History for ready reference, Volumes 1 to 5

Part 96

Chapter 963,807 wordsPublic domain

"The flourishing city on the Zerefshan had become a heap of rubbish, but the garrison in the citadel, commanded by Kok Khan, continued to hold out with a bravery which deserves our admiration. The Mongols used every imaginable effort to reduce this last refuge of the enemy; the Bokhariots themselves were forced on to the scaling-ladders: but all in vain, and it was not until the moat had been literally choked with corpses of men and animals that the stronghold was taken and its brave defenders put to death. The peaceable portion of the population was also made to suffer for this heroic resistance. More than 30,000 men were executed, and the remainder were, with the exception of the very old people among them, reduced to slavery, without any distinction of rank whatever; and thus the inhabitants of Bokhara, lately so celebrated for their learning, their love of art, and their general refinement, were brought down to a dead level of misery and degradation and scattered to all quarters."

_A. Vambery, History of Bokhara, chapter 8._

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.

BOKHARA: A. D. 1868. Subjection to Russia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

BOKHARA: End----------

BOLERIUM.

See BELERION.

BOLESLAUS I., King of Poland, A. D. 1000-1025. Boleslaus II., King of Poland, A. D. 1058-1083. Boleslaus III., Duke of Poland, A. D. 1102-1138. Boleslaus IV., Duke of Poland, A. D. 1146-1173. Boleslaus V., King of Poland, A. D. 1227-1279.

BOLEYN, Anne. Marriage, trial and execution.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1527-1534; and, 1536-1543.

BOLGARI.

See BULGARIA: ORIGIN OF.

BOLIVAR'S LIBERATION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1819, 1819-1830; and PERU: A. D. 1820-1826, 1825-1826, and 1826-1876.

BOLIVIA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

"With the Toromonos tribe, who occupied, as Orbigny tells us, a district of from 11° to 13° of South latitude, it was an established rule for every man to build his house, with his own hands alone, and if he did otherwise he lost the title of man, as well as became the laughing-stock of his fellow citizens. The only clothing worn by these people was a turban on the head, composed of feathers, the rest of the body being perfectly naked; whilst the women used a garment, manufactured out of cotton, that only partially covered their persons. … The ornament in which the soft sex took most pride was a necklace made of the teeth of enemies, killed by their husbands in battle. Amongst the Moxos polygamy was tolerated, and woman's infidelity severely punished. … The Moxos cultivated the land with ploughs, and other implements of agriculture, made of wood. They fabricated canoes, fought and fished with bows and arrows. In the province of the Moxos lived also a tribe called Itonomos, who, besides these last named instruments of war, used two edged wooden scimitars. The immorality of these Itonomos was something like that of the Mormons of our time. … The Canichanas, who lived near Machupo, between 13° and 14° South latitude and 67° to 68° West longitude, are reputed by M. d'Orbigny as the bravest of the Bolivian Indians. They are accredited to have been cannibals. …Where Jujuy—the most northern province· of the Argentine Republic—joins Bolivia, we have in the present day the Mataguaya and Cambas Indians. The latter are represented to me by Dr. Matienzo, of Rosario, as intelligent and devoted to agricultural labor. They have fixed tolderias [villages], the houses of which are clean and neat. Each town is commanded by a capitan, whose sovereignty is hereditary to his male descendants only."

_T. J. Hutchinson, The Parana, chapter 4._

See, also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS, and TUPI.

In the Empire of the Incas.

See PERU: THE EMPIRE OF THE INCAS.

BOLIVIA: A. D. 1559. Establishment of the Audiencia of Charcas.

See AUDIENCIAS.

BOLIVIA: A. D. 1825-1826. The independent Republic founded and named in Upper Peru. The Bolivian Constitution.

