placed the whole military power of the State in the hands of
the Governor. Armed with this authority, Jackson proceeded to
organize the Militia of Missouri as a secession army. Meantime
Captain Lyon had been superseded in command by the arrival at
St. Louis of General Harney, and the latter introduced a total
change of policy at once. He was trapped into an agreement
with Governor Jackson and Sterling Price, now general-in-chief
of the Missouri forces, which tied his hands, while the
cunning rebel leaders were rapidly placing the State in active
insurrection. But the eyes of the authorities at Washington
were opened by Blair; Harney was soon displaced and Lyon
restored to command. This occurred May 30th. On the 15th of
June Lyon took possession of the capital of the State,
Jefferson City, the Governor and other State officers taking
flight to Boonville, where their forces were being gathered.
Lyon promptly followed, routing and dispersing them at
Boonville on the 17th. The State Convention which had taken a
recess in March was now called together by a committee that
had been empowered to do so before the convention separated,
and a provisional State government was organized (July 31)
with a loyal governor, Hamilton R. Gamble, at its head.
J. G. Nicolay,
The Outbreak of the Rebellion,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
T. L. Snead,
The Fight for Missouri.
J. Peckham,
General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (July-September).
Sigel's retreat from Carthage.
Death of Lyon at Wilson's Creek.
Siege of Lexington.
Fremont in command.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).
A. D. 1861 (August-October).
Fremont in command.
His premature proclamation of freedom to the Slaves of rebels.
His quarrel with Frank P. Blair.
The change in command.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: MISSOURI).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (January-March).
Price and the Rebel forces driven into Arkansas.
Battle of Pea Ridge.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-MARCH: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (July-September).
Organization of the loyal Militia of the state.
Warfare with Rebel guerrillas.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (September-December).
Social effects of the Civil War.
The Battle of Prairie Grove.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (August).
Quantrell's guerrilla raid to Lawrence, Kansas.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (AUGUST: MISSOURI-KANSAS).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (October).
Cabell's invasion.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).
MISSOURI: A. D. 1864 (September-October).
Price's raid.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).
----------MISSOURI: End--------
MISSOURI COMPROMISE, The.
Its Repeal, and the decision of the Supreme Court against it.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1818-1821; 1854; and 1857.
{2192}
MISSOURI RIVER:
Called the River St. Philip by the French (1712).
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
MISSOURIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.
MITCHELL, General Ormsby M.:
Expedition into Alabama.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862(APRIL-MAY: ALABAMA);
and (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).
MITHRIDATIC WARS, The.
A somewhat vaguely defined part of eastern Asia Minor, between
Armenia, Phrygia, Cilicia and the Euxine, was called
Cappadocia in times anterior to 363 B. C. Like its neighbors,
it had fallen under the rule of the Persians and formed a
province of their empire, ruled by hereditary satraps. In the
year above named, the then reigning satrap, Ariobarzanes,
rebelled and made himself king of the northern coast district
of Cappadocia, while the southern and inland part was retained
under Persian rule. The kingdom founded by Ariobarzanes took
the name of Pontus, from the sea on which it bordered. It was
reduced to submission by Alexander the Great, but regained
independence during the wars between Alexander's successors
(see MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301; and SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 281-224),
and extended its limits towards the west and south. The
kingdom of Pontus, however, only rose to importance in history
under the powerful sovereignty of Mithridates V. who took the
title of Eupator and is often called Mithridates the Great. He
ascended the throne while a child, B. C. 120, but received,
notwithstanding, a wonderful education and training. At the
age of twenty (B. C. 112) he entered upon a career of
conquest, which was intended to strengthen his power for the
struggle with Rome, which he saw to be inevitable. Within a
period of about seven years he extended his dominions around
the nearly complete circuit of the Euxine, through Armenia,
Colchis, and along the northern coasts westward to the Crimea
and the Dniester; while at the same time he formed alliances
with the barbarous tribes on the Danube, with which he hoped
to threaten Italy.
G. Rawlinson,
Manual of Ancient History,
book 4, period 3, part 4.
"He [Mithridates] rivalled Hannibal in his unquenchable hatred
to Rome. This hatred had its origin in the revocation of a
district of Phrygia which the Senate had granted to his
father. … To his banner clustered a quarter of a million of
the fierce warriors of the Caucasus and the Scythian steppes
and of his own Hellenized Pontic soldiers; Greek captains, in
whom he had a confidence unshaken by disaster—Archelaus,
Neoptolemus, Dorilaus—gave tactical strength to his forces.
He was allied, too, with the Armenian king, Tigranes; and he
now turned his thoughts to Numidia, Syria, and Egypt with the
intention of forming a coalition against his foe on the Tiber.
