VOLUME IV SLICE III Borgia, Lucrezia to Bradford, John (continued 3)
Reading edition
In some cases the charters used words which appeared to point to an opportunity for popular elections in boroughs where a usage of election by the town council had been established. In 1598 the judges gave an opinion that the town councils could by by-law determine laws for the government of the town regardless of the terms of the charter. In the 18th century the judges decided to the contrary. But even where a usage of popular election was established, there were means of controlling the result of a parliamentary election. The close corporations, though their right to choose a member of parliament might be doubtful, had the sole right to admit new burgesses, and in order to determine parliamentary elections they enfranchised non-residents. Where conflicts arose over the choice of a member, and two selections were made, the matter came before the House of Commons. On various occasions the House decided in favour of the popularly elected candidate against the nominee of the town council, on the general principle that neither the royal charter nor a by-law could curtail this particular franchise. But as each case was separately determined by a body swayed by the dominant political party, no one principle was steadily adhered to in the trial of election petitions. The royal right to create boroughs was freely used by Elizabeth and James I. as a means of securing a submissive parliament. The later Stuarts abandoned this method, and the few new boroughs made by the Georges were not made for political reasons. The object of the later Stuarts was to control the corporations already in existence, not to make new ones. Charles II. from the time of his restoration decided to exercise a strict control of the close corporations in order to secure not only submissive parliaments, but also a pliant executive among the borough justices, and pliant juries, which were impanelled at the selection of the borough officers. In 1660 it was made a rule that all future charters should reserve expressly to the crown the first nomination of the aldermen, recorder and town-clerk, and a proviso should be entered placing with the common council the return of the member of parliament. The Corporation Act of 1661 gave power to royal commissioners to settle the composition of the town councils, and to remove all who refused the sacraments of the Church of England or were suspected of disaffection, even though they offered to take the necessary oaths. Even so the difficulty of securing submissive juries was again so great in 1682 that a general attack on the borough franchises was begun by the crown. A London jury having returned a verdict hostile to the crown, after various attempts to bend the city to his will, Charles II. issued a quo warranto against the mayor and commonalty in order to charge the citizens with illegal encroachments upon their chartered rights. The want of a sound philosophical principle in the laws which were intended to regulate the actions of organized groups of men made it easy for the crown judges to find flaws in the legality of the actions of the boroughs, and also made it possible for the Londoners to argue that no execution could be taken against the mayor, commonalty and citizens, a “body politic invisible”; that the indictment lay only against every particular member of the governing body; and that the corporation as a corporation was incapable of suffering a forfeiture or of making a surrender. The judges gave a judgment for the king, the charters were forfeited and the government placed with a court of aldermen of the king’s own choosing. Until James II. yielded, there was no common council in London. The novelty of the proceedings of Charles II. and James II. lay in using the weapon of the quo warranto systematically to ensure a general revocation of charters. The new charters which were then granted required the king’s consent for the more important appointments, and gave him power to remove officers without reason given. Under James II. in 1687 six commissioners were appointed to “regulate” the corporations and remove from them all persons who were opposed to the abolition of the penal laws against Catholics. The new appointments were made under a writ which ran, “We will and require you to elect” (a named person). When James II. sought to withdraw from his disastrous policy, he issued a proclamation (October 17, 1688) restoring to the boroughs their ancient charters. The governing charter thenceforth in many boroughs, though not in all, was the charter which had established a close corporation, and from this time on to 1835 the boroughs made no progress in constitutional growth. The tendency for the close corporation to treat the members of the governing body as the only corporators, and to repudiate the idea that the corporation was answerable to the inhabitants of the borough if the corporate property was squandered, became more and more manifest as the history of the past slipped into oblivion. The corporators came to regard themselves as members of a club, legally warranted in dividing the lands and goods of the same among themselves whensoever such a division should seem profitable. Even where the constitution of the corporation was not close by charter, the franchise tended to become restricted to an ever-dwindling electorate, as the old methods for the extension of the municipal franchise by other means than inheritance died out of use. At Ipswich in 1833 the “freemen” numbered only one fifty-fifth of the population. If the electorate was increased, it was increased by the wholesale admission to the freedom of voters willing to vote as directed by the corporation at parliamentary elections. The growth of corruption in the boroughs continued unchecked until the era of the Reform Bill. Several boroughs had by that time become insolvent, and some had recourse to their member of parliament to eke out their revenues. In Buckingham the mayor received the whole town revenue without rendering account; sometimes, however, heavy charges fell upon the officers. Before the Reform era dissatisfaction with the corporations was mainly shown by the number of local acts of parliament which placed under the authority of special commissioners a variety of administrative details, which if the corporation had not been suspected would certainly have been assigned to its care. The trust offered another convenient means of escape from difficulty, and in some towns out of the trust was developed a system of municipal administration where there was no recognized corporation. Thus at Peterborough the feoffees who had succeeded to the control of certain ancient charities constituted a form of town council with very restricted powers. In the 17th century Sheffield was brought under the act “to redress the misemployment of lands given to charitable uses,” and the municipal administration of what had been a borough passed into the hands of the trustees of the Burgery or town trust.
The many special authorities created under act of parliament led to much confusion, conflict and overlapping, and increased the need for a general reform. The reform of the boroughs was treated as part of the question of parliamentary reform. In 1832 the exclusive privileges of the corporations in parliamentary elections having been abolished and male occupiers enfranchised, the question of the municipal franchise was next dealt with. In 1833 a commission inquired into the administration of the municipal corporations. The result of the inquiry was the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which gave the municipal franchise to the ratepayers. In all the municipal corporations dealt with by the act, the town council was to consist of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, and the councils were given like powers, being divided into those with and those without a commission of the peace. The minutes were to be open to the inspection of any burgess, and an audit of accounts was required. The exclusive rights of retail trading, which in some towns were restricted to freemen of the borough, were abolished. The system of police, which in some places was still medieval in character, was placed under the control of the council. The various privileged areas within the bounds of a borough were with few exceptions made part of the borough. The powers of the council to alienate corporate property were closely restricted. The operations of the act were extended by later legislation, and the divers amendments and enactments which followed were consolidated in the Municipal Corporations Act 1882.
(M. Bat.)
Irish Boroughs.—In Ireland the earliest traces of burghal life are connected with the maritime settlements on the southern and eastern coast. The invasion of Henry II. colonized these Ostman ports with Anglo-Norman communities, who brought with them, or afterwards obtained, municipal charters of a favourable kind. The English settlement obviously depended on the advantages which the burgesses possessed over the native population outside. Quite different from these were the new close boroughs which during the plantation of Ulster James I. introduced from England. The conquest was by this time completed, and by a rigorous enforcement of the Supremacy and Uniformity Acts the existing liberties of the older boroughs were almost entirely withdrawn. By the new rules published (in terms of the Act of Settlement and Explanation) in 1672 resident traders were permitted to become freemen, but neither this regulation nor the ordinary admissions through birth, marriage and apprenticeship succeeded in giving to Ireland free and vigorous municipalities. The corrupt admission of non-resident freemen, in order to outvote the ancient freeholders in parliamentary elections, and the systematic exclusion of Roman Catholics, soon divorced the “commonalty” from true local interests, and made the corporations, which elected themselves or selected the constituency, dangerously unpopular.
Scottish Boroughs.—In Scotland burghs or burrows are divided into royal burghs, burghs of regality and burghs of barony. The first were erected by royal charter, and every burgess held direct of the crown. It was, therefore, impossible to subfeu the burgh lands,—a distinction still traceable in modern conveyancing. Where perhaps no charter ever existed, the law on proof of immemorial possession of the privileges of a royal burgh has presumed that a charter of erection once existed. The charter gave power to elect provost, bailies and council, a power long exercised under the act of 1469, which directed the new council to be chosen annually by the retiring council, and the magistrates by both councils. The jurisdiction of these magistrates, which was specially reserved in the act of 1747 abolishing heritable jurisdictions, was originally cumulative with, and as large as, that of the sheriff. It is now confined to police offences, summary ejections, orders for interim aliment (for prisoners), payment of burgh dues and delivery of title deeds. Three head courts were held in the year, at which all burgesses were obliged to attend, and at which public business was done and private transactions were ratified. There were three classes of burgesses—burgesses in sua arte, members of one or other of the corporations; burgesses who were gild brothers; and simple burgesses. The Leges Burgorum apparently contemplate that all respectable inhabitants should have the franchise, but a ceremony of admission was required, at which the applicant swore fealty and promised to watch and ward for the community, and to pay his “maill” to the king. These borough maills, or rents, and the great and small customs of burghs, formed a large part of the royal revenue, and, although frequently leased or feued out for a fixed duty, were on the accession of James I. annexed to the crown as an alimentary fund. Burgh customs still stand in the peculiar position of being neither adjudgeable nor arrestable; they are therefore bad security. The early charters contain the usual privileges of holding a market, of exemption from toll or tribute, and that distraint will be allowed only for the burgess’s own debts. There was also the usual strife between the gildry and the craftsmen, who were generally prohibited from trading, and of whom dyers, fleshers and shoemakers were forbidden to enter the gildry. Deacons, wardens and visitors were appointed by the crafts, and the rate of wages was fixed by the magistrates. The crafts in Scotland were frequently incorporated, not by royal charter, but, as in the case of the cordiners of Edinburgh, by seals of cause from the corporation. The trade history of the free burghs is very important. Thus in 1466 the privilege of importing and exporting merchandise was confined to freemen, burgesses and their factors. Ships were directed to trade to the king’s free burghs, there to pay the customs, and to receive their cocquets or custom-house seals; and in 1503 persons dwelling outside burghs were forbidden to “use any merchandise,” or to sell wine or staple goods. An act of 1633, erroneously called a Ratification of the privileges of burghs, extended these privileges of buying and selling to retail as well as wholesale trade, but restricted their enjoyment to royal burghs. Accordingly, in 1672, a general declaratory act was passed confirming to the freemen in royal burghs the wholesale trade in wine, wax, silk, dyeing materials, &c., permitting generally to all persons the export of native raw material, specially permitting the burgesses of barony and regality to export their own manufactures, and such goods as they may buy in “markets,” and to import against these consignments certain materials for tillage, building, or for use in their own manufactures, with a general permission to retail all commodities. This extraordinary system was again changed in 1690 by an act which declared that freemen of royal burghs should have the sole right of importing everything by sea or land except bestial, and also of exporting by sea everything which was not native raw material, which might be freely exported by land. The gentry were always allowed to import for their personal consumption and to export an equal quantity of commodities. The act mentions that the royal burghs as an estate of the kingdom contributed one-sixth part of all public impositions, and were obliged to build and maintain prison-houses. Some of these trade privileges were not abolished till 1846.
