chapter 18, section 6.

BESSIN, The. The district of Bayeux.

See SAXONS OF BAYEUX.

BETH-HORON, Battles of.

The victory of Joshua over "the five kings of the Amorites" who laid siege to Gibeon; the decisive battle of the Jewish conquest of Canaan. "The battle of Beth-horon or Gibeon is one of the most important in the history of the world; and yet so profound has been the indifference, first of the religious world, and then (through their example or influence) of the common world, to the historical study of the Hebrew annals, that the very name of this great battle is far less known to most of us than that of Marathon or Cannæ."

_Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 11._

In the Maccabean war, Beth-horon was the scene of two of the brilliant victories of Judas Maccabeus, in B. C. 167 and 162.

_Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews, book 12._

Later, at the time of the Jewish revolt against the Romans, it witnessed the disastrous retreat of the Roman general Cestius.

BETHSHEMESH, Battle of.

Fought by Joash, king of Israel, with Amaziah, king of Judah, defeating the latter and causing part of the walls of Jerusalem to be thrown down.

_2 Chronicles, xxv._

BETH-ZACHARIAH, Battle of.

A defeat suffered (B. C. 163) by the Jewish patriot, Judas· Maccabæus, at the hands of the Syrian monarch Antiochus Eupator: the youngest of the Maccabees being slain.

_Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews, book 12, chapter 9._

BETHZUR, Battle of.

Defeat of an army sent by Antiochus, against Judas Maccabæus, the Jewish patriot, B. C. 165,

_Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews, book 12, chapter 7._

BEVERHOLT, Battle of (1381).

See FLANDERS: A. D. 1379-1381.

BEY.--BEYLERBEY.--PACHA.--PADISCHAH.

"The administration of the [Turkish] provinces was in the time of Mahomet II. [the Sultan, A. D. 1451-1481, whose legislation organized the Ottoman government] principally intrusted to the Beys and Beylerbeys. These were the natural chiefs of the class of feudatories [Spahis], whom their tenure of office obliged to serve on horseback in time of war. They mustered under the Sanjak, the banner of the chief of their district, and the districts themselves were thence called Sanjaks, and their rulers Sanjak-beys. The title of Pacha, so familiar to us when speaking of a 'Turkish provincial ruler, is not strictly a term implying territorial jurisdiction, or even military authority. It is a title of honour, meaning literally the Shah's or sovereign's foot, and implying that the person to whom that title was given was one whom the sovereign employed. ... The title of Pacha was not at first applied among the Ottomans exclusively to those officers who commanded armies or ruled provinces or cities. Of the five first Pachas, that are mentioned by Ottoman writers, three were literary men. By degrees this honorary title was appropriated to those whom the Sultan employed in war and set over districts and important towns; so that the word Pacha became almost synonymous with the word governor. The title Padischah, which the Sultan himself bears, and which the Turkish diplomatists have been very jealous in allowing to Christian Sovereigns, is an entirely different word, and means the great, the imperial Schah or Sovereign. In the time of Mahomet II. the Ottoman Empire contained in Europe alone thirty-six Sanjaks, or banners, around each of which assembled about 400 cavaliers."

_Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 6._

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BEYLAN, Battle of (1832).

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

BEYROUT, Origin of.

See BERYTUS.

BEZANT, The.

The bezant was a Byzantine gold coin (whence its name), worth a little less than ten English shillings--$2.50.

BEZIERES, The Massacre at.

See ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1209.

BHARADARS.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

BHONSLA RAJA, The.

See INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805.

BHURTPORE, Siege of(1805).

See INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805.

BIANCHI AND NERI (The Whites and Blacks).

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300, and 1301-1313.

BIANCHI, or White Penitents.

See WHITE PENITENTS.

BIBERACH, Battles of (1796 and 1800).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); and A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

BIBRACTE.

See GAULS.

BIBROCI, The.

A tribe of ancient Britons who dwelt near the Thames. It is suspected, but not known, that they gave their name to Berks County.

BICAMERAL SYSTEM, The.

This term was applied by Jeremy Bentham to the division of a legislative body into two chambers--such as the House of Lords and House of Commons in England, and the Senate and House of Representatives in the United States of America.

BICOQUE OR BICOCCA, La, Battle of (1522).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.

BIG BETHEL, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JUNE: VIRGINIA).

BIG BLACK, Battle of the.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

BIGERRIONES, The.

See AQUITAINE, THE ANCIENT TRIBES.

BIGI, OR GREYS, The.

