Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Confederation of the Rhine

(Encyclopedia)Confederation of the Rhine, league of German states formed by Emperor Napoleon I in 1806 after his defeat of the Austrians at Austerlitz. Among its members were the newly created kingdoms of Bavaria a...

Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis

(Encyclopedia)Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis nümäˈ dənēˈ füstĕlˈ də ko͞oläNzhˈ [key], 1830–89, French historian. His masterly study, La Cité antique (1864, tr. The Ancient City, 1874), stressed the...

Wilfrid, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Wilfrid, Saint, 634–709?, English churchman, b. Northumbria, of noble parentage. He was educated at Lindisfarne and Canterbury. With Benedict Biscop he traveled to Lyons and Rome in 654; Wilfrid rem...

Wace

(Encyclopedia)Wace wās [key], c.1100–1174, Norman-French poet of Jersey. King Henry II made him canon of Bayeux. His Roman de Brut (1155) is a long, rhymed chronicle of British history based on the Historia of G...

Watling Street

(Encyclopedia)Watling Street wŏtˈlĭng [key], important ancient road in England, built by the Romans in the course of their military occupation. It ran from London generally north to the intersection with the Fos...

Watson, Thomas Edward

(Encyclopedia)Watson, Thomas Edward, 1856–1922, American political leader, b. Columbia co., Ga. A successful lawyer, he practiced in Thomson, Ga., before serving (1882–83) in the state legislature and as a Farm...

Adrian I, pope

(Encyclopedia)Adrian I, d. 795, pope (772–95), a Roman; successor of Stephen IV. At Adrian's urging, Charlemagne crossed the Alps and defeated the Lombard king, Desiderius, who had annexed papal territory. That d...

Steno, Nicolaus

(Encyclopedia)Steno, Nicolaus nēls stānˈsən [key], 1638–86, Danish anatomist, geologist, and Roman Catholic prelate. He lived principally in Copenhagen, Paris, and Florence. He investigated the heart, brain, ...

tonsure

(Encyclopedia)tonsure tŏnˈshər [key] [Lat.,=to shave], formerly, practice in some Christian churches of cutting some of the hair from the scalp of clerics. In the West the tonsure consisted of a circular patch o...
 

Browse by Subject