Contemporary lives of Bayard are the following:—“Le loyal serviteur” (? Jacques de Maille);La très joyeuse, plaisante, et récréative histoire ... des faiz, gestes, triumphes et prouesses du bon chevalier sans paour et sans reproche, le gentil seigneur de Bayart(original edition printed at Paris, 1527; the modern editions are very numerous, those of M.J. Roman and of L. Larchey appeared in 1878 and 1882); Symphorien Champier,Les Gestes, ensemble la vie du preulx chevalier Bayard(Lyons, 1525); Aymar du Rivail,Histoire des Allobroges(edition of de Terrebasse, 1844); seeBayardinRépertoire des sources historiques, by Ulysse Chevalier, and in particular A. de Terrebasse,Hist. de Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayart(1st ed., Paris, 1828; 5th ed., Vienna, 1870).
Contemporary lives of Bayard are the following:—“Le loyal serviteur” (? Jacques de Maille);La très joyeuse, plaisante, et récréative histoire ... des faiz, gestes, triumphes et prouesses du bon chevalier sans paour et sans reproche, le gentil seigneur de Bayart(original edition printed at Paris, 1527; the modern editions are very numerous, those of M.J. Roman and of L. Larchey appeared in 1878 and 1882); Symphorien Champier,Les Gestes, ensemble la vie du preulx chevalier Bayard(Lyons, 1525); Aymar du Rivail,Histoire des Allobroges(edition of de Terrebasse, 1844); seeBayardinRépertoire des sources historiques, by Ulysse Chevalier, and in particular A. de Terrebasse,Hist. de Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayart(1st ed., Paris, 1828; 5th ed., Vienna, 1870).
BAYARD, THOMAS FRANCIS(1828-1898), American diplomatist, was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on the 29th of October 1828. His great-grandfather, Richard Bassett (1745-1815), governor of Delaware; his grandfather, James Asheton Bayard (1767-1815), a prominent Federalist, and one of the United States commissioners who negotiated the treaty of Ghent with Great Britain after the War of 1812; his uncle, Richard Henry Bayard (1796-1868); and his father, James Asheton Bayard (1799-1880), a well-known constitutional lawyer, all represented Delaware in the United States Senate. Intending to go into business, he did not receive a college education; but in 1848 he began the study of law in the office of his father, and was admitted to the bar in 1851. Except from 1855 to 1857, when he was a partner of William Shippen in Philadelphia, he practised chiefly in Wilmington. He was a United States senator from Delaware from 1869 to 1885, and in 1881 was (October 10th to 13th) presidentpro temporeof the Senate. His abilities made him a leader of the Democrats in the Senate, and his views on financial and legal questions gave him a high reputation for statesmanship. He was a member of the electoral commission of 1877. In the Democratic national conventions of 1872, 1876, 1880 and 1884 he received votes for nomination as the party candidate for the presidency. He was secretary of state, 1885-1889, during the first administration of President Cleveland, and pursued a conservative policy in foreign affairs, the most important matter with which he was called upon to deal being the Bering Sea controversy. As ambassador to Great Britain, 1893-1897, his tall dignified person, unfailing courtesy, and polished, if somewhat deliberate, eloquence made him a man of mark in all the best circles. He was considered indeed by many Americans to have become too partial to English ways; and, for the expression of some criticisms regarded as unfavourable to his own countrymen, the House of Representatives went so far as to pass, on the 7th of November 1895, a vote of censure on him. The value of Mr Bayard’s diplomacy was, however, fully recognized in the United Kingdom, where he worthily upheld the traditions of a famous line of American ministers. He was the first representative of the United States in Great Britain to hold the diplomatic rank of an ambassador. He died in Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 28th of September 1898.
See Edward Spencer,Public Life and Services of T.F. Bayard(New York, 1880).
See Edward Spencer,Public Life and Services of T.F. Bayard(New York, 1880).
BAYAZID,orBajazet, a border fortress of Asiatic Turkey, chief town of a sanjak of the Erzerum vilayet, situated close to the frontiers of Russia and Persia, and looking across a marshy plain to the great cone of Ararat, at a general altitude of 6000 ft. It occupies a site of great antiquity, as the cuneiform inscriptions on the neighbouring rocks testify; it stands on the site of the old Armenian town of Pakovan. It is picturesquely situated in an amphitheatre of sharp, rocky hills. The great trade route from Trebizond by Erzerum into N.W. Persia crosses the frontier at Kizil Dize a few miles to the south and does not enter the town. A knoll above the town is occupied by the half-ruined fort or palace of former governors, built for Mahmud Pasha by a Persian architect and considered one of the most beautiful buildings in Turkey. It contains two churches and a monastery, the Kasa Kilissa, famous for its antiquity and architectural grandeur. The cuneiform inscriptions are on the rock pinnacles above the town, with some rock chambers, indicating a town or fortress of the Vannic period. The population has lately decreased and now numbers about 4000. A Russian consul resides here and the town is a military station. It was captured during the Russian campaigns of 1828 and 1854, also in 1878, but was then recaptured by the Turks, who subjected the Russian garrison to a long siege; the place was ultimately relieved, but a massacre of Christians then took place in the streets. Bayazid was restored to Turkey by the treaty of Berlin.
BAYBAY,a town of the province of Leyte, island of Leyte, Philippine Islands, on the W. coast. Pop. (1903) 22,990. The town proper is situated at the mouth of the Pagbañganan river, 45 m. S.S.W. of Tacloban, the provincial capital. A superior grade of hemp is exported. Other products are rice, corn, copra, cacao, sugar, cattle and horses. The Cebú dialect of the Visayan language is spoken.
BAY CITY,a city and the county seat of Bay county, Michigan, U.S.A., on the Saginaw river, about 2 m. from its entrance into Saginaw Bay and about 108 m. N.N.W. of Detroit. Pop. (1890) 27,839; (1900) 27,628, of whom 8483 were foreign-born, including 2413 English-Canadians, 1743 Germans, 1822 Poles—the city has a Polish weekly newspaper—and 1075 French-Canadians; (1910, census) 45,166. Bay City is served by the Michigan Central, the Père Marquette, the Grand Trunk and the Detroit & Mackinac railways, and by lake steamers. The city extends for several miles along both sides of the river, and is in a good farming district, with which it is connected by stone roads. Among the public buildings are the Federal building, the city hall and the public library. The city has lumber and fishing interests (perch, whitefish, sturgeon, pickerel, bass, &c. being caught in Saginaw Bay), large machine shops and foundries (value of products in 1905, $1,743,155, or 31% of the total of the city’s factory products), and various manufactures, including ships (wooden and steel), wooden ware, wood-pipe, veneer, railroad machinery, cement, alkali and chicory. A salt basin underlies the city, and, next to the lumber industry, the salt industry was the first to be developed, but its importance has dwindled, the product value in 1905 being $20,098 out of $5,620,866 for all factory products. Near the city are valuable coal mines, and there is one within the city limits. At Essexville (pop. in 1910, 1477), N.E., at Banks, N.W., and at Salzbury, S.W. of Bay City, are beet-sugar factories—sugar beets are extensively grown in the vicinity. Alcohol is made from the refuse molasses obtained from these beet-sugar factories. The municipality owns and operates the water-works and electric-lighting plant. The settlements of Lower Saginaw and Portsmouth were made in 1837, and were later united to form Bay City, which was incorporated as a village in 1859, and chartered as a city in 1865. In 1905 West Bay City (pop. 1900, 13,119) and Bay City were consolidated.
BAYEUX,a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Calvados, 18 m. N.W. of Caen on the Western railway. Pop. (1906) 6930. Bayeux is situated on the Aure, 5 m. from the English Channel. Its majestic cathedral was built in the 13th century on the site of a Romanesque church, to which the lateral arcades of the nave and the two western towers with their high stone spires belonged. A third and still loftier tower, the upper part of which, in the florid Gothic style, is modern, surmounts the crossing. The chancel, surrounded with radiating chapels, is a fine example of early Gothic. Underneath it there is a crypt of the 11th century restored in the 15th century. The oak stalls in the choir are fine examples of late 16th-century carving. The former bishop’s palace, parts of which are of great age though the main building is of the 18th century, serves as law-court and hôtel de ville. Bayeux possesses many quaint, timbered houses and stone mansions in its quiet streets. The museum contains the celebrated Bayeux tapestry (see below). The town is the seat of a bishop and of a sub-prefect; it has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, an ecclesiastical seminary, a communal college and a chamber of arts and manufactures. Dyeing, leather-dressing, lace-making and the manufacture of porcelain for household and laboratory purposes are carried on.
Till the 4th century Bayeux bore the name ofAugustodurum, but afterwards, when it became the capital of the two tribes of the Baiocasses and Viducasses, took the name of Civitas Baiocassium. Its bishopric dates from the latter half of the 4th century. Before the Norman invasion it was governed by counts. Taken in 890 by the Scandinavian chief, Rollo, it was soon after peopled by the Normans and became a residence of the dukes of Normandy, one of whom, Richard I., built about 960 a castle which survived till the 18th century. During the quarrels between the sons of William the Conqueror it was pillaged and sacked by Henry I. in 1106, and in later times it underwent siege and capture on several occasions during the Hundred Years’ War and the religious wars of the 16th century. Till 1790 it was the capital of the Bessin, a district of lower Normandy.
BAYEUX TAPESTRY, THE. This venerable relic consists of a band of linen, 231 ft. long and 20 in. wide, now light brown with age, on which have been worked with a needle, in worsteds of eight colours, scenes representing the conquest of England by the Normans. Of these scenes there are seventy-two, beginning with Harold’s visit to Bosham on his way to Normandy, and ending with the flight of the English from the battle of Hastings, though the actual end of the strip has perished. Along the top and the bottom run decorative borders with figures of animals, scenes from fables of Aesop and of Phaedrus, from husbandry and the chase, and occasionally from the story of the Conquest itself (seeEmbroidery; Plate I. fig. 7). Formerly known as theToile de St Jean, it was used on certain feast days to decorate the nave of Bayeux cathedral. Narrowly escaping the perils of the Revolution, it was exhibited in Paris, by Napoleon’s desire, in 1803-1804, and has since been in civil custody at Bayeux, where it is now exhibited under glass. In the Franco-German War (1871) it was hastily taken down and concealed.
“The noblest monument in the world relating to our old English history,” as William Stukeley described it in 1746, it has been repeatedly described, discussed and reproduced, both in France and in England since 1730. The best coloured reproduction is that by C.A. Stothard in 1818, published in the sixth volume ofVetusta Monumenta; but in 1871-1872 the “tapestry” was photographed for the English education authorities by E. Dossetter.
Local tradition assigned the work to the Conqueror’s wife. F. Pluquet, in hisEssai historique sur la ville de Bayeux(Caen, 1829), was the first to reject this belief, and to connect it with the Conqueror’s half-brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and this view, which is now accepted, is confirmed by the fact that three of the bishop’s followers mentioned in Domesday Book are among the very few named figures on the tapestry. That Odo had it executed for his cathedral seems tolerably certain, but whether it was worked by English fingers or not has been disputed, though some of the words upon it have been held to favour that view. Freeman emphatically pronounced it to be “a contemporary work,” and historically “a primary authority ... in fact the highest authority on the Norman side.” As some of its evidence is unique, the question of its authority is important, and Freeman’s conclusions have been practicallyconfirmed by recent discussion. In 1902 M. Marignan questioned, on archaeological grounds, the date assigned to the tapestry, as the Abbé de la Rue had questioned it ninety years before; but his arguments were refuted by Gaston Paris and M. Lanore, and the authority of the tapestry was vindicated. The famous relic appears to be the solitary survivor of a class, for Abbot Baudri described in Latin verse a similar work executed for Adela, daughter of the Conqueror, and in earlier days the widow of Brihtnoth had wrought a similar record of her husband’s exploits and death at the hard-fought battle of Maldon (991).
Plate I.
Plate II.
See E.A. Freeman,Norman Conquest, vol. iii. (ed. 1875), with summary of the discussion to date;Archaeologia, vols. xvii.—xix.; Dawson Turner,Tour in Normandy(1820); C.A. Stothard’s illustrations inVetusta Monumenta, vol. vi.;Gentleman’s Magazine, 1837; Bolton Corney,Researches and Conjectures on the Bayeux Tapestry(1836-1838); A. de Caumont, “Un mot sur ... la tapisserie de Bayeux,” inBulletin monumental de Vinstilut des provinces, vol. viii. (1841); J. Laffetay,Notice historique et descriptive sur la tapisserie... (1874); J. Comte,Tapisserie de Bayeux; F.R. Fowke,The Bayeux Tapestry(ed. 1898); Marignan,Tapisserie de Bayeux(1902); G. Pans, “Tapisserie de Bayeux,” inRomania, vol. xxxi.; Lanore, “La Tapisserie de Bayeux,” inBibliothèque de l’école des chartes, vol. lxiv. (1903); and J.H. Round, “The Bayeux Tapestry,” inMonthly Review, xvii. (1904).
See E.A. Freeman,Norman Conquest, vol. iii. (ed. 1875), with summary of the discussion to date;Archaeologia, vols. xvii.—xix.; Dawson Turner,Tour in Normandy(1820); C.A. Stothard’s illustrations inVetusta Monumenta, vol. vi.;Gentleman’s Magazine, 1837; Bolton Corney,Researches and Conjectures on the Bayeux Tapestry(1836-1838); A. de Caumont, “Un mot sur ... la tapisserie de Bayeux,” inBulletin monumental de Vinstilut des provinces, vol. viii. (1841); J. Laffetay,Notice historique et descriptive sur la tapisserie... (1874); J. Comte,Tapisserie de Bayeux; F.R. Fowke,The Bayeux Tapestry(ed. 1898); Marignan,Tapisserie de Bayeux(1902); G. Pans, “Tapisserie de Bayeux,” inRomania, vol. xxxi.; Lanore, “La Tapisserie de Bayeux,” inBibliothèque de l’école des chartes, vol. lxiv. (1903); and J.H. Round, “The Bayeux Tapestry,” inMonthly Review, xvii. (1904).
(J. H. R.)
BAYEZID I.(1347-1403), Ottoman sultan, surnamedYilderimor “LIGHTNING,” from the great rapidity of his movements, succeeded his father Murad I. on the latter’s assassination on the field of Kossovo, 1389, and signalized his accession by ordering at once the execution of his brother Yakub, who had distinguished himself in the battle. His arms were successful both in Europe and Asia, and he was the first Ottoman sovereign to be styled “sultan,” which title he induced the titular Abbasid caliph to confer on him. After routing the chivalry of Christendom at the battle of Nikopoli in 1396, he pursued his victorious career in Greece, and Constantinople would doubtless have fallen before his attack, had not the emperor Manuel Palaeologus bought him off by timely concessions which reduced him practically to the position of Bayezid’s vassal. But his conquests met with a sudden and overpowering check at the hands of Timur (Tamerlane). Utterly defeated at Angora by the Mongol invader, Bayezid became his prisoner, and died in captivity some months later, in March 1403.
Bayezid first married Devlet Shah Khatun, daughter of the prince of Kermian, who brought him in dowry Kutaiah and its dependencies. Two years before his accession he also married a daughter of the emperor John Palaeologus.
BAYEZID II.(1447-1512), sultan of Turkey, was the son of Mahommed II., whom he succeeded in 1481, but only after gaining over the janissaries by a large donative, which henceforth became for centuries the invariable prerogative of that undisciplined body on the accession of a new sultan. Before he could establish himself on the throne a long struggle ensued with his brother Prince Jem. Being routed, Jem fled for refuge to the knights of St John at Rhodes, who, in spite of a safe-conduct granted to him, accepted a pension from Bayezid as the price for keeping him a close prisoner. (SeeAubusson, Pierre d’.)
So long as Jem lived he was a perpetual menace to the sultan’s peace, and there was considerable rivalry among the sovereigns of Europe for the possession of so valuable an instrument for bringing pressure to bear upon the Porte for the purpose of extracting money or concessions. By common consent the prince was ultimately entrusted to Pope Innocent VIII., who used him not only to extract an annual tribute out of the sultan, but to prevent the execution of Bayezid’s ambitious designs in the Mediterranean. His successor, Alexander VI., used him for a more questionable purpose, namely, not only to extract the arrears of the pension due for Jem’s safe-keeping, but, by enlarging on Charles V.’s intention of setting him up as sultan, to persuade Bayezid to aid him against the emperor. There appears, however, to be no truth in the report that Bayezid succeeded in bribing the pope to have Jem poisoned. The prince, who had lived on excellent terms with Alexander, died at Naples in February 1495, possibly as the result of excesses in which he had been deliberately encouraged by the pope.
Whether as a result of his fear of the rivalry of Jem, or of his personal character, Bayezid showed little of the aggressive spirit of his warlike predecessors; and Machiavelli said that another such sultan would cause Turkey to cease being a menace to Europe. He abandoned the attack on Rhodes at the first check, made concessions, for the sake of peace, to Venice and reduced the tribute due fiom Ragusa. His wars were of the nature of raids, on the Dalmatian coast and into Croatia, Hungary, Moldavia and Poland. The threat of the growing power in the Aegean of Venice, which had acquired Cyprus in 1489, at last roused him to a more serious effort; and in 1499 the war broke out with the republic, which ended in 1502 by the annexation to Turkey of Lepanto and Modon, Coron and Navarino in the Morea. Bayezid himself conducted the siege of Modon in 1500.
The comparative inactivity of Bayezid in the direction of Europe was partly due to preoccupation elsewhere. In the south he was threatened by the dangerous rivalry of Kait Bey, the Mameluke sultan of Egypt, who had extended his power northwards as far as Tarsus and Adana. In 1488 he gained a great victory over the Ottomans, and in 1491 a peace was made which was not again broken till after Bayezid’s death. On the side of Persia too, where the decisive battle of Shurur (1502) had raised to power Ismail, the first of the modern line of shahs, danger threatened the sultan, and the latter years of his reign were troubled by the spread, under the influence of the new Persian power, of the Shi’ite doctrine in Kurdistan and Asia Minor. The forces destined to maintain his authority in Asia had been entrusted by Bayezid to his three sons, Ahmed, Corcud and Selim; and the sultan’s declining years were embittered by their revolts and rivalry. Soon after the great earthquake of 1509, which laid Constantinople in ruins, Selim, the ungovernable pasha of Trebizond, whose vigorous rule in Asia had given Europe an earnest of his future career as sultan, appeared before Adrianople, where Bayezid had sought refuge. The sultan had designated Ahmed as his successor, but Selim, though temporarily defeated, succeeded in winning over the janissaries. On the 25th of April 1512 Bayezid was forced to abdicate in his favour, and died a few days later.
See J.B. Bury in theCambridge Modern History, vol. i. chap. iii. and bibliography p. 700.
See J.B. Bury in theCambridge Modern History, vol. i. chap. iii. and bibliography p. 700.
BAY ISLANDS(Islas de la Bahía), a small archipelago in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Honduras, of which country it forms an administrative district. Pop. (1905) about 3000, including 500 Indians. The archipelago consists of Roatan or Ruatan, Guanaja or Bonacca, Utilla, Barbareta, Helena, Morat, the Puercos or Hog Islands, and manycaysor islets. The Bay Islands have a good soil, a fine climate and an advantageous position. Roatan, the largest, is about 30 m. long by 9 m. broad, with mountains rising to the height of 900 ft., covered with valuable woods and abounding with deer and wild hogs. Its chief towns are Coxen Hole and Puerto Real. Its trade is chiefly with New Orleans in plantains, cocoa-nuts, pineapples and other fruit. Guanaja is 9 m. long by 5 m. broad; it lies 15 m. E.N.E. of Roatan. Wild hogs abound in its thickly-wooded limestone hills. The other islands are comparatively small, and may, in some cases, be regarded as detached parts of Roatan, with which they are connected by reefs. Guanaja was discovered in 1502 by Columbus, but the islands were not colonized until the 17th century, when they were occupied by British logwood cutters from Belize, and pearlers from the Mosquito Coast. Forts were built on Roatan in 1742, but abandoned in 1749. In 1852 the islands were annexed by Great Britain. In 1859 they were ceded to Honduras.
BAYLE, PIERRE(1647-1706), French philosopher and man of letters, was born on the 18th of November 1647, at le Carla-le-Comte, near Pamiers (Ariège). Educated by his father, a Calvinist minister, and at an academy at Puylaurens, he afterwards entered a Jesuit college at Toulouse, and became a Roman Catholic a month later (1669). After seventeen months he resumed his former religion, and, to avoid persecution, fled to Geneva, where he became acquainted with Cartesianism. For some years he acted under the name of Bèle as tutor in variousParisian families, but in 1675 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Protestant university of Sedan. In 1681 the university at Sedan was suppressed, but almost immediately afterwards Bayle was appointed professor of philosophy and history at Rotterdam. Here in 1682 he published his famousPensées diverses sur la comète de 1680and his critique of Maimbourg’s work on the history of Calvinism. The great reputation achieved by this critique stirred the envy of Bayle’s colleague, P. Jurieu, who had written a book on the same subject. In 1684 Bayle began the publication of hisNouvelles de la république des lettres, a kind of journal of literary criticism. In 1690 appeared a work entitledAvis important aux refugiés, which Jurieu attributed to Bayle, whom he attacked with animosity. After a long quarrel Bayle was deprived of his chair in 1693. He was not depressed by this misfortune, especially as he was at the time closely engaged in the preparation of theHistorical and Critical Dictionary(Dictionnaire historique et critique). The remaining years of Bayle’s life were devoted to miscellaneous writings, arising in many instances out of criticisms made upon hisDictionary. He died in exile at Rotterdam on the 28th of December 1706. In 1906 a statue in his honour was erected at Pamiers, “la réparation d’un long oubli.” Bayle’s erudition, despite the low estimate placed upon it by Leclerc, seems to have been very considerable. As a constructive thinker, he did little. As a critic he was second to none in his own time, and even yet one can admire the delicacy and the skill with which he handles his subject. TheNouvelles de la république des lettres(see Louis P. Betz,P. Bayle und die Nouvelles de la république des lettres, Zürich, 1896) was the first thorough-going attempt to popularize literature, and it was eminently successful. TheDictionary, however, is Bayle’s masterpiece.
Editions.—Historical and Critical Dictionary(1695-1697; 1702, enlarged; best that of P. des Maizeaux, 4 vols., 1740);Les Œuvres de Bayle(3 vols., The Hague); see des Maizeaux,Vie de Bayle; L.A. Feuerbach,Pierre Bayle(1838); Damiron,La Philosophie en France au XVIIesiècle(1858-1864); Sainte-Beuve, “Du génie critique et de Bayle” (Revue des deux mondes, 1st Dec. 1835); A. Deschamps,La Génèse du scepticisme érudit chez Bayle(Liége, 1878); J. Denis,Bayle et Jurieu(Paris, 1886); F. Brunetière,La Critique littéraire au XVIIIesiècle(vol. i., 1890), andLa Critique de Bayle(1893); Émile Gigas,Choix de la correspondance inédite de Pierre Bayle(Paris, 1890, reviewed inRevue critique, 22nd Dec. 1890); de Budé,Lettres inédites adressées à J.A. Turretini(Paris, 1887); J.F. Stephen,Horae Sabbaticae(London, 1892, 3rd ser. pp. 174-192); A. Cazes,P. Bayle, sa vie, ses idées, &c. (1905).
Editions.—Historical and Critical Dictionary(1695-1697; 1702, enlarged; best that of P. des Maizeaux, 4 vols., 1740);Les Œuvres de Bayle(3 vols., The Hague); see des Maizeaux,Vie de Bayle; L.A. Feuerbach,Pierre Bayle(1838); Damiron,La Philosophie en France au XVIIesiècle(1858-1864); Sainte-Beuve, “Du génie critique et de Bayle” (Revue des deux mondes, 1st Dec. 1835); A. Deschamps,La Génèse du scepticisme érudit chez Bayle(Liége, 1878); J. Denis,Bayle et Jurieu(Paris, 1886); F. Brunetière,La Critique littéraire au XVIIIesiècle(vol. i., 1890), andLa Critique de Bayle(1893); Émile Gigas,Choix de la correspondance inédite de Pierre Bayle(Paris, 1890, reviewed inRevue critique, 22nd Dec. 1890); de Budé,Lettres inédites adressées à J.A. Turretini(Paris, 1887); J.F. Stephen,Horae Sabbaticae(London, 1892, 3rd ser. pp. 174-192); A. Cazes,P. Bayle, sa vie, ses idées, &c. (1905).
BAYLO(Lat.bajulusorbaillivus; cf. Ital.balio, Fr.bailli, Eng.bailiff), in diplomacy, the title borne by the Venetian representative at Constantinople. His functions were originally in the nature of those of a consul-general, but from the 16th century onwards he had also the rank and functions of a diplomatic agent of the first class. “Under the name of bayle,” says A. de Wicquefort, “he performs also the functions of consul and judge; not only between members of his own nation, but also between all the other merchants who trade in the Levant under the flag of St Mark.” (SeeDiplomacy.)
BAYLY, THOMAS HAYNES(1797-1839), English songwriter and dramatist, was born at Bath on the 13th of October 1797. He was educated at Winchester and at St Mary Hall, Oxford, with a view to entering the church. While on a visit to Dublin, however, he discovered his ability to write ballads, and on his return to England in 1824 he quickly gained a wide reputation with “I’d be a butterfly,” following this up with “We met—’twas in a crowd,” “She wore a wreath of roses,” “Oh, no, we never mention her,” and other light and graceful songs for which his name is still remembered. He set some of his songs to music himself; a well-known example is “Gaily the troubadour.” Bayly also wrote two novels,The AylmersandA Legend of Killarney, and numerous plays. His most successful dramatic piece wasPerfection, which was produced by Madame Vestris and received high praise from Lord Chesterfield. Bayly had married in 1826 an Irish heiress, but her estates were mismanaged and the anxiety caused by financial difficulties undermined his health. He died on the 22nd of April 1839.
HisCollected Works(1844) contain a memoir by his wife.
HisCollected Works(1844) contain a memoir by his wife.
BAYNES, THOMAS SPENCER(1823-1887), English editor and man of letters, the son of a Baptist minister, was born at Wellington, Somerset, on the 24th of March 1823. He studied at Edinburgh University, where he was a pupil of Sir William Hamilton, whose assistant he became and of whose views on logic he became the authorized exponent. This teaching was embodied in hisEssay on the New Analytic of Logical Forms, published in 1850, the same year in which he took his London University degree. This was followed in the next year by a translation of Arnauld’sPort Royal Logic. In 1850 he had become editor of theEdinburgh Guardian, but after four years’ work his health gave way. He spent two years in Somerset and then went to London, becoming, in 1858, assistant editor of theDaily News. In 1864 he was appointed professor of logic metaphysics and English literature at the university of St Andrews, and in 1873 the editorship of the ninth edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannicawas entrusted to him. He conducted it singly until 1881, when the decline of his health rendered it necessary to provide him with a coadjutor in the person of Prof. W. Robertson Smith. Baynes, however, continued to be engaged upon the work until his death on the 31st May 1887, shortly before its completion. His article on Shakespeare (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed.) was republished in 1894, along with other essays on Shakespearian topics and a memoir by Prof. Lewis Campbell.
BAYONET,a short thrusting weapon, fixed to the muzzle or fore-end of a rifle or musket and carried by troops armed with the latter weapons. The origin of the word is disputed, but there is some authority for the supposition that the name is derived from the town of Bayonne, where the short dagger calledbayonnettewas first made towards the end of the 15th century. The elder Puységur, a native of Bayonne, says (in hisMemoirs, published posthumously in Paris, 1747) that when he was commanding the troops at Ypres in 1647 his musketeers used bayonets consisting of a steel dagger fixed in a wooden haft, which fitted into the muzzle of the musket—in fact plug-bayonets. Courts-martial were held on some English soldiers at Tangier in 1663-1664 for using their daggers on their comrades. As bayonets were at first called daggers, and as there were few or no pikemen in Tangier until 1675, the probable conclusion is that the troops in Tangier used plug-bayonets. In 1671 plug-bayonets were issued to the French regiment of fusiliers then raised. They were issued to part of an English dragoon regiment raised in 1672 and disbanded in 1674, and to the Royal Fusiliers when raised in 1685. The danger incurred by the use of this bayonet (which put a stop to all fire) was felt so early that the younger Puységur saw a ring-bayonet in 1678 which could be fixed without stopping the fire. The English defeat at Killiecrankie in 1689 was due (among other things) to the use of the plug-bayonet; and shortly afterwards the defeated leader, General Mackay, introduced a ring-bayonet of his own invention. A trial with badly-fitting socket or zigzag bayonets was made after the battle of Fleurus, 1690, in the presence of Louis XIV., who refused to adopt them. Shortly after the peace of Ryswick (1697) the English and Germans abolished the pike and introduced these bayonets, and plates of them are given in Surirey de St Remy’sMémoires d’Artillerie, published in Paris in that year; but owing to a military cabal they were not issued to the French infantry until 1703. Henceforward the bayonet became, with the musket or other firearm, the typical weapon of infantry. This bayonet remained in the British service until 1805, when Sir John Moore introduced a bayonet fastened to the musket by a spring clip. The triangular bayonet (so called from the cross-section of its blade) was used in the British army until the introduction of the magazine rifle, when it was replaced by the sword-bayonet or dagger-bayonet. Sword-bayonets—weapons which could be used as sword or dagger apart from the rifle—had long been in use by special troops such as engineers and rifles, and many ingenious attempts have been made to produce a bayonet fitted for several uses. A long curved sword-bayonet with a saw-edged back was formerly used by the Royal Engineers, but all troops are now supplied with the plain sword-bayonet.The bayonet is usually hung in a scabbard on the belt of the soldier and only fixed during the final stages of a battle; the reason for this is that the “jump” of the rifle due to the shock of explosion is materially altered by the extra weight at the muzzle, which thus deranges the sighting. In the short Lee-Enfield rifle of 1903, the bayonet, not being directly attached to the barrel, does not influence accuracy, but with the long rifles, when the bayonet is fixed, the sight must be raised by two or three graduations to ensure correct elevation. In the Russian army troops almost invariably carry the bayonet (triangular) fixed; the model (1891) of Italian carbine has an inseparable bayonet; the United States rifle (the new short model of 1903) has a knife bayonet, the model of 1905, which is 20.5875 in. long, with the lower edge of the blade sharpened along its entire length and the upper edge sharpened 5 in. from the point; this bayonet is carried in a wooden and leather scabbard attached to the cartridge belt. The British bayonet (pattern 1903) has a blade 1 ft. in length. The length of the rifle and bayonet together, considered as anarme blanche, varies considerably, that of the French Lebel pattern of 1886 being 6 ft., as against the 4 ft. 8¾ in. of the British short Lee-Enfield of 1903. The German rifles (1898) have a length with bayonet of 5 ft. 9¾ in.; the Russian (1894) 5 ft. 9 in.; and the Japanese 5 ft. 5½ in. In 1908 a new British bayonet was approved, 5 in. longer than its predecessor of 1903, the shape of the point being modified to obtain the thrusting effect of a spear or lance head.
BAYONNE,a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Basses-Pyrénées, 66 m. W.N.W. of Pau on the Southern railway. Pop. (1906) 21,779. Bayonne, a first-class fortified place, is situated at the confluence of the Adour and its left-hand tributary, the Nive, about 3 m. from the sea. The two rivers divide the town into three nearly equal parts, communicating with each other by bridges. Grand Bayonne lies on the left bank of the Nive; the two squares which lie close together at the mouth of that river constitute the most animated quarter of the town. Petit Bayonne lies between the right bank of the Nive and the Adour; Saint Esprit, dominated by a citadel which is one of the finest works of Vauban, occupies the right bank of the Adour. The last is inhabited partly by a colony of Jews dating at least from the early 16th century. To the north-west of the town are the Allées Marines, fine promenades which border the Adour for a mile and a quarter, and the Allées Paulmy, skirting the fortifications. The cathedral of Ste Marie in Grand Bayonne is an imposing Gothic structure of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. It consists of a choir with deambulatory and apsidal chapels (the oldest part of the church), a transept, nave and aisles. The towers at the west end were only completed during the general restoration which took place in the latter half of the 19th century. A fine cloister of the 13th century adjoins the south side of the church. Ste Marie contains glass windows of the 15th and 16th centuries and other rich decoration. The Vieux-Château, also in Grand Bayonne, dates from the 12th and 15th centuries and is built upon a portion of the old Roman fortifications; it is used for military purposes. The Château Neuf (15th and 16th centuries) serves as barracks and prison. Bayonne is the seat of a bishopric and of a sub-prefect; it has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a lycée, a school of music, a library, an art museum with a large collection of the works of the painter Léon Bonnat, and a branch of the Bank of France. There are consulates of the chief nations of Europe, of the United States of America and of several Central and South American republics. The town also possesses an important military arsenal and military hospital. The commerce of Bayonne is much more important than its industries, which include the manufacture of leather and of chocolate. The port consists of an outer harbour, the so-called “rade” (roadstead) and the port proper, and occupies the course of the Adour from its mouth, which is obstructed by a shifting bar, to the Pont St Esprit, and the course of the Nive as far as the Pont Mayou. Above these two bridges the rivers are accessible only to river navigation. Vessels drawing from 16 to 22 ft. can make the port in normal weather. In the five years 1901-1905 the average value of the imports was £502,000, of the exports £572,000; for the five years 1896-1900 the average value of imports was £637,000, of exports £634,000. Exports include timber, mine-props, turpentine, resinous material from the Pyrénées and Landes and zinc ore; leading imports are the coal and Spanish minerals which supply the large metallurgical works of Le Boucau at the mouth of the river, the raw material necessary for the chemical works of the same town, wine, and the cereals destined for the flour mills of Pau, Peyrehorade and Orthez. During the early years of the 20th century the shipping of the port increased considerably in tonnage. In 1900 there entered 741 vessels, tonnage 277,959; and cleared 743, tonnage 276,992. In 1907 there entered 661 vessels, tonnage, 336,773; cleared 650, tonnage 335,849.
In the 3rd century Bayonne (Lapurdum) was a Roman military post and the principal port of Novempopulana. In the middle ages it belonged to the dukes of Aquitaine and then to the kings of England, one of whom, John, granted it full communal rights in 1216. In 1451 it offered a strenuous opposition to the French, by whom it was eventually occupied. By this time its maritime commerce had suffered disaster owing to the silting up of its port and the deflection of the Adour. New fortifications were constructed under Louis XII. and Francis I., and in 1523 the town was able to hold out against a Spanish army. In 1565 it was the scene of an interview between Charles IX. and Catherine de’ Medici on the one hand and Elizabeth, queen of Spain, and the duke of Alva on the other. It is thought that on this occasion the plans were formed for the massacres of St Bartholomew, a crime in which Bayonne took no part, in 1572. In 1808 Napoleon met Charles IV., king of Spain, and his son Ferdinand at the Château de Marrac, near the town, and induced them to renounce their rights to the crown of Spain, which fell to Napoleon’s brother Joseph. In 1814, after a severe siege, Bayonne was occupied by the English (seePeninsular War).
See J. Balasque and E. Dulaurens,Études historiques sur la ville de Bayonne(3 vols., Bayonne, 1862-1875); E. Ducéré,Bayonne historique et pittoresque(Bayonne, 1893),Histoire topographigue et anecdotique des rues de Bayonne(Bayonne, 1894); H. Léon,Histoire des juifs de Bayonne(Paris, 1893).
See J. Balasque and E. Dulaurens,Études historiques sur la ville de Bayonne(3 vols., Bayonne, 1862-1875); E. Ducéré,Bayonne historique et pittoresque(Bayonne, 1893),Histoire topographigue et anecdotique des rues de Bayonne(Bayonne, 1894); H. Léon,Histoire des juifs de Bayonne(Paris, 1893).
BAYONNE,a city of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., occupying the peninsula (about 5½ m. long and about ¾ m. wide) between New York harbour and Newark Bay, and immediately adjoining the south boundary of Jersey City, from which it is partly separated by the Morris Canal. It is separated from Staten Island only by the narrow strip of water known as the Kill van Kull, and it has a total water frontage of about 10 m. Pop. (1890) 19,033; (1900) 32,722, of whom 10,786 were foreign-born (3168 Irish, 1868 Russian, 1656 German); (1910) 55,545. Land area about 4 sq. m. Bayonne is served by the Central of New Jersey and by the Lehigh Valley railways (the latter for freight only), and by electric railway lines to Newark and Jersey City. The principal public buildings are the city hall, the public library, the post-office and the city hospital. Besides having a considerable share in the commerce of the port of New York, Bayonne is an important manufacturing centre; among its manufactures are refined petroleum, refined copper and nickel (not from the ore), refined borax, foundry and machine-shop products, tubular boilers, electric launches and electric motors, chemicals (including ammonia and sulphuric and nitric acids), iron and brass products, wire cables and silk goods. In 1905 the value of its factory product was $60,633,761, an increase of 57.1% over that of 1900, Bayonne ranking third in 1905 among the manufacturing cities of the state. It is the principal petroleum-distributing centre on the Atlantic seaboard, the enormous refineries and storehouses of the Standard Oil Company, among the largest in the world, being located here; there are connecting pipe lines with the Ohio and Pennsylvania oil fields, and with New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington. Much coal is shipped from the city. Bayonne, which comprises several former villages (Bayonne, Bergen Point, Pamrapo and Centerville), was settled about 1665-1670 by the Dutch. Originally a part of Bergen, it was set off as a township in 1861. It was chartered as a city in 1869.
BAYOU(pronounced bai-yoo, probably a corruption of Fr.boyau, gut), an “ox-bow” lake left behind by a river that has abandoned its old channel in the lower stages of its course. Good examples are found in Palmyra Lake, in the Mississippi valley below Vicksburg, and in Osage river, Missouri. As a river swings from side to side in a series of curves which widen laterally where the current is slow and the country more or less level, there is a tendency in flood times for the water to impinge more strongly upon the convex bank where the curve leaves the main channel. This bank will be eaten away, and the process will be repeated until the base of the “isthmus” is cut through, and the descending channel meets the returning curve, which is thus left stranded and filled with dead water, while the stream runs directly past it in the shorter course cut by the flood waters that deepen the new channel, and leave an isolated ox-bow lake in the old curve.
BAYREUTH,orBaireuth, a town of Bavaria, Germany, district of Upper Franconia, 58 m. by rail N.N.E. from Nuremberg. Pop. (1900) 29,384. In Richard-Wagner-strasse is Wagner’s house, with his grave in the garden. Franz Liszt (1811-1886) is buried here, as well as Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, who is commemorated by a monument (1841). His house was in Friedrichstrasse. Most of the buildings are of comparatively modern date, the city having suffered severely from the Hussites in 1430 and from a conflagration in 1621. There should be mentioned the palace of Duke Alexander of Württemberg, the administrative offices, the statue of King Maximilian II. (1860) and the collections of the historical society Among the ecclesiastical buildings, theStadt-Pfarrkirche, dating from 1439, and containing the monuments of the margraves of Bayreuth, is the most important. Bayreuth is a railway junction and has an active trade, chiefly in grain and horses. It manufactures woollen, linen and cotton goods, leather, delft and other earthenware, and tobacco, and has also several breweries and distilleries. The village of St Georgen is a suburb to the north east noted for its marble works; and about 2 m. to the east is the Hermitage, a fanciful building, erected in 1715 by the margrave George William (d. 1726), with gardens containing terraces, statues and fountains. Bayreuth was formerly the capital of a principality of the same name, which was annexed in 1791 to the kingdom of Prussia. In 1807 it was ceded by Prussia to France, which kept possession of it till 1810, when it was transferred to Bavaria.
The Wagner Theatre.—Among the many advantages which Wagner gained from his intimacy with Ludwig II., king of Bavaria, not the least was the practical support given to his plan of erecting a theatre for the ideal performance of his own music-dramas. The first plan of building a new theatre for the purpose in Munich itself was rejected, because Wagner rightly felt that the appeal of his advanced works, like the Nibelungen trilogy, would be far stronger if the comparatively small number of people who wished to hear them were removed from the distractions of a large capital; Bayreuth possessed the desired seclusion, being on a line of railway that could not be approached from any quarter without changing. The municipality furthered Wagner’s scheme in every way, and in May 1872 the foundation stone of the Festspielhaus was laid, the event being commemorated by a notable performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in the old opera-house. The funds for the erection of the theatre were raised in part by the issue of 1000 certificates of patronage (Patronatscheine), but the bulk of the sum was raised by founding “Wagner Societies” from St Petersburg to Cairo, from London to New York; these societies sprang up with such success that the theatre was opened in the summer of 1876 with the first complete performance ofDer Ring des Nibelungen. The theatre, which stands on a height a little under a mile from the town, is built from the plans of Gustav Semper, the idea of the design being Wagner’s own, an experiment indeed, but one which succeeded beyond all expectation. The seats are arranged on a kind of sloping wedge, in such a manner that every one has an almost equally good view of the stage, for there are no boxes, and the only galleries are quite at the back, one, theFürstenloge, being reserved for distinguished guests, the other, above it, for the townspeople. Immediately in front of the foremost row of seats a hood or sloping screen of wood covers a part of the orchestra, and another hood of similar shape starts from the front of the stage at a slightly lower level. Thus there is left a space between the two hoods through which the sound of the orchestra ascends with wonderfully blended effect; the conductor, sitting at the highest point of the orchestra, though under the screen, has a complete view of the stage as well as of his instrumentalists, and the sound of the orchestra is sent most forcibly in the direction of the stage, so that the voices are always well supported.