Abattoir is a French term, adopted in English, for a slaughter-house. Napoleon instituted the public abattoir system in Paris in 1807 which was brought to completion in 1818. Research Abattoir
The Additional Forces Act was passed in Britain by Pitt, owing to the imminent danger of the invasion of the country by Napoleon in 1803 and the following years. The act legalised the formation of second battalions to the regular regiments then serving abroad. The United Kingdom was divided up into districts, which were required by the act to furnish quotas of 3000 men each. The act was repealed after the death of Pitt. Research Additional Forces Act
An Art Union is an association for encouraging art, an object which it mainly pursues by disposing of pictures, sculptures, etc, by lottery among subscribers. They seem to have originated in France during the time of Napoleon I. They soon afterwards took root in Germany, where they have been very successful. The first art union established in Britain was that at Edinburgh in 1834. Research Art Union
The Berlin Decree was issued in 1806 by Napoleon, and declared the British islands to be in a state of blockade. The decree forbade commerce with them and trade in their merchandise and declared all merchandise belonging to Englishmen or transported from England to be lawful prize. The Berlin Decree inflicted a great loss on American trade at the time. Research Berlin Decree
A calendar (named from the Latin calendarium, from calendce, the first day of the month), is a record or marking out of time as systematically divided into years, months, weeks, and days.
The periodical occurrence of certain natural phenomena gave rise to the first division of time, the division into weeks being the only purely arbitrary partition. The year of the ancient Egyptians was based on the changes of the seasons alone, without reference to the lunar month, and contained 365 days divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with five supplementary days at the end of the year.
The Jewish year consisted of lunar months of which they reckoned twelve in the year, intercalating a thirteenth when necessary to maintain the correspondence of the particular months with the regular recurrence of the seasons.
The Greeks in the earliest period also reckoned by lunar and intercalary months, but after one or two changes adopted the plan of Meton and Euctemon, who took account of the fact that in a period of nineteen years, the new moons return upon the same days of the year as before. This period of nineteen years was found, however, to be about six hours too long, and subsequent calculators still failed to make the beginning of the seasons return on the same fixed day of the year. Each month was divided into three decads.
The Romans at first divided the year into ten months, but they early adopted the Greek method of lunar and intercalary months, making the lunar year consist of 354, and afterwards of 355 days, leaving ten or eleven days and a fraction to be supplied by the intercalary division. This arrangement continued until the time of Julius Caesar. The first day of the month was called the calends. In March, May, July, and October the 15th, in other months the 13th, was called the ides. The ninth day before the ides (reckoning inclusive) was called the nones, being therefore either the 7th or the 5th of the month. From the inaccuracy of the Roman method of reckoning the calendar came to represent the vernalequinox nearly two months after the event, and at the request of Julius Caesar, the Greek astronomer Sosigenes with the assistance of Marcus Fabius, contrived the so-called Julian calendar. The chief improvement consisted in restoring the equinox to its proper place by inserting two months between November and December, so that the year 707 (46 BC), called the year of confusion, contained fourteen months.
In the number of days the Greek computation was adopted, which made it 365.25. To dispose of the quarter of a day it was determined to intercalate a day every fourth year between the 23rd and 24th of February. This calendar continued in use among the Romans until the fall of the empire, and throughout Christendom until 1582.
By this time, owing to the cumulative error of eleven minutes, the vernalequinox really took place ten days earlier than its date in the calendar, and accordingly PopeGregory XIII issued a brief abolishing the Julian calendar in all Catholic countries, and introducing in its stead the one now in use, the Gregorian or reformed calendar. In this way began the new style, as opposed to the other or old style. Ten days were to be dropped; every hundredth year, which by the old style was to have been a leap year, was now to be a common year, the fourth excepted; and the length of the solar year was taken to be 365 days, five hours, forty-nine minutes, and twelve seconds, the difference between which and subsequent observations is immaterial. The new calendar was adopted in Spain, Portugal, and France in 1582; in Catholic Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands in 1583; in Poland in 1586; in Hungary in 1587; in ProtestantGermany, Holland, and Denmark in 1700; in Switzerland in 1701; in England in 1752; and in Sweden, 1753.
In the English calendar of 1752, also, the 1st of January was now adopted as the beginning of the legal year, and it was customary for some time to give two dates for the period intervening between 1st January and 25th March, that of the old and that of the new year, as January 1752/3. Russia alone retained the old style, which by 1906 differed twelve days from the new.
