----------NAVARRE: End--------
NAVE.
NAVIO.
See CARAVELS.
----------NAVIGATION LAWS: Start--------
NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1651.
The first English Act.
"After the triumph of the parliamentary cause [in the English
Civil War], great numbers of the royalists had sought refuge
in Virginia, Barbadoes, and the other West India settlements;
so that the white population of these dependencies was in
general fiercely opposed to the new government, and they might
be said to be in a state of rebellion after all the rest of
the empire had been reduced to submission and quiet.
Barbadoes, indeed, had actually received Lord Willoughby as
governor under a commission from Charles II., then in Holland,
and had proclaimed Charles as king. It was in these
circumstances that the English parliament in 1651, with the
view of punishing at once the people of the colonies and the
Dutch, who had hitherto enjoyed the greater part of the
carrying-trade between the West Indies and Europe, passed
their famous Navigation Act, declaring that no merchandise
either of Asia, Africa, or America, except only such as should
be imported directly from the place of its growth or
manufacture in Europe, should be imported into England,
Ireland, or any of the plantations, in any but English-built
ships, belonging either to English or English-plantation
subjects, navigated by English commanders, and having at least
three-fourths of the sailors Englishmen. It was also further
enacted that no goods of the growth, production, or
manufacture of any country in Europe should be imported into
Great Britain except in British ships, or in such ships as
were the real property of the people of the country or place
in which the goods were produced, or from which they could
only be, or most usually were, exported. Upon this law, which
was re-enacted after the Restoration, and which down to our
own day has been generally regarded and upheld as the
palladium of our commerce, and the maritime Magna Charta of
England, we shall only at present observe that one of its
first consequences was undoubtedly the war with Holland which
broke out the year after it was passed."
G. L. Craik,
History of British Commerce,
chapter 7 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Adam Smith,
Wealth of Nations,
book 4, chapter 2.
J. A. Blanqui,
History of Political Economy,
chapter 29.
NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1660-1672.
Effect upon the American colonies,
and their relation to Great Britain.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672.
NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1849.
Complete repeal of the British restrictive Acts.
"The question of the navigation laws was … brought forward
[in the British Parliament, at the commencement of the session
of 1849] … with a fair prospect of being settled!" The
stringency of the original act of 1651 had been "slightly
mitigated by another act passed in the reign of Charles II.;
but the modifications thus introduced were of slight
importance. A farther relaxation, made at the conclusion of
the war of independence, allowed the produce of the United
States to be imported in ships belonging to citizens of those
states. The last amendment of the original law was obtained in
the year 1825 by Mr. Huskisson, who made some important
changes in it. The law, then, which the legislature had to
reconsider in the year 1849 stood thus: the produce of Asia,
Africa, and America might be imported from places out of
Europe into the United Kingdom, if to be used therein, in
foreign as well us in British ships, provided that such ships
were the ships of the country of which the goods were the
produce, and from which they were imported. Goods which were
the produce of Europe, and which were not enumerated in the
act, might be brought thence in the ships of any country.
Goods sent to or from the United Kingdom to any of its
possessions, or from one colony to another, must be carried in
British ships, or in ships of the country in which they were
produced and from which they were imported. Then followed some
stringent definitions of the conditions which constituted a
vessel a British ship in the sense of the act. These
restrictions were not without their defenders. Even the great
founder of economic science, Adam Smith, while admitting that
the navigation laws were inconsistent with that perfect
freedom of trade which he contended for, sanctioned their
continuance on the ground that defence is much more important
than opulence. But as it was more and more strongly felt that
these laws were part and parcel of that baneful system of
monopoly which, under the name of protection, had so long been
maintained and was now so completely exploded, it began also
to be seriously doubted whether they were necessary to the
defence of the nation. … Therefore, on the 14th of February
in this year, Mr. Labouchere, as president of the board of
trade, proposed a resolution on the subject couched in the
following terms: 'That it is expedient to remove the
restrictions which prevent the free carriage of goods by sea
to and from the United Kingdom and the British possessions
abroad, and to amend the laws regulating the coasting trade of
the United Kingdom, subject nevertheless to such control by
her Majesty in council as may be necessary; and also to amend
the laws for the registration of ships and seamen.'
{2246}
A long debate took place on the question of the second reading
of the government measure. … 214 members followed Mr.
Disraeli into the lobby, while 275 voted with the government,
which therefore had a majority of 61. In the upper house Lord
Brougham astonished friend and foe by coming forward as the
strenuous and uncompromising opponent of the ministerial
measure. … The second reading was carried by a majority of
10. The smallness of this majority caused some anxiety to the
supporters of the measure with regard to its ultimate fate;
but this anxiety was relieved by the withdrawal of the most
conspicuous opponents of the bill, which consequently passed
without farther opposition."
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
J. D. J. Kelley,
The Question of Ships,
chapter 4.
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 20 (volume 4).
----------NAVIGATION LAWS: End----------
NAWAB-VIZIER,
NEWAB-WU-ZEER, of Oude.
See OUDE; also NABOB.
----------NAXOS: Start--------
NAXOS: B. C. 490.
Destruction by the Persians.
See GREECE: B. C. 490.
NAXOS: B. C. 466.
Revolt from the Delian Confederacy.
Subjugation by Athens.
See ATHENS: B. C. 470-466.
NAXOS: B. C. 376.
Battle between the Spartans and Athenians.