In the north of Scotland there was an association of free burghs called the Hanse or Ansus; and the lord chamberlain, by his Iter, or circuit of visitation, maintained a common standard of right and duties in all burghs, and examined the state of the “common good,” the accounts of which in 1535 were appointed to be laid before the auditors in exchequer. The chamberlain latterly presided in the Curia Quatuor Burgorum (Edinburgh, Berwick, Stirling, Roxburgh), which not only made regulations in trade, but decided questions of private right (e.g. succession), according to the varying customs of burghs. This court frequently met at Haddington; in 1454 it was fixed at Edinburgh. The more modern convention of royal burghs (which appeared as a judicial persona in the Court of Session so late as 1839) probably dates from the act of James III. (1487, c. 111), which appointed the commissioners of burghs, both north and south, to meet yearly at Inverkeithing “to treat of the welfare of merchandise, the good rule and statutes for the common profit of burghs, and to provide for remeid upon the skaith and injuries sustained within the burghs.” Among the more important functions of this body (on whose decrees at one time summary diligence proceeded) were the prohibition of undue exactions within burghs, the revisal of the “set” or mode of municipal election, and the pro rata division among the burghs of the parliamentary subsidy required from the third estate. The reform of the municipalities, and the complete representation of the mercantile interests in the united parliament, deprived this body of any importance.
Burghs of regality and of barony held in vassalage of some great lordship, lay or ecclesiastical, but were always in theory or in practice created by crown grant. They received jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, generally cumulative with that of the baron or the lord of regality, who in some cases obtained the right of nominating magistrates. Powers to hold markets and to levy customs were likewise given to these burghs.
The Scottish burghs emerged slowly into political importance. In 1295 the procurators of six burghs ratified the agreement for the marriage of Edward Baliol; and in 1326 they were recognized as a third estate, granting a tenth penny on all rents for the king’s life, if he should apply it for the public good. The commissioners of burghs received from the exchequer their costages or expenses of attending parliament. The burghs were represented in the judicial committee, and in the committee on articles appointed during the reign of James V. After the Reformation, in spite of the annexation of kirk lands to the crown, and the increased burdens laid on temporal lands, the proportion of general taxation borne by the burghs (viz. 1s. 6d.) was expressly preserved by act 1587, c. 112. The number of commissioners, of course, fluctuated from time to time. Cromwell assigned ten members to the Scottish burghs in the second parliament of Three Nations (1654). The general practice until 1619 had been, apparently, that each burgh should send two members. In that year (by an arrangement with the convention of burghs) certain groups of burghs returned one member, Edinburgh returning two. Under art. 22 of the treaty of Union the number of members for royal burghs was fixed at fifteen, who were elected in Edinburgh by the magistrates and town council, and in the groups of burghs by delegates chosen ad hoc.
(W. C. S.)
See C. Gross, Bibliography of British Municipal History (1897), which contains all needful references up to that date; F.W. Maitland, Township and Borough (1898); A. Ballard, Domesday Boroughs (1904); M. Bateson, Borough Customs (1904-1906); S. and B. Webb, English Local Government (3 vols., 1906-1908). For the character of the modern Scottish burgh see Mabel Atkinson, Local Government in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1904), where other works are mentioned.
BOROUGHBRIDGE, a market town in the Ripon parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England; 22 m. N.W. of York on a branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 830. It lies in the central plain of Yorkshire, on the river Ure near its confluence with the Swale. It is in the parish of Aldborough, the village of that name (q.v.), celebrated for its Roman remains, lying a mile south-east.
About half a mile to the west of Boroughbridge there are three upright stones called the Devil’s Arrows, which are of uncertain origin but probably of the Celtic period. The manor of Boroughbridge, then called Burc, was held by Edward the Confessor and passed to William the Conqueror, but suffered so much from the ravages of his soldiers that by 1086 it had decreased in value from £10 to 55 s. When the site of the Great North Road was altered, towards the end of the 11th century, a bridge was built across the Ure, about half a mile above the Roman bridge at Aldborough, and called Burgh bridge or Ponteburgem. This caused a village to spring up, and it afterwards increased so much as to become a market town. In 1229 Boroughbridge, as part of the manor of Aldborough, was granted to Hubert de Burgh, but was forfeited a few years later by his son who fought against the king at Evesham. It then remained a royal manor until Charles I. granted it to several citizens of London, from whom it passed through numerous hands to the present owner. The history of Boroughbridge during the early 14th century centres round the war with Scotland, and culminates with the battle fought there in 1321. When in 1317 the Scots invaded England, they penetrated as far south as Boroughbridge and burnt the town. Boroughbridge was evidently a borough by prescription, and as such was called upon to return two members to parliament in 1299. It was not represented again until 1553, when the privilege was revived. The town was finally disfranchised in 1832. In 1504 the bailiff and inhabitants of Boroughbridge received a grant of two fairs, and Charles II. in 1670 created three new fairs in the borough, on the 12th of June, the 5th of August and the 12th of October, and leased them to Francis Calvert and Thomas Wilkinson for ninety-nine years.
BOROUGH ENGLISH, a custom prevailing in certain ancient English boroughs, and in districts attached to them (where the lands are held in socage), and also in certain copyhold manors (chiefly in Surrey, Middlesex, Suffolk and Sussex), by which in general lands descend to the youngest son, to the exclusion of all the other children, of the person dying seised and intestate. Descent to the youngest brother to the exclusion of all other collaterals, where there is no issue, is sometimes included in the general definition, but this is really a special custom to be proved from the court-rolls of the manor and from local reputation—a custom which is sometimes extended to the youngest sister, uncle, aunt. Generally, however, Borough English, apart from specialties, may be said to differ from gavelkind in not including collaterals. It is often found in connexion with the distinct custom that the widow shall take as dower the whole and not merely one-third of her husband’s lands.
The origin of the custom of Borough English has been much disputed. Though frequently claimed to be of Saxon origin, there is no direct evidence of such being the case. The first mention of the custom in England occurs in Glanvil, without, however, any explanation as to its origin. Littleton’s explanation, which is the more usually accepted, is that custom casts the inheritance upon the youngest, because after the death of his parents he is least able to support himself, and more likely to be left destitute of any other support. Blackstone derived Borough English from the usages of pastoral life, the elder sons migrating and the youngest remaining to look after the household. C.I. Elton claims it to be a survival of pre-Aryan times. It was referred to by the Normans as “the custom of the English towns.” In the Yearbook of 22 Edward IV. fol. 32b it is described as the custom of Nottingham, which is made clear by the report of a trial in the first year of Edward III. where it was found that in Nottingham there were two districts, the one the Burgh-Fraunçoyes, the other the Burgh-Engloyes, where descent was to the youngest son, from which circumstance the custom has derived its name. On the European continent the custom of junior-rights is not unknown, more particularly in Germany, and it has by some been ascribed to the jus primae noctis (q.v.). It is also said to exist amongst the Mongols.
See also Gavelkind; Inheritance; Primogeniture; Tenure; Blackstone’s Commentaries; Coke’s Institutes; Comyn’s Digest of the Law; Elton’s Origin of English History; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law.
BORROMEAN ISLANDS, a group of four islands on the W. side of Lago Maggiore off Baveno and Stresa. The southernmost, the Isola Bella, is famous for its château and terraced gardens, constructed by Count Vitaliano Borromeo (d. 1690). To the N.W. is the Isola dei Pescatori, containing a fishing village; and to the N.E. of this the Isola Madre, the largest of the group, with a château and garden; and to the N. again, off Pallanza, is the little Isola S. Giovanni.
BORROMEO, CARLO (1538-1584), saint and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, son of Ghiberto Borromeo, count of Arona, and Margarita de’ Medici, was born at the castle of Arona on Lago Maggiore on the 2nd of October 1538. When he was about twelve years old, Giulio Cesare Borromeo resigned to him an abbacy, the revenue of which he applied wholly in charity to the poor. He studied the civil and canon law at Pavia. In 1554 his father died, and, although he had an elder brother, Count Federigo, he was requested by the family to take the management of their domestic affairs. After a time, however, he resumed his studies, and in 1559 he took his doctor’s degree. In 1560 his uncle, Cardinal Angelo de’ Medici, was raised to the pontificate as Pius IV. Borromeo was made prothonotary, entrusted with both the public and the privy seal of the ecclesiastical state, and created cardinal with the administration of Romagna and the March of Ancona, and the supervision of the Franciscans, the Carmelites and the knights of Malta. He was thus at the age of twenty-two practically the leading statesman of the papal court. Soon after he was raised to the archbishopric of Milan. In compliance with the pope’s desire, he lived in great splendour; yet his own temperance and humility were never brought into question. He established an academy of learned persons, and published their memoirs as the Noctes Vaticanae. About the same time he also founded and endowed a college at Pavia, which he dedicated to Justina, virgin and martyr. On the death of his elder brother Federigo, he was advised to quit the church and marry, that his family might not become extinct. He declined the proposal, however, and became henceforward still more fervent in exercises of piety, and more zealous for the welfare of the church. Owing to his influence over Pius IV., he was able to facilitate the final deliberations of the council of Trent, and he took a large share in the drawing up of the Tridentine catechism (Catechismus Romanus).
