Part 464

"The Gauls, properly so called, the Galatæ of the Greeks, the Galli of the Romans, and the Gael of modern history, formed the van of the great Celtic migration which had poured westward at various intervals during many hundred years. … Having overrun the south of Gaul and penetrated into Spain, they lost a part of the territory thus acquired, and the restoration of the Iberian fugitives to Aquitania placed a barrier between the Celts in Spain and their brethren whom they had left behind them in the north. In the time of the Romans the Galli were found established in the centre and east of the country denominated Gaul, forming for the most part a great confederation, at the head of which stood the Arverni. It was the policy of the Romans to raise the Ædui into competition with this dominant tribe. … The Arverni, whose name is retained in the modern appellation of Auvergne, occupied a large district in the middle and south of Gaul, and were surrounded by tributary or dependent clans. The Ædui lay more to the north and east, and the centre of their possessions is marked by the position of their capital Bibracte, the modern Autun, situated in the highlands which separate the waters of the Loire, the Seine and the Saone. … {1416} Other Gallic tribes stretched beyond the Saone: the Sequani, who afterwards made an attempt to usurp this coveted preeminence (the valley of the Doubs formed the centre of the Sequanese territory, which reached to the Jura and the Rhine); the Helvetii and other mountain races, whose scanty pastures extended to the sources of the Rhine; the Allobroges, who dwelt upon the Isere and Rhone, and who were the first of their race to meet and the first to succumb before the prowess of the Roman legions. According to the classification both of Cæsar and Strabo, the Turones, Pictones and Santones must be comprised under the same general denomination."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

See, also, CELTS.

GAUL: B. C. 390-347. Invasions of Italy. Destruction of Rome.

See ROME: B. C. 390-347.

GAUL: B. C. 295-191. Roman conquest of the Cisalpine tribes.

See ROME: B. C. 295-191.

GAUL: B. C. 280-279. Invasion of Greece.

In the year 280 B. C. the Gauls, who had long before passed from northern Italy around the Adriatic to its eastern coast, made their first appearance in Macedonia and northern Greece. The Macedonian throne was occupied at the time by the infamous usurper, Ptolemy Ceraunus (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280), and the Celtic savages did one good service to Greece by slaying him, in the single battle that was fought. The whole open country was abandoned to them, for a time, and they swept it, as far southward as the valley of the Peneus, in Thessaly; but the walled cities were safe. After ravaging the country for some months the Gauls appear to have retired; but it was only to return again the next year in more formidable numbers and under a chief, Brennus, of more vigor and capability. On this occasion the country suffered fearfully from the barbaric swarm, but defended itself with something like the spirit of the Greece of two centuries before. The Ætolians were conspicuous in the struggle; the Peloponnesian states gave little assistance. The policy of defense was much the same as at the time of the Persian invasion, and the enemy was confronted in force at the pass of Thermopylæ. Brennus made a more desperate attempt to force the pass than Xerxes had done and was beaten back with a tremendous slaughter of his Gauls. But he found traitors, as Xerxes had done, to guide him over the mountains, and the Greeks at Thermopylæ, surrounded by the enemy, could only escape by sea. The Gauls marched on Delphi, eager for the plunder of the great temple, and there they met with some fatal disaster. Precisely what occurred is not known. According to the Greeks, the god protected his sanctuary, and the accounts they have left are full of miracles and prodigies—of earthquakes, lightnings, tempests, and disease. The only clear facts seem to be that Delphi was successfully defended; that the Gauls retreated in disorder and were destroyed in vast numbers before the remnant of them got away from the country. Brennus is said to have killed himself to escape the wrath of his people for the failure of the expedition. One large body of the great army had separated from the rest and gone eastward into Thrace, before the catastrophe occurred. These subsequently passed over to Asia and pursued there an adventurous career, leaving a historic name in the country.

See GALATIA.

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 60._

GAUL: End----------

GAULS, Præfect of the.

See PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.

GAUSARAPOS, OR GUUCHIES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

GAVELKIND, Irish.

"The Irish law of succession in landed property, known as that of Irish gavelkind, was a logical consequence of the theory of tribal ownership. If a member of the tribe died, his piece of land did not descend by right to his eldest son, or even to all his children equally. Originally, it reverted to its sole absolute owner, the tribe, every member of which had a right to use proportionate to his tribal status. This was undoubtedly the essential principle of inheritance by gavelkind."

_S. Bryant, Celtic Ireland, chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _Sir H. Maine, Early History of Institutions, lecture 7._

GAVELKIND, Kentish.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

GAVEREN, Battle of (1453).

See GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.

GAZA: Early history.