A battle was fought in September, B. C. 376, off Naxos,
between a Lacedæmonian fleet of 60 triremes and an Athenian
fleet of 80. Forty-nine of the former were disabled or
captured. "This was the first great victory … which the
Athenians had gained at sea since the Peloponnesian war."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 77.
NAXOS: A. D. 1204-1567.
The mediæval dukedom.
"In the partition of the [Byzantine] empire [after the
conquest of Constantinople, in 1204, by the Crusaders and the
Venetians], the twelve islands of the Archipelago, which had
formed the theme of the Egean sea in the provincial division
of the Byzantine empire, fell to the share of the crusading
barons; but Mark Sanudo, one of the most influential of the
Venetian nobles in the expedition, obtained possession of the
principal part of the ancient theme—though whether by
purchase from the Frank barons to whom it had been allotted,
or by grant to himself from the emperor, is not known. Sanudo,
however, made his appearance at the parliament of Ravenika as
one of the great feudatories of the empire of Romania, and was
invested by the emperor Henry with the title of Duke of the
Archipelago, or Naxos. It is difficult to say on what precise
footing Sanudo placed his relations with the republic. His
conduct in the war of Crete shows that he ventured to act as a
baron of Romania, or an independent prince, when he thought
his personal interests at variance with his born allegiance to
Venice. … The new duke and his successors were compelled by
their position to acknowledge themselves, in some degree,
vassals both of the empire of Romania and of the republic of
Venice; yet they acted as sovereign princes." Nearly at the
close of the fourteenth century the dukedom passed from the
Sanudo family to the Crispo family, who reigned under the
protection of Venice until 1537, when the Duke of Naxos was
reduced to vassalage by the Turkish sultan Suleiman. Thirty
years later, his title and authority were extinguished by the
sultan, on the petition of the Greek inhabitants, who could
not endure his oppressive and disgraceful government.
G. Finlay,
History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders,
chapter 10, sections 1-3.
ALSO IN:
Sir J. E. Tennent,
History of Modern Greece,
chapter 3.
H. F. Tozer,
The Islands of the Aegean,
chapter 4.
----------NAXOS: End----------
NAZARETH, Battle of (1799).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).
NEANDERTHAL MAN.
The race represented by a remarkable human skull and imperfect
skeleton found in 1857, in a limestone cave in the
Neanderthal, Rhenish Prussia, and thought to be the most
primitive race of which any knowledge has yet been obtained.
J. Geikie,
Prehistoric Europe,
page 22.
ALSO IN:
W. B. Dawkins,
Cave Hunting,
page 240.
NEAPOLIS, Schools of.
In the first century of the Roman empire, "Neapolis [modern
Naples] had its schools and colleges, as well as Athens; its
society abounded in artists and men of letters, and it enjoyed
among the Romans the title of the learned, which comprehended
in their view the praise of elegance as well as knowledge."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 40.
NEAPOLIS AND PALÆPOLIS.
"Palaepolis is mentioned only by Livy: it was an ancient
Cumaean colony, the Cumaeans having taken refuge there across
the sea. Neapolis derives its name from being a much later
settlement of different Greek tribes, and was perhaps not
founded till Olymp. 91, about the time of the Athenian
expedition to Sicily, and as a fortress of the Greeks against
the Sabellians. It is not impossible that the Athenians also
may have had a share in it. Both towns, however, were of
Chalcidian origin and formed one united state, which at that
time may have been in possession of Ischia. Many absurdities
have been written about the site of Palaepolis, and most of
all by Italian antiquaries. We have no data to go upon except
the two statements in Livy, that Palaepolis was situated by
the side of Neapolis, and that the Romans [in the second
Samnite war] had pitched their camp between the two towns. The
ancient Neapolis was undoubtedly situated in the centre of the
modern city of Naples above the church of Sta. Rosa; the coast
is now considerably advanced. People have sought for
Palaepolis likewise within the compass of the modern city. …
I alone should never have discovered its true site, but my
friend, the Count de Serre, a French statesman, who in his
early life had been in the army and had thus acquired a quick
and certain miliary eye, discovered it in a walk which I took
with him. The town was situated on the outer side of Mount
Posilipo, where the quarantine now is."
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lecture 40 (volume 1).
"Parthenopé was an ancient Greek colony founded by the
Chalcidians of Cuma on the northern part of the Bay of Naples.
In after years another city sprung up a little to the south,
whence the original Parthenopé was called Palæpolis or
Old-town, while the new town took the name of Neapolis. The
latter preserves its name in the modern Naples." Palæpolis was
taken by the Romans, B. C. 327, at the beginning of the second
Samnite War, and is heard of no more. Neapolis made peace with
them and lived.
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 21 (volume 1).
{2247}
NEAPOLIS (Syracuse).
See TEMENITES.
NEARDA.
See JEWS: B. C. 536-A. D. 50.
----------NEBRASKA: Start--------
NEBRASKA:
The aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.
NEBRASKA: A. D. 1803.
Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
NEBRASKA: A. D. 1854.
Territorial organization.
The Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854.
NEBRASKA: A. D. 1867.
Admission to the Union.
Nebraska was organized as a State and admitted
to the Union in 1867.
----------NEBRASKA: End--------
NECKER, Ministry of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1774-1788, to 1789 (JUNE).
NECTANSMERE, Battle of (A. D. 685).
See SCOTLAND: 7TH CENTURY.
