Chapter XI: Part 11

BRIEF (Lat. _brevis_, short), in English legal practice, the written statement given to a barrister to form the basis of his case. It was probably so called from its at first being only a copy of the original writ. Upon a barrister devolves the duty of taking charge of a case when it comes into court, but all the preliminary work, such as the drawing up of the case, serving papers, marshalling evidence, &c., is performed by a solicitor, so that a brief contains a concise summary for the information of counsel of the case which he has to plead, with all material facts in chronological order, and frequently such observations thereon as the solicitor may think fit to make, the names of witnesses, with the "proofs," that is, the nature of the evidence which each witness is ready to give, if called upon. The brief may also contain suggestions for the use of counsel when cross-examining witnesses called by the other side. Accompanying the brief may be copies of the pleadings (see PLEADING), and of all documents material to the case. The brief is always endorsed with the title of the court in which the action is to be tried, with the title of the action, and the names of the counsel and of the solicitor who delivers the brief. Counsel's fee is also marked. The delivery of a brief to counsel gives him authority to act for his client in all matters which the litigation involves. The result of the action is noted on the brief by counsel, or if the action is compromised, the terms of the compromise are endorsed on each brief and signed by the leading counsel on the opposite side. In Scotland a brief is called a memorial.

In the United States the word has, to a certain extent, a different meaning, a brief in its English sense not being required, for the American attorney exercises all the functions distributed in England between barristers and solicitors. A lawyer sometimes prepares for his own use what is called a "trial brief" for use at the trial. This corresponds in all essential particulars with the "brief" prepared by the solicitor in England for the use of counsel. But the more distinctive use of the term in America is in the case of the brief "in error or appeal," before an appellate court. This is a written or printed document, varying according to circumstances, but embodying the argument on the question affected. Most of the appellate courts require the filing of printed briefs for the use of the court and opposing counsel at a time designated for each side before hearing. In the rules of the United States Supreme Court and circuit courts of appeals the brief is required to contain a concise statement of the case, a specification of errors relied on, including the substance of evidence, the admission or rejection of which is to be reviewed, or any extract from a charge excepted to, and an argument exhibiting clearly the points of law or fact to be discussed. This form of brief, it may be added, is also adopted for use at the trial in certain states of the Union which require printed briefs to be delivered to the court.

In English ecclesiastical law a brief meant letters patent issued out of chancery to churchwardens or other officers for the collection of money for church purposes. Such briefs were regulated by a statute of 1704, but are now obsolete, though they are still to be found named in one of the rubrics in the Communion service of the Book of Common Prayer.

The _brief-bag_, in which counsel's papers are carried to and from court, now forms an integral part of a barrister's outfit, but in the early part of the 19th century the possession of a brief-bag was strictly confined to those who had received one from a king's counsel. King's counsel were then few in number, were considered officers of the court, and had a salary of £40 a year, with a supply of paper, pens and purple bags. These bags they distributed among rising juniors of their acquaintance, whose bundles of briefs were getting inconveniently large to be carried in their hands. These perquisites were abolished in 1830. English brief-bags are now either blue or red. Blue bags are those with which barristers provide themselves when first called, and it is a breach of etiquette to let this bag be visible in court. The only brief-bag allowed to be placed on the desks is the red bag, which by English legal etiquette is given by a leading counsel to a junior who has been useful to him in some important case.

BRIEG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the left bank of the Oder, and on the Breslau and Beuthen railway, 27 m. S.E. of the former city. Pop. (1900) 24,090. It has a castle (the residence of the old counts of Brieg), a lunatic asylum, a gymnasium with a good library, several churches and hospitals, and a theatre. Its fortifications were destroyed by the French in 1807, and are now replaced by beautiful promenades. Brieg carries on a considerable trade, its chief manufactures being linen, embroideries, cotton and woollen goods, ribbons, leather, machinery, hats, pasteboard and cigars. Important cattle-markets are held here. Brieg, or, as it is called in early documents, _Civitas Altae Ripae_, obtained municipal rights in 1250 from Duke Henry III. of Breslau, and was fortified in 1297; its name is derived from the Polish _Brzeg_ (shore). Burned by the Hussites in 1428, the town was soon afterwards rebuilt, and in 1595 it was again fortified by Joachim Frederick, duke of Brieg. In the Thirty Years' War it suffered greatly; in that of the Austrian succession it was heavily bombarded by the Prussian forces; and in 1807 it was captured by the French and Bavarians. From 1311 to 1675 Brieg was the capital of an independent line of dukes, a cadet branch of the Polish dukes of Lower Silesia, by one of whom the castle was built in 1341. In 1537 Frederick II., duke of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau, concluded with Joachim II., elector of Brandenburg, a treaty according to which his duchy was to pass to the house of Brandenburg in the event of the extinction of his line. On the death of George William the last duke in 1675, however, Austria refused to acknowledge the validity of the treaty and annexed the duchies. It was the determination of Frederick II. of Prussia to assert his claim that led in 1740 to the war that ended two years later in the cession of Silesia to Prussia.

