VOLUME XVI SLICE II Lamennais, Robert de to Latini, Brunetto (continued 5)

LANDSKRONA, a seaport of Sweden, on the east side of the Sound, 15 m. N.E. of Copenhagen. Pop. (1900) 14,399. The harbour is excellent, giving a depth of 35 ft., with 15 ft. beside the quays. The town is among the first twelve manufacturing centres of Sweden in value of output, the principal industries being tanning and sugar manufacture and refining from beetroot. On the little island of Hven, immediately opposite the town, Tycho Brahe built his famous subterranean observatory of Uranienborg in the second half of the 16th century. Landskrona, originally called Landora or Landör, owed its first importance to King Erik XIII., who introduced a body of Carmelite monks from Germany in 1410, and bestowed on the place the privileges of a town. During the wars of the 16th and 17th centuries it played too conspicuous a part for its own prosperity. On the 24th of July 1677 a great naval battle was fought in the neighbourhood in which the Swedes defeated the Danes.

LANDSTURM, the German equivalent of the levée en masse, or general levy of all men capable of bearing arms and not included in the other regularly organized forces, standing army or its second line formations, of Continental nations.

LANDWEHR, a German word meaning “defence of the country”; but the term as applied to an insurrectional militia is very ancient, and “lantveri” are mentioned in Baluzii Capitularia, as quoted in Hallam’s Middle Ages, i. 262, 10th ed. The landwehr in Prussia was first formed by a royal edict of the 17th of March 1813, which called up all men capable of bearing arms between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and not serving in the regular army, for the defence of the country. After the peace of 1815 this force was made an integral part of the Prussian army, each brigade being composed of one line and one landwehr regiment. This, however, retarded the mobilization and diminished the value of the first line, and by the re-organization of 1859 the landwehr troops were relegated to the second line. In Austria the landwehr is a totally different organization. It is in reality a cadre force existing alongside the regular army, and to it are handed over such recruits as, for want of vacancies, cannot be placed in the latter. In Switzerland the landwehr is a second line force, in which all citizens serve for twelve years, after passing twelve in the “Auszug” or field army.

LANE, EDWARD WILLIAM (1801-1876), English Arabic scholar, son of Dr Theophilus Lane, prebendary of Hereford, was born on the 17th of September 1801. He was educated at Bath and Hereford grammar schools, where he showed marked mathematical ability, and was designed for Cambridge and the church, but this purpose was abandoned, and for some time he studied the art of engraving. Failure of health compelled him to throw aside the burin, and in 1825 he started for Egypt, where he spent three years, twice ascended the Nile, proceeding as far as the second cataract, and composed a complete description of Egypt, with a portfolio of one hundred and one drawings. This work was never published, but the account of the modern Egyptians, which formed a part of it, was accepted for separate publication by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. To perfect this work Lane again visited Egypt in 1833-1835, residing mainly in Cairo, but retiring to Luxor during the plague of 1835. Lane took up his residence in the Mahommedan quarter, and under the name of Mansur Effendi lived the life of an Egyptian scholar. He was fortunate in the time when he took up his work, for Cairo had not then become a modern city, and he was thus able to describe aspects of Arabian life that no longer exist there. Perfected by the additional observations collected during these years, the Modern Egyptians appeared in 1836, and at once took the place which it has never lost as the best description of Eastern life and an Eastern country ever written. It was followed from 1838 to 1840 by a translation of the Arabian Nights, with notes and illustrations, designed to make the book a sort of encyclopaedia of Eastern manners. The translation itself is an admirable proof of scholarship, but is characterized by a somewhat stilted mannerism, which is not equally appropriate to all parts of the motley-coloured original. The character of some of the tales and the tedious repetitions of the same theme in the Arabic collection induced Lane to leave considerable parts of the work untranslated. The value of his version is increased by the exhaustive notes on Mahommedan life and customs. In 1840 Lane married a Greek lady. A useful volume of Selections from the Kur-ān was published in 1843, but before it passed through the press Lane was again in Egypt, where he spent seven years (1842-1849) collecting materials for a great Arabic lexicon, which the munificence of Lord Prudhoe (afterwards duke of Northumberland) enabled him to undertake. The most important of the materials amassed during this sojourn (in which he was accompanied by his wife and by his sister, Mrs Poole, authoress of the Englishwoman in Egypt, with her two sons, afterwards well known in Eastern letters) was a copy in 24 thick quarto volumes of Sheikh Murtadā’s great lexicon, the Tāj el ‘Arūs, which, though itself a compilation, is so extensive and exact that it formed the main basis of Lane’s subsequent work. The author, who lived in Egypt in the 18th century, used more than a hundred sources, interweaving what he learned from them with the al-Qāmūs of Fairūzābādī in the form of a commentary. By far the larger part of this commentary was derived from the Lisān el ‘Arab of Ibn Mokarram, a work of the 13th century, which Lane was also able to use while in Cairo.

Returning to England in 1849, Lane devoted the remaining twenty-seven years of his life to digesting and translating his Arabic material in the form of a great thesaurus of the lexicographical knowledge of the Arabs. In spite of weak health he continued this arduous task with unflagging diligence till a few days before his death at Worthing on the 10th of August 1876. Five parts appeared during his lifetime (1863-1874), and three posthumous parts were afterwards edited from his papers by S. Lane-Poole. Even in its imperfect state the Lexicon is an enduring monument, the completeness and finished scholarship with which it is executed making each article an exhaustive monograph. Two essays, the one on Arabic lexicography and the other on Arabic pronunciation, contributed to the magazine of the German Oriental Society, complete the record of Lane’s publications. His scholarship was recognized by many learned European societies. He was a member of the German Oriental Society, a correspondent of the French Institute, &c. In 1863 he was awarded a small civil list pension, which was after his death continued to his widow. Lane was not an original mind; his powers were those of observation, industry and sound judgment. His personal character was elevated and pure, his strong sense of religious and moral duty being of the type that characterized the best circles of English evangelicalism in the early part of the 19th century.

A Memoir, by his grand-nephew, S. Lane-Poole, was prefixed to part vi. of the Lexicon. It was published separately in 1877.

LANE, GEORGE MARTIN (1823-1897), American scholar, was born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, on the 24th of December 1823. He graduated in 1846 at Harvard, and in 1847-1851 studied at the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Heidelberg and Göttingen. In 1851 he received his doctor’s degree at Göttingen for his dissertation Smyrnaeorum Res Gestae et Antiquitates, and on his return to America he was appointed University Professor of Latin in Harvard College. From 1869 until 1894, when he resigned and became professor emeritus, he was Pope Professor of Latin in the same institution. His Latin Pronunciation, which led to the rejection of the English method of Latin pronunciation in the United States, was published in 1871. He died on the 30th of June 1897. His Latin Grammar, completed and published by Professor M. H. Morgan in the following year, is of high value. Lane’s assistance in the preparation of Harper’s Latin lexicons was also invaluable. English light verse he wrote with humour and fluency, and his song Jonah and the Ballad of the Lone Fishball were famous.

LANE, JAMES HENRY (1814-1866), American soldier and politician, was born at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on the 22nd of June 1814. He was the son of Amos Lane (1778-1849), a political leader in Indiana, a member of the Indiana House of Representatives in 1816-1818 (speaker in 1817-1818), in 1821-1822 and in 1839-1840, and from 1833 to 1837 a Democratic representative in Congress. The son received a common school education, studied law and in 1840 was admitted to the bar. In the Mexican War he served as a colonel under General Taylor, and then commanded the Fifth Indiana regiment (which he had raised) in the Southern Campaign under General Scott. Lane was lieutenant-governor of Indiana from 1849 to 1853, and from 1853 to 1855 was a Democratic representative in Congress. His vote in favour of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill ruined his political future in his own state, and he emigrated in 1855 to the Territory of Kansas, probably as an agent of Stephen A. Douglas to organize the Democratic party there. He soon joined the Free State forces, however, was a member of the first general Free State convention at Big Springs in September 1855, and wrote its “platform,” which deprecated abolitionism and urged the exclusion of negroes from the Territory; and he presided over the Topeka Constitutional Convention, composed of Free State men, in the autumn of 1855. Lane was second in command of the forces in Lawrence during the “Wakarusa War”; and in the spring of 1856 was elected a United States senator under the Topeka Constitution, the validity of which, however, and therefore the validity of his election, Congress refused to recognize. In May 1856, with George Washington Deitzler (1826-1884), Dr Charles Robinson, and other Free State leaders, he was indicted for treason; but he escaped from Kansas, made a tour of the northern cities, and by his fiery oratory aroused great enthusiasm in behalf of the Free State movement in Kansas. Returning to the Territory with John Brown in August 1856, he took an active part in the domestic feuds of 1856-1857. After Kansas became a state, Lane was elected in 1861 to the United States Senate as a Republican. Immediately on reaching Washington he organized a company to guard the President; and in August 1861, having gained the ear of the Federal authorities and become intimate with President Lincoln, he went to Kansas with vague military powers, and exercised them in spite of the protests of the governor and the regular departmental commanders. During the autumn, with a brigade of 1500 men, he conducted a devastating campaign on the Missouri border, and in July 1862 he was appointed commissioner of recruiting for Kansas, a position in which he rendered faithful service, though he frequently came into conflict with the state authorities. At this time he planned a chimerical “great Southern expedition” against New Mexico, but this came to nothing. In 1864 he laboured earnestly for the re-election of Lincoln. When President Johnson quarrelled with the Radical Republicans, Lane deserted the latter and defended the Executive. Angered by his defection, certain senators accused him of being implicated in Indian contracts of a fraudulent character; and in a fit of depression following this accusation he took his own life, dying near Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on the 11th of July 1866, ten days after he had shot himself in the head. Ambitious, unscrupulous, rash and impulsive, and generally regarded by his contemporaries as an unsafe leader, Lane was a man of great energy and personal magnetism, and possessed oratorical powers of a high order.

