Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Calvin, John, 1509–64, French Protestant theologian of the Reformation, b. Noyon, Picardy. The extension of Calvinism to all spheres of human activity was extremely important to a world emerging f...

(Encyclopedia) Congregationalism, type of Protestant church organization in which each congregation, or local church, has free control of its own affairs. The underlying principle is that each local congregation has...

(Encyclopedia) Australian literature, the literature of Australia. Because the vast majority of early Australian settlers were transported prisoners, the beginnings of Australian literature were oral rather than wri...

(Encyclopedia) fundamentalism. 1 In Protestantism, religious movement that arose among conservative members of various Protestant denominations early in the 20th cent., with the object of maintaining traditional int...

(Encyclopedia) Thomas à Becket, Saint, or Saint Thomas Becket, 1118–70, English martyr, archbishop of Canterbury, b. London. He is called St. Thomas of Canterbury and occasionally St. Thomas of London. In exi...

(Encyclopedia) Methodism, the doctrines, polity, and worship of those Protestant Christian denominations that have developed from the movement started in England by the teaching of John Wesley. John and Charles ...

(Encyclopedia) seal, carnivorous aquatic mammal with front and hind feet modified as flippers, or fin-feet. The name seal is sometimes applied broadly to any of the fin-footed mammals, or pinnipeds, including the wa...

(Encyclopedia) Chaucer, Geoffrey jĕfˈrē chôˈsər [key], c.1340–1400, English poet, one of the most important figures in English literature. To Chaucer's final period, in which he achieved his fullest artist...

(Encyclopedia) Wales, Welsh Cymru, western peninsula and political division (principality) of Great Britain (2011 pop. 3,063,456), 8,016 sq mi (20,761 sq km), west of England; politically united with England since 1...

(Encyclopedia) Canadian art and architecture, the various types and styles arts and structures produced in the geographic area that now constitutes Canada. For a discussion of the art of indigenous peoples of Canada...