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[v.04 p.0498] BRÉQUIGNY, LOUIS GEORGE OUDARD FEUDRIX DE (_continued from
part 2_)
... volumes x.-xiv., the preface to vol. xi. containing important
researches into the French communes. To the _Table chronologique des
diplômes, chartes, lettres, et actes imprimés concernant l'histoire de
France_ he contributed three volumes in collaboration with Mouchet
(1769-1783). Charged with the supervision of a large collection of
documents bearing on French history, analogous to Rymer's _Foedera_, he
published the first volume (_Diplomatat. Chartae_, &c., 1791). The
Revolution interrupted him in his collection of _Mémoires concernant
l'histoire, les sciences, les lettres, et les arts des Chinois_, begun in
1776 at the instance of the minister Bertin, when fifteen volumes had
appeared.
See the note on Bréquigny at the end of vol. i. of the _Mémoires de
l'Académie des Inscriptions_ (1808); the Introduction to vol. iv. of the
_Table chronologique des diplômes_ (1836); Champollion-Figeac's preface to
the _Lettres des rois et reines_; the _Comité des travaux historiques_, by
X. Charmes, vol. i. _passim_; N. Oursel, _Nouvelle biographie normande_
(1886); and the _Catalogue des manuscrits des collections Duchesne et
Bréquigny_ (in the Bibliothèque Nationale), by René Poupardin (1905).
(C. B.*)
BRESCIA (anc. _Brixia_), a city and episcopal see of Lombardy, Italy, the
capital of the province of Brescia, finely situated at the foot of the
Alps, 52 m. E. of Milan and 40 m. W. of Verona by rail. Pop. (1901) town,
42,495; commune, 72,731. The plan of the city is rectangular, and the
streets intersect at right angles, a peculiarity handed down from Roman
times, though the area enclosed by the medieval walls is larger than that
of the Roman town, which occupied the eastern portion of the present one.
The Piazza del Museo marks the site of the forum, and the museum on its
north side is ensconced in a Corinthian temple with three _cellae_, by some
attributed to Hercules, but more probably the Capitolium of the city,
erected by Vespasian in A.D. 73 (if the inscription really belongs to the
building; cf. Th. Mommsen in _Corp. Inscrip. Lat._ v. No. 4312, Berlin,
1872), and excavated in 1823. It contains a famous bronze statue of
Victory, found in 1826. Scanty remains of a building on the south side of
the forum, called the _curia_, but which may be a basilica, and of the
theatre, on the east of the temple, still exist.
Brescia contains many interesting medieval buildings. The castle, at the
north-east angle of the town, commands a fine view. It is now a military
prison. The old cathedral is a round domed structure of the 10th (?)
century erected over an early Christian basilica, which has forty-two
ancient columns; and the Broletto, adjoining the new cathedral (a building
of 1604) on the north, is a massive building of the 12th and 13th centuries
(the original town hall, now the prefecture and law courts), with a lofty
tower. There are also remains of the convent of S. Salvatore, founded by
Desiderius, king of Lombardy, including three churches, two of which now
contain the fine medieval museum, which possesses good ivories. The church
of S. Francesco has a Gothic façade and cloisters. There are also some good
Renaissance palaces and other buildings, including the Municipio, begun in
1492 and completed by Jacopo Sansovino in 1554-1574. This is a magnificent
structure, with fine ornamentation. The church of S. Maria dei Miracoli
(1488-1523) is also noteworthy for its general effect and for the richness
of its details, especially of the reliefs on the façade. Many other
churches, and the picture gallery (Galleria Martinengo), contain fine works
of the painters of the Brescian school, Alessandro Bonvicino (generally
known as Moretto), Girolamo Romanino and Moretto's pupil, Giovanni Battista
Moroni. The Biblioteca Queriniana contains early MSS., a 14th-century MS.
of Dante, &c., and some rare incunabula. The city is well supplied with
water, and has no less than seventy-two public fountains. Brescia has
considerable factories of iron ware, particularly fire-arms and weapons
(one of the government small arms factories being situated here), also of
woollens, linens and silks, matches, candles, &c. The stone quarries of
Mazzano, 8 m. east of Brescia, supplied material for the monument to Victor
Emmanuel II. and other buildings in Rome. Brescia is situated on the main
railway line between Milan and Verona, and has branch railways to Iseo,
Parma, Cremona and (via Rovato) to Bergamo, and steam tramways to Mantua,
Soncino, Ponte Toscolano and Cardone Valtrompia.
The ancient Celtic Brixia, a town of the Cenomani, became Roman in 225
B.C., when the Cenomani submitted to Rome. Augustus founded a civil (not a
military) colony here in 27 B.C., and he and Tiberius constructed an
aqueduct to supply it. In 452 it was plundered by Attila, but was the seat
of a duchy in the Lombard period. From 1167 it was one of the most active
members of the Lombard League. In 1258 it fell into the hands of Eccelino
of Verona, and belonged to the Scaligers (della Scala) until 1421, when it
came under the Visconti of Milan, and in 1426 under Venice. Early in the
16th century it was one of the wealthiest cities of Lombardy, but has never
recovered from its sack by the French under Gaston de Foix in 1512. It
belonged to Venice until 1797, when it came under Austrian dominion; it
revolted in 1848, and again in 1849, being the only Lombard town to rally
to Charles Albert in the latter year, but was taken after ten days'
obstinate street fighting by the Austrians under Haynau.
See _Museo Bresciano Illustrato_ (Brescia, 1838).
(T. AS.)
BRESLAU (Polish _Wraclaw_), a city of Germany, capital of the Prussian
province of Silesia, and an episcopal see, situated in a wide and fertile
plain on both banks of the navigable Oder, 350 m. from its mouth, at the
influx of the Ohle, and 202 m. from Berlin on the railway to Vienna. Pop.
(1867) 171,926; (1880) 272,912; (1885) 299,640; (1890) 335,186; (1905)
470,751, about 60% being Protestants, 35% Roman Catholics and nearly 5%
Jews. The Oder, which here breaks into several arms, divides the city into
two unequal halves, crossed by numerous bridges. The larger portion, on the
left bank, includes the old or inner town, surrounded by beautiful
promenades, on the site of the ramparts, dismantled after 1813, from an
eminence within which, the Liebichs Höhe, a fine view is obtained of the
surrounding country. Outside, as well as across the Oder, lies the new town
with extensive suburbs, containing, especially in the Schweidnitz quarter
in the south, and the Oder quarter in the north, many handsome streets and
spacious squares. The inner town, in contrast to the suburbs, still retains
with its narrow streets much of its ancient characters, and contains
several medieval buildings, both religious and secular, of great beauty and
interest. The cathedral, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was begun in
1148 and completed at the close of the 15th century, enlarged in the 17th
and 18th centuries, and restored between 1873 and 1875; it is rich in
notable treasures, especially the high altar of beaten silver, and in
beautiful paintings and sculptures. The Kreuzkirche (church of the Holy
Cross), dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, is an interesting brick
building, remarkable for its stained glass and its historical monuments,
among which is the tomb of Henry IV., duke of Silesia. The Sandkirche, so
called from its dedication to Our Lady on the Sand, dates from the 14th
century, and was until 1810 the church of the Augustinian canons. The
Dorotheenor Minoritenkirche, remarkable for its high-pitched roof, was
founded by the emperor Charles IV. in 1351. These are the most notable of
the Roman Catholic churches. Of the Evangelical churches the most important
is that of St Elizabeth, founded about 1250, rebuilt in the 14th and 15th
centuries, and restored in 1857. Its lofty tower contains the largest bell
in Silesia, and the church possesses a celebrated organ, fine stained
glass, a magnificent stone pyx (erected in 1455) over 52 ft. high, and
portraits of Luther and Melanchthon by Lucas Cranach. The church of St Mary
Magdalen, built in the 14th century on the model of the cathedral, has two
lofty Gothic towers connected by a bridge, and is interesting as having
been the church in which, in 1523, the reformation in Silesia was first
proclaimed. Other noteworthy ecclesiastical buildings are the graceful
Gothic church of St Michael built in 1871, the bishop's palace and the
Jewish synagogue, the finest in Germany after that in Berlin.
The business streets of the city converge upon the Ring, the market square,
in which is the town-hall, a fine Gothic building, begun in the middle of
the 14th and completed in the 16th century. Within is the Fürstensaal, in
which the diets of Silesia were formerly held, while beneath is the famous
Schweidnitzer Keller, used continuously since 1355 as a beer and wine
house. [v.04 p.0499] The university, a spacious Gothic building facing the
Oder, is a striking edifice. It was built (1728-1736) as a college by the
Jesuits, on the site of the former imperial castle presented to them by the
emperor Leopold I., and contains a magnificent hall (Aula Leopoldina),
richly ornamented with frescoes and capable of holding 1200 persons.
Breslau possesses a large number of other important public buildings: the
Stadthaus (civic hall), the royal palace, the government offices (a
handsome pile erected in 1887), the provincial House of Assembly, the
municipal archives, the courts of law, the Silesian museum of arts and
crafts and antiquities, stored in the former assembly hall of the estates
(Ständehaus), which was rebuilt for the purpose, the museum of fine arts,
the exchange, the Stadt and Lobe theatres, the post office and central
railway station. There are also numerous hospitals and schools. Breslau is
exceedingly rich in fine monuments; the most noteworthy being the
equestrian statues of Frederick the Great and Frederick William III., both
by Kiss; the statue of Blücher by Rauch; a marble statue of General
Tauentzien by Langhans and Schadow; a bronze statue of Karl Gottlieb Svarez
(1746-1798), the Prussian jurist, a monument to Schleiermacher, born here
in 1768, and statues of the emperor William I., Bismarck and Moltke. There
are also several handsome fountains. Foremost among the educational
establishments stands the university, founded in 1702 by the emperor
Leopold I. as a Jesuit college, and greatly extended by the incorporation
of the university of Frankfort-on-Oder in 1811. Its library contains
306,000 volumes and 4000 MSS., and has in the so-called _Bibliotheca
Habichtiana_ a valuable collection of oriental literature. Among its
auxiliary establishments are botanical gardens, an observatory, and
anatomical, physiological and kindred institutions. There are eight
classical and four modern schools, two higher girls' schools, a Roman
Catholic normal school, a Jewish theological seminary, a school of arts and
crafts, and numerous literary and charitable foundations. It is, however,
as a commercial and industrial city that Breslau is most widely known. Its
situation, close to the extensive coal and iron fields of Upper Silesia, in
proximity to the Austrian and Russian frontiers, at the centre of a network
of railways directly communicating both with these countries and with the
chief towns of northern and central Germany, and on a deep waterway
connecting with the Elbe and the Vistula, facilitates its very considerable
transit and export trade in the products of the province and of the
neighbouring countries. These embrace coal, sugar, cereals, spirits,
petroleum and timber. The local industries comprise machinery and tools,
railway and tramway carriages, furniture, cast-iron goods, gold and silver
work, carpets, furs, cloth and cottons, paper, musical instruments, glass
and china. Breslau is the headquarters of the VI. German army corps and
contains a large garrison of troops of all arms.
_History._--Breslau (Lat. _Vratislavia_) is first mentioned by the
chronicler Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, in A.D. 1000, and was probably
founded some years before this date. Early in the 11th century it was made
the seat of a bishop, and after having formed part of Poland, became the
capital of an independent duchy in 1163. Destroyed by the Mongols in 1241,
it soon recovered its former prosperity and received a large influx of
German colonists. The bishop obtained the title of a prince of the Empire
in 1290.[1] When Henry VI., the last duke of Breslau, died in 1335, the
city came by purchase to John, king of Bohemia, whose successors retained
it until about 1460. The Bohemian kings bestowed various privileges on
Breslau, which soon began to extend its commerce in all directions, while
owing to increasing wealth the citizens took up a more independent
attitude. Disliking the Hussites, Breslau placed itself under the
protection of Pope Pius II. in 1463, and a few years afterwards came under
the rule of the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus. After his death in 1490
it again became subject to Bohemia, passing with the rest of Silesia to the
Habsburgs when in 1526 Ferdinand, afterwards emperor, was chosen king of
Bohemia. Having passed almost undisturbed through the periods of the
Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, Breslau was compelled to own the
authority of Frederick the Great in 1741. It was, however, recovered by the
Austrians in 1757, but was regained by Frederick after his victory at
Leuthen in the same year, and has since belonged to Prussia, although it
was held for a few days by the French in 1807 after the battle of Jena, and
again in 1813 after the battle of Bautzen. The sites of the fortifications,
dismantled by the French in 1807, were given to the civic authorities by
King Frederick William III., and converted into promenades. In March 1813
this monarch issued from Breslau his stirring appeals to the Prussians, _An
mein Volk_ and _An mein Kriegesheer_, and the city was the centre of the
Prussian preparations for the campaign which ended at Leipzig. After the
Prussian victory at Sadowa in 1866, William I. made a triumphant and
complimentary entry into the city, which since the days of Frederick the
Great has been only less loyal to the royal house than Berlin itself.
See Bürkner and Stein, _Geschichte der Stadt Breslau_ (Bresl. 1851-1853);
J-Stein, _Geschichte der Stadt Breslau im 19ten Jahrhundert_ (1884); O
Frenzel, _Breslauer Stadtbuch_ ("Codex dipl. Silisiae," vol. ii. 1882);
Luchs, _Breslau, ein Führer durch die Stadt_ (12th ed., Bresl. 1904).
[1] In 1195 Jaroslaw, son of Boleslaus I. of Lower Silesia, who became
bishop of Breslau in 1198, inherited the duchy of Neisse, which at his
death (1201) he bequeathed to his successors in the see. The Austrian part
of Neisse still belongs to the bishop of Breslau, who also still bears the
title of prince bishop.
BRESSANT, JEAN BAPTISTE PROSPER (1815-1886), French actor, was born at
Chalon-sur-Saône on the 23rd of October 1815, and began his stage career at
the Variétés in Paris in 1833. In 1838 he went to the French theatre at St
Petersburg, where for eight years he played important parts with
ever-increasing reputation. His success was confirmed at the Gymnase when
he returned to Paris in 1846, and he made his _début_ at the Comédie
Française as a full-fledged _sociétaire_ in 1854. From playing the ardent
young lover, he turned to leading rôles both in modern plays and in the
classical répertoire. His Richelieu in _Mlle de Belle-Isle_, his Octave in
Alfred de Musset's _Les Caprices de Marianne_, and his appearance in de
Musset's _Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée_ and _Un caprice_
were followed by _Tartuffe_, _Le Misanthrope_ and _Don Juan_. Bressant
retired in 1875, and died on the 23rd of January 1886. During his
professorship at the Conservatoire, Mounet-Sully was one of his pupils.
BRESSE, a district of eastern France embracing portions of the departments
of Ain, Saône-et-Loire and Jura. The Bresse extends from the Dombes on the
south to the river Doubs on the north, and from the Saône eastwards to the
Jura, measuring some 60 m. in the former, and 20 m. in the latter
direction. It is a plain varying from 600 to 800 ft. above the sea, with
few eminences and a slight inclination westwards. Heaths and coppice
alternate with pastures and arable land; pools and marshes are numerous,
especially in the north. Its chief rivers are the Veyle, the Reyssouze and
the Seille, all tributaries of the Saône. The soil is a gravelly clay but
moderately fertile, and cattle-raising is largely carried on. The region
is, however, more especially celebrated for its table poultry. The
inhabitants preserve a distinctive but almost obsolete costume, with a
curious head-dress. The Bresse proper, called the _Bresse Bressane_,
comprises the northern portion of the department of Ain. The greater part
of the district belonged in the middle ages to the lords of Bâgé, from whom
it passed in 1272 to the house of Savoy. It was not till the first half of
the 15th century that the province, with Bourg as its capital, was founded
as such. In 1601 it was ceded to France by the treaty of Lyons, after which
it formed (together with the province of Bugey) first a separate government
and afterwards part of the government of Burgundy.
BRESSUIRE, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the
department of Deux-Sèvres, 48 m. N. of Niort by rail. Pop. (1906) 4561. The
town is situated on an eminence overlooking the Dolo, a tributary of the
Argenton. It is the centre of a cattle-rearing and agricultural region, and
has important markets; the manufacture of wooden type and woollen goods is
carried on. Bressuire has two buildings of interest: the church of
Notre-Dame, which, dating chiefly from the 12th and 15th centuries, has an
imposing tower of the Renaissance period; and the castle, built by the
lords of [v.04 p.0500] Beaumont, vassals of the viscount of Thouars. The
latter is now in ruins, and a portion of the site is occupied by a modern
château, but an inner and outer line of fortifications are still to be
seen. The whole forms the finest assemblage of feudal ruins in Poitou.
Bressuire is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first
instance. Among the disasters suffered at various times by the town, its
capture from the English and subsequent pillage by French troops under du
Guesclin in 1370 is the most memorable.
BREST, a fortified seaport of western France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Finistère, 155 m. W.N.W. of Rennes by rail. Population
(1906) town, 71,163; commune, 85,294. It is situated to the north of a
magnificent landlocked bay, and occupies the slopes of two hills divided by
the river Penfeld,--the part of the town on the left bank being regarded as
Brest proper, while the part on the right is known as Recouvrance. There
are also extensive suburbs to the east of the town. The hill-sides are in
some places so steep that the ascent from the lower to the upper town has
to be effected by flights of steps and the second or third storey of one
house is often on a level with the ground storey of the next. The chief
street of Brest bears the name of rue de Siam, in honour of the Siamese
embassy sent to Louis XIV., and terminates at the remarkable swing-bridge,
constructed in 1861, which crosses the mouth of the Penfeld. Running along
the shore to the south of the town is the Cours d'Ajot, one of the finest
promenades of its kind in France, named after the engineer who constructed
it. It is planted with trees and adorned with marble statues of Neptune and
Abundance by Antoine Coysevox. The castle with its donjon and seven towers
(12th to the 16th centuries), commanding the entrance to the river, is the
only interesting building in the town. Brest is the capital of one of the
five naval arrondissements of France. The naval port, which is in great
part excavated in the rock, extends along both banks of the Penfeld; it
comprises gun-foundries and workshops, magazines, shipbuilding yards and
repairing docks, and employs about 7000 workmen. There are also large naval
barracks, training ships and naval schools of various kinds, and an
important naval hospital. Brest is the seat of a sub-prefect and has
tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board
of trade-arbitrators, two naval tribunals, and a tribunal of maritime
commerce. There are also lycées for boys and girls and a school of commerce
and industry. The commercial port, which is separated from the town itself
by the Cours d'Ajot, comprises a tidal port with docks and an outer
harbour; it is protected by jetties to the east and west and by a
breakwater on the south. In 1905 the number of vessels entered was 202 with
a tonnage of 67,755, and cleared 160 with a tonnage of 61,012. The total
value of the imports in 1905 was £244,000. The chief were wine, coal,
timber, mineral tar, fertilizers and lobsters and crayfish. Exports, of
which the chief were wheat-flour, fruit and superphosphates, were valued at
£40,000. Besides its sardine and mackerel fishing industry, the town has
flour-mills, breweries, foundries, forges, engineering works, and
manufactures of blocks, candles, chemicals (from sea-weed), boots, shoes
and linen. Brest communicates by submarine cable with America and French
West Africa. The roadstead consists of a deep indentation with a maximum
length of 14 m. and an average width of 4 m., the mouth being barred by the
peninsula of Quélern, leaving a passage from 1 to 2 m. broad, known as the
Goulet. The outline of the bay is broken by numerous smaller bays or arms,
formed by the embouchures of streams, the most important being the Anse de
Quélern, the Anse de Poulmie, and the mouths of the Châteaulin and the
Landerneau. Brest is a fortress of the first class. The fortifications of
the town and the harbour fall into four groups: (1) the very numerous forts
and batteries guarding the approaches to and the channel of the Goulet; (2)
the batteries and forts directed upon the roads; (3) a group of works
preventing access to the peninsula of Quélern and commanding the ground to
the south of the peninsula from which many of the works of group (2) could
be taken in reverse; (4) the defences of Brest itself, consisting of an
old-fashioned _enceinte_ possessing little military value and a chain of
detached forts to the west of the town.
Nothing definite is known of Brest till about 1240, when it was ceded by a
count of Léon to John I., duke of Brittany. In 1342 John of Montfort gave
it up to the English, and it did not finally leave their hands till 1397.
Its medieval importance was great enough to give rise to the saying, "He is
not duke of Brittany who is not lord of Brest." By the marriage of Francis
I. with Claude, daughter of Anne of Brittany, Brest with the rest of the
duchy definitely passed to the French crown. The advantages of the
situation for a seaport town were first recognized by Richelieu, who in
1631 constructed a harbour with wooden wharves, which soon became a station
of the French navy. Colbert changed the wooden wharves for masonry and
otherwise improved the post, and Vauban's fortifications followed in
1680-1688. During the 18th century the fortifications and the naval
importance of the town continued to develop. In 1694 an English squadron
under John, 3rd Lord Berkeley, was miserably defeated in attempting a
landing; but in 1794, during the revolutionary war, the French fleet, under
Villaret de Joyeuse, was as thoroughly beaten in the same place by the
English admiral Howe.
BREST-LITOVSK (Polish _Brzesc-Litevski_; and in the Chron. _Berestie_ and
_Berestov_), a strongly fortified town of Russia, in the government of
Grodno, 137 m. by rail S. from the city of Grodno, in 52° 5' N. lat. and
23° 39' E. long., at the junction of the navigable river Mukhovets with the
Bug, and at the intersection of railways from Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow and East
Prussia. Pop. (1867) 22,493; (1901) 42,812, of whom more than one-half were
Jews. It contains a Jewish synagogue, which was regarded in the 16th
century as the first in Europe, and is the seat of an Armenian and of a
Greek Catholic bishop; the former has authority over the Armenians
throughout the whole country. The town carries on an extensive trade in
grain, flax, hemp, wood, tar and leather. First mentioned in the beginning
of the 11th century, Brest-Litovsk was in 1241 laid waste by the Mongols
and was not rebuilt till 1275; its suburbs were burned by the Teutonic
Knights in 1379; and in the end of the 15th century the whole town met a
similar fate at the hands of the khan of the Crimea. In the reign of the
Polish king Sigismund III. diets were held there; and in 1594 and 1596 it
was the meeting-place of two remarkable councils of the bishops of western
Russia. In 1657, and again in 1706, the town was captured by the Swedes; in
1794 it was the scene of Suvarov's victory over the Polish general
Sierakowski; in 1795 it was added to the Russian empire. The Brest-Litovsk
or King's canal (50 m. long), utilizing the Mukhovets-Bug rivers, forms a
link in the waterways that connect the Dnieper with the Vistula.
BRETEUIL, LOUIS CHARLES AUGUSTE LE TONNELIER, BARON DE (1730-1807), French
diplomatist, was born at the chateau of Azay-le-Féron (Indre) on the 7th of
March 1730. He was only twenty-eight when he was appointed by Louis XV.
ambassador to the elector of Cologne, and two years later he was sent to St
Petersburg. He arranged to be temporarily absent from his post at the time
of the palace revolution by which Catherine II. was placed on the throne.
In 1769 he was sent to Stockholm, and subsequently represented his
government at Vienna, Naples, and again at Vienna until 1783, when he was
recalled to become minister of the king's household. In this capacity he
introduced considerable reforms in prison administration. A close friend of
Marie Antoinette, he presently came into collision with Calonne, who
demanded his dismissal in 1787. His influence with the king and queen,
especially with the latter, remained unshaken, and on Necker's dismissal on
the 11th of July 1789, Breteuil succeeded him as chief minister. The fall
of the Bastille three days later put an end to the new ministry, and
Breteuil made his way to Switzerland with the first party of _émigrés_. At
Soleure, in November 1790, he received from Louis XVI. exclusive powers to
negotiate with the European courts, and in his efforts to check the
ill-advised diplomacy of the _émigré_ princes, he soon brought himself into
opposition with his old rival Calonne, who held a chief place in their
councils. [v.04 p.0501] After the failure of the flight to Varennes, in the
arrangement of which he had a share, Breteuil received instructions from
Louis XVI., designed to restore amicable relations with the princes. His
distrust of the king's brothers and his defence of Louis XVI.'s prerogative
were to some extent justified, but his intransigeant attitude towards these
princes emphasized the dissensions of the royal family in the eyes of
foreign sovereigns, who looked on the comte de Provence as the natural
representative of his brother and found a pretext for non-interference on
Louis's behalf in the contradictory statements of the negotiators. Breteuil
himself was the object of violent attacks from the party of the princes,
who asserted that he persisted in exercising powers which had been revoked
by Louis XVI. After the execution of Marie Antoinette he retired into
private life near Hamburg, only returning to France in 1802. He died in
Paris on the 2nd of November 1807.
See the memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville (2 vols., Paris, 1816) and of the
marquis de Bouillé (2 vols., Paris, 1884); and E. Daudet, _Coblentz,
1789-1793_ (1889), forming part of his _Hist. de l'émigration._
BRÉTIGNY, a French town (dept. Eure-et-Loir, arrondissement and canton of
Chartres, commune of Sours), which gave its name to a celebrated treaty
concluded there on the 8th of May 1360, between Edward III. of England and
John II., surnamed the Good, of France. The exactions of the English, who
wished to yield as few as possible of the advantages claimed by them in the
treaty of London, made negotiations difficult, and the discussion of terms
begun early in April lasted more than a month. By virtue of this treaty
Edward III. obtained, besides Guienne and Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge and
Aunis, Agenais, Périgord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, the countship of
Gaure, Angoumois, Rouergue, Montreuil-sur-mer, Ponthieu, Calais, Sangatte,
Ham and the countship of Guines. John II. had, moreover, to pay three
millions of gold crowns for his ransom. On his side the king of England
gave up the duchies of Normandy and Touraine, the countships of Anjou and
Maine, and the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders. As a guarantee for
the payment of his ransom, John the Good gave as hostages two of his sons,
several princes and nobles, four inhabitants of Paris, and two citizens
from each of the nineteen principal towns of France. This treaty was
ratified and sworn to by the two kings and by their eldest sons on the 24th
of October 1360, at Calais. At the same time were signed the special
conditions relating to each important article of the treaty, and the
renunciatory clauses in which the kings abandoned their rights over the
territory they had yielded to one another.
See Rymer's _Foedera_, vol. iii; Dumont, _Corps diplomatique_, vol. ii.;
Froissart, ed. Luce, vol. vi.; _Les Grandes Chroniques de France_, ed. P.
Paris, vol. vi.; E. Cosneau, _Les Grands Traités de la guerre de cent ans_
(1889).
BRETON, JULES ADOLPHE AIMÉ LOUIS (1827- ), French painter, was born on the
1st of May 1827, at Courrières, Pas de Calais, France. His artistic gifts
being manifest at an early age, he was sent in 1843 to Ghent, to study
under the historical painter de Vigne, and in 1846 to Baron Wappers at
Antwerp. Finally he worked in Paris under Drolling. His first efforts were
in historical subjects: "Saint Piat preaching in Gaul"; then, under the
influence of the revolution of 1848, he represented "Misery and Despair."
But Breton soon discovered that he was not born to be a historical painter,
and he returned to the memories of nature and of the country which were
impressed on him in early youth. In 1853 he exhibited the "Return of the
Harvesters" at the Paris Salon, and the "Little Gleaner" at Brussels.
Thenceforward he was essentially a painter of rustic life, especially in
the province of Artois, which he quitted only three times for short
excursions: in 1864 to Provence, and in 1865 and 1873 to Brittany, whence
he derived some of his happiest studies of religious scenes. His numerous
subjects may be divided generally into four classes: labour, rest, rural
festivals and religious festivals. Among his more important works may be
named "Women Gleaning," and "The Day after St Sebastian's Day" (1855),
which gained him a third-class medal; "Blessing the Fields" (1857), a
second-class medal; "Erecting a Calvary" (1859), now in the Lille gallery;
"The Return of the Gleaners" (1859), now in the Luxembourg; "Evening" and
"Women Weeding" (1861), a first-class medal; "Grandfather's Birthday"
(1862); "The Close of Day" (1865); "Harvest" (1867); "Potato Gatherers"
(1868); "A Pardon, Brittany" (1869); "The Fountain" (1872), medal of
honour; "The Bonfires of St John" (1875); "Women mending Nets" (1876), in
the Douai museum; "A Gleaner" (1877), Luxembourg; "Evening, Finistère"
(1881); "The Song of the Lark" (1884); "The Last Sunbeam" (1885); "The
Shepherd's Star" (1888); "The Call Home" (1889); "The Last Gleanings"
(1895); "Gathering Poppies" (1897); "The Alarm Cry" (1899); "Twilight
Glory" (1900). Breton was elected to the Institut in 1886 on the death of
Baudry. In 1889 he was made commander of the Legion of Honour, and in 1899
foreign member of the Royal Academy of London. He also wrote several books,
among them _Les Champs et la mer_ (1876), _Nos peintres du siècle_ (1900),
"Jeanne," a poem, _Delphine Bernard_ (1902), and _La Peinture_ (1904).
See Jules Breton, _Vie d'un artiste, art et nature_ (autobiographical),
(Paris, 1890); Marius Vachon, _Jules Breton_ (1899).