See the article by L. W. Spring entitled “The Career of a Kansas Politician,” in vol. iv. (October 1898) of the American Historical Review; and for the commoner view, which makes him not a coward as does Spring, but a “grim chieftain” and a hero, see John Speer, Life of Gen. James H. Lane, “The Saviour of Kansas,” (Garden City, Kansas, 1896).

Senator Lane should not be confused with James Henry Lane (1833-1907), who served on the Confederate side during the Civil War, attaining the rank of brigadier-general in 1862, and after the war was professor of natural philosophy and military tactics in the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College from 1872 to 1880, and professor of civil engineering and drawing in the Alabama Polytechnic Institute from 1882 until his death.

LANESSAN, JEAN MARIE ANTOINE DE (1843- ), French statesman and naturalist, was born at Sainte-André de Cubzac (Gironde) on the 13th of July 1843. He entered the navy in 1862, serving on the East African and Cochin-China stations in the medical department until the Franco-German War, when he resigned and volunteered for the army medical service. He now completed his studies, taking his doctorate in 1872. Elected to the Municipal Council of Paris in 1879, he declared in favour of communal autonomy and joined with Henri Rochefort in demanding the erection of a monument to the Communards; but after his election to the Chamber of Deputies for the 5th arrondissement of Paris in 1881 he gradually veered from the extreme Radical party to the Republican Union, and identified himself with the cause of colonial expansion. A government mission to the French colonies in 1886-1887, in connexion with the approaching Paris exhibition, gave him the opportunity of studying colonial questions, on which, after his return, he published three works: La Tunisie (Paris, 1887); L’Expansion coloniale de la France (ib., 1888), L’Indo-Chine française (ib., 1889). In 1891 he was made civil and military governor of French Indo-China, where his administration, which involved him in open rupture with Admiral Fournier, was severely criticized. Nevertheless he consolidated French influence in Annam and Cambodia, and secured a large accession of territory on the Mekong river from the kingdom of Siam. He was recalled in 1894, and published an apology for his administration (La Colonisation française en Indo-Chine) in the following year. In the Waldeck-Rousseau cabinet of 1899 to 1902 he was minister of marine, and in 1901 he secured the passage of a naval programme intended to raise the French navy during the next six years to a level befitting the place of France among the great powers. At the general election of 1906 he was not re-elected. He was political director of the Siècle, and president of the French Colonization Society, and wrote, besides the books already mentioned, various works on political and biological questions.

LANFRANC (d. 1089), archbishop of Canterbury, was a Lombard by extraction. He was born in the early years of the 11th century at Pavia, where his father, Hanbald, held the rank of a magistrate. Lanfranc was trained in the legal studies for which northern Italy was then becoming famous, and acquired such proficiency that tradition links him with Irnerius of Bologna as a pioneer in the renaissance of Roman law. Though designed for a public career Lanfranc had the tastes of a student. After his father’s death he crossed the Alps to found a school in France; but in a short while he decided that Normandy would afford him a better field. About 1039 he became the master of the cathedral school at Avranches, where he taught for three years with conspicuous success. But in 1042 he embraced the monastic profession in the newly founded house of Bec. Until 1045 he lived at Bec in absolute seclusion. He was then persuaded by Abbot Herluin to open a school in the monastery. From the first he was celebrated (totius Latinitatis magister). His pupils were drawn not only from France and Normandy, but also from Gascony, Flanders, Germany and Italy. Many of them afterwards attained high positions in the Church; one, Anselm of Badagio, became pope under the title of Alexander II. In this way Lanfranc set the seal of intellectual activity on the reform movement of which Bec was the centre. The favourite subjects of his lectures were logic and dogmatic theology. He was therefore naturally invited to defend the doctrine of transubstantiation against the attacks of Berengar of Tours. He took up the task with the greatest zeal, although Berengar had been his personal friend; he was the protagonist of orthodoxy at the councils of Vercelli (1050), Tours (1054) and Rome (1059). To his influence we may attribute the desertion of Berengar’s cause by Hildebrand and the more broad-minded of the cardinals. Our knowledge of Lanfranc’s polemics is chiefly derived from the tract De corpore et sanguine Domini which he wrote many years later (after 1079) when Berengar had been finally condemned. Though betraying no signs of metaphysical ability, his work was regarded as conclusive and became a text-book in the schools. It is the most important of the works attributed to Lanfranc; which, considering his reputation, are slight and disappointing.

In the midst of his scholastic and controversial activities Lanfranc became a political force. While merely a prior of Bec he led the opposition to the uncanonical marriage of Duke William with Matilda of Flanders (1053) and carried matters so far that he incurred a sentence of exile. But the quarrel was settled when he was on the point of departure, and he undertook the difficult task of obtaining the pope’s approval of the marriage. In this he was successful at the same council which witnessed his third victory over Berengar (1059), and he thus acquired a lasting claim on William’s gratitude. In 1066 he became the first abbot of St Stephen’s at Caen, a house which the duke had been enjoined to found as a penance for his disobedience to the Holy See. Henceforward Lanfranc exercised a perceptible influence on his master’s policy. William adopted the Cluniac programme of ecclesiastical reform, and obtained the support of Rome for his English expedition by assuming the attitude of a crusader against schism and corruption. It was Alexander II., the former pupil of Lanfranc, who gave the Norman Conquest the papal benediction—a notable advantage to William at the moment, but subsequently the cause of serious embarrassments.

Naturally, when the see of Rouen next fell vacant (1067), the thoughts of the electors turned to Lanfranc. But he declined the honour, and he was nominated to the English primacy as soon as Stigand had been canonically deposed (1070). The new archbishop at once began a policy of reorganization and reform. His first difficulties were with Thomas of Bayeux, archbishop-elect of York, who asserted that his see was independent of Canterbury and claimed jurisdiction over the greater part of midland England. Lanfranc, during a visit which he paid the pope for the purpose of receiving his pallium, obtained an order from Alexander that the disputed points should be settled by a council of the English Church. This was held at Winchester in 1072. Thanks to a skilful use of forged documents, the primate carried the council’s verdict upon every point. Even if he were not the author of the forgeries he can scarcely have been the dupe of his own partisans. But the political dangers to be apprehended from the disruption of the English Church were sufficiently serious to palliate the fraud. This was not the only occasion on which Lanfranc allowed his judgment to be warped by considerations of expediency. Although the school of Bec was firmly attached to the doctrine of papal sovereignty, he still assisted William in maintaining the independence of the English Church; and appears at one time to have favoured the idea of maintaining a neutral attitude on the subject of the quarrels between papacy and empire. In the domestic affairs of England the archbishop showed more spiritual zeal. His grand aim was to extricate the Church from the fetters of the state and of secular interests. He was a generous patron of monasticism. He endeavoured to enforce celibacy upon the secular clergy. He obtained the king’s permission to deal with the affairs of the Church in synods which met apart from the Great Council, and were exclusively composed of ecclesiastics. Nor can we doubt that it was his influence which shaped the famous ordinance separating the ecclesiastical from the secular courts (c. 1076). But even in such questions he allowed some weight to political considerations and the wishes of his sovereign. He acknowledged the royal right to veto the legislation of national synods. In the cases of Odo of Bayeux (1082) and of William of St Calais, bishop of Durham (1088), he used his legal ingenuity to justify the trial of bishops before a lay tribunal. He accelerated the process of substituting Normans for Englishmen in all preferments of importance; and although his nominees were usually respectable, it cannot be said that all of them were better than the men whom they superseded. For this admixture of secular with spiritual aims there was considerable excuse. By long tradition the primate was entitled to a leading position in the king’s councils; and the interests of the Church demanded that Lanfranc should use his power in a manner not displeasing to the king. On several occasions when William I. was absent from England Lanfranc acted as his vicegerent; he then had opportunities of realizing the close connexion between religious and secular affairs.

Lanfranc’s greatest political service to the Conqueror was rendered in 1075, when he detected and foiled the conspiracy which had been formed by the earls of Norfolk and Hereford. But this was not the only occasion on which he turned to good account his influence with the native English. Although he regarded them as an inferior race he was just and honourable towards their leaders. He interceded for Waltheof’s life and to the last spoke of the earl as an innocent sufferer for the crimes of others; he lived on terms of friendship with Bishop Wulfstan. On the death of the Conqueror (1087) he secured the succession for William Rufus, in spite of the discontent of the Anglo-Norman baronage; and in 1088 his exhortations induced the English militia to fight on the side of the new sovereign against Odo of Bayeux and the other partisans of Duke Robert. He exacted promises of just government from Rufus, and was not afraid to remonstrate when the promises were disregarded. So long as he lived he was a check upon the worst propensities of the king’s administration. But his restraining hand was too soon removed. In 1089 he was stricken with fever and he died on the 24th of May amidst universal lamentations. Notwithstanding some obvious moral and intellectual defects, he was the most eminent and the most disinterested of those who had co-operated with William I. in riveting Norman rule upon the English Church and people. As a statesman he did something to uphold the traditional ideal of his office; as a primate he elevated the standards of clerical discipline and education. Conceived in the Hildebrandine spirit, his reforms led by a natural sequence to strained relations between Church and State; the equilibrium which he established was unstable, and depended too much upon his personal influence with the Conqueror. But of all the Hildebrandine statesmen who applied their teacher’s ideas within the sphere of a particular national church he was the most successful.

The chief authority is the Vita Lanfranci by Milo Crispin, who was precentor at Bec and died in 1149. Milo drew largely upon the Vita Herluini, composed by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster. The Chronicon Beccensis abbatiae, a 14th-century compilation, should also be consulted. The first edition of these two sources, and of Lanfranc’s writings, is that of L. d’Achery, Beati Lanfranci opera omnia (Paris, 1648). Another edition, slightly enlarged, is that of J. A. Giles, Lanfranci opera (2 vols., Oxford, 1844). The correspondence between Lanfranc and Gregory VII. is given in the Monumenta Gregoriana (ed. P. Jaffé, Berlin, 1865). Of modern works A. Charma’s Lanfranc (Paris, 1849), H. Boehmer’s Die Fälschungen Erzbischof Lanfranks von Canterbury (Leipzig, 1902), and the same author’s Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899) are useful. See also the authorities cited in the articles on William I. and William II.

(H. W. C. D.)

LANFREY, PIERRE (1828-1877), French historian and politician, was born at Chambéry (Savoie) on the 26th of October 1828. His father had been one of Napoleon’s officers. The son studied philosophy and history in Paris and wrote historical works of an anti-clerical and rationalizing tendency. These included L’Église et les philosophes au XVIIIe siècle (1855; new edition, with a notice of the author by E. de Pressensé, 1879); Essai sur la révolution française (1858); Histoire politique des papes (1860); Lettres d Evérard (1860), a novel in the form of letters; Le Rétablissement de la Pologne (1863). His magnum opus was his Histoire de Napoléon Ier (5 vols., 1867-1875 and 1886; Eng. trans., 4 vols., 1871-1879), which ceased unfortunately at the end of 1811 with the preparations for the Russian campaign of 1812. This book, based on the emperor’s correspondence published in 1858-1870, attempted the destruction of the legends which had grown up around his subject, and sought by a critical examination of the documents to explain the motives of his policy. In his desire to controvert current misconceptions and exaggerations of Napoleon’s abilities Lanfrey unduly minimized his military and administrative genius. A stanch republican, he was elected to the National Assembly in 1871, became ambassador at Bern (1871-1873), and life senator in 1875. He died at Pau on the 15th of November 1877.

His Œuvres complètes were published in 12 vols. (1879 seq.), and his Correspondance in 2 vols. (1885).

LANG, ANDREW (1844- ), British man of letters, was born on the 31st of March 1844, at Selkirk, Scotland. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, St Andrews University and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first class in the final classical schools in 1868, becoming a fellow and subsequently honorary fellow of Merton College. As a journalist, poet, critic and historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the ablest and most versatile writers of the day. His first publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, xxii. Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain (1884), selected by Mr Austin Dobson; Rhymes à la Mode (1884), Grass of Parnassus (1888), Ban and Arrière Ban (1894), New Collected Rhymes (1905). He collaborated with S. H. Butcher in a prose translation (1879) of the Odyssey, and with E. Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version (1883) of the Iliad, both of them remarkable for accurate scholarship and excellence of style. As a Homeric scholar, of conservative views, he took a high rank. His Homer and the Epic appeared in 1893; a new prose translation of The Homeric Hymns in 1899, with essays literary and mythological, in which parallels to the Greek myths are given from the traditions of savage races; and his Homer and his Age in 1906. His purely journalistic activity was from the first of a varied description, ranging from sparkling “leaders” for the Daily News to miscellaneous articles for the Morning Post, and for many years he was literary editor of Longman’s Magazine; no critic was in more request, whether for occasional articles and introductions to new editions or as editor of dainty reprints. To the study of Scottish history Mr Lang brought a scholarly care for detail, a piquant literary style, and a gift for disentangling complicated questions. The Mystery of Mary Stuart (1901, new and revised ed., 1904) was a consideration of the fresh light thrown on Mary’s history by the Lennox MSS. in the University library, Cambridge, strengthening her case by restating the perfidy of her accusers. He also wrote monographs on The Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart (1906) and James VI. and the Gowrie Mystery (1902). The somewhat unfavourable view of John Knox presented in his book John Knox and the Reformation (1905) aroused considerable controversy. He gave new information about the continental career of the Young Pretender in Pickle the Spy (1897), an account of Alastair Ruadh Macdonell, whom he identified with Pickle, a notorious Hanoverian spy. This was followed in 1898 by The Companions of Pickle, and in 1900 by a monograph on Prince Charles Edward. In 1900 he began a History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation, the fourth volume of which (1907) brought Scottish history down to 1746. The Valet’s Tragedy (1903), which takes its title from an essay on the “Man with the Iron Mask,” (see Iron Mask), collects twelve papers on historical mysteries, and A Monk of Fife (1896) is a fictitious narrative purporting to be written by a young Scot in France in 1429-1431. Mr Lang’s versatility was also shown in his valuable works on folk-lore and on primitive religion. The earliest of these works was Custom and Myth (1884); in Myth, Literature and Religion (2 vols., 1887, French trans., 1896) he explained the irrational elements of mythology as survivals from earlier savagery; in The Making of Religion (an idealization of savage animism) he maintained the existence of high spiritual ideas among savage races, and instituted comparisons between savage practices and the occult phenomena among civilized races; he dealt with the origins of totemism (q.v.) in Social Origins, printed (1903) together with J. J. Atkinson’s Primal Law. He was one of the founders of the study of “Psychical Research,” and his other writings on anthropology include The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897), Magic and Religion (1901) and The Secret of the Totem (1905). He carried the humour and sub-acidity of discrimination which marked his criticism of fellow folk-lorists into the discussion of purely literary subjects in his Books and Bookmen (1886), Letters to Dead Authors (1886), Letters on Literature (1889), &c. His Blue Fairy Tale Book (1889), beautifully produced and illustrated, was followed annually at Christmas by a book of fairy tales and romances drawn from many sources. He edited The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (1896), and was responsible for the Life and Letters (1897) of J. G. Lockhart, and The Life, Letters and Diaries (1890) of Sir Stafford Northcote, first earl of Iddesleigh.

LANG, KARL HEINRICH, Ritter von (1764-1835), German historian, was born on the 7th of June 1764 at Balgheim, near Nördlingen. From the first he was greatly attracted towards historical studies, and this was shown when he began to attend the gymnasium of Oettingen, and in 1782, when he went to the university of Altdorf, near Nuremberg. At the same time he studied jurisprudence, and in 1782 became a government clerk at Oettingen. About the same period began his activities as a journalist and publicist. But Lang did not long remain an official. He was of a restless, changeable character, which constantly involved him in personal quarrels, though he was equally quick to retire from them. In 1788 he obtained a position as private tutor in Hungary, and in 1789 became private secretary to Baron von Bühler, the envoy of Württemberg at Vienna. This led to further travels and to his entering the service of the prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein. In 1792 Lang again betook himself to a university, this time to Göttingen. Here he came under the influence of the historian, Ludwig Timotheus Spittler, from whom, as also from Johannes von Müller and Friedrich Schlegel, his historical studies received a fresh impulse. At intervals from 1793 to 1801 Lang was closely connected with the Prussian statesman Hardenberg, who employed him as his private secretary and archivist, and in 1797 he was present with Hardenberg at the congress of Rastadt as secretary to the legation. He was occupied chiefly with affairs of the principalities of Anspach and Bayreuth, newly acquired by Prussia, and especially in the settlement of disputes with Bavaria as to their boundaries.

When in 1805 the principalities became part of Bavaria, Lang entered the Bavarian service (1806), was ennobled in 1808 and from 1810 to 1817 held the office of archivist in Munich. He again devoted himself with great enthusiasm to historical studies, which naturally dealt chiefly with Bavarian history. He evolved the theory, among other things, that the boundaries of the old counties or pagi (Gaue) were identical with those of the dioceses. This theory was combated in later days, and caused great confusion in the province of historical geography. For the rest, Lang did great service to the study of the history of Bavaria, especially by bringing fresh material from the archives to bear upon it. He also kept up his activity as a publicist, in 1814 defending in a detailed and somewhat biassed pamphlet the policy of the minister Montgelas, and he undertook critical studies in the history of the Jesuits. In 1817 Lang retired from active life, and until his death, which took place on the 26th of March 1835, lived chiefly in Ansbach.

Lang is best known through his Memoiren, which appeared at Brunswick in two parts in 1842, and were republished in 1881 in a second edition. They contain much of interest for the history of the period, but have to be used with the greatest caution on account of their pronounced tendency to satire. Lang’s character, as can be gathered especially from a consideration of his behaviour at Munich, is darkened by many shadows. He did not scruple, for instance, to strike out of the lists of witnesses to medieval charters, before publishing them, the names of families which he disliked.

Of his very numerous literary productions the following may be mentioned: Beiträge zur Kenntnis der natürlichen und politischen Verfassung des oettingischen Vaterlandes (1786); Ein Votum über den Wucher von einem Manne sine voto (1791); Historische Entwicklung der deutschen Steuerverfassungen (1793); Historische Prüfung des vermeintlichen Alters der deutschen Landstände (1796); Neuere Geschichte des Fürstentums Bayreuth (1486-1603) (1798-1811); Tabellen über Flächeninhalt &c. und bevorstehende Verluste der deutschen Reichsstände. (On the occasion of the congress of Rastadt, 1798); Der Minister Graf von Montgelas (1814); Geschichte der Jesuiten in Bayern (1819); and Bayerns Gauen (Nuremberg, 1830).

See K. Th. v. Heigel, Augsburger allgemeine Zeitung for 1878, p. 1969 et seq., 1986 et seq. (Beilage of the 14th and 15th of May); F. Muncker, in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. xvii. (1883); F. X. v. Wegele, Geschichte der deutschen Historiographie (1885).

(J. Hn.)

LANGDELL, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (1826-1906), American jurist, was born in New Boston, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire, on the 22nd of May 1826, of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry. He studied at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1845-1848, at Harvard College in 1848-1850 and in the Harvard Law School in 1851-1854. He practised law in 1854-1870 in New York City, but he was almost unknown when, in January 1870, he was appointed Dane professor of law (and soon afterwards Dean of the Law Faculty) of Harvard University, to succeed Theophilus Parsons, to whose Treatise on the Law of Contracts (1853) he had contributed as a student. He resigned the deanship in 1895, in 1900 became Dane professor emeritus, and on the 6th of July 1906 died in Cambridge. He received the degree of LL.D. in 1875; in 1903 a chair in the law school was named in his honour; and after his death one of the school’s buildings was named Langdell Hall. He made the Harvard Law School a success by remodelling its administration and by introducing the “case” system of instruction.

Langdell wrote Selection of Cases on the Law of Contracts (1870, the first book used in the “case” system; enlarged, 1877); Cases on Sales (1872); Summary of Equity Pleading (1877, 2nd ed., 1883); Cases in Equity Pleading (1883); and Brief Survey of Equity Jurisdiction (1905).

LANGDON, JOHN (1741-1819), American statesman, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 25th of June 1741. After an apprenticeship in a counting-house, he led a seafaring life for several years, and became a shipowner and merchant. In December 1774, as a militia captain he assisted in the capture of Fort William and Mary at New Castle, New Hampshire, one of the first overt acts of the American colonists against the property of the crown. He was elected to the House of Representatives of the last Royal Assembly of New Hampshire and then to the second Continental Congress in 1775, and was a member of the first Naval Committee of the latter, but he resigned in 1776, and in June 1776 became Congress’s agent of prizes in New Hampshire and in 1778 continental (naval) agent of Congress in this state, where he supervised the building of John Paul Jones’s “Ranger” (completed in June 1777), the “America,” launched in 1782, and other vessels. He was a judge of the New Hampshire Court of Common Pleas in 1776-1777, a member (and speaker) of the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 1776 until 1782, a member of the state Constitutional Convention of 1778 and of the state Senate in 1784-1785, and in 1783-1784 was again a member of Congress. He contributed largely to raise troops in 1777 to meet Burgoyne; and he served as a captain at Bennington and at Saratoga. He was president of New Hampshire in 1785-1786 and in 1788-1789; a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention in 1787, where he voted against granting to Congress the power of issuing paper money; a member of the state convention which ratified the Federal Constitution for New Hampshire; a member of the United States Senate in 1789-1801, and its president pro tem. during the first Congress and the second session of the second Congress; a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1801-1805 and its speaker in 1803-1805; and governor of the state in 1805-1809 and in 1810-1812. He received nine electoral votes for the vice-presidency in 1808, and in 1812 was an elector on the Madison ticket. He died in Portsmouth on the 18th of September 1819. He was an able leader during the Revolutionary period, when his wealth and social position were of great assistance to the patriot party. In the later years of his life in New Hampshire he was the most prominent of the local Republican leaders and built up his party by partisan appointments. He refused the naval portfolio in Jefferson’s cabinet.

His elder brother, Woodbury Langdon (1739-1805), was a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1779-1780, a member of the executive council of New Hampshire in 1781-1784, judge of the Supreme Court of the state in 1782 and in 1786-1790 (although he had had no legal training), and a state senator in 1784-1785.

Alfred Langdon Elwyn has edited Letters by Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Others, Written During and After the Revolution, to John Langdon of New Hampshire (Philadelphia, 1880), a book of great interest and value. See a biographical sketch of John Langdon by Charles R. Corning in the New England Magazine, vol. xxii. (Boston, 1897).

LANGE, ANNE FRANÇOISE ELIZABETH (1772-1816), French actress, was born in Genoa on the 17th of September 1772, the daughter of a musician and an actress at the Comédie Italienne. She made her first appearance on the stage at Tours in 1787 and a successful début at the Comédie Française in 1788 in L’Écossaise and L’Oracle. She followed Talma and the others in 1791 to the Rue Richelieu, but returned after a few months to the Comédie Française. Here her talent and beauty gave her an enormous success in François de Neuchâteau’s Pamela, the performance of which brought upon the theatre the vials of wrath of the Committee of Safety. With the author and the other members of the caste, she was arrested and imprisoned. After the 9th Thermidor she rejoined her comrades at the Feydeau, but retired on the 16th of December 1797, reappearing only for a few performances in 1807. She had, meantime, married the son of a rich Belgian named Simons. She died on the 25th of May 1816.

LANGE, ERNST PHILIPP KARL (1813-1899), German novelist, who wrote under the pseudonym Philipp Galen, was born at Potsdam on the 21st of December 1813. He studied medicine at Berlin (1835-1840), and on taking his degree, in 1840, entered the Prussian army as surgeon. In this capacity he saw service in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign of 1849. He settled at Bielefeld as medical practitioner and here issued his first novel, Der Inselkönig (1852, 3rd ed., 1858), which enjoyed considerable popularity. In Bielefeld he continued to work at his profession and to write, until his retirement, with the rank of Oberstabsarzt (surgeon-general) to Potsdam in 1878; there he died on the 20th of February 1899. Lange’s novels are distinguished by local colouring and pretty, though not powerful, descriptions of manners and customs. He particularly favoured scenes of English life, though he had never been in that country, and on the whole he succeeded well in his descriptions. Chief among his novels are, Der Irre von St James (1853, 5th ed., 1871), and Emery Glandon (3rd ed., Leip., 1865), while of those dealing with the Schleswig-Holstein campaign Andreas Burns (1856) and Die Tochter des Diplomaten (1865) commanded considerable attention.

His Gesammelte Schriften appeared in 36 vols. (1857-1866).

LANGE, FRIEDRICH ALBERT (1828-1875), German philosopher and sociologist, was born on the 28th of September 1828, at Wald, near Solingen, the son of the theologian, J. P. Lange (q.v.). He was educated at Duisburg, Zürich and Bonn, where he distinguished himself by gymnastics as much as by study. In 1852 he became schoolmaster at Cologne; in 1855 privatdozent in philosophy at Bonn; in 1858 schoolmaster at Duisburg, resigning when the government forbade schoolmasters to take part in political agitation. Lange then entered on a career of militant journalism in the cause of political and social reform. He was also prominent in the affairs of his town, yet found leisure to write most of his best-known books, Die Leibesübungen (1863), Die Arbeiterfrage (1865, 5th ed. 1894), Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart (1866; 7th ed. with biographical sketch by H. Cohen, 1902; Eng. trans., E. C. Thomas, 1877), and J. S. Mill’s Ansichten über die sociale Frage (1866). In 1866, discouraged by affairs in Germany, he moved to Winterthur, near Zürich, to become connected with the democratic newspaper, Winterthurer Landbote. In 1869 he was Privatdozent at Zürich, and next year professor. The strong French sympathies of the Swiss in the Franco-German War led to his speedy resignation. Thenceforward he gave up politics. In 1872 he accepted a professorship at Marburg. Unhappily, his vigorous frame was already stricken with disease, and, after a lingering illness, he died at Marburg, on the 23rd of November 1875, diligent to the end. His Logische Studien was published by H. Cohen in 1877 (2nd ed., 1894). His main work, the Geschichte des Materialismus, which is brilliantly written, with wide scientific knowledge and more sympathy with English thought than is usual in Germany, is rather a didactic exposition of principles than a history in the proper sense. Adopting the Kantian standpoint that we can know nothing but phenomena, Lange maintains that neither materialism nor any other metaphysical system has a valid claim to ultimate truth. For empirical phenomenal knowledge, however, which is all that man can look for, materialism with its exact scientific methods has done most valuable service. Ideal metaphysics, though they fail of the inner truth of things, have a value as the embodiment of high aspirations, in the same way as poetry and religion. In Lange’s Logische Studien, which attempts a reconstruction of formal logic, the leading idea is that reasoning has validity in so far as it can be represented in terms of space. His Arbeiterfrage advocates an ill-defined form of socialism. It protests against contemporary industrial selfishness, and against the organization of industry on the Darwinian principle of struggle for existence.

See O. A. Ellissen, F. A. Lange (Leipzig, 1891), and in Monatsch. d. Comeniusgesell. iii., 1894, 210 ff.; H. Cohen in Preuss. Jahrb. xxvii., 1876, 353 ff.; Vaihinger, Hartmann, Dühring und Lange (Iserlohn, 1876); J. M. Bösch, F. A. Lange und sein Standpunkt d. Ideals (Frauenfeld, 1890); H. Braun, F. A. Lange, als Socialökonom (Halle, 1881).

(H. St.)

LANGE, JOHANN PETER (1802-1884), German Protestant theologian, was of peasant origin and was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld on the 10th of April 1802. He studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lücke, held several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac A. Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory. He died on the 9th of July 1884. Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: “It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned” (F. Lichtenberger). As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (3 vols., 1849-1852, new edition, 1870) “contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies, and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect” (Otto Pfleiderer).

His other works include Das Leben Jesu (3 vols., 1844-1847), Das apostolische Zeitalter (2 vols., 1853-1854). Grundriss der theologischen Enzyklopädie (1877). Grundriss der christlichen Ethik (1878), and Grundriss der Bibelkunde (1881). In 1857 he undertook with other scholars a Theologisch-homiletisches Bibelwerk, to which he contributed commentaries on the first four books of the Pentateuch, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Revelation. The Bibelwerk has been translated, enlarged and revised under the general editorship of Dr Philip Schaff.

LANGEAIS, a town of west-central France in the department of Indre-et-Loire, on the right bank of the Loire, 16 m. W.S.W. of Tours by rail. Pop. (1906) town, 1755; commune, 3550. Langeais has a church of the 11th, 12th and 15th centuries but is chiefly interesting for the possession of a large château built soon after the middle of the 15th century by Jean Bourré, minister of Louis XI. Here the marriage of Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany took place in 1491. In the park are the ruins of a keep of late 10th-century architecture, built by Fulk Nerra, count of Anjou.

LANGEN, JOSEPH (1837-1901), German theologian, was born at Cologne on the 3rd of June 1837. He studied at Bonn, was ordained priest in 1859, was nominated professor extraordinary at the university of Bonn in 1864, and a professor in ordinary of the exegesis of the New Testament in 1867—an office which he held till his death. He was one of the able band of professors who in 1870 supported Döllinger in his resistance to the Vatican decrees, and was excommunicated with Ignaz v. Döllinger, Johann Huber, Johann Friedrich, Franz Heinrich Reusch, Joseph Hubert Reinkens and others, for refusing to accept them. In 1878, in consequence of the permission given to priests to marry, he ceased to identify himself with the Old Catholic movement, although he was not reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church. Langen was more celebrated as a writer than as a speaker. His first work was an inquiry into the authorship of the Commentary on St Paul’s Epistles and the Treatise on Biblical Questions, ascribed to Ambrose and Augustine respectively. In 1868 he published an Introduction to the New Testament, a work of which a second edition was called for in 1873. He also published works on the Last Days of the Life of Jesus, on Judaism in the Time of Christ, on John of Damascus (1879) and an Examination of the Vatican Dogma in the Light of Patristic Exegesis of the New Testament. But he is chiefly famous for his History of the Church of Rome to the Pontificate of Innocent III. (4 vols., 1881-1893), a work of sound scholarship, based directly upon the authorities, the most important sources being woven carefully into the text. He also contributed largely to the Internationale theologische Zeitschrift, a review started in 1893 by the Old Catholics to promote the union of National Churches on the basis of the councils of the Undivided Church, and admitting articles in German, French and English. Among other subjects, he wrote on the School of Hierotheus, on Romish falsifications of the Greek Fathers, on Leo XIII., on Liberal Ultramontanism, on the Papal Teaching in regard to Morals, on Vincentius of Lerins and he carried on a controversy with Professor Willibald Beyschlag, of the German Evangelical Church, on the respective merits of Protestantism and Old Catholicism regarded as a basis for teaching the Christian faith. An attack of apoplexy put an end to his activity as a teacher and hastened his death, which occurred in July 1901.

(J. J. L.*)

LANGENBECK, BERNHARD RUDOLF KONRAD VON (1810-1887), German surgeon, was born at Horneburg on the 9th of November 1810, and received his medical education at Göttingen, where he took his doctor’s degree in 1835 with a thesis on the structure of the retina. After a visit to France and England, he returned to Göttingen as Privatdozent, and in 1842 became professor of surgery and director of the Friedrichs Hospital at Kiel. Six years later he succeeded J. F. Dieffenbach (1794-1847) as director of the Clinical Institute for Surgery and Ophthalmology at Berlin, and remained there till 1882, when failing health obliged him to retire. He died at Wiesbaden on the 30th of September 1887. Langenbeck was a bold and skilful operator, but was disinclined to resort to operation while other means afforded a prospect of success. He devoted particular attention to military surgery, and was a great authority in the treatment of gunshot wounds. Besides acting as general field-surgeon of the army in the war with Denmark in 1848, he saw active service in 1864, 1866, and again in the Franco-German campaign of 1870-71. He was in Orleans at the end of 1870, after the city had been taken by the Prussians, and was unwearied in his attentions, whether as operator or consultant, to wounded men with whom every public building was packed. He also utilized the opportunities for instruction that thus arose, and the “Militär-Aerztliche Gesellschaft,” which met twice a week for some months, and in the discussions of which every surgeon in the city was invited to take part, irrespective of nationality, was mainly formed by his energy and enthusiasm. He was ennobled for his services in the Danish War of 1864.

LANGENSALZA, a town in the Prussian province of Saxony, on the Salza, about 20 m. N. W. from Erfurt. Pop. (1905) 12,545. Near it are the remains of the old Benedictine monastery of Homburg or Hohenburg, where the emperor Henry IV. defeated the Saxons in 1075. The manufacture of cloth is the chief industry; lace, starch, machines, cigars and chemicals are also produced, while spinning, dyeing, brewing and printing are carried on. There is a sulphur bath in the neighbourhood, situated in a pleasant park, in which there are monuments to those who fell in the war of 1866. Langensalza became a town in 1211 and was afterwards part of the electorate of Saxony. In 1815 it came into the possession of Prussia. It is remarkable in history as the scene of three battles: (1) the victory of the Prussians and English over the imperial army on the 15th of February 1761; (2) that of the Prussians over the Bavarians on the 17th of April 1813; and (3) the engagement on the 27th of June 1866 between the Prussians and the Hanoverians, in which the latter, though victorious in the field, were compelled to lay down their arms on the arrival of overwhelming Prussian reinforcements.

See Göschel, Chronik der Stadt Langensalza (Langensalza, 1818-1842); G. and H. Schütz, Chronik der Stadt Langensalza (Langensalza, 1901); and Gutbier, Schwefelbad Langensalza (Langensalza, 1900).

LANGHAM, SIMON (d. 1376), archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal, was born at Langham in Rutland, becoming a monk in the abbey of St Peter at Westminster, and later prior and then abbot of this house. In 1360 he was made treasurer of England and in 1361 he became bishop of Ely; he was appointed chancellor of England in 1363 and was chosen archbishop of Canterbury in 1366. Perhaps the most interesting incident in his primacy was when he drove the secular clergy from their college of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, and filled their places with monks. The expelled head of the seculars was a certain John de Wiclif, who has been identified with the great reformer Wycliffe. Notwithstanding the part Langham as chancellor had taken in the anti-papal measures of 1365 and 1366 he was made a cardinal by Pope Urban V. in 1368. This step lost him the favour of Edward III., and two months later he resigned his archbishopric and went to Avignon. He was soon allowed to hold other although less exalted positions in England, and in 1374 he was elected archbishop of Canterbury for the second time; but he withdrew his claim and died at Avignon on the 22nd of July 1376. Langham’s tomb is the oldest monument to an ecclesiastic in Westminster Abbey; he left the residue of his estate—a large sum of money—to the abbey, and has been called its second founder.

LANGHOLM, a burgh of barony and police burgh of Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 3142. It is situated on both sides of the Esk, 16 m. N.E. of Annan, the terminus of a branch line connecting with the North British railway system at Riddings Junction. The Esk is crossed by a three-arched stone bridge, uniting the old town on the left bank with the new on the right, and a suspension bridge. Ewes Water, which falls into the river, is spanned by a two-arched bridge, 1 m. N. of the town. The public buildings include the town hall—a substantial edifice with a tower rising in three tiers from the body of the structure, the Telford library, and the Hope hospital for aged poor. Already famous for its plaids and blankets, the prosperity of the burgh advanced when it took up the manufacture of tweeds. Distilling, brewing, dyeing and tanning are also important industries. The Esk and Liddel being favourite fishing streams, Langholm is the headquarters of the association which protects the rights of anglers. About 1 m. to the N.W. stands Langholm Lodge, a seat of the duke of Buccleuch, and some 4 m. S.E. is Gilnockie Tower, the peel-house that belonged to Johnny Armstrong, the freebooter, who was executed by order of James V. in 1530.

LANGHORNE, JOHN (1735-1779), English poet and translator of Plutarch, was born at Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland. He At first supported himself as a private tutor and schoolmaster, and, having taken orders, was appointed (1766) to the rectory of Blagdon, Somerset, where he died on the 1st of April 1779. His poems (original and translations), and sentimental tales, are now forgotten, but his translation of Plutarch’s Lives (1770), in which he had the co-operation of his elder brother William (1721-1772), is not yet superseded. It is far less vigorous than Sir Thomas North’s version (translated from Amyot) but is free from its inaccuracies. His poems were published in 1804 by his son, J. T. Langhorne, with a memoir of the author; they will also be found in R. Anderson’s Poets of Great Britain, xi. (1794) and A. Chalmers’s English Poets, xvi. (1810), with memoir. Of his poems, The Country Justice, a plea for the neglected poor, and The Fables of Flora, were the most successful; of his prose writings, The Correspondence between Theodosius and Constantia, founded on a well-known story in the Spectator (No. 164).

LANGIEWICZ, MARYAN (1827-1887), Polish patriot, was born at Krotoszyn, in the province of Posen, on the 5th of August 1827, his father being the local doctor. Langiewicz was educated at Posen, Breslau and Prague, and was compelled to earn his daily bread by giving lectures. He subsequently entered the Prussian Landwehr and served for a year in the royal guard. In 1860 he migrated to Paris and was for a time professor in the high school founded there by Mieroslawski. The same year he took part in Garibaldi’s Neapolitan campaign, and was then a professor in the military school at Cuneo till the establishment was closed. In 1862 he entered into communication with the central Polish committee at Warsaw, and on the outbreak of the insurrection of the 22nd of January 1863, took the command of the armed bands. He defeated the Russians at Wachock and Slupia (February), capturing 1000 muskets and 8 cannon. This victory drew hundreds of young recruits to his standard, till at last he had 12,000 men at his disposal. On the 23rd of February he again defeated the Russians, at Malogoszcza, and captured 500 muskets and 2 cannon. On the 10th of March he proclaimed himself dictator and attempted to form a regular government; but either he had insufficient organizing talent, or had not time enough to carry out his plans, and after a fresh series of engagements his army was almost annihilated at Zagosc (18th of March), whereupon he took refuge in Austrian territory and was interned at Tarnow. He was subsequently transferred to the fortress of Josephstadt, from which he was released in 1865. He then lived at Solothurn as a citizen of the Swiss Republic, and subsequently entered the Turkish service as Langie Bey. He died at Constantinople on the 11th of May 1887.

See Boleslaw Limanowski, The National Insurrection of 1863-64 (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1900); Paolo Mazzoleni, I Bergamaschi in Polonia nel 1863 (Bergamo, 1893); W. H. Bavink, De Poolsche opstand 1863, &c. (Haarlem, 1864).

LANGLAND, WILLIAM (c. 1332-c. 1400), the supposed English poet, generally regarded until recently as the single author of the remarkable 14th-century poem Piers the Plowman. Its full title is—The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, together with Vita de Do-wel, Do-bet, et Do-best, secundum Wit et Resoun; usually given in Latin as Visio Willelmi de Petra Plowman, &c.; the whole work being sometimes briefly described as Liber de Petro Plowman. We know nothing of William Langland except from the supposed evidence of the MSS. of the poem and the text itself, and it will be convenient first to give a brief general description of them.

The poem exists in three forms. If we denote these by the names of A-text (or Vernon), B-text (or Crowley), and C-text (or Whitaker), we find, of the first, ten MSS., of the second fourteen, and of the third seventeen, besides seven others of a mixed type. It will be seen that we thus have abundance of material, a circumstance which proves the great popularity of the poem in former times. Owing to the frequent expressions which indicate a desire for reformation in religion, it was, in the time of Edward VI., considered worthy of being printed. Three impressions of the B-text were printed by Robert Crowley in 1550; and one of these was badly reprinted by Owen Rogers in 1561. In 1813 the best MS. of the C-text was printed by Dr E. Whitaker. In 1842 Mr Thomas Wright printed an edition from an excellent MS. of the B-text in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge (2nd ed., 1856, new ed., 1895). A complete edition of all three texts was printed for the Early English Text Society as edited by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, with the addition of Richard the Redeless, and containing full notes to all three texts, with a glossary and indexes, in 1867-1885. The Clarendon Press edition, by the same editor, appeared in 1886.

The A-text contains a prologue and 12 passus or cantos (i.-iv., the vision of the Lady Meed; v.-viii., the vision of Piers the Plowman; ix.-xii., the vision of Do-wel, Do-bet and Do-best), with 2567 lines. The B-text is much longer, containing 7242 lines, with additional passus following after xi. of A, the earlier passus being altered in various respects. The C-text, with 7357 lines, is a revision of B.

The general contents of the poem may be gathered from a brief description of the C-text. This is divided into twenty-three passus, nominally comprising four parts, called respectively Visio de Petro Plowman, Visio de Do-wel, Visio de Do-bet and Visio de Do-best. Here Do-bet signifies “do better” in modern English; the explanation of the names being that he who does a kind action does well, he who teaches others to act kindly does better, whilst he who combines both practice and theory, both doing good himself and teaching others to do the same, does best. But the visions by no means closely correspond to these descriptions; and Skeat divides the whole into a set of eleven visions, which may be thus enumerated: (1) Vision of the Field Full of Folk, of Holy Church, and of the Lady Meed (passus i.-v.); (2) Vision of the Seven Deadly Sins, and of Piers the Plowman (pass. vi.-x.); (3) Wit, Study, Clergy and Scripture (pass. xi., xii.); (4) Fortune, Nature, Recklessness and Reason (pass. xiii., xiv.); (5) Vision of Imaginative (pass. xv.); (6) Conscience, Patience and Activa-Vita (pass. xvi., xvii.); (7) Free-will and the Tree of Charity (pass. xviii., xix.); (8) Faith, Hope and Charity (pass. xx.); (9) The Triumph of Piers the Plowman, i.e. the Crucifixion, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ (pass. xxi.); (10) The Vision of Grace (pass. xxii.); (11) The Vision of Antichrist (pass. xxiii.).

The bare outline of the C-text gives little idea of the real nature of the poem. The author’s object, as Skeat describes it, was to “afford himself opportunities (of which he has amply availed himself) for describing the life and manners of the poorer classes; for inveighing against clerical abuses and the rapacity of the friars; for representing the miseries caused by the great pestilences then prevalent and by the hasty and ill-advised marriages consequent thereupon; and for denouncing lazy workmen and sham beggars, the corruption and bribery then too common in the law courts, and all the numerous forms of falsehood which are at all time the fit subjects for satire and indignant exposure. In describing, for example, the seven deadly sins, he gives so exact a description of Glutton and Sloth that the reader feels them to be no mere abstractions, but drawn from the life; and it becomes hardly more difficult to realize Glutton than it is to realize Sir John Falstaff. The numerous allegorical personages so frequently introduced, such as Scripture, Clergy, Conscience, Patience and the like, are all mouthpieces of the author himself, uttering for the most part his own sentiments, but sometimes speaking in accordance with the character which each is supposed to represent. The theological disquisitions which are occasionally introduced are somewhat dull and tedious, but the earnestness of the author’s purpose and his energy of language tend to relieve them, and there are not many passages which might have been omitted without loss. The poem is essentially one of those which improve on a second reading, and as a linguistic monument it is of very high value. Mere extracts from the poem, even if rather numerous and of some length, fail to give a fair idea of it. The whole deserves, and will repay, a careful study; indeed, there are not many single works from which a student of English literature and of the English language may derive more substantial benefit.

“The metre is alliterative, and destitute of final rhyme. It is not very regular, as the author’s earnestness led him to use the fittest words rather than those which merely served the purpose of rhythm. The chief rule is that, in general, the same letter or combination of letters should begin three stressed syllables in the same line, as, for example, in the line which may be modernized thus: ‘Of all manner of men, the mean and the rich.’ Sometimes there are but two such rhyme-letters, as: ‘Might of the commons made him to reign.’ Sometimes there are four, as: ‘In a summer season, when soft was the sun.’ There is invariably a pause, more or less distinct, in the middle of each line” (Ency. Brit., 9th ed., art. Langland).

The traditional view, accepted by such great authorities as Skeat and Jusserand, that a single author—and that author Langland—was responsible for the whole poem, in all its versions, has been so recently disputed that it seems best to state it in Skeat’s own words, before giving briefly the alternative view, which propounds a theory of composite authorship, denying any real existence to “William Langland.” The account of the single-author theory is repeated from Professor Skeat’s article in the 9th edition of this work, slightly revised by him in 1905 for this edition.

“The author’s name is not quite certain, and the facts concerning his life are few and scanty. As to his Christian name we are sure, from various allusions in the poem itself, and the title Visio Willelmi, &c., in many MSS.; so that we may at once reject the suggestion that his name may have been Robert. In no less than three MSS. [of the C-text; one not later than 1427] occurs the following colophon: ‘Explicit visio Willelmi W. de Petro le Plowman.’ What is here meant by W. it is difficult to conjecture; but it is just possible that it may represent Wychwood (of which more presently), or Wigornensis, i.e. of Worcester. As to the surname, we find the note that ‘Robert or William Langland made pers ploughman,’ in a handwriting of the 15th century, on the fly-leaf of a MS. copy [of the B-text] formerly belonging to Lord Ashburnham, and now in the British Museum; and in a Dublin MS. [of the C-text] is the note [in a 15th-century hand]: ‘Memorandum, quod Stacy de Rokayle, pater Willielmi de Langlond, qui Stacius fuit generosus et morabatur in Schiptone-under-Whicwode, tenens domini le Spenser in comitatu Oxon., qui predictus Willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys Ploughman.’ There is no trace of any Langland family in the midland counties, while the Langley family were wardens of Wychwood forest in Oxfordshire between the years 1278 and 1362; but this consideration can hardly set aside the above statement. According to Bale, our author was born at Cleobury Mortimer, which is quite consistent with the supposition that his father may have removed from that place to Shipton in Oxfordshire, as there seems to have been a real connexion between the families in those places.

“The internal evidence concerning the author is fuller and more satisfactory. By piecing together the various hints concerning himself which the poet gives us, we may compile the following account. His name was William (and probably Langland), and he was born about 1332, perhaps at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. His father, who was doubtless a franklin or farmer, and his other friends put him to school, made a ‘clerk’ or scholar of him, and taught him what Holy Writ meant. In 1362, at the age of about thirty, he found himself wandering upon the Malvern hills, and fell asleep beside a stream, and saw in a vision a field full of folk, i.e. this present world, and many other remarkable sights which he duly records. From this supposed circumstance he named his poem The Vision of William, though it is really a succession of visions, since he mentions several occasions on which he awoke, and afterwards again fell asleep; and he even tells us of some adventures which befel him in his waking moments. In some of these visions there is no mention of Piers the Plowman, but in others he describes him as being the coming reformer who was to remedy all abuses, and restore the world to a right condition. It is remarkable that his conception of this reformer changes from time to time, and becomes more exalted as the poem advances. At first he is no more than a ploughman, one of the true and honest labourers who are the salt of the earth; but at last he is identified with the great reformer who has come already, the regenerator of the world in the person of Jesus Christ; in the author’s own phrase—’Petrus est Christus.’ If this be borne in mind, it will not be possible to make the mistake into which so many have fallen, of speaking of Piers the Plowman as being the author, not the subject, of the poem. The author once alludes to the nickname of Long Will bestowed upon him from his tallness of stature—just as the poet Gascoigne was familiarly called Long George. Though there is mention of the Malvern hills more than once near the beginning of the poem, it is abundantly clear that the poet lived for ‘many years in Cornhill (London), with his wife Kitte and his daughter Calote.’ He seems to have come to London soon after the date of the first commencement of his work, and to have long continued there. He describes himself as being a tall man, one who was loath to reverence lords or ladies or persons in gay apparel, and not deigning to say ‘God save you’ to the sergeants whom he met in the street, insomuch that many people took him to be a fool. He was very poor, wore long robes, and had a shaven crown, having received the clerical tonsure. But he seems only to have taken minor orders, and earned a precarious living by singing the placebo, dirige and seven psalms for the good of men’s souls. The fact that he was married may explain why he never rose in the church. But he had another source of livelihood in his ability to write out legal documents, and he was extremely familiar with the law courts at Westminster. His leisure time must have been entirely occupied with his poem, which was essentially the work of his lifetime. He was not satisfied with rewriting it once, but he actually re-wrote it twice; and from the abundance of the MSS. which still exist we can see its development from the earliest draught (A-text), written about 1362, to its latest form (C-text), written about 1393.1

“In 1399, just before the deposition of Richard II., appeared a poem addressed to the king, who is designated as ‘Richard the Redeless,’ i.e. devoid of counsel. This poem, occurring in only one MS. [of the B-text] in which it is incomplete, breaking off abruptly in the middle of a page, may safely be attributed to Langland, who was then in Bristol. As he was at that time about sixty-seven years of age, we may be sure that he did not long survive the accession of Henry IV. It may here be observed that the well-known poem, entitled Pierce Ploughman’s Crede, though excellently written, is certainly an imitation by another hand; for the Pierce Ploughman of the Crede is very different in conception from the subject of ‘William’s Vision.’”

On the other hand, the view taken by Professor J. M. Manly, of Chicago, which has recently obtained increasing acceptance among scholars, is that the early popularity of the Piers Plowman poems has resulted in “the confusion of what is really the work of five different men,” and that Langland himself is “a mythical author.” The argument for the distinction in authorship rests on internal evidence, and on analysis of the style, diction and “visualizing” quality within the different texts. Whereas Skeat, regarding the three texts as due to the same author, gives most attention to the later versions, and considers B the intermediate form, as on the whole the best, Manly recognizes in A the real poet, and lays special stress on the importance of attention to the A-text, and particularly pass. i.-viii. In this A-text the two first visions are regarded as by a single author of genius, but the third is assigned to a continuator who tried to imitate him, the whole conclusion of the 12th passus being, moreover, by a third author, whose name, John But, is in fact given towards the end, but in a way leading Skeat only to credit him with a few lines. The same process of analysis leads to crediting the B-text and the C-text to separate and different authors, B working over the three visions of the A-text and making additions of his own, while C again worked over the B-text. The supposed references to the original author A, introduced by B and C, are then to be taken as part of the fiction. Who were the five authors? That question is left unsolved. John But, according to Professor Manly, was “doubtless a scribe” or “a minstrel.” B, C and the continuator of A “seem to have been clerics, and, from their criticisms of monks and friars, to have been of the secular clergy,” C being “a better scholar than either the continuator of A or B.” A, who “exempts from his satire no order of society except monks,” may have been himself a monk, but “as he exhibits no special technical knowledge or interests” he “may have been a layman.” As regards Richard the Redeless, Professor Manly attributes this to another imitator; he regards identity of authorship as out of the question, in consequences of differences in style and thought, apart altogether from the conclusion as to the authorship of Piers the Plowman.

See the editions already referred to: The Deposition of Richard II., ed. T. Wright (Camden Society), which is the same poem as Richard the Redeless; Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry; Rev. H. H. Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity; G. P. Marsh, Lectures on English; H. Morley, English Writers; B. ten Brink, Early English Literature; J. J. Jusserand, Observations sur la vision de P. P. (Paris, 1879); Les Anglais au moyen âge: L’Épopée mystique de William Langland (1893, Eng. trans. Piers Plowman, revised and enlarged by another 1894); J. M. Manly in Cambridge Hist. of English Lit., vol. ii. and bibliography. A long and careful summary of the whole poem is given in Morley’s English Writers, and is repeated in his Illustrations of English Religion, ch. iii.

1 According to Jusserand, 1398.

LANGLEY, SAMUEL PIERPONT (1834-1906), American physicist and astronomer, was born at Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of August 1834. After acting for a short time as assistant in Harvard College Observatory, he was appointed assistant professor of mathematics in the U.S. Naval Academy in 1866, and in the following year became director of the Allegheny Observatory at Pittsburg, a position which he held until his selection in 1887 as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. His name is especially associated with two main branches of investigation—aeronautics, and the exploration of the infra-red portions of the solar spectrum. The study of the latter he took up as a result of the publication in 1871 of an energy-curve of the spectrum by S. I. Lamansky. The imperfections of the thermopile, with which he began his work, led him, about 1880, to the invention of the bolometer, an instrument of extraordinary delicacy, which in its most refined form is believed to be capable of detecting a change of temperature amounting to less than one-hundred-millionth of a degree Centigrade. Depending on the fact that the electrical conductivity of a metallic conductor is decreased by heat, it consists of two strips of platinum, arranged to form the two arms of a Wheatstone bridge; one strip being exposed to a source of radiation from which the other is shielded, the heat causes a change in the resistance of one arm, the balance of the bridge is destroyed, and a deflection is marked on the galvanometer. The platinum strips are exceedingly minute, being in some cases only 1⁄250 in. in width, and less than one-tenth of that amount in thickness. By the aid of this instrument, Langley, working on Mount Whitney, 12,000 ft. above sea-level, discovered in 1881 an entirely unsuspected extension of the invisible infra-red rays, which he called the “new spectrum.” The importance of his achievement may be judged from the fact that, while the visible spectrum includes rays having wave-lengths of from about 0.4 μ to 0.76 μ, and no invisible heat-rays were known before 1881 having a wave-length greater than 1.8 μ, he detected rays having a wave-length of 5.3 μ. In addition, taking advantage of the accuracy with which the bolometer can determine the position of a source of heat by which it is affected, he mapped out in this infra-red spectrum over 700 dark lines or bands resembling the Fraunhofer lines of the visible spectrum, with a probable accuracy equal to that of refined astronomical observations. In aeronautics he succeeded in demonstrating the practicability of mechanical flight. He first undertook a preliminary inquiry into the principles upon which flight depends, and established at Allegheny a huge “whirling table,” the revolving arm of which could be driven by a steam-engine at any circumferential speed up to 70 m. an hour. The construction of a flying machine was next attempted. The first difficulty was to make it sufficiently light in relation to the power its machinery could develop; and several machines were built in which trials were made of steam, and of compressed air and carbonic acid gas as motive agents. About 1893 a satisfactory machine was ready, and a new series of troubles had to be faced, for it had to be launched at a certain initial speed, and in the face of any wind that might be blowing. To enable these conditions to be fulfilled, as well as to ensure that the machine, when it fell, should fall on water, the experiments were carried out on the Potomac river, some 30 m. below Washington. It was not till the autumn of 1894 that an efficient launching apparatus was devised, and then the wings were found not to be strong enough to bear the pressures to which they were subjected. Various other delays and mishaps followed, but ultimately, on the 6th of May 1896, a successful flight was made. On that day an aerodrome, weighing about 30 ℔ and about 16 ft. in length, with wings measuring between 12 and 13 ft. from tip to tip, twice sustained itself in the air for 1½ minutes (the full time for which it was supplied with fuel and water), and traversed on each occasion a distance of over half a mile, falling gently into the water when the engines stopped. Later in the same year, on the 28th of November, a similar aerodrome flew about three-quarters of a mile, attaining a speed of 30 m. an hour. In 1903 he experimented with an aerodrome capable of carrying a man, but repeated accidents prevented it from being launched, and finally through lack of funds the experiments had to be abandoned without the machine ever having been free in the air (see also Flight And Flying). Langley died on the 27th of February 1906.

LANGLOIS, HIPPOLYTE (1839- ), French general, was born at Besançon in 1839, and, after passing through the École Polytechnique, was appointed to the artillery as sub-lieutenant in 1858, attaining the rank of captain in 1866. He served in the army of Metz in the war of 1870. Eight years later he became major, in 1887 lieutenant-colonel and in 1888 colonel. At this time he was appointed professor of artillery at the École de Guerre, and in this post he devoted himself to working out the tactical principles of the employment of field artillery under the new conditions of armament of which he foresaw the advent. The public result of his work was the great treatise L’Artillerie de campagne (1891-1892), which may still be regarded as the classic of the arm. In 1894 he became general of brigade, and in 1898 general of division. For two years after this he was the commandant of the École de Guerre at the time that the modern French strategical and tactical “doctrine” was being developed and taught. He was, however, regarded as a leader as well as a theorist, and in 1901 he was selected to command the XX. Army Corps on the German frontier, popularly called the “iron” corps. In 1902 he became a member of the Conseil supérieur de la Guerre, consisting of senior generals marked out for the higher commands in war. He retired from the active list in 1904 on reaching the age limit, and devoted himself with the greatest energy to critical military literature. In 1907 he began the publication of a monthly journal of military art and history, the Revue militaire générale. The most important of his other works are Enseignements de deux guerres recentes and Conséquences tactiques du progrès de l’armement.

LANGPORT, a market town in the eastern parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, 13½ m. E. of Taunton by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 890. It lies on the right (east) bank of the river Parret, near the point where that river debouches from the hills on to the plain through which it flows to the Bristol Channel. The main street leads up a slope from the river to the fine Perpendicular church of All Saints. Close to this an archway crosses the road, bearing a Perpendicular building known as the hanging chapel. After serving this purpose it housed first the grammar-school (founded 1675), then the Quekett museum, named after John Thomas Quekett (1815-1861) the histologist, a native of the town, whose father was master of the school. The hanging chapel afterwards became a masonic hall. Not far distant is the church of Huish Episcopi, with one of the finest of the Perpendicular towers for which Somersetshire is noted. Langport has a considerable general and agricultural trade.

Langport (Llongborth, Langeberga, Langeport) owed its origin to its defensible position on a hill, and its growth to its facilities for trade on the chief river of Somerset. It occupies the site of the British town of Llongborth, and was important during the Roman occupation. It was a royal borough in Saxon times, and in 1086 had 34 resident burgesses. The first charter, given by Elizabeth in 1562, recognized that Langport was a borough of great antiquity, which had enjoyed considerable privileges, being governed by a portreve. It was incorporated by James I. in 1617, but the corporation was abolished in 1883. Langport was represented in parliament in 1304 and 1306. The charter of 1562 granted three annual fairs to Langport, on the 28th of June, the 11th of November and the second Monday in Lent. One fair only is now held, on the 3rd of September, which is a horse and cattle fair. A Saturday market was held under the grant of 1562, but in the 19th century the market day was changed to Tuesday.

LANGREO, a town of northern Spain, in the province of Oviedo, in very hilly country, on the left bank of the river Nalon, and on a branch railway from Oviedo to Labiana. Pop. (1900) 18,714. In the neighbourhood large quantities of wheat, hemp, fruit and cider are produced; and there are important coal and iron mines, foundries, and factories for the manufacture of coarse cloth.

LANGRES, a town of eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Haute-Marne, 22 m. S.S.E. of Chaumont on the eastern railway to Belfort. Pop. (1906) town, 6663; commune, 9803. Langres stands at a height of some 1550 ft. on a jutting promontory of the tableland known as the plateau de Langres, and overlooks eastward and westward respectively the valleys of the Marne and its tributary the Bonnelle. From the cathedral tower and the ramparts which surround the town there is an extensive view over the valley of the Marne, the Vosges and the Côte d’Or, and in clear weather Mt Blanc (160 m. distant) is visible. The cathedral of St Mammès, for the most part in the Transitional style of the 12th century, has a west front in the Graeco-Roman style of the 18th century and a fine Renaissance chapel. The church of St Martin (13th, 15th and 18th centuries) possesses a figure of Christ of the 16th century, one of the finest wood carvings known. The ramparts are protected by several towers, most of which date from the 16th century. The Gallo-Roman gate, one of four entrances in the Roman period, is preserved, but is walled up. The Porte des Moulins (17th century) is the most interesting of the other gates. The town possesses a museum rich in Gallo-Roman antiquities, a picture gallery and an important library. The birth of Denis Diderot here is commemorated by a statue. Langres is the seat of a bishop and a sub-prefect, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a higher ecclesiastical seminary and communal colleges for both sexes. It manufactures well-known cutlery and grind-stones. Trade is in grain and other farm-produce, live stock, wine, &c.

Langres, the ancient Andematunum, was capital of the Lingones. Under Roman rule it was at first to some extent autonomous, but was reduced to the rank of colony after the revolt of the chief Sabinus in A.D. 71. The bishopric was founded about 200 and in the middle ages its holders became peers of the realm and enjoyed the temporal power in the town. In 301 the Alemanni were defeated at Langres by the Romans, but in the next century it was burnt by the Vandals and by Attila.

The “plateau of Langres” appears frequently in the military history of the 18th and 19th centuries as a dominant strategic point, though its importance as such has appealed chiefly to the advocates of wars of positions and passive defence. The modern fortifications of Langres, which serves as a second line fortress, consist of (a) Fort St Menge or Ligniville on high ground above the confluence of the Marne and the Neuilly brook, about 5 m. N. by W. of the town; (b) the west front, comprising Humes battery (2¼ m. N.W. of Langres), Fort de la Pointe de Diamant, and the redoubts of Perrancey, Le Fays and Noidant (the last 4 m. S.W. of the town), overlooking the deep valley of the Mouche brook (this front was attacked in the mock siege of August 1907); (c) the south front, comprising Fort de la Bonnelle or Décrès (2 m. S.S.W. of the town), a small work commanding the Chalon-Langres road, Le Mont and Le Pailly batteries, Fort Vercingetorix, the last, 5 m. S.W. of the place, standing on a steep and narrow spur of the main plateau, and in second line the old fort de la Marnotte, and the large bastioned citadel (the town enceinte is “déclassée”); (d) the east front, marked by Forts Montlandon and Plesnoy at the north and south ends respectively of a long steep ridge, 6 m. E. of Langres, the bridges over the Marne leading to these works being commanded by Fort Peigney, a work about half a mile east of the town; (e) Fort Dampierre, 8 m. N.E. of the town, which commands all the main approaches from the north, and completes the circle by crossing its fire with that of Fort St Menge.

LANGTOFT, PETER (d. c. 1307), English chronicler, took his name from the village of Langtoft in Yorkshire, and was a canon of the Augustinian priory in Bridlington. His name is also given as Langetoft and Langetost. He wrote in French verse a Chronicle dealing with the history of England from the earliest times to the death of Edward I. in 1307. It consists of three parts and contains about 9000 rhyming verses. The earlier part of the Chronicle is taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth and other writers; for the period dealing with the reign of Edward I. Langtoft is a contemporary and valuable authority, especially for affairs in the north of England and in Scotland. Langtoft’s Chronicle seems to have enjoyed considerable popularity in the north, and the latter part of it was translated into English by Robert Mannyng, sometimes called Robert of Brunne, about 1330. It has been edited for the Rolls Series by T. Wright (1866-1868).

See Wright’s preface, and also O. Preussner, Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s Übersetzung von Pierre de Langtofts Chronicle und ihr Verhältniss zum Originale (Breslau, 1891).

LANGTON, JOHN (d. 1337), chancellor of England and bishop of Chichester, was a clerk in the royal chancery, and became chancellor in 1292. He obtained several ecclesiastical appointments, but owing to the resistance of Pope Boniface VIII. he failed to secure the bishopric of Ely in 1298, although he was supported by Edward I. and visited Rome to attain his end. Resigning his office as chancellor in 1302, he was chosen bishop of Chichester in 1305, and again became chancellor shortly after the accession of Edward II. in 1307. Langton was one of the “ordainers” elected in 1310, and it was probably his connexion with this body that led to his losing the office of chancellor about this time. He continued, however, to take part in public affairs; mediating between the king and Earl Thomas of Lancaster in 1318, and attempting to do so between Edward and his rebellious barons in 1321. He died in June or July 1337. Langton built the chapterhouse at Chichester, and was a benefactor of the university of Oxford.

LANGTON, STEPHEN (d. 1228), cardinal and archbishop of Canterbury, was the son of English parents; but the date and place of his birth are unknown. Since he became early in his career a prebendary of York, and since his brother Simon (d. 1248) was elected1 to that see in 1215, we may suppose the family to have been of northern extraction. Stephen, however, migrated to Paris, and having graduated in that university became one of its most celebrated theologians. This was probably the time when he composed his voluminous commentaries (many of which still exist in manuscript) and divided the Bible into chapters. At Paris also he contracted the friendship with Lothar of Segni, the future Innocent III., which played so important a part in shaping his career. Upon becoming pope, Innocent summoned Langton to Rome, and in 1206 designated him as cardinal-priest of S. Chrysogonus. Immediately afterwards Langton was drawn into the vortex of English politics.

Archbishop Hubert Walter had died in 1205, and the election of his successor had raised thorny questions. The suffragans of Canterbury claimed a share in choosing the new primate, although that right had been exclusively reserved to the monks of Canterbury by a papal privilege; and John supported the bishops since they were prepared to give their votes for his candidate, John de Gray, bishop of Norwich. A party of the younger monks, to evade the double pressure of the king and bishops, secretly elected their sub-prior Reginald and sent him to Rome for confirmation. The plot leaked out; the rest of the monks were induced to elect John de Gray, and he too was despatched to Rome. After hearing the case Innocent declared both elections void; and with John’s consent ordered that a new election should be made in his presence by the representatives of the monks. The latter, having confessed that they had given John a secret pledge to elect none but the bishop of Norwich, were released from the promise by Innocent; and at his suggestion elected Stephen Langton, who was consecrated by the pope on the 17th of June 1207. On hearing the news the king banished the monks of Canterbury and lodged a protest with the pope, in which he threatened to prevent any English appeals from being brought to Rome. Innocent replied by laying England under an interdict (March 1208), and excommunicating the king (November 1209). As John still remained obstinate, the pope at length invited the French king Philip Augustus to enter England and depose him. It was this threat which forced John to sue for a reconciliation; and the first condition exacted was that he should acknowledge Langton as archbishop. During these years Langton had been residing at Pontigny, formerly the refuge of Becket. He had addressed to the English people a dignified protest against the king’s conduct, and had at last pressed the pope to take extreme measures. But he had consistently adopted towards John as conciliatory an attitude as his duty to the church would allow, and had more than once entered upon negotiations for a peaceful compromise. Immediately after entering England (July 1213) he showed his desire for peace by absolving the king. But, unlike the pope, he gave ear to the popular cry for redress of political grievances; and persisted in associating with the baronial opposition, even after he was ordered by Innocent to excommunicate them as disturbers of the peace. Langton encouraged the barons to formulate their demands, and is said to have suggested that they should take their stand upon the charter of Henry I. It is uncertain what further share he took in drafting Magna Carta. At Runnymede he appeared as a commissioner on the king’s side, and his influence must therefore be sought in those clauses of the Charter which differ from the original petitions of the barons. Of these the most striking is that which confirms the “liberties” of the church; and this is chiefly remarkable for its moderation.

Soon after the issue of the charter the archbishop left England to attend the Fourth Lateran Council. At the moment of his departure he was suspended by the representatives of Innocent for not enforcing the papal censures against the barons. Innocent confirmed the sentence, which remained in force for two years. During this time the archbishop resided at Rome. He was allowed to return in 1218, after the deaths of Innocent and John. From that date till his death he was a tower of strength to the royal party. Through his influence Pandulf was recalled to Rome (1221) and Honorius III. promised that no legate should be sent to reside in England during the archbishop’s lifetime. In 1222, in a synod held at Oseney, he promulgated a set of Constitutions still recognized as forming a part of the law of the English Church. Beyond this little is recorded of his latter years. He died on the 9th of July 1228, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, where his tomb, unless tradition errs, may still be seen.

The authorities are mainly those for the reign of John. No contemporary biography has come down to us. Some letters, by Langton and others, relating to the quarrel over his election are preserved in a Canterbury Chronicle (ed. W. Stubbs in the “Rolls” edition of Gervase of Canterbury, vol. ii.). There are many references to him in the correspondence of Innocent III. (Migne’s Patrologia Latina, vols. ccxiv.-ccxvii.). Of modern works see F. Hurter, Geschichte Papst Innocenz III. (Hamburg, 1841-1844); W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (London, 1860-1876), and W. Stubbs’s preface to the second volume of Walter of Coventry (“Rolls” ed.), which devotes special attention to Langton. The MSS. of Langton’s writings are noticed in J. Bale’s Index Britanniae scriptorum (ed. R. L. Poole, 1902); his Constitutions are printed in D. Wilkin’s Concilia, vol. ii. (London, 1737).

(H. W. C. D.)

Another English prelate who bore the name of Langton was Thomas Langton, bishop of Winchester, chaplain to Edward IV. In 1483 he was chosen bishop of St Davids; in 1485 he was made bishop of Salisbury and provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, and he became bishop of Winchester in 1493. In 1501 he was elected archbishop of Canterbury, but he died on the 27th of January 1501, before his election had been confirmed.

1 Pope Innocent, however, would not confirm this election, and the disappointed candidate threw himself into the contest between the English barons on the one side and King John and the pope on the other. Later Simon made peace with Henry III. and was appointed archdeacon of Canterbury; he was consulted by Pope Gregory IX. and was sent to France on diplomatic business by Henry III.