See PHILISTINES.

GAZA: B. C. 332. Siege by Alexander.

In his march from Phœnicia to Egypt (see MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 334-330), Alexander the Great was compelled to pause for several months and lay siege to the ancient Philistine city of Gaza. It was defended for the Persian king by a brave eunuch named Batis. In the course of the siege, Alexander received a severe wound in the shoulder, which irritated his savage temper. When the town was at length taken by storm, he gave no quarter. Its male inhabitants were put to the sword and the women and children sold to slavery. The eunuch Batis, being captured alive, but wounded, was dragged by the feet at the tail of a chariot, driven at full speed by Alexander himself. The "greatest of conquerors" proved himself often enough, in this way, to be the greatest of barbarians—in his age.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 93._

GAZA: B. C. 312. Battle between Ptolemy and Demetrius.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 315-310.

GAZA: B. C. 100. Destruction by Alexander Jannæus.

Gaza having sided with the Egyptian king, in a war between Alexander Jannæus, one of the Asmonean kings of the Jews, and Ptolemy Lathyrus of Egypt and Cyprus, the former laid siege to the city, about 100 B. C., and acquired possession of it after several months, through treachery. He took his revenge by massacring the inhabitants and reducing the city to ruins. It was rebuilt not long afterwards by the Romans.

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 3, chapter 9._

GAZA: A. D. 1516. Defeat of the Mamelukes by the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

GAZA: End----------

GAZACA.

See ECBATANA.

GAZARI, The.

See CATHARISTS.

GAZNEVIDES, OR GHAZNEVIDES.

See TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.

GEARY ACT, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892.

GEDDES, Jenny, and her stool.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.

{1417}

GEDROSIANS, The.

"Close to the Indus, and beyond the bare, hot, treeless shores of the ocean, the southern part of the plain [of eastern Iran] consists of sandy flats, in which nothing grows but prickly herbs and a few palms. The springs are a day's journey from each other, and often more. This region was possessed by a people whom Herodotus calls Sattagydæ and the companions of Alexander of Macedonia, Gedrosians. … Neighbours of the Gandarians, who, as we know, dwelt on the right bank of the Indus down to the Cabul, the Gedrosians led a wandering, predatory life; under the Persian kings, they were united into one satrapy with the Gandarians."

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 1 (volume 5)._

GEIZA II., King of Hungary, A. D. 1141-1160.

GELA, Founding of.

See SYRACUSE, FOUNDING OF.

GELASIUS II., Pope, A. D. 1118-1119.

GELEONTES.

See PHYLÆ.

GELHEIM, Battle of (1298).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.

GELONI, The.

An ancient colony of Greeks intermixed with natives which shared the country of the Budini, on the steppes between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, volume 3, chapter 17._

GELVES, Battle of (1510).

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1505-1510.

GEMARA, The.

See TALMUD.

GEMBLOURS, Battle of (1578).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.

GEMEINDE. GEMEINDERATH.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.

GEMOT.

A meeting, assembly, council, moot.

See WITENAGEMOT.

GENABUM, OR CENABUM.

The principal town of the Gallic tribe called the Carnutes; identified by most archæologists with the modern city of Orleans, France, though some think its site was at Gien.

See GAUL, CÆSAR'S CONQUEST OF.

GENAUNI, The.

See RHÆTIANS.

GENERAL PRIVILEGE OF ARAGON.

See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.

GENERALS, Execution of the Athenian.

See GREECE: B. C. 406.

GENET, "Citizen," the mission of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.

GENEVA: Beginnings of the city.

See HELVETII, THE ARRESTED MIGRATION OF THE.

GENEVA: A. D. 500. Under the Burgundians.

See BURGUNDIANS: A. D. 500.

GENEVA: 10th Century. In the kingdom of Arles.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 843-933.

GENEVA: A. D. 1401. Acquisition of the Genevois, or County, by the House of Savoy. The city surrounded.

See SAVOY: 11TH-15TH CENTURIES.

GENEVA: A. D. 1504-1535. The emancipation of the city from the Vidomme and the Prince-Bishop. Triumph of the Reformation.

"Geneva was nominally a free city of the Empire, but had in reality been governed for some centuries by its own bishop, associated with a committee of lay-assessors, and controlled by the general body of the citizens, in whose hands the ultimate power of taxation, and of election of the magistrates and regulation of the police, rested. The prince-bishop did not exercise his temporal jurisdiction directly, but through an officer called the Vidomme (vice-dominus), whose rights had in the 15th century become hereditary in the dukes of Savoy. These rights appear to have been exercised without any considerable attempt at encroachment till the beginning of the following century, when Charles III. succeeded to the ducal crown (1504). To his ambition the bishop, John, a weak and willing tool of the Savoy family, to which he was nearly allied, ceded everything; and the result was a tyrannical attempt to destroy the liberties of the Genevese. The Assembly of the citizens rose in arms; a bitter and sanguinary contest ensued between the Eidgenossen [Confederates] or Patriot party on the one side, and the Mamelukes or monarchical party on the other side. By the help of the free Helvetian states, particularly Berne and Friburg, the Patriots triumphed, the friends of Savoy were banished, the Vidommate abolished, and its powers transferred to a board of magistrates. The conduct of the bishops in this conflict … helped greatly, as may be imagined, to shake the old hierarchical authority in Geneva; and when, in 1532, Farel first made his appearance in the city, he found a party not indisposed to join him in his eager and zealous projects of reform. He had a hard fight for it, however, and was at first obliged to yield, and leave the city for a time; and it was not till August 1535 that he and Viret and Froment succeeded in abolishing the mass, and establishing the Protestant faith."

_J. Tulloch, Leaders of the Reformation, pages 161-162._

ALSO IN: _J. Planta, History of the Helvetic Confederacy, book 2, chapter 6 (volume 2)._

_I. Spon, History of the City and State of Geneva, book 2._

See, also, SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1531-1648.

GENEVA: A. D. 1536. The coming of Calvin.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.

GENEVA: A. D. 1536-1564. Calvin's Ecclesiastical State.

