VOLUME VII SLICE VI Coucy-le-Château to Crocodile (continued 2)

COURANTE (a French word derived from courir, to run), a dance in 3-2 time march in vogue in France in the 17th century (see Dance). It is also a musical term for a movement or independent piece based on the dance. In a suite it followed the Allemande (q.v.), with which it is contrasted in rhythm.

COURAYER, PIERRE FRANÇOIS LE (1681-1776), French Roman Catholic theological writer, was born at Rouen on the 17th of November 1681. While canon regular and librarian of the abbey of St Geneviève at Paris, he conducted a correspondence with Archbishop Wake on the subject of episcopal succession in England, which supplied him with material for his work, Dissertation sur la validité des ordinations des Anglais et sur la succession des évêques de l’Église anglicane, avec les preuves justificatives des faits avancés (Brussels, 1723; Eng. trans. by D. Williams, London, 1725; reprinted Oxford, 1844, with memoir of the author), an attempt to prove that there has been no break in the line of ordination from the apostles to the English clergy. His opinions exposed him to a prosecution, and with the help of Bishop Atterbury, then in exile in Paris, he took refuge in England, where he was presented by the university of Oxford with a doctor’s degree. In 1736 he published a French translation of Paolo Sarpi’s History of the Council of Trent, and dedicated it to Queen Caroline, from whom he received a pension of £200 a year. Besides this he translated Sleidan’s History of the Reformation, and wrote several theological works. He died in London on the 17th of October 1776, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. In his will, dated two years before his death, he declared himself still a member of the Roman Catholic Church, although dissenting from many of its opinions.

COURBET, GUSTAVE (1819-1877), French painter, was born at Ornans (Doubs) on the 10th of June 1819. He went to Paris in 1839, and worked at the studio of Steuben and Hesse; but his independent spirit did not allow him to remain there long, as he preferred to work out his own way by the study of Spanish, Flemish and French painters. His first works, an “Odalisque,” suggested by Victor Hugo, and a “Lélia,” illustrating George Sand, were literary subjects; but these he soon abandoned for the study of real life. Among other works he painted his own portrait with his dog, and “The Man with a Pipe,” both of which were rejected by the jury of the Salon; but the younger school of critics, the neo-romantics and realists, loudly sang the praises of Courbet, who by 1849 began to be famous, producing such pictures as “After Dinner at Ornans” and “The Valley of the Loire.” The Salon of 1850 found him triumphant with the “Burial at Ornans,” the “Stone-Breakers” and the “Peasants of Flazey.” His style still gained in individuality, as in “Village Damsels” (1852), the “Wrestlers,” “Bathers,” and “A Girl Spinning” (1852). Though Courbet’s realistic work is not devoid of importance, it is as a landscape and sea painter that he will be most honoured by posterity. Sometimes, it must be owned, his realism is rather coarse and brutal, but when he paints the forests of Franche-Comté, the “Stag-Fight,” “The Wave,” or the “Haunt of the Does,” he is inimitable. When Courbet had made a name as an artist he grew ambitious of other glory; he tried to promote democratic and social science, and under the Empire he wrote essays and dissertations. His refusal of the cross of the Legion of Honour, offered to him by Napoleon III., made him immensely popular, and in 1871 he was elected, under the Commune, to the chamber. Thus it happened that he was responsible for the destruction of the Vendôme column. A council of war, before which he was tried, condemned him to pay the cost of restoring the column, 300,000 francs (£12,000). To escape the necessity of working to the end of his days at the orders of the State in order to pay this sum, Courbet went to Switzerland in 1873, and died at La Tour du Peilz, on the 31st of December 1877, of a disease of the liver aggravated by intemperance. An exhibition of his works was held in 1882 at the École des Beaux-Arts.

See Champfleury, Les Grandes Figures d’hier et d’aujourd’ hui (Paris, 1861); Mantz, “G. Courbet,” Gaz. des beaux-arts (Paris, 1878); Zola, Mes Haines (Paris, 1879); C. Lemonnier, Les Peintres de la Vie (Paris, 1888).

(H. Fr.)

COURBEVOIE, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine, 5 m. W.N.W. of Paris on the railway to Versailles. Pop. (1906) 29,339. It is a residential suburb of Paris, and has a fine avenue opening on the Neuilly bridge, and forming with it a continuation of the Champs Elysées. It carries on bleaching and the manufacture of carriage bodies, awnings, drugs, biscuits, &c.

COURCELLE-SENEUIL, JEAN GUSTAVE (1813-1892), French economist, was born at Seneuil (Dordogne) on the 22nd of December 1813. Seneuil was an additional name adopted from his native place. Devoting himself at first to the study of the law, he was called to the French bar in 1835. Soon after, however, he returned to Dordogne and settled down as a manager of ironworks. He found leisure to study economic and political questions, and was a frequent contributor to the republican papers. On the establishment of the second republic in 1848 he became director of the public domains. After the coup d’état of Napoleon III. in 1851 he went to South America, and held the professorship of political economy at the National Institute of Santiago, in Chile, from 1853 to 1863, when he returned to France. In 1879 he was made a councillor of state, and in 1882 was elected a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. He died at Paris on the 29th of June 1892. Courcelle-Seneuil, as an economist, was strongly inclined towards the liberal school, and was equally partial to the historical and experimental methods; but his best energies were directed to applied economy and social questions. His principal work is Traité théorique et pratique d’économie politique (2 vols., 1858); among his others may be mentioned Traité théorique et pratique des opérations de banque (1853); Études sur la science sociale (1862); La Banque libre (1867); Liberté et socialisme (1868); Protection et libre échange (1879); he also translated into French John Stuart Mill’s Principles.

COURCI, JOHN DE (d. 1219?), Anglo-Norman conqueror of Ulster, was a member of a celebrated Norman family of Oxfordshire and Somersetshire, whose parentage is unknown, and around whose career a mass of legend has grown up. It would appear that he accompanied William Fitz-Aldelm to Ireland when the latter, after the death of Strongbow, was sent thither by Henry II., and that he immediately headed an expedition from Dublin to Ulster, where he took Downpatrick, the capital of the northern kingdom. After some years of desultory fighting de Courci established his power over that part of Ulster comprised in the modern counties of Antrim and Down, throughout which he built a number of castles, where his vassals, known as “the barons of Ulster,” held sway over the native tribes. After the accession of Richard I., de Courci in conjunction with William de Lacy appears in some way to have offended the king by his proceedings in Ireland. De Lacy quickly made his peace with Richard, while de Courci defied him; and the subsequent history of the latter consisted mainly in the vicissitudes of a lasting feud with the de Lacys. In 1204 Hugh de Lacy utterly defeated de Courci in battle, and took him prisoner. De Courci, however, soon obtained his liberty, probably by giving hostages as security for a promise of submission which he failed to carry out, seeking an asylum instead with the O’Neills of Tyrone. He again appeared in arms on hearing that Hugh de Lacy had obtained a grant of Ulster with the title of earl; and in alliance with the king of Man he ravaged the territory of Down; but was completely routed by Walter de Lacy, and disappeared from the scene till 1207, when he obtained permission to return to England. In 1210 he was in favour with King John, from whom he received a pension, and whom he accompanied to Ireland. There is some indication of his having sided with John in his struggle with the barons; but of the later history of de Courci little is known. He probably died in the summer of 1219. Both de Courci and his wife Affreca were benefactors of the church, and founded several abbeys and priories in Ulster.

A story is told that de Courci when imprisoned in the Tower volunteered to act as champion for King John in single combat against a knight representing Philip Augustus of France; that when he appeared in the lists his French opponent fled in panic; whereupon de Courci, to gratify the French king’s desire to witness his prowess, “cleft a massive helmet in twain at a single blow,” a feat for which he was rewarded by a grant of the privilege for himself and his heirs to remain covered in the presence of the king and all future sovereigns of England. This tale, which still finds a place in Burke’s Peerage in the account of the baron Kingsale, a descendant of the de Courci family, is a legend without historic foundation which did not obtain currency till centuries after John de Courci’s death. The statement that he was created earl of Ulster, and that he was thus “the first Englishman dignified with an Irish title of honour,” is equally devoid of foundation. John de Courci left no legitimate children.

See J. H. Round’s art. “Courci, John de,” in Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xii. (London, 1887), to which is added a bibliography of the original and later authorities for the life of de Courci.

COURIER, PAUL LOUIS (1773-1825), French Hellenist and political writer, was born in Paris on the 4th of January 1773. Brought up on his father’s estate of Méré in Touraine, he conceived a bitter aversion for the nobility, which seemed to strengthen with time. He would never take the name “de Méré,” to which he was entitled, lest he should be thought a nobleman. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Paris to complete his education; his father’s teaching had already inspired him with a passionate devotion to Greek literature, and although he showed considerable mathematical ability, he continued to devote all his leisure to the classics. He entered the school of artillery at Châlons, however, and immediately on receiving his appointment as sub-lieutenant in September 1793 he joined the army of the Rhine. He served in various campaigns of the Revolutionary wars, especially in those of Italy in 1798-99 and 1806-7, and in the German campaign of 1809. He became chef d’escadron in 1803.

