[1] W. Smith, _Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities_ (3rd ed.), vol.
ii. p. 44.
[2] "In the 14th century, the city of Ilchi, in Chinese Tartary,
possessed 14 monasteries, averaging 3000 devotees in each; while in
Tibet, at the present time, there are in the vicinity of Lhassa 12
great monasteries, containing a population of 18,500 lamas. In Ladak
the proportion of lamas to the laity is as 1 to 13, in Spiti 1 to 7,
and in Burmah 1 to 30" (Lea i. 103).
[3] 1 Cor. vii. 25 sq., ix. 5; 1 Tim. iii. 2, 11, 12; Titus i. 6; E.
Vacandard in _Dict. de Theol. Cath._, s.v. "Celibat."
[4] This was a natural argument for the defenders of clerical
celibacy even in far later times. St Bonaventura (d. 1274) puts this
very strongly: "For if archbishops and bishops now had children, they
would rob and plunder all the goods of the Church so that little or
nothing would be left for the poor. For since they now heap up wealth
and enrich nephews removed from them by almost incalculable degrees
of affinity, what would they do if they had legitimate children?...
Therefore the Holy Ghost in His providence hath removed this
stumbling-block," &c. &c. (_In Sent._ lib. iv. dist. xxxvii art. i.
quaest. 3).
[5] Hefele, _Beitrage zur Kirchengesch. u.s.w._ i. 139.
[6] See the quotations in Lea i. 156. These prohibitions were renewed
in the 13th and 14th centuries (ibid. i. 410).
[7] Ratherius, _Itinerarium_, c. 5 (Migne, _P.L._ cxxxvi. col. 585).
Gulielmus Apulus writes of southern Italy in 1059: "In these parts
priests, deacons and the whole clergy were publicly married" (_De
Normann._ lib. ii.).
[8] Dom Pommeraye, _S. Rotomag. Eccl. Concilia_, pp. 56, 65; cf.
similar instances on p. 315 of Dr A. Dresdner's _Kultur-und
Sittengeschichte d. italienischen Geistlichkeit im 10. und 11. Jhdt._
(Breslau, 1890).
[9] _Opusc._ xvii. praef. The saint's evidence is carefully weighed
by Dresdner (l.c.), especially on pp. 309 ff. and 321 ff.
[10] Even Pope Innocent III. was compelled to decide that priests who
had kept two or more concubines, successively or simultaneously, did
not thereby incur the disabilities which attended digamists; or, in
other words, that a layman who had contracted two lawful marriages
and then proceeded to ordination on the death of his second wife,
could be absolved only by the pope; whereas the concubinary priest,
"as a man branded with simple fornication," might receive a valid
dispensation from his own bishop (Letter to archbishop of Lund in
1212. _Regest._ lib. xvi. ep. 118; Migne, _P.L._ ccxvi. col. 914). As
the great canonist Gratian remarked on a similar decretal of Pope
Pelagius, "Here is a case where lechery has more rights at law than
has chastity" (_Decret._ p. i. dist. xxxiv. c. vii. note a).
[11] The actual originator of this policy was Nicholas II., probably
at Hildebrand's suggestion; but the decree remained practically a
dead letter until Gregory's accession.
[12] Peter Lombard, _Sentent._ lib. iv. dist. 13; Aquinas, _Summa
Theol._ pars iii. Q. lxxxiii. art. 7, 9.
[13] Labbe-Mansi, _Concilia_, vol. xix. col. 796 and xx. col. 724. Dr
Lea is probably right in suggesting that it was a confused
recollection of these decrees which prompted one of Cranmer's judges
to assure him that "his children were bondmen to the see of
Canterbury." Strype, _Memorials of Cranmer_, bk iii. c. 28 (ed. 1812,
vol. i. p. 601).
[14] Bonaventura, _Libell. Apologet._ quaest. i.; cf. his parallel
treatise _Quare Fratres Minores praedicent_. The first visitation of
his friend Odo Rigaldi, archbishop of Rouen, shows that about 15% of
the parish clergy in that diocese were notoriously incontinent
(_Regestrum Visitationum_, ed. Bonnin, Rouen, 1852, pp. 17 ff.).
Vacandard (loc. cit. p. 2087) appeals rather misleadingly to this
record as proving the progress made during the half-century before
Odo's time. It is probable that there were many more offenders than
these 15% known to the archbishop.
[15] Alvarus Pelagius, _De Planctu Ecclesiae_, ed. 1517, f. 131a,
col. 2; cf. f. 102b, col. 2; Hermann von der Hardt, _Constantiensis
Concilii_, &c. vol. i. pars. viii. col. 428.
[16] This more or less regular sale of licences by bishops and
archdeacons flourished from the days of Gregory VII. to the 16th
century; see index to Lea, s.v. "Licences." Dr Lea has, however,
omitted the most striking authority of all. Gascoigne, the most
distinguished Oxford chancellor of his day, writing about 1450 of
John de la Bere, then bishop of St David's, says that he had refused
to separate the clergy of his diocese from their concubines, giving
publicly as his reason, "for then I your bishop should lose the 400
marks which I receive yearly in my diocese for the priests' lemans"
(Gascoigne, _Lib. Ver._ ed. Rogers, p. 36). Even Sir Thomas More, in
his polemic against the Reformers, admitted that this concubinage was
too often tolerated in Wales (_English Works_, ed. 1557, p. 231, cf.
619).
[17] One of Dr Lea's few serious mistakes is his acceptance of the
spurious pamphlet in favour of priestly marriage which was attributed
in the 11th century to St Ulrich of Augsburg (i. 171).
[18] Janssen, _Gesch. d. deutschen Volkes_, 13th ed., vol. viii. pp.
423, 4, 9; 434; Lea ii. 195, 204. ff.
[19] Lea (ii. 339. ff.) gives a long series of quotations to this
effect from church synods and orthodox disciplinary writers of modern
times.
[20] Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_ (London, 1904, p.
80), "Even if we compare the church with the other professions with
which it is most usually classed, we find that the eminent children
of the clergy considerably outnumber those of lawyers, doctors and
army officers put together." Mr Ellis points put, however, that "the
clerical profession ... also produces more idiots than any other
class."
CELL (from Lat. _cella_, probably from an Indo-European _kal_--seen in
Lat. _celare_, to hide; another suggestion connects the word with Lat.
_cera_, wax, taking the original meaning to refer to the honeycomb), in
its earliest application a small detached room in a building,
particularly a small monastic house (see ABBEY), generally in the
country, belonging to large conventual buildings, and intended for
change of air for the monks, as well as places to reside in to look
after the lands, vassals, &c. Thus Tynemouth was a cell to St Albans;
Ashwell, Herts, to Westminster Abbey. The term was also used of the
small sleeping apartments of the monks, or a small apartment used by the
anchorite or hermit. This use still survives in the application to the
small separate chambers in a prison (q.v.) in which prisoners are
confined. The word is applied to various small compartments which build
up a compound structure such as a honeycomb, to the minute compartments
in a tissue, &c. More particularly the word is used, in electrical
science, of the single constituent compartments of a voltaic battery
(q.v.), and in biology of the living units of protoplasm of which plants
and animals are composed (see CYTOLOGY).
CELLA, in architecture, the Latin name for the sanctuary of a Roman
temple, corresponding with the naos of the Greek temple. In the Etruscan
temples, according to Vitruvius, there were three cellas, side by side;
and in the temple of Venus built by Hadrian at Rome there were two
cellas, both enclosed, however, in a single peristyle.
CELLARET (i.e. little cellar), strictly that portion of a sideboard
which is used for holding bottles and decanters, so called from a cellar
(which in general may be any underground unlighted apartment) being
commonly used for keeping wine. Sometimes it is a drawer, divided into
compartments lined with zinc, and sometimes a cupboard, but still an
integral part of the sideboard. In the latter part of the 18th century,
when the sideboard was in process of evolution from a side-table with
drawers into the large and important piece of furniture which it
eventually became, the cellaret was a detached receptacle. It was most
commonly of mahogany or rosewood, many-sided or even octagonal, and
occasionally oval, bound with broad bands of brass and lined with zinc
partitions to hold the ice for cooling wine. Sometimes a tap was fixed
in the lower part for drawing off the water from the melted ice.