On the death of Pius IV. (1566), the skill and diligence of Borromeo contributed materially to suppressing the cabals of the conclave. Subsequently he devoted himself wholly to the reformation of his diocese, which had fallen into a most unsatisfactory condition owing to the prolonged absences of its previous archbishops. He made a series of pastoral visits, and restored decency and dignity to divine service. In conformity with the decrees of the council of Trent, he cleared the cathedral of its gorgeous tombs, rich ornaments, banners, arms, sparing not even the monuments of his own relatives. He divided the nave of the church into two compartments for the separation of the sexes. He extended his reforms to the collegiate churches (even to the fraternities of penitents and particularly that of St John the Baptist), and to the monasteries. The great abuses which had overrun the church at this time arose principally from the ignorance of the clergy. Borromeo, therefore, established seminaries, colleges and communities for the education of candidates for holy orders. The most remarkable, perhaps, of his foundations was the fraternity of the Oblates, a society whose members were pledged to give aid to the church when and where it might be required. He further paved the way for the “Golden” or “Borromean” league formed in 1586 by the Swiss Catholic cantons of Switzerland to expel heretics if necessary by armed force.
In 1576, when Milan was visited by the plague, he went about giving directions for accommodating the sick and burying the dead, avoiding no danger and sparing no expense. He visited all the neighbouring parishes where the contagion raged, distributing money, providing accommodation for the sick, and punishing those, especially the clergy, who were remiss in discharging their duties. He met with much opposition to his reforms. The governor of the province, and many of the senators, apprehensive that the cardinal’s ordinances and proceedings would encroach upon the civil jurisdiction, addressed remonstrances and complaints to the courts of Rome and Madrid. But Borromeo had more formidable difficulties to struggle with, in the inveterate opposition of several religious orders, particularly that of the Humiliati (Brothers of Humility). Some members of that society formed a conspiracy against his life, and a shot was fired at him in the archiepiscopal chapel under circumstances which led to the belief that his escape was miraculous. The number of his enemies was increased by his successful attack on his Jesuit confessor Ribera, who with other members of the college of Milan was found to be guilty of unnatural offences. His manifold labours and austerities appear to have shortened his life. He was seized with an intermittent fever, and died at Milan on the 4th of November 1584. He was canonized in 1610, and his feast is celebrated on the 4th of November.
Besides the Nodes Vaticanae, to which he appears to have contributed, the only literary relics of this intrepid and zealous reformer are some homilies, discourses and sermons, with a collection of letters. His sermons, which have little literary merit, were published by J.A. Sax (5 vols., Milan, 1747-1748), and have been translated into many languages. The record of his episcopate is to be found in the two volumes of the Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (Milan, 1599). Contrary to his last wishes a memorial was erected to him in Milan cathedral, as well as a statue 70 ft. high on the hill above Arona, by his admirers who regarded him as the leader of a Counter-Reformation.
His nephew, Federigo Borromeo (1564-1631), was archbishop of Milan from 1595, and in 1609 founded the Ambrosian library in that city.
See G.P. Giussano, Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo (1610, Eng. ed. by H.E. Manning, London, 1884); A. Sala, Documenti circa la vita e la gesta di Borromeo (4 vols., Milan, 1857-1859); Chanoine Silvain, Histoire de St Charles Borromée (Milan, 1884); and A. Cantono, Un grande riformatore del secolo XVI (Florence, 1904); article “Borromäus” in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (Leipzig, 1897).
BORROMINI, FRANCESCO (1599-1667), Italian architect, was born at Bissone in 1599. He was the chief representative of the style known in architecture as “baroque,” which marked a fearless and often reckless departure from the traditional laws of the Renaissance, and often obtained originality only at the cost of beauty or wisdom. One of the main opponents of this style was Barocchio (q.v.). Borromini was much employed in the middle of the 17th century at Rome. His principal works are the church of St Agnese in Piazza Navona, the church of La Sapienza in Rome, the church of San Carlino alle Fontane, the church of the Collegio di Propaganda, and the restoration of San Giovanni in Laterano. He died by his own hand at Rome in 1667. Engravings of his chief compositions are to be found in the posthumous work, Francisci Borromini opus Architectonicum (1727).
BORROW, GEORGE HENRY (1803-1881), English traveller, linguist and author, was born at East Dereham, Norfolk, on the 5th of July 1803, of a middle-class Cornish family. His father was a recruiting officer, and his mother a Norfolk lady of French extraction. From 1816 to 1818 Borrow attended, with no very great profit, the grammar school at Norwich. After leaving school he was articled to a firm of Norwich solicitors, where he neglected the law, but gave a great deal of desultory attention to languages. He was encouraged in these studies by William Taylor, the friend of Southey. On the death of his father, in 1824 he went to London to seek his fortune as a literary adventurer. In 1826 he published a volume of Romantic Ballads translated from the Danish. Engaged by Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher, as a hack-writer at starvation wages, his experiences in London were bitter indeed. His struggles at last became so dire that if he would escape Chatterton’s doom, he must leave London and either return to Norwich and share his mother’s narrow income, or turn to account in some way the magnificent physical strength with which nature had endowed him. Determining on the latter of these courses, he left London on tramp. As he stood considerably more than 6 ft. in height, was a fairly trained athlete, and had a countenance of extraordinary impressiveness, if not of commanding beauty—Greek in type with a dash of the Hebrew—we may assume that there had never before appeared on the English high-roads so majestic-looking a tramp as he who, on an afternoon in May, left his squalid lodging with bundle and stick to begin life on the roads. Shaping his course to the south-west, he soon found himself on Salisbury Plain. And then his extraordinary adventures began. After a while he became a travelling hedge-smith, and it was while pursuing this avocation that he made the acquaintance of the splendid road-girl, born at Long Melford workhouse, whom he has immortalized under the name of Isopel Berners. He was now brought much into contact with the gipsies, and this fact gave him the most important subject-matter for his writings. For picturesque as is Borrow’s style, it is this subject-matter of his, the Romany world of Great Britain, which—if his pictures of that world are true—will keep his writings alive. Now that the better class of gipsies are migrating so rapidly to America that scarcely any are left in England, Borrow’s pictures of them are challenged as being too idealistic. It is unfortunate that no one who knew Borrow, and the gryengroes or horse-dealers with whom he associated, and whom he depicted, has ever written about him and them. Full of “documents” as is Dr Knapp’s painstaking biography, it cannot be said to give a vital picture of Borrow and his surroundings during this most interesting period of his life. It is this same peculiar class of gipsies (the gryengroes) with whom the present writer was brought into contact, and he can only refer, in justification of Borrow’s descriptions of them, to certain publications of his own, where the whole question is discussed at length, and where he has set out to prove that Borrow’s pictures of the section of the English gipsies he knew are not idealized. But there is one great blemish in all Borrow’s dramatic scenes of gipsy life, wheresoever they may be laid. This was pointed out by the gentleman who “read” Zincali for Mr Murray, the publisher:—
“The dialogues are amongst the best parts of the book; but in several of them the tone of the speakers, of those especially who are in humble life, is too correct and elevated, and therefore out of character. This takes away from their effect. I think it would be very advisable that Mr Borrow should go over them with reference to this point, simplifying a few of the terms of expression and introducing a few contractions—don’ts, can’ts, &c. This would improve them greatly.”
It is the same with his pictures of the English gipsies. The reader has only to compare the dialogues between gipsies given in that photographic study of Romany life, In Gipsy Tents, by F.H. Groome, with the dialogues in Lavengro and The Romany Rye, to see how the illusion in Borrow’s narrative is disturbed by the uncolloquial locutions of the speakers. It is true, no doubt, that all Romanies, especially perhaps the English and Hungarian, have a passion for the use of high-sounding words, and the present writer has shown this in his remarks upon the Czigany Czindol, who is said to have taught the Czigany language to the archduke Joseph, often called the “Gipsy Archduke.” But after all allowance is made for this racial peculiarity, Borrow’s presentation of it considerably weakens our belief in Mr and Mrs Petulengro, Ursula, and the rest, to find them using complex sentences and bookish words which, even among English people, are rarely heard in conversation. As to the deep impression that Borrow made upon his gipsy friends, that is partly explained by the singular nobility of his appearance, for the gipsies of all countries are extremely sensitive upon matters of this kind. The silvery whiteness of the thick crop of hair which Borrow retained to the last seemed to add in a remarkable way to the nobility of his hairless face, but also it gave to the face a kind of strange look “not a bit like a Gorgio’s,” to use the words of one of his gipsy friends. Moreover, the shy, defiant, stand-off way which Borrow assumed in the company of his social equals left him entirely when he was with the gipsies. The result of this was that these wanderers knew him better than did his own countrymen.
Seven years after the events recorded in Lavengro and The Romany Rye Borrow obtained the post of agent to the Bible Society, in which capacity he visited St Petersburg (1833-1835) (where he published Targum, a collection of translations), and Spain, Portugal and Morocco (1835-1839). From 1837 to 1839 he acted as correspondent to the Morning Herald. The result of these travels and adventures was the publication, in 1841, of Zincali, or The Gypsies in Spain, the original MS. of which, in the hands of the present writer, shows how careful was Borrow’s method of work. In 1843 appeared The Bible in Spain, when suddenly Borrow became famous. Every page of the book glows with freshness, picturesqueness and vivacity. In 1840 he married Mary Clarke, the widow of a naval officer, and permanently settled at Oulton Broad, near Lowestoft, with her and her daughter. Here he began to write again. Very likely Borrow would never have told the world about his vagabond life in England as a hedge-smith had not The Bible in Spain made him famous as a wanderer. Lavengro appeared in 1851 with a success which, compared with that of The Bible in Spain, was only partial. He was much chagrined at this, and although Lavengro broke off in the midst of a scene in the Dingle, and only broke off there because the three volumes would hold no more, it was not until 1857 that he published the sequel, The Romany Rye. In 1844 he travelled in south-eastern Europe, and in 1854 he made a tour with his step-daughter in Wales. This tour he described in Wild Wales, published in 1862. In 1874 he brought out a volume of ill-digested material upon the Romany tongue, Romano Lavo-lil, or Word-book of the Gypsy Language, a book which has been exhaustively analysed and criticized by Mr John Sampson. In the summer of 1874 he left London, bade adieu to Mr Murray and a few friends, and returned to Oulton. On the 26th of July 1881 he was found dead in his house at Oulton, in his seventy-ninth year.