He made his first appearance as an author in 1802, when he contributed to the Magasin encyclopédique a critique on Johannes Schweighäuser’s edition of Athenaeus. In the following year appeared his Éloge d’Hélène, a free imitation rather than a translation from Isocrates, which he had sketched in 1798. Courier had given up his commission in the autumn of 1808, but the general enthusiasm in Paris over the preparations for the new campaign affected him, and he attached himself to the staff of a general of artillery. But he was horror-struck by the carnage at Wagram (1809), refusing from that time to believe that there was any art in war. He hastily quitted Vienna, escaping the formal charge of desertion because his new appointment had not been confirmed. The savage independence of his nature rendered subordination intolerable to him; he had been three times disgraced for absenting himself without leave, and his superiors resented his satirical humour. After leaving the army he went to Florence, and was fortunate enough to discover in the Laurentian Library a complete manuscript of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe, an edition of which he published in 1810. In consequence of a misadventure—blotting the manuscript—he was involved in a quarrel with the librarian, and was compelled by the government to leave Tuscany. He retired to his estate at Véretz (Indre-et-Loire), but frequently visited Paris, and divided his attention between literature and his farm.

After the second restoration of the Bourbons the career of Courier as political pamphleteer began. He had before this time waged war against local wrongs in his own district, and had been the adviser and helpful friend of his neighbours. He now made himself by his letters and pamphlets one of the most dreaded opponents of the government of the Restoration. The first of these was his Pétition aux deux chambres (1816), exposing the sufferings of the peasantry under the royalist reaction. In 1817 he was a candidate for a vacant seat in the Institute; and failing, he took his revenge by publishing a bitter Lettre à Messieurs de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1819). This was followed (1819-1820) by a series of political letters of extraordinary power published in Le Censeur Européen. He advocated a liberal monarchy, at the head of which he doubtless wished to see Louis Philippe. The proposal, in 1821, to purchase the estate of Chambord for the duke of Bordeaux called forth from Courier the Simple Discours de Paul Louis, vigneron de la Chavonnière, one of his best pieces. For this he was tried and condemned to suffer a short imprisonment and to pay a fine. Before he went to prison he published a compte rendu of his trial, which had a still larger circulation than the Discours itself. In 1823 appeared the Livret de Paul Louis, the Gazette de village, followed in 1824 by his famous Pamphlet des pamphlets, called by his biographer, Armand Carrel, his swan-song. Courier published in 1807 his translation from Xenophon, Du commandement de la cavalerie et de l’équitation, and had a share in editing the Collections des romans grecs. He also projected a translation of Herodotus, and published a specimen, in which he attempted to imitate archaic French; but he did not live to carry out this plan. In the autumn of 1825, on a Sunday afternoon (August 18th), Courier was found shot in a wood near his house. The murderers, who were servants of his own, remained undiscovered for five years.

The writings of Courier, dealing with the facts and events of his own time, are valuable sources of information as to the condition of France before, during, and after the Revolution. Sainte-Beuve finds in Courier’s own words, “peu de matière et beaucoup d’art,” the secret and device of his talent, which gives his writings a value independent of the somewhat ephemeral subject-matter.

A Collection complète des pamphlets politiques et opuscules littéraires de P. L. Courier appeared in 1826. See editions of his Œuvres (1848), with an admirable biography by Armand Carrel, which is reproduced in a later edition, with a supplementary criticism by F. Sarcey (1876-1877); also three notices by Sainte-Beuve in the Causeries du lundi and the Nouveaux Lundis.

COURIER (from the O. Fr. courier, modern courrier, from Lat. currere, to run), properly a running messenger, who carried despatches and letters; a system of couriers, mounted or on foot, formed the beginnings of the modern post-office (see Post, and Postal Service). The despatches which pass between the foreign office and its representatives abroad, and which cannot be entrusted to the postal service or the telegraph, are carried by special couriers, styled, in the British service, King’s Messengers. “Courier,” more particularly, is applied to a travelling attendant, whose duties are to arrange for the carrying of the luggage, obtaining of passports, settling of hotel accommodation, and generally to look to the comfort and facility of travel. The name “courier” and the similar word “courant” (Ital. coranto) have often been used as the title of a newspaper or periodical (see Newspapers); the Courier, founded in 1792, was for some time the leading London journal.

COURLAND, or Kurland, one of the Baltic provinces of Russia, lying between 55° 45′ and 57° 45′ N. and 21° and 27° E. It is bounded on the N.E. by the river Dvina, separating it from the governments of Vitebsk and Livonia, N. by the Gulf of Riga, W. by the Baltic, and S. by the province of East Prussia and the Russian government of Kovno. The area is 10,535 sq. m., of which 101 sq. m. are occupied by lakes. The surface is generally low and undulating, and the coast-lands flat and marshy. The interior is characterized by wooded dunes, covered with pine, fir, birch and oak, with swamps and lakes, and fertile patches between. The surface nowhere rises more than 700 ft. above sea-level. The Mitau plain divides it into two parts, of which the western is fertile and thickly inhabited, except in the north, while the eastern is less fertile and thinly inhabited. One-third of the area is still forest.

Courland is drained by nearly one hundred rivers, of which only three, the Dvina, the Aa and the Windau, are navigable. They all flow north-westwards and discharge into the Baltic Sea. Owing to the numerous lakes and marshes, the climate is damp and often foggy, as well as changeable, and the winter is severe. Agriculture is the chief occupation, the principal crops being rye, barley, oats, wheat, flax and potatoes. The land is mostly owned by nobles of German descent. In 1863 laws were issued to enable the Letts, who form the bulk of the population, to acquire the farms which they held, and special banks were founded to help them. By this means some 12,000 farms were bought by their occupants; but the great mass of the population are still landless, and live as hired labourers, occupying a low position in the social scale. On the large estates agriculture is conducted with skill and scientific knowledge. Fruit grows well. Excellent breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs are kept. Libau and Mitau are the principal industrial centres, with iron-works, agricultural machinery works, tanneries, glass and soap works. Flax spinning is mostly a domestic industry. Iron and limestone are the chief minerals; a little amber is found on the coast. The only seaports are Libau, Windau and Polangen, there being none on the Courland coast of the Gulf of Riga. The population was 619,154 in 1870; 674,437 in 1897, of whom 345,756 were women; 714,200 (estimate) in 1906. Of the whole, 79% are Letts, 8¼% Germans, 1.7% Russians, and 1% each Poles and Lithuanians. In addition there are about 8% Jews and some Lives. The chief towns of the ten districts are Mitau (Doblenskiy district), capital of the government (pop. 35,011 in 1897), Bauske (6543), Friedrichstadt (5223), Goldingen (9733), Grobin (1489), Hasenpoth (3338), Illuxt (2340), Talsen (6215), Tuckum (7542) and Windau (7132). The prevailing religion is the Lutheran, to which 76% of the population belong; the rest belong to the Orthodox Eastern and the Roman Catholic churches.

Anciently Courland was inhabited by the Cours or Kurs, a Lettish tribe, who were subdued and converted to Christianity by the Brethren of the Sword, a German military order, in the first quarter of the 13th century. In 1237 it passed under the rule of the Teutonic Knights owing to the amalgamation of this order with that of the Brethren of the Sword. At that time it comprised the two duchies of Courland and Semgallen. Under the increasing pressure of Russia (Muscovy) the Teutonic Knights in 1561 found it expedient to put themselves under the suzerainty of Poland, the grandmaster Gotthard Kettler (d. 1587) becoming the first duke of Courland. The duchy suffered severely in the Russo-Swedish wars of 1700-9. But by the marriage in 1710 of Kettler’s descendant, Duke Frederick William (d. 1711), to the princess Anne, niece of Peter the Great and afterwards empress of Russia, Courland came into close relation with the latter state Anne being duchess of Courland from 1711 to 1730. The celebrated Marshal Saxe was elected duke in 1726, but only managed to maintain himself by force of arms till the next year. The last Kettler, William, titular duke of Courland, died in 1737, and the empress Anne now bestowed the dignity on her favourite Biren, who held it from 1737 to 1740 and again from 1763 till his death in 1772. During nearly the whole of the 18th century Courland, devastated by continual wars, was a shuttlecock between Russia and Poland; until eventually in 1795 the assembly of the nobles placed it under the Russian sceptre. The Baltic provinces—Esthonia, Livonia and Courland—ceased to form collectively one general government in 1876.

See H. Hollmann, Kurlands Agrarverhältnisse (Riga, 1893), and E. Seraphim, Geschichte Liv-, Esth-, und Kurlands (2 vols., Reval, 1895-1896).

COURNOT, ANTOINE AUGUSTIN (1801-1877), French economist and mathematician, was born at Gray (Haute-Saône) on the 28th of August 1801. Trained for the scholastic profession, he was appointed assistant professor at the Academy of Paris in 1831, professor of mathematics at Lyons in 1834, rector of the Academy of Grenoble in 1835, inspector-general of studies in 1838, rector of the Academy of Dijon and honorary inspector-general in 1854, retiring in 1862. He died in Paris on the 31st of March 1877. Cournot was the first who, with a competent knowledge of both subjects, endeavoured to apply mathematics to the treatment of economic questions. His Recherches sur les principes mathématiques de la théorie des richesses (English trans. by N. T. Bacon, with bibliography of mathematics of economics by Irving Fisher, 1897) was published in 1838. He mentions in it only one previous enterprise of the same kind (though there had in fact been others)—that, namely, of Nicholas François Canard (c. 1750-1833), whose book, Principes d’économie politique (Paris, 1802), was crowned by the French Academy, though “its principles were radically false as well as erroneously applied.” Notwithstanding Cournot’s just reputation as a writer on mathematics, the Recherches made little impression. The truth seems to be that his results are in some cases of little importance, in others of questionable correctness, and that, in the abstractions to which he has recourse in order to facilitate his calculations, an essential part of the real conditions of the problem is sometimes omitted. His pages abound in symbols representing unknown functions, the form of the function being left to be ascertained by observation of facts, which he does not regard as a part of his task, or only some known properties of the undetermined function being used as bases for deduction. In his Principes de la théorie des richesses (1863) he abandoned the mathematical method, though advocating the use of mathematical symbols in economic discussions, as being of service in facilitating exposition. Other works of Cournot’s were Traité élémentaire de la théorie des fonctions et du calcul infinitésimal (1841); Exposition de la théorie des chances et des probabilités (1843); De l’origine et des limites de la correspondance entre l’algèbre et la géométrie (1847); Traité de l’enchaînement des idées fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l’histoire (1861); and Revue sommaire des doctrines économiques (1877).

COURSING (from Lat. cursus, currere, to run), the hunting of game by dogs solely by sight and not by scent. From time to time the sport has been pursued by various nations against various animals, but the recognized method has generally been the coursing of the hare by greyhounds. Such sport is of great antiquity, and is fully described by Arrian in his Cynegeticus about A.D. 150, when the leading features appear to have been much the same as in the present day. Other Greek and Latin authors refer to the sport; but during the middle ages it was but little heard of. Apart from private coursing for the sake of filling the pot with game, public coursing has become an exhilarating sport. The private sportsman seldom possesses good strains of blood to breed his greyhounds from or has such opportunities of trying them as the public courser.

The first known set of rules in England for determining the merits of a course were drawn up by Thomas, duke of Norfolk, in Queen Elizabeth’s reign; but no open trials were heard of until half a century later, in the time of Charles I. The oldest regular coursing club of which any record exists is that of Swaffham, in Norfolk, which was founded by Lord Orford in 1766; and in 1780 the Ashdown Park (Berkshire) meeting was established. During the next seventy years many other large and influential societies sprang up throughout England and Scotland, the Altcar Club (on the Sefton estates, near Liverpool) being founded in 1825. The season lasts about six months, beginning in the middle of September. It was not until 1858 that a coursing parliament, so to speak, was formed, and a universally accepted code of rules drawn up. In that year the National Coursing Club was founded. It is composed of representatives from all clubs in the United Kingdom of more than a year’s standing, and possessing more than twenty-four members. Their rules govern meetings, and their committee adjudicate on matters of dispute. A comparative trial of two dogs, and not the capture of the game pursued, is the great distinctive trait of modern coursing. A greyhound stud-book was started in 1882.

The breeding and training of a successful kennel is a precarious matter; and the most unaccountable ups and downs of fortune often occur in a courser’s career. At a meeting an agreed-on even number of entries are made for each stake, and the ties drawn by lot. After the first round the winner of the first tie is opposed to the winner of the second, and so on until the last two dogs left in compete for victory; but the same owner’s greyhounds are “guarded” as far as it is possible to do so. A staff of beaters drive the hares out of their coverts or other hiding-places, whilst the slipper has the pair of dogs in hand, and slips them simultaneously by an arrangement of nooses, when they have both sighted a hare promising a good course. The judge accompanies on horseback, and the six points whereby he decides a course are—(1) speed; (2) the go-by, or when a greyhound starts a clear length behind his opponent, passes him in the straight run, and gets a clear length in front; (3) the turn, where the hare turns at not less than a right angle; (4) the wrench, where the hare turns at less than a right angle; (5) the kill; (6) the trip, or unsuccessful effort to kill. He may return a “no course” as his verdict if the dogs have not been fairly tried together, or an “undecided course” if he considers their merits equal. The open Waterloo meeting, held at Altcar every spring,—the name being taken from its being originated by the proprietor of the Waterloo Hotel, Liverpool,—is now the recognized fixture for the decision of the coursing championship, and the Waterloo Cup (1836) is the “Blue Riband” of the leash. In the United States, several British colonies, and other countries, the name has been adopted, and Waterloo Coursing Cups are found there as in England. In America an American Coursing Board controls the sport, the chief meetings being in North and South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

The chief works on coursing are:—Arrian’s Cynegeticus, translated by the Rev. W. Dansey (1831); T. Thacker, Courser’s Companion and Breeder’s Guide (1835); Thacker’s Courser’s Annual Remembrancer (1849-1851); D. P. Blaine, Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports (3rd ed., 1870); and J. H. Walsh, The Greyhound (3rd ed., 1875). See also the Coursing Calendar (since 1857); Coursing and Falconry (Badminton Library, 1892); The Hare (“Fur and Feather” series, 1896); and The Greyhound Stud Book (since 1882).

COURT, ANTOINE (1696-1760), French Protestant divine, was born in the village of Villeneuve-de-Berg, in the province of the Vivarais. He has been designated the “Restorer of Protestantism in France,” and was the organizer of the “Church of the Desert.” He was eight years old when the Camisard revolt was finally suppressed, and nineteen when on the 8th of March 1715 the edict of Louis XIV. was published, declaring that “he had abolished entirely the exercise of the so-called reformed religion” (“qu’il avait aboli tout exercice de la religion prétendue réformée”). Antoine, taken to the secret meetings of the persecuted Calvinists, began, when only seventeen, to speak and exhort in these congregations of “the desert.” He came to suspect after a time that many of the so-called “inspired” persons were “dupes of their own zeal and credulity,” and decided that it was necessary to organize at once the small communities of believers into properly constituted churches. To the execution of this vast undertaking he devoted his life. On the 21st of August 1715 he summoned all the preachers in the Cévennes and Lower Languedoc to a conference or synod near the village of Monoblet. Here elders were appointed, and the preaching of women, as well as pretended revelations, was condemned. The village of Monoblet “thus seems entitled to the honour of having had the first organized Protestant church after the revocation of the edict of Nantes” (H. M. Baird). But there were as yet no ordained pastors. Pierre Corteiz was therefore sent to seek ordination. He was ordained at Zürich, and from him Court himself received ordination. The scene of his labours for fifteen years was Languedoc, the Vivarais, and Dauphiné. His beginnings were very small prayer-meetings in “the desert.” But the work progressed under his wise direction, and he was able “to be present, in 1744, at meetings of ten thousand souls.” In 1724 Louis XV., again assuming that there were no Protestants in France, prohibited the most secret exercise of the Reformed religion, and imposed severe penalties. It was impossible fully to carry out this menace. But persecution raged, especially against the pastors. A price was set on the life of Court; and in 1730 he escaped to Lausanne. He had already, with the aid of some of the Protestant princes, established a theological college (“Seminaire de Lausanne”) there, and during the remaining thirty years of his life he filled the post of director. He had the title of deputy-general of the churches, and was really the pillar of their hope. The Seminary of Lausanne sent forth all the pastors of the Reformed Church of France till the days of the first French Empire. Court formed the design of writing a history of Protestantism, and made large collections for the purpose, which have been preserved in the Public Library of Geneva; but this he did not live to carry out. He died at Lausanne in 1760. He wrote, amongst other works, a Histoire des troubles des Cévennes ou de la guerre des Camisards (1760). He was the father of the more generally known Antoine Court de Gebelin (q.v.).

For details of his life see Napoléon Peyrat’s Histoire des pasteurs du désert (1842; English translation, 1852); Edmond Hugues, Antoine Court, histoire de la restauration du protestantisme en France au XVIIIe siècle (2nd ed., 1872), Les Synodes du désert (3 vols., 1885-1886), Mémoires d’Antoine Court (1885); E. and E. Haag, La France protestante, vol. iv. (1884, new edition); H. M. Baird, The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1895), vol. ii.; cf. Bulletin de la société de l’histoire du protestantisme français (1893-1906).

COURT (from the O. Fr. court, Late Lat. cortis, curtis, a popular form of class. Lat. cohors, gen. cohortis; the mod. Fr. form cour is due to the influence of the Lat. curia, the word used in medieval documents to translate “court” in the feudal sense), a word originally denoting an enclosed place, and so surviving in its architectural sense (courtyard, &c.), but chiefly used as a general term for judicial tribunals and in the special sense of the household of the king, called “the court.”1 All law courts were not, however, purely judicial in character; the old county court, for instance, was the assembly of the freeholders of the county in which representatives and certain officers were elected. Such assemblies in early times exercised political and legislative as well as judicial functions. But these have now been almost entirely separated everywhere, and only judicial bodies are now usually called courts. In every court, says Blackstone, there must be three parts,—an actor or plaintiff, reus or defendant, and judex, or judge.

The language of legal fictions, which English lawyers invariably use in all constitutional subjects, makes the king the ultimate source of all judicial authority, and assumes his personal presence in all the courts.

“As by our excellent constitution,” says Blackstone, “the sole executive power of the laws is vested in the person of the king, it will follow that all courts of justice, which are the medium by which he administers the laws, are derived from the power of the crown. For whether created by act of parliament or letters patent, or subsisting by prescription (the only methods by which any court of judicature can exist), the king’s consent in the two former is expressly, in the latter impliedly given. In all these courts the king is supposed in contemplation of law to be always present; but as that is in fact impossible, he is then represented by his judges, whose power is only an emanation of the royal prerogative.”

These words might give a false impression of the historical and legal relations of the courts and the crown, if it is not remembered that they are nothing more than the expression of a venerable fiction. The administration of justice was, indeed, one of the functions of the king in early times; the king himself sat on circuit so late as the reign of Edward IV.; and even after regular tribunals were established, a reserve of judicial power still remained in the king and his council, in the exercise of which it was possible for the king to participate personally. The last judicial act of an English king, if such it can be called, was that by which James I. settled the dispute between the court of chancery and courts of common law. Since the establishment of parliamentary government the courts take their law directly from the legislature, and the king is only connected with them indirectly as a member of the legislative body. The king’s name, however, is still used in this as in other departments of state action. The courts exercising jurisdiction in England are divided by certain features which may here be briefly indicated.

We may distinguish between (1) superior and inferior courts. The former are the courts of common law and the court of chancery, now High Court of Justice. The latter are the local or district courts, county courts, &c. (2) Courts of record and courts not of record. “A court of record is one whereof the acts and judicial proceedings are enrolled for a perpetual memory and testimony, which rolls are called the records of the court, and are of such high and supereminent authority that their truth is not to be called in question. For it is a settled rule and maxim that nothing shall be averred against a record, nor shall any plea or even proof be admitted to the contrary. And if the existence of the record shall be denied it shall be tried by nothing but itself; that is, upon bare inspection whether there be any such record or no; else there would be no end of disputes. All courts of record are the courts of the sovereign in right of the crown and royal dignity, and therefore any court of record has authority to fine and imprison for contempt of its authority” (Stephen’s Blackstone). (3) Courts may also be distinguished as civil or criminal. (4) A further distinction is to be made between courts of first instance and courts of appeal. In the former the first hearing in any judicial proceeding takes place; in the latter the judgment of the first court is brought under review. Of the superior courts, the High Court of Justice in its various divisions is a court of first instance. Over it is the court of appeal, and over that again the House of Lords. The High Court of Justice is (through divisional courts) a court of appeal for inferior courts. (5) There is a special class of local courts, which do not appear to fall within the description of either superior or inferior courts. Some, while administering the ordinary municipal law, have or had jurisdiction exclusive of their superior courts; such were the common pleas of Durham and Lancaster. Others have concurrent jurisdiction with the superior courts; such are the lord mayor’s court of London, the passage court of Liverpool, &c.

The distribution of judicial business among the various courts of law in England may be exhibited as follows.

Criminal Courts.—(1) The lowest is that of the justice of the peace, sitting in petty sessions of two or more, to determine in a summary way certain specified minor offences. In populous districts, such as London, Manchester, &c., stipendiary magistrates are appointed, generally with enlarged powers. Besides punishing by summary conviction, justices may commit prisoners for trial at the assizes. (2) The justices in quarter sessions are commissioned to determine felonies and other offences. An act of 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 38) contains a list of offences not triable at quarter sessions—treason, murder, forgery, bigamy, &c. (see Quarter Sessions, Court of). The corresponding court in a borough is presided over by a recorder. (3) The more serious offences are reserved for the judges of the superior courts sitting under a commission of oyer and terminer or gaol delivery for each county. The assize courts, as they are called, sit in general in each county twice a year, following the division of circuits; but additional assizes are also held under acts of 1876 and 1877, which permit several counties to be united together for that purpose (see Circuit). London, which occupies an exceptional position in all matters of judicature, has a high criminal court of its own, established by the Central Criminal Court Act 1834, under the name of the central criminal court. Its judges usually present are a rota selected from the superior judges of common law, the recorder, common serjeant, and the judge of the City of London court.2 The criminal appeal court, to which all persons convicted on indictment may appeal, superseded in 1908 (by the Criminal Appeal Act 1907) the court for crown cases reserved, to which any question of law arising on the trial of a prisoner could after conviction be remitted by the judge in his discretion. To the criminal appeal court there is an appeal both on questions of fact and of law (see Appeal).

Civil Courts.—In certain special cases, civil claims of small importance may be brought before justices or stipendiaries. Otherwise, and excepting the special and peculiar jurisdictions above mentioned, the civil business of England and Wales may be said to be divided between the county courts (taking small cases) and the High Court of Justice (taking all others).

The effect of the Judicature Acts on the constitution of the superior courts may be briefly stated. There is now one Supreme Court of Judicature, consisting of two permanent divisions called the High Court of Justice and the court of appeal. The former takes the jurisdiction of the court of chancery, the three common law courts, the courts of admiralty, probate, and divorce, the courts of pleas at Lancaster and Durham, and the courts created by commissions of assize, oyer and terminer, and gaol delivery. The latter takes the jurisdiction of the court of appeal in chancery (including chancery of Lancaster), the court of the lord warden of the stannaries, and of the exchequer chamber, and the appellate jurisdiction in admiralty and heresy matters of the judicial committee; and power is given to the sovereign to transfer the remaining jurisdiction of that court to the court of appeal. By the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876 the House of Lords is enabled to sit for the hearing of appeals from the English court of appeal and the Scottish and Irish courts during the prorogation and dissolution of parliament. The lords of appeal, of whom three must be present, are the lord chancellor, the lords of appeal in ordinary, and peers who have held “high judicial office” in Great Britain or Ireland. The lords in ordinary are an innovation in the constitution of the House. They hold the rank of baron for life only, have a right to sit and vote in the House during tenure of office only, and a salary of £6000 per annum.

There are also many obsolete or decayed courts, of which the most noticeable are dealt with under their individual headings, as Court Baron, Court Leet, &c.

The history of English courts affords a remarkable illustration of the continuity that characterizes English institutions. It might perhaps be too much to say that all the courts now sitting in England may be traced back to a common origin, but at any rate the higher courts are all offshoots from the same original judicature. Leaving out of account the local courts, we find the higher jurisdiction after the Norman Conquest concentrated along with all other public functions in the king and council. The first sign of a separation of the judicial from the other powers of this body is found in the recognition of a Curia Regis, which may be described as the king’s council, or a portion of it, charged specially with the management of judicial and revenue business. In relation to the revenue it became the exchequer, under which name a separate court grew up whose special field was the judicial business arising out of revenue cases. By Magna Carta the inconvenience caused by the curia following the king’s person was remedied, in so far as private litigation was concerned, by the order that common pleas (Communia Placita) should be held at some fixed place; and hence arose the court of common pleas. The Curia Regis, after having thrown off these branches, is represented by the king’s bench, so that from the same stock we have now three courts, differing at first in functions, but through competition for business, and the ingenious use of fictions, becoming finally the co-ordinate courts of common law of later history. But an inner circle of counsellors still surrounded the king, and in his name claimed to exercise judicial as well as other power; hence the chancellor’s jurisdiction, which became, partly in harmony with the supra-legal power claimed from which it sprang, and partly through the influence of the ecclesiastical chancellors by whom it was first administered, the equity of English law. Similar developments of the same authority were the court of requests (which was destroyed by a decision of the common pleas) and the court of star chamber—a court of criminal equity, as it has been called,—which, having been made the instrument of tyranny, was abolished in 1641. Even then the productive power of the council was not exhausted; the judicial committee of the privy council, established in 1832, superseding the previous court of delegates, exercises the jurisdiction in appeal belonging to the king in council. The appellate jurisdiction of the Lords rests on their claim to be the representatives of the ancient great council of the realm.

See further Admiralty, High Court of; Appeal; Chancery; Common Law; Common Pleas, Court of; Divorce; Equity; &c.

United States.—The Federal judicial system of the United States is made by the Constitution independent both of the Legislature and of the Executive. It consists of the Supreme Court, the circuit courts, and the district courts.

The Supreme Court is created by the Constitution, and consisted in 1909 of nine judges, who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They hold office during good behaviour, i.e. are removable only by impeachment, thus having a tenure even more secure than that of English judges. The court sits at Washington from October to July in every year. The sessions of the court are held in the Capitol. A rule requiring the presence of six judges to pronounce a decision prevents the division of the court into two or more benches; and while this secures a thorough consideration of every case, it also retards the despatch of business. Every case is discussed twice by the whole body, once to ascertain the view of the majority, which is then directed to be set forth in a written opinion; then again, when the written opinion, prepared by one of the judges, is submitted for criticism and adoption by the court as its judgment.

The other Federal courts have been created by Congress under a power in the Constitution to establish “inferior courts.” The circuit courts consist of twenty-nine circuit judges, acting in nine judicial circuits, while to each circuit there is also allotted one of the justices of the Supreme Court. Circuit courts of appeals, established to relieve the Supreme Court, consist of three judges (two forming a quorum), and are made up of the circuit and district judges of each circuit and the Supreme Court justice assigned to the circuit. Some cases may, however, be appealed to the Supreme Court from the circuit court of appeals, and others directly from the lower courts. The district courts number (1909) ninety, in most cases having a single justice. There is also a special tribunal called the court of claims, which deals with the claims of private persons against the Federal government. It is not strictly a part of the general judicial system, but is a creation of Congress designed to relieve that body of a part of its own labours.

The jurisdiction of the Federal courts extends only to those cases in which the Constitution makes Federal law applicable. All other cases are left to the state courts, from which there is no appeal to the Federal courts, unless where some specific point arises which is affected by the Federal Constitution or a Federal law. The classes of cases dealt with by the Federal courts are as follows:—

1. Cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made under their authority;

2. Cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;

3. Cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;

4. Controversies to which the United States shall be a party;

5. Controversies between two or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states, between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state or the citizens thereof and foreign states, citizens or subjects (Const., Art. III., § 2). Part of this jurisdiction has, however, been withdrawn by the eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that “the judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.”

The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is original in cases affecting ambassadors, and wherever a state is a party; in other cases it is appellate. In some matters the jurisdiction of the Federal courts is exclusive; in others it is concurrent with that of the state courts.

As it frequently happens that cases come before state courts in which questions of Federal law arise, a provision has been made whereby due respect for the latter is secured by giving the party to a suit who relies upon Federal law, and whose contention is overruled by a state court, the right of having the suit removed to a Federal court. The Judiciary Act of 1789 (as amended by subsequent legislation) provides for the removal to the Supreme Court of the United States of “a final judgment or decree in any suit rendered in the highest court of a state in which a decision could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any state, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favour of their validity; or where any title, right, privilege or immunity is claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission held, or authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege or immunity specially set up or claimed by either party under such Constitution, treaty, statute, commission or authority.” If the decision of the state court is in favour of the right claimed under Federal law or against the validity or applicability of the state law set up, there is no ground for removal, because the applicability or authority of Federal law in the particular case could receive no further protection from a Federal court than has in fact been given by the state court.

The power exercised by the Supreme Court in declaring statutes of Congress or of state legislatures (or acts of the Executive) to be invalid because inconsistent with the Federal Constitution, has been deemed by many Europeans a peculiar and striking feature of the American system. There is, however, nothing novel or mysterious about it. As the Federal Constitution, which emanates directly from the people, is the supreme law of the land everywhere, any statute passed by any lower authority (whether the Federal Congress or a state legislature), which contravenes the Constitution, must necessarily be invalid in point of law, just as in the United Kingdom a railway by-law which contravened an act of parliament would be invalid. Now, the functions of judicial tribunals—of all courts alike, whether Federal or state, whether superior or inferior—is to interpret the law, and if any tribunal finds a Congressional statute or state statute inconsistent with the Constitution, the tribunal is obliged to hold such statute invalid. A tribunal does this not because it has any right or power of its own in the matter, but because the people have, in enacting the Constitution as a supreme law, declared that all other laws inconsistent with it are ipso jure void. When a tribunal has ascertained that an inferior law is thus inconsistent, that inferior law is therewith, so far as inconsistent, to be deemed void. The tribunal does not enter any conflict with the Legislature or Executive. All it does is to declare that a conflict exists between two laws of different degrees of authority, whence it necessarily follows that the weaker law is extinct. This duty of interpretation belongs to all tribunals, but as constitutional cases are, if originating in a lower court, usually carried by appeal to the Supreme Court, men have grown accustomed to talk of the Supreme Court as in a special sense the guardian of the Constitution.

The Federal courts never deliver an opinion on any constitutional question unless or until that question is brought before them in the form of a lawsuit. A judgment of the Supreme Court is only a judgment on the particular case before it, and does not prevent a similar question being raised again in another lawsuit, though of course this seldom happens, because it may be assumed that the court will adhere to its former opinion. There have, however, been instances in which the court has virtually changed its view on a constitutional question, and it is understood to be entitled so to do.

COURT BARON, an English manorial court dating from the middle ages and still in existence. It was laid down by Coke that a manor had two courts, “the first by the common law, and is called a court baron,” the freeholders (“barons”) being its suitors; the other a customary court for the copyholders. Stubbs adopted this explanation, but the latest learning, expounded by Professor Maitland, holds that court baron means curia baronis, “la court de seigneur,” and that there is no evidence for there being more than one court. The old view that at least two freeholders were required for its composition is also now discarded. Prof. Maitland’s conclusion is that the “court baron” was not even differentiated from the “court-leet” at the close of the 13th century, but that there was a distinction of jurisdictional rights, some courts having only feudal rights, while others had regalities as well. When the court-leet was differentiated, the court baron remained with feudal rights alone. These rights he was disposed to trace to a lord’s jurisdiction over his men rather than to his possession of the manor, although in practice, from an early date, the court was associated with the manor. Its chief business was to administer the “custom of the manor” and to admit fresh tenants who had acquired copyholds by inheritance or purchase, and had to pay, on so doing, a “fine” to the lord of the manor. It is mainly for the latter purpose that the court is now kept. It is normally presided over by the steward of the lord of the manor, who is a lawyer, and its proceedings are recorded on “the court rolls,” of which the older ones are now valuable for genealogical as well as for legal purposes.

See Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts, vol. i., and The Court Baron (Selden Society).

(J. H. R.)

COURT DE GEBELIN, ANTOINE (1728-1784), French scholar, son of Antoine Court (q.v.), was born at Nîmes in 1728. He received a good education, and became, like his father, a pastor of the Reformed Church. This office, however, he soon relinquished, to devote himself entirely to literary work. He had conceived the project of a work which should set in a new light the phenomena, especially the languages and mythologies, of the ancient world; and, after his father’s death, he went to Paris in order to be near the necessary books. After long years of research, he published in 1775 the first volume of his vast undertaking under the title of Le Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne. The ninth volume appeared in 1784, leaving the work still unfinished. The literary world marvelled at the encyclopaedic learning displayed by the author, and supposed that the French Academy, or some other society of scholars, must have combined their powers in its production. Now, however, the world has well-nigh forgotten the huge quartos. These learned labours did not prevent Gebelin from pleading earnestly the cause of religious tolerance. In 1760 he published a work entitled Les Toulousaines, advocating the rights of the Protestants; and he afterwards established at Paris an agency for collecting information as to their sufferings, and for exciting general interest in their cause. He co-operated with Franklin and others in the periodical work entitled Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique (1776, sqq.), which was devoted to the support of American independence. He was also a supporter of the principles of the economists, and Quesnay called him his well-beloved disciple. In the last year of his life he became acquainted with Mesmer, and published a Lettre sur le magnétisme animal. He was imposed upon by speculators in whom he placed confidence, and was reduced to destitution by the failure of a scheme in which they engaged him. He died at Paris on the 10th of May 1784.

See La France protestante, by the brothers Haag, tome iv.; Charles Dardier, Court de Gebelin (Nîmes, 1890).

COURTENAY, the name of a famous English family. French genealogists head the pedigree of this family with one Athon or Athos, who is said to have fortified Courtenay in Gâtinois about the year 1010. His son Josselin had, with other issue, Miles, lord of Courtenay, founder of the Cistercian abbey of Fontaine-Jean. By his wife Ermengarde, daughter of Renaud, count of Nevers, Miles left a son Renaud, one of the magnates who followed Louis le Jeune to the Holy Land. This was the last lord of Courtenay of the line of Athon. Elizabeth, his elder daughter—a younger daughter died without issue,—carried Courtenay and other lordships to her husband Pierre, seventh and youngest son of the French king Louis VI. the Fat, the marriage taking place about 1150, and the many descendants of this royal match bore the surname of Courtenay.

Pierre, the eldest son, was founder of a short-lived dynasty of emperors of Constantinople, which ended in 1261 when Baldwin (Baudouin), last of the Frankish emperors, fled before Michael Palaeologus from a capital in flames. Baldwin’s son Philip, however, bore the empty title, and his granddaughter Catherine, wife of Charles, count of Valois, was titular empress. Other lines of the royal Courtenays, sprung from Pierre of France, were lords of Champignolles, Tanlai, Yerre, Bleneau, La Ferté Loupière and Chevillon. On the death of Gaspard, sieur de Bleneau, in 1655, his cousin Louis de Courtenay, comte de Cési (jure uxoris) and sieur de Chevillon, had Bleneau, and reckoned himself the surviving chief of his house. He styled himself Prince de Courtenay and his family made attempts to obtain recognition for their royal blood. But their laboriously constructed genealogies availed nothing to this impoverished race. The last “Prince de Courtenay,” an ex-captain of dragoons, died in 1730; his uncle Roger de Courtenay, abbé des Eschalis, who died in 1733, was the last recognized member of the line of Pierre of France.

A younger branch of the first house of Courtenay came from Josselin, second son of Josselin, son of Athon. This Josselin, a notable crusader, went to the Holy Land with the count of Blois, and held by the sword for eleven years the county of Edessa, given him by his cousin King Baldwin II. Edessa was won back by the infidel from his son Josselin, who died a prisoner in Aleppo in 1147. A grandson, also a Josselin, was seneschal of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

In England a house of Courtenay has flourished with varying fortunes since the reign of the first Angevin king. The monks of Ford, to whom they were benefactors, complacently set down their patrons as the offspring of the royal Courtenays, of whose origin they had some dim knowledge, deriving them from “Florus,” son of Louis the Fat. A comparison of dates destroys the story. But they were, doubtless, Courtenays of the stock of Athon. Josselin, the first count of Edessa, has been suggested by modern writers as their founder, but the name Reinaud, borne by the first known ancestor of the English house, suggests that they may have sprung from a younger son of Josselin I. of Courtenay by his marriage about 1095 with Ermengarde, daughter of Reinaud, count of Nevers. It is also notable that the English Courtenays have, from the first introduction of armorial bearings, borne with various differences the three red roundels in a golden field, the arms of the Courtenays in France, the shield of the earls of Devonshire being identical with that of the lords of La Ferté Loupière.

Several Courtenays whose kinship cannot be exactly ascertained, appear in English records of the 12th century. One of them, Robert de Courtenay, married the daughter and heir of Reynold fitz Urse, the leader of the murderers of Archbishop Thomas Becket. His son, William, a Shropshire baron, held the castle of Montgomery, as heir by his mother of Baldwin de Buslers, or Bollers, to whom Henry I. had given it with his “niece” Sibil de Falaise. This William married Ada of Dunbar, daughter of Patrick, earl of Dunbar, but died in the reign of King John, without issue.