Cellarets were usually placed under the sideboard, and were, as a rule,
handsome and well-proportioned; but as the artistic impulse which
created the great 18th-century English school of furniture died away,
their form grew debased, and under the influence of the English Empire
fashion, which drew its inspiration from a bastard classicism, they
assumed the shape of sarcophagi incongruously mounted with lions' heads
and claw-feet. Hepplewhite called them "gardes du vin"; they are now
nearly always known as "wine-coolers."
CELLE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, on the
left bank of the navigable Aller, near its junction with the Fuse and
the Lachte, 23 m. N.E. of Hanover, on the main Lehrte-Hamburg railway.
Pop. (1905) 21,400. The town has a Roman Catholic and five Protestant
churches, among the latter the town-church with the burial vault of the
dukes of Luneburg-Celle. Here rest the remains of Sophia Dorothea, wife
of the elector George of Hanover, afterwards George I. of England, and
those of Caroline Matilda, the divorced wife of Christian VII. of
Denmark and sister of George III. of England, who resided here from 1772
until her death in 1775. The most interesting building in Celle is the
former ducal palace, begun in 1485 in Late Gothic style, but with
extensive Renaissance additions of the close of the 17th century. The
building of the court of appeal (_Oberlandesgericht_), with a valuable
library of 60,000 volumes and many MSS., including a priceless copy of
the _Sachsenspiegel_, the museum and the hall of the estates
(_Landschaftshaus_) are also worthy of notice. There are manufactures of
woollen yarn, tobacco, biscuits, umbrellas and printers' ink, and a
lively trade is carried on in wax, honey, wool and timber. Celle is the
seat of the court of appeal from the superior courts of Aurich, Detmold,
Gottingen, Hanover, Hildesheim, Luneburg, Osnabruck, Stade and Verden.
Founded in 1292, the town was the residence of the dukes of
Luneburg-Celle, a cadet branch of the ducal house of Brunswick, from the
14th century until 1705.
See Dehning, _Geschichte der Stadt Celle_ (Celle, 1891).
CELLIER, ALFRED (1844-1891), English musical composer, was born at
Hackney on the 1st of December 1844. From 1855 to 1860 he was a
chorister at the Chapel Royal, St James's, under the Rev. Thomas
Helmore, where Arthur Sullivan was one of his youthful colleagues. His
first appointment was that of organist at All Saints' church, Blackheath
(1862). In 1866 he succeeded Dr Chipp as director of the Ulster Hall
concerts, Belfast, at the same time acting as conductor of the Belfast
Philharmonic Society. In 1868 he returned to London as organist of St
Alban's, Holborn. From 1871 to 1875 he was conductor at the Prince's
theatre, Manchester; and from 1877 to 1879 at various London theatres.
During this period he composed many comic operas and operettas, of which
the most successful was _The Sultan of Mocha_, which was produced at
Manchester in 1874, in London at the St James's theatre in 1876, and
revived at the Strand theatre in 1887. In 1880 Cellier visited America,
producing a musical version of Longfellow's _Masque of Pandora_ at
Boston (1881). In 1883 his setting of Gray's _Elegy_ in the form of a
cantata was produced at the Leeds Festival. In 1886 he won the great
success of his life in _Dorothy_, a comic opera written to a libretto by
B.C. Stephenson, which was produced at the Gaiety theatre on the 25th of
September 1886, and, transferred first to the Prince of Wales theatre
and subsequently to the Lyric theatre, ran until April 1889. _Doris_
(1889), and _The Mountebanks_, which was produced in January 1892, a few
days after the composer's death, were less successful. Cellier owed much
to the influence of Sir Arthur Sullivan. He had little of the latter's
humour and vivacity, but he was a fertile melodist, and his writing is
invariably distinguished by elegance and refinement. He died in London
on the 28th of December 1891.