See Stokvis, _Manuel d'histoire_, iii. pp. 54, 64.

BRIEG, often now spelt BRIG (Fr. _Brigue_, Ital. _Briga_), a picturesque small town in the Swiss canton of the Valais, situated at the foot of the northern slope of the Simplon Pass, on the right bank of the Saltine stream, and a little above its junction with the Rhone. Its older houses are very Italian in appearance, while its most prominent buildings (castle, former Jesuits' college and Ursuline convent) all date from the 17th century, and are due to the generosity of a single member of the local Stockalper family. The prosperity of Brieg is bound up with the Simplon Pass (_q.v._), so that it gradually supplanted the more ancient village of Naters opposite, becoming a separate parish (the church is at Glis, a few minutes from the town) in 1517. Its medieval name was _Briga dives_. The opening of the carriage road across the Simplon (1807) and of the tunnel beneath the pass (1906), as well as the fact that above Brieg is the steeper and less fertile portion of the Upper Valais (now much frequented by tourists), have greatly increased the importance and size of the town. The opening of the railway tunnel beneath the Lötschen Pass, affording direct communication with Bern and the Bernese Oberland, is calculated still further to contribute to its prosperity. The new town extends below the old one and is closer to the right bank of the Rhone. In 1900 the population was 2182, almost all Romanists, while 1316 were German-speaking, 719 Italian-speaking (the Simplon tunnel workmen), and 142 French-speaking, one person only speaking Romonsch.

(W. A. B. C.)

BRIELLE (_Briel_ or _Bril_), a seaport in the province of South Holland, Holland, on the north side of the island of Voorne, at the mouth of the New Maas, 5½ m. N. of Hellevoetsluis. Pop. (1900) 4107. It is a fortified place and has a good harbour, arsenal, magazine and barracks. It also possesses a quaint town hall, and an orphanage dating from 1533. The tower of the Groote [v.04 p.0562] Kerk of St Catherine serves as a lighthouse. Most of the trade of Brielle was diverted to Hellevoetsluis by the cutting of the Voornsche Canal in 1829, but it still has some business in corn and fodder, as well as a few factories. A large number of the inhabitants are also engaged in the fisheries and as pilots.

The chief event in the history of Brielle is its capture by the _Gueux sur Mer_, a squadron of privateers which raided the Dutch coast under commission of the prince of Orange. This event, which took place on the 1st of April 1572, was the first blow in the long war of Dutch independence, and was followed by a general outbreak of the patriotic party (Motley, _Rise of the Dutch Republic_, part iii. chapter vi.). "The Brill" was one of the four Dutch towns handed over to Queen Elizabeth in 1584 as security for English expenses incurred in aiding the Dutch. Brielle is the birthplace of the famous admiral Martin van Tromp, and also of Admiral van Almonde, a distinguished commander of the early 18th century.

BRIENNE-LE-CHÂTEAU, a town of north-eastern France, in the department of Aube, 1 m. from the right bank of the Aube and 26 m. N.E. of Troyes on the Eastern railway. Pop. (1906) 1761. The château, which overlooks the town, is an imposing building of the latter half of the 18th century, built by the cardinal de Brienne (see below). It possesses an important collection of pictures, many of them historical portraits of the 17th and 18th centuries. The church dates from the 16th century and contains good stained glass. A statue of Napoleon commemorates his sojourn at Brienne from 1779 to 1784, when he was studying at the military school suppressed in 1790. In 1814 Brienne was the scene of fighting between Napoleon and the Allies (see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS). Brewing is carried on in the town. Brienne-la-Vieille, a village 1½ m. south of Brienne-le-Château, has a church of the 12th and 16th centuries with fine stained windows. The portal once belonged to the ancient abbey of Bassefontaine, the ruins of which are situated near the village.