Borrow was indisputably a linguist of wide knowledge, though he was not a scholar in the strict sense. The variety of his attainments is shown by his translation of the Church of England Homilies into Manchu, of the Gospel of St Luke into the Git dialect of the Gitanos, of The Sleeping Bard from the Cambrian-British, and of Bluebeard into Turkish. But it is not Borrow’s linguistic accomplishments that have kept his name fresh, and will continue to keep it fresh for many a generation to come. It is his character, his unique character as expressed, or partially expressed, in his books. Among all the “remarkable individuals” (to use his favourite expression) who during the middle of the 19th century figured in the world of letters, Borrow was surely the most eccentric, the most whimsical, and in many ways the most extraordinary. There was scarcely a point in which he resembled any other writer of his time. With regard to Lavengro and The Romany Rye, there has been very much discussion as to how much Dichtung is mingled with the Wahrheit in those fascinating books. Had it not been for the amazingly clumsy pieces of fiction which he threw into the narrative, few readers would have doubted the autobiographical nature of the two books. Such incidents as are here alluded to shed an air of unreality over the whole. It has been said by Dr Knapp that Borrow never created a character, and that to one who thoroughly knows the times and Borrow’s writings the originals are easily recognizable. This is true, no doubt, as regards people whom he knew at Norwich, and indeed generally as regards those he knew before the period of his gipsy wanderings. It must not be supposed, however, that such a character as the man who “touched” to avert the evil chance is in any sense a portrait of an individual with whom he had been brought into contact. The character has so many of Borrow’s own eccentricities that it might rather be called a portrait of himself. There was nothing that Borrow strove against with more energy than the curious impulse, which he seems to have shared with Dr Johnson, to touch the objects along his path in order to save himself from the evil chance. He never conquered the superstition. In walking through Richmond Park with the present writer he would step out of his way constantly to touch a tree, and he was offended if the friend he was with seemed to observe it. Many of the peculiarities of the man who taught himself Chinese in order to distract his mind from painful thoughts were also Borrow’s own.
(T. W.-D.)
BORSIPPA (Barsip in the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions; Borsif in the Talmud; mod. Birs or Birs-Nimrud), the Greek name of an ancient city about 15 m. S.W. of Babylon and 10 m. from Hillah, on the Nahr Hindieh, or Hindieh canal, formerly known as “the Euphrates of Borsippa,” and even during the Arabic period called “the river of Birs.” Borsippa was the sister city of Babylon, and is often called in the inscriptions Babylon II., also the “city without equal.” Its patron god was Nebo or Nabu. Like Babylon Borsippa is not mentioned in the oldest inscriptions, but comes into importance first after Khammurabi had made Babylon the capital of the whole land, somewhere before 2000 B.C. He built or rebuilt the temple E-Zida at this place, dedicating it, however, to Marduk (Bel-Merodach). But although Khammurabi himself does not seem to have honoured Nebo (q.v.), subsequent kings recognized him as the deity of E-Zida and made him the son of Marduk (q.v.). Each new year his image was taken to visit his father, in Babylon, who in his turn gave him escort homeward, and his temple was second in wealth and importance only to E-Saggila, the temple of Marduk in Babylon. As with Babylon, so with Borsippa, the time of Nebuchadrezzar was the period of its greatest prosperity. In general Borsippa shared the fate of Babylon, falling into decay after the time of Alexander, and finally in the middle ages into ruins. The site of the ancient city is represented by two large ruin mounds. Of these the north-westerly, the lower of the two, but the larger in superficial area, is called Ibrahim Khalil, from a ziara, or shrine, of Abraham, the friend of God, which stands on its highest point. According to Arabic lore, based on Jewish legends, at this spot Nimrod sought to throw Abraham into a fiery furnace, from which he was saved by the grace of God. Excavations were first conducted here by the French Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie in 1852, with small result. In 1879 and 1880 Hormuzd Rassam conducted more extensive, although unsystematic, excavations in this mound, finding a considerable quantity of inscribed tablets and the like, now in the British Museum; but by far the greater part of this ruin still remains unexplored. The south-westerly mound, the Birs proper, is probably the most conspicuous and striking ruin in all Irak. On the top of a hill over 100 ft. high rises a pointed mass of vitrified brick split down the centre, over 40 ft. high, about which lie huge masses of vitrified brick, some as much as 15 ft. in diameter, and also single enamelled bricks, generally bearing an inscription of Nebuchadrezzar, twisted, curled and broken, apparently by great heat. Jewish and Arabic tradition makes this the Tower of Babel, which was supposed to have been destroyed by lightning. Excavations conducted here by Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1854 showed it to be the stage tower or ziggurat, called the “house of the seven divisions of heaven and earth,” of E-Zida, the temple of Nebo. On a large platform rose seven solid terraces, each smaller than the one below it, the lowest being 272 ft. square and 26 ft. high. Each of these terraces was faced with bricks of a different colour. The approach to this ziggurat was toward the north-east, and on this side lay also the principal rooms of the temple of which this was the tower. These rooms were partly excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in 1879-1880. In its final form this temple and tower were the work of Nebuchadrezzar, but from the clay cylinders found by Sir Henry Rawlinson in two of the corners of the tower it appears that he restored an incomplete ziggurat of a former king, “which was long since fallen into decay.” Some of the best authorities believe that it was this ambitious but incomplete and ruinous ziggurat, existing before the time of Nebuchadrezzar, which gave occasion to or afforded local attachment for the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.
Authorities.—H.C. Rawlinson, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1860); J. Oppert, Expédition scientifique en Mésopotamie (Paris, 1863); F. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (Leipzig, 1881); J.P. Peters, Nippur (New York and London, 1896); H. Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod (London and New York, 1897); M. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898); see also Babylon, Babel.
(J. P. Pe.)
BORT, or Boart, an inferior kind of diamond, unfit for cutting but useful as an abrasive agent. The typical bort occurs in small spherical masses, of greyish colour, rough or drusy on the surface, and showing on fracture a radiate crystalline structure. These masses, known in Brazil as bolas, are often called “shot bort” or “round bort.” Much of the bort consists of irregular aggregates of imperfect crystals. In trade, the term bort is extended to all small and impure diamonds, and crystalline fragments of diamond, useless as gem-stones. A large proportion of the output of some of the South African mines consists of such material. This bort is crushed in steel mortars to form diamond powder, which is largely used in lapidaries’ work.
BORY DE SAINT-VINCENT, JEAN BAPTISTE GEORGE MARIE (1780-1846), French naturalist, was born at Agen in 1780. He was sent as naturalist with Captain Nicholas Baudin’s expedition to Australia in 1798, but left the vessel at Mauritius, and spent two years in exploring Réunion and other islands. Joining the army on his return, he was present at the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz, and in 1808 went to Spain with Marshal Soult. His attachment to the Napoleonic dynasty and dislike to the Bourbons were shown in various ways during 1815, and his name was consequently placed on the list of the proscribed; but after wandering in disguise from place to place he was allowed quietly to return to Paris in 1820. In 1829 he was placed at the head of a scientific expedition to the Morea, and in 1839 he had charge of the exploration of Algeria. He died on the 23rd of December 1846. He was editor of the Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle, and among his separate productions were:—Essais sur les Îles Fortunées (1802); Voyage dans les Îles d’Afrique (1803); Voyage souterrain, ou description du plateau de Saint-Pierre de Maestricht et de ses vastes cryptes (1821); L’Homme, essai zoologique sur le genre humain (1827); Résumé de la géographie de la Péninsule (1838).
BORZHOM, a watering-place of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Tiflis, and 93 m. by rail W. of the city of Tiflis. Pop. (1897) 5800. It is situated at an altitude of 2750 ft. in the Borzhom gorge, a narrow rift in the Little Caucasus mountains, and on the Kura. Its warm climate, its two hot springs (71½°-82° Fahr.) and its beautiful parks make it a favourite summer resort, and give it its popular name of “the pearl of Caucasus.” The bottled mineral waters are very extensively exported.
BOS, LAMBERT (1670-1717), Dutch scholar and critic, was born at Workum in Friesland, where his father was headmaster of the school. He went to the university of Franeker (suppressed by Napoleon in 1811), and was appointed professor of Greek there in 1704; after an uneventful life he died at Franeker in 1717. His most famous work, Ellipses Graecae (1702), was translated into English by John Seager (1830); and his Antiquitates Graecae (1714) passed through several editions. He also published Vetus Testamentum, Ex Versione lxx. Interpretum (1709); notes on Thomas Magister (1698); Exercitationes Philologicae (1700); Animadversiones ad Scriptores quosdam Graecos (1715); and two small treatises on Accents and Greek Syntax.
BOSA, a seaport and episcopal see on the W. coast of Sardinia, in the province of Cagliari, 30 m. W. of Macomer by rail. Pop. (1901) 6846. The height above the town is crowned by a castle of the Malaspina family. The cathedral, founded in the 12th century, restored in the 15th, and rebuilt in 1806, is fine. There are some tanneries, and the fishing industry is important, but the coral production of Sicily has entirely destroyed that of Bosa since 1887. The district produces oil and wine. The present town of Bosa was founded in 1112 by the Malaspina, 1½ m. from the site of the ancient town (Bosa or Calmedia), where a well-preserved church still exists. The old town is of Roman origin, but is only mentioned by Pliny and Ptolemy, and as a station on the coast-road in the Itineraries (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x. 7939 seq.). One of the inscriptions preserved in the old cathedral records the erection of four silver statues, of Antoninus Pius, his wife Faustina and their two sons.