Reinaud de Courtenay, ancestor of the main English line, may well have been a brother of the Robert above named. The English pedigrees confuse him with his son of the same name. He was a favourite with Henry II., his attestations of charters showing him as a constant companion at home and abroad of the king, whom he followed to Wexford in the Irish expedition of 1172. Henry gave him Berkshire lands at Sutton, still known as Sutton Courtenay, by a charter to which the date of 1161 can be assigned. In England he had to wife Maude, daughter of Robert fitz Roy by Maude of Avranches, the elder Maude being the heir of the house of Brionne. By her, who survived him, dying before January 1224, he had no issue, but by a wife who may have died before his coming to England he had, with other issue, Robert and Reinaud. Robert, who succeeded to Sutton about 1192, was husband of Alice de Rumeli, widow of Gilbert Pipard, and one of the three sisters and co-heirs of William, the boy of Egremond, of whose drowning in the Strid Wordsworth has made a ballad. Robert died childless in 1209. Of his brother Reinaud or Reynold de Courtenay little is known, save that he was a married man in 1178 when he and his wife Hawise were given by the pope a licence to have a free chapel at Okehampton. This wife, Hawise de Ayencourt, was, with Maude his father’s second wife, a daughter and co-heir of Maude of Avranches, her father being the lord of Ayencourt, first husband of the last named Maude. Her great inheritance included the honour of Okehampton in Devonshire of which, as a widow, she had livery about 1205. Her son, Robert de Courtenay, succeeded to her land in 1219, having been his uncle Robert’s heir in Sutton ten years before. Like his father he advanced his house by a great marriage, his wife being Mary, the younger daughter of William de Vernon, earl of Devon and of the Isle of Wight. He was succeeded in 1242 by his son John, who by Isabel, a daughter of Hugh de Vere, earl of Oxford, has issue Hugh, whose wife was Eleanor, daughter of the earl of Winchester, elder of the two favourites of Edward II. The son of this marriage, another Hugh, followed his father at Okehampton in 1291. Two years later died Isabel, surviving sister and heir of Baldwin de Reviers, earl of Devon, and widow of William de Forz, last earl of Aumerle (Albemarle). On her death-bed she had granted her lordship of the Wight to the king, but her cousin Hugh de Courtenay succeeded her in the unalienated estates of the house of Reviers. He was summoned as a baron on the 6th of February 1298/9, and in 1300 he displayed his banner before the castle of Caerlaverock. Claiming the “third penny” of the county of Devon, he was refused by the exchequer as he did not claim in the name of an earl. Following, however, a writ of inquiry, a patent of the 22nd of February 1334/5 declared him earl of Devon and qualified to take such style as his ancestors, earls of Devon, were wont to take. Hugh, his son, the second earl, a warrior who drove the French back from their descent on Cornwall in 1339, made another of the brilliant marriages of this family, his wife being Eleanor, daughter of Humfrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, by Elizabeth daughter of Edward I. Their eldest son, Sir Hugh de Courtenay, shared in the honours of Crécy and Calais, and was one of the knights founders of the order of the Garter, the stall-plate of his arms being yet in St George’s chapel at Windsor. This knight died in the lifetime of the earl, as did his only son Hugh, summoned as a baron on the 3rd of January 1370/1, a companion at Najara of the Black Prince, whose step-daughter Maude of Holland he had married. The earl was therefore succeeded by his grandson Edward (son of Edward his third son), earl marshal of England in 1385, who died blind in 1419, the year after the death of Sir Edward his heir apparent, one of the conquerors at Agincourt. Hugh, a second son of Earl Edward, succeeded as fourth earl of the Courtenay line. By his wife, a sister of the renowned Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, he had issue Thomas the fifth earl, a partisan of Henry VI., whose wife was Margaret Beaufort, daughter of John, earl of Somerset. The effigy of this grandaughter of John of Gaunt, with the shields of Courtenay and Beaufort above it, is in Colyton church. It is less than life size, a fact which has given rise to a village legend that it represents “Little choke-a-bone,” an infant daughter of the tenth earl, who died “choked by a fish bone.” In spite of the evidence of the shields and the 15th century dress of the effigy, the legend has now been strengthened by an inscription upon a brass plate, and in the year 1907 ignorance engaged a monumental sculptor to deface the effigy by giving its broken features the newly carved face of a young child. Both sons of this marriage fell in the Wars of the Roses, Thomas the sixth earl being taken at Towton by the Yorkists and beheaded at York in 1462, his younger brother Henry having the same fate at Salisbury in 1466.

The earldom being extinguished by attainder, Sir Humphrey Stafford was created earl of Devon in 1469, but in the same year, having retired with his men from the expedition against Robin of Redesdale, another earl of Devon suffered at the headsman’s hands, his patent being afterwards annulled by a statute of Henry VII. On the restoration of Henry VI. John Courtenay, only surviving brother of Thomas and Henry, was restored to the earldom by the reversal of attainder. He, too, died in the Lancastrian cause, being killed on the 4th of May 1471 at Tewkesbury, where he led the rear of the host. The representation of the Reviers earls and of the Courtenay barony fell then to his sisters and their descendants. Beside him at Tewkesbury died his cousin Sir Hugh Courtenay of Boconnoc, son of Hugh, a younger brother of the blind earl, leaving a son Edward, who thus became the heir male of the house though not its heir general. Joining in the cause which had cost so many of his kinsmen their lives, he and his brother Walter shared the duke of Buckingham’s rising. On its failure they fled into France to the earl of Richmond, beside whom Sir Edward fought at Bosworth. By a patent of the 26th of October 1485 he was created earl of Devon with remainder to the heirs male of his body, and by an act of 1485 he was restored to all honours lost in his attainder by the Yorkist parliament. He defended Exeter against Warbeck’s rebels and was a knight of the Garter in 1489, dying twenty years later, when the earldom became again forfeit by his son’s attainder. That son, William Courtenay, had drawn the jealousy of Henry VII. by a marriage with Catherine, sister of the queen and daughter of King Edward IV., the Yorkist sovereign whose hand had been so heavy on the Courtenays. After the queen’s death, Henry sent his wife’s brother-in-law to the Tower on a charge of corresponding with Edmund Pole, an attainder following. But on the accession of Henry VIII., the young king released his uncle, who although styled an earl was not fully restored in blood at his death in 1511. His son Henry Courtenay obtained from parliament in December 1512 a reversal of his father’s attainder, thus succeeding to the earldom of his grandfather. At the Field of Cloth of Gold he ran a course with the king of France. He was knight of the Garter and on the 15th of June 1525 had a patent as marquess of Exeter. Profiting by the suppression of the monasteries he increased his estate, his power being all but supreme in the west country. But Cromwell was his enemy and the royal strain in his blood was a dangerous thing. Involved in correspondence with Cardinal Pole, he was sent to the Tower with his wife and his young son, and on the 9th of December 1538 he was beheaded as a traitor. The misfortunes of the house were heavy upon the son, who at twelve years old was a prisoner for the sake of his high descent. His honours had been forfeited, and release did not come until the accession of Queen Mary, who took him into favour. Noailles the ambassador found him le plus beau et le plus agréable gentilhomme d’Angleterre, and he had some hopes of becoming king consort. The queen created him earl of Devonshire by a patent of the 3rd of September 1553 and in the next month he was restored in blood. But, disappointed in his hopes, he formed some wild plans for marrying the Lady Elizabeth and making her queen. He could raise Devon and Cornwall. Wyat did raise Kent, but the plot was soon crushed. The earl was sent back to the Tower and thence to Fotheringhay. At Easter of 1555 he was released on parole and exiled, dying suddenly at Padua in 1556. His co-heirs were the descendants of the four sisters of Earl Edward (d. 1519), the wives of four Cornish squires, and with him was extinguished, to the belief of all men, the Courtenays’ earldom of Devon. His heir male was Sir William Courtenay, his sixth cousin once removed, head of a knightly line of Courtenays whose seat was Powderham Castle, a line which, during the civil wars, stood for the White Rose. Sir William, who is said to have been killed at St Quintin in 1557, was succeeded by his son, another Sir William, one of the undertakers for the settling of Ireland, where the family obtained great estates. William Courtenay of Powderham, of whose marriage with the daughter of Sir William Waller (the parliament’s general) it is remarked that the years of bride and bridegroom added together were less than thirty when their first child was born, was created a baronet by writ of privy seal in February 1644, the patent being never enrolled. His great grandson, Sir William Courtenay, many years a member of parliament, was on the 6th of May 1762, ten days before his death, created Viscount Courtenay of Powderham Castle.

Since the death at Padua in 1556 of Edward, earl of Devon, that ancient title had been twice revived. Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who was created earl of Devon in 1603, died without lawful issue in 1606. In 1618 Sir William Cavendish, son of the famous Bess of Hardwick, was given the same title, which is still among the peerage honours of the ducal house descending from him. For the Courtenays, who had without protest accepted a baronetcy and a viscounty, their earldom was dead. In the reign of William IV., the third and last Viscount Courtenay was living unmarried in Paris, an exile who for sufficient reasons was keeping out of the reach of the English criminal law. In the name of this man, his presumptive heir male, William Courtenay, clerk assistant of the parliament, succeeded in persuading the House of Lords that the Courtenay earldom under the patent of 1553 was still in existence, the plea being that the terms of the remainder—to him and his heirs male for ever—did not limit the succession to heirs male of the body of the grantee. Five other cases wherein the words de corpore suo had been omitted from the patent are known to peerage lawyers. In no case had a peerage before been claimed by collateral heirs male. “I have often rallied Brougham,” writes Lord Campbell, “upon his creating William Courtenay earl of Devon. He says he consulted Chief Justice Tenterden. But Tenterden knew nothing of peerage law.” After the death of the exile in 1835 the clerk of the parliament succeeded him as an earl by force of the House of Lords decision of the 15th of March 1831. His second son, the Rev. Henry Hugh Courtenay (1811-1904), succeeded, as 13th earl, a nephew whose extravagance had impoverished the estates. He in turn was followed, as 14th earl, by his grandson Charles Pepys Courtenay (b. 1870).

