King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, A. D. 1412-1439.
Eric Blodaexe, King of Norway, A. D. 934-940.
Eric I., King of Denmark, A. D: 850-854.
Eric I. (called Saint), King of Sweden, A. D. 1155-1161.
Eric II., King of Denmark, A. D. 854-883.
Eric II., King of·Norway, A. D. 1280-1299.
Eric II. (Knutsson), King of Sweden, A. D. 1210-1216.
Eric III., King of Denmark, A. D. 1095-1103.
Eric III. (called The Stammerer), King of Sweden, A. D. 1222-1250.
Eric IV., King of Denmark, A. D. 1134-1137.
Eric V., King of Denmark, A. D. 1137-1147.
Eric VI., King of Denmark, A. D. 1241-1250.
Eric VII., King of Denmark, A. D. 1259-1286.
Eric VIII., King of Denmark, A. D. 1286-1319.
Eric XIV., King of Sweden, A. D. 1560-1568.
ERICSSON, John
Invention and construction of the Monitor.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH).
ERIE, The City of: A. D. 1735.
Site occupied by the French.
See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1764-1791.
Origin.
Four years after the British conquest of Canada, in 1764,
Colonel John Bradstreet built a blockhouse and stockade near
the site of the later Fort Erie, which was not constructed
until 1791. When war with the United States broke out, in
1812, the British considered the new fort untenable, or
unnecessary, and evacuated and partly destroyed it, in May,
1813.
_C. K. Remington,
Old Fort Erie._
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1814.
The siege and the destruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1866.
The Fenian invasion.
See CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
----------ERIE: End----------
ERIE, Lake:
The Indian name.
See NIAGARA: THE NAME, &c.
ERIE, Lake: A. D. 1679.
Navigated by La Salle.
See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.
ERIE, Lake: A. D. 1813.
Perry's naval victory.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.
----------ERIE, Lake: End----------
ERIE CANAL, Construction of the.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.
ERIES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, &c.,
and IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY: THEIR CONQUESTS.
ERIN.
See IRELAND.
ERMANRIC, OR HERMANRIC, The empire of.
See GOTHS (OSTROGOTHS): A. D. 350-375; and 376.
ERMYN STREET.
A corruption of Eormen street, the Saxon name of one of the
great Roman roads in Britain, which ran from London to
Lincoln. Some writers trace it northwards through York to the
Scottish border and southward to Pevensey.
See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.
ERNESTINE LINE OF SAXONY.
See SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553.
ERPEDITANI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
ERTANG, The.
The sacred book of the Manicheans.
See MANICHEANS.
ERYTHRÆ.-ERYTHRÆAN SIBYL.
Erythræ was an ancient Ionian city on the Lydian coast of Asia
Minor, opposite the island of Chios or Scio. It was chiefly
famous as the home or seat of one of the most venerated of the
sibyls--prophetic women--of antiquity. The collection of
Sibylline oracles which was sacredly preserved at Rome appears
to have been largely derived from Erythræ. The Cumæan Sibyl is
sometimes identified with her Erythræan sister, who is said to
have passed into Europe.
See, also, SIBYLS.
ERYTHRÆAN SEA, The.
The Erythræan Sea, in the widest sense of the term, as used by
the ancients, comprised "the Arabian Gulf (or what we now call
the Red Sea), the coasts of Africa outside the straits of Bab
el Mandeb as far as they had then been explored, as well as
those of Arabia and India down to the extremity of the Malabar
coast." The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea is a geographical
treatise of great importance which we owe to some unknown
Greek writer supposed to be nearly contemporary with Pliny. It
is "a kind of manual for the instruction of navigators and
traders in the Erythræan Sea."
_E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 25._
"The Erythrêam Sea is an appellation ... in all appearance
deduced [by the ancients] from their entrance into it by the
straits of the Red Sea, styled Erythra by the Greeks, and not
excluding the gulph of Persia, to which the fabulous history
of a king Erythras is more peculiarly appropriate."
_W. Vincent,
Periplus of the Erythrêan Sea,
book 1, prelim. disquis._
ERYX.--ERCTE.
A town originally Phoœnician or Carthaginian on the
northwestern coast of Sicily. It stood on the slope of a
mountain which was crowned with an ancient temple of
Aphrodite, and which gave the name Erycina to the goddess when
her worship was introduced at Rome.
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
ERZEROUM: A. D. 1878.
Taken by the Russians.
See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.
ESCOCÉS, The party of the.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1822-1828.
ESCOMBOLI.
See STAMBOUL.
ESCORIAL, The.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1559-1563.
ESCUYER.--ESQUIRE.
See CHIVALRY.
ESDRAELON, Valley of.
See MEGIDDO.
ESKIMO, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.
ESNE.
See THEOW.
ESPARTERO, Regency of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1833-1846.
ESPINOSA, Battle of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).
{986}
ESQUILINE, The.
See SEVEN HILLS OF ROME.
ESQUIRE.--ESCUYER.--SQUIRE.
See CHIVALRY.
ESQUIROS, Battle of (1521).
See NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521.
ESSELENIAN FAMILY, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESSELENIAN FAMILY.
ESSENES, The.
See Supplement in volume 5.
ESSEX.
Originally the kingdom formed by that body of the Saxon
conquerors of Britain, in the fifth and sixth centuries, who
acquired, from their geographical position in the island, the
name of the East Saxons. It covered the present county of
Essex and also included London and Middlesex.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.
ESSEX JUNTO, The.
In the Massachusetts election of 1781, "the representatives of
the State in Congress, and some of the more moderate leaders
at home, opposed Governor Hancock, the popular candidate, and
supported James Bowdoin, who was thought to represent the more
conservative elements. ... It was at this time that Hancock is
said to have bestowed on his opponents the title of the 'Essex
Junto,' and this is the first appearance of the name in
American politics. ... The 'Junto' was generally supposed to
be composed of such men as Theophilus Parsons, George Cabot,
Fisher Ames, Stephen Higginson, the Lowells, Timothy
Pickering, &c., and took its name from the county to which
most of its reputed members originally belonged. ... The
reputed members of the 'Junto' held political power in
Massachusetts [as leaders of the Federalist party] for more
than a quarter of a century." According to Chief Justice
Parsons, as quoted by Colonel Pickering in his Diary, the term
'Essex Junto' was applied by one of the Massachusetts royal
governors, before the Revolution, to certain gentlemen of
Essex county who opposed his measures. Hancock, therefore,
only revived the title and gave it currency, with a new
application.
_H. C. Lodge,
Life and Letters of George Cabot,
pages 17-22._
ESSLINGEN, OR ASPERN, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).
ESSUVII, The.
A Gallic tribe established anciently in the modern French
department of the Orne.
_Napoleon III.,
History of Cæsar,
book 3, chapter 2, note._
ESTATES, Assembly of.
"An assembly of estates is an organised collection, made by
representation or otherwise, of the several orders, states or
conditions of men, who are recognised as possessing political
power. A national council of clergy and barons is not an
assembly of estates, because it does not include the body of
the people, the plebs, the simple freemen or commons."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, section 185._
See, also, ESTATES, THE THREE.
ESTATES, The Three.
"The arrangement of the political factors in three estates is
common, with some minor variations, to all the European
constitutions, and depends on a principle of almost universal
acceptance. This classification differs from the system of
caste and from all divisions based on differences of blood or
religion, historical or prehistorical. ... In Christendom it
has always taken the form of a distinction between clergy and
laity, the latter being subdivided according to national
custom into noble and non-noble, patrician and plebeian,
warriors and traders, landowners and craftsmen. ... The
Aragonese cortes contained four brazos or arms, the clergy,
the great barons or ricos hombres, the minor barons, knights
or infanzones, and the towns. The Germanic diet comprised
three colleges, the electors, the princes and the cities, the
two former being arranged in distinct benches, lay and
clerical. ... The Castilian cortes arranged the clergy, the
ricos hombres and the communidades, in three estates. The
Swedish diet was composed of clergy, barons, burghers and
peasants. ... In France, both in the States General and in the
provincial estates, the division is into gentz de l'eglise,
nobles, and gentz des bonnes villes. In England, after a
transitional stage, in which the clergy, the greater and
smaller barons, and the cities and boroughs, seemed likely to
adopt the system used in Aragon and Scotland, and another in
which the county and borough communities continued to assert
an essential difference, the three estates of clergy, lords
and commons, finally emerge as the political constituents of
the nation, or, in their parliamentary form, as the lords
spiritual and temporal and the commons. This familiar formula
in either shape bears the impress of history. The term commons
is not in itself an appropriate expression for the third
estate; it does not signify primarily the simple freemen, the
plebs, but the plebs organised and combined in corporate
communities, in a particular way for particular purposes. The
commons are the communitates or universitates, the organised
bodies of freemen of the shires and towns. ... The third
estate in England differs from the same estate in the
continental constitutions, by including the landowners under
baronial rank. In most of those systems it contains the
representatives of the towns or chartered communities only."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, sections 185, 193._
"The words 'gens de tiers et commun état' are found in many
acts [France] of the 15th century. The expressions 'tiers
état,' 'commun état,' and 'le commun' are used indifferently,
... This name of 'Tiers État, when used in its ordinary sense,
properly comprises only the population of the privileged
cities; but in effect it extends much beyond this; it includes
not only the cities, but the villages and hamlets--not only
the free commonalty, but all those for whom civil liberty is a
privilege still to come."
_A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, pages 61 and 60._
ESTATES, or "States," of the Netherland Provinces.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.
ESTATES GENERAL.
See STATES GENERAL.
ESTE, The House of.
"Descended from one of the northern families which settled in
Italy during the darkest period of the middle ages, the Este
traced their lineal descent up to the times of Charlemagne.
They had taken advantage of the frequent dissensions between
the popes and the German emperors of the houses of Saxony and
Swabia, and acquired wide dominions in Lunigiana, and the
March of Treviso, where the castle of Este, their family
residence, was situated. Towards the middle of the 11th
century, that family had been connected by marriages with the
Guelphs of Bavaria, and one of the name of Este was eventually
to become the common source from which sprung the illustrious
houses of Brunswick and Hanover. The Este had warmly espoused
the Guelph party [see GUELFS], during the wars of the Lombard
League. ...
{987}
Towards the year 1200, Azzo V., Marquis of Este, married
Marchesella degli Adelardi, daughter of one of the most
conspicuous Guelphs at Ferrara, where the influence of the
House of Este was thus first established."
_L. Mariotti (A. Gallenga),
Italy,
volume 2, pages 62-63._
The Marquesses of Este became, "after some of the usual
fluctuations, permanent lords of the cities of Ferrara [1264]
and Modena [1288]. About the same time they lost their
original holding of Este, which passed to Padua, and with
Padua to Venice. Thus the nominal marquess of Este and real
lord of Ferrara was not uncommonly spoken of as Marquess of
Ferrara. In the 15th century these princes rose to ducal rank;
but by that time the new doctrine of the temporal dominion of
the Popes had made great advances. Modena, no man doubted, was
a city of the Empire; but Ferrara was now held to be under the
supremacy of the Pope. The Marquess Borso had thus to seek his
elevation to ducal rank from two separate lords. He was
created Duke of Modena [1453] and Reggio by the Emperor, and
afterwards Duke of Ferrara [1471] by the Pope. This difference
of holding ... led to the destruction of the power of the
house of Este. In the times in which we are now concerned,
their dominions lay in two masses. To the west lay the duchy
of Modena and Reggio; apart from it to the east lay the duchy
of Ferrara. Not long after its creation, this last duchy was
cut short by the surrender of the border-district of Rovigo to
Venice. ... Modena and Ferrara remained united, till Ferrara
was annexed [1598] as an escheated fief to the dominions of
its spiritual overlord. But the house of Este still reigned
over Modena with Reggio and Mirandola, while its dominions
were extended to the sea by the addition of Massa and other
small possessions between Lucca and Genoa. The duchy in the
end passed by female succession to the House of Austria
[1771-1803]."
_E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 8, sections 3-4._
"The government of the family of Este at Ferrara, Modena, and
Reggio displays curious contrasts of violence and popularity.
Within the palace frightful deeds were perpetrated; a princess
was beheaded [1425] for alleged adultery with a stepson;
legitimate and illegitimate children fled from the court, and
even abroad their lives were threatened by assassins sent in
pursuit of them (1471). Plots from without were incessant; the
bastard of a bastard tried to wrest the crown from the lawful
heir, Hercules I.: this latter is said afterwards (1493) to
have poisoned his wife on discovering that she, at the
instigation of her brother, Ferrante of Naples, was going to
poison him. This list of tragedies is closed by the plot of
two bastards against their brothers; the ruling Duke Alfonso
I. and the Cardinal Ippolito (1506), which was discovered in
time, and punished with imprisonment for life. ... It is
undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were
constantly exposed developed in them capacities of a
remarkable kind."
_J. Burckhardt,
The Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy,
part 1, chapter 5._
For the facts of the ending of the legitimate Italian line of
Este,
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
ESTHONIA, OR ESTONIA:
Origin of the name.
See ÆSTII.
ESTHONIA, OR ESTONIA: Christian conquest.
See LIVONIA: 12TH-13TH CENTURIES.
ESTIENNES, The Press of the.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1496-1598.
ESTREMOS, OR AMEIXAL, Battle of (1663).
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1637-1668.
ETCHEMINS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
ETHANDUN, OR EDINGTON, Battle of (A. D. 878).
See ENGLAND: A. D. 855-880.
ETHEL, ETHELINGS, OR ÆTHELINGS.
"The sons and brothers of the king [of the English] were
distinguished by the title of Æthelings. The word Ætheling,
like eorl, originally denoted noble birth simply; but as the
royal house of Wessex rose to pre-eminence and the other royal
houses and the nobles generally were thereby reduced to a
relatively lower grade, it became restricted to the near
kindred of the national king."
_T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
page 29._
"It has been sometimes held that the only nobility of blood
recognized in England before the Norman Conquest was that of
the king's kin. The statement may be regarded as deficient in
authority, and as the result of a too hasty generalization
from the fact that only the sons and brothers of the kings
bear the name of ætheling. On the other hand must be alleged
the existence of a noble (edhiling) class among the
continental Saxons who had no kings at all. ... The laws of
Ethelbert prove the existence of a class bearing the name of
eorl of which no other interpretation can be given. That
these, eorlas and æthel, were the descendants of the primitive
nobles of the first settlement, who, on the institution of
royalty, sank one step in dignity from the ancient state of
rude independence, in which they had elected their own chiefs
and ruled their own dependents, may be very reasonably
conjectured. ... The ancient name of eorl, like that of
ætheling, changed its application, and, under the influence,
perhaps, of Danish association, was given like that of jarl to
the official ealdorman. Henceforth the thegn takes the place
of the æthel, and the class of thegns probably embraces all
the remaining families of noble blood. The change may have
been very gradual; the 'north people's law' of the tenth or
early eleventh century still distinguishes the eorl and
ætheling with a wergild nearly double that of the ealdorman
and seven times that of the thegn; but the north people's law
was penetrated with Danish influence, and the eorl probably
represents the jarl rather than the ealdorman, the great eorl
of the fourth part of England as it was divided by Canute. ...
The word eorl is said to be the same as the Norse jarl and
another form of ealdor (?); whilst the ceorl answers to the
Norse Karl; the original meaning of the two being old man and
young man."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 6, section 64, and note._
ETHEL.--Family-land.
See ALOD; and FOLCLAND.
ETHELBALD,
King of Mercia, A. D. 716-755.
Ethelbald, King of Wessex, A. D. 858-860.
ETHELBERT,
King of Kent, A. D. 565-616.
Ethelbert, King of Wessex, A. D. 860-866.
ETHELFRITH, King of Northumberland, A. D. 593-617.
ETHELRED,
King of Wessex, A. D. 866-871.
Ethelred, called the Unready, King of Wessex, A. D. 979-1016.
{988}
ETHELSTAN, King of Wessex, A. D. 925-940.
ETHELWULF, King of Wessex, A. D. 836-858.
ETHIOPIA.
The Ethiopia of the ancients, "in the ordinary and vague sense
of the term, was a vast tract extending in length above a
thousand miles, from the 9th to the 24th degree of north
latitude, and in breadth almost 900 miles, from the shores of
the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to the desert of the Sahara. This
tract was inhabited for the most part by wild and barbarous
tribes--herdsmen, hunters, or fishermen--who grew no corn,
were unacquainted with bread, and subsisted on the milk and
flesh of their cattle, or on game, turtle, and fish, salted or
raw. The tribes had their own separate chiefs, and
acknowledged no single head, but on the contrary were
frequently at war one with the other, and sold their prisoners
for slaves. Such was Ethiopia in the common vague sense; but
from this must be distinguished another narrower Ethiopia,
known sometimes as 'Ethiopia Proper' or 'Ethiopia above
Egypt,' the limits of which were, towards the south, the
junction of the White and Blue Niles, and towards the north
the Third Cataract. Into this tract, called sometimes 'the
kingdom of Meroë,' Egyptian civilisation had, long before the
eighth century [B. C.], deeply penetrated. Temples of the
Egyptian type, stone pyramids, avenues of sphinxes, had been
erected; a priesthood had been set up, which was regarded as
derived from the Egyptian priesthood; monarchical institutions
had been adopted; the whole tract formed ordinarily one
kingdom, and the natives were not very much behind the
Egyptians in arts or arms, or very different from them in
manners, customs, and mode of life. Even in race the
difference was not great. The Ethiopians were darker in
complexion than the Egyptians, and possessed probably a
greater infusion of Nigritic blood; but there was a common
stock at the root of the two races--Cush and Mizraim were
brethren. In the region of Ethiopia Proper a very important
position was occupied in the eighth century [B. C.] by Napata.
Napata was situated midway in the great bend of the Nile,
between latitude 18° and 19°. ... It occupied the left bank of
the river in the near vicinity of the modern Gebel Berkal. . .
Here, when the decline of Egypt enabled the Ethiopians to
reclaim their ancient limits, the capital was fixed of that
kingdom, which shortly became a rival of the old empire of the
Pharaohs, and aspired to take its place. ... The kingdom of
Meroë, whereof it was the capital, reached southward as far as
the modern Khartoum, and eastward stretched up to the
Abyssinian highlands, including the valleys of the Atbara and
its tributaries, together with most of the tract between the
Atbara and the Blue Nile. ... Napata continued down to Roman
times a place of importance, and only sank to ruin in
consequence of the campaigns of Petronius against Candacé in
the first century after our era."
_G. Rawlinson,
History of Ancient Egypt,
chapter 25._
ALSO IN:
_A. H. L. Heeren,
Historical Researches, Carthaginians,
Ethiopians, &c., pages 143-249._
See, also, EGYPT: ABOUT B. C. 1200-670;
and LIBYANS, THE.
ETON SCHOOL.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.--ENGLAND.
ETRURIA, Ancient.
See ETRUSCANS.
ETRURIA, The kingdom of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803;
also PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808(NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
ETRUSCANS, The.
"At the time when Roman history begins, we find that a
powerful and warlike race, far superior to the Latins in
civilisation and in the arts of life, hemmed in the rising
Roman dominion in the north. The Greeks called them Turrhenoi,
the Romans called them Etrusci, they called themselves the
Rasenna. Who they were and whence they came has ever been
regarded as one of the most doubtful and difficult problems in
ethnology. One conclusion only can be said to have been
universally accepted both in ancient and in modern times. It
is agreed on every hand that in all essential points, in
language, in religion, in customs, and in appearance, the
Etruscans were a race wholly different from the Latins. There
is also an absolute agreement of all ancient tradition to the
effect that the Etruscans were not the original inhabitants of
Etruria, but that they were an intrusive race of conquerors.
... It has been usually supposed that the Rasenna made their
appearance in Italy some ten or twelve centuries before the
Christian era. ... For some six or seven centuries, the
Etruscan power and territory continued steadily to increase,
and ultimately stretched far south of the Tiber, Rome itself
being included in the Etruscan dominion, and being ruled by an
Etruscan dynasty. The early history of Rome is to a great
extent the history of the uprising of the Latin race, and its
long struggle for Italian supremacy with its Etruscan foe. It
took Rome some six centuries of conflict to break through the
obstinate barrier of the Etruscan power. The final conquest of
Etruria by Rome was effected in the year 281 B. C. ... The
Rasennic people were collected mainly in the twelve great
cities of Etruria proper, between the Arno and the Tiber.
[Modern Tuscany takes its name from the ancient Etruscan
inhabitants of the region.] This region was the real seat of
the Etruscan power. ... From the 'Shah-nameh,' the great
Persian epic, we learn that the Aryan Persians called their
nearest non-Aryan neighbours--the Turkic or Turcoman tribes to
the north of them--by the name Turan, a word from which we
derive the familiar ethnologic term Turanian. The Aryan
Greeks, on the other hand, called the Turkic tribe of the
Rasenna, the nearest non-Aryan race, by the name of Turrhenoi.
The argument of this book is to prove that the Tyrrhenians of
Italy were of kindred race with the Turanians of Turkestan. Is
it too much to conjecture that the Greek form Turrhene may be
identically the same word as the Persian form Turan?"
_I. Taylor,
Etruscan Researches,
chapter 2._