VOLUME XII SLICE I Gichtel, Johann to Glory (continued 2)

GILBERT, JOHN (1810-1889); American actor, whose real name was Gibbs, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 27th of February 1810, and made his first appearance there as Jaffier in Venice Preserved. He soon found that his true vein was in comedy, particularly in old-men parts. When in London in 1847 he was well received both by press and public, and played with Macready. He was the leading actor at Wallack’s from 1861-1888. He died on the 17th of June 1889.

See William Winter’s Life of John Gilbert (New York, 1890).

GILBERT, SIR JOHN (1817-1897), English painter and illustrator, one of the eight children of George Felix Gilbert, a member of a Derbyshire family, was born at Blackheath on the 21st of July 1817. He went to school there, and even in childhood displayed an extraordinary fondness for drawing and painting. Nevertheless, his father’s lack of means compelled him to accept employment for the boy in the office of Messrs Dickson & Bell, estate agents, in Charlotte Row, London. Yielding, however, to his natural bent, his parents agreed that he should take up art in his own way, which included but little advice from others, his only teacher being Haydon’s pupil, George Lance, the fruit painter. This artist gave him brief instructions in the use of colour. In 1836 Gilbert appeared in public for the first time. This was at the gallery of the Society of British Artists, where he sent drawings, the subjects of which were characteristic, being “The Arrest of Lord Hastings,” from Shakespeare, and “Abbot Boniface,” from The Monastery of Scott. “Inez de Castro” was in the same gallery in the next year; it was the first of a long series of works in the same medium, representing similar themes, and was accompanied, from 1837, by a still greater number of works in oil which were exhibited at the British Institution. These included “Don Quixote giving advice to Sancho Panza,” 1841; “Brunette and Phillis,” from The Spectator, 1844; “The King’s Artillery at Marston Moor,” 1860; and “Don Quixote comes back for the last time to his Home and Family,” 1867. In that year the Institution was finally closed. Gilbert exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1838, beginning with the “Portrait of a Gentleman,” and continuing, except between 1851 and 1867, till his death to exhibit there many of his best and more ambitious works. These included such capital instances as “Holbein painting the Portrait of Anne Boleyn,” “Don Quixote’s first Interview with the Duke and Duchess,” 1842, “Charlemagne visiting the Schools,” 1846. “Touchstone and the Shepherd,” and “Rembrandt,” a very fine piece, were both there in 1867; and in 1873 “Naseby,” one of his finest and most picturesque designs, was also at the Royal Academy. Gilbert was elected A.R.A. 29th January 1872, and R.A. 29th June 1876. Besides these mostly large and powerful works, the artist’s true arena of display was undoubtedly the gallery of the Old Water Colour Society, to which from 1852, when he was elected an Associate exhibitor, till he died forty-five years later, he contributed not fewer than 270 drawings, most of them admirable because of the largeness of their style, massive coloration, broad chiaroscuro, and the surpassing vigour of their designs. These qualities induced the leading critics to claim for him opportunities for painting mural pictures of great historic themes as decorations of national buildings. “The Trumpeter,” “The Standard-Bearer,” “Richard II. resigning his Crown” (now at Liverpool), “The Drug Bazaar at Constantinople,” “The Merchant of Venice” and “The Turkish Water-Carrier” are but examples of that wealth of art which added to the attractions of the gallery in Pall Mall. There Gilbert was elected a full Member in 1855, and president of the Society in 1871, shortly after which he was knighted. As an illustrator of books, magazines and periodicals of every kind he was most prolific. To the success of the Illustrated London News his designs lent powerful aid, and he was eminently serviceable in illustrating the Shakespeare of Mr Howard Staunton. He died on the 6th of October 1897.

(F. G. S.)

GILBERT, SIR JOSEPH HENRY (1817-1901); English chemist, was born at Hull on the 1st of August 1817. He studied chemistry first at Glasgow under Thomas Thomson; then at University College, London, in the laboratory of A. T. Thomson (1778-1849), the professor of medical jurisprudence, also attending Thomas Graham’s lectures; and finally at Giessen under Liebig. On his return to England from Germany he acted for a year or so as assistant to his old master A. T. Thomson at University College, and in 1843, after spending a short time in the study of calico dyeing and printing near Manchester, accepted the directorship of the chemical laboratory at the famous experimental station established by Sir J. B. Lawes at Rothamsted, near St Albans, for the systematic and scientific study of agriculture. This position he held for fifty-eight years, until his death on the 23rd of December 1901. The work which he carried out during that long period in collaboration with Lawes was of a most comprehensive character, involving the application of many branches of science, such as chemistry, meteorology, botany, animal and vegetable physiology, and geology; and its influence in improving the methods of practical agriculture extended all over the civilized world. Gilbert was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society in 1860, and in 1867 was awarded a royal medal jointly with Lawes. In 1880 he presided over the Chemical Section of the British Association at its meeting at Swansea, and in 1882 he was president of the London Chemical Society, of which he had been a member almost from its foundation in 1841. For six years from 1884 he filled the Sibthorpian chair of rural economy at Oxford, and he was also an honorary professor at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. He was knighted in 1893, the year in which the jubilee of the Rothamsted experiments was celebrated.

GILBERT, MARIE DOLORES ELIZA ROSANNA [“Lola Montez”] (1818-1861), dancer and adventuress, the daughter of a British army officer, was born at Limerick, Ireland, in 1818. Her father dying in India when she was seven years old, and her mother marrying again, the child was sent to Europe to be educated, subsequently joining her mother at Bath. In 1837 she made a runaway match with a Captain James of the Indian army, and accompanied him to India. In 1842 she returned to England, and shortly afterwards her husband obtained a decree nisi for divorce. She then studied dancing, making an unsuccessful first appearance at Her Majesty’s theatre, London, in 1843, billed as “Lola Montez, Spanish dancer.” Subsequently she appeared with considerable success in Germany, Poland and Russia. Thence she went to Paris, and in 1847 appeared at Munich, where she became the mistress of the old king of Bavaria, Ludwig I.; she was naturalized, created comtesse de Landsfeld, and given an income of £2000 a year. She soon proved herself the real ruler of Bavaria, adopting a liberal and anti-Jesuit policy. Her political opponents proved, however, too strong for her, and in 1848 she was banished. In 1849 she came to England, and in the same year was married to George Heald, a young officer in the Guards. Her husband’s guardian instituted a prosecution for bigamy against her on the ground that her divorce from Captain James had not been made absolute, and she fled with Heald to Spain. In 1851 she appeared at the Broadway theatre, New York, and in the following year at the Walnut Street theatre, Philadelphia. In 1853 Heald was drowned at Lisbon, and in the same year she married the proprietor of a San Francisco newspaper, but did not live long with him. Subsequently she appeared in Australia, but returned, in 1857, to act in America, and to lecture on gallantry. Her health having broken down, she devoted the rest of her life to visiting the outcasts of her own sex in New York, where, stricken with paralysis, she died on the 17th of January 1861.

See E. B. D’Auvergne, Lola Montez (New York, 1909).

GILBERT, NICOLAS JOSEPH LAURENT (1751-1780), French poet, was born at Fontenay-le-Château in Lorraine in 1751. Having completed his education at the college of Dôle, he devoted himself for a time to a half-scholastic, half-literary life at Nancy, but in 1774 he found his way to the capital. As an opponent of the Encyclopaedists and a panegyrist of Louis XV., he received considerable pensions. He died in Paris on the 12th of November 1780 from the results of a fall from his horse. The satiric force of one or two of his pieces, as Mon Apologie (1778) and Le Dix-huitième Siècle (1775), would alone be sufficient to preserve his reputation, which has been further increased by modern writers, who, like Alfred de Vigny in his Stello (chaps. 7-13), considered him a victim to the spite of his philosophic opponents. His best-known verses are the Ode imitée de plusieurs psaumes, usually entitled Adieux à la vie.

Among his other works may be mentioned Les Familles de Darius et d’Éridame, histoire persane (1770), Le Carnaval des auteurs (1773), Odes nouvelles et patriotiques (1775). Gilbert’s Œuvres complètes were first published in 1788, and they have since been edited by Mastrella (Paris, 1823), by Charles Nodier (1817 or 1825), and by M. de Lescure (1882).

GILBERT (or Gylberde), WILLIAM (1544-1603), the most distinguished man of science in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the father of electric and magnetic science, was a member of an ancient Suffolk family, long resident in Clare, and was born on the 24th of May 1544 at Colchester, where his father, Hierome Gilbert, became recorder. Educated at Colchester school, he entered St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1558, and after taking the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in due course, graduated M.D. in 1569, in which year he was elected a senior fellow of his college. Soon afterwards he left Cambridge, and after spending three years in Italy and other parts of Europe, settled in 1573 in London, where he practised as a physician with “great success and applause.” He was admitted to the College of Physicians probably about 1576, and from 1581 to 1590 was one of the censors. In 1587 he became treasurer, holding the office till 1592, and in 1589 he was one of the committee appointed to superintend the preparation of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis which the college in that year decided to issue, but which did not actually appear till 1618. In 1597 he was again chosen treasurer, becoming at the same time consiliarius, and in 1599 he succeeded to the presidency. Two years later he was appointed physician to Queen Elizabeth, with the usual emolument of £100 a year. After this time he seems to have removed to the court, vacating his residence, Wingfield House, which was on Peter’s Hill, between Upper Thames Street and Little Knightrider Street, and close to the house of the College of Physicians. On the death of the queen in 1603 he was reappointed by her successor; but he did not long enjoy the honour, for he died, probably of the plague, on the 30th of November (10th of December, N.S.) 1603, either in London or in Colchester. He was buried in the latter town, in the chancel of Holy Trinity church, where a monument was erected to his memory. To the College of Physicians he left his books, globes, instruments and minerals, but they were destroyed in the great fire of London.