"Humanly speaking, it was a mere accident which caused Calvin to yield to the entreaties of his friends to remain in the city where he was to begin his renowned efforts in the cause of reform. Geneva had been from ancient times one of the most flourishing imperial cities of the Burgundian territory; it was situated on the frontiers of several countries where the cross roads of various nationalities met. The city, which in itself was remarkable, belonged originally to the German empire; the language of its inhabitants was Romanic; it was bounded on one side by Burgundy, on the other by German Switzerland. … Geneva was apparently in a state of political, ecclesiastical, and moral decay. With the puritanical strictness of Geneva, as it afterwards became, before the mind's eye, it is difficult to picture the Geneva of that day. An unbridled love of pleasure, a reckless wantonness, a licentious frivolity had taken possession of Genevan life, while the State was the plaything of intestine and foreign feuds. … Reformers had already appeared in the city: Vinet, Farel, Theodore Beza; they were Frenchmen, Farel a near neighbour of Geneva. These French Reformers are of quite a different stamp from our Germans, who, according as Luther or Melancthon is taken as their type, have either a plebeian popular, or learned theological character. They are either popular orators of great power and little polish, or they belong to the learned circles, and keep strictly to this character. In France they were mostly men belonging not to the lower, but to the middle and higher ranks of society, refined and cultivated; and in this fact lay the weakness of Calvinism, which knew well how to rule the masses, but never to gain their affection. … {1418} His [Calvin's] greatness … was shown in the fanatical zeal with which he entered the city, ready to stake his life for his cause. He began to teach, to found a school, to labour on the structure which was the idea of his life, to introduce reforms in doctrine, worship, the constitution and discipline of the Church, and he preached with that powerful eloquence only possessed by those in whom character and teaching are in unison. The purified worship was to take place within bare, unadorned walls; no picture of Christ, nor pomp of any kind, was to disturb the aspirations of the soul. Life outside the temple was also to be a service of God; games, swearing, dancing, singing, worldly amusements, and pleasure were regarded by him as sins, as much as real vice and crime. He began to form little congregations, like those in the early ages of the Church, and it need scarcely be said that even in this worldly and pleasure-loving city the apparition of this man, in the full vigour of life, all conviction and determination, half prophet and half tribune, produced a powerful impression. The number of his outward followers increased, but they were outward followers only. Most of them thought it would be well to make use of the bold Reformer to oppose the bishop, and that he would find means of establishing a new and independent Church, but they seemed to regard freedom as libertinism. Calvin therefore regarded the course things were taking with profound dissatisfaction. … So he delivered some extremely severe sermons, which half frightened and half estranged his hearers; and at Easter, 1538, when the congregation came to partake of the Lord's Supper, he took the unheard-of step of sending them all back from the altar, saying, 'You are not worthy to partake of the Lord's body; you are just what you were before; your sentiments, your morals, and your conduct are unchanged.' This was more than could be hazarded without peril to his life. The effect was indescribable; his own friends disapproved of the step. But that did not dismay him. He had barely time to flee for his life, and he had to leave Geneva in a state of transition—a chaos which justified a saying of his own, that defection from one Church is not renovation by another. He was now once more an exile. He wandered about on the frontiers of his country, in the German cities of Strasburg, Basle, &c., and we several times meet with him in the religious discussions between 1540 and 1550. … But a time came when they wished him back at Geneva. … In September, 1541, he returned and began his celebrated labours. Endowed with supreme power, like Lycurgus at Sparta, he set to work to make Geneva a city of the Lord—to found an ecclesiastical state in which religion, public life, government, and the worship of God were to be all of a piece, and an extraordinary task it was. Calvinistic Geneva became the school of reform for western Europe, and scattered far and wide the germs of similar institutions. In times when Protestantism elsewhere had become cool, this school carried on the conflict with the mediæval Church. Calvin was implacable in his determination to purify the worship of God of all needless adjuncts. All that was calculated to charm and affect the senses was abolished; spiritual worship should be independent of all earthly things, and should consist of edification by the word, and simple spiritual songs. All the traditional externals that Luther had retained—altars, pictures, ceremonials, and decorations of every kind—were dispensed with. … Calvin next established a system of Church discipline which controlled the individual in every relation of life, and ruled him from the cradle to the grave. He retained all the means by which ecclesiastical authority enforced obedience on the faithful in the Middle Ages—baptism, education up to confirmation, penance, penal discipline, and excommunication. … Calvin began his labours late in the autumn of 1541, and he acquired and maintained more power than was ever exercised by the most powerful popes. He was indeed only the 'preacher of the word,' but through his great influence he was the lawgiver, the administrator, the dictator of the State of Geneva. There was nothing in the commonwealth that had not been ordained by him, and this indicates a remarkable aspect of his character. The organization of the State of Geneva began with the ordinances of the 2nd of January, 1542. There were four orders of officials—pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. The Consistory was formed of the pastors and elders. … It was the special duty of the Consistory, which was composed of the clergy and twelve laymen, to see that the ordinances were duly observed, and it was the supreme tribunal of morals. The twelve laymen were elected for a year, by the council of two hundred, on the nomination by the clergy. The Consistory met every Thursday to see that everything in the church was in order. They had the power of excommunication, but this only consisted in exclusion from the community of the faithful, and the loss of the privilege of partaking of the Lord's Supper. It also decided questions relating to marriage. The deacons had the care of the poor and of almsgiving. Calvin himself was the soul of the whole organization. But he was a cold, stiff, almost gloomy being, and his character produces a very different impression from the genial warmth of Luther, who could be cheerful and merry with his family. Half Old Testament prophet, half Republican demagogue, Calvin could do anything in his State, but it was by means of his personal influence, the authority of his words, 'the majesty of his character,' as was said by a magistrate of Geneva after his death. He was to the last the simple minister, whose frugal mode of life appeared to his enemies like niggardliness. After a reign of twenty-three years, he left behind him the possessions of a mendicant monk. … No other reformer established so rigid a church discipline. … All noisy games, games of chance, dancing, singing of profane songs, cursing and swearing, were forbidden, and … church-going and Sabbath-keeping were strictly enjoined. The moral police took account of everything. Every citizen had to be at home by nine o'clock, under heavy penalties. Adultery, which had previously been punished by a few days' imprisonment and a small fine, was now punished by death. … At a time when Europe had no solid results of reform to show, this little State of Geneva stood up as a great power; year by year it sent forth apostles into the world, who preached its doctrines everywhere, and it became the most dreaded counterpoise to Rome, when Rome no longer had any bulwark to defend her. … It formed a weighty counterpoise to the desperate efforts which the ancient Church and monarchical power were making to crush the spirit of the Reformation. {1419} It was impossible to oppose Caraffa, Philip II., and the Stuarts, with Luther's passive resistance; men were wanted who were ready to wage war to the knife, and such was the Calvinistic school. It everywhere accepted the challenge; throughout all the conflicts for political and religious liberty, up to the time of the first emigration to America, in France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland, we recognise the Genevan school. A little bit of the world's history was enacted in Geneva, which forms the proudest portion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."

_L. Häusser, The Period of the Reformation, chapter 18._

ALSO IN: _P. Henry, Life and Times of Calvin, parts 2-3._

_J. H. Merle D'Aubigne, History of the Reformation in the time of Calvin, books 9 and 11._

_F. P. Guizot, Calvin, chapters 12-22._

_L. von Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, 16th-17th Centuries, chapter 8._

GENEVA: A. D. 1570. Treaty with the Duke of Savoy. Agreement of non-molestation.

See SAVOY: A. D. 1559-1580.

GENEVA: A. D. 1602-1603. The escalade of the Savoyards and its repulse. Treaty of St. Julien.