NEERWINDEN,
LANDEN,
Battle of (1693).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY)
Battle of (1793).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).
NEGRITO.
"The term Negrito, i. e. 'Little Negro,' [was] long applied by
the Spaniards to the dark dwarfish tribes in the interior of
Luzon, and some others of the Philippine Islands. Here it will
be extended to the dwarfish negroid tribes in the Andaman
Islands and interior of Malacca, but to no others."
A. H. Keane,
Philology and Ethnology of the Interoceanic Races
(appendix to Wallace's Hellwald's Australasia),
section 4.
NEGRO, The.
See AFRICA: THE INHABITING RACES.
NEGRO PLOT, Imagined in New York.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1741.
NEGRO SLAVERY.
See SLAVERY: NEGRO.
NEGRO SUFFRAGE.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1867 (JANUARY), and (MARCH); and 1868-1870.
NEGRO TROOPS, in the American Civil War.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY: SOUTH CAROLINA).
----------NEGROPONT: Start--------
NEGROPONT:
The Name.
The ancient island of Eubœa received from the Venetians the
name Negropont. "In the middle ages, Eubœa was called Egripo,
a corruption of Euripus, the name of the town built upon the
ruins of Chalcis. The Venetians, who obtained possession of
the island upon the dismemberment of the Byzantine empire by
the Latins, called it Negropont, probably a corruption of
Egripo, and 'ponte,' a bridge."
W. Smith,
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.
NEGROPONT: A. D. 1470.
Capture and Massacre by the Turks.
See GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479.
----------NEGROPONT: End--------
NEGUS, OR NEGOOS, The.
See ABYSSINIA: 15-19TH CENTURIES.
NEHAVEND, Battle of.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651.
NELSON'S FARM, OR GLENDALE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).
NEMEDIANS, The.
It is among the legends of the Irish that their island was
settled, about the time of the patriarch Jacob, by a colony of
descendants from Japhet, led by one Nemedius, from whom they
and their posterity took the name of Nemedians. The Nemedians
were afterwards subjugated by a host of African sea-rovers,
known as Fomorians, but were delivered from these in time by a
fresh colony of their kindred from the East called the Fir
Bolgs.
T. Wright,
History of Ireland,
book 1, chapter 2.
NEMEAN AND ISTHMIAN GAMES.
"The Nemean and Isthmian [games in ancient. Greece] were
celebrated each twice in every Olympiad, at different seasons
of the year: the former in the plain of Nemea, in Argolis,
under the presidency of Argos; the latter in the Corinthian
isthmus, under the presidency of Corinth. These, like the
Pythian and Olympic games, claimed a very high antiquity,
though the form in which they were finally established was of
late institution; and it is highly probable that they were
really suggested by the tradition of ancient festivals, which
had served to cement an Amphictyonic confederacy."
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 10.
NEMETACUM.
Modern Arras.
See BELGÆ.
NEMETES, The.
See VANGIONES.
NEMI, Priest of.
See ARICIAN GROVE.
NEMOURS, Treaty and Edict of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.
NEODAMODES.
Enfranchised helots, in ancient Sparta.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 73.
NEOLITHIC PERIOD.
See STONE AGE.
NEOPLATONICS, The.
"There now [in the third century after Christ] arose another
school, which from its first beginnings announced itself as a
reform and support of the ancient faith, and, consequently, as
an enemy of the new religion. This was the Neoplatonic school
of Alexandria, founded by Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus, and
which was afterwards represented by Porphyrius, Amelius, and
Iamblicus. The doctrine of this school was the last, and in
many respects the best production of paganism, now in its
final struggle; the effort of a society, which acknowledged
its own defects, to regenerate and to purify itself.
Philosophy, and the religion of the vulgar, hitherto separated
and irreconcilable, joined in harmony together for mutual
support, and for a new existence. The Neoplatonics
endeavoured, therefore, to unite the different systems of
philosophy, especially the Pythagorean, Platonic, and
Aristotelean, in one body with the principles of oriental
learning, and thus to raise an edifice of universal, absolute
truth. In the same manner they represented the varied forms of
eastern and western religious worship as one entire whole,
which had manifested itself indeed in different ways, but at
the foundation of which there lay the same true faith. They
taught that 'every kind of homage and adoration, which men
offer to superior beings, is referred to heroes, demons, or
Gods, but, finally, to the one most-high God, the author of
all: that these demons are the chiefs and genii of the
different parts, elements, and powers of the world, of people,
countries, and cities, to obtain whose favour and protection,
it behoved men to honour them according to the rites and
customs of the ancients.'
{2248}
It is, therefore, manifest that these philosophers were
essentially hostile to the Christian religion,—the exclusive
character of which, and tendency to destroy all other
religions, stood in direct contrast with their doctrines: and
as their school was in its vigour at the very time in which
Christianity made its most rapid advances, and had struck
Paganism with a mortal wound, they employed themselves
especially, and more earnestly, than other philosophers, to
maintain their own tenets, and to destroy Christianity. They
in nowise, however, desired to defend heathenism, or its
worship, in their then degenerate and degrading state: their
ideal was a more pure, more noble, spiritualized, polytheism,
to establish which was the object which they had proposed to
themselves. Whilst, therefore, on the one hand, they preserved
the ancient and genuine truths which had sprung from primitive
tradition, and purified them from recent errors and
deformations; on the other, they adopted many of the doctrines
of the hated Christianity, and sought to reform paganism by
the aid of light which had streamed upon them from the
sanctuary of the Church. This admission and employment of
Christian truths are easily explained, if it be true, that two
of their chiefs, Ammonius and Porphyrius, had been Christians.