BOSBOOM-TOUSSAINT, ANNA LOUISA GEERTRUIDA (1812-1886), Dutch novelist, was born at Alkmaar in north Holland on the 16th of September 1812. Her father, named Toussaint, a local chemist of Huguenot descent, gave her a fair education, and at an early period of her career she developed a taste for historical research, fostered, perhaps, by a forced indoor life, the result of weak health. In 1851 she married the Dutch painter, Johannes Bosboom (1817-1891), and thereafter was known as Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint. Her first romance, Almagro, appeared in 1837, followed by the Graaf van Devonshire (The Earl of Devonshire) in 1838; the Engelschen te Rome (The English at Rome) in 1840, and Het Huis Lauernesse (The House of Lauernesse) in 1841, an episode of the Reformation, translated into many European languages. These stories, mainly founded upon some of the most interesting epochs of Dutch history, betrayed a remarkable grasp of facts and situations, combined with an undoubted mastery over her mother tongue, though her style is sometimes involved, and not always faultless. Ten years (1840-1850) were mainly devoted to further studies, the result of which was revealed in 1851-1854, when her Leycester in Nederland (3 vols.), Vrouwen van het Leycestersche Tydperk (Women of Leicester’s Epoch, 3 vols.), and Gideon Florensz (3 vols.) appeared, a series dealing with Robert Dudley’s adventures in the Low Countries. After 1870 Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint abandoned historical romance for the modern society novel, but her Delftsche Wonderdokter (The Necromancer of Delft, 1871, 3 vols.) and Majoor Frans (1875, 3 vols.) did not command the success of her earlier works. Major Frank has been translated into English (1885). She died at the Hague on the 13th of April 1886. Her novels have been published there in a collected edition (1885-1888, 25 vols.).
BOSC, LOUIS AUGUSTIN GUILLAUME (1759-1828), French naturalist, was born at Paris on the 29th of January 1759. He was educated at the college of Dijon, where he showed a taste for botany, and he followed up his studies in Paris at the Jardin des Plantes, where he made the acquaintance of Mme M.J.P. Roland. At the age of eighteen he obtained a government appointment, and he rose to be one of the chief officials in the postal department. Under the ministry of J.M. Roland in 1792 he also held the post of superintendent of prisons, but the violent outbreaks of 1793 drove him from office, and compelled him to take refuge in flight. For some months he lay concealed at Sainte-Radégonde, in the forest of Montmorency, barely subsisting on roots and vegetables. He was enabled to return to Paris on the fall of Robespierre, and under the title Appel à l’impartiale postérité par la citoyenne Roland published a manuscript Mme Roland had entrusted to him before her execution. Soon afterwards he set out for America, resolving to explore the natural riches of that country. The immense materials he gathered were never published in a complete form, but much went to enrich the works of B.G.E. de Lacépède, P.A. Latreille and others. After his return, on the establishment of the Directory, he was reinstated in his old office. Of this he was again deprived by the coup d’état of 1799, and for a time he was in great destitution; but by his copious contributions to scientific literature he contrived to support himself and to lay the foundations of a solid reputation. He was engaged on the new Dictionnaire d’histoire naturelle, and on the Encyclopédie méthodique, he edited the Dictionnaire raisonné et universel d’agriculture, and was one of the editors of the Annales de l’agriculture française. He was made inspector of the gardens at Versailles, and of the public nurseries belonging to the ministry of the interior. The last years of his life were devoted to an elaborate work on the vine, for which he had amassed an immense quantity of materials, but his death at Paris on the 10th of July 1828 prevented its completion.
BOSCÁN ALMOGAVER, JUAN (1490?-1542), Spanish poet, was born about the close of the 15th century. He was a Catalan of patrician birth, and, after some years of military service, became tutor to the duke of Alva. His poems were published in 1543 at Barcelona by his widow. They are divided into sections which mark the stages of Boscán’s poetical evolution. The first book contains poems in the old Castilian metres, written in his youth, before 1526, in which year he became acquainted with the Venetian ambassador, Andrea Navagiero, who urged him to adopt Italian measures, and this advice gave a new turn to Boscán’s activity. The remaining books contain a number of pieces in the Italian manner, the longest of these being Hero y Leander, a poem in blank verse, based on Musaeus. Boscán’s best effort, the Octava Rima, is a skilful imitation of Petrarch and Bembo. Boscán also published in 1534 an admirable translation of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano. Italian measures had been introduced into Spanish literature by Santillana and Villalpando; it is Boscán’s distinction to have naturalized these forms definitively, and to have founded a poetic school.
The best edition of his poems is that issued at Madrid in 1875 by W.J. Knapp; for his indebtedness to earlier writers, see Francesco Flamini, Studi di storia literaria italiana e straniera (Livorno, 1895).
BOSCASTLE, a small seaport and watering-place in the Launceston parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, 5 m. N. of Camelford station on the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (civil parish of Forrabury, 1901) 329. The village rises steeply above a very narrow cove on the north coast, sheltered, but difficult of access, vessels having to be warped into it by means of hawsers. A mound on a hill above the harbour marks the site of a Norman castle. The parish church of St Symphorian, Forrabury, also stands high, overlooking the Atlantic from Willapark Point. The tower is without bells, and the tradition that a ship bearing a peal hither was wrecked within sight of the harbour, and that the lost bells may still be heard to toll beneath the waves, has been made famous by a ballad of the Cornish poet Robert Stephen Hawker, vicar of Moorwinstow. The coast scenery near Boscastle is severely beautiful, with abrupt cliffs fully exposed to the sea, and broken only by a few picturesque inlets such as Crackington Cove and Pentargan Cove. Inland are bare moors, diversified by narrow dales.
BOSCAWEN, EDWARD (1711-1761), British admiral, was born on the 19th of August 1711. He was the third son of Hugh, 1st Viscount Falmouth. He early entered the navy, and in 1739 distinguished himself at the taking of Porto Bello. At the siege of Cartagena, in March 1741, at the head of a party of seamen, he took a battery of fifteen 24-pounders, while exposed to the fire of another fort. On his return to England in the following year he married, and entered parliament as member for Truro. In 1744 he captured the French frigate “Médée,” commanded by M. de Hocquart, the first ship taken in the war. In May 1747 he signalized himself in the engagement off Cape Finisterre, and was wounded in the shoulder with a musket-ball. Hocquart again became his prisoner, and the French ships, ten in number, were taken. On the 15th of July he was made rear-admiral and commander-in-chief of the expedition to the East Indies. On the 29th of July 1748 he arrived off Fort St David’s, and soon after laid siege to Pondicherry; but the sickness of his men and the approach of the monsoons led to the raising of the siege. Soon afterwards he received news of the peace, and Madras was delivered up to him by the French. In April 1750 he arrived in England, and was the next year made one of the lords of the Admiralty, and chosen an elder brother of the Trinity House. In February 1755 he was appointed vice-admiral, and in April he intercepted the French squadron bound to North America, and took the “Alcide” and “Lys” of sixty-four guns each. Hocquart became his prisoner for the third time, and Boscawen returned to Spithead with his prizes and 1500 prisoners. For this exploit, he received the thanks of parliament. In 1758 he was appointed admiral of the blue and commander-in-chief of the expedition to Cape Breton, when, in conjunction with General Amherst, he took the fortress of Louisburg, and the island of Cape Breton—services for which he again received the thanks of the House of Commons. In 1759, being appointed to command in the Mediterranean, he pursued the French fleet, commanded by M. de la Clue, and after a sharp engagement in Lagos Bay took three large ships and burnt two, returning to Spithead with his prizes and 2000 prisoners. The victory defeated the proposed concentration of the French fleet in Brest to cover an invasion of England. In December 1760 he was appointed general of the marines, with a salary of £3000 per annum, and was also sworn a member of the privy council. He died at his seat near Guildford on the 10th of January 1761.
BOSCH (or Bos), JEROM (c. 1460-1518), the name generally given, from his birthplace Hertogenbosch, to Hieronymus van Aeken, the Dutch painter. He was probably a pupil of Albert Ouwater, and may be called the Breughel of the 15th century, for he devoted himself to the invention of bizarre types, diableries, and scenes of the kind generally associated with Breughel, whose art is to a great extent based on Bosch’s. He was a satirist much in advance of his time, and one of the most original and ingenious artists of the 15th century. He exercised great influence on Lucas Cranach, who frequently copied his paintings. His works were much admired in Spain, especially by Philip II., at whose court Bosch painted for some time. One of his chief works is the “Last Judgment” at the Berlin gallery, which also owns a little “St Jerome in the Desert.” “The Fall of the Rebellious Angels” and the “St Anthony” triptych are in the Brussels museum, and two important triptychs are at the Munich gallery. The Lippmann collection in Berlin contains an important “Adoration of the Magi,” the Antwerp museum a “Passion,” and a practically unknown painting from his brush is at the Naples museum.
BOSCOVICH, ROGER JOSEPH (1711?-1787), Italian mathematician and natural philosopher, one of the earliest of foreign savants to adopt Newton’s gravitation theory, was born at Ragusa in Dalmatia on the 18th of May 1711, according to the usual account, but ten years earlier according to Lalande (Éloge, 1792). In his fifteenth year, after passing through the usual elementary studies, he entered the Society of Jesus. On completing his noviciate, which was spent at Rome, he studied mathematics and physics at the Collegium Romanum; and so brilliant was his progress in these sciences that in 1740 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the college. For this post he was especially fitted by his acquaintance with recent advances in science, and by his skill in a classical severity of demonstration, acquired by a thorough study of the works of the Greek geometricians. Several years before this appointment he had made himself a name by an elegant solution of the problem to find the sun’s equator and determine the period of its rotation by observation of the spots on its surface. Notwithstanding the arduous duties of his professorship he found time for investigation in all the fields of physical science; and he published a very large number of dissertations, some of them of considerable length, on a wide variety of subjects. Among these subjects were the transit of Mercury, the Aurora Borealis, the figure of the earth, the observation of the fixed stars, the inequalities in terrestrial gravitation, the application of mathematics to the theory of the telescope, the limits of certainty in astronomical observations, the solid of greatest attraction, the cycloid, the logistic curve, the theory of comets, the tides, the law of continuity, the double refraction micrometer, various problems of spherical trigonometry, &c. In 1742 he was consulted, with other men of science, by the pope, Benedict XIV., as to the best means of securing the stability of the dome of St Peter’s, Rome, in which a crack had been discovered. His suggestion was adopted. Shortly after he engaged to take part in the Portuguese expedition for the survey of Brazil, and the measurement of a degree of the meridian; but he yielded to the urgent request of the pope that he would remain in Italy and undertake a similar task there. Accordingly, in conjunction with Christopher Maire, an English Jesuit, he measured an arc of two degrees between Rome and Rimini. The operations were begun towards the close of 1750, and were completed in about two years. An account of them was published in 1755, entitled De Litteraria expeditione per pontificam ditionem ad dimetiendos duos meridiani gradus a PP. Maire et Boscovich. The value of this work was increased by a carefully prepared map of the States of the Church. A French translation appeared in 1770. A dispute having arisen between the grand duke of Tuscany and the republic of Lucca with respect to the drainage of a lake, Boscovich was sent, in 1757, as agent of Lucca to Vienna, and succeeded in bringing about a satisfactory arrangement of the matter. In the following year he published at Vienna his famous work, Theoria philosophiae naturalis redacta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium, containing his atomic theory (see Molecule). Another occasion for the exercise of his diplomatic ability soon after presented itself. A suspicion having arisen on the part of the British government that ships of war had been fitted out in the port of Ragusa for the service of France, and that the neutrality of Ragusa had thus been violated, Boscovich was selected to undertake an embassy to London (1760), to vindicate the character of his native place and satisfy the government. This mission he discharged successfully, with credit to himself and satisfaction to his countrymen. During his stay in England he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He soon after paid this society the compliment of dedicating to it his Latin poem, entitled De Solis et Lunae Defectibus (London, 1764). This prolix composition, one of a class which at that time was much in vogue—metrical epitomes of the facts of science—contains in about five thousand lines, illustrated by voluminous notes, a compendium of astronomy. It was for the most part written on horseback, during the author’s rides in the country while engaged in his meridian measurements. The book is characterized by G.B.J. Delambre as “uninstructive to an astronomer and unintelligible to any one else.”