No other recognized branch of this house, once so widely spread in the western counties, is now among the landed houses of England. Among its cadets were many famous warriors, but three prelates must be reckoned as the most eminent of the Courtenays. William, a younger son of the match of Courtenay and Bohun, was bishop of Hereford in 1370, bishop of London in 1375 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1381. Proceeding against Wycliffe he opposed John of Gaunt, who, taunting him with his trust in his great kinsfolk, threatened to drag him out of St Paul’s by his hair, a threat which roused the angry Londoners in his defence. He died in 1396 and lies buried at the feet of the Black Prince in his cathedral of Canterbury. By his will he left his best mitre to his nephew Richard Courtenay—son and pupil, as he styles him—against the time he should be a bishop. This Richard, a friend of Henry V. when prince, and treasurer of his household, was bishop of Norwich in 1413. Twice chancellor of Oxford, he repelled Archbishop Arundel and all his train when that primate would have had a visitation of the university, although the claim of the university to independence was at last broken down. Tall of stature, eloquent and learned, he kept the favour of the king, who was with him when he died of dysentery in the host before Harfleur. Heir of this bishop was his nephew Sir Philip of Powderham, whose younger son Peter Courtenay was the third of the Courtenay prelates, being bishop of Exeter from 1478 to 1487, when he was translated to Winchester. Although of the Yorkist Courtenays, he was of Buckingham’s party and, being attainted by Richard III. for joining with certain of his kinsfolk in an attempt to raise the west, he escaped to Brittany, whence he returned with the first Tudor sovereign, who had him in high favour. A fourth prelate of this family was Henry Reginald Courtenay, who was bishop of Bristol 1794-1797 and bishop of Exeter from 1797 to his death in 1803.

See charter, patent, close, fine and plea rolls, inquests post mortem and other records. G. E. C.’s Complete Peerage; Dictionary of National Biography; Notes and Queries, series viii. vol. 7; J. H. Round’s Peerage Studies; Calendars of State Papers; Machyn’s Diary (Camden Society); Chronicles of Capgrave, Wavrin, Adam of Usk, &c.

(O. Ba.)

COURTENAY, RICHARD (d. 1415), English prelate, was a son of Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham Castle, near Exeter, and a grandson of Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon (d. 1377). He was a nephew of William Courtenay, archbishop of Canterbury, and a descendant of Edward I. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he entered the church, where his advance was rapid. He held several prebends, was dean of St Asaph and then dean of Wells, and became bishop of Norwich in 1413. As chancellor of the university of Oxford, an office to which he was elected in 1407 and again in 1410, Courtenay asserted the independence of the university against Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1411; but the archbishop, supported by Henry IV. and Pope John XXIII, eventually triumphed. Courtenay was a personal friend of Henry V. both before and after he came to the throne; and in 1413, immediately after Henry’s accession, he was made treasurer of the royal household. On two occasions he went on diplomatic errands to France, and he was also employed by Henry on public business at home. Having accompanied the king to Harfleur in August 1415, Courtenay was attacked by dysentery and died on the 15th of September 1415, his body being buried in Westminster Abbey.

Another member of this family, Peter Courtenay (d. 1492), a grandnephew of Richard, also attained high position in the English Church. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, Peter became dean of Windsor, then dean of Exeter; in 1478 bishop of Exeter; and in 1487 bishop of Winchester in succession to William of Waynflete. With Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, and others he attempted to raise a rebellion against Richard III. in 1483, and fled to Brittany when this enterprise failed. Courtenay was restored to his dignities and estates in 1485 by Henry VII., whom he had accompanied to England, and he died on the 23rd of September 1492.

See J. H. Wylie, History of England under Henry IV. (London, 1884-1898).

COURTENAY, WILLIAM (c. 1342-1396), English prelate, was a younger son of Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon (d. 1377), and through his mother Margaret, daughter of Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, was a great-grandson of Edward I. Being a native of the west of England he was educated at Stapledon Hall, Oxford, and after graduating in law was chosen chancellor of the university in 1367. Courtenay’s ecclesiastical and political career began about the same time. Having been made prebendary of Exeter, of Wells and of York, he was consecrated bishop of Hereford in 1370, was translated to the see of London in 1375, and became archbishop of Canterbury in 1381, succeeding Simon of Sudbury in both these latter positions. As a politician the period of his activity coincides with the years of Edward III.’s dotage, and with practically the whole of Richard II.’s reign. From the first he ranged himself among the opponents of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster; he was a firm upholder of the rights of the English Church, and was always eager to root out Lollardry. In 1373 he declared in convocation that he would not contribute to a subsidy until the evils from which the church suffered were removed; in 1375 he incurred the displeasure of the king by publishing a papal bull against the Florentines; and in 1377 his decided action during the quarrel between John of Gaunt and William of Wykeham ended in a temporary triumph for the bishop. Wycliffe was another cause of difference between Lancaster and Courtenay. In 1377 the reformer appeared before Archbishop Sudbury and Courtenay, when an altercation between the duke and the bishop led to the dispersal of the court, and during the ensuing riot Lancaster probably owed his safety to the good offices of his foe. Having meanwhile become archbishop of Canterbury Courtenay summoned a council, or synod, in London, which condemned the opinions of Wycliffe; he then attacked the Lollards at Oxford, and urged the bishops to imprison heretics. He was for a short time chancellor of England during 1381, and in January 1382 he officiated at the marriage of Richard II. with Anne of Bohemia, afterwards crowning the queen. In 1382 the archbishop’s visitation led to disputes with the bishops of Exeter and Salisbury, and Courtenay was only partially able to enforce the payment of a special tax to meet his expenses on this occasion. During his concluding years the archbishop appears to have upheld the papal authority in England, although not to the injury of the English Church. He protested against the confirmation of the statute of provisors in 1390, and he was successful in slightly modifying the statute of praemunire in 1393. Disliking the extravagance of Richard II. he publicly reproved the king, and after an angry scene the royal threats drove him for a time into Devonshire. In 1386 he was one of the commissioners appointed to reform the kingdom and the royal household, and in 1387 he arranged a peace between Richard and his enemies under Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester. Courtenay died at Maidstone on the 31st of July 1396, and was buried in Canterbury cathedral.

See W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. iv. (London, 1860-1876); and W. Stubbs, Constitutional History, vols. ii. and iii. (Oxford, 1895-1896).

COURTESY (O. Fr. curtesie, later courtoisie), manners or behaviour that suit a court, politeness, due consideration for others. A special application of the word is in the expression “by courtesy,” where something is granted out of favour and not of right, hence “courtesy” titles, i.e. those titles of rank which are given by custom to the eldest sons of dukes, marquesses and earls, usually the second title held by the father; to the younger sons and to the daughters of dukes and marquesses, viz. the prefix “lord” and “lady” with the Christian and surname. For “tenure by the courtesy” see Curtesy. Another form of the word, “curtsey” or “curtsy,” was early confined to the expression of courtesy or respect by a gesture or bow, now only of the reverence made by a woman, consisting in a bending of the knees accompanied by a lowering of the body.

COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN (1842- ), English writer and historian of poetry, whose father was rector of South Malling, Essex, was born on the 17th of July 1842. From Harrow school he went to New College, Oxford; took first-classes in classical “moderations” and “greats”; and won the Newdigate prize for poetry (1864) and the Chancellor’s English essay (1868). He seemed destined for distinction as a poet, his volume of Ludibria Lunae (1869) being followed in 1870 by the remarkably fine Paradise of Birds. But a certain academic quality of mind seemed to check his output in verse and divert it into the field of criticism. Apart from many contributions to the higher journalism, his literary career is associated mainly with his continuation of the edition of Pope’s works, begun by Whitwell Elwin (1816-1900), which appeared in ten volumes from 1871-1889; his life of Addison (Men of Letters series, 1882); his Liberal Movement in English Literature (1885); and his tenure of the professorship of Poetry at Oxford (1895-1901), which resulted in his elaborate History of English Poetry (the first volume appearing in 1895), and his Life in Poetry (1901). He deals with the history of English poetry as a whole, and in its unity as a result of the national spirit and thought in succeeding ages, and attempts to bring the great poets into relation with this. In 1887 he was appointed a civil service commissioner, being first commissioner in 1892, and being made a C.B. He was made an honorary fellow of his old college at Oxford in 1896, and was given the honorary degrees of D.Litt. by Durham in 1895 and of LL.D. by Edinburgh University in 1898.

COURT LEET, an English petty criminal court for the punishment of small offences. It has been usual to make a distinction between court baron and court leet1 as being separate courts, but in the early history of the court leet no such distinction can be drawn. At a very early time the lords of manors exercised or claimed certain jurisdictional franchises. Of these the most important was the “view of frankpledge” and its attendant police jurisdiction. Some time in the later middle ages the court baron when exercising these powers gained the name of leet, and, later, of “court leet.” The quo warranto proceedings of Edward I. established a sharp distinction between the court baron, exercising strictly manorial rights, and the court leet, depending for its jurisdiction upon royal franchise. The court leet was a court of record, and its duty was not only to view the pledges but to present by jury all crimes that might happen within the jurisdiction, and punish the same. The steward of the court acted as judge, presiding wholly in a judicial character, the ministerial acts being executed by the bailiff. The court leet began to decline in the 14th century, being superseded by the more modern courts of the justices, but in many cases courts leet were kept up until nearly the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, it cannot be said that they are now actually extinct, as many still survive for formal purposes, and by s. 40 of the Sheriffs Act 1887 they are expressly kept up.