It is well known that they received instructions from
Christian masters. … This uniformity, or imitation, consists
not only in the use of terms, but in essential dogmas. The
Neoplatonic idea of three hypostases in one Godhead would not
have been heard of, if the Christian doctrine of the Trinity
had not preceded it. … Their doctrines respecting the minor
Gods, their influence and connexion with the supreme Being,
approached near to the Christian dogma of the angels. Nor is
the influence of Christianity less evident in the pure and
grave morality of the Neoplatonics: in their lessons which
teach the purifying of fallen souls, the detachment from the
senses, the crucifying … of the affections and passions, it
is easy to distinguish the Christian, from the commingled
pagan, elements. The Neoplatonics endeavoured to reform
polytheism by giving to men a doctrine more pure concerning
the Gods, by attributing an allegorical sense to the fables,
and a moral signification to the forms and ceremonies of
religion: they sought to raise the souls of men to piety, and
rejected from their mythology many of the degrading narrations
with which it had before abounded. It was their desire also to
abolish the sacrifices, for the Gods could only abhor the
slaughter, the dismemberment and the burning of animals. But
at the same time they reduced to a theory the apparitions of
the Gods; they declared magic to be the most divine of
sciences; they taught and defended theurgy, or the art of
invoking the Gods (those of an inferior order, who were united
to matter), and of compelling them to comply with the desires
of men."
J. J. I. Döllinger,
History of the Church,
volume 1, pages 70-73.
ALSO IN:
F. Ueberweg,
History of Philosophy,
sections 66-70 (volume 1).
C. Kingsley,
Alexandria and Her Schools.
NEPAUL, OR NIPAL, English war with the Ghorkas of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
NEPHTHALITES, The.
See HUNS, THE WHITE.
NÉRAC, Treaty of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.
NERESHEIM, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).
NERI AND BIANCHI (Blacks and Whites), The.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300, and 1301-1313.
NERIUM, Headland of.
The ancient name of Cape Finisterre,
NERO, Roman Emperor, A. D. 54-68.
NERONIA.
Games instituted by Nero, to be conducted in the Greek fashion
and to recur periodically, like the Olympian.
NERVA, Roman Emperor, A. D. 96-98.
NERVII, The.
A tribe in Belgic Gaul, at the time of Cæsar's conquest, which
occupied the country "between the Sambre and the Scheldt
(French and Belgic Hainaut, provinces of Southern Brabant, of
Antwerp, and part of Eastern Flanders). The writers posterior
to Cæsar mention Bagacum (Bavay) as their principal town."
Napoleon III.,
History of Cæsar,
book 3, chapter 2, foot-note (volume 2).
The tribe was destroyed by Cæsar.
See BELGÆ, CÆSAR'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE.
NESSA: Destruction by the Mongols (1220).
See KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.
NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.
The great religious controversy of the Christian world in the
fourth century, relating to the mystery of the Trinity, having
been settled by the triumph of the doctrine of Athanasius over
the doctrine of Arius, it was succeeded in the fifth century
by a still more violent disputation, which concerned the yet
profounder mystery of the Incarnation. To the dogmatists of
one party it was wickedness to distinguish the divine nature
and the human nature which they believed to be united in
Christ; to the dogmatists of the other side it was sin to
confound them. Cyril of Alexandria became the implacable
leader of the first party. Nestorius, Patriarch of
Constantinople, was forced to the front of the battle on the
other side and became its martyr. The opponents of Nestorius
gained advantages in the contest from the then rapidly growing
tendency in the Christian world to pay divine honors to the
Virgin Mary as the Mother of God. To Nestorius and those who
believed with him, this was abhorrent. "Like can but bear
like," said Nestorius in one of his sermons; "a human mother
can only bear a human being. God was not born—he dwelt in
that which was born." But the mob was too easily charmed with
Mariolatry to be moved by reasoning on the subject, and Cyril
led the mob, not only in Alexandria, where it murdered Hypatia
and massacred Jews at his bidding, but generally throughout
the Christian world. A Council called at Ephesus in 431 and
recognized as the third Œcumenical Council, condemned
Nestorius and degraded him from his episcopal throne; but a
minority disputed its procedure and organized a rival Council,
which retorted anathemas and excommunications against Cyril
and his friends. The emperor at last interfered and dissolved
both; but Nestorius, four years later, was exiled to the
Libyan desert and persecuted remorselessly until he died.
Meantime the doctrine of Cyril had been carried to another
stage of development by one of his most ardent supporters, the
Egyptian monk Eutyches, who maintained that the human nature
of Christ was absorbed in the divine nature. Both forms of the
doctrine of one nature in the Son of God seem to have acquired
somewhat confusedly the name of Monophysite, though the latter
tenet is more often called Eutychian, from the name of its
chief promulgator.