On leaving England Boscovich travelled in Turkey, but ill-health compelled him soon to return to Italy. In 1764 he was called to the chair of mathematics at the university of Pavia, and this post he held, together with the directorship of the observatory of Brera, for six years. He was invited by the Royal Society of London to undertake an expedition to California to observe the transit of Venus in 1769; but this was prevented by the recent decree of the Spanish government for the expulsion of the Jesuits from its dominions. The vanity, egotism and petulance of Boscovich provoked his rivals and made him many enemies, so that in hope of peace he was driven to frequent change of residence. About 1770 he removed to Milan, where he continued to teach and to hold the directorship of the observatory of Brera; but being deprived of his post by the intrigues of his associates he was about to retire to his native place, when the news reached him (1773) of the suppression of his order in Italy. Uncertainty as to his future led him to accept an invitation from the king of France to Paris, where he was naturalized and was appointed director of optics for the marine, an office instituted for him, with a pension of 8000 livres. He remained there ten years, but his position became irksome, and at length intolerable. He continued, however, to devote himself diligently to the pursuits of science, and published many remarkable memoirs. Among them were an elegant solution of the problem to determine the orbit of a comet from three observations, and memoirs on the micrometer and achromatic telescopes. In 1783 he returned to Italy, and spent two years at Bassano, where he occupied himself with the publication of his Opera pertinentia ad opticam et astronomiam, &c., which appeared in 1785 in five volumes quarto. After a visit of some months to the convent of Vallombrosa, he went to Milan and resumed his literary labours. But his health was failing, his reputation was on the wane, his works did not sell, and he gradually sank a prey to illness and disappointment. He fell into melancholy, imbecility, and at last madness, with lucid intervals, and died at Milan on the 15th (13th) of February 1787. In addition to the works already mentioned Boscovich published Elementa universae matheseos (1754), the substance of the course of study prepared for his pupils; and a narrative of his travels, entitled Giornale di un viaggio da Constantinopoli in Polonia, of which several editions and a French translation appeared. His latest labour was the editing of the Latin poems of his friend Benedict Stay on the philosophy of Descartes, with scientific annotations and supplements.
(W. L. R. C.)
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, or Bosnia-Herzegovina, two provinces formerly included in European Turkey, which now, together with Dalmatia, form the southernmost territories of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The name Herzegovina is also written Hertzegovina, Hertsegovina or, in Croatian, Hercegovina. In shape roughly resembling an equilateral triangle, with base uppermost, Bosnia and Herzegovina cover an area of 19,696 sq. m., in the north-west of the Balkan Peninsula. They are bounded N. and N.W. by Croatia-Slavonia; W. and S.W. by Dalmatia; S.E. by Montenegro and the Sanjak of Novibazar; and N.E. by Servia. Opposite to the promontory of Sabbioncello, and at the entrance to the Bocche di Cattaro, the frontier of Herzegovina comes down to the Adriatic; but these two strips of coast do not contain any good harbour, and extend only for a total distance of 14½ m. Bosnia is altogether an inland territory.
1. Physical Features.—Along the Dalmatian border, and through the centre of Bosnia, runs the backbone of the Dinaric Alps, which attain their greatest altitudes (6000-7500 ft.) near Travnik, Serajevo and Mostar. There are numerous high valleys shut in among the mountains of this range; the most noteworthy being the plain of Livno, which lies parallel to the Dalmatian border, at a height of 500 ft. above the sea. The zone of highlands throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina reaches a mean altitude of 1500 ft., while summits of more than 4000 ft. occur frequently. To the north-east of the Dinaric Alps extends a region of mountain, moor and forest, with deeply sunk alluvial basins, which finally expand into the lowlands of the Posavina, or Vale of the Save, forming the southernmost fringe of the Hungarian Alföld. Bosnia belongs wholly to the watershed of the Save, and its rivers to the Danubian system, no large stream finding a way to the Adriatic. The Save flows eastward along the northern frontier for 237 m. It is joined by four main tributaries, the Drina, Bosna, Vrbas and Una. The Drina is formed on the Montenegrin frontier by the united streams of the Tara and Piva; curving north-eastwards past Visegrad, it marches for 102 m. with Servian territory, and falls into the Save at Racha, after a total course of 155 m. The Bosna issues from many springs near Serajevo, and winds for 107 m. northward, through a succession of fertile glens, reaching the Save 1 m. west of Samac. Farther west, the Vrbas cuts a channel through the Dinaric Alps, and, after passing Jajce and Banjaluka, meets the Save 94 m. from its own headwaters. The Una rises on the Croatian border, and, after skirting the Plješevica Planina, in Croatia, turns sharply to the north-east; serving as a frontier stream for 37 m. before entering the Save at Jasenovac. Its length is 98 m. At Novi it is joined by the Sana, a considerable affluent.
Herzegovina, which lies south of Bosnia, in a parallelogram defined by Montenegro, Dalmatia, the Dinaric Alps, and an irregular line drawn from a point 25 m. west-north-west of Mostar to the bend of the river Narenta, differs in many respects from the larger territory. Its mountains, which belong to the Adriatic watershed, and form a continuation of the Montenegrin highlands, are less rounded and more dolomitic in character. They descend in parallel ridges of grey Karst limestone, south-westwards to the sea; their last summits reappear in the multitude of rocky islands along the Dalmatian littoral. As in the peaks of Orjen, Orobac, Samotica and Veliki Kap, their height often exceeds 6000 ft. West of the Narenta, their flanks are in places covered with forests of beech and pine, but north-east of that river they present for the most part a scene of barren desolation. Their monotony is varied only by the fruitful river-valleys and poljes, or upland hollows, where the smaller towns and villages are grouped; the districts or cantons thus formed are walled round by a natural rampart of limestone. These poljes may be described as oases in what is otherwise a desert expanse of mountains. The surface of some, as notably the Mostarsko Blato, lying west of Mostar, is marshy, and in spring forms a lake; others are watered by streams which disappear in swallow-holes of the rock, and make their way by underground channels either to the sea or the Narenta. The most conspicuous example of these is the Trebinjcica, which disappears in two swallow-holes in Popovopolye, and after making its way by a subterranean passage through a range of mountains, wells up in the mighty source of Ombla near Ragusa, and hurries in undiminished volume to the Adriatic. The Narenta, or Neretva, is the one large river of Herzegovina which flows above ground throughout its length. Rising on the Montenegrin border, under the Lebrsnik mountains, it flows north-westwards at the foot of the Dinaric Alps; and, near Konjica, sweeps round suddenly to the south, and falls into the Adriatic near Metkovic, after traversing 125 m. North of Mostar, it cleaves a passage through the celebrated Narenta defile, a narrow gorge, 12 m. long, overshadowed by mountains which rise on either side and culminate in Lupoglav (6796 ft.) on the east, and Cvrstnica (7205 ft.) on the west.
2. Geology and Minerals.—Geologically, the highlands of Bosnia and Herzegovina are to be regarded, in both their orographic and tectonic character, as a continuation of the South Alpine calcareous belt. Along the west frontier there appear broad and strongly marked zones of Cretaceous limestone, alternating with Jurassic and Triassic, joined by a strip of Palaeozoic formations running from the north-west corner of Bosnia. Next, proceeding from this region in an easterly direction, are the Neogene freshwater formations, filling up the greatest part of the north-east of Bosnia, as also a zone of flysch intermingled with several strips of eruptive rock. In the south-east of Bosnia the predominant formations are Triassic and Palaeozoic strata with red sandstone and quartzite. Along the whole northern rim of Bosnia, as also in the fluvial and Karst valleys (poljes), are found diluvial and alluvial formations, interrupted at one place by an isolated granite layer. Bosnia is rich in minerals, including coal, iron, copper, chrome, manganese, cinnabar, zinc and mercury, besides marble and much excellent building stone. Among the mountains, gold and silver were worked by the Romans, and, in the middle ages, by the Ragusans. After 1881 the Mining Company of Bosnia began to develop the coal and iron fields; and from 1886 its operations were continued by the government. Valuable salt is obtained from the pits at Dolnja Tuzla, and the southern part of Herzegovina yields asphalt and lignite. Mineral springs also abound, and those of Ilidže, near Serajevo, have been utilized since the days of the Romans; but the majority remained unexploited at the beginning of the 20th century.
3. Climate.—In climate Bosnia differs considerably from Herzegovina. In both alike the scirocco, bringing rain from the south-west, is a prevalent wind, as well as the bora, the fearful north-north-easter of Illyria, which, sweeping down the lateral valleys of the Dinaric Alps, overwhelms everything in its path. The snow-fall is slight, and, except on a few of the loftier peaks, the snow soon melts. In Bosnia the weather resembles that of the south Austrian highlands, generally mild, though apt to be bitterly cold in winter. In Serajevo the mean annual temperature is 50° Fahr. Herzegovina has more affinity to the Dalmatian mountains, oppressively hot in summer, when the mercury often rises beyond 110° Fahr. The winter rains of the Karst region show that it belongs to the sub-tropical climatic zone.
