Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) John of Gaunt [Mid. Eng. Gaunt=Ghent, his birthplace], 1340–99, duke of Lancaster; fourth son of Edward III of England. He married (1359) Blanche, heiress of Lancaster, and through her became earl (...

(Encyclopedia) Huntingdon, Selina Hastings, countess of, 1707–91, English religious leader, patron of the Calvinistic Methodists. She was closely associated with the Wesleys and George Whitefield. When they split,...

(Encyclopedia) knight, in ancient and medieval history, a noble who did military service as a mounted warrior. As the feudal system disintegrated, knight service was with growing frequency commuted into cash pay...

(Encyclopedia) cult, ritual observances involved in worship of, or communication with, the supernatural or its symbolic representations. A cult includes the totality of ideas, activities, and practices associated wi...

(Encyclopedia) Rochester, John Wilmot, 2d earl of, 1647–80, English poet and courtier, b. Ditchley, Oxfordshire. Most notorious and dissolute of the Restoration rakes, he lost the favor of Charles II on several oc...

(Encyclopedia) Bible societies, a movement formed for the translation, printing, and dissemination of the Holy Scriptures; for much of its history it was predominantly Protestant, but there now is considerable Roman...

(Encyclopedia) Walton, Izaak, 1593–1683, English writer. He wrote one of the most famous books in the English language, The Compleat Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. The first edition appeared in 16...

(Encyclopedia) Book of the Dead, term used to describe Egyptian funerary literature. The texts consist of charms, spells, and formulas for use by the deceased in the afterworld and contain many of the basic ideas of...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Red (Walter Wellesley Smith), 1905–82, American sportswriter, b. Green Bay, Wis., grad. Notre Dame, 1927. After working on newspapers in St. Louis and Philadelphia, he began a syndicated colu...

(Encyclopedia) Bell, Clive, 1881–1964, English critic of art and literature. He was a member of the Bloomsbury group. His works include Art (1914), Since Cézanne (1922), Landmarks in Nineteenth-Century Painting (...