{2249}
It kindled new fires in the controversy. In 449, a second
Council at Ephesus, which is called the "Robber Synod" on
account of the peculiar violence and indecency of its
proceedings, sustained the Monophysites. But two years later,
in 451, the vanquished party, supported by Pope Leo the Great,
at Rome, succeeded in assembling a Council at Chalcedon which
laid down a definition of the Christian faith affirming the
existence of two natures in one person, and which nevertheless
condemned Nestorianism and Monophysitism, alike. Their success
only inflamed the passions of the worshippers of the Virgin as
the "Mother of God." "Everywhere monks were at the head of the
religious revolution which threw off the yoke of the Council
of Chalcedon." In Jerusalem "the very scenes of the Saviour's
mercies ran with blood shed in his name by his ferocious
self-called disciples." At Alexandria, a bishop was murdered
in the baptistery of his church. At Constantinople, for sixty
years, there went on a succession of bloody tumults and fierce
revolutionary conspiracies which continually shook the
imperial throne and disorganized every part of society, all
turning upon the theological question of one nature or two in
the incarnate Son of God. The Emperor Zeno "after a vain
attempt to obtain the opinions of the chief ecclesiastical
dignitaries, without assembling a new Council, a measure which
experience had shown to exasperate rather than appease the
strife, Zeno issued his famous Henoticon, or Edict of Union.
… It aimed not at the reconcilement of the conflicting
opinions, but hoped, by avoiding all expressions offensive to
either party, to allow them to meet together in Christian
amity." The Henoticon only multiplied the factions in number
and heated the strife between them. The successor of Zeno,
Anastasius, became a partisan in the fray, and through much of
his reign of twenty-seven years the conflict raged more
fiercely than ever. Constantinople was twice, at least, in
insurrection. "The blue and green factions of the Circus—such
is the language of the times—gave place to these more
maddening conflicts. The hymn of the Angels in Heaven [the
Trisagion] was the battle-cry on earth." At length the death
of Anastasius ended the strife. His successor Justin (A. D.
518), bowed to the authority of the Bishop of Rome—the Pope
Hormisdas—and invoked his aid. The Eastern world, exhausted,
followed generally the emperor's example in taking the
orthodoxy of Rome for the orthodoxy of Christianity.
Nestorianism and Monophysitism in their extreme forms were
driven from the open field in the Christian world, but both
survived and have transmitted their remains to the present day.
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 2, chapters 3-4,
book 3, chapter 1, and 3.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 47.
J. Alzog,
Universal Church History, 2d epoch,
chapter 2.
See, also,
NESTORIANS; JACOBITE CHURCH;
and MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY.
NESTORIANS, The.
"Within the limits of the Roman empire … this sect was
rapidly extirpated by persecution [see above, NESTORIAN AND
MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY]; and even in the patriarchate of
Antioch, where, as we have seen, the tenets of Nestorius at
first found greatest favour, it had disappeared as early as
the time of Justinian [A. D. 527-565]. But another field lay
open to it in the Persian kingdom of the Sassanidæ, and in
this it ultimately struck its roots deeply. The Chaldæan
church, which at the beginning of the fifth century was in a
flourishing condition, had been founded by missionaries from
Syria; its primate, or Catholicos, was dependent on the
patriarch of Antioch, and in respect of language and
discipline it was closely connected with the Syrian church. It
is not surprising, therefore, to find that some of its members
lent a ready ear to the Nestorian doctrines. This was
especially the case with the church-teachers of the famous
seminary at Edessa in Mesopotamia. … One of their number,
Barsumas, who was bishop of the city of Nisibis from 435 to
489, by his long and active labours contributed most of all to
the establishment of the Nestorian church in Persia. He
persuaded the king Pherozes (Firuz) that the antagonism of his
own sect to the doctrine of the established church of the
Roman empire would prove a safeguard for Persia. … From that
time Nestorianism became the only form of Christianity
tolerated in Persia. … The Catholicos of Chaldæa now threw
off his dependence on Antioch, and assumed the title of
Patriarch of Babylon. The school of Edessa, which in 489 was
again broken up by the Greek emperor, Zeno, was transferred to
Nisibis, and in that place continued for several centuries to
be an important centre of theological learning, and especially
of biblical studies. … In the sixth century the Nestorians
had established churches from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian
Sea, and had preached the Gospel to the Medes, the Bactrians,
the Huns, and the Indians, and as far as the coast of Malabar
and the island of Ceylon. At a later period, starting from
Balk and Samarcand, they spread Christianity among the nomad
Tartar tribes in the remote valleys of the Imaus; and the
inscription of Siganfu, which was discovered in China, and the
genuineness of which is considered to be above suspicion,
describes the fortunes of the Nestorian church in that country
from the first mission, A. D. 636, to the year in which that
monument was set up, A. D. 781. In the ninth century, during
the rule of the caliphs at Bagdad, the patriarch removed to
that city, and at this period twenty-five metropolitans were
subject to him. … From the eleventh century onwards the
prosperity of the Chaldæan church declined, owing to the
terrible persecutions to which its members were exposed.
Foremost among these was the attack of Timour the Tartar, who
almost exterminated them. Within the present century their
diminished numbers have been still further thinned by
frightful massacres inflicted by the Kurds. Their headquarters
now are a remote and rugged valley in the mountains of
Kurdistan, on the banks of the Greater Zab. … Beyond the
boundary which separates Turkey from Persia to the southward
of Mount Ararat, a similar community is settled on the shores
of Lake Urumia. A still larger colony is found at Mosul, and
others … elsewhere in the neighbourhood of the Tigris. …
Of their widely extended missions only one fragment now
remains, in the Christians of St. Thomas on the Malabar coast
of India."
