[1] The authorship of this speech has been disputed.
MARCESCENT (Lat. _marcescens_, withering), a botanical term for
withering without falling off.
MARCH, EARLS OF, title derived from the "marches" or boundaries (1)
between England and Wales, and (2) England and Scotland, and held
severally by great feudal families possessed of lands in those border
districts. The earls of March on the Welsh borders were descended from
Roger de Mortemer (so called from his castle of Mortemer in Normandy),
who was connected by marriage with the dukes of Normandy. His son Ralph
(d. c. 1104) figures in Domesday as the holder of vast estates in
Shropshire, Herefordshire and other parts of England, especially in the
west; and his grandson Hugh de Mortimer, founder of the priory of
Wigmore in Herefordshire, was one of the most powerful of the barons
reduced to submission by Henry II., who compelled him to surrender his
castles of Cleobury and Wigmore. The Mortimers, however, continued to
exercise almost undisputed sway, as lords of Wigmore, over the western
counties and the Welsh marches.
I. _Welsh Marches._--ROGER DE MORTIMER (c. 1286-1330), 8th baron of
Wigmore and 1st earl of March, being an infant at the death of his
father, Edmund, was placed by Edward I. under the guardianship of Piers
Gaveston, and was knighted by Edward in 1306; Mortimer's mother being a
relative of Edward's consort, Eleanor of Castile. Through his marriage
with Joan de Joinville, or Genevill, Roger not only acquired increased
possessions on the Welsh marches, including the important castle of
Ludlow, which became the chief stronghold of the Mortimers, but also
extensive estates and influence in Ireland, whither he went in 1308 to
enforce his authority. This brought him into conflict with the De Lacys,
who turned for support to Edward Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce, king of
Scotland. Mortimer was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland by Edward
II. in 1316, and at the head of a large army drove Bruce to
Carrickfergus, and the De Lacys into Connaught, wreaking vengeance on
their adherents whenever they were to be found. He was then occupied for
some years with baronial disputes on the Welsh border until about 1318,
when he began to interest himself in the growing opposition to Edward
II. and his favourites, the Despensers; and he supported Humphrey de
Bohun, earl of Hereford, in refusing to obey the king's summons to
appear before him in 1321. Forced to surrender to the king at Shrewsbury
in January 1322, Mortimer was consigned to the Tower of London, whence
he escaped to France in August 1324. In the following year Isabella,
wife of Edward II., anxious to escape from her husband, obtained his
consent to her going to France to use her influence with her brother,
Charles IV., in favour of peace. At the French court the queen found
Roger Mortimer; she became his mistress soon afterwards, and at his
instigation refused to return to England so long as the Despensers
retained power as the king's favourites. The scandal of Isabella's
relations with Mortimer compelled them both to withdraw from the French
court to Flanders, where they obtained assistance for an invasion of
England. Landing in England in September 1326, they were joined by
Henry, earl of Lancaster; London rose in support of the queen; and
Edward took flight to the west, whither he was pursued by Mortimer and
Isabella. After wandering helplessly for some weeks in Wales, the king
was taken on the 16th of November, and was compelled to abdicate in
favour of his son. But though the latter was crowned as Edward III. in
January 1327, the country was ruled by Mortimer and Isabella, who
procured the murder of Edward II. in the following September. Rich
estates and offices of profit and power were now heaped on Mortimer, and
in September 1328 he was created earl of March. Greedy and grasping, he
was no more competent than the Despensers to conduct the government of
the country. The jealousy and anger of Lancaster having been excited by
March's arrogance, Lancaster prevailed upon the young king, Edward III.,
to throw off the yoke of his mother's paramour. At a parliament held at
Nottingham in October 1330 a plot was successfully carried out by which
March was arrested in the castle, and, in spite of Isabella's entreaty
to her son to "have pity on the gentle Mortimer," was conveyed to the
Tower. Accused of assuming royal power and of various other high
misdemeanours, he was condemned without trial and hanged at Tyburn on
the 29th of November 1330, his vast estates being forfeited to the
crown. March's wife, by whom he had four sons and eleven daughters,
survived till 1356. The daughters all married into powerful families,
chiefly of Marcher houses. His eldest son, Edmund, was father of Roger
Mortimer (c. 1328-1360), who was knighted by Edward III. in 1346, and
restored to his grandfather's title as 2nd earl of March.
EDMUND DE MORTIMER (1351-1381), 3rd earl of March, was son of Roger, 2nd
earl of March, by his wife Philippa, daughter of William Montacute, 1st
earl of Salisbury. Being an infant at the death of his father, Edmund,
as a ward of the crown, was placed by Edward III. under the care of
William of Wykeham and Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel. The position
of the young earl, powerful on account of his possessions and hereditary
influence in the Welsh marches, was rendered still more important by his
marriage in 1368 to Philippa, only daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence,
third son of Edward III. Lionel's wife was Elizabeth, daughter and
heiress of William de Burgh, 6th Lord of Connaught and 3rd earl of
Ulster, and Lionel had himself been created earl of Ulster before his
marriage. The earl of March, therefore, not only became the
representative of one of the chief Anglo-Norman lordships in Ireland in
right of his wife Philippa, but the latter, on the death of her father
shortly after her marriage, stood next in succession to the crown after
the Black Prince and his sickly son Richard, afterwards king Richard II.
This marriage had, therefore, far-reaching consequences in the history
of England, giving rise to the claim of the house of York to the crown
of England, contested in the War of the Roses; Edward IV. being
descended from the third son of Edward III. as great-great-grandson of
Philippa, countess of March, and in the male line from Edmund, duke of
York, fifth son of Edward III.
Mortimer, now styled earl of March and Ulster, became marshal of England
in 1369, and was employed in various diplomatic missions during the next
following years. He was a member of the committee appointed by the Peers
to confer with the Commons in 1373--the first instance of such a joint
conference since the institution of representative parliaments--on the
question of granting supplies for John of Gaunt's war in France; and in
the opposition to Edward III. and the court party, which grew in
strength towards the end of the reign, March took the popular side,
being prominent in the Good Parliament of 1376 among the lords who,
encouraged by the Prince of Wales, concerted an attack upon the court
party led by John of Gaunt. The Speaker of the Commons in this
parliament was March's steward, Peter de la Mare; he firmly withstood
John of Gaunt in stating the grievances of the Commons, in supporting
the impeachment of several high court officials, and in procuring the
banishment of the king's mistress, Alice Perrers. March was a member of
the administrative council appointed by the same parliament after the
death of the Black Prince to attend the king and advise him in all
public affairs. On the accession of Richard II., a minor, in 1377, the
earl became a member of the standing council of government; though as
father of the heir-presumptive to the crown he wisely abstained from
claiming any actually administrative office. The most powerful person in
the realm was, however, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, whose jealousy
of March led to the acceptance by the latter of the lieutenancy of
Ireland in 1379. March succeeded in asserting his authority in eastern
Ulster, but failed to subdue the O'Neills farther west. Proceeding to
Munster to put down the turbulency of the chieftains of the south, March
died at Cork on the 27th of December 1381. He was buried in Wigmore
Abbey, of which he had been a benefactor, and where his wife Philippa
who died about the same time was also interred. The earl had two sons
and two daughters, the elder of whom, Elizabeth, married Henry Percy
(Hotspur), son of the earl of Northumberland. His eldest son Roger
succeeded him as 4th earl of March and Ulster. His second son Edmund
(1376-1409) played an important part in conjunction with his
brother-in-law Hotspur against Owen Glendower; but afterwards joined the
latter, whose daughter he married about 1402.
ROGER DE MORTIMER, 4th earl of March and Ulster (1374-1398), son of the
3rd earl, succeeded to the titles and estates of his family when a child
of seven, and a month afterwards he was appointed lord-lieutenant of
Ireland, his uncle Sir Thomas Mortimer acting as his deputy. Being a
ward of the Crown, his guardian was the earl of Kent, half-brother to
Richard II.; and in 1388 he married Kent's daughter, Eleanor. The
importance which he owed to his hereditary influence and possessions,
and especially to his descent from Edward III., was immensely increased
when Richard II. publicly acknowledged him as heir-presumptive to the
crown in 1385. In 1394 he accompanied Richard to Ireland, but
notwithstanding a commission from the king as lieutenant of the
districts over which he exercised nominal authority by hereditary right,
he made little headway against the native Irish chieftains. March
enjoyed great popularity in England though he took no active part in
opposing the despotic measures of the king; in Ireland he illegally
assumed the native Irish costume. In August 1398 he was killed in fight
with an Irish clan, and was buried in Wigmore Abbey. March's daughter
Anne married Richard earl of Cambridge, son of Edmund duke of York,
fifth son of Edward III.; their son Richard, duke of York, was father of
King Edward IV., who thus derived his title to the crown and acquired
the estates of the house of Mortimer.
EDMUND DE MORTIMER (1391-1425), 5th earl of March and Ulster, son of the
4th earl, succeeded to his father's claim to the crown as well as to his
title and estates on the death of the latter in Ireland in 1398. In the
following year Richard II. was deposed and the crown seized by Henry of
Lancaster. The young earl of March and his brother Roger were then kept
in custody by Henry IV., who, however, treated them honourably, until
March 1405, when they were carried off from Windsor Castle by the
opponents of the Lancastrian dynasty, of whom their uncle Sir Edmund
Mortimer (see above) and his brother-in-law Henry Percy (Hotspur) were
leaders in league with Owen Glendower. The boys were recaptured, and in
1409 were committed to the care of the prince of Wales. On the accession
of the latter as Henry V., in 1413, the earl of March was set at liberty
and restored to his estates, his brother Roger having died some years
previously; and he continued to enjoy the favour of the king in spite of
a conspiracy in 1415 to place him on the throne, in which his
brother-in-law, the earl of Cambridge, played the leading part. March
accompanied Henry V. throughout his wars in France, and on the king's
death in 1422 became a member of the council of regency. He died in
Ireland in 1425, and as he left no issue the earldom of March in the
house of Mortimer became extinct, the estates passing to the last earl's
nephew Richard, who in 1435 was officially styled duke of York, earl of
March and Ulster, and baron of Wigmore. Richard's son Edward having
ascended the throne in 1461 as Edward IV., the earldom of March became
merged in the crown.
See Thomas Rymer, _Foedera_, &c. (London, 1704-1732); T. F. Tout, _The
Political History of England_, vol. iii., ed. by William Hunt and R.
L. Poole (London, 1905); Sir William Dugdale, _Monasticon anglicanum_
(3 vols., London, 1655-1673); William Stubbs, _Constitutional History
of England_, vol. ii.
II. _Scottish Marches._--The Scottish earls of March were descended from
Crinan, whose son Maldred married Algitha, daughter of Ughtred, earl of
Northumberland, by Elgiva, daughter of the Saxon king Æthelred.
Maldred's son Cospatrick, or Gospatrick, was made earl of Northumberland
by William the Conqueror; but being soon afterwards deprived of this
position he fled to Scotland, where Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland,
welcomed him and granted him Dunbar and the adjoining lands. Two
generations of Cospatricks followed in lineal succession, bearing the
title of earl, but without territorial designation. Cospatrick II.
witnessed the charter of Alexander I. founding the abbey of Scone in
1115. The 3rd earl, also named Cospatrick, a liberal benefactor of
Melrose Abbey, died in 1166, leaving two sons, the younger of whom was
the ancestor of the earls of Home. The elder son, Waltheof, was the
first of the family to be styled "Comes de Dunbar," about the year 1174.
His importance is proved by the fact that he was one of the hostages for
the performance of the Treaty of Falaise for the liberation of William
the Lion in 1175. Waltheof's son Patrick Dunbar (the name Dunbar,
derived from the family estates, now becoming an hereditary surname),
styled 5th earl of Dunbar, although his father had been the first to
adopt the territorial designation, was keeper of Berwick Castle, and
married Ada, natural daughter of William the Lion. His grandson Patrick,
7th earl, headed the party that liberated King Alexander III. in 1255
from the Comyns, and in the same year was nominated guardian of the king
and queen by the Treaty of Roxburgh. He signed the Treaty of Perth (July
6, 1266) by which Magnus VI. of Norway ceded the Isle of Man and the
Hebrides to Scotland. His wife was Christian, daughter of Robert Bruce,
the competitor for the crown of Scotland.
PATRICK DUNBAR, 8th earl of Dunbar and 1st earl of March, claimed the
crown of Scotland in 1291 as descendant of Ada, daughter of William the
Lion. He was one of the "seven earls of Scotland," a distinct body
separate from the other estates of the realm, who claimed the right to
elect a king in cases of disputed succession, and whose authority was,
perhaps, to be traced to the seven provinces of the Pictish kingdom. He
was the first of the earls of Dunbar to appear in the records as "comes
de Marchia," or earl of March. Like most of his family in later times,
he was favourable to the English interest in Scottish affairs, and he
did homage to Edward I. of England. His wife Marjory, daughter of
Alexander Comyn, earl of Buchan, took the other side and held the castle
of Dunbar for Baliol, but was forced to surrender it to Edward in 1296.
In 1298 he was appointed the English king's lieutenant in Scotland.
PATRICK DUNBAR (1285-1369), 9th earl of Dunbar and 2nd earl of March,
son of the preceding, gave refuge to Edward II. of England after
Bannockburn, and contrived his escape by sea to England. Later, he made
peace with Robert Bruce, and by him was appointed governor of Berwick
Castle, which he held against Edward III. until the defeat of the Scots
at Halidon Hill (July 19, 1333) made it no longer tenable. His countess,
known in Scottish history and romance as "Black Agnes," daughter of
Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray (Murray), and grandniece of Robert Bruce,
is famous for her defence of Dunbar Castle against the English under the
earl of Salisbury in 1338, Salisbury being forced to abandon the attempt
after a fierce siege lasting nineteen weeks. This lady succeeded to the
estates and titles of her brother, John Randolph, 3rd earl of Moray. The
earldom of Moray passed after her death to her second son, John Dunbar,
who married Marjory, daughter of King Robert II. Black Agnes also bore
to the earl of March two daughters, the elder of whom, Agnes, after
being the mistress of King David II., married Sir James Douglas, lord of
Dalkeith, from whom were descended the first three earls of Morton; the
younger, Elizabeth, married John Maitland of Lethington, ancestor of the
duke of Lauderdale, whose second title was marquess of March.
GEORGE DUNBAR (d. 1420), 10th earl of Dunbar and 3rd earl of March,
great-nephew of the 8th earl and warden of the marches, accompanied
Douglas in his foray into England in 1388, and commanded the Scots after
Otterburn. He afterwards quarrelled with the Douglases, because his
daughter was passed over in favour of a daughter of Archibald, "the Grim
Earl of Douglas," as wife for David, duke of Rothesay, son of Robert
III. When Douglas seized March's lands the latter fled to England, where
he was welcomed by Henry IV., to whom he was related. He fought on the
English side at Homildon Hill; and, having revealed to Henry the
defection of the Percies, who were in league with Douglas and Owen
Glendower, he fought against those allies at the battle of Shrewsbury
(July 23, 1403). Becoming reconciled with Douglas, he returned to
Scotland in 1409, and was restored to his earldom by the regent Albany.
He died in 1420.
GEORGE DUNBAR, 11th earl of Dunbar and 4th earl of March, was one of the
negotiators for the release of James I. of Scotland in 1423 from his
captivity in England, and was knighted at that king's coronation. In
1434, however, on the ground that the regent had had no power to reverse
his father's forfeiture for treason, March was imprisoned and his castle
of Dunbar seized by the king; and the parliament at Perth declared his
lands and titles forfeited to the crown. The earl, being released,
retired to England with his son Patrick, whose daughter and heiress
Margaret was ancestress of Patrick, 5th earl of Dumfries, now
represented by the marquess of Bute.
The earldom of March in the house of Dunbar having thus been forfeited
to the crown, James II. in 1455 conferred the title, together with that
of warden of the marches, on his second son Alexander, duke of Albany;
but this prince entered into treasonable correspondence with Edward IV.
of England, and in 1487 the earldom of March and the barony and castle
of Dunbar were again declared forfeited and annexed to the crown of
Scotland.
The title of earl of March was next held by the house of Lennox. In 1576
the earldom of Lennox became extinct on the death without male issue of
Charles (father of Lady Arabella Stuart), 5th earl of Lennox; and it was
then revived in favour of Robert Stuart, a grand-uncle of King James
VI., second son of John, 3rd earl of Lennox. But in 1579 Esmé Stuart, a
member of a collateral branch which in 1508 had inherited the lordship
of Aubigny in France, came to Scotland and obtained much favour with
James VI. The earldom of Lennox (soon afterwards raised to a dukedom)
was taken from Robert and conferred upon Esmé; and Robert was
compensated by being created earl of March and baron of Dunbar (1582).
Robert died without legitimate issue in 1586, when the earldom of March
again reverted to the crown. In 1619 Esmé, 3rd duke of Lennox, was
created earl of March; and his son James was created duke of Richmond
in 1641. On the death without issue of Charles, 6th duke of Lennox and
3rd duke of Richmond, in 1672, his titles devolved upon King Charles II.
as nearest collateral heir-male. In 1675 Charles conferred the titles of
duke of Richmond and Lennox and earl of March on Charles Lennox, his
natural son by Louise de Keroualle, duchess of Portsmouth, from whom the
earldom of March has descended to its present holder the duke of
Richmond and Gordon. (See RICHMOND, EARLS AND DUKES OF; and LENNOX.)
The title of earl of March in the peerage of Scotland, by another
creation, was conferred in 1697 on William Douglas, second son of
William, 1st duke of Queensberry. His grandson William, 3rd earl of
March, became 4th duke of Queensberry on the death without surviving
male issue of his cousin Charles, 3rd duke of Queensberry, in 1778.
Dying unmarried in 1810, the several titles of the duke passed to
different branches of the house of Douglas. The earldom of March is
stated by Sir Bernard Burke and other authorities to have devolved upon
Francis, 8th earl of Wemyss, great-great-grandson of David, 3rd earl of
Wemyss, whose wife was Anne, daughter of the 1st duke of Queensberry and
sister of the 1st earl of March; and the title is now assumed by the
earl of Wemyss. On the other hand, Francis, 8th earl of Wemyss, not
having been an heir of the body of the 1st earl of March, Sir Robert
Douglas says in _The Peerage of Scotland_ that on the death of the 4th
duke of Queensberry in 1810 "the earldom of March, it is supposed,
became extinct."
See Andrew Lang, _History of Scotland_ (4 vols., London, 1900-1907);
Sir Bernard Burke, _A Genealogical History of Dormant and Extinct
Peerages_ (London, 1866); Sir Robert Douglas, _The Peerage of
Scotland_ (2 vols., Edinburgh 1813); Lady Elizabeth Cust, _Some
Account of the Stuarts of Aubigny in France_ (London, 1891).
(R. J. M.)
MARCH, AUZIAS (c. 1395-1458), Catalan poet, was born at Valencia towards
the end of the 14th century. Little is known of his career except that
he was twice married--first to Na Ysabel Martorell, and second to Na
Johanna Scorna--that he died on the 4th of November 1458, and that he
left several natural children. Inheriting an easy fortune from his
father, the treasurer to the duke of Gandia, and enjoying the powerful
patronage of Prince Carlos de Viana of Aragon, March was enabled to
devote himself to poetical composition. He is an undisguised follower of
Petrarch, carrying the imitation to such a point that he addresses his
_Cants d'amor_ to a lady whom he professes to have seen first in church
on Good Friday; so far as the difference of language allows, he
reproduces the rhythmical cadences of his model, and in the _Cants de
mort_ touches a note of brooding sentiment peculiar to himself. Though
his poems are disfigured by obscurity and a monotonous morbidity, he was
fully entitled to the supremacy which he enjoyed among his
contemporaries, and the success of his innovation no doubt encouraged
Boscán to introduce the Italian metres into Castilian.
His verses were first printed in Catalan in 1543, but they had already
become known through the Castilian translation published by Baltasar
de Romani in 1539.
MARCH, FRANCIS ANDREW (1825- ), American philologist and
educationalist, was born on the 25th of October 1825 in Millbury,
Massachusetts. He graduated in 1845 at Amherst, where his attention was
turned to the study of Anglo-Saxon by Noah Webster. He was a teacher at
Swanzey, New Hampshire, and at the Leicester Academy, Massachusetts, in
1845-1847, and attempted the philological method of teaching English
"like Latin and Greek," later described in his _Method of Philological
Study of the English Language_ (1865); at Amherst in 1847-1849; at
Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1852-1855; and in 1855 became a tutor at
Lafayette College, where he became adjunct professor of belles-lettres
and English literature in 1856, and professor of English language and
comparative philology--the first chair of the kind established--in 1857.
He lectured on constitutional and public law and Roman law in 1875-1877,
and also taught subjects as diverse as botany and political economy. In
1907 he became professor emeritus. At Lafayette he introduced the first
carefully scientific study of English in any American college, and in
1870 published _A Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language, in
which its Forms are Illustrated by Those of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin,
Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Friesic, Old Norse and Old High German_, and _An
Anglo-Saxon Reader_; he was editor of the "Douglass Series of Christian
Greek and Latin Classics," to which he contributed _Latin Hymns_ (1874);
he was chairman of the Commission of the State of Pennsylvania on
Amended Orthography; and was consulting editor of the _Standard
Dictionary_, and in 1879-1882 was director of the American readers for
the Philological Society's (New Oxford) _Dictionary_. He was president
of the American Philological Association in 1873-1874 and in 1895-1896,
of the Spelling Reform Association after 1876, and of the Modern
Language Association in 1891-1893. Among American linguistic scholars
March ranks with Whitney, Child and Gildersleeve; and his studies in
English, though practically pioneer work in America, are of undoubted
value. His article "On Recent Discussions of Grimm's Law" in the
_Transactions and Proceedings_ of the American Philological Association
for 1873 in large part anticipated Verner's law. With his son, Francis
Andrew March, jun. (b. 1863), adjunct-professor of modern languages in
1884-1891 and subsequently professor of English literature at Lafayette,
he edited _A Thesaurus Dictionary of the English Language_ (1903).
See _Addresses in Honor of Professor Francis A. March, LL.D., L.H.D._,
delivered at Easton, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of October 1895.
MARCH, a market town in the Wisbech parliamentary division of
Cambridgeshire, England, 30 m. N. by W. of Cambridge. Pop. of urban
district (1901), 7565. It lies in the midst of the flat fen country, on
the old course of the river Nene. It is an important junction on the
Great Eastern railway and the starting-point of a line worked by that
company jointly with the Great Northern to Lincoln and Doncaster. The
church of St Wendreda, in Early English and later styles, is remarkable
for a magnificent Perpendicular timber roof, beautifully carved. There
are agricultural implement and engineering works, and corn mills.
MARCH, the third month of the modern calendar, containing thirty-one
days. It was the Romans' first month until the adoption of the Julian
calendar, 46 B.C., and it continued to be the beginning of the legal
year in England until the 18th century. In France it was reckoned the
first month of the year until 1564, when, by an edict of Charles IX.,
January was decreed to be thenceforth the first month. Scotland followed
the example of France in 1599; but in England the change did not take
place before 1752. The Romans called the month _Martius_, a name
supposed to have been conferred on it by Romulus in honour of his
putative father, Mars, the god of war; but Ovid declares the month to
have existed before the time of Romulus, though in a different position
in the calendar. The Anglo-Saxons called March _Hlyd-monath_, "loud or
stormy month," or _Lencten-monath_, "lengthening month," in allusion to
the fact that the days then rapidly become longer. There is an old
saying, common to both England and Scotland--which has its equivalent
among the Basques and many European peoples--representing March as
borrowing three days from April; the last three days of March being
called the "borrowing" or the "borrowed days." As late as the end of the
18th century the first three days of March were known in Devonshire as
"Blind Days," and were deemed so unlucky that no farmer would sow seed
then.
The chief festival days of March are the 1st, St David; the 12th, St
Gregory; the 17th, St Patrick; and the 25th, Lady Day, one of the
quarter days in England.
MARCH (1) (from Fr. _marcher_, to walk; the earliest sense in French
appears to be "to trample," and the origin has usually been found in the
Lat. _marcus_, hammer; Low Lat. _marcare_, to hammer; hence to beat the
road with the regular tread of a soldier: cf. "beat," of a policeman's
round), the movement of military troops with regular rhythmical steps,
often with the time marked by the beat of drum, the sound of pipes or
bugles or the music of a military band; hence the advance or movement of
a body of troops from one point to another, and the distance covered in
so doing. The word is also naturally applied to the music composed for
marching to, and to the steady regular advance or progress of
non-military bodies or persons, or of events, &c. In the military sense,
"marching" is walking in formed bodies of troops, either during drill
evolutions on parade or on the "line of march" from one place to
another. In both senses the word is used with mounted troops as well as
with dismounted men. Formerly all evolutions were carried out at the
so-called "parade-march" pace of about 75-80 paces to the minute, and in
one or two armies of the 18th century the parade step cadence was as
slow as 60. These cadences are now, however, reserved in all armies for
ceremonial occasions, and the usual manoeuvre and marching pace ("quick
march") is about 120, the "double" march pace (_pas gymnastique_) about
180. The "quick" march, translated into miles and hours, is about 3½ or
3(5/8) miles an hour in all armies, though a few special bodies of light
troops such as the Italian _Bersaglieri_ are trained to move at a much
faster rate for hours together, either by alternate "quick" and "double"
marching or by an unvarying "jog-trot." The paces recognized for cavalry
are the walk, the trot, the canter and the gallop; the usual practice on
the line of march being to alternate the walk and the trot, which
combination gives a speed of about 5 miles an hour for many hours
together. A "day's march," or more simply a "march," is usually reckoned
to be 15-16 miles for a large body of troops, a "forced" march being one
of 20 miles or over, or one in which, from whatever cause, the troops
are on foot for more than about seven hours. For large bodies of troops
the rate of movement on the line of march rarely exceeds 3 miles an
hour. The immense assistance afforded by music to marching troops has
been recognized from the earliest times of organized armies, and a great
deal of special march-music has been written for military bands,
formerly often in ¾ or 6/8 time (one bar representing one pace with the
foot), but now almost invariably in common or 2/4 time, which is more
suitable for the "quick march." The music itself is usually a
combination of simple, lively melody and well-marked accents for the
drums, with little attempt at contrapuntal writing. The fife or piccolo,
the natural bugle (in Italy and elsewhere the chromatic key-bugle is
used), and the drum are the principal instruments, the "band," as
distinct from the "drums" and "bugles," having in addition to drum and
fifes clarinets (saxophones in France and Belgium) and saxhorns of all
types. In Scottish regiments, and in a few isolated cases elsewhere,
bagpipes provide the marching music. The importance of music on the
march is attested further by the almost universal practice of singing or
whistling marching songs, and even playing them on concertinas, &c., in
the absence of the band and drums.
2. From _marche_, the French form of a common Teutonic word represented
in English by "mark" (q.v.), a boundary or frontier region between two
countries or districts. The word appears to have been first used in this
sense in the 8th century, and the earliest "mark" or "march" districts
were tracts of land on the borders of the Carolingian Empire. Wherever
Charlemagne pushed forward the frontiers of the Frankish realm he
provided for the security of his lands, new and old alike, by
establishing mark districts on the borders. The defence and oversight of
these were entrusted to special officers, afterwards called margraves,
or counts of the mark, who usually enjoyed more extensive powers than
fell to the lot of an ordinary count. It is at this time that we hear
first of the Spanish mark (_marca hispanica_) and the Bavarian mark
(_marca bajoariae_). These mark districts were practically obliterated
during the reigns of the feeble sovereigns who succeeded Charlemagne,
but the system was revived with the accession of Henry the Fowler to the
German throne early in the 10th century and with a renewal of the work
of conquering and colonizing the regions east of the Elbe, and in
eastern Germany generally. Under Henry and his son, Otto the Great,
marks were again set upon the borders of Germany, and this time the
organization was more lasting. The mark districts increased in size and
strength, especially those which fell under the dominion of an able and
energetic ruler, and some of them became powerful states, retaining the
name mark long after the original significance of the word had been
forgotten. It is interesting to note that the two most important of the
modern German states, Austria and Prussia, both had their origin in mark
districts, the mark of Brandenburg, the nucleus of the kingdom of
Prussia, being at first a border district to the east of the duchy of
Saxony, and the east mark, or mark of Austria, being a border district
of the duchy of Bavaria. In Italy march districts made their appearance
about the same time as in other parts of the Frankish Empire. The best
known of these is the march of Ancona, which with other marches and
adjoining districts, was known later as the Marches, a province lying
about the centre of Italy between the Apennines and the Adriatic Sea.
After forming part of the states of the Church the Marches were united
with the kingdom of Italy in 1860 (see MARCHES, THE).
In England in the same connexion the plural word "marches" was the form
commonly adopted, and soon after the Norman Conquest the disturbed
districts on the borders of Wales began to be known as the Welsh
marches. Lands therein were granted to powerful nobles on condition that
they undertook the defence of the neighbouring counties of England.
These lords of the marches, or lords marcher, as they were often called,
had special privileges, but they were generally so fully occupied in
fighting against each other and in seeking to increase their own wealth
and power that the original object of their appointment was entirely
forgotten. The condition of the marches grew worse and worse, and during
disturbed reigns, like those of Henry III. and Edward II., lawlessness
was rampant and rebellion was centred therein. A more satisfactory
condition of affairs, however, prevailed after the conclusion of the
Wars of the Roses; and the establishment by Henry VIII. in 1542 of a
council of Wales and the marches was followed by a notable diminution of
disorder in this region. About the time of Elizabeth the Welsh marches
ceased to have any but an historical importance. In 1328 Roger Mortimer,
a member of one of the most powerful of the marcher families, was
created earl of March (_comes de marchia Waliae_), and in the reign of
Edward III. (1354) the marches were declared to be no part of the
principality, but directly subject to the English crown. It is difficult
to define the boundaries of the Welsh marches, as their extent varied
considerably from time to time, but under Edward I. and again under the
Lancastrian kings the marcher lordships included more than half of the
area of Wales; they embraced practically the whole of the principality
except the counties of Anglesea, Carnarvon and Merioneth in the north
and Carmarthen and Cardigan in the south, together with parts of the
English border counties, Monmouth, Hereford and Shropshire.
The debateable ground between England and Scotland was also known as the
marches, although its condition began to attract the attention of the
southern kingdom somewhat later than was the case with Wales.
Arrangements were made for garrisoning them and at one time they were
divided into three sections: the east, the west, and the middle marches,
the oversight of each being entrusted to a warden. Roughly speaking,
they embraced the modern counties of Northumberland and Cumberland,
together with a tract on the Scottish side of the border. The need for
protecting them ceased soon after the accession of James VI. of Scotland
to the English throne, and they have now only an historical and
legendary significance. About 1200 Patrick de Dunbar, earl of Dunbar,
called himself earl of March, taking the name from the merse, or march,
a tract of land in Berwickshire.
In France under the _ancien régime_ there was a county of La Marche, and
in north-east Germany there was the county of La Marck, now part of the
kingdom of Prussia.
MARCHE, or LA MARCHE, one of the former provinces of France. It owes its
name to its position, it having been in the 10th century a march or
border district between the duchy of Aquitaine and the domains of the
Frankish kings in central France. Sometimes it was called the _Marche
Limousine_, and originally it was a small district cut partly from
Limousin and partly from Poitou. Its area was increased during the 13th
century, after which, however, it remained unaltered until the time of
the Revolution. It was bounded on the N. by Berry; on the E. by
Bourbonnais and Auvergne; on the S. by Limousin; and on the W. by
Poitou. It embraced the greater part of the modern department of Creuse,
a considerable part of Haute Vienne, and a fragment of Indre. Its area
was about 1900 sq. m.; its capital was Charroux and later Guéret, and
among its other principal towns were Dorat, Bellac and Confolens.
Marche first appears as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th
century when William III., duke of Aquitaine, gave it to one of his
vassals named Boso, who took the title of count. In the 12th century it
passed to the counts of Limousin, and this house retained it until the
death of the childless Count Hugh in 1303, when it was seized by the
French king, Philip IV. In 1316 it was made a duchy for Prince Charles,
afterwards King Charles IV., and a few years later (1327) it passed into
the hands of the family of Bourbon. The family of Armagnac held it from
1435 to 1477, when it reverted to the Bourbons, and in 1527 it was
seized by Francis I. and became part of the domains of the French crown.
It was divided into Haute Marche and Basse Marche, the estates of the
former being in existence until the 17th century. From 1470 until the
Revolution the province was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of
Paris.
See A. Thomas, _Les États provinciaux de la France centrale_ (1879).
MARCHE, a town of Belgium in the province of Luxemburg, 33 m. S.W. of
Liége and about 28 m. S.E. of Namur. Pop. (1904), 3540. It dates from
the 7th century, when it was the chief town of the _pagus falmiensis_,
as it still is of the same district now called Famène. Formerly it was
fortified, and a treaty was signed there in 1577 between Philip II. and
the United Provinces. In 1792 Lafayette was taken prisoner by the
Austrians in a skirmish near it.
MARCHENA, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Seville, on the
Cordova-Utrera and Marchena-La Roda railways. Pop. (1900), 12,468.
Marchena occupies a sandy valley near the river Corbones, a left-hand
territory of the Guadalquivir. Formerly it was surrounded with walls and
towers, a large portion of which still remains. Among the principal
buildings is the palace of the dukes of Arcos, within the enclosure of
which is an ancient Moorish building, now the church of Santa Maria de
la Mota. At the eastern end of the town is a sulphur spring. There is
some trade in wheat, barley, olives, oil and wine. Marchena (perhaps the
_Castra Gemina_ of Pliny) was taken from the Moors by St Ferdinand in
1240.
MARCHENA RUIZ DE CASTRO, JOSÉ (1768-1821?), Spanish author, was born at
Utrera on the 18th of November 1768 and studied with distinction at the
university of Seville. He took minor orders and was for some time
professor at the seminary of Vergara, but he became a convert to the
doctrines of the French _philosophes_, scandalizing his acquaintances by
his professions of materialism and his denunciations of celibacy. His
writings being brought before the Inquisition in 1792, Marchena escaped
to Paris, where he is said to have collaborated with Marat in _L'Ami du
peuple_; at a later date he organized a revolutionary movement at
Bayonne, returned to Paris, avowed his sympathies with the Girondists,
and refused the advances of Robespierre. He acted as editor of _L'Ami
des lois_ and other French journals till 1799, when he was expelled from
France; he succeeded, however, in obtaining employment under Moreau,
upon whose fall in 1804 he declared himself a Bonapartist. In 1808 he
accompanied Murat to Spain as private secretary; in this same year he
was imprisoned by the Inquisition, but was released by Joseph Bonaparte,
who appointed him editor of the official _Gaceta_. In 1813 Marchena
retired to Valencia, and thence to France, where he supported himself by
translating into Spanish the works of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire
and Volney. The Liberal triumph of 1820 opened Spain to him once more,
but he was coldly received by the revolutionary party. He died at
Madrid shortly before the 26th of February 1821. The interest of his
voluminous writings is almost wholly ephemeral, but they are excellent
specimens of trenchant journalism. His _Fragmentum Petronii_ (Basel,
1802), which purports to reconstruct missing passages in the current
text of Petronius, is a testimony to Marchena's fine scholarship; but,
by the irony of fate, Marchena is best known by his ode to Christ
Crucified, which breathes a spirit of profound and tender piety.
MARCHES, THE (It. _Le Marche_), a territorial division of Italy,
embracing the provinces of Pesaro and Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, and
Ascoli Piceno, with an area of 3763 sq. m., and a population of
1,088,763 in 1901. It is bounded by the Emilia on the N., the Adriatic
on the E., the Abruzzi on the S., and Umbria and Tuscany on the W. The
four provinces follow one another in the order given from north to south
and have a certain amount of coast-line. The chief rivers, all of which
run into the Adriatic eastwards and north-eastwards, are the Metauro
(anc. _Metaurus_, q.v.) and the Tronto (anc. _Truentus_), the latter
forming the southern boundary of the _compartimento_ for some distance.
Except for the river valleys and the often very narrow coast strip, the
general level is more than 500 ft. above the sea. The lower hills are
very largely composed of loose, clayey, unstable earth, while the
Apennines are of limestone. The province of Pesaro and Urbino falls
within the boundaries of the ancient Umbria (q.v.), while the territory
of the other three belonged to Picenum (q.v.). The railway from Bologna
to Brindisi runs along the coast-line of the entire territory. At Ancona
it is joined by the main line from Foligno and Rome; at Porto Civitanova
is a branch to Macerata, San Severino and Fabriano (a station on the
line from Ancona to Rome and the junction for Urbino); at Porto S.
Giorgio is a branch to Fermo and, at Porto d'Ascoli, a branch to Ascoli
Piceno. But, with the exception of the railway along the coast, there is
no communication north and south, owing to the mountainous nature of the
country, except by somewhat devious roads.
Owing largely to the _mezzadria_ or _métayer_ system, under which
products are equally divided between the owners and the cultivators of
the land, the soil is fairly highly cultivated, though naturally poor in
quality. The silk industries, making of straw-plait and straw hats,
rearing of silkworms and cocoons, with some sugar-refining, tobacco,
terra-cotta manufacture, brickworks and ironworks, furnish the chief
occupations of the people next after agriculture and pastoral pursuits.
Another important branch of activity is the paper industry, especially
at Fabriano. Chiaravalle possesses one of the largest tobacco factories
of the Italian _régie_. Limestone quarries and sulphur mines supply
building stone and sulphur to the regions of central Italy; chalk and
petroleum are also found. As regards maritime trade the province
possesses facilities in the port of Ancona (the only really good
harbour, where are also important shipbuilding works), the canal ports
of Senegallia (Sinigaglia), Pesaro, Fano and other smaller harbours
chiefly used by fishing boats. Fishing is carried on by the entire coast
population, which furnishes a large contingent of sailors to the Italian
navy.
For the early history of the territory of the Marches see PICENUM. From
the Carolingian period onwards the name Marca begins to appear--first
the Marca Fermana for the mountainous part of Picenum, the Marca
Camerinese for the district farther north, including a part of Umbria,
and the Marca Anconitana for the former Pentapolis. In 1080 the Marca
Anconitana was given in investiture to Robert Guiscard by Gregory VII.,
to whom the countess Matilda ceded the Marches of Camerino and of Fermo.
In 1105 we find the emperor Henry IV. investing Werner with the whole
territory of the three marches under the name of March of Ancona. It was
afterwards once more recovered by the Church and governed by papal
legates. It became part of the kingdom of Italy in 1860.
The pictorial art of the Marches from the 13th century onwards has
become the object of considerable interest since the important
exhibition held at Macerata in 1905, when many interesting works,
scattered all over the district in small towns and villages, were
brought together. The result was something of a revelation, for, though
the influence of Umbria was always considerable, there were many
independent elements (see F. M. Perkins in _Rassegna d' Arte_, 1906, 49
sqq.). (T. As.)
MARCHMONT, EARLS OF. The 1st earl of Marchmont was Sir Patrick Hume or
Home (1641-1724), son of Sir Patrick Hume, bart. (d. 1648), of Polwarth,
Berwickshire, and a descendant of another Sir Patrick Hume, a supporter
of the Reformation in Scotland. A member of the same family was
Alexander Hume (c. 1560-1609), the Scottish poet, whose _Hymns and
Sacred Songs_ were published in 1599 (new ed. 1832). Polwarth, as
Patrick Hume was usually called, became a member of the Scottish
parliament in 1665. Here he was active in opposing the harsh policy of
the earl of Lauderdale towards the Covenanters, and for his contumacy he
was imprisoned. After his release he went to London, where he associated
himself with the duke of Monmouth. Suspected of complicity in the Rye
House plot, he remained for a time in hiding and then crossed over to
the Netherlands, where he took part in the deliberations of Monmouth,
the earl of Argyll and other exiles about the projected invasion of
Great Britain. Although he appeared to distrust Argyll, Polwarth sailed
to Scotland with him in 1685, and after the failure of the rising he
escaped to Utrecht, where he lived in great poverty until 1688. He
accompanied William of Orange to England, and in 1689 he was again a
member of the Scottish parliament. In 1690 he was made a peer as Lord
Polwarth; in 1696 he became lord high chancellor of Scotland, and in
1697 was created earl of Marchmont. When Anne became queen in 1702 he
was deprived of the chancellorship. He died on the 2nd of August 1724.
His son Alexander, the 2nd earl (1676-1740), took the name of Campbell
instead of Hume after his marriage in 1697 with Margaret, daughter and
heiress of Sir George Campbell of Cessnock, Ayrshire. He was a lord of
session from 1704 to 1714; ambassador to Denmark from 1715 to 1721, and
lord clerk register from 1716 to 1733. His son Hugh Hume, 3rd earl
(1708-1794), who entered parliament in 1734 at the same time as his twin
brother Alexander (d. 1756), afterwards lord clerk register of Scotland,
was keeper of the great seal of Scotland, one of Bolingbroke's most
intimate friends and one of Pope's executors. His two sons having
predeceased their father, the earldom became dormant, Marchmont House,
Berwickshire, and the estates passing to Sir Hugh Purves, bart., a
descendant of the 2nd earl, who took the name of Hume-Campbell. The 3rd
earl had, however, three daughters, one of whom, Diana (d. 1827),
married Walter Scott of Harden, Berwickshire; and in 1835 her son Hugh
Hepburne-Scott (1758-1841) successfully claimed the Scottish barony of
Polwarth. In 1867 his grandson, Walter Hugh (b. 1838), became 6th Lord
Polwarth.
See _The Marchmont Papers_, ed. Sir G. H. Rose (1831).
MARCHPANE, or MARZIPAN, a sweetmeat made of sweet almonds and sugar
pounded and worked into a paste, and moulded into various shapes, or
used in the icing of cakes, &c. The best marchpane comes from Germany,
that from Königsberg being celebrated. The origin of the word has been
much discussed. It is common in various forms in most European
languages, Romanic or Teutonic; Italian has _marzapane_, French
_massepain_, and German _marzipan_, which has in English to some extent
superseded the true English form "marchpane." Italian seems to have been
the source from which the word passed into other languages. In Johann
Burchard's _Diarium curiae romanae_ (1483-1492) the Latin form appears
as _martiapanis_ (Du Cange, _Glossarium_ s.v.), and Minshseu explains
the word as _Martius Panis_, bread of Mars, from the "towers, castles
and such like" that appeared on elaborate works of the confectioner's
art made of this sweatmeat. Another derivation is that from Gr. [Greek:
maza], barley cake, and Lat. _panis_. A connexion has been sought with
the name of a Venetian coin, _matapanus_ (Du Cange, s.v.), on which was
a figure of Christ enthroned, struck by Enrico Dandolo, doge of Venice
(1192-1205). From the coin the word was applied to a small box, and
hence apparently to the sweetmeat contained in it.