_Counts of Brienne._--Under the Carolingian dynasty Brienne-le-Château was the capital town of a French countship. In the 10th century it was captured by two adventurers named Engelbert and Gobert, and from the first of these sprang the noble house of Brienne. In 1210 John of Brienne (1148-1237) became king of Jerusalem, through his marriage with Mary of Montsserrat, heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem. He led a crusade in Egypt which had no lasting success; and when in 1229 he was elected emperor of the East, for the period of Baldwin II.'s minority, he fought and conquered the Greek emperor John III. (Batatzes or Vatatzes). Walter V., count of Brienne and of Lecce (Apulia) and duke of Athens, fought against the Greeks and at first drove them from Thessaly, but was eventually defeated and killed near Lake Copais in 1311. His son, Walter VI., after having vainly attempted to reconquer Athens in 1331, served under Philip of Valois against the English. Having defended Florence against the Pisans he succeeded in obtaining dictatorial powers for himself in the republic; but his tyrannical conduct brought about his expulsion. He was appointed constable of France by John the Good, and was killed at the battle of Poitiers in 1356. His sister and heiress Isabelle married Walter of Enghien, and so brought Brienne to the house of Enghien, and, by his marriage with Margaret of Enghien, John of Luxemburg-St Pol (d. about 1397) became count of Brienne. The house of Luxemburg retained the countship until Margaret Charlotte of Luxemburg sold it to a certain Marpon, who ceded it to Henri Auguste de Loménie (whose wife, Louise de Béon, descended from the house of Luxemburg-Brienne) in 1640. The Limousin house of Loménie (the genealogies which trace this family to the 15th century are untrustworthy) produced many well-known statesmen, among others the celebrated cardinal Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne (1727-1794), minister of Louis XV.; and the last lords of Brienne were members of this family.

(M. P.*)

BRIENZ, LAKE OF, in the Swiss canton of Bern, the first lake into which the river Aar expands. It lies in a deep hollow between the village of Brienz on the east (2580 inhabitants, the chief centre of the Swiss wood-carving industry) and, on the west, Bönigen (1515 inhabitants), close to Interlaken. Its length is about 9 m., its width 1½ m., and its maximum depth 856 ft., while its area is 11½ sq. m., and the surface is 1857 ft. above the sea-level. On the south shore are the Giessbach Falls and the hamlet of Iseltwald. On the north shore are a few small villages. The character of the lake is gloomy and sad as compared with its neighbour, that of Thun. Its chief affluent is the Lütschine (flowing from the valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen). The first steamer was placed on the lake in 1839.

(W. A. B. C.)

BRIERLEY, BENJAMIN (1825-1896), English weaver and writer in Lancashire dialect, was born near Manchester, the son of humble parents, and started life in a textile factory, educating himself in his spare time. At about the age of thirty he began to contribute articles to local papers, and the republication of some of his sketches of Lancashire character in _A Summer Day in Daisy Nook_ (1859) attracted attention. In 1863 he definitely took to journalism and literature as his work, publishing in 1863 his _Chronicles of Waverlow_, and in 1864 a long story called _The Layrock of Langley Side_ (afterwards dramatized), followed by others. He started in 1869 _Ben Brierley's Journal_, a weekly, which continued till 1891, and he gave public readings from his own writings, visiting America in 1880 and 1884. His various _Ab-o'-th'-Yate_ sketches (about America, London, &c.), and his pictures of Lancashire common life were very popular, and were collected after his death. In 1884 he lost his savings by the failure of a building society, and a fund was raised for his support. He died on the 18th of January 1896, and two years later a statue was erected to him in Queen's Park, Manchester.

BRIERLY, SIR OSWALD WALTERS (1817-1894), English marine painter, who came of an old Cheshire family, was born at Chester. He entered Sass's art-school in London, and after studying naval architecture at Plymouth he exhibited some drawings of ships at the Royal Academy in 1839. He had a passion for the sea, and in 1841 started round the world with Benjamin Boyd (1796-1851), afterwards well known as a great Australian squatter, in the latter's ship "Wanderer," and having got to New South Wales, made his home at Auckland for ten years. Brierly Point is called after him. He added to his sea experiences by voyages on H.M.S. "Rattlesnake" in 1848, and with Sir Henry Keppel on the "Meander" in 1850; he returned to England in 1851 on this ship, and illustrated Keppel's book about his cruise (1853). He was again with Keppel during the Crimean War, and published in 1855 a series of lithographs illustrating "The English and French fleets in the Baltic." He was now taken up by Queen Victoria and other members of the royal family, and was attached to the suites of the duke of Edinburgh and the prince of Wales on their tours by sea, the results being seen in further marine pictures by him; and in 1874 he was made marine-painter to the queen. He exhibited at the Academy, but more largely at the Royal Water-colour Society, his more important works including the historical pictures, "The Retreat of the Spanish Armada" (1871) and "The Loss of the Revenge" (1877). In 1885 he was knighted, and he died on the 14th of December 1894. He was twice married and had an active and prosperous life, but was no great artist; his best pictures are at Melbourne and Sydney.