BRETON, BRITTON OR BRITTAINE, NICHOLAS (1545?-1626), English poet, belonged
to an old family settled at Layer-Breton, Essex. His father, William
Breton, who had made a considerable fortune by trade, died in 1559, and the
widow (née Elizabeth Bacon) married the poet George Gascoigne before her
sons had attained their majority. Nicholas Breton was probably born at the
"capitall mansion house" in Red Cross Street, in the parish of St Giles
without Cripplegate, mentioned in his father's will. There is no official
record of his residence at the university, but the diary of the Rev.
Richard Madox tells us that he was at Antwerp in 1583 and was "once of
Oriel College." He married Ann Sutton in 1593, and had a family. He is
supposed to have died shortly after the publication of his last work,
_Fantastickes_ (1626). Breton found a patron in Mary, countess of Pembroke,
and wrote much in her honour until 1601, when she seems to have withdrawn
her favour. It is probably safe to supplement the meagre record of his life
by accepting as autobiographical some of the letters signed N.B. in _A
Poste with a Packet of Mad Letters_ (1603, enlarged 1637); the 19th letter
of the second part contains a general complaint of many griefs, and
proceeds as follows: "hath another been wounded in the warres, fared hard,
lain in a cold bed many a bitter storme, and beene at many a hard banquet?
all these have I; another imprisoned? so have I; another long been sicke?
so have I; another plagued with an unquiet life? so have I; another
indebted to his hearts griefe, and fame would pay and cannot? so am I."
Breton was a facile writer, popular with his contemporaries, and forgotten
by the next generation. His work consists of religious and pastoral poems,
satires, and a number of miscellaneous prose tracts. His religious poems
are sometimes wearisome by their excess of fluency and sweetness, but they
are evidently the expression of a devout and earnest mind. His praise of
the Virgin and his references to Mary Magdalene have suggested that he was
a Catholic, but his prose writings abundantly prove that he was an ardent
Protestant. Breton had little gift for satire, and his best work is to be
found in his pastoral poetry. His _Passionate Shepheard_ (1604) is full of
sunshine and fresh air, and of unaffected gaiety. The third pastoral in
this book--"Who can live in heart so glad As the merrie country lad"--is
well known; with some other of Breton's daintiest poems, among them the
lullaby, "Come little babe, come silly soule,"[1]--it is incorporated in
A.H. Bullen's _Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances_ (1890). His keen
observation of country life appears also in his prose idyll, _Wits
Trenchmour_, "a conference betwixt a scholler and an angler," and in his
_Fantastickes_, a series of short prose pictures of the months, the
Christian festivals and the hours, which throw much light on the customs of
the times. Most of Breton's books are very rare and have great
bibliographical value. His works, with the exception of some belonging to
private owners, were collected by Dr A.B. Grosart in the [v.04 p.0502]
_Chertsey Worthies Library_ in 1879, with an elaborate introduction quoting
the documents for the poet's history.
Breton's poetical works, the titles of which are here somewhat abbreviated,
include _The Workes of a Young Wit_ (1577); _A Floorish upon Fancie_
(1577); _The Pilgrimage to Paradise_ (1592); _The Countess of Penbrook's
Passion_ (MS.), first printed by J.O. Halliwell Phillipps in 1853;
_Pasquil's Fooles cappe_, entered at Stationers' Hall in 1600; _Pasquil's
Mistresse_ (1600); _Pasquil's Passe and Passeth Not_ (1600); _Melancholike
Humours_ (1600); _Marie Magdalen's Love: a Solemne Passion of the Soules
Love_ (1595), the first part of which, a prose treatise, is probably by
another hand; the second part, a poem in six-lined stanza, is certainly by
Breton; _A Divine Poem_, including "The Ravisht Soul" and "The Blessed
Weeper" (1601); _An Excellent Poem, upon the Longing of a Blessed Heart_
(1601); _The Soules Heavenly Exercise_ (1601); _The Soules Harmony_ (1602);
_Olde Madcappe newe Gaily mawfrey_ (1602); _The Mother's Blessing_ (1602);
_A True Description of Unthankfulnesse_ (1602); _The Passionate Shepheard_
(1604); _The Soules Immortall Crowne_ (1605); _The Honour of Valour_
(1605); _An Invective against Treason; I would and I would not_ (1614);
_Bryton's Bowre of Delights_ (1591), edited by Dr Grosart in 1893, an
unauthorized publication which contained some poems disclaimed by Breton;
_The Arbor of Amorous Devises_ (entered at Stationers' Hall, 1594), only in
part Breton's; and contributions to _England's Helicon_ and other
miscellanies of verse. Of his twenty-two prose tracts may be mentioned
_Wit's Trenchmour_ (1597), _The Wil of Wit_ (1599), _A Poste with a Packet
of Mad Letters_ (1603). _Sir Philip Sidney's Ourania by N.B._ (1606); _Mary
Magdalen's Lamentations_ (1604), and _The Passion of a Discontented Mind_
(1601), are sometimes, but erroneously, ascribed to Breton.
[1] This poem, however, comes from _The Arbor of Amorous Devises_, which
is only in part Breton's work.
BRETÓN DE LOS HERREROS, MANUEL (1796-1873), Spanish dramatist, was born at
Quel (Logroño) on the 19th of December 1796 and was educated at Madrid.
Enlisting on the 24th of May 1812, he served against the French in Valencia
and Catalonia, and retired with the rank of corporal on the 8th of March
1822. He obtained a minor post in the civil service under the liberal
government, and on his discharge determined to earn his living by writing
for the stage. His first piece, _Á la vejez viruelas_, was produced on the
14th of October 1824, and proved the writer to be the legitimate successor
of the younger Moratin. His industry was astonishing: between October 1824
and November 1828, he composed thirty-nine plays, six of them original, the
rest being translations or recasts of classic masterpieces. In 1831 he
published a translation of Tibullus, and acquired by it an unmerited
reputation for scholarship which secured for him an appointment as
sub-librarian at the national library. But the theatre claimed him for its
own, and with the exception of _Elena_ and a few other pieces in the
fashionable romantic vein, his plays were a long series of successes. His
only serious check occurred in 1840; the former liberal had grown
conservative with age, and in _La Ponchada_ he ridiculed the National
Guard. He was dismissed from the national library, and for a short time was
so unpopular that he seriously thought of emigrating to America; but the
storm blew over, and within two years Bretón de los Herreros had regained
his supremacy on the stage. He became secretary to the Spanish Academy,
quarrelled with his fellow-members, and died at Madrid on the 8th of
November 1873. He is the author of some three hundred and sixty original
plays, twenty-three of which are in prose. No Spanish dramatist of the
nineteenth century approaches him in comic power, in festive invention, and
in the humorous presentation of character, while his metrical dexterity is
unique. _Marcela o a cual de los trés?_ (1831), _Muérete; y verás!_ (1837)
and _La Escuela del matrimonio_ (1852) still hold the stage, and are likely
to hold it so long as Spanish is spoken.
See Marqués de Molíns, _Bretón de los Herreros, recuerdos de su vida y de
sus obras_ (Madrid, 1883); _Obras de Bretón de Herreros_ (5 vols., Madrid,
1883); E. Piñeyro, _El Romanticismo en España_ (Paris, 1904).
(J. F.-K.)
BRETSCHNEIDER, KARL GOTTLIEB (1776-1848), German scholar and theologian,
was born at Gersdorf in Saxony. In 1794 he entered the university of
Leipzig, where he studied theology for four years. After some years of
hesitation he resolved to be ordained, and in 1802 he passed with great
distinction the examination for _candidatus theologiae_, and attracted the
regard of F.V. Reinhard, author of the _System der christlichen Moral_
(1788-1815), then court-preacher at Dresden, who became his warm friend and
patron during the remainder of his life. In 1804-1806 Bretschneider was
_Privat-docent_ at the university of Wittenberg, where he lectured on
philosophy and theology. During this time he wrote his work on the
development of dogma, _Systematische Entwickelung aller in der Dogmatik
vorkommenden Begriffe nach den symbolischen Schriften der
evangelisch-lutherischen und reformirten Kirche_ (1805, 4th ed. 1841),
which was followed by others, including an edition of Ecclesiasticus with a
Latin commentary. On the advance of the French army under Napoleon into
Prussia, he determined to leave Wittenberg and abandon his university
career. Through the good offices of Reinhard, he became pastor of
Schneeberg in Saxony (1807). In 1808 he was promoted to the office of
superintendent of the church of Annaberg, in which capacity he had to
decide, in accordance with the canon law of Saxony, many matters belonging
to the department of ecclesiastical law. But the climate did not agree with
him, and his official duties interfered with his theological studies. With
a view to a change he took the degree of doctor of theology in Wittenberg
in August 1812. In 1816 he was appointed general superintendent at Gotha,
where he remained until his death in 1848. This was the great period of his
literary activity.
In 1820 was published his treatise on the gospel of St John, entitled
_Probabilia de Evangelii el Epistolarum Joannis Apostoli indole et
origine_, which attracted much attention. In it he collected with great
fulness and discussed with marked moderation the arguments against
Johannine authorship. This called forth a number of replies. To the
astonishment of every one, Bretschneider announced in the preface to the
second edition of his _Dogmatik_ in 1822, that he had never doubted the
authenticity of the gospel, and had published his _Probabilia_ only to draw
attention to the subject, and to call forth a more complete defence of its
genuineness. Bretschneider remarks in his autobiography that the
publication of this work had the effect of preventing his appointment as
successor to Karl C. Tittmann in Dresden, the minister Detlev von Einsiedel
(1773-1861) denouncing him as the "slanderer of John" (_Johannisschänder_).
His greatest contribution to the science of exegesis was his _Lexicon
Manuale Graeco-Latinum in libros Novi Testamenti_ (1824, 3rd ed. 1840).
This work was valuable for the use which its author made of the Greek of
the Septuagint, of the Old and New Testament Apocrypha, of Josephus, and of
the apostolic fathers, in illustration of the language of the New
Testament. In 1826 he published _Apologie der neuern Theologie des
evangelischen Deutschlands_. Hugh James Rose had published in England
(1825) a volume of sermons on the rationalist movement (_The State of the
Protestant Religion in Germany_), in which he classed Bretschneider with
the rationalists; and Bretschneider contended that he himself was not a
rationalist in the ordinary sense of the term, but a "rational
supernaturalist." Some of his numerous dogmatic writings passed through
several editions. An English translation of his _Manual of the Religion and
History of the Christian Church_ appeared in 1857. His dogmatic position
seems to be intermediate between the extreme school of naturalists, such as
Heinrich Paulus, J.F. Röhr and Julius Wegscheider on the one hand, and D.F.
Strauss and F.C. Baur on the other. Recognizing a supernatural element in
the Bible, he nevertheless allowed to the full the critical exercise of
reason in the interpretation of its dogmas (cp. Otto Pfleiderer,
_Development of Theology_, pp. 89 ff.).
See his autobiography, _Aus meinem Leben: Selbstbiographie von K.G.
Bretschneider_ (Gotha, 1851), of which a translation, with notes, by
Professor George E. Day, appeared in the _Bibliotheca Sacra and American
Biblical Repository_, Nos. 36 and 38 (1852, 1853); Neudecker in _Die
allgemeine Kirchenzeitung_ (1848), No. 38; Wüstemann, _Bretschneideri
Memoria_ (1848); A.G. Farrar, _Critical History of Free Thought_ (Bampton
Lectures, 1862); Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_ (ed. 1897).
BRETTEN, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Baden, on the Saalbach, 9
m. S.E. of Bruchsal by rail. Pop. (1900) 4781. It has some manufactories of
machinery and japanned goods, and a considerable trade in timber and
livestock. Bretten was the birthplace of Melanchthon (1497), and in
addition to a [v.04 p.0503] statue of him by Drake, a memorial hall,
containing a collection of his writings and busts and pictures of his
famous contemporaries, has been erected.
BRETWALDA, a word used in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ under the date 827,
and also in a charter of Æthelstan, king of the English. It appears in
several variant forms (_brytenwalda_, _bretenanwealda_, &c.), and means
most probably "lord of the Britons" or "lord of Britain"; for although the
derivation of the word is uncertain, its earlier syllable seems to be
cognate with the words Briton and Britannia. In the _Chronicle_ the title
is given to Ecgbert, king of the English, "the eighth king that was
Bretwalda," and retrospectively to seven kings who ruled over one or other
of the English kingdoms. The seven names are copied from Bede's _Historia
Ecclesiastica_, and it is interesting to note that the last king named,
Oswiu of Northumbria, lived 150 years before Ecgbert. It has been assumed
that these seven kings exercised a certain superiority over a large part of
England, but if such superiority existed it is certain that it was
extremely vague and was unaccompanied by any unity of organization. Another
theory is that Bretwalda refers to a war-leadership, or _imperium_, over
the English south of the Humber, and has nothing to do with Britons or
Britannia. In support of this explanation it is urged that the title is
given in the _Chronicle_ to Ecgbert in the year in which he "conquered the
kingdom of the Mercians and all that was south of the Humber." Less likely
is the theory of Palgrave that the Bretwaldas were the successors of the
pseudo-emperors, Maximus and Carausius, and claimed to share the imperial
dignity of Rome; or that of Kemble, who derives Bretwalda from the British
word _breotan_, to distribute, and translates it "widely ruling." With
regard to Ecgbert the word is doubtless given as a title in imitation of
its earlier use, and the same remark applies to its use in Æthelstan's
charter.
See E.A. Freeman, _History of the Norman Conquest_, vol. i. (Oxford, 1877);
W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, vol. i. (Oxford, 1897); J.R. Green,
_The Making of England_, vol. ii. (London, 1897); F. Palgrave, _The Rise
and Progress of the English Commonwealth_ (London, 1832); J. M. Kemble,
_The Saxons in England_ (London, 1876); J. Rhys, _Celtic Britain_ (London,
1884).
BREUGHEL (or BRUEGHEL), PIETER, Flemish painter, was the son of a peasant
residing in the village of Breughel near Breda. After receiving instruction
in painting from Koek, whose daughter he married, he spent some time in
France and Italy, and then went to Antwerp, where he was elected into the
Academy in 1551. He finally settled at Brussels and died there. The
subjects of his pictures are chiefly humorous figures, like those of D.
Teniers; and if he wants the delicate touch and silvery clearness of that
master, he has abundant spirit and comic power. He is said to have died
about the year 1570 at the age of sixty; other accounts give 1590 as the
date of his death.
His son PIETER, the younger (1564-1637), known as "Hell" Breughel, was born
in Brussels and died at Antwerp, where his "Christ bearing the Cross" is in
the museum.
Another son JAN (c. 1569-1642), known as "Velvet" Breughel, was born at
Brussels. He first applied himself to painting flowers and fruits, and
afterwards acquired considerable reputation by his landscapes and
sea-pieces. After residing long at Cologne he travelled into Italy, where
his landscapes, adorned with small figures, were greatly admired. He left a
large number of pictures, chiefly landscapes, which are executed with great
skill. Rubens made use of Breughel's hand in the landscape part of several
of his small pictures--such as his "Vertumnus and Pomona," the "Satyr
viewing the Sleeping Nymph," and the "Terrestrial Paradise."