CELLINI, BENVENUTO (1500-1571), Italian artist, metal worker and
sculptor, was born in Florence, where his family, originally landowners
in the Val d'Ambra, had for three generations been settled. His father,
Giovanni Cellini, was a musician and artificer of musical instruments;
he married Maria Lisabetta Granacci, and eighteen years elapsed before
they had any progeny. Benvenuto (meaning "Welcome") was the third child.
The father destined him for the same profession as himself, and
endeavoured to thwart his inclination for design and metal work. When he
had reached the age of fifteen his youthful predilection had become too
strong to be resisted, and his father reluctantly gave consent to his
being apprenticed to a goldsmith, Antonio di Sandro, named Marcone. He
had already attracted some notice in his native place, when, being
implicated in a fray with some of his companions, he was banished for
six months to Siena, where he worked for Francesco Castoro, a goldsmith;
from thence he removed to Bologna, where he became a more accomplished
flute-player and made progress in the goldsmith's art. After visiting
Pisa, and after twice resettling for a while in Florence (where he was
visited by the sculptor Torrigiano, who unsuccessfully suggested his
accompanying him to England), he decamped to Rome, aged nineteen. His
first attempt at his craft here was a silver casket, followed by some
silver candlesticks, and later by a vase for the bishop of Salamanca,
which introduced him to the favourable notice of Pope Clement VII.;
likewise at a later date one of his celebrated works, the gold medallion
of "Leda and the Swan,"--the head and torso of Leda cut in hard
stone--executed for Gonfaloniere Gabbriello Cesarino, which is now in
the Vienna museum; he also reverted to music, practised flute-playing,
and was appointed one of the pope's court-musicians. In the attack upon
Rome by the constable de Bourbon, which occurred immediately after, in
1527, the bravery and address of Cellini proved of signal service to
the pontiff; if we may believe his own accounts, his was the very hand
which shot the Bourbon dead, and he afterwards killed Philibert, prince
of Orange. His exploits paved the way for a reconciliation with the
Florentine magistrates, and his return shortly after to his native
place. Here he assiduously devoted himself to the execution of medals,
the most famous of which (executed a short while later) are "Hercules
and the Nemean Lion," in gold repousse work, and "Atlas supporting the
Sphere," in chased gold, the latter eventually falling into the
possession of Francis I. From Florence he went to the court of the duke
of Mantua, and thence again to Florence and to Rome, where he was
employed not only in the working of jewelry, but also in the execution
of dies for private medals and for the papal mint. Here in 1529 he
avenged a brother's death by slaying the slayer; and shortly afterwards
had to flee to Naples to shelter himself from the consequences of an
affray with a notary, Ser Benedetto, whom he wounded. Through the
influence of several of the cardinals he obtained a pardon; and on the
elevation of Paul III. to the pontifical throne he was reinstated in his
former position of favour, notwithstanding a fresh homicide of a
goldsmith which he had committed more by accident than of malice
prepense in the interregnum. Once more the plots of Pierluigi Farnese, a
natural son of Paul III., led to his retreat from Rome to Florence and
Venice, and once more he was restored with greater honour than before.
On returning from a visit to the court of Francis I., being now aged
thirty-seven, he was imprisoned on a charge (apparently false) of having
embezzled during the war the gems of the pontifical tiara; he remained
some while confined in the castle of Sant' Angelo, escaped, was
recaptured, and treated with great severity, and was in daily
expectation of death on the scaffold. At last, however, he was released
at the intercession of Pierluigi's wife, and more especially of the
Cardinal d' Este of Ferrara, to whom he presented a splendid cup. For a
while after this he worked at the court of Francis I. at Fontainebleau
and in Paris; but he considered the duchesse d'Etampes to be set against
him, and the intrigues of the king's favourites, whom he would not stoop
to conciliate and could not venture to silence by the sword, as he had
silenced his enemies in Rome, led him, after about five years of
laborious and sumptuous work, and of continually-recurring jealousies
and violences, to retire in 1545 in disgust to Florence, where he
employed his time in works of art, and exasperated his temper in
rivalries with the uneasy-natured sculptor Baccio Bandinelli. The first
collision between the two had occurred several years before when Pope
Clement VII. commissioned Cellini to mint his coinage. Now, in an
altercation before Duke Cosimo, Bandinelli insultingly stigmatized
Benvenuto as guilty of gross immorality; in his autobiography Cellini
rather repels than denies the charge, but he certainly repels it with
demonstrative and grotesque vivacity. Two somewhat similar charges had
been made ere this: one in Paris, which he braved out in court--the
other, in Florence, was a mere private quarrel, and perhaps undeserving
of attention. During the war with Siena Cellini was appointed to
strengthen the defences of his native city, and, though rather shabbily
treated by his ducal patrons, he continued to gain the admiration of his
fellow-citizens by the magnificent works which he produced. He died in
Florence in 1571, unmarried, and leaving no posterity, and was buried
with great pomp in the church of the Annunziata. He had supported in
Florence a widowed sister and her six daughters.
