Chapter 5

LOTHAIR I.(795-855), Roman emperor, was the eldest son of the emperor Louis I., and his wife Irmengarde. Little is known of his early life, which was probably passed at the court of his grandfather Charlemagne, until 815 when he became ruler of Bavaria. When Louis in 817 divided the Empire between his sons, Lothair was crowned joint emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle and given a certain superiority over his brothers. In 821 he married Irmengarde (d. 851), daughter of Hugo, count of Tours; in 822 undertook the government of Italy; and, on the 5th of April 823, was crowned emperor by Pope Paschal I. at Rome. In November 824 he promulgated a statute concerning the relations of pope and emperor which reserved the supreme power to the secular potentate, and he afterwards issued various ordinances for the good government of Italy. On his return to his father’s court his stepmother Judith won his consent to her plan for securing a kingdom for her son Charles, a scheme which was carried out in 829. Lothair, however, soon changed his attitude, and spent the succeeding decade in constant strife over the division of the Empire with his father. He wasalternatelymaster of the Empire, and banished and confined to Italy; at one time taking up arms in alliance with his brothers and at another fighting against them; whilst the bounds of his appointed kingdom were in turn extended and reduced. When Louis was dying in 840, he sent the imperialinsigniato Lothair, who, disregarding the various partitions, claimed the whole of the Empire. Negotiations with his brother Louis and his half-brother Charles, both of whom armed to resist this claim, were followed by an alliance of the younger brothers against Lothair. A decisive battle was fought at Fontenoy on the 25th of June 841, when, in spite of his personal gallantry, Lothair was defeated and fled to Aix. With fresh troops he entered upon a war of plunder, but the forces of his brothers were too strong for him, and taking with him such treasure as he could collect, he abandoned to them his capital. Efforts to make peace were begun, and in June 842 the brothers met on an island in the Sâone, and agreed to an arrangement which developed, after much difficulty and delay, into the treaty of Verdun signed in August 843. By this Lothair received Italy and the imperial title, together with a stretch of land between the North and Mediterranean Seas lying along the valleys of the Rhine and the Rhone. He soon abandoned Italy to his eldest son, Louis, and remained in his new kingdom, engaged in alternate quarrels and reconciliations with his brothers, and in futile efforts to defend his lands from the attacks of the Normans and the Saracens. In 855 he became seriously ill, and despairing of recovery renounced the throne, divided his lands between his three sons, and on the 23rd of September entered the monastery of Prüm, where he died six days later. He was buried at Prüm, where his remains were found in 1860. Lothair was entirely untrustworthy and quite unable to maintain either the unity or the dignity of the empire of Charlemagne.

See “Annales Fuldenses”; Nithard, “Historiarum Libri,” both in theMonumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores, Bändei. and ii. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826 fol.); E. Mühlbacher,Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern(Innsbruck, 1881); E. Dümmler,Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reichs(Leipzig, 1887-1888); B. Simson,Jahrbücher des deutschen Reiches unter Ludwig dem Frommen(Leipzig, 1874-1876).

LOTHAIR II.orIII.(c.1070-1137), surnamed the “Saxon,” Roman emperor, son of Gebhard, count of Supplinburg, belonged to a family possessing extensive lands around Helmstadt in Saxony, to which he succeeded on his father’s death in 1075. Gebhard had been a leading opponent of the emperor Henry IV. in Saxony, and his son, taking the same attitude, assisted Egbert II., margrave of Meissen, in the rising of 1088. The position and influence of Lothair in Saxony, already considerable, was increased when in 1100 he married Richenza, daughter of Henry, count of Nordheim, who became an heiress on her father’s death in 1101, and inherited other estates when her brother Otto died childless in 1116. Having assisted the German king, Henry V., against his father in 1104, Lothair was appointed duke of Saxony by Henry, when Duke Magnus, the last of the Billungs, died in 1106. His first care was to establish his authority over some districts east of the Elbe; and quickly making himself independent of the king, he stood forth as the representative of the Saxon race. This attitude brought him into collision with Henry V., to whom, however, he was forced to submit after an unsuccessful rising in 1112. A second rising was caused when, on the death of Ulrich II., count of Weimar and Orlamünde, without issue in 1112, Henry seized these counties as vacant fiefs of the empire, while Lothair supported the claim of Siegfried, count of Ballenstädt, whose mother was a relative of Ulrich. The rebels were defeated, and Siegfried was killed at Warnstädt in 1113, but his son secured possession of the disputed counties. After the defeat by Lothair of Henry’s forces at Welfesholz on the 11th of February 1115, events called Henry to Italy; and Lothair appears to have been undisturbed in Saxony until 1123, when the death of Henry II., margrave of Meissen and Lusatia raised a dispute as to the right of appointment to the vacant margraviates. A struggle ensued, in which victory remained with the duke. The Saxony policy of Lothair during these years had been to make himself independent, and to extend his authority; to this end he allied himself with the papal party, and easily revived the traditional hostility of the Saxons to the Franconian emperors.

When Henry V. died in 1125, Lothair, after a protracted election, was chosen German king at Mainz on the 30th of August 1125. His election was largely owing to the efforts of Adalbert, archbishop of Mainz, and the papal party, who disliked the candidature of Henry’s nephew and heir, Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia. The new king was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 13th of September 1125. Before suffering a severe reverse, brought about by his interference in the internal affairs of Bohemia, Lothair requested Frederick of Hohenstaufen to restore to the crown the estates bequeathed to him by the emperor Henry V. Frederick refused, and was placed under the ban. Lothair, unable to capture Nüremberg, gained the support of Henry the Proud, the new duke of Bavaria, by giving him his daughter, Gertrude, in marriage, and that of Conrad, count of Zähringen, by granting him the administration of the kingdom of Burgundy, or Arles. As a counterstroke, however, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, the brother of Frederick, was chosen German king in December 1127, and was quickly recognized in northern Italy. But Lothair gained the upper hand in Germany, and by the end of 1129 the Hohenstaufen strongholds, Nüremberg and Spires, were in his possession. This struggle was accompanied by disturbances in Lorraine, Saxony and Thuringia, but order was soon restored after the resistance of the Hohenstaufen had been beaten down. In 1131 the king led an expedition into Denmark, where one of his vassals had been murdered by Magnus, son of the Danish king, Niels, and where general confusion reigned; but no resistance was offered, and Niels promised to pay tribute to Lothair.

The king’s attention at the time was called to Italy where two popes, Innocent II. and Anacletus II., were clamouring for his support. At first Lothair, fully occupied with the affairs of Germany, remained heedless and neutral; but in March 1131 he was visited at Liége by Innocent, to whom he promised his assistance. Crossing the Alps with a small army in September 1132, he reached Rome in March 1133, accompanied by Innocent. As St Peter’s was held by Anacletus, Lothair’s coronation as emperor took place on the 4th of June 1133 in the church of the Lateran. He then received as papal fiefs the vast estates of Matilda, marchioness of Tuscany, thus securing for his daughter and her Welf husband lands which might otherwise have passed to the Hohenstaufen. His efforts to continue the investiture controversy were not very serious. He returned to Germany, where he restored order in Bavaria, and made an expedition against some rebels in the regions of the lower Rhine. Resuming the struggle against the Hohenstaufen, Lothair soon obtained the submission of the brothers, who retained their lands, and a general peace was sworn at Bamberg. The emperor’s authority was now generally recognized, and the annalists speak highly of the peace and order of his later years. In 1135, Eric II., king of Denmark, acknowledged himself a vassal of Lothair;Boleslaus III., prince of the Poles, promised tribute and received Pomerania and Rügen as German fiefs; while the eastern emperor, John Comnenus, implored Lothair’s aid against Roger II. of Sicily.

The emperor seconded the efforts of his vassals, Albert the Bear, margrave of the Saxon north mark, and Conrad I., margrave of Meissen and Lusatia, to extend the authority of the Germans in the districts east of the Elbe, and assisted Norbert, archbishop of Magdeburg, and Albert I., archbishop of Bremen, to spread Christianity. In August 1136, attended by a large army, Lothair set out upon his second Italian journey. The Lombard cities were either terrified into submission or taken by storm; Roger II. was driven from Apulia; and the imperial power enforced over the whole of southern Italy. A mutiny among the German soldiers and a breach with Innocent concerning the overlordship of Apulia compelled the emperor to retrace his steps. An arrangement was made with regard to Apulia, after which Lothair, returning to Germany, died at Breitenwang, a village in the Tirol, on the 3rd or 4th of December 1137. His body was carried to Saxony and buried in the monastery which he had founded at Königslutter. Lothair was a strong and capable ruler, who has been described as the “imitator and heir of the first Otto.” Contemporaries praise his justice and his virtue, and his reign was regarded, especially by Saxons and churchmen, as a golden age for Germany.

The main authorities for the life and reign of Lothair are: “Vita Norberti archiepiscopi Magdeburgensis”; Otto von Freising, “Chronicon Annalista Saxo” and “Narratio de electione Lotharii” all in theMonumenta Germaniae historica.Scriptores, Bände vi., xii. and xx. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892). The best modern works are: L. von Ranke,Weltgeschichte, pt. viii. (Leipzig, 1887-1888); W. von Giesebrecht,Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, Band iv. (Brunswick, 1877), Band v. (Leipzig, 1888); Ph. Jaffe,Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches unter Lothar(Berlin, 1843); W. Bernhardi,Lothar von Supplinburg(Leipzig, 1879); O. von Heinemann,Lothar der Sachse und Konrad III.(Halle, 1869); and Ch. Volkmar, “Das Vërhältniss Lothars III. zur Investiturfrage,” in theForschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte, Band xxvi. (Göttingen, 1862-1886).

LOTHAIR(941-986), king of France, son of Louis IV., succeeded his father in 954, and was at first under the guardianship of Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks, and then under that of his maternal uncle Bruno, archbishop of Cologne. The beginning of his reign was occupied with wars against the vassals, particularly against the duke of Normandy. Lothair then seems to have conceived the design of recovering Lorraine. He attempted to precipitate matters by a sudden attack, and in the spring of 978 nearly captured the emperor Otto II. at Aix-la-Chapelle. Otto took his revenge in the autumn by invading France. He penetrated as far as Paris, devastating the country through which he passed, but failed to take the town, and was forced to retreat with heavy loss. Peace was concluded in 980 at Margut-sur-Chiers, and in 983 Lothair was even chosen guardian to the young Otto III. Towards 980, however, Lothair quarrelled with Hugh the Great’s son, Hugh Capet, who, at the instigation of Adalberon, archbishop of Reims, became reconciled with Otto III. Lothair died on the 2nd of March 986. By his wife Emma, daughter of Lothair, king of Italy, he left a son who succeeded him as Louis V.

See F. Lot,Les Derniers Carolingiens(Paris, 1891); and theRecueil des actes de Lothaire et de Louis V., edited by L. Halphen and F. Lot (1908).

LOTHAIR(825-869), king of the district called after him Lotharingia, or Lorraine, was the second son of the emperor Lothair I. On his father’s death in 855, he received for his kingdom a district lying west of the Rhine, between the North Sea and the Jura mountains, which was calledRegnum Lothariiand early in the 10th century became known as Lotharingia or Lorraine. On the death of his brother Charles in 863 he added some lands south of the Jura to this inheritance, but, except for a few feeble expeditions against the Danish pirates, he seems to have done little for its government or its defence. The reign was chiefly occupied by efforts on the part of Lothair to obtain a divorce from his wife Teutberga, a sister of Hucbert, abbot of St Maurice (d. 864); and his relations with his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, were influenced by his desire to obtain their support to this plan. Although quarrels and reconciliations between the three kings followed each other in quick succession, in general it may be said that Louis favoured the divorce, and Charles opposed it, while neither lost sight of the fact that Lothair was without male issue. Lothair, whose desire for the divorce was prompted by his affection for a certain Waldrada, put away Teutberga; but Hucbert took up arms on her behalf, and after she had submitted successfully to the ordeal of water, Lothair was compelled to restore her in 858. Still pursuing his purpose, he won the support of his brother, the emperor Louis II., by a cession of lands, and obtained the consent of the local clergy to the divorce and to his marriage with Waldrada, which was celebrated in 862. A synod of Frankish bishops met at Metz in 863 and confirmed this decision, but Teutberga fled to the court of Charles the Bald, and Pope Nicholas I. declared against the decision of the synod. An attack on Rome by the emperor was without result, and in 865 Lothair, convinced that Louis and Charles at their recent meeting had discussed the partition of his kingdom, and threatened with excommunication, again took back his wife. Teutberga, however, either from inclination or compulsion, now expressed her desire for a divorce, and Lothair went to Italy to obtain the assent of the new pope Adrian II. Placing a favourable interpretation upon the words of the pope, he had set out on the return journey, when he was seized with fever and died at Piacenza on the 8th of August 869. He left, by Waldrada, a son Hugo who was declared illegitimate, and his kingdom was divided between Charles the Bald and Louis the German.

See Hincmar, “Opusculum de divortio Lotharii regis et Tetbergae reginae,” inCursus completus patrologiae, tome cxxv., edited by J. P. Migne (Paris, 1857-1879); M. Sdralek,Hinkmars von Rheims Kanonistisches Gutachten über die Ehescheidung des Königs Lothar II.(Freiburg, 1881); E. Dümmler,Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reiches(Leipzig, 1887-1888); and E. Mühlbacher,Die Regenten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern(Innsbruck, 1881).

LOTHIAN, EARLS AND MARQUESSES OF.Mark Kerr, 1st earl of Lothian (d. 1609), was the eldest son of Mark Kerr (d. 1584), abbot, and then commendator, of Newbattle, or Newbottle, and was a member of the famous border family of Ker of Cessford. The earls and dukes of Roxburghe, who are also descended from the Kers of Cessford, have adopted the spelling Ker, while the earls and marquesses of Lothian have taken the form Kerr. Like his father, the abbot of Newbattle, Mark Kerr was an extraordinary lord of session under the Scottish king James VI.; he became Lord Newbattle in 1587 and was created earl of Lothian in 1606. He was master of inquests from 1577 to 1606, and he died on the 8th of April 1609, having had, as report says, thirty-one children by his wife, Margaret (d. 1617), daughter of John Maxwell, 4th Lord Herries. His son Robert, the 2nd earl, died without sons in July 1624. He had, in 1621, obtained a charter from the king enabling his daughter Anne to succeed to his estates provided that she married a member of the family of Ker. Consequently in 1631 she married William Ker, son of Robert, 1st earl of Ancrum (1578-1654), a member of the family of Ker of Ferniehurst, whose father, William Ker, had been killed in 1590 by Robert Ker, afterwards 1st earl of Roxburghe. Robert was in attendance upon Charles I. both before and after he came to the throne, and was created earl of Ancrum in 1633. He was a writer and a man of culture, and among his friends were the poet Donne and Drummond of Hawthornden. His elder son William was created earl of Lothian in 1631, the year of his marriage with Anne Kerr, and Sir William Kerr of Blackhope, a brother of the 2nd earl, who had taken the title of earl of Lothian in 1624, was forbidden to use it (seeCorrespondence of Sir Robert Ker, earl of Ancrum, and his son William, third earl of Lothian, 1875).

William Ker(c.1605-1675), who thus became 3rd earl of Lothian, signed the Scottish national covenant in 1638 and marched with the Scots into England in 1640, being present when the English were routed at Newburn, after which he became governor of Newcastle-on-Tyne. During the Civil War he wasprominent rather as a politician than as a soldier; he became a Scottish secretary of state in 1649, and was one of the commissioners who visited Charles II. at Breda in 1650. He died at Newbattle Abbey, near Edinburgh, in October 1675. William’s eldest son Robert, the 4th earl (1636-1703), supported the Revolution of 1688 and served William III. in several capacities; he became 3rd earl of Ancrum on the death of his uncle Charles in 1690, and was created marquess of Lothian in 1701. His eldest son William, the 2nd marquess (c.1662-1722), who had been a Scottish peer as Lord Jedburgh since 1692, was a supporter of the union with England. His son William, the 3rd marquess (c.1690-1767), was the father of William Henry, the 4th marquess, who was wounded at Fontenoy and was present at Culloden. He was a member of parliament for some years and had reached the rank of general in the army when he died at Bath on the 12th of April 1775. His grandson William, the 6th marquess (1763-1824), married Henrietta (1762-1805), daughter and heiress of John Hobart, 2nd earl of Buckinghamshire, thus bringing Blickling Hall and the Norfolk estates of the Hobarts into the Kerr family. In 1821 he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Ker and he died on the 27th of April 1824. In 1900 Robert Schomberg Kerr (b. 1874) succeeded his father, Schomberg Henry, the 9th marquess (1833-1900), as 10th marquess of Lothian.

LOTHIAN.This name was formerly applied to a considerably larger extent of country than the three counties of Linlithgow, Edinburgh and Haddington. Roxburghshire and Berwickshire at all events were included in it, probably also the upper part of Tweeddale (at least Selkirk). It would thus embrace the eastern part of the Lowlands from the Forth to the Cheviots,i.e.all the English part of Scotland in the 11th century. This region formed from the 7th century onward part of the kingdoms of Bernicia and Northumbria, though we have no definite information as to the date or events by which it came into English hands. In Roman times, according to Ptolemy, it was occupied by a people called Otadini, whose name is thought to have been preserved in Manaw Gododin, the home of the British king Cunedda before he migrated to North Wales. There is no reason to doubt that the district remained in Welsh hands until towards the close of the 6th century; for in theHistoria Brittonumthe Bernician king Theodoric, whose traditional date is 572-579, is said to have been engaged in war with four Welsh kings. One of these was Rhydderch Hen who, as we know from Adamnan, reigned at Dumbarton, while another named Urien is said to have besieged Theodoric in Lindisfarne. If this statement is to be believed it is hardly likely that the English had by this time obtained a firm footing beyond the Tweed. At all events there can be little doubt that the whole region was conquered within the next fifty years. Most probably the greater part of it was conquered by the Northumbrian king Æthelfrith, who, according to Bede, ravaged the territory of the Britons more often than any other English king, in some places reducing the natives to dependence, in others exterminating them and replacing them by English settlers.

In the time of Oswic the English element became predominant in northern Britain. His supremacy was acknowledged both by the Welsh in the western Lowlands and by the Scots in Argyllshire. On the death of the Pictish king Talorgan, the son of his brother Eanfrith, he seems to have obtained the sovereignty over a considerable part of that nation also. Early in Ecgfrith’s reign an attempt at revolt on the part of the Picts proved unsuccessful. We hear at this time also of the establishment of an English bishopric at Abercorn, which, however, only lasted for a few years. By the disastrous overthrow of Ecgfrith in 685 the Picts, Scots and some of the Britons also recovered their independence. Yet we find a succession of English bishops at Whithorn from 730 to the 9th century, from which it may be inferred that the south-west coast had already by this time become English. The Northumbrian dominions were again enlarged by Eadberht, who in 750 is said to have annexed Kyle, the central part of Ayrshire, with other districts. In conjunction with Œngus mac Fergus, king of the Picts, he also reduced the whole of the Britons to submission in 756. But this subjugation was not lasting, and the British kingdom, though now reduced to the basin of the Clyde, whence its inhabitants are known as Strathclyde Britons, continued to exist for nearly three centuries. After Eadberht’s time we hear little of events in the northern part of Northumbria, and there is some reason for suspecting that English influence in the south-west began to decline before long, as our list of bishops of Whithorn ceases early in the 9th century; the evidence on this point, however, is not so decisive as is commonly stated. About 844 an important revolution took place among the Picts. The throne was acquired by Kenneth mac Alpin, a prince of Scottish family, who soon became formidable to the Northumbrians. He is said to have invaded “Saxonia” six times, and to have burnt Dunbar and Melrose. After the disastrous battle at York in 867 the Northumbrians were weakened by the loss of the southern part of their territories, and between 883 and 889 the whole country as far as Lindisfarne was ravaged by the Scots. In 919, however, we find their leader Aldred calling in Constantine II., king of the Scots, to help them. A few years later together with Constantine and the Britons they acknowledged the supremacy of Edward the Elder. After his death, however, both the Scots and the Britons were for a time in alliance with the Norwegians from Ireland, and consequently Æthelstan is said to have ravaged a large portion of the Scottish king’s territories in 934. Brunanburh, where Æthelstan defeated the confederates in 937, is believed by many to have been in Dumfriesshire, but we have no information as to the effects of the battle on the northern populations. By this time, however, the influence of the Scottish kingdom certainly seems to have increased in the south, and in 945 the English king Edmund gave Cumberland,i.e.apparently the British kingdom of Strathclyde, to Malcolm I., king of the Scots, in consideration of his alliance with him. Malcolm’s successor Indulph (954-962) succeeded in capturing Edinburgh, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards, and certain late chroniclers state that Kenneth II. in 971-975 obtained a grant of the whole of Lothian from Edgar. Whatever truth this story may contain, the cession of the province was finally effected by Malcolm II. by force of arms. At his first attempt in 1006 he seems to have suffered a great defeat from Uhtred, the son of earl Waltheof. Twelve years later, however, he succeeded in conjunction with Eugenius, king of Strathclyde, in annihilating the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf Cudel, the brother and successor of Uhtred, ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth in spite of an invasion by Aldred, the son of Uhtred, during the reign of Duncan, Lothian remained permanently in possession of the Scottish kings. In the reign of Malcolm III. and his son, the English element appears to have acquired considerable influence in the kingdom. Some three years before he obtained his father’s throne Malcolm had by the help of earl Siward secured the government of Cumbria (Strathclyde) with which Lothian was probably united. Then in 1068 he received a large number of exiles from England, amongst them the Ætheling Eadgar, whose sister Margaret he married. Four other sons in succession occupied the throne, and in the time of the youngest, David, who held most of the south of Scotland as an earldom from 1107-1124 and the whole kingdom from 1124-1153, the court seems already to have been composed chiefly of English and Normans.

Authorities.—Bede,Historia Ecclesiastica(ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1896);Anglo-Saxon Chronicle(ed. Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899); Simeon of Durham (Rolls Series, ed. T. Arnold, 1882); W. F. Skene,Chronicle of Picts and Scots(Edinburgh, 1867), andCeltic Scotland(Edinburgh, 1876-1880); and J. Rhys,Celtic Britain(London).

(F. G. M. B.)

LOTI, PIERRE[the pen-name ofLouis Marie Julien Viaud] (1850- ), French author, was born at Rochefort on the 14th of January 1850. The Viauds are an old Protestant family, and Pierre Loti consistently adhered, at least nominally, to the faith of his fathers. Of the picturesque and touching incidents of his childhood he has given a very vivid accountinLe Roman d’un enfant(1890). His education began in Rochefort, but at the age of seventeen, being destined for the navy, he entered the naval school, Le Borda, and gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906. In January 1910 he was placed on the reserve list. His pseudonym is said to be due to his extreme shyness and reserve in early life, which made his comrades call him afterle Loti, an Indian flower which loves to blush unseen. He was never given to books or study (when he was received at the French Academy, he had the courage to say, “Loti ne sait pas lire”), and it was not until 1876 that he was persuaded to write down and publish some curious experiences at Constantinople, inAziyadé, a book which, like so many of Loti’s, seems half a romance, half an autobiography. He proceeded to the South Seas, and on leaving Tahiti published the Polynesianidyll, originally calledRarahu(1880), which was reprinted asLe Mariage de Loti, and which first introduced to the wider public an author of remarkable originality and charm.Le Roman d’un spahi, a record of the melancholy adventures of a soldier in Senegambia, belongs to 1881. In 1882 Loti issued a collection of short studies under the general title ofFleurs d’ennui. In 1883 he achieved the widest celebrity, for not only did he publishMon frère Yves, a novel describing the life of a French bluejacket in all parts of the world—perhaps his most characteristic production—but he was involved in a public discussion in a manner which did him great credit. While taking part as a naval officer in the Tongking War, Loti had exposed in theFigaroa series of scandals which followed on the capture of Hué (1883), and was suspended from the service for more than a year. He continued for some time nearly silent, but in 1886 he published a novel of life among the Breton fisher-folk, calledPêcheur d’islande, the most popular of all his writings. In 1887 he brought out a volume of extraordinary merit, which has not received the attention it deserves; this isPropos d’exil, a series of short studies of exotic places, in his peculiar semi-autobiographic style. The fantastic novel of Japanese manners,Madame Chrysanthème, belongs to the same year. Passing over one or two slighter productions, we come in 1890 toAu Maroc, the record of a journey to Fez in company with a French embassy. A collection of strangely confidential and sentimental reminiscences, calledLe Livre de la pitié et de la mort, belongs to 1891. Loti was on board his ship at the port of Algiers when news was brought to him of his election, on the 21st of May 1891, to the French Academy. In 1892 he publishedFantôme d’orient, another dreamy study of life in Constantinople, a sort of continuation ofAziyadé. He described a visit to the Holy Land, somewhat too copiously, in three volumes (1895-1896), and wrote a novel,Ramuntcho(1897), a story of manners in the Basque province, which is equal to his best writings. In 1900 he visited British India, with the view of describing what he saw; the result appeared in 1903—L’Inde(sans les Anglais). At his best Pierre Loti was unquestionably the finest descriptive writer of the day. In the delicate exactitude with which he reproduced the impression given to his own alert nerves by unfamiliar forms, colours, sounds and perfumes, he was without a rival. But he was not satisfied with this exterior charm; he desired to blend with it a moral sensibility of the extremest refinement, at once sensual and ethereal. Many of his best books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that an English reader is amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible with the power of minutely and publicly recording what is felt. In spite of the beauty and melody and fragrance of Loti’s books his mannerisms are apt to pall upon the reader, and his later books of pure description were rather empty. His greatest successes were gained in the species of confession, half-way between fact and fiction, which he essayed in his earlier books. When all his limitations, however, have been rehearsed, Pierre Loti remains, in the mechanism of style and cadence, one of the most original and most perfect French writers of the second half of the 19th century. Among his later works were:La Troisième jeunesse de Mme Prune(1905);Les Désenchantées(1906, Eng. trans. by C. Bell);La Mort de Philae(1908);Judith Renaudin(Théâtre Antoine, 1904), a five-act historical play based on an earlier book; and, in collaboration with Émile Vedel, a translation ofKing Lear, also produced at the Théâtre Antoine in 1904.

(E. G.)

LÖTSCHEN PASS,orLötschberg, an easy glacier pass (8842 ft.) leading from Kandersteg in the Bernese Oberland to the Lötschen valley in the Valais. It is a very old pass, first mentioned distinctly in 1352, but probably crossed previously by the Valaisans who colonized various parts of the Bernese Oberland. In 1384 and again in 1419 battles were fought on it between the Bernese and the Valaisans, while in 1698 a mule path (of which traces still exist) was constructed on the Bernese slope, though not continued beyond owing to the fear of the Valaisans that the Bernese would come over and alter their religion. In 1906 the piercing of a tunnel (8½ m. long) beneath this pass was begun, starting a little above Kandersteg and ending at Goppenstein near the mouth of the Lötschen valley. Subsidies were granted by both the confederation and the canton of Bern. This pass is to be carefully distinguished from the Lötschenlücke (10,512 ft.), another easy glacier pass which leads from the head of the Lötschen valley to the Great Aletsch glacier.

(W. A. B. C.)

LOTTERIES.The word lottery1has no very definite signification. It may be applied to any process of determining prizes by lot, whether the object be amusement or gambling or public profit. In the Roman Saturnalia and in the banquets of aristocratic Romans the object was amusement; the guests receivedapophoreta. The same plan was followed on a magnificent scale by some of the emperors. Nero gave such prizes as a house or a slave. Heliogabalus introduced an element of absurdity—one ticket for a golden vase, another for six flies. This custom descended to the festivals given by the feudal and merchant princes of Europe, especially of Italy; and it formed a prominent feature of the splendid court hospitality of Louis XIV. In the Italian republics of the 16th century the lottery principle was applied to encourage the sale of merchandise. The lotto of Florence and the seminario of Genoa are well known, and Venice established a monopoly and drew a considerable revenue for the state. The first letters patent for a lottery in France were granted in 1539 by Francis I., and in 1656 the Italian, Lorenzo Tonti (the originator of “Tontines”) opened another for the building of a stone bridge between the Louvre and the Faubourg St Germain. The institution became very popular in France, and gradually assumed an important place in the government finance. The parlements frequently protested against it, but it had the support of Mazarin, and L. Phelypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, by this means raised the expenses of the Spanish Succession War. Necker, in hisAdministration des finances, estimates the public charge for lotteries at 4,000,000 livres per annum. There were also lotteries for the benefit of religious communities and charitable purposes. Two of the largest were theLoteries de PiétéandDes Enfans Trouvés. These and also the greatLoterie de l’École militairewere practically merged in theLoterie Royaleby the decree of 1776, suppressing all private lotteries in France. The financial basis of these larger lotteries was to take5⁄24ths for expenses and benefit, and return19⁄24ths to the public who subscribed. The calculation of chances had become a familiar science. It is explained in detail by Caminade de Castres inEnc. méth. finances, ii.s.v.“Loterie.” The names of the winning numbers in the first drawing were (1)extrait, (2)ambe, (3)terne, (4)quaterne, (5)quine. After this there were four drawings calledprimes gratuites. Theextraitgave fifteen times the price of the ticket; thequinegave onemillion times the price. These are said to be much more favourable terms than were given in Vienna, Frankfort and other leading European cities at the end of the 18th century. TheLoterie Royalewas ultimately suppressed in 1836. Under the law of the 29th of May 1844 lotteries may be held for the assistance of charity and the fine arts. In 1878 twelve million lottery tickets of one franc each were sold in Paris to pay for prizes to exhibitors in the great Exhibition and expenses of working-men visitors. The first prize was worth £5000; the second, £4000, and the third and fourth £2000 each. The Société du Crédit Foncier, and many of the large towns, are permitted to contract loans, the periodical repayments of which are determined by lot. This practice, which is prohibited in Germany and England, resembles the older system of giving higher and lower rates of interest for money according to lot. Lotteries were suppressed in Belgium in 1830, Sweden in 1841 and Switzerland in 1865, but they still figure in the state budgets of Austria-Hungary, Prussia and other German States, Holland, Spain, Italy and Denmark. In addition to lottery loans, ordinary lotteries (occasion lotteries) are numerous in various countries of the continent of Europe. They are of various magnitude and are organized for a variety of purposes, such as charity, art, agriculture, church-building, &c. It is becoming the tendency, however, to discourage private and indiscriminate lotteries, and even state lotteries which contribute to the revenue. In Austria-Hungary and Germany, for instance, every year sees fewer places where tickets can be taken for them receive licenses. In 1904 a proposal for combining a working-class savings bank with a national lottery was seriously considered by the Prussian ministry. The scheme, which owes its conception to August Scherl, editor of the BerlinLokalanzeiger, is an endeavour to utilize the love of gambling for the purpose of promoting thrift among the working-classes. It was proposed to make weekly collections from subscribers, in fixed amounts, ranging from sixpence to four shillings. The interest on the money deposited would not go to the depositors but would be set aside to form the prizes. Three hundred thousand tickets, divisible into halves, quarters and eighths, according to the sum deposited weekly, would form a series of 12,500 prizes, of a total value of £27,000. At the same time, the subscriber, while having his ordinary lottery chances of these prizes, still has to his credit intact the amount which he has subscribed week by week.

In England the earliest lotteries sanctioned by government were for such purposes as the repair of harbours in 1569, and the Virginia Company in 1612. In the lottery of 1569, 40,000 chances were sold at ten shillings each, the prizes being “plate, and certain sorts of merchandises.” In 1698 lotteries, with the exception of the Royal Oak lottery for the benefit of the Royal Fishing Company, were prohibited as common nuisances, by which children, servants and other unwary persons had been ruined. This prohibition was in the 18th century gradually extended to illegal insurances on marriages and other events, and to a great many games with dice, such as faro, basset, hazard, except backgammon and games played in the royal palace. In spite of these prohibitions, the government from 1709 down to 1824 annually raised considerable sums in lotteries authorized by act of parliament. The prizes were in the form of terminable or perpetual annuities. The £10 tickets were sold at a premium of say 40% to contractors who resold them in retail (sometimes in one-sixteenth parts) by “morocco men,” or men with red leather books who travelled through the country. As the drawing extended over forty days, a very pernicious system arose of insuring the fate of tickets during the drawing for a small premium of 4d. or 6d. This was partly cured by the Little Go Act of 1802, directed against the itinerant wheels which plied between the state lotteries, and partly by Perceval’s Act in 1806, which confined the drawing of each lottery to one day. From 1793 to 1824 the government made an average yearly profit of £346,765. Cope, one of the largest contractors, is said to have spent £36,000 in advertisements in a single year. The English lotteries were used to raise loans for general purposes, but latterly they were confined to particular objects, such as the improvement of London, the disposal of a museum, the purchase of a picture gallery, &c. Through the efforts of Lord Lyttleton and others a strong public opinion was formed against them, and in 1826 they were finally prohibited. An energetic proposal to revive the system was made before the select committee on metropolitan improvements in 1830, but it was not listened to. By a unique blunder in legislation, authority was given to hold a lottery under an act of 1831 which provided a scheme for the improvement of the city of Glasgow. These “Glasgow lotteries” were suppressed by an act of 1834. Art Unions were legalized by the Art Unions Act 1846. The last lottery prominently before the public in England was that of Dethier’s twelfth-cake lottery, which was suppressed on the 27th of December 1860. As defined at the beginning of this article, the word lottery has a meaning wide enough to include missing-word competitions, distributions by tradesmen of prize coupons, sweepstakes, &c. SeeReport of Joint Select Committee on Lotteries, &c.(1908). The statute law in Scotland is the same as in England. At common law in Scotland it is probable that all lotteries and raffles, for whatever purpose held, may be indicted as nuisances. The art unions are supposed to be protected by a special statute.

United States.—The American Congress of 1776 instituted a national lottery. Most states at that time legalized lotteries for public objects, and before 1820 the Virginia legislature passed seventy acts authorizing lotteries for various public purposes, such as schools, roads, &c.—about 85% of the subscriptions being returned in prizes. At an early period (1795) the city of Washington was empowered to set up lotteries as a mode of raising money for public purposes; and this authorization from the Maryland legislature was approved by an act of the Federal Congress in 1812. In 1833 they were prohibited in New York and Massachusetts and gradually in the other states, until they survived only in Louisiana. In that state, the Louisiana State Lottery, a company chartered in 1868, had a monopoly for which it paid $40,000 to the state treasury. Its last charter was granted in 1879 for a period of twenty-five years, and a renewal was refused in 1890. In 1890 Congress forbade the use of the mails for promoting any lottery enterprise by a statute so stringent that it was held to make it a penal offence to employ them to further the sale of Austrian government bonds, issued under a scheme for drawing some by lot for payment at a premium (seeHornerv.United States, 147 United States Reports, 449). This had the effect of compelling the Louisiana State Lottery to move its quarters to Honduras, in which place it still exists, selling its bonds to a considerable extent in the Southern States.

Since lotteries have become illegal there have been a great number of judicial decisions defining a lottery. In general, where skill or judgment is to be exercised there is no lottery, the essential element of which is chance or lot. There are numerous statutes against lotteries, the reason being given that they “tend to promote a gambling spirit,” and that it is the duty of the state to “protect the morals and advance the welfare of the people.” In New York the Constitution of 1846 forbade lotteries, and by § 324 of the Penal Code a lottery is declared “unlawful and a public nuisance.” “Contriving” and advertising lotteries is also penal. The following have been held illegal lotteries: In New York, a concert, the tickets for which entitled the holder to a prize to be drawn by lot; in Indiana, offering a gold watch to the purchaser of goods who guesses the number of beans in a bottle; in Texas, selling “prize candy” boxes; and operating a nickel-in-the-slot machine—so also in Louisiana; in Massachusetts, the “policy” or “envelope game,” or a “raffle”; in Kentucky (1905), prize coupon packages, the coupons having to spell a certain word (U.S.v.Jefferson, 134 Fed. R. 299); in Kansas (1907) it was held by the Supreme Court that the gift of a hat-pin to each purchaser was not illegal as a “gift enterprise,” there being no chance or lot. In Oklahoma (1907) it was held that the making of contracts for the payment of money, the certainty in value of return being dependent on chance, was a lottery (Fidelity Fund Co.v.Vaughan, 90 Pac. Rep. 34). The chief features of a lottery are “procuring through lot or chance, by the investment of a sum of money or something of value, some greater amount of money or thing of greater value. When such are the chief features of any scheme whatever it may be christened, or however it may be guarded or concealed by cunningly devised conditions or screens, it is under the law a lottery” (U.S.v.Wallace, 58, Fed. Rep. 942). In 1894 and 1897 Congress forbade the importation of lottery tickets or advertisements into the United States. In 1899, setting up orpromoting lotteries in Alaska was prohibited by Congress, and in 1900 it forbade any lottery or sale of lottery tickets in Hawaii. In Porto Rico lotteries, raffles and gift-enterprises are forbidden (Penal Code, 1902, § 291).Authorities.—Critique hist. pol. mor. econ. et comm. sur les loteries anc. et mod. spirituelles et temporelles des états et des églises(3 vols., Amsterdam, 1697), by the Bolognese historian Gregorio Leti; J. Dessaulx,De la passion du jeu depuis les anciens temps jusqu’à nos jours(Paris, 1779); Endemann,Beiträge zur Geschichte der Lottrie und zur heutigen Lotterie(Bonn, 1882); Larson,Lottrie und Volkswirtschaft(Berlin, 1894); J. Ashton,History of English Lotteries(1893);Annual Report of the American Historical Association(1892);Journal of the American Social Science Association, xxxvi. 17.

Authorities.—Critique hist. pol. mor. econ. et comm. sur les loteries anc. et mod. spirituelles et temporelles des états et des églises(3 vols., Amsterdam, 1697), by the Bolognese historian Gregorio Leti; J. Dessaulx,De la passion du jeu depuis les anciens temps jusqu’à nos jours(Paris, 1779); Endemann,Beiträge zur Geschichte der Lottrie und zur heutigen Lotterie(Bonn, 1882); Larson,Lottrie und Volkswirtschaft(Berlin, 1894); J. Ashton,History of English Lotteries(1893);Annual Report of the American Historical Association(1892);Journal of the American Social Science Association, xxxvi. 17.

1The word “lottery” is directly derived from Ital.lotteria, cf. Fr.loterie, formed fromlotto, lot, game of chance. “Lot” is in origin a Teutonic word, adopted into Romanic languages. In O. Eng. it appears ashlot, cf. Dutchlot, Ger.Loos, Dan.lod, &c. The meaning of the Teutonic roothleutfrom which these words have derived is unknown. Primarily “lot” meant the object, such as a disk or counter of wood, a pebble, bean or the like, which was drawn or cast to decide by chance, under divine guidance, various matters, such as disputes, divisions of property, selection of officers and frequently as a method of divination in ancient times. From this original sense the meaning develops into that which falls to a person by lot, chance or fate, then to any portion of land, &c., allotted to a person, and hence, quite generally, of a quantity of anything.

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