VOLUME VIII SLICE VI Dodwell to Drama (continued 3)

See A. M. H. J. Stokvis, Manuel d’histoire (Leiden, 1889); Guichenon, Histoire de Dombes (1863, 1872); and various works by M. C. Guigue, including Bibliotheca Dumbensis (with Valentin Smith) (1856-1885).

DOMBROWSKI, JAN HENRYK (1755-1818), Polish general, was born at Pierszowice in the palatinate of Cracow, on the 29th of August 1755. Brought up in Saxony, he served for some years in the Saxon army; but when, in 1791, the Polish diet recalled all Poles serving abroad, he returned to his native land. Under Poniatowski, he took part in the campaign of 1792 against the Russians. In 1794 he distinguished himself under Kosciusko in the defence of Warsaw. For two years thereafter he lived in retirement, declining the offers of high ranks in their armies made to him by Russia and Prussia. He then went to Paris, and in January 1797 was authorized by the government of the Cisalpine Republic to organize a Polish legion. This task he executed at Milan. In command of his legion he played an important part in the war in Italy, entered Rome in May 1798, and distinguished himself greatly at the Trebbia (June 19, 1799), and in other battles and combats of 1799-1801. After the peace of Amiens he passed, as general of division, into the service of the Italian republic. Summoned by Napoleon in 1806 to promote a rising in Poland, he organized several divisions of Poles, and distinguished himself at Danzig and at Friedland. In 1809 he served in the Polish campaign and in 1812 he commanded a Polish division in the Grande Armée, being wounded at the passage of the Beresina. He fought under Marmont at the battle of Leipzig (1813), and in the following year returned to Poland. He was one of the generals entrusted by the tsar with the reorganization of the Polish army, and was named in 1815 general of cavalry and senator palatine of the new kingdom of Poland. He retired, however, in the following year, to his estates in Posen. General Dombrowski died at his seat of Wina-Gora in Posen on the 26th of June 1818. He wrote several military historical works in the Polish language.

DOME (Lat domus, house; Ital. duomo, cathedral), an architectural term, derived from a characteristic feature of Italian cathedrals, correctly applied only to a spherical or spheroidal vault, the horizontal plan of which is always a circle. It may be supported on a circular wall, as in the Pantheon at Rome; or on a drum, as in the later Byzantine churches and generally so in the Renaissance styles; or be carried over a square or polygonal area, in which case the base of the dome is connected to the lines of the main wall by pendentives, squinches, corbels or a series of concentric arches, or two of these combined. Its section may be semicircular, pointed, ovoid or segmental; in the latter case it is usually termed a cupola, although the pendentives which carry it continue, on the diagonal lines, the complete spherical dome, as in the entrance vestibule on the south side of the Sanctuary at Jerusalem, attributed to Herod, or in those crowning the bays of the Golden Gateway by Justinian. The dome may be constructed in horizontal courses, as in the “beehive” tombs at Mycenae, with joints radiating to the centre, or a compromise between the two, in a series of small segments of circles, as in the Temple of Jupiter in Diocletian’s palace at Spalato, or again with the lower portion in horizontal courses and the upper portion with arches, as in the Pantheon at Rome.

The dome is probably one of the earliest forms of covering invented by man, but owing probably to its construction in ephemeral materials, such as the unburnt bricks in Chaldaea, there are no examples existing. But in a bas-relief (see Architecture, fig. 10), brought by Layard from Kuyunjik, are representations of semicircular and ovoid domes, which show that the feature was well known in Assyria, and as they build domes of the same nature down to the present day and without centring of any kind, it suggests that they may have existed from the remotest ages. The most ancient examples in Europe are those of the “beehive” tombs at Mycenae and elsewhere in Greece, ascribed generally to the 11th century b.c. In a sense, they are not true domes, because they are built in horizontal courses of stone, which act like the voussoirs of an arch in resisting the thrust of the earth at the back. This did not exist in the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates or other circular buildings in Greece, because their vertical sections were not portions of circles. For this reason, the conical vault of the Baths in Pompeii is not a dome. The circular Laconicon in the Baths of Titus (a.d. 72) may have been domed, and the great hemicycles in the Thermae must certainly have been roofed with semi-domes.

The earliest Roman domes are those of the great circular halls at Baiae near Naples, described as temples, but really forming part of the immense bathing establishments there, the favourite place of resort of the Romans during the latter part of the Republic. The largest on the east side of the Lake of Avernus, known as the Temple of Apollo, is a circular hall with an internal diameter of 100 ft. Those of Diana, Mercury and Venus at Baiae, were 96, 66 and 60 ft. respectively. The vaults were all built in tufa with horizontal courses in brick and cement. Half of the dome of the Temple of Mercury had fallen down, showing the section to have been nearly that of an equilateral arch. From the fact that there were pierced openings or windows in all these domes, they probably constituted the frigidaria of the baths.

The first example still existing in Rome is that of the Pantheon (a.d. 112), where a circular dome, 142 ft. in diameter, rests on a circular wall, its height being about equal to its diameter. The lower courses of this dome, built in the Roman brick or tile, were, up to the top of the third coffer, all laid in horizontal courses; above that, the construction is not known for certain; externally a series of small arches is shown, but they rested on a shell already built. The so-called Temple of Minerva Medica (now recognized as the Nymphaeum of the Baths of Gallienus, a.d. 366) is the next dated example. The Nymphaeum was decagonal on plan, so that small pendentives were required to carry the brick dome.

The domed Laconicon of the Thermae of Diocletian (a.d. 302) still exists as the vestibule of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Of Constantine’s time there are two small domed examples in the tomb of S. Costanza and the Baptistery of the Lateran, both in Rome, and one in the tomb of Galla Placidia at Ravenna (c. a.d. 450). From these we pass to the Sassanian domes at Serbistan and Firuzabad, of the 4th and 5th centuries respectively. These were built in brick and rested on square pendentives. In section they were ovoid. In Syria, the dome over the octagonal church at Esra, built in stone and dated a.d. 515, is also ovoid, its height being equal to its diameter, i.e. 28 ft. This, as well as the Sassanian domes, was built without centring. The next example is that of the church of Sta Sophia at Constantinople, the finest example existing, both in its conception and execution. It was built by Justinian (537-552) from the designs of Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus. The dome is 104 ft. in diameter, and is carried on pendentives over a square area. The construction is of brick and stone in alternate courses, and the lower part of the dome is pierced with forty windows, which give it an extraordinary lightness. The height from the pavement of the church to the soffit of the dome is 179 ft. No dome of similar dimensions was ever again attempted by the Byzantine architects, and the principal difference in later examples was the raising of the dome on a circular drum pierced with windows.

In order to lighten the dome erected over the church of San Vitale, at Ravenna, it was constructed with hollow cylindrical jars, fitted, the end of one into the mouth of the other; a similar contrivance was adopted in the tomb of the empress Helena (the Torre Pignatiara), the vaults of the Circus of Maxentius on the Via Appia, and the outer aisles of San Stefano, all at Rome, thus dispensing with the buttresses of Sta Sophia.

The domes of the earlier mosques in Cairo were built on the model of Sta Sophia, with windows pierced round the base of the dome and external buttresses between them; these domes were all built in brick coated over with cement or stucco. At a later date, and when built in stone, the upper portion was raised in height and terminated with a point on which a finial was placed. These are the domes inside and outside Cairo, which are carved with an infinity of geometrical patterns interwoven with conventional floral decoration. The upper portion of the dome is very thin, so that there is little weight and comparatively no thrust, and it is to these facts that we probably owe their preservation.

In India, in the “great mosque” of Jama Masjid (a.d. 1560) and the Gol Gumbaz, or tomb of Mahommed Adil Shah (a.d. 1630) at Bijapur, the domes are carried on pendentives consisting of arches crossing one another and projecting inwards, and their weight counteracts any thrust there may be in the dome. It is possibly for a similar reason that in the Jama Masjid of Shah Jahan at Delhi (1632-1638) and the Taj Mahal (a.d. 1630) the domes assume a bulbous form, the increased thickness of the dome below the haunches by its weight served as a counterpoise to any thrust the upper part of the dome might exert. The form is not much to be admired, and when exaggerated, as it is in the churches of Russia, where it was introduced by the Tatars, at times it became monstrous.

From these we pass to the domes of Périgord and La Charente, the earliest of which date from the commencement of the 11th century. Of the western dome of St Étienne at Périgueux (a.d. 14) only the pendentives remain, sufficient, however, with later examples, to show that these French domes were different from the Byzantine both in construction and form. The pendentives are built on horizontal courses of stone, and the voussoirs of the pointed arches which carried them form part of the pendentives; a few feet above the top of the arches is a moulding and a ledge, above which the dome, ovoid in section, is built. The principal examples following St Étienne are those of S. Jean-de-Cole, Cahors, Souillac, Solignac, Angoulême, Fontevrault, and lastly St Front at Périgueux, built about 1150, in imitation of St Mark’s at Venice. The domes of the latter church were introduced into the old basilica about 1063, and were based on the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, which was pulled down in the 15th century, so that we have only the clear description of Procopius to go by. The domes over the north and south transepts and the choir of St Mark’s are smaller than those over the nave and crossing, because they had to be fitted in between more ancient structures. The construction of the domes of St Mark’s is not known, but at St Front the general design only was copied, and they built them in the Périgordian manner. The masons from Périgord are also responsible for the domes of the Crusaders’ churches in Palestine and for some of the early churches still remaining in Cyprus. The domes of San Cyriaco at Ancona and Sant’ Antonio at Padua were based upon those of St Mark’s at Venice.

In central Italy we have the dome (elliptical in plan) of the cathedral of Pisa, and it was a favourite feature over the crossing of the churches throughout Italy, being generally carried on squinch pendentives. The domes of the baptisteries of Florence, Parma, Trieste and Piacenza, are only internal, being enclosed with vertical walls and a sloping roof. In Sicily, on account of the strong Saracenic influence, the squinches are simple versions of the stalactite pendentives described under Architecture: Mahommedan (q.v.), the earliest example being found in the church of San Giovanni-dei-Leprosi (a.d. 1072), all the domes being ovoid in section.

Except in Périgord and La Charente, domes are not found in the churches in France, but in Spain they were introduced over the crossing at Burgos, Tarragona and Salamanca cathedrals, and were made architectural features externally. This is rarely found in Germany, for although in the cathedrals of Worms, Spires and Mainz, and in the churches of St Martin and Sankt Maria im Capitol at Cologne, the crossings are covered by domes, always carried on squinch pendentives, externally they built lanterns round them.

In the Renaissance styles, the dome was at once accepted as the principal characteristic feature, and its erection over the crossing of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence was the first important work entrusted to Brunelleschi. The dome was begun in 1422, and finished in 1431, with the exception of the lantern, begun the year of his death in 1444, and completed in 1471. The dome, which is octagonal on plan, is 139 ft. in diameter, and is built with an inner and outer casing, concentric one with the other, tied together by ribs between them: the lower portion is stone, the upper part is brick.

The double shell was also employed by Michelangelo in the dome of St Peter’s at Rome, the outer shell being raised higher than the lower and connected by ribs one with the other. The diameter is 140 ft. and the construction in brick, similar to that at Florence, but the ribs are in stone from Tivoli. In both these cases the weight of the lantern was a very important consideration, and is responsible for the repeated repairs required and the introduction of additional ties.

In this respect Sir Christopher Wren solved the difficulty at St Paul’s cathedral, London, in another way: he provided three shells, the lower one with an eye in the centre forming the inner dome as seen from the interior; the middle one of conical form, and the outer one framed in timber and covered with lead. The conical shell carries the lantern, the weight of which is carried direct to the base, bound with iron ties, with such additional strength as may be given by the portico round.

In all these cases these domes are built on lofty drums, so that externally they present quite a different appearance to those of the Pantheon at Rome, or Sta Sophia in Constantinople.

Of other examples, the domes of the Invalides in Paris, by Mansard (1706), and of the Panthéon by Soufflot (1735), have each three shells, the former having a graceful outline. In Spain the dome of the cathedral at Granada (1530) and the Escurial (1563); in Italy those of Sta Maria della Salute at Venice, the small example of Bramante at Todi (1480) and of the Carignano at Genoa, are worth recording, as also the dome of the Suleimanie mosque at Constantinople (1550). See plates illustrating Architecture; and Indian Architecture.

(R. P. S.)

DOMENICHINO (or Domenico), ZAMPIERI (1581-1641), Italian painter, born at Bologna, on the 21st of October 1581, was the son of a shoemaker. The diminutive form of Christian name by which he is constantly known indicates his short stature. He was placed, when young, under the tuition of Denis Calvart; but having been treated with great severity by that master, he left him, and became a pupil in the academy of the Caracci, under Agostino. Towards the beginning of the 17th century he went to Rome, at the invitation of his fellow-pupil and intimate Albani, and prosecuted his studies under Annibale Caracci. The faculty of Domenichino was slow in its development. He was at first timid and distrustful of his powers; while his studious, unready and reserved manners were misunderstood by his companions for dulness, and he obtained the nickname of the “Ox” (Bue). But Annibale Caracci, who observed his faculties with more attention, predicted that the apparent slowness of Domenichino’s genius would in time produce what would be an honour to the art of painting. When his early productions had brought him into notice, he studied with extreme application, and made such advance as to raise his works into a comparison with those of the most admired masters of the time. From his acting as a continual censor of his own works, he became distinguished amongst his fellow-pupils as an accurate and expressive designer; his colours were the truest to nature; Mengs, indeed, found nothing to desire in his works, except a somewhat larger proportion of elegance. That he might devote his whole powers to the art, Domenichino shunned all society; or, if he occasionally sought it in the public theatres and walks, this was in order better to observe the play of the passions in the features of the people—those of joy, anger, grief, terror and every affection of the mind—and to commit them vividly to his tablets; thus, says Bellori, it was that he succeeded in delineating the soul, in colouring life, and calling forth heartfelt emotions, at which all his works aim. In personal character he is credited with temperance and modesty; but, besides his want of sociability, he became somewhat suspicious, and jealous of his master.

In Rome, Domenichino obtained employment from Cardinals Borghese, Farnese and Aldobrandini, for all of whom he painted works in fresco. The distinguished reputation which he had acquired excited the envy of some of his contemporaries. Lanfranco in particular, one of his most inveterate enemies, asserted that his celebrated “Communion of St Jerome” (painted for the church of La Carità towards 1614, for a pittance of about ten guineas, now in the Vatican Gallery, and ordinarily, but most irrationally, spoken of as the second or third best oil picture in the world) was an imitation from Agostino Caracci; and he procured an engraving of this master’s picture of the same subject (now in the Gallery of Bologna), copies of which were circulated for the purpose of proving that Domenichino was a plagiarist. There is in truth a very marked resemblance between the two compositions. The pictures which Zampieri painted immediately afterwards, representing subjects from the life of St Cecilia, only increased the alarm of his competitors, and redoubled their injustice and malignity. Disgusted with these cabals, he left Rome for Bologna, where he remained until he was recalled by Pope Gregory XV., who appointed him principal painter and architect to the pontifical palace. In this architectural post he seems to have done little or nothing, although he was not inexpert in the art. He designed in great part the Villa di Belvedere at Frascati, and the whole of the Villa Ludovisi, and some other edifices. From 1630 onwards Domenichino was engaged in Naples, chiefly on a series of frescoes (never wholly completed) of the life of St Januarius in the Cappella del Tesoro. He settled in that city with his family, and opened a school. There the persecution against him became far more shameful than in any previous instance. The notorious so-called “Cabal of Naples”—the painters Corenzio, Ribera and Caracciolo—leagued together as they were to exclude all alien competition, plagued and decried the Bolognese artist in all possible ways; for instance, on returning in the morning to his fresco work, he would find not infrequently that someone had rubbed out the performance of the previous day. Perpetual worry is believed to have brought the life of Domenichino to a close; contemporary suspicion did not scruple to speak broadly of poison, but this has remained unconfirmed. He died in Naples, after two days’ illness, on the 15th of April 1641.

Domenichino, in correctness of design, expression of the passions, and simplicity and variety in the airs of his heads, has been considered little inferior to Raphael; but in fact there is the greatest gulf fixed between the two. Critics of the 18th century adulated the Bolognese beyond all reason or toleration; he is now regarded as commonplace in mind and invention, lacking any innate ideality, though undoubtedly a forcible, resolute and learned executant. “We must,” says Lanzi, “despair to find paintings exhibiting richer or more varied draperies, details of costume more beautifully adapted, or more majestic mantles. The figures are finely disposed both in place and action, conducing to the general effect; whilst a light pervades the whole which seems to rejoice the spirit, growing brighter and brighter in the aspect of the best countenances, whence they first attract the eye and heart of the beholder. The persons delineated could not tell their tale to the ear more plainly than they speak it to the eye. The ‘Scourging of St Andrew,’ which he executed in competition with Guido Reni at Rome (a fresco in the church of San Gregorio), is a powerful illustration of this truthful expression. Of the two works of these masters, Annibale Caracci preferred that of Domenichino. It is said that in painting one of the executioners the artist actually wrought himself into a passion, using threatening words and actions, and that Annibale Caracci, surprising him at that moment, embraced him, exclaiming with joy, ‘To-day, my dear Domenichino, thou art teaching me.’ So novel, and at the same time so natural, it appeared to him that the artist, like the orator, should feel within himself all that he is representing to others.” Domenichino is esteemed the most distinguished disciple of the Caracci, or second only to Guido Reni. Algarotti preferred him to the greatest masters; and Nicolas Poussin considered the painter of the “Communion of St Jerome” to be the first after Raphael. His pictures of “Adam and Eve,” and the “Martyrdom of St Agnes,” in the Gallery of Bologna, are amongst his leading works. Others of superior interest are his first known picture, a fresco of the “Death of Adonis,” in the Loggia of the Giardino Farnese, Rome; the “Martyrdom of St Sebastian,” in Santa Maria degli Angeli; the “Four Evangelists,” in Sant’ Andrea della Valle; “Diana and her Nymphs,” in the Borghese gallery; the “Assumption of the Virgin,” in Santa Maria di Trastevere; and frescoes in the neighbouring abbey of Grotta Ferrata, lives of SS. Nilus and Bartholomew. His portraits are also highly reputed. It is admitted that in his compositions he often borrowed figures and arrangements from previous painters. Domenichino was potent in fresco. He excelled also in landscape painting. In that style (in which he was one of the earliest practitioners) the natural elegance of his scenery, his trees, his well-broken grounds, the character and expression of his figures, gained him as much public admiration as any of his other performances.

See Bolognini, Life of Domenichino (1839); C. Landon, Works of Domenichino, with a Memoir (1823).

(W. M. R.)

DOMESDAY BOOK, or simply Domesday, the record of the great survey of England executed for William the Conqueror. We learn from the English Chronicle that the scheme of this survey was discussed and determined in the Christmas assembly of 1085, and from the colophon of Domesday Book that the survey (descriptio) was completed in 1086. But Domesday Book (liber) although compiled from the returns of that survey, must be carefully distinguished from them; nor is it certain that it was compiled in the year in which the survey was made. For the making of the survey each county was visited by a group of royal officers (legati), who held a public inquiry, probably in the great assembly known as the county court, which was attended by representatives of every township as well as of the local lords. The unit of inquiry was the Hundred (a subdivision of the county which had then an administrative entity), and the return for each Hundred was sworn to by twelve local jurors, half of them English and half Normans. What is believed to be a full transcript of these original returns is preserved for several of the Cambridgeshire Hundreds, and is of great illustrative importance. The Inquisitio Eliensis, the “Exon Domesday” (so called from the preservation of the volume at Exeter), and the second volume of Domesday Book, also all contain the full details which the original returns supplied.

The original MS. of Domesday Book consists of two volumes, of which the second is devoted to the three eastern counties, while the first, which is of much larger size, comprises the rest of England except the most northerly counties. Of these the north-westerly portion, which had Carlisle for its head, was not conquered till some years after the survey was made; but the omission of Northumberland and Durham has not been satisfactorily explained. There are also no surveys of London, Winchester and some other towns. For both volumes the contents of the returns were entirely rearranged and classified according to fiefs. Instead of appearing under the Hundreds and townships they now appeared under the names of the local “barons,” i.e. those who held the lands directly of the crown in fee. In each county the list opened with the holding of the king himself (which had possibly formed the subject of separate inquiry); then came those of the churchmen and religious houses; next were entered those of the lay tenants-in-chief (barones); and last of all those of women, of the king’s serjeants (servientes), of the few English “thegns” who retained land, and so forth. In some counties one or more principal towns formed the subject of a separate section; in some the clamores (disputed titles to land) were similarly treated apart. But this description applies more specially to the larger and principal volume; in the smaller one the system is more confused, the execution less perfect. The two volumes are distinguished even more sharply by the exclusion, in the larger one, of certain details, such as the enumeration of the live stock, which would have added greatly to its size. It has, indeed, been suggested that the eastern counties’ volume represents a first attempt, and that it was found impossible, or at least inconvenient, to complete the work on the same scale.

For the object of the survey we have three sources of information: (1) the passage in the English Chronicle, which tells us why it was ordered, (2) the list of questions which the jurors were asked, as preserved in the Inquisitio Eliensis, (3) the contents of Domesday Book and the allied records mentioned above. Although these can by no means be reconciled in every detail, it is now generally recognized that the primary object of the survey was to acertain and record the fiscal rights of the king. These were mainly (1) the national land-tax (geldum), paid on a fixed assessment, (2) certain miscellaneous dues, (3) the proceeds of the crown lands. After a great political convulsion such as the Norman conquest, and the wholesale confiscation of landed estates which followed it, it was William’s interest to make sure that the rights of the crown, which he claimed to have inherited, had not suffered in the process. More especially was this the case as his Norman followers were disposed to evade the liabilities of their English predecessors. The Domesday survey therefore recorded the names of the new holders of lands and the assessments on which their tax was to be paid. But it did more than this; by the king’s instructions it endeavoured to make a national valuation list, estimating the annual value of all the land in the country, (1) at the time of King Edward’s death, (2) when the new owners received it, (3) at the time of the survey, and further, it reckoned, by command, the potential value as well. It is evident that William desired to know the financial resources of his kingdom, and probable that he wished to compare them with the existing assessment, which was one of considerable antiquity, though there are traces that it had been occasionally modified. The great bulk of Domesday Book is devoted to the somewhat arid details of the assessment and valuation of rural estates, which were as yet the only important source of national wealth. After stating the assessment of the manor, the record sets forth the amount of arable land, and the number of plough-teams (each reckoned at eight oxen) available for working it, with the additional number (if any) that might be employed; then the river-meadows, woodland, pasture, fisheries (i.e. weirs in the streams), water-mills, saltpans (if by the sea) and other subsidiary sources of revenue; the peasants are enumerated in their several classes; and finally the annual value of the whole, past and present, is roughly estimated. It is obvious that, both in its values and in its measurements, the survey’s reckoning is very crude.

Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk, Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of the towns, which were probably made because of their bearing on the fiscal rights of the crown therein. These include fragments of custumals, records of the military service due, of markets, mints, and so forth. From the towns, from the counties as wholes, and from many of its ancient lordships, the crown was entitled to archaic dues in kind, such as honey. The information of most general interest found in the great record is that on political, personal, ecclesiastical and social history, which only occurs sporadically and, as it were, by accident. Much of this was used by E. A. Freeman for his work on the Norman Conquest. Although unique in character and of priceless value to the student, Domesday will be found disappointing and largely unintelligible to any but the specialist. Even scholars are unable to explain portions of its language and of its system. This is partly due to its very early date, which has placed between it and later records a gulf that is hard to bridge.

But in the Dialogus de scaccario (temp. Hen. II.) it is spoken of as a record from the arbitrament of which there was no appeal (from which its popular name of “Domesday” is said to be derived). In the middle ages its evidence was frequently invoked in the law-courts; and even now there are certain cases in which appeal is made to its testimony. To the topographer, as to the genealogist, its evidence is of primary importance; for it not only contains the earliest survey of a township or manor, but affords in the majority of cases the clue to its subsequent descent. The rearrangement, on a feudal basis, of the original returns (as described above) enabled the Conqueror and his officers to see with ease the extent of a baron’s possessions; but it also had the effect of showing how far he had enfeoffed “under-tenants,” and who those under-tenants were. This was of great importance to William, not only for military reasons, but also because of his firm resolve to make the under-tenants (though the “men” of their lords) swear allegiance directly to himself. As Domesday normally records only the Christian name of an under-tenant, it is vain to seek for the surnames of families claiming a Norman origin; but much has been and is still being done to identify the under-tenants, the great bulk of whom bear foreign names.

Domesday Book was originally preserved in the royal treasury at Winchester (the Norman kings’ capital), whence it speaks of itself (in one later addition) as Liber de Wintonia. When the treasury was removed to Westminster (probably under Henry II.) the book went with it. Here it remained until the days of Queen Victoria, being preserved from 1696 onwards in the Chapter House, and only removed in special circumstances, as when it was sent to Southampton for photozincographic reproduction. It was eventually placed in the Public Record Office, London, where it can be seen in a glass case in the museum. In 1869 it received a modern binding. The ancient Domesday chest, in which it used to be kept, is also preserved in the building.

The printing of Domesday, in “record type,” was begun by government in 1773, and the book was published, in two volumes fol. in 1783; in 1811 a volume of indexes was added, and in 1816 a supplementary volume, separately indexed, containing (1) the “Exon Domesday” (for the south-western counties), (2) the Inquisitio Eliensis, (3) the Liber Winton (surveys of Winchester early in the 12th century), and (4) the Boldon Book—a survey of the bishopric of Durham a century later than Domesday. Photographic facsimiles of Domesday Book, for each county separately, were published in 1861-1863, also by government.

Bibliography.—The following are the more important works to be consulted:—R. Kelham, Domesday Book, illustrated (1788); H. Ellis, General Introduction to Domesday Book (1833), 2 vols., containing valuable indexes to the names of persons; N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Inquisitio Cantabrigiensis (1876), containing the only transcripts of the original returns and the text of the Inquisitio Eliensis; E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vols. iv. and v.; F. Seebohm, The English Village Community (1883); Domesday Studies, 2 vols. (1888, 1891), on the occasion of the Domesday Commemoration (1886), by various writers, with bibliography to date; J. H. Round, Feudal England (1895); F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897); P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England (1892) and Growth of the Manor; A. Ballard, The Domesday Boroughs (1904) and The Domesday Inquest (1906), an excellent summary; W. H. Stevenson, “A contemporary description of the Domesday Survey” in The English Historical Review (the general index to which should be consulted) (1907). The Victoria County History contains a translation of the Domesday text, a map, and an explanatory introduction for each county.

(J. H. R.)

DOMESTIC RELATIONS, a term used to express the legal relations subsisting between the various units that comprise the family or domestic group. Those units which go to build up the domestic structure of modern society are parent, child, husband, wife, master and servant. The law which deals with the various relations subsisting between them is made up largely of the law of agency, of contract and of tort. See Husband and Wife; Master and Servant; Children, Law relating to; Infant.

DOMETT, ALFRED (1811-1887), British colonial statesman and poet, was born at Camberwell Grove, Surrey, on the 20th of May 1811. He entered St John’s College, Cambridge, but left the university in 1833. He published one or two volumes of poetry and contributed several poems to Blackwood’s Magazine, one of which, “A Christmas Hymn,” attracted much admiring attention. For ten years he lived a life of ease in London, where he became the intimate friend of Robert Browning, of whose poem “Waring” he was the subject. An interesting account of the friendship between the two men appeared in The Contemporary Review for January 1905, by W. H. Griffin. (See also Robert Browning and Alfred Domett, edited by F. G. Kenyon, 1906). In 1842 Domett emigrated to New Zealand where he filled many important administrative posts, being colonial secretary for New Munster in 1848, secretary for the colony in 1851, and prime minister in 1862. He returned to England in 1871, was created C.M.G. in 1880, and died on the 2nd of November 1887. Among his books of poetry, Ranolf and Amohia, a South Sea Day Dream, is the best known (1872), and Flotsam and Jetsam (1877) is dedicated to Browning.