4. Fauna.—In 1893 the bones of a cave-bear (Ursus spelaeus) were taken from a cavern of the Bjelasnica range, in Herzegovina, a discovery without parallel in the Balkan Peninsula. Of existing species the bear, wild-boar, badger, roe-deer and chamois may occasionally be seen in the remotest wilds of mountain and forest. Hares are uncommon, and the last red-deer was shot in 1814; but wolves, otters and squirrels abound. Snipe, woodcock, ducks and rails, in vast flocks, haunt the banks of the Drina and Save; while the crane, pelican, wild-swan and wild-goose are fairly plentiful. The lammergeier (Gypaëtus barbatus) had almost become extinct in 1900; but several varieties of eagle and falcon are left. Falconry was long a pastime of the Moslem landlords. The destruction of game, recklessly carried out under Turkish rule, is prevented by the laws of 1880, 1883 and 1893, which enforced a close time, and rendered shooting-licences necessary. The list of reptiles includes the venomous Vipera ammodytes and Pelias berus, while scorpions and lizards infest the stony wastes of the Karst. In the museum at Serajevo there is a large entomological collection, including the remarkable Pogonus anophthalmus, from the underground Karst caves. The caves are rich in curious kinds of fish, Paraphoxinus Gethaldii, which is unknown elsewhere, Chondrostoma phoximus, Phoxinellus alepidatus and others, which are caught and eaten by the peasantry. In Herzegovina, although many of the high mountain tarns are unproductive, the eel-fisheries of the Narenta are of considerable value. Leech-gathering is a characteristic Bosnian industry. The streams of both territories yield excellent trout and crayfish; salmon, sturgeon and sterlet, from the Danube, are netted in the Save.
5. Flora.—Serajevo museum has a collection of the Bosnian flora, representing over 3000 species; among them, the rare Veronica crinita, Pinus leucodermis, Picea omorica and Daphne Blagayana. About 50% of the occupied Forests. territory is clothed with forest. “Bosnia begins with the forest,” says a native proverb, “Herzegovina with the rock”; and this account is, broadly speaking, accurate, although the Bosnian Karst is as bare as that of Herzegovina. Below the mountain crests, where only the hardiest lichens and mosses can survive, comes a belt of large timber, including many giant trees, 200 ft. high, and 20 ft. in girth at the level of a man’s shoulder. Dense brushwood prevails on the foothills. There are three main zones of woodland. Up to 2500 ft. among the ranges of northern Bosnia, the sunnier slopes are overgrown by oaks, the shadier by beeches. Farther south, in central Bosnia, the oak rarely mounts beyond the foothills, being superseded by the beech, elm, ash, fir and pine, up to 5000 ft. The third zone is characterized by the predominance, up to 6000 ft., of the fir, pine and other conifers. In all three zones occur the chestnut, aspen, willow (especially Salix laurea), hornbeam, birch, alder, juniper and yew; while the mountain ash, hazel, wild plum, wild pear and other wild fruit trees are found at rarer intervals. Until 1878 the forests were almost neglected; afterwards, the government was forced to levy a graduated tax on goats, owing to the damage they inflicted upon young trees, and to curtail the popular rights of cutting timber and fir-wood and of pasturage. These measures were largely successful, but in 1902 the export of oak staves was discontinued owing to a shortage of supply.
6. Agriculture.—In 1895, according to the agricultural survey, the surface of Bosnia and Herzegovina was laid out as follows:—
Acres.
Plough-land. 2,355,499
Garden-ground. 103,040
Meadow. 739,200
Vineyards. 12,598
Pasture. 1,875,840
Forest. 5,670,619
Unproductive. 210,998
Apart from the arid wastes of the Karst, the soil is well adapted for the growing of cereals, especially Indian corn; olives, vines, mulberries, figs, pomegranates, melons, oranges, lemons, rice and tobacco flourish in Herzegovina and the more sheltered portions of Bosnia. Near Doboj, on the Bosna, there is a state sugar-refinery, for which beetroot is largely grown in the vicinity. Pyrethrum cinerariaefolium is exported for the manufacture of insect-powder, and sunflowers are cultivated for the oil contained in their seeds. The plum-orchards of the Posavina furnish prunes and a spirit called šlivovica, shlivovitsa or sliwowitz. This district is the headquarters of a thriving trade in pigs. Poultry, bees and silkworms are commonly kept. On the whole agriculture is backward, despite the richness of the soil; for the cultivators are a very conservative race, and prefer the methods and implements of their ancestors. Many improvements were, nevertheless, introduced by the government after 1878. Machinery was lent to the farmers, and free grants of seed were made. Model farms were established at Livno and at Gačko, on the Montenegrin border; a school of viticulture near Mostar; a model poultry-farm at Prijedor, close to the Croatian boundary; a school of agriculture and dairy farming at Ilidže; and another school at Modric, near the mouth of the Bosna, where a certain number of village schoolmasters are annually trained, for six weeks, in practical husbandry. Seed is distributed, and agricultural machinery lent, by the government. To better the breeds of live-stock, a stud-farm was opened near Serajevo, and foreign horses, cattle, sheep and poultry are imported.
7. Land Tenure.—The zadruga, or household community, more common in Servia (q.v.), survives to a small extent in Bosnia and Herzegovina; but, as a rule, the tenure of land resembles the system called métayage. At the time of the Austrian occupation (1878) it was regulated by a Turkish enactment1 of the 12th of September 1859. Apart from gardens and house-property, all land was, according to this enactment, owned by the state; in practice, it was held by the Moslem begs or beys (nobles) and agas (landlords), who let it to the peasantry. The landlord received from his tenant (kmet) a fixed percentage, usually one third (tretina), of the annual produce; and, of the remaining two thirds, the cash equivalent of one tenth (desetina) went to the state. The amount of the desetina was always fixed first, and served as a basis for the assessment of the tretina, which, however, was generally paid in kind. At any time the tenant could relinquish his holding; but he could only be evicted for refusing to pay his tretina, for wilful neglect of his land or for damage done to it. The landlord was bound to keep his tenants’ dwellings and outhouses in repair. Should he desire to sell his estates, the right of pre-emption belonged to the tenants, or, in default, to the neighbours. Thus foreign speculators in land were excluded, while a class of peasant proprietors was created; its numbers being increased by the custom that, if any man reclaimed a piece of waste land, it became his own property after ten years. The Turkish land-system remained in force during the entire period of the occupation (1878-1908). It had worked, on the whole, satisfactorily; and between 1885 and 1895 the number of peasants farming their own land rose from 117,000 to 200,000. One conspicuous feature of the Bosnian land-system is the Moslem Vakuf, or ecclesiastical property, consisting of estates dedicated to such charitable purposes as poor-relief, and the endowment of mosques, schools, hospitals, cemeteries and baths. It is administered by a central board of Moslem officials, who meet in Sarajevo, under state supervision. Its income rose to £25,000 in 1895, having quadrupled itself in ten years. The Vakuf tenants were at that time extremely prosperous, for their rent had been fixed for ten years in advance on the basis of the year’s harvest, and so had not risen proportionately to the value of their holdings.
8. Industries and Commerce.—Beside agriculture, which employed over 88% of the whole population in 1895, the other industries are insignificant. Chief among them are weaving and leather and metal work, carried on by the workmen in their own houses. There are also government workshops, opened with a view to a higher technical and artistic development of the house industry. More particularly, chased and inlaid metallic wares, bez (thin cotton) and carpet-weaving receive government support. Besides the sugar-refinery already mentioned, there were in 1900 four tobacco factories, a national printing-press, an annular furnace for brick-burning, an iron-foundry and several blast-furnaces, under the management of the state. Among the larger private establishments there existed in the same year seven breweries, one brandy distillery, two jam, two soap and candle factories, two building and furniture works, a factory for spinning thread, one iron and steel works, one paper and one ammonia and soda factory, and one mineral-oil refinery.
In respect of foreign trade Bosnia and Herzegovina were in 1882 included in the customs and commercial system of Austria-Hungary, to the extinction of all intermediate imposts. Since 1898 special statistics have been drawn up respecting their trade also with Austria and Hungary. According to these statistics the most important articles of export are coal and turf, fruit, minerals, soda, iron and steel, and cattle. Other articles of export are chemicals, dyeing and tanning stuffs, tobacco, sugar-beet and kitchen-salt. The imports consist principally of food stuffs, building materials, drinks, sugar, machinery, glass, fats, clothes, wooden and stone wares, and various manufactured goods.
There is a national bank in Serajevo, which carries on a hypothecary credit business and manages the wholesale trade of the tobacco factories. There are savings banks in Banjaluka, Bjelina and Brčka.
9. Communications.—The construction of carriage-roads, wholly neglected by the Turks, was carried out on a large scale by the Austrians. Two railways were also built, in connexion with the Hungarian state system. One crosses the Una at Kostajnica, and, after skirting the right bank of that river as far as Novi, strikes eastward to Banjaluka. The other, a narrow-gauge line, crosses the Save at Bosna Brod, and follows the Bosna to Serajevo, throwing out branches eastward beyond Dolnja Tuzla, and westward to Jajce and Bugojno. It then pierces through the mountains of northern Herzegovina, traverses the Narenta valley, and runs almost parallel with the coast to Trebinje, Ragusa and the Bocche di Cattaro. Up to this point the railways of the occupied territory were complete in 1901. A farther line, from Serajevo to the frontiers of Servia and Novibazar, was undertaken in 1902, and by 1906 782 m. of railway were open. Small steamers ply on the Drina, Save and Una, but the Bosna, though broad from its very source, is, like the Vrbas, too full of shallows to be utilized; while the Narenta only begins to be navigable when it enters Dalmatia. All the railway lines, like the postal, telegraphic and telephonic services, are state property. In many of the principal towns there are also government hotels.