In France, during the revolution, a new calendar was introduced by a decree of the rational Convention, on November the 24th, 1793. The time from which the new reckoning was to commence was the autumnal equinox of 1792, which fell upon the 22nd of September, when the first decree of the new republic had been promulgated. The year was made to consist of twelve months of three decades each, and, to complete the full number, five fete days, or sansculotides (in leap years six) were added to the end of the year. The seasons and months were as follows: Autumn; 22nd September to 22nd December Vendimiaire, vintage month; Brumaire, foggy month; Frimaire, sleet month. Winter; 22nd December to 22nd March: Nivose, snowy month; Plumose, rainy month; Ventose, windy month. Spring; 22nd March to 22nd June: Germinal, budmonth; Floreal, flowermonth; Prairial, meadowmonth. Summer; 22nd June to 22nd Sept.: Messidor, harvest month; Thermidor, hot month; Fructidor, fruit month. The common Christian or Gregorian calendar was re-established in France on the 1st of January, 1806, by Napoleon. Research Calendar
Censorship of books is the supervision of books by some authority so as to settle what may be published. After the invention of printing the rapid diffusion of opinions by means of books induced the governments in all countries to assume certain powers of supervision and regulation with regard to printed matter. The popes were the first to institute a regular censorship. By a bull of Leo X. in 1515 the bishops and inquisitors were required to examine all works before they were printed, with a view to prevent the publication of heretical opinions. As this decree could not be carried out in countries which had accepted the reformed religion, they prepared a list of prohibited books (known as the Index Librorum Prohibitorum), books, that is, which nobody was allowed to read under penalty of the censure of the church. This index continued to be reprinted and revised as late as 1906, as well as another index commonly called the Index Expurgatorius, containing the works which may be read if certain expurgations have been made.
In England the censorship was established by act of parliament in 1662, but before that both the well-known Star-chamber and the parliament itself had virtually performed the functions. In 1694 the censorship in England ceased entirely. In France the censorship, like so many other institutions, was annihilated by the revolution. During the republic there was no formal censorship, but the supervision of the directory virtually took its place, and at length in 1810 Napoleon openly restored it under another name (Direction de rimprimerie). After the restoration it underwent various changes, and was re-established by Napoleon III, but again abolished. In the old German empire the diet of 1530 instituted a severe superintendence of the press, but in the particular German states the censure was very differently applied, and in Protestant states especially it was never difficult for individual authors to obtain exemption. In 1849 the censorial laws were repealed, but were again gradually introduced, and still existed in a modified form in most of the German states in 1906. The censorship was abolished in Denmark in 1770, in Sweden in 1809, in the Netherlands in 1815. Research Censorship of Books
Chauvinism is fanatical devotion to a cause, especially patriotism. The term comes from Nicholas Chauvin who was a soldier so enthusiastically devoted to Napoleon that his comrades ridiculed him. Research Chauvinism
Civil Law (jus civile) among the Romans was a term nearly corresponding to what in modern times is implied by the phrase positive law, that is, the rules of right established by any government. They contradistinguished it from natural law (jus naturale), by which they meant a certain natural order followed by all living beings; also from the general laws of mankind established by the agreement of all nations and governments (jus gentium). With the growth and multiplication of the edicts issued by the praetors (in whose hands was the supreme administration of justice) for the modification and extension of the positive enactments a further distinction became necessary, the whole body of this praetorian law being known by the name of jus honorarium as opposed to the strict formal law (jus civile). The latter, however, included both the private law (jus privatum), which relates to the various legal relations of the different members of the state - the citizens - and the public law (jus publicum), that is, the rules respecting the limits, rights, obligations, etc, of the public authorities.
The final digest of Roman law was made in the 6th century AD under the Emperor Justinian, but at first was only admitted as formally binding in a small part of Italy. After the llth century, in Upper Italy, particularly in the school of Bologna, the body of the Roman law, put together by Justinian, was formed by degrees into a system applicable to the wants of all nations; and on this model the ecclesiastical and Papal decrees were arranged, and to a considerable degree the native laws of the new Teutonic states. From all these the Roman law was distinguished under the name of civil law. In this sense, therefore, civil law means ancient Roman law; and it is contradistinguished from canon law and feudal law, though the feudalcodes of the Lombards have been received into the corpus juris civilis, or body of civil law. As the Roman code exerted the greatest influence on the private law of modern Europe, the expression civil law is also used to embrace all the rules relating to the private rights of citizens. Under the term civil law, therefore, in both Europe and America, is to be understood not only the Roman law, but also the modern private law of the various countries; for example, in Germany, Das gemeine Deutsche Privatrecht, in France the Code civil des Francais or Code Napoleon. In this sense it is chiefly opposed to criminal law, particularly in reference to the administration of justice, which is to be divided into civil justice and criminal justice. Research Civil Law
A concordat is a convention between the pope, as head of the Roman Catholic Church, and any secular government, for the settling of ecclesiastical relations. One of the most important of the earlier concordats, that of Worms, called also the Calixtine Concordat, made in 1122, between PopeCalixtus II and the Emperor Henry V, has been regarded as the fundamental law of the church in Germany. Another celebrated concordat was that agreed upon between Cardinal Gonsalvi, in the name of Pius VII, and Napoleon in July, 1801. By it the head of the state had the nomination of bishops to the vacant sees; the clergy became subject in temporal matters to the civil power; all immunities, ecclesiastical courts, and jurisdictions were abolished in France, and even the regulations of the public worship and religious ceremonies and the pastoral addresses of the clergy, were placed under the control of the secular authorities. This concordat was practically abrogated in 1905 by the separation of church and state. The government had previously broken off diplomatic relations with the papacy. Research Concordat
the Confederation of the Rhine were sixteen German provinces which in 1806 dissolved their connection with Germany, and allied themselves to France. At the downfall of Napoleon in 1814 the confederation slowly dissolved. Research Confederation of the Rhine
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Abattoir