DOMFRONT, a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Orne, 43 m. W.N.W. of Alençon by rail. Pop. (1906) of the town, 2215; of the commune, 4663. The town, which is picturesquely situated on a bluff overlooking the Varenne, has a church, Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, dating from the 11th century. In the middle ages it was one of the chief strongholds in Normandy, and there still remain several towers of its ramparts, and ruins of the keep of its castle built in 1011, rebuilt in the 12th century by Henry II., king of England, and dismantled at the end of the 16th century. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect, and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Cloth is manufactured, and there are granite quarries in the vicinity. Domfront is said to have grown up in the 6th century round the oratory of the hermit St Front, and played an important part in the wars against the English and the Religious Wars. In 1574 it was occupied by the Protestant leader Gabriel de Montgomery, who after a stubborn siege was forced to yield it to Jacques Goyon, count of Matignon.

DOMICILE (Lat. domicilium, from domus, home), in law, a term which may be defined generally as the place of a man’s permanent abode; a precise definition is a matter of acknowledged difficulty. Its use in Roman jurisprudence was to fix the jurisdiction to which a person was subject generally, not by reason of a particular circumstance, as the place where a contract was made or where property is situate. Hence it was admitted that a person might have as many domiciles as he had residences possessing some degree of permanence. In the middle ages, when a great diversity of laws had arisen, questions concerning personal status, as the age of majority or the capacity to contract a given marriage, came naturally to depend on the law to which the person was subject by reason of the general jurisdiction over him; and questions relating to the various items of his movable property grouped together, as those of his testamentary capacity or of the succession on his intestacy, had to be considered from a similarly personal point of view. There resulted a general agreement that a man’s legal character, so to speak, should be determined by his domicile, and this introduced a stricter notion of domicile, allowing each person to have but one. He might be subjected without great inconvenience to more than one jurisdiction, but not to more than one law. This is the position which domicile now holds in English jurisprudence. It is the criterion of the law applicable in a large class of cases, and it must be single for each person; and English courts have continually to struggle with the difficulty of selecting his domicile from among the various places in any of which he may be said to reside.

Since the beginning of the 19th century most of the leading continental states have unified their internal laws; and attachment to a province by domicile having thus become an unnecessary consideration, they have adopted political nationality as the criterion of the law to be applied in most of the questions which used to depend on domicile. Thus as between themselves they have greatly simplified the determination of those questions, but a similar elimination of domicile is impossible in what concerns British subjects, because the British empire continues to include a great variety of laws, as those of England, Scotland, the province of Quebec, the Cape Colony, &c. Within the British dominions domicile is the only available criterion of the legal character of a British subject, and all British courts continue to apply the same criterion to British subjects outside those dominions and to foreigners, so that, for example, the age of majority of a British subject or of a Frenchman domiciled in Germany would be referred by a British court to German law. Indeed so deeply is the principle of domicile seated in British law that only legislative action could allow a British court to substitute a new principle. And even a French, Italian or German court, applying political nationality as its new criterion to the legal character of a British subject, could obtain no definite result unless it supplemented that criterion by the old one, domicile, in order to connect the person in question with one of the legal systems existing in the British dominions.

Again, so long as the change of the criterion has not become universal, a new question is introduced by its having been made in some countries only. Denmark being one of those European states which still adhere to the principle of domicile, we will take it as an example in order not to complicate the illustration by such differences of internal law as exist in the British dominions. Suppose that a Danish court has to decide on the age of majority of a Danish subject domiciled in France, Italy or Germany. Its rule refers the question to the law of the domicile, and the law of the domicile refers it back to the law of the political nationality. What is to be done? This and all other questions relating to the application of the principle of domicile, which has been only summarily indicated, are treated under International Law (Private). Here we shall deal briefly with the determination of domicile itself.

The Roman jurists defined domicile to be the place “ubi quis larem rerumque ac fortunarum summam constituit; unde rursus non sit discessurus si nihil avocet: unde cum profectus est, peregrinari videtur: quo si rediit peregrinari jam destitit.” This makes that place the domicile which may be described as the headquarters of the person concerned; but a man’s habits of life may point to no place, or may point equally to two places, as his headquarters, and the connexion of domicile with law requires that a man shall always have a domicile, and never more than one. The former of these difficulties is met in the manner described by Lord Westbury in Udny v. Udny (Law Reports, 1 House of Lords, Scottish Appeals). “It is,” he said, “a settled principle that no man shall be without a domicile, and to secure this end the law attributes to every individual as soon as he is born the domicile of his father, if the child be legitimate, and the domicile of his mother, if the child be illegitimate. This is called the domicile of origin, and is involuntary. It is the creation of the law, not of the party. It may be extinguished by act of law, as for example by sentence of death or exile for life, which destroys the status civilis of the criminal; but it cannot be destroyed by the will and act of the party. Domicile of choice is the creation of the party. When a domicile of choice is acquired, the domicile of origin is in abeyance, but is not absolutely extinguished or obliterated. When a domicile of choice is abandoned, the domicile of origin revives, a special intention to revert to it not being necessary. A natural-born Englishman may domicile himself in Holland, but if he breaks up his establishment there and quits Holland, declaring that he will never return, it is absurd to suppose that his Dutch domicile clings to him until he has set up his tabernacle elsewhere.” If to this we add that legitimate minors follow the changes of the father’s domicile and a married woman follows the domicile of her husband, also that compulsory detention will not create a domicile, the outlines of involuntary domicile will have been sufficiently sketched.

For the establishment of a domicile of choice there must be both animus and factum, intention and fact. The fact need not be more than arrival in the territory of the new domicile if there be the necessary intention, while any number of years’ continuance there will not found a domicile if the necessary intention is absent. As the result of the most recent English and Scottish cases it may be laid down that the necessary intention is incompatible with the contemplation by the person in question of any event on the occurrence of which his residence in the territory in question would cease, and that if he has not formed a fixed and settled purpose of settling in that territory, at least his conduct and declarations must lead to the belief that he would have declared such a purpose if the necessity of making an election between that territory and his former one had arisen. The word territory, meaning a country having a certain legal system, is used advisedly, for neither the intention nor the fact need refer to a locality. It is possible that a Scotsman or a foreigner may have clearly established a domicile of choice in England, although it may be impossible to say whether London, Brighton or a house in the country is his true or principal residence. What is here laid down has been gradually attained. In the older English cases an intention to return to the former domicile was not excluded, if the event on which the return depended was highly uncertain and regarded by the person in question as remote. Afterwards a tendency towards the opposite extreme was manifested by requiring for a domicile of choice the intention to associate oneself with the ideas and habits of the new territory—Quatenus in illo exuere patriam, not in the political sense, which it was never attempted to connect with change of domicile, but in the social and legal sense. At present it is agreed that the only intention to be considered is that of residence, but that, if the intention to reside in the territory be proved to amount to what has been above stated, a domicile will be acquired from which the legal consequences will follow, even defeating intentions about them so clearly expressed as, for instance, by making a will which by reason of the change of domicile is invalid. The two most important cases are Douglas v. Douglas, 1871, L. R. 12 Equity 617, before Vice-chancellor Wickens, and Winans v. Att. Gen., 1904, Appeal Cases 287, before the House of Lords.

When the circumstances of a person’s life point to two territories as domiciles, the selection of the one which alone can fill that character often leads to appeals even up to the highest court. The residence of a man’s wife and family as contrasted with his place of business, his exercise of political or municipal functions, and any conduct which tends to connect his children with a given country, as by their education or the start given them in life, as well as other indications, are often cited as important; but none of them are in themselves decisive. The situation must be considered as a whole. When the question is between the domicile of origin and an alleged one of choice, its solution is rendered a little easier than it is when the question is between two alleged domiciles of choice, the burden of proof lying on the party which contends that the domicile of origin has been abandoned.

In the state of the law which has been described it will not be found surprising that an act of parliament, 24 & 25 Vict. c. 121, recites that by the operation of the law of domicile the expectation and belief of British subjects dying abroad with regard to the distribution of their property are often defeated, and enacts that when a convention to that effect has been made with any foreign country, no British subject dying in such country shall be deemed to have acquired a domicile therein, unless he has been resident in such country for one year previous to death and has made a declaration in writing of his intention to become domiciled; and that British subjects so dying without having so resided and made such declaration shall be deemed for all purposes of testate or intestate succession as to movables to retain the domicile they possessed at the time of going to reside in such foreign country. Similar exemptions are conferred on the subjects of the foreign state dying in Great Britain or Ireland. But the act does not apply to foreigners who have obtained letters of naturalization in any part of the British dominions. It has not been availed of, and is indeed an anachronism, ignoring as it does the fact that domicile has no longer a world-wide importance, owing to the substitution for it of political nationality as a test of private law in so many important countries. The United States of America is not one of those countries, but there the importance of domicile suffers from the habit of referring questions of capacity to the law of the place of contract instead of to any personal law.

(Jno. W.)

DOMINIC, SAINT (1170-1221), founder of the Dominican Order of Preaching Friars, was born in 1170 at Calaroga in Old Castile. He spent ten or twelve years in study, chiefly theological, at Palencia, and then, about 1195, he was ordained and became a canon in the cathedral chapter of Osma, his native diocese. The bishop induced his canons to follow the Rule of St Augustine and thus make themselves Augustinian Canons (q.v.); and so Dominic became a canon regular and soon the prior or provost of the cathedral community. The years from 1195 to 1203 have been filled up with fabulous stories of missions to the Moors; but Dominic stayed at Osma, preaching much in the cathedral, until 1203, when he accompanied the bishop on an embassy in behalf of the king of Castile to “The Marches.” This has commonly been taken as Denmark, but more probably it was the French or Italian Marches. When the embassy was over, the bishop and Dominic repaired to Rome, and Innocent III. charged them to preach among the Albigensian heretics in Languedoc. For ten years (1205-1215) this mission in Languedoc was the work of Dominic’s life.

The Albigenses (q.v.) have received much sympathy, as being a kind of pre-Reformation Protestants; but it is now recognized that their tenets were an extreme form of Manichaeism. They believed in the existence of two gods, a good (whose son was Christ) and an evil (whose son was Satan); matter is the creation of the evil principle, and therefore essentially evil, and the greatest of all sins is sexual intercourse, even in marriage; sinful also is the possession of material goods, and the eating of flesh meat, and many other things. So great was the abhorrence of matter that some even thought it an act of religion to commit suicide by voluntary starvation, or to starve children to death (see article “Neu-Manichäer” by Otto Zöckler in ed. 3 of Herzog’s Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie (1903); or c. iii. of Paul Sabatier’s Life of St Francis). Such tenets were destructive not only of Catholicism but of Christianity of any kind and of civil society itself; and for this reason so unecclesiastical a person as the emperor Frederick II. tried to suppress the kindred sects in Italy. In 1208, after the murder of a papal legate, Innocent III. called on the Christian princes to suppress the Albigensian heresy by force of arms, and for seven years the south of France was devastated by one of the most bloodthirsty wars in history, the Albigenses being slaughtered by thousands and their property confiscated wholesale.

During this time, it is the judgment of the most recent Protestant writer on St Dominic that, though keeping on good terms with Simon de Montfort, the leader, and praying for the success of the crusaders’ arms during the battle of Muret, “yet, so far as can be seen from the sources, Dominic took no part in the crusade, but endeavoured to carry his spiritual activity on the same lines as before. The oldest trustworthy sources know nothing of his having exercised the office of Inquisitor during the Albigensian war” (Grützmacher). This verdict of a fair-minded and highly competent Protestant church historian on the most controverted point of Dominic’s career is of great value. His method was to travel over the country on foot and barefooted, in extreme poverty, simplicity and austerity, preaching and instructing in highways and villages and towns, and in the castles of the nobility, controverting and discussing with the heretics. He used often to organize formal disputations with Albigensian leaders, lasting a number of days. Many times plots were laid against his life. Though in his ten years of preaching a large number of converts were made, it has to be said that the results were not such as had been hoped for, and after it all, and after the crusade, the population still remained at heart Albigensian. A sense of failure appears in Dominic’s last sermon in Languedoc: “For many years I have exhorted you in vain, with gentleness, preaching, praying and weeping. But according to the proverb of my country, ‘where blessing can accomplish nothing, blows may avail.’ We shall rouse against you princes and prelates, who, alas, will arm nations and kingdoms against this land ... and thus blows will avail where blessings and gentleness have been powerless.” The threat that seems to be conveyed in these words, of trying to promote a new crusade, was never carried out; the remaining years of Dominic’s life were wholly given up to the founding of his order.

The Order of Dominicans grew out of the little band of volunteers that had joined Dominic in his mission among the Albigenses. He had become possessed with the idea of addressing wider circles and of forming an order whose vocation should be to preach and missionize throughout the whole world. By 1214 the nucleus of such an institute was formed round Dominic and was known as the “Holy Preaching.” In 1215 the bishop of Toulouse, Dominic’s great friend, established them in a church and house of the city, and Dominic went to Rome to obtain the permission of Innocent III. to found his order of preachers. The course of events is traced in the article Dominicans. After three years, in 1218, the full permission he desired was given by Honorius III. These last years of his life were spent in journeying backwards and forwards between Toulouse and Rome, where his abode was at the basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine, given to him by the pope; and then in extended journeys all over Italy, and to Paris, and into Spain, establishing friaries and organizing the order wherever he went. It propagated and spread with extraordinary rapidity, so that by Dominic’s death in 1221, only five or six years after the first practical steps towards the execution of the idea, there were over 500 friars and 60 friaries, divided into 8 provinces embracing the whole of western Europe. Thus Dominic was at his death able to contemplate his great creation solidly established, and well launched on its career to preach to the whole world.

It appears that at the end of his life Dominic had the idea of going himself to preach to the heathen Kuman Tatars on the Dnieper and the Volga. But this was not to be; he was worn out by the incessant toils and fatigues and austerities of his laborious life, and he died at his monastery at Bologna, on the 6th of August 1221. He was canonized in 1234 by Gregory IX., who, as Cardinal Ugolino, had been the great friend and supporter both of Dominic and of Francis of Assisi. As St Dominic’s character and work do not receive the same general recognition as do St Francis of Assisi’s, it will be worth while to quote from the appreciation by Prof. Grützmacher of Heidelberg:—“It is certain that Dominic was a noble personality of genuine and true piety.... Only by the preaching of pure doctrine would he overcome heretics.... He was by nature soft-hearted, so that he often shed tears through warm sympathy.... In the purity of his intention and the earnestness with which he strove to carry out his ideal, he was not inferior to Francis.”

The chief sources for St Dominic’s life are the account by Jordan of Saxony, his successor as master-general of the order, and the evidence of the witnesses at the Process of Canonization,—all in the Bollandists’ Acta sanctorum, Aug. 4. Probably the best modern Life is that by Jean Guiraud, in the series Les Saints (translated into English by Katharine de Mattos, 1901); the bibliography contains a useful list of the chief sources for the history of St Dominic and the order, and of the best modern works thereon. See also the article “Dominicus” in ed. 2 of Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexicon, and Grützmacher’s excellent article “Dominikus,” in ed. 3 of Herzog, Realencyklopadie für protestantische Theologie, already referred to.

(E. C. B.)

DOMINICA, the largest of the five presidencies in the colony of the Leeward Islands, British West Indies. It lies in 15° 30′ N. and 61° 20′ W., between the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, at a distance of about 25 m. from each, is 29 m. long, has a maximum breadth of 16 m. and an area of 291 sq. m. A range of lofty rugged mountains traverses the island from N. to S., broken in the centre by a narrow plain drained by the rivers Layou and Pagoua, flowing W. and E. respectively. The highest point is Morne Diablotin (5314 ft.), situated in the northern half of the range. Signs of volcanic activity abound in the shape of solfataras, subterranean vapours and hot springs; while in the south is the greatest natural curiosity, the renowned Boiling Lake. It lies on the mountain side, 2300 ft. above the sea, its banks are steep and its depth unknown, being more than 300 ft. at a short distance from the margin. Its seething waters are often forced 3 ft. above the normal level by the pressure of the escaping gases; and the fumes rising from the lake are occasionally poisonous. The island is botanically remarkable for its great number of peculiar species, offering in this respect a marked contrast to the poverty of the adjacent islands. The hills are covered with valuable timber, while coffee, limes, oranges, india-rubber trees, spices and all tropical fruits grow luxuriantly in the rich brown mould of the lowlands. There are some thirty streams of considerable size, besides numerous mountain torrents, and this abundance of water renders the island very fertile. The fisheries are productive, and honey and wax are furnished by wild bees, originally introduced from Europe. The temperature varies from 78° to 86° F. in the hot season from August to October, and from 72° to 84° in the cooler months; the rainfall varies in different parts from 50 to 162 in. per annum, but the porous soil soon absorbs the rain, rendering the atmosphere dry and invigorating.

The manufactures include sugar, lime-juice and essential oils; the exports are coffee, cocoa, sugar, limes and lime-juice, essential oils and fruit of all kinds. The inhabitants in 1901 numbered 28,894. The majority are negroes; the whites are of French and British descent. There are also a few Caribs, the remnant of the aboriginal population. A French patois is the language of the peasantry, but English is generally understood. The capital, Roseau (5764), is a fortified town and a port; Portsmouth, the only other town, possesses the better harbour in Prince Rupert’s Bay on the north-west. In religion the Roman Catholics predominate, and a bishop resides at Roseau, but there is no established church. Education is free and compulsory, and the Cambridge local examinations are held annually.

Dominica was so named on its discovery by Columbus in 1493, in commemoration of the date, Sunday (Dies Dominica) the 3rd of November. Dominica was included in the grant of various islands in the Caribbean Sea made in 1627 by Charles I. to the earl of Carlisle, but the first European settlers (1632) were French. They brought with them negro slaves and lived on terms of friendship with the Caribs, who were then a numerous body. In 1660 a treaty appears to have been made between the French, British and the natives assigning St Vincent and Dominica to the Caribs, but shortly afterwards attempts were made by the British to gain a foothold in the island. These attempts failed, and in 1748 it was once more agreed by France and Great Britain that Dominica should be left in the undisturbed possession of the natives. Nevertheless the French settlers increased, and the island came under the rule of a French governor. It was captured by the British in 1761 and formally ceded by France at the peace of Paris, 1763, French settlers being secured in their estates. In 1778 a French force from Martinique seized the island. Rodney’s victory over De Grasse in the neighbouring sea in 1782 was followed by the restoration of the island to Britain in 1783; in the interval the trade of Dominica had been ruined. In 1795 a force from Guadeloupe made an unsuccessful descent on the island, and in 1805 the French general La Grange, at the head of 4000 troops, took Roseau and pillaged the island—an event now remembered as the most memorable in its history. The French were, however, unable to make good their hold, and Dominica has remained since undisturbed in British possession. Its later history presents few features not common to the other British West Indian islands.

Since 1872 Dominica has formed part of the colony of the Leeward Islands, but local affairs are in the hands of an administrator, aided by an executive council of ten members. In 1898 the local legislature, in consideration of pecuniary assistance from Great Britain, passed an act abrogating the semi-elective constitution and providing for a legislative council of twelve nominated members, six of whom sit ex officio.

DOMINICANS, otherwise called Friars Preachers, and in England Black Friars, from the black mantle worn over a white habit, an order of friars founded by St Dominic (q.v.). Their first house was in Toulouse, where the bishop established them at the church of St Romain, 1215. Dominic at once went to Rome to obtain permission to found an order of preachers whose sphere of activity should be the whole world, but Innocent III. said they must adopt one of the existing rules. Dominic returned to Toulouse and it was resolved to take the Rule of St Augustine, Dominic himself having been an Augustinian canon at Osma (see Augustinian Canons). Dominic went again to Rome, and during the year 1216 he obtained from Honorius III. a series of confirmations of the community at Toulouse as a congregation of Canons Regular of St Augustine with a special mission to preach. Early in 1218 an encyclical bull was issued to the bishops of the whole Catholic world recommending to them the “Order of Friars Preachers,” followed in 1221 by another ordering them to give to the friars faculties to preach and hear confessions in their dioceses. Already in 1217 Dominic had scattered the little band of seventeen over the world—to Paris, into Spain, and one he took with himself to Rome. Within a few months there were forty friars in Rome, at Santa Sabina on the Aventine, and thirty in Paris; and before Dominic’s death in 1221 friaries had been established at Lyons, Limoges, Reims, Metz, Poitiers and Orleans; at Bologna, Milan, Florence, Verona, Piacenza and Venice; at Madrid, Palencia, Barcelona and Seville; at Friesach in Carinthia; at Cracow and Prague; and friars were on their way to Hungary and England.

The order took definite shape at the two general chapters held at Bologna in 1220 and 1221. At first it had been but a congregation of canons regular and had worn the canons’ black cassock with white linen rochet. But now a white woollen habit with a black cloak or mantle was assumed. The Rule of St Augustine was supplemented by a body of regulations, adopted mostly from those of the Premonstratensian canons. At the head of the order was the master-general, elected for life until recent times, when the term of office was limited to six and then to twelve years; he enjoys supreme power over the entire order, both houses and individuals, all of whom are directly subject to him. He dwells in Rome and is assisted by a council. The order is divided into provinces and over each is a provincial, elected for four years. Each friary has its prior, elected by the community every four years. The friars belong not to the house or province in which they make their profession, but to the order; and it rests with the master-general to assign to each his place of residence. The manner of life was very austere—midnight office, perpetual abstinence from meat, frequent disciplines, prolonged fasts and silence. At St Dominic’s suggestion, and under his strong pressure, but not without considerable opposition, the general chapter determined that the poverty practised in the order should be not merely individual, as in the monastic orders, but corporate, as among the Franciscans; so that the order should have no possessions, except the monastic buildings and churches, no property, no fixed income, but should live on charity and by begging. Thus, doubtless in imitation of the Franciscans, the Dominicans became a mendicant order.

The extraordinarily rapid propagation of the institute suffered no diminution through the founder’s death; this was mainly due to the fact that his four immediate successors in the generalate were men of conspicuous ability and high character. In a few years the Dominicans penetrated into Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia and Poland, preaching and missionizing in the still pagan districts of these countries; and soon they made their way to Greece and Palestine and thence to central Asia. St Hyacinth, a Pole received by St Dominic, during missionary journeys extending over thirty-five years travelled over the north and east of Europe and into Tatary, Tibet and northern China. In 1252 the pope addressed a letter to the Dominicans who were preaching “among the Saracens, Greeks, Bulgarians, Kumans, Syrians, Goths, Jacobites, Armenians, Jews, Tatars, Hungarians.” From the 14th century until the middle of the 17th the Dominicans had numerous missions in Persia, India and China, and in the northern parts of Africa. They followed the Spanish and Portuguese explorers and conquerors both to the East and to the West, converting, protecting and civilizing the aborigines. On these missionary enterprises great numbers of Dominicans laid down their life for the Gospel.

Another conspicuous field of work of the Dominicans lay in the universities. It had been St Dominic’s policy to aim at founding houses first of all in the great university towns—at Paris, Bologna, Palencia, Oxford. This policy was adhered to, and the Dominicans soon became a power in the universities, occupying chairs in those just named and in Padua, Cologne, Vienna, Prague and Salamanca. The scholastic doctors Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas were the leaders in this side of Dominican activity, and the order’s influence on the course of medieval theological development was exercised mainly by these doctors and by the Dominican school of theology, which to this day has maintained the principles and methods elaborated by St Thomas.

The Dominican name is in an especial way associated with the Inquisition, the office of Inquisitor in all countries, including Spain, having usually been held by Dominicans. The vicissitudes of the order have been much like those of other orders—periods of relaxation being followed by periods of revival and reform; but there were not any reforms of the same historical importance as in most other orders, the policy having been to keep all such movements strictly within the organization of the order. In 1425 Martin V. relaxed for some houses the law of corporate poverty, allowing them to hold property, and to have fixed sources of income; and fifty years later Sixtus IV. extended this mitigation to the entire order, which thereby ceased to be mendicant. This change caused no troubles, as among the Franciscans, for it was felt that it did not touch St Dominic’s fundamental idea.

The Friars Preachers came to England and were established at Oxford in 1221, and by the end of the century fifty friaries were founded all over England, usually in the towns, and several in Ireland and Scotland. In London they were first on the site of Lincoln’s Inn, but in 1275 they migrated to that now occupied by Printing-house Square, and their name survives in Blackfriars Bridge. The only nunnery was at Dartford. At the Dissolution there were fifty-seven friaries (see lists in F. A. Gasquet’s English Monastic Life, Catholic Dictionary and C. F. Palmer’s Life of Cardinal Howard, where historical notes are added). In Mary’s reign some of the scattered friars were brought together and established in Smithfield, and the remnant of the nuns were restored to Dartford. In 1559 these houses were suppressed and the nuns and two friars expatriated, and for a hundred years there was no English Dominican community. But throughout the reigns of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts there were usually some Dominicans, either Englishmen professed in foreign monasteries or foreigners, labouring on the English mission or attached to the foreign embassies. In 1658 Friar Thomas Howard (afterwards Cardinal) succeeded in establishing at Bornhem near Antwerp a house for the English friars. From that time there has always been an organized body of English Dominicans, again and again reduced almost to extinction, but ever surviving; it now has half a dozen thriving friaries. The Irish province also survived the days of persecution and possesses a dozen friaries. In 1840 Lacordaire restored the French province. In 1900 there were 4350 Dominicans, including lay brothers, and 300 friaries, scattered all over the world. Missionary work still holds a prominent place in Dominican life; there are missions in Annam, Tongking and China, and in Mesopotamia, Mosul and Kurdistan. They have also a remarkable school for Biblical studies and research at Jerusalem, and the theological faculty in the Roman Catholic university at Fribourg in Switzerland is in their hands. There have been four Dominican popes: Innocent V. († 1276), Benedict XI. († 1304), Pius V. († 1572), Benedict XIII. († 1730).

The friars form the “First Order”; the nuns, or Dominicanesses, the “Second Order.” The latter may claim to have chronological precedence over the friars, for the first nunnery was established by St Dominic in 1206 at Prouille in the diocese of Toulouse, as a refuge for women converted from the Albigensian heresy. The second convent was at San Sisto in Rome, also founded by Dominic himself. From that time the institute spread widely. The rule resembled that of the friars, except that the nuns were to be strictly enclosed and purely contemplative; in course of time, however, they undertook educational work. In 1909 there were nearly 100 nunneries of the Second Order, with some 1500 nuns. They have schools and orphanages in South Africa, especially in the Transvaal.

A considerable number of other convents for women follow the Rule of the “Third Order.” This rule was not written until the 15th century, and it is controverted whether, and in what sense, it can be held that the “Third Order” really goes back to St Dominic, or whether it grew up in imitation of the Franciscan Tertiaries. Besides the conventual Tertiaries, there are confraternities of lay men and women who strive to carry out this rule while living their family life in the world (see Tertiaries). St Catharine of Siena was a Dominican Tertiary.

See the authorities cited in the article Dominic, Saint; also Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1714), iii. cc. 24-29, and Max Heimbucher, Orden u. Kongregationen (1896), §§ 86-91; and C. F. Palmer, Life of Cardinal Howard (1867), which gives a special account of the English Dominican province.

(E. C. B.)

DOMINIS, MARCO ANTONIO DE (1560-1624), Italian theologian and natural philosopher, was born of a noble Venetian family in 1560 in the island of Arbe, off the coast of Dalmatia. He was educated by the Jesuits in their colleges at Loreto and Padua, and is supposed by some to have joined their order; the more usual opinion, however, is that he was dissuaded from doing so by Cardinal Aldobrandini. For some time he was employed as a teacher at Verona, as professor of mathematics at Padua, and professor of rhetoric and philosophy at Brescia. In 1596 he was appointed to the bishopric of Segnia (Zengg) in Dalmatia, and two years later was raised to the archbishopric of Spalato and primacy of Dalmatia and Croatia. His endeavours to reform the Church soon brought him into conflict with his suffragans; and the interference of the papal court with his rights as metropolitan, an attitude intensified by the quarrel between the papacy and Venice, made his position intolerable. This, at any rate, is the account given in his own apology—the Consilium profectionis—in which he also states that it was these troubles that led him to those researches into ecclesiastical law, church history and dogmatic theology, which, while confirming him in his love for the ideal of “the true Catholic Church,” revealed to him how far the papal system was from approximating to it. After a visit to Rome, when he in vain attempted to gain the ear of Pope Paul V., he resigned his see in September 1616, wrote at Venice his Consilium profectionis, and then went by way of Switzerland, Heidelberg and Rotterdam to England, where he arrived in December. He was welcomed by the king and the Anglican clergy with great respect, was received into the Church of England in St Paul’s cathedral, and was appointed master of the Savoy (1618) and dean of Windsor (1619); he subsequently presented himself to the living of West Ilsley, Berkshire. Contemporary writers give no pleasant account of him, describing him as fat, irascible, pretentious and very avaricious; but his ability was undoubted, and in the theological controversies of the time he soon took a foremost place. His published attacks on the papacy succeeded each other in rapid succession: the Papatus Romanus, issued anonymously (London, 1617; Frankfort, 1618), the Scogli del naufragio Christiano, written in Switzerland (London, (?) 1618), of which English, French and German translations also appeared, and a Sermon preached in Italian, &c., before the king. But his principal work was the De republica ecclesiastica, of which the first part—after revision by Anglican theologians—was published under royal patronage in London (1617), in which he set forth with a great display of erudition his theory of the church. In the main it is an elaborate treatise on the historic organization of the church, its principal note being its insistence on the divine prerogatives of the Catholic episcopate as against the encroachments of the papal monarchy. In 1619 Dominis published in London, with a dedication to James I., Paolo Sarpi’s Historia del Concilio Tridentino, the MS. of which he had brought with him from Venice. It is characteristic of the man that he refused to hand over to Sarpi a penny of the money present given to him by the king as a reward for this work.

Three years later the ex-archbishop was back again in Rome, doing penance for his heresies in St Peter’s with a cord round his neck. The reasons for this sudden revolution in his opinions, which caused grave scandal in England, have been much debated; it is probably no libel on his memory, however, to say that they were connected with the hopes raised by the elevation of his kinsman, Alessandro Ludovisi, to the papal throne as Gregory XV. (1621). It is said that he was enticed back to Rome by the promise of pardon and rich preferment. If so, he was doomed to bitter disappointment. He had barely time to publish at Rome (1623) his Sui reditus ex Angliae consilium, an abject repudiation of his anti-papal works as written “non ex cordis sinceritate, non ex bona conscientia, non ex fide,” when Gregory died (July 1623). During the interregnum that followed, the proceedings of the Inquisition against the archbishop were revived, and they continued under Urban VIII. Before they were concluded, however, Dominis died in prison, on the 8th of September 1624. Even this did not end his trial, and on the 20th of December judgment was pronounced over his corpse in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. By order of the Inquisition his body was taken from the coffin, dragged through the streets of Rome, and publicly burnt in the Campo di Fiore. By a strange irony of fate the publication of his Reditus consilium was subsequently forbidden in Venice because of its uncompromising advocacy of the supremacy of the pope over the temporal powers. As a theologian and an ecclesiastic Dominis was thoroughly discredited; as a man of science he was more happy. He was the first to put forward a true theory of the rainbow, in his De radiis visus et lucis in vitris perspectivis et iride (Venice, 1611).

See the article by Canon G. G. Perry in the Dict. Nat. Biog., and that by Benrath in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 1898), iv. p. 781, where a full bibliography is given. Also H. Newland, Life and Contemporaneous Church History of Antonio de Dominis (Oxford, 1859).

DOMINOES, a game unknown until the 18th century, and probably invented in Italy, played with twenty-eight oblong pieces, or dominoes, known also as cards or stones, having ivory faces backed with ebony; from this ebony backing, as resembling the cloak (usually black) called a domino (see Mask), the name is said to be derived. Cardboard dominoes to be held in the hand are also in use. The face of each card is divided into two squares by a black line, and in each square half the value of the card is indicated by its being either a blank or marked with one or more black pips, generally up to six, but some sets run as high as double-nine. There are various ways of playing dominoes described below.

The Block and Draw Games.—The dominoes are shuffled face downwards on the table. The lead is usually decided by drawing for the highest card, but it is sometimes held that any doublet takes precedence. The cards are then reshuffled, and each player draws at random the number of cards required for the particular form of the game, usually seven. The cards left behind are called the stock. To play a card is known technically as to pose. The leader poses first, generally playing his highest domino, since at the end the player loses according to the number of pips in the cards he has left in his hand. By some rules, a player after playing a double may play another card which matches it: e.g. if he plays double-six he may play another card which has a six at one end. The second player has to match the leader’s pose by putting one of his cards in juxtaposition at one end, i.e. if the leader plays four-five, the second player has to play a card which contains either a four or a five, the five being applied to the five, or the four to the four. Doublets are placed à cheval (crosswise). If a player cannot match, he says “go,” and his opponent plays, unless the Draw game—the usual game—is being played, in which case the player who cannot match draws from the stock (two cards must always be left in the stock) till he takes a card that matches. If a player succeeds in posing all his cards, he calls “Domino!” and wins the hand, scoring as many points as there are pips on the cards still held by his opponent. If neither player can match, that player wins who has the fewest pips left in his hand, and he scores as many points as are left in the two hands combined (sometimes only the excess held by his opponent); but when a player has called “Go!” his adversary must match if he can, in which case the other player may be able to match in turn. A game is generally 100 points.

All Fives (or Muggins).—Each player takes five cards. If the leader poses either double-five, six-four, five-blank, or three-two, he scores the number of pips that are on the card. If in the course of play a player can play such a card as makes the sum of the end pips, 5, 10, 15 or 20, he scores that number; e.g. if to two-four he can play double-four (à cheval) he scores 10; if to six-one he plays six-four he scores 5. He must pose if he can match; if he cannot, he draws till he can. Scores are called and taken immediately. At the point of domino, the winner scores in points the multiple of five which is nearest to the number of pips in his adversary’s hand: e.g. he scores 25 if his adversary has 27 pips, 30 if he has 28. If neither hand can match, the lowest number of pips wins, and the score is taken as before, without addition or subtraction, according to the adversary’s pips.

All Threes is played in the same manner as Muggins, save that three or some multiple of three are aimed at.

Threes-and-Fives is similar, but only one point is scored for each five or three made at the two ends, though they can be scored in combination. Thus A plays six-five; B six-one; B scores 2 points for 5-1 (two threes). A plays one-five; B double five; B now scores 8 more, 5 for five threes and 3 for three fives.

Domino-Whist is played by four players. Partners are drawn for as at Whist, the player drawing the highest card leading. Each player takes seven cards. There are no tricks, trumps or honours. The cards are played as in ordinary dominoes, a hand being finished when one of the players plays his last card, or when both ends are blocked. Pips are then counted, and the holder or holders of the highest number score to their debit the aggregate number of points. The side that is first debited with 100 points loses the game. Strength in a suit is indicated by the lead; i.e. a lead of double-blank or double-six implies strength in blanks or sixes respectively.

Matador (from the Spanish word meaning “killer,” i.e. of the bull in a bull-fight). This is a favourite and perhaps the most scientific form of the game. It is played on a different principle from the preceding variations, the object being not to match the end number, but to pose such a number, as, added to the end, will make seven; e.g. to a five a two must be played, to a three a four, &c. Seven dominoes are drawn and the highest double begins. When a player cannot make a seven on either end he must draw from the stock until he secures a card that will enable him to make seven, two cards remaining in the stock. As Matador is played with dominoes no higher than six, a blank means the blocking of that end. In this case no further play can take place at that end excepting by posing a matador, which may be played at any time. There are four matadors, the 6-1, 5-2, 4-3 and double-blank. It is often better to draw one or more fresh cards than to play one’s last matador, as it may save the game at a critical juncture. In posing a double counts as a single number only, but in scoring the full number of pips is counted. When the game has been definitely blocked the player whose pips aggregate the lower number scores the number of the combined hands (sometimes only the excess in his opponent’s hand), the game being usually 100. Matador can be played by three persons, in which case the two having the lowest scores usually combine against the threatening winner; and also by four, either each for himself or two on a side.

Other varieties of the game not often played are the Bergen game, Sevastopol and Domino Loo.

See Card and Table Games by Hoffmann (London, G. Routledge & Sons).

DOMINUS (from an Indo-European root dam-, cf. Gr. δαμᾶν, to subdue, and Eng. “tame”), the Latin word for master or owner. As a title of sovereignty the term under the republic at Rome had all the associations of the Greek τύραννος; refused during the early principate, it finally became an official title of the Roman emperors under Diocletian. Dominus, the French equivalent being sieur, was the Latin title of the feudal (superior and mesne) lords, and also an ecclesiastical and academical title. The ecclesiastical title was rendered in English “sir,” which was a common prefix before the Reformation for parsons, as in “Sir Hugh Evans” in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. The academical use was for a bachelor of arts, and so is still used at Cambridge and other universities. The shortened form “dom” is used as a prefix of honour for ecclesiastics of the Roman Church, and especially for members of the Benedictine and other religious orders. The same form is also a title of honour in Portugal, as formerly in Brazil, used by members of the blood royal and others on whom it has been conferred by the sovereign. The Spanish form “don” is also a title, formerly applicable only to the nobility, and now one of courtesy and respect applied to any member of the better classes. The feminine form “donna” is similarly applied to a lady. The English colloquial use of “don” for a fellow or tutor of a college at a university is derived either from an application of the Spanish title to one having authority or position, or from the academical use of dominus. The earliest use of the word in this sense appears, according to the New English Dictionary, in South’s Sermons (1660). An English corruption “dan” was in early use as a title of respect, equivalent to “master.” The particular literary application to poets is due to Spenser’s use of “Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled” (Faëry Queen, IV. ii. 32).

DOMITIAN (Titus Flavius Domitianus), Roman emperor a.d. 81-96, the second son of Titus Flavius Vespasianus and Flavia Domitilla, twelfth of the Caesars, and third of the Flavian dynasty, was born at Rome on the 24th of October a.d. 51. When Vespasian was proclaimed emperor at Alexandria, Domitian escaped with difficulty from the temple of the Capitol, which had been set on fire by the Vitellians, and remained in hiding till his father’s party proved victorious. After the fall of Vitellius he was saluted as Caesar, or prince imperial, by the troops, obtained the city praetorship, and was entrusted with the administration of Italy till his father’s return from the East. But although in his father’s lifetime he several times filled the office of consul, and after his death was nominally the partner in the empire with his brother Titus, he never took any part in public business, but lived in great retirement, devoting himself to a life of pleasure and of literary pursuits till he succeeded to the throne. The death of Titus, if not hastened by foul means, was at least eagerly welcomed by his brother. Domitian’s succession (on the 13th of September 81) was unquestioned, and it would seem that he had intended, so far as his weak volition and mean abilities would allow, to govern well. Like Augustus, he attempted a reformation of morals and religion. As chief pontiff he inquired rigorously into the character of the vestal virgins, three of whom were buried alive; he enforced the laws against adultery, mutilation, and the grosser forms of immorality, and forbade the public acting of mimes. He erected many temples and public buildings (amongst them the Odeum, a kind of theatre for musical performances) and restored the temple of the Capitol. He passed many sumptuary laws, and issued an edict forbidding the over-cultivation of vines to the neglect of corn-growing. Finally, he took a personal share in the administration of justice at Rome, checked the activity of the informers (delatores), and exercised a jealous supervision over the governors of provinces. Such public virtues at first counterbalanced his private vices in the eyes of the people. Domitian was the first emperor who arrogated divine honours in his lifetime, and caused himself to be styled Our Lord and God in public documents. Doubtless in the poems of writers like Martial this deification was nothing but fulsome flattery, but in the case of the provincials it was a sincere tribute to the impersonation of the Roman Empire, as the administrator of good government and the peacemaker of the world. Even when Rome and Italy smarted beneath his proscriptions and extortions, the provinces were undisturbed.

Though he took the title of imperator more than twenty times, and enjoyed at least one triumph, Domitian’s military achievements were insignificant. He defeated the Chatti, annexed the district of the Taunus, and established the Limes as a line of defence; but he suffered defeats at the hands of the Quadi, Sarmatae and Marcomanni; in Dacia he received a severe check, and was obliged to purchase peace (90) from Decebalus by the payment of a large sum of money and by guaranteeing a yearly tribute—the first instance in Roman history. His jealousy was provoked by the successes of Agricola in Britain, who was recalled to Rome (85) in the midst of his conquests, condemned to retirement, and perhaps removed by poison. The revolt of Antonius Saturninus, the commander of the Roman forces in Upper Germany (88 or 89), marks the turning-point in his reign (on the date see H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. pt. 2, p. 524, note 2). It was speedily crushed; but from that moment Domitian’s character changed. He got rid of all whom he disliked on the charge of having taken part in the conspiracy, and no man of eminence was safe against him. He was in constant fear of assassination and distrusted all around him. During the last three years of his life his behaviour was that of a madman. He sentenced to death his own cousin and nephew by marriage, Flavius Clemens, whose wife he banished for her supposed leaning towards Judaism (Christianity). A conspiracy among his own freedmen—set on foot, it is said, by his wife Domitia Longina, who knew her own life to be threatened—cut short his career. He was stabbed in his bedroom by a freedman of Clemens named Stephanus on the 18th of September 96.

Authorities. Ancient.—Tacitus, Histories, iii. iv.; Suetonius, Domitian; Dio Cassius lxvi., lxvii.; Tacitus, Agricola, 18-22. Modern accounts by A. Imhof, T. Flavius Domitianus (Halle, 1857), which, while not claiming any special originality, is based on a conscientious study of authorities; A. Halberstadt, De imperatoris Domitiani moribus et rebus (Amsterdam, 1877), an attempt to rehabilitate Domitian; S. Gsell, Essai sur le règne de l’empereur Domitien (1894), very complete in every respect; H. Schiller (as above), pp. 520-538; C. Merivale, Hist. of the Romans under the Empire, ch. 61, 62. For Domitian’s attitude towards Christianity see V. Schultze in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie, iv. (1898); Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire (1903); E. G. Hardy, Christianity and the Roman Government (1894); J. B. Bury, Appendix 8 to vol. ii. of his edition of Gibbon.

DOMRÉMY-LA-PUCELLE, a village of eastern France, in the department of Vosges, on the left bank of the Meuse, 7 m. N. of Neufchâteau by road. Pop. (1906) 233. Domrémy was the birthplace of Joan of Arc, and the cottage in which she was born still stands. Above the door are the arms of France and of Joan of Arc and an inscription of 1481 reading “Vive labeur; vive le roi Louys.” There are several monuments to the heroine, and a modern basilica has been erected in her honour on a neighbouring hill, where she is said to have heard the voices in obedience to which she took up the sword. The story of the heroine is annually celebrated by a play in which the villagers take part.

DON (anc. Tanais), a river of European Russia, called Tuna or Duna by the Tatars, rising in Lake Ivan (580 ft. above sea-level) in the government of Tula, where it has communication with the Volga by means of the Yepifan Canal, which links it with the Upa, a tributary of the Oka, which itself enters the Volga. The Don, after curving east through the government of Ryazan, flows generally south through the governments of Tambov, Orel, Voronezh and the Don Cossacks territory, describing in the last-named a sweeping loop to the east, in the course of which it approaches within 48 m. of the Volga in 49° N. In the middle of the Don Cossacks territory it turns definitely south-west, and finally enters the north-east extremity of the Sea of Azov, forming a delta 130 sq. m. in extent. Its total length is 1325 m., and its drainage area is calculated at 166,000 sq. m. The average fall of the river is about 5¼ in. to the mile. In its upper course, which may be regarded as extending to the confluence of the Voronezh in 51° 40′, the Don flows for the most part through a low-lying, fertile country, though in the government of Ryazan its banks are rocky and steep, and in some places even precipitous. In the middle division, or from the mouth of the Voronezh to the point where it makes its nearest approach to the Volga, the stream cuts its way for the most part through Cretaceous rocks, which in many places rise on either side in steep and elevated banks, and at intervals encroach on the river-bed. A short distance below the town of Rostov it breaks up into several channels, of which the largest and most southern retains the name of the river. Before it receives the Voronezh the Don has a breadth of 500 to 700, or even in a few places 1000 ft., while its depth varies from 4 to 20 ft.; by the time it reaches its most eastern point the depth has increased to 8-50 ft., and the ordinary breadth to 700-1000 ft., with an occasional maximum of 1400 ft.; in the lowest division the depth is frequently 70 ft., and the breadth in many places 1870 ft. Generally speaking, the right bank is high and the left flat and low. Shallow reaches are not uncommon, and there are at least seven considerable shoals in the south-western part of the course; partly owing to this cause, and partly to the scarcity of ship-timber in the Voronezh government, the Don, although navigable as far up as Voronezh, does not attain any great importance as a means of communication till it reaches Kachalinskaya in the vicinity of the Volga. From that point, or rather from Kalach, where the railway (built in 1862) from the Volga has its western terminus, the traffic is very extensive. Of the tributaries of the river, the Voronezh, the Khoper, the Medvyeditsa and the Donets are navigable—the Donets having a course of 680 m., and during high water affording access to the government of Kharkov. The Manych, another large affluent on the left, marks the ancient line of water connexion between the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea. The lower section of the Don is subject to two annual floods, of which the earlier, known as the “cold water,” is caused by the melting of the snow in the country of the Don Cossacks, and the later, or the “warm water,” is due to the same process taking place in the region drained by the upper parts of the stream. About the beginning of June the river begins to subside with great rapidity; in August the water is very low and navigation almost ceases; but occasionally after the September rains the traffic with small craft is again practicable. Since the middle of the 18th century there have been five floods of extraordinary magnitude,—namely, in 1748, 1786, 1805, 1820 and 1845. The river is usually closed by ice from November or December to March or April, and at rare intervals it freezes in October. At Aksai, in the delta, it remains open on the average for 250 days in the year, at the mouth of the Medvyeditsa for 239, and at Novo-Cherkask, on another arm of the delta, for 246. This river supports a considerable fishing population, who despatch salt fish and caviare all over Russia. Salmon and herrings are taken in large numbers.