"Upper Peru [or Las Charcas, as it was more specifically known] … had been detached [in 1776—see ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777] from the government of Lima … to form part of the newly constituted Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. The fifteen years' struggle for independence was here a sanguinary one indeed. There is scarcely a town, village, or noticeable place in this vast region where blood is not recorded to have been shed in this terrible struggle. … The Spanish army afterwards succumbed to that of the independents of Peru; and thus Upper Peru gained, not indeed liberty, but independence under the rule of a republican army. This vast province was incapable of governing itself. The Argentines laid claim to it as a province of the confederation; but they already exercised too great a preponderance in the South American system, and the Colombian generals obtained the relinquishment of these pretensions. Sucre [Bolivar's Chief of Staff] assumed the government until a congress could be assembled: and under the influence of the Colombian soldiery Upper Peru was erected into an independent state by the name of the Republic of Bolivar, or Bolivia."

_E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, page 290._

For an account of the Peruvian war of liberation—the results of which embraced Upper Peru—and the adoption of the Bolivian constitution by the latter,

See PERU: A. D. 1820-1826, and 1825-1826.

BOLIVIA: A. D. 1834-1839. Confederation with Peru. War with Chile.

See PERU: A. D. 1826-1876.

BOLIVIA: A. D. 1879-1884. The war with Chile.

See CHILE: A. D. 1833-1884.

BOLIVIA: End----------

BOLIVIAN CONSTITUTION, or Code Bolivar.

See PERU: A. D. 1825-1826, and 1826-1876.

BOLOGNA: Origin of the city.

On the final conquest of the Boian Gauls in North Italy, a new Roman colony and frontier fortress were established, B. C. 189, called first Felsina and then Bononia, which is the Bologna of modern Italy.

_H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 41._

BOLOGNA: Origin of the name.

See BOIANS.

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BOLOGNA: B. C. 43. Conference of the Triumvirs.

See ROME: B. C. 44-42.

BOLOGNA: 11th Century. School of Law. The Glossators.

"Just at this time [end of the 11th century] we find a famous school of law established in Bologna, and frequented by multitudes of pupils, not only from all parts of Italy, but from Germany, France, and other countries. The basis of all its instructions was the Corpus Juris Civilis. Its teachers, who constitute a series of distinguished jurists extending over a century and a half, devoted themselves to the work of expounding the text and elucidating the principles of the Corpus Juris, and especially the Digest. From the form in which they recorded and handed down the results of their studies, they have obtained the name of glossators. On their copies of the Corpus Juris they were accustomed to write glosses, i. e., brief marginal explanations and remarks. These glosses came at length to be an immense literature."

_J. Hadley, Introduction to Roman Law, lecture 2._

BOLOGNA: 11th-12th Centuries. Rise and Acquisition of Republican Independence.

See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.

BOLOGNA: A. D. 1275. Sovereignty of the Pope confirmed by Rodolph of Hapsburg.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.

BOLOGNA: A. D. 1350-1447. Under the tyranny of the Visconti.

See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447; and FLORENCE: A. D. 1390-1402.

BOLOGNA: A. D. 1512. Acquisition by Pope Julius II.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

BOLOGNA: A. D. 1796-1797. Joined to the Cispadane Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

BOLOGNA: A. D. 1831. Revolt suppressed by Austrian troops.

See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.

BOLOGNA: End----------

BOMBAY. Cession to England (1661).

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

BON HOMME RICHARD AND THE SERAPIS. Sea-fight.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (SEPTEMBER).

BONAPARTE, Jerome, and his Kingdom of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY); 1813 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER), and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

BONAPARTE, Joseph, King of Naples, King of Spain.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER); SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER), to 1812-1814.

BONAPARTE, Louis, and the Kingdom of Holland.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1806-1810.

BONAPARTE, Louis Napoleon.

See NAPOLEON III.

BONAPARTE, NAPOLEON, The career of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER), and 1795 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), to 1815.

BONAPARTE FAMILY, The origin of the.

"About four miles to the south of Florence, on an eminence overlooking the valley of the little river Greve, and the then bridle-path leading towards Siena and Rome, there was a very strong castle, called Monte Boni, Mons Boni, as it is styled in sundry deeds of gift executed within its walls in the years 1041, 1085, and 1100, by which its lords made their peace with the Church, in the usual way, by sharing with churchmen the proceeds of a course of life such as needed a whitewashing stroke of the Church's office. A strong castle on the road to Rome, and just at a point where the path ascended a steep hill, offered advantages and temptations not to be resisted; and the lords of Monte Boni 'took toll' of passengers. But, as Villani very naïvely says, 'the Florentines could not endure that another should do what they abstained from doing.' So as usual they sallied forth from their gates one fine morning, attacked the strong fortress, and razed it to the ground. All this was, as we have seen, an ordinary occurrence enough in the history of young Florence. This was a way the burghers had. They were clearing their land of these vestiges of feudalism, much as an American settler clears his ground of the stumps remaining from the primeval forest. But a special interest will be admitted to belong to this instance of the clearing process, when we discover who those noble old freebooters of Monte Boni were. The lords of Monte Boni were called, by an easy, but it might be fancied ironical, derivation from the name of their castle 'Buoni del Monte,'—the Good Men of the Mountain;—and by abbreviation, Buondelmonte, a name which we shall hear more of anon in the pages of this history. But when, after the destruction of their fortress, these Good Men of the Mountain became Florentine citizens, they increased and multiplied; and in the next generation, dividing off into two branches, they assumed, as was the frequent practice, two distinctive appellations; the one branch remaining Buondelmonti, and the other calling themselves Buonaparte. This latter branch shortly afterwards again divided itself into two, of which one settled at San Miniato al Tedesco, and became extinct there in the person of an aged canon of the name within this century; while the other first established itself at Sarzaua, a little town on the coast about half-way between Florence and Genoa, and from thence at a later period transplanted itself to Corsica; and has since been heard of."

_T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, volume 1, pages 50-51._

BONIFACE, ST., The Mission of.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.

BONIFACE, COUNT, and the Vandals.

See VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.

BONIFACE III., Pope, A. D. 607, FEBRUARY TO NOVEMBER. Boniface IV., Pope, A. D. 608-615. Boniface V., Pope, A. D. 619-625. Boniface VI., Pope, A. D. 896. Boniface VII., Pope, A. D. 974, 984-985. Boniface VIII., Pope, A. D. 1294-1303. Boniface IX., Pope, A. D. 1389-1404.

BONN, Siege and Capture by Marlborough (1703).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

BONNET ROUGE, The.

See LIBERTY CAP.

BONONIA IN GAUL.

See GESORIACUM.

BONONIA IN ITALY.

See BOLOGNA.

BOOK OF THE DEAD.

"A collection (ancient Egyptian) of prayers and exorcisms composed at various periods for the benefit of the pilgrim soul in his journey through Amenti (the Egyptian Hades); and it was in order to provide him with a safe conduct through the perils of that terrible valley that copies of this work, or portions of it, were buried with the mummy in his tomb. Of the many thousands of papyri which have been preserved to this day, it is perhaps scarcely too much to say that one half, if not two thirds, are copies more or less complete of the Book of the Dead."

_A. B. Edwards, Academy, Sept. 10, 1887._

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M. Naville published in 1887 a collation of the numerous differing texts of the Book of the Dead, on the preparation of which he had been engaged for ten years.

BOONE, Daniel, and the settlement of Kentucky.

See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1765-1778, and 1775-1784.

BOONVILLE, Battle of.

See MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

BOONSBORO, or South Mountain, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND).

BOOTH, John Wilkes. Assassination of President Lincoln.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL 14TH).

BOR-RUSSIA.

See PRUSSIA: THE ORIGINAL COUNTRY AND ITS NAME.

BORDARII.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: ENGLAND; also MANORS.

BORDEAUX: Origin.

See BURDIGALA.

BORDEAUX: A. D. 732. Stormed and sacked by the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-732.

BORDEAUX: A. D. 1650. Revolt of the Frondeurs. Siege of the city. Treaty of Peace.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1650-1651.

