Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 5)

P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, chapter 2.

PHUT.

See LIBYANS.

PHYLÆ. PHRATRIÆ. GENTES.

"In all Greek states, without exception, the people was divided into tribes or Phylæ, and those again into the smaller subdivisions of Phratriæ and gentes, and the distribution so made was employed to a greater or less extent for the common organisation of the State."

G. F. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State, part 2, chapter 4.

The four Attic tribes were called, during the later period of that division, the Geleontes, Hopletes, Ægikoreis, and Argadeis. "It is affirmed, and with some etymological plausibility, that the denominations of these four tribes must originally have had reference to the occupations of those who bore them,—the Hopletes being the warriour-class, the Ægikoreis goatherds, the Argadeis artisans, and the Geleontes (Teleontes or Gedeontes) cultivators. Hence some authors have ascribed to the ancient inhabitants of Attica an actual primitive distribution into hereditary professions or castes, similar to that which prevailed in India and Egypt. If we should even grant that such a division into castes might originally have prevailed, it must have grown obsolete long before the time of Solon; but there seem no sufficient grounds for believing that it ever did prevail. … The four tribes, and the four names (allowing for some variations of reading), are therefore historically verified. But neither the time of their introduction, nor their primitive import, are ascertainable matters. … {2536} These four tribes may be looked at either as religious and social aggregates, in which capacity each of them comprised three Phratries and ninety Gentes; or as political aggregates, in which point of view each included three Trittyes and twelve Naukraries. Each Phratry contained thirty Gentes; each Trittys comprised four Naukraries: the total numbers were thus 360 Gentes and 48 Naukraries. Moreover, each gens is said to have contained thirty heads of families, of whom therefore there would be a total of 10,800. … That every Phratry contained an equal number of Gentes, and every Gens an equal number of families, is a supposition hardly admissible without better evidence than we possess. But apart from this questionable precision of numerical scale, the Phratries and Gentes themselves were real, ancient and durable associations among the Athenian people, highly important to be understood. The basis of the whole was the house, hearth or family,—a number of which, greater or less, composed the Gens, or Genos. This Gens was therefore a clan, sept, or enlarged, and partly factitious, brotherhood. … All these phratric and gentile associations, the larger as well as the smaller, were founded upon the same principles and tendencies of the Grecian mind—a coalescence of the idea of worship with that of ancestry, or of communion in certain special religious rites with communion of blood, real or supposed. The god, or hero, to whom the assembled members offered their sacrifices, was conceived as the primitive ancestor, to whom they owed their origin. … The revolution of Kleisthenes in 509 B. C. abolished the old tribes for civil purposes, and created ten new tribes,—leaving the Phratries and Gentes unaltered, but introducing the local distribution according to demes or cantons, as the foundation of his new political tribes. A certain number of demes belonged to each of the ten Kleisthenean tribes (the demes in the same tribes were not usually contiguous, so that the tribe was not coincident with a definite circumscription), and the deme, in which every individual was then registered, continued to be that in which his descendants were also registered. … The different Gentes were very unequal in dignity, arising chiefly from the religious ceremonies of which each possessed the hereditary and exclusive administration, and which, being in some cases considered as of preeminent sanctity in reference to the whole city, were therefore nationalized. Thus the Eumolpidæ and Kerykes, who supplied the Hierophant and superintended the mysteries of the Eleusinian Demeter—and the Butadæ, who furnished the priestess of Athene Polias as well as the priest of Poseidon Erechtheus in the acropolis—seem to have been reverenced above all the other Gentes. When the name Butadæ was selected in the Kleisthenean arrangement as the name of a deme, the holy Gens so called adopted the distinctive denomination of Eteobutadæ, or 'The true Butadæ.'"

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City, book 3, chapter 1.

PHYLARCH.

See TAXIARCH.

PHYLE.

See ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.

PHYSICIANS, First English College of.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE, 16TH CENTURY.

PIACENZA.

See PLACENTIA.

PIAGNONI, The.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1490-1498.

PIANKISHAWS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and SACS, &c.

PIASTS, PIASSES, The.

See POLAND: BEGINNINGS, &c.

PIAVE, Battle on the.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).

PI-BESETH.

See BUBASTIS.

PICARDS, The Religions Sect of the.

"The reforming movement of Bohemia [15th century] had drawn thither persons from other countries whose opinions were obnoxious to the authorities of the church. Among these, the most remarkable were known by the name of Picards,—apparently a form of the word 'beghards' [see BEGUINES], which … was then widely applied to sectaries. These Picards appear to have come from the Low Countries."

J. C. Robertson, History of the Christian Church, volume 8, page 24.

See, also, PAULICIANS.

PICARDY. PICARDS.

"Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date earlier than A. D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first applied to the quarrelsome humour of those students in the university of Paris who came from the frontier of France and Flanders."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 58, foot-note 1.

PICENIANS, The.

See SABINES.

PICHEGRU, Campaign and political intrigues of.

See FRANCE; A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY); 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY); 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER); 1797 (SEPTEMBER); 1804-1805.

PICHINCHA, Battle of (1822).

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1819-1830.

PICKAWILLANY.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1764.

PICTAVI.

See POITIERS: ORIGINAL NAMES.

PICTONES, The.

"The Pictones [of ancient Gaul], whose name is represented by Poitou, and the Santones (Saintonge) occupied the coast between the lower Loire and the great aestuary of the Garonne."

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 6.

PICTS AND SCOTS.

See SCOTLAND: THE PICTS AND SCOTS.

PICTURE-WRITING.

See AZTEC AND MAYA PICTURE-WRITING; also HIEROGLYPHICS.

PIE-POWDER COURT, The.

"There was one special court [in London, during the Middle Ages], which met to decide disputes arising on market-days, or among travellers and men of business, and which reminds us of the old English tendency to decide quickly and definitely, without entering into any long written or verbal consideration of the question at issue; and this was known as the Pie-powder Court, a corruption of the old French words. 'pieds poudres,' the Latin 'pedes pulverizati,' in which the complainant and the accused were supposed not to have shaken the dust from off their feet."

R. Pauli, Pictures of Old England, chapter 12.

PIECES OF EIGHT.

See SPANISH COINS.

PIEDMONT: Primitive inhabitants.

See LIGURIANS.

PIEDMONT: History.

See SAVOY AND PIEDMONT.

PIEDMONT, VIRGINIA., Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA) THE CAMPAIGNING IN THE SHENANDOAH.

{2537}

PIEGANS.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: BLACKFEET.

PIERCE, Franklin: Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852, to 1857.

—————PIGNEROL: Start————

PIGNEROL: A. D. 1630-1631 Siege, capture and purchase by the French.

See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.

PIGNEROL: A. D. 1648. Secured to France in the Peace of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

PIGNEROL: A. D. 1659. Ceded to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

PIGNEROL: A. D. 1697. Ceded to the Duke of Savoy.

See SAVOY: A. D. 1580-1713.

—————PIGNEROL: End————

PIGNEROL, Treaty of.

See WALDENSES: A. D. 1655.

PIKE'S PEAK MINING REGION.

See COLORADO: A. D. 1806-1876.

PILATE, Pontius.

See JEWS: B. C. 40-A. D. 44; and A. D. 26.

PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.

PILGRIMS. PILGRIM FATHERS.

In American history, the familiar designation of the little company of English colonists who sailed for the New World in the Mayflower, A. D. 1620, seeking religious freedom, and who landed at Plymouth Rock.

See INDEPENDENTS OR SEPARATISTS, and MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.

—————PILLOW, Fort: Start————

PILLOW, Fort: A. D. 1862. Evacuated by the Confederates.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

PILLOW, Fort: A. D. 1864. Capture and Massacre.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (APRIL: TENNESSEE).

—————PILLOW, Fort: End————

PILNITZ, The Declaration of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

PILOT KNOB, Attack on.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

PILSEN, Capture by Count Ernest of Mansfeld (1618).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620.

PILUM, The.

The Roman spear was called the pilum. "It was, according to [Polybius], a spear having a very large iron head or blade, and this was carried by a socket to receive the shaft. … By the soldiers of the legions, to whom the use of the pilum was restricted, this weapon was both hurled from the hand as a javelin, and grasped firmly, as well for the charge as to resist and beat down hostile attacks."

P. Lacombe, Arms and Armour, chapter 4.

PIMAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PIMAN FAMILY.

PIMENTEIRAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK on COCO GROUP.

PINDARIS, PINDHARIES, The.

See INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819.

PINE TREE MONEY.

Between 1652 and 1684 the colony of Massachusetts coined silver shillings and smaller coins, which bore on their faces the rude figure of a pine tree, and are called "pine tree money."

See MONEY AND BANKING: 17TH CENTURY.

PINEROLO.

See PIGNEROL.

PINKIE, Battle of (1547).

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.

PIPE ROLLS.

See EXCHEQUER.

PIPPIN, OR PEPIN, of Heristal, Austrasian Mayor of the Palace, and Duke of the Franks, A. D. 687-714.

Pippin, or Pepin, the Short, Duke and Prince of the Franks, 741-752; King, 752-768.

PIQUETS AND ZINGLINS.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1804-1880.

PIRÆUS, The.

This was the important harbor of Athens, constructed and fortified during and after the Persian wars; a work which the Athenians owed to the genius and energy of Themistocles. The name was sometimes applied to the whole peninsula in which the Piræus is situated, and which contained two other harbors—Munychia and Zea. Phalerum, which had previously been the harbor of Athens, lay to the east. The walls built by Themistocles "were carried round the whole of the peninsula in a circumference of seven miles, following the bend of its rocky rim, and including the three harbour-bays. At the mouths of each of the harbours a pair of towers rose opposite to one another at so short a distance that it was possible to connect them by means of chains: these were the locks of the Piræus. The walls, about 16 feet thick, were built without mortar, of rectangular blocks throughout, and were raised to a height of 30 feet by Themistocles, who is said to have originally intended to give them double that height."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. M. Leake, Topography of Athens, section 10.