BREVET (a diminutive of the Fr. _bref_), a short writing, originally an
official writing or letter, with the particular meaning of a papal
indulgence. The use of the word is mainly confined to a commission, or
official document, giving to an officer in the army a permanent, as opposed
to a local and temporary, rank in the service higher than that he holds
substantively in his corps. In the British army "brevet rank" exists only
above the rank of captain, but in the United States army it is possible to
obtain a brevet as first lieutenant. In France the term _breveté_ is
particularly used with respect to the General Staff, to express the
equivalent of the English "passed Staff College" (p.s.c.).
BREVIARY (Lat. _breviarium_, abridgment, epitome), the book which contains
the offices for the canonical hours, _i.e._ the daily service of the Roman
Catholic Church. As compared with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer it is
both more and less comprehensive; more, in that it includes lessons and
hymns for every day in the year; less, because it excludes the Eucharistic
office (contained in the Missal), and the special offices connected with
baptism, marriage, burial, ordination, &c., which are found in the Ritual
or the Pontifical. In the early days of Christian worship, when Jewish
custom was followed, the Bible furnished all that was thought necessary,
containing as it did the books from which the lessons were read and the
psalms that were recited. The first step in the evolution of the Breviary
was the separation of the Psalter into a choir-book. At first the president
of the local church (bishop) or the leader of the choir chose a particular
psalm as he thought appropriate. From about the 4th century certain psalms
began to be grouped together, a process that was furthered by the monastic
practice of daily reciting the 150 psalms. This took so much time that the
monks began to spread it over a week, dividing each day into hours, and
allotting to each hour its portion of the Psalter. St Benedict in the 6th
century drew up such an arrangement, probably, though not certainly, on the
basis of an older Roman division which, though not so skilful, is the one
in general use. Gradually there were added to these psalter choir-books
additions in the form of antiphons, responses, collects or short prayers,
for the use of those not skilful at improvisation and metrical
compositions. Jean Beleth, a 12th-century liturgical author, gives the
following list of books necessary for the right conduct of the canonical
office:--the _Antiphonarium_, the Old and New Testaments, the
_Passionarius_ (_liber_) and the _Legendarius_ (dealing respectively with
martyrs and saints), the _Homiliarius_ (homilies on the Gospels), the
_Sermologus_ (collection of sermons) and the works of the Fathers, besides,
of course, the _Psalterium_ and the _Collectarium_. To overcome the
inconvenience of using such a library the Breviary came into existence and
use. Already in the 8th century Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, had in a
_Breviarium Psalterii_ made an abridgment of the Psalter for the laity,
giving a few psalms for each day, and Alcuin had rendered a similar service
by including a prayer for each day and some other prayers, but no lessons
or homilies. The Breviary rightly so called, however, only dates from the
11th century; the earliest MS. containing the whole canonical office is of
the year 1099 and is in the Mazarin library. Gregory VII. (pope 1073-1085),
too, simplified the liturgy as performed at the Roman court, and gave his
abridgment the name of Breviary, which thus came to denote a work which
from another point of view might be called a Plenary, involving as it did
the collection of several works into one. There are several extant
specimens of 12th-century Breviaries, all Benedictine, but under Innocent
III. (pope 1198-1216) their use was extended, especially by the newly
founded and active Franciscan order. These preaching friars, with the
authorization of Gregory IX., adopted (with some modifications, _e.g._ the
substitution of the "Gallican" for the "Roman" version of the Psalter) the
Breviary hitherto used exclusively by the Roman court, and with it
gradually swept out of Europe all the earlier partial books (Legendaries,
Responsories), &c., and to some extent the local Breviaries, like that of
Sarum. Finally, Nicholas III. (pope 1277-1280) adopted this version both
for the curia and for the basilicas of Rome, and thus made its position
secure. The Benedictines and Dominicans have Breviaries of their own. The
only other types that merit notice are:--(1) the Mozarabic Breviary, once
in use throughout all Spain, but now confined to a single foundation at
Toledo; it is remarkable for the number and length of its hymns, and for
the fact that the majority of its collects are addressed to God the Son;
(2) the Ambrosian, now confined to Milan, where it owes its retention to
the attachment of the clergy and people to their traditionary rites, which
they derive from St Ambrose (see LITURGY).
[v.04 p.0504] Till the council of Trent every bishop had full power to
regulate the Breviary of his own diocese; and this was acted upon almost
everywhere. Each monastic community, also, had one of its own. Pius V.
(pope 1566-1572), however, while sanctioning those which could show at
least 200 years of existence, made the Roman obligatory in all other
places. But the influence of the court of Rome has gradually gone much
beyond this, and has superseded almost all the local "uses." The Roman has
thus become nearly universal, with the allowance only of additional offices
for saints specially venerated in each particular diocese. The Roman
Breviary has undergone several revisions: The most remarkable of these is
that by Francis Quignonez, cardinal of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (1536),
which, though not accepted by Rome,[1] formed the model for the still more
thorough reform made in 1549 by the Church of England, whose daily morning
and evening services are but a condensation and simplification of the
Breviary offices. Some parts of the prefaces at the beginning of the
English Prayer-Book are free translations of those of Quignonez. The Pian
Breviary was again altered by Sixtus V. in 1588, who introduced the revised
Vulgate text; by Clement VIII. in 1602 (through Baronius and Bellarmine),
especially as concerns the rubrics; and by Urban VIII. (1623-1644), a
purist who unfortunately tampered with the text of the hymns, injuring both
their literary charm and their historic worth.
In the 17th and 18th centuries a movement of revision took place in France,
and succeeded in modifying about half the Breviaries of that country.
Historically, this proceeded from the labours of Jean de Launoy
(1603-1678), "le dénicheur des saints," and Louis Sébastien le Nain de
Tillemont, who had shown the falsity of numerous lives of the saints; while
theologically it was produced by the Port Royal school, which led men to
dwell more on communion with God as contrasted with the invocation of the
saints. This was mainly carried out by the adoption of a rule that all
antiphons and responses should be in the exact words of Scripture, which,
of course, cut out the whole class of appeals to created beings. The
services were at the same time simplified and shortened, and the use of the
whole Psalter every week (which had become a mere theory in the Roman
Breviary, owing to its frequent supersession by saints' day services) was
made a reality. These reformed French Breviaries--_e.g._ the Paris Breviary
of 1680 by Archbishop François de Harlay (1625-1695) and that of 1736 by
Archbishop Charles Gaspard Guillaume de Vintimille (1655-1746)--show a deep
knowledge of Holy Scripture, and much careful adaptation of different
texts; but during the pontificate of Pius IX. a strong Ultramontane
movement arose against them. This was inaugurated by Montalembert, but its
literary advocates were chiefly Dom Gueranger, a learned Benedictine monk,
abbot of Solesmes, and Louis François Veuillot (1813-1883) of the
_Univers_; and it succeeded in suppressing them everywhere, the last
diocese to surrender being Orleans in 1875. The Jansenist and Gallican
influence was also strongly felt in Italy and in Germany, where Breviaries
based on the French models were published at Cologne, Münster, Mainz and
other towns. Meanwhile, under the direction of Benedict XIV. (pope
1740-1758), a special congregation collected many materials for an official
revision, but nothing was published. Subsequent changes have been very few
and minute. In 1902, under Leo XIII., a commission under the presidency of
Monsignor Louis Duchesne was appointed to consider the Breviary, the
Missal, the Pontifical and the Ritual.
The beauty and value of many of the Latin Breviaries were brought to the
notice of English churchmen by one of the numbers of the Oxford _Tracts for
the Times_, since which time they have been much more studied, both for
their own sake and for the light they throw upon the English Prayer-Book.
From a bibliographical point of view some of the early printed Breviaries
are among the rarest of literary curiosities, being merely local. The
copies were not spread far, and were soon worn out by the daily use made of
them. Doubtless many editions have perished without leaving a trace of
their existence, while others are known by unique copies. In Scotland the
only one which has survived the convulsions of the 16th century is that of
Aberdeen, a Scottish form of the Sarum Office,[2] revised by William
Elphinstone (bishop 1483-1514), and printed at Edinburgh by Walter Chapman
and Andrew Myllar in 1509-1510. Four copies have been preserved of it, of
which only one is complete; but it was reprinted in facsimile in 1854 for
the Bannatyne Club by the munificence of the duke of Buccleuch. It is
particularly valuable for the trustworthy notices of the early history of
Scotland which are embedded in the lives of the national saints. Though
enjoined by royal mandate in 1501 for general use within the realm of
Scotland, it was probably never widely adopted. The new Scottish _Proprium_
sanctioned for the Roman Catholic province of St Andrews in 1903 contains
many of the old Aberdeen collects and antiphons.
The Sarum or Salisbury Breviary itself was very widely used. The first
edition was printed at Venice in 1483 by Raynald de Novimagio in folio; the
latest at Paris, 1556, 1557. While modern Breviaries are nearly always
printed in four volumes, one for each season of the year, the editions of
the Sarum never exceeded two parts.
_Contents of the Roman Breviary_.--At the beginning stands the usual
introductory matter, such as the tables for determining the date of Easter,
the calendar, and the general rubrics. The Breviary itself is divided into
four seasonal parts--winter, spring, summer, autumn--and comprises under
each part (1) the Psalter; (2) _Proprium de Tempore_ (the special office of
the season); (3) _Proprium Sanctorum_ (special offices of saints); (4)
_Commune Sanctorum_ (general offices for saints); (5) Extra Services. These
parts are often published separately.
1. _The Psalter_.--This is the very backbone of the Breviary, the
groundwork of the Catholic prayer-book; out of it have grown the antiphons,
responsories and versicles. In the Breviary the psalms are arranged
according to a disposition dating from the 8th century, as follows. Psalms
i.-cviii., with some omissions, are recited at Matins, twelve each day from
Monday to Saturday, and eighteen on Sunday. The omissions are said at
Lauds, Prime and Compline. Psalms cix.-cxlvii. (except cxvii., cxviii. and
cxlii.) are said at Vespers, five each day. Psalms cxlviii.-cl. are always
used at Lauds, and give that hour its name. The text of this Psalter is
that commonly known as the Gallican. The name is misleading, for it is
simply the second revision (A.D. 392) made by Jerome of the old _Itala_
version originally used in Rome. Jerome's first revision of the _Itala_
(A.D. 383), known as the Roman, is still used at St Peter's in Rome, but
the "Gallican," thanks especially to St Gregory of Tours, who introduced it
into Gaul in the 6th century, has ousted it everywhere else. The
Antiphonary of Bangor proves that Ireland accepted the Gallican version in
the 7th century, and the English Church did so in the 10th.
2. The _Proprium de Tempore_ contains the office of the seasons of the
Christian year (Advent to Trinity), a conception that only gradually grew
up. There is here given the whole service for every Sunday and week-day,
the proper antiphons, responsories, hymns, and especially the course of
daily Scripture-reading, averaging about twenty verses a day, and (roughly)
arranged thus: for Advent, Isaiah; Epiphany to Septuagesima, Pauline
Epistles; Lent, patristic homilies (Genesis on Sundays); Passion-tide,
Jeremiah; Easter to Whitsun, Acts, Catholic epistles and Apocalypse;
Whitsun to August, Samuel and Kings; August to Advent, Wisdom books,
Maccabees, Prophets. The extracts are often scrappy and torn out of their
context.
3. The _Proprium Sanctorum_ contains the lessons, psalms and liturgical
formularies for saints' festivals, and depends on the days of the secular
month. Most of the material here is hagiological biography, occasionally
revised as by Leo XIII. in view of archaeological and other discoveries,
but still largely uncritical. Covering a great stretch of time and space,
they do for the worshipper in the field of church history what the
Scripture readings do in that of biblical history. As something like 90% of
the days in the year have, during the course of centuries, been allotted to
some saint or other, it is easy to see how this section of the Breviary has
encroached upon the _Proprium de Tempore_, and this is the chief problem
that confronts any who are concerned for a revision of the Breviary.
4. The _Commune Sanctorum_ comprises psalms, antiphons, lessons, &c., for
feasts of various groups or classes (twelve in all); _e.g._ apostles,
martyrs, confessors, virgins, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. These offices
are of very ancient date, and many of them were probably [v.04 p.0505] in
origin proper to individual saints. They contain passages of great literary
beauty. The lessons read at the third nocturn are patristic homilies on the
Gospels, and together form a rough summary of theological instruction.
5. _Extra Services_.--Here are found the Little Office of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, the Office of the Dead (obligatory on All Souls' Day), and
offices peculiar to each diocese.
It has already been indicated, by reference to Matins, Lauds, &c., that not
only each day, but each part of the day, has its own office, the day being
divided into liturgical "hours." A detailed account of these will be found
in the article HOURS, CANONICAL. Each of the hours of the office is
composed of the same elements, and something must be said now of the nature
of these constituent parts, of which mention has here and there been
already made. They are: psalms (including canticles), antiphons,
responsories, hymns, lessons, little chapters, versicles and collects.
The _psalms_ have already been dealt with, but it may be noted again how
the multiplication of saints' festivals, with practically the same special
psalms, tends in practice to constant repetition of about one-third of the
Psalter, and correspondingly rare recital of the remaining two-thirds,
whereas the _Proprium de Tempore_, could it be adhered to, would provide
equal opportunities for every psalm. As in the Greek usage and in the
Benedictine, certain canticles like the Song of Moses (Exodus xv.), the
Song of Hannah (1 Sam. ii.), the prayer of Habakkuk (iii.), the prayer of
Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii.) and other similar Old Testament passages, and,
from the New Testament, the Magnificat, the Benedictus and the Nunc
dimittis, are admitted as psalms.
The _antiphons_ are short liturgical forms, sometimes of biblical,
sometimes of patristic origin, used to introduce a psalm. The term
originally signified a chant by alternate choirs, but has quite lost this
meaning in the Breviary.
The _responsories_ are similar in form to the antiphons, but come at the
end of the psalm, being originally the reply of the choir or congregation
to the precentor who recited the psalm.
The _hymns_ are short poems going back in part to the days of Prudentius,
Synesius, Gregory of Nazianzus and Ambrose (4th and 5th centuries), but
mainly the work of medieval authors. Together they make a fine collection,
and it is a pity that Urban VIII. in his mistaken humanistic zeal tried to
improve them.
The _lessons_, as has been seen, are drawn variously from the Bible, the
Acts of the Saints and the Fathers of the Church. In the primitive church,
books afterwards excluded from the canon were often read, _e.g._ the
letters of Clement of Rome and the _Shepherd of Hermas_. In later days the
churches of Africa, having rich memorials of martyrdom, used them to
supplement the reading of Scripture. Monastic influence accounts for the
practice of adding to the reading of a biblical passage some patristic
commentary or exposition. Books of homilies were compiled from the writings
of SS. Augustine, Hilary, Athanasius, Isidore, Gregory the Great and
others, and formed part of the library of which the Breviary was the
ultimate compendium. In the lessons, as in the psalms, the order for
special days breaks in upon the normal order of ferial offices and
dislocates the scheme for consecutive reading. The lessons are read at
Matins (which is subdivided into three nocturns).