BORDEAUX: A. D. 1652-1653. The last phase of the Fronde. Rebellion of the Society of the Ormée. Cromwell's help invoked. Siege and submission of the city.

"The peace of Bordeaux in October, 1650. had left the city tranquil, but not intimidated, and its citizens were neither attached to the government nor afraid of it. … There, as at Paris, a violent element obtained control, ready for disturbance, and not alarmed by the possibility of radical changes in the government. … During the popular emotion against Épernon, meetings, mostly of the lower classes, had been held under some great elms near the city, and from this circumstance a party had taken the name of the Ormée. It now assumed a more definite form, and began to protest against the slackness of the officers and magistrates, who it was charged, were ready to abandon the popular cause. The Parliament was itself divided into two factions," known as the Little Fronde and the Great Fronde—the latter of which was devoted to the Prince of Condé. "The Ormée was a society composed originally of a small number of active and violent men, and in its organization not wholly unlike the society of the Jacobins. … Troubles increased between this society and the parliament, and on June 3d [1652] it held a meeting attended by 3,000 armed men, and decided on the exile of fourteen of the judges who were regarded as traitors to the cause. … The offending judges were obliged to leave the city, but in a few days the Parliament again obtained control, and the exiles were recalled and received with great solemnity. But the Ormée was not thus to be overcome. On June 25th these contests resulted in a battle in the streets, in which the society had the advantage. Many of the judges abandoned the conflict and left the city. The Ormée established itself at the Hotel de Ville, and succeeded in controlling for the most part the affairs of the city. … Condé decided that he would recognize the Ormée as a political organization, and strengthen it by his approval. … The restoration of the King's authority at Paris [see FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1653] strengthened the party at Bordeaux that desired peace, and increased the violence of the party that was opposed to it. Plots were laid for the overthrow of the local authorities, but they were wholly unsuccessful. … The desire of the people, the nobility, and the clergy was for peace. Only by speedy aid from Spain could the city be kept in hostility to its King and in allegiance to Condé. Spain was asked to send assistance and prevent this important loss, but the Spanish delayed any vigorous action, partly from remissness and partly from lack of troops and money. The most of the province of Guienne was gradually lost to the insurgents. … Condé seems to have left Guienne to itself. … In this condition, the people of Bordeaux turned to Cromwell as the only person who had the power to help them. … The envoys were received by Cromwell, but he took no steps to send aid to Bordeaux. Hopes were held out which encouraged the city and alarmed the French minister, but no ships were sent." Meantime, the King's forces in Guienne advanced with steady success, and early in the summer of 1653 they began the siege of the city. The peace party within, thus encouraged, soon overthrew the Ormée, and arranged terms for the submission of the town. "The government proceeded at once to erect the castles of Trompette and Ho, and they were made powerful enough to check any future turbulence."

_J. B. Perkins, France under Mazarin, chapter 15 (volume 2)._

BORDEAUX: A. D. 1791. The Girondists in the National Legislative Assembly.

See France: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER).

BORDEAUX: A. D. 1793. Revolt against the Revolutionary Government of Paris. Fearful vengeance of the Terrorists.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JUNE); (JULY-DECEMBER); AND 1793-1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

BORDEAUX: A. D. 1814. Occupied by the English.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.

BORDEAUX: End----------

BORDER-RUFFIANS.

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

BORGHETTO, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A.D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

BORGIAS, The.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1471-1513.

BORIS, Czar of Russia. A. D. 1598-1605.

BORLA, The.

See PERU: A.D. 1533-1548.

BORNHOVED, Battle of (1227).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1018-1397.

BORNY, OR COLOMBEY-NOUILLY, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).

BORODINO, OR THE MOSKOWA, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

BOROUGH. CITY. TOWN. VILLE.