Gilbert’s principal work is his treatise on magnetism, entitled De magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure (London, 1600; later editions—Stettin, 1628, 1633; Frankfort, 1629, 1638). This work, which embodied the results of many years’ research, was distinguished by its strict adherence to the scientific method of investigation by experiment, and by the originality of its matter, containing, as it does, an account of the author’s experiments on magnets and magnetical bodies and on electrical attractions, and also his great conception that the earth is nothing but a large magnet, and that it is this which explains, not only the direction of the magnetic needle north and south, but also the variation and dipping or inclination of the needle. Gilbert’s is therefore not merely the first, but the most important, systematic contribution to the sciences of electricity and magnetism. A posthumous work of Gilbert’s was edited by his brother, also called William, from two MSS. in the possession of Sir William Boswell; its title is De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova (Amsterdam, 1651). He is the reputed inventor besides of two instruments to enable sailors “to find out the latitude without seeing of sun, moon or stars,” an account of which is given in Thomas Blondeville’s Theoriques of the Planets (London, 1602). He was also the first advocate of Copernican views in England, and he concluded that the fixed stars are not all at the same distance from the earth.

It is a matter of great regret for the historian of chemistry that Gilbert left nothing on that branch of science, to which he was deeply devoted, “attaining to great exactness therein.” So at least says Thomas Fuller, who in his Worthies of England prophesied truly how he would be afterwards known: “Mahomet’s tomb at Mecca,” he says, “is said strangely to hang up, attracted by some invisible loadstone; but the memory of this doctor will never fall to the ground, which his incomparable book De magnete will support to eternity.”

An English translation of the De magnete was published by P. F. Mottelay in 1893, and another, with notes by S. P. Thompson, was issued by the Gilbert Club of London in 1900.

GILBERT, SIR WILLIAM SCHWENK (1836- ), English playwright and humorist, son of William Gilbert (a descendant of Sir Humphrey Gilbert), was born in London on the 18th of November 1836. His father was the author of a number of novels, the best-known of which were Shirley Hall Asylum (1863) and Dr Austin’s Guests (1866). Several of these novels—which were characterized by a singular acuteness and lucidity of style, by a dry, subacid humour, by a fund of humanitarian feeling and by a considerable medical knowledge, especially in regard to the psychology of lunatics and monomaniacs—were illustrated by his son, who developed a talent for whimsical draughtsmanship. W. S. Gilbert was educated at Boulogne, at Ealing and at King’s College, graduating B.A. from the university of London in 1856. The termination of the Crimean War was fatal to his project of competing for a commission in the Royal Artillery, but he obtained a post in the education department of the privy council office (1857-1861). Disliking the routine work, he left the Civil Service, entered the Inner Temple, was called to the bar in November 1864, and joined the northern circuit. His practice was inconsiderable, and his military and legal ambitions were eventually satisfied by a captaincy in the volunteers and appointment as a magistrate for Middlesex (June 1891). In 1861 the comic journal Fun was started by H. J. Byron, and Gilbert became from the first a valued contributor. Failing to obtain an entrée to Punch, he continued sending excellent comic verse to Fun, with humorous illustrations, the work of his own pen, over the signature of “Bab.” A collection of these lyrics, in which deft craftsmanship unites a titillating satire on the deceptiveness of appearances with the irrepressible nonsense of a Lewis Carroll, was issued separately in 1869 under the title of Bab Ballads, and was followed by More Bab Ballads. The two collections and Songs of a Savoyard were united in a volume issued in 1898, with many new illustrations. The best of the old cuts, such as those depicting the “Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo” and the “Discontented Sugar Broker,” were preserved intact.

While remaining a staunch supporter of Fun, Gilbert was soon immersed in other journalistic work, and his position as dramatic critic to the Illustrated Times turned his attention to the stage. He had not to wait long for an opportunity. Early in December 1866 T. W. Robertson was asked by Miss Herbert, lessee of the St James’s theatre, to find some one who could turn out a bright Christmas piece in a fortnight, and suggested Gilbert; the latter promptly produced Dulcamara, a burlesque of L’Elisire d’amore, written in ten days, rehearsed in a week, and duly performed at Christmas. He sold the piece outright for £30, a piece of rashness which he had cause to regret, for it turned out a commercial success. In 1870 he was commissioned by Buckstone to write a blank verse fairy comedy, based upon Le Palais de la vérité, the novel by Madame de Genlis. The result was The Palace of Truth, a fairy drama, poor in structure but clever in workmanship, which served the purpose of Mr and Mrs Kendal in 1870 at the Haymarket. This was followed in 1871 by Pygmalion and Galatea, another three-act “mythological comedy,” a clever and effective but artificial piece. Another fairy comedy, The Wicked World, written for Buckstone and the Kendals, was followed in March 1873 by a burlesque version, in collaboration with Gilbert à Beckett, entitled The Happy Land. Gilbert’s next dramatic ventures inclined more to the conventional pattern, combining sentiment and a cynical humour in a manner strongly reminiscent of his father’s style. Of these pieces, Sweethearts was given at the Prince of Wales’s theatre, 7th November 1874; Tom Cobb at the St James’s, 24th April 1875; Broken Hearts at the Court, 9th December 1875; Dan’l Druce (a drama in darker vein, suggested to some extent by Silas Marner) at the Haymarket, 11th September 1876; and Engaged at the Haymarket, 3rd October 1877. The first and last of these proved decidedly popular. Gretchen, a verse drama in four acts, appeared in 1879. A one-act piece, called Comedy and Tragedy, was produced at the Lyceum, 26th January, 1884. Two dramatic trifles of later date were Foggerty’s Fairy and Rozenkrantz and Guildenstern, a travesty of Hamlet, performed at the Vaudeville in June 1891. Several of these dramas were based upon short stories by Gilbert, a number of which had appeared from time to time in the Christmas numbers of various periodicals. The best of them have been collected in the volume entitled Foggerty’s Fairy, and other Stories. In the autumn of 1871 Gilbert commenced his memorable collaboration (which lasted over twenty years) with Sir Arthur Sullivan. The first two comic operas, Thespis; or The Gods grown Old (26th September 1871) and Trial by Jury (Royalty, 25th March 1875) were merely essays. Like one or two of their successors, they were, as regards plot, little more than extended “Bab Ballads.” Later (especially in the Yeomen of the Guard), much more elaboration was attempted. The next piece was produced at the Opera Comique (17th November 1877) as The Sorcerer. At the same theatre were successfully given H.M.S. Pinafore (25th May 1878), The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of Duty (3rd April 1880), and Patience; or Bunthorne’s Bride (23rd April 1881). In October 1881 the successful Patience was removed to a new theatre, the Savoy, specially built for the Gilbert and Sullivan operas by Richard D’Oyly Carte. Patience was followed, on 25th November 1882, by Iolanthe; or The Peer and the Peri; and then came, on 5th January 1884, Princess Ida; or Castle Adamant, a re-cast of a charming and witty fantasia which Gilbert had written some years previously, and had then described as a “respectful perversion of Mr. Tennyson’s exquisite poem.” The impulse reached its fullest development in the operas that followed next in order—The Mikado; or The Town of Titipu (14th March 1885); Ruddigore (22nd January 1887); The Yeomen of the Guard (3rd October 1888); and The Gondoliers (7th December 1889). After the appearance of The Gondoliers a coolness occurred between the composer and librettist, owing to Gilbert’s considering that Sullivan had not supported him in a business disagreement with D’Oyly Carte. But the estrangement was only temporary. Gilbert wrote several more librettos, and of these Utopia Limited (1893) and the exceptionally witty Grand Duke (1896) were written in conjunction with Sullivan. As a master of metre Gilbert had shown himself consummate, as a dealer in quips and paradoxes and ludicrous dilemmas, unrivalled. Even for the music of the operas he deserves some credit, for the rhythms were frequently his own (as in “I have a Song to Sing, O”), and the metres were in many cases invented by himself. One or two of his librettos, such as that of Patience, are virtually flawless. Enthusiasts are divided only as to the comparative merit of the operas. Princess Ida and Patience are in some respects the daintiest. There is a genuine vein of poetry in The Yeomen of the Guard. Some of the drollest songs are in Pinafore and Ruddigore. The Gondoliers shows the most charming lightness of touch, while with the general public The Mikado proved the favourite. The enduring popularity of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas was abundantly proved by later revivals. Among the birthday honours in June 1907 Gilbert was given a knighthood. In 1909 his Fallen Fairies (music by Edward German) was produced at the Savoy.

(T. Se.)

GILBERT DE LA PORRÉE, frequently known as Gilbertus Porretanus or Pictaviensis (1070-1154); scholastic logician and theologian, was born at Poitiers. He was educated under Bernard of Chartres and Anselm of Laon. After teaching for about twenty years in Chartres, he lectured on dialectics and theology in Paris (from 1137), and in 1141 returned to Poitiers, being elected bishop in the following year. His heterodox opinions regarding the doctrine of the Trinity drew upon his works the condemnation of the church. The synod of Reims in 1148 procured papal sanction for four propositions opposed to certain of Gilbert’s tenets, and his works were condemned until they should be corrected in accordance with the principles of the church. Gilbert seems to have submitted quietly to this judgment; he yielded assent to the four propositions, and remained on friendly terms with his antagonists till his death on the 4th of September 1154. Gilbert is almost the only logician of the 12th century who is quoted by the greater scholastics of the succeeding age. His chief logical work, the treatise De sex principiis, was regarded with a reverence almost equal to that paid to Aristotle, and furnished matter for numerous commentators, amongst them Albertus Magnus. Owing to the fame of this work, he is mentioned by Dante as the Magister sex principiorum. The treatise itself is a discussion of the Aristotelian categories, specially of the six subordinate modes. Gilbert distinguishes in the ten categories two classes, one essential, the other derivative. Essential or inhering (formae inhaerentes) in the objects themselves are only substance, quantity, quality and relation in the stricter sense of that term. The remaining six, when, where, action, passion, position and habit, are relative and subordinate (formae assistentes). This suggestion has some interest, but is of no great value, either in logic or in the theory of knowledge. More important in the history of scholasticism are the theological consequences to which Gilbert’s realism led him. In the commentary on the treatise De Trinitate (erroneously attributed to Boëtius) he proceeds from the metaphysical notion that pure or abstract being is prior in nature to that which is. This pure being is God, and must be distinguished from the triune God as known to us. God is incomprehensible, and the categories cannot be applied to determine his existence. In God there is no distinction or difference, whereas in all substances or things there is duality, arising from the element of matter. Between pure being and substances stand the ideas or forms, which subsist, though they are not substances. These forms, when materialized, are called formae substantiales or formae nativae; they are the essences of things, and in themselves have no relation to the accidents of things. Things are temporal, the ideas perpetual, God eternal. The pure form of existence, that by which God is God, must be distinguished from the three persons who are God by participation in this form. The form or essence is one, the persons or substances three. It was this distinction between Deitas or Divinitas and Deus that led to the condemnation of Gilbert’s doctrine.