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 489-480.

PIRATES OF CILICIA, The.

See CILICIA, PIRATES OF.

PIRMASENS, Battle of (1793).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER) PROGRESS OF TUE WAR.

PIRNA, Saxon Surrender at.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1756.

PIRU, CHONTAQUIROS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:: ANDESIANS.

PISA, Greece.

See ELIS; and OLYMPIC GAMES.

—————PISA, Italy: Start————

PISA, Italy: Origin of the city. Early growth of its commerce and naval power. Conquest of Sardinia.

Strabo and others have given Pisa a Grecian origin. "Situated near the sea upon the triangle formed in past ages, by the confluence of the two rivers, the Arno and the Serchio; she was highly adapted to commerce and navigation; particularly in times when these were carried on with small vessels. We consequently find that she was rich and mercantile in early times, and frequented by all the barbarous nations. … Down to the end of the fifteenth century, almost all the navigation of the nations of Europe, as well as those of Asia and Africa, which kept a correspondence and commerce with the former, was limited to the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Archipelago, and Euxine seas; and the first three Italian republics, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, were for a long time mistresses of it. Pisa, as far back as the year 925, was the principal city of Tuscany, according to Luitprand. In the beginning of the eleventh century, that is, in the year 1004, we find in the Pisan annals, that the latter waged war with the Lucchese and beat them; this is the first enterprise of one Italian city against another, which proves that she already acted for herself, and was in great part, if not wholly, liberated from the dominion of the Duke of Tuscany. {2538} In the Pisan annals, and in other authors, we meet with a series of enterprises, many of which are obscurely related, or perhaps exaggerated. Thus we find that in the year 1005, in an expedition of the Pisans against the maritime city of Reggio, Pisa being left unprovided with defenders, Musetto, king, or head, of the Saracens, who occupied Sardinia, seized the opportunity of making an invasion; and having sacked the city, departed, or was driven out of it. … It was very natural for the Pisans and Genoese, who must have been in continual fear of the piracies and invasions of the barbarians as long as they occupied Sardinia, to think seriously of exterminating them from that country: the pope himself sent the Bishop of Ostia in haste to the Pisans as legate, to encourage them to the enterprise: who, joining with the Genoese, conquered Sardinia [1017] by driving out the Saracens; and the pope, by the right he thought he possessed over all the kingdoms of the earth, invested the Pisans with the dominion; not however without exciting the jealousy of the Genoese, who, as they were less powerful in those times, were obliged to yield to force. The mutual necessity of defence from the common enemy kept them united; the barbarians having disembarked in the year 1020 in Sardinia under the same leader, they were again repulsed, and all their treasure which remained a booty of the conquerors, was conceded to the Genoese as an indemnity for the expense."

L. Pignotti, History of Tuscany, volume 1, chapter 7.

PISA: A. D. 1063-1293. Architectural development. Disastrous war with Genoa. The great defeat at Meloria. Count Ugolino and his fate. War with Florence and Lucca.

"The republic of Pisa was one of the first to make known to the world the riches and power which a small state might acquire by the aid of commerce and liberty. Pisa had astonished the shores of the Mediterranean by the number of vessels and galleys that sailed under her flag, by the succor she had given the crusaders, by the fear she had inspired at Constantinople, and by the conquest of Sardinia and the Balearic Isles. Pisa was the first to introduce into Tuscany the arts that ennoble wealth: her dome, her baptistery, her leaning tower, and her Campo Santo, which the traveller's eye embraces at one glance, but does not weary of beholding, had been successively built from the year 1063 to the end of the 12th century. These chefs-d'œuvre had animated the genius of the Pisans; the great architects of the 13th century were, for the most part, pupils of Nicolas di Pisa. But the moment was come in which the ruin of this glorious republic was at hand; a deep-rooted jealousy, to be dated from the conquest of Sardinia, had frequently, during the last two centuries, armed against each other the republics of Genoa and Pisa: a new war between them broke out in 1282. It is difficult to comprehend how two simple cities could put to sea such prodigious fleets as those of Pisa and Genoa. In 1282, Ginicel Sismondi commanded 30 Pisan galleys, of which he lost the half in a tempest, on the 9th of September; the following year, Rosso Sismondi commanded 64; in 1284, Guido Jacia commanded 24, and was vanquished. The Pisans had recourse the same year to a Venetian admiral, Alberto Morosini, to whom they intrusted 103 galleys: but whatever efforts they made, the Genoese constantly opposed a superior fleet. This year [1284], however, all the male population of the two republics seemed assembled on their vessels; they met on the 6th of August, 1284, once more before the Isle of Meloria, rendered famous 43 years before by the victory of the Pisans over the same enemies [when the Ghibelline friendship of Pisa for the Emperor Frederick II. induced her to intercept and attack, on the 3d of May, 1241, a Genoese fleet which conveyed many prelates to a great council called by Pope Gregory IX. with hostile intentions towards the Emperor, and which the latter desired to prevent]. Valor was still the same, but fortune had changed sides; and a terrible disaster effaced the memory of an ancient victory. While the two fleets, almost equal in number, were engaged, a reinforcement of 30 Genoese galleys, driven impetuously by the wind, struck the Pisan fleet in flank: 7 of their vessels were instantly sunk, 28 taken. 5,000 citizens perished in the battle, and 11,000 who were taken prisoners to Genoa preferred death in captivity rather than their republic should ransom them, by giving up Sardinia to the Genoese. This prodigious loss ruined the maritime power of Pisa; the same nautical knowledge, the same spirit of enterprise, were not transmitted to the next generation. All the fishermen of the coast quitted the Pisan galleys for those of Genoa. The vessels diminished in number, with the means of manning them; and Pisa could no longer pretend to be more than the third maritime power in Italy. While the republic was thus exhausted by this great reverse of fortune, it was attacked by the league of the Tuscan Guelphs; and a powerful citizen, to whom it had intrusted itself, betrayed his country to enslave it. Ugolino was count of the Gherardesca, a mountainous country situated along the coast, between Leghorn and Piombino: he was of Ghibeline origin, but had married his sister to Giovan di Gallura, chief of the Guelphs of Pisa and of Sardinia. From that time he artfully opposed the Guelphs to the Ghibelines." The Pisans, thinking him to be the person best able to reconcile Pisa with the Guelph league "named Ugolino captain-general for ten years: and the new commander did, indeed, obtain peace with the Guelph league; but not till he had caused all the fortresses of the Pisan territory to be opened by his creatures to the Lucchese and Florentines. … From that time he sought only to strengthen his own despotism." In July, 1288, there was a rising of the Pisans against him; his palace was stormed and burned; and he, his two sons and two grandsons, were dragged out of the flames, to be locked in a tower and starved to death—as told in the verse of Dante. "The victory over count Ugolino, achieved by the most ardent of the Ghibelines,. redoubled the enthusiasm and audacity of that party; and soon determined them to renew the war with the Guelphs of Tuscany. … Guido de Montefeltro was named captain. He had acquired a high reputation in defending Forli against the French forces of Charles of Anjou; and the republic had not to repent of its choice. He recovered by force of arms all the fortresses which Ugolino had given up to the Lucchese and Florentines. The Pisan militia, whom Montefeltro armed with cross-bows, which he had trained them to use with precision, became the terror of Tuscany. The Guelphs of Florence and Lucca were glad to make peace in 1293."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 5.

{2539}

In 1290, when Pisa was in her greatest distress, Genoa suddenly joined again in the attack on her ancient rival. She sent an expedition under Conrad d'Oria which entered the harbor of Pisa, pulled down its towers, its bridge and its forts, and carried away the chain which locked the harbor entrance. The latter trophy was only restored to Pisa in recent years.

J. T. Bent, Genoa, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 1, chapter 12 (volume 1).

PISA: A. D. 1100-1111. Participation in the first Crusades.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111.

PISA: A. D. 1135-1137. Destruction of Amalfi.

See AMALFI.

PISA: 13th Century. Commercial rivalry with Venice and Genoa at Constantinople.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1261-1453.

PISA: A. D. 1311-1313. Welcome to the Emperor Henry VII. Aid to his war against Florence.

See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.

PISA: A. D. 1313-1328. Military successes under Uguccione della Faggiuola. His tyranny and its overthrow. Subjection to Castruccio Castracani and the deliverance.

See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.

PISA: A. D. 1341. Defeat of the Florentines before Lucca. Acquisition of that city.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1341-1343.

PISA: A. D. 1353-1364. Dealings with the Free Companies. War with Florence.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.

PISA: A. D. 1399-1406. Betrayal to Visconti of Milan. Sale to the Florentines. Conquest by them and subsequent decline.

See ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406.

PISA: A. D. 1409. The General Council of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417.

PISA: A. D. 1494-1509. Delivered by the French. The faithlessness of Charles VIII. Thirteen years of struggle against Florence. Final surrender.

"The Florentine conquest was the beginning of 90 years of slavery for Pisa —a terrible slavery, heavy with exaggerated imports, bitter with the tolerated plunder of private Florentines, humiliating with continual espionage. … Pisa was the Ireland of Florence, captive and yet unvanquished. … At last a favourable chance was offered to the Pisans. … In the autumn of 1494, the armies of Charles VIII. poured into Italy [see ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496]. It had been the custom of the Florentines, in times of war and danger, to call the heads of every Pisan household into Florence, as hostages for the good behaviour of their families and fellow citizens. But in the autumn of 1494, Piero de' Medici who forgot everything, who had forgotten to garrison his frontier, forgot to call the Pisan hostages to Florence, although the French were steadily advancing on Tuscany, and the Pisans eager to rebel. … The French army and the hope of liberty entered the unhappy city hand in hand [November 8, 1494]. … That night the Florentines in Pisa—men in office, judges, merchants, and soldiers of the garrison—were driven at the sword's point out of the rebellious city. … Twenty-four hours after the entry of the French, Pisa was a free republic, governed by a Gonfalonier, six Priors, and a Balia of Ten, with a new militia of its own, and, for the first time in eight and eighty years, a Pisan garrison in the ancient citadel." All this was done with the assent of the King of France and the promise of his protection. But when he passed on to Florence, and was faced there by the resolute Capponi, he signed a treaty in which he promised to give back Pisa to Florence when he returned from Naples. He returned from Naples the next summer (1495), hard pressed and retreating from his recent triumphs, and halted with his army at Pisa. There the tears and distress of the friendly Pisans moved even his soldiers to cry out in protestation against the surrender of the city to its former bondage. Charles compromised by a new treaty with the Florentines, again agreeing to deliver Pisa to them, but stipulating that they should place their old rivals on equal terms with themselves, in commerce and in civil rights. But Entragues, the French governor whom Charles had left in command at Pisa, with a small garrison, refused to carry out the treaty. He assisted the Pisans in expelling a force with which the Duke of Milan attempted to secure the city, and then, on the 1st of January, 1496, he delivered the citadel which he held into the hands of the Pisan signory. "During thirteen years from this date the shifting fortunes, the greeds and jealousies of the great Italian cities, fostered an artificial liberty in Pisa. Thrown like a ball from Milan to Venice, Venice to Maximilian, Max again to Venice, and thence to Cæsar Borgia, the unhappy Republic described the whole circle of desperate hope, agonized courage, misery, poverty, cunning, and betrayal."

A. M. F. Robinson, The End of the Middle Ages: The French at Pisa.

In 1509 the Pisans, reduced to the last extremity by the obstinate siege which the Florentines had maintained, and sold by the French and Spaniards, who took pay from Florence (see VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509) for abandoning their cause, opened their gates to the Florentine army.

H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 2, chapter 8 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 8, chapter 6 and book 9, chapters 1-10.

PISA: A. D. 1512. The attempted convocation of a Council by Louis XII. of France.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

—————PISA: End————

PISISTRATIDÆ, The.

See ATHENS: B. C. 560-510.

PISTICS.

See GNOSTICS.

PIT RIVER INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS, &c.

PITHECUSA.

The ancient name of the island of Ischia.

PITHOM, the store city.

See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.

PITT, William (Lord Chatham). The administration of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1760; 1760-1763; and 1765-1768.

PITT, William (Lord Chatham). The American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (JANUARY-MARCH).

PITT, William (the Younger). The Administration of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1783-1787, to 1801-1806.

PITTI PALACE, The building of the.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1458-1469.

PITTSBURG LANDING, OR SHILOH, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE).

{2540}

—————PITTSBURGH: Start————

PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1754. Fort Duquesne built by the French.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1758. Fort Duquesne abandoned by the French, occupied by the English, and named in honor of Pitt.

See CANADA: A. D. 1758.

PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1763. Siege of Fort Pitt by the Indians. Bouquet's relieving expedition.

See PONTIAC'S WAR.

PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1794. The Whiskey Insurrection.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1794.

—————PITTSBURGH: End————

PIUS II., Pope, A. D. 1458-1464.

Pius III., Pope, 1503, September to October.

Pius IV., Pope, 1559-1565.

Pius V., Pope, 1566-1572.

Pius VI., Pope, 1775-1799.

Pius VII., Pope, 1800-1823.

Pius VIII., Pope, 1829-1830.

Pius IX., Pope, 1846-1878.

PIUTES, PAH UTES, &c.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

PIZARRO, Francisco: Discovery and conquest of Peru.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1524-1528; and PERU: A. D. 1528-1531, and 1531-1533.

PLACARDS OF CHARLES V., The.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555.

—————PLACENTIA: Start————

PLACENTIA (modern Piacenza): The Roman colony. Its capture by the Gauls.

See ROME: B. C. 295-191.

PLACENTIA: B. C. 49. Mutiny of Cæsar's Legions.

See ROME: B. C. 49.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 270. Defeat of the Alemanni.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 270.

PLACENTIA: 14th Century. Under the tyranny of the Visconti.

See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1513. Conquest by Pope Julius II.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1515. Restored to the duchy of Milan, and with it to the king of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1518.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1521. Retaken by the Pope. See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1545-1592. Union with Parma in the duchy created for the House of Farnese.

See PARMA: A. D. 1545-1592.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1725. Reversion of the duchy pledged to the Infant of Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1735. Restored to Austria.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1746. Given up by the Spaniards.

See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1805. The duchy declared a dependency of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

PLACENTIA: A. D. 1814. The duchy conferred on Marie Louise, the ex-empress of Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (MARCH-APRIL).

—————PLACENTIA: Start————

PLACILLA, Battle of (1891).

See CHILE: A. D. 1885-1891.

PLACITUM. PLAID.

See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.

—————PLAGUE: Start————

PLAGUE. PESTILENCE. EPIDEMICS:

PLAGUE: B. C. 466-463. At Rome.

See ROME: B. C. 466-463.

PLAGUE: B. C. 431-429. At Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 430-429.

PLAGUE: B. C. 405-375. Among the Carthaginians.

"Within the space of less than thirty years [from B. C. 405] we read of four distinct epidemic distempers, each of frightful severity, as having afflicted Carthage and her armies in Sicily, without touching either Syracuse or the Sicilian Greeks. Such epidemics were the most irresistible of all enemies to the Carthaginians. … Upon what physical conditions the frequent repetition of such a calamity depended, together with the remarkable fact that it was confined to Carthage and her armies—we know partially in respect to the third of the four cases [when it was attributable in some degree to the situation of the Carthaginian camp on low, marshy ground, at a season when hot days alternated with chill nights] but not at all in regard to the others."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 83.

PLAGUE: A. D. 78-266. Plague after the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Plagues of Orosius, Antoninus, and Cyprian.

"On the cessation of the eruption of Vesuvius, which began on the 23d of August, A. D. 78, and which buried Herculaneum, Stabiæ and Pompeii in ashes, there arose … a destructive plague, which for many days in succession slew 10,000 men daily." The plague of Orosius (so called because Orosius, who wrote in the 5th century, described it most fully) began in the year A. D. 125. It was attributed to immense masses of grasshoppers which were swept by the winds, that year, from Africa into the Mediterranean Sea, and which were cast back by the waves to putrefy in heaps on the shore. "'In Numidia, where at that time Micipsa was king, 800,000 men perished, while in the region which lies most contiguous to the sea-shore of Carthage and Utica, more than 200,000 are said to have been cut down. In the city of Utica itself, 80,000 soldiers, who had been ordered here for the defence of all Africa, were destroyed.' … The plague of Antoninus (A. D. 164-180) visited the whole Roman Empire, from its most eastern to its extreme western boundaries, beginning at the former, and spreading thence by means of the troops who returned from putting down a rebellion in Syria. In the year 166 it broke out for the first time in Rome, and returned again in the year 168. … The plague depopulated entire cities and districts, so that forests sprung up in places before inhabited. … In its last year it appears to have raged again with especial fury, so that in Rome … 2,000 men often died in a single day. With regard to the character of this plague, it has been considered sometimes smallpox, sometimes petechial typhus, and again the bubo-plague. The third so-called plague, that of Cyprian, raged about A. D. 251-266. … For a long time 500 died a day in Rome. … After its disappearance Italy was almost deserted. … It has been assumed that this plague should be considered either a true bubo-plague, or smallpox."

J. H. Baas, Outlines of the History of Medicine, pages 189-190.

"Niebuhr has expressed the opinion that 'the ancient world never recovered from the blow inflicted upon it by the plague which visited it in the reign of M. Aurelius.'"

O. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 68, footnote.

ALSO IN: P. B. Watson, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, chapter 4.

{2541}

PLAGUE: A. D. 542-594. During the reign of Justinian.

"The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors first appeared in the neighbourhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing as it were a double path, it spread to the east, over Syria, Persia, and the Indies, and penetrated to the west, along the coast of Africa, and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and symptoms with the eyes of a physician, has emulated the skill and diligence of Thucydides in the description of the plague of Athens. … The fever was often accompanied with lethargy or delirium; the bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules or carbuncles, the symptoms of immediate death; and in the constitutions too feeble to produce an eruption, the vomiting of blood was followed by a mortification of the bowels. … Youth was the most perilous season; and the female sex was less susceptible than the male. … It was not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two years [A. D. 542-594] that mankind recovered their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious quality. … During three months, five and at length ten thousand persons died each day at Constantinople; … many cities of the east were left vacant; … in several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered on the ground. The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine, afflicted the subjects of Justinian; and his reign is disgraced by a visible decrease of the human species, which has never been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 43.

ALSO IN: T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 5, chapter 17.

J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, book 4, chapter 6 (volume 1).

PLAGUE: 6-13th Centuries. Spread of Small-pox.

"Nothing is known of the origin of small-pox; but it appears to have come originally from the East, and to have been known in China and Hindostan from time immemorial. … 'It seems to have reached Constantinople by way of Egypt about the year 569.' From Constantinople it spread gradually over the whole of Europe, reaching England about the middle of the 13th century."

R. Rollo, Epidemics, Plagues, and Fevers, page 271.

PLAGUE: A. D. 744-748. The world-wide pestilence.

"One great calamity in the age of Constantine [the Byzantine emperor Constantine V., called Copronymus], appears to have travelled over the whole habitable world; this was the great pestilence, which made its appearance in the Byzantine empire as early as 745. It had previously carried off a considerable portion of the population of Syria, and the Caliph Yezid III. perished of the disease in 744. From Syria it visited Egypt and Africa, from whence it passed into Sicily. After making great ravages in Sicily and Calabria, it spread to Greece; and at last, in the year 747, it broke out with terrible violence in Constantinople, then probably the most populous city in the universe. It was supposed to have been introduced, and dispersed through Christian countries, by the Venetian and Greek ships employed in carrying on a contraband trade in slaves with the Mohammedan nations, and it spread wherever commerce extended. … This plague threatened to exterminate the Hellenic race." After it had disappeared, at the end of a year, "the capital required an immense influx of new inhabitants. To fill up the void caused by the scourge, Constantine induced many Greek families from the continent and the islands to emigrate to Constantinople."

G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057, book 1, chapter 1, section 3.

PLAGUE: A. D. 1348-1351. The Black Death.

See BLACK DEATH; also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1348-1349.

PLAGUE: A. D. 1360-1363. The Children's Plague.

"The peace of Bretigni [England and France, A. D. 1360], like the capture of Calais, was followed by a pestilence that turned the national rejoicings into mourning. But the 'Children's Plague,' as it was called, from the fact that it was most deadly to the young, was fortunately not a return of the Black Death, and did not approach it in its effects. It numbered, however, three prelates and the Duke of Lancaster among its victims, and caused such anxiety in London that the courts of law were adjourned from May to October. France felt the scourge more severely. It ravaged the country for three years, and was especially fatal at Paris and at Avignon. In Ireland, where the pestilence lingered on into the next year, and proved very deadly, it was mistaken for scrofula, a circumstance which probably shows that it attacked the glands and the throat."

C. H. Pearson, English History in the 14th Century, chapter 7.

PLAGUE: A. D. 1374. The Dancing Mania.

"The effects of the Black Death had not yet subsided, and the graves of millions of its victims were scarcely closed, when a strange delusion arose in Germany. … It was a convulsion which in the most extraordinary manner infuriated the human frame, and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for more than two centuries, since which time it has never reappeared. It was called the dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account of the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterized, and which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild dance, and screaming and foaming with fury, all the appearance of persons possessed. It did not remain confined to particular localities, but was propagated by the sight of the sufferers, like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already prepared for its reception by the prevailing opinions of the times. So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and women were seen at Aix-la–Chapelle who had come out of Germany, and who, united by one common delusion, exhibited to the public both in the streets and in the churches the following strange spectacle. They formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses, continued dancing, regardless of the by-standers, for hours together in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed in cloths, bound tightly round their waists, upon which they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings, but the by-standers frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts affected. {2542} While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high. … Where the disease was completely developed, the attack commenced with epileptic convulsions. Those affected fell to the ground senseless, panting and labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and suddenly springing up began their dance amidst strange contortions. Yet the malady doubtless made its appearance very variously, and was modified by temporary or local circumstances. … It was but a few months ere this demoniacal disease had spread from Aix-Ia-Chapelle, where it appeared in July, over the neighbouring Netherlands. In Liege, Utrecht, Tongres, and many other towns of Belgium, the dancers appeared with garlands in their hair, and their waists girt with cloths, that they might, as soon as the paroxysm was over, receive immediate relief on the attack of the tympany. This bandage was, by the insertion of a stick, easily twisted tight: many, however, obtained more relief from kicks and blows, which they found numbers of persons ready to administer. … A few months after this dancing malady had made its appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne, where the number of those possessed amounted to more than five hundred, and about the same time at Metz, the streets of which place are said to have been filled with eleven hundred dancers. Peasants left their ploughs, mechanics their workshops, housewives their domestic duties, to join the wild revels, and this rich commercial city became the scene of the most ruinous disorder. … The dancing mania of the year 1374 was, in fact, no new disease, but a phenomenon well known in the middle ages, of which many wondrous stories were traditionally current among the people."

J. F. C. Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages: The Dancing Mania, chapter 1.

PLAGUE: A. D. 1485-1593. The Sweating Sickness in England. Plague, Small-pox and Grippe in Europe.

"For centuries no infection had visited England, which in fearful rapidity and malignancy could be compared with the 'sudor Anglicus,' as it was at first called, from the notion that its attacks were confined to Englishmen. People sitting at dinner, in the full enjoyment of health and spirits, were seized with it and died before the next morning. An open window, accidental contact in the streets, children playing before the door, a beggar knocking at the rich man's gate, might disseminate the infection, and a whole family would be decimated in a few hours without hope or remedy. Houses and villages were deserted. … Dr. Caius, a physician who had studied the disease under its various aspects, gives the following account of its appearance: 'In the year of our Lord God 1485, shortly after the 7th day of August, at which time King Henry VII. arrived at Milford in Wales out of France, and in the first year of his reign, there chanced a disease among the people lasting the rest of that month and all September, which for the sudden sharpness and unwont cruelness passed the pestilence. For this commonly giveth in four, often seven, sometime nine, sometime eleven and sometime fourteen days, respite to whom it vexeth. But that immediately killed some in opening their windows, some in playing with children in their street doors, some in one hour, many in two, it destroyed. … This disease, because it most did stand in sweating from the beginning until the ending, was called here The Sweating Sickness; and because it first began in England, it was named in other countries The English Sweat.' From the same authority we learn that it appeared in 1506, again in 1517 from July to the middle of December, then in 1528. It commenced with a fever, followed by strong internal struggles of nature, causing sweat. … It was attended with sharp pains in the back, shoulders and extremities, and then attacked the liver. … It never entered Scotland. In Calais, Antwerp and Brabant it generally singled out English residents and visitors. … In consequence of the peculiarity of the disease in thus singling out Englishmen, and those of a richer diet and more sanguine temperament, various speculations were set afloat as to its origin and its best mode of cure. Erasmus attributed it to bad houses and bad ventilation, to the clay floors, the unchanged and festering rushes with which the rooms were strewn, and the putrid offal, bones and filth which reeked and rotted together in the unswept and unwashed dining halls and chambers."

J. S. Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII., volume 1, chapter 8.

See, also, SWEATING SICKNESS.

"In the middle of the 16th century the English sweating sickness disappeared from the list of epidemic diseases. On the other hand, the plague, during the whole 16th century, prevailed more generally, and in places more fatally, than ever before. … In 1500-1507 it raged in Germany, Italy, and Holland, in 1528 in Upper Italy, 1534 in Southern France, 1562-1568 pretty generally throughout Europe. … The disease prevailed again in 1591. It is characteristic of the improvement in the art of observation of this century that the plague was declared contagious and portable, and accordingly measures of isolation and disinfection were put in force against it, though without proving in any degree effectual. With a view to disinfection, horn, gunpowder, arsenic with sulphur or straw moistened with wine, etc., were burned in the streets. … Small-pox (first observed or described in Germany in 1493) and measles, whose specific nature was still unknown to the physicians of the West, likewise appeared in the 16th century. … The Grippe (influenza), for the first time recognizable with certainty as such, showed itself in the year 1510, and spread over all Europe. A second epidemic, beginning in 1557, was less widely extended. On the other hand, in 1580 and 1593 it became again pandemic, while in 1591 Germany alone was visited."

J. H. Baas, Outlines of the History of Medicine, pages 438-439.

ALSO IN: J. F. Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages.

PLAGUE: A. D. 1665. In London.

See LONDON: A. D. 1665.

{2543}

PLAGUE: 18th Century. The more serious epidemics.

"The bubo–plague, 'the disease of barbarism' and especially of declining nations, in the 18th century still often reached the north of Europe, though it maintained its chief focus and head-quarters in the south-west [south-east?]. Thus from 1703 forward, as the result of the Russo-Swedish war, it spread from Turkey to Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Prussia, so that in 1709, the coldest year of the 18th century, more than 300,000 human beings died in East Prussia in spite of the intense cold, and in Dantzic alone more than 30,000. Obliquing to the west, the plague reached Styria and Bohemia, and was carried by a ship to Regensburg in 1714, but by means of strict quarantine regulations was prevented from spreading to the rest of Germany. A hurricane swept the disease, as it were, out of all Europe. Yet six years later it appeared anew with devastating force in southern France" and was recurrent at intervals, in different parts of the continent, throughout the century. "Epidemics of typhus fever … showed themselves at the beginning of the century in small numbers, but disappeared before the plague. … The first description of typhoid fever—under the designation of 'Schleimfieber' (morbus mucosus)—appeared in the 18th century. … Malaria in the last century still gave rise to great epidemics. Of course all the conditions of life favored its prevalence. … La Grippe (influenza) appeared as a pandemic throughout almost all Europe in the years 1709, 1729, 1732, 1742, and 1788; in almost all America in 1732, 1737, 1751, 1772, 1781, and 1798; throughout the eastern hemisphere in 1781, and in the entire western hemisphere in 1761 and 1789; throughout Europe and America in 1767. It prevailed as an epidemic in France in the years 1737, 1775, and 1779; in England in 1758 and 1775, and in Germany in 1800. … Diphtheria, which in the 17th century had showed itself almost exclusively in Spain and Italy, was observed during the 18th in all parts of the world. … Small-pox had attained general diffusion. … Scarlet fever, first observed in the 17th century, had already gained wide diffusion. … Yellow fever, first recognized in the 16th century, and mentioned occasionally in the 17th, appeared with great frequency in the 18th century, but was mostly confined, as at a later period, to America."

J. H. Baas, Outlines of the History of Medicine, pages 727-730.

PLAGUE: 19th Century. The visitations of Asiatic Cholera.

Cholera "has its origin in Asia, where its ravages are as great as those of yellow fever in America. It is endemic or permanent in the Ganges delta, whence it generally spreads every year over India. It was not known in Europe until the beginning of the century; but since that time we have had six successive visitations. … In 1817 there was a violent outbreak of cholera at Jessore, India. Thence it spread to the Malay Islands, and to Bourbon (1819); to China and Persia (1821); to Russia in Europe, and especially to St. Petersburg and Moscow (1830). In the following year it overran Poland, Germany, and England [thence in 1832 to Ireland and America], and first appeared in Paris on January 6, 1832. … In 1849, the cholera pursued the same route. Coming overland from India through Russia, it appeared in Paris on March 17, and lasted until October. In 1853, cholera, again coming by this route, was less fatal in Paris, although it lasted for a longer time—from November, 1853, to December, 1854. The three last epidemics, 1865, 1873, and 1884, … came by the Mediterranean Sea."

E. L. Trouessart, Microbes, Ferments and Moulds, chapter 5, section 8.

A seventh visitation of cholera in Europe occurred in 1892. Its route on this occasion was from the Punjab, through Afghanistan and Persia into Russia and across the Mediterranean to Southern France. Late in the summer the epidemic appeared in various parts of Austria and Germany and was frightfully virulent in the city of Hamburg. In England it was confined by excellent regulations to narrow limits. Crossing the Atlantic late in August, it was arrested at the harbor of New York, by half-barbarous but effectual measures of quarantine, and gained no footing in America.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia, 1892.

ALSO IN: C. Macnamara, History of Asiatic Cholera.

A. Stillé, Cholera, pages 15-31.

—————PLAGUE: End————

PLAID. PLACITUM.

See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.

PLAIN OR MARAIS, The Party of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.

See ABRAHAM, PLAINS OF.

PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, The.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1886.

PLANTAGENETS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1154-1189; and ANJOU; CREATION OF THE COUNTY.

PLASSEY, Battle of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1757.

—————PLATÆA: Start————

PLATÆA.

Platæa, one of the cities of the Bœotian federation in ancient Greece, under the headship of Thebes, was ill–used by the latter and claimed and received the protection of Athens. This provoked the deep-seated and enduring enmity of Thebes and Bœotia in general towards Athens, while the alliance of the Athenians and Platæans was lasting and faithful.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 31.

PLATÆA: B. C. 490. Help to Athens at Marathon.

See GREECE: B. C. 490.

PLATÆA: B. C. 479. Decisive overthrow of the Persians.

See GREECE: B. C. 479.

PLATÆA: B. C. 431. Surprise of.

The first act in the Peloponnesian War (B. C. 431) was the surprising of the city of Platæa, the one ally of Athens in Bœotia, by a small force from her near neighbor and deadly enemy, Thebes. The Thebans were admitted by treachery at night and thought themselves in possession of the town. But the Platæans rallied before daybreak and turned the tables upon the foe. Not one of the Thebans escaped.

See GREECE: B. C. 432-431.

PLATÆA: B. C. 429-427. Siege, capture, and destruction by the Peloponnesians.

See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.

PLATÆA: B. C. 335. Restoration by Alexander.

See GREECE: B. C. 336-335.

—————PLATÆA: End————

PLATE RIVER, Discovery of the.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1515-1557.

PLATE RIVER, Provinces of the.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1806-1820.

PLATO, and the Schools of Athens.

See ACADEMY; also EDUCATION, ANCIENT: GREEK.

PLATTSBURG, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (SEPTEMBER).

PLAUTIO-PAPIRIAN LAW, The.

See ROME: B. C. 90-88.

PLEASANT HILL, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).

—————PLEBEIANS: Start————

{2544}

PLEBEIANS, OR PLEBS, Roman.

"We are now prepared to understand the origin of a distinct body of people which grew up alongside of the patricians of the Roman state during the latter part of the regal period and after its close. These were the plebeians (plebs, 'the crowd,' cf. 'pleo,' to fill) who dwelt in the Roman territory both within and without the walls of the city. They did not belong to the old clans which formed the three original tribes, nor did they have any real or pretended kinship with them, nor, for that matter, with one another, except within the ordinary limits of nature. They were, at the outset, simply an ill–assorted mass of residents, entirely outside of the orderly arrangement which we have described. There were three sources of this multitude:

I. When the city grew strong enough, it began to extend its boundaries, and first at the expense of the cantons nearest it, between the Tiber and the Anio. When Rome conquered a canton, she destroyed the walls of its citadel. Its inhabitants were sometimes permitted to occupy their villages as before, and sometimes were removed to Rome. In either case, Rome was henceforth to be their place of meeting and refuge, and they themselves, instead of being reduced to the condition of slaves, were attached to the state as non-citizens.

II. The relation of guest-friendship so called, in ancient times, could be entered into between individuals with their families and descendants, and also between individuals and a state, or between two states. Provision for such guest–friendship was undoubtedly made in the treaties which bound together Rome on the one side and the various independent cities of its neighborhood on the other. … The commercial advantages of Rome's situation attracted to it, in the course of time, a great many men from the Latin cities in the vicinity, who remained permanently settled there without acquiring Roman citizenship.

III. A third constituent element of the 'plebs' was formed by the clients ('the listeners,' 'cluere') [see CLIENTES]. … In the beginning of the long struggle between the patricians and plebeians, the clients are represented as having sided with the former. … Afterward, when the lapse of time had weakened their sense of dependence on their patrons, they became, as a body, identified with the plebeians."

A. Tighe, Development of the Roman Constitution, chapter 3.

Originally having no political rights, the Roman plebeians were forced to content themselves with the privilege they enjoyed of engaging in trade at Rome and acquiring property of their own. But as in time they grew to outnumber the patricians, while they rivalled the latter in wealth, they struggled with success for a share in the government and for other rights of citizenship. In the end, political power passed over to them entirely, and the Roman constitution became almost purely democratic, before it perished in anarchy and revolution, giving way to imperialism.

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, chapters 7, 8, 10, 35.

ALSO IN: B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on History of Rome, book 4, chapter 2.

PLEBEIANS: Secessions of the Plebs.

See SECESSIONS OF THE ROMAN PLEBS.

—————PLEBEIANS: End————

PLEBISCITA.

Resolutions passed by the Roman plebeians in their Comitia Tributa, or Assembly of the Tribes, were called "plebiscita."

See ROME: B. C. 472-471.

In modern France the term "plebiscite" has been applied to a general vote of the people, taken upon some single question, like that of the establishment of the Second Empire.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1851-1852; also, REFERENDUM.

PLESWITZ, Armistice of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (MAY-AUGUST).

PLEVNA, Siege and capture of.

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.

PLOW PATENT, The.

See MAINE: A. D. 1629-1631; and 1643-1677.

PLOWDEN'S COUNTY PALATINE.

See NEW ALBION.

PLUVIÔSE, The month.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER) THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.

PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts: A. D. 1605. Visited by Champlain, and the harbor named Port St. Louis.

See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605.

PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts: A. D. 1620. Landing of the Pilgrims. Founding of the Colony.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620, and after.

PLYMOUTH, North Carolina: A. D. 1864. Capture and recapture.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (APRIL-MAY: NORTH CAROLINA), and (OCTOBER: NORTH CAROLINA).

—————PLYMOUTH COMPANY: Start————

PLYMOUTH COMPANY: Formation.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607; and MAINE: A. D. 1607-1608.

PLYMOUTH COMPANY: A. D. 1615. Unsuccessful undertakings with Captain John Smith.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1614-1615.

PLYMOUTH COMPANY: A. D. 1620. Merged in the Council for New England.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.

—————PLYMOUTH COMPANY: End————

PLYMOUTH ROCK.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.

PNYX, The.

"The place of meeting [of the general assemblies of the people in ancient Athens] in earlier times is stated to have been in the market; in the historical period the people met there only to vote on proposals of ostracism, at other times assembling in the so-called Pnyx. As regards the position of this latter, a point which quite recently has become a matter of considerable dispute, the indications given by the ancient authorities appear to settle this much at any rate with certainty, that it was in the neighbourhood of the market, and that of the streets running out of the market one led only into the Pnyx."

G. F. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 3.

"The Pnyx was an artificial platform on the north-eastern side of one of the rocky heights which encircled Athens on the west, and along the crest of which is still traced the ancient enclosure of the Asty. In shape this platform differed only from a circular sector of about 155 degrees, inasmuch as the radii forming the angle were about 200 feet in length, while the distance from the angle to the middle of the curve was about 240 feet. On this latter side, or towards the Agora, the platform was bounded by a wall of support, which is about sixteen feet high in the middle or highest part, and is composed of large blocks, of various sizes, and for the most part quadrangular. In the opposite direction the platform was bounded by a vertical excavation in the rock, which, in the parts best preserved, is from twelve to fifteen feet high. {2545} The foot of this wall inclines towards the angle of the sector, thereby showing that originally the entire platform sloped towards this point as a centre, such being obviously the construction most adapted to an assembly which stood or sat to hear an orator placed in the angle. At this angle rose the celebrated [bema], or pulpit, often called the rock. … It was a quadrangular projection of the rock, eleven feet broad, rising from a graduated basis. The summit is broken; its present height is about twenty feet. On the right and left of the orator there was an access to the summit of the bema by a flight of steps, and from behind by two or three steps from an inclosure, in which are several chambers cut in the rock, which served doubtless for purposes connected with that of the Pnyx itself. … The area of the platform was capable of containing between seven and eight thousand persons, allowing a square yard to each."

W. M. Leake, Topography of Athens, appendix 11.

ALSO IN: G. F. Schömann, The Assemblies of the Athenians, pages 48-51.

See, also, AGORA.

POCKET BOROUGHS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830.

PODESTAS.

"About the end of the 12th century a new and singular species of magistracy was introduced into the Lombard cities. During the tyranny of Frederic I. [Frederick Barbarossa] he had appointed officers of his own, called podestas, instead of the elective consuls. It is remarkable that this memorial of despotic power should not have excited insuperable alarm and disgust in the free republics. But, on the contrary, they almost universally, after the peace of Constance, revived an office which had been abrogated when they first rose in rebellion against Frederic. From experience, as we must presume, of the partiality which their domestic factions carried into the administration of justice, it became a general practice to elect, by the name of podesta, a citizen of some neighbouring state as their general, their criminal judge, and preserver of the peace. … The podesta was sometimes chosen in a general assembly, sometimes by a select number of citizens. His office was annual, though prolonged in peculiar emergencies. He was invariably a man of noble family, even in those cities which excluded their own nobility from any share in the government. He received a fixed salary, and was compelled to remain in the city after the expiration of his office for the purpose of answering such charges as might be adduced against his conduct. He could neither marry a native of the city, nor have any relation resident within the district, nor even, so great was their jealousy, eat or drink in the house of any citizen. The authority of these foreign magistrates was not by any means alike in all cities. In some he seems to have superseded the consuls, and commanded the armies in war. In others, as Milan and Florence, his authority was merely judicial."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 69.

PODIEBRAD, George, King of Bohemia, A. D. 1458-1471.

POINT PLEASANT, Battle of.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

POISSY, The Colloquy at.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563.

POITIERS: Original names.

Limonum, a town of the Gauls, acquired later the name of Pictavi, which has become in modern times Poitiers.

POITIERS:A. D. 1569. Siege by the Huguenots.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

POITIERS, Battle of.

A battle was fought September 19, 1356, near the city of Poitiers, in France, by the English, under the "Black Prince," the famous son of Edward III., with the French commanded personally by their king, John II. The advantage in numbers was on the side of the French, but the position of the English was in their favor, inasmuch as it gave little opportunity to the cavalry of the French, which was their strongest arm. The English archers won the day, as in so many other battles of that age. The French were sorely beaten and their king was taken prisoner.

Froissart, Chronicles, (translated by Johnes), book 1, chapters 157-166.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360.

POITIERS, Edict of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1577-1578.

POITOU: Origin of the name.

See PICTONES.

POITOU: The rise of the Counts.

See TOULOUSE: 10-11th CENTURIES.

POITOU: The Counts become Dukes of Aquitaine or Guienne.

See AQUITAINE: A. D. 884-1151.

POKANOKETS, WAMPANOAGS, The.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636; AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY; NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675, 1675, 1676-1678.

POLA, Naval battle of (1379).

See VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379.

—————POLAND: Start————

POLAND. The Name.

"The word Pole is not older than the tenth century, and seems to have been originally applied, not so much to the people as to the region they inhabited; 'polska' in the Slavonic tongue signifying a level field or plain."

S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, introduction.

POLAND: The ancestors of the race.

See LYGIANS.

POLAND: Beginnings of national existence.

"The Poles were a nation whose name does not occur in history before the middle of the tenth century; and we owe to Christianity the first intimations that we have regarding this people. Mieczislaus [or Miceslaus] I., the first duke or prince of the Poles of whom we possess any authentic accounts, embraced Christianity (966) at the solicitation of his spouse, Dambrowka, sister of Boleslaus II., duke of Bohemia. Shortly after, the first bishopric in Poland, that of Posen, was founded by Otho the Great. Christianity did not, however, tame the ferocious habits of the Poles, who remained for a long time without the least progress in mental cultivation. Their government, as wretched as that of Bohemia, subjected the great body of the nation to the most debasing servitude. {2546} The ancient sovereigns of Poland were hereditary. They ruled most despotically, and with a rod of iron; and, although they acknowledged themselves vassals and tributaries of the German emperors, they repeatedly broke out into open rebellion, asserted their absolute independence, and waged a successful war against their masters. Boleslaus, son of Mieczislaus I., took advantage of the troubles which rose in Germany on the death of Otho III., to possess himself of the Marches of Lusatia and Budissin, or Bautzen, which the Emperor Henry II. afterwards granted him as fiefs. This same prince, in despite of the Germans, on the death of Henry II. (1025), assumed the royal dignity. Mieczislaus II., son of Boleslaus, after having cruelly ravaged the country situate between the Oder, the Elbe, and the Saal, was compelled to abdicate the throne, and also to restore those provinces which his father had wrested from the Empire. The male descendants of Mieczislaus I. reigned in Poland until the death of Casimir the Great (1370). This dynasty of kings is known by the name of the Piasts, or Piasses, so called from one Piast, alleged to have been its founder."

W. Koch, History of Revolutions in Europe, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, chapters 1-2.

POLAND: A. D. 1096. The refuge of the Jews.

See JEWS: 11-17th CENTURIES.

POLAND: A. D. 1240-1241. Mongol invasion.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.

POLAND: 13-14th Centuries. Growing power and increasing dominion. Encroachments on Russia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572. The union with Lithuania and the reign of the Jagellon dynasty. Conquest of Prussia and its grant to Grandmaster Albert.

Casimir III., or Casimir the Great, the last Polish king of the Piast line, ascended the throne in 1333. "Polish historians celebrate the good deeds of this king for the internal prosperity of Poland—his introduction of a legal code, his just administration, his encouragement of learning, and his munificence in founding churches, schools, and hospitals. The great external question of his reign was that of the relations of Poland to the two contiguous powers of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights of Prussia and the Baltic provinces. On the one hand, Poland, as a Christian country, had stronger ties of connexion with the Teutonic Knights than with Lithuania. On the other hand, ties of race and tradition connected Poland with Lithuania; and the ambitious policy of the Teutonic Knights, who aimed at the extension of their rule at the expense of Poland and Lithuania, and also jealously shut out both countries from the Baltic coast, and so from the advantages of commerce, tended to increase the sympathy between the Poles and the Lithuanians. A happy solution was at length given to this question. Casimir, dying in 1370, left no issue but a daughter, named Hedvige; and the Crown of Poland passed to his nephew Louis of Anjou, at that time also King of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.

Louis, occupied with the affairs of Hungary, neglected those of Poland, and left it exposed to the attacks of the Lithuanians. He became excessively unpopular among the Poles; and, after his death in 1384, they proclaimed Hedvige Queen of Poland. In 1386, a marriage was arranged between this princess and Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania—Jagellon agreeing to be baptized, and to establish Christianity among his hitherto heathen subjects. Thus Poland and Lithuania were united; and a new dynasty of Polish kings was founded, called the dynasty of the Jagellons. The rule of this dynasty, under seven successive kings (1386-1572) constitutes the flourishing epoch of Polish history, to which at the present day the Poles look fondly back when they would exalt the glory and greatness of their country. … The effect of the union of Poland and Lithuania was at once felt in Europe. The first Jagellon, who on his baptism took the name of Uladislav II., and whom one fancies as still a sort of rough half-heathen by the side of the beautiful Polish Hedvige, spent his whole reign (1386-1434) in consolidating the union and turning it to account. He defended Lithuania against the Tartar hordes then moving westward before the impulse of the conquering Tamerlane. But his chief activity was against the Teutonic Knights. … He engaged in a series of wars against the knights, which ended in a great victory gained over them at Tannenburg in 1410. By this victory the power of the knights was broken for the time, and their territories placed at the mercy of the Poles. During the reign of Uladislav III., the second of the Jagellons (1434-1444), the knights remained submissive, and that monarch was able to turn his arms, in conjunction with the Hungarians, against a more formidable enemy—the Turks—then beginning their invasions of Europe. Uladislav III. having been slain in battle against the Turks at Varna, the Teutonic Knights availed themselves of the confusion which followed, to try to recover their power. By this time, however, their Prussian subjects were tired of their rule; Dantzic, Elbing, Thorn, and other towns, as well as the landed proprietors and the clergy of various districts, formed a league against them; and, on the accession of Casimir IV., the third of the Jagellons, to the Polish throne (1447), all Western Prussia revolted from the knights and placed itself under his protection. A terrific war ensued, which was brought to a close in 1466 by the peace of Thorn. By this notable treaty, the independent sovereignty of the Teutonic order in the countries they had held for two centuries was extinguished—the whole of Western Prussia, with the city of Marienburg, and other districts, being annexed to the Polish crown, with guarantees for the preservation of their own forms of administration; and the knights being allowed to retain certain districts of Eastern Prussia, only as vassals of Poland. Thus Poland was once more in possession of that necessity of its existence as a great European state—a seaboard on the Baltic. Exulting in an acquisition for which they had so long struggled, the Poles are said to have danced with joy as they looked on the blue waves and could call them their own. Casimir IV., the hero of this important passage in Polish history, died in 1492; and, though during the reigns of his successors—John Albertus (1492-1501), and Alexander (1501-1506)—the Polish territories suffered some diminution in the direction of Russia, the fruits of the treaty of Thorn were enjoyed in peace. In the reign of the sixth of the Jagellonidæ, however—Sigismund I. (1506-1547)—the Teutonic Knights made an attempt to throw off their allegiance to Poland. {2547} The attempt was made in singular circumstances, and led to a singular conclusion. The grand-master of the Teutonic order at this time was Albert of Brandenburg …, a descendant [in the Anspach branch] of that astute Hohenzollern family which in 1411 had possessed itself of the Marquisate of Brandenburg. Albert, carrying out a scheme entertained by the preceding grand-master, refused homage for the Prussian territories of his order to the Polish king Sigismund, and even prepared to win back what the order had lost by the treaty of Thorn. Sigismund, who was uncle to Albert, defeated his schemes, and proved the superiority of the Polish armies over the forces of the once great but now effete order. Albert found it his best policy to submit, and this he did in no ordinary fashion. The Reformation was then in the first flush of its progress over the Continent, and the Teutonic Order of Knights, long a practical anachronism in Europe, was losing even the slight support it still had in surrounding public opinion, as the new doctrines changed men's ideas. What was more, the grand-master himself imbibed Protestant opinions and was a disciple of Luther and Melancthon. He resolved to bring down the fabric of the order about his ears and construct for himself a secular principality out of its ruins. Many of the knights shared or were gained over to his views; so he married a princess, and they took themselves wives—all becoming Protestants together, with the exception of a few tough old knights who transferred their chapter to Mergentheim in Würtemberg, where it remained, a curious relic, till the time of Napoleon. The secularization was formally completed at Cracow in April, 1525. There, in a square before the royal palace, on a throne emblazoned with the arms of Poland and Lithuania—a white eagle for the one, and a mounted knight for the other—the Polish king Sigismund received … the banner of the order, the knights standing by and agreeing to the surrender. In return, Sigismund embraced the late grand-master as Duke of Prussia, granting to him and the knights the former possessions of the order, as secular vassals of the Polish crown. The remainder of Sigismund's reign was worthy of this beginning; and at no time was Poland more flourishing than when his son, Sigismund II., the seventh of the Jagellonidæ, succeeded him on the throne. During the wise reign of this prince (1547-1572), whose tolerant policy in the matter of the great religious controversy then agitating Europe is not his least title to credit, Poland lost nothing of her prosperity or her greatness; and one of its last transactions was the consummation of the union between the two nations of Poland and Lithuania by their formal incorporation into one kingdom at the Diet of Lublin (July 1, 1569). But, alas for Poland, this seventh of the Jagellonidæ was also the last, and, on his death in 1572, Poland entered on that career of misery and decline, with the reminiscences of which her name is now associated."

Poland: her History and Prospects (Westminster Review, January, 1855).

ALSO IN: H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, to Frederick the Great, chapter 4.

S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, book 1, chapter 3.

POLAND: A. D. 1439. Election of Ladislaus III. to the throne of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.

POLAND: A. D. 1471-1479. War with Matthias of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487.

POLAND: A. D. 1505-1588. Enslavement of the peasantry.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: POLAND.

POLAND: A. D. 1573. Election of Henry of Valois to the throne. The Pacta Conventa.

On the election of Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, to the Polish throne (see FRANCE: A. D. 1573-1576), he was required to subscribe to a series of articles, known as the Pacta Conventa (and sometimes called the Articles of Henry), which were intended to be the basis of all future covenants between the Poles and their elective sovereigns. The chief articles of the Pacta Conventa were the following:

"1. That the king should not in the remotest degree attempt to influence the senate in the choice of a successor; but should leave inviolable to the Polish nobles the right of electing one at his decease.

2. That he should not assume the title of 'master' and 'heir' of the monarchy, as borne by all preceding kings.

3. That he should observe the treaty of peace made with the dissidents.

4. That he should not declare war, or dispatch the nobles on any expedition, without the previous sanction of the diet.

5. That he should not impose taxes or contributions of any description.

6. That he should not have any authority to appoint ambassadors to foreign courts.

7. That in case of different opinions prevailing among the senators, he should espouse such only as were in accordance with the laws, and clearly advantageous to the nation.

8. That he should be furnished with a permanent council, the members of which (16 in number; viz. 4 bishops, 4 palatines, and 8 castellans) should be changed every half year, and should be selected by the ordinary diets.

9. That a general diet should be convoked every two years, or oftener, if required.

10. That the duration of each diet should not exceed six weeks.

11. That no dignities or benefices should be conferred on other than natives.

12. That the king should neither marry nor divorce a wife without the permission of the diet.

The violation of any one of these articles, even in spirit, was to be considered by the Poles as absolving them from their oaths of allegiance, and as empowering them to elect another ruler."

S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, book 2, chapter 1.

POLAND: A. D. 1574-1590. Disgraceful abandonment of the throne by Henry of Valois. Election of Stephen Batory. His successful wars with Russia, and his death. Election of Sigismund III., of Sweden.

The worthless French prince, Henry of Valois, whom the Poles had chosen to be their king, and whom they crowned at Cracow, on the 21st of February, 1574, "soon sighed for the banks of the Seine: amidst the ferocious people whose authority he was constrained to recognize, and who despised him for his imbecility, he had no hope of enjoyment. To escape their factions, their mutinies, their studied insults, he shut himself up within his palace, and, with the few countrymen whom he had been permitted to retain near his person, he abandoned himself to idleness and dissipation. … By the death of his brother [Charles IX. king of France], who died on the 30th of May, 1574, he was become heir to the crown of the Valois. His first object was to conceal the letters which announced that event, and to flee before the Poles could have any suspicion of his intention. The intelligence, however, transpired through another channel. {2548} His senators advised him to convoke a diet, and, in conformity with the laws, to solicit permission of a short absence while he settled the affairs of his new heritage. Such permission would willingly have been granted him, more willingly still had he proposed an eternal separation; but he feared the ambition of his brother the duke of Alençon, who secretly aspired to the throne; and he resolved to depart without it. He concealed his extraordinary purpose with great art," and achieved a most contemptible success in carrying it out,—stealing away from his kingdom like a thief, on the night of the 18th of June. "Some letters found on a table in his apartment attempted to account for his precipitate departure by the urgency of the troubles in his hereditary kingdom; yet he did not reach Lyons till the following year. In a diet assembled at Warsaw, it was resolved that if the king did not return by the 12th of May, 1575, the throne should be declared vacant. Deputies were sent to acquaint him with the decree. … After the expiration of the term, the interregnum was proclaimed in the diet of Stenzyca, and a day appointed for a new election. After the deposition of Henry [now become Henry III. of France], no less than five foreign and two native princes were proposed as candidates for the crown. The latter, however, refused to divide the suffrages of the republic, wisely preferring the privilege of electing kings to the honour of being elected themselves. The primate, many of the bishops, and several palatines, declared in favour of an Austrian prince; but the greater portion of the diet (assembled on the plains opposite to Warsaw) were for the princess Anne, sister of Sigismund Augustus, whose hand they resolved to confer on Stephen Batory, duke of Transylvania. Accordingly, Stephen was proclaimed king by Zamoyski, starost of Beltz, whose name was soon to prove famous in the annals of Poland. On the other hand, Uchanski the primate nominated the emperor Maximilian, who was proclaimed by the marshal of the crown: this party, however, being too feeble to contend with the great body of the equestrian order, despatched messengers to hasten the arrival of the emperor; but Zamoyski acted with still greater celerity. While his rival was busied about certain conditions, which the party of the primate forced on Maximilian, Batory arrived in Poland, married the princess, subscribed to every thing required from him, and was solemnly crowned. A civil war appeared inevitable, but the death of Maximilian happily averted the disaster. … But though Poland and Lithuania thus acknowledged the new king, Prussia, which had espoused the interests of the Austrian, was less tractable. The country, however, was speedily reduced to submission, with the exception of Dantzic, which not only refused to own him, but insisted on its recognition by the diet as a free and independent republic. … Had the Dantzickers sought no other glory than that of defending their city, had they resolutely kept within their entrenchments, they might have beheld the power of their king shattered against the bulwarks below them; but the principles which moved them pushed them on to temerity. … Their rashness cost them dear; the loss of 8,000 men compelled them again to seek the shelter of their walls, and annihilated their hope of ultimate success. Fortunately they had to deal with a monarch of extraordinary moderation. … Their submission [1577] disarmed his resentment, and left him at liberty to march against other enemies. During this struggle of Stephen with his rebellious subjects, the Muscovites had laid waste Livonia. To punish their audacity, and wrest from their grasp the conquests they had made during the reign of his immediate predecessors, was now his object. … Success every where accompanied him. Polotsk, Sakol, Turowla, and many other places, submitted to his arms. The investiture of the duchy (Polotsk, which the Muscovites had reduced in the time of Sigismund I.) he conferred on Gottard duke of Courland. On the approach of winter he returned, to obtain more liberal supplies for the ensuing campaign. Nothing can more strongly exhibit the different characters of the Poles and Lithuanians than the reception he met from each. At Wilna his splendid successes procured him the most enthusiastic welcome; at Warsaw they caused him to be received with sullen discontent. The Polish nobles were less alive to the glory of their country than to the preservation of their monstrous privileges, which, they apprehended, might be endangered under so vigilant and able a ruler. With the aid, however, of Zamoyski and some other leading barons, he again wrung a few supplies from that most jealous of bodies, a diet. … Stephen now directed his course towards the province of Novogorod: neither the innumerable marshes, nor the vast forests of these steppes, which had been untrodden by soldier's foot since the days of Witold, could stop his progress; he triumphed over every obstacle, and, with amazing rapidity, reduced the chief fortified towns between Livonia and that ancient mistress of the North. But his troops were thinned by fatigue, and even victory; reinforcements were peremptorily necessary; and though in an enfeebled state of health, he again returned to collect them. … The succeeding campaign promised to be equally glorious, when the tsar, by adroitly insinuating his inclination to unite the Greek with the Latin church, prevailed on the pope to interpose for peace. To the wishes of the papal see the king was ever ready to pay the utmost deference. The conditions were advantageous to the republic. If she surrendered her recent conquests—which she could not possibly have retained—she obtained an acknowledgment of her rights of sovereignty over Livonia; and Polotsk, with several surrounding fortresses, was annexed to Lithuania." Stephen Batory died in 1586, having vainly advised the diet to make the crown hereditary, and avert the ruin of the nation. The interregnum which ensued afforded opportunity for a fierce private war between the factions of the Zborowskis and the Zamoyskis. Then followed a disputed election of king, one party proclaiming the archduke Maximilian of Austria, the other Sigismund, prince royal of Sweden—a scion of the Jagellonic family—and both sides resorting to arms. Maximilian was defeated and taken prisoner, and only regained his freedom by relinquishing his claims to the Polish crown.

S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, book 2, chapter 1.

{2549}

POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652. Anarchy organized by the Nobles. The extraordinary Constitution imposed by them on the country. The Liberum Veto and its effects.

"On the death of the last Jagellon, 1573, at a time when Bohemia and Hungary were deprived of the power of electing their kings, when Sweden renounced this right in favour of its monarchs, Poland renewed its privilege in its most comprehensive form. At a time when European monarchs gradually deprived the great feudal barons of all share in the administration of the law, … the Polish nobles destroyed the last vestiges of the royal prerogative. … In the year 1578 the kings lost the right of bestowing the patent of nobility, which was made over to the diet. The kings had no share in the legislation, as the laws were made in every interregnum. As soon as the throne became vacant by the death of a king, and before the diet appointed a successor, the nobles of the provinces assembled to examine into the administration of the late king and his senate. Any law that was not approved of could be repealed and new arrangements proposed, which became law if the votes of the diet were unanimous. This unanimity was most easily obtained when a law threatened the individual or when the royal prerogative was to be decreased. … The king had no share in the administration, and even the most urgent circumstances did not justify his acting without the co-operation of the senate [which consisted of 17 archbishops and bishops, 33 palatines or woiwodes—'war-leaders'—who were governors of provinces or palatinates, and 85 castellans, who were originally commanders in the royal cities and fortresses, but who had become, like the woiwodes, quite independent of the king]. The senate deprived the king of the power of making peace or war. … If there was a hostile invasion, war became a matter of course, but it was carried on, on their own account, by the palatines most nearly concerned, and often without the assistance of the king. … Bribery, intrigue and party spirit were the only means of influence that could be employed by a king, who was excluded from the administration, who was without domains, without private property or settled revenue, who was surrounded by officers he could not depose and by judges who could be deposed, and who was, in short, without real power of any sort. The senate itself was deprived of its power, and the representatives of the nobles seized upon the highest authority. … They alone held the public offices and the highest ecclesiastical benefices. They filled the seats of the judges exclusively, and enjoyed perfect immunity from taxes, duties, &c. … Another great evil from which the republic suffered was the abuse of the liberum veto, which, dangerous as it was in itself, had become law in 1652." This gave the power of veto to every single voice in the assemblies of the nobles, or in the meetings of the deputies who represented them. Nothing could be adopted without entire unanimity; and yet deputies to the diet were allowed no discretion. "They received definite instructions as to the demands they were to bring forward and the concessions they were to make. … One step only was wanting before unanimity of votes became an impossibility, and anarchy was completely organized. This step was taken when individual palatines enjoined their deputies to oppose every discussion at the diet, till their own proposals had been heard and acceded to. Before long, several deputies received the same instructions, and thus the diet was in fact dissolved before it was opened. Other deputies refused to consent to any proposals, if those of their own province were not accepted; so that the veto of one deputy in a single transaction could bring about the dissolution of the entire diet, and the exercise of the royal authority was thus suspended for two years [since the diet could only be held every other year, to last no longer than a fortnight, and to sit during daylight, only]. … No law could be passed, nothing could be resolved upon. The army received no pay. Provinces were desolated by enemies, and none came to their aid. Justice was delayed, the coinage was debased; in short, Poland ceased for the next two years to exist as a state. Every time that a rupture occurred in the diet it was looked on as a national calamity. The curse of posterity was invoked on that deputy who had occasioned it, and on his family. In order to save themselves from popular fury, these deputies were accustomed to hand in their protest in writing, and then to wander about, unknown and without rest, cursed by the nation."

Count Moltke, Poland: an Historical Sketch, chapter 3.

"It was not till 1652 … that this principle of equality, or the free consent of every individual Pole of the privileged class to every act done in the name of the nation, reached its last logical excess. In that year, the king John Casimir having embroiled himself with Sweden, a deputy in the Diet was bold enough to use the right which by theory belonged to him, and by his single veto, not only arrest the preparations for a war with Sweden, but also quash all the proceedings of the Diet. Such was the first case of the exercise of that liberum veto of which we hear so much in subsequent Polish history, and which is certainly the greatest curiosity, in the shape of a political institution, with which the records of any nation present us. From that time every Pole walked over the earth a conscious incarnation of a power such as no mortal man out of Poland possessed—that of putting a spoke into the whole legislative machinery of his country, and bringing it to a dead lock by his own single obstinacy; and, though the exercise of the power was a different thing from its possession, yet every now and then a man was found with nerve enough to put it in practice. … There were, of course, various remedies for this among an inventive people. One, and the most obvious and most frequent, was to knock the vetoist down and throttle him; another, in cases where he had a party at his back, was to bring soldiers round the Diet and coerce it into unanimity. There was also the device of what were called confederations; that is, associations of the nobles independent of the Diet, adopting decrees with the sanction of the king, and imposing them by force on the country. These confederations acquired a kind of legal existence in the intervals between the Diets."

Poland: her History and Prospects (Westminster Review, January, 1855).

POLAND: A. D. 1586-1629. Election of Sigismund of Sweden to the throne. His succession to the Swedish crown and his deposition. His claims and the consequent war.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES(SWEDEN): A. D. 1523-1604; and 1611-1629.

{2550}

POLAND: A. D. 1590-1648. Reigns of Sigismund III. and Ladislaus IV. Wars with the Muscovites, the Turks and the Swedes. Domestic discord in the kingdom.

"The new king, who was elected out of respect for the memory of the house of Jaguello (being the son of the sister of Sigismond Augustus), was not the kind of monarch Poland at that time required. … He was too indolent to take the reins of government into his own hands, but placed them in those of the Jesuits and his German favourites. Not only did he thereby lose the affections of his people, but he also lost the crown of Sweden, to which, at his father's death, he was the rightful heir. This throne was wrested from him by his uncle Charles, the brother of the late king.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1523-1604.

This usurpation by Charles was the cause of a war between Sweden and Poland, which, although conducted with great skill by the illustrious generals Zamoyski and Chodkiewicz, terminated disastrously for Poland, for, after this war, a part of Livonia remained in the hands of the Swedes." During the troubled state of affairs at Moscow which followed the death, in 1584, of Ivan the Terrible, Sigismond interfered and sent an army which took possession of the Russian capital and remained in occupation of it for some time.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682.

"As a consequence … the Muscovites offered the throne of the Czar to Ladislas, the eldest son of the King of Poland, on condition that he would change his religion and become a member of 'the Orthodox Church.' Sigismond III., who was a zealous Catholic, and under the influence of the Jesuits, wishing rather to convert the Muscovites to the Catholic Church, would not permit Ladislas to change his faith—refused the throne of the Czar for his son. … By the peace concluded at Moscow, 1619, the fortress of Smolenski and a considerable part of Muscovy remained in the hands of the Poles. … Sigismond III., whose reign was so disastrous to Poland, kept up intimate relations with the house of Austria. The Emperor invited him to take part with him … in what is historically termed 'the Thirty Years' War.' Sigismond complied with this request, and sent the Emperor of Austria some of his Cossack regiments. … Whilst the Emperor was on the one hand engaged in 'the Thirty Years' War,' he was on the other embroiled with Turkey. The Sultan, in revenge for the aid which the Poles had afforded the Austrians, entered Moldavia with a considerable force. Sigismond III. sent his able general Zolkiewski against the Turks, but as the Polish army was much smaller than that of the Turks, it was defeated on the battlefield of Cecora [1621], in Moldavia, [its] general killed, and many of his soldiers taken prisoners. After this unfortunate campaign … the Sultan Osman, at the head of 300,000 Mussulmans, confident in the number and valour of his army, marched towards the frontier of Poland with the intention of subjugating the entire kingdom. At this alarming news a Diet was convoked in all haste, at which it was determined that there should be a 'levée en masse,' in order to drive away the terrible Mussulman scourge. But before this levée en masse could be organized, the Hetman Chodkiewicz, who had succeeded Zolkiewski as commander-in-chief, crossed the river Dniester with 35,000 soldiers and 30,000 Cossacks, camped under the walls of the fortress of Chocim [or Kotzim, or Khotzim, or Choczim] and there awaited the enemy, to whom, on his appearance, he gave battle [September 28, 1622], and, notwithstanding the disproportion of the two armies, the Turks were utterly routed. The Moslems left on the battlefield, besides the dead, guns, tents, and provisions. … After this brilliant victory a peace was concluded with Turkey; and I think I am justified in saying that, by this victory, the whole of Western Europe was saved from Mussulman invasion. … The successful Polish general unhappily did not long survive his brilliant victory. … While these events were taking place in the southern provinces, Gustavus Adolphus, who had succeeded to the throne of Sweden, marched into the northern province of Livonia, where there were no Polish troops to resist him (all having been sent against the Turks), and took possession of this Polish province.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1611-1629.

Gustavus Adolphus, however, proposed to restore it to Poland on condition that Sigismond III. would renounce all claim to the crown of Sweden, to which the Polish sovereign was the rightful heir. But in this matter, as in all previous ones, the Polish king acted with the same obstinacy, and the same disregard for the interests of the kingdom. He would not accept the terms offered by Gustavus Adolphus, and by his refusal Poland lost the entire province of Livonia with the exception of the city of Dynabourg." Sigismond III. died in 1632, and his eldest son, Ladislas IV., "was immediately elected King of Poland, a proceeding which spared the kingdom all the miseries attendant on an interregnum. In 1633, after the successful campaign against the Muscovites, in which the important fortified city of Smolensk, as well as other territory, was taken, a treaty advantageous to Poland was concluded. Soon afterwards, through the intervention of England and France, another treaty was made between Poland and Sweden by which the King of Sweden restored to Poland a part of Prussia which had been annexed by Sweden. Thus the reign of Ladislas IV, commenced auspiciously with regard to external matters. … Unhappily the bitter quarrels of the nobles were incessant; their only unanimity consisted in trying to foil the good intentions of their kings." Ladislas IV. died in 1648, and was succeeded by his brother, John Casimir, who had entered the Order of the Jesuits some years before, and had been made a cardinal by the Pope, but who was now absolved from his vows and permitted to marry.