The _little chapters_ are very short lessons read at the other "hours."
The _versicles_ are short responsories used after the little chapters.
The _collects_ come at the close of the office and are short prayers
summing up the supplications of the congregation. They arise out of a
primitive practice on the part of the bishop (local president), examples of
which are found in the _Didach[=e]_ (Teaching of the Apostles) and in the
letters of Clement of Rome and Cyprian. With the crystallization of church
order improvisation in prayer largely gave place to set forms, and
collections of prayers were made which later developed into Sacramentaries
and Orationals. The collects of the Breviary are largely drawn from the
Gelasian and other Sacramentaries, and they are used to sum up the dominant
idea of the festival in connexion with which they happen to be used.
The difficulty of harmonizing the _Proprium de Tempore_ and the _Proprium
Sanctorum_, to which reference has been made, is only partly met in the
thirty-seven chapters of general rubrics. Additional help is given by a
kind of Catholic Churchman's Almanack, called the _Ordo Recitandi Divini
Officii_, published in different countries and dioceses, and giving, under
every day, minute directions for proper reading.
Every clerk in orders and every member of a religious order must publicly
join in or privately read aloud (_i.e._ using the lips as well as the
eyes--it takes about two hours in this way) the whole of the Breviary
services allotted for each day. In large churches the services are usually
grouped; _e.g._ Matins and Lauds (about 7.30 A.M.); Prime, Terce (High
Mass), Sext, and None (about 10 A.M.); Vespers and Compline (4 P.M.); and
from four to eight hours (depending on the amount of music and the number
of high masses) are thus spent in choir. Laymen do not use the Breviary as
a manual of devotion to any great extent.
The Roman Breviary has been translated into English (by the marquess of
Bute in 1879; new ed. with a trans, of the Martyrology, 1908), French and
German. The English version is noteworthy for its inclusion of the skilful
renderings of the ancient hymns by J.H. Newman, J.M. Neale and others.
AUTHORITIES.--F. Cabrol, _Introduction aux études liturgiques_; Probst,
_Kirchenlex_. ii., _s.v._ "Brevier"; Bäumer, _Geschichte des Breviers_
(Freiburg, 1895); P. Batiffol, _L'Histoire du bréviaire romain_ (Paris,
1893; Eng. tr.); Baudot, _Le Bréviaire romain_ (1907). A complete
bibliography is appended to the article by F. Cabrol in the _Catholic
Encyclopaedia_, vol. ii. (1908).
[1] It was approved by Clement VII. and Paul III., and permitted as a
substitute for the unrevised Breviary, until Pius V. in 1568 excluded it as
too short and too modern, and issued a reformed edition (_Breviarium
Pianum_, Pian Breviary) of the old Breviary.
[2] The Sarum Rite was much favoured in Scotland as a kind of protest
against the jurisdiction claimed by the church of York.
BREVIARY OF ALARIC (_Breviarium Alaricanum_), a collection of Roman law,
compiled by order of Alaric II., king of the Visigoths, with the advice of
his bishops and nobles, in the twenty-second year of his reign (A.D. 506).
It comprises sixteen books of the Theodosian code; the Novels of Theodosius
II., Valentinian III., Marcian, Majorianus and Severus; the Institutes of
Gaius; five books of the _Sententiae Receptae_ of Julius Paulus; thirteen
titles of the Gregorian code; two titles of the Hermogenian code; and a
fragment of the first book of the _Responsa Papiniani_. It is termed a code
(codex), in the certificate of Anianus, the king's referendary, but unlike
the code of Justinian, from which the writings of jurists were excluded, it
comprises both imperial constitutions (_leges_) and juridical treatises
(_jura_). From the circumstance that the Breviarium has prefixed to it a
royal rescript (_commonitorium_) directing that copies of it, certified
under the hand of Anianus, should be received exclusively as law throughout
the kingdom of the Visigoths, the compilation of the code has been
attributed to Anianus by many writers, and it is frequently designated the
Breviary of Anianus (Breviarium Aniani). The code, however, appears to have
been known amongst the Visigoths by the title of "Lex Romana," or "Lex
Theodosii," and it was not until the 16th century that the title of
"Breviarium" was introduced to distinguish it from a recast of the code,
which was introduced into northern Italy in the 9th century for the use of
the Romans in Lombardy. This recast of the Visigothic code has been
preserved in a MS. known as the Codex Utinensis, which was formerly kept in
the archives of the cathedral of Udine, but is now lost; and it was
published in the 18th century for the first time by P. Canciani in his
collection of ancient laws entitled _Barbarorum Leges Antiquae_. Another
MS. of this Lombard recast of the Visigothic code was discovered by Hänel
in the library of St Gall. The chief value of the Visigothic code consists
in the fact that it is the only collection of Roman Law in which the five
first books of the Theodosian code and five books of the _Sententiae
Receptae_ of Julius Paulus have been preserved, and until the discovery of
a MS. in the chapter library in Verona, which contained the greater part of
the Institutes of Gaius, it was the only work in which any portion of the
institutional writings of that great jurist had come down to us.
The most complete edition of the Breviarium will be found in the collection
of Roman law published under the title of _Jus Civile Ante-Justinianum_
(Berlin, 1815). See also G. Hänel's _Lex Romana Visigothorum_ (Berlin,
1847-1849).
BREWER, JOHN SHERREN (1810-1879), English historian, was born in Norwich in
1810, the son of a Baptist schoolmaster. He was educated at Queen's
College, Oxford, was ordained in the Church of England in 1837, and became
chaplain to a central London workhouse. In 1839 he was appointed lecturer
in classical literature at King's College, London, and in 1855 he became
professor of English language and literature and lecturer in modern
history, succeeding F.D. Maurice. Meanwhile from 1854 onwards he was also
engaged in journalistic work on the _Morning Herald_, _Morning Post_ and
_Standard_. In 1856 he was commissioned by the master of the rolls to
prepare a calendar of the state papers of Henry VIII., a work demanding a
vast amount of research. He was also made reader at the Rolls, and
subsequently preacher. In 1877 Disraeli secured for him the crown living of
Toppesfield, Essex. There he had time to continue his task of preparing his
_Letters and Papers of the Reign of King Henry VIII_., the Introductions to
which (published separately, under the title _The Reign of Henry VIII_., in
1884) form a scholarly and authoritative history of Henry VIII.'s reign.
New editions of several standard historical works were also produced under
Brewer's direction. He died at Toppesfield in February 1879.
[v.04 p.0506] BREWING, in the modern acceptation of the term, a series of
operations the object of which is to prepare an alcoholic beverage of a
certain kind--to wit, beer--mainly from cereals (chiefly malted barley),
hops and water. Although the art of preparing beer (_q.v._) or ale is a
very ancient one, there is very little information in the literature of the
subject as to the apparatus and methods employed in early times. It seems
fairly certain, however, that up to the 18th century these were of the most
primitive kind. With regard to _materials_, we know that prior to the
general introduction of the hop (see ALE) as a preservative and astringent,
a number of other bitter and aromatic plants had been employed with this
end in view. Thus J.L. Baker (_The Brewing Industry_) points out that the
Cimbri used the _Tamarix germanica_, the Scandinavians the fruit of the
sweet gale (_Myrica gale_), the Cauchi the fruit and the twigs of the
chaste tree (_Vitex agrius castus_), and the Icelanders the yarrow
(_Achillea millefolium_).
The preparation of beer on anything approaching to a manufacturing scale
appears, until about the 12th or 13th century, to have been carried on in
England chiefly in the monasteries; but as the brewers of London combined
to form an association in the reign of Henry IV., and were granted a
charter in 1445, it is evident that brewing as a special trade or industry
must have developed with some rapidity. After the Reformation the ranks of
the trade brewers were swelled by numbers of monks from the expropriated
monasteries. Until the 18th century the professional brewers, or brewers
for sale, as they are now called, brewed chiefly for the masses, the
wealthier classes preparing their own beer, but it then became gradually
apparent to the latter (owing no doubt to improved methods of brewing, and
for others reasons) that it was more economical and less troublesome to
have their beer brewed for them at a regular brewery. The usual charge was
30s. per barrel for bitter ale, and 8s. or so for small beer. This tendency
to centralize brewing operations became more and more marked with each
succeeding decade. Thus during 1895-1905 the number of private brewers
declined from 17,041 to 9930. Of the private brewers still existing, about
four-fifths were in the class exempted from beer duty, _i.e._ farmers
occupying houses not exceeding £10 annual value who brew for their
labourers, and other persons occupying houses not exceeding £15 annual
value. The private houses subject to both beer and licence duty produced
less than 20,000 barrels annually. There are no official figures as to the
number of "cottage brewers," that is, occupiers of dwellings not exceeding
£8 annual value; but taking everything into consideration it is probable
that more than 99% of the beer produced in the United Kingdom is brewed by
public brewers (brewers for sale). The disappearance of the smaller public
brewers or their absorption by the larger concerns has gone hand-in-hand
with the gradual extinction of the private brewer. In the year 1894-1895
8863 licences were issued to brewers for sale, and by 1904-1905 this number
had been reduced to 5164. There are numerous reasons for these changes in
the constitution of the brewing industry, chief among them being (a) the
increasing difficulty, owing partly to licensing legislation and its
administration, and partly to the competition of the great breweries, of
obtaining an adequate outlet for retail sale in the shape of licensed
houses; and (b) the fact that brewing has continuously become a more
scientific and specialized industry, requiring costly and complicated plant
and expert manipulation. It is only by employing the most up-to-date
machinery and expert knowledge that the modern brewer can hope to produce
good beer in the short time which competition and high taxation, &c., have
forced upon him. Under these conditions the small brewer tends to
extinction, and the public are ultimately the gainers. The relatively
non-alcoholic, lightly hopped and bright modern beers, which the small
brewer has not the means of producing, are a great advance on the muddy,
highly hopped and alcoholized beverages to which our ancestors were
accustomed.
The brewing trade has reached vast proportions in the United Kingdom. The
maximum production was 37,090,986 barrels in 1900, and while there has been
a steady decline since that year, the figures for 1905-1906--34,109,263
barrels--were in excess of those for any year preceding 1897. It is
interesting in this connexion to note that the writer of the article on
Brewing in the 9th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ was of the
opinion that the brewing industry--which was then (1875) producing,
roughly, 25,000,000 barrels--had attained its maximum development. In the
year ending 30th September 1905 the beer duty received by the exchequer
amounted to £13,156,053. The number of brewers for sale was 5180. Of these
one firm, namely, Messrs Guinness, owning the largest brewery in the world,
brewed upwards of two million barrels, paying a sum of, roughly, one
million sterling to the revenue. Three other firms brewed close on a
million barrels or upwards. The quantity of malt used was 51,818,697
bushels; of unmalted corn, 125,671 bushels; of rice, flaked maize and
similar materials, 1,348,558 cwt.; of sugar, 2,746,615 cwt.; of hops,
62,360,817 lb; and of hop substitutes, 49,202 lb. The average specific
gravity of the beer produced in 1905-1906 was 1053.24. The quantity of beer
exported was 520,826; of beer imported, 57,194 barrels. It is curious to
note that the figures for exports and imports had remained almost
stationary for the last thirty years. By far the greater part of the beer
brewed is consumed in England. Thus of the total quantity retained for
consumption in 1905-1906, 28,590,563 barrels were consumed in England,
1,648,463 in Scotland, and 3,265,084 in Ireland. In 1871 it was calculated
by Professor Leone Levi that the capital invested in the liquor trade in
the United Kingdom was £117,000,000. In 1908 this figure might be safely
doubled. A writer in the _Brewers' Almanack_ for 1906 placed the capital
invested in limited liability breweries alone at £185,000,000. If we allow
for over-capitalization, it seems fairly safe to say that, prior to the
introduction of the Licensing Bill of 1908, the market value of the
breweries in the United Kingdom, together with their licensed property, was
in the neighbourhood of £120,000,000, to which might be added another
£20,000,000 for the value of licences not included in the above
calculation; the total capital actually sunk in the whole liquor trade
(including the wine and spirit industries and trades) being probably not
far short of £250,000,000, and the number of persons directly engaged in or
dependent on the liquor trade being under-estimated at 2,000,000. (For
comparative production and consumption see BEER.)
_Taxation and Regulations_.--The development of the brewing industry in
England is intimately interwoven with the history of its taxation, and the
regulations which have from time to time been formed for the safeguarding
of the revenue. The first duty on beer in the United Kingdom was imposed in
the reign of Charles II. (1660), namely 2s. 6d. per barrel on strong and
6d. per barrel on weak beer. This was gradually increased, amounting to 4s.
9d. on strong and 1s. 3d. on weak beer in the last decade of the 17th
century, and to 8s. to 10s. in the year 1800, at which rate it continued
until the repeal of the beer duty in 1830. A duty on malt was first imposed
in the reign of William III. (1697), and from that date until 1830 both
beer duty and malt tax were charged. The rate at first was under 7d. per
bushel, but this was increased up to 2s. 7d. prior to the first repeal of
the beer duty (1830), and to 4s. 6d. after the repeal. In 1829 the joint
beer and malt taxes amounted to no less than 13s. 8d. per barrel, or 4½d.
per gallon, as against 2½d. at the present day. From 1856 until the
abolition of the malt tax, the latter remained constant at a fraction under
2s. 8½d. A _hop duty_ varying from 1d. to 2½d. per pound was in existence
between 1711 and 1862. One of the main reasons for the abolition of the hop
duty was the fact that, owing to the uncertainty of the crop, the amount
paid to the revenue was subject to wide fluctuations. Thus in 1855 the
revenue from this source amounted to £728,183, in 1861 to only £149,700.
It was not until 1847 that the use of sugar in brewing was permitted, and
in 1850 the first sugar tax, amounting to 1s. 4d. per cwt., was imposed. It
varied from this figure up to 6s. 6d. in 1854, and in 1874, when the
general duty on sugar was repealed, it was raised to 11s. 6d., at which
rate it remained until 1880, when it was repealed simultaneously with the
malt duty. In 1901 a general sugar tax of 4s. 2d. and under (according to
the percentage of actual sugar contained) was imposed, but no drawback was
allowed to brewers using sugar, and therefore--and this obtains at the
present day--sugar used in brewing pays the general tax and also the beer
duty.