Besides the works in gold and silver which have been adverted to,
Cellini executed several pieces of sculpture on a grander scale. The
most distinguished of these is the bronze group of "Perseus holding the
head of Medusa," a work (first suggested by Duke Cosimo de' Medici) now
in the Loggia dei Lanzi at Florence, full of the fire of genius and the
grandeur of a terrible beauty, one of the most typical and unforgettable
monuments of the Italian Renaissance. The casting of this great work
gave Cellini the utmost trouble and anxiety; and its completion was
hailed with rapturous homage from all parts of Italy. The original
relief from the foot of the pedestal--Perseus and Andromeda--is in the
Bargello, and replaced by a cast.
Not less characteristic of its splendidly gifted and barbarically
untameable author are the autobiographical memoirs which he composed,
beginning them in Florence in 1558,--a production of the utmost energy,
directness and racy animation, setting forth one of the most singular
careers in all the annals of fine art. His amours and hatreds, his
passions and delights, his love of the sumptuous and the exquisite in
art, his self-applause and self-assertion, running now and again into
extravagances which it is impossible to credit, and difficult to set
down as strictly conscious falsehoods, make this one of the most
singular and fascinating books in existence. Here we read, not only of
the strange and varied adventures of which we have presented a hasty
sketch, but of the devout complacency with which Cellini could
contemplate a satisfactorily achieved homicide; of the legion of devils
which he and a conjuror evoked in the Colosseum, after one of his not
innumerous mistresses had been spirited away from him by her mother; of
the marvellous halo of light which he found surrounding his head at dawn
and twilight after his Roman imprisonment, and his supernatural visions
and angelic protection during that adversity; and of his being poisoned
on two several occasions. If he is unmeasured in abusing some people, he
is also unlimited in praising others. The autobiography has been
translated into English by Thomas Roscoe, by J.A. Symonds, and by A.
Macdonald. Cellini also wrote treatises on the goldsmith's art, on
sculpture, and on design (translated by C.R. Ashbee, 1899).
Among his works of art not already mentioned, many of which have
perished, were a colossal Mars for a fountain at Fontainebleau and the
bronzes of the doorway, coins for the Papal and Florentine states, a
Jupiter in silver of life size, and a bronze bust of Bindo Altoviti. The
works of decorative art are, speaking broadly, rather florid than
chastened in style.
In addition to the bronze statue of Perseus and the medallions already
referred to, the works of art in existence to-day executed by him are
the celebrated salt-cellar made for Francis I. at Vienna; a medallion of
Clement VII. in commemoration of the peace between the Christian
princes, 1530, with a bust of the pope on the reverse and a figure of
Peace setting fire to a heap of arms in front of the temple of Janus,
signed with the artist's name; a medal of Francis I. with his portrait,
also signed; and a medal of Cardinal Pietro Bembo. Cellini, while
employed at the papal mint at Rome during the papacy of Clement VII. and
later of Paul III., executed the dies of several coins and medals, some
of which still survive at this now defunct mint. He was also in the
service of Alessandro de' Medici, first duke of Florence, for whom he
executed in 1535 a forty-soldi piece with a bust of the duke on one side
and standing figures of the saints Cosmo and Damian on the other. Some
connoisseurs attribute to his hand several plaques, "Jupiter crushing
the Giants," "Fight between Perseus and Phinaeus," a Dog, &c.
