Canterbury, born in London 1117 or 1119, assassinated in Canterbury
Cathedral, 29th Dec., 1170. He was educated at Oxford and Paris, and was
sent, by the favour of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, to study civil
law at Bologna in Italy, and on his return made Archdeacon of Canterbury
and Provost of Beverley. In 1158 Henry II appointed him High Chancellor and
preceptor to his son, Prince Henry--the first instance after the Conquest
of a high office being filled by a native Englishman. At this period he was
a complete courtier, conforming in every respect to the humour of the king.
He was, in fact, the king's prime companion, held splendid levees, and
courted popular applause. On the death of Theobald, 1162, he was
consecrated archbishop, when he affected an extraordinary austerity of
character, and appeared as a zealous champion of the Church against the
aggressions of the king, whose policy was to have the clergy in
subordination to the civil power. Becket was forced to assent to the
Constitutions of Clarendon, but a series of bitter conflicts with the king
followed, ending in Becket's flight to France, when he appealed to the
Pope, by whom he was supported. After much negotiation a sort of
reconciliation took place in 1170, and Becket returned to England, resumed
his office, and renewed his defiance of the royal authority. A rash hint
from the king induced four barons, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Tracy,
Hugh de Morville, and Richard Breto, to go to Canterbury and murder the
archbishop while at vespers in the cathedral. He was canonized in 1172 by
Pope Alexander III, and the splendid shrine erected at Canterbury for his
remains was, for three centuries, a favourite place of
pilgrimage.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. C. Robertson and J. B. Sheppard, _Materials
for the History of Archbishop Becket_ (Rolls Series); Canon Morris, _Life
and Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket_; Lhuillier, _Saint Thomas de
Cantorbery_; Abbott, _St. Thomas of Canterbury, His Death and His
Miracles_.
BECKETT, Gilbert Abbot A. See _A Beckett_.
BECK'FORD, William, an English writer famous in his time for his immense
wealth and his eccentricities. He was born at Fonthill, his father's estate
in Wiltshire, in 1759. In 1770 the death of his father left him in the
possession of L1,000,000 of money, and an income of L100,000 a year. He
travelled much, and for some time lived in Portugal. He expended an
enormous sum in building and rebuilding Fonthill Abbey, near Salisbury,
which he filled with rare and expensive works of art. Here he lived in
seclusion for twenty years. In 1822 the abbey and greater part of its
contents were sold, and he retired to Bath, where, with a much-diminished
fortune, but one amply sufficient, he lived till 1844. His literary fame
rests upon his Eastern tale _The History of the Caliph Vathek_, which he
wrote in French, and a translation of which by the Rev. Samuel Henley
appeared at London in 1786. The tale is still much read, and was highly
commended by Lord Byron. He had two daughters, one of whom became Duchess
of Hamilton, and brought his valuable library to this family.--_William
Beckford_, his father, a London merchant and West Indian proprietor, was
famous for a spirited speech made to George III when Lord Mayor of
London.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cyrus Redding, _Memoir_; R. Garnett, _Vathek_ (with
a critical essay); Melville, _The Life and Letters of William Beckford of
Fonthill_.
BECKMANN, Johann, German writer on the industrial arts and agriculture,
born 1739, died 1811. He was for a short time professor of physics and
natural history at Petrograd, and afterwards for almost forty-five years
professor of philosophy and economy in Goettingen. His _History of
Inventions_ is well known in the English translation of it. This work
entitled the author to be regarded as the founder of scientific technology.
BECKX (beks), Pierre Jean, general of the order of Jesuits, born near
Louvain, Belgium, 1795, died 1887. The success of the Jesuits, especially
in non-Catholic countries, was greatly due to his tact and energy.
BECQUEREL (bek-rel), Antoine Cesar, French physicist, born 1788, died 1878.
He served as an officer of engineers, and retired in 1815, after which he
devoted himself to the study of electricity, especially electro-chemistry.
In 1837 he was awarded the Copley medal of the Royal Society of London. He
refuted the 'theory of contact' by which Volta explained the action of his
pile or battery. Becquerel may be considered one of the creators of
electro-chemistry.--His son, Alexandre Edmond (1820-91), was associated
with him in much of his work. He was the author of a work _La Lumiere, ses
causes et ses effets_ (1867-8).
BECQUEREL RAYS (bek-rel), the rays given out by radium and other
'radioactive' substances, so named from their discoverer, the French
physicist, Henri Becquerel (born 1852, died 1908), son of Alexandre Edmond
Becquerel. They were first detected in 1896, as proceeding from uranium
salts; and it is only by uranium, thorium, radium, and one or two other
elements that they are emitted, these bodies giving them out spontaneously
and without any apparent loss of radioactive power or change of any kind.
The Becquerel rays are invisible, and only known by their effects, which
are of various kinds: thus, like the Roentgen rays, they blacken a
photographic plate, even after passing through glass or other intervening
substances; they cause a number of different substances to give out a
fluorescent light, and they render air a conductor of electricity. Like the
Roentgen rays, they act strongly on the human skin. They consist of a
mixture of [alpha]-, [beta]-, and [gamma]-rays. See _Radio-activity_;
_Radium_.
BECSE (bech'e), OLD, a town of Hungary, 48 miles S. of Szegedin, on the
right bank of the Theiss. Pop. 19,000.--NEW BECSE, a market-town on the
left bank of the Theiss, 5 miles E. of Old Becse. Pop. 7725, or, with the
immediately adjoining village of Franyova, about 15,000. Both towns carry
on an extensive trade in grain.
BECSKEREK (bech'ke-rek), two towns of South Hungary.--_Great Becskerek_,
now in Yugo-Slavia, is on the Bega, 45 miles N. of Belgrade, with which it
communicates by the Bega Canal. Trade in cattle and agricultural produce.
Pop. 26,407.--_Little Becskerek_, now belonging to Roumania, is 11 miles by
railway from Temesvar. Pop. 3660.
BED, BEDSTEAD, an article of furniture to sleep or rest on. The term _bed_
properly is applied to a large flat bag filled with feathers, down, wool,
or other soft material, and also to a mattress supported on spiral springs
or form of elastic chains or wirework which is raised from the ground on a
bedstead. The term, however, sometimes includes the bedstead or frame for
supporting the bed. The forms of beds are necessarily very various--every
period and country having its own form of bed. Air-beds and water-beds are
much used by invalids.
BED, in geology, a layer or stratum, usually a stratum of considerable
thickness.
BEDA. See _Bede_.
BEDARIEUX (b[=a]-daer-i-_eu_), a thriving town, Southern France, department
Herault, situated on the Orb. Pop. 6186.
BED-BUG. See _Bug_.
BED-CHAMBER, LORDS OF THE, officers of the royal household of Britain under
the Groom of the Stole. They are twelve in number, and wait a week each in
turn. In the case of a queen regnant these posts are occupied by ladies,
called _Ladies of the Bed-chamber_.
BEDDOES (bed'[=o]z), Thomas, physician and author, born 1760; educated at
Oxford, London, and Edinburgh. After taking his doctor's degree, and
visiting Paris, he was appointed professor of chemistry at Oxford. There he
published some excellent chemical treatises, and essays upon such subjects
as the calculus, sea-scurvy, consumption, catarrh, and fever. His expressed
sympathy with the French revolutionists led to his retirement from his
professorship in 1792, soon after which he published his _Observations on
the Nature of Demonstrative Evidence_, and the exceedingly popular _History
of Isaac Jenkins_. In 1794 he married a sister of Maria Edgeworth; and in
1798, with the pecuniary aid of Wedgwood, opened a pneumatic institution
for curing phthisical and other diseases by inhalation of gases. It
speedily became an ordinary hospital, but was noteworthy as connected with
the discovery of the properties of nitrous oxide, and as having been
superintended by the young Humphry Davy. Beddoes' essays _On Consumption_
(1779) and _On Fever_ (1807), and his _Hygeia_ (3 vols., 1807) had a high
contemporary repute. He died in 1808.
BEDDOES, Thomas Lovell, poet, son of above, born 1803, died 1849; published
_The Bride's Tragedy_ while a student at Oxford, studied medicine, and
lived long abroad. His work was largely fragmentary, but his posthumous
_Death's Jest-book, or The Fool's Tragedy_ (1850), received the high praise
of such judges as Landor and Browning. His _Poems_, with memoir, appeared
in 1851.
BEDE, BEDA, or BAEDA, known as the Venerable, English historian and
theologian, born in 672 or 673 in the neighbourhood of Monkwearmouth,
County Durham; educated at St. Peter's Monastery, Wearmouth; took deacon's
orders in his nineteenth year at St. Paul's Monastery, Jarrow, and was
ordained priest at thirty by John of Beverley, Bishop of Hexham. His life
was spent in studious seclusion, the chief events in it being the
production of homilies, hymns, lives of saints, commentaries, and works in
history, chronology, grammar, &c. He was the most learned Englishman of his
day, and in some sense the father of English history, his most important
work being his _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_ (or _Ecclesiastical
History of England_), afterwards translated by King Alfred into
Anglo-Saxon. Besides his familiarity with Latin, he knew Greek and had some
acquaintance with Hebrew. Most of his writings were on scriptural and
ecclesiastical subjects, but he also wrote on chronology, physical science,
grammar, &c., and had considerable ability in the writing of Latin verse.
He died in 735, an interesting record of his closing days being preserved
in a letter by his pupil Cuthbert. His body was after a lapse of time
removed from Jarrow church to Durham, but of the shrine which formerly
enclosed them only the Latin inscription remains, ending with the
verse--'Hac sunt in fossa Bedae venerabilis ossa'. On 13th Nov., 1899, Leo
XIII decreed that the feast of the Venerable Bede should be celebrated in
the Church on 27th May. An edition of the whole works of Bede (12 vols.),
with an English translation, was prepared by Dr. Giles
(1843-4).--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gehle. _De Bedae Venerabilis Vita et Scriptis_;
Browne, _The Venerable Bede_; C. Plummer's introduction to his edition of
the _Historia Ecclesiastica_.
BEDEGUAR, or BEDEGAR (bed'e-gaer), a spongy excrescence or gall, sometimes
termed sweet-brier sponge, found on various species of roses, and produced
by several insects as receptacles for their eggs, especially by the _Cynips
rosae_, It was once thought to be a diuretic and vermifuge.
BEDELL', William, a celebrated Irish bishop, born in Essex in 1570. In 1604
he went to Venice as chaplain to Sir Henry Wotton, and remained eight
years. After holding the living of Horingsheath from 1615-27, he became
Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1629 Bishop of Kilmore and
Ardagh, though he resigned the latter of the united sees in 1630. He set
himself to reform abuses and promote the spread of Protestantism, procured
the translation of the Old Testament into Irish, and by his tact and wisdom
conciliated the adherents of both creeds. He underwent a brief imprisonment
on the breaking out of the rebellion in 1641, and died in the year
following. His biography was written by Bishop Burnet.
BE'DER WARE. See _Bidery_.
BED'FORD, a municipal and, until 1918, a parliamentary borough, England,
county town of Bedfordshire, on the Ouse. The chief buildings are the law
courts, a range of public schools, a large infirmary, county jail, &c., and
the churches. The town is rich in charities and educational institutions,
the most prominent being the Bedford Charity, embracing grammar and other
schools, and richly endowed. There is an extensive manufactory of
agricultural implements; lace is also made, and there is a good trade. John
Bunyan was born at Elstow, a village near the town, and it was at Bedford
that he lived, preached, and was imprisoned. Bedford gives its name to a
parliamentary division of the county. Pop. 40,247.--_Bedfordshire_ or
_Beds_, the county, is bounded by Northampton, Bucks, Herts, Cambridge, and
Huntingdon; area, 302,942 acres, of which 260,000 are under tillage or in
permanent pasture. Chalk hills, forming a portion of the Chilterns, cross
it on the south; north of this is a belt of sand; the soil of the vale of
Bedford, consisting mostly of clay and loam, is very fertile; and the
meadows on the Ouse, Ivel, and other streams furnish rich pasturage.
Two-thirds of the soil is under tillage. Besides the usual cereal and other
crops, culinary vegetables are extensively cultivated for the London
market. Principal manufactures: agricultural implements, and straw-plait
for hats, which is made up principally at Dunstable and Luton. The county
returns three members to Parliament (divisions: Bedford, Luton, Midlands).
Pop. (1921), 206,478.
BEDFORD, John, Duke of, one of the younger sons of Henry IV, King of
England; famous as a statesman and a warrior. He defeated the French fleet
in 1416, commanded an expedition to Scotland in 1417, and was lieutenant of
England during the absence of Henry V in France. On the king's death he
became Regent of France, and for several years his policy was as successful
as it was able and vigorous, the victory of Verneuil in 1424 attesting his
generalship. The greatest stain on his memory is his execution of the Maid
of Orleans (Joan of Arc) in 1431. He died in 1435 at Rouen, and was buried
in the cathedral of that city.
BEDFORD LEVEL, a large tract of marshy land in England, of about 400,000
acres total area, comprising 63,000 in Norfolk, 30,000 in Suffolk, 50,000
in Huntingdon, the Peterborough fen in Northampton, the Holland district in
Lincolnshire, and most of the Isle of Ely in Cambridge. It derives its name
from Francis, Earl of Bedford, who in 1634 made an agreement with Charles I
for the drainage of the Level, in consideration of receiving 95,000 acres
of the reclaimed land. A great part of the Level is under cultivation, and
produces grain, flax, and cole-seed; the remainder yields a winter harvest
of wild-fowl for the London market. See _Fenland_.
BEDFORDSHIRE REGIMENT, THE, raised in 1688 on the approach of the Prince of
Orange, suffered severely at Blenheim, and distinguished itself in a marked
manner at the siege of Lille. In 1797 it went to Scotland and there
recruited 1000 'parish boys' under sixteen years old, who later made
excellent soldiers. The regiment shared in the Chitral and South African
(1900-2) campaigns; on going to the front in 1914, sustained heavy losses
at Givenchy, and distinguished itself at Ypres and the Aisne.
BEDIVERE, the last knight of the Round Table (q.v.). See _Morte d'Arthur_.
BED'LAM, a corruption of Bethlehem (Hospital), the name of a religious
house in London, converted, after the general suppression by Henry VIII,
into a hospital for lunatics. The original Bedlam stood in Bishopsgate
Street; its modern successor in St. George's Fields was opened in 1815,
having been built on the site of the notorious tavern called 'The Dog and
the Duck'. The lunatics were at one time treated as little better than wild
beasts, and hence Bedlam came to be typical of any scene of wild confusion.
The average number of patients is about 300.
BED'LINGTON, a town and urban district of England, in Northumberland, near
the mouth of the Blyth, and not far from the seaport of Blyth, with
collieries, ironworks, &c. Pop. 25,440.
BEDLINGTON TERRIER, an English Dog, deriving its name from Bedlington, in
Northumberland, having first become well known as a favourite among the
miners of that place. It is a dog of moderate size, head rather long, with
a light, silky tuft on top, ears hanging close to the cheeks, legs
moderately long and strong, tail tapering to the point, which is almost
bare; colour, dark blue, blue and tan, liver, liver and tan, sandy, or
sandy and tan; courageous, intelligent, and generally useful.
BEDLIS. See _Betlis_.
_Printed and bound in Great Britain_
* * * * *
Corrections made to printed original.
Article Barthelmy-Saint-Hilaire. "Buddhism, Mohammed and Mohammedanism":
'Mohammedansim' in original.
Article Baryta. "barium carbonate or witherite (BaCO_3)": 'BaCo_3' in
original.
Article Bass. "from its voracity sea-wolf": 'it voracity' in original.
Article Batoum. "in July, 1886, the Russian Government ...": 'Goverment' in
original.