By the Free Mash-Tun Act of 1880, the duty was taken off the malt and
placed on the beer, or, more properly speaking, on the wort; maltsters' and
brewers' licences were repealed, and in lieu thereof an annual licence duty
of £1 payable by every brewer for sale was [v.04 p.0507] imposed. The chief
feature of this act was that, on and after the 1st of October 1880, a beer
duty was imposed in lieu of the old malt tax, at the rate of 6s. 3d. per
barrel of 36 gallons, at a specific gravity of 1.057, and the regulations
for charging the duty were so framed as to leave the brewer practically
unrestricted as to the description of malt or corn and sugar, or other
description of saccharine substitutes (other than deleterious articles or
drugs), which he might use in the manufacture or colouring of beer. This
freedom in the choice of materials has continued down to the present time,
except that the use of "saccharin" (a product derived from coal-tar) was
prohibited in 1888, the reason being that this substance gives an apparent
palate-fulness to beer equal to roughly 4° in excess of its real gravity,
the revenue suffering thereby. In 1889 the duty on beer was increased by a
reduction in the standard of gravity from 1.057 to 1.055, and in 1894 a
further 6d. per barrel was added. The duty thus became 6s. 9d. per barrel,
at a gravity of 1.055, which was further increased to 7s. 9d. per barrel by
the war budget of 1900, at which figure it stood in 1909. (See also LIQUOR
LAWS.)
Prior to 1896, rice, flaked maize (see below), and other similar
preparations had been classed as malt or corn in reference to their
wort-producing powers, but after that date they were deemed sugar[1] in
that regard. By the new act (1880) 42 lb weight of corn, or 28 lb weight of
sugar, were to be deemed the equivalent of a bushel of malt, and a brewer
was expected by one of the modes of charge to have brewed at least a barrel
(36 gallons) of worts (less 4% allowed for wastage) at the standard gravity
for every two bushels of malt (or its equivalents) used by him in brewing;
but where, owing to lack of skill or inferior machinery, a brewer cannot
obtain the standard quantity of wort from the standard equivalent of
material, the charge is made not on the wort, but directly on the material.
By the new act, licences at the annual duty of £1 on brewers for sale, and
of 6s. (subsequently modified by 44 Vict. c. 12, and 48 and 49 Vict. c. 5,
&c., to 4s.) or 9s., as the case might be, on any other brewers, were
required. The regulations dealing with the mashing operations are very
stringent. Twenty-four hours at least before mashing the brewer must enter
in his brewing book (provided by the Inland Revenue) the day and hour for
commencing to mash malt, corn, &c., or to dissolve sugar; and the date of
making such entry; and also, two hours at least before the notice hour for
mashing, the quantity of malt, corn, &c., and sugar to be used, and the day
and hour when all the worts will be drawn off the grains in the mash-tun.
The worts of each brewing must be collected within twelve hours of the
commencement of the collection, and the brewer must within a given time
enter in his book the quantity and gravity of the worts before
fermentation, the number and name of the vessel, and the date of the entry.
The worts must remain in the same vessel undisturbed for twelve hours after
being collected, unless previously taken account of by the officer. There
are other regulations, _e.g._ those prohibiting the mixing of worts of
different brewings unless account has been taken of each separately, the
alteration of the size or shape of any gauged vessel without notice, and so
on.
_Taxation of Beer in Foreign Countries_.--The following table shows the
nature of the tax and the amount of the same calculated to English barrels.
Country. Nature of Tax. Amount per English
Barrel (round
numbers)
United States Beer tax 5s. 9d.
Germany --
---- N. German Customs Malt tax 1s. 6d
Union
---- Bavaria Malt tax 3s. 5d. to 4s. 8d.,
according to
quantity produced
Belgium Malt tax 2s. 9d.
France On Wort 4s. 1d.
Holland On cubic About 1s. 9d. to 3s.
contents of 3d., according to
Mash-Tun or on quality
Malt
Austro-Hungarian Empire On Wort 6s. 8d.
Russia Malt tax 5s. to 6s. 8d.
MATERIALS USED IN BREWING.--These are water, malt (_q.v._), hops (_q.v._),
various substitutes for the two latter, and preservatives.
_Water_.--A satisfactory supply of water--which, it may here be mentioned,
is always called _liquor_ in the brewery--is a matter of great importance
to the brewer. Certain waters, for instance, those contaminated to any
extent with organic matter, cannot be used at all in brewing, as they give
rise to unsatisfactory fermentation, cloudiness and abnormal flavour.
Others again, although suited to the production of one type of beer, are
quite unfit for the brewing of another. For black beers a soft water is a
desideratum, for ales of the Burton type a hard water is a necessity. For
the brewing of mild ales, again, a water containing a certain proportion of
chlorides is required. The presence or absence of certain mineral
substances as such in the finished beer is not, apparently, a matter of any
moment as regards flavour or appearance, but the importance of the rôle
played by these substances in the brewing process is due to the influence
which they exert on the solvent action of the water on the various
constituents of the malt, and possibly of the hops. The excellent quality
of the Burton ales was long ago surmised to be due mainly to the well water
obtainable in that town. On analysing Burton water it was found to contain
a considerable quantity of calcium sulphate--gypsum--and of other calcium
and magnesium salts, and it is now a well-known fact that good bitter ales
cannot be brewed except with waters containing these substances in
sufficient quantities. Similarly, good mild ale waters should contain a
certain quantity of sodium chloride, and waters for stout very little
mineral matter, excepting perhaps the carbonates of the alkaline earths,
which are precipitated on boiling.
The following analyses (from W.J. Sykes, _The Principles and Practice of
Brewing_) are fairly illustrative of typical brewing waters.
_Burton Water_ (Pale Ale)
Grains per Gallon
Sodium Chloride 3.90
Potassium Sulphate 1.59
Sodium Nitrate 1.97
Calcium Sulphate 77.87
Calcium Carbonate 7.62
Magnesium Carbonate 21.31
Silica and Alumina 0.98
_Dublin Water_ (Stout).
Sodium Chloride 1.83
Calcium Sulphate 4.45
Calcium Carbonate 14.21
Magnesium Carbonate 0.90
Iron Oxide and 0.24
Alumina
Silica 0.26
_Mild Ale Water_.
Sodium Chloride 35.14
Calcium Chloride 3.88
Calcium Sulphate 6.23
Calcium Carbonate 4.01
Iron Oxide and 0.24
Alumina
Silica 0.22
Our knowledge of the essential chemical constituents of brewing waters
enables brewers in many cases to treat an unsatisfactory supply
artificially in such a manner as to modify its character in a favourable
sense. Thus, if a soft water only is to hand, and it is desired to brew a
bitter ale, all that is necessary is to add a sufficiency of gypsum,
magnesium sulphate and calcium chloride. If it is desired to convert a soft
water lacking in chlorides into a satisfactory mild ale liquor, the
addition of 30-40 grains of sodium chloride will be necessary. On the other
hand, to convert a hard water into a soft supply is scarcely feasible for
brewing purposes. To the substances used for treating brewing liquors
already mentioned we may add kainite, a naturally deposited composite salt
containing potassium and magnesium sulphates and magnesium chloride.
_Malt Substitutes._--Prior to the repeal of the Malt Acts, the only
substitute for malt allowed in the United Kingdom was sugar. The quantity
of the latter employed was 295,865 cwt. in 1870, 1,136,434 cwt. in 1880,
and 2,746,615 cwt. in 1905; that is to say, that the quantity used had been
practically trebled during the last twenty-five years, although the
quantity of malt employed had not materially increased. At the same time
other substitutes, such as unmalted corn and preparations of rice and
maize, had come into favour, the quantity of these substances used being in
1905 125,671 bushels of unmalted corn and 1,348,558 cwt. of rice, maize,
&c.
The following statistics with regard to the use of malt substitutes in the
United Kingdom are not without interest.
[v.04 p.0508]
Year. Quantities of Quantities of Percentage
Malt and Corn Sugar, Rice, of
used in Maize, &c. used Substitutes
Brewing. in Brewing. to Total
Material.
Bushels. Bushels.
1878 59,388,905 3,825,148 6.05
1883 [2]51,331,451 [3]4,503,680 8.06
1890 [2]55,359,964 [3]7,904,708 12.48
1895 53,731,177 10,754,510 16.66
1905 51,942,368 15,706,413 23.22
The causes which have led to the largely increased use of substitutes in
the United Kingdom are of a somewhat complex nature. In the first place, it
was not until the malt tax was repealed that the brewer was able to avail
himself of the surplus diastatic energy present in malt, for the purpose of
transforming starch (other than that in malted grain) into sugar. The
diastatic enzyme or ferment (see below, under _Mashing_) of malted barley
is present in that material in great excess, and a part of this surplus
energy may be usefully employed in converting the starch of unmalted grain
into sugar. The brewer has found also that brewing operations are
simplified and accelerated by the use of a certain proportion of
substitutes, and that he is thereby enabled appreciably to increase his
turn-over, _i.e._ he can make more beer in a given time from the same
plant. Certain classes of substitutes, too, are somewhat cheaper than malt,
and in view of the keenness of modern competition it is not to be wondered
at that the brewer should resort to every legitimate means at his disposal
to keep down costs. It has been contended, and apparently with much reason,
that if the use of substitutes were prohibited this would not lead to an
increased use of domestic barley, inasmuch as the supply of home barley
suitable for malting purposes is of a limited nature. A return to the
policy of "malt and hops only" would therefore lead to an increased use of
foreign barley, and to a diminution in the demand for home barley, inasmuch
as sugar and prepared cereals, containing as they do less nitrogen, &c.
than even the well-cured, sun-dried foreign barleys, are better diluents
than the latter. At the same time, it is an undoubted fact that an
excessive use of substitutes leads to the production of beer of poor
quality. The better class of brewer rarely uses more than 15-20%, knowing
that beyond that point the loss of flavour and quality will in the long run
become a more serious item than any increased profits which he might
temporarily gain.
With regard to the nature of the substitutes or adjuncts for barley malt
more generally employed, raw grain (unmalted barley, wheat, rice, maize,
&c.) is not used extensively in Great Britain, but in America brewers
employ as much as 50%, and even more, of maize, rice or similar materials.
The maize and rice preparations mostly used in England are practically
starch pure and simple, substantially the whole of the oil, water, and
other subsidiary constituents of the grain being removed. The germ of maize
contains a considerable proportion of an oil of somewhat unpleasant
flavour, which has to be eliminated before the material is fit for use in
the mash-tun. After degerming, the maize is unhusked, wetted, submitted to
a temperature sufficient to rupture the starch cells, dried, and finally
rolled out in a flaky condition. Rice is similarly treated.
The _sugars_ used are chiefly cane sugar, glucose and invert sugar--the
latter commonly known as "saccharum." Cane sugar is mostly used for the
preparation of heavy mild ales and stouts, as it gives a peculiarly sweet
and full flavour to the beer, to which, no doubt, the popularity of this
class of beverage is largely due. _Invert sugar_ is prepared by the action
either of acid or of yeast on cane sugar. The chemical equation
representing the conversion (or inversion) of cane sugar is:--
C12H22O11 + H2O = C6H12O6 + C6H12O6.
cane sugar water glucose fructose
----invert sugar----
Invert sugar is so called because the mixture of glucose and fructose which
forms the "invert" is laevo-rotatory, whereas cane sugar is dextro-rotatory
to the plane of polarized light. The preparation of invert sugar by the
acid process consists in treating the cane sugar in solution with a little
mineral acid, removing the excess of the latter by means of chalk, and
concentrating to a thick syrup. The yeast process (Tompson's), which makes
use of the inverting power of one of the enzymes (invertase) contained in
ordinary yeast, is interesting. The cane sugar solution is pitched with
yeast at about 55° C., and at this comparatively high temperature the
inversion proceeds rapidly, and fermentation is practically impossible.
When this operation is completed, the whole liquid (including the yeast) is
run into the boiling contents of the copper. This method is more suited to
the preparation of invert in the brewery itself than the acid process,
which is almost exclusively used in special sugar works. Glucose, which is
one of the constituents of invert sugar, is largely used by itself in
brewing. It is, however, never prepared from invert sugar for this purpose,
but directly from starch by means of acid. By the action of dilute boiling
acid on starch the latter is rapidly converted first into a mixture of
dextrine and maltose and then into glucose. The proportions of glucose,
dextrine and maltose present in a commercial glucose depend very much on
the duration of the boiling, the strength of the acid, and the extent of
the pressure at which the starch is converted. In England the materials
from which glucose is manufactured are generally sago, rice and purified
maize. In Germany potatoes form the most common raw material, and in
America purified Indian corn is ordinarily employed.
_Hop substitutes_, as a rule, are very little used. They mostly consist of
quassia, gentian and camomile, and these substitutes are quite harmless
_per se_, but impart an unpleasantly rough and bitter taste to the beer.
_Preservatives_.--These are generally, in fact almost universally, employed
nowadays for draught ales; to a smaller extent for stock ales. The light
beers in vogue to-day are less alcoholic, more lightly hopped, and more
quickly brewed than the beers of the last generation, and in this respect
are somewhat less stable and more likely to deteriorate than the latter
were. The preservative in part replaces the alcohol and the hop extract,
and shortens the brewing time. The preservatives mostly used are the
bisulphites of lime and potash, and these, when employed in small
quantities, are generally held to be harmless.
BREWING OPERATIONS.--The general scheme of operations in an English brewery
will be readily understood if reference be made to fig. 1, which represents
an 8-quarter brewery on the _gravitation system_, the principle of which is
that all materials to be employed are pumped or hoisted to the highest
point required, to start with, and that subsequently no further pumping or
hoisting is required, the materials (in the shape of water, malt, wort or
hops, &c.) being conveyed from one point to another by the force of
gravity.
The malt, which is hoisted to the top floor, after cleaning and grading is
conveyed to the _Malt Mill_, where it is crushed. Thence the ground malt,
or "grist" as it is now called, passes to the _Grist Hopper_, and from the
latter to the _Mashing Machine_, in which it is intimately mixed with hot
water from the _Hot Liquor Vessel_. From the mashing machine the mixed
grist and "liquor" pass to the _Mash-Tun_, where the starch of the malt is
rendered soluble. From the mash-tun the clear wort passes to the _Copper_,
where it is boiled with hops. From the copper the boiled wort passes to the
_Hop Back_, where the insoluble hop constituents are separated from the
wort. From the hop back the wort passes to the _Cooler_, from the latter to
the _Refrigerator_, thence (for the purpose of enabling the revenue
officers to assess the duty) to the _Collecting Vessel_,[4] and finally to
the _Fermenting Vessels_, in which the wort is transformed into "green"
beer. The latter is then cleansed, and finally racked and stored.
It will be seen from the above that brewing consists of seven distinct main
processes, which may be classed as follows: (1) Grinding; (2) Mashing; (3)
Boiling; (4) Cooling; (5) Fermenting; (6) Cleansing; (7) Racking and
Storing.
_Grinding_.--In most modern breweries the malt passes, on its way [v.04
p.0509] from the bins to the mill, through a cleaning and grading
apparatus, and then through an automatic measuring machine. The mills,
which exist in a variety of designs, are of the smooth roller type, and are
so arranged that the malt is _crushed_ rather than ground. If the malt is
ground too fine, difficulties arise in regard to efficient drainage in the
mash-tun and subsequent clarification. On the other hand, if the crushing
is too coarse the subsequent extraction of soluble matter in the mash-tun
is incomplete, and an inadequate yield results.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--An 8-quarter Brewery (Messrs. L. Lumley & Co.,
Ltd.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Mash-tun with mashing machine.]
_Mashing_ is a process which consists mainly in extracting, by means of
water at an adequate temperature, the soluble matters pre-existent in the
malt, and in converting the insoluble starch and a great part of the
insoluble nitrogenous compounds into soluble and partly fermentable
products. Mashing is, without a doubt, the most important of the brewing
processes, for it is largely in the mash-tun that the character of the beer
to be brewed is determined. In modern practice the malt and the mashing
"liquor" (_i.e._ water) are introduced into the mash-tun simultaneously, by
means of the mashing machine (fig. 2, A). This is generally a cylindrical
metal vessel, commanding the mash-tun and provided with a central shaft and
screw. The grist (as the crushed malt is called) enters the mashing machine
from the grist case above, and the liquor is introduced at the back. The
screw is rotated rapidly, and so a thorough mixture of the grist and liquor
takes place as they travel along the mashing machine. The mash-tun (fig. 2)
is a large metal or wooden vessel, fitted with a false bottom composed of
plates perforated with numerous small holes or slits (C). This arrangement
is necessary in order to obtain a proper separation of the "wort" (as the
liquid portion of the finished mash is called) from the spent grains. The
mash-tun is also provided with a stirring apparatus (the _rakes_) so that
the grist and liquor may be intimately mixed (D), and an automatic
sprinkler, the _sparger_ (fig. 2, B, and fig. 3), which is employed in
order to wash out the wort remaining in the grains. The sparger consists of
a number of hollow arms radiating from a common centre and pierced by a
number of small perforations. The common central vessel from which the
sparge-arms radiate is mounted in such a manner that it rotates
automatically when a stream of water is admitted, so that a constant fine
spray covers the whole tun when the sparger is in operation. There are also
pipes for admitting "liquor" to the bottom of the tun, and for carrying the
wort from the latter to the "underback" or "copper."
The grist and liquor having been introduced into the tun (either by means
of the mashing machine or separately), the rakes are set going, so that the
mash may become thoroughly homogeneous, and after a short time the rakes
are stopped and the mash allowed to rest, usually for a period of about two
hours. After this, "taps are set"--_i.e._ communication is established
between the mash-tun and the vessel into which the wort runs--and the
sparger is started. In this manner the whole of the wort or extract is
separated from the grains. The quantity of water employed is, in all, from
two to three barrels to the quarter (336 lb) of malt.
In considering the process of mashing, one might almost say the process of
brewing, it is essential to remember that the type and quality of the beer
to be produced (see MALT) depends almost entirely (a) on the kind of malt
employed, and (b) on the mashing temperature. In other words, quality may
be controlled on the kiln or in the mash-tun, or both. Viewed in this
light, the following theoretical methods for preparing different types of
beer are possible:--(1) high kiln heats and high mashing temperatures; (2)
high kiln heats and low mashing temperatures; (3) low kiln heats and high
mashing temperatures; and (4) low kiln heats and low mashing temperatures.
In practice all these combinations, together with many intermediate ones,
are met with, and it is not too much to say that the whole science of
modern brewing is based upon them. It is plain, then, that the mashing
temperature will depend on the kind of beer that is to be produced, and on
the kind of malt employed. For stouts and black beers generally, a mashing
temperature of 148° to 150° F. is most usual; for pale or stock ales, 150°
to 154° F.; and for mild running beers, 154° to 149° F. The range of
temperatures employed in brewing English beers is a very limited one as
compared with foreign mashing methods, and does not range further,
practically speaking, than from 140° to 160° F. The effect of higher
temperatures is chiefly to cripple the enzyme or "ferment" diastase, which,
as already said, is the agent which converts the insoluble starch into
soluble dextrin, sugar and intermediate products. The higher the mashing
temperature, the more the diastase will be crippled in its action, and the
more dextrinous (non-fermentable) matter as compared with maltose
(fermentable sugar) will be formed. A pale or stock ale, which is a type of
beer that must be "dry" and that will keep, requires to contain a
relatively high proportion of dextrin and little maltose, and, in its
preparation, therefore, a high mashing temperature will be employed. On the
other hand, a mild running ale, which is a full, sweet beer, intended for
rapid consumption, will be obtained by means of low mashing temperatures,
which produce relatively little dextrin, but a good deal of maltose, _i.e._
sweet and readily fermentable matter.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Sparger.]
Diastase is not the only enzyme present in malt. There is also a ferment
which renders a part of the nitrogenous matter soluble. This again is
affected by temperature in much the same way as diastase. Low heats tend to
produce much non-coagulable [v.04 p.0510] nitrogenous matter, which is
undesirable in a stock beer, as it tends to produce fret and side
fermentations. With regard to the kind of malt and other materials employed
in producing various types of beer, pale ales are made either from pale
malt (generally a mixture of English and fine foreign, such as Smyrna,
California) only, or from pale malt and a little flaked maize, rice, invert
sugar or glucose. Running beers (mild ale) are made from a mixture of pale
and amber malts, sugar and flaked goods; stout, from a mixture of pale,
amber and roasted (black) malts only, or with the addition of a little
sugar or flaked maize.
When raw grain is employed, the process of mashing is slightly modified.
The maize, rice or other grain is usually gelatinized in a vessel (called a
_converter_ or _cooker_) entirely separated from the mash-tun, by means of
steam at a relatively high temperature, mostly with, but occasionally
without, the addition of some malt meal. After about half an hour the
gelatinized mass is mixed with the main mash, and this takes place shortly
before taps are set. This is possible inasmuch as the starch, being already
in a highly disintegrated condition, is very rapidly converted. By working
on the limited-decoction system (see below), it is possible to make use of
a fair percentage of raw grain in the mash-tun proper, thus doing away with
the "converter" entirely.
_The Filter Press Process._--The ordinary mash-tun process, as described
above, possesses the disadvantage that only coarse grists can be employed.
This entails loss of extract in several ways. To begin with, the sparging
process is at best a somewhat inefficient method for washing out the last
portions of the wort, and again, when the malt is at all hard or "steely,"
starch conversion is by no means complete. These disadvantages are overcome
by the filter press process, which was first introduced into Great Britain
by the Belgian engineer P. Meura. The malt, in this method of brewing, is
ground quite fine, and although an ordinary mash-tun may be used for
mashing, the separation of the clear wort from the solid matter takes place
in the filter press, which retains the very finest particles with ease. It
is also a simple matter to wash out the wort from the filter cake in the
presses, and experience has shown that markedly increased yields are thus
obtained. In the writer's opinion, there is little doubt that in the future
this, or a similar process, will find a very wide application.
_Boiling_.--From the mash-tun the wort passes to the _copper_. If it is not
possible to arrange the plant so that the coppers are situated beneath the
mash-tuns (as is the case in breweries arranged on the _gravitation
system_), an intermediate collecting vessel (the underback) is interposed,
and from this the wort is pumped into the copper. The latter is a large
copper vessel heated by direct fire or steam. Modern coppers are generally
closed in with a dome-shaped head, but many old-fashioned open coppers are
still to be met with, in fact pale-ale brewers prefer open coppers. In the
closed type the wort is frequently boiled under slight pressure. When the
wort has been raised to the boil, the hops or a part thereof are added, and
the boiling is continued generally from an hour to three hours, according
to the type of beer. The objects of boiling, briefly put, are: (1)
sterilization of the wort; (2) extraction from the hops of substances that
give flavour and aroma to the beer; (3) the coagulation and precipitation
of a part of the nitrogenous matter (the coagulable albuminoids), which, if
left in, would cause cloudiness and fret, &c., in the finished beer; (4)
the concentration of the wort. At least three distinct substances are
extracted from the hops in boiling. First, the _hop tannin_, which,
combining with a part of the proteids derived from the malt, precipitates
them; second, the _hop resin_, which acts as a preservative and bitter;
third, the _hop oil_, to which much of the fine aroma of beer is due. The
latter is volatile, and it is customary, therefore, not to add the whole of
the hops to the wort when it commences to boil, but to reserve about a
third until near the end of the copper stage. The quantity of hops employed
varies according to the type of beer, from about 3 lb to 15 lb per quarter
(336 lb) of malt. For mild ales and porters about 3 to 4 lb, for light pale
ales and light stouts 6 to 10 lb, and for strong ales and stouts 9 to 15 lb
of hops are employed.
_Cooling_.--When the wort has boiled the necessary time, it is turned into
the _hop back_ to settle. A hop back is a wooden or metal vessel, fitted
with a false bottom of perforated plates; the latter retain the spent hops,
the wort being drawn off into the coolers. After resting for a brief period
in the hop back, the bright wort is run into the _coolers_. The cooler is a
very shallow vessel of great area, and the result of the exposure of the
hot wort to a comparatively large volume of air is that a part of the hop
constituents and other substances contained in the wort are rendered
insoluble and are precipitated. It was formerly considered absolutely
essential that this hot aeration should take place, but in many breweries
nowadays coolers are not used, the wort being run direct from the hop back
to the refrigerator. There is much to be said for this procedure, as the
exposure of hot wort in the cooler is attended with much danger of
bacterial and wild yeast infection, but it is still a moot point whether
the cooler or its equivalent can be entirely dispensed with for all classes
of beers. A rational alteration would appear to be to place the cooler in
an air-tight chamber supplied with purified and sterilized air. This
principle has already been applied to the refrigerator, and apparently with
success. In America the cooler is frequently replaced by a cooling tank, an
enclosed vessel of some depth, capable of artificial aeration. It is not
practicable, in any case, to cool the wort sufficiently on the cooler to
bring it to the proper temperature for the fermentation stage, and for this
purpose, therefore, the _refrigerator_ is employed. There are several kinds
of refrigerators, the main distinction being that some are vertical, others
horizontal; but the principle in each case is much the same, and consists
in allowing a thin film or stream of wort to trickle over a series of pipes
through which cold water circulates. Fig. 5, Plate I., shows refrigerators,
employed in Messrs Allsopp's lager beer brewery, at work.
_Fermenting_.--By the process of fermentation the wort is converted into
beer. By the action of living yeast cells (see FERMENTATION) the sugar
contained in the wort is split up into alcohol and carbonic acid, and a
number of subsidiary reactions occur. There are two main systems of
fermentation, the _top fermentation_ system, which is that employed in the
United Kingdom, and the _bottom fermentation_ system, which is that used
for the production of beers of the continental ("lager") type. The wort,
generally at a temperature of about 60° F. (this applies to all the systems
excepting B [see below], in which the temperature is higher), is "pitched"
with liquid yeast (or "barm," as it is often called) at the rate of,
according to the type and strength of the beer to be made, 1 to 4 lb to the
barrel. After a few hours a slight froth or scum makes its appearance on
the surface of the liquid. At the end of a further short period this
develops into a light curly mass (_cauliflower_ or _curly head_), which
gradually becomes lighter and more solid in appearance, and is then known
as _rocky head_. This in its turn shrinks to a compact mass--the _yeasty
head_--which emits great bubbles of gas with a hissing sound. At this point
the _cleansing_ of the beer--_i.e._ the separation of the yeast from the
liquid--has fairly commenced, and it is let down (except in the skimming
and Yorkshire systems [see below]) into the pontos or unions, as the case
may be. During fermentation the temperature rises considerably, and in
order to prevent an excessive temperature being obtained (70-75° F. should
be the maximum) the fermenting vessels are fitted with "attemperators,"
_i.e._ a system of pipes through which cold water may be run.
_Cleansing_.--In England the methods of applying the top fermentation
system may be classified as follows: (A) _The Cleansing System_: (a)
Skimming System, (b) Dropping System (pontos or ordinary dropping system),
(c) Burton Union System. (B) _The Yorkshire Stone Square System_.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Fermenting Round.
A, Skimmer; B, Parachute; C, Attemperator.]
(A) In (a) the _Skimming System_ the fermentation from start to finish
takes place in wooden vessels (termed "squares" or "rounds"), fitted with
an attemperator and a parachute or other similar skimming device for
removing or "skimming" the yeast at the end of the fermentation (fig. 4).
The principle of (b) the _Dropping System_ is that the beer undergoes only
the main fermentation in the "round" or "square," and is then dropped down
into a second vessel or vessels, in which fermentation and cleansing are
completed. The _ponto_ system of dropping, which is now somewhat
old-fashioned, consists in discharging the beer into a series of vat-like
vessels, fitted with a peculiarly-shaped overflow lip. The yeast works its
way out of the vessel over the lip, and then flows into a gutter and is
collected. The pontos are kept filled with beer by means of a vessel placed
at a higher level. In the _ordinary_ dropping system the partly fermented
beer is let down from the "squares" and "rounds" into large vessels, termed
dropping or skimming "backs." These are fitted with attemperators, and
parachutes for the removal of yeast, in much the same way as in the
skimming system. As a rule the parachute covers the whole width of the
back. (c) The _Burton Union System_ is really an improved ponto system. A
series of casks, supplied with beer at the cleansing stage from a feed
vessel, are mounted so that they may rotate axially. Each cask is fitted
with an attemperator, a pipe and cock at the base for the removal of the
finished beer and "bottoms," and lastly with a swan neck fitting through a
bung-hole and commanding a common gutter. This system yields excellent
results for certain classes of beers, and many Burton brewers think it is
essential for obtaining [v.04 p.0511] the Burton character. Fig. 6 (Plate
II.) shows the process in operation in Messrs Allsopp's brewery.
(B) _The Stone Square System_, which is only used to a certain extent
(exclusively in the north of England), practically consists in pumping the
fermenting wort from one to the other of two superimposed square vessels,
connected with one another by means of a man-hole and a valve. These
squares are built of stone and kept very cool. At the end of the
fermentation the yeast (after closing the man-hole) is removed from the top
square.
_Racking, &c._--After the fermentation and cleansing operations are
completed, the beer is racked off (sometimes after passing a few hours in a
settling tank) into storage vessels or trade casks. The finest "stock" and
"pale" ales are stored from six weeks to three months prior to going out,
but "running" beers (mild ales, &c.) are frequently sent out of the brewery
within a week or ten days of mashing. It is usual to add some hops in cask
(this is called _dry hopping_) in the case of many of the better beers.
Running beers, which must be put into condition rapidly, or beers that have
become flat, are generally _primed_. Priming consists in adding a small
quantity of sugar solution to the beer in cask. This rapidly ferments and
so produces "condition."
_Fining_.--As a very light article is desired nowadays, and this has to be
provided in a short time, artificial means must be resorted to, in order to
replace the natural fining or brightening which storage brings about.
_Finings_ generally consist of a solution or semi-solution of isinglass in
sour beer, or in a solution of tartaric acid or of sulphurous acid. After
the finings are added to the beer and the barrels have been well rolled,
the finings slowly precipitate (or work out through the bung-hole) and
carry with them the matter which would otherwise render the beer turbid.
_Bottling_.--Formerly it was the general custom to brew a special beer for
bottling, and this practice is still continued by some brewers. It is
generally admitted that the special brew, matured by storage and an
adequate secondary fermentation, produces the best beer for bottling, but
the modern taste for a very light and bright bottled beer at a low cost has
necessitated the introduction of new methods. The most interesting among
these is the "chilling" and "carbonating" system. In this the beer, when it
is ripe for racking, is first "chilled," that is, cooled to a very low
temperature. As a result, there is an immediate deposition of much matter
which otherwise would require prolonged time to settle. The beer is then
filtered and so rendered quite bright, and finally, in order to produce
immediate "condition," is "carbonated," _i.e._ impregnated under pressure
with carbon dioxide (carbonic acid gas).
FOREIGN BREWING AND BEERS.--The system of brewing which differs most widely
from the English _infusion_ and _top fermentation_ method is the
_decoction_ and _bottom fermentation_ system, so widely employed, chiefly
on the continent of Europe, for the production of beers of the "lager"
type.
The method pursued in the decoction system is broadly as follows:--After
the grist has been mashed with cold water until a homogeneous mixture
ensues, sufficient hot water is introduced into the mash-tun to raise the
temperature to 85-100° F., according to circumstances. Thereupon, about
one-third of the mash (including the "goods") is transferred to the _Maisch
Kessel_ (mash copper), in which it is gradually brought to a temperature of
(about) 165° F., and this heat is maintained until the mash becomes
transparent. The _Dickmaische_, as this portion is called, is then raised
to the boil, and the ebullition sustained between a quarter and
three-quarters of an hour. Just sufficient of the _Dickmaische_ is returned
to the mash-tun proper to raise the temperature of the whole to 111-125°
F., and after a few minutes a third is again withdrawn and treated as
before, to form the second "thick mash." When the latter has been returned
to the mash-tun the whole is thoroughly worked up, allowed to stand in
order that the solids may deposit, and then another third (called the
_Läutermaische_ or "clear mash") is withdrawn, boiled until the coagulable
albuminoids are precipitated, and finally reconveyed to the mash-tun, where
the mashing is continued for some time, the final heat being rather over
160° F. The wort, after boiling with hops and cooling, much as in the
English system, is subjected to the peculiar system of fermentation called
_bottom fermentation_. In this system the "pitching" and fermentation take
place at a very low temperature and, compared with the English system, in
very small vessels. The fermenting cellars are maintained at a temperature
of about 37-38° F., and the temperature of the fermenting wort does not
rise above 50° F. The yeast, which is of a different type from that
employed in the English system, remains at the bottom of the fermenting
tun, and hence is derived the name of "bottom fermentation" (see
FERMENTATION). The primary fermentation lasts about eleven to twelve days
(as compared with three days on the English system), and the beer is then
run into store (lager) casks where it remains at a temperature approaching
the freezing-point of water for six weeks to six months, according to the
time of the year and the class of the beer. As to the relative character
and stability of decoction and infusion beers, the latter are, as a rule,
more alcoholic; but the former contain more unfermented malt extract, and
are therefore, broadly speaking, more nutritive. Beers of the German type
are less heavily hopped and more peptonized than English beers, and more
highly charged with carbonic acid, which, owing to the low fermentation and
storing temperatures, is retained for a comparatively long time and keeps
the beer in condition. On the other hand, infusion beers are of a more
stable and stimulating character. It is impossible to keep "lager" beer on
draught in the ordinary sense of the term in England. It will not keep
unless placed on ice, and, as a matter of fact, the "condition" of lager is
dependent to a far greater extent on the methods of distribution and
storage than is the case with infusion beers. If a cask is opened it must
be rapidly consumed; indeed it becomes undrinkable within a very few hours.
The gas escapes rapidly when the pressure is released, the temperature
rises, and the beer becomes flat and mawkish. In Germany every publican is
bound to have an efficient supply of ice, the latter frequently being
delivered by the brewery together with the beer.
In America the common system of brewing is one of infusion mashing combined
with bottom fermentation. The method of mashing, however, though on
infusion lines, differs appreciably from the English process. A very low
initial heat--about 100° F.--at which the mash remains for about an hour,
is employed. After this the temperature is rapidly raised to 153-156° F. by
running in the boiling "cooker mash," _i.e._ raw grain wort from the
converter. After a period the temperature is gradually increased to about
165° F. The very low initial heat, and the employment of relatively large
quantities of readily transformable malt adjuncts, enable the American
brewer to make use of a class of malt which would be considered quite unfit
for brewing in an English brewery. The system of fermentation is very
similar to the continental "lager" system, and the beer obtained bears some
resemblance to the German product. To the English palate it is somewhat
flavourless, but it is always retailed in exceedingly brilliant condition
and at a proper temperature. There can be little doubt that every nation
evolves a type of beer most suited to its climate and the temperament of
the people, and in this respect the modern American beer is no exception.
In regard to plant and mechanical arrangements generally, the modern
American breweries may serve as an object-lesson to the European brewer,
although there are certainly a number of breweries in the United Kingdom
which need not fear comparison with the best American plants.
It is a sign of the times and further evidence as to the growing taste for
a lighter type of beer, that lager brewing in its most modern form has now
fairly taken root in Great Britain, and in this connexion the process
introduced by Messrs Allsopp exhibits many features of interest. The
following is a brief description of the plant and the methods
employed:--The wort is prepared on infusion lines, and is then cooled by
means of refrigerated brine before passing to a temporary store tank, which
serves as a gauging vessel. From the latter the wort passes directly to the
fermenting tuns, huge closed cylindrical vessels made of sheet-steel and
coated with glass enamel. There the wort ferments under reduced pressure,
the carbonic acid generated being removed by means of a vacuum pump, and
the gas thus withdrawn is replaced by the introduction of cool sterilized
air. The fermenting cellars are kept at 40° F. The yeast employed is a pure
culture (see FERMENTATION) bottom yeast, but the withdrawal of the products
of yeast metabolism and the constant supply of pure fresh air cause the
fermentation to proceed far more rapidly than is the case with lager beer
brewed on ordinary lines. It is, in fact, finished in about six days.
Thereupon the air-supply is cut off, the green beer again cooled to 40° F.
and [v.04 p.0512] then conveyed by means of filtered air pressure to the
store tanks, where secondary fermentation, lasting three weeks, takes
place. The gases evolved are allowed to collect under pressure, so that the
beer is thoroughly charged with the carbonic acid necessary to give it
condition. Finally the beer is again cooled, filtered, racked and bottled,
the whole of these operations taking place under counter pressure, so that
no gas can escape; indeed, from the time the wort leaves the copper to the
moment when it is bottled in the shape of beer, it does not come into
contact with the outer air.
The preparation of the Japanese beer _saké_ (_q.v._) is of interest. The
first stage consists in the preparation of _Koji_, which is obtained by
treating steamed rice with a culture of _Aspergillus oryzae_. This
micro-organism converts the starch into sugar. The _Koji_ is converted into
_moto_ by adding it to a thin paste of fresh-boiled starch in a vat.
Fermentation is set up and lasts for 30 to 40 days. The third stage
consists in adding more rice and _Koji_ to the _moto_, together with some
water. A secondary fermentation, lasting from 8 to 10 days, ensues.
Subsequently the whole is filtered, heated and run into casks, and is then
known as _saké_. The interest of this process consists in the fact that a
single micro-organism--a mould--is able to exercise the combined functions
of saccharification and fermentation. It replaces the diastase of malted
grain and also the yeast of a European brewery. Another liquid of interest
is _Weissbier_. This, which is largely produced in Berlin (and in some
respects resembles the _wheat-beer_ produced in parts of England), is
generally prepared from a mash of three parts of wheat malt and one part of
barley malt. The fermentation is of a symbiotic nature, two organisms,
namely a yeast and a fission fungus (the _lactic acid bacillus_) taking
part in it. The preparation of this peculiar double ferment is assisted by
the addition of a certain quantity of white wine to the yeast prior to
fermentation.
BREWING CHEMISTRY.--The principles of brewing technology belong for the
most part to physiological chemistry, whilst those of the cognate industry,
malting, are governed exclusively by that branch of knowledge. Alike in
following the growth of barley in field, its harvesting, maturing and
conversion into malt, as well as the operations of mashing malt, fermenting
wort, and conditioning beer, physiological chemistry is needed. On the
other hand, the consideration of the saline matter in waters, the
composition of the extract of worts and beers, and the analysis of brewing
materials and products generally, belong to the domain of pure chemistry.
Since the extractive matters contained in wort and beer consist for the
most part of the transformation products of starch, it is only natural that
these should have received special attention at the hands of scientific men
associated with the brewing industry. It was formerly believed that by the
action of diastase on starch the latter is first converted into a gummy
substance termed dextrin, which is then subsequently transformed into a
sugar--glucose. F.A. Musculus, however, in 1860, showed that sugar and
dextrin are simultaneously produced, and between the years 1872 and 1876
Cornelius O'Sullivan definitely proved that the sugar produced was maltose.
When starch-paste, the jelly formed by treating starch with boiling water,
is mixed with iodine solution, a deep blue coloration results. The first
product of starch degradation by either acids or diastase, namely soluble
starch, also exhibits the same coloration when treated with iodine. As
degradation proceeds, and the products become more and more soluble and
diffusible, the blue reaction with iodine gives place first to a purple,
then to a reddish colour, and finally the coloration ceases altogether. In
the same way, the optical rotating power decreases, and the cupric reducing
power (towards Fehling's solution) increases, as the process of hydrolysis
proceeds. C. O'Sullivan was the first to point out definitely the influence
of the temperature of the mash on the character of the products. The work
of Horace T. Brown (with J. Heron) extended that of O'Sullivan, and (with
G.H. Morris) established the presence of an intermediate product between
the higher dextrins and maltose. This product was termed maltodextrin, and
Brown and Morris were led to believe that a large number of these
substances existed in malt wort. They proposed for these substances the
generic name "amyloins." Although according to their view they were
compounds of maltose and dextrin, they had the properties of mixtures of
these two substances. On the assumption of the existence of these
compounds, Brown and his colleagues formulated what is known as the
maltodextrin or amyloin hypothesis of starch degradation. C.J. Lintner, in
1891, claimed to have separated a sugar, isomeric with maltose, which is
termed isomaltose, from the products of starch hydrolysis. A.R. Ling and
J.L. Baker, as well as Brown and Morris, in 1895, proved that this
isomaltose was not a homogeneous substance, and evidence tending to the
same conclusion was subsequently brought forward by continental workers.
Ling and Baker, in 1897, isolated the following compounds from the products
of starch hydrolysis--maltodextrin-[alpha], C_{36}H_{62}O_{31}, and
maltodextrin-[beta], C_{24}H_{42}O_{21} (previously named by Prior,
achroodextrin III.). They also separated a substance, C_{12}H_{22}O_{11},
isomeric with maltose, which had, however, the characteristics of a
dextrin. This is probably identical with the so-called dextrinose isolated
by V. Syniewski in 1902, which yields a phenylosazone melting at 82-83° C.
It has been proved by H. Ost that the so-called isomaltose of Lintner is a
mixture of maltose and another substance, maltodextrin, isomeric with Ling
and Baker's maltodextrin-[beta].
The theory of Brown and Morris of the degradation of starch, although based
on experimental evidence of some weight, is by no means universally
accepted. Nevertheless it is of considerable interest, as it offers a
rational and consistent explanation of the phenomena known to accompany the
transformation of starch by diastase, and even if not strictly correct it
has, at any rate, proved itself to be a practical working hypothesis, by
which the mashing and fermenting operations may be regulated and
controlled. According to Brown and Morris, the starch molecule consists of
five amylin groups, each of which corresponds to the molecular formula
(C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20}. Four of these amylin radicles are grouped
centrally round the fifth, thus:--
(C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20} (C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20}
\ /
(C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20}
/ \
(C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20} (C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20}
By the action of diastase, this complex molecule is split up, undergoing
hydrolysis into four groups of amyloins, the fifth or central group
remaining unchanged (and under brewing conditions unchangeable), forming
the substance known as stable dextrin. When diastase acts on starch-paste,
hydrolysis proceeds as far as the reaction represented by the following
equation:--
5(C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20} + 80 H_2O
starch. water.
= 80 C_{12}H_{22}O_{11} + (C_{12}H_{20}O_{10})_{20}
maltose. stable dextrin.
The amyloins are substances containing varying numbers of amylin (original
starch or dextrin) groups in conjunction with a proportional number of
maltose groups. They are not separable into maltose and dextrin by any of
the ordinary means, but exhibit the properties of mixtures of these
substances. As the process of hydrolysis proceeds, the amyloins become
gradually poorer in amylin and relatively richer in maltose-groups. The
final products of transformation, according to Brown and J.H. Millar, are
maltose and glucose, which latter is derived from the hydrolysis of the
stable dextrin. This theory may be applied in practical brewing in the
following manner. If it is desired to obtain a beer of a stable
character--that is to say, one containing a considerable proportion of
high-type amyloins--it is necessary to restrict the action of the diastase
in the mash-tun accordingly. On the other hand, for mild running ales,
which are to "condition" rapidly, it is necessary to provide for the
presence of sufficient maltodextrin of a low type. Investigation has shown
that the type of maltodextrin can be regulated, not only in the mash-tun
but also on the malt-kiln. A higher type is obtained by low kiln and high
mashing temperatures than by high kiln and low mashing heats, and it is
possible therefore to regulate, on scientific lines, not only the quality
but also the type of amyloins which are suitable for a particular beer.
The chemistry of the nitrogenous constituents of malt is equally important
with that of starch and its transformations. Without nitrogenous compounds
of the proper type, vigorous fermentations are not possible. It may be
remembered that yeast assimilates nitrogenous compounds in some of their
simpler forms--amides and the like. One of the aims of the maltster is,
therefore, to break down the protein substances present in barley to such a
degree that the wort has a maximum nutritive value for the yeast. Further,
it is necessary for the production of stable beer to eliminate a large
proportion of nitrogenous matter, and this is only done by the yeast when
the proteins are degraded. There is also some evidence that the presence of
albumoses assists in producing the foaming properties of beer. It has now
been established definitely, by the work of A. Fernbach, W. Windisch,
F.Weiss and P. Schidrowitz, that finished malt contains at least two
proteolytic enzymes (a peptic and a pancreatic enzyme).
[Illustration: BREWING