BRIEUX, EUGÈNE (1858- ), French dramatist, was born in Paris of poor parents on the 19th of January 1858. A one-act play, _Bernard Palissy_, written in collaboration with M. Gaston Salandri, was produced in 1879, but he had to wait eleven years before he obtained another hearing, his _Ménage d' artistes_ being produced by Antoine at the Théâtre Libre in 1890. His plays are essentially didactic, being aimed at some weakness or iniquity of the social system. _Blanchette_ (1892) pointed out the evil results of education of girls of the working classes; _M. de Réboval_ (1892) was directed against pharisaism; _L'Engrenage_ (1894) against corruption in politics; _Les Bienssaiteurs_ (1896) against the frivolity of fashionable charity; and _L'Évasion_ (1896) satirized an indicriminate belief in the doctrine of heredity. _Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont_ (1897) is a powerful, somewhat brutal, study of the miseries imposed on poor middle-class girls by the French [v.04 p.0563] system of dowry; _Le Résultat des courses_ (1898) shows the evil results of betting among the Parisian workmen; _La Robe rouge_ (1900) was directed against the injustices of the law; _Les Remplaçantes_ (1901) against the practice of putting children out to nurse. _Les Avariés_ (1901), forbidden by the censor, on account of its medical details, was read privately by the author at the Théâtre Antoine; and _Petite amie_ (1902) describes the life of a Parisian shop-girl. Later plays are _La Couvée_ (1903, acted privately at Rouen in 1893), _Maternité_ (1904), _La Déserteuse_ (1904), in collaboration with M. Jean Sigaux, and _Les Hannetons_, a comedy in three acts (1906).

BRIGADE (Fr. and Ger. _brigade_, Ital. _brigata_, Span. _brigada_; the English use of the word dates from the early 17th century), a unit in military organization commanded by a major-general, brigadier-general or colonel, and composed of two or more regiments of infantry, cavalry or artillery. The British infantry brigade consists as a rule of four battalions (or about 4000 bayonets) with supply, transport and medical units attached; the cavalry brigade of two or three regiments of cavalry. An artillery "brigade" (field, horse, and heavy) is in Great Britain a smaller unit, forming a lieut.-colonel's command and consisting of two or three batteries. (See ARMY, ARTILLERY, INFANTRY, and CAVALRY.) The staff of an infantry or cavalry brigade usually consists of the brigadier commanding, his aide-de-camp, and the brigade-major, a staff officer whose duties are intermediate between those of an adjutant and those of a general staff officer.

BRIGANDAGE. The brigand is supposed to derive his name from the O. Fr. _brigan_, which is a form of the Ital. _brigante,_ an irregular or partisan soldier. There can be no doubt as to the origin of the word "bandit," which has the same meaning. In Italy, which is not unjustly considered the home of the most accomplished European brigands, a _bandito_ was a man declared outlaw by proclamation, or _bando_, called in Scotland "a decree of horning" because it was delivered by a blast of a horn at the town cross. The brigand, therefore, is the outlaw who conducts warfare after the manner of an irregular or partisan soldier by skirmishes and surprises, who makes the war support itself by plunder, by extorting blackmail, by capturing prisoners and holding them to ransom, who enforces his demands by violence, and kills the prisoners who cannot pay. In certain conditions the brigand has not been a mere malefactor. "It is you who are the thieves"--"_I Ladroni, siete voi,_"--was the defence of the Calabrian who was tried as a brigand by a French court-martial during the reign of Murat in Naples. Brigandage may be, and not infrequently has been, the last resource of a people subject to invasion. The Calabrians who fought for Ferdinand of Naples, and the Spanish irregular levies, which maintained the national resistance against the French from 1808 to 1814, were called brigands by their enemies. In the Balkan peninsula, under Turkish rule, the brigands (called _klephts_ by the Greeks and _hayduks_ or _haydutzi_ by the Slavs) had some claim to believe themselves the representatives of their people against oppressors. The only approach to an attempt to maintain order was the permission given to part of the population to carry arms in order to repress the klephts. They were hence called "armatoli." As a matter of fact the armatole were rather the allies than the enemies of the klephts. The invader who reduces a nation to anarchy, and then suffers from the disorder he creates, always calls his opponents brigands. It is a natural consequence of such a war, but a very disastrous one, for the people who have to have recourse to these methods of defence, that the brigand acquires some measure of honourable prestige from his temporary association with patriotism and honest men. The patriot band attracts the brigand proper, who is not averse to continue his old courses under an honourable pretext. "_Viva Fernando y vamos robando_" (Long life to Ferdinand, and let us go robbing) has been said by not unfair critics to have been the maxim of many Spanish guerrilleros. Italy and Spain suffered for a long time from the disorder developed out of the popular resistance to the French. Numbers of the guerrilleros of both countries, who in normal conditions might have been honest, had acquired a preference for living on the country, and for occasional booty, which they could not resign when the enemy had retired. Their countrymen had to work for a second deliverance from their late defenders. In the East the brigand has had a freer scope, and has even founded kingdoms. David's following in the cave of Adullam was such material as brigands are made of. "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men." Nadir Shah of Persia began in just such a cave of Adullam, and lived to plunder Delhi with a host of Persians and Afghans.