Serajevo, with 41,543 inhabitants in 1895, is the capital of the combined provinces, and other important places are Mostar (17,010), the capital of Herzegovina, Banjaluka (14,812), Dolnja Tuzla (11,034), Travnik (6626), Livno (5273), Visoko(5000), Foča (4217), Jajce (3929) and Trebinje (2966). All these are described in separate articles.
10. Population and National Characteristics.—In 1895 the population, which tends to increase slowly, with a preponderance of males over females, numbered 1,568,092. The alien element is small, consisting chiefly of Austro-Hungarians, gipsies, Italians and Jews. Spanish is a comomon language of the Jews, whose ancestors fled hither, during the 16th century, to escape the Inquisition. The natives are officially described as Bosniaks, but classify themselves according to religion. Thus the Roman Catholics prefer the name of Croats, Hrvats or Latins; the Orthodox, of Serbs; the Moslems, of Turks. All alike belong to the Serbo-Croatian branch of the Slavonic race; and all speak a language almost identical with Servian, though written by the Roman Catholics in Latin instead of Cyrillic letters. A full account of this language, and its literature, is given under Servia and Croatia-Slavonia. To avoid offending either “Serbs” or “Croats,” it is officially designated “Bosnisch.” In some parts of Herzegovina the dress, manners and physical type of the peasantry are akin to those of Montenegro. The Bosnians or Bosniaks resemble their Servian kinsfolk in both appearance and character. They have the same love for poetry, music and romance; the same intense pride in their race and history; many of the same superstitions and customs. The Christians retain the Servian costume, modified in detail, as by the occasional use of the turban or fez. The “Turkish” women have in some districts abandoned the veil; but in others they even cover the eyes when they leave home. Polygamy is almost unknown, possibly because many of the “Turks” are descended from the austere Bogomils, who were, in most cases, converted to Islam, but more probably because the “Turks” are as a rule too poor to provide for more than one wife on the scale required by Islamic law. In general, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina are sober and thrifty, subsisting chiefly on Indian corn, dried meat, milk and vegetables. Their houses are built of timber and thatch, or clay tiles, except in the Karst region, where stone is more plentiful than wood. Family ties are strong, and the women are not ill-treated, although they share in all kinds of manual labour.
11. Government.—At the time of the Austrian annexation in 1908, the only remaining token of Ottoman suzerainty was that the foreign consuls received their exequatur from Turkey, instead of Austria; otherwise the government of the country was conducted in the name of the Austrian emperor, through the imperial minister of finance at Vienna, who controlled the civil service for the occupied territory. Its central bureau, with departments of the interior, religion and education, finance and justice, was established at Serajevo; and its members were largely recruited among the Austrian Slavs, who were better able than the Germans to comprehend the local customs and language. A consultative assembly, composed of the highest ecclesiastical authorities, together with 12 popular representatives, also met at Serajevo. For administrative purposes the country was divided into 6 districts or prefectures (kreise), which were subdivided into 49 subprefectures (bezirke).
Every large town has a mayor and deputy mayor, appointed by the government, and a town council, of whom one third are similarly appointed, while the citizens choose the rest; a proportionate number of councillors representing each religious community. To ensure economy, the decisions of this body are supervised by a government commissioner. The commune is preserved, somewhat as in Servia (q.v.), but with modified powers. Each district has its court of law, where cases are tried by three official judges and two assessors, selected from the leading citizens. The assessors vote equally with the judges, and three votes decide the verdict. Except where the litigants and witnesses are German, the Serbo-Croatian language is used. An appeal, on points of law alone, may be carried to the supreme court in Serajevo, and there tried by five judges without assessors. In cases not involving a sum greater than 300 florins (£25), no appeal will lie; and where only 50 florins (£4 : 3 : 4) are in question, the case is summarily decided at the Bagatelle Gericht, or court for trifling cases. The number of lawyers admitted to practice is strictly limited. As far as possible, the Turkish law was retained during the period of occupation; all cases between Moslems were settled in separate courts by Moslem judges, against whom there was an appeal to the supreme court, aided by assessors. All able-bodied males are liable, on reaching their 21st year, for 3 years’ service with the colours, and 9 years in the reserve. The garrison numbers about 20,000 Austrian troops, and there are 7100 native troops. The principal military stations are Bjelina, Zvornik, Višegrad, Goražda, Foča, Bilek, Avtovac and Trebinje, along the eastern frontier; Mostar and Stolac in the south; Livno in the west; and Bihać in the north.
12. Religion.—In 1895 43% of the population were Orthodox Christians, 35% Moslems and 21% Roman Catholics. The patriarch of Constantinople is the nominal head of the Orthodox priesthood; but by an arrangement concluded in 1879, his authority was delegated to the Austrian emperor, in exchange for a revenue equal to the tribute previously paid by the clergy of the provinces; and his nominations for the metropolitanate of Serajevo, and the bishoprics of Dolnja Tuzla, Banjaluka and Mostar require the imperial assent. Under Turkish rule the communes chose their own parish priests, but this right is now vested in the government. The Roman Catholics have an archbishop in Serajevo, a bishop in Mostar and an apostolic administrator in Banjaluka. Serajevo is also the seat of the Jewish chief rabbi; and of the highest Moslem ecclesiastic, or reis-el-ulema, who with his council is nominated and paid by the government. The inferior Moslem clergy draw their stipends from the Vakuf. Considerable bitterness prevails between the rival confessions, each aiming at political ascendancy, but the government favours none. In order to conciliate even the Moslems, who include the bulk of the great landholders and of the urban population, its representatives visit the mosques in state on festivals; grants are made for the Mecca pilgrimage; and even the howling Dervishes in Serajevo are maintained by the state.
13. Education.—Education for boys and girls between the ages of seven and fifteen is free, but not compulsory. The state supports primary schools (352 in 1905), where reading, writing, arithmetic and history are taught; and separate instruction is given by the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Moslem clergy. There are also various private schools, belonging to the different religious communities. These receive a grant from the government, which nevertheless encourages all parents to send their children to its own schools. One of the earliest and best-known private schools is the orphanage at Serajevo, founded in 1869 by two English ladies, Miss Irby and Miss Mackenzie. In the Moslem schools, which, in 1905, comprised 855 mektebs or primary schools, and 41 madrasas or high schools, instruction is usually given in Turkish or Arabic; while in Orthodox schools the books are printed in Cyrillic characters.
For higher education there were in 1908 three gymnasia, a real-school at Banjaluka, a technical college and a teachers’ training-college at Serajevo, where, also, is the state school for Moslem law-students, called scheriatschule from the sheri or Turkish code; and various theological, commercial and art institutes. Promising pupils are frequently sent to Vienna University, with scholarships, which may be forfeited if the holders engage in political agitation.
14. Antiquities.—Up to 1900 no traces of palaeolithic man had been discovered in Bosnia or Herzegovina; but many later prehistoric remains are preserved in Serajevo museum. The neolithic station of Butmir, near Ilidže, was probably a lake-dwellers’ colony, and has yielded numerous stone and horn implements, clay figures and pottery. Not far off, similar relics were found at Sobunar, Zlatište and Debelobrdo; iron and bronze ornaments, vessels and weapons, often of elaborate design, occur in the huts and cemeteries of Glasinac, and in the cemetery of Jezerine, where they are associated with objects in silver, tin, amber, glass, &c. Among the numerous finds made in other districts may be mentioned the discovery, at Vrankamer, near Bihac, of 98 African coins, the oldest of which dates from 300 B.C. Many vestiges of Roman rule survive, such as roads, mines, ruins, tombs, coins, frescoes and inscriptions. Such remains occur frequently near Bihac, Foca, Livno, Jajce and Serajevo; and especially near the sources of the Drina. The period between the downfall of Roman power, late in the 5th century, and the growth of a Bosnian state, in the 11th, is poorer in antiquities. The later middle ages are represented by several monasteries, and many castles, such as those of Dervent, Doboj, Maglaj, Žepče and Vranduk, on the Bosna; Bihać, on the Una; Prijedor and Kljuć, on the Sana; and Stolac, Gabela, Irebinje and Konjica, in Herzegovina. The bridge across the Narenta, at Konjica, is said to date from the 10th century. A group of signs carved on some rocks near Višegrad have been regarded as cuneiform writing, but are probably medieval masonic symbols. In a few cases, such as the Begova Džamia at Serajevo, the Foča mosques and the Mostar bridge, the buildings raised by the Turks are of high architectural merit. More remarkable are the tombstones, generally measuring 6 ft. in length, 3 in height and 3 in breadth, which have been supposed to mark the graves of the Bogomils. These are, as a rule, quite unadorned, a few only being decorated with rude has-reliefs of animals, plants, weapons, the crescent and star, or, very rarely, the cross.
15. History.—Under Roman rule Bosnia had no separate name or history, and until the great Slavonic immigration of 636 it remained an undifferentiated part of Illyria (q.v.). Owing to the scarcity of authoritative documents, Formation of the Banate. it is impossible to describe in detail the events of the next three centuries. During this period Bosnia became the generally accepted name for the valley of the Bosna (ancient Basanius); and subsequently for several outlying and tributary principalities, notably those of Soli, afterwards Tuzla; Usora, along the south-eastern bank of the Save; Donji Kraj, the later Krajina, Kraina or Turkish Croatia, in the north-west; and Rama, the modern district of Livno. The old Illyrian population was rapidly absorbed or expelled, its Latin institutions being replaced by the autonomous tribal divisions, or Županates, of the Slavs. Pressure from Hungary and Byzantium gradually welded these isolated social units into a single nation, whose ruler was known as the Ban (q.v.). But the central power remained weak, and the country possessed no strong natural frontiers. It seems probable that the bans were originally viceroys of the Croatian kings, who resumed their sovereignty over Bosnia from 958 to 1010. Thenceforward, until 1180, the bans continued subject to the Eastern empire or Hungary, with brief intervals of independence. The territory now called Herzegovina was also subject to various foreign powers. It comprised the principalities of Tribunia or Travunja, with its capital at Trebinje; and Hlum or Hum, the Zachlumia of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who gives a clear picture of this region as it was in the 10th century.2