an effervescing draught in cases of malingering, the drug “repeating” in the mouth and making the malingering not worth while. The gum-resin is relished as a condiment in India and Persia, and is in demand in France for use in cookery. In the regions of its growth the whole plant is used as a fresh vegetable, the inner portion of the full-grown stem being regarded as a luxury.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asaph

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​ASAPH, the eponym of the Asaphite gild of singers, one of the hereditary choirs that superintended the musical services of the temple at Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The names occur in the titles of certain Psalms, and the writer of the Book of Chronicles makes Asaph a seer (2 Chron. xxix. 30), contemporary with David and Solomon, and chief of the singers of his time.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asa

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​ASA, in the Bible, son (or, perhaps, rather brother) of Abijah, the son of Rehoboam and king of Judah (1 Kings xv. 9-24). Of his long reign, during which he was a contemporary of Baasha, Zimri and Omri of Israel, little is recorded with the exception of some religious reforms and conflicts with the first-named. Baasha succeeded in fortifying Ramah (er-Rām), 5 m. north of Jerusalem, and Asa was compelled to use the residue of the temple-funds (cf. 1 Kings xiv. 26) to bribe the king of Damascus to renounce his league with Baasha and attack Israel. Galilee was invaded and Baasha was forced to return; the building material which he had collected at Ramah being used by Asa to fortify Geba, and Mizpah to the immediate north of Jerusalem. The Book of Chronicles relates a story of a sensational defeat of Zerah the “Cushite,” and a great religious revival in which Judah and Israel took part (2 Chron. xiv.–xv. 15) (see Chronicles). Asa was succeeded by his son Jehoshaphat.
“Cushite” may designate an Ethiopian or, more probably, an Arabian (Cush, the “father” of the Sabaeans, Gen. x. 7). “If by Zerah the Ethiopian or Sabaean prince be meant, the only real difficulty of the narrative is removed. No king Zerah of Ethiopia is known at this period, nor does there seem to be room for such a person.” (W. E. Barnes, Cambridge Bible, Chronicles, p. xxxi.). The identification with Osorkon I. or II. is scarcely tenable considering Asa’s weakness; but inroads by desert hordes frequently troubled Judah, and if the tradition be correct in locating the battle at Mareshah it is probable that the invaders were in league with the Philistine towns. Similar situations recur in the reigns of Ahaz and Jehoram.
See also Author:Julius Wellhausen:Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 208; S. A. Cook, Expositor (June 1906), p. 540 sq. (S. A. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asaf-ud-Dowlah

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​ASAF-UD-DOWLAH, nawab wazir of Oudh from 1775 to 1797, was the son of Shuja-ud-Dowlah, his mother and grandmother being the begums of Oudh, whose spoliation formed one of the chief counts in the charges against Warren Hastings. When Shuja-ud-Dowlah died he left two million pounds sterling buried in the vaults of the zenana. The widow and mother of the deceased prince claimed the whole of this treasure under the terms of a will which was never produced. When Warren Hastings pressed the nawab for the payment of debt due to the Company, he obtained from his mother a loan of 26 lakhs of rupees, for which he gave her a jagir of four times the value; he subsequently obtained 30 lakhs more in return for a full acquittal, and the recognition of her jagirs without interference for life by the Company. These jagirs were afterwards confiscated on the ground of the begum’s complicity in the rising of Chai Singh, which was attested by documentary evidence. The evidence now available seems to show that Warren Hastings did his best throughout to rescue the nawab from his own incapacity, and was inclined to be lenient to the begums.
See The Administration of Warren Hastings, 1772–1785, by G. W. Forrest (1892).