The conditions which favour the development of brigandage may be easily summed up. They are first bad administration, and then, in a less degree, the possession of convenient hiding-places. A country of mountain and forest is favourable to the brigand. The highlands of Scotland supplied a safe refuge to the "gentlemen reavers," who carried off the cattle of the Sassenach landlords. The Apennines, the mountains of Calabria, the Sierras of Spain, were the homes of the Italian "banditos" and the Spanish "bandoleros" (banished men) and "salteadores" (raiders). The forests of England gave cover to the outlaws whose very much flattered portrait is to be found in the ballads of Robin Hood. The "maquis," i.e. the bush of Corsica, and its hills, have helped the Corsican brigand, as the bush of Australia covered the bushranger. But neither forest thicket nor mountain is a lasting protection against a good police, used with intelligence by the government, and supported by the law-abiding part of the community. The great haunts of brigands in Europe have been central and southern Italy and the worst-administered parts of Spain, except those which fell into the hands of the Turks. "Whenever numerous troops of banditti, multiplied by success and impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding, the justice of their country, we may safely infer that the excessive weakness of the government is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the community," is the judgment passed by Gibbon on the disorders of Sicily in the reign of the emperor Gallienus. This weakness has not always been a sign of real feebleness in the government. England was vigorously ruled in the reign of William III., when "a fraternity of plunderers, thirty in number according to the lowest estimate, squatted near Waltham Cross under the shades of Epping Forest, and built themselves huts, from which they sallied forth with sword and pistol to bid passengers stand." It was not because the state was weak that the Gubbings (so called in contempt from the trimmings and refuse of fish) infested Devonshire for a generation from their headquarters near Brent Tor, on the edge of Dartmoor. It was because England had not provided herself with a competent rural police. In relatively unsettled parts of the United States there has been a considerable amount of a certain kind of brigandage. In early days the travel routes to the far West were infested by highwaymen, who, however, seldom united into bands, and such outlaws, when captured, were often dealt with in an extra-legal manner, e.g. by "vigilance committees." The Mexican brigand Cortina made incursions into Texas before the Civil War. In Canada the mounted police have kept brigandage down, and in Mexico the "Rurales" have made an end of the brigands. Such curable evils as the highwaymen of England, and their like in the States, are not to be compared with the "Écorcheurs," or Skinners, of France in the 15th century, or the "Chauffeurs" of the revolutionary epoch. The first were large bands of discharged mercenary soldiers who pillaged the country. The second were ruffians who forced their victims to pay ransom by holding their feet in fires. Both flourished because the government was for the time disorganized by foreign invasion or by revolution. These were far more terrible evils than the licence of criminals, who are encouraged by a fair prospect of impunity because there is no permanent force always at hand to check them, and to bring them promptly to justice. At the same time it would be going much too far to say that the absence of an efficient police is the sole cause of brigandage in countries not subject to foreign invasion, or where [v.04 p.0564] the state is not very feeble. The Sicilian peasants of whom Gibbon wrote were not only encouraged by the hope of impunity, but were also maddened by an oppressive system of taxation and a cruel system of land tenure. So were the Gauls and Spaniards who throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries were a constant cause of trouble to the empire, under the name of Bagaudae, a word of uncertain origin. In the years preceding the French Revolution, the royal government commanded the services of a strong army, and a numerous _maréchaussée_ or gendarmerie. Yet it was defied by the troops of smugglers and brigands known as _faux saulniers_, unauthorized salt-sellers, and gangs of poachers haunted the king's preserves round Paris. The salt monopoly and the excessive preservation of the game were so oppressive that the peasantry were provoked to violent resistance and to brigandage. They were constantly suppressed, but as the cause of the disorder survived, so its effects were continually renewed. The offenders enjoyed a large measure of public sympathy, and were warned or concealed by the population, even when they were not actively supported. The traditional outlaw who spared the poor and levied tribute on the rich was, no doubt, always a creature of fiction. The ballad which tells us how "Rich, wealthy misers were abhorred, By brave, free-hearted Bliss" (a rascal hanged for highway robbery at Salisbury in 1695) must have been a mere echo of the Robin Hood songs. But there have been times and countries in which the law and its administration have been so far regarded as enemies by people who were not themselves criminals, that all who defied them have been sure of a measure of sympathy. Then and there it was that brigandage has flourished, and has been difficult to extirpate. Schinder-Hannes, Jack the Skinner, whose real name was Johann Buckler, and who was born at Muklen on the Rhine, flourished from 1797 to 1802 because there was no proper police to stop him; it is also true that as he chiefly plundered the Jews he had a good deal of Christian sympathy. When caught and beheaded he had no successors.

The brigandage of Greece, southern Italy, Corsica and Spain had deeper roots, and has never been quite suppressed. All four countries are well provided with hiding-places in forest and mountain. In all the administration has been bad, the law and its officers have been regarded as dangers, if not as deliberate enemies, so that they have found little native help, and, what is not the least important cause of the persistence of brigandage, there have generally been local potentates who found it to their interest to protect the brigand. The case of Greece under Turkish rule need not be dealt with. Whoever was not a klepht was the victim of some official extortioner. It would be grossly unfair to apply the name brigand to the Mainotes and similar clans, who had to choose between being flayed by the Turks or living by the sword under their own law. When it became independent Greece was extremely ill administered under a nominal parliamentary government by politicians who made use of the brigands for their own purposes. The result was the state of things described with only pardonable exaggeration in Edmond About's amusing _Roi de la montagne_. An authentic and most interesting picture of the Greek brigands will be found in the story of the captivity of S. Soteropoulos, an ex-minister who fell into their hands. It was translated into English under the title of _The Brigands of the Morea_, by the Rev. J.O. Bagdon (London, 1868). The misfortunes of Soteropoulos led to the adoption of strong measures which cleared the Morea, where the peasantry gave active support to the troops when they saw that the government was in earnest. But brigandage was not yet extinct in Greece. In 1870 an English party, consisting of Lord and Lady Muncaster, Mr Vyner, Mr Lloyd, Mr Herbert, and Count de Boyl, was captured at Oropos, near Marathon, and a ransom of £25,000 was demanded. Lord and Lady Muncaster were set at liberty to seek for the ransom, but the Greek government sent troops in pursuit of the brigands, and the other prisoners were then murdered. The scoundrels were hunted down, caught, and executed, and Greece has since then been tolerably free from this reproach. In the Balkan peninsula, under Turkish rule, brigandage continued to exist in connexion with Christian revolt against the Turk, and the race conflicts of Albanians, Walachians, Pomuks, Bulgarians and Greeks. In Corsica the "maquis" has never been without its brigand hero, because industry has been stagnant, family feuds persist, and the government has never quite succeeded in persuading the people to support the law. The brigand is always a hero to at least one faction of Corsicans.

The conditions which favour brigandage have been more prevalent, and for longer, in Italy than elsewhere in western Europe, with the standing exception of Corsica, which is Italian in all but political allegiance. Until the middle of the 19th century Italy was divided into small states, so that the brigand who was closely pursued in one could flee to another. Thus it was that Marco Sciarra of the Abruzzi, when hard pressed by the Spanish viceroy of Naples--just before and after 1600--could cross the border of the papal states and return on a favourable opportunity. When pope and viceroy combined against him he took service with Venice, from whence he could communicate with his friends at home, and pay them occasional visits. On one such visit he was led into a trap and slain. Marco Sciarra had terrorized the country far and wide at the head of 600 men. He was the follower and imitator of Benedetto Mangone, of whom it is recorded that, having stopped a party of travellers which included Torquato Tasso, he allowed them to pass unharmed out of his reverence for poets and poetry. Mangone was finally taken, and beaten to death with hammers at Naples. He and his like are the heroes of much popular verse, written in _ottava rima_, and beginning with the traditional epic invocation to the muse. A fine example is "The most beautiful history of the life and death of Pietro Mancino, chief of Banditti," which has remained popular with the people of southern Italy. It begins:--

"Io canto li ricatti, e il fiero ardire
Del gran Pietro Mancino fuoruscito"
(Pietro Mancino that great outlawed man
I sing, and all his rage.)

In Naples the number of competing codes and jurisdictions, the survival of the feudal power of the nobles, who sheltered banditti, just as a Highland chief gave refuge to "caterans" in Scotland, and the helplessness of the peasantry, made brigandage chronic, and the same conditions obtained in Sicily. The Bourbon dynasty reduced brigandage very much, and secured order on the main high-roads. But it was not extinguished, and it revived during the French invasion. This was the flourishing time of the notorious Fra Diavolo, who began as brigand and blossomed into a patriot. Fra Diavolo was captured and executed by the French. When Ferdinand was restored on the fall of Napoleon he employed an English officer, General Sir Richard Church, to suppress the brigands. General Church, who kept good order among his soldiers, and who made them pay for everything, gained the confidence of the peasantry, and restored a fair measure of security. It was he who finally brought to justice the villainous Don Ciro Anicchiarico--priest and brigand--who declared at his trial with offhand indifference that he supposed he had murdered about seventy people first and last. When a brother priest was sent to give him the consolations of religion, Ciro cut him short, saying, "Stop that chatter, we are two of a trade: we need not play the fool to one another" (_Lasciate queste chiacchiere, siamo dell' istessa professione: non ci burliamo fra noi_). Every successive revolutionary disturbance in Naples saw a recrudescence of brigandage down to the unification of 1860-1861, and then it was years before the Italian government rooted it out. The source of the trouble was the support the brigands received from various kinds of "_manuténgoli_" (maintainers)--great men, corrupt officials, political parties, and the peasants who were terrorized, or who profited by selling the brigands food and clothes. In Sicily brigandage has been endemic. In 1866 two English travellers, Mr E.J.C. Moens and the Rev. J.C. Murray Aynesley, were captured and held to ransom. Mr Moens found that the "manuténgoli" of the brigands among the peasants charged famine prices for food, and extortionate prices for clothes and cartridges. What is true of Naples and Sicily is true of other parts of Italy _mutatis [v.04 p.0565] mutandis_. In Tuscany, Piedmont and Lombardy the open country has been orderly, but the borders infested with brigands. The worst district outside Calabria has been the papal states. The Austrian general, Frimont, did, however, partly clear the Romagna about 1820, though at a heavy cost of life to his soldiers--mostly Bohemian Jägers--from the malaria.

The history of brigandage in Spain is very similar. It may be said to have been endemic in and south of the Sierra Morena. In the north it has flourished when government was weak, and after foreign invasion and civil wars. But it has always been put down easily by a capable administration. It reached its greatest heights in Catalonia, where it began in the strife of the peasants against the feudal exactions of the landlords. It had its traditional hero, Roque Guinart, who figures in the second part of Don Quixote. The revolt against the house of Austria in 1640, and the War of the Succession (1700-1714), gave a great stimulus to Catalan brigandage. But it was then put down in a way for which Italy offers no precedent. A country gentleman named Pedro Veciana, hereditary _balio_ (military and civil lieutenant) of the archbishop of Tarragona in the town of Valls, armed his farm-servants, and resisted the attacks of the brigands. With the help of neighbouring country gentlemen he formed a strong band, known as the Mozos (Boys) of Veciana. The brigands combined to get rid of him by making an attack on the town of Valls, but were repulsed with great loss. The government of Philip V. then commissioned Veciana to raise a special corps of police, the "escuadra de Cataluna," which still exists. For five generations the colonel of the escuadra was always a Veciana. At all times in central and northern Spain the country population has supported the police when the government would act firmly. Since the organization of the excellent constabulary called "La Guardia Civil" by the duke of Ahumada, about 1844, brigandage has been well kept down. At the close of the Carlist War in 1874 a few bands infested Catalonia, but one of the worst was surprised, and all its members battered to death with boxwood cudgels by a gang of charcoal-burners on the ruins of the castle of San Martin de Centellas. In such conditions as these brigandage cannot last. More sympathy is felt for "bandoleros" in the south, and there also they find Spanish equivalents for the "manuténgoli" of Italy. The tobacco smuggling from Gibraltar keeps alive a lawless class which sinks easily into pure brigandage. Perhaps the influence of the Berber blood in the population helps to prolong this barbarism. The Sierra Morena, and the Serrania de Ronda, have produced the bandits whose achievements form the subject of popular ballads, such as Francisco Esteban El Guapo (Francis Stephen, the Buck or Dandy), Don Juan de Serralonga, Pedranza, &c. The name of José Maria has been made familiar to all the world by Merimée's story, _Carmen_, and by Bizet's opera. José Maria, called El Tempranillo (the early bird), was a historical personage, a liberal in the rising against Ferdinand VII., 1820-1823, then a smuggler, then a "bandolero." He was finally bought off by the government, and took a commission to suppress the other brigands. Jose Maria was at last shot by one of them, whom he was endeavouring to arrest. The civil guard prevents brigandage from reaching any great height in normal times, but in 1905 a bandit of the old stamp, popularly known as "El Vivillo" (the Vital Spark), haunted the Serrania de Ronda.

The brigand life has been made the subject of much romance. But when stripped of fiction it appears that the bands have been mostly recruited by men who had been guilty of homicide, out of jealousy or in a gambling quarrel, and who remained in them not from love of the life, but from fear of the gallows. A reformed brigand, known as Passo di Lupo (Wolf's Step), confessed to Mr McFarlane about 1820 that the weaker members of the band were terrorized and robbed by the bullies, and that murderous conflicts were constant among them.