A coin has been found which commemorated an alliance proposed
between the Pontic king and the Italian rebels. … The
imperious folly of M'. Aquillius, the Roman envoy in the East,
precipitated the intentions of the king; instead of contending
for the princedom of Bithynia and Cappadocia, he suddenly
appealed to the disaffected in the Roman province. The fierce
white fire of Asiatic hate shot out simultaneously through the
length and breadth of the country [B. C. 88]; and the awful
news came to distracted Rome that 80,000 Italians had fallen
victims to the vengeance of the provincials. Terror-stricken
publicani were chased from Adramyttium and Ephesus into the
sea, their only refuge, and there cut down by their pursuers;
the Mæander was rolling along the corpses of the Italians of
Tralles; in Caria the refined cruelty of the oppressed people
was butchering the children before the eyes of father and
mother, then the mother before the eyes of her husband, and
giving to the man death as the crown and the relief of his
torture. … Asia was lost to Rome; only Rhodes, which had
retained her independence, remained faithful to her great
ally. The Pontic fleet, under Archelaus, appeared at Delos,
and carried thence 2,000 talents to Athens, offering to that
imperial city the government of her ancient tributary. This
politic measure awaked hopes of independence in Greece.
Aristion, an Epicurean philosopher, seized the reins of power
in Athens, and Archelaus repaired the crumbling battlements of
the Piræus. The wave of eastern conquest was rolling on
towards Italy itself. The proconsul Sulla marched to
Brundisium, and, undeterred by the ominous news that his
consular colleague, Q. Rufus, had been murdered in Picenum, or
by the sinister attitude of the new consul Cinna, he crossed
over to Greece with five legions to stem the advancing wave.
History knows no more magnificent illustration of cool,
self-restrained determination than the action of Sulla during
these three years." He left Rome to his enemies, the fierce
faction of Marius, who were prompt to seize the city and to
fill it with "wailing for the dead, or with the more terrible
silence which followed a complete massacre" [see ROME: B. C.
88-78]. "The news of this carnival of democracy reached the
camp of Sulla along with innumerable noble fugitives who had
escaped the Marian terror. The proconsul was unmoved; with
unexampled self-confidence he began to assume that he and his
constituted Rome, while the Forum and Curia were filled with
lawless anarchists, who would soon have to be dealt with. He
carried Athens by assault, and slew the whole population, with
their tyrant Aristion [see ATHENS: B. C. 87-86], but he
counted it among the favours of the goddess of Fortune that
he, man of culture as he was, was able to save the immemorial
buildings of the city from the fate of Syracuse or Corinth.
Archelaus, in Piræus, offered the most heroic resistance. …
With the spring Sulla heard of the approach of the main army
from Pontus, under the command of Taxiles. 120,000 men, and
ninety scythed chariots, were pouring over Mount Œta to
overwhelm him. With wonderful rapidity he marched northwards
through friendly Thebes, and drew up his little army on a
slope near Chæronea, digging trenches on his left and right to
save his flank from being turned. He showed himself every inch
a general, he compelled the enemy to meet him on this ground
of his own choice, and the day did not close before 110,000 of
the enemy were captured or slain, and the camp of Archelaus,
who had hastened from Athens to take the command, was carried
by assault. We have before us still, in the pages of Plutarch,
Sulla's own memoirs. If we may believe him, he lost only
fifteen men in the battle. By this brilliant engagement he had
restored Greece to her allegiance, and, what was even better,
the disaster aroused an the savagery of Mithradates, the Greek
vanished in the oriental despot.
{2193}
Suspicious and ruthless, he ordered his nearest friends to be
assassinated; he transported all the population of Chios to
the mainland, and by his violence and exaction stirred
Ephesus, Sardes, Tralles, and many other cities, to renounce
his control, and to return to the Roman government. Still, he
did not suspect Archelaus, but appointed him, together with
Dorilaus, to lead a new army into Greece. The new army
appeared in Bœotia, and encamped by the Copaic Lake, near
Orchomenos. Before the raw levies could become familiar with
the sight of the legions, Sulla assaulted the camp [B. C. 85],
and rallied his wavering men by leading them in person with
the cry, 'Go, tell them in Rome that you left your general in
the trenches of Orchomenos;' the self-consciousness was
sublime, for nothing would have pleased the people in Rome
better; his victory was complete, and Archelaus escaped alone
in a boat to Calchis. As the conqueror returned from the
battle-field to reorganize Greece, he learnt that the Senate
had deposed him from command, declared him an outlaw, and
appointed as his successor the consul L. Valerius Flaccus. The
disorganization of the republic seemed to have reached a
climax. Flaccus conducted his army straight to the Bosphorus
without venturing to approach the rebel proconsul Sulla; while
Mithradates, who began to wish for peace, preferred to
negotiate with his conqueror rather than with the consul of
the republic. To complete this complication of anarchy,
Flaccus was murdered, and superseded in the command by his own
legate, C. Flavius Fimbria; this choice of their general by
the legions themselves might seem significant if anything
could be significant or connected in such a chaos. But Sulla
now crossed into Asia, and concluded peace with Mithradates on
these conditions: The king was to relinquish all his
conquests, surrender deserters, restore the people of Chios,
pay 2,000 talents, and give up seventy of his ships. Fimbria
… remained to be dealt with. It was not a difficult matter:
the two Roman armies confronted one another at Thyatira, and
the Fimbrians streamed over to Sulla. After all, the
legionaries, who had long ceased to be citizens, were soldiers
first and politicians after; they worshipped the felicity of
the great general; and the democratic general had not yet
appeared who could bind his men to him by a spell stronger
than Sulla's. Fimbria persuaded a slave to thrust him through
with his sword. His enemies were vanquished in Asia, but in
Rome Cinna was again consul (85 B. C.), and his colleague, Cn.
Papirius Carbo, out-Cinnaed Cinna. Yet Sulla was in no hurry.
He spent more than a year in reorganizing the disordered
province. … He even allowed Cinna and Carbo, who began to
prepare for war with him (84 B. C.), to be re-elected to the
consulship; but when the more cautious party in the Senate
entered into negotiations with him, and offered him a safe
conduct to Italy, he showed in a word what he took to be the
nature of the situation by saying that he was not in need of
their safe conduct, but he was coming to secure them."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 26.
Plutarch,
Sulla.
After a second and a third war with Rome (see ROME: B. C.
78-68, and 69-63), Mithridates was finally (B. C. 65) driven
from his old dominions into the Crimean kingdom of Bosporus,
where he ended his life in despair two years later. The
kingdom of Pontus was absorbed in the Roman empire. The
southern part of Cappadocia held some rank as an independent
kingdom until A. D. 17, when it was likewise reduced to the
state of a Roman province.
MITLA, The Ruins of.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.
----------MITYLENE: Start--------
MITYLENE.
The chief city in ancient times of the island of Lesbos, to
which it ultimately gave its name.
See LESBOS.
MITYLENE: B. C. 428-427.
Revolt from Athenian rule.
Siege and surrender.
The tender mercies of Athens.
See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.
MITYLENE: B. C. 406.
Blockade of the Athenian fleet.
Battle of Arginusæ.
See GREECE: B. C. 406.
----------MITYLENE: End--------
MIXES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.
MIXTECS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.
MIZRAIM.
See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.
MOABITES, The.
The Moabite Stone.
As related in the Bible (Genesis xix. 37), Moab was the son of
Lot's eldest daughter and the ancient people called Moabites
were descended from him. They occupied at an early time the
rich tableland or highlands on the east side of the Dead Sea;
but the Amorites drove them out of the richer northern part of
this territory into its southern half, where they occupied a
very narrow domain, but one easily defended. This occurred
shortly before the coming of the Israelites into Canaan.
Between the Moabites and the Israelites, after the settlement
of the latter, there was frequent war, but sometimes relations
both peaceful and friendly. David finally subjugated their
nation, in a war of peculiar atrocity. After the division of
the kingdoms, Moab was subject to Israel, but revolted on the
death of Ahab and was nearly destroyed in the horrible war
which followed. The Biblical account of this war is given in 2
Kings III. It is strangely supplemented and filled out by a
Moabite record—the famous Moabite Stone—found and deciphered
within quite recent times, under the following circumstance.
Dr. Klein, a German missionary, travelling in 1869 in what was
formerly the "Land of Moab," discovered a stone of black
basalt bearing a long inscription in Phœnician characters. He
copied a small part of it and made his discovery known. The
Prussian government opened negotiations for the purchase of
the stone, and M. Clermont-Ganneau, of the French consulate at
Jerusalem, made efforts likewise to secure it for his own
country. Meantime, very fortunately, the latter sent men to
take impressions—squeezes, as they are called—of the
inscription, which was imperfectly done. But these imperfect
squeezes proved invaluable; for the Arabs, finding the stone
to be a covetable thing, and fearing that it was to be taken
from them, crumbled it into fragments with the aid of fire and
water. Most of the pieces were subsequently recovered, and
were put together by the help of M. Clermont-Ganneau's
squeezes, so that an important part of the inscription was
deciphered in the end. It was found to be a record by Mesha,
king of Moab, of the war with Israel referred to above.
A. H. Sayce,
Fresh Light from the
Ancient Monuments,
chapter 4.
{2194}
The Moabites appear to have recovered from the blow, but not
much of their subsequent history is known.
G. Grove,
Dictionary of the Bible.
ALSO IN:
J. King,
Moab's Patriarchal Stone.
See, also, JEWS: THE EARLY HEBREW HISTORY,
and JEWS: UNDER THE JUDGES.
MOAWIYAH,
Caliph (founder of the Omeyyad dynasty), A. D. 661-679.
Moawiyah II., Caliph, A. D. 683.
----------MOBILE: Start--------
MOBILE: A. D. 1702-1711.
The founding of the city by the French.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
MOBILE: A. D. 1763.
Surrendered to the English.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (JULY).
MOBILE: A. D. 1781.
Retaken by the Spaniards.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.
MOBILE: A. D. 1813.
Possession taken from the Spaniards by the United States.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.
MOBILE: A. D. 1864.
The Battle in the Bay.
Farragut's naval victory.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (AUGUST: ALABAMA).
MOBILE: A. D. 1865 (March-April).
Siege and capture by the National forces.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).
----------MOBILE: End--------
MOBILIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.
MOCOVIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
----------MODENA: Start--------
MODENA, Founding of.
See MUTINA.
MODENA: A. D. 1288-1453.
Acquired by the Marquess of Este.
Created a Duchy.
See ESTE, THE HOUSE OF.
MODENA: A. D. 1767.
Expulsion of the Jesuits.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
MODENA: A. D. 1796.
Dethronement of the Duke by Bonaparte.
Formation of the Cispadane Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
MODENA: A. D. 1801.
Annexation to the Cisalpine Republic.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
MODENA: A. D. 1803.
The duchy acquired by the House of Austria.
See ESTE, HOUSE OF.
MODENA: A. D. 1815.
Given to an Austrian Prince.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
MODENA: A. D. 1831.
Revolt and expulsion of the Duke.
His restoration by Austrian troops.
See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.
MODENA: A. D. 1848-1849.
Abortive revolution.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
MODENA: A. D. 1859-1861.
End of the dukedom.
Absorption in the new Kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.
----------MODENA: End--------
MODIUS, The.
See AMPHORA.
MODOCS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS.
MOERIS, Lake.
"On the west of Egypt there is an oasis of cultivable land,
the Fayum, buried in the midst of the desert, and attached by
a sort of isthmus to the country watered by the Nile. In the
centre of this oasis is a large plateau about the same level
as the valley of the Nile; to the west, however, a
considerable depression of the land produces a valley occupied
by a natural lake more than ten leagues in length, the 'Birket
Kerun.' In the centre of this plateau Amenemhe [twelfth
dynasty] undertook the formation of an artificial lake with an
area of ten millions of square metres. If the rise of the Nile
was insufficient, the water was led into the lake and stored
up for use, not only in the Fayum, but over the whole of the
left bank of the Nile as far as the sea. If too large an
inundation threatened the dykes, the vast reservoir of the
artificial lake remained open, and when the lake itself
overflowed, the surplus waters were led by a canal into the
Birket Kerun. The two names given in Egypt to this admirable
work of Amenemhe III. deserve to be recorded. Of one, Meri,
that is 'the Lake,' par excellence, the Greeks have made
Moeris, a name erroneously applied by them to a king; whilst
the other, P-iom, 'the Sea,' has become, in the mouth of the
Arabs, the name of the entire province,
Fayum."
M. Mariette,
quoted in Lenormant's
Manual of Ancient History of the East,
book 3, chapter 2.
MŒSIA,
MÆSIA.
"After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss
[Theiss] and the Save, it acquired, at least among the Greeks,
the name of Ister. It formerly divided Mœsia and Dacia, the
latter of which, as we have already seen, was a conquest of
Trajan, and the only province beyond the river. … On the
right hand of the Danube, Mœsia, … during the middle ages,
was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of Servia and
Bulgaria."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 1.
Mœsia was occupied by the Goths in the 4th century.
See GOTHS: A. D. 341-381; and 376.
MOESKIRCH, Battle of (1800).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
MŒSO-GOTHIC.
See GOTHS: A. D. 341-381.
MOGONTIACUM.
"The two headquarters of the [Roman] army of the Rhine were
always Vetera, near Wesel, and Mogontiacum, the modern Mentz.
… Mogontiacum or Mentz, [was] from the time of Drusus down
to the end of Rome the stronghold out of which the Romans
sallied to attack Germany from Gaul, as it is at the present
day the true barrier of Germany against France. Here the
Romans, even after they had abandoned their rule in the region
of the upper Rhine generally, retained not merely the
tête-de-pont on the other bank, the 'castellum Mogontiacense'
(Castel), but also that plain of the Main itself, in their
possession; and in this region a Roman civilisation might
establish itself. The land originally belonged to the Chatti,
and a Chattan tribe, the Mattiaci, remained settled here even
under Roman rule."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 4 (The Provinces, volume 1).
MOGUL EMPIRE.
THE GREAT MOGUL.
See INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.
MOHACS, Battle of (1526).
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526.
MOHACS, Second Battle of (1687).
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.
MOHAMMED, The Prophet of Islam.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.
Mohammed, Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1104-1116.
Mohammed I., Turkish Sultan, 1413-1421.
Mohammed II., Turkish Sultan, 1451-1481.
Mohammed III., Turkish Sultan, 1595-1603.
Mohammed IV., Turkish Sultan, 1649-1687.
Mohammed Mirza, Shah of Persia, 1577-1582.
Mohammed Shah, sovereign of Persia, 1834-1848.
MOHARRAM FESTIVAL, The.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 680.
MOHAVES,
MOJAVES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APACHE GROUP.
{2195}
MOHAWKS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.
MOHAWKS, The, of Boston and New York.
See BOSTON: A. D. 1773;
and NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774.
MOHAWKS,
MOHOCKS, of London.
See MOHOCKS. [Third item below.]
MOHEGANS,
MAHICANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY,
HORIKANS, and STOCKBRIDGE INDIANS;
also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637.
MOHILEF, Battle of.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
MOHOCKS, The.
"This nocturnal fraternity met in the days of Queen Anne:
[1707] but it had been for many previous years the favourite
amusement of dissolute young men to form themselves into Clubs
and Associations for committing all sorts of excesses in the
public streets, and alike attacking orderly pedestrians, and
even defenceless women. These Clubs took various slang
designations. At the Restoration they were 'Mums,' and
'Tityre-tus.' They were succeeded by the 'Hectors' and
'Scourers,' when, says Shadwell, 'a man could not go from the
Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life
twice.' Then came the 'Nickers,' whose delight it was to smash
windows with showers of halfpence; next were the 'Hawkabites';
and lastly the 'Mohocks.' These last are described in the
'Spectator,' No. 324, as a set of men who have borrowed their
name from a sort of cannibals, in India, who subsist by
plundering and devouring all the nations about them. … Their
avowed design was mischief, and upon this foundation all their
rules and orders were framed. They took care to drink
themselves to a pitch beyond reason or humanity, and then made
a general sally, and attacked all who were in the streets.
Some were knocked down, others stabbed, and others cut and
carbonadoed. … They had special barbarities which they
executed upon their prisoners. 'Tipping the lion' was
squeezing the nose flat to the face and boring out the eyes
with their fingers. 'Dancing-masters' were those who taught
their scholars to cut capers by running swords through their
legs. The 'Tumblers' set women on their heads. The 'Sweaters'
worked in parties of half-a-dozen, surrounding their victims
with the points of their swords. … Another savage diversion
of the Mohocks was their thrusting women into barrels, and
rolling them down Snow or Ludgate Hill. … At length the
villanies of the Mohocks were attempted to be put down by a
Royal proclamation, issued on the 18th of March, 1712: this,
however, had very little effect, for we soon find Swift
exclaiming: 'They go on still and cut people's faces every
night!' … The Mohocks held together until nearly the end of
the reign of George I." [1727]
J. Timbs,
Clubs and Club Life in London,
pages 33-38.
MOIRA, Lord (Marquis of Hastings), The Indian administration of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
MOJOS,
MOXOS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS;
also, BOLIVIA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
MÖKERN, Battle of (1813).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.
MOLAI, Jacques de, and the fall of the Templars.
See TEMPLARS: A. D. 1307-1314;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1285-1314.
MOLASSES ACT, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.
MOLDAVIA.
MOLDO-WALLACHIA.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
MOLEMES, The Abbey of.
See CISTERCIAN ORDER.
MOLINISTS, The.
See MYSTICISM.
MOLINO DEL REY, Battle of.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1847 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
MOLINOS DEL REY, Battle of (1808).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).
MOLLWITZ, Battle of (1741).
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.
MOLOSSIANS, The.
See HELLAS;
and EPIRUS.
MOLTKE'S CAMPAIGNS.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840;
GERMANY: A. D. 1866;
FRANCE: A. D. 1870, and 1870-1871.
MOLUCCAS: Secured by Spain (1524).
See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.
MONA.
The ancient name of the island of Anglesea. It was the final
seat of the Druidical religion in Britain. Taken by the Romans
under Suetonius, A. D. 61, the priests were slain, the sacred
groves destroyed and Druidism practically exterminated.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 51.
See MONAPIA.
MONACANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: POWHATAN CONFEDERACY,
and IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH.
MONAPIA.
"The name of Monapia first occurs in Pliny, and must be
unquestionably identified with the Isle of Man; though the
name of the latter would dispose us at first to consider it as
representing Mona. But the Mona of the Romans, which was
attacked by Suetonius Paulinus and Agricola, was certainly
Anglesea."
E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography.,
chapter 24, section 2, foot-note.
MONASTERY.
MONASTICISM.
CONVENT.
ABBEY.
PRIORY.
"Monasticism was not the product of Christianity; it was the
inheritance of the Church, not its invention; not the
offspring, but the adopted child. The old antagonism between
mind and matter, flesh and spirit, self and the world has
asserted itself in all ages, especially among the nations of
the East. The Essenes, the Therapeutæ, and other Oriental
mystics, were as truly the precursors of Christian asceticism
in the desert or in the cloister, as Elijah and St. John the
Baptist. The Neoplatonism of Alexandria, extolling the
passionless man above him who regulates his passions,
sanctioned and systematized this craving after a life of utter
abstraction from external things, this abhorrence of all
contact with what is material as a defilement. Doubtless the
cherished remembrance of the martyrs and confessors, who in
the preceding centuries of the Christian era had triumphed
over many a sanguinary persecution, gave a fresh impulse in
the fourth century to this propensity to asceticism,
stimulating the devout to vie with their forefathers in the
faith by their voluntary endurance of self-inflicted
austerities. … The terms monastery, originally the cell or
eave of a solitary, laura, an irregular cluster of cells, and
cœnobium, an association of monks, few or many, under one roof
and under one control, mark the three earliest stages in the
development of monasticism.
{2196}
In Syria and Palestine each monk originally had a separate
cell; in Lower Egypt two were together in one cell, whence the
term 'syncellita,' or sharer of the cell, came to express this
sort of comradeship; in the Thebaid, under Pachomius of
Tabenna, each cell contained three monks. At a later period
the monks arrogated to themselves by general consent the title
of 'the religious,' and admission into a monastery was termed
'conversion' to God. … The history of monasticism, like the
history of states and institutions in general, divides itself
broadly into three great periods, of growth, of glory, and of
decay. … From the beginning of the fourth century to the
close of the fifth, from Antony the hermit to Benedict of
Monte Casino, is the age of undisciplined impulse of
enthusiasm not as yet regulated by experience. … Everything
is on a scale of illogical exaggeration, is wanting in
balance, in proportion, in symmetry. Because purity,
unworldliness, charity, are virtues, therefore a woman is to
be regarded as a venomous reptile, gold as a worthless pebble;
the deadliest foe and the dearest friend are to be esteemed
just alike. Because it is right to be humble, therefore the
monk cuts off hand, ear, or tongue, to avoid being made
bishop, and feigns idiocy, in order not to be accounted wise.
Because it is well to teach people to be patient, therefore a
sick monk never speaks a kind word for years to the brother
monk who nursed him. Because it is right to keep the lips from
idle words, therefore a monk holds a large stone in his mouth
for three years. Every precept is to be taken literally, and
obeyed unreasoningly. Therefore monks who have been plundered
by a robber run after him to give him a something which has
escaped his notice. Self-denial is enjoined in the gospel.
Therefore the austerities of asceticism are to be simply
endless. One ascetic makes his dwelling in a hollow tree,
another in a cave, another in a tomb, another on the top of a
pillar, another has so lost the very appearance of a man, that
he is shot at by shepherds, who mistake him for a wolf. The
natural instincts, instead of being trained and cultivated,
are to be killed outright, in this abhorrence of things
material. … The period which follows, from the first
Benedict to Charlemagne, exhibits monasticism in a more mature
stage of activity. The social intercourse of the monastery,
duly harmonized by a traditional routine, with its
subordination of rank and offices, its division of duties, its
mutual dependence of all on each other, and on their head,
civilized the monastic life; and, as the monk himself became
subject to the refining influences of civilization, he went
forth into the world to civilize others. … Had it not been
for monks and monasteries, the barbarian deluge might have
swept away utterly the traces of Roman civilization. The
Benedictine monk was the pioneer of civilization and
Christianity in England, Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Sweden,
Denmark. The schools attached to the Lerinensian monasteries
were the precursors of the Benedictine seminaries in France
and of the professional chairs filled by learned Benedictines
in the universities of mediæval Christendom. With the
incessant din of arms around him, it was the monk in his
cloister, even in regions beyond the immediate sphere of
Benedict's legislation, even in the remote fastnesses, for
instance of Mount Athos, who, by preserving and transcribing
ancient manuscripts, both Christian and pagan, as well as by
recording his observations of contemporaneous events, was
handing down the torch of knowledge unquenched to future
generations, and hoarding up stores of erudition for the
researches of a more enlightened age. The first musicians,
painters, farmers, statesmen, in Europe, after the downfall of
Imperial Rome under the onslaught of the barbarians, were
monks."
I. Gregory Smith,
Christian Monasticism,
introduction.
"The monastic stream, which had been born in the deserts of
Egypt, divided itself into two great arms. The one spread in
the East, at first inundated everything, then concentrated and
lost itself there. The other escaped into the West, and spread
itself by a thousand channels over an entire world which had
to be covered and fertilised." Athanasius, who was driven
twice by persecution to take refuge among the hermits in the
Thebaid, Egypt, and who was three times exiled by an imperial
order to the West, "became thus the natural link between the
Fathers of the desert and those vast regions which their
successors were to conquer and transform. … It was in 340
that he came for the first time to Rome, in order to escape
the violence of the Arians, and invoke the protection of Pope
Julius. … He spread in Rome the first report of the life led
by the monks in the Thebaid, of the marvellous exploits of
Anthony, who was still alive, of the immense foundations which
Pacome was at that time forming upon the banks of the higher
Nile. He had brought with him two of the most austere of these
monks. … The narratives of Athanasius … roused the hearts
and imaginations of the Romans, and especially of the Roman
women. The name of monk, to which popular prejudice seems
already to have attached a kind of ignominy, became
immediately an honoured and envied title. The impression
produced at first by the exhortations of the illustrious
exile, was extended and strengthened during the two other
visits which he made to the Eternal City. Some time
afterwards, on the death of St. Anthony, Athanasius, at the
request of his disciples, wrote the life of the patriarch of
the Thebaid; and this biography, circulating through all the
West, immediately acquired there the popularity of a legend,
and the authority of a confession of faith. … Under this
narrative form, says St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he promulgated
the laws of monastic life. The town and environs of Rome were
soon full of monasteries, rapidly occupied by men
distinguished alike by birth, fortune and knowledge, who lived
there in charity, sanctity, and freedom. From Rome the new
institution, already distinguished by the name of religion, or
religious life, par excellence, extended itself over all
Italy. It was planted at the foot of the Alps by the influence
of a great bishop, Eusebius of Vercelli. … From the
continent the new institution rapidly gained the isles of the
Mediterranean, and even the rugged rocks of the Gargon and of
Capraja, where the monks, voluntarily exiled from the world,
went to take the place of the criminals and political victims
whom the emperors had been accustomed to banish thither. …
Most of the great leaders of the cenobitical institution had,
since St. Pacome, made out, under the name of Rule,
instructions and constitutions for the use of their immediate
disciples; but none of these works had acquired an extensive
or lasting sway. In the East, it is true, the rule of St.
Basil had prevailed in a multitude of monasteries, yet
notwithstanding Cassianus, in visiting Egypt, Palestine, and
Mesopotamia, found there almost as many different rules as
there were monasteries.
{2197}
In the West the diversity was still more strange. Each man
made for himself his own rule and discipline, taking his
authority from the writings or example of the Eastern Fathers.
The Gauls especially exclaimed against the extreme rigour of
the fasts and abstinences, which might be suitable under a
fervid sky like that of Egypt or Syria, but which could not be
endured by what they already called Gallican weakness; and
even in the initial fervour of the monasteries of the Jura,
they had succeeded in imposing a necessary medium upon their
chiefs. Here it was the changing will of an abbot; there a
written rule; elsewhere, the traditions of the elders, which
determined the order of conventual life. In some houses
various rules were practised at the same time, according to
the inclination of the inhabitants of each cell, and were
changed according to the times and places. They passed thus
from excessive austerity to laxness, and conversely, according
to the liking of each. Uncertainty and instability were
everywhere. … A general arrangement was precisely what was
most wanting in monastic life. There were an immense number of
monks; there had been among them saints and illustrious men;
but to speak truly, the monastic order had still no existence.
Even where the rule of St. Basil had acquired the necessary
degree of establishment and authority—that is to say, in a
considerable portion of the East—the gift of fertility was
denied to it. … In the West also, towards the end of the
fifth century, the cenobitical institution seemed to have
fallen into the torpor and sterility of the East. After St.
Jerome, who died in 420, and St. Augustine, who died in 430,
after the Fathers of Lerins, whose splendour paled towards
450, there was a kind of eclipse. … Except in Ireland and
Gaul, where, in most of the provinces, some new foundations
rose, a general interruption was observable in the extension
of the institution. … If this eclipse had lasted, the
history of the monks of the West would only have been, like
that of the Eastern monks, a sublime but brief passage in the
annals of the Church, instead of being their longest and
best-filled page. This was not to be: but to keep the promises
which the monastic order had made to the Church and to the
new-born Christendom, it needed, at the beginning of the sixth
century, a new and energetic impulse, such as would
concentrate and discipline so many scattered, irregular, and
intermittent forces; a uniform and universally accepted rule;
a legislator inspired by the fertile and glorious past, to
establish and govern the future. God provided for that
necessity by sending St. Benedict into the world."
Count de Montalembert,
The Monks of the West,
volume 1, pages 381-387 and 512-515.
"The very word monastery is a misnomer: the word is a Greek
word, and means the dwelling-place of a solitary person,
living in seclusion. … In the 13th century … a monastery
meant what we now understand it to mean—viz., the abode of a
society of men or women who lived together in common—who were
supposed to partake of common meals; to sleep together in one
common dormitory; to attend certain services together in their
common church; to transact certain business or pursue certain
employments in the sight and hearing of each other in the
common cloister; and, when the end came, to be laid side by
side in the common graveyard, where in theory none but members
of the order could find a resting-place for their bones. When
I say 'societies of men and women' I am again reminded that
the other term, 'convent,' has somehow got to be used commonly
in a mistaken sense. People use the word as if it signified a
religious house tenanted exclusively by women. The truth is
that a convent is nothing more than a Latin name for an
association of persons who have come together with a view to
live for a common object and to submit to certain rules in the
ordering of their daily lives. The monastery was the common
dwelling-place; the convent was the society of persons
inhabiting it; and the ordinary formula used when a body of
monks or nuns execute any corporate act—such as buying or
selling land—by any legal instrument is, 'The Prior and
Convent of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Norwich;' 'the
Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of St. Peter's,
Westminster;' 'the Abbess and Convent of the Monastery of St.
Mary and St. Bernard at Lacock,' and so on. … A monastery in
theory then was, as it was called, a Religious House. It was
supposed to be the home of people whose lives were passed in
the worship of God, and in taking care of their own souls, and
making themselves fit for a better world than this hereafter.
… The church of a monastery was the heart of the place. It
was not that the church was built for the monastery, but the
monastery existed for the church. … Almost as essential to
the idea of a monastery as the church was the cloister or
great quadrangle, inclosed on all sides by the high walls of
the monastic buildings. … All round this quadrangle ran a
covered arcade, whose roof, leaning against the high walls,
was supported on the inner side by an open trellis work in
stone—often exhibiting great beauty of design and
workmanship—through which light and air was admitted into
the arcade. … The cloister was really the living place of
the monks. Here they pursued their daily avocations, here they
taught their school. … 'But surely a monk always lived in a
cell, didn't he?' The sooner we get rid of that delusion the
better. Be it understood that until Henry II. founded the
Carthusian Abbey of Witham, in 1178, there was no such thing
known in England as a monk's cell, as we understand the term.
It was a peculiarity of the Carthusian order, and when it was
first introduced it was regarded as a startling novelty for
any privacy or anything approaching solitude to be tolerated
in a monastery. The Carthusian system never found much favour
in England. … At the time of the Norman Conquest it may be
said that all English monks were professedly under one and the
same Rule—the famous Benedictine Rule. The Rule of a
monastery was the constitution or code of laws, which
regulated the discipline of the house, and the Rule of St.
Benedict dates back as far as the 6th century, though it was
not introduced into England for more than 100 years after it
had been adopted elsewhere. … About 150 years before the
Conquest, a great reformation had been attempted of the French
monasteries, … the reformers breaking away from the old
Benedictines and subjecting themselves to a new and improved
Rule.
{2198}
These first reformers were called Cluniac monks, from the
great Abbey of Clugni, in Burgundy, in which the new order of
things had begun. The first English house of reformed or
Cluniac monks was founded at Lewes, in Sussex, 11 years after
the Conquest. … The constitution of every convent, great or
small, was monarchical. The head of the house was almost an
absolute sovereign, and was called the Abbot. His dominions
often extended, even in England, over a very wide tract of
country, and sometimes over several minor monasteries which
were called Cells. … The heads of these cells or subject
houses were called Priors. An Abbey was a monastery which was
independent. A priory was a monastery which in theory or in
fact was subject to an abbey. All the Cluniac monasteries in
England were thus said to be alien priories, because they were
mere cells of the great Abbey of Clugni in France, to which
each priory paid heavy tribute."
A. Jessopp,
The Coming of the Friars,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
E. L. Cutts,
Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,
chapter 6.
J. Bingham,
Antiquity of the Christ. Ch.,
book 7, chapter 3, sections 11-14.
I. G. Smith,
Christian Monasticism, 4-9th Centuries.
See, also,
CŒNOBIUM;
LAURAS;
MENDICANT ORDERS;
BENEDICTINE;
CISTERCIAN;
CARMELITE,
and AUSTIN CANONS.
MONASTERIES, The English, Suppression of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.
MONASTIC LIBRARIES.
See LIBRARIES, MEDIÆVAL.
MONASTIC ORDERS.
See AUSTIN CANONS;
BENEDICTINE ORDERS;
CAPUCHINS;
CARMELITE FRIARS;
CARTHUSIAN;
CISTERCIAN;
CLAIRVAUX;
CLUGNY;
MENDICANT ORDERS;
RECOLLECTS;
SERVITES;
THEATINES;
TRAPPISTS.
MONÇON,
MONZON, Treaty of (1626).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
MONCONTOUR, Battle of (1569).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.
----------MONEY AND BANKING: Start--------
MONEY AND BANKING:
Nature and Origin of Money.
"When the division of labour has been once thoroughly
established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants
which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies
the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part
of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his
own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's
labour us he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by
exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the
society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial
society. But when the division of labour first began to take
place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been very
much clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we
shall suppose, has more of a certain commodity than he himself
has occasion for, while another has less. The former
consequently would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to
purchase, a part of this superfluity. But if this latter
should chance to have nothing that the former stands in need
of, no exchange can be made between them. The butcher has more
meat in his shop than he himself can consume, and the brewer
and the baker would each of them be willing to purchase a part
of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the
different productions of their respective trades, and the
butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which
he has immediate occasion for. No exchange can, in this case,
be made between them. … In order to avoid the inconveniency
of such situations, every prudent man in every period of
society, after the first establishment of the division of
labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs
in such a manner, as to have at all times by him, besides the
peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of
some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people
would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their
industry. Many different commodities, it is probable, were
successively both thought of and employed for this purpose. In
the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the
common instrument of commerce; and, though they must have been
a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were
frequently valued according to the number of cattle which had
been given in exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says
Homer, cost only nine oxen; but that of Glaucus cost an
hundred oxen. Salt is said to be the common instrument of
commerce and exchange in Abyssinia; a species of shells in
some parts of the coasts of India; dried cod at Newfoundland;
tobacco in Virginia; sugar in some of our West India colonies;
hides or dressed leather in some other countries; and there is
at this day [1775] a village in Scotland where it is not
uncommon, I am told, for a workman to carry nails instead of
money to the baker's shop or the alehouse. In all countries,
however, men seem at last to have been determined by
irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this
employment, to metals above every other commodity."
Adam Smith,
Wealth of Nations,
chapter 4, book 1 (volume 1).
"There is … no machine which has saved as much labor as
money. … The invention of money has been rightly compared to
the invention of writing with letters. We may, however, call
the introduction of money as the universal medium of exchange
… one of the greatest and most beneficent of advances ever
made by the race. … Very different kinds of commodities
have, according to circumstances, been used as money; but
uniformly only such as possess a universally recognized
economic value. On the whole, people in a low stage of