COURT-MARTIAL, a court for the trial of offences against military or naval discipline, or for the administration of martial law. In England courts-martial have inherited part of the jurisdiction of the old Curia militaris, or court of the chivalry, in which a single marshal and at one time the high constable proceeded “according to the customs and usages of that court, and, in cases omitted according to the civil law, secundum legem armorum” (Coke, 4 Ins. 17). The modern form of the courts was adopted by ordinance in the time of Charles I., when English soldiers were studying the “articles and military laws” of Gustavus Adolphus and the Dutch military code of Arnheim; it is first recognized by statute in the first Mutiny Act of 1689. The Mutiny Act (with various extensions and amendments) and the statutory articles of war continued to be the sources of military law which courts-martial administered until 1879, when they were codified in the Army Discipline and Regulation Act 1879, which was, in turn, superseded by the Army Act 1881. This act is re-enacted annually by the Army (Annual) Act. The constitution of courts-martial, their procedure, &c., are dealt with under Military Law.

Naval Courts-Martial.—The administration of the barbarous naval law of England was long entrusted to the discretion of commanders acting under instructions from the lord high admiral, who was supreme over both the royal and merchant navy. It was the leaders of the Long Parliament who first secured something like a regular tribunal by passing in 1645 an ordinance and articles concerning martial law for the government of the navy. Under this ordinance Blake, Monk and Penn issued instructions for the holding general and ship courts-martial with written records, the one for captains and commanders, the other for subordinate officers and men. Of the latter the mate, gunner and boatswain were members, but the admirals reserved a control over the more serious sentences. Under an act of 1661 the high admiral again received power to issue commissions for holding courts-martial—a power which continues to be exercised by the board of admiralty. During the 18th century, under the auspices of Anson, the jurisdiction was greatly extended, and the Consolidation Act of 1749 was passed in which the penalty of death occurs as frequently as the curses in the commination service. The Naval Articles of War have always been statutory, and the whole system may now be said to rest on the Naval Discipline Act 1866, as amended by the act of 1884. The navy has its courts of inquiry for the confidential investigation of charges “derogatory to the character of an officer and a gentleman.” Under the act of 1866 a court-martial must consist of from five to nine officers of a certain rank, and must be held publicly on board of one of H.M. ships of war, and where at least two such ships are together. The rank of the president depends on that of the prisoner. A judge-advocate attends, and the procedure resembles that in military courts, except that the prisoner is not asked to plead, and the sentence, if not one of death, does not require the confirmation of the commander-in-chief abroad or of the admiralty at home. The court has a large and useful power of finding the prisoner guilty of a less serious offence than that charged, which might well be imitated in the ordinary criminal courts. The death sentence is always carried out by hanging at the yard-arm; Admiral Byng, however, was shot in 1757. The board of admiralty have, under the Naval Discipline Acts, a general power of suspending, annulling, and modifying sentences which are not capital. The jurisdiction extends to all persons belonging to the navy, to land forces and other passengers on board, shipwrecked crews, spies, persons borne on the books of H.M. ships in commission, and civilians on board who endeavour to seduce others from allegiance. The definition of the jurisdiction by locality includes harbours, havens or creeks, lakes or rivers, in or out of the United Kingdom; all places within the jurisdiction of the admiralty; all places on shore out of the United Kingdom; the dockyards, barracks, hospitals, &c., of the service wherever situated; all places on shore in or out of the United Kingdom for all offences punishable under the Articles of War except those specified in section 38 of the Naval Discipline Act 1860, which are punishable by ordinary law. The Royal Marines, while borne on the books of H.M. ships, are subject to the Naval Discipline Acts, and, by an order in council, 1882, when they are embarked on board ship for service on shore; otherwise they are under the Army Acts. By s. 179, sub.-sec. 7, of the Army Act, in the application of the act to the Royal Marines the admiralty is substituted for military authorities.

Authorities.—Simmons, On the Constitution and Practice of Courts-Martial; Clode, Military and Martial Law; Stephens, Gifford and Smith, Manual of Naval Law and Court-Martial Procedure. The earlier writers on courts-martial are Adye (1796), M’Arthur (1813), Maltby (1813, Boston), James (1820), D’Aguilar (1843), and Hough, Precedents in Military Law (1855).

COURTNEY, LEONARD HENRY COURTNEY, Baron (1832- ), English politician and man of letters, eldest son of J. S. Courtney, a banker, was born at Penzance on the 6th of July 1832. At Cambridge, Leonard Courtney was second wrangler and first Smith’s prizeman, and was elected a fellow of his college, St John’s. He was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1858, was professor of political economy at University College from 1872 to 1875, and in December 1876, after a previous unsuccessful attempt, was elected to parliament for Liskeard in the Liberal interest. He continued to represent the borough, and the district into which it was merged by the Reform Act of 1885, until 1900, when his attitude towards the South African War—he was one of the foremost of the so-called “Pro-Boer” party—compelled his retirement. Until 1885 he was a devoted adherent of Mr Gladstone, particularly in finance and foreign affairs. In 1880 he was under-secretary of state for the home department, in 1881 for the colonies, and in 1882 secretary to the treasury; but he was always a stubborn fighter for principle, and upon finding that the government’s Reform Bill in 1884 contained no recognition of the scheme for proportional representation, to which he was deeply committed, he resigned office. He refused to support Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in 1885, and was one of those who chiefly contributed to its rejection, and whose reputation for unbending integrity and intellectual eminence gave solidity to the Liberal Unionist party. In 1886 he was elected chairman of committees in the House of Commons, and his efficiency in this office seemed to mark him out for the speakership in 1895. A Liberal Unionist, however, could only be elected by Conservative votes, and he had made himself objectionable to a large section of the party by his independent attitude on various questions, on which his Liberalism outweighed his party loyalty. He would in any case have been incapacitated by an affection of the eyesight, which for a while threatened to withdraw him from public life altogether. After 1895 Mr Courtney’s divergences from the Unionist party on questions other than Irish politics became gradually more marked. He became known in the House of Commons principally for his candid criticism of the measures introduced by his nominal leaders, and he was rather to be ranked among the Opposition than as a Ministerialist; and when the crisis with the Transvaal came in 1899, Mr Courtney’s views, which remained substantially what they were when he supported the settlement after Majuba in 1881, had plainly become incompatible with his position even as a nominal follower of Lord Salisbury and Mr Chamberlain. He gradually reverted to formal membership of the Liberal party, and in January 1906 unsuccessfully contested a division of Edinburgh as a supporter of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman at the general election. Among the birthday honours of 1906 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Courtney of Penwith (Cornwall). Lord Courtney, who in 1883 married Miss Catherine Potter (an elder sister of Mrs Sidney Webb), was a prominent supporter of the women’s movement. In earlier years he was a regular contributor to The Times, and he wrote numerous essays in the principal reviews on political and economic subjects. In 1901 he published a book on The Working Constitution of the United Kingdom.

Two of his brothers, John Mortimer Courtney (b. 1838), and William Prideaux Courtney (b. 1845), also attained public distinction, the former in the government service in Canada (from 1869, retiring in 1906), rising to be deputy-minister of finance, and the latter in the British civil service (1865-1892), and as a prominent man of letters and bibliographer.

COURTOIS, JACQUES (1621-1676) and GUILLAUME (1628-1679). The two French painters who bore these names are also called by the Italian equivalents Giacomo (or Jacopo) Cortese and Guglielmo Cortese. Each of the brothers is likewise named, from his native province, Le Bourguignon, or Il Borgognone.

Jacques Courtois was born at St Hippolyte, near Besançon, in 1621. His father was a painter, and with him Jacques remained studying up to the age of fifteen. Towards 1637 he came to Italy, was hospitably received at Milan by a Burgundian gentleman, and entered, and for three years remained in, the French military service. The sight of some battle-pictures revived his taste for fine art. He went to Bologna, and studied under the friendly tutelage of Guido; thence he proceeded to Rome, where he painted, in the Cistercian monastery, the “Miracle of the Loaves.” Here he took a house and after a while entered upon his own characteristic style of art, that of battle-painting, in which he has been accounted to excel all other old masters; his merits were cordially recognized by the celebrated Cerquozzi, named Michelangelo delle Battaglie. He soon rose from penury to ease, and married a painter’s beautiful daughter, Maria Vagini; she died after seven years of wedded life. Prince Matthias of Tuscany employed Courtois on some striking works in his villa, Lappeggio, representing with much historical accuracy the prince’s military exploits. In Venice also the artist executed for the senator Sagredo some remarkable battle-pieces. In Florence he entered the Society of Jesus, taking the habit in Rome in 1655; it was calumniously rumoured that he adopted this course in order to escape punishment for having poisoned his wife. As a Jesuit father, Courtois painted many works in churches and monasteries of the society. He lived piously in Rome, and died there of apoplexy on the 20th of May 1676 (some accounts say 1670 or 1671). His battle-pieces have movement and fire, warm colouring (now too often blackened), and great command of the brush,—those of moderate dimensions are the more esteemed. They are slight in execution, and tell out best from a distance. Courtois etched with skill twelve battle-subjects of his own composition. The Dantzig painter named in Italy Pandolfo Reschi was his pupil.

Guillaume Courtois, born likewise at St Hippolyte, came to Italy with his brother. He went at once to Rome, and entered the school of Pietro da Cortona. He studied also the Bolognese painters and Giovanni Barbieri, and formed for himself a style with very little express mannerism, partly resembling that of Maratta. He painted the “Battle of Joshua” in the Quirinal Gallery, the “Crucifixion of St Andrew” in the church of that saint on Monte Cavallo, various works for the Jesuits, some also in co-operation with his brother. His last production was Christ admonishing Martha. His draughtsmanship is better than that of Jacques, whom he did not, however, rival in spirit, colour or composition. He also executed some etchings. Guillaume Courtois died of gout on the 15th of June 1679.