De sex principiis and commentary on the De Trinitate in Migne, Patrologia Latina, lxiv. 1255 and clxxxviii. 1257; see also Abbé Berthaud, Gilbert de la Porrée (Poitiers, 1892); B. Hauréau, De la philosophie scolastique, pp. 294-318; R. Schmid’s article “Gilbert Porretanus” in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. f. protest. Theol. (vol. 6, 1899); Prantl, Geschichte d. Logik, ii. 215; Bach, Dogmengeschichte, ii. 133; article Scholasticism.

GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM, ST, founder of the Gilbertines, the only religious order of English origin, was born at Sempringham in Lincolnshire, c. 1083-1089. He was educated in France, and ordained in 1123, being presented by his father to the living of Sempringham. About 1135 he established there a convent for nuns; and to perform the heavy work and cultivate the fields he formed a number of labourers into a society of lay brothers attached to the convent. Similar establishments were founded elsewhere, and in 1147 Gilbert tried to get them incorporated in the Cistercian order. Failing in this, he proceeded to form communities of priests and clerics to perform the spiritual ministrations needed by the nuns. The women lived according to the Benedictine rule as interpreted by the Cistercians; the men according to the rule of St Augustine, and were canons regular. The special constitutions of the order were largely taken from those of the Premonstratensian canons and of the Cistercians. Like Fontevrault (q.v.) it was a double order, the communities of men and women living side by side; but, though the property all belonged to the nuns, the superior of the canons was the head of the whole establishment, and the general superior was a canon, called “Master of Sempringham.” The general chapter was a mixed assembly composed of two canons and two nuns from each house; the nuns had to travel to the chapter in closed carts. The office was celebrated together in the church, a high stone screen separating the two choirs of canons and nuns. The order received papal approbation in 1148. By Gilbert’s death (1189) there were nine double monasteries and four of canons only, containing about 700 canons and 1000 nuns in all. At the dissolution there were some 25 monasteries, whereof 4 ranked among the greater monasteries (see list in F. A. Gasquet’s English Monastic Life). The order never spread beyond England. The habit of the Gilbertines was black, with a white cloak.

See Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum (4th of Feb.); William Dugdale, Monasticon (1846); Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1714); ii. c. 29. The best modern account is St Gilbert of Sempringham, and the Gilbertines, by Rose Graham (1901). The art. in Dictionary of National Biography gives abundant information on St Gilbert, but is unsatisfactory on the order, as it might easily convey the impression that the canons and nuns lived together, whereas they were most carefully separated; and altogether undue prominence is given to a single scandal. Miss Graham declares that the reputation of the order was good until the end.

(E. C. B.)

GILBERT FOLIOT (d. 1187), bishop of Hereford, and of London, is first mentioned as a monk of Cluny, whence he was called in 1136 to plead the cause of the empress Matilda against Stephen at the Roman court. Shortly afterwards he became prior of Cluny; then prior of Abbéville, a house dependent upon Cluny. In 1139 he was elected abbot of Gloucester. The appointment was confirmed by Stephen, and from the ecclesiastical point of view was unexceptionable. But the new abbot proved himself a valuable ally of the empress, and her ablest controversialist. Gilbert’s reputation grew rapidly. He was respected at Rome; and he acted as the representative of the primate, Theobald, in the supervision of the Welsh church. In 1148, on being nominated by the pope to the see of Hereford, Gilbert with characteristic wariness sought confirmation both from Henry of Anjou and from Stephen. But he was an Angevin at heart, and after 1154 was treated by Henry II. with every mark of consideration. He was Becket’s rival for the primacy, and the only bishop who protested against the king’s choice. Becket, with rare forbearance, endeavoured to win his friendship by procuring for him the see of London (1163). But Gilbert evaded the customary profession of obedience to the primate, and apparently aspired to make his see independent of Canterbury. On the questions raised by the Constitutions of Clarendon he sided with the king, whose confessor he had now become. He urged Becket to yield, and, when this advice was rejected, encouraged his fellow-bishops to repudiate the authority of the archbishop. In the years of controversy which followed Becket’s flight the king depended much upon the bishop’s skill as a disputant and diplomatist. Gilbert was twice excommunicated by Becket, but both on these and on other occasions he showed great dexterity in detaching the pope from the cause of the exile. To him it was chiefly due that Henry avoided an open conflict with Rome of the kind which John afterwards provoked. Gilbert was one of the bishops whose excommunication in 1170 provoked the king’s knights to murder Becket; but he cannot be reproached with any share in the crime. His later years were uneventful, though he enjoyed great influence with the king and among his fellow bishops. Scholarly, dignified, ascetic in his private life, devoted to the service of the Church, he was nevertheless more respected than loved. His nature was cold; he made few friends; and the taint of a calculating ambition runs through his whole career. He died in the spring of 1187.

See Gilbert’s Letters, ed. J. A. Giles (Oxford, 1845); Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson (Rolls series, 1875-1885); and Miss K. Norgate’s England under the Angevin Kings (1887).

(H. W. C. D.)

GILBERT (Kingsmill) ISLANDS, an extensive archipelago belonging to Great Britain in the mid-western Pacific Ocean, lying N. and S. of the equator, and between 170° and 180° E. There are sixteen islands, all coral reefs or atolls, extending in crescent form over about five degrees of latitude. The principal is Taputenea or Drummond Island. The soil, mostly of coral sand, is productive of little else than the coco-nut palm, and the chief source of food supply is the sea. The population of these islands presents a remarkable phenomenon; in spite of adverse conditions of environment and complete barbarism it is exceedingly dense, in strong contradistinction to that of many other more favoured islands. The land area of the group is only 166 m., yet the population is about 30,000. The Gilbert islanders are a dark and coarse type of the Polynesian race, and show signs of much crossing. They are tall and stout, with an average height of 5 ft. 8 in., and are of a vigorous, energetic temperament. They are nearly always naked, but wear a conical hat of pandanus leaf. In war they have an armour of plaited coco-nut fibres. They are fierce fighters, their chief weapon being a sword armed with sharks’ teeth. Their canoes are well made of coco-nut wood boards sewn neatly together and fastened on frames. British and American missionary work has been prosecuted with some success. The large population led to the introduction of natives from these islands into Hawaii as labourers in 1878-1884, but they were not found satisfactory. The islands were discovered by John Byron in 1765 (one of them bearing his name); Captains Gilbert and Marshall visited them in 1788; and they were annexed by Great Britain in 1892.

GILBEY, SIR WALTER, 1st Bart. (1831- ), English wine-merchant, was born at Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1831. His father, the owner and frequently the driver of the daily coach between Bishop Stortford and London, died when he was eleven years old, and young Gilbey was shortly afterwards placed in the office of an estate agent at Tring, subsequently obtaining a clerkship in a firm of parliamentary agents in London. On the outbreak of the Crimean War, Walter Gilbey and his younger brother, Alfred, volunteered for civilian service at the front, and were employed at a convalescent hospital on the Dardanelles. Returning to London on the declaration of peace, Walter and Alfred Gilbey, on the advice of their eldest brother, Henry Gilbey, a wholesale wine-merchant, started in the retail wine and spirit trade. The heavy duty then levied by the British government on French, Portuguese and Spanish wines was prohibitive of a sale among the English middle classes, and especially lower middle classes, whose usual alcoholic beverage was accordingly beer. Henry Gilbey was of opinion that these classes would gladly drink wine if they could get it at a moderate price, and by his advice Walter and Alfred determined to push the sales of colonial, and particularly of Cape, wines, on which the duty was comparatively light. Backed by capital obtained through Henry Gilbey, they accordingly opened in 1857 a small retail business in a basement in Oxford Street, London. The Cape wines proved popular, and within three years the brothers had 20,000 customers on their books. The creation of the off-licence system by Mr Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer, in 1860, followed by the large reduction in the duty on French wines effected by the commercial treaty between England and France in 1861, revolutionized their trade and laid the foundation of their fortunes. Three provincial grocers, who had been granted the new off-licence, applied to be appointed the Gilbeys’ agents in their respective districts, and many similar applications followed. These were granted, and before very long a leading local grocer was acting as the firm’s agents in every district in England. The grocer who dealt in the Gilbeys’ wines and spirits was not allowed to sell those of any other firm, and the Gilbeys in return handed over to him all their existing customers in his district. This arrangement was of mutual advantage, and the Gilbeys’ business increased so rapidly that in 1864 Henry Gilbey abandoned his own undertaking to join his brothers. In 1867 the three brothers secured the old Pantheon theatre and concert hall in Oxford Street for their headquarters. In 1875 the firm purchased a large claret-producing estate in Médôc, on the banks of the Gironde, and became also the proprietors of two large whisky-distilleries in Scotland. In 1893 the business was converted, for family reasons, into a private limited liability company, of which Walter Gilbey, who in the same year was created a baronet, was chairman. Sir Walter Gilbey also became well known as a breeder of shire horses, and he did much to improve the breed of English horses (other than race-horses) generally, and wrote extensively on the subject. He became president of the Shire Horse Society, of the Hackney Horse Society, and of the Hunters’ Improvement Society, and he was the founder and chairman of the London Cart Horse Parade Society. He was also a practical agriculturist, and president of the Royal Agricultural Society.