The important works which have perished include the uncompleted chalice
intended for Clement VII.; a gold cover for a prayer-book as a gift from
Pope Paul III. to Charles V.,--both described at length in his
autobiography; large silver statues of Jupiter, Vulcan and Mars, wrought
for Francis I. during his sojourn in Paris; a bust of Julius Caesar; and
a silver cup for the cardinal of Ferrara. The magnificent gold "button,"
or morse, made by Cellini for the cope of Clement VII., the competition
for which is so graphically described in his autobiography, appears to
have been sacrificed by Pius VI., with many other priceless specimens of
the goldsmith's art, in furnishing the indemnity of 30,000,000 francs
demanded by Napoleon at the conclusion of the campaign against the
States of the Church in 1797. According to the terms of the treaty, the
pope was permitted to pay a third of that sum in plate and jewels.
Fortunately there are in the print room of the British Museum three
water-colour drawings of this splendid morse by F. Bertoli, done at the
instance of an Englishman named Talman in the first half of the 18th
century. The obverse and reverse, as well as the rim, are drawn full
size, and moreover the morse with the precious stones set therein,
including a diamond then considered the second largest in the world, is
fully described.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The autobiography already named is the foundation of
most of the works written concerning Cellini's life. See also
_Cellini, His Times and Contemporaries_, by "the Author of the Life of
Sir Kenelm Digby" (1899); L. Dimier, _Cellini a la cour de France_
(1898); Eugene Plon, _Cellini, orfevre, medailleur, &c._ (1883);
Bolzenthal, _Skizzen zur Kunstgeschichte der modernen Medaillen-Arbeit
1429-1840_ (Berlin, 1840); A. Armand, _Les Medailleurs italiens des
XVe et XVIe siecles_ (3 vols., Paris, 1883-1887); Dr Francesco Tassi,
_Vita di Benvenuto Cellini_ (Firenze, 1829), _Vita di Benvenuto
Cellini scritta da lui medisimo_ (1832); E. Babelon, _La Gravure en
pierres fines_ (Paris, 1894); A. Heiss, _Les Medailleurs florentins_
(Paris, 1887); J. Friedlander, _Die italienischen Schaumunzen des
funfzehnten Jahrhunderts_ (Berlin, 1880-1882); N. Rondot, _Les
Medailleurs lyonnais_ (Macon, 1897); Dr Julius Cahn, _Medaillen und
Plaketten der Sammlung W.P. Metzler_ (Frankfort-on-Main, 1898);
Molinier, _Les Plaquettes_; I.B. Supino, _Il Medagliere Mediceo nel R.
Museo Nazionale di Firenze_ (Florence, 1899); _L'Arte di Benvenuto
Cellini_ (Florence, 1901); C. von Fabriczy, _Medaillen der
italienischen Renaissance_ (Leipzig); L. Forrer, _Biographical
Dictionary of Medallists, &c._ (London, 1904), &c.
(W. M. R.; E. A. J.)
CELLULOSE, the name given to both an individual--cellulose proper, in
the restricted sense of a chemical individual--and to a group of
substances, the celluloses or cellulose group, which constitute in
infinitely varied forms the containing envelope of the plant cell. They
are complex carbohydrates, or "saccharo-colloids" (Tollens), and are
resolved by ultimate hydrolysis into monoses. The typical cellulose is
represented by the empirical formula C6H10O5, identical with that of
starch, with which it has many chemical analogies as well as
physiological correlations. The representative "cellulose" is the main
constituent of the cotton fibre substance, and is obtainable by treating
the raw fibre with boiling dilute alkalis, followed by chlorine gas or
bromine water, or simply by alkaline oxidants. The cellulose thus
purified is further treated with dilute acids, and then exhaustively
with alcohol and ether. Chemical filter-paper (Swedish) is practically
pure cellulose, the final purification consisting in exhaustive
treatment with hydrofluoric acid to remove silicious inorganic residues.