One of the three factions which divided Florence in the time of Savonarola, and after. The Bigi, or Greys, were the partisans of the Medici; their opponents were the Piagnoni, or Weepers, and the Arrabiati, or Madmen.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1490-1498.

BILL OF RIGHTS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (OCTOBER).

BILLAUD-VARENNES and the French Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JUNE-OCTOBER), (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER), to 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

BILOXIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

BIMINI, The island of.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1512.

BIRAPARACH, Fortress of.

See JUROIPACH.

BIRGER, King of Sweden, A. D. 1290-1319. Birger, or Berger Jarl, Regent of Sweden, A. D. 1250-1266.

BISHOPS' WAR, The First and Second.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638-1640; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1640.

BISMARCK'S MINISTRY.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866, to 1888; and FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JUNE-JULY); 1870-1871; and 1871 (JANUARY-MAY).

BISSEXTILE YEAR.

See CALENDAR, JULIAN.

BITHYNIANS, THYNIANS.

"Along the coast of the Euxine, from the Thracian Bosphorus. eastward to the river Halys, dwelt Bithynians or Thynians, Mariandynians and Paphlagonians,--all recognized branches of the widely extended 'l'hracian race. The Bithynians especially, in the northwestern portion of this territory, and reaching from the Euxine to the Propontis, are often spoken of as Asiatic Thracians,--while on the other hand various tribes among the Thracians of Europe are denominated Thyni or Thynians,--so little difference was there in the population on the two sides of the Bosphorus, alike brave, predatory, and sanguinary. The Bithynians of Asia are also sometimes called Bebrykians, under which denomination they extend as far southward as the gulf of Kios in the Propontis."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 16._

The Bithynians were among the people in Asia Minor subjugated by Crœsus, king of Lydia, and fell, with his fall, under the Persian rule. But, in some way not clearly understood, an independent kingdom of Bithynia was formed, about the middle of the 5th century B. C. which resisted the Persians, successfully resisted Alexander the Great and his successors in Asia Minor, resisted Mithridates of Pontus, and existed until B. C. 74, when its last king Nicomedes III. bequeathed his kingdom to Rome and it was made a Roman province.

BITONTO, Battle of (1734).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

BITURIGES, The.

See ÆEDUI; also BOURGES, ORIGIN OF.

BIZOCHI, The.

See BEGUINES, ETC.

BIZYE.

See THRACIANS.

BLACK ACTS, The.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1584.

BLACK DEATH, The.

"The Black Death appears to have had its origin in the centre of China, in or about the year 1333. It is said that it was accompanied at its outbreak by various terrestrial and atmospheric phænomena of a novel and most destructive character, phænomena similar to those which characterized the first appearance of the Asiatic Cholera, of the Influenza, and even in more remote times of the Athenian Plague. It is a singular fact that all epidemics of an unusually destructive character have had their homes in the farthest East, and have travelled slowly from those regions towards Europe. It appears, too, that the disease exhausted itself in the place of its origin at about the same time in which it made its appearance in Europe. ... The disease still exists under the name of the Levant or Oriental Plague, and is endemic in Asia Minor, in parts of Turkey, and in Egypt. It is specifically a disease in which the blood is poisoned, in which the system seeks to relieve itself by suppuration of the glands, and in which, the tissues becoming disorganized, and the blood thereupon being infiltrated into them, dark blotches appear on the skin. {284} Hence the earliest name by which the Plague was described. The storm burst on the Island of Cyprus at the end of the year 1347, and was accompanied, we are told, by remarkable physical phænomena, as convulsions of the earth, and a total change in the atmosphere. Many persons affected died instantly. The Black Death seemed, not only to the frightened imagination of the people, but even to the more sober observation of the few men of science of the time, to move forward with measured steps from the desolated East, under the form of a dark and fetid mist. It is very likely that consequent upon the great physical convulsions which had rent the earth and preceded the disease, foreign substances of a deleterious character had been projected into the atmosphere. ... The Black Death appeared at Avignon in January 1348, visited Florence by the middle of April, and had thoroughly penetrated France and Germany by August. It entered Poland in 1349, reached Sweden in the winter of that year, and Norway by infection from England at about the same time. It spread even to Iceland and Greenland. ... It made its appearance in Russia in 1351, after it had well-nigh exhausted itself in Europe. It thus took the circuit of the Mediterranean, and unlike most plagues which have penetrated from the Eastern to the Western world, was checked, it would seem, by the barrier of the Caucasus. ... Hecker calculates the loss to Europe as amounting to 25,000,000."

_J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices,