Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Vitruvius (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio) vĭtro͞oˈvēəs [key], fl. late 1st cent. b.c. and early 1st cent. a.d., Roman writer, engineer, and architect for the Emperor Augustus. In his one extant work, D...

(Encyclopedia) Wace wās [key], c.1100–1174, Norman-French poet of Jersey. King Henry II made him canon of Bayeux. His Roman de Brut (1155) is a long, rhymed chronicle of British history based on the Historia of G...

(Encyclopedia) Watling Street wŏtˈlĭng [key], important ancient road in England, built by the Romans in the course of their military occupation. It ran from London generally north to the intersection with the Fos...

(Encyclopedia) Watson, Thomas Edward, 1856–1922, American political leader, b. Columbia co., Ga. A successful lawyer, he practiced in Thomson, Ga., before serving (1882–83) in the state legislature and as a Farm...

(Encyclopedia) tonsure tŏnˈshər [key] [Lat.,=to shave], formerly, practice in some Christian churches of cutting some of the hair from the scalp of clerics. In the West the tonsure consisted of a circular patch o...

(Encyclopedia) Wilfrid, Saint, 634–709?, English churchman, b. Northumbria, of noble parentage. He was educated at Lindisfarne and Canterbury. With Benedict Biscop he traveled to Lyons and Rome in 654; Wilfrid rem...

(Encyclopedia) Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis nümäˈ dənēˈ füstĕlˈ də ko͞oläNzhˈ [key], 1830–89, French historian. His masterly study, La Cité antique (1864, tr. The Ancient City, 1874), stressed the...

(Encyclopedia) Linus, in the New Testament, Roman Christian. He is often identified with St. Linus. ...

(Encyclopedia) Longford, town (1991 pop. 6,393), seat of Co. Longford, N central Republic of Ireland, on the Camlin River. It is primarily a farm market. The Roman Catholic bishopric of Ardagh and Clonmacnois is the...

(Encyclopedia) Palatine, hill: see Rome before Augustus and Roman Empire under Rome. ...