GILDAS, or Gildus (c. 516-570), the earliest of British historians (see Celt: Literature, “Welsh”), surnamed by some Sapiens, and by others Badonicus, seems to have been born in the year 516. Regarding him little certain is known, beyond some isolated particulars that may be gathered from hints dropped in the course of his work. Two short treatises exist, purporting to be lives of Gildas, and ascribed respectively to the 11th and 12th centuries; but the writers of both are believed to have confounded two, if not more, persons that had borne the name. It is from an incidental remark of his own, namely, that the year of the siege of Mount Badon—one of the battles fought between the Saxons and the Britons—was also the year of his own nativity, that the date of his birth has been derived; the place, however, is not mentioned. His assertion that he was moved to undertake his task mainly by “zeal for God’s house and for His holy law,” and the very free use he has made of quotations from the Bible, leave scarcely a doubt that he was an ecclesiastic of some order or other. In addition, we learn that he went abroad, probably to France, in his thirty-fourth year, where, after 10 years of hesitation and preparation, he composed, about 560, the work bearing his name. His materials, he tells us, were collected from foreign rather than native sources, the latter of which had been put beyond his reach by circumstances. The Cambrian Annals give 570 as the year of his death.

The writings of Gildas have come down to us under the title of Gildae Sapientis de excidio Britanniae liber querulus. Though at first written consecutively, the work is now usually divided into three portions,—a preface, the history proper, and an epistle,—the last, which is largely made up of passages and texts of Scripture brought together for the purpose of condemning the vices of his countrymen and their rulers, being the least important, though by far the longest of the three. In the second he passes in brief review the history of Britain from its invasion by the Romans till his own times. Among other matters reference is made to the introduction of Christianity in the reign of Tiberius; the persecution under Diocletian; the spread of the Arian heresy; the election of Maximus as emperor by the legions in Britain, and his subsequent death at Aquileia; the incursions of the Picts and Scots into the southern part of the island; the temporary assistance rendered to the harassed Britons by the Romans; the final abandonment of the island by the latter; the coming of the Saxons and their reception by Guortigern (Vortigern); and, finally, the conflicts between the Britons, led by a noble Roman, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and the new invaders. Unfortunately, on almost every point on which he touches, the statements of Gildas are vague and obscure. With one exception already alluded to, no dates are given, and events are not always taken up in the order of their occurrence. These faults are of less importance during the period when Greek and Roman writers notice the affairs of Britain; but they become more serious when, as is the case from nearly the beginning of the 5th century to the date of his death, Gildas’s brief narrative is our only authority for most of what passes current as the history of our island during those years. Thus it is on his sole, though in this instance perhaps trustworthy, testimony that the famous letter rests, said to have been sent to Rome in 446 by the despairing Britons, commencing:—“To Agitius (Aetius), consul for the third time, the groans of the Britons.”

Gildas’s treatise was first published in 1525 by Polydore Vergil, but with many avowed alterations and omissions. In 1568 John Josseline, secretary to Archbishop Parker, issued a new edition of it more in conformity with manuscript authority; and in 1691 a still more carefully revised edition appeared at Oxford by Thomas Gale. It was frequently reprinted on the Continent during the 16th century, and once or twice since. The next English edition, described by Potthast as editio pessima, was that published by the English Historical Society in 1838, and edited by the Rev. J. Stevenson. The text of Gildas founded on Gale’s edition collated with two other MSS., with elaborate introductions, is included in the Monumenta historica Britannica, edited by Petrie and Sharpe (London, 1848). Another edition is in A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, Councils and Eccles. Documents relating to Great Britain (Oxford, 1869); the latest edition is that by Theodor Mommsen in Monum. Germ. hist. auct. antiq. xiii. (Chronica min. iii.), 1894.

GILDER, RICHARD WATSON (1844-1909), American editor and poet, was born in Bordentown, New Jersey, on the 8th of February 1844, a brother of William Henry Gilder (1838-1900), the Arctic explorer. He was educated at Bellevue Seminary, an institution conducted by his father, the Rev. William Henry Gilder (1812-1864), in Flushing, Long Island. After three years (1865-1868) on the Newark, New Jersey, Daily Advertiser, he founded, with Newton Crane, the Newark Morning Register. In 1869 he became editor of Hours at Home, and in 1870 assistant editor of Scribner’s Monthly (eleven years later re-named The Century Magazine), of which he became editor in 1881. He was one of the founders of the Free Art League, of the International Copyright League, and of the Authors’ Club; was chairman of the New York Tenement House Commission in 1894; and was a prominent member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, of the Council of the National Civil Service Reform League, and of the executive committee of the Citizens’ Union of New York City. His poems, which are essentially lyrical, have been collected in various volumes, including Five Books of Song (1894), In Palestine and other Poems (1898), Poems and Inscriptions (1901), and In the Heights (1905). A complete edition of his poems was published in 1908. He also edited ”Sonnets from the Portuguese” and other Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; ”One Word More” and other Poems by Robert Browning (1905). He died in New York on the 18th of November 1909. His wife, Helena de Kay, a grand-daughter of Joseph Rodman Drake, assisted, with Saint Gaudens and others, in founding the Society of American Artists, now merged in the National Academy, and the Art Students’ League of New York. She translated Sensier’s biography of Millet, and painted, before her marriage in 1874, studies in flowers and ideal heads, much admired for their feeling and delicate colouring.

GILDERSLEEVE, BASIL LANNEAU (1831- ), American classical scholar, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 23rd of October 1831, son of Benjamin Gildersleeve (1791-1875), a Presbyterian evangelist, and editor of the Charleston Christian Observer in 1826-1845, of the Richmond (Va.) Watchman and Observer in 1845-1856, and of The Central Presbyterian in 1856-1860. The son graduated at Princeton in 1849, studied under Franz in Berlin, under Friedrich Ritschl at Bonn and under Schneidewin at Göttingen, where he received his doctor’s degree in 1853. From 1856 to 1876 he was professor of Greek in the University of Virginia, holding the chair of Latin also in 1861-1866; and in 1876 he became professor of Greek in the newly founded Johns Hopkins University. In 1880 The American Journal of Philology, a quarterly published by the Johns Hopkins University, was established under his editorial charge, and his strong personality was expressed in the department of the Journal headed “Brief Report” or “Lanx Satura,” and in the earliest years of its publication every petty detail was in his hands. His style in it, as elsewhere, is in striking contrast to that of the typical classical scholar, and accords with his conviction that the true aim of scholarship is “that which is.” He published a Latin Grammar (1867; revised with the co-operation of Gonzalez B. Lodge, 1894 and 1899) and a Latin Series for use in secondary schools (1875), both marked by lucidity of order and mastery of grammatical theory and methods. His edition of Persius (1875) is of great value. But his bent was rather toward Greek than Latin. His special interest in Christian Greek was partly the cause of his editing in 1877 The Apologies of Justin Martyr, “which” (to use his own words) “I used unblushingly as a repository for my syntactical formulae.” Gildersleeve’s studies under Franz had no doubt quickened his interest in Greek syntax, and his logic, untrammelled by previous categories, and his marvellous sympathy with the language were displayed in this most unlikely of places. His Syntax of Classic Greek (Part I., 1900, with C. W. E. Miller) collects these formulae. Gildersleeve edited in 1885 The Olympian and Pythian Odes of Pindar, with a brilliant and valuable introduction. His views on the function of grammar were summarized in a paper on The Spiritual Rights of Minute Research delivered at Bryn Mawr on the 16th of June 1895. His collected contributions to literary periodicals appeared in 1890 under the title Essays and Studies Educational and Literary.

GILDING, the art of spreading gold, either by mechanical or by chemical means, over the surface of a body for the purpose of ornament. The art of gilding was known to the ancients. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians were accustomed to gild wood and metals; and gilding by means of gold plates is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. Pliny informs us that the first gilding seen at Rome was after the destruction of Carthage, under the censorship of Lucius Mummius, when the Romans began to gild the ceilings of their temples and palaces, the Capitol being the first place on which this enrichment was bestowed. But he adds that luxury advanced on them so rapidly that in a little time you might see all, even private and poor persons, gild the walls, vaults, and other parts of their dwellings. Owing to the comparative thickness of the gold-leaf used in ancient gilding, the traces of it which yet remain are remarkably brilliant and solid. Gilding has in all times occupied an important place in the ornamental arts of Oriental countries; and the native processes pursued in India at the present day may be taken as typical of the arts as practised from the earliest periods. For the gilding of copper, employed in the decoration of temple domes and other large works, the following is an outline of the processes employed. The metal surface is thoroughly scraped, cleaned and polished, and next heated in a fire sufficiently to remove any traces of grease or other impurity which may remain from the operation of polishing. It is then dipped in an acid solution prepared from dried unripe apricots, and rubbed with pumice or brick powder. Next, the surface is rubbed over with mercury which forms a superficial amalgam with the copper, after which it is left some hours in clean water, again washed with the acid solution, and dried. It is now ready for receiving the gold, which is laid on in leaf, and, on adhering, assumes a grey appearance from combining with the mercury, but on the application of heat the latter metal volatilizes, leaving the gold a dull greyish hue. The colour is brought up by means of rubbing with agate burnishers. The weight of mercury used in this process is double that of the gold laid on, and the thickness of the gilding is regulated by the circumstances or necessities of the case. For the gilding of iron or steel, the surface is first scratched over with chequered lines, then washed in a hot solution of green apricots, dried and heated just short of red-heat. The gold-leaf is then laid on, and rubbed in with agate burnishers, when it adheres by catching into the prepared scratched surface.

Modern gilding is applied to numerous and diverse surfaces and by various distinct processes, so that the art is prosecuted in many ways, and is part of widely different ornamental and useful arts. It forms an important and essential part of frame-making (see Carving and Gilding); it is largely employed in connexion with cabinet-work, decorative painting and house ornamentation; and it also bulks largely in bookbinding and ornamental leather work. Further, gilding is much employed for coating baser metals, as in button-making, in the gilt toy trade, in electro-gilt reproductions and in electro-plating; and it is also a characteristic feature in the decoration of pottery, porcelain and glass. The various processes fall under one or other of two heads—mechanical gilding and gilding by chemical agency.

