Chapter 9

See B. Prina,Biografia del cardinale Angelo Mai(Bergamo, 1882), a scientific work, which gives a full and, at the same time, a just appreciation of his work; Cozza-Luzi,Epistolario del card. Angelo Mai(Bergamo, 1883); life by G. Poletto (Siena, 1887).

MAIA,in Greek mythology, the eldest of the Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleïone. She and her sisters, born on Mt Cyllene in Arcadia, are sometimes called mountain goddesses. In a cave of Cyllene Maia became by Zeus the mother of the god Hermes. The story is told in theHymn to Hermesattributed to Homer. She was identified by the Romans with Maia Majesta, an old Italian goddess of spring, to whom a sacrifice was offered on the 1st of May by the priest of Vulcan.

MAIDA,a town of Calabria, Italy, in the province of Catanzaro, from which it is 30 m. W.S.W. direct, and 12 m. N.N.E. of Pizzo by rail (the station is 8 m. W. of the town). Pop. (1901), 5190. The town gives its name to the plain of Maida, where in 1806 British troops under Sir John Stuart defeated the French under Regnier. The names Maida Hill and Maida Vale in London are derived from this battle.

MAIDAN,an Indian term for any open plain. The Maidan is the name of the park in Calcutta, surrounding Fort William, where society people drive in the afternoon. The name is also applied to one of the valleys in the Afridi country of Tirah, and to the plateau portion of the state of Mysore.

MAIDEN,orMaid, a young unmarried girl. “Maid” is a shortened form of “maiden,” O. Eng.maegden, which represents a diminutive of a Teutonic word meaning “young person,” of either sex. An old English word “may,” meaning a kinsman or kinswoman, and also a virgin or girl, represents the original. In early usage “maiden” as meaning “virgin” is frequently applied to the male sex, thus, in Malory’sMorte d’Arthur, Sir Percyvale is called a “parfyte clene megden.” Apart from the direct applications of the word to the unmarried state, such as “maiden name,” “maiden lady,” &c., the word is used adjectivally, implying the preservation of the first state of an object, or indicating a first effort of any kind. Probably a “maiden” fortress is one which has never fallen, though theNew English Dictionarysuggests that the various “maiden castles” in England, usually ancient earthworks, may have been so called from being so strong that they could be defended by maidens, and points out that Edinburgh Castle, called “maiden-castle” by William Drummond of Hawthornden (Speech for Edinburgh to the King), is styledCastrum puellarum, the “castle of the maidens,” in Geoffrey of Monmouth. A “maiden” assize, circuit or session is one at which there are no prisoners for trial; a “maiden over” or “maiden” in cricket is an over from which no runs are scored. A “maiden speech” is the first speech made by a member of parliament in the house. In theAnnual Registerfor 1794 (quoted inN.E.D.) the expression, with reference to Canning’s first speech, is said to be “according to the technical language of the house.” “Maiden” is applied to several objects, to a movable framework or horse for drying and airing of linen, to a washerwoman’s “dolly” or wooden beater, to the “kirnbaby” formed of the last sheaf of corn reaped which formerly figured in the Scottish harvest homes, and to the beheading instrument, known as the “Scottish maiden” (see below). “Maid,” apart from its primary sense of an unmarried woman, is chiefly used for a domestic female servant, usually with a qualifying word prefixed, such as “housemaid,” “parlour-maid,” &c.

The title of “Maid of Honour” is given to an unmarried lady attached to the personal suite of a queen. The custom of sending young girls of noble or good birth to the court of aprince or feudal superior, for the purpose, primarily, of education, goes back to early feudal times, and is parallel with the sending of boys to act as pages and squires to the feudal castles. The regular establishment of maids of honour (filles d’honneur) appears first in the royal court of France. This has usually been attributed to Anne of Brittany, wife of Charles VIII.; she had a group of unmarried girls of high rank at her court as part of her household, in whom she took a lively and parental interest, educating them and bestowing a dowry upon them on their marriage. A slightly earlier instance, however, has been found. When the young Margaret of Austria came to France on her espousal to Charles VIII., broken by his marriage to Anne of Brittany, there were in her train severalfilles d’honneur, whose names appear in theComptes d’argenterie de la reine Marguerite d’Autriche, from 1484-1485 and 1488-1489 (Archives de l’empire K. K. 80 and 81quoted by A. Jal,Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d’histoire). It is from the days of Francis I. that thechroniques scandaleusesbegin which circle round the maids of honour of the French court. The maids of Catherine de Medici, celebrated as the “flying squadron,”l’escadron volant, are familiar from the pages of Pierre de l’Estoile (1574-1611) and Brantôme. Among those whose beauty Catherine used in her political intrigues, the most famous were Isabelle de Limeuil, Mlle de Montmorency-Fosseux, known asla belle Fosseuse, and Charlotte de Baune. Thefilles d’honneur, as an institution, were suppressed in the reign of Louis XIV., at the instigation of Mme de Montespan—who had been one of them—and their place was taken by thedames de palais. In the English court, this custom of attaching “maids of honour” to the queen’s person was no doubt adopted from France. At the present day a queen regnant has eight maids of honour, a queen consort four. They take precedence next after the daughters of barons, and where they have not by right or courtesy a title of their own, they are styled “Honourable.”

The Scottish Maidenwas an instrument of capital punishment formerly in use in Scotland. It is said to have been invented by the earl of Morton, who is also said to have been its first victim. This, however, could not have been the case, as the maiden was first used at the execution of the inferior agents in the assassination of Rizzio (1561) and Morton was not beheaded till 1581. The maiden was practically an early form of guillotine. A loaded blade or axe moving in grooves was fixed in a frame about ten feet high. The axe was raised to the full height of the frame and then released, severing the victim’s head from his body. At least 120, suffered death by the maiden, including the regent Morton, Sir John Gordon of Haddo, President Spottiswood, the marquis and earl of Argyll. In 1710 it ceased to be used; it is now preserved in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in Edinburgh.

MAIDENHAIR,in botany, the common name for a fern,Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, characterized by the spreading hairlike branches of the frond, the ultimate pinnules of which are ½ to 1 in. long with a rounded crenate outer edge and repeatedly forked veins; the sori (or masses of spore-capsules) are in the crenatures of the pinnules, and are protected by a kidney-shaped involucre. The plant is widely distributed in temperate and tropical regions, and is occasionally found in the western counties of England, the Isle of Man, and west Ireland, growing on damp rocks or walls especially near the sea. The genusAdiantumis a large one containing many handsome species both tropical and temperate, well known in greenhouse and hothouse cultivation.

Maidenhair-treeis a popular name forGinkgo biloba, a remarkable and handsome gymnospermous tree, the fan-shaped leaves of which with their forked veins recall those of the maidenhair (seeGymnosperms).

MAIDENHEAD,a market town and municipal borough in the Wokingham parliamentary division of Berkshire, England; 24½ m. W. of London by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901), 12,980. Area, 2125 acres. It is pleasantly situated on and above the west (right) bank of the Thames, and is much in favour as a residential town and a resort of boating parties. Though of high antiquity it is wholly modern in appearance, and a large number of handsome houses have been built in its vicinity. A beautiful timbered house of the 15th century, however, survives in Ockwells, a short distance south of the town. The stone bridge carrying the London road over the Thames dates from 1772; but the crossing is of ancient importance. Maidenhead has trade in malt and grain. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors.

The history of Maidenhead (Maydenhutt, Maydenhith) is bound up with that of the ancient bridge. It is not mentioned in Domesday. Edward I. (1297) gave a grant of pontage in aid of the bridge, which was almost broken down; similar grants to the “bailiffs and good men of Maydenhithe” were made by succeeding sovereigns. In 1451 Henry VI. incorporated the gild of the Brethren and Sisters of Maydenhith to provide certain necessaries for the celebration of Mass and to keep the bridge in order: the gild, dissolved at the Reformation, was revived by Elizabeth, who, however, later (1581) substituted for it a corporation consisting of a warden, bridgemaster, burgesses and commonalty: the governing charter until the 19th century was that of James I. (1685) incorporating the town under the title of the mayor, bridgemaster and burgesses. In 1400 Thomas Holand, earl of Kent, held the bridge in the interests of the deposed Richard II., but was eventually forced to retire. In 1643 a meeting took place in the town between Charles I. and three of his children. In the 18th century a considerable trade was done in carrying malt, meal and timber in barges to London: at that time three fairs were held which have now practically disappeared. The Wednesday market is held under a charter of Elizabeth (1582).

MAID MARIAN,a personage incorporated in the English legend of Robin Hood. There is no evidence that she had originally any connexion with the Robin Hood cycle. She seems to have been an essential feature of the morris dance, and in the may-game was paired sometimes with Robin-Hood, but oftener with Friar Tuck. The well-known pastoral play of Adam de la Hale,Jeu de Robin et Marion, and the many French songs on the subject, account for the association of the names. In the ballads on Robin Hood her name is twice casually mentioned, but there is a late ballad, by a certain S. G. (F. J. Child,English and Scottish Ballads, i. 219), which tells how Maid Marian sought Robin in the forest disguised as a page, and fought with him for an hour before she recognized him by his voice. S. G. was perhaps acquainted with the two plays, written in 1598, ofThe Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, by Anthony Munday and Harry Chettle. InThe DownfallMatilda Fitz Walter escapes from the persecution of King John by following her lover to Sherwood Forest, where they took the names of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and lived apart until they could be legally united. Perhaps this tale has some connexion with the romance of the outlaw Fulk Fitz Warin. Matilda or Mahaud, widow of Theobald Walter, escaped from John’s solicitations by marrying the outlawed Fulk and following him to the forest. There were in semi-historical legends three Matildas pursued by King John, of whom particulars are given by H. L. D. Ward in hisCatalogue of Romances(i. 502). Their several histories were fused by the Elizabethan dramatists, and associated with the Maid Marian of the morris dance, who up to that time had probably only a vague connexion with Robin Hood.

MAIDSTONE,a market town and municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Kent, England, 41 m. E.S.E. of London by the South Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901), 33,516; area, 4008 acres. It lies principally on the eastern bank of the river Medway, the modern part spreading over the western slopes of a picturesque valley, which is intersected and environed by orchards and hop gardens, this being the richest agricultural district of Kent. The hop grounds form the so-called middle growth of Kent, and the town has the principal grain market in the county. Archbishop Boniface in 1260 established a hospital here (Newark hospital) for poor pilgrims, the chapel of which, with modern additions, is now St Peter’s Church. The parish church of St Mary, which had existed from Norman times, was demolished in 1395 by Archbishop Courtenay, who erected on the site the present church of AllSaints. This fine Perpendicular building contains, besides many excellent monuments, the richly carved sedilia and the twenty-eight oak seats used by the collegiate priests. Courtenay also founded a college of secular canons, the ruins of which are an interesting specimen of 14th-century architecture. From the reign of John until the Reformation the archbishops had a residence here, at which Stafford and Courtenay died. This Perpendicular building, with its Elizabethan east front, was acquired by the corporation as a memorial of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887, and houses the school of science and art. The rectory, with the manor, passed into lay hands at the Reformation; and, having been a perpetual curacy for three hundred and twenty years, the living became a vicarage in 1866. The grammar school was founded in 1549, and endowed with the estates of the local Corpus Christi fraternity, then dissolved; the hall in which the gild assembled remains, but the school is established in modern buildings on a new site. There are oil-mills, rope, sacking and twine factories, and cement, lime, and brick works. There is a considerable carrying trade on the Medway. A museum, with public library, was opened in 1858, in an interesting building of the early part of the 16th century. This is the headquarters of the Kent Archaeological Society, founded by the Rev. L. B. Larking in 1858. In 1890 an art gallery was added. The West Kent and General hospital, the county ophthalmic hospital, county gaol and barracks may be mentioned among other institutions. From Saxon times down to 1830 condemned malefactors were executed, and all the great county meetings were held, on Penenden Heath, a common situated about a mile north-east of the town, and enclosed by the corporation as a public recreation ground. The parliamentary borough of Maidstone returns one member. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors.

There is evidence of a Roman settlement at Maidstone. The name Maidstone (Medwegestun, Meddestane, Maydestan), probably meaning Medway Town, is presumably of Saxon origin. At the time of the Domesday Survey it belonged to the archbishop of Canterbury, and from the reign of John the archbishops had a residence there. Its position in the centre of Kent gave it an early importance; the shire-moot was held on Penenden Heath in the 11th century, and Maidstone was an assize town in the reign of Edward I. In 1537 Cranmer exchanged the manor of Maidstone with the king, and it was granted by Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Wyatt. Edward also incorporated the town by the title of the mayor, jurats and commonalty; it had formerly been governed by a portreve and 12 “brethren.” This charter was forfeited through Wyatt’s rebellion; a second charter was granted by Elizabeth in 1559 and confirmed by subsequent sovereigns. A new charter constituting a governing body of a mayor, 12 jurats and 40 common councilmen was given at the petition of the inhabitants by George II. in 1747, and remained the governing charter until 1835. Four fairs were granted by the charter of 1559; these are now held on the 13th of February, the 12th of May, the 20th of June and the 17th of October. A Thursday market was granted by Henry III. to Archbishop Boniface, and a market every second Tuesday in the month by charter of George II. A corn market on Tuesday and a cattle market on Thursday are still held. The manufacture of linen and woollen goods was introduced by Walloons, who settled here in 1567. This was succeeded by paper-making, now the chief industry of the town. The cultivation of hops has been carried on since the 17th century.

Maidstone has been associated with various incidents of general history. Wat Tyler broke into the prison, liberated John Ball the rebel preacher, and committed various depredations. Several of the leading inhabitants joined Jack Cade’s rising. The rising of the Kentish Royalists in 1648 collapsed at Maidstone, where on the 1st of June Fairfax, after five hours’ obstinate fighting, captured the town at midnight.

SeeVictoria County History, Kent; I. M. Russell,History of Maidstone(1881).

MAIHAR,a native state of Central India, in the Baghelkhand agency. Area, 407 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 63,702; estimated revenue, £4700. The state, which is watered by the Tons river, consists mainly of alluvial soil covering sandstone, and is fertile except in the hilly district of the south. A large area is under forest, the produce of which provides a small export trade. The chief, whose title is raja, claims descent from the Kachwaha Rajput clan. The state suffered severely from famine in 1896-1897. The town of Maihar (pop. 6802) is on the East Indian railway, 97 m. N. of Jubbulpore. Extensive ruins of shrines and other buildings in its neighbourhood indicate a former much greater extent of the place.

MAIL.(1) (Through Fr.maille, from Lat.macula, a spot or hole, the mesh of a net), properly a metal ring or link which, joined closely with other links, formed the fabric of body and other armour in the middle ages, till it was superseded by plate-armour. The word “mail,” properly applied to this form of chain-armour, is also used of armour generally, whether plate or chain, and is also transferred to the horny defensive coverings of animals, such as the tortoise, crab, &c. (seeArms and Armour). (2) (O. Eng.mál, speech; probably the same as O. Saxonmahal, assembly; in meaning connected with O. Norsemále, stipulation), a Scots law term meaning rent, tax. “Mails and duties” are the rents, whether in kind or money, of an estate. In English the word only survives in “blackmail” (q.v.). (3) (Through O. Fr.male, mod.malle, a Teutonic word surviving in Dutchmaal), properly a bag, especially one used in travelling; this word, which appears in Chaucer, is now applied chiefly to the despatch and delivery of postal matter. In this sense “mail” is properly the bag in which such matter is conveyed, and hence is applied to the contents of the mail, postal matter collectively, and to the train, carts, or other means used in the despatch and delivery of the same. In general usage “mail” is confined to the “foreign” as opposed to the “inland” despatch of letters, &c., and to which the word “post” is chiefly applied; in official language, the word refers to the inland despatch. The word appears also in “mail-coach,” a coach used for conveying the mails, and in “mail-cart,” a cart similarly employed. This word is also applied to a light low vehicle propelled or drawn by hand, suitable for young children. The “mail phaeton” is a type of phaeton with high seat for two persons and drawn by a pair of horses.

MAILLY, LOUISE JULIE,Comtesse de(1710-1751), mistress of Louis XV. of France, was the daughter of Louis, marquis de Nesle. She was the eldest of three sisters who succeeded one another as favourites of the king. In 1726 she married her cousin, Louis Alexandre de Mailly. Although Louis XV. had paid her attentions from 1732, she did not become titular mistress until 1738. She did not use her position either to enrich herself or to interfere in politics. She was supplanted by her sister, the duchess of Châteauroux, and obliged to leave court in 1742.

See E. and J. de Goncourt,La Duchesse de Châteauroux et ses sœurs(1879); Toussaint,Anecdotes curieuses de ... Louis XV.(2 vols., 1905); J. B. H. R. Capefigue,Mesdemoiselles de Nesle et la jeunesse de Louis XV.(1864).

MAIMANA,a town and khanate of Afghan Turkestan. The town is situated 100 m. S.W. of Balkh, and only some 25 m. from the frontier of Russian Turkestan. It is about two-thirds the size of Herat, square built and surrounded by a ruined wall and moat. The khanate was for long in dispute between Bokhara and Kabul, but in 1868 Abdur Rahman laid siege to the town, and it was compelled to come to terms. Its political status as an Afghan province was definitely fixed by the Russo-Afghan boundary commission of 1885. The inhabitants are chiefly Uzbegs.

MAIMAND,a town in the province of Fars, Persia, a few miles east of Firuzabad and about 70 m. from Shiraz. It has a population of about 5000, almost wholly occupied with the manufacture and sale of rose-water, which is largely exported to many parts of Persia as well as to Arabia, India and Java. The district also produces great quantities of almonds. Therose gardens cover several square miles. In 1349 a great part of Maimand and of three little villages belonging to it becamewakf(pious endowment) of the shrine at Shiraz of Mïr Ahmed, surnamed Shah Chiragh, a son of Musa Kazim, the seventh imām of the Shiahs, and the remainder of the Maimand grounds was given to the shrine by Mīr Habbib Ullah Sharifi and by Shah Ismail in 1504; the administration of the Maimand property as well as the guardianship of the shrine is still with the descendants of Mīr Habbib Ullah.

MAIMBOURG, LOUIS(1610-1686), French Jesuit and historian, was born at Nancy. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of sixteen, and after studying at Rome became a classical master in the Jesuit college at Rouen. He afterwards devoted himself to preaching, but with only moderate success. After having taken some part in minor controversies he threw himself with energy into the dispute which had arisen as to the Gallican liberties; for hisTraité historique sur les prérogatives de l’Église de Rome(1682) he was by command of Innocent XI. expelled from the Society, but rewarded by Louis XIV. with a residence at the abbey of St Victor, Paris, and a pension. He died on the 13th of August 1686. His numerous works include histories of Arianism, the iconoclastic controversy, the Greek schism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and of the pontificates of Leo I. and Gregory I.; they are mere compilations, written indeed in a very lively and attractive style, but inaccurate and untrustworthy.

The History of Arianismwas published in English (1728-1729) by William Webster, with an appendix on the English writers in the Socinian and Arian controversies.

MAIMING,mutilation, a physical injury which involves the loss of, or incapacity to use, a bodily member. The verb “to maim,” in M. E.maynhe,mahayme,mayme, &c. was adopted from O. Fr.mahaignier: cf. It.magagnars, Med. Lat.mahemiare,mahennare, &c. (see Du Cange,Gloss.,s.v.“Mahamium”). Maiming or mutilation is and has been practised by many races with various ethnical and religious significances, and was a customary form of punishment on the principle of an “eye for an eye” (seeMutilation). In law “maiming” is a criminal offence; the old law term for a special case of maiming of persons was “mayhem” (q.v.), an Anglo-French variant form of the word. Maiming of animals by others than their owners is a particular form of the offences generally grouped as “malicious damage.” For the purpose of the law as to this offence animals are divided into cattle, which includes horses, pigs and asses, and other animals which are either subjects of larceny at common law or are usually kept in confinement or for domestic purposes. The punishment for maiming of cattle is three to fourteen years’ penal servitude. Malicious injury to other animals is a misdemeanour punishable on summary conviction. For a second offence the penalty is imprisonment with hard labour for over twelve months. (Malicious Damage Act 1861.) Maiming of animals by their owner falls under the Cruelty to Animals Acts.

MAIMON, SALOMON(1754-1800), German philosopher, was born of Jewish parentage in Polish Lithuania, and died at Nieder-Siegersdorf on the 22nd of November 1800. He married at the age of twelve, and studied medicine in Berlin. In 1770 he severed his connexion with his orthodox co-religionists by his critical commentary on theMoreh Nebuḥimof Maimonides, and devoted himself to the study of philosophy on the lines of Wolff and Moses Mendelssohn. After many vicissitudes he found a peaceful residence in the house of Count Kalkreuth at Nieder-Siegersdorf in 1790. During the ensuing ten years he published the works which have made his reputation as a critical philosopher. Hitherto his life had been a long struggle against difficulties of all kinds. From his autobiography, it is clear that his keen critical faculty was developed in great measure by the slender means of culture at his disposal. It was not till 1788 that he made the acquaintance of the Kantian philosophy, which was to form the basis of his lifework, and as early as 1790 he published theVersuch über die Transcendentalphilosophie, in which he formulates his objections to the system. He seizes upon the fundamental incompatibility of a consciousness which can apprehend, and yet is separated from, the “thing-in-itself.” That which is object of thought cannot be outside consciousness; just as in mathematics √−1is an unreal quantity, so “things-in-themselves” areex hypothesioutside consciousness,i.e.are unthinkable. The Kantian paradox he explains as the result of an attempt to explain the origin of the “given” in consciousness. Theformof things is admittedly subjective; the mind endeavours to explain thematerialof the given in the same terms, an attempt which is not only impossible but involves a denial of the elementary laws of thought. Knowledge of the given is, therefore, essentially incomplete. Complete or perfect knowledge is confined to the domain of pure thought, to logic and mathematics. Thus the problem of the “thing-in-itself” is dismissed from the inquiry, and philosophy is limited to the sphere of pure thought. The Kantian categories are, indeed, demonstrable and true, but their application to the given is meaningless and unthinkable. By this critical scepticism Maimon takes up a position intermediate between Kant and Hume. Hume’s attitude to the empirical is entirely supported by Maimon. The casual concept, as given by experience, expresses not a necessary objective order of things, but an ordered scheme of perception; it is subjective and cannot be postulated as a concrete law apart from consciousness. The main argument of theTranscendentalphilosophienot only drew from Kant, who saw it in MS., the remark that Maimon alone of his all critics had mastered the true meaning of his philosophy, but also directed the path of most subsequent criticism.

Maimon’s chief works, in addition to the above quoted, arePhilos. Wörterbuch(1791);Streifereien im Gebiete der Philos.(1793);Über die Progresse der Philos.(1793);Die Kategorien des Aristoteles mit Anmerkungen erläutert(1794);Versuch einer neuen Logik(1794 and 1798);Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschl. Geist(1797). SeeS. Maimons Lebensgeschichte von ihm selbst beschrieben(1792, ed. K. P. Moritz; Eng. trans. by J. C. Murray, 1888); Wolff,Maimoniana(1813); Witte,S. Maimon(1876).

MAIMONIDES,the common name ofRabbi Moses ben Maimon(1135-1204), also known from the initials of these last words asRambam, Jewish philosopher. His life falls into three epochs, which may be typified by the towns in which they were passed, viz. Cordova, Fez and Cairo. He was born in Cordova on the 20th of March 1135, the eve of Passover; he had a brother, David, and one sister. His early years were spent in his native town, which had then just passed the zenith of its glory. The Arab rulers had fostered the development of science, art, medicine, philosophy, literature and learning. All these influences played their part in the education of Maimonides, whose father, besides training him in all branches of Hebrew and Jewish scholarship, implanted in the youth a sound knowledge of these secular studies as well. In 1148 Cordova was taken from the last Fatimite caliph by the victorious Almohades, who had spread over Spain from N. Africa. These militant revivalists strove to re-establish Islam in what they considered its primitive simplicity. They laid great stress on the unity of God, and tolerated neither schism within the faith nor dissent without. The position of the orthodox Spanish Jews became intolerable, and Maimon, after ten years of hardships, wanderings and escapes, decided to take his family out of the country. He settled in Fez. The years which Maimonides spent there (1160-1165) were memorable for his friendship with Abdul Arab Ibn Muisha—a Moslem poet and theologian—and for the commencement of his literary activity. His energies were diverted towards stimulating the religious feelings of his brethren and combating assimilation. In consequence he became alarmed for his own safety, and in 1165 left for Egypt, where he settled after a passing visit to the Holy Land. Cordova taught him the humanities; Fez humanity. Cairo, besides giving him prominence at court and in the Jewish community, was the centre of the almost world-wide influence which he exercised over Jewry by his monumental writings and dominant personality. By 1177 Maimonides was the recognized chief of the Cairene congregation and consulted on important matters by communities far and wide. Here he was joined by his mostfamous disciple, Joseph Aknin. But his early life in Egypt was fraught with deep sorrow. His father died soon after their arrival, and Maimonides himself suffered severely from prostration and sickness. His brother David, jointly with whom he carried on a trade in gems, was shipwrecked in the Indian Ocean. With him perished the entire fortune of the family. Forced to earn a livelihood, Maimonides turned to medicine. The fame of his skill eventually brought him the appointment of body physician to Saladin, to whom, it is said, he was so attached that when Richard I. wrote from Ascalon, offering him a similar post at the English court, Maimonides refused. He married the sister of Ibn al Māli, one of the royal secretaries. In 1186, his son Abraham was born. His remaining years were spent in ceaseless activity and in controversy, which he sought to avoid. He died amidst universal sorrow and veneration.

The works of Maimonides fall into three periods: (a) To the Spanish period belong his commentary on the whole Talmud (not fully carried out), a treatise on the calendar (Maamar ha-ibbur), a treatise on logic (Milloth Higgayon), and his commentary on theMishnah(this was calledSirajorMaor,i.e.“Light”: begun 1158, completed 1168 in Egypt). (b) While he was in Fez, he wrote an essay on the Sanctification of the Name of God (Maamar Kiddush Hashem,Iggereth Hashemad). (c) The works written in Egypt were: Letter to the Yemenites (Iggereth TemanorPethaḥ Tiqvah);Responsaon questions of law; Biblical and Rabbinical Code (Misnheh TorahorYad Hahazaka, completed 1180);Sepher hamitzvoth, an abbreviated handbook of the preceding; and his great philosophical workMoreh Nebuḥimor “the guide of the perplexed” (1190). To these must be added certain portions of theMishnahcommentary, such as the “Eight Chapters,” the discussion on reward and punishment and immortality, the Jewish Creed, which have acquired fame as independent works.

The influence of Moses ben Maimon is incalculable. “From Moses unto Moses there arose not one like Moses,” is the verdict of posterity. Maimonides was the great exponent of reason in faith and toleration in theology. One of the main services to European thought of the “Guide” was its independent criticism of some of Aristotle’s principles. His codification of the Talmud was equally appreciated in the study of the scholar and in practical life. Christian Europe owed much to Maimonides. Not only did his “Guide” influence scholasticism in general, but it was from his Code that the Church derived its medieval knowledge of the Synagogue.

A complete bibliography will be found inMaimonides, by David Yellin and Israel Abrahams (London, 1903); the final chapter of that work gives a summary of the influence of Maimonides on Christian philosophers such as Aquinas, and Jewish such as Spinoza. The “Guide” has been translated into English by M. Friedlander (1881-1885; new ed., 1905). See alsoJewish Encyclopedia, articless.v., and the volumes edited by Guttmann,Moses ben Maimon(Leipzig, 1908, &c.).

(H. Le.)

MAIN(Lat.Moenus), a river of Germany, and the most important right-bank tributary of the Rhine. It has two sources, the Weisse Main (White Main), which rises in the Fichtelgebirge on the east side of the Ochsenkopf, and the Rote Main (Red Main), which, rising on the eastern slope of the Frankish Jura, flows past Bayreuth. They unite 3 m. below Kulmbach, 920 ft. above the sea. Hence the river, already of considerable size, pursues a north-westerly direction, skirting the spurs of the Frankish Jura in a pleasant valley. At Lichtenfels the river takes a south-westerly course, which it retains until entering the fertile basin of Bamberg. Here it receives from the south-east the waters of its chief tributary, the Regnitz, and enters upon its middle course. Its direction is now again north-west, and meandering through pleasant vales and pastures it passes Hassfurt and reaches Schweinfurt. Its course is now almost due south to Ochsenfurt, when it again proceeds north-west. Continuing in this direction amid vine-clad hills, it washes the walls of the university city of Würzburg, and thence, dividing the forest-clad ranges of the Spessart and the Odenwald, reaches Gemünden. Here it is joined from the right by the Frankish Saale and, turning abruptly south, receives at Wertheim the beautiful Tauber. Feudal castles and medieval towns now crown its banks, notably, Freudenberg and Miltenberg. From the latter it proceeds due north to Aschaffenburg, whence passing Frankfort it pours its yellow waters into the green waters of the Rhine just above Mainz. The Main has a total length of 310 m. and drains a basin of approximately 11,000 sq. m. It is navigable from the confluence of the Regnitz, 240 m. from its mouth, for barges and other small craft, and through the Ludwig Canal is connected with the Danube.

See Ulrici,Das Maingebiet in seiner natürlichen Beschaffenheit(Kassel, 1885); E. Faber,Zur Hydrographie des Maingebiets(Munich, 1895), and Lill,Mainthal, Main und Mainschiffahrt(Berlin, 1904).

MAIN(from the Aryan root which appears in “may” and “might,” and Lat.magnus, great), a word meaning properly power or strength, especially physical. This use chiefly survives in the expression “with might and main.” The word is more common as a substantival elliptical use of the adjective, which usually has the sense of principal or chief in size, strength, importance, &c. Thus “the main,” the high open sea, is for “main sea,” cf. “mainland,” the principal part of a territory excluding islands and sometimes far-projecting peninsulas. The expression “the Spanish main” properly meant that part of the main land of the N.E. coast of South America stretching from the Orinoco to the Isthmus of Panama, and the former Spanish possessions in Central America bordering on the Caribbean Sea, but it is often loosely used, especially in connexion with the buccaneers, of the Caribbean Sea itself. The term “main” is also thus used of a principal pipe or cable for conducting gas, water, electricity, &c. The elliptical use does not appear, however, in such expressions as main road, line, stream. Another use of the word “main” has a somewhat obscure history. It appears as a term in the game of hazard, and also in cock-fighting. In the last it is used for a match, and for the cocks engaged in a match. In hazard it is the number called by the “caster” before the dice are thrown; this may be any number from five to nine inclusive. The usual derivation is from the Frenchmain, a hand, but according to theNew English Dictionarythere is no evidence for this, and the more probable explanation is that it is an adaptation of “main” meaning principal or chief. From this use of the word in hazard the expression “main chance” is derived. “Main,” a shortened form of domain or demesne, only now survives in Scotland, usually in the plural “mains” for a home farm.

MAINA(orMani) andMAINOTES,a district and people of the Peloponnesus, the modern Morea. Maina is the country occupied by the mountain range of Taygetus from Sparta to Cape Matapan, the ancient Taenarum. It is now divided between the modern districts Oetylos and Gythion. Before the organization of the present kingdom of Greece, Maina was subdivided intoΕξω Μάνη, Outer Maina, from the frontier of Kalamata, on the Gulf of Messenia, to Vitylo (Oetylos) and inland to the summit of Taygetus;Κάτω Μάνη, Lower Maina, from Vitylo to Cape Matapan; andΜέσα Μάνη, or Inner Maina, on the east, and on the Gulf of Laconia as far as the plain of Elos. It contained over a hundred villages. The country is mountainous and inaccessible, a formation to which it owes its historical importance. The Mainotes claim to descend from the Spartans, and probably represent the Eleuthero, or free, Laconians who were delivered by Rome from the power of Sparta, as is suggested by the traces of ancient Greek in their dialect and by their physical type. Their country being a natural fortress, they were able to defend themselves against the Byzantine emperors, the barbarians who broke into the empire, the Latin princes of Achaea of the house of Villehardouin, and the Turks. As their country is also poor and maritime, they were early tempted to take to piratical adventure. Gibbon says that “in the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus they had acquired the name of Mainotes, under which they dishonour the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shore.” Their neighbours gave their country the name of “Kakaboulia”—the land of wicked counsels. The passes of their mountains were elaborately fortified and their villages were full of fortified towers(pyrgoi) from which they formed their own favourite epithet, Maina Polypyrgos—many-towered Maina. On the western side it also contains the remains of feudal keeps, erected by William II. de Villehardouin (1245-1278) and other Latin princes of Achaea. The Mainotes did not become Christians till the 9th century. From the 15th till the 17th century they recognized a family which claimed to belong to the Comneni of Trebizond as head chiefs. But the real power was in the hands of the chiefs of the different families and villages, who formed a turbulent and martial aristocracy. Enduring and ferocious feuds were common among them. In the course of the 18th century the family of Mavromicheli (Black Michael), which belonged to lower Maina, established a general headship over the Mainotes after much strife and many murders. When Russia endeavoured to promote a rising against the Turks in the Morea in 1770 the Mainotes acted with her, and the strength of their country enabled them to escape the vengeance of the Turks when the Christians were cynically deserted by the Russians. In 1777 their practical independence was recognized by the sultan’s officers. During the Greek war of independence the Mainotes were chiefly led by Petros (Petro Bey) Mavromicheli, known to his countrymen as the king of Maina, who undoubtedly cherished the hope of establishing a principality for himself. The freedom of Greece, for which he had fought in his own way, proved the ruin of his ambition. He found the new order less compatible with his schemes than the Turkish dominion. Petro Bey was imprisoned by the Greek president Capodistrias (seeCapo d’Istria, Count.), who was in revenge murdered by the Mavromichelis. The family were finally content to become courtiers and officials in the reign of King Otto I. In the 19th century Maina was but little affected by civilization, except in so far as the efficiency of modern navies debarred the Mainotes from their old resource of piracy.

See W. Martin Leake,Travels in the Morea(1830); M. E. Yemeniz, “La Maina,” inRevue des deux mondes(March 1, 1865); and Philipson, “Zur Ethnographie des Peloponnes,” inPetermanns Mittheilungen, vol. 36 (Gotha).

MAINE, ANNE LOUISE BÉNÉDICTE DE BOURBON,Duchesse du(1676-1753), daughter of Henri Jules de Bourbon, prince de Condé and Anne of Bavaria, was born on the 8th of November 1676. On the 19th of March 1692 she married Louis Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine, son of Louis XIV. and Mme de Montespan. The duchesse du Maine held a little court at Sceaux, where she gave brilliant entertainments and immersed herself in political intrigues. Displeased with the action of the regent Orleans in degrading the illegitimate children of Louis XIV. from their precedence above the peers of France, she induced her husband to join in the Cellamare conspiracy for the transference of the regency to the king of Spain. The plot, however, was discovered, and she was imprisoned in 1719. The following year she returned to Sceaux, where she resumed her salon and gathered round her a brilliant company of wits and poets. She died in Paris on the 23rd of January 1753.

See Général de Piépape,La Duchesse du Maine(1910).

MAINE, SIR HENRY JAMES SUMNER(1822-1888), English comparative jurist and historian, son of Dr James Maine, of Kelso, Roxburghshire, was born on the 15th of August 1822. He was at school at Christ’s Hospital, and thence went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1840. At Cambridge he was one of the most brilliant classical scholars of his time. He won a Craven scholarship and graduated as senior classic in 1844, being also senior chancellor’s medallist in classics. Shortly afterwards he accepted a tutorship at Trinity Hall. In 1847 he was appointed regius professor of civil law, and he was called to the bar three years later; he held this chair till 1854. Even the rudiments of Roman law were not then included in the ordinary training of English lawyers; it was assumed at the universities that any good Latin scholar could qualify himself at short notice for keeping up such tradition of civilian studies as survived. Maine cannot have known much Roman law in 1847, but in 1856 he contributed to theCambridge Essaysthe essay on Roman law and legal education, republished in the later editions ofVillage Communities, which was the first characteristic evidence of his genius. Meanwhile he had become one of the readers appointed by the Inns of Court, in the first of their many half-hearted attempts at legal education, in 1852. Lectures delivered by Maine in this capacity were the groundwork ofAncient Law(1861), the book by which his reputation was made at one stroke. Its object, as modestly stated in the preface, was “to indicate some of the earliest ideas of mankind, as they are reflected in ancient law, and to point out the relation of those ideas to modern thought.” Within a year of its publication the post of legal member of council in India was offered to Maine, then a junior member of the bar with little practice, few advantages of connexion, and no political or official claims. He declined once, on grounds of health; the very next year the office was again vacant. This time Maine was persuaded to accept, not that his health had improved, but that he thought India might not make it much worse. It turned out that India suited him much better than Cambridge or London. His work, like most of the work done by Englishmen in India in time of peace, was not of a showy kind—its value is shown by the fact that he was asked to prolong his services beyond the regular term of five years, and returned to England only in 1869. The subjects on which it was his duty to advise the government of India were as much political as legal. They ranged from such problems as the land settlement of the Punjab, or the introduction of civil marriage to provide for the needs of unorthodox Hindus, to the question how far the study of Persian should be required or encouraged among European civil servants. On the civil marriage question in particular, and some years earlier on the still more troublesome one of allowing the remarriage of native converts to Christianity, his guidance, being not only learned but statesmanlike, was of the greatest value. Plans of codification, moreover, were prepared, and largely shaped, under Maine’s direction, which were carried into effect by his successors, Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen and Dr Whitley Stokes. The results are open to criticism in details, but form on the whole a remarkable achievement in the conversion of unwritten and highly technical law into a body of written law sufficiently clear to be administered by officers to many of whom its ideas and language are foreign. All this was in addition to the routine of legislative and consulting work and the establishment of the legislative department of the government of India on substantially its present footing.

Maine’s power of swiftly assimilating new ideas and appreciating modes of thought and conduct remote from modern Western life came into contact with the facts of Indian society at exactly the right time, and his colleagues and other competent observers expressed the highest opinion of his work. In return Maine brought back from his Indian office a store of knowledge which enriched all his later writings, though he took India by name for his theme only once. This essay on India was his contribution to the composite work entitledThe Reign of Queen Victoria(ed. T. H. Ward, 1887). Not having been separately published, it is perhaps the least known of Maine’s writings; but its combination of just perception and large grasp with command of detail is not easily matched outside W. Stubbs’s prefaces to some of the chronicles in the Rolls series, and (more lately) F. W. Maitland’s monographs. As vice-chancellor of the university of Calcutta, Maine commented, with his usual pregnant ingenuity, on the results produced by the contact of Eastern and Western thought. Three of these addresses were published, wholly or in part, in the later editions ofVillage Communities; the substance of others is understood to be embodied in the Cambridge Rede lecture of 1875, which is to be found in the same volume. The practical side of Maine’s experience was not long lost to India; he became a member of the secretary of state’s council in 1871, and remained so for the rest of his life. In the same yearhe was gazetted a K.C.S.I. In 1869 Maine was appointed to the chair of historical and comparative jurisprudence newly founded in the university of Oxford by Corpus Christi College. Residence at Oxford was not required, and the election amounted to an invitation to the new professor to resume and continue in his own way the work he had begun inAncient Law. During the succeeding years he published the principal matters of his lectures in a carefully revised literary form:Village Communities in the East and the West(1871);Early History of Institutions(1875);Early Law and Custom(1883). In all these works the phenomena of societies in an archaic stage, whether still capable of observation or surviving in a fragmentary manner among more modern surroundings or preserved in contemporary records, are brought into line, often with singular felicity, to establish and illustrate the normal process of development in legal and political ideas.

In 1877 the mastership of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where Maine had formerly been tutor, became vacant. There were two strong candidates whose claims were so nearly equal that it was difficult to elect either; the difficulty was solved by a unanimous invitation to Maine to accept the post. His acceptance entailed the resignation of the Oxford chair, though not continuous residence at Cambridge. Ten years later considerations of a somewhat similar kind led to his election to succeed Sir William Harcourt as Whewell professor of international law at Cambridge. His all too short performance in this office is represented by a posthumous volume which had not received his own final revision,International Law(1888).

Meanwhile Maine had published in 1885 his one work of speculative politics, a volume of essays onPopular Government, designed to show that democracy is not in itself more stable than any other form of government, and that there is no necessary connexion between democracy and progress. The book was deliberately unpopular in tone; it excited much controversial comment and some serious and useful discussion.

In 1886 there appeared in theQuarterly Review(clxii. 181) an article on the posthumous work of J. F. M’Lennan, edited and completed by his brother, entitled “The Patriarchal Theory.” The article, though necessarily unsigned (in accordance with the rule of theQuarterlyas it then stood), was Maine’s reply to the M‘Lennan brothers’ attack on the historical reconstruction of the Indo-European family system put forward inAncient Lawand supplemented inEarly Law and Custom. Maine was generally averse from controversy, but showed on this occasion that it was not for want of controversial power. He carried the war back into the invader’s country, and charged J. F. M‘Lennan’s theory of primitive society with owing its plausible appearance of universal validity to general neglect of the Indo-European evidence and misapprehension of such portions of it as M‘Lennan did attempt to handle.

Maine’s health, which had never been strong, gave way towards the end of 1887. He went to the Riviera under medical advice, and died at Cannes on the 3rd of February 1888. He left a wife and two sons, of whom the elder died soon afterwards.

An excellent summary of Maine’s principal writings may be seen in Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff’s memoir. The prompt and full recognition of Maine’s genius by continental publicists must not pass unmentioned even in the briefest notice. France, Germany, Italy, Russia have all contributed to do him honour; this is the more remarkable as one or two English publicists of an older school signally failed to appreciate him. Maine warned his countrymen against the insularity which results from ignorance of all law and institutions save one’s own; his example has shown the benefit of the contrary habit. His prominent use of Roman law and the wide range of his observation have made his works as intelligible abroad as at home, and thereby much valuable information—for example, concerning the nature of British supremacy in India, and the position of native institutions there—has been made the property of the world of letters instead of the peculiar and obscure possession of a limited class of British public servants. Foreign readers of Maine have perhaps understood even better than English ones that he is not the propounder of a system but the pioneer of a method, and that detailed criticism, profitable as it may be and necessary as in time it must be, will not leave the method itself less valid or diminish the worth of the master’s lessons in its use. The rather small bulk of Maine’s published and avowed work may be explained partly by a fine literary sense which would let nothing go out under his name unfinished, partly by the drawbacks incident to precarious health. Maine’s temperament was averse from the labour of minute criticism, and his avoidance of it was no less a matter of prudence. But it has to be remembered that Maine also wrote much which was never publicly acknowledged. Before he went to India he was one of the original contributors to theSaturday Review, founded in 1855, and the inventor of its name. Like his intimate friend Fitzjames Stephen, he was an accomplished journalist, enjoyed occasional article-writing as a diversion from official duties, and never quite abandoned it. The practice of such writing probably counted for something in the freedom and clearness of Maine’s style and the effectiveness of his dialectic. His books are a model of scientific exposition which never ceases to be literature.

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