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pillar

(Encyclopedia)pillar, freestanding columnar supporting member. It is a general term, little used as an exact architectural definition except as applied to an upright support in the medieval styles, consisting of an...

Éboli

(Encyclopedia)Éboli ĕˈbōlē [key], town, in Campania, S Italy. It is an agricultural and market center....

Vehmgericht

(Encyclopedia)Vehmgericht fāˈmĭk [key], in medieval Germany, a type of criminal tribunal. The inability of the Holy Roman emperors to exercise effective central control over their lands and the extensive feudal ...

Iglesias

(Encyclopedia)Iglesias ēglāˈzyäs [key], town, SW Sardinia, Italy. The zinc and lead mines of the region ...

Shekinah

(Encyclopedia)Shekinah shēkīˈnə [key] [Heb.,=dwelling, presence], in Judaism, term used in the Targum (Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible) and elsewhere to indicate the manifestation of the presence of God...

decadents

(Encyclopedia)decadents, in literature, name loosely applied to those 19th-century, fin-de-siècle European authors who sought inspiration, both in their lives and in their writings, in aestheticism and in all the ...

Babrius

(Encyclopedia)Babrius bāˈbrēəs [key], fl. 2d cent.?, Greek fabulist, versifier of the fables of Aesop. Many of the medieval prose collections of Aesop were based on Babrius. He may have been a Hellenized Roman....

chivalry

(Encyclopedia)chivalry shĭvˈəlrē [key], system of ethical ideals that arose from feudalism and had its highest development in the 12th and 13th cent. Chivalric ethics originated chiefly in France and Spain and ...

Robert the Devil

(Encyclopedia)Robert the Devil, hero of a medieval legend. He was sold to the devil by his mother before his birth but upon discovering the fact did penance and was able to purify himself of his many sins. The tale...

Welsh literature

(Encyclopedia)Welsh literature, literary writings in the Welsh language. In the 20th cent. attempts at language purification, interest in Welsh mythology, and a turning away from earlier Welsh puritanism accompan...
 

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