H. F. Tozer,
The Church and the Eastern Empire,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 47.
NETAD, Battle of.
See HUNS: A. D. 453.
{2250}
----------NETHERLANDS: Start--------
NETHERLANDS.
The Land.
"The north-western corner of the vast plain which extends from
the German ocean to the Ural mountains is occupied by the
countries called the Netherlands [Low Countries]. This small
triangle, enclosed between France, Germany, and the sea, is
divided by the modern kingdoms of Belgium and Holland into two
nearly equal portions. … Geographically and
ethnographically, the Low Countries belong both to Gaul and to
Germany. It is even doubtful to which of the two the Batavian
island, which is the core of the whole country, was reckoned
by the Romans. It is, however, most probable that all the
land, with the exception of Friesland, was considered a part
of Gaul. Three great rivers—the Rhine, the Meuse, and the
Scheld—had deposited their slime for ages among the dunes
and sandbanks heaved up by the ocean around their mouths. A
delta was thus formed, habitable at last for man. It was by
nature a wide morass, in which oozy islands and savage forests
were interspersed among lagoons and shallows; a district lying
partly below the level of the ocean at its higher tides,
subject to constant overflow from the rivers, and to frequent
and terrible inundations by the sea. … Here, within a
half-submerged territory, a race of wretched icthyophagi dwelt
upon 'terpen,' or mounds, which they had raised, like beavers,
above the almost fluid soil. Here, at a later day, the same
race chained the tyrant Ocean and his mighty streams into
subserviency, forcing them to fertilize, to render commodious,
to cover with a beneficent network of veins and arteries, and
to bind by watery highways with the farthest ends of the
world, a country disinherited by nature of its rights. A
region, outcast of ocean and earth, wrested at last from both
domains their richest treasures. A race, engaged for
generations in stubborn conflict with the angry elements, was
unconsciously educating itself for its great struggle with the
still more savage despotism of man. The whole territory of the
Netherlands was girt with forests. An extensive belt of
woodland skirted the sea-coast, reaching beyond the mouths of
the Rhine. Along the outer edge of this barrier, the dunes
cast up by the sea were prevented by the close tangle of
thickets from drifting further inward, and thus formed a
breastwork which time and art were to strengthen. The groves
of Haarlem and the Hague are relics of this ancient forest.
The Badahuenna wood, horrid with Druidic sacrifices, extended
along the eastern line of the vanished lake of Flevo. The vast
Hercynian forest, nine days' journey in breadth, closed in the
country on the German side, stretching from the banks of the
Rhine to the remote regions of the Dacians, in such vague
immensity (says the conqueror of the whole country) that no
German, after traveling sixty days, had ever reached, or even
heard of, its commencement. On the south, the famous groves of
Ardennes, haunted by faun and satyr, embowered the country,
and separated it from Celtic Gaul. Thus inundated by mighty
rivers, quaking beneath the level of the ocean, belted about
by hirsute forests, this low land, nether land, hollow land,
or Holland, seemed hardly deserving the arms of the
all-accomplished Roman."
J. L. Motley,
The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
introduction, section 1.
NETHERLANDS:
The early inhabitants.
See BELGÆ; NERVII; BATAVIANS; and FRISIANS.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 69.
Revolt of the Batavians under Civilis.
See BATAVIANS.
NETHERLANDS: 4-9th Centuries.
Settlement and domination of the Franks.
See FRANKS; also, GAUL: A. D. 355-361.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 843-870.
Partly embraced in the kingdom of Lotharingia.
The partitioning.
See LORRAINE: A. D. 843-870.
NETHERLANDS: (Flanders): A. D. 863-1383.
The Flemish towns and counts.
See FLANDERS.
NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 922-1345.
The early Counts of Holland.
"It was in the year 922 that Charles the Simple [of France]
presented to Count Dirk the territory of Holland, by letters
patent. This narrow hook of land, destined, in future ages, to
be the cradle of a considerable empire, stretching through
both hemispheres, was, thenceforth, the inheritance of Dirk's
descendants. Historically, therefore, he is Dirk I., Count of
Holland. … From the time of the first Dirk to the close of
the 13th century there were nearly four hundred years of
unbroken male descent, a long line of Dirks and Florences.
This iron-handed, hot-headed, adventurous race, placed as
sovereign upon its little sandy hook, making ferocious
exertions to swell into large consequence, conquering a mile
or two of morass or barren furze, after harder blows and
bloodier encounters than might have established an empire
under more favorable circumstances, at last dies out. The
countship falls to the house of Avennes, Counts of Hainault.
Holland, together with Zeland, which it had annexed, is thus
joined to the province of Hainault. At the end of another half
century the Hainault line expires. William the Fourth died
childless in 1355 [1345?]."
J. L. Motley,
Rise of the Dutch Republic,
introduction, sections 5-6.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 13-15th Centuries.
Relations with the Hanseatic League.
See HANSA TOWNS.
NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1345-1354.
The Rise of the Hooks and the Kabeljauws, or Cods.
"On the death of William IV. [Count of Holland] without issue
in 1345, his sister, married to the Emperor Louis, became
Countess of Zealand, Holland, Friezland and Hainault. But her
husband dying soon afterwards, many of the noblesse, whom she
had offended by the attempt to restrain their excesses,
instigated her son to assume the sovereignty. In the
sanguinary struggle which ensued, the people generally adhered
to the cause of Margaret." They "looked forward to the
necessities of a female reign as likely to afford them
opportunities to win further immunities, as the condition of
their support against the turbulent nobles. Did not these
live, like the great fish, by devouring the smaller ones? And
how could they be checked but by the hooks which, though
insignificant in appearance, when aptly used would be too
strong for them. Such was the talk of the people; and from
these household words arose the memorable epithets, which in
after years were heard in every civic brawl, and above the din
and death-cry of many a battle-field. Certain of the nobles
adhered to the cause of the Hooks, while some of the cities,
among which were Delft, Haarlem, Dort, and Rotterdam,
supported the Kabeljauws [or Cods].
{2251}
The community was divided into parties rather than into
classes. … In the exasperation of mutual injury, the primary
cause of quarrel was soon forgotten. The Hooks were proud of
the accession of a lord to their ranks; and the Kabeljauws
were equally glad of the valuable aid which a wealthy and
populous town was able to afford. The majority of the
cities,—perhaps the majority of the inhabitants in all of
them,—favoured the Hook party, as the preponderance of the
landowners lay in the opposite scale. But no adherence to
antagonistic principles, or even a systematic profession of
them, is traceable throughout the varying struggle. … In
Friezland the two factions were designated by the
recriminative epithets of 'Vet-Koopers' and
'Schieringers,'—terms hardly translatable. In the conflict
which first marshalled the two parties in hostile array, the
Hooks were utterly defeated;—their leaders who survived were
banished, their property confiscated, and their dwellings
razed to the ground. Margaret was forced to take refuge in
England, where she remained until a short time previous to her
death in 1354, when the four provinces acknowledged William V.
as their undisputed lord. The succeeding reigns are chiefly
characterised by the incessant struggles of the embittered
factions. … Whatever progress was made during the latter
half of the 14th century was municipal and commercial. In a
national view the government was helpless and inefficient,
entangled by ambitious family alliances with France, England,
and Germany, and distracted by the rival powers and
pretensions of domestic factions. Under the administration of
the ill-fated Jacoba [or Jacqueline] these evils reached their
full maturity."
W. T. McCullagh,
Industrial History of Free Nations,
chapter 9 (volume 2).
NETHERLANDS: 14-15th Centuries.
Commercial and industrial superiority.
Advance in learning and art.
"What a scene as compared with the rest of Northern Europe,
and especially with England … must have been presented by
the Low Countries during the 14th century! In 1370, there are
3,200 woollen-factories at Malines and on its territory. One
of its merchants carries on an immense trade with Damascus and
Alexandria. Another, of Valenciennes, being at Paris during a
fair, buys up an the provisions exposed for sale in order to
display his wealth. Ghent, in 1340, contains 40,000 weavers.
In 1389, it has 189,000 men bearing arms; the drapers alone
furnish 18,000 in a revolt. In 1380, the goldsmiths of Bruges
are numerous enough to form in war time an entire division of
the army. At a repast given by one of the Counts of Flanders
to the Flemish magistrates, the seats provided for the guests
being unfurnished with cushions, they quietly folded up their
sumptuous cloaks, richly embroidered and trimmed with fur, and
placed them on the wooden benches. When leaving the table at
the conclusion of the feast, a courtier called their attention
to the fact that they were going without their cloaks. The
burgomaster of Bruges replied: 'We Flemings are not in the
habit of carrying away the cushions after dinner.' …
Commines, the French chronicler, writing in the 15th century,
says that the traveller, leaving France and crossing the
frontiers of Flanders, compared himself to the Israelites when
they had quitted the desert and entered the borders of the
Promised Land. Philip the Good kept up a court which surpassed
every other in Europe for luxury and magnificence. … In all
such matters of luxury and display, England of the 16th or
17th century had nothing to compare with the Netherlands a
hundred or even two hundred years before. After luxury, come
comfort, intelligence, morality, and learning, which develop
under very different conditions. In the course of time even
Italy was outstripped in the commercial race. The conquest of
Egypt by the Turks, and the discovery of a water passage to
the Indies, broke up the overland trade with the East, and
destroyed the Italian and German cities which had flourished
on it. … Passing from the dominion of the House of Burgundy
to that of the House of Austria, which also numbered Spain
among its vast possessions, proved to them in the end an event
fraught with momentous evil. Still for a time, and from a mere
material point of view it was an evil not unmixed with good.
The Netherlanders were better sailors and keener merchants
than the Spaniards, and, being under the same rulers, gained
substantial advantages from the close connection. The new
commerce of Portugal also filled their coffers; so that while
Italy and Germany were impoverished, they became wealthier and
more prosperous than ever. … With wealth pouring in from all
quarters, art naturally followed in the wake of commerce.
Architecture was first developed, and nowhere was its
cultivation more general than in the Netherlands."
D. Campbell,
The Puritan in Holland, &c.,
volume 1, chapter 1.
NETHERLANDS: (Holland and Hainault): A. D. 1417-1430.
The despoiling of Countess Jaqueline.
In 1417, Count William VI. of Holland, Hainault and Friesland,
died, leaving no male heirs, but a daughter, Jacoba, or
Jaqueline, whom most of the nobles and towns of the several
states had already acknowledged as the heiress of her father's
sovereignty. Though barely seventeen years of age, the
countess Jake, as she was sometimes called, wore a widow's
weeds. She had been married two years before to John, the
second son of the king of France, who became presently
thereafter, by his brother's death, the dauphin of France.
John had died, a few months before Count William's death, and
the young countess, fair in person and well endowed in mind,
was left with no male support, to contend with the rapacity of
an unscrupulous bishop-uncle (John, called The Godless, Bishop
of Liege), who strove to rob her of her heritage. "Henry V.
[of England] had then stood her friend, brought about a
reconciliation, established her rights and proposed a marriage
between her and his brother John, Duke of Bedford, who was
then a fine young man of five or six and twenty. … But she
was a high-spirited, wilful damsel, and preferred her first
cousin, the Duke of Brabant, whose father was a brother of
Jean Sans Peur [Duke of Burgundy]. … The young Duke was only
sixteen, and was a weak-minded, passionate youth. Sharp
quarrels took place between the young pair; the Duchess was
violent and headstrong, and accused her husband of allowing
himself to be governed by favourites of low degree. The Duke
of Burgundy interfered in vain. … After three years of
quarrelling, in the July of 1421 Jaqueline rode out early one
morning, met a knight of Hainault called Escaillon, 'who had
long been an Englishman at heart,' and who brought her sixty
horsemen, and galloped off for Calais, whence she came to
England, where Henry received her with the courtesy due to a
distressed dame-errant, and she became a most intimate
companion of the Queen. …
{2252}
She loudly gave out that she intended to obtain a separation
from her husband on the plea of consanguinity, although a
dispensation had been granted by the Council of Constance, and
'that she would marry some one who would pay her the respect
due to her rank.' This person soon presented himself in the
shape of Humfrey, duke of Gloucester, the King's youngest
brother, handsome, graceful, accomplished, but far less
patient and conscientious than any of his three elders."
Benedict XIII., the anti-pope, was persuaded to pronounce the
marriage of Jaqueline and John of Brabant null and void; "but
Henry V. knew that this was a vain sentence, and intimated to
his brother that he would never consent to his espousing the
Duchess of Brabant; showing him that the wedlock could not be
legal, and that to claim the lady's inheritance would lead to
a certain rupture with the Duke of Burgundy, who could not but
uphold the cause of his cousin of Brabant." Notwithstanding
these remonstrances, the Duke Humfrey did marry the seductive
Jaqueline, early in 1424. "He then sent to demand from the
Duke of Brabant the possession of the lady's inheritance; and
on his refusal the Hainaulters espoused whichever party they
preferred and began a warfare among themselves." Soon
afterwards the godless bishop of Liege died and "bequeathed
the rights he pretended to have to Hainault, not to his niece,
but to the Duke of Burgundy. Gloucester in the meantime
invaded Hainault and carried on a 'bitter war there.' Burgundy
assembled men-at-arms for its protection; and letters passed
between the Dukes, ending in a challenge—not between
Jaqueline's two husbands, who would have seemed the fittest
persons to have fought out the quarrel, but between Gloucester
and Burgundy." It was arranged that the question of the
possession of Hainault should be decided by single combat.
Humfrey returned to England to make preparations, leaving
Jaqueline at Mons, with her mother. The latter proved false
and allowed the citizens of Mons to deliver up the unhappy
lady to Philip of Burgundy. Her English husband found himself
powerless to render her much aid, and was possibly indifferent
to her fate, since another woman had caught his fancy.
Jaqueline, after a time, escaped from her captivity, and
revived the war in Hainault, Gloucester sending her 500 men.
"The Duke of Brabant died, and reports reached her that
Gloucester had married Eleanor Cobham; but she continued to
battle for her county till 1428, when she finally came to
terms with Philippe [of Burgundy], let him garrison her
fortresses, appointed him her heir, and promised not to marry
without his consent. A year or two after, however, she married
a gentleman of Holland called Frank of Burslem, upon which he
was seized by the Burgundians. To purchase his liberty she
yielded all her dominions, and only received an annual pension
until 1436, when she died, having brought about as much strife
and dissension as any woman of her time."
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos of English History,
series 2, chapter 33.
ALSO IN:
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles
(translated by Johnes),
book 1, chapters 164, 181, 234>,
book 2, chapters 22-32, 48-49.
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 1, chapters 5-6.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1428-1430.
The sovereignty of the House of Burgundy established.
"Upon the surrender of Holland, Zealand, Friezland, and
Hainault by Jacoba, Philip [the duke of Burgundy called Philip
the Good] became possessed of the most considerable states of
the Netherlands. John, duke of Burgundy, his father, had
succeeded to Flanders and Artois, in right of his mother
Margaret, sole heiress of Louis van der Male, count of
Flanders. In the year 1429, Philip entered into possession of
the county of Namur, by the death of Theodore, its last native
prince, without issue, of whom he had purchased it during his
lifetime for 132,000 crowns of gold. To Namur was added in the
next year the neighbouring duchy of Brabant, by the death [A.
D. 1430] of Philip (brother of John, who married Jacoba of
Holland), without issue; although Margaret, countess-dowager
of Holland, aunt of the late duke, stood the next in
succession, since the right extended to females, Philip
prevailed with the states of Brabant to confer on him, as the
true heir, that duchy and Limburg, to which the Margraviate of
Antwerp and the lordship of Mechlin were annexed. … The
accession of a powerful and ambitious prince to the government
of the county was anything but a source of advantage to the
Dutch, excepting, perhaps, in a commercial point of view."
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1451-1453.
Revolt of Ghent.
See GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.