Mechanical Gilding embraces all the operations by which gold-leaf is prepared (see Goldbeating), and the several processes by which it is mechanically attached to the surfaces it is intended to cover. It thus embraces the burnish or water-gilding and the oil-gilding of the carver and gilder, and the gilding operations of the house decorator, the sign-painter, the bookbinder, the paper-stainer and several others. Polished iron, steel and other metals are gilt mechanically by applying gold-leaf to the metallic surface at a temperature just under red-heat, pressing the leaf on with a burnisher and reheating, when additional leaf may be laid on. The process is completed by cold burnishing.

Chemical Gilding embraces those processes in which the gold used is at some stage in a state of chemical combination. Of these the following are the principal:—

Cold Gilding.—In this process the gold is obtained in a state of extremely fine division, and applied by mechanical means. Cold gilding on silver is performed by a solution of gold in aqua-regia, applied by dipping a linen rag into the solution, burning it, and rubbing the black and heavy ashes on the silver with the finger or a piece of leather or cork. Wet gilding is effected by means of a dilute solution of chloride of gold with twice its quantity of ether. The liquids are agitated and allowed to rest, when the ether separates and floats on the surface of the acid. The whole mixture is then poured into a funnel with a small aperture, and allowed to rest for some time, when the acid is run off and the ether separated. The ether will be found to have taken up all the gold from the acid, and may be used for gilding iron or steel, for which purpose the metal is polished with the finest emery and spirits of wine. The ether is then applied with a small brush, and as it evaporates it deposits the gold, which can now be heated and polished. For small delicate figures a pen or a fine brush may be used for laying on the ether solution. Fire-gilding or Wash-gilding is a process by which an amalgam of gold is applied to metallic surfaces, the mercury being subsequently volatilized, leaving a film of gold or an amalgam containing from 13 to 16% of mercury. In the preparation of the amalgam the gold must first be reduced to thin plates or grains, which are heated red hot, and thrown into mercury previously heated, till it begins to smoke. Upon stirring the mercury with an iron rod, the gold totally disappears. The proportion of mercury to gold is generally as six or eight to one. When the amalgam is cold it is squeezed through chamois leather for the purpose of separating the superfluous mercury; the gold, with about twice its weight of mercury, remains behind, forming a yellowish silvery mass of the consistence of butter. When the metal to be gilt is wrought or chased, it ought to be covered with mercury before the amalgam is applied, that this may be more easily spread; but when the surface of the metal is plain, the amalgam may be applied to it direct. When no such preparation is applied, the surface to be gilded is simply bitten and cleaned with nitric acid. A deposit of mercury is obtained on a metallic surface by means of “quicksilver water,” a solution of nitrate of mercury,—the nitric acid attacking the metal to which it is applied, and thus leaving a film of free metallic mercury. The amalgam being equally spread over the prepared surface of the metal, the mercury is then sublimed by a heat just sufficient for that purpose; for, if it is too great, part of the gold may be driven off, or it may run together and leave some of the surface of the metal bare. When the mercury has evaporated, which is known by the surface having entirely become of a dull yellow colour, the metal must undergo other operations, by which the fine gold colour is given to it. First, the gilded surface is rubbed with a scratch brush of brass wire, until its surface be smooth; then it is covered over with a composition called “gilding wax,” and again exposed to the fire until the wax is burnt off. This wax is composed of beeswax mixed with some of the following substances, viz. red ochre, verdigris, copper scales, alum, vitriol, borax. By this operation the colour of the gilding is heightened; and the effect seems to be produced by a perfect dissipation of some mercury remaining after the former operation. The dissipation is well effected by this equable application of heat. The gilt surface is then covered over with nitre, alum or other salts, ground together, and mixed up into a paste with water or weak ammonia. The piece of metal thus covered is exposed to a certain degree of heat, and then quenched in water. By this method its colour is further improved and brought nearer to that of gold, probably by removing any particles of copper that may have been on the gilt surface. This process, when skilfully carried out, produces gilding of great solidity and beauty; but owing to the exposure of the workmen to mercurial fumes, it is very unhealthy, and further there is much loss of mercury. Numerous contrivances have been introduced to obviate these serious evils. Gilt brass buttons used for uniforms are gilt by this process, and there is an act of parliament (1796) yet unrepealed which prescribes 5 grains of gold as the smallest quantity that may be used for the gilding of 12 dozen of buttons 1 in. in diameter.

Gilding of Pottery and Porcelain.—The quantity of gold consumed for these purposes is very large. The gold used is dissolved in aqua-regia, and the acid is driven off by heat, or the gold may be precipitated by means of sulphate of iron. In this pulverulent state the gold is mixed with 1⁄12th of its weight of oxide of bismuth, together with a small quantity of borax and gum water. The mixture is applied to the articles with a camel’s hair pencil, and after passing through the fire the gold is of a dingy colour, but the lustre is brought out by burnishing with agate and bloodstone, and afterwards cleaning with vinegar or white-lead.

GILDS, or Guilds. Medieval gilds were voluntary associations formed for the mutual aid and protection of their members. Among the gildsmen there was a strong spirit of fraternal co-operation or Christian brotherhood, with a mixture of worldly and religious ideals—the support of the body and the salvation of the soul. Early meanings of the root gild or geld were expiation, penalty, sacrifice or worship, feast or banquet, and contribution or payment; it is difficult to determine which is the earliest meaning, and we are not certain whether the gildsmen were originally those who contributed to a common fund or those who worshipped or feasted together. Their fraternities or societies may be divided into three classes: religious or benevolent, merchant and craft gilds. The last two categories, which do not become prominent anywhere in Europe until the 12th century, had, like all gilds, a religious tinge, but their aims were primarily worldly, and their functions were mainly of an economic character.

1. Origin.—Various theories have been advanced concerning the origin of gilds. Some writers regard them as a continuation of the Roman collegia and sodalitates, but there is little evidence to prove the unbroken continuity of existence of the Roman and Germanic fraternities. A more widely accepted theory derives gilds wholly or in part from the early Germanic or Scandinavian sacrificial banquets. Much influence is ascribed to this heathen element by Lujo Brentano, Karl Hegel, W. E. Wilda and other writers. This view does not seem to be tenable, for the old sacrificial carousals lack two of the essential elements of the gilds, namely corporative solidarity or permanent association and the spirit of Christian brotherhood. Dr Max Pappenheim has ascribed the origin of Germanic gilds to the northern “foster-brotherhood” or “sworn-brotherhood,” which was an artificial bond of union between two or more persons. After intermingling their blood in the earth and performing other peculiar ceremonies, the two contracting parties with grasped hands swore to avenge any injury done to either of them. The objections to this theory are fully stated by Hegel (Städte und Gilden, i. 250-253). The foster-brotherhood seems to have been unknown to the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons, the nations in which medieval gilds first appear; and hence Dr Pappenheim’s conclusions, if tenable at all, apply only to Denmark or Scandinavia.

No theory on this subject can be satisfactory which wholly ignores the influence of the Christian church. Imbued with the idea of the brotherhood of man, the church naturally fostered the early growth of gilds and tried to make them displace the old heathen banquets. The work of the church was, however, directive rather than creative. Gilds were a natural manifestation of the associative spirit which is inherent in mankind. The same needs produce in different ages associations which have striking resemblances, but those of each age have peculiarities which indicate a spontaneous growth. It is not necessary to seek the germ of gilds in any antecedent age or institution. When the old kin-bond or maegth was beginning to weaken or dissolve, and the state did not yet afford adequate protection to its citizens, individuals naturally united for mutual help.

Gilds are first mentioned in the Carolingian capitularies of 779 and 789, and in the enactments made by the synod of Nantes early in the 9th century, the text of which has been preserved in the ecclesiastical ordinances of Hincmar of Rheims (A.D. 852). The capitularies of 805 and 821 also contain vague references to sworn unions of some sort, and a capitulary of 884 prohibits villeins from forming associations “vulgarly called gilds” against those who have despoiled them. The Carolingians evidently regarded such “conjurations” as “conspirations” dangerous to the state. The gilds of Norway, Denmark and Sweden are first mentioned in the 11th, 12th and 14th centuries respectively; those of France and the Netherlands in the 11th.

Many writers believe that the earliest references to gilds come from England. The laws of Ine speak of gegildan who help each other pay the wergeld, but it is not entirely certain that they were members of gild fraternities in the later sense. These are more clearly referred to in England in the second half of the 9th century, though we have little information concerning them before the 11th century. To the first half of that century belong the statutes of the fraternities of Cambridge, Abbotsbury and Exeter. They are important because they form the oldest body of gild ordinances extant in Europe. The thanes’ gild at Cambridge afforded help in blood-feuds, and provided for the payment of the wergeld in case a member killed any one. The religious element was more prominent in Orcy’s gild at Abbotsbury and in the fraternity at Exeter; their ordinances exhibit much solicitude for the salvation of the brethren’s souls. The Exeter gild also gave assistance when property was destroyed by fire. Prayers for the dead, attendance at funerals of gildsmen, periodical banquets, the solemn entrance oath, fines for neglect of duty and for improper conduct, contributions to a common purse, mutual assistance in distress, periodical meetings in the gildhall,—in short, all the characteristic features of the later gilds already appear in the statutes of these Anglo-Saxon fraternities. Some continental writers, in dealing with the origin of municipal government throughout western Europe, have, however, ascribed too much importance to the Anglo-Saxon gilds, exaggerating their prevalence and contending that they form the germ of medieval municipal government. This view rests almost entirely on conjecture; there is no good evidence to show that there was any organic connexion between gilds and municipal government in England before the coming of the Normans. It should also be noted that there is no trace of the existence of either craft or merchant gilds in England before the Norman Conquest. Commerce and industry were not yet sufficiently developed to call for the creation of such associations.

2. Religious Gilds after the Norman Conquest.—Though we have not much information concerning the religious gilds in the 12th century, they doubtless flourished under the Anglo-Norman kings, and we know that they were numerous, especially in the boroughs, from the 13th century onward. In 1388 parliament ordered that every sheriff in England should call upon the masters and wardens of all gilds and brotherhoods to send to the king’s council in Chancery, before the 2nd of February 1389, full returns regarding their foundation, ordinances and property. Many of these returns were edited by J. Toulmin Smith (1816-1869), and they throw much light on the functions of the gilds. Their ordinances are similar to those of the above-mentioned Anglo-Saxon fraternities. Each member took an oath of admission, paid an entrance-fee, and made a small annual contribution to the common fund. The brethren were aided in old age, sickness and poverty, often also in cases of loss by robbery, shipwreck and conflagration; for example, any member of the gild of St Catherine, Aldersgate, was to be assisted if he “fall into poverty or be injured through age, or through fire or water, thieves or sickness.” Alms were often given even to non-gildsmen; lights were supported at certain altars; feasts and processions were held periodically; the funerals of brethren were attended; and masses for the dead were provided from the common purse or from special contributions made by the gildsmen. Some of the religious gilds supported schools, or helped to maintain roads, bridges and town-walls, or even came, in course of time, to be closely connected with the government of the borough; but, as a rule, they were simply private societies with a limited sphere of activity. They are important because they played a prominent rôle in the social life of England, especially as eleemosynary institutions, down to the time of their suppression in 1547. Religious gilds, closely resembling those of England, also flourished on the continent during the middle ages.

3. The Gild Merchant.—The merchant and craft fraternities are particularly interesting to students of economic and municipal history. The gild merchant came into existence in England soon after the Norman Conquest, as a result of the increasing importance of trade, and it may have been transplanted from Normandy. Until clearer evidence of foreign influence is found, it may, however, be safer to regard it simply as a new application of the old gild principle, though this new application may have been stimulated by continental example. The evidence seems to indicate the pre-existence of the gild merchant in Normandy, but it is not mentioned anywhere on the continent before the 11th century. It spread rapidly in England, and from the reign of John onward we have evidence of its existence in many English boroughs. But in some prominent towns, notably London, Colchester, Norwich and the Cinque Ports, it seems never to have been adopted. In fact it played a more conspicuous rôle in the small boroughs than in the large ones. It was regarded by the townsmen as one of their most important privileges. Its chief function was to regulate the trade monopoly conveyed to the borough by the royal grant of gilda mercatoria. A grant of this sort implied that the gildsmen had the right to trade freely in the town, and to impose payments and restrictions upon others who desired to exercise that privilege. The ordinances of a gild merchant thus aim to protect the brethren from the commercial competition of strangers or non-gildsmen. More freedom of trade was allowed at all times in the selling of wares by wholesale, and also in retail dealings during the time of markets and fairs. The ordinances were enforced by an alderman with the assistance of two or more deputies, or by one or two masters, wardens or keepers. The Morwenspeches were periodical meetings at which the brethren feasted, revised their ordinances, admitted new members, elected officers and transacted other business.

It has often been asserted that the gild merchant and the borough were identical, and that the former was the basis of the whole municipal constitution. But recent research has discredited this theory both in England and on the continent. Much evidence has been produced to show that gild and borough, gildsmen and burgesses, were originally distinct conceptions, and that they continued to be discriminated in most towns throughout the middle ages. Admission to the gild was not restricted to burgesses; nor did the brethren form an aristocratic body having control over the whole municipal polity. No good evidence has, moreover, been advanced to prove that this or any other kind of gild was the germ of the municipal constitution. On the other hand, the gild merchant was certainly an official organ or department of the borough administration, and it exerted considerable influence upon the economic and corporative growth of the English municipalities.

Historians have expressed divergent views regarding the early relations of the craftsmen and their fraternities to the gild merchant. One of the main questions in dispute is whether artisans were excluded from the gild merchant. Many of them seem to have been admitted to membership. They were regarded as merchants, for they bought raw material and sold the manufactured commodity; no sharp line of demarcation was drawn between the two classes in the 12th and 13th centuries. Separate societies of craftsmen were formed in England soon after the gild merchant came into existence; but at first they were few in number. The gild merchant did not give birth to craft fraternities or have anything to do with their origin; nor did it delegate its authority to them. In fact, there seems to have been little or no organic connexion between the two classes of gilds. As has already been intimated, however, many artisans probably belonged both to their own craft fraternity and to the gild merchant, and the latter, owing to its great power in the town, may have exercised some sort of supervision over the craftsmen and their societies. When the king bestowed upon the tanners or weavers or any other body of artisans the right to have a gild, they secured the monopoly of working and trading in their branch of industry. Thus with every creation of a craft fraternity the gild merchant was weakened and its sphere of activity was diminished, though the new bodies were subsidiary to the older and larger fraternity. The greater the commercial and industrial prosperity of a town, the more rapid was the multiplication of craft gilds, which was a natural result of the ever-increasing division of labour. The old gild merchant remained longest intact and powerful in the smaller boroughs, in which, owing to the predominance of agriculture, few or no craft gilds were formed. In some of the larger towns the crafts were prominent already in the 13th century, but they became much more prominent in the first half of the 14th century. Their increase in number and power was particularly rapid in the time of Edward III., whose reign marks an era of industrial progress. Many master craftsmen now became wealthy employers of labour, dealing extensively in the wares which they produced. The class of dealers or merchants, as distinguished from trading artisans, also greatly increased and established separate fraternities. When these various unions of dealers and of craftsmen embraced all the trades and branches of production in the town, little or no vitality remained in the old gild merchant; it ceased to have an independent sphere of activity. The tendency was for the single organization, with a general monopoly of trade, to be replaced by a number of separate organizations representing the various trades and handicrafts. In short, the function of guarding and supervising the trade monopoly split up into various fragments, the aggregate of the crafts superseding the old general gild merchant. This transference of the authority of the latter to a number of distinct bodies and the consequent disintegration of the old organization was a gradual spontaneous movement,—a process of slow displacement, or natural growth and decay, due to the play of economic forces,—which, generally speaking, may be assigned to the 14th and 15th centuries, the very period in which the craft gilds attained the zenith of their power. While in most towns the name and the old organization of the gild merchant thus disappeared and the institution was displaced by the aggregate of the crafts towards the close of the middle ages, in some places it survived long after the 15th century either as a religious fraternity, shorn of its old functions, or as a periodical feast, or as a vague term applied to the whole municipal corporation.

On the continent of Europe the medieval gild merchant played a less important rôle than in England. In Germany, France and the Netherlands it occupies a less prominent place in the town charters and in the municipal polity, and often corresponds to the later fraternities of English dealers established either to carry on foreign commerce or to regulate a particular part of the local trade monopoly.

4. Craft Gilds.—A craft gild usually comprised all the artisans in a single branch of industry in a particular town. Such a fraternity was commonly called a “mistery” or “company” in the 15th and 16th centuries, though the old term “gild” was not yet obsolete. “Gild” was also a common designation in north Germany, while the corresponding term in south Germany was Zunft, and in France métier. These societies are not clearly visible in England or on the continent before the early part of the 12th century. With the expansion of trade and industry the number of artisans increased, and they banded together for mutual protection. Some German writers have maintained that these craft organizations emanated from manorial groups of workmen, but strong arguments have been advanced against the validity of this theory (notably by F. Keutgen). It is unnecessary to elaborate any profound theory regarding the origin of the craft gilds. The union of men of the same occupation was a natural tendency of the age. In the 13th century the trade of England continued to expand and the number of craft gilds increased. In the 14th century they were fully developed and in a flourishing condition; by that time each branch of industry in every large town had its gild. The development of these societies was even more rapid on the continent than in England.

Their organization and aims were in general the same throughout western Europe. Officers, commonly called wardens in England, were elected by the members, and their chief function was to supervise the quality of the wares produced, so as to secure good and honest workmanship. Therefore, ordinances were made regulating the hours of labour and the terms of admission to the gild, including apprenticeship. Other ordinances required members to make periodical payments to a common fund, and to participate in certain common religious observances, festivities and pageants. But the regulation of industry was always paramount to social and religious aims; the chief object of the craft gild was to supervise the processes of manufacture and to control the monopoly of working and dealing in a particular branch of industry.

We have already called attention to the gradual displacement of the gild merchant by the craft organizations. The relations of the former to the latter must now be considered more in detail. There was at no time a general struggle in England between the gild merchant and the craft gilds, though in a few towns there seems to have been some friction between merchants and artisans. There is no exact parallel in England to the conflict between these two classes in Scotland in the 16th century, or to the great continental revolution of the 13th and 14th centuries, by which the crafts threw off the yoke of patrician government and secured more independence in the management of their own affairs and more participation in the civic administration. The main causes of these conflicts on the continent were the monopoly of power by the patricians, acts of violence committed by them, their bad management of the finances and their partisan administration of justice. In some towns the victory of the artisans in the 14th century was so complete that the whole civic constitution was remodelled with the craft fraternities as a basis. A widespread movement of this sort would scarcely be found in England, where trade and industry were less developed than on the continent, and where the motives of a class conflict between merchants and craftsmen were less potent. Moreover, borough government in England seems to have been mainly democratic until the 14th or 15th century; there was no oligarchy to be depressed or suppressed. Even if there had been motives for uprisings of artisans such as took place in Germany and the Netherlands, the English kings would probably have intervened. True, there were popular uprisings in England, but they were usually conflicts between the poor and the rich; the crafts as such seldom took part in these tumults. While many continental municipalities were becoming more democratic in the 14th century, those of England were drifting towards oligarchy, towards government by a close “select body.” As a rule the craft gilds secured no dominant influence in the boroughs of England, but remained subordinate to the town government. Whatever power they did secure, whether as potent subsidiary organs of the municipal polity for the regulation of trade, or as the chief or sole medium for the acquisition of citizenship, or as integral parts of the common council, was, generally speaking, the logical sequence of a gradual economic development, and not the outgrowth of a revolutionary movement by which oppressed craftsmen endeavoured to throw off the yoke of an arrogant patrician gild merchant.

Two new kinds of craft fraternities appear in the 14th century and become more prominent In the 15th, namely, the merchants’ and the journeymen’s companies. The misteries or companies of merchants traded in one or more kinds of wares. They were pre-eminently dealers, who sold what others produced. Hence they should not be confused with the old gild merchant, which originally comprised both merchants and artisans, and had the whole monopoly of the trade of the town. In most cases, the company of merchants was merely one of the craft organizations which superseded the gild merchant.

In the 14th century the journeymen or yeomen began to set up fraternities in defence of their rights. The formation of these societies marks a cleft within the ranks of some particular class of artisans—a conflict between employers, or master artisans, and workmen. The journeymen combined to protect their special interests, notably as regards hours of work and rates of wages, and they fought with the masters over the labour question in all its aspects. The resulting struggle of organized bodies of masters and journeymen was widespread throughout western Europe, but it was more prominent in Germany than in France or England. This conflict was indeed one of the main features of German industrial life in the 15th century. In England the fraternities of journeymen, after struggling a while for complete independence, seem to have fallen under the supervision and control of the masters’ gilds; in other words, they became subsidiary or affiliated organs of the older craft fraternities.

An interesting phenomenon in connexion with the organization of crafts is their tendency to amalgamate, which is occasionally visible in England in the 15th century, and more frequently in the 16th and 17th. A similar tendency is visible in the Netherlands and in some other parts of the continent already in the 14th century. Several fraternities—old gilds or new companies, with their respective cognate or heterogeneous branches of industry and trade—were fused into one body. In some towns all the crafts were thus consolidated into a single fraternity; in this case a body was reproduced which regulated the whole trade monopoly of the borough, and hence bore some resemblance to the old gild merchant.

In dealing briefly with the modern history of craft gilds, we may confine our attention to England. In the Tudor period the policy of the crown was to bring them under public or national control. Laws were passed, for example in 1503, requiring that new ordinances of “fellowships of crafts or misteries” should be approved by the royal justices or by other crown officers; and the authority of the companies to fix the price of wares was thus restricted. The statute of 5 Elizabeth, c. 4, also curtailed their jurisdiction over journeymen and apprentices (see Apprenticeship).

The craft fraternities were not suppressed by the statute of 1547 (1 Edward VI.). They were indeed expressly exempted from its general operation. Such portions of their revenues as were devoted to definite religious observances were, however, appropriated by the crown. The revenues confiscated were those used for “the finding, maintaining or sustentation of any priest or of any anniversary, or obit, lamp, light or other such things.” This has been aptly called “the disendowment of the religion of the misteries.” Edward VI.’s statute marks no break of continuity in the life of the craft organizations. Even before the Reformation, however, signs of decay had already begun to appear, and these multiplied in the 16th and 17th centuries. The old gild system was breaking down under the action of new economic forces. Its dissolution was due especially to the introduction of new industries, organized on a more modern basis, and to the extension of the domestic system of manufacture. Thus the companies gradually lost control over the regulation of industry, though they still retained their old monopoly in the 17th century, and in many cases even in the 18th. In fact, many craft fraternities still survived in the second half of the 18th century, but their usefulness had disappeared. The medieval form of association was incompatible with the new ideas of individual liberty and free competition, with the greater separation of capital and industry, employers and workmen, and with the introduction of the factory system. Intent only on promoting their own interests and disregarding the welfare of the community, the old companies had become an unmitigated evil. Attempts have been made to find in them the progenitors of the trades unions, but there seems to be no immediate connexion between the latter and the craft gilds. The privileges of the old fraternities were not formally abolished until 1835; and the substantial remains or spectral forms of some are still visible in other towns besides London.

Bibliography.—W. E. Wilda, Das Gildenwesen im Mittelalter (Halle, 1831); E. Levasseur; Histoire des classes ouvrières en France (2 vols., Paris, 1859, new ed. 1900); Gustav von Schönberg, “Zur wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung des deutschen Zunftwesens im Mittelalter,” in Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, ed. B. Hildebrand, vol. ix. pp. 1-72, 97-169 (Jena, 1867); Joshua Toulmin Smith, English Gilds, with Lujo Brentano’s introductory essay on the History and Development of Gilds (London, 1870); Max Pappenheim, Die altdänischen Schutzgilden (Breslau, 1885); W. J. Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History (2 vols., London, 1888-1893; 3rd ed. of vol. i., 1894); C. Gross, The Gild Merchant (2 vols., Oxford, 1890); Karl Hegel, Städte und Gilden der germanischen Völker (2 vols., Leipzig, 1891); J. Malet Lambert, Two Thousand Years of Gild Life (Hull, 1891); Alfred Doren, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Kaufmannsgilden (Leipzig, 1893); H. Vander Linden, Les Gildes marchandes dans les Pays-Bas au moyen âge (Ghent, 1896); E. Martin Saint-Léon, Histoire des corporations de métiers (Paris, 1897); C. Nyrop, Danmarks Gilde- og Lavsskraaer fra middelalderen (2 vols., Copenhagen, 1899-1904); F. Keutgen, Ämter und Zünfte (Jena, 1903); George Unwin, Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford, 1904). For bibliographies of gilds, see H. Blanc, Bibliographie des corporations ouvrières (Paris, 1885); G. Gonetta, Bibliografia delle corporazioni d’ arti e mestieri (Rome, 1891); C. Gross, Bibliography of British Municipal History, including Gilds (New York, 1897); W. Stieda, in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, ed. J. Conrad (2nd ed., Jena, 1901, under “Zunftwesen”).

(C. Gr.)

GILEAD (i.e. “hard” or “rugged,” a name sometimes used, both in earlier and in later writers, to denote the whole of the territory occupied by the Israelites eastward of Jordan, extending from the Arnon to the southern base of Hermon (Deut. xxxiv. 1; Judg. xx. 1; Jos. Ant. xii. 8. 3, 4). More precisely, however, it was the usual name of that picturesque hill country which is bounded on the N. by the Hieromax (Yarmuk), on the W. by the Jordan, on the S. by the Arnon, and on the E. by a line which may be said to follow the meridian of Ammān (Philadelphia or Rabbath-Ammon). It thus lies wholly within 31° 25′ and 32° 42′ N. lat. and 35° 34′ and 36° E. long., and is cut in two by the Jabbok. Excluding the narrow strip of low-lying plain along the Jordan, it has an average elevation of 2500 ft. above the Mediterranean; but, as seen from the west, the relative height is very much increased by the depression of the Jordan valley. The range from the same point of view presents a singularly uniform outline, having the appearance of an unbroken wall; in reality, however, it is traversed by a number of deep ravines (wadis), of which the most important are the Yābis, the Ajlūn, the Rājib, the Zerka (Jabbok), the Hesban, and the Zerka Ma’īn. The great mass of the Gilead range is formed of Jura limestone, the base slopes being sandstone partly covered by white marls. The eastern slopes are comparatively bare of trees; but the western are well supplied with oak, terebinth and pine. The pastures are everywhere luxuriant, and the wooded heights and winding glens, in which the tangled shrubbery is here and there broken up by open glades and flat meadows of green turf, exhibit a beauty of vegetation such as is hardly to be seen in any other district of Palestine.

The first biblical mention of “Mount Gilead” occurs in connexion with the reconcilement of Jacob and Laban (Genesis xxxi.). The composite nature of the story makes an identification of the exact site difficult, but one of the narrators (E) seems to have in mind the ridge of what is now known as Jebel Ajlūn, probably not far from Maḥneh (Mahanaim), near the head of the wadi Yābis. Some investigators incline to Sūf, or to the Jebel Kafkafa. At the period of the Israelite conquest the portion of Gilead northward of the Jabbok (Zerka) belonged to the dominions of Og, king of Bashan, while the southern half was ruled by Sihon, king of the Amorites, having been at an earlier date wrested from Moab (Numb. xxi. 24; Deut. iii. 12-16). These two sections were allotted respectively to Manasseh and to Reuben and Gad, both districts being peculiarly suited to the pastoral and nomadic character of these tribes. A somewhat wild Bedouin disposition, fostered by their surroundings, was retained by the Israelite inhabitants of Gilead to a late period of their history, and seems to be to some extent discernible in what we read alike of Jephthah, of David’s Gadites, and of the prophet Elijah. As the eastern frontier of Palestine, Gilead bore the first brunt of Syrian and Assyrian attacks.

After the close of the Old Testament history the word Gilead seldom occurs. It seems to have soon passed out of use as a precise geographical designation; for though occasionally mentioned by Apocryphal writers, by Josephus, and by Eusebius, the allusions are all vague, and show that those who made them had no definite knowledge of Gilead proper. In Josephus and the New Testament the name Peraea or πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου is most frequently used; and the country is sometimes spoken of by Josephus as divided into small provinces called after the capitals in which Greek colonists had established themselves during the reign of the Seleucidae. At present Gilead south of the Jabbok alone is known by the name of Jebel Jilad (Mount Gilead), the northern portion between the Jabbok and the Yarmuk being called Jebel Ajlūn. Jebel Jilad includes Jebel Osha, and has for its capital the town of Es-Salt. The cities of Gilead expressly mentioned in the Old Testament are Ramoth, Jabesh and Jazer. The first of these has been variously identified with Es-Salt, with Reimun, with Jerash or Gerasa, with er-Remtha, and with Ṣalḥad. Opinions are also divided on the question of its identity with Mizpeh-Gilead (see Encyc. Biblica, art. “Ramoth-Gilead”). Jabesh is perhaps to be found at Meriamin, less probably at ed-Deir; Jazer, at Yajuz near Jogbehah, rather than at Sar. The city named Gilead (Judg. x. 17, xii. 7; Hos. vi. 8, xii. 11) has hardly been satisfactorily explained; perhaps the text has suffered.

The “balm” (Heb. ṣori) for which Gilead was so noted (Gen. xlvii. 11; Jer. viii. 22, xlvi. 11; Ezek. xxvii. 17), is probably to be identified with mastic (Gen. xxxvii. 25, R.V. marg.) i.e. the resin yielded by the Pistachia Lentiscus. The modern “balm of Gilead” or “Mecca balsam,” an aromatic gum produced by the Balsamodendron opobalsamum, is more likely the Hebrew mōr, which the English Bible wrongly renders “myrrh.”

See G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. xxiv. foll.

(R. A. S. M.)

GILES (Gil, Gilles), ST, the name given to an abbot whose festival is celebrated on the 1st of September. According to the legend, he was an Athenian (Λἰγίδιος, Aegidius) of royal descent. After the death of his parents he distributed his possessions among the poor, took ship, and landed at Marseilles. Thence he went to Arles, where he remained for two years with St Caesarius. He then retired into a neighbouring desert, where he lived upon herbs and upon the milk of a hind which came to him at stated hours. He was discovered there one day by Flavius, the king of the Goths, who built a monastery on the place, of which he was the first abbot. Scholars are very much divided as to the date of his life, some holding that he lived in the 6th century, others in the 7th or 8th. It may be regarded as certain that St Giles was buried in the hermitage which he had founded in a spot which was afterwards the town of St-Gilles (diocese of Nîmes, department of Gard). His reputation for sanctity attracted many pilgrims. Important gifts were made to the church which contained his body, and a monastery grew up hard by. It is probable that the Visigothic princes who were in possession of the country protected and enriched this monastery, and that it was destroyed by the Saracens at the time of their invasion in 721. But there are no authentic data before the 9th century concerning his history. In 808 Charlemagne took the abbey of St-Gilles under his protection, and it is mentioned among the monasteries from which only prayers for the prince and the state were due. In the 12th century the pilgrimages to St-Gilles are cited as among the most celebrated of the time. The cult of the saint, who came to be regarded as the special patron of lepers, beggars and cripples, spread very extensively over Europe, especially in England, Scotland, France, Belgium and Germany. The church of St Giles, Cripplegate, London, was built about 1090, while the hospital for lepers at St Giles-in-the-Fields (near New Oxford Street) was founded by Queen Matilda in 1117. In England alone there are about 150 churches dedicated to this saint. In Edinburgh the church of St Giles could boast the possession of an arm-bone of its patron. Representations of St Giles are very frequently met with in early French and German art, but are much less common in Italy and Spain.

See Acta Sanctorum (September), i. 284-299; Devic and Vaissete, Histoire générale de Languedoc, pp. 514-522 (Toulouse, 1876); E. Rembry, Saint Gilles, sa vie, ses reliques, son culte en Belgique et dans le nord de la France (Bruges, 1881); F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications, or England’s Patron Saints, ii. 46-51, iii. 15, 363-365 (1899); A. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, 768-770 (1896); A. Bell, Lives and Legends of the English Bishops and Kings, Medieval Monks, and other later Saints, pp. 61, 70, 74-78, 84, 197 (1904).

(H. De.)

GILFILLAN, GEORGE (1813-1878), Scottish author, was born on the 30th of January 1813, at Comrie, Perthshire, where his father, the Rev. Samuel Gilfillan, the author of some theological works, was for many years minister of a Secession congregation. After an education at Glasgow University, in March 1836 he was ordained pastor of a Secession congregation in Dundee. He published a volume of his discourses in 1839, and shortly afterwards another sermon on “Hades,” which brought him under the scrutiny of his co-presbyters, and was ultimately withdrawn from circulation. Gilfillan next contributed a series of sketches of celebrated contemporary authors to the Dumfries Herald, then edited by Thomas Aird; and these, with several new ones, formed his first Gallery of Literary Portraits, which appeared in 1846, and had a wide circulation. It was quickly followed by a Second and a Third Gallery. In 1851 his most successful work, the Bards of the Bible, appeared. His aim was that it should be “a poem on the Bible”; and it was far more rhapsodical than critical. His Martyrs and Heroes of the Scottish Covenant appeared in 1832, and in 1856 he produced a partly autobiographical, partly fabulous, History of a Man. For thirty years he was engaged upon a long poem, on Night, which was published in 1867, but its theme was too vast, vague and unmanageable, and the result was a failure. He also edited an edition of the British Poets. As a lecturer and as a preacher he drew large crowds, but his literary reputation has not proved permanent. He died on the 13th of August 1878. He had just finished a new life of Burns designed to accompany a new edition of the works of that poet.

GILGAL (Heb. for “circle” of sacred stones), the name of several places in Palestine, mentioned in the Old Testament. The name is not found east of the Jordan.

1. The first and most important was situated “in the east border of Jericho” (Josh. iv. 19), on the border between Judah and Benjamin (Josh. xv. 7). Josephus (Ant. v. 1. 4) places it 50 stadia from Jordan and 10 from Jericho (the New Testament site). Jerome (Onomasticon, s.v. “Galgal”) places Gilgal 2 Roman miles from Jericho, and speaks of it as a deserted place held in wonderful veneration (“miro cultu”) by the natives. This site, which in the middle ages appears to have been lost—Gilgal being shown farther north—was in 1865 recovered by a German traveller (Hermann Zschokke), and fixed by the English survey party, though not beyond dispute. It is about 2 m. east of the site of Byzantine Jericho, and 1 m. from modern er-Riha. A fine tamarisk, traces of a church (which is mentioned in the 8th century), and a large reservoir, now filled up with mud, remain. The place is called Jiljūlieh, and its position north of the valley of Achor (Wadì Kelt) and east of Jericho agrees well with the biblical indications above mentioned. A tradition connected with the fall of Jericho is attached to the site (see C. R. Conder, Tent Work, 203 ff.). This sanctuary and camp of Israel held a high place in the national regard, and is often mentioned in Judges and Samuel. But whether this is the Gilgal spoken of by Amos and Hosea in connexion with Bethel is by no means certain [see (3) below].

2. Gilgal, mentioned in Josh. xii. 23 in connexion with Dor, appears to have been situated in the maritime plain. Jerome (Onomasticon, s.v. “Gelgel”) speaks of a town of the name 6 Roman miles north of Antipatris (Ras el ‘Ain). This is apparently the modern Kalkilia, but about 4 m. north of Antipatris is a large village called Jiljūlieh, which is more probably the biblical town.

3. The third Gilgal (2 Kings iv. 38) was in the mountains (compare 1 Sam. vii. 16, 2 Kings ii. 1-3) near Bethel. Jerome mentions this place also (Onomasticon, s.v. “Galgala”). It appears to be the present village of Jiljilia, about 7 English miles north of Beitin (Bethel). It may have absorbed the old shrine of Shiloh and been the sanctuary famous in the days of Amos and Hosea.

4. Deut. xi. 30 seems to imply a Gilgal near Gerizim, and there is still a place called Juleijil on the plain of Makhna, 2½ m. S.E. of Shechem. This may have been Amos’s Gilgal and was almost certainly that of 1 Macc. ix. 2.

5. The Gilgal described in Josh. xv. 7 is the same as the Beth-Gilgal of Neh. xii. 29; its site is not known.

(R. A. S. M.)

GILGAMESH, EPIC OF, the title given to one of the most important literary products of Babylonia, from the name of the chief personage in the series of tales of which it is composed.

Though the Gilgamesh Epic is known to us chiefly from the fragments found in the royal collection of tablets made by Assur-bani-pal, the king of Assyria (668-626 B.C.) for his palace at Nineveh, internal evidence points to the high antiquity of at least some portions of it, and the discovery of a fragment of the epic in the older form of the Babylonian script, which can be dated as 2000 B.C., confirms this view. Equally certain is a second observation of a general character that the epic originating as the greater portion of the literature in Assur-bani-pal’s collection in Babylonia is a composite product, that is to say, it consists of a number of independent stories or myths originating at different times, and united to form a continuous narrative with Gilgamesh as the central figure. This view naturally raises the question whether the independent stories were all told of Gilgamesh or, as almost always happens in the case of ancient tales, were transferred to Gilgamesh as a favourite popular hero. Internal evidence again comes to our aid to lend its weight to the latter theory.

While the existence of such a personage as Gilgamesh may be admitted, he belongs to an age that could only have preserved a dim recollection of his achievements and adventures through oral traditions. The name1 is not Babylonian, and what evidence as to his origin there is points to his having come from Elam, to the east of Babylonia. He may have belonged to the people known as the Kassites who at the beginning of the 18th century B.C. entered Babylonia from Elam, and obtained control of the Euphrates valley. Why and how he came to be a popular hero in Babylonia cannot with our present material be determined, but the epic indicates that he came as a conqueror and established himself at Erech. In so far we have embodied in the first part of the epic dim recollections of actual events, but we soon leave the solid ground of fact and find ourselves soaring to the heights of genuine myth. Gilgamesh becomes a god, and in certain portions of the epic clearly plays the part of the sun-god of the spring-time, taking the place apparently of Tammuz or Adonis, the youthful sun-god, though the story shows traits that differentiate it from the ordinary Tammuz myths. A separate stratum in the Gilgamesh epic is formed by the story of Eabani—introduced as the friend of Gilgamesh, who joins him in his adventures. There can be no doubt that Eabani, who symbolizes primeval man, was a figure originally entirely independent of Gilgamesh, but his story was incorporated into the epic by that natural process to be observed in the national epics of other peoples, which tends to connect the favourite hero with all kinds of tales that for one reason or the other become embedded in the popular mind. Another stratum is represented by the story of a favourite of the gods known as Ut-Napishtim, who is saved from a destructive storm and flood that destroys his fellow-citizens of Shurippak. Gilgamesh is artificially brought into contact with Ut-Napishtim, to whom he pays a visit for the purpose of learning the secret of immortal life and perpetual youth which he enjoys. During the visit Ut-Napishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of the flood and of his miraculous escape. Nature myths have been entwined with other episodes in the epic and finally the theologians took up the combined stories and made them the medium for illustrating the truth and force of certain doctrines of the Babylonian religion. In its final form, the outcome of an extended and complicated literary process, the Gilgamesh Epic covered twelve tablets, each tablet devoted to one adventure in which the hero plays a direct or indirect part, and the whole covering according to the most plausible estimate about 3000 lines. Of all twelve tablets portions have been found among the remains of Assur-bani-pal’s library, but some of the tablets are so incomplete as to leave even their general contents in some doubt. The fragments do not all belong to one copy. Of some tablets portions of two, and of some tablets portions of as many as four, copies have turned up, pointing therefore to the great popularity of the production. The best preserved are Tablets VI. and XI., and of the total about 1500 lines are now known, wholly or in part, while of those partially preserved quite a number can be restored. A brief summary of the contents of the twelve may be indicated as follows: