Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "G" to "Gaskell, Elizabeth" / Volume 11, Slice 4 Papyras Classics

← Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "G" to "Gaskell, Elizabeth" / Volume 11, Slice 4

Chapter 1

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "G" to "Gaskell, Elizabeth" (part 1)

The Encyclopædia Britannica

A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information

Eleventh Edition

Articles in This Slice

G GALLUPPI, PASQUALE

GABBRO GALLUS, CORNELIUS

GABEL, KRISTOFFER GALLUS, GAIUS AELIUS

GABELENTZ, HANS CONON VON DER GALLUS, GAIUS CESTIUS

GABELLE GALLUS, GAIUS SULPICIUS

GABERDINE GALOIS, EVARISTE

GABES GALSTON

GABII GALT, SIR ALEXANDER TILLOCH

GABINIUS, AULUS GALT, JOHN

GABION GALT

GABLE GALTON, SIR FRANCIS

GABLER, GEORG ANDREAS GALUPPI, BALDASSARE

GABLER, JOHANN PHILIPP GALVANI, LUIGI

GABLETS GALVANIZED IRON

GABLONZ GALVANOMETER

GABORIAU, ÉMILE GALVESTON

GABRIEL GALWAY (county of Ireland)

GABRIEL HOUNDS GALWAY (town of Ireland)

GABRIELI, GIOVANNI GAMA, VASCO DA

GABUN GAMALIEL

GACE BRULÉ GAMBETTA, LÉON

GACHARD, LOUIS PROSPER GAMBIA (river of West Africa)

GAD GAMBIA (country of West Africa)

GADAG GAMBIER, JAMES GAMBIER,

GADARA GAMBIER

GADDI GAMBOGE

GADE, NIELS WILHELM GAMBRINUS

GADOLINIUM GAME

GADSDEN, CHRISTOPHER GAME LAWS

GADSDEN, JAMES GAMES, CLASSICAL

GADWALL GAMING AND WAGERING

GAEKWAR GAMUT

GAETA GANDAK

GAETANI GANDAMAK

GAETULIA GANDERSHEIM

GAGE, LYMAN JUDSON GANDHARVA

GAGE, THOMAS GANDÍA

GAGE GANDO

GAGERN, HANS CHRISTOPH ERNST GANESA

GAHANBAR GANGES

GAIGNIÈRES, FRANÇOIS ROGER DE GANGOTRI

GAIL, JEAN BAPTISTE GANGPUR

GAILLAC GANGRENE

GAILLARD, GABRIEL HENRI GANILH, CHARLES

GAINESVILLE (Florida, U.S.A.) GANJAM

GAINESVILLE (Texas, U.S.A.) GANNAL, JEAN NICOLAS

GAINSBOROUGH, THOMAS GANNET

GAINSBOROUGH GANODONTA

GAIRDNER, JAMES GANS, EDUARD

GAIRLOCH GÄNSBACHER, JOHANN BAPTIST

GAISERIC GANTÉ

GAISFORD, THOMAS GANYMEDE

GAIUS GAO

GAIUS CAESAR GAOL

GALAGO GAON

GALANGAL GAP

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS GAPAN

GALASHIELS GARARISH

GALATIA GARASHANIN, ILIYA

GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE GARAT, DOMINIQUE JOSEPH

GALATINA GARAT, PIERRE-JEAN

GALATZ GARAY, JÁNOS

GALAXY GARBLE

GALBA, SERVIUS SULPICIUS (Roman general and orator) GARÇÃO, PEDRO ANTONIO JOAQUIM CORRÊA

GALBA, SERVIUS SULPICIUS (Roman emperor) GARCIA (DEL POPOLO VICENTO), MANOEL

GALBANUM GARCÍA DE LA HUERTA, VICENTE ANTONIO

GALCHAS GARCÍA DE PAREDES, DIEGO

GALE, THEOPHILUS GARCÍA GUTIÉRREZ, ANTONIO

GALE, THOMAS GARD

GALE GARDA, LAKE OF

GALEN, CHRISTOPH BERNHARD GARDANE, CLAUDE MATTHIEU

GALEN, CLAUDIUS GARDELEGEN

GALENA (Illinois, U.S.A.) GARDEN

GALENA (Kansas, U.S.A.) GARDENIA

GALENA (ore of lead) GARDINER, JAMES

GALEOPITHECUS GARDINER, SAMUEL RAWSON

GALERIUS GARDINER, STEPHEN

GALESBURG GARDINER

GALGĀCUS GARDNER, PERCY

GALIANI, FERDINANDO GARDNER

GALICIA (crownland of Austria) GARE-FOWL

GALICIA (province of Spain) GARFIELD, JAMES ABRAM

GALIGNANI, GIOVANNI ANTONIO GAR-FISH

GALILEE (province of Palestine) GARGANEY

GALILEE (architectural term) GARGANO, MONTE

GALILEE, SEA OF GARGOYLE

GALILEO GALILEI GARHWAL

GALION GARIBALDI, GIUSEPPE

GALL, FRANZ JOSEPH GARIN LE LOHERAIN

GALL GARLAND, JOHN

GALLABAT GARLIC

GALLAIT, LOUIS GARNET, HENRY

GALLAND, ANTOINE GARNET

GALLARATE GARNETT, RICHARD

GALLARS, NICOLAS DES GARNIER, CLÉMENT JOSEPH

GALLAS, MATTHIAS GARNIER, GERMAIN

GALLAS GARNIER, JEAN LOUIS CHARLES

GALLATIN, ALBERT GARNIER, MARIE JOSEPH FRANÇOIS

GALLAUDET, THOMAS HOPKINS GARNIER, ROBERT

GALLE GARNIER-PAGÈS, ÉTIENNE JOSEPH LOUIS

GALLENGA, ANTONIO CARLO NAPOLEONE GARNISH

GALLERY GARO HILLS

GALLEY GARONNE

GALLIA CISALPINA GARRET

GALLIC ACID GARRETT, JOÃO BAPTISTA DA SILVA LEITÃO DE ALMEIDA

GALLICANISM GARRETTING

GALLIENI, JOSEPH SIMON GARRICK, DAVID

GALLIENUS, PUBLIUS LICINIUS EGNATIUS GARRISON, WILLIAM LLOYD

GALLIFFET, GASTON ALEXANDRE AUGUSTE GARRISON

GALLIO, JUNIUS ANNAEUS GARROTE

GALLIPOLI (Italy) GARRUCHA

GALLIPOLI (Turkey) GARSTON

GALLIPOLIS GARTH, SIR SAMUEL

GALLITZIN, DEMETRIUS AUGUSTINE GARTOK

GALLIUM GARY

GALLON GAS

GALLOWAY, JOSEPH GASCOIGNE, GEORGE

GALLOWAY, THOMAS GASCOIGNE, SIR WILLIAM

GALLOWAY GASCONY

GALLOWS GAS ENGINE

GALLS GASKELL, ELIZABETH CLEGHORN


G The form of this letter which is familiar to us is an invention of the Romans, who had previously converted the third symbol of the alphabet into a representative of a k-sound (see C). Throughout the whole of Roman history C remained as the symbol for G in the abbreviations C and Cn. for the proper names Gaius and Gnaeus. According to Plutarch (Roman Questions, 54, 59) the symbol for G was invented by Spurius Carvilius Ruga about 293 B.C. This probably means that he was the first person to spell his cognomen RVGA instead of RVCA. G came to occupy the seventh place in the Roman alphabet which had earlier been taken by Z, because between 450 B.C. and 350 B.C. the z-sounds of Latin passed into r, names like Papisius and Fusius in that period becoming Papirius and Furius (see Z), so that the letter z had become superfluous. According to the late writer Martianus Capella z was removed from the alphabet by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 B.C. To Claudius the insertion of G into the alphabet is also sometimes ascribed.

In the earliest form the difference from C is very slight, the lower lip of the crescent merely rising up in a straight line , but and are found also in republican times. In the earliest Roman inscription which was found in the Forum in 1899 the form is written from right to left, but the hollow at the bottom lip of the crescent is an accidental pit in the stone and not a diacritical mark. The unvoiced sound in this inscription is represented by K. The use of the new form was not firmly established till after the middle of the 3rd century B.C.

In the Latin alphabet the sound was always the voiced stop (as in gig) in classical times. Later, before e, g passed into a sound like the English y, so that words begin indifferently with g or j; hence from the Lat. generum (accusative) and Ianuarium we have in Ital. genero and Gennajo, Fr. gendre and janvier. In the ancient Umbrian dialect g had made this change between vowels before the Christian era, the inhabitant of Iguvium (the modern Gubbio) being in the later form of his native speech Iuvins, Lat. Iguvinus. In most cases in Mid. Eng. also g passed into a y sound; hence the old prefix ge of the past participle appears only as y in yclept and the like. But ng and gg took a different course, the g becoming an affricate dẓ (dzh), as in singe, ridge, sedge, which in English before 1500 were senge, rigge, segge, and in Scotch are still pronounced sing, rig, seg. The affricate in words like gaol is of French origin (geôle), from a Late Lat. gabiola, out of caveola, a diminutive of the Lat. cavea.

The composite origin of English makes it impossible to lay down rules for the pronunciation of English g; thus there are in the language five words Gill, three of which have the g hard, while two have it soft: viz. (1) gill of a fish, (2) gill, a ravine, both of which are Norse, and (3) Gill, the surname, which is mostly Gaelic = White; and (4) gill a liquid measure, from O. Fr. gelle, Late Lat. gella in the same sense, and (5) Gill, a girl’s name, shortened from Gillian, Juliana (see Skeat’s Etymological Dictionary). No one of these words is of native origin; otherwise the initial g would have changed to y, as in Eng. yell from the O. Eng. gellan, giellan.

(P. Gi.)


GABBRO, in petrology, a group of plutonic basic rocks, holocrystalline and usually rather coarse-grained, consisting essentially of a basic plagioclase felspar and one or more ferromagnesian minerals (such as augite, hornblende, hypersthene and olivine). The name was given originally in north Italy to certain coarsely crystalline dark green rocks, some of which are true gabbros, while others are serpentines. The gabbros are the plutonic or deep-seated representatives of the dolerites, basalts and diabases (also of some varieties of andesite) with which they agree closely in mineral composition, but not in minute structure. Of their minerals felspar Is usually the most abundant, and is principally labradorite and bytownite, though anorthite occurs in some, while oligoclase and orthoclase have been found in others. The felspar is sometimes very clear and fresh, its crystals being for the most part short and broad, with rather irregular or rounded outlines. Albite twinning is very frequent, but in these rocks it is often accompanied by pericline twinning by which the broad or narrow albite plates are cut transversely by many thin, bright and dark bars as seen in polarized light. Equally characteristic of the gabbros is the alteration of the felspars to cloudy, semi-opaque masses of saussurite. These are compact, tough, devoid of cleavage, and have a waxy lustre and usually a greenish-white colour. When this substance can be resolved by the microscope it proves to consist usually of zoisite or epidote, with garnet and albite, but mixed with it are also chlorite, amphibole, serpentine, prehnite, sericite and other minerals. The augite is usually brown, but greenish, violet and colourless varieties may occur. Hypersthene, when present, is often strikingly pleochroic in colours varying from pink to bright green. It weathers readily to platy-pseudomorphs of bastite which are soft and yield low polarization colours. The olivine is colourless in itself, but in most cases is altered to green or yellow serpentine, often with bands of dark magnetite granules along its cleavages and cracks. Hornblende when primary is often brown, and may surround augite or be perthitically intergrown with it; original green hornblende probably occurs also, though it is more frequently secondary. Dark-brown biotite, although by no means an important constituent of these rocks, occurs in many of them. Quartz is rare, but is occasionally seen intergrown with felspar as micropegmatite. Among the accessory minerals may be mentioned apatite, magnetite, ilmenite, picotite and garnet.

A peculiar feature, repeated so constantly in many of the minerals of these rocks as to be almost typical of them, is the occurrence of small black or dark brown enclosures often regularly arranged parallel to certain crystallographic planes. Reflection of light from the surfaces of these minute enclosures produces a shimmering or Schiller. In augite or hypersthene the effect is that the surface of the mineral has a bronzy sub-metallic appearance, and polished plates seen at a definite angle yield a bright coppery-red reflection, but polished sections of the felspars may exhibit a brilliant play of colours, as is well seen in the Labrador spar, which is used as an ornamental or semi-precious stone. In olivine the black enclosures are not thin laminae, but branching growths resembling pieces of moss. The phenomenon is known as “schillerization”; its origin has been much discussed, some holding that it is secondary, while others regard these enclosures as original.

In many gabbros there is a tendency to a centric arrangement of the minerals, the first crystallized forming nuclei around which the others grow. Thus magnetite, apatite and picotite, with olivine, may be enclosed in augite, hornblende, and hypersthene, sometimes with a later growth of biotite, while the felspars occupy the interspaces between the clusters of ferromagnesian minerals. In some cases there are borders around olivine consisting of fibrous hornblende or tremolite and rhombic pyroxene (kelyphitic or ocellar structures); spinels and garnet may occur in this zone, and as it is developed most frequently where olivine is in contact with felspar it may be due to a chemical resorption at a late stage in the solidification of the rock. In some gabbros and norites reaction rims of fibrous hornblende are found around both hypersthene and diallage where these are in contact with felspar. Typical orbicular structure such as characterizes some granites and diorites is rare in the gabbros, though it has been observed in a few instances in Norway, California, &c.

In a very large number of the rocks of this group the plagioclase felspar has crystallized in large measure before the pyroxene, and is enveloped by it in ophitic manner exactly as occurs in the diabases. When these rocks become fine-grained they pass gradually into ophitic diabase and dolerite; only very rarely does olivine enclose felspar in this way. A fluxion structure or flow banding also can be observed in some of the rocks of this series, and is characterized by the occurrence of parallel sinuous bands of dark colour, rich in ferromagnesian minerals, and of lighter shades in which felspars predominate.

These basic holocrystalline rocks form a large and numerous class which can be subdivided into many groups according to their mineral composition; if we take it that typical gabbro consists of plagioclase and augites or diallage, norite of plagioclase and hypersthene, and troctolite of plagioclase and olivine, we must add to these olivine-gabbro and olivine-norite in which that mineral occurs in addition to those enumerated above. Hornblende-gabbros are distinctly rare, except when the hornblende has been developed from pyroxene by pressure and shearing, but many rocks may be described as hornblende- or biotite-bearing gabbro and norite, when they contain these ingredients in addition to the normal minerals plagioclase, augite and hypersthene. We may recognize also quartz-gabbro and quartz-norite (containing primary quartz or micropegmatite) and orthoclase-gabbro (with a little orthoclase). The name eucrite has been given to gabbros in which the felspar is mainly anorthite; many of them also contain hypersthene or enstatite and olivine, while allivalites are anorthite-olivine rocks in which the two minerals occur in nearly equal proportions; harrisites have preponderating olivine, anorthite felspar and a little pyroxene. In areas of gabbro there are often masses consisting nearly entirely of a single mineral, for example, felspar rocks (anorthosites), augite or hornblende rocks (pyroxenites and hornblendites) and olivine rocks (dunites or peridotites). Segregations of iron ores, such as ilmenite, usually with pyroxene or olivine, occur in association with some gabbro and anorthosite masses.

Some gabbros are exceedingly coarse-grained and consist of individual crystals several inches in length; such a type often form dikes or veins in serpentine or gabbro, and may be called gabbro-pegmatite. Very fine-grained gabbros, on the other hand, have been distinguished as beerbachites. Still more common is the occurrence of sheared, foliated or schistose forms of gabbro. In these the minerals have a parallel arrangement, the felspars are often broken down by pressure into a mosaic of irregular grains, while greenish fibrous or bladed amphibole takes the place of pyroxene and olivine. The diallage may be present as rounded or oval crystals around which the crushed felspar has flowed (augen-gabbro); or the whole rock may have a well-foliated structure (hornblende-schists and amphibolites). Very often a mass of normal gabbro with typical igneous character passes at its margins or along localized zones into foliated rocks of this kind, and every transition can be found between the different types. Some authors believe that the development of saussurite from felspar is also dependent on pressure rather than on weathering, and an analogous change may affect the olivine, replacing it by talc, chlorite, actinolite and garnet. Rocks showing changes of the latter type have been described from Switzerland under the name allalinites.

Rocks of the gabbro group, though perhaps not so common nor occurring in so great masses as granites, are exceedingly widespread. In Great Britain, for example, there are areas of gabbro in Shetland, Aberdeenshire, and other parts of the Highlands, Ayrshire, the Lizard (Cornwall), Carrock Fell (Cumberland) and St David’s (Wales). Most of these occur along with troctolites, norites, serpentine and peridotite. In Skye an interesting group of fresh olivine-gabbros is found in the Cuillin Hills; here also peridotites occur and there are sills and dikes of olivine-dolerite, while a great series of basaltic lavas and ash beds marks the site of volcanic outbursts in early Tertiary time. In this case it is clearly seen that the gabbros are the deep-seated and slowly crystallized representatives of the basalts which were poured out at the surfaces, and the dolerites which consolidated in fissures. The older gabbros of Britain, such as those of the Lizard, Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire, are often more or less foliated and show a tendency to pass into hornblende-schists and amphibolites. In Germany gabbros are well known in the Harz Mountains, Saxony, the Odenwald and the Black Forest. Many outcrops of similar rocks have been traced in the northern zones of the Alps, often with serpentine and hornblende-schist. They occupy considerable tracts of country in Norway and Sweden, as for instance in the vicinity of Bergen. The Pyrenees, Ligurian Alps, Dauphiné and Tuscany are other European localities for gabbro. In Canada great portions of the eastern portion of the Dominion are formed of gabbros, norite, anorthosite and allied rock types. In the United States gabbros and norites occur near Baltimore and near Peekskill on the Hudson river. As a rule each of these occurrences contains a diversity of petrographical types, which appear also in certain of the others; but there is often a well-marked individuality about the rocks of the various districts in which gabbros are found.

From an economic standpoint gabbros are not of great importance. They are used locally for building and for road-metal, but are too dark in colour, too tough and difficult to dress, to be popular as building stones, and, though occasionally polished, are not to be compared for beauty with the serpentines and the granites. Segregations of iron ores are found in connexion with many of them (Norway and Sweden) and are sometimes mined as sources of the metal.

Chemically the gabbros are typical rocks of the basic subdivision and show the characters of that group in the clearest way. They have low silica, much iron and magnesia, and the abundance of lime distinguishes them in a marked fashion from both the granites and the peridotites. A few analyses of well-known gabbros are cited here.

SiO2 TiO2 Ab2O3 FeO Fe2O3 MgO CaO Na2O K2O H2O

I. 49.63 1.75 16.18 12.03 1.92 5.38 9.33 1.89 0.81 0.55

II. 49.90 .. 16.04 .. 7.81 10.08 14.48 1.69 0.55 1.46

III. 45.73 .. 22.10 3.51 0.71 11.16 9.26 2.54 0.34 4.38

IV. 46.24 .. 29.85 2.12 1.30 2.41 16.24 1.98 0.18 ..

I. Gabbro, Radanthal, Harzburg; II. Gabbro, Penig, Saxony; III. Troctolite, Coverack, Cornwall; IV. Anorthosite, mouth of the Seine river, Bad Vermilion lake, Ontario, Canada.

(J. S. F.)


GABEL, KRISTOFFER (1617-1673), Danish statesman, was born at Glückstadt, on the 6th of January 1617. His father, Wulbern, originally a landscape painter and subsequently recorder of Glückstadt, was killed at the siege of that fortress by the Imperialists in 1628. Kristoffer is first heard of in 1639, as overseer and accountant at the court of Duke Frederick. When the duke ascended the Danish throne as Frederick III., Gabel followed him to Copenhagen as his private secretary and man of business. Gabel, who veiled under a mysterious reticence considerable financial ability and uncommon shrewdness, had great influence over the irresolute king. During the brief interval between King Charles X.’s first and second attack upon Denmark, Gabel was employed in several secret missions to Sweden; and he took a part in the intrigues which resulted in the autocratic revolution of 1660 (see Denmark: History). His services on this occasion have certainly been exaggerated; but if not the originator of the revolution, he was certainly the chief intermediary between Frederick III. and the conjoined Estates in the mysterious conspiracy which established absolutism in Denmark. His activity on this occasion won the king’s lifelong gratitude. He was enriched, ennobled, and in 1664 made governor of Copenhagen. From this year must be dated his open and official influence and power, and from 1660 to 1670 he was the most considerable personage at court, and very largely employed in financial and diplomatic affairs. When Frederick III. died, in February 1670, Gabel’s power was at an end. The new ruler, Christian V., hated him, and accusations against him poured in from every quarter. When, on the 18th of April 1670, he was dismissed, nobody sympathized with the man who had grown wealthy at a time when other people found it hard to live. He died on the 13th of October 1673.

See Carl Frederik Bricka, Dansk. Biograf. Lex. art “Gabel” (Copenhagen, 1887, &c.); Danmarks Riges Historie (Copenhagen, 1897-19051905), vol. v.


GABELENTZ, HANS CONON VON DER (1807-1874), German linguist and ethnologist, born at Altenburg on the 13th of October 1807, was the only son of Hans Karl Leopold von der Gabelentz, chancellor and privy-councillor of the duchy of Altenburg. From 1821 to 1825 he attended the gymnasium of his native town, where he had Matthiae (the eminent Greek scholar) for teacher, and Hermann Brockhaus and Julius Löbe for schoolfellows. Here, in addition to ordinary school-work, he carried on the private study of Arabic and Chinese; and the latter language continued especially to engage his attention during his undergraduate course, from 1825 to 1828, at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen. In 1830 he entered the public service of the duchy of Altenburg, where he attained to the rank of privy-councillor in 1843. Four years later he was chosen to fill the post of Landmarschall in the grand-duchy of Weimar, and in 1848 he attended the Frankfort parliament, and represented the Saxon duchies on the commission for drafting an imperial constitution for Germany. In November of the same year he became president of the Altenburg ministry, but he resigned office in the following August. From 1851 to 1868 he was president of the second chamber of the duchy of Altenburg; but in the latter year he withdrew entirely from public life, that he might give undivided attention to his learned researches. He died on his estate of Lemnitz, in Saxe-Weimar, on the 3rd of September 1874.

In the course of his life he is said to have learned no fewer than eighty languages, thirty of which he spoke with fluency and elegance. But he was less remarkable for his power of acquisition than for the higher talent which enabled him to turn his knowledge to the genuine advancement of linguistic science. Immediately after quitting the university, he followed up his Chinese researches by a study of the Finno-Ugrian languages, which resulted in the publication of his Éléments de la grammaire mandchoue in 1832. In 1837 he became one of the promoters, and a joint-editor, of the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, and through this medium he gave to the world his Versuch einer mordwinischen Grammatik and other valuable contributions. His Grundzüge der syrjänischen Grammatik appeared in 1841. In conjunction with his old school friend, Julius Löbe, he brought out a complete edition, with translation, glossary and grammar, of Ulfilas’s Gothic version of the Bible (1843-1846); and from 1847 he began to contribute to the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft the fruits of his researches into the languages of the Swahilis, the Samoyedes, the Hazaras, the Aimaks, the Formosans and other widely-separated tribes. The Beiträge zur Sprachenkunde (1852) contain Dyak, Dakota, and Kiriri grammars; to these were added in 1857 a Grammatik u. Wörterbuch der Kassiasprache, and in 1860 a treatise in universal grammar (Über das Passivum). In 1864 he edited the Manchu translations of the Chinese Sse-shu, Shu-king and Shi-king, along with a dictionary; and in 1873 he completed the work which constitutes his most important contribution to philology, Die melanesischen Sprachen nach ihrem grammatischen Bau und ihrer Verwandschaft unter sich und mit den malaiisch-polynesischen Sprachen untersucht (1860-1873). It treats of the language of the Fiji Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, &c., and shows their radical affinity with the Polynesian class. He also contributed most of the linguistic articles in Pierer’s Conversations-Lexicon.


GABELLE (French, from the Med. Lat. gabulum, gablum, a tax, for the origin of which see Gavelkind), a term which, in France, was originally applied to taxes on all commodities, but was gradually limited to the tax on salt. In process of time it became one of the most hated and most grossly unequal taxes in the country, but, though condemned by all supporters of reform, it was not abolished until 1790. First imposed in 1286, in the reign of Philip IV., as a temporary expedient, it was made a permanent tax by Charles V. Repressive as a state monopoly, it was made doubly so from the fact that the government obliged every individual above the age of eight years to purchase weekly a minimum amount of salt at a fixed price. When first instituted, it was levied uniformly on all the provinces in France, but for the greater part of its history the price varied in different provinces. There were five distinct groups of provinces, classified as follows: (a) the Pays de grandes gabelles, in which the tax was heaviest; (b) the Pays de petites gabelles, which paid a tax of about half the rate of the former; (c) the Pays de salines, in which the tax was levied on the salt extracted from the salt marshes; (d) the Pays rédimés, which had purchased redemption in 1549; and (e) the Pays exempts, which had stipulated for exemption on entering into union with the kingdom of France. Greniers à sel (dating from 1342) were established in each province, and to these all salt had to be taken by the producer on penalty of confiscation. The grenier fixed the price which it paid for the salt and then sold it to retail dealers at a higher rate.

See J.J. Clamagéran, Histoire de l’impôt en France (1876); A. Gasquet, Précis des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France (1885); Necker, Compte rendu (1781).


GABERDINE, or Gabardine, any long, loose over-garment, reaching to the feet and girt round the waist. It was, when made of coarse material, commonly worn in the middle ages by pilgrims, beggars and almsmen. The Jews, conservatively attached to the loose and flowing garments of the East, continued to wear the long upper garment to which the name “gaberdine” could be applied, long after it had ceased to be a common form as worn by non-Jews, and to this day in some parts of Europe, e.g. in Poland, it is still worn, while the tendency to wear the frock-coat very long and loose is a marked characteristic of the race. The fact that in the middle ages the Jews were forbidden to engage in handicrafts also, no doubt, tended to stereotype a form of dress unfitted for manual labour. The idea of the “gaberdine” being enforced by law upon the Jews as a distinctive garment is probably due to Shakespeare’s use in the Merchant of Venice, I. iii. 113. The mark that the Jews were obliged to wear generally on the outer garment was the badge. This was first enforced by the fourth Lateran Council of 1215. The “badge” (Lat. rota; Fr. rouelle, wheel) took generally the shape of a circle of cloth worn on the breast. It varied in colour at different times. In France it was of yellow, later of red and white; in England it took the form of two bands or stripes, first of white, then of yellow. In Edward I.’s reign it was made in the shape of the Tables of the Law (see the Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Costume” and “Badge”). The derivation of the word is obscure. It apparently occurs first in O. Fr. in the forms gauverdine, galvardine, and thence into Ital. as gavardina, and Span. gabardina, a form which has influenced the English word. The New English Dictionary suggests a connexion with the O.H. Ger. wallevart, pilgrimage. Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1898) refers it to Span. gaban, coat, cloak; cabaña, hut, cabin.


GABES, a town of Tunisia, at the head of the gulf of the same name, and 70 m. by sea S.W. of Sfax. It occupies the site of the Tacape of the Romans and consists of an open port and European quarter and several small Arab towns built in an oasis of date palms. This oasis is copiously watered by a stream called the Wad Gabes. The European quarter is situated on the right bank of the Wad near its mouth, and adjacent are the Arab towns of Jara and Menzel. The houses of the native towns are built largely of dressed stones and broken columns from the ruins of Tacape. Gabes is the military headquarters for southern Tunisia. The population of the oasis is about 20,000, including some 1500 Europeans. There is a considerable export trade in dates.

Gabes lies at the head of the shat country of Tunisia and is intimately connected with the scheme of Commandant Roudaire to create a Saharan sea by making a channel from the Mediterranean to these shats (large salt lakes below the level of the sea). Roudaire proposed to cut a canal through the belt of high ground between Gabes and the shats, and fixed on Wad Melah, a spot 10 m. N. of Gabes, for the sea end of the channel (see Sahara). The company formed to execute his project became simply an agricultural concern and by the sinking of artesian wells created an oasis of olive and palm trees.

The Gulf of Gabes, the Syrtis Minor of the ancients, is a semi-circular shallow indentation of the Mediterranean, about 50 m. across from the Kerkenna Islands, opposite Sfax on its northern shore, to Jerba Island, which lies at its southern end. The waters of the gulf abound in fish and sponge.


GABII, an ancient city of Latium, between 12 and 13 m. E. of Rome, on the Via Praenestina, which was in early times known as the Via Gabina. The part played by it in the story of the expulsion of the Tarquins is well known; but its importance in the earliest history of Rome rests upon other evidence—the continuance of certain ancient usages which imply a period of hostility between the two cities, such as the adoption of the cinctus Gabinus by the consul when war was to be declared. We hear of a treaty of alliance with Rome in the time of Tarquinius Superbus, the original text of which, written on a bullock’s skin, was said by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to be still extant in his day. Its subsequent history is obscure, and we only hear of it again in the 1st century B.C. as a small and insignificant place, though its desolation is no doubt exaggerated by the poets. From inscriptions we learn that from the time of Augustus or Tiberius onwards it enjoyed a municipal organization. Its baths were well known, and Hadrian, who was responsible for much of the renewed prosperity of the small towns of Latium, appears to have been a very liberal patron, building a senate-house (Curia Aelia Augusta) and an aqueduct. After the 3rd century Gabii practically disappears from history, though its bishops continue to be mentioned in ecclesiastical documents till the close of the 9th. The primitive city occupied the eastern bank of the lake, the citadel being now marked by the ruins of the medieval fortress of Castiglione, while the Roman town extended farther to the south. The most conspicuous relic of the latter is a ruined temple, generally attributed to Juno, which had six columns in the front and six on each side. The plan is interesting, but the style of architecture was apparently mixed. To the east of the temple lay the Forum, where excavations were made by Gavin Hamilton in 1792. All the objects found were placed in the Villa Borghese, but many of them were carried off to Paris by Napoleon, and still remain in the Louvre. The statues and busts are especially numerous and interesting; besides the deities Venus, Diana, Nemesis, &c., they comprise Agrippa, Tiberius, Germanicus, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Trajan and Plotina, Hadrian and Sabina, M. Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Geta, Gordianus Pius and others. The inscriptions relate mainly to local and municipal matters.

See E.Q. Visconti, Monumenti Gabini della Villa Pinciana (Rome, 1797, and Milan, 1835); T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, i. 180 seq.; G. Pinza in Bull. Com. (1903), 321 seq.

(T. As.)


GABINIUS, AULUS, Roman statesman and general, and supporter of Pompey, a prominent figure in the later days of the Roman republic. In 67 B.C., when tribune of the people, he brought forward the famous law (Lex Gabinia) conferring upon Pompey the command in the war against the Mediterranean pirates, with extensive powers which gave him absolute control over that sea and the coasts for 50 m. inland. By two other measures of Gabinius loans of money to foreign ambassadors in Rome were made non-actionable (as a check on the corruption of the senate) and the senate was ordered to give audience to foreign envoys on certain fixed days (1st of Feb.-1st of March). In 61 Gabinius, then praetor, endeavoured to win the public favour by providing games on a scale of unusual splendour, and in 58 managed to secure the consulship, not without suspicion of bribery. During his term of office he aided Publius Clodius in bringing about the exile of Cicero. In 57 Gabinius went as proconsul to Syria. On his arrival he reinstated Hyrcanus in the high-priesthood at Jerusalem, suppressed revolts, introduced important changes in the government of Judaea, and rebuilt several towns. During his absence in Egypt, whither he had been sent by Pompey, without the consent of the senate, to restore Ptolemy Auletes to his kingdom, Syria had been devastated by robbers, and Alexander, son of Aristobulus, had again taken up arms with the object of depriving Hyrcanus of the high-priesthood. With some difficulty Gabinius restored order, and in 54 handed over the province to his successor, M. Licinius Crassus. The knights, who as farmers of the taxes had suffered heavy losses during the disturbances in Syria, were greatly embittered against Gabinius, and, when he appeared in the senate to give an account of his governorship, he was brought to trial on three counts, all involving a capital offence. On the charge of majestas (high treason) incurred by having left his province for Egypt without the consent of the senate and in defiance of the Sibylline books, he was acquitted; it is said that the judges were bribed, and even Cicero, who had recently attacked Gabinius with the utmost virulence, was persuaded by Pompey to say as little as he could in his evidence to damage his former enemy. On the second charge, that of repetundae (extortion during the administration of his province), with especial reference to the 10,000 talents paid by Ptolemy for his restoration, he was found guilty, in spite of evidence offered on his behalf by Pompey and witnesses from Alexandria and the eloquence of Cicero, who had been induced to plead his cause. Nothing but Cicero’s wish to do a favour to Pompey could have induced him to take up what must have been a distasteful task; indeed, it is hinted that the half-heartedness of the defence materially contributed to Gabinius’s condemnation. The third charge, that of ambitus (illegalities committed during his canvass for the consulship), was consequently dropped; Gabinius went into exile, and his property was confiscated. After the outbreak of the civil war, he was recalled by Caesar in 49, and entered his service, but took no active part against his old patron Pompey. After the battle of Pharsalus, he was commissioned to transport some recently levied troops to Illyricum. On his way thither by land, he was attacked by the Dalmatians and with difficulty made his way to Salonae (Dalmatia). Here he bravely defended himself against the attacks of the Pompeian commander, Marcus Octavius, but in a few months died of illness (48 or the beginning of 47).

See Dio Cassius xxxvi. 23-36, xxxviii. 13. 30, xxxix. 55-63; Plutarch, Pompey, 25. 48; Josephus, Antiq. xiv. 4-6; Appian, Illyrica, 12, Bell. Civ. ii. 24. 59; Cicero, ad Att. vi. 2, ad Q. Fratrem, ii. 13, Post reditum in senatu, 4-8, Pro lege Manilia, 17, 18, 19; exhaustive article by Bähr in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie; and monograph by G. Stocchi, Aulo Gabinio e i suoi processi (1892).


GABION (a French word derived through Ital. gabbione, gabbia, from Lat. cavea, a cage), a cylindrical basket without top or bottom, used in revetting fortifications and for numerous other purposes of military engineering. The gabion is filled with earth when in position. The ordinary brushwood gabion in the British service has a diameter of 2 ft. and a height of 2 ft. 9 in. There are several forms of gabion in use, the best known being the Willesden paper band gabion and the Jones iron or steel band gabion.


GABLE, in architecture, the upper portion of a wall from the level of the eaves or gutter to the ridge of the roof. The word is a southern English form of the Scottish gāvel, or of an O. Fr. word gable or jable, both ultimately derived from O. Norwegian gafl. In other Teutonic languages, similar words, such as Ger. Gabel and Dutch gaffel, mean “fork,” cf. Lat. gabalus, gallows, which is Teutonic in origin; “gable” is represented by such forms as Ger. Giebel and Dutch gevel. According to the New English Dictionary the primary meaning of all these words is probably “top” or “head,” cf. Gr. κεφαλή, and refers to the forking timbers at the end of a roof. The gable corresponds to the pediment in classic buildings where the roof was of low pitch. If the roof is carried across on the top of the wall so that the purlins project beyond its face, they are masked or hidden by a “barge board,” but as a rule the roof butts up against the back of the wall which is raised so as to form a parapet. In the middle ages the gable end was invariably parallel to the roof and was crowned by coping stones properly weathered on both sides to throw off the rain. In the 16th century in England variety was given to the outline of the gable by a series of alternating semi-circular and ogee curves. In Holland, Belgium and Scotland a succession of steps was employed, which in the latter country are known as crow gables or corbie steps. In Germany and the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries the step gables assume very elaborate forms of an extremely rococo character, and they are sometimes of immense size, with windows in two or three storeys. Designs of a similar rococo character are found in England, but only in crestings such as those which surmount the towers of Wollaton and the gatehouse of Hardwick Hall.

Gabled Towers, in architecture, are those towers which are finished with gables instead of parapets, as at Sompting, Sussex. Many of the German Romanesque towers are gabled.


GABLER, GEORG ANDREAS (1786-1853), German Hegelian philosopher, son of J.P. Gabler (below), was born on the 30th of July 1786, at Altdorf in Bavaria. In 1804 he accompanied his father to Jena, where he completed his studies in philosophy and law, and became an enthusiastic disciple of Hegel. After holding various educational appointments, he was in 1821 appointed rector of the Bayreuth gymnasium, and in 1830 general superintendent of schools. In 1835 he succeeded Hegel in the Berlin chair. He died at Teplitz on the 13th of September 1853. His works include Lehrbuch d. philos. Propädeutik (1st vol., Erlangen, 1827), a popular exposition of the Hegelian system; De verae philosophiae erga religionem Christianam pietate (Berlin, 1836), and Die Hegel’sche Philosophie (ib., 1843), a defence of the Hegelian philosophy against Trendelenburg.


GABLER, JOHANN PHILIPP (1753-1826), German Protestant theologian of the school of J.J. Griesbach and J.G. Eichhorn, was born at Frankfort-on-Main on the 4th of June 1753. In 1772 he entered the university of Jena as a theological student. In 1776 he was on the point of abandoning theological pursuits, when the arrival of Griesbach inspired him with new ardour. After having been successively Repetent in Göttingen and teacher in the public schools of Dortmund (Westphalia) and Altdorf (Bavaria), he was, in 1785, appointed second professor of theology in the university of Altdorf, whence he was translated to a chair in Jena in 1804, where he succeeded Griesbach in 1812. Here he died on the 17th of February 1826. At Altdorf Gabler published (1791-1793) a new edition, with introduction and notes, of Eichhorn’s Urgeschichte; this was followed, two years afterwards, by a supplement entitled Neuer Versuch über die mosaische Schöpfungsgeschichte. He was also the author of many essays which were characterized by much critical acumen, and which had considerable influence on the course of German thought on theological and Biblical questions. From 1798 to 1800 he was editor of the Neuestes theologisches Journal, first conjointly with H.K.A. Hänlein (1762-1829), C.F. von Ammon (1766-1850) and H.E.G. Paulus, and afterwards unassisted; from 1801 to 1804 of the Journal für theologische Litteratur; and from 1805 to 1811 of the Journal für auserlesene theologische Litteratur.

Some of his essays were published by his sons (2 vols., 1831); and a memoir appeared in 1827 by W. Schröter.


GABLETS (diminutive of “gable”), in architecture, triangular terminations to buttresses, much in use in the Early English and Decorated periods, after which the buttresses generally terminated in pinnacles. The Early English gablets are generally plain, and very sharp in pitch. In the Decorated period they are often enriched with panelling and crockets. They are sometimes finished with small crosses, but of oftener with finials.


GABLONZ (Czech, Jablonec), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 94 m. N.E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 21,086, mostly German. It is the chief seat of the glass pearl and imitation jewelry manufacture, and has also an important textile industry, and produces large quantities of hardware, papier mâché and other paper goods.


GABORIAU, ÉMILE (1833-1873), French novelist, was born at Saujon (Charente Inférieure) on the 9th of November 1833. He became secretary to Paul Féval, and, after publishing some novels and miscellaneous writings, found his real gift in L’Affaire Lerouge (1866), a detective novel which was published in the Pays and at once made his reputation. The story was produced on the stage in 1872. A long series of novels dealing with the annals of the police court followed, and proved very popular. Among them are: Le Crime d’Orcival (1867), Monsieur Lecoq (1869), La Vie infernale (1870), Les Esclaves de Paris (1869), L’Argent des autres (1874). Gaboriau died in Paris on the 28th of September 1873.


GABRIEL (Heb. גבריאל, man of God), in the Bible, the heavenly messenger (see Angel) sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat, and to communicate the prediction of the Seventy Weeks (Dan. viii. 16, ix. 21). He was also employed to announce the birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias, and that of the Messiah to the Virgin Mary (Luke i. 19, 26). Because he stood in the divine presence (see Luke i. 19; Rev. viii. 2; and cf. Tobit xii. 15), both Jewish and Christian writers generally speak of him as an archangel. In the Book of Enoch “the four great archangels” are Michael, Uriel, Suriel or Raphael, and Gabriel, who is set over “all the powers” and shares the work of intercession. His name frequently occurs in the Jewish literature of the later post-Biblical period. Thus, according to the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, he was the man who showed the way to Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 15); and in Deut. xxxiv. 6 it is affirmed that he, along with Michael, Uriel, Jophiel, Jephephiah and the Metatron, buried the body of Moses. In the Targum on 2 Chron. xxxii. 21 he is named as the angel who destroyed the host of Sennacherib; and in similar writings of a still later period he is spoken of as the spirit who presides over fire, thunder, the ripening of the fruits of the earth and similar processes. In the Koran great prominence is given to his function as the medium of divine revelation, and, according to the Mahommedan interpreters, he it is who is referred to by the appellations “Holy Spirit” and “Spirit of Truth.” He is specially commemorated in the calendars of the Greek, Coptic and Armenian churches.


GABRIEL HOUNDS, a spectral pack supposed in the North of England to foretell death by their yelping at night. The legend is that they are the souls of unbaptized children wandering through the air till the day of judgment. They are also sometimes called Gabriel or Gabble Ratchet. A very prosaic explanation of this nocturnal noise is given by J.C. Atkinson in his Cleveland Glossary (1868). “This,” he writes, “is the name for a yelping sound heard at night, more or less resembling the cry of hounds or yelping of dogs, probably due to large flocks of wild geese which chance to be flying by night.”

See further Joseph Lucas, Studies in Nidderdale (1882), pp. 156-157.


GABRIELI, GIOVANNI (1557-1612?), Italian musical composer, was born at Venice in 1557, and was a pupil of his uncle Andrea, a distinguished musician of the contrapuntal school and organist of St Mark’s. He succeeded Claudio Merulo as first organist of the same church in 1585, and died at Venice either in 1612 or 1613. He was remarkable for his compositions for several choirs, writing frequently for 12 or 16 voices, and is important as an early experimenter in chromatic harmony. It was probably for this reason that he made a special point of combining voices with instruments, being thus one of the founders of choral and orchestral composition. Among his pupils was Heinrich Schütz; and the church of St Mark, from the time of the Gabrielis onwards down to that of Lotti, became one of the most important musical schools in Europe.

See also Winterfeld, Johann Gabrieli und seine Zeit (1834).


GABUN, a district on the west coast of Africa, one of the colonies forming French Congo (q.v.). It derives its designation from the settlements on the Gabun river or Rio de Gabão. The Gabun, in reality an estuary of the sea, lies immediately north of the equator. At the entrance, between Cape Joinville or Santa Clara on the N. and Cape Pangara or Sandy Point on the S., it has a width of about 10 m. It maintains a breadth of some 7 m. for a distance of 40 m. inland, when it contracts into what is known as the Rio Olambo, which is not more than 2 or 3 m. from bank to bank. Several rivers, of which the Komo is the chief, discharge their waters into the estuary. The Gabun was discovered by Portuguese navigators towards the close of the 15th century, and was named from its fanciful resemblance to a gabão or cabin. On the small island of Koniké, which lies about the centre of the estuary, scanty remains of a Portuguese fort have been discovered. The three principal tribes in the Gabun are the Mpongwe, the Fang and the Bakalai.


GACE BRULÉ (d. c. 1220), French trouvère, was a native of Champagne. It has generally been asserted that he taught Thibaut of Champagne the art of verse, an assumption which is based on a statement in the Chroniques de Saint-Denis: “Si fist entre lui [Thibaut] et Gace Brulé les plus belles chançons et les plus délitables et melodieuses qui onque fussent oïes.” This has been taken as evidence of collaboration between the two poets. The passage will bear the interpretation that with those of Gace the songs of Thibaut were the best hitherto known. Paulin Paris, in the Histoire littéraire de la France (vol. xxiii.), quotes a number of facts that fix an earlier date for Gace’s songs. Gace is the author of the earliest known jeu parti. The interlocutors are Gace and a count of Brittany who is identified with Geoffrey of Brittany, son of Henry II. of England. Gace appears to have been banished from Champagne and to have found refuge in Brittany. A deed dated 1212 attests a contract between Gatho Bruslé (Gace Brulé) and the Templars for a piece of land in Dreux. It seems most probable that Gace died before 1220, at the latest in 1225.

See Gédéon Busken Huet, Chansons de Gace Brulé, edited for the Société des anciens textes français (1902), with an exhaustive introduction. Dante quotes a song by Gace, Ire d’amor qui en mon cuer repaire, which he attributes erroneously to Thibaut of Navarre (De vulgari eloquentia, p. 151, ed. P. Rajna, Florence, 1895).


GACHARD, LOUIS PROSPER (1800-1885), Belgian man of letters, was born in Paris on the 12th of March 1800. He entered the administration of the royal archives in 1826, and was appointed director-general, a post which he held for fifty-five years. During this long period he reorganized the service, added to the records by copies taken in other European collections, travelled for purposes of study, and carried on a wide correspondence with other keepers of records, and with historical scholars. He also edited and published many valuable collections of state papers; a full list of his various publications was printed in the Annuaire de l’académie royale de Belgique by Ch. Piot in 1888, pp. 220-236. It includes 246 entries. He was the author of several historical writings, of which the best known are Don Carlos et Philippe II (1867), Études et notices historiques concernant l’histoire des Pays-Bas (1863), Histoire de la Belgique au commencement du XVIIIe siècle (1880), Histoire politique et diplomatique de P.P. Rubens (1877), all published at Brussels. His chief editorial works are the Actes des états généraux des Pays-Bas 1576-1585 (Brussels, 1861-1866), Collection de documents inédits concernant l’histoire de la Belgique (Brussels, 1833-1835), and the Relations des ambassadeurs Vénitiens sur Charles V et Philippe II (Brussels, 1855). Gachard died in Brussels on the 24th of December 1885.


GAD, in the Bible. 1. A prophet or rather a “seer” (cp. 1 Sam. ix. 9), who was a companion of David from his early days. He is first mentioned in 1 Sam. xxii. 5 as having warned David to take refuge in Judah, and appears again in 2 Sam. xxiv. 11 seq. to make known Yahweh’s displeasure at the numbering of the people. Together with Nathan he is represented in post-exilic tradition as assisting to organize the musical service of the temple (2 Chron. xxix. 25), and like Nathan and Samuel he is said to have written an account of David’s deeds (1 Chron. xxix. 29); a history of David in accordance with later tradition and upon the lines of later prophetic ideas is far from improbable.

2. Son of Jacob, by Zilpah, Leah’s maid; a tribe of Israel (Gen. xxx. 11). The name is that of the god of “luck” or fortune, mentioned in Isa. lxv. 11 (R.V. mg.), and in several names of places, e.g. Baal-Gad (Josh. xi. 17, xii. 7), and possibly also in Dibon-Gad, Migdol-Gad and Nahal-Gad. There is another etymology in Gen. xlix. 19, where the name is played on: “Gad, a plundering troop (gĕdûd) shall plunder him (yegudennu), but he shall plunder at their heels.” There are no traditions of the personal history of Gad. One of the earliest references to the name is the statement on the inscription of Mesha, king of Moab (about 850 B.C.), that the “men of Gad” had occupied Ataroth (E. of Dead Sea) from of old, and that the king of Israel had fortified the city. This is in the district ascribed to Reuben, with which tribe the fortunes of Gad were very closely connected. In Numbers xxxii. 34 sqq., the cities of Gad appear to lie chiefly to the south of Heshbon; in Joshua xiii. 24-28 they lie almost wholly to the north; while other texts present discrepancies which are not easily reconciled with either passage. Possibly some cities were common to both Reuben and Gad, and perhaps others more than once changed hands. That Gad, at one time at least, held territory as far south as Pisgah and Nebo would follow from Deut. xxxiii. 21, if the rendering of the Targums be accepted, “and he looked out the first part for himself, because there was the portion of the buried law-giver.” It is certain, however, that, at a late period, this tribe was localized chiefly in Gilead, in the district which now goes by the name of Jebel Jil‘ād. The traditions encircling this district point, it would seem, to the tribe having been of Aramaean origin (see the story of Jacob); at all events its position was extremely exposed, and its population at the best must have been a mixed one. Its richness and fertility made it a prey to the marauding nomads of the desert; but the allusion in the Blessing of Jacob gives the tribe a character for bravery, and David’s men of Gad (1 Chron. xii. 8) were famous in tradition. Although rarely mentioned by name (the geographical term Gilead is usual), the history of Gad enters into the lives of Jephthah and Saul, and in the wars of Ammon and Moab it must have played some part. It followed Jeroboam in the great revolt against the house of David, and its later fortunes until 734 B.C. (1 Chron. v. 26) would be those of the northern kingdom.

See, for a critical discussion of the data, H.W. Hogg, Ency. Bib. cols. 1579 sqq.; also Gilead; Manasseh; Reuben.


See G.B. Gray, Heb. Proper Names, pp. 134 seq., 145.


GADAG, or Garag, a town of British India, in the Dharwar district of Bombay, 43 m. E. of Dharwar town. Pop. (1901) 30,652. It is an important railway junction on the Southern Mahratta system, with a growing trade in raw cotton, and also in the weaving of cotton and silk. There are factories for ginning and pressing cotton, and a spinning mill. The town contains remains of a number of temples, some of which exhibit fine carving, while inscriptions in them indicate the existence of Gadag as early as the 10th century.


GADARA, an ancient town of the Syrian Decapolis, the capital of Peraea, and the political centre of the small district of Gadaris. It was a Greek city, probably entirely non-Syrian in origin. The earliest recorded event in its history is its capture by Antiochus III. of Syria in 218 B.C.; how long it may have existed before this date is unknown. About twenty years later it was besieged for ten months by Alexander Jannaeus. It was restored by Pompey, and in 30 B.C. was presented by Augustus to Herod the Great; on Herod’s death it was reunited to Syria. The coins of the place bear Greek legends, and such inscriptions as have been found on its site are Greek. Its governing and wealthy classes were probably Greek, the common people being Hellenized and Judaized Aramaeans. The community was Hellenistically organized, and though dependent on Syria and acknowledging the supremacy of Rome it was governed by a democratic senate and managed its own internal affairs. In the Jewish war it surrendered to Vespasian, but in the Byzantine period it again flourished and was the seat of a bishop. It was renowned for its hot sulphur baths; the springs still exist and show the remains of bath-houses. The temperature of the springs is 110° F. This town was the birthplace of Meleager the anthologist. There is a confusion in the narrative of the healing of the demoniac between the very similar names Gadara, Gerasa and Gergesa; but the probabilities, both textual and geographical, are in favour of the reading of Mark (Gerasenes, ch. v. 1, revised version); and that the miracle has nothing to do with Gadara, but took place at Kersa, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Gadara is now represented by Umm Kais, a group of ruins about 6 m. S.E. of the Sea of Galilee, and 1194 ft. above the sea-level. There are very fine tombs with carved sarcophagi in the neighbourhood. There are the remains of two theatres and (probably) a temple, and many heaps of carved stones, representing ancient buildings of various kinds. The walls are, or were, traceable for a circuit of 2 m., and there are also the remains of a street of columns. The natives are rapidly destroying the ruins by quarrying building material out of them.

(R. A. S. M.)


GADDI. Four painters of the early Florentine school—father, son and two grandsons—bore this name.

1. Gaddo Gaddi was, according to Vasari, an intimate friend of Cimabue, and afterwards of Giotto. The dates of birth and death have been given as 1239 and about 1312; these are probably too early; he may have been born towards 1260, and may have died in or about 1333. He was a painter and mosaicist, is said to have executed the great mosaic inside the portal of the cathedral of Florence, representing the coronation of the Virgin, and may with more certainty be credited with the mosaics inside the portico of the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, relating to the legend of the foundation of that church; their date is probably 1308. In the original cathedral of St Peter in Rome he also executed the mosaics of the choir, and those of the front representing on a colossal scale God the Father, with many other figures; likewise an altarpiece in the church of S. Maria Novella, Florence; these works no longer exist. It is ordinarily held that no picture (as distinct from mosaics) by Gaddo Gaddi is now extant. Messrs Crowe & Cavalcaselle, however, consider that the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore bear so strong a resemblance in style to four of the frescoes in the upper church of Assisi, representing incidents in the life of St Francis (frescoes 2, 3, 4 and especially 5, which shows Francis stripping himself, and protected by the bishop), that those frescoes likewise may, with considerable confidence, be ascribed to Gaddi. Some other extant mosaics are attributed to him, but without full authentication. This artist laid the foundation of a very large fortune, which continued increasing, and placed his progeny in a highly distinguished worldly position.

2. Taddeo Gaddi (about 1300-1366, or later), son of Gaddo, was born in Florence, and is usually said to have been one of Giotto’s most industrious assistants for a period of 24 years. This can hardly be other than an exaggeration; it is probable that he began painting on his own account towards 1330, when Giotto went to Naples. Taddeo also traded as a merchant, and had a branch establishment in Venice. He was a painter, mosaicist and architect. He executed in fresco, in the Baroncelli (now Giugni) chapel, in the Florentine church of S. Croce, the “Virgin and Child between Four Prophets,” on the funeral monument at the entrance, and on the walls various incidents in the legend of the Virgin, from the expulsion of Joachim from the Temple up to the Nativity. In the subject of the “Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple” are the two heads traditionally accepted as portraits of Gaddo Gaddi and Andrea Tafi; they, at any rate, are not likely to be portraits of those artists from the life. On the ceiling of the same chapel are the “Eight Virtues.” In the museum of Berlin is an altarpiece by Taddeo, the “Virgin and Child,” and some other subjects, dated 1334; in the Naples gallery, a triptych, dated 1336, of the “Virgin enthroned along with Four Saints,” the “Baptism of Jesus,” and his “Deposition from the Cross”; in the sacristy of S. Pietro a Megognano, near Poggibonsi, an altarpiece dated 1355, the “Virgin and Child enthroned amid Angels.” A series of paintings, partly from the life of St Francis, which Taddeo executed for the presses in S. Croce, are now divided between the Florentine Academy and the Berlin Museum; the compositions are taken from or founded on Giotto, to whom, indeed, the Berlin authorities have ascribed their examples. Taddeo also painted some frescoes still extant in Pisa, besides many in S. Croce and other Florentine buildings, which have perished. He deservedly ranks as one of the most eminent successors of Giotto; it may be said that he continued working up the material furnished by that great painter, with comparatively feeble inspiration of his own. His figures are vehement in action, long and slender in form; his execution rapid and somewhat conventional. To Taddeo are generally ascribed the celebrated frescoes—those of the ceiling and left or western wall—in the Cappella degli Spagnuoli, in the church of S. Maria Novella, Florence; this is, however, open to considerable doubt, although it may perhaps be conceded that the designs for the ceiling were furnished by Taddeo. Dubious also are the three pictures ascribed to him in the National Gallery, London. In mosaic he has left some work in the baptistery of Florence. As an architect he supplied in 1336 the plans for the present Ponte Vecchio, and those for the original (not the present) Ponte S. Trinita; in 1337 he was engaged on the church of Or San Michele; and he carried on after Giotto’s death the work of the unrivalled Campanile.

3. Agnolo Gaddi, born in Florence, was the son of Taddeo; the date of his birth has been given as 1326, but possibly 1350 is nearer the mark. He was a painter and mosaicist, trained by his father, and a merchant as well; in middle age he settled down to commercial life in Venice, and he added greatly to the family wealth. He died in Florence in October 1396. His paintings show much early promise, hardly sustained as he advanced in life. One of the earliest, at S. Jacopo tra’ Fossi, Florence, represents the “Resurrection of Lazarus.” Another probably youthful performance is the series of frescoes of the Pieve di Prato—legends of the Virgin and of her Sacred Girdle, bestowed upon St Thomas, and brought to Prato in the 11th century by Michele dei Dagomari; the “Marriage of Mary” is one of the best of this series, the later compositions in which have suffered much by renewals. In S. Croce he painted, in eight frescoes, the legend of the Cross, beginning with the archangel Michael giving Seth a branch from the tree of knowledge, and ending with the emperor Heraclius carrying the Cross as he enters Jerusalem; in this picture is a portrait of the painter himself. Agnolo composed his subjects better than Taddeo; he had more dignity and individuality in the figures, and was a clear and bold colourist; the general effect is laudably decorative, but the drawing is poor, and the works show best from a distance. Various other productions of this master exist, and many have perished. Cennino Cennini, the author of the celebrated treatise on painting, was one of his pupils.

4. Giovanni Gaddi, brother of Agnolo, was also a painter of promise. He died young in 1383.

Vasari, and Crowe and Cavelcaselle can be consulted as to the Gaddi. Other notices appear here and there—such as La Cappella de’ Rinuccini in S. Croce di Firenze, by G. Ajazzi (1845).

(W. M. R.)


GADE, NIELS WILHELM (1817-1890), Danish composer, was born at Copenhagen, on the 22nd of February 1817, his father being a musical instrument maker. He was intended for his father’s trade, but his passion for a musician’s career, made evident by the ease and skill with which he learnt to play upon a number of instruments, was not to be denied. Though he became proficient on the violin under Wexschall, and in the elements of theory under Weyse and Berggreen, he was to a great extent self-taught. His opportunities of hearing and playing in the great masterpieces were many, since he was a member of the court band. In 1840 his Aladdin and his overture of Ossian attracted attention, and in 1841 his Nachklänge aus Ossian overture gained the local musical society’s prize, the judges being Spohr and Schneider. This work also attracted the notice of the king, who gave the composer a stipend which enabled him to go to Leipzig and Italy. In 1844 Gade conducted the Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig during Mendelssohn’s absence, and on the latter’s death became chief conductor. In 1848, on the outbreak of the Holstein War, he returned to Copenhagen, where he was appointed organist and conductor of the Musik-Verein. In 1852 he married a daughter of the composer J.P.E. Hartmann. He became court conductor in 1861, and was pensioned by the government in 1876—the year in which he visited Birmingham to conduct his Crusaders. This work, and the Frühlingsfantasie, the Erlkönigs Tochter, Frühlingsbotschaft and Psyche (written for Birmingham in 1882) have enjoyed a wide popularity. Indeed, they represent the strength and the weakness of Gade’s musical ability quite as well as any of his eight symphonies (the best of which are the first and fourth, while the fifth has an obbligato pianoforte part). Gade was distinctly a romanticist, but his music is highly polished and beautifully finished, lyrical rather than dramatic and effective. Much of the pianoforte music, Aquarellen, Spring Flowers, for instance, enjoyed a considerable vogue, as did the Novelletten trio; but Gade’s opera Mariotta has not been heard outside the Copenhagen opera house. He died at Copenhagen on the 21st of December 1890.


GADOLINIUM (symbol Gd., atomic weight 157.3), one of the rare earth metals (see Erbium). The element was discovered in 1880 in the mineral samarskite by C. Marignac (Comptes rendus, 1880, 90, p. 899; Ann. chim. phys., 1880 20, p. 535). G. Urbain (Comptes rendus, 1905, 140, p. 583) separates the metal by crystallizing the double nitrate of nickel and gadolinium. The salts show absorption bands in the ultra-violet. The oxide Gd2O3 is colourless (Lecoq de Boisbaudran).


GADSDEN, CHRISTOPHER (1724-1805), American patriot, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1724. His father, Thomas Gadsden, was for a time the king’s collector for the port of Charleston. Christopher went to school near Bristol, in England, returned to America in 1741, was afterwards employed in a counting house in Philadelphia, and became a merchant and planter at Charleston. In 1759 he was captain of an artillery company in an expedition against the Cherokees. He was a member of the South Carolina legislature almost continuously from 1760 to 1780, and represented his province in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 and in the Continental Congress in 1774-1776. In February 1776 he was placed in command of all the military forces of South Carolina, and in October of the same year was commissioned a brigadier-general and was taken into the Continental service; but on account of a dispute arising out of a conflict between state and Federal authority resigned his command in 1777. He was lieutenant-governor of his state in 1780, when Charleston was surrendered to the British. For about three months following this event he was held as a prisoner on parole within the limits of Charleston; then, because of his influence in deterring others from exchanging their paroles for the privileges of British subjects, he was seized, taken to St Augustine, Florida, and there, because he would not give another parole to those who had violated the former agreement affecting him, he was confined for forty-two weeks in a dungeon. In 1782 Gadsden was again elected a member of his state legislature; he was also elected governor, but declined to serve on the ground that he was too old and infirm; in 1788 he was a member of the convention which ratified for South Carolina the Federal constitution; and in 1790 he was a member of the convention which framed the new state constitution. He died in Charleston on the 28th of August 1805. From the time that Governor Thomas Boone, in 1762, pronounced his election to the legislature improper, and dissolved the House in consequence, Gadsden was hostile to the British administration. He was an ardent leader of the opposition to the Stamp Act, advocating even then a separation of the colonies from the mother country; and in the Continental Congress of 1774 he discussed the situation on the basis of inalienable rights and liberties, and urged an immediate attack on General Thomas Gage, that he might be defeated before receiving reinforcements.


GADSDEN, JAMES (1788-1858), American soldier and diplomat, was born at Charleston, S.C., on the 15th of May 1788, the grandson of Christopher Gadsden. He graduated at Yale in 1806, became a merchant in his native city, and in the war of 1812 served in the regular U.S. Army as a lieutenant of engineers. In 1818 he served against the Seminoles, with the rank of captain, as aide on the staff of Gen. Andrew Jackson. In October 1820 he became inspector-general of the Southern Division, with the rank of colonel, and as such assisted in the occupation and the establishment of posts in Florida after its acquisition. From August 1821 to March 1822 he was adjutant-general, but, his appointment not being confirmed by the Senate, he left the army and became a planter in Florida. He served in the Territorial legislature, and as Federal commissioner superintended in 1823 the removal of the Seminole Indians to South Florida. In 1832 he negotiated with the Seminoles a treaty which provided for their removal within three years to lands in what is now the state of Oklahoma; but the Seminoles refused to move, hostilities again broke out, and in the second Seminole War Gadsden was quartermaster-general of the Florida Volunteers from February to April 1836. Returning to South Carolina he became a rice planter, and was president of the South Carolina railway. In 1853 President Franklin Pierce appointed him minister to Mexico, with which country he negotiated the so-called “Gadsden treaty” (signed the 30th of December 1853), which gave to the United States freedom of transit for mails, merchandise and troops across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and provided for a readjustment of the boundary established by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States acquiring 45,535 sq. m. of land, since known as the “Gadsden Purchase,” in what is now New Mexico and Arizona. In addition, Article XI. of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which bound the United States to prevent incursions of Indians from the United States into Mexico, and to restore Mexican prisoners captured by such Indians, was abrogated, and for these considerations the United States paid to Mexico the sum of $10,000,000. Ratifications of the treaty, slightly modified by the Senate, were exchanged on the 30th of June 1854; before this, however, Gadsden had retired from his post. The boundary line between Mexico and the “Gadsden Purchase” was marked by joint commissions appointed in 1855 and 1891, the second commission publishing its report in 1899. Gadsden died at Charleston, South Carolina, on the 25th of December 1858.

An elder brother, Christopher Edwards Gadsden (1785-1852), was Protestant Episcopal bishop of South Carolina in 1839-1852.


GADWALL, a word of obscure origin, the common English name of the duck, called by Linnaeus Anas strepera, but considered by many modern ornithologists to require removal from the genus Anas to that of Chaulelasmus or Ctenorhynchus, of either of which it is almost the sole species. Its geographical distribution is almost identical with that of the common wild duck or mallard (see Duck), since it is found over the greater part of the northern hemisphere; but, save in India, where it is one of the most abundant species of duck during the cold weather, it is hardly anywhere so numerous, and both in the eastern parts of the United States and in the British Islands it is rather rare than otherwise. Its habits also, so far as they have been observed, greatly resemble those of the wild duck; but its appearance on the water is very different, its small head, flat back, elongated form and elevated stern rendering it recognizable by the fowler even at such a distance as hinders him from seeing its very distinct plumage. In coloration the two sexes appear almost equally sombre; but on closer inspection the drake exhibits a pencilled grey coloration and upper wing-coverts of a deep chestnut, which are almost wanting in his soberly clad partner. She closely resembles the female of the mallard in colour, but has, like her own male, some of the secondary quills of a pure white, presenting a patch of that colour which forms one of the most readily perceived distinctive characters of the species. The gadwall is a bird of some interest in England, since it is one of the few that have been induced, by the protection afforded them in certain localities, to resume the indigenous position they once filled, but had, through the draining and reclaiming of marshy lands, long since abandoned. In regard to the present species, this fact was due to the efforts of Andrew Fountaine, on whose property, in West Norfolk and its immediate neighbourhood, the gadwall, from 1850, annually bred in increasing numbers. It has been always esteemed one of the best of wild fowl for the table.

(A. N.)


The New English Dictionary has nothing to say. Webster gives the etymology gad well = go about well. Dr R.G. Latham suggested that it was taken from the syllables quedul, of the Lat. querquedula, a teal. The spelling “gadwall” seems to be first found in Willughby in 1676, and has been generally adopted by later writers; but Merrett, in 1667, has “gaddel” (Pinax rerum naturalium Britannicarum, p. 180), saying that it was so called by bird-dealers. The synonym “gray,” given by Willughby and Ray, is doubtless derived from the general colour of the species, and has its analogue in the Icelandic Gráönd, applied almost indifferently, or with some distinguishing epithet, to the female of any of the freshwater ducks, and especially to both sexes of the present, in which, as stated in the text, there is comparatively little conspicuous difference of plumage in drake and duck.


GAEKWAR, or Guicowar, the family name of the Mahratta rulers of Baroda (q.v.) in western India, which has been converted by the English into a dynastic title. It is derived from the vernacular word for the cow, but it is a mistake to suppose that the family are of the cowherd caste; they belong to the upper class of Mahrattas proper, sometimes claiming a Rajput origin. The dynasty was founded by a succession of three warriors, Damaji I., Pilaji and Damaji II., who established Mahratta supremacy throughout Gujarat during the first half of the 18th century. The present style of the ruler is Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda.


GAETA (anc. Caietae Portus), a seaport and episcopal see of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, from which it is 53 m. W.N.W. by rail via Sparanise. Pop. (1901) 5528. It occupies a lower projecting point of the promontory which forms the S.W. extremity of the Bay of Gaeta. The tomb of Munatius Plancus, on the summit of the promontory (see Caietae Portus), is now a naval signal station, and lies in the centre of the extensive earthworks of the modern fortifications. The harbour is well sheltered except on the E., but has little commercial importance, being mainly a naval station. To the N.W. is the suburb of Elena (formerly Borgo di Gaeta). Pop. (1901) 10,369. Above the town is a castle erected by the Angevin kings, and strengthened at various periods. The cathedral of St Erasmus (S. Elmo), consecrated in 1106, has a fine campanile begun in 860 and completed in 1279, and a nave and four aisles; the interior has, however, been modernized. Opposite the door of the cathedral is a candelabrum with interesting sculptures of the end of the 13th century, consisting of 48 panels in bas-relief, with 24 representations from the life of Christ, and 24 of the life of St Erasmus (A. Venturi, Storia dell’ arte Italiana, iii. Milan, 1904, 642 seq.). The cathedral possesses three fine Exultet rolls, with miniatures dating from the 11th to the beginning of the 13th century. Behind the high altar is the banner sent by Pope Pius V. to Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. The constable of Bourbon, who fell in the sack of Rome of 1527, is buried here. The other churches are of minor interest; close to that of La Trinità is the Montagna Spaccata, where a vertical fissure from 6 to 15 ft. wide runs right down to the sea-level. Over the chasm is a chapel del Crocefisso, the mountain having split, it is said, at the death of Christ.

During the break-up of the Roman empire, Gaeta, like Amalfi and Naples, would seem to have established itself as a practically independent port and to have carried on a thriving trade with the Levant. Its history, however, is obscure until, in 823, it appears as a lordship ruled by hereditary hypati or consuls. In 844 the town fell into the hands of the Arabs, but four years later they were driven out with help supplied by Pope Leo IV. In 875 the town was in the hands of Pope John VIII., who gave it to the count of Capua as a fief of the Holy See, which had long claimed jurisdiction over it. In 877, however, the hypatus John (Ioannes) II. succeeded in recovering the lordship, which he established as a duchy under the suzerainty of the East Roman emperors. In the 11th century the duchy fell into the hands of the Norman counts of Aversa, afterwards princes of Capua, and in 1135 it was definitively annexed to his kingdom by Roger of Sicily. The town, however, had its own coinage as late as 1229.

In military history the town has played a conspicuous part. Its fortifications were strengthened in the 15th century. On the 30th of September 1707 it was stormed, after a three months’ siege, by the Austrians under Daun; and on the 6th of August 1734 it was taken, after a siege of four months, by French, Spanish and Sardinian troops under the future King Charles of Naples. The fortifications were again strengthened; and in 1799 it was temporarily occupied by the French. On the 18th of July 1806 it was captured, after an heroic defence, by the French under Masséna; and on the 18th of July 1815 it capitulated, after a three months’ siege, to the Austrians. In November 1848 Pope Pius IX., after his flight in disguise from Rome, found a refuge at Gaeta, where he remained till the 4th of September 1849. Finally, in 1860, it was the scene of the last stand of Francis II. of Naples against the forces of United Italy. Shut up in the fortress with 12,000 men, after Garibaldi’s occupation of Naples, the king, inspired by the heroic example of Queen Maria, offered a stubborn resistance, and it was not till the 13th of February 1861 that, the withdrawal of the French fleet having made bombardment from the sea possible, he was forced to capitulate.

See G.B. Federici, Degli antichi duchi, consoli o ipati della città di Gaeta (Naples, 1791); Onorato Gaetani d’ Aragona, Mem. stor. della città di Gaeta (Milan, 1879); C. Ravizza, Il Golfo di Gaeta (Novara, 1876).

(T. As.)


GAETANI, or Caetani, the name of the oldest of the Roman princely families which played a great part in the history of the city and of the papacy. The Gaetani are of Longobard origin, and the founder of the house is said to be one Dominus Constantinus Cagetanus, who flourished in the 10th century, but the family had no great importance until the election of Benedetto Gaetani to the papacy as Boniface VIII. in 1294, when they at once became the most notable in the city. The pope conferred on them the fiefs of Sermoneta, Bassiano, Ninfa and San Donato (1297-1300), and the marquisate of Ancona in 1300, while Charles II. of Anjou created the pope’s brother count of Caserta. Giordano Loffredo Gaetani by his marriage with Giovanna dell’ Aquila, heiress of the counts of Fondi and Traetto, in 1297 added the name of Aquila to his own, and his grandson Giacomo acquired the lordships of Piedimonte and Gioia. The Gaetani proved brave warriors and formed a bodyguard to protect Boniface VIII. from his many foes. During the 14th and 15th centuries their feuds with the Colonna caused frequent disturbances in Rome and the Campagna, sometimes amounting to civil war. They also played an important rôle as Neapolitan nobles. In 1500 Alexander VI., in his attempt to crush the great Roman feudal nobility, confiscated the Gaetani fiefs and gave them to his daughter Lucrezia Borgia (q.v.); but they afterwards regained them.

At present there are two lines of Gaetani: (1) Gaetani, princes of Teano and dukes of Sermoneta, founded by Giacobello Gaetani, whose grandson, Guglielmo Gaetani, was granted the duchy of Sermoneta by Pius III. in 1503, the marquisate of Cisterna being conferred on the family by Sixtus V. in 1585. In 1642, Francesco, the 7th duke of Sermoneta, acquired by marriage the county of Caserta, which was exchanged for the principality of Teano in 1750. The present head of the house, Onorato Gaetani, 14th duke of Sermoneta, 4th prince of Teano, duke of San Marco, marquis of Cisterna, &c., is a senator of the kingdom of Italy, and was minister for foreign affairs for a short time. (2) Gaetani dell’ Aquila d’Aragona, princes of Piedimonte, and dukes of Laurenzana, founded by Onorato Gaetani dell’ Aquila, count of Fondi, Traetto, Alife and Morcone, lord of Piedimonte and Gioia, in 1454. The additional surname of Aragona was assumed after the marriage of Onorato Gaetani, duke of Traetto (d. 1529), with Lucrezia of Aragon, natural daughter of King Ferdinand I. of Naples. The duchy of Laurenzana, in the kingdom of Naples, was acquired by Alfonso Gaetani by his marriage in 1606 with Giulia di Ruggiero, duchess of Laurenzana. The lordship of Piedimonte was raised to a principality in 1715. The present (1908) head of the house is Nicola Gaetani dell’ Aquila d’Aragona (b. 1857), 7th prince of Piedimonte and 12th duke of Laurenzana.

See A. von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1868); F. Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Stuttgart, 1872); Almanach de Gotha (1907 and 1908).


GAETULIA, an ancient district in northern Africa, which in the usage of Roman writers comprised the wandering tribes of the southern slopes of Mount Aures and the Atlas, as far as the Atlantic, and the oases in the northern part of the Sahara. They were always distinguished from the Negro people to the south, and beyond doubt belonged to the same Berber race which formed the basis of the population of Numidia and Mauretania (q.v.). The tribes to be found there at the present day are probably of the same race, and retain the same wandering habits; and it is possible that they still bear in certain places the name of their Gaetulian ancestors (see Vivien St Martin, Le Nord de l’Afrique, 1863). A few only seem to have mingled with the Negroes of the Sahara, if we may thus interpret Ptolemy’s allusion to Melano-Gaetuli (4. 6. 5.). They were noted for the rearing of horses, and according to Strabo had 100,000 foals in a single year. They were clad in skins, lived on flesh and milk, and the only manufacture connected with their name is that of the purple dye which became famous from the time of Augustus onwards, and was made from the purple fish found on the coast, apparently both in the Syrtes and on the Atlantic.

We first hear of this people in the Jugurthine War (111-106 B.C.), when, as Sallust tells us, they did not even know the name of Rome. They took part with Jugurtha against Rome; but when we next hear of them they are in alliance with Caesar against Juba I. (Bell. Afr. 32). In 25 B.C. Augustus seems to have given a part of Gaetulia to Juba II., together with his kingdom of Mauretania, doubtless with the object of controlling the turbulent tribes; but the Gaetulians rose and massacred the Roman residents, and it was not till a severe defeat had been inflicted on them by Lentulus Cossus (who thus acquired the surname Gaetulicus) in A.D. 6 that they submitted to the king. After Mauretania became a Roman province in A.D. 40, the Roman governors made frequent expeditions into the Gaetulian territory to the south, and the official view seems to be expressed by Pliny (v. 4. 30) when he says that all Gaetulia as far as the Niger and the Ethiopian frontier was reckoned as subject to the Empire. How far this represents the fact is not clear; but inscriptions prove that Gaetulians served in the auxiliary troops of the empire, and it may be assumed that the country passed within the sphere of Roman influence, though hardly within the pale of Roman civilization.

For bibliography see Africa, Roman.


GAGE, LYMAN JUDSON (1836- ), American financier, was born at De Ruyter, Madison county, New York, on the 28th of June 1836. He was educated at an academy at Rome, New York, where at the age of seventeen he became a bank clerk. In 1855 he removed to Chicago, served for three years as book-keeper in a planing-mill, and in 1858 entered the banking house of the Merchant’s Loan and Trust Company, of which he was cashier in 1861-1868. Afterwards he became successively assistant cashier (1868), vice-president (1882), and president (1891) of the First National Bank of Chicago, one of the strongest financial institutions in the middle west. He was chosen in 1892 president of the board of directors of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the successful financing of which was due more to him than to any other man. In politics he was originally a Republican, and was a delegate to the national convention of the party in 1880, and chairman of its finance committee. In 1884, however, he supported Grover Cleveland for the presidency, and came to be looked upon as a Democrat. In 1892 President Cleveland, after his second election, offered Gage the post of secretary of the treasury, but the offer was declined. In the “free-silver” campaign of 1896 Gage laboured effectively for the election of William McKinley, and from March 1897 until January 1902 he was secretary of the treasury in the cabinets successively of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. From April 1902 until 1906 he was president of the United States Trust Company in New York City. His administration of the treasury department, through a more than ordinarily trying period, was marked by a conservative policy, looking toward the strengthening of the gold standard, the securing of greater flexibility in the currency, and a more perfect adjustment of the relations between the government and the National banks.


GAGE, THOMAS (1721-1787), British general and governor of Massachusetts, second son of the first Viscount Gage, was born in 1721. He entered the army in 1741 and saw service in Flanders and in the campaign of Culloden, becoming lieutenant-colonel in the 44th foot in March 1751. In 1754 he served in America, and he took part in the following year in General Braddock’s disastrous expedition. In 1758 he became colonel of a new regiment, and served in Amherst’s operations against Montreal. He was made governor of Montreal, and promoted major-general in 1761, and in 1763 succeeded Amherst in the command of the British forces in America; in 1770 he was made a lieutenant-general. In 1774 he was appointed governor of Massachusetts, and in that capacity was entrusted with carrying into effect the Boston Port Act. The difficulties which surrounded him in the execution of his office at this time of the gravest unrest culminated in 1775, and the action of the 19th of April at Lexington initiated the American War of Independence. After the battle of Bunker Hill, Gage was superseded by General (Sir William) Howe, and returned to England. He became general in 1782, and died on the 2nd of April 1787.


GAGE, a pledge, something deposited as security for the performance of an agreement, and liable to be forfeited on failure to carry it out. The word also appears in “engage,” and is taken from the O. Fr., as are “wage,” payment for services, and “wager,” bet, stake, from the collateral O. Fr. waige. These two words are from the Low Lat. wadiare, vadiare, to pledge, vadium, classical Lat. vas, vadis, but may be from the old Teutonic cognate base seen in Gothic wadi, a pledge (cf. Ger. wetten, to wager); this Teutonic base is seen in Eng. “wed,” to marry, i.e. to engage by a pledge (cf. Goth, gawadjon, to betrothe). A particular form of giving a “gage” or pledge was that of throwing down a glove or gauntlet as a challenge to a judicial combat, the glove being the “pledge” that the parties would appear on the field; hence the common phrase “to throw down the gage of defiance” for any challenge (see Glove and Wager).


GAGERN, HANS CHRISTOPH ERNST, Baron von (1766-1852), German statesman and political writer, was born at Kleinniedesheim, near Worms, on the 25th of January 1766. After studying law at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen, he entered the service of the prince of Nassau-Weilburg, whom in 1791 he represented at the imperial diet. He was afterwards appointed the prince’s envoy at Paris, where he remained till the decree of Napoleon, forbidding all persons born on the left side of the Rhine to serve any other state than France, compelled him to resign his office (1811). He then retired to Vienna, and in 1812 he took part in the attempt to excite a second insurrection against Napoleon in Tirol. On the failure of this attempt he left Austria and joined the headquarters of the Prussian army (1813), and became a member of the board of administration for north Germany. In 1814 he was appointed administrator of the Orange principalities; and, when the prince of Orange became king of the Netherlands, Baron Gagern became his prime minister. In 1815 he represented him at the congress of Vienna, and succeeded in obtaining for the Netherlands a considerable augmentation of territory. From 1816 to 1818 he was Luxemburg envoy at the German diet, but was recalled, at the instance of Metternich, owing to his too independent advocacy of state constitutions. In 1820 he retired with a pension to his estate at Hornau, near Höchst, in Hesse-Darmstadt; but as a member of the first chamber of the states of the grand-duchy he continued to take an active share in the promotion of measures for the welfare of his country. He retired from public life in 1848, and died at Hornau on the 22nd of October 1852. Baron von Gagern wrote a history of the German nation (Vienna, 1813; 2nd ed., 2 vols., Frankfort, 1825-1826), and several other books on subjects connected with history and social and political science. Of most permanent value, however, is his autobiography, Mein Anteil an der Politik, 5 vols. (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1823-1845).

Of Hans Christoph von Gagern’s sons three attained considerable eminence:—

Friedrich Balduin, Freiherr von Gagern (1794-1848), the eldest, was born at Weilburg on the 24th of October 1794. He entered the university of Göttingen, but soon left, and, taking service in the Austrian army, took part in the Russian campaign of 1812, and fought in the following year at Dresden, Kulm and Leipzig. He then entered the Dutch service, took part in the campaigns of 1815, and, after studying another year at Heidelberg, was member for Luxemburg of the military commission of the German federal diet (1824, 1825). In 1830 and 1831 he took part in the Dutch campaign in Belgium, and in 1844, after being promoted to the rank of general, was sent on an important mission to the Dutch East Indies to inquire into the state of their military defences. In 1847 he was appointed governor at the Hague, and commandant in South Holland. In the spring of 1848 he was in Germany, and on the outbreak of the revolutionary troubles he accepted the invitation of the government of Baden to take the command against the insurgent “free companies” (Freischaaren). At Kandern, on the 20th of April, he made a vain effort to persuade the leaders to submit, and was about to order his troops to attack when he was mortally wounded by the bullets of the insurgents. His Life, in 3 vols. (Heidelberg and Leipzig, 1856-1857), was written by his brother Heinrich von Gagern.

Heinrich Wilhelm August, Freiherr von Gagern (1799-1880), the third son, was born at Bayreuth on the 20th of August 1799, educated at the military academy at Munich, and, as an officer in the service of the duke of Nassau, fought at Waterloo. Leaving the service after the war, he studied jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Göttingen and Jena, and in 1819 went for a while to Geneva to complete his studies. In 1821 he began his official career as a lawyer in the grand-duchy of Hesse, and in 1832 was elected to the second chamber. Already at the universities he had proclaimed his Liberal sympathies as a member of the Burschenschaft, and he now threw himself into open opposition to the unconstitutional spirit of the Hessian government, an attitude which led to his dismissal from the state service in 1833. Henceforth he lived in comparative retirement, cultivating a farm rented by his father at Monsheim, and occasionally publishing criticisms of public affairs, until the February revolution of 1848 and its echoes in Germany recalled him to active political life. For a short while he was at the head of the new Hessian administration; but his ambition was to share in the creation of a united Germany. At the Heidelberg meeting and the preliminary convention (Vorparlament) of Frankfort he deeply impressed the assemblies with the breadth and moderation of his views; with the result that when the German national parliament met (May 18), he was elected its first president. His influence was at first paramount, both with the Unionist party and with the more moderate elements of the Left, and it was he who was mainly instrumental in imposing the principle of a united empire with a common parliament, and in carrying the election of the Archduke John as regent. With the growing split between the Great Germans (Grossdeutschen), who wished the new empire to include the Austrian provinces, and the Little Germans (Kleindeutschen), who realized that German unity could only be attained by excluding them, his position was shaken. On the 15th of December, when Schmerling and the Austrian members had left the cabinet, Gagern became head of the imperial ministry, and on the 18th he introduced a programme (known as the Gagernsche Programm) according to which Austria was to be excluded from the new federal state, but bound to it by a treaty of union. After a severe struggle this proposal was accepted; but the academic discussion on the constitution continued for weary months, and on the 20th of May, realizing the hopelessness of coming to terms with the ultra-democrats, Gagern and his friends resigned. Later on he attempted to influence the Prussian Northern Union in the direction of the national policy, and he took part in the sessions of the Erfurt parliament; but, soon realizing the hopelessness of any good results from the vacillating policy of Prussia, he retired from the contest, and, as a major in the service of the Schleswig-Holstein government, took part in the Danish War of 1850. After the war he retired into private life at Heidelberg. In 1862, misled by the constitutional tendency of Austrian politics, he publicly declared in favour of the Great German party. In 1864 he went as Hessian envoy to Vienna, retiring in 1872 when the post was abolished. He died at Darmstadt on the 22nd of May 1880.

Maximilian, Freiherr von Gagern (1810-1889), the youngest son, was born at Weilburg on the 26th of March 1810. Up to 1848 he was a government official in Nassau; in that year he became a member of the German national parliament and under-secretary of state for foreign affairs. Throughout the revolutionary years he supported his brother’s policy, became a member of the Erfurt parliament, and, after the collapse of the national movement, returned to the service of the duchy of Nassau. In 1855 he turned Roman Catholic and entered the Austrian service as court and ministerial councillor in the department of foreign affairs. In 1871 he retired, and in 1881 was nominated a life member of the Upper Chamber (Herrenhaus). He died at Vienna on the 17th of October 1889.

See Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, Band viii. p. 301, &c. (1878) and Band xlix. p. 654 (1904).


GAHANBAR, festivals of the ancient Avesta calendar celebrated by the Parsees at six seasons of the year which correspond with the six periods of creation: (1) Maidhyozaremaya (mid spring), (2) Maidhyoshema (midsummer), (3) Paitishahya (season of corn), (4) Ayathrema (season of flocks), (5) Maidhyarya (winter solstice), (6) Hamaspathmaedha (festival of sacrifices).


GAIGNIÈRES, FRANÇOIS ROGER DE (1642-1715), French genealogist, antiquary and collector, was the son of Aimé de Gaignières, secretary to the governor of Burgundy, and was born on the 30th of December 1642. He became écuyer (esquire) to Louis Joseph, duke of Guise, and afterwards to Louis Joseph’s aunt, Marie of Guise, by whom in 1679 he was appointed governor of her principality of Joinville. At an early age he began to make a collection of original materials for history generally, and, in particular, for that of the French church and court. He brought together a large collection of original letters and other documents, together with portraits and prints, and had copies made of a great number of the most curious antiquarian objects, such as seals, tombstones, stained glass, miniatures and tapestry. In 1711 he presented the whole of his collections to the king. The bulk of them is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and a certain number in the Bodleian library at Oxford.

See G. Duplessis, Roger de Gaignières (Paris, 1870); L. Delisle, Cabinet des manuscrits, t. i. pp. 335-356; H. Bouchot, Les Portraits aux crayon des XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1884); Ch. de Grandmaison, Gaignières, ses correspondants et ses collections de portraits (Niort, 1892).


GAIL, JEAN BAPTISTE (1755-1829), French hellenist, was born in Paris on the 4th of July 1755. In 1791 he was appointed deputy, and in 1792 titular professor at the Collège de France. During the Revolution he quietly performed his professional duties, taking no part in politics, although he possessed the faculty of ingratiating himself with those in authority. In 1815 he was appointed by the king keeper of Greek MSS. in the royal library over the heads of the candidates proposed by the other conservators, an appointment which made him many enemies. Gail imagined that there was an organized conspiracy to belittle his learning and professional success, and there was a standing quarrel between him and his literary opponents, the most distinguished of whom was P.L. Courier. He died on the 5th of February 1829. Without being a great Greek scholar, Gail was a man of unwearied industry, whose whole life was devoted to his favourite studies, and he deserves every credit for having rescued Greek from the neglect into which it had fallen during the troublous times in which he lived. The list of Gail’s published works filled 500 quarto pages of the introduction to his edition of Xenophon. The best of these is his edition of Theocritus (1828). He also wrote a number of elementary educational works, based on the principles of the school of Port Royal. His communications to the Académie des Inscriptions being coldly received and seldom accorded the honour of print, he inserted them in a vast compilation in 24 volumes, which he called Le Philologue, containing a mass of ill-digested notes on Greek grammar, geography, archaeology, and various authors.

See “Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de J. B. G.,” in Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, ix.; the articles in Biographie universelle (by A. Pillon) and Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie (by C.F. Bähr); a list of his works will be found in J.M. Quérard, La France littéraire (1829), including the contents of the volumes of Le Philologue.


GAILLAC, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Tarn, on the right bank of the Tarn, 15 m. W. of Albi on the railway from that city to Toulouse. Pop. (1906) town, 5388; commune, 7535. The churches of St Michel and St Pierre, both dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, have little architectural importance. There are some interesting houses, one of which, the Maison Yversen, of the Renaissance, is remarkable for the rich carving of its doors. The public institutions include the sub-prefecture, a tribunal of first instance, and a communal college. Its industries include the manufacture of lime and wooden shoes, while dyeing, wood-sawing and flour-milling are also carried on; it has a considerable trade in grain, flour, vegetables, dried plums, anise, coriander, &c., and in wine, the white and red wines of the arrondissement having a high reputation. Gaillac grew up round the Benedictine abbey of St Michel, founded in the 10th century.


GAILLARD, GABRIEL HENRI (1726-1806), French historian, was born at Ostel, Picardy, in 1726. He was educated for the bar, but after finishing his studies adopted a literary career, ultimately devoting his chief attention to history. He was already a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres (1760), when, after the publication of the three first volumes of his Histoire de la rivalité de la France et d’Angleterre, he was elected to the French Academy (1771); and when Napoleon created the Institute he was admitted into its third class (Académie française) in 1803. For forty years he was the intimate friend of Malesherbes, whose life (1805) he wrote. He died at St Firmin, near Chantilly, on the 13th of February 1806. Gaillard is painstaking and impartial in his statement of facts, and his style is correct and elegant, but the unity of his narrative is somewhat destroyed by digressions, and by his method of treating war, politics, civil administration, and ecclesiastical affairs under separate heads. His most important work is his Histoire de la rivalité de la France et de l’Angleterre (in 11 vols., 1771-1777); and among his other works may be mentioned Essai de rhétorique française, à l’usage des jeunes demoiselles (1745), often reprinted, and in 1822 with a life of the author; Histoire de Marie de Bourgogne (1757); Histoire de François Ier (7 vols., 1776-1779); Histoire des grandes querelles entre Charles V. et François Ier (2 vols., 1777); Histoire de Charlemagne (2 vols., 1782); Histoire de la rivalité de la France et de l’Espagne (8 vols., 1801); Dictionnaire historique (6 vols., 1789-1804), making part of the Encyclopédie méthodique; and Mélanges littéraires, containing éloges on Charles V., Henry IV., Descartes, Corneille, La Fontaine, Malesherbes and others.


GAINESVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Alachua county, Florida, U.S.A., about 70 m. S.W. of Jacksonville. Pop. (1890) 2790; (1900) 3633, of whom 1803 were negroes; (1905) 5413; (1910) 6183. Gainesville is served by the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Tampa & Jacksonville railways, and is an important railway junction. It is the seat of the University of the State of Florida, established at Lake City in 1905 and removed to Gainesville in 1906. The university includes a school of language and literature, a general scientific school, a school of agriculture, a technological school, a school of pedagogy, a normal school, and an agricultural experiment station. In 1908 the university had 15 instructors and 103 students. The Florida Winter Bible Conference and Chautauqua is held here. Gainesville is well known as a winter resort, and its climate is especially beneficial to persons affected by pulmonary troubles. In the neighbourhood are the Alachua Sink, Payne’s Prairie, Newman’s Lake, the Devil’s Mill Hopper and other objects of interest. The surrounding country produces Sea Island cotton, melons, citrus and other fruits, vegetables and naval stores. About 15 m. W. of the city there is a rich phosphate mining district. The city has bottling works, and manufactures fertilizers, lumber, coffins, ice, &c. The municipality owns and operates the water-works; the water-supply comes from a spring 2 m. from the city, and the water closely resembles that of the Poland Springs in Maine. Gainesville is in the midst of the famous Seminole country. The first settlement was made here about 1850; and Gainesville, named in honour of General E.P. Gaines, was incorporated as a town in 1869, and was chartered as a city in 1907.


GAINESVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Cooke county, Texas, U.S.A., about 6 m. S. of the Red river, and about 60 m. N. of Fort Worth. Pop. (1890) 6594; (1900) 7874 (1201 negroes and 269 foreign-born); (1910) 7624. The city is served by the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways, and by an interurban electric railway. Gainesville is a trading centre and market for the surrounding country, in which cotton, grains, garden truck, fruit and alfalfa are grown and live-stock is raised; and a wholesale distributing point for the neighbouring region in Texas and Oklahoma. The city has cotton-compresses and cotton-gins, and among its manufactures are cotton-seed oil, flour, cement blocks, pressed bricks, canned goods, foundry products, waggon-beds and creamery products. Gainesville was settled about 1851, was incorporated in 1873, and was chartered as a city in 1879; it was named in honour of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines (1777-1849), who served with distinction in the War of 1812, becoming a brigadier-general in March 1814 and receiving the brevet of major-general and the thanks of Congress for his defence of Fort Erie in August 1814. Gaines took a prominent part in the operations against the Seminoles in Florida in 1817 (when he was in command of the Southern Military District) and in 1836 and during the Mexican War commanded the department of the South-West, with headquarters at New Orleans.


GAINSBOROUGH, THOMAS (1727-1788), English painter, one of the greatest masters of the English school in portraiture, and only less so in landscape, was born at Sudbury, Suffolk, in the spring of 1727. His father, who carried on the business of a woollen crape-maker in that town, was of a respectable character and family, and was noted for his skill in fencing; his mother excelled in flower-painting, and encouraged her son in the use of the pencil. There were nine children of the marriage, two of the painter’s brothers being of a very ingenious turn.

At ten years old, Gainsborough “had sketched every fine tree and picturesque cottage near Sudbury,” and at fourteen, having filled his task-books with caricatures of his schoolmaster, and sketched the portrait of a man whom he had detected on the watch for robbing his father’s orchard, he was allowed to follow the bent of his genius in London, with some instruction in etching from Gravelot, and under such advantages as Hayman, the historical painter, and the academy in St Martin’s Lane could afford. Three years of study in the metropolis, where he did some modelling and a few landscapes, were succeeded by two years in the country. Here he fell in love with Margaret Burr, a young lady of many charms, including an annuity of £200, married her after painting her portrait, and a short courtship, and, at the age of twenty, became a householder in Ipswich, his rent being £6 a year. The annuity was reported to come from Margaret’s real (not her putative) father, who was one of the exiled Stuart princes or else the duke of Bedford. She was sister of a young man employed by Gainsborough’s father as a traveller. At Ipswich, Gainsborough tells us, he was “chiefly in the face-way”; his sitters were not so numerous as to prevent him from often rambling with his friend Joshua Kirby (president of the Society of Artists) on the banks of the Orwell, from painting many landscapes with an attention to details which his later works never exhibited, or from joining a musical club and entertaining himself and his fellow-townsmen by giving concerts. As he advanced in years he became ambitious of advancing in reputation. Bath was then the general resort of wealth and fashion, and to that city, towards the close of the year 1759, he removed with his wife and two daughters, the only issue of their marriage. His studio in the circus was soon thronged with visitors; he gradually raised his price for a half-length portrait from 5 to 40 guineas, and for a whole-length from 8 to 100 guineas; and he rapidly developed beyond the comparatively plain and humdrum quality of his Ipswich paintings. Among his sitters at this period were the authors Sterne and Richardson, and the actors Quin, Henderson and Garrick. Meanwhile he contributed both portraits and landscapes to the annual exhibitions in London. He indulged his taste for music by learning to play the viol-di-gamba, the harp, the hautboy, the violoncello. His house harboured Italian, German, French and English musicians. He haunted the green-room of Palmer’s theatre, and painted gratuitously the portraits of many of the actors: he constantly gave away his sketches and landscapes. In the summer of 1774, having already attained a position of great prosperity, he took his departure for London, and fixed his residence at Schomberg House, Pall Mall, a noble mansion still standing, for a part of which the artist paid £300 a year.

Gainsborough had not been many months in London ere he received a summons to the palace, and to the end of his career he divided with West the favour of the court, and with Reynolds the favour of the town. Sheridan, Burke, Johnson, Franklin, Canning, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mrs Siddons, Clive, Blackstone, Hurd, were among the number of those who sat to him. But in London as in Bath his landscapes were exhibited, were commended, and were year after year returned to him, “till they stood,” says Sir William Beechey, “ranged in long lines from his hall to his painting-room.” Gainsborough was a member of the Royal Academy, one of the original 36 elected in 1768; but in 1784, being dissatisfied with the position assigned on the exhibition walls to his portrait of the three princesses, he withdrew that and his other pictures, and he never afterwards exhibited there. Even before this he had taken no part in the business of the Institution. After seceding he got up an exhibition in his own house, not successfully. In February 1788, while witnessing the trial of Warren Hastings, he felt an extraordinary chill at the back of his neck; this was the beginning of a cancer (or, as some say, a malignant wen) which proved fatal on the 2nd of August of the same year. He lies buried at Kew.

Gainsborough was tall, fair and handsome, generous, impulsive to the point of capriciousness, easily irritated, not of bookish likings, a lively talker, good at repartee. He was a most thorough embodiment of the artistic temperament; delighting in nature and “the look of things,” insatiable in working, fond of music and the theatre hardly less than of painting—a warm, rich personality, to whom severe principle was perhaps as foreign as deliberate wrong-doing. The property which he left at his death was not large. One of his daughters, Mary, had married the musician Fischer contrary to his wishes, and was subject to fits of mental aberration. The other daughter, Margaret, died unmarried. Mrs Gainsborough, an extremely sweet-tempered woman, survived her husband ten years. There is a pretty anecdote that Gainsborough, if he ever had a tiff with her, would write a pacifying note, confiding it to his dog Fox, who delivered it to the lady’s pet spaniel Tristram. The note was worded as in the person of Fox to Tristram, and Mrs Gainsborough replied in the best of humours, as from Tristram to Fox.

Gainsborough and Reynolds rank side by side as the greatest portrait-painters of the English school. They were at variance; but Gainsborough on his death-bed sought and obtained a reconciliation. It is difficult to say which stands the higher of the two, although Reynolds may claim to have worked with a nearer approach to even and demonstrable excellence. In grace, spirit, and lightness of insight and of touch, Gainsborough is peculiarly eminent. His handling was slight for the most part, and somewhat arbitrary, but in a high degree masterly; and his landscapes and rustic compositions are not less gifted than his portraits. Among his finest works are portraits of “Lady Ligonier,” “Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire,” “Master Buttall (the Blue Boy),” now in Grosvenor House, “Mrs Sheridan and Mrs Tickell,” “Orpin, the parish clerk” (National Gallery), “the Hon. Mrs Graham” (Scottish National Gallery), his own portrait (Royal Academy), “Mrs Siddons” (National Gallery); also “the Cottage Door,” “the Market Cart,” “the Return from Harvest,” “the Woodman and his Dog in a Storm” (destroyed by fire), and “Waggon and Horses passing a Brook” (National Gallery—this was a favourite with its painter). He made a vast number of drawings and sketches.

A few observations may be added: (1) as to individual works by Gainsborough, and (2) as to his general characteristics as a painter.

Two of his first portraits, executed when he was settled at Ipswich, were separate likenesses of Mr and Mrs Hingeston. His first great hit was made at Bath with a portrait of Lord Nugent. With a likeness of Mr Poyntz, 1762, we find a decided advance in artistic type, and his style became fixed towards 1768. The date of the “Blue Boy” is somewhat uncertain: most accounts name 1779, but perhaps 1770 is nearer the mark. This point is not without interest for dilettanti; because it is said that Gainsborough painted the picture with a view to confuting a dictum of Reynolds, to the effect that blue was a colour unsuitable for the main light of a work. But, if the picture was produced before 1778, the date of Reynolds’s dictum, this long-cherished and often-repeated tradition must be given up. A full-length of the duke of Norfolk was perhaps the latest work to which Gainsborough set his hand. His portrait of Elizabeth, duchess of Devonshire, famous for its long disappearance, has aroused much controversy; whether this painting, produced not long after Gainsborough had settled in London, and termed “the Duchess of Devonshire,” does really represent that lady, is by no means certain. It was mysteriously stolen in 1876 in London immediately after it had been purchased by Messrs Agnew at the Wynn Ellis sale at a huge price, and a long time elapsed before it was retraced. The picture was taken to New York, and eventually to Chicago; and in April 1901, through the agency of a man named Pat Sheedy, it was given up to the American detectives working for Messrs Agnew; it was then sold to Mr Pierpont Morgan.

Gainsborough’s total output of paintings exceeded 300, including 220 portraits: he also etched at least 18 plates, and 3 in aquatint. At the date of his death 56 paintings remained on hand: these, along with 148 drawings, were then exhibited. In his earlier days he made a practice of copying works by Vandyck (the object of his more special admiration), Titian, Rubens, Teniers, Hobbema, Claude and some others, but not in a spirit of servile reproduction.

Gainsborough was pre-eminent in that very essential element of portraiture—truthful likeness. In process of time he advanced in the rendering of immediate expression, while he somewhat receded in general character. He always made his sitters look pleasant, and, after a while, distinguished. Unity of impression is one of the most marked qualities in his work; he seems to have seen his subject as an integer, and he wrought at the various parts of it together, every touch (and very wilful some of his touches look) tending towards the foreseen result. He painted with arrowy speed, more especially in his later years. For portraits he used at times brushes upon sticks 6 ft. long; there was but little light in his painting-room, and he often worked in the evenings. He kept his landscape work distinct from his portraiture, not ever adding to the latter a fully realized landscape background; his views he never signed or dated—his likenesses only once or twice. His skies are constantly cloudy, the country represented is rough and broken; the scenes are of a pastoral kind, with an effect generally of coming rain, or else of calm sun-setting. The prevalent feeling of his landscapes is somewhat sad, and to children, whether in subject-groups or in portraits, he mostly lent an expression rather plaintive than mirthful. It should be acknowledged that, whether in portraiture or in landscape, the painter’s mannerisms of execution increased in process of time—patchings of the brush, tufty foliage, &c.; some of his portraits are hurried and flimsy, with a minimum of solid content, though not other than artistic in feeling. Here are a few of his axioms:—“What makes the difference between man and man is real performance, and not genius or conception.” “I don’t think it would be more ridiculous for a person to put his nose close to the canvas and say the colours smelt offensive than to say how rough the paint lies, for one is just as material as the other with regard to hurting the effect and drawing of a picture.” “The eye is the only perspective-master needed by a landscape-painter.”

Authorities.—In 1788 Philip Thicknesse, Lieutenant-Governor of Landguard Fort, Ipswich, who had been active in promoting the artist’s fortunes at starting, published A Sketch of the Life and Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough. He had quarrelled with the painter at Bath, partly because the latter had undertaken to do a portrait of him as a gift, and then neglected the work, and finally, in a huff, bundled it off only half done. The crucial question here is whether or not Gainsborough was reasonably pledged to perform any such gratuitous work, and this point has been contested. Thicknesse’s book is in part adverse to Gainsborough, and more particularly so to his wife. Reynolds’s “Lecture” on Gainsborough, replete with critical insight, should never be lost sight of as a leading document. In 1856 a heedfully compiled Life of Thomas Gainsborough was brought out by T.W. Fulcher. This was the first substantial work about him subsequent to Allan Cunningham’s lively account (1829) in his Lives of the Painters. Of late years a great deal has been written, mainly but not by any means exclusively from the critical or technical point of view:—Sir Walter Armstrong (two works, 1896 and 1898); Mrs Arthur Bell (1902); Sir W.M. Conway, Artistic Development of Reynolds and Gainsborough (1886); Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower (1903); G.M. Brock-Arnold (1881). G. Pauli has brought out an illustrated work in Germany (1904) under the title Gainsborough.

(W. M. R.)


GAINSBOROUGH, a market town in the W. Lindsey or Gainsborough parliamentary division of Lincolnshire, England; on the right (E.) bank of the Trent. Pop. of urban district (1901) 17,660. It is served by the Lincoln-Doncaster joint line of the Great Northern and Great Eastern railways, by which it is 16 m. N.W. of Lincoln, and by the Great Central railway. The parish church of All Saints is classic of the 18th century, excepting the Perpendicular tower. The two other parish churches are modern. The Old Hall, of the 15th century, enlarged in the 16th, is a picturesque building, forming three sides of a quadrangle, partially timber-framed, but having a beautiful oriel window and other parts of stone. There is also a Tudor tower of brick. A literary and scientific institute occupy part of the building. Gainsborough possesses a grammar school (founded in 1589 by a charter of Queen Elizabeth) and other schools, town-hall, county court-house, Albert Hall and Church of England Institute. There is a large carrying trade by water on the Trent and neighbouring canals. Shipbuilding and iron-founding are carried on, and there are manufactures of linseed cake, and agricultural and other machinery.

Gainsborough (Gegnesburh) was probably inhabited by the Saxons on account of the fishing in the Trent. The Saxon Chronicle states that in 1013 the Danish king Sweyn landed here and subjugated the inhabitants. Gainsborough, though not a chartered borough, was probably one by prescription, for mention is made of burghal tenure in 1280. The privilege of the return of writs was conferred on the lord of the manor, Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, in 1323, and confirmed to Ralph de Percy in 1383. Mention is made in 1204 of a Wednesday market, but there is no extant grant before 1258, when Henry III. granted a Tuesday market to William de Valence, earl of Pembroke, who also obtained from Edward I. in 1291 licence for an annual fair on All Saints’ Day, and the seven preceding and eight following days. In 1243 Henry III. granted to John Talbot licence for a yearly fair on the eve, day and morrow of St James the Apostle. Queen Elizabeth in 1592 granted to Thomas Lord Burgh two fairs, to begin on Easter Monday and on the 9th of October, each lasting three days. Charles I. in 1635-1636 extended the duration of each to nine days. The Tuesday market is still held, and the fair days are Tuesday and Wednesday in Easter-week, and the Tuesday and Wednesday after the 20th of October.

See Adam Stark, History and Antiquities of Gainsburgh (London, 1843).


GAIRDNER, JAMES (1828- ), English historian, son of John Gairdner, M.D., was born in Edinburgh on the 22nd of March 1828. Educated in his native city, he entered the Public Record Office in London in 1846, becoming assistant keeper of the public records (1859-1893). Gairdner’s valuable and painstaking contributions to English history relate chiefly to the reigns of Richard III., Henry VII. and Henry VIII. For the “Rolls Series” he edited Letters and Papers illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII. (London, 1861-1863), and Memorials of Henry VII. (London, 1858); and he succeeded J.S. Brewer in editing the Letters and Papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII. (London, 1862-1905). He brought out the best edition of the Paston Letters (London, 1872-1875, and again 1896), for which he wrote a valuable introduction; and for the Camden Society he edited the Historical collections of a Citizen of London (London, 1876), and Three 15th-century Chronicles (London, 1880). His other works include excellent monographs on Richard III. (London, 1878, new and enlarged edition, Cambridge, 1898), and on Henry VII. (London, 1889, and subsequently); The Houses of Lancaster and York (London, 1874, and other editions); The English Church in the 16th century (London, 1902); Lollardy and the Reformation in England (1908); and contributions to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Dictionary of National Biography, the Cambridge Modern History, and the English Historical Review. Gairdner received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the university of Edinburgh in 1897, and was made a C.B. in 1900.


GAIRLOCH (Gaelic geàrr, short), a sea loch, village and parish in the west of the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Pop. of parish (1901) 3797. The parish covers a large district on the coast, and stretches inland beyond the farther banks of Loch Maree, the whole of which lies within its bounds. It also includes the islands of Dry and Horisdale in the loch, and Ewe in Loch Ewe, and occupies a total area of 200,646 acres. The place and loch must not be confounded with Gareloch in Dumbartonshire. Formerly an appanage of the earldom of Ross, Gairloch has belonged to the Mackenzies since the end of the 15th century. Flowerdale, an 18th-century house in the pretty little glen of the same name, lying close to the village, is the chief seat of the Gairloch branch of the clan Mackenzie. William Ross (1762-1790), the Gaelic poet, who was schoolmaster of Gairloch, of which his mother was a native, was buried in the old kirkyard, where a monument commemorates him.


GAISERIC, or Genseric (c. 390-477), king of the Vandals, was a son of King Godegisel (d. 406), and was born about 390. Though lame and only of moderate stature, he won renown as a warrior, and became king on the death of his brother Gonderic in 428. In 428 or 429 he led a great host of Vandals from Spain into Roman Africa, and took possession of Mauretania. This step is said to have been taken at the instigation of Boniface, the Roman general in Africa; if true, Boniface soon repented of his action, and was found resisting the Vandals and defending Hippo Regius against them. At the end of fourteen months Gaiseric raised the siege of Hippo; but Boniface was forced to fly to Italy, and the city afterwards fell into the hands of the Vandals. Having pillaged and conquered almost the whole of Roman Africa, the Vandal king concluded a treaty with the emperor Valentinian III. in 435, by which he was allowed to retain his conquests; this peace, however, did not last long, and in October 439 he captured Carthage, which he made the capital of his kingdom. According to some authorities Gaiseric at this time first actually assumed the title of king. In religious matters he was an Arian, and persecuted the members of the orthodox church in Africa, although his religious policy varied with his relations to the Roman empire. Turning his attention in another direction he built a fleet, and the ravages of the Vandals soon made them known and feared along the shores of the Mediterranean. “Let us make,” said Gaiseric, “for the dwellings of the men with whom God is angry,” and he left the conduct of his marauding ships to wind and wave. In 455, however, he led an expedition to Rome, stormed the city, which for fourteen days his troops were permitted to plunder, and then returned to Africa laden with spoil. He also carried with him many captives, including the empress Eudoxia, who is said to have invited the Vandals into Italy. The Romans made two attempts to avenge themselves, one by the Western emperor, Majorianus, in 460, and the other by the Eastern emperor, Leo I., eight years later; but both enterprises failed, owing principally to the genius of Gaiseric. Continuing his course on the sea the king brought Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic Islands under his rule, and even extended his conquests into Thrace, Egypt and Asia Minor. Having made peace with the eastern emperor Zeno in 476, he died on the 25th of January 477. Gaiseric was a cruel and cunning man, possessing great military talents and superior mental gifts. Though the effect of his victories was afterwards neutralized by the successes of Belisarius, his name long remained the glory of the Vandals. The name Gaiseric is said to be derived from gais, a javelin, and reiks, a king.

See Vandals; also T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. ii. (London, 1892); E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. J.B. Bury, 1896-1900); L. Schmidt, Geschichte der Vandalen (Leipzig, 1901); and F. Martroye, Genseric; La Conquête vandale en Afrique (Paris, 1907).


GAISFORD, THOMAS (1779-1855), English classical scholar, was born at Iford, Wiltshire, on the 22nd of December 1779. Proceeding to Oxford in 1797, he became successively student and tutor of Christ Church, and was in 1811 appointed regius professor of Greek in the university. Taking orders, he held (1815-1847) the college living of Westwell, in Oxfordshire, and other ecclesiastical preferments simultaneously with his professorship. From 1831 until his death on the 2nd of June 1855, he was dean of Christ Church. As curator of the Bodleian and principal delegate of the University Press he was instrumental in securing the co-operation of distinguished European scholars as collators, notably Bekker and Dindorf. Among his numerous contributions to Greek literature may be mentioned, Hephaestion’s Encheiridion (1810); Poëtae Graeci minores (1814-1820); Stobaeus’ Florilegium (1822); Herodotus, with variorum notes (1824); Suidas’ Lexicon (1834); Etymologicon magnum (1848); Eusebius’s Praeparatio (1843) and Demonstratio evangelica (1852). In 1856 the Gaisford prizes, for Greek composition, were founded at Oxford to perpetuate his memory.


GAIUS, a celebrated Roman jurist. Of his personal history very little is known. It is impossible to discover even his full name, Gaius or Caius being merely the personal name (praenomen) so common in Rome. From internal evidence in his works it may be gathered that he flourished in the reigns of the emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. His works were thus composed between the years 130 and 180, at the time when the Roman empire was most prosperous, and its government the best. Most probably Gaius lived in some provincial town, and hence we find no contemporary notices of his life or works. After his death, however, his writings were recognized as of great authority, and the emperor Valentinian named him, along with Papinian, Ulpian, Modestinus and Paulus, as one of the five jurists whose opinions were to be followed by judicial officers in deciding cases. The works of these jurists accordingly became most important sources of Roman law.

Besides the Institutes, which are a complete exposition of the elements of Roman law, Gaius was the author of a treatise on the Edicts of the Magistrates, of Commentaries on the Twelve Tables, and on the important Lex Papia Poppaea, and several other works. His interest in the antiquities of Roman law is apparent, and for this reason his work is most valuable to the historian of early institutions. In the disputes between the two schools of Roman jurists he generally attached himself to that of the Sabinians, who were said to be followers of Ateius Capito, of whose life we have some account in the Annals of Tacitus, and to advocate a strict adherence as far as possible to ancient rules, and to resist innovation. Many quotations from the works of Gaius occur in the Digest of Justinian, and so acquired a permanent place in the system of Roman law; while a comparison of the Institutes of Justinian with those of Gaius shows that the whole method and arrangement of the later work were copied from that of the earlier, and very numerous passages are word for word the same. Probably, for the greater part of the period of three centuries which elapsed between Gaius and Justinian, the Institutes of the former had been the familiar textbook of all students of Roman law.

Unfortunately the work was lost to modern scholars, until, in 1816, a manuscript was discovered by B.G. Niebuhr in the chapter library of Verona, in which certain of the works of St Jerome were written over some earlier writings, which proved to be the lost work of Gaius. The greater part of the palimpsest has, however, been deciphered and the text is now fairly complete. This discovery has thrown a flood of light on portions of the history of Roman law which had previously been most obscure. Much of the historical information given by Gaius is wanting in the compilations of Justinian, and, in particular, the account of the ancient forms of procedure in actions. In these forms can be traced “survivals” from the most primitive times, which provide the science of comparative law with valuable illustrations, which may explain the strange forms of legal procedure found in other early systems. Another circumstance which renders the work of Gaius more interesting to the historical student than that of Justinian, is that Gaius lived at a time when actions were tried by the system of formulae, or formal directions given by the praetor before whom the case first came, to the judex to whom he referred it. Without a knowledge of the terms of these formulae it is impossible to solve the most interesting question in the history of Roman law, and show how the rigid rules peculiar to the ancient law of Rome were modified by what has been called the equitable jurisdiction of the praetors, and made applicable to new conditions, and brought into harmony with the notions and the needs of a more developed society. It is clear from evidence of Gaius that this result was obtained, not by an independent set of courts administering, as in England previous to the Judicature Acts, a system different from that of the ordinary courts, but by the manipulation of the formulae. In the time of Justinian the work was complete, and the formulary system had disappeared.

The Institutes of Gaius are divided into four books—the first treating of persons and the differences of the status they may occupy in the eye of the law; the second of things, and the modes in which rights over them may be acquired, including the law relating to wills; the third of intestate succession and of obligations; the fourth of actions and their forms.

There are several carefully prepared editions of the Institutes, starting from that of Göschen (1820), down to that of Studemund and Krüger (1900). The most complete English edition is that of E. Poste, which includes beside the text an English translation and copious commentary (1885). A comparison of the early forms of actions mentioned by Gaius with those used by other primitive societies will be found in Sir H. Maine’s Early Institutions, cap. 9. For further information see M. Glasson, Étude sur Gaius et sur le jus respondendi; also Roman Law.


GAIUS CAESAR (A.D. 12-41), surnamed Caligula, Roman emperor from 37-41, youngest son of Germanicus and Agrippina the elder, was born on the 31st of August A.D. 12. He was brought up in his father’s camp on the Rhine among the soldiers, and received the name Caligula from the caligae, or foot-soldiers’ boots, which he used to wear. He also accompanied his father to Syria, and after his death returned to Rome. In 32 he was summoned by Tiberius to Capreae, and by skilful flattery managed to escape the fate of his relatives. After the murder of Tiberius by Naevius Sertorius Macro, the prefect of the praetorian guards, which was probably due to his instigation, Caligula ascended the throne amidst the rejoicings of the people. The senate conferred the imperial power upon him alone, although Tiberius Gemellus, the grandson of the preceding emperor, had been designated as his co-heir. He entered on his first consulship in July 37. For the first eight months of his reign he did not disappoint the popular expectation; but after his recovery from a severe illness his true character showed itself. His extravagance, cruelty and profligacy can hardly be explained except on the assumption that he was out of his mind. According to Pelham, much of his conduct was due to the atmosphere in which he was brought up, and the ideas of sovereignty instilled into him, which led him to pose as a monarch of the Graeco-oriental type. To fill his exhausted treasury he put to death his wealthy subjects and confiscated their property; even the poor fell victims to his thirst for blood. He bestowed the priesthood and a consulship upon his horse Incitatus, and demanded that sacrifice should be offered to himself. He openly declared that he wished the whole Roman people had only one head, that he might cut it off at a single stroke. In 39 he set out with an army to Gaul, nominally to punish the Germans for having invaded Roman territory, but in reality to get money by plunder and confiscation. Before leaving, he led his troops to the coast opposite Britain, and ordered them to pick up shells on the seashore, to be dedicated to the gods at Rome as the spoils of ocean. On his return he entered Rome with an ovation (a minor form of triumph), temples were built, statues erected in his honour, and a special priesthood instituted to attend to his worship. The people were ground down by new forms of taxation and every kind of extortion, but on the whole Rome was free from internal disturbances during his reign; some insignificant conspiracies were discovered and rendered abortive. A personal insult to Cassius Chaerea, tribune of a praetorian cohort, led to Caligula’s assassination on the 24th of January 41.

See Suetonius, Caligula; Tacitus, Annals, vi. 20 ff.; Dio Cassius lix.; see also S. Baring Gould, The Tragedy of the Caesars (3rd ed., 1892); H.F. Pelham in Quarterly Review (April, 1905); H. Willrich, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte (1903); H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. pt. 1; J.B. Bury, Student’s Hist. of the Roman Empire (1893); Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, ch. 48; H. Furneaux’s Annals of Tacitus, ii. (introduction). Mention may also be made of the famous pamphlet by L. Quidde, Caligula. Eine Studie über römischen Cäsarenwahnsinn and an anonymous supplement, 1st Caligula mit unserer Zeit vergleichbar? (both 1894); and a reply, Fin-de-Siècle-Geschichtsschreibung, by G. Sommerfeldt (1895).


GALAGO, the Senegal name of the long-tailed African representatives of the lemur-like Primates, which has been adopted as their technical designation. Till recently the galagos have been included in the family Lemuridae; but this is restricted to the lemurs of Madagascar, and they are now classed with the lorises and pottos in the family Nycticebidae, of which they form the section Galaginae, characterized by the great elongation of the upper portion of the feet (tarsus) and the power of folding the large ears. Throughout the greater part of Africa south of the Sahara galagos are widely distributed in the wooded districts, from Senegambia in the west to Abyssinia in the east, and as far south as Natal. They pass the day in sleep, but are very active at night, feeding on fruits, insects and small birds. When they descend to the ground they sit upright, and move about by jumping with their hind-legs like jerboas. They are pretty little animals, varying from the size of a small cat to less than that of a rat, with large eyes and ears, soft woolly fur and long tails. There are several species, of which G. crassicaudatus from Mozambique is the largest; together with G. garnetti of Natal, G. agisymbanus of Zanzibar, and G. monteiroi of Angola, this represents the subgenus Otolemur. The typical group includes G. senegalensis (or galago) of Senegal, G. alleni of West and Central Africa, and G. moholi of South Africa; while G. demidoffi of West and Central Africa and G. anomurus of French Congoland represent the subgenus Hemigalago.

(R. L.*)


GALANGAL, formerly written “galingale,” and sometimes “garingal,” rhizoma galangae (Arab. Kholínjan; Ger. Galgantwurzel; Fr. Racine de Galanga), a drug, now obsolete, with an aromatic taste like that of mingled ginger and pepper. Lesser galangal root, radix galangae minoris, the ordinary galangal of commerce, is the dried rhizome of Alpinia officinarum, a plant of the natural order Zingiberaceae, growing in the Chinese island of Hainan, where it is cultivated, and probably also in the woods of the southern provinces of China. The plant is closely allied to Alpinia calcarata, the rhizome of which is sold in the bazaars of some parts of India as a sort of galangal. Its stems attain a length of about 4 ft., and its leaves are slender, lanceolate and light-green, and have a hot taste; the flowers are white with red veins, and in simple racemes; the roots form dense masses, sometimes more than a foot in diameter; and the rhizomes grow horizontally, and are ¾ in. or less in thickness. Galangal seems to have been unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and to have been first introduced into Europe by Arabian physicians. It is mentioned in the writings of Ibn Khurdádbah, an Arabian geographer who flourished in the latter half of the 9th century, and “gallengar” (gallingale or galangal) is one of the ingredients in an Anglo-Saxon receipt for a “wen salve” (see O. Cockayne, Saxon Leechdoms, vol. iii. p. 13). In the middle ages, as at present in Livonia, Esthonia and central Russia, galangal was in esteem in Europe both as a medicine and a spice, and in China it is still employed as a therapeutic agent. Its chief consumption is in Russia, where it is used as a cattle-medicine, and as a flavouring for liqueurs.


Apparently derived from the Chinese Kau-liang-Kiang, i.e. Kau-liang ginger, the term applied by the Chinese to galangal, after the prefecture Kau-chau fu in Canton province, formerly called Kau-liang (see F. Porter Smith, Contrib. to the Materia Medica ... of China, p. 9, 1871).


GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, an archipelago of five larger and ten smaller islands in the Pacific Ocean, exactly under the equator. The nearest island to the South American coast lies 580 m. W. of Ecuador, to which country they belong. The name is derived from galápago, a tortoise, on account of the giant species, the characteristic feature of the fauna. The islands were discovered early in the 16th century by Spaniards, who gave them their present name. They were then uninhabited. The English names of the individual islands were probably given by buccaneers, for whom the group formed a convenient retreat.

The larger members of the group, several of which attain an elevation of 2000 to 2500 ft., are Albemarle or Isabela (100 m. long, 28 m. in extreme breadth, with an area of 1650 sq. m. and an extreme elevation of 5000 ft.), Narborough or Fernandina, Indefatigable or Santa Cruz, Chatham or San Cristobal, James or San Salvador, and Charles or Santa Maria. The total land area is estimated at about 2870 sq. m. (about that of the West Riding of Yorkshire). The extraordinary number of craters, a few of which are reported still to be active, gives evidence that the archipelago is the result of volcanic action. The number of main craters may be about twenty-five, but there are very many small eruptive cones on the flanks of the old volcanoes. There is a convict settlement on Chatham with some 300 inhabitants living in low thatched or iron-roofed huts, under the supervision of a police commissioner and other officials of Ecuador, by which country the group was annexed in 1832, when General Villamil founded Floreana on Charles Island, naming it in honour of Juan José Flores, president of Ecuador. A governor has been appointed since 1885, some importance being foreseen for the islands in connexion with the cutting of the Panama canal, as the group lies on the route to Australia opened up by that scheme. Charles Island, the most valuable of the group, is cultivated by a small colony. On many of the islets numerous tropical fruits are found growing wild, but they are no doubt escapes from cultivation, just as the large herds of wild cattle, horses, donkeys, pigs, goats and dogs—the last large and fierce—which occur abundantly on most of the islands have escaped from domestication.

The shores of the larger islands are fringed in some parts with a dense barrier of mangroves, backed by an often impenetrable thicket of tropical undergrowth, which, as the ridges are ascended, give place to taller trees and deep green bushes which are covered with orchids and trailing moss (orchilla), and from which creepers hang down interlacing the vegetation. But generally the low grounds are parched and rocky, presenting only a few thickets of Peruvian cactus and stunted shrubs, and a most uninviting shore. The contrast between this low zone and the upper zone of rich vegetation (above about 800 ft.) is curiously marked. From July to November the clouds hang low on the mountains, and give moisture to the upper zone, while the climate of the lower is dry. Rain in the lower zone is scanty, and from May to January does not occur. The porous soil absorbs the moisture, and fresh water is scarce. Though the islands are under the equator, the climate is not intensely hot, as it is tempered by cold currents from the Antarctic sea, which, having followed the coast of Peru as far as Cape Blanco, bear off to the N.W. towards and through the Galapagos. The mean temperature of the lower zone is about 71° F., that of the upper from 66° to 62°.

The Galapagos Islands are of some commercial importance to Ecuador, on account of the guano and the orchilla moss found on them and exported to Europe. Except on Charles Island, where settlement has existed longest, little or no influence of the presence of man is evident in the group; still, the running wild of dogs and cats, and, as regards the vegetation, especially goats, must in a comparatively short period greatly modify the biological conditions of the islands.

The origin and development of these conditions, in islands so distinctly oceanic as the Galapagos, have given its chief importance to this archipelago since it was visited by Darwin in the “Beagle.” The Galapagos archipelago possesses a rare advantage from its isolated situation, and from the fact that its history has never been interfered with by any aborigines of the human race. Of the seven species of giant tortoises known to science (although at the discovery of the islands there were probably fifteen) all are indigenous, and each is confined to its own islet. There also occurs a peculiar genus of lizards with two species, the one marine, the other terrestrial. The majority of the birds are of endemic species peculiar to different islets, while more than half belong to peculiar genera. More than half of the flora is unknown elsewhere.

Since 1860 several visits have been paid to the group by scientific investigators—by Dr Habel in 1868; Messrs Baur and Adams, and the naturalists of the “Albatross,” between 1888 and 1891; and in 1897-1898 by Mr Charles Harris, whose journey was specially undertaken at the instance of the Hon. Walter Rothschild. Very complete collections have therefore, as a result of these expeditions, been brought together; but their examination does not materially change the facts upon which the conclusions arrived at by Darwin, from the evidence of the birds and plants, were based; though he “no doubt would have paid more attention to [the evidence afforded by Land-tortoises], if he had been in possession of facts with which we are acquainted now” (Günther). His conclusions were that the group “has never been nearer the mainland than it is now, nor have its members been at any time closer together”; and that the character of the flora and fauna is the result of species straggling over from America, at long intervals of time, to the different islets, where in their isolation they have gradually varied in different degrees and ways from their ancestors. Equally indecisive is the further exploration as to evidence for the opinion held by other naturalists that the endemic species of the different islands have resulted from subsidences, through volcanic action, which have reduced one large island mass into a number of islets, wherein the separated species became differentiated during their isolation. The presence of these giant reptiles on the group is the chief fact on which a former land connexion with the continent of America may be sustained. “Nearly all authorities agree that it is not probable that they have crossed the wide sea between the Galapagos Islands and the American continent, although, while they are helpless, and quite unable to swim, they can float on the water. If their ancestors had been carried out to sea once or twice by a flood and safely drifted as far as the Galapagos Islands” (Wallace), “they must have been numerous on the continent” (Rothschild and Hartert). No remains, and of course no living species, of these tortoises are known to exist or have existed on the mainland. Rothschild and Hartert think “it is more natural to assume the disappearance of a great stock of animals, the remains of which have survived, ... than to assume the disappearance in comparatively recent times (i.e. in the Eocene period or later) of enormous land masses.” Past elevations of land, however (and doubtless equally great subsidences) have taken place in South America since the Eocene, and the conclusion that extensive areas of land have subsided in the Indian Ocean has long been based on a somewhat similar distribution of giant tortoises in the Mascarene region.

Authorities.—Darwin, Voyage of the “Beagle”; O. Salvin, “On the Avifauna of the Galapagos Archipelago,” Trans. Zool. Soc. part ix. (1876); Sclater and Salvin, “Characters of New Species collected by Dr Habel in the Galapagos Islands,” Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, pp. 322-327; A.R. Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals (New York, 1876); Theodor Wolf, Ein Besuch der Galapagos Inseln (Heidelberg, 1879); and paper in Geographical Journal, vi. 560 (1895); W.L. and P.L. Sclater, The Geography of Mammals (London, 1899); Ridgway, “Birds of the Galapagos Archipelago,” Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. vol. xix. pp. 459-670 (1897); Baur, “New Observations on the Origin of the Galapagos Islands,” Amer. Nat. (1897), pp. 661-680, 864-896; A. Agassiz, “The Galapagos Islands,” Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. vol. xxiii. pp. 56-75; A. Günther, Proc. Linn. Soc. (London (President’s Address), October 1898), pp. 14-29 (with bibliography from 1875 to 1898 on gigantic land-tortoises); Rothschild and Hartert, “Review of the Ornithology of the Galapagos Islands,” Novitates zoologicae, vi. pp. 85-205; B.L. Robinson, “Flora of the Galapagos Islands,” Proc. Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences, xxxviii. (1902).


GALASHIELS, a municipal and police burgh of Selkirkshire, Scotland. Pop. (1891) 17,367; (1901) 13,615. It is situated on Gala Water, within a short distance of its junction with the Tweed, 33½ m. S.S.E. of Edinburgh by the North British railway. The town stretches for more than 2 m. along both banks of the river, the mills and factories occupying the valley by the stream, the villas and better-class houses the high-lying ground on either side. The principal structures include the municipal buildings, corn exchange, library, public hall, and the market cross. The town is under the control of a provost, bailies and council, and, along with Hawick and Selkirk, forms the Hawick (or Border) group of parliamentary burghs. The woollen manufactures, dating from the close of the 16th century, are the most important in Scotland, though now mainly confined to the weaving of tweeds. Other leading industries are hosiery, tanning (with the largest yards in Scotland), dyeing, iron and brass founding, engineering and boot-making. Originally a village built for the accommodation of pilgrims to Melrose Abbey (4 m. E. by S.), it became, early in the 15th century, an occasional residence of the Douglases, who were then keepers of Ettrick Forest, and whose peel-tower was not demolished till 1814. Galashiels was created into a burgh of barony in 1599. The Catrail or Picts’ Work begins near the town and passes immediately to the west. Clovenfords, 3½ m. W., is noted for the Tweed vineries, which are heated by 5 m. of water-pipes, and supply the London market throughout the winter. Two miles farther W. by S. is Ashestiel, where Sir Walter Scott resided from 1804 to 1812, where he wrote his most famous poems and began Waverley, and which he left for Abbotsford.


GALATIA. I. In the strict sense (Galatia Proper, Roman Gallograecia) this is the name applied by Greek-speaking peoples to a large inland district of Asia Minor since its occupation by Gaulish tribes in the 3rd century B.C. Bounded on the N. by Bithynia and Paphlagonia, W. by Phrygia, S. by Lycaonia and Cappadocia, E. by Pontus, it included the greater part of the modern vilayet of Angora, stretching from Pessinus eastwards to Tavium and from the Paphlagonian hills N. of Ancyra southwards to the N. end of the salt lake Tatta (but probably including the plains W. of the lake during the greater part of its history),—a rough oblong about 200 m. long and 100 (to 130) broad.

Galatia is part of the great central plateau of Asia Minor, here ranging from 2000 to 3000 ft. above sea-level, and falls geographically into two parts separated by the Halys (Kizil Irmak),—a small eastern district lying chiefly in the basin of the Delije Irmak, the principal affluent of the Halys, and a large western region drained almost entirely by the Sangarius (Sakaria) and its tributaries. On the N. side Galatia consists of a series of plains with fairly fertile soil, lying between bare hills. But the greater part is a dreary stretch of barren, undulating uplands, intersected by tiny streams and passing gradually into the vast level waste of treeless (anc. Axylon) plain that runs S. to Lycaonia; these uplands are little cultivated and only afford extensive pasturage for large flocks of sheep and goats. Cities are few and far apart, and the climate is one of extremes of heat and cold. The general condition and aspect of the country was much the same in ancient as in modern times.

The Gaulish invaders appeared in Asia Minor in 278-277 B.C. They numbered 20,000, of which only one-half were fighting men, the rest being doubtless women and children; and not long after their arrival we find them divided into three tribes, Trocmi, Tolistobogii and Tectosages, each of which claimed a separate sphere of operations. They had split off from the army which invaded Greece under Brennus in 279 B.C., and, marching into Thrace under Leonnorius and Lutarius, crossed over to Asia at the invitation of Nicomedes I. of Bithynia, who required help in his struggle against his brother. For about 46 years they were the scourge of the western half of Asia Minor, ravaging the country, as allies of one or other of the warring princes, without any serious check, until Attalus I., king of Pergamum (241-197), inflicted several severe defeats upon them, and about 232 B.C. forced them to settle permanently in the region to which they gave their name. Probably they already occupied parts of Galatia, but definite limits were now fixed and their right to the district was formally recognized. The tribes were settled where they afterwards remained, the Tectosages round Ancyra, the Tolistobogii round Pessinus, and the Trocmi round Tavium. The constitution of the Galatian state is described by Strabo: conformably to Gaulish custom, each tribe was divided into four cantons (Gr. τετραρχίαι), each governed by a chief (“tetrarch”) of its own with a judge under him, whose powers were unlimited except in cases of murder, which were tried before a council of 300 drawn from the twelve cantons and meeting at a holy place called Drynemeton. But the power of the Gauls was not yet broken. They proved a formidable foe to the Romans in their wars with Antiochus, and after Attalus’ death their raids into W. Asia Minor forced Rome in 189 B.C. to send an expedition against them under Cn. Manlius Vulso, who taught them a severe lesson. Henceforward their military power declined and they fell at times under Pontic ascendancy, from which they were finally freed by the Mithradatic wars, in which they heartily supported Rome. In the settlement of 64 B.C. Galatia became a client-state of the empire, the old constitution disappeared, and three chiefs (wrongly styled “tetrarchs”) were appointed, one for each tribe. But this arrangement soon gave way before the ambition of one of these tetrarchs, Deiotarus, the contemporary of Cicero and Caesar, who made himself master of the other two tetrarchies and was finally recognized by the Romans as king of Galatia. On the death of the third king Amyntas in 25 B.C., Galatia was incorporated by Augustus in the Roman empire, and few of the provinces were more enthusiastically loyal.

The population of Galatia was not entirely Gallic. Before the arrival of the Gauls, western Galatia up to the Halys was inhabited by Phrygians, and eastern Galatia by Cappadocians and other native races. This native population remained, and constituted the majority of the inhabitants of the rural parts and almost the sole inhabitants of the towns. They were left in possession of two-thirds of the land (cf. Caesar, B.G. i. 31) on condition of paying part of the produce to their new lords, who took the other third, and agriculture and commerce with all the arts and crafts of peaceful life remained entirely in their hands. They were henceforth ranked as “Galatians” by the outside world equally with their overlords, and it was from their numbers that the “Galatian” slaves who figure in the markets of the ancient world were drawn. The conquerors, who were few in number, formed a small military aristocracy, living not in the towns, but in fortified villages, where the chiefs in their castles kept up a barbaric state, surrounded by their tribesmen. With the decline of their warlike vigour they began gradually to mix with the natives and to adopt at least their religion: the amalgamation was accelerated under Roman influence and ultimately became as complete as that of the Normans with the Saxons in England, but they gave to the mixed race a distinctive tone and spirit, and long retained their national characteristics and social customs, as well as their language (which continued in use, side by side with Greek, in the 4th century after Christ). In the 1st century, when St Paul made his missionary journeys, even the towns Ancyra, Pessinus and Tavium (where Gauls were few) were not Hellenized, though Greek, the language of government and trade, was spoken there; while the rural population was unaffected by Greek civilization. Hellenic ways and modes of thought begin to appear in the towns only in the later 2nd century. In the rustic parts a knowledge of Greek begins to spread in the 3rd century; but only in the 4th and 5th centuries, after the transference of the centre of government first to Nicomedia and then to Constantinople placed Galatia on the highway of imperial communication, was Hellenism in its Christian form gradually diffused over the country. (See also Ancyra; Pessinus; Gordium.)

II. The Roman province of Galatia, constituted 25 B.C., included the greater part of the country ruled by Amyntas, viz. Galatia Proper, part of Phrygia towards Pisidia (Apollonia, Antioch and Iconium), Pisidia, part of Lycaonia (including Lystra and Derbe) and Isauria. For nearly 100 years it was the frontier province, and the changes in its boundaries are an epitome of the stages of Roman advance to the Euphrates, one client-state after another being annexed: Paphlagonia in 6-5 B.C.; Sebastopolis, 3-2 B.C.; Amasia, A.D. 1-2; Comana, A.D. 34-35,—together forming Pontus Galaticus,—the Pontic kingdom of Polemon, A.D. 64, under the name Pontus Polemoniacus. In A.D. 70 Cappadocia (a procuratorial province since A.D. 17) with Armenia Minor became the centre of the forward movement and Galatia lost its importance, being merged with Cappadocia in a vast double governorship until A.D. 114 (probably), when Trajan separated the two parts, making Galatia an inferior province of diminished size, while Cappadocia with Armenia Minor and Pontus became a great consular military province, charged with the defence of the frontier. Under Diocletian’s reorganization Galatia was divided, about 295, into two parts and the name retained for the northern (now nearly identical with the Galatia of Deiotarus); and about 390 this province, amplified by the addition of a few towns in the west, was divided into Galatia Prima and Secunda or Salutaris, the division indicating the renewed importance of Galatia in the Byzantine empire. After suffering from Persian and Arabic raids, Galatia was conquered by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century and passed to the Ottoman Turks in the middle of the 14th.

The question whether the “Churches of Galatia,” to which St Paul addressed his Epistle, were situated in the northern or southern part of the province has been much discussed, and in England Prof. Sir W.M. Ramsay has been the principal advocate of the adoption of the South-Galatian theory, which maintains that they were the churches planted in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch (see Galatians). In the present writer’s opinion this is supported by the study of the historical and geographical facts.

Authorities.—Van Gelder, De Gallis in Graecia et Asia (1888); Staehelin, Gesch. d. kleinasiat. Galater (1897); Perrot, De Galatia prov. Rom. (1867); Sir W.M. Ramsay, Histor. Geogr. (1890), St Paul (1898), and Introd. to Histor. Commentary on Galatians (1899). For antiquities generally, Perrot, Explor. archéol. de la Galatie (1862); K. Humann and O. Puchstein, Reisen in Kleinasien (1890); Koerte, Athen. Mitteilungen (1897); Anderson and Crowfoot, Journ. of Hellenic Studies (1899); and Anderson, Map of Asia Minor (London, Murray, 1903).

(J. G. C. A.)


In the unsettled state of this controversy, weight naturally attaches to the opinion of experts on either side; and the above statement, while opposed to the view taken in the following article on the epistle, must be taken on its merits.—Ed. E.B.


GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE, one of the books of the New Testament. This early Christian scripture is one of the books militant in the world’s literature. Its usefulness to Luther in his propaganda was no accident in its history; it originated in a controversy, and the varying views of the momentous struggle depicted in Gal. ii. and Acts xv. have naturally determined, from time to time, the conception of the epistle’s aim and date. Details of the long critical discussion of this problem cannot be given here. (See Paul.) It must suffice to say that to the present writer the identification of Gal. ii. 1-10 with Acts xi. 28 f. and not with Acts xv. appears quite untenable, while a fair exegesis of Acts xvi. 1-6 implies a distinction between such towns as Lystra, Derbe and Iconium on the one hand and the Galatian χώρα with Phrygia upon the other. A further visit to the latter country is mentioned, upon this view, in Acts xviii. 23. The Christians to whom the epistle was addressed were thus inhabitants, for the most part (iv. 8) of pagan birth, belonging to the northern section of the province, perhaps mainly in its south-western district adjoining Bithynia and the province of Asia. The scanty allusions to this mission in Acts cannot be taken as any objection to the theory. Nor is there any valid geographical difficulty. The country was quite accessible from Antioch. Least of all does the historical evidence at our disposal justify the inference that the civilization of north Galatia, during the 1st century A.D., was Romano-Gallic rather than Hellenic; for, as the coins and inscriptions indicate, the Anatolian culture which predominated throughout the province did not exclude the infusion either of Greek religious conceptions or of the Greek language. The degree of elementary Greek culture needful for the understanding of Galatians cannot be shown to have been foreign to the inhabitants of north Galatia. So far as any trustworthy evidence is available, such Hellenic notions as are presupposed in this epistle might well have been intelligible to the Galatians of the northern provinces. Still less does the acquaintance with Roman jurisprudence in iii. 15-iv. 2 imply, as Halmel contends (Über röm. Recht im Galaterbrief, 1895), not merely that Paul must have acquired such knowledge in Italy but that he wrote the epistle there. A popular acquaintance with the outstanding features of Roman law was widely diffused by this time in Asia Minor.

The epistle can hardly have been written therefore until after the period described in Acts xviii. 22, but the terminus ad quem is more difficult to fix. The composition may be placed (cf. the present writer’s Historical New Testament, pp. 124 f. for details) either during the earlier part of Paul’s residence at Ephesus (Acts xix. 1, 10, so most editors and scholars), or on his way from Ephesus to Corinth, or at Corinth itself (so Lightfoot, Bleek, Salmon).

The epistle was not written until Paul had visited Thessalonica, but the Galatian churches owed their origin to a mission of Paul undertaken some time before he crossed from Asia to Europe. When he composed this letter, he had visited the churches twice. On the former of these visits (iv. 13 τὸ πρότερον), though broken down by illness (2 Cor. xii. 7-9?) he had been enthusiastically welcomed, and the immediate result of his mission was an outburst of religious fervour (iii. 1-5, iv. 14 f.). The local Christians made a most promising start (v. 7). But they failed to maintain their ardour. On his second visit (iv. 13, i. 7, v. 21) the apostle found in many of them a disheartening slackness, due to discord and incipient legalism. His plain-speaking gave offence in some quarters (iv. 16), though it was not wholly ineffective. Otherwise, this second visit is left in the shadow. So far as it was accompanied by warnings, these were evidently general rather than elicited by any definite and imminent peril to the churches. Not long afterwards, however, some judaizing opponents of the apostle (note the contemptuous anonymity of the τινες in i. 7, as in Col. ii. 4 f.), headed by one prominent and influential individual (v. 10), made their appearance among the Galatians, promulgating a “gospel” which meant fidelity to, not freedom from, the Law (i. 6-10). Arguing from the Old Testament, they represented Paul’s gospel as an imperfect creed which required to be supplemented by legal exactitude, including ritual observance (iv. 10) and even circumcision, while at the same time they sought to undermine his authority by pointing out that it was derived from the apostles at Jerusalem and therefore that his teaching must be open to the checks and tests of that orthodox primitive standard which they themselves claimed to embody. The sole valid charter to Messianic privileges was observance of the Mosaic law, which remained obligatory upon pagan converts (iii. 6-9, 16).

When the news of this relapse reached Paul, matters had evidently not yet gone too far. Only a few had been circumcised. It was not too late to arrest the Galatians on their downward plane, and the apostle, unable or unwilling to re-visit them, despatched this epistle. How or when the information came to him, we do not know. But the gravity of the situation renders it unlikely that he would delay for any length of time in writing to counteract the intrigues of his opponents; to judge from allusions like those in i. 6 (ταχέως and μετατίθεσθε—the lapse still in progress), we may conclude that the interval between the reception of the news and the composition of the letter must have been comparatively brief.

After a short introduction (i. 1-5), instead of giving his usual word of commendation, he plunges into a personal and historical vindication of his apostolic independence, which, developed negatively and positively, forms the first of the three main sections in the epistle (i. 6-ii. 21). In the closing passage he drifts over from an account of this interview with Peter into a sort of monologue upon the incompatibility of the Mosaic law with the Christian gospel (ii. 15-21), and this starts him afresh upon a trenchant expostulation and appeal (iii. 1-v. 12) regarding the alternatives of law and spirit. Faith dominates this section; faith in its historical career and as the vantage-ground of Christianity. The much-vaunted law is shown to be merely a provisional episode culminating in the gospel (iii. 7-28) as a message of filial confidence and freedom (iii. 29-iv. 11). The genuine “sons of Abraham” are not legalistic Jewish Christians but those who simply possess faith in Jesus Christ. A passionate outburst then follows (iv. 12 f.), and, harping still on Abraham, the apostle essays, with fresh rabbinic dialectic, to establish Christianity over legalism as the free and final religion for men, applying this to the moral situation of the Galatians themselves (v. 1-12). This conception of freedom then leads him to define the moral responsibilities of the faith (v. 13-vi. 10), in order to prevent misconception and to enforce the claims of the gospel upon the individual and social life of the Galatians. The epilogue (vi. 11-21) reiterates, in a handful of abrupt, emphatic sentences, the main points of the epistle.

The allusion in vi. 11 (ἴδετε πηλίκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί) is to the large bold size of the letters in Paul’s handwriting, but the object and scope of the reference are matters of dispute. It is “a sensational heading” (Findlay), but it may either refer to the whole epistle (so Augustine, Chrysostom, &c., followed by Zahn) or, as most hold (with Jerome) to the postscript (vi. 11-18). Paul commonly dictated his letters. His use of the autograph here may have been to prevent any suspicion of a forgery or to mark the personal emphasis of his message. In any case it is assumed that the Galatians knew his handwriting. It is unlikely that he inserted this postscript from a feeling of ironical playfulness, to make the Galatians realize that, after the sternness of the early chapters, he was now treating them like children, “playfully hinting that surely the large letters will touch their hearts” (so Deissmann, Bible-Studies (1901), 346 f.).

The earliest allusion to the epistle is the notice of its inclusion in Marcion’s canon, but almost verbal echoes of iii. 10-13 are to be heard in Justin Martyr’s Dial. xciv.-xcv.; it was certainly known to Polycarp, and as the 2nd century advances the evidence of its popularity multiplies on all sides, from Ptolemaeus and the Ophites to Irenaeus and the Muratorian canon (cf. Gregory’s Canon and Text of N.T., 1907, pp. 201-203). It is no longer necessary for serious criticism to refute the objections to its authenticity raised during the 19th century in certain quarters; as Macaulay said of the authenticity of Caesar’s commentaries, “to doubt on that subject is the mere rage of scepticism.” Even the problems of its integrity are quite secondary. Marcion (cf. Tert. Adv. Marc. 2-4) removed what he judged to be some interpolations, but van Manen’s attempt to prove that Marcion’s text is more original than the canonical (Theolog. Tijdschrift, 1887, 400 f. 451 f.) has won no support (cf. C. Clemen’s refutation in Die Einheitlichkeit der paulin. Briefe, 1894, pp. 100 f. and Zahn’s Geschichte d. N. T. lichen Kanons, ii. 409 f.), and little or no weight attaches to the attempts made (e.g. by J.A. Cramer) to disentangle a Pauline nucleus from later accretions. Even D. Völter, who applies this method to the other Pauline epistles, admits that Galatians, whether authentic or not, is substantially a literary unity (Paulus und seine Briefe, 1905, pp. 229-285). The frequent roughnesses of the traditional text suggest, however, that here and there marginal glosses may have crept in. Thus iv. 25a (τὸ γὰρ Σινᾶ ὄρος ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ Ἀραβίᾳ) probably represents the explanatory and prosaic gloss of a later editor, as many scholars have seen from Bentley (Opuscula philologica, 1781, pp. 533 f.) to H.A. Schott, J.A. Cramer, J.M.S. Baljon and C. Holsten. The general style of the epistle is vigorous and unpremeditated, “one continuous rush, a veritable torrent of genuine and inimitable Paulinism, like a mountain stream in full flood, such as may often have been seen by his Galatians” (J. Macgregor). But there is a certain rhythmical balance, especially in the first chapter (cf. J. Weiss, Beiträge zur paulin. Rhetorik, 1897, 8 f.); here as elsewhere the rush and flow of feeling carry with them some care for rhetorical form, in the shape of antitheses, such as a pupil of the schools might more or less unconsciously retain. All through, the letter shows the breaks and pauses of a mind in direct contact with some personal crisis. Hurried, unconnected sentences, rather than sustained argument, are its most characteristic features. The trenchant remonstrances and fiery outbursts make it indeed “read like a dithyramb from beginning to end.”

Bibliography.—Of more modern editions in English, the most competent are those of C.J. Ellicott (4th ed., 1867, strong in linguistic and grammatical material), Prof. Eadie (Edinburgh, 1869), J.B. Lightfoot (11th ed., 1892), Dean Alford (3rd ed., 1862) and F. Rendall (Expositor’s Greek Testament, 1903) on the Greek text; Dr Sanday (in Ellicott’s Commentary, 1879), Dr Jas. Macgregor (Edinburgh, 1879), B. Jowett (3rd ed., 1894), Huxtable (Pulpit Comment., 1885), Dr Agar Beet (London, 1885, &c.), Dr W.F. Adeney (Century Bible), Dr E.H. Perowne (Cambridge Bible, 1890) and Dr James Drummond (Internat. Handbooks to N.T., 1899) also comment on the English text. The editions of Lightfoot and Jowett are especially valuable for their subsidiary essays, and Sir W.M. Ramsay’s Historical Commentary on Galatians (1899) contains archaeological and historical material which is often illuminating. The French editions are few and minor, those by A. Sardinoux (Valence, 1837) and E. Reuss (1878) being adequate, however. In Germany the two most up-to-date editions are by F. Sieffert (in Meyer’s Comment., 1899) and Th. Zahn (2nd ed., 1907); these supersede most of the earlier works, but H.A. Schott (1834), A. Wieseler (Göttingen, 1859), G.B. Winer (4th ed., 1859), J.C.K. von Hofmann (2nd ed., 1872), Philippi (1884), R.A. Lipsius (2nd ed., Hand.-Commentar, 1892), and Zöckler (2nd ed., 1894) may still be consulted with advantage, while Hilgenfeld’s commentary (1852) discusses acutely the historical problems of the epistle from the standpoint of Baur’s criticism. The works of A. Schlatter (2nd ed., 1894) and W. Bousset (in Die Schriften des N.T., 2nd ed., 1907) are more popular in character. F. Windischmann (Mayence, 1843), F.X. Reithmayr (1865), A. Schäfer (Münster, 1890) and F. Cornely (1892, also in Cursus scripturae sacrae, 1907) are the most satisfactory modern editors, from the Roman Catholic church, but it should not be forgotten that the 16th century produced the Literalis expositio of Cajetan (Rome, 1529) and the similar work of Pierre Barahona (Salamanca, 1590), no less than the epoch-making edition of Luther (Latin, 1519, &c.; German, 1525 f.; English, 1575 f.). After Calvin and Grotius, H.E.G. Paulus (Des Apostel P. Lehrbriefe an die Gal. u. Römer Christen, 1831) was perhaps the most independent interpreter. For the patristic editions, see the introductory sections in Zahn and Lightfoot. The religious thought of the epistle is admirably expounded from different standpoints by C. Holsten (Das Evangelium Paulus, Teil I., i., 1880), A.B. Bruce (St Paul’s Conception of Christianity, 1894, pp. 49-70) and Prof. G.G. Findlay (Expositor’s Bible). On the historical aspects, Zimmer (Galat. und Apostelgeschichte, 1882) and M. Thomas (Mélanges d’histoire et de litt. religieuse, Paris, 1899, pp. 1-195) are excellent; E.H. Askwith’s essay (Epistle to the Galatians, its Destination and Date, 1899) advocates ingeniously the south Galatian theory, and W.S. Wood (Studies in St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, 1887) criticizes Lightfoot. General studies of the epistle will be found in all biographies of Paul and histories of the apostolic age, as well as in works like Sabatier’s The Apostle Paul (pp. 187 f.), B.W. Bacon’s Story of St Paul (pp. 116 f.), Dr R.D. Shaw’s The Pauline Epistles (2nd ed., pp. 60 f.), R. Mariano, Il Cristianesimo nei primi secoli (1902), i. pp. 111 f., and Volkmar’s Paulus vom Damaskus bis zum Galaterbrief (1887), to which may be added a series of papers by Haupt in Deutsche Evang.-Blätter (1904), 1-16, 89-108, 161-183, 238-259, and an earlier set by Hilgenfeld in the Zeitschrift für wiss. Theologie (“Zur Vorgeschichte des Gal.” 1860, pp. 206 f., 1866, pp. 301 f., 1884, pp. 303 f.). Other monographs and essays have been noted in the course of this article. See further under Paul.

(J. Mt.)


The historical and geographical facts concerning Galatia, which lead other writers to support the south Galatian theory, are stated in the preceding article on Galatia; and the question is still a matter of controversy, the division of opinion being to some extent dependent on whether it is approached from the point of view of the archaeologist or the Biblical critic. The ablest re-statements of the north Galatian theory, in the light of recent pleas for south Galatia as the destination of this epistle, may be found by the English reader in P.W. Schmiedel’s exhaustive article in Encycl. Biblica (1592-1616) and Prof. G.H. Gilbert’s Student’s Life of Paul (1902), pp. 260-272. Schmiedel’s arguments are mainly directed against Sir W.M. Ramsay, but a recent Roman Catholic scholar, Dr A. Steinmann, takes a wider survey in a pamphlet on the north Galatian side of the controversy (Die Abfassungszeit des Galaterbriefes, Münster, i. W., 1906), carrying forward the points already urged by Sieffert and Zöckler amongst others, and especially refuting his fellow-churchman, Prof. Valentine Weber.

The tendency among adherents of the south Galatian theory is to put the epistle as early as possible, making it contemporaneous with, if not prior to, 1 Thessalonians. So Douglass Round in The Date of St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1906).

It is not quite clear whether traces of the Judaistic agitation were already found by Paul on this visit (so especially Holsten, Lipsius, Sieffert, Pfleiderer, Weiss and Weizsäcker) or whether they are to be dated subsequent to his departure (so Philippi, Renan and Hofmann, among others). The tone of surprise which marks the opening of the epistle tells in favour of the latter theory. Paul seems to have been taken aback by the news of the Galatians’ defection.

Apparently they were clever enough to keep the Galatians in ignorance that the entire law would require to be obeyed (v. 3).

The critical dubiety about οὐδέ in ii. 5 (cf. Zahn’s excursus and Prof. Lake in Expositor, March 1906, p. 236 f.) throws a slight doubt on the interpretation of ii. 3, but it is clear that the agitators had quoted Paul’s practice as an authoritative sanction of the rite.

This depreciation is voiced in their catch-word οἱ δοκοῦντες (“those of repute,” ii. 6), while other echoes of their talk can be overheard in such phrases as “we are Abraham’s seed” (iii. 16), “sinners of Gentiles” (ii. 15) and “Jerusalem which is our mother” (iv. 26), as well as in their charges against Paul of “seeking to please men” (i. 10) and “preaching circumcision” (v. 11).

Not only is the address “to the churches of Galatia” unusually bare, but Paul associates no one with himself, either because he was on a journey or because, as the attacked party, he desired to concentrate attention upon his personal commission. Yet the ἡμεῖς of i. 8 indicates colleagues like Silas and Timothy.

Cf. Hausrath’s History of the N.T. Times (iii. pp. 181-199), with the fine remarks, on vi. 17, that “Paul stands before us like an ancient general who bares his breast before his mutinous legions, and shows them the scars of the wounds that proclaim him not unworthy to be called Imperator.”

Cf. T.H. Green’s Works, iii. 186 f. Verses 15-17 are the indirect abstract of the speech’s argument, but in verses 18-21 the apostle, carried away by the thought and barrier of the moment as he dictates to his amanuensis, forgets the original situation.

Thus Paul reverses the ordinary rabbinic doctrine which taught (cf. Kiddushim, 30, b) that the law was given as the divine remedy for the evil yezer of man. So far from being a remedy, he argues, it is an aggravation.

According to Plutarch, Cato the elder wrote histories for the use of his son, ἰδίᾳ χειρὶ καὶ μεγάλοις γράμμασιν (cf. Field’s Notes on Translation of the New Testament, p. 191). If the point of Gal. vi. 11 lies in the size of the letters, Paul cannot have contemplated copies of the epistle being made. He must have assumed that the autograph would reach all the local churches (cf. 2 Thess. iii. 17, with E.A. Abbott, Johannine Grammar, pp. 530-532).

For ἔγραψα, the epistolary aorist, at the close of a letter, cf. Xen. Anab. i. 9. 25, Thuc. i. 129. 3, Ezra iv. 14 (LXX) and Lucian, Dial. Meretr. x.

Hermann Schulze’s attempt to bring out the filiation of the later N.T. literature to Galatians (Die Ursprünglichkeit des Galaterbriefes, Leipzig, 1903) involves repeated exaggerations of the literary evidence.

Cf. especially J. Gloe’s Die jüngste Kritik des Galaterbriefes (Leipzig, 1890) and Baljon’s reply to Steck and Loman (Exeg.-kritische verhandeling over den Brief van P. aan de Gal., 1889). The English reader may consult Schmiedel’s article (already referred to) and Dr R.J. Knowling’s The Testimony of St Paul to Christ (1905), 28 f.

Compare the minute analysis of the whole epistle in F. Blass, Die Rhythmen der asianischen und römischen Kunstprosa (1905), pp. 43-53, 204-216, where, however, this feature is exaggerated into unreality. The comic trimeter in Philipp. iii. 1 (ἐμοὶ μὲν ουκ ὀκνηρόν, ὑμῖν δ᾽ ἀσφαλές) may well be, like that in 1 Cor. xv. 33, a reminiscence of Menander.

This affects even the vocabulary which has also “einen gewissen vulgären Zug” (Nägeli, Der Wortschatz des Apostels Paulus, 1905, pp. 78-79).


GALATINA, a town of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Lecce, from which it is 14 m. S. by rail, 233 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 12,917 (town); 14,086 (commune). It is chiefly remarkable for the fine Gothic church of St Caterina, built in 1390 by Raimondello del Balzo Orsini, count of Soleto, with a fine portal and rose-window. The interior contains frescoes by Francesco d’ Arezzo (1435). The apse contains the fine mausoleum of the son of the founder (d. 1454), a canopy supported by four columns, with his statue beneath it.


GALATZ (Galaţii), a city of Rumania, capital of the department of Covurlui; on the left bank of the river Danube, 90 m. W. by N. of its mouth at Sulina. Pop. (1900) 62,678, including 12,000 Jews. The Danube is joined by the Sereth 3 m. S.W. of Galatz, and by the Pruth 10 m. E. Galatz is built on a slight eminence among the marshes which line the intervening shore and form, beside the western bank of the Pruth, the shallow mere called Lake Bratych (Brateşul), more than 50 sq. m. in extent. With the disappearance, towards the close of the 19th century, of most of its older quarters in which the crooked, ill-paved streets and insanitary houses were liable to be flooded every year, the city improved rapidly. Embankments and fine quays were constructed along the Danube; electric tramways were opened in the main streets, which were lighted by gas or electricity, and pure water was supplied. The higher, or north-western part of the city, which is the more open and comfortable, contains many of the chief buildings. These include the prefecture, consulate, prison, barracks, civil and military hospitals and the offices of the international commission for the control of the Danube (q.v.). The bishop of the lower Danube resides at Galatz. There are many Orthodox Greek, Roman Catholic and other churches; the most interesting being the cathedral, and St Mary’s church, in which is the tomb of the famous Cossack chief, Mazeppa (1644-1709), said to have been rifled of its contents by the Russians. Galatz is a naval station, and the headquarters of the III. army corps, protected by a line of fortifications which extends for 45 m. E. to Focshani and is known as the Sereth line. But the main importance of the city is commercial. Galatz is the chief Moldavian port of entry, approached by three waterways, the Danube, Sereth and Pruth, down which there is a continual volume of traffic, except in mid-winter; and by the railways which intersect all the richest portions of the country. Textiles, machinery, and coal make up the bulk of imports. Besides a large trade in petroleum and salt, Galatz ranks first among Rumanian cities in its export of timber, and second to Braila in its export of grain. It possesses many saw-mills, paste-mills, flour-mills, roperies, chemical works and petroleum refineries; manufacturing also metal ware, wire, nails, soap and candles. Vessels of 2500 tons can discharge at the quays, but cargoes consigned to Galatz are often transhipped into lighters at Sulina. The shipping trade is largely in foreign hands, the principal owners being British.


GALAXY, properly the Milky Way, from the Greek name ὁ γαλαξίας, sc. κύκλος, from γάλα, milk, cf. the Lat. via lactea (see Star). The word is more generally employed in its figurative or transferred sense, to describe a gathering of brilliant or distinguished persons or objects.


GALBA, SERVIUS SULPICIUS, Roman general and orator. He served under Lucius Aemilius Paulus in the third Macedonian War. As praetor in 151 B.C. in farther Spain he made himself infamous by the treacherous murder of a number of Lusitanians, with their wives and children, after inducing them to surrender by the promise of grants of land. For this in 149 he was brought to trial, but secured an acquittal by bribery and by holding up his little children before the people to gain their sympathy. He was consul in 144, and must have been alive in 138. He was an eloquent speaker, noted for his violent gesticulations, and, in Cicero’s opinion, was the first of the Roman orators. His speeches, however, were almost forgotten in Cicero’s time.

Livy xlv. 35; Appian, Hisp. 58-60; Cicero, De orat. i. 53, iii. 7; Brutus 21.


GALBA, SERVIUS SULPICIUS, Roman emperor (June A.D. 68 to January 69), born near Terracina, on the 24th of December 5 B.C. He came of a noble family and was a man of great wealth, but unconnected either by birth or by adoption with the first six Caesars. In his early years he was regarded as a youth of remarkable abilities, and it is said that both Augustus and Tiberius prophesied his future eminence (Tacitus, Annals, vi. 20; Suetonius, Galba, 4). Praetor in 20, and consul in 33, he acquired a well-merited reputation in the provinces of Gaul, Germany, Africa and Spain by his military capability, strictness and impartiality. On the death of Caligula, he refused the invitation of his friends to make a bid for empire, and loyally served Claudius. For the first half of Nero’s reign he lived in retirement, till, in 61, the emperor bestowed on him the province of Hispania Tarraconensis. In the spring of 68 Galba was informed of Nero’s intention to put him to death, and of the insurrection of Julius Vindex in Gaul. He was at first inclined to follow the example of Vindex, but the defeat and suicide of the latter renewed his hesitation. The news that Nymphidius Sabinus, the praefect of the praetorians, had declared in his favour revived Galba’s spirits. Hitherto, he had only dared to call himself the legate of the senate and Roman people; after the murder of Nero, he assumed the title of Caesar, and marched straight for Rome. At first he was welcomed by the senate and the party of order, but he was never popular with the soldiers or the people. He incurred the hatred of the praetorians by scornfully refusing to pay them the reward promised in his name, and disgusted the mob by his meanness and dislike of pomp and display. His advanced age had destroyed his energy, and he was entirely in the hands of favourites. An outbreak amongst the legions of Germany, who demanded that the senate should choose another emperor, first made him aware of his own unpopularity and the general discontent. In order to check the rising storm, he adopted as his coadjutor and successor L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, a man in every way worthy of the honour. His choice was wise and patriotic; but the populace regarded it as a sign of fear, and the praetorians were indignant, because the usual donative was not forthcoming. M. Salvius Otho, formerly governor of Lusitania, and one of Galba’s earliest supporters, disappointed at not being chosen instead of Piso, entered into communication with the discontented praetorians, and was adopted by them as their emperor. Galba, who at once set out to meet the rebels—he was so feeble that he had to be carried in a litter—was met by a troop of cavalry and butchered near the Lacus Curtius. During the later period of his provincial administration he was indolent and apathetic, but this was due either to a desire not to attract the notice of Nero or to the growing infirmities of age. Tacitus rightly says that all would have pronounced him worthy of empire if he had never been emperor (“omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset”).

See his life by Plutarch and Suetonius; Tacitus, Histories, i. 7-49; Dio Cassius lxiii. 23-lxiv. 6; B.W. Henderson, Civil War and Rebellion in the Roman Empire, A.D. 69-70 (1908); W.A. Spooner, On the Characters of Galba, Otho and Vitellius in Introd. to his edition (1891) of the Histories of Tacitus.


GALBANUM (Heb. Helbenāh; Gr. χαλβάνη), a gum-resin, the product of Ferula galbaniflua, indigenous to Persia, and perhaps also of other umbelliferous plants. It occurs usually in hard or soft, irregular, more or less translucent and shining lumps, or occasionally in separate tears, of a light-brown, yellowish or greenish-yellow colour, and has a disagreeable, bitter taste, a peculiar, somewhat musky odour, and a specific gravity of 1.212. It contains about 8% of terpene; about 65% of a resin which contains sulphur; about 20% of gum; and a very small quantity of the colourless crystalline substance umbelliferone, C9H6O3. Galbanum is one of the oldest of drugs. In Exodus xxx. 34 it is mentioned as a sweet spice, to be used in the making of a perfume for the tabernacle. Hippocrates employed it in medicine, and Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxiv. 13) ascribes to it extraordinary curative powers, concluding his account of it with the assertion that “the very touch of it mixed with oil of spondylium is sufficient to kill a serpent.” The drug is occasionally given in modern medicine, in doses of from five to fifteen grains. It has the actions common to substances containing a resin and a volatile oil. Its use in medicine is, however, obsolescent.


GALCHAS, the name given to the highland tribes of Ferghana, Kohistan and Wakhan. These Aryans of the Pamir and Hindu Kush, kinsmen of the Tajiks, are identified with the Calcienses populi of the lay Jesuit Benedict Goes, who crossed the Pamir in 1603 and described them as “of light hair and beard like the Belgians.” The word “Galcha,” which has been explained as meaning “the hungry raven who has withdrawn to the mountains,” in allusion to the retreat of this branch of the Tajik family to the mountains to escape the Tatar hordes, is probably simply the Persian galcha, “clown” or “rustic,” in reference to their uncouth manners. The Galchas conform physically to what has been called the “Alpine or Celtic European race,” so much so that French anthropologists have termed them “those belated Savoyards of Kohistan.” D’Ujfalvy describes them as tall, brown or bronzed and even white, with ruddy cheeks, black, chestnut, sometimes red hair, brown, blue or grey eyes, never oblique, well-shaped, slightly curved nose, thin lips, oval face and round head. Thus it seems reasonable to hold that the Galchas represent the most eastern extension of the Alpine race through Armenia and the Bakhtiari uplands into central Asia. The Galchas for the most part profess Sunnite Mahommedanism.

See Robert Shaw, “On the Galtchah Languages,” in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, xlv. (1876), and xlvi. (1877); Major J. Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo-Koosh (Calcutta, 1880); Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul (1815); Bull. de la société d’anthropologie de Paris (1887); Charles Eugene D’Ujfalvy de Mezoe-Koevesd, Les Aryens (1896), and in Revue d’anthropologie (1879), and Bull. de la soc. de géogr. (June 1878); W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe (New York, 1899).


GALE, THEOPHILUS (1628-1678), English nonconformist divine, was born in 1628 at Kingsteignton, in Devonshire, where his father was vicar. In 1647 he was entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree in 1649, and M.A. in 1652. In 1650 he was made fellow and tutor of his college. He remained some years at Oxford, discharging actively the duties of tutor, and was in 1657 appointed as preacher in Winchester cathedral. In 1662 he refused to submit to the Act of Uniformity, and was ejected. He became tutor to the sons of Lord Wharton, whom he accompanied to the Protestant college of Caen, in Normandy, returning to England in 1665. The latter portion of his life he passed in London as assistant to John Rowe, an Independent minister who had charge of an important church in Holborn; Gale succeeded Rowe in 1677, and died in the following year. His principal work, The Court of the Gentiles, which appeared in parts in 1669, 1671 and 1676, is a strange storehouse of miscellaneous philosophical learning. It resembles the Intellectual System of Ralph Cudworth, though much inferior to that work both in general construction and in fundamental idea. Gale’s endeavour (based on a hint of Grotius in De veritate, i. 16) is to prove that the whole philosophy of the Gentiles is a distorted or mangled reproduction of Biblical truths. Just as Cudworth referred the Democritean doctrine of atoms to Moses as the original author, so Gale tries to show that the various systems of Greek thought may be traced back to Biblical sources. Like so many of the learned works of the 17th century, the Court of the Gentiles is chaotic and unsystematic, while its erudition is rendered almost valueless by the complete absence of any critical discrimination.

His other writings are: A True Idea of Jansenism (1669); Theophil, or a Discourse of the Saint’s Amitie with God in Christ (1671); Anatomie of Infidelitie (1672); Idea theologiae (1673); Philosophia generalis (1676).


GALE, THOMAS (?1636-1702), English classical scholar and antiquarian, was born at Scruton, Yorkshire. He was educated at Westminster school and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. In 1666 he was appointed regius professor of Greek at Cambridge, in 1672 high master of St Paul’s school, in 1676 prebendary of St Paul’s, in 1677 a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1697 dean of York. He died at York on the 7th (or 8th) of April 1702. He published a collection, Opuscula mythologica, ethica, et physica, and editions of several Greek and Latin authors, but his fame rests chiefly on his collection of old works bearing on Early English history, entitled Historiae Anglicanae scriptores and Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae scriptores XV. He was the author of the inscription on the London Monument in which the Roman Catholics were accused of having originated the great fire.

See J.E.B. Mayor, Cambridge in the Time of Queen Anne, 448-450.


GALE. 1. (A word of obscure origin; possibly derived from Dan. gal, mad or furious, sometimes applied to wind, in the sense of boisterous) a wind of considerable power, considerably stronger than a breeze, but not severe enough to be called a storm. In nautical language it is usually combined with some qualifying word, as “half a gale,” a “stiff gale.” In poetical and figurative language “gale” is often used in a pleasant sense, as in “favouring gale”; in America, it is used in a slang sense for boisterous or excited behaviour.

2. The payment of rent, customs or duty at regular intervals; a “hanging gale” is an arrear of rent left over after each successive “gale” or rent day. The term survives in the Forest of Dean, for leases granted to the “free miners” of the forest, granted by the “gaveller” or agent of the crown, and the term is also applied to the royalty paid to the crown, and to the area mined. The word is a contracted form of the O. Eng. gafol, which survives in “gavel,” in gavelkind (q.v.), and in the name of the office mentioned above. The root from which these words derive is that of “give.” Through Latinized forms it appears in gabelle (q.v.).

3. The popular name of a plant, also known as the sweet gale or gaul, sweet willow, bog or Dutch myrtle. The Old English form of the word is gagel. It is a small, twiggy, resinous fragrant shrub found on bogs and moors in the British Islands, and widely distributed in the north temperate zone. It has narrow, short-stalked leaves and inconspicuous, apetalous, unisexual flowers borne in short spikes. The small drupe-like fruit is attached to the persistent bracts. The leaves are used as tea and as a country medicine. John Gerard (Herball, p. 1228) describes it as sweet willow or gaule, and refers to its use in beer or ale. The genus Myrica is the type of a small, but widely distributed order, Myricaceae, which is placed among the apetalous families of Dicotyledons, and is perhaps most nearly allied to the willow family. Myrica cerifera is the candleberry, wax-myrtle or wax-tree (q.v.).


GALEN, CHRISTOPH BERNHARD, Freiherr von (1606-1678), prince bishop of Münster, belonged to a noble Westphalian family, and was born on the 12th of October 1606. Reduced to poverty through the loss of his paternal inheritance, he took holy orders; but this did not prevent him from fighting on the side of the emperor Ferdinand III. during the concluding stages of the Thirty Years’ War. In 1650 he succeeded Ferdinand of Bavaria, archbishop of Cologne, as bishop of Münster. After restoring some degree of peace and prosperity in his principality, Galen had to contend with a formidable insurrection on the part of the citizens of Münster; but at length this was crushed, and the bellicose bishop, who maintained a strong army, became an important personage in Europe. In 1664 he was chosen one of the directors of the imperial army raised to fight the Turk; and after the peace which followed the Christian victory at St Gotthard in August 1664, he aided the English king Charles II. in his war with the Dutch, until the intervention of Louis XIV. and Frederick William I. of Brandenburg compelled him to make a disadvantageous peace in 1666. When Galen again attacked Holland six years later he was in alliance with Louis, but he soon deserted his new friend, and fought for the emperor Leopold I. against France. Afterwards in conjunction with Brandenburg and Denmark he attacked Charles XI. of Sweden, and conquered the duchy of Bremen. He died at Ahaus on the 19th of September 1678. Galen showed himself anxious to reform the church, but his chief energies were directed to increasing his power and prestige.

See K. Tücking, Geschichte des Stifts Münster unter C.B. von Galen (Münster, 1865); P. Corstiens, Bernard van Galen, Vorst-Bisschop van Munster (Rotterdam, 1872); A. Hüsing, Fürstbischof C.B. von Galen (Münster, 1887); and C. Brinkmann in the English Historical Review, vol. xxi. (1906). There is in the British Museum a poem printed in 1666, entitled Letter to the bishop of Munster containing a Panegyrick of his heroick achievements in heroick verse.


GALEN (or Galenus), CLAUDIUS, called Gallien by Chaucer and other writers of the middle ages, the most celebrated of ancient medical writers, was born at Pergamus, in Mysia, about A.D. 130. His father Nicon, from whom he received his early education, is described as remarkable both for excellence of natural disposition and for mental culture; his mother, on the other hand, appears to have been a second Xanthippe. In 146 Galen began the study of medicine, and in about his twentieth year he left Pergamus for Smyrna, in order to place himself under the instruction of the anatomist and physician Pelops, and of the peripatetic philosopher Albinus. He subsequently visited other cities, and in 158 returned from Alexandria to Pergamus. A few years later he went for the first time to Rome. There he healed Eudemus, a celebrated peripatetic philosopher, and other persons of distinction; and ere long, by his learning and unparalleled success as a physician, earned for himself the titles of “Paradoxologus,” the wonder-speaker, and “Paradoxopoeus,” the wonder-worker, thereby incurring the jealousy and envy of his fellow-practitioners. Leaving Rome in 168, he repaired to his native city, whence he was soon sent for to Aquileia, in Venetia, by the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. In 170 he returned to Rome with the latter, who, on departing thence to conduct the war on the Danube, having with difficulty been persuaded to dispense with his personal attendance, appointed him medical guardian of his son Commodus. In Rome Galen remained for some years, greatly extending his reputation as a physician, and writing some of his most important treatises. It would appear that he eventually betook himself to Pergamus, after spending some time at the island of Lemnos, where he learned the method of preparing a certain popular medicine, the “terra lemnia” or “sigillata.” Whether he ever revisited Rome is uncertain, as also are the time and place of his death. According to Suidas, he died at the age of seventy, or in the year 200, in the reign of Septimius Severus. If, however, we are to trust the testimony of Abul-faraj, his decease took place in Sicily, when he was in his eightieth year. Galen was one of the most versatile and accomplished writers of his age. He composed, it is said, nearly 500 treatises on various subjects, including logic, ethics and grammar. Of the published works attributed to him, 83 are recognized as genuine, 19 are of doubtful authenticity, 45 are confessedly spurious, 19 are fragments, and 15 are notes on the writings of Hippocrates.

Galen, who in his youth was carefully trained in the Stoic philosophy, was an unusually prolific writer on logic. Of the numerous commentaries and original treatises, a catalogue of which is given in his work De propriis libris, one only has come down to us, the treatise on Fallacies in dictione (Περὶ τῶν κατὰ τήν λέξιν σοφισμάτων). Many points of logical theory, however, are discussed in his medical and scientific writings. His name is perhaps best known in the history of logic in connexion with the fourth syllogistic figure, the first distinct statement of which was ascribed to him by Averroes. There is no evidence from Galen’s own works that he did make this addition to the doctrines of syllogism, and the remarkable passage quoted by Minoides Minas from a Greek commentator on the Analytics, referring the fourth figure to Galen, clearly shows that the addition did not, as generally supposed, rest on a new principle, but was merely an amplification or alteration of the indirect moods of the first figure already noted by Theophrastus and the earlier Peripatetics.

In 1844 Minas published a work, avowedly from a MS. with the superscription Galenus, entitled Γαληνοῦ εἰσαγωγὴ διαλεκτική. Of this work, which contains no direct intimation of a fourth figure, and which in general exhibits an astonishing mixture of the Aristotelian and Stoic logic, Prantl speaks with the bitterest contempt. He shows demonstratively that it cannot be regarded as a writing of Galen’s, and ascribes it to some one or other of the later Greek logicians. A full summary of its contents will be found in the 1st vol. of the Geschichte der Logik (pp. 591-610), and a notice of the logical theories of the true Galen in the same work, pp. 559-577.

There have been numerous issues of the whole or parts of Galen’s works, among the editors or illustrators of which may be mentioned Jo. Bapt. Opizo, N. Leonicenus, L. Fuchs, A. Lacuna, Ant. Musa Brassavolus, Aug. Gadaldinus, Conrad Gesner, Sylvius, Cornarius, Joannes Montanus, Joannes Caius, Thomas Linacre, Theodore Goulston, Caspar Hoffman, René Chartier, Haller and Kühn. Of Latin translations Choulant mentions one in the 15th and twenty-two in the following century. The Greek text was edited at Venice, in 1525, 5 vols. fol.; at Basel, in 1538, 5 vols. fol.; at Paris, with Latin version by René Chartier, in 1639, and in 1679, 13 vols. fol.; and at Leipzig, in 1821-1833, by C.G. Kühn, considered to be the best, 20 vols. 8vo. An epitome in English of the works of Hippocrates and Galen, by J.R. Coxe, was published at Philadelphia in 1846. A new edition of Galen’s smaller works by J. Marquardt, Iwan Müller and G. Helmreich was published in three volumes at Leipzig in 1884-1909.

Further details as to the life and an account of the anatomical and medical knowledge of Galen will be found in the historical articles under the headings of Anatomy and Medicine. See also René Chartier’s Life, in his edition of Galen’s works; N.F.J. Eloy, Dictionnaire historique de la médecine, s.v. “Galien,” tom. i. (1778); F. Adams’s “Commentary” in his Medical Works of Paulus Aegineta (London and Aberdeen, 1834); J. Kidd, “A Cursory Analysis of the Works of Galen, so far as they relate to Anatomy and Physiology,” Trans. Provincial Med. and Surg. Assoc. vi., 1837, pp. 299-336; C.V. Daremberg, Exposition des connaissances de Galien sur l’anatomie, la physiologie et la pathologie du système nerveux (Thèse pour le Doctorat en Médecine) (Paris, 1841); J.R. Gasquet, “The Practical Medicine of Galen and his Time,” The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Rev., vol. xi., 1867, pp. 472-488; and Ilberg, “Die Schriften des Claudius Galenos,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 1889, 1892 and 1896.


GALENA, a city and the county-seat of Jo Daviess county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N.W. part of the state, on the Galena (formerly the Fever) river, near its junction with the Mississippi, about 165 m. W.N.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1900) 5005, of whom 918 were foreign-born; (1910) 4835. It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & North-Western and the Illinois Central railways; the Galena river has been made navigable by government locks at the mouth of the river, but the river traffic is unimportant. The city is built on rocky limestone bluffs, which rise rather abruptly on each side of the river, and a number of the parallel streets, of different levels, are connected by flights of steps. In Grant Park there is a statue of General U.S. Grant, who was a resident of Galena at the outbreak of the Civil War. In the vicinity there are the most important deposits of zinc and lead in the state, and the city derives its name from the deposits of sulphide of lead (galena), which were the first worked about here; below the galena is a zone of zinc carbonate (or smithsonite) ores, which was the main zone worked between 1860 and 1890; still lower is a zone of blende, or zinc sulphide, now the principal source of the mineral wealth of the region. The production of zinc is increasing, but that of lead is unimportant. The principal manufactures are mining pumps and machinery, flour, woollen goods, lumber and furniture. Water power is afforded by the river. Galena was originally a trading post, called by the French “La Pointe” and by the English “Fever River,” the river having been named after le Fevre, a French trader who settled near its mouth. In 1826 Galena was laid out as a town and received its present name; it was incorporated in 1835 and was reincorporated in 1882. In 1838 a theatre was opened, one of whose proprietors was Joseph Jefferson, the father of the celebrated actor of that name.


GALENA, a city of Cherokee county, Kansas, U.S.A., in the extreme S.E. part of the state, on Short Creek and near Spring river. Pop. (1890) 2496; (1900) 10,155, of whom 580 were negroes and 251 were foreign-born; (1905) 6449; (1910) 6096. It is situated at the intersection of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis (“Frisco System”) railways, in the midst of a lead and zinc region, extremely valuable deposits of these metals having been discovered in 1877. Smelters and foundries are its principal manufacturing establishments. Water power in abundance is furnished by the Spring river. After the discovery of the ore deposits two rival companies founded Galena and Empire City (pop. in 1905, 982), the former S. of Short Creek and the latter N. of it. Galena was incorporated in 1877, and in 1907 Empire City was annexed to it.


GALENA, an important ore of lead, consisting of lead sulphide (PbS). The mineral was mentioned by Pliny under this name, and it is sometimes now known as lead-glance (Ger. Bleiglanz). It crystallizes in the cubic system, and well-developed crystals are of common occurrence; the usual form is the cube or the cubo-octahedron (fig.). An important character, and one by which the mineral may always be recognized, is the perfect cubical cleavage, on which the lustre is brilliant and metallic. The colour of the mineral and of its streak is lead-grey; it is opaque; the hardness is 2½ and the specific gravity 7.5. Twinned crystals are not common, but the presence of polysynthetic twinning is sometimes shown by fine striations running diagonally or obliquely across the cleavage surfaces. Large masses with a coarse or fine granular structure are of common occurrence; the fractured surfaces of such masses present a spangled appearance owing to the numerous bright cleavages.

The formula PbS corresponds with lead 86.6 and sulphur 13.4%. The mineral nearly always contains a small amount of silver, and sometimes antimony, arsenic, copper, gold, selenium, &c. Argentiferous galena is an important source of silver; this metal is present in amounts rarely exceeding 1%, and often less than 0.03% (equivalent to 10¾ ounces per ton). Since argentite (Ag2S) is isomorphous with galena, it is probable that the silver isomorphously replaces lead, but it is to be noted that native silver has been detected as an enclosure in galena.

Galena is of wide distribution, and occurs usually in metalliferous veins traversing crystalline rocks, clay-slates and limestones, and also as pockets in limestones. It is often associated with blende and pyrites, and with calcite, fluorspar, quartz, barytes, chalybite and pearlspar as gangue minerals; in the upper oxidized parts of the deposits, cerussite and anglesite occur as alteration products. The mineral has occasionally been observed as a recent formation replacing organic matter, such as wood; and it is sometimes found in beds of coal. As small concretionary nodules, it occurs disseminated through sandstone at Kommern in the Eifel. In the lead-mining districts of Derbyshire and the north of England the ore occurs as veins and flats in the Carboniferous Limestone series, whilst in Cornwall the veins traverse clay-slates. In the Upper Mississippi lead region of Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin the ore fills large cavities or chambers in limestone.

Galena is met with at all places where lead is mined; of localities which have yielded finely crystallized specimens the following may be selected for mention: Derbyshire, Alston in Cumberland, Laxey in the Isle of Man (where crystals measuring almost a foot across have been found), Neudorf in the Harz, Rossie in New York and Joplin in Missouri. Good crystals have also been obtained as a furnace product.

Coarsely grained galena is used for glazing pottery, and is then known as “potters’ ore” or alquifoux.

The galena group includes several other cubic minerals, such as argentite (q.v.). Mention may also be made here of clausthalite (lead selenide, PbSe) and altaite (lead telluride, PbTe), which, with their lead-grey colour and perfect cubic cleavage, closely resemble galena in appearance; these species are named after the localities at which they were originally found, namely, Klausthal in the Harz and the Altai mountains in Asiatic Russia. Altaite is of interest as being one of the tellurides found associated with gold.

(L. J. S.)


GALEOPITHECUS, the scientific designation of the Colugo (q.v.) or Cobego, commonly known as the flying-lemur, and alone representing the family Galeopithecidae. Much uncertainty has prevailed among naturalists as to the systematic position of this animal, or rather these animals (for there are two species); and while some have referred it to the lemurs, others have placed it with the bats, and others again among the Insectivora, as the representative of a special subordinal group, the Dermoptera. Dr H.C. Chapman, who has made a special study of the creature, writes, however, as follows: “It appears, at least in the judgment of the author, that Galeopithecus cannot be regarded as being either a lemur, or insectivore, or bat, but that it stands alone, the sole representative of an ancient group, Galeopithecidae, as Hyrax does of Hyracoidea. While Galeopithecus is but remotely related to the Lemuroidea and Insectivora, it is so closely related to Chiroptera, more particularly in regard to the structure of its patagium, brain, alimentary canal, genito-urinal apparatus, &c., that there can be but little doubt that the Chiroptera are the descendants of Galeopithecus, or, more probably, that both are the descendants of a Galeopithecus-like ancestor.” Without going quite so far as this, it may be definitely admitted that the colugo is entitled to represent an order by itself, the characters of which will be as follows: Herbivorous, climbing, unguiculate mammals, provided with a very extensive flying-membrane, and having the dental formula i. 2⁄2, c. 0⁄1, p. 3⁄3, m. 3⁄3, total 34. The lower incisors are directed forwards and have a comb-like structure of their crowns, while the outermost of these teeth and the canines are double-rooted, being in these respects, taken together, quite unlike those of all other mammals; the cheek-teeth have numerous sharp cusps; and there is the normal replacement of milk-molars by premolars. In the skull the orbit is surrounded by bone, and the tympanic has a bulla and an ossified external meatus. The ulna and fibula are to some extent inclined backwards; the carpus has a scapho-lunar; and the feet are five-toed. The hemispheres of the brain are short and but slightly convoluted; the stomach is simple; there is a large caecum; the testes are received into inguinal pouches; the uterus is two-horned; the placenta is discoidal; and there are two pairs of pectoral teats. A single offspring is produced at a birth.

It will be obvious that if other representatives of the Dermoptera were discovered, some of these features might apply only to the family Galeopithecidae.

There are two species, Galeopithecus volans, ranging from Burma, Siam and the Malay Peninsula to Borneo, Sumatra and Java, and G. philippinensis of the Philippine group. The former, which is nearly 2 ft. in total length, is distinguished by its larger upper incisors, shorter ears and smaller skull. In both species not only are the long and slender limbs connected by a broad integumentary expansion extending outwards from the sides of the neck and body, but there is also a web between the fingers and toes as far as the base of the claws (fig.); and the hind-limbs are further connected by a similar expansion passing outwards along the back of the feet to the base of the claws, and, inwardly, involving the long tail to the tip, forming a true interfemoral membrane, as in bats. Besides differing from bats altogether in the form of the anterior limbs and of the double-rooted outer incisors and canines, Galeopithecus contrasts strongly with that order in the presence of a large sacculated caecum, and in the great length of the colon, which is so remarkably short in Chiroptera. From the lemurs, on the other hand, the form of the brain, the character of the teeth, the structure of the skull, and the deciduate discoidal placenta at once separate the group.

(R. L.*)


GALERIUS [Galerius Valerius Maximianus], Roman emperor from A.D. 305 to 311, was born near Sardica in Thrace. He originally followed his father’s occupation, that of a herdsman, whence his surname of Armentarius (Lat. armentum, herd). He served with distinction as a soldier under Aurelian and Probus, and in 293 was designated Caesar along with Constantius Chlorus, receiving in marriage Diocletian’s daughter Valeria, and at the same time being entrusted with the care of the Illyrian provinces. In 296, at the beginning of the Persian War, he was removed from the Danube to the Euphrates; his first campaign ended in a crushing defeat, near Callinicum, but in 297, advancing through the mountains of Armenia, he gained a decisive victory over Narses (q.v.) and compelled him to make peace. In 305, on the abdication of Diocletian and Maximianus, he at once assumed the title of Augustus, with Constantius his former colleague, and having procured the promotion to the rank of Caesar of Flavius Valerius Severus, a faithful servant, and Daia (Maximinus), his nephew, he hoped on the death of Constantius to become sole master of the Roman world. This scheme, however, was defeated by the sudden elevation of Constantine at Eboracum (York) on the death of his father, and by the action of Maximianus and Maxentius in Italy. After an unsuccessful invasion of Italy in 307 he elevated his friend Licinius to the rank of Augustus, and, moderating his ambition, devoted the few remaining years of his life “to the enjoyment of pleasure and to the execution of some works of public utility.” It was at the instance of Galerius that the first of the celebrated edicts of persecution against the Christians was published, on the 24th of February 303, and this policy of repression was maintained by him until the appearance of the general edict of toleration (311), issued in his own name and in those of Licinius and Constantine. He died in May 311 A.D.

See Zosimus ii. 8-11; Zonaras xii. 31-34; Eutropius ix. 24, x. 1.


GALESBURG, a city and the county-seat of Knox county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N.W. part of the state, 163 m. S.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 15,264; (1900) 18,607; of whom 3602 were foreign-born; (census, 1910) 22,089. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railways. Knox College (non-sectarian and coeducational), which was chartered here in 1837 as the “Knox Manual Labor College” (the present name was adopted in 1857), was opened in 1841, and had in 1907-1908, 31 instructors and 628 students, of whom more than half were in the Conservatory of Music, a department of the college, and 79 were in the Academy. Lombard College (coeducational; Universalist), which was chartered as the “Illinois Liberal Institute” in 1851, was known as Lombard University (in honour of Benjamin Lombard, a benefactor) from 1855 to 1899; it includes a College of Liberal Arts, the Ryder Divinity School (1881), and departments of music and domestic science, and in 1907-1908 had 18 instructors and 117 students. Here also are Corpus Christi College (Roman Catholic), St Joseph’s Academy (Roman Catholic) and Brown’s Business College (1874). There is a public library, founded in 1874. The industries consist mainly of the construction and repairing of steam railway cars (in the shops of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railway) and the manufacture of foundry and machine-shop products, vitrified brick, agricultural implements and machinery. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $2,217,772, being 52.9% more than in 1900. Galesburg was named in honour of the Rev. George Washington Gale (1789-1862), a prominent Presbyterian preacher, who in 1827-1834 had founded the Oneida Manual Labor Institute at Whitestown, Oneida county, New York. Desiring to establish a college in the Mississippi Valley to supply “an evangelical and able ministry” to “spread the Gospel throughout the world,” and also wishing to counteract the influence of pro-slavery men in Illinois, he interested a number of people in the project, formed a society for colonization, and in 1836 led the first settlers to Galesburg, the “Mesopotamia in the West.” Knox College was founded to fulfil his educational purpose. Galesburg was an important “station” of the Underground Railroad, one of the conditions of membership in the “Presbyterian Church of Galesburg” (the name of Mr Gale’s society) being opposition to slavery; and in 1855 this caused the church to withdraw from the Presbytery. Galesburg was chartered as a city in 1857. On the 7th of October 1858 one of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates was held in the grounds of Knox College.


GALGĀCUS, or perhaps rather Calgācus, a Caledonian chief who led the tribes of North Britain against the invading Roman army under Cn. Julius Agricola about A.D. 85 and was defeated at the battle of Mons Graupius (Tac. Agric. 29). The name recurs much later, in Adamnan’s Life of Columba, in the name of a wood near Londonderry, Daire-Calgaich or Roboretum Calgachi, “the wood of Calgacus”: it may be Celtic and denote “the man with the sword.”


GALIANI, FERDINANDO (1728-1787), Italian economist, was born at Chieti on the 2nd of December 1728. He was carefully educated by his uncle Monsignor C. Galiani at Naples and Rome with a view to entering the Church. Galiani gave early promise of distinction as an economist, and even more as a wit. At the age of twenty-two, after he had taken orders, he had produced two works by which his name became widely known far beyond the bounds of his own Naples. The one, his Trattato della moneta, in which he shows himself a strong supporter of the mercantile school, deals with many aspects of the question of exchange, but always with a special reference to the state of confusion then presented by the whole monetary system of the Neapolitan government. The other, Raccolta in Morte del Boia, established his fame as a humorist, and was highly popular in Italian literary circles at the end of the 18th century. In this volume Galiani parodied with exquisite felicity, in a series of discourses on the death of the public hangman, the styles of the most pompous and pedantic Neapolitan writers of the day. Galiani’s political knowledge and social qualities now pointed him out to the discriminating eye of King Charles, afterwards Charles III. of Spain, and his liberal minister Tanucci, and he was appointed in 1759 secretary to the Neapolitan embassy at Paris. This post he held for ten years, when he returned to Naples and was made a councillor of the tribunal of commerce, and in 1777, minister of the royal domains. His economic reputation was made by a book written in French and published in Paris, namely, his Dialogues sur le commerce des blés. This work, by its light and pleasing style, and the vivacious wit with which it abounded, delighted Voltaire, who spoke of it as a book in the production of which Plato and Molière might have been combined! The author, says Pecchio, treated his arid subject as Fontenelle did the vortices of Descartes, or Algarotti the Newtonian system of the world. The question at issue was that of the freedom of the corn trade, then much agitated, and, in particular, the policy of the royal edict of 1764, which permitted the exportation of grain so long as the price had not arrived at a certain height. The general principle he maintains is that the best system in regard to this trade is to have no system—countries differently circumstanced requiring, according to him, different modes of treatment. He fell, however, into some of the most serious errors of the mercantilists—holding, as indeed did also Voltaire and even Verri, that one country cannot gain without another losing, and in his earlier treatise going so far as to defend the action of governments in debasing the currency. Until his death at Naples on the 30th of October 1787, Galiani kept up with his old Parisian friends a correspondence, which was published in 1818.

See L’Abate Galiani, by Alberto Marghieri (1878), and his correspondence with Tanucci in Viesseux’s L’Archivio storico (Florence, 1878).


GALICIA (Ger. Galizien; Pol. Halicz), a crownland of Austria, bounded E. and N. by Russia, S. by Bukovina and Hungary, and W. by Austrian and Prussian Silesia. It has an area of 30,299 sq. m., and is the largest Austrian province. It comprises the old kingdoms of Galicia and Lodomeria, the duchies of Auschwitz and Zator, and the grand duchy of Cracow.

Galicia lies on the northern slopes of the Carpathians, which with their offshoots cover about a third of the whole area of the country. The surface gradually sinks down by undulating terraces to the valleys of the Vistula and Dniester. To the N. and E. of these rivers Galicia forms a continuation of the great plains of Russia, intersected only by a few hills, which descend from the plateaus of Poland and Podolia, and which attain in some places an altitude of 1300 to 1500 ft. The Carpathians, which, extending in the form of an arc, form the boundary between Galicia and Hungary, are divided into the West and the East Beskides, which are separated by the northern ramifications of the massif of the Tatra. The highest peaks are the Babia Góra (5650 ft.), the Wolowiec (6773 ft.) and the Cserna Góra (6505 ft.). The principal passes are those of Zdjar over the Tatra, and of Dukla, Vereczke Körösmezö or Delatyn in the East Beskides. The river Vistula, which becomes navigable at Cracow, and forms afterwards the north-western frontier of Galicia, receives the Sola, the Skawa, the Raba, the Dunajec with its affluents the Poprad and the Biala, the Wisloka, the San and the Bug. The Dniester, which rises in the Carpathians, within the territory of Galicia, becomes navigable at Sambor, and receives on the right the Stryj, the Swica, the Lomnica and the Bystrzyca, and on the left the Lipa, the Strypa, the Sereth and the Zbrucz, the boundary river towards Russia. The Pruth, which also rises in the Carpathians, within the territory of Galicia, traverses its south-eastern corner and receives the Czeremosz, the boundary river towards Bukovina. There are few lakes in the country except mountain tarns; but considerable morasses exist about the Upper Dneister, the Vistula and the San, while the ponds or dams in the Podolian valleys are estimated to cover an area of over 200 sq. m. The most frequented mineral springs are the alkaline springs at Szczawnica and Krynica, the sulphur springs at Krzesowice, Szklo and Lubian, and the iodine springs at Iwonicz.

Exposed to the cold northern and north-eastern winds, and shut out by the Carpathians from the warm southerly winds, Galicia has the severest climate in Austria. It has long winters, with an abundant snowfall, short and wet springs, hot summers and long and steady autumns. The mean annual temperature at Lemberg is 46.2° F., and at Tarnopol only 43° F.

Of the total area 48.45% is occupied by arable land, 11.16% by meadows, 9.19% by pastures, 1.39% by gardens and 25.76% by forests. The soil is generally fertile, but agriculture is still backward. The principal products are barley, oats, rye, wheat, maize and leguminous plants. Galicia has the largest area under potatoes and legumes in the whole of Austria, and hemp, flax, tobacco and hops are of considerable importance. The principal mineral products are salt, coal and petroleum. Salt is extracted at Wieliczka, Bochnia, Bolechow, Dolina, Kalusz and Kosow. Coals are found in the Cracow district at Jaworzno, at Siersza near Trzebinia and at Dabrowa. Some of the richest petroleum fields in Europe are spread in the region of the Carpathians, and are worked at Boryslaw and Schodnica near Drohobycz, Bobrka and Potok near Krosno, Sloboda-Rungurska near Kolomea, &c. Great quantities of ozocerite are also extracted in the petroliferous region of the Carpathians. Other mineral products are zinc, extracted at Trzebionka and Wodna in the Cracow region, amounting to 40% of the total zinc production in Austria, iron ore, marble and various stones for construction. The sulphur mines of Swoszowice near Cracow, which had been worked since 1598, were abandoned in 1884.

The manufacturing industries of Galicia are not highly developed. The first place is occupied by the distilleries, whose output amounts to nearly 40% of the total production of spirits in Austria. Then follow the petroleum refineries and kindred industries, saw-mills and the fabrication of various wood articles, paper and milling. The sugar factory at Tlumacz and the tobacco factory at Winniki are amongst the largest establishments of their kind in Austria. Cloth manufacture is concentrated at Biala, while the weaving of linen and of woollens is pursued as a household industry, the former in the Carpathian region, the latter in eastern Galicia. The commerce, which is mainly in the hands of the Jews, is very active, and the transit trade to Russia and to the East is also of considerable importance.

Galicia had in 1900 a population of 7,295,538, which is equivalent to 241 inhabitants per sq. m. The two principal nationalities are the Poles (45%) and the Ruthenians (42%), the former predominating in the west and in the big towns, and the latter in the east. The Poles who inhabit the Carpathians are distinguished as Goralians (from góry, mountain), and those of the lower regions as Mazures and Cracoviaks. The Ruthenian highlanders bear the name of Huzulians. The Poles are mostly Roman Catholics, the Ruthenians are Greek Catholics, and there are over 770,000 Jews, and about 2500 Armenians, who are Catholics and stand under the jurisdiction of an Armenian archbishop at Lemberg.

The Roman Catholic Church has an archbishop, at Lemberg, and three bishops, at Cracow, at Przemysl and at Tarnow, and the Greek Catholic Church is represented by an archbishop, at Lemberg, and two bishops, at Przemysl and at Stanislau. At the head of the educational institutions stand the two universities of Lemberg and Cracow, and the Polish academy of science at Cracow.

The local Diet is composed of 151 members, including the 3 archbishops, the 5 bishops, and the 2 rectors of the universities, and Galicia sends 78 deputies to the Reichsrat at Vienna. For administrative purposes, the province is divided into 78 districts and 2 autonomous municipalities—Lemberg (pop. 159,618), the capital, and Cracow (91,310). Other principal towns are: Przemysl (46,439), Kolomea (34,188), Tarnów (31,548), Tarnopol (30,368), Stanislau (29,628), Stryj (23,673), Jaroslau (22,614), Drohobycz (19,146), Podgórze (18,142), Brody (17,360), Sambor (17,027), Neusandec (15,724), Rzeszów (14,714), Zloczow (12,209), Grodek (11,845), Horodenka (11,615), Buczacz (11,504), Sniatyn (11,498), Brzezany (11,244), Kuty (11,127), Boryslaw (10,671), Chrzanów (10,170), Jaworów (10,090), Bochnia (10,049) and Biala (8265).

Galicia (or Halicz) took its rise, along with the neighbouring principality of Lodomeria (or Vladimir), in the course of the 12th century—the seat of the ruling dynasty being Halicz or Halitch. Disputes between the Galician and Lodomerian houses led to the interference of the king of Hungary, Bela III., who in 1190 assumed the title of king, and appointed his son Andreas lieutenant of the kingdom. Polish assistance, however, enabled Vladimir, the former possessor, to expel Andreas, and in 1198 Roman, prince of Lodomeria, made himself master of Galicia also. On his death in 1205 the struggle between Poland and Hungary for supremacy in the country was resumed; but in 1215 it was arranged that Daniel (1205-1264), son of Roman, should be invested with Lodomeria, and Coloman, son of the Hungarian king, with Galicia. Coloman, however, was expelled by Mstislav of Novgorod; and in his turn Andreas, Mstislav’s nominee, was expelled by Daniel of Lodomeria, a powerful prince, who by a flexible policy succeeded in maintaining his position. Though in 1235 he had recognized the overlordship of Hungary, yet, when he found himself hard pressed by the Mongolian general Batu, he called in the assistance of Innocent IV., and accepted the crown of Galicia from the hands of a papal legate; and again, when Innocent disappointed his expectation, he returned to his former connexion with the Greek Church. On the extinction of his line in 1340 Casimir III. of Poland incorporated Galicia and Lemberg; on Casimir’s death in 1370 Louis the Great of Hungary, in accordance with previous treaties, became king of Poland, Galicia and Lodomeria; and in 1382, by the marriage of Louis’s daughter with Ladislaus II., Galicia, which he had regarded as part of his Hungarian rather than of his Polish possessions, became definitively assigned to Poland. On the first partition of Poland, in 1772, the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria came to Austria, and to this was added the district of New or West Galicia in 1795; but at the peace of Vienna in 1809 West Galicia and Cracow were surrendered to the grand-duchy of Warsaw, and in 1810 part of East Galicia, including Tarnopol, was made over to Russia. This latter portion was recovered by Austria at the peace of Paris (1814), and the former came back on the suppression of the independent republic of Cracow in 1846. After the introduction of the constitution of February 1861, Galicia gained a larger degree of autonomy than any other province in the Austrian empire.

See Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild, vol. 19 (Wien, 1885-1902, 24 vols.); Die Länder Österreich-Ungarns in Wort und Bild, vol. 10 (Wien, 1881-1886, 15 vols.). Remarkable sketches of Galician life are to be found in the works of the German novelist Sacher-Masoch (1835-1895).


GALICIA (the ancient Gallaecia or Callaecia, Καλλαικία or Καλαικία), a captaincy-general, and formerly a kingdom, countship and province, in the north-western angle of Spain; bounded on the N. by the Bay of Biscay, E. by Leon and Asturias, S. by Portugal, and W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 1,980,515; area, 11,254 sq. m. In 1833 Galicia was divided for administrative purposes into the provinces of Corunna, Lugo, Orense and Pontevedra.

Galicia is traversed by mountain ranges, sometimes regarded as a continuation of the Cantabrian chain; and its surface is further broken in the east by the westernmost ridges of that system, which, running in a south-westerly direction, rise above the basin of the Miño. The high land north of the headwaters of the Miño forms the sole connecting link between the Cantabrians properly so-called and the mountains of central and western Galicia. The average elevation of the province is considerable, and the maximum height (6593 ft.) is reached in the Peña Trevinca on the eastern border of Orense.

The principal river is the Miño (Portuguese Minho; Lat. Minius; so named, it is said, from the minium or vermilion found in its bed). Rising near Mondoñedo, within 25 m. of the northern coast, the Miño enters the Atlantic near the port of Guardia, after a course of 170 m. S. and S.W. Its lower reaches are navigable by small vessels. Of its numerous affluents the most important is the Sil, which rises among the lofty mountains between Leon and Asturias. Among other rivers having a westerly direction may be mentioned the Tambre, the Ulla and the Lerez or Ler, which falls into the Atlantic by estuaries or rias called respectively Ria de Muros y Noya, Ria de Arosa and Ria de Pontevedra. The rivers of the northern versant, such as the Nera, are, like those of Asturias, for the most part short, rapid and subject to violent floods.

The coast-line of Galicia, extending to about 240 m., is everywhere bold and deeply indented, presenting a large number of secure harbours, and in this respect forming a marked contrast to the neighbouring province. The Eo, which bounds Galicia on the east, has a deep estuary, the Rivadeo or Ribadeo, which offers a safe and commodious anchorage. Vivero Bay and the Ria del Barquero y Váres are of a similar character; while the harbour of Ferrol ranks among the best in Europe, and is the chief naval station on the northern coast of Spain. On the opposite side of Betanzos Bay (the μέγας λιμήν or Portus Magnus of the ancients) is the great port of Corunna or Coruña. The principal port on the western coast is that formed by the deep and sheltered bay of Vigo, but there are also good roadsteads at Corcubion under Cape Finisterre, at Marin and at Carril.

The climate of the Galician coast is mild and equable, but the interior, owing to the great elevation (the town of Lugo is 1500 ft. above sea-level), has a wide range of temperature. The rainfall is exceptionally large, and snow lies on some of the loftier elevations for a considerable portion of the year. The soil is on the whole fertile, and the produce very varied. A considerable quantity of timber is grown on the high lands, and the rich valley pastures support large herds of cattle, while the abundance of oaks and chestnuts favours the rearing of swine. In the lowland districts good crops of maize, wheat, barley, oats and rye, as well as of turnips and potatoes, are obtained. The fruit also is of excellent quality and in great variety, although the culture of the vine is limited to some of the warmer valleys in the southern districts. The dehesas or moorlands abound in game, and fish are plentiful in all the streams. The mineral resources of the province, which are considerable, were known to some extent to the ancients. Strabo (c. 63 B.C.-A.D. 21) speaks of its gold and tin, and Pliny (A.D. 23-79) mentions the gemma Gallaica, a precious stone. Galicia is also remarkable for the number of its sulphur and other warm springs, the most important of which are those at Lugo, and those from which Orense is said to take its name (Aquae urentes).

Ethnologically the Galicians (Gallegos) are allied to the Portuguese, whom they resemble in dialect, in appearance and in habits more than the other inhabitants of the peninsula. The men are well known all over Spain and Portugal as hardy, honest and industrious, but for the most part somewhat unskilled, labourers; indeed the word Gallego has come to be almost a synonym in Madrid for a “hewer of wood and drawer of water.” It is also used as a term of abuse, meaning “boor.” Agriculture engages the greater part of the resident population, both male and female; other industries, except the fisheries, are little developed. The largest town in Galicia is Corunna (pop. 1900, 43,971); Santiago de Compostela is the ancient capital and an archiepiscopal see; Lugo, Tuy, Mondoñedo and Orense are bishoprics.

Gallaecia, the country of the Galacci, Callaici or Gallaici, seems to have been very imperfectly known to the earlier geographers. According to Eratosthenes (276-196 B.C.) the entire population of the peninsula were at one time called Galatae. The region properly called by their name, bounded on the south by the Douro and on the east by the Navia, was first entered by the Roman legions under Decius Junius Brutus in 137-136 B.C. (Livy lv., lvi., Epit.); but the final subjugation cannot be placed earlier than the time of Augustus (31 B.C.-A.D. 14). On the partition of Spain, which followed the successful invasions of the Suevi, Alans and Vandals, Gallaecia fell to the lot of the first named (A.D. 411). After an independent subsistence of nearly 200 years, the Suevian kingdom was annexed to the Visigothic dominions under Leovigild in 585. In 734 it was occupied by the Moors, who in turn were driven out by Alphonso I. of Asturias, in 739. During the 9th and 10th centuries it was the subject of dispute between more than one count of Galicia and the suzerain, and its coasts were repeatedly ravaged by the Normans. When Ferdinand I. divided his kingdom among his sons in 1063, Galicia was the portion allotted to Garcia, the youngest of the three. In 1072 it was forcibly reannexed by Garcia’s brother Alphonso VI. of Castile and thenceforward it remained an integral part of the kingdom of Castile or of Leon. The honorary title of count of Galicia has frequently been borne by younger sons of the Spanish sovereign.

See Annette B. Meakin, Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain (London, 1909).


GALIGNANI, GIOVANNI ANTONIO (1752-1821), newspaper publisher, was born at Brescia, Italy, in 1752. After living some time in London, he went to Paris, where he started in 1800 an English library, and in 1808 a monthly publication, the Repertory of English Literature. In 1814 he began to publish, in Paris, Galignani’s Messenger, a daily paper printed in English. At his death in 1821 the paper was carried on by his two sons, Jean-Antoine (1796-1873) and Guillaume (1798-1882). Under their management it enjoyed a high reputation. Its policy was to promote good feeling between England and France. The brothers established and endowed hospitals at Corbeil and at Neuilly-sur-Seine. In recognition of their generosity the city of Corbeil erected a monument in their honour. In 1884 the Galignani family disposed of their interest in Galignani’s Messenger, and from that date until 1904, when it was discontinued, the paper appeared under the title of the Daily Messenger.


GALILEE (Heb. גליל, “border” or “ring,” Gr. Γαλιλαία), a Roman province of Palestine north of Samaria, bounded S. by Samaria and the Carmel range, E. by the Jordan, N. by the Leontes (Litāni), and W. by the Mediterranean and part of Phoenicia. Its maximum extent was about 60 m. north to south and 30 east to west. The name in the Hebrew Scriptures hardly had a definite territorial significance. It literally means a ring or circuit, and, like analogous words in English, could be applied to various districts. Thus Joshua (xiii. 2) and Joel (iii. 4) refer to the Geliloth (“borders, coast”) of the Philistines or of Palestine; Joshua again (xxii. 10, 11) and Ezekiel (xlvii. 8) mention the Jordan valley plain as the “Geliloth of Jordan” in “the Eastern Gelilah.” In its more restricted connotation, denoting the district to which it is usually applied or a part thereof, it is found in Joshua xx. 7, xxi. 32, 1 Chr. vi. 76, as the place where was situated the town of Kadesh; and in 1 Kings ix. 11, the district of “worthless” cities given by Solomon to Hiram. In Isa. ix. 1 we find the full name of the district, Galil ha-Goyim, literally “the ring, circuit or border of the foreigners”—referring to the Phoenicians, Syrians and Aramaeans, by whose country the province was on three sides surrounded. In 1 Kings xv. 29 it is specified as one of the districts whose population was deported by Tiglath-Pileser. Throughout the Old Testament history, however, Galilee as a whole cannot be said to have a history; the unit of territorial subdivision was tribal rather than provincial, and though such important events as those associated with the names of Barak, Gideon, Gilboa, Armageddon, took place within its borders, yet these belong rather to the histories of Issachar, Zebulon, Asher or Naphtali, whose territories together almost correspond with Galilee, than to the province itself.

After the Jewish return from exile the population confined itself to Judaea, and Galilee was left in the possession of the mixed multitude of successors established there by the Assyrians. When it once more came into Israelite hands is uncertain; it is generally supposed that its reconquest was due to John Hyrcanus. Before very long it developed a nationalism and patriotism as intense as that of Judaea itself, notwithstanding the contempt with which the metropolitans of Jerusalem looked down upon the Galilean provincials. Stock proverbial sayings such as “Out of Galilee cometh no prophet” (though Deborah, Jonah, Elisha, and probably Hosea, were Galileans) were apparently common. Provincialism of speech (Matt. xxvi. 73) distinguished the Galileans; it appears that they confused the gutturals in pronunciation.

Under the Roman domination Galilee was made a tetrarchate governed by members of the Herod family. Herod the Great was tetrarch of Galilee in 47 B.C.; in 4 B.C. he was succeeded by his son Antipas. Galilee was the land of Christ’s boyhood and the chief centre of His active work, and in His various ministries here some of His chief discourses were uttered (as the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. v.) and some of His chief miracles performed.

After the destruction of Jerusalem the Judaean Rabbinic schools took refuge in the Galilee they had heretofore despised. No ancient remains of Jewish synagogues exist except those that have been identified in some of the ancient Galilean towns, such as Tell Ḥum (Talḥūm), Kerāzeh, Kefr Bir’īm, and elsewhere. One of the chief centres of Rabbinism was Ṣafed, still a sacred city of the Jews and largely inhabited by members of that faith. Near here is Meirūn, a place much revered by the Jews as containing the tombs of Hillel, Shammai and Simon ben Yohai; a yearly festival in honour of these rabbis is here celebrated. At Tiberias also are the tombs of distinguished Jewish teachers, including Maimonides.

The province was subdivided into two parts, Upper and Lower Galilee, the two being divided by a ridge running west to east, which prolonged would cut the Jordan about midway between Ḥūleh and the Sea of Galilee. Lower Galilee includes the plains of Buttauf and Esdraelon.

The whole of Galilee presents country more or less disturbed by volcanic action. In the lower division the hills are all tilted up towards the east, and broad streams of lava have flowed over the plateau above the sea of Galilee. In this district the highest hills are only about 1800 ft. above the sea. The ridge of Nazareth rises north of the great plain of Esdraelon, and north of this again is the fertile basin of the Buttauf, separated from the sea-coast plains by low hills. East of the Buttauf extends the basaltic plateau called Sahel el Aḥmā (“the inaccessible plain”), rising 1700 ft. above the Sea of Galilee. North of the Buttauf is a confused hill country, the spurs falling towards a broad valley which lies at the foot of the mountains of Upper Galilee. This broad valley, running westwards to the coast, is perhaps the old boundary of Zebulun—the valley of Jiphthah-el (Josh, xix. 14). The great plain of Esdraelon is of triangular form, bounded by Gilboa on the east and by the ridge which runs to Carmel on the west. It is 14 m. long from Jenīn to the Nazareth hills, and its southern border is about 20 m. long. It rises 200 ft. above the sea, the hills on both sides being some 1500 ft. higher. The whole drainage is collected by the Kishon, which runs through a narrow gorge at the north-west corner of the plain, descending beside the ridge of Carmel to the sea. The broad valley of Jezreel on the east, descending towards the Jordan valley, forms the gate by which Palestine is entered from beyond Jordan. Mount Tabor stands isolated in the plain at the north-east corner, and rather farther south the conical hill called Nebi Duḥi rises between Tabor and Gilboa. The whole of Lower Galilee is well watered. The Kishon is fed by springs from near Tabor and from a copious stream from the west side of the plain of Esdraelon. North-west of Nazareth is Wādi el Melek, an open valley full of springs. The river Belus, just south of Acre, rising in the sea-coast marshes, drains the whole valley above identified with Jiphthah-el. On the east the broad valley of Jezreel is full of magnificent springs, many of which are thermal. The plains of Esdraelon, and the Buttauf, and the plateau of el-Aḥmā are all remarkable for the rich basaltic soil which covers them, in which corn, cotton, maize, sesame, tobacco, millet and various kinds of vegetable are grown, while indigo and sugar-cane were cultivated in former times. The Nazareth hills and Gilboa are bare and white, but west of Nazareth is a fine oak wood, and another thick wood spreads over the northern slopes of Tabor. The hills west of the great plain are partly of bare white chalk, partly covered with dense thickets. The mountains north of the Buttauf are rugged and covered with scrub, except near the villages, where fine olive groves exist. The principal places of importance in Lower Galilee are Nazareth (10,000 inhabitants), Sepphoris (now Seffuria), a large village standing above the Buttauf on the spurs of the southern hills, and Jenīn (En Gannim), a flourishing village, with a palm garden (3000 inhabitants). The ancient capital, Jezreel (Zerin), is now a miserable village on a precipitous spur of Gilboa; north of this are the small mud hamlets, Solam (Shunem), Endūr (Endor), Nein (Nain); on the west side of the plain is the ruin of Lejjūn (the Legio of the 4th century, which was then a place of importance). In the hills north of the Buttauf is Jefāt, situated on a steep hill-top, and representing the Jotapata defended by Josephus. Kefr Kenna, now a flourishing Christian village at the foot of the Nazareth hills, south of the Buttauf, is one of the sites identified with Cana of Galilee, and the ruin Kāna, on the north side of the same plain, represents the site pointed out to the pilgrims of the 12th and 13th centuries.

The mountains are tilted up towards the Sea of Galilee, and the drainage of the district is towards the north-west. On the south the rocky range of Jebel Jarmūk rises to nearly 4000 ft. above the sea; on the east a narrow ridge 2800 ft. high forms the watershed, with steep eastern slopes falling towards Jordan. Immediately west of the watershed are two small plateaus covered with basaltic débris, near el-Jish and Kades. On the west are rugged mountains with deep intricate valleys. The main drains of the country are—first, Wādi el ‘Ayūn, rising north of Jebel Jarmūk, and running north-west as an open valley; and secondly, Wādi el Ahjār, a rugged precipitous gorge running north to join the Leontes. The district is well provided with springs throughout, and the valleys are full of water in the spring-time. Though rocky and difficult, Upper Galilee is not barren, the soil of the plateaus is rich, and the vine flourishes in the higher hills, especially in the neighbourhood of Kefr Bir’īm. The principal town is Ṣafed, perched on a white mountain 2700 ft. above the sea. It has a population of about 9000, including Jews, Christians and Moslems.

Josephus gives a good description of the Galilee of his time in Wars, iii. 3. 2: “The Galileans are inured to war from their infancy, and have been always very numerous; nor hath the country been ever destitute of men of courage or wanted a numerous set of them; for their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation.... Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages there are here are everywhere full of people.” Though the population is diminished and the cities ruinous, the country is still remarkable for fertility, thanks to the copiousness of its water-supply draining from the Lebanon mountains.

The principal products of the country are corn, wine, oil and soap (from the olives), with every species of pulse and gourd.

The antiquities of Galilee include dolmens and rude stone monuments, rock-cut tombs, and wine-presses, with numerous remains of Byzantine monasteries and fine churches of the time of the crusades. There are also remains of Greek architecture in various places; but the most interesting buildings are the ancient synagogues, of which some eleven examples are now known. They are rectangular, with the door to the south, and two rows of columns forming aisles east and west. The architecture is a peculiar and debased imitation of classic style, attributed by architects to the 2nd century A.D. In Kefr Bir’īm there were remains of two synagogues, but early in the 20th century one of them was completely destroyed by a local stone-mason. At Irbid, above Tiberias, is another synagogue of rather different character. Traces of synagogues have also been found on Carmel, and at Tireh, west of Nazareth. It is curious to find the representation of various animals in relief on the lintels of these buildings. Hebrew inscriptions also occur, and the carved work of the cornices and capitals is rich though debased.

In the 12th century Galilee was the outpost of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, and its borders were strongly protected by fortresses, the magnificent remains of which still crown the most important strategical points. Toron (mod. Tibnīn) was built in 1104, the first fortress erected by the crusaders, and standing on the summit of the mountains of Upper Galilee. Beauvoir (Kaukab el-Hawa, built in 1182) stood on a precipice above Jordan south-west of the Sea of Galilee, and guarded the advance by the valley of Jezreel; and about the same time Château Neuf (Hunīn) was erected above the Hüleh lake. Belfort (esh Shukif), on the north bank of the Leontes, the finest and most important, dates somewhat earlier; and Montfort (Kalat el Kurn) stood on a narrow spur north-east of Acre, completing the chain of frontier fortresses. The town of Banias, with its castle, formed also a strong outpost against Damascus, and was the scene, in common with the other strongholds, of many desperate encounters between Moslems and Christians. Lower Galilee was the last remaining portion of the Holy Land held by the Christians. In 1250 the knights of the Teutonic order owned lands extending round Acre as far east as the Sea of Galilee, and including Ṣafed. These possessions were lost in 1291, on the fall of Acre.

The population of Galilee is mixed. In Lower Galilee the peasants are principally Moslem, with a sprinkling of Greek Christians round Nazareth, which is a Christian town. In Upper Galilee, however, there is a mixture of Jews and Maronites, Druses and Moslems (natives or Algerine settlers), while the slopes above the Jordan are inhabited by wandering Arabs. The Jews are engaged in trade, and the Christians, Druses and Moslems in agriculture; and the Arabs are an entirely pastoral people.

(C. R. C.; R. A. S. M.)


GALILEE, an architectural term sometimes given to a porch or chapel which formed the entrance to a church. This is the case at Durham and Ely cathedrals, and in Lincoln cathedral the name is sometimes given to the south-west porch. The name is said to be derived from the scriptural expression “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Matt. iv. 15). Galilees are supposed to have been used sometimes as courts of law, but they probably served chiefly for penitents not yet admitted to the body of the church. The Galilee would also appear to have been the vestibule of an abbey church where women were allowed to see the monks to whom they were related, or from which they could hear divine service. The foundation of what is considered to have been a Galilee exists at the west end of Fountains Abbey. Sometimes also corpses were placed there before interment.


GALILEE, SEA OF, a lake in Palestine consisting of an expansion of the Jordan, on the latitude of Mt. Carmel. It is 13 m. long, 8 m. broad, 64 sq. m. in area, 680 ft. below the level of the Mediterranean, and, according to Merrill and Barrois (who have corrected the excessive depth said to have been found by Lortet at the northern end), 150 ft. in maximum depth. It is pear-shaped, the narrow end pointing southward. In the Hebrew Scriptures it is called the Sea of Chinnereth or Chinneroth (probably derived from a town of the same name mentioned in Joshua xi. 2 and elsewhere; the etymology that connects it with כנור, “a harp,” is very doubtful.) In Josephus and the book of Maccabees it is named Gennesar; while in the Gospels it is usually called Sea of Galilee, though once it is called Lake of Gennesaret (Luke v. i) and twice Sea of Tiberias (John vi. 1, xxi. 1). The modern Arabic name is Baḥr Tubarīya, which is often rendered “Lake of Tiberias.” Pliny refers to it as the Lake of Taricheae.

Like the Dead Sea it is a “rift” lake, being part of the great fault that formed the Jordan-Araba depression. Deposits show that originally it formed part of the great inland sea that filled this depression in Pleistocene times. The district on each side of the lake has a number of hot springs, at least one of which is beneath the sea itself, and has always shown indications of volcanic and other subterranean disturbances. It is especially liable to earthquakes. The water of the sea, though slightly brackish and not very clear, is generally used for drinking. The shores are for the greater part formed of fine gravel; some yards from the shore the bed is uniformly covered with fine greyish mud. The temperature in summer is tropical, but after noon falls about 10º F. owing to strong north-west winds. This range of temperature affects the water to a depth of about 49 ft.; below that depth the water is uniformly about 59° F. The sea is set deep in hills which rise on the east side to a height of about 2000 ft. Sudden and violent storms (such as are described in Matt. viii. 23, xiv. 22, and the parallel passages) are often produced by the changes of temperature in the air resulting from these great differences of level.

The Sea of Galilee is best seen from the top of the western precipices. It presents a desolate appearance. On the north the hills rise gradually from the shore, which is fringed with oleander bushes and indented with small bays. The ground is here covered with black basalt. On the west the plateau known as Sahel el-Ahma terminates in precipices 1700 ft. above the lake, and over these the black rocky tops called “the Horns of Hattīn” are conspicuous objects. On the south is a broad valley through which the Jordan flows. On the east are furrowed and rugged slopes, rising to the great plateau of the Jaulān (Gaulonitis). The Jordan enters the lake through a narrow gorge between lower hills. A marshy plain, 2½ m. long and 1½ broad, called el-Batīhah, exists immediately east of the Jordan inlet. There is also on the west side of the lake a small plain called el-Ghuweir, formed by the junction of three large valleys. It measures 3¼ m. along the shore, and is 1 m. wide. This plain, naturally fertile, but now almost uncultivated, is supposed to be the plain of Gennesareth, described by Josephus (B. J. iii. 10, 8). On the east the hills approach in one place within 40 ft. of the water, but there is generally a width of about ¾ of a mile from the hills to the beach. On the west the flat ground at the foot of the hills has an average width of about 200 yds. A few scattered palms dot the western shores, and a palm grove is to be found near Kefr Hārib on the south-east. The hot baths south of Tiberias include seven springs, the largest of which has a temperature of 137° F. In these springs a distinct rise in temperature was observed in 1837, when Tiberias and Ṣafed were destroyed by an earthquake. The plain of Gennesareth, with its environs, is the best-watered part of the lake-basin. North of this plain are the five springs of et-Tabighah, the largest of which was enclosed about a century ago in an octagonal reservoir by ‘Ali, son of Dhahr el-Amīr, and the water led off by an aqueduct 52 ft. above the lake. The Tabighah springs, though abundant, are warm and brackish. At the north end of the plain is ’Ain et-Tīneh (“spring of the fig-tree”), also a brackish spring with a good stream; south of the plain is ‘Ain el-Bardeh (“the cold spring”), which is sweet, but scarcely lower in temperature than the others. One of the most important springs is ‘Ain el-Madawwera (“the round spring”), situated 1 m. from the south end of the plain and half a mile from the shore. The water rises in a circular well 32 ft. in diameter, and is clear and sweet, with a temperature of 73° F. The bottom is of loose sand, and the fish called coracinus by Josephus (B.J. iii. 10, 8) is here found (see below). Dr Tristram was the first explorer to identify this fish, and on account of its presence suggested the identification of the “round spring” with the fountain of Capharnaum, which, according to Josephus, watered the plain of Gennesareth. There is, however, a difficulty in this identification; there are no ruins at ‘Ain el-Madawwera.

Fauna and Flora.—For half the year the hillsides are bare and steppe-like, but in spring are clothed with a subtropical vegetation. Oleanders flourish round the lake, and the large papyrus grows at ’Ain et-Tin as well as at the mouth of the Jordan. The lake swarms with fish, which are caught with nets by a gild of fishermen, whose boats are the only representatives of the many ships and boats which plied on the lake as late as the 10th century. Fishing was a lucrative industry at an early date, and the Jews ascribed the laws regulating it to Joshua. The fish, which were classed as clean and unclean, the good and bad of the parable (Matt. xiii. 47, 48), belong to the genera Chromis, Barbus, Capoeta, Discognathus, Nemachilus, Blennius and Clarias; and there is a great affinity between them and the fish of the East African lakes and streams. There are eight species of Chromis, most of which hatch their eggs and raise their young in the buccal cavities of the males. The Chromis simonis is popularly supposed to be the fish from which Peter took the piece of money (Matt. xvii. 27). Clarias macracanthus (Arab. Burbur) is the coracinus of Josephus. It was found by Lortet in the springs of ‘Ain el-Madawwera, ‘Ain et-Tīneh and ‘Ain et-Tabighah, on the lake shore where muddy, and in Lake Hüleh. It is a scaleless, snake-like fish, often nearly 5 ft. long, which resembles the C. anguillaris of Egypt. From the absence of scales it was held by the Jews to be unclean, and some commentators suppose it to be the serpent of Matt. vii. 10 and Luke xi. 11. Large numbers of grebes—great crested, eared, and little,—gulls and pelicans frequent the lake. On its shores are tortoises, mud-turtles, crayfish and innumerable sand-hoppers; and at varying depths in the lake several species of Melania, Melanopsis, Neritina, Corbicula and Unio have been found.

Antiquities.—The principal sites of interest round the lake may be enumerated from north to west and from south to east. Kerazeh, the undoubted site of Chorazin, stands on a rocky spur 900 ft. above the lake, 2 m. north of the shore. Foundations and scattered stones cover the slopes and the flat valley below. On the west is a rugged gorge. In the middle of the ruins are the scattered remains of a synagogue of richly ornamental style built of black basalt. A small spring occurs on the north. Tell Ḥum (as the name is generally spelt, though Talḥūm would probably be preferable for several reasons) is an important ruin on the shore, south of the last-mentioned site. The remains consist of foundations and piles of stones (in spring concealed by gigantic thistles) extending about half a mile along the shore. The foundations of a fine synagogue, measuring 75 ft. by 57, and built in white limestone, have been excavated. A conspicuous building has been erected close to the water, from the fragments of the Tell Ḥum synagogue. Since the 4th century Tell Ḥum has been pointed out by all the Christian writers of importance as the site of Capernaum. Some modern geographers question this identification, but without sufficient reason (see Capernaum). Minyeh is a ruined site at the north end of the plain of Gennesareth, 2½ m. from the last, and close to the shore. There are extensive ruins on flat ground, consisting of mounds and foundations. Masonry of well-dressed stones has also been here discovered in course of excavation. Near the ruins are remains of an old khān, which appears to have been built in the middle ages. This is another suggested identification for Capernaum; but all the remains belong to the Arab period. Between Tell Ḥum and Minyeh is Tell ‘Oreimeh, the site of a forgotten Amorite city.

South of the supposed plain of Gennesareth is Mejdel, commonly supposed to represent the New Testament town of Magdala. A few lotus trees and some rock-cut tombs are here found beside a miserable mud hamlet on the hill slope, with a modern tombhouse (kubbeh). Passing beneath rugged cliffs a recess in the hills is next reached, where stands Tubarīya, the ancient Tiberias or Rakkath, containing 3000 inhabitants, more than half of whom are Jews. The walls, flanked with round towers, but partly destroyed by the earthquake of 1837, were built by Dhahr el-Amīr, as was the court-house. The two mosques, now partly ruinous, were erected by his sons. There are remains of a Crusaders’ church, and the tomb of the celebrated Maimonides is shown in the town, while Rabbi Aqība and Rabbi Meir lie buried outside. The ruins of the ancient city, including granite columns and traces of a sea-wall with towers, stretch southwards a mile beyond the modern town. An aqueduct in the cliff once brought water a distance of 9 m. from the south.

Kerak, at the south end of the lake, is an important site on a peninsula surrounded by the water of the lake, by the Jordan, and by a broad water ditch, while on the north-west a narrow neck of land remains. The plateau thus enclosed is partly artificial, and banked up 50 or 60 ft. above the water. A ruined citadel remains on the north-west, and on the east was a bridge over the Jordan; broken pottery and fragments of sculptured stone strew the site. The ruin of Kerak answers to the description given by Josephus of the city of Taricheae, which lay 30 stadia from Tiberias, the hot baths being between the two cities. Taricheae was situated, as is Kerak, on the shore below the cliffs, and partly surrounded by water, while before the city was a plain (the Ghor). Pliny further informs us that Taricheae was at the south end of the Sea of Galilee. Sinn en-Nabreh, a ruin on a spur of the hills close to the last-mentioned site, represents the ancient Sennabris, where Vespasian (Josephus, B.J. iii. 9, 7) fixed his camp, advancing from Scythopolis (Beisen) on Taricheae and Tiberias. Sennabris was 30 stadia from Tiberias, or about the distance of the ruin now existing.

The eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee have been less fully explored than the western, and the sites are not so perfectly recovered. The site of Hippos, one of the cities of Decapolis, is fixed by Clermont-Ganneau at Khurbet Susieh. Kalat el-Hosn (“castle of the stronghold”) is a ruin on a rocky spur opposite Tiberias. Two large ruined buildings remain, with traces of an old street and fallen columns and capitals. A strong wall once surrounded the town; a narrow neck of land exists on the east where the rock has been scarped. Rugged valleys enclose the site on the north and south; broken sarcophagi and rock-cut tombs are found beneath the ruin. This site is not identified; the suggestion that it is Gamala is doubtful, and not borne out by Josephus (War, iv. 1, 1), who says Gamala was over against Taricheae. Kersa, an insignificant ruin north of the last, is thought to represent the Gerasa or Gergesa of the 4th century, situated east of the lake; and the projecting spur of hill south of this ruin is conjectured to be the place where the swine “ran violently down a steep place” (Matt. viii. 32).

(C. R. C; C. W. W.; R. A. S. M.)


GALILEO GALILEI (1564-1642), Italian astronomer and experimental philosopher, was born at Pisa on the 15th of February 1564. His father, Vincenzio, was an impoverished descendant of a noble Florentine house, which had exchanged the surname of Bonajuti for that of Galilei, on the election, in 1343, of one of its members, Tommaso de’ Bonajuti, to the college of the twelve Buonuomini. The family, which was nineteen times represented in the signoria, and in 1445 gave a gonfalonier to Florence, flourished with the republic and declined with its fall. Vincenzio Galilei was a man of better parts than fortune. He was a competent mathematician, wrote with considerable ability on the theory and practice of music, and was especially distinguished amongst his contemporaries for the grace and skill of his performance upon the lute. By his wife, Giulia Ammannati of Pescia, he had three sons and four daughters.

From his earliest childhood Galileo, the eldest of the family, was remarkable for intellectual aptitude as well as for mechanical invention. His favourite pastime was the construction of original and ingenious toy-machines; but his application to literary studies was equally conspicuous. In the monastery of Vallombrosa, near Florence, where his education was principally conducted, he not only made himself acquainted with the best Latin authors, but acquired a fair command of the Greek tongue, thus laying the foundation of his brilliant and elegant style. From one of the monks he also received instruction in logic; but the subtleties of the scholastic science were thoroughly distasteful to him. A document published by F. Selmi in 1864 proves that he was at this time so far attracted towards a religious life as to have joined the novitiate; but his father, who had other designs for him, seized the opportunity of an attack of ophthalmia to withdraw him permanently from the care of the monks. Having had personal experience of the unremunerative character both of music and of mathematics, he desired that his son should apply himself to the cultivation of medicine, and, not without some straining of his slender resources, placed him, before he had completed his eighteenth year, at the university of Pisa. He accordingly matriculated there on the 5th of November 1581, and immediately entered upon attendance at the lectures of the celebrated physician and botanist, Andrea Cesalpino.

The natural gifts of the young student seemed at this time equally ready to develop in any direction towards which choice or hazard might incline them. In musical skill and invention he already vied with the best professors of the art in Italy; his personal taste would have led him to choose painting as his profession, and one of the most eminent artists of his day, Lodovico Cigoli, owned that to his judgment and counsel he was mainly indebted for the success of his works. In 1581, while watching a lamp set swinging in the cathedral of Pisa, he observed that, whatever the range of its oscillations, they were invariably executed in equal times. The experimental verification of this fact led him to the important discovery of the isochronism of the pendulum. He at first applied the new principle to pulse-measurement, and more than fifty years later turned it to account in the construction of an astronomical clock. Up to this time he was entirely ignorant of mathematics, his father having carefully held him aloof from a study which he rightly apprehended would lead to his total alienation from that of medicine. Accident, however, frustrated this purpose. A lesson in geometry, given by Ostilio Ricci to the pages of the grand-ducal court, chanced, tradition avers, to have Galileo for an unseen listener; his attention was riveted, his dormant genius was roused, and he threw all his energies into the new pursuit thus unexpectedly presented to him. With Ricci’s assistance, he rapidly mastered the elements of the science, and eventually extorted his father’s reluctant permission to exchange Hippocrates and Galen for Euclid and Archimedes. In 1585 he was withdrawn from the university, through lack of means, before he had taken a degree, and returned to Florence, where his family habitually resided. We next hear of him as lecturing before the Florentine Academy on the site and dimensions of Dante’s Inferno; and he shortly afterwards published an essay descriptive of his invention of the hydrostatic balance, which rapidly made his name known throughout Italy. His first patron was the Marchese Guidubaldo del Monte of Pesaro, a man equally eminent in science, and influential through family connexions. At the Marchese’s request he wrote, in 1588, a treatise on the centre of gravity in solids, which obtained for him, together with the title of “the Archimedes of his time,” the honourable though not lucrative post of mathematical lecturer at the Pisan university. During the ensuing two years (1589-1591) he carried on that remarkable series of experiments by which he established the first principles of dynamics and earned the undying hostility of bigoted Aristotelians. From the leaning tower of Pisa he afforded to all the professors and students of the university ocular demonstration of the falsehood of the Peripatetic dictum that heavy bodies fall with velocities proportional to their weights, and with unanswerable logic demolished all the time-honoured maxims of the schools regarding the motion of projectiles, and elemental weight or levity. But while he convinced, he failed to conciliate his adversaries. The keen sarcasm of his polished rhetoric was not calculated to soothe the susceptibilities of men already smarting under the deprivation of their most cherished illusions. He seems, in addition, to have compromised his position with the grand-ducal family by the imprudent candour with which he condemned a machine for clearing the port of Leghorn, invented by Giovanni de’ Medici, an illegitimate son of Cosmo I. Princely favour being withdrawn, private rancour was free to show itself. He was publicly hissed at his lecture, and found it prudent to resign his professorship and withdraw to Florence in 1591. Through the death of his father in July of that year family cares and responsibilities devolved upon him, and thus his nomination to the chair of mathematics at the university of Padua, secured by the influence of the Marchese Guidubaldo with the Venetian senate, was welcome both as affording a relief from pecuniary embarrassment and as opening a field for scientific distinction.

His residence at Padua, which extended over a period of eighteen years, from 1592 to 1610, was a course of uninterrupted prosperity. His appointment was three times renewed, on each occasion with the expressions of the highest esteem on the part of the governing body, and his yearly salary was progressively raised from 180 to 1000 florins. His lectures were attended by persons of the highest distinction from all parts of Europe, and such was the charm of his demonstrations that a hall capable of containing 2000 people had eventually to be assigned for the accommodation of the overflowing audiences which they attracted. His invention of the proportional compass or sector—an implement still used in geometrical drawing—dates from 1597; and about the same time he constructed the first thermometer, consisting of a bulb and tube filled with air and water, and terminating in a vessel of water. In this instrument the results of varying atmospheric pressure were not distinguishable from the expansive and contractive effects of heat and cold, and it became an efficient measure of temperature only when Rinieri, in 1646, introduced the improvement of hermetically sealing the liquid in glass. The substitution, in 1670, of mercury for water completed the modern thermometer.

Galileo seems, at an early period of his life, to have adopted the Copernican theory of the solar system, and was deterred from avowing his opinions—as is proved by his letter to Kepler of August 4, 1597—by the fear of ridicule rather than of persecution. The appearance, in September 1604, of a new star in the constellation Serpentarius afforded him indeed an opportunity, of which he eagerly availed himself, for making an onslaught upon the Aristotelian axiom of the incorruptibility of the heavens; but he continued to conform his public teachings in the main to Ptolemaic principles, until the discovery of a novel and potent implement of research in the shape of the telescope (q.v.) placed at his command startling and hitherto unsuspected evidence as to the constitution and mutual relations of the heavenly bodies. Galileo was not the original inventor of the telescope. That honour must be assigned to Johannes Lippershey, an obscure optician of Middleburg, who, on the 2nd of October 1608, petitioned the states-general of the Low Countries for exclusive rights in the manufacture of an instrument for increasing the apparent size of remote objects. A rumour of the new invention, which reached Venice in June 1609, sufficed to set Galileo on the track; and after one night’s profound meditation on the principles of refraction, he succeeded in producing a telescope of threefold magnifying power. Upon this first attempt he rapidly improved, until he attained to a power of thirty-two, and his instruments, of which he manufactured hundreds with his own hands, were soon in request in every part of Europe. Two lenses only—a plano-convex and a plano-concave—were needed for the composition of each, and this simple principle is that still employed in the construction of opera-glasses. Galileo’s direction of his new instrument to the heavens formed an era in the history of astronomy. Discoveries followed upon it with astounding rapidity and in bewildering variety. The Sidereus Nuncius, published at Venice early in 1610, contained the first-fruits of the new mode of investigation, which were sufficient to excite learned amazement on both sides of the Alps. The mountainous configuration of the moon’s surface was there first described, and the so-called “phosphorescence” of the dark portion of our satellite attributed to its true cause—namely, illumination by sunlight reflected from the earth. All the time-worn fables and conjectures regarding the composition of the Milky Way were at once dissipated by the simple statement that to the eye, reinforced by the telescope, it appeared as a congeries of lesser stars, while the great nebulae were equally declared to be resolvable into similar elements. But the discovery which was at once perceived to be most important in itself, and most revolutionary in its effects, was that of Jupiter’s satellites, first seen by Galileo on the 7th of January 1610, and by him named Sidera Medicea, in honour of the grand-duke of Tuscany, Cosmo II., who had been his pupil, and was about to become his employer. An illustration is, with the general run of mankind, more powerful to convince than an argument; and the cogency of the visible plea for the Copernican theory offered by the miniature system, then first disclosed to view, was recognizable in the triumph of its advocates as well as in the increased acrimony of its opponents.

In September 1610 Galileo finally abandoned Padua for Florence. His researches with the telescope had been rewarded by the Venetian senate with the appointment for life to his professorship, at an unprecedentedly high salary. His discovery of the “Medicean Stars” was acknowledged by his nomination (July 12, 1610) as philosopher and mathematician extraordinary to the grand-duke of Tuscany. The emoluments of this office, which involved no duties save that of continuing his scientific labours, were fixed at 1000 scudi; and it was the desire of increased leisure, rather than the promptings of local patriotism, which induced him to accept an offer the original suggestion of which had indeed come from himself. Before the close of 1610 the memorable cycle of discoveries begun in the previous year was completed by the observation of the ansated or, as it appeared to Galileo, triple form of Saturn (the ring-formation was first recognized by Christiaan Huygens in 1655), of the phases of Venus, and of the spots upon the sun. As regards sun-spots, however, Johann Fabricius of Osteel in Friesland can claim priority of publication, if not of actual detection. In the spring of 1611 Galileo visited Rome, and exhibited in the gardens of the Quirinal Palace the telescopic wonders of the heavens to the most eminent personages at the pontifical court. Encouraged by the flattering reception accorded to him, he ventured, in his Letters on the Solar Spots, printed at Rome in 1613, to take up a more decided position towards that doctrine on the establishment of which, as he avowed in a letter to Belisario Vinta, secretary to the grand-duke, “all his life and being henceforward depended.” Even in the time of Copernicus some well-meaning persons, especially those of the reformed persuasion, had suspected a discrepancy between the new view of the solar system and certain passages of Scripture—a suspicion strengthened by the anti-Christian inferences drawn from it by Giordano Bruno; but the question was never formally debated until Galileo’s brilliant disclosures, enhanced by his formidable dialectic and enthusiastic zeal, irresistibly challenged for it the attention of the authorities. Although he had no desire to raise the theological issue, it must be admitted that, the discussion once set on foot, he threw himself into it with characteristic impetuosity, and thus helped to precipitate a decision which it was his interest to avert. In December 1613 a Benedictine monk named Benedetto Castelli, at that time professor of mathematics at the university of Pisa, wrote to inform Galileo of a recent discussion at the grand-ducal table, in which he had been called upon to defend the Copernican doctrine against theological objections. This task Castelli, who was a steady friend and disciple of the Tuscan astronomer, seems to have discharged with moderation and success. Galileo’s answer, written, as he said himself, currente calamo, was an exposition of a formal theory as to the relations of physical science to Holy Writ, still further developed in an elaborate apology addressed by him in the following year (1614) to Christina of Lorraine, dowager grand-duchess of Tuscany. Not satisfied with explaining adverse texts, he met his opponents with unwise audacity on their own ground, and endeavoured to produce scriptural confirmation of a system which seemed to the ignorant many an incredible paradox, and to the scientific few a beautiful but daring innovation. The rising agitation on the subject, fomented for their own purposes by the rabid Aristotelians of the schools, was heightened rather than allayed by these manifestoes, and on the fourth Sunday of the following Advent found a voice in the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella. Padre Caccini’s denunciation of the new astronomy was indeed disavowed and strongly condemned by his superiors; nevertheless, on the 5th of February 1615, another Dominican monk named Lorini laid Galileo’s letter to Castelli before the Inquisition.

Cardinal Robert Bellarmin was at that time by far the most influential member of the Sacred College. He was a man of vast learning and upright piety, but, although personally friendly to Galileo, there is no doubt that he saw in his scientific teachings a danger to religion. The year 1615 seems to have been a period of suspense. Galileo received, as the result of a conference between Cardinals Bellarmin and Del Monte, a semi-official warning to avoid theology, and limit himself to physical reasoning. “Write freely,” he was told by Monsignor Dini, “but keep outside the sacristy.” Unfortunately, he had already committed himself to dangerous ground. In December he repaired personally to Rome, full of confidence that the weight of his arguments and the vivacity of his eloquence could not fail to convert the entire pontifical court to his views. He was cordially received, and eagerly listened to, but his imprudent ardour served but to injure his cause. On the 24th of February 1616 the consulting theologians of the Holy Office characterized the two propositions—that the sun is immovable in the centre of the world, and that the earth has a diurnal motion of rotation—the first as “absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture,” and the second as “open to the same censure in philosophy, and at least erroneous as to faith.” Two days later Galileo was, by command of the pope (Paul V.), summoned to the palace of Cardinal Bellarmin, and there officially admonished not thenceforward to “hold, teach or defend” the condemned doctrine. This injunction he promised to obey. On the 5th of March the Congregation of the Index issued a decree reiterating, with the omission of the word “heretical,” the censure of the theologians, suspending, usque corrigatur, the great work of Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, and absolutely prohibiting a treatise by a Carmelite monk named Foscarini, which treated the same subject from a theological point of view. At the same time it was given to be understood that the new theory of the solar system might be held ex hypothesi, and the trivial verbal alterations introduced into the Polish astronomer’s book in 1620, when the work of revision was completed by Cardinal Gaetani, confirmed this interpretation. This edict, it is essential to observe, the responsibility for which rests with a disciplinary congregation in no sense representing the church, was never confirmed by the pope, and was virtually repealed in 1757 under Benedict XIV.

Galileo returned to Florence three months later, not ill-pleased, as his letters testify, with the result of his visit to Rome. He brought with him, for the refutation of calumnious reports circulated by his enemies, a written certificate from Cardinal Bellarmin, to the effect that no abjuration had been required of or penance imposed upon him. During a prolonged audience he had received from the pope assurances of private esteem and personal protection; and he trusted to his dialectical ingenuity to find the means of presenting his scientific convictions under the transparent veil of an hypothesis. Although a sincere Catholic, he seems to have laid but little stress on the secret admonition of the Holy Office, which his sanguine temperament encouraged him gradually to dismiss from his mind. He preserved no written memorandum of its terms, and it was represented to him, according to his own deposition in 1633, solely by Cardinal Bellarmin’s certificate, in which, for obvious reasons, it was glossed over rather than expressly recorded. For seven years, nevertheless, during which he led a life of studious retirement in the Villa Segni at Bellosguardo, near Florence, he maintained an almost unbroken silence. At the end of that time he appeared in public with his Saggiatore, a polemical treatise written in reply to the Libra astronomica of Padre Grassi (under the pseudonym of Lotario Sarsi), the Jesuit astronomer of the Collegio Romano. The subject in debate was the nature of comets, the conspicuous appearance of three of which bodies in the year 1618 furnished the occasion of the controversy. Galileo’s views, although erroneous, since he held comets to be mere atmospheric emanations reflecting sunlight after the evanescent fashion of a halo or a rainbow, were expressed with such triumphant vigour, and embellished with such telling sarcasms, that his opponent did not venture upon a reply. The Saggiatore was printed at Rome in October 1623 by the Academy of the Lincei, of which Galileo was a member, with a dedication to the new pope, Urban VIII., and notwithstanding some passages containing a covert defence of Copernican opinions, was received with acclamation by ecclesiastical, no less than by scientific authorities.