MARCIAN (c. 390-457), emperor of the East (450-457), was born in Thrace
or Illyria, and spent his early life as an obscure soldier. He
subsequently served for nineteen years under Ardaburius and Aspar, and
took part in the wars against the Persians and Vandals. Through the
influence of these generals he became a captain of the guards, and was
later raised to the rank of tribune and senator. On the death of
Theodosius II. he was chosen as consort by the latter's sister and
successor, Pulcheria, and called upon to govern an empire greatly
humbled and impoverished by the ravages of the Huns. Marcian repudiated
the payment of tribute to Attila; he reformed the finances, checked
extravagance, and repeopled the devastated districts. He repelled
attacks upon Syria and Egypt (452), and quelled disturbances on the
Armenian frontier (456). The other notable event of his reign is the
Council of Chalcedon (451), in which Marcian endeavoured to mediate
between the rival schools of theology.
See Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (ed. Bury,
London, 1896), iii. 384, iv. 444-445; J. Bury, _The Later Roman
Empire_ (London, 1889), i. 135-136.
MARCIANUS (c. A.D. 400), Greek geographer, was born at Heraclea in
Pontus. Two of his works have been preserved in a more or less mutilated
condition. In the first, the _Periplus of the Outer Sea_, in two books,
in which he proposed to give a complete description of the coasts of the
eastern and western oceans, his chief authority is Ptolemy; the
distances from one point to another are given in stades, with the object
of rendering the work easier for the ordinary student. In this he
follows Protagoras, who, according to Photius (cod. 188), wrote a sketch
of geography in six books. The work contains nothing that cannot be
learned from Ptolemy, whom he follows in calling the promontory of the
Novantae (_Mull of Galloway_) the most northern point of Britain.
Improving on Ptolemy, he makes the island of Taprobane (_Ceylon_) twenty
times as large as it is in reality. The second, the _Periplus of the
Inner Sea_ (the Mediterranean), is a meagre epitome of a similar work by
Menippus of Pergamum, who lived during the times of Augustus and
Tiberius. It contains a description of the southern coast of the Euxine
from the Thracian Bosporus to the river Iris in Pontus. A few fragments
remain of an epitome by Marcianus of the eleven books of the
_Geographumena_ of Artemidorus of Ephesus.
See J. Hudson, _Geographiae veteris scriptores graeci minores_, vol.
i. (1698), with Dodwell's dissertation; C. W. Müller, _Geographici
graeci minores_, vol. i. pp. cxxix., 515-573; E. Miller, _Périple de
Marcien d'Héraclée_ (1839); S. F. G. Hoffmann, _Marciani Periplus_
(1841); E. H. Bunbury, _Hist. of Ancient Geography_ (1879), ii. 660;
A. Forbiger, _Handbuch der alten Geographie_, vol. i. (1842).
MARCION and THE MARCIONITE CHURCHES. In the period between 130 and 180
A.D. the varied and complicated Christian fellowships in the Roman Empire
crystallized into close and mutually exclusive societies--churches with
fixed constitutions and creeds, schools with distinctive esoteric
doctrines, associations for worship with peculiar mysteries, and ascetic
sects with special rules of conduct. Of ecclesiastical organizations the
most important, next to Catholicism, was the Marcionite community. Like
the Catholic Church, this body professed to comprehend everything
belonging to Christianity. It admitted all believers without distinction
of age, sex, rank or culture. It was no mere school for the learned,
disclosed no mysteries for the privileged, but sought to lay the
foundation of the Christian community on the pure gospel, the authentic
institutes of Christ. The pure gospel, however, Marcion found to be
everywhere more or less corrupted and mutilated in the Christian circles
of his time. His undertaking thus resolved itself into a reformation of
Christendom. This reformation was to deliver Christendom from false
Jewish doctrines by restoring the Pauline conception of the gospel,--Paul
being, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood
the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ. In Marcion's own
view, therefore, the founding of his church--to which he was first driven
by opposition--amounts to a reformation of Christendom through a return
to the gospel of Christ and to Paul; nothing was to be accepted beyond
that. This of itself shows that it is a mistake to reckon Marcion among
the Gnostics. A dualist he certainly was, but he was not a Gnostic. For
he ascribed salvation, not to "knowledge" but to "faith"; he appealed
openly to the whole Christian world; and he nowhere consciously added
foreign elements to the revelation given through Christ. It is true that
in many features his Christian system--if we may use the
expression--resembles the so-called Gnostic systems; but the first duty
of the historian is to point out what Marcion plainly aimed at; only in
the second place have we to inquire how far the result corresponded with
those purposes.
The doctrines of Marcion and the history of his churches from the 2nd
to the 7th century are known to us from the controversial works of the
Catholic fathers. From Justin onwards, almost every eminent Church
teacher takes some notice of Marcion, while very many write extensive
treatises against him. The most important of those which have come
down to us are the controversial pieces of Irenaeus (in his great work
against heretics), Tertullian (_Adv. Marc._ i.-v.), Hippolytus,
Pseudo-Origen Adamantius, Epiphanius, and the Armenian Esnik.[1] From
these works the contents of the Marcionite Gospel, and also the text
of Paul's epistles in Marcion's recension, can be settled with
tolerable accuracy. His opponents, moreover, have preserved some
expressions of his, with extracts from his principal work; so that our
knowledge of Marcion's views is in part derived from the best sources.
Marcion was a wealthy shipowner, belonging to Sinope in Pontus. He
appears to have been a convert from Paganism to Christianity, although
it was asserted in later times that his father had been a bishop. That
report is probably as untrustworthy as another, that he was
excommunicated from the Church for seducing a virgin. What we know for
certain is that after the death of Hyginus, bishop of Rome (or c. 139
A.D.), he arrived, in the course of his travels, at Rome, and made a
handsome donation of money to the local church. Even then, however, the
leading features of his peculiar system must have been already thought
out. At Rome he tried to gain acceptance for them in the college of
presbyters and in the church; indeed he had previously made similar
attempts in Asia Minor. But he now encountered such determined
opposition from the majority of the congregation that he found it
necessary to withdraw from the great church and establish in Rome a
community of his own. This was about the year 144. The new society
increased in the two following decades; and very soon numerous
sister-churches were flourishing in the east and west of the empire.
Marcion took up his residence permanently in Rome, but still undertook
journeys for the propagation of his opinions. In Rome he became
acquainted with the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo, whose speculations influenced
the development of the Marcionite theology. Still Marcion seems never to
have abandoned his design of gaining over the whole Church to his
gospel. The proof of this is found, partly in the fact that he tried to
establish relations with Polycarp of Smyrna, from whom he got a sharp
rebuff, partly in a legend to the effect that towards the end of his
life he sought readmission to the Church. Such, presumably, was the
construction put in after times on his earnest endeavour to unite
Christians on the footing of the "pure gospel." When he died is not
known, but his death can scarcely have been much later than the year
165.