"The burh of the Anglo-Saxon period was simply a more strictly organized form of the township. It was probably in a more defensible position; had a ditch and mound instead of the quickset hedge or 'tun' from which the township took its name; and as the 'tun' originally was the fenced homestead of the cultivator, the burh was the fortified house and court-yard of the mighty man—the king, the magistrate, or the noble."

_William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5._

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"I must freely confess that I do not know what difference, except a difference in rank, there is in England between a city and a borough. … A city does not seem to have any rights or powers as a city which are not equally shared by every other corporate town. The only corporate towns which have any special powers above others are those which are counties of themselves; and all cities are not counties of themselves, while some towns which are not cities are. The city in England is not so easily defined as the city in the United States. There, every corporate town is a city. This makes a great many cities, and it leads to an use of the word city in common talk which seems a little strange in British ears. In England, even in speaking of a real city, the word city is seldom used, except in language a little formal or rhetorical; in America it is used whenever a city is mentioned. But the American rule has the advantage of being perfectly clear and avoiding all doubt. And it agrees very well with the origin of the word: a corporate town is a 'civitas,' a commonwealth; any lesser collection of men hardly is a commonwealth, or is such only in a much less perfect degree. This brings us to the historical use of the word. It is clear at starting that the word is not English. It has no Old-English equivalent; burh, burgh, borough, in its various spellings and various shades of meaning, is our native word for urbes of every kind from Rome downward. It is curious that this word should in ordinary speech have been so largely displaced by the vaguer word tun, town, which means an enclosure of any kind, and in some English dialects is still applied to a single house and its surroundings. … In common talk we use the word borough hardly oftener than the word city; when the word is used, it has commonly some direct reference to the parliamentary or municipal characters of the town. Many people, I suspect, would define a borough as a town which sends members to Parliament, and such a definition, though still not accurate, has, by late changes, been brought nearer to accuracy than it used to be. City and borough, then, are both rather formal words; town is the word which comes most naturally to the lips when there is no special reason for using one of the others. Of the two formal words, borough is English; city is Latin; it comes to us from Gaul and Italy by some road or other. It is in Domesday that we find, by no means its first use in England, but its first clearly formal use, the first use of it to distinguish a certain class of towns, to mark those towns which are 'civitates' as well as burgi from those which are burgi only. Now in Gaul the 'civitas' in formal Roman language was the tribe and its territory, the whole land of the Arverni, Parisii, or any other tribe. In a secondary sense it meant the head town of the tribe. … When Christianity was established, the 'civitas' in the wider sense marked the extent of the bishop's diocese; the 'civitas' in the narrower sense became the immediate seat of his bishopstool. Thus we cannot say that in Gaul a town became a city because it was a bishop's see; but we may say that a certain class of towns became bishops' sees because they were already cities. But in modern French use no distinction is made between these ancient capitals which became bishoprics and other towns of less temporal and spiritual honour. The seat of the bishopric, the head of the ancient province, the head of the modern department, the smaller town which has never risen to any of those dignities, are all alike ville. Lyons, Rheims, Paris, are in no way distinguished from meaner places. The word cité is common enough, but it has a purely local meaning. It often distinguishes the old part of a town, the ancient 'civitas,' from later additions. In Italy on the other hand, città is both the familiar and the formal name for towns great and small. It is used just like ville in French."

_E. A. Freeman, City and Borough Macmillan's Magazine, May, 1889._

BOROUGH-ENGLISH.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

BOROUGHBRIDGE, Battle of.

Fought March 16, 1322, in the civil war which arose in England during the reign of Edward II. on account of the King's favorites, the Déspensers. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the leader of opposition, was defeated, captured, summarily tried and beheaded.

BOROUGHS, Rotten and Pocket.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830, and 1830-1832.

BORROMEAN, OR GOLDEN LEAGUE, The.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1579-1630.

BORYSTHENES, The.

The name which the Greeks gave anciently to the river now known as the Dnieper. It also became the name of a town near the mouth of the river, which was originally called Olbia,—a very early trading settlement of the Milesians.

BOSCOBEL, The Royal Oak of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1651.