See MEMPHIS.
{2228}
MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY.
MOQUIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.
MORA, The.
The name of the ship which bore William the Conqueror to
England, and which was the gift of his wife, the Duchess
Matilda.
MORAT, Battle of (1476).
See BURGUNDY (THE FRENCH DUKEDOM): A. D. 1476-1477.
----------MORAVIA: Start--------
MORAVIA:
Its people and their early history.
See BOHEMIA: ITS PEOPLE, &c.
MORAVIA: 9th Century.
Conversion to Christianity.
The kingdom of Svatopluk and its obscure destruction.
"Moravia has not even a legendary history. Her name appears
for the first time at the beginning of the 9th century, under
its Slav form, Morava (German 'March,' 'Moehren'). It is used
to denote at the same time a tributary of the Danube and the
country it waters; it is met with again in the lower valley of
that stream, in Servia, and appears to have a Slav origin.
During the 7th and 8th centuries there is no doubt Moravia was
divided among several princes, and had a hard struggle against
the Avars. The first prince whose name is known was Moïmir,
who ruled at the beginning of the 9th century. … During his
reign Christianity made some progress in Moravia. … Moïmir
tried to withstand the Germans, but was not successful; and in
846 Louis the German invaded his country, deposed him, and
made his nephew Rostislav, whom the chroniclers call Rastiz,
ruler in his stead. … The new prince, Rostislav, determined
to secure both the political and moral freedom of his country.
He fortified his frontiers and then declared war against the
emperor. He was victorious, and when once peace was secured he
undertook a systematic conversion of his people. Thus came
about one of the great episodes in the history of the Slavs,
and their Church, the mission of the apostles Cyril and
Methodius. … After having struggled successfully for some
time against the Germans" Rostislav was "betrayed by his
nephew and vassal, Svatopluk, into the hands of Karloman, duke
of Carinthia and son of Louis the German, who put out his eyes
and shut him up in a monastery. Svatopluk believed himself
sure of the succession to his uncle as the price of his
treachery, but a very different reward fell to his lot, as
Karloman, trusting but little in his fidelity to the Germans,
threw him also into captivity. The German yoke was, however,
hateful to the Moravians; they soon rebelled, and Karloman
hoped to avert the danger by releasing Svatopluk and placing
him at the head of an army. Svatopluk marched against the
Moravians, then suddenly joined his forces to theirs and
attacked the Germans. This time the independence of Moravia
was secured, and was recognized by the treaty of Forcheim
(874). … Thenceforward peace reigned between Svatopluk and
Louis the German. … At one time he [Svatopluk] was the most
powerful monarch of the Slavs; Rome was in treaty with him,
Bohemia gravitated towards the orbit of Moravia, while Moravia
held the empire in check. … At this time [891] the kingdom
of Svatopluk … included, besides Moravia and the present
Austrian Silesia, the subject country of Bohemia, the Slav
tribes on the Elbe and the Vistula as far as the neighbourhood
of Magdeburg, part of Western Galicia, the country of the
Slovaks, and Lower Pannonia." But Svatopluk was ruined by war
with his neighbor, Arnulf, duke of Pannonia. The latter
"entered into an alliance with Braclav, a Slovene prince,
sought the aid of the king of the Bulgarians, and, what was of
far graver importance, summoned to his help the Magyars, who
had just settled themselves on the Lower Danube. Swabians,
Bavarians, Franks, Magyars, and Slovenes rushed simultaneously
upon Moravia. Overwhelmed by numbers, Svatopluk made no
attempt at resistance; he shut up his troops in fortresses,
and abandoned the open country to the enemy, who ravaged it
for four whole weeks. Then hostilities ceased; but no durable
peace could exist between the two adversaries. War began again
in the following year, when death freed Arnulf from Svatopluk.
… At his death he left three sons; he chose the eldest,
Moïmir II., as his heir, and assigned appanages to each of the
others. On his death-bed he begged them to live at peace with
one another, but his advice was not followed. … Bohemia soon
threw off those bonds which had attached her as a vassal to
Svatopluk; the Magyars invaded Moravian Pannonia, and forced
Moïmir into an alliance with them. … In the year 900 the
Bavarians, together with the Chekhs, invaded Moravia. In 903
the name of Moïmir disappears. As to the cause of his death,
as to how it was that suddenly and for ever the kingdom of
Moravia was destroyed, the chronicles tell us nothing. Cosmas
of Prague shows us Moravia at the mercy of Germans, Chekhs,
and Hungarians; then history is silent, towns and castles
crumble to pieces, churches are overthrown, the people are
scattered."
_L. Leger,
History of Austro-Hungary,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_G. F. Maclear,
Conversion of the West: The Slavs,
chapter 4._
MORAVIA: A. D. 1355.
Absorption in the kingdom of Bohemia.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1355.
----------MORAVIA: End----------
MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum):
Origin and early history.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1434-1457; and 1621-1648.
MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum):
In Saxony and in America.
The Indian Missions.
"In 1722, and in the seven following years, a considerable
number of these 'Brethren,' led by Christian David, who were
persecuted in their homes, were received by Count Zinzendorf
on his estate at Berthelsdorf in Saxony. They founded a
village called Herrnhut, or 'the Watch of the Lord.' There
they were joined by Christians from other places in Germany,
and, after some time, Zinzendorf took up his abode among them,
and became their principal guide and pastor. … In 1737, he
consecrated himself wholly to the service of God in connection
with the Moravian settlement, and was ordained a bishop. …
Zinzendorf had before been received into the Lutheran
ministry. The peculiar fervor which characterized his
religious work, and certain particulars in his teaching,
caused the Saxon Government, which was wedded to the
traditional ways of Lutheranism, to exclude him from Saxony
for about ten years (1736-1747). He prosecuted his religious
labors in Frankfort, journeyed through Holland and England,
made a voyage to the West Indies, and, in 1741, another voyage
to America.
{2229}
New branches of the Moravian body he planted in the countries
which he visited. … It was a church within a church that
Zinzendorf aimed to establish. It was far from his purpose to
found a sect antagonistic to the national churches in the
midst of which the Moravian societies arose. … With a
religious life remarkable as combining warm emotion with a
quiet and serene type of feeling, the community of Zinzendorf
connected a missionary zeal not equalled at that time in any
other Protestant communion. Although few in number, they sent
their gospel messengers to all quarters of the globe."
_G. P. Fisher,
History of the Christian Church,
pages 506-507._
The first settlement of the Moravians in America was planted
in Georgia, in 1735. "But Oglethorpe's border war with the
Spaniards compelled him to call every man in his colony to
arms, and the Moravians, rather than forsake their principles
[of non-resistance, and dependence upon prayer], abandoned
their lands and escaped to Pennsylvania [1740]. Here some of
their brethren were already fixed. Among the refugees was the
young David Zeisberger, the future head of the Ohio missions.
Bethlehem on the Lehigh became, and is yet, the centre in
America of their double system of missions and education. They
bought lands, laid out villages and farms, built houses,
shops, and mills, but everywhere, and first of all, houses of
prayer, in thankfulness for the peace and prosperity at length
found. The first mission established by Zinzendorf in the
colonies was in 1741, among the Mohican Indians, near the
borders of New York and Connecticut. The bigoted people and
authorities of the neighborhood by outrages and persecution
drove them off, so that they were forced to take refuge on the
Lehigh. The brethren established them in a new colony twenty
miles above Bethlehem, to which they gave the name of
Gnadenhütten (Tents of Grace). The prosperity of the Mohicans
attracted the attention and visits of the Indians beyond. The
nearest were the Delawares, between whom and the Mohicans
there were strong ties of affinity, as branches of the old
Lenni Lenape stock. Relations were thus formed between the
Moravians and the Delawares. And by the fraternization between
the Delawares and Shawanees … and their gradual emigration
to the West to escape the encroachments of Penn's people, it
occurred that the Moravian missionaries, Zeisberger foremost,
accompanied their Delaware and Mohican converts to the
Susquehanna in 1765, and again, when driven from there by the
cession at Fort Stanwix, journeyed with them across the
Alleghanies to Goshgoshink, a town established by the
unconverted Delawares far up the Alleghany River." In 1770,
having gained some important converts among the Delawares of
the Wolf clan, at Kuskuskee, on Big Beaver Creek, they
transferred themselves to that place, naming it Friedenstadt.
But there they were opposed with such hostility by warriors
and white traders that they determined "to plunge a step
further into the wilderness, and go to the head chief of the
Delawares at Gepelmukpechenk (Stillwater, or Tuscarawi) on the
Muskingum. It was near this village that Christian Frederick
Post, the brave, enterprising pioneer of the Moravians, had
established himself in 1761, with the approbation of the
chiefs. … By marriage with an Indian wife he had forfeited
his regular standing with the congregation. His intimate
acquaintance with the Indians, and their languages and
customs, so far gained upon them that in 1762 he was permitted
to take Heckewelder to share his cabin and establish a school
for the Indian children. But in the autumn the threatened
outburst of Pontiac's war had compelled them to flee." Early
in 1772 the Moravian colony "was invited by the council at
Tuscarawi, the Wyandots west of them approving it, to come
with all their Indian brethren from the Alleghany and
Susquehanna, and settle on the Muskingum (as the Tuscarawas
was then called), and upon any lands that they might choose."
The invitation was accepted. "The pioneer party, in the
removal from the Beaver to Ohio, consisted of Zeisberger and
five Indian families, 28 persons, who arrived at this
beautiful ground May 3, 1772. … The site was at the large
spring, and appropriately it was named for it Shoenbrun. In
August arrived the Missionaries Ettwein and Heckewelder, with
the main body of Christian Indians who had been invited from
the Alleghany and the Susquehanna, about 250 in number. …
This, and further accessions from the east in September, made
it advisable to divide the colony into two villages. The
second [named Gnadenhütten] was established ten miles below
Shoenbrun. … In April, 1773, the remnants of the mission on
the Beaver joined their brethren in Ohio. The whole body of
the Moravian Indians … was now united and at rest under the
shelter of the unconverted but … tolerant Delaware warriors.
… The population of the Moravian villages at the close of
1775 was 414 persons. … The calamity of the Moravians was
the war of the American Revolution. It developed the dangerous
fact that their villages … were close upon the direct line
between Pittsburgh and Detroit, the outposts of the two
contending forces." The peaceful settlement became an object
of hostility to the meaner spirits on both sides. In
September, 1781, by order of the British commander at Detroit,
they were expelled from their settlement, robbed of all their
possessions, and sent to Sandusky. In the following February,
a half-starved party of them, numbering 96, who had ventured
back to their ravaged homes, for the purpose of gleaning the
corn left standing in the fields, were massacred by a brutal
American force, from the Ohio. "So perished the Moravian
missions on the Muskingum. Not that the pious founders ceased
their labors, or that these consecrated scenes knew them no
more. But their Indian communities, the germ of their work,
the sign of what was to be accomplished by them in the great
Indian problem, were scattered and gone, Zeisberger, at their
head, labored with the remnants of their congregation for
years in Canada. They then transferred themselves temporarily
to settlements on the Sandusky, the Huron, and the Cuyahoga
rivers. At last he and Heckewelder, with the survivors of
these wanderings, went back to their lands on the Tuscarawas,
now surrounded by the whites, but fully secured to them by the
generosity of Congress."
_R. King,
Ohio,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_D. Cranz,
History of the United Brethren._
_F. Bovet,
The Banished Count (Life of Zinzendorf)._
_E. de Schweinitz,
Life and Times of David Zeisberger._
_D. Zeisberger,
Diary._
_D. Berger,
United Brethren
(American Church History),
volume 12._
{2230}
----------MOREA: Start--------
MOREA:
Origin of the name.
"The Morea must … have come into general use, as the name of
the peninsula [of the Peloponnesus] among the Greeks, after
the Latin conquest [of 1204-1205], even allowing that the term
was used among foreigners before the arrival of the Franks.
… The name Morea was, however, at first applied only to the
western coast of the Peloponnesus, or perhaps more
particularly to Elis, which the epitome of Strabo points out
as a district exclusively Sclavonian, and which, to this day,
preserves a number of Sclavonian names. … Originally the
word appears to be the same geographical denomination which
the Sclavonians of the north had given to a mountain district
of Thrace in the chain of Mount Rhodope. In the 14th century
the name of this province is written by the Emperor
Cantacuzenos, who must have been well acquainted with it
personally, Morrha. Even as late as the 14th century, the
Morea is mentioned in official documents relating to the Frank
principality as a province of the Peloponnesus, though the
name was then commonly applied to the whole peninsula."
_G. Finlay,
History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders,
chapter 1, section 4._
MOREA:
The Principality of the.
See ACHAIA: A. D. 1205-1387.
----------MOREA: End--------
MOREAU, General,
The Campaigns and the military and political fortunes of.
See FRANCE:
A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER);
1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL);
1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER), (NOVEMBER);
1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY); and 1804-1805;
also, GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (AUGUST).