Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Tennis or Tinnis both: tĭnˈĭs [key], medieval city of Egypt, on an island in Lake Manzala, southwest of modern Port Said. Tennis, founded when Tanis was abandoned, was a port and center of commerce...

(Encyclopedia) Veles vĕlˈĕs [key], town (1994 pop. 56,751), North Macedonia, on the Vardar River. It is a road and rail junction and the market center for a fruit- and vegetable-producing region. An ancient town,...

(Encyclopedia) chansons de geste shäNsôNˈ də zhĕst [key] [Fr.,=songs of deeds], a group of epic poems of medieval France written from the 11th through the 13th cent. Varying in length from 1,000 to 20,000 lines...

(Encyclopedia) Cluniac order klo͞oˈnē-ăkˌ [key], medieval organization of Benedictines centered at the abbey of Cluny, France. Founded in 910 by the monk Berno and Count William of Aquitaine, the abbey's consti...

(Encyclopedia) Griselda grĭzĕlˈdə [key], long-suffering heroine of medieval story, whose husband subjects her to numerous trials in order to test her devotion. The story originated in a widespread W European fol...

(Encyclopedia) Jodelle, Estienne ātyĕnˈ zhôdĕlˈ [key], 1532–73, French poet of the Pléiade (see under Pleiad). He was the author of Cléopatre captive (1553), the first French tragedy that departed from med...

(Encyclopedia) Gaelic literature, literature in the native tongue of Ireland and Scotland. Since Scots Gaelic became separate from Irish Gaelic only in the 17th cent., the literature is conventionally divided into O...

(Encyclopedia) Szigetvár sĭˈgĕtvär [key], town (1991 est. pop. 12,280), SW Hungary. A medieval fortress, it was defended in 1566 by Nicholas Zrinyi against the Ottoman sultan Sulayman I, who died during the sie...

(Encyclopedia) oriel ôrˈēəl [key], projecting or bay window in an upper story, supported on brackets, corbels, or an engaged column, usually polygonal or curved in plan. It is most characteristic of the late med...

(Encyclopedia) Krk kûrk [key], Ital. Veglia, island, 157 sq mi (407 sq km), in the Adriatic, off the Dalmatian coast, NW Croatia. The largest of Croatia's islands in the Adriatic, it has several small seaside resor...