The distinctive teaching of Marcion originated in a comparison of the
Old Testament with the gospel of Christ and the theology of the apostle
Paul. Its motive was not cosmological or metaphysical, but religious and
historical. In the gospel he found a God revealed who is goodness and
love, and who desires faith and love from men. This God he could not
discover in the Old Testament; on the contrary, he saw there the
revelation of a just, stern, jealous, wrathful and variable God, who
requires from his servants blind obedience, fear and outward
righteousness. Overpowered by the majesty and novelty of the Christian
message of salvation, too conscientious to rest satisfied with the
ordinary attempts at the solution of difficulties, while prevented by
the limitations of his time from reaching an historical insight into the
relation of Christianity to the Old Testament and to Judaism, he
believed that he expressed Paul's view by the hypothesis of two Gods:
the just God of the law (the God of the Jews, who is also the Creator of
the world), and the good God, the Father of Jesus Christ. Paradoxes in
the history of religion and revelation which Paul draws out, and which
Marcion's contemporaries passed by as utterly incomprehensible, are here
made the foundation of an ethico-dualistic conception of history and of
religion. It may be said that in the 2nd century only one
Christian--Marcion--took the trouble to understand Paul; but it must be
added that he misunderstood him. The profound reflections of the apostle
on the radical antithesis of law and gospel, works and faith, were not
appreciated in the 2nd century. Marcion alone perceived their decisive
religious importance, and with them confronted the legalizing, and in
this sense judaizing, tendencies of his Christian contemporaries. But
the Pauline ideas lost their truth under his treatment; for, when it is
denied that the God of redemption is at the same time the almighty Lord
of heaven and earth, the gospel is turned upside down.
The assumption of two Gods necessarily led to cosmological speculations.
Under the influence of Cerdo, Marcion carried out his ethical dualism in
the sphere of cosmology; but the fact that his system is not free from
contradictions is the best proof that all along religious knowledge, and
not philosophical, had the chief values in his eyes. The main outlines
of his teaching are as follows. Man is, in spirit, soul and body, a
creature of the just and wrathful god. This god created man from [Greek:
ulê] (matter),[2] and imposed on him a strict law. Since no one could
keep this law, the whole human race fell under the curse, temporal and
eternal, of the Demiurge. Then a higher God, hitherto unknown, and
concealed even from the Demiurge, took pity on the wretched, condemned
race of men. He sent his Son (whom Marcion probably regarded as a
manifestation of the supreme God Himself)[3] down to this earth in order
to redeem men. Clothed in a visionary body, in the likeness of a man of
thirty years old, the Son made his appearance in the fifteenth year of
Tiberius, and preached in the synagogue at Capernaum. But none of the
Jewish people understood him. Even the disciples whom he chose did not
recognize his true nature, but mistook him for the Messiah promised by
the Demiurge through the prophets, who as warrior and king was to come
and set up the Jewish empire. The Demiurge himself did not suspect who
the stranger was; nevertheless he became angry with him, and, although
Jesus had punctually fulfilled his law, caused him to be nailed to the
cross. By that act, however, he pronounced his own doom. For the risen
Christ appeared before him in his glory, and charged him with having
acted contrary to his own law. To make amends for this crime, the
Demiurge had now to deliver up to the good God the souls of those who
were to be redeemed; they are, as it were, purchased from him by the
death of Christ. Christ then proceeded to the underworld to deliver the
spirits of the departed. It was not the Old Testament saints, however,
but only sinners and malefactors like Cain, Esau and Saul, who obeyed
his summons. The prophets and patriarchs, having been often deceived by
the Demiurge, suspected a trick and would not avail themselves of the
promised salvation, remaining content with the bliss of being in
Abraham's bosom. Then, to gain the living, Christ raised up Paul as his
apostle. He alone understood the gospel, and recognized the difference
between the just God and the good. Accordingly, he opposed the original
apostles with their Judaistic doctrines, and founded small congregations
of true Christians. But the preaching of the false Jewish Christians
gained the upper hand; nay, they even falsified the evangelical oracles
and the letters of Paul. Marcion himself was the next raised up by the
good God, to proclaim once more the true gospel. This he did by setting
aside the spurious gospels, purging the real gospel (the Gospel of Luke)
from supposed judaizing interpolations, and restoring the true text of
the Pauline epistles.[4] He likewise composed a book, called the
_Antitheses_,[5] in which he proved the disparity of the two Gods, from
a comparison of the Old Testament with the evangelical writings.
On the basis of these writings Marcion proclaimed the true Christianity,
and founded churches. He taught that all who put their trust in the good
God, and his crucified Son, renounce their allegiance to the Demiurge,
and approve themselves by good works of love, shall be saved. But he
taught further--and here we trace the influence of the current
gnosticism on Marcion--that only the spirit of man is saved by the good
God; the body, because material, perishes. Accordingly his ethics also
were thoroughly dualistic. By the "works of the Demiurge," which the
Christian is to flee, he meant the whole "service of the perishable."
The Christian must shun everything sensual, and especially marriage, and
free himself from the body by strict asceticism. The original ethical
contrast of "good" and "just" is thus transformed into the cosmological
contrast of "spirit" and "matter." The good God appears as the god of
spirit, the Old Testament God as the god of matter. That is Gnosticism;
but it is at the same time illogical. For, since, according to Marcion,
the spirit of man is derived, not from the good, but from the just God,
it is impossible to see why the spiritual should yet be more closely
related to the good God than the material. There is yet another
direction in which the system ends with a contradiction. According to
Marcion, the good God never judges, but everywhere manifests His
goodness--is, therefore, not to be feared, but simply to be loved, as a
father. But here the question occurs, What becomes of the men who do not
believe the gospel? Marcion answers, The good God does not judge them,
but merely removes them from His presence. Then they fall under the
power of the Demiurge, who--rewards them for their fidelity? No, says
Marcion, but on the contrary--punishes them in his hell! The
contradiction here is palpable; and at the same time the antithesis of
"just" and "good" ultimately vanishes. For the Demiurge now appears as
an inferior being, who in reality executes the purposes of the good God.
It is plain that dualism here terminates in the idea of the sole
supremacy of the good God.
It is not surprising, therefore, that even in the 2nd century the
disciples of Marcion diverged in several directions. Rigorous
asceticism, the rejection of the Old Testament, and the recognition of
the "new God" remained common to all Marcionites, who, moreover, like
the Catholics, lived together in close communities ruled by bishops and
presbyters (although their constitution was originally very loose, and
sought to avoid every appearance of "legality"). Some, however, accepted
three first principles (the evil, the just, the good); others held by
two, but regarded the Demiurge as the god of evil, i.e. the devil; while
a third party, like Apelles, the most distinguished of Marcion's pupils,
saw in the Demiurge only an apostate angel of the good God--thus
returning to monotheism. The golden age of the Marcionite churches falls
between the years 150 and 250. During that time they were really
dangerous to the great Church; for in fact they maintained certain
genuine Christian ideas, which the Catholic Church had forgotten. The
earliest inscription (A.D. 318) on a Christian place of worship is
Marcionite, and was found on a stone which had stood over the doorway of
a house in a Syrian village. From the beginning of the 4th century they
began to die out in the West, or rather they fell a prey to Manichaeism.
In the East also many Marcionites went over to the Manichaeans; but
there they survived much longer. They can be traced down to the 7th
century, and then they seem to vanish. But it was unquestionably from
Marcionite impulses that the new sects of the Paulicians and Bogomils
arose; and in so far as the western Cathari, and the antinomian and
anticlerical sects of the 13th century are connected with these, they
also may be included in the history of Marcionitism.
See A. Harnack, _History of Dogma_, i. 266, 286; F. Loofs,
_Dogmengeschichte_ pp. 111-114; G. Krüger, _Early Christian
Literature_, and art. in Hauck-Herzog's _Realencyklopädie für prot.
Theol. und Kirche_, xii.; F. J. Foakes Jackson's _Christian
Difficulties of the Second and Twentieth Centuries_, is a study of
Marcion and his relation to modern thought. (A. Ha.)