The "cellulose" group, however, comprises a series of substances which,
while presenting the characters generally similar to those of cotton
cellulose, also exhibit marked divergences. The resemblances are
maintained in their synthetical reactions; but reactions involving the
decomposition of the complex show many variations. For example, cotton
cellulose is difficultly hydrolysed; other celluloses are more or less
readily split up by dilute acids, the extreme members readily yielding
sugars: the hexoses--dextrose, mannose and galactose; and the
pentoses--xylose and arabinose; these less resistant cell-wall
constituents are termed hemi-celluloses.
The celluloses proper are essentially non-nitrogenous, though originating
in the cell protoplasm. The cell-walls of the lower cryptogams, similarly
purified, retain a notable proportion--2.0-4.0%--of constitutional
nitrogen. When hydrolysed these fungoid celluloses yield, in addition to
monoses, glucosamine and acetic acid. The celluloses of the phanerogams
are generally associated, in a degree ranging from physical mixture to
chemical union, with other complicated substances, constituting the
"compound celluloses." The nature of the associated groups affords a
convenient classification into pecto-celluloses, ligno-celluloses and
cuto-celluloses. _Pecto-celluloses_ are so named because the associated
substances--carbohydrates, together with their oxidation products, i.e.
containing either two carbonyls (CO) in the unit group or carboxyl (CO.OH)
groups in a complex--are readily hydrolysed by weak acids to the
gelatinous "pectic acids" or their salts. _Ligno-celluloses_ are the
substances of lignified tissue, the non-cellulose constituents of which
are characterized by the presence of benzenoid and furfuroid groups; and
although essentially complex, they may be regarded as homogeneous, and are
conveniently grouped under the name _lignone_. The lignone complex reacts,
by its unsaturated groups, with the halogens. It is a complex containing
but little hydroxyl; and is of relatively high carbon percentage
(55.0-57.0%). _Cuto-celluloses_ predominate in the protective coatings of
plant organs, and are characterized by constituent groups, the
decomposition products of which are compounds of the fatty series, and
also wax alcohols, acids, cholesterols, &c.
The typical pecto-cellulose is the flax fibre, i.e. the bast fibre of
the flax plant (_Linum usitatissimum_), as it occurs in the plant, or as
the commercial textile fibre in its raw state. Rhea, or ramie, is
another leading textile fibre in which the cellulose occurs associated
with alkali-soluble colloidal carbohydrates. Pecto-celluloses are found
in the stems of the Gramineae (cereal straws, esparto), and in the
fibro-vascular bundles of monocotyledons used as textile and rope-making
fibres. They are the chief constituents of the fleshy parenchyma of
fruits, tubers, rhizomes. Ligno-celluloses find their chemical
representative in the jute fibre. They constitute the woods, and are
therefore of the widest distribution and the highest industrial utility.
It is important to note that a complex having all the chemical
characteristics of a ligno-cellulose occurs in a soluble colloidal form
in the juice of the white currant. The formation of ligno-cellulose is
the chemical equivalent of the morphological change of the plant cell
known as "lignification." The topical cuto-celluloses are the epidermal
tissues of all growing plants or organs, which are easily detached from
the underlying tissues which it is their function to protect. To
subserve this function, they are extremely resistant to the attack of
reagents. The associated groups are mostly of the normal saturated
series, and of very high molecular weight.
_Cellulose and Botanical Science._--The elaboration of cellulose, i.e.
of the cell walls, and its morphological and physiological aspects are
discussed in the articles PLANTS: _Physiology, Anatomy_: and CYTOLOGY;
while in the article COAL the part played by cellulose in the formation
of these deposits receives treatment: here we may deal with its general
relation to agriculture. In the analysis of fodder plants and other
vegetable produce, the residue obtained after successive acid and
alkaline hydrolysis is the "crude fibre" of the agricultural chemist,
and is generally taken as a measure of the actual cellulose contents of
the raw material. We give in tabular form the average percentage of
crude fibre in typical food-stuffs and agricultural produce:--