The "dacoits" or brigands of India were of the same stamp as their European colleagues. The Pindaris were more than brigands, and the Thugs were a religious sect.

AUTHORITIES.--The literature of brigandage, apart from pure romances, or official reports of trials, is naturally extensive. Mr McFarlane's _Lives and Exploits of Banditti and Robbers_ (London, 1837) is a useful introduction to the subject. The author saw a part of what he wrote about, and gives many references, particularly for Italy. A good bibliography of Spanish brigandage will be found in the _Reseña Historica de la Guardia Civil_ of Eugenio de la Iglesia (Madrid, 1898). For actual pictures of the life, nothing is better than the _English Travellers and Italian Brigands_ of W.J.C. Moens (London, 1866), and _The Brigands of the Morea_, by S. Soteropoulos, translated by the Rev. J.O. Bagdon (London, 1868).

(D. H.)

BRIGANDINE, a French word meaning the armour for the _brigandi_ or _brigantes_, light-armed foot soldiers; part of the armour of a foot soldier in the middle ages, consisting of a padded tunic of canvas, leather, &c., and lined with closely sewn scales or rings of iron.

BRIGANTES (Celtic for "mountaineers" or "free, privileged"), a people of northern Britain, who inhabited the country from the mouth of the Abus (Humber) on the east and the Belisama (Mersey; according to others, Ribble) on the west as far northwards as the Wall of Antoninus. Their territory thus included most of Yorkshire, the whole of Lancashire, Durham, Westmorland, Cumberland and part of Northumberland. Their chief town was Eburacum (or Eboracum; York). They first came into contact with the Romans during the reign of Claudius, when they were defeated by Publius Ostorius Scapula. Under Vespasian they submitted to Petillius Cerealis, but were not finally subdued till the time of Antoninus Pius (Tac. _Agricola_, 17; Pausan. viii. 43. 4). The name of their eponymous goddess Brigantia is found on inscriptions (_Corp. Inscr. Lat._ vii. 200, 875, 1062; F. Haverfield in _Archaeological Journal_, xlix., 1892), and also that of a god Bergans = Brigans (_Ephemeris Epigraphica_, vii. No. 920). A branch of the Brigantes also settled in the south-east corner of Ireland, near the river Birgus (Barrow).

See A. Holder, _Altceltischer Sprachschatz_, i. (1896), for ancient authorities; J. Rhys, _Celtic Britain_ (3rd ed., 1904); Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_, iii. pt. i. (1897).

BRIGG (properly Glanford Briggs or Glamford Bridge), a market town in the North Lindsey or Brigg parliamentary division of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the river Ancholme, which affords water communication with the Humber. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3137. It is 23 m. by road north of Lincoln, and is served by the Grimsby line of the Great Central railway. Trade is principally agricultural. In 1885 a remarkable boat, assigned to early British workmanship, was unearthed near the river; it is hollowed out of the trunk of an oak, and measures 48 ft. 6 in. by about 5 ft. Other prehistoric relics have also been discovered.

BRIGGS, CHARLES AUGUSTUS (1841- ), American Hebrew scholar and theologian, was born in New York City on the 15th of January 1841. He was educated at the university of Virginia (1857-1860), graduated at the Union Theological Seminary in 1863, and studied further at the university of Berlin. He was pastor of the Presbyterian church of Roselle, New Jersey, 1869-1874, and professor of Hebrew and cognate languages in Union Theological Seminary 1874-1891, and of Biblical theology there from 1891 to 1904, when he became professor of theological encyclopaedia and symbolics. From 1880 to 1890 he was an editor of the _Presbyterian Review_. In 1892 he was tried for heresy by the presbytery of New York and acquitted. The charges were based upon his inaugural address of the preceding year. In brief they were as follows: that he had taught that reason and the Church are each a "fountain of divine authority which apart from Holy Scripture may and does savingly enlighten men"; that "errors may have existed in the original text of the Holy Scripture"; that "many of the Old Testament predictions have been reversed by history" and that "the great body of Messianic prediction has not and cannot be fulfilled"; that "Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch," and that "Isaiah is not the author of half of the book which bears his name"; that "the processes of redemption extend to the world to come"--he had considered it a fault of Protestant theology that it limits redemption to this world--and that "sanctification is not complete at death." The general assembly, to which the case was appealed, suspended Dr Briggs [v.04 p.0566] in 1893, being influenced, it would seem, in part, by the manner and tone of his expressions--by what his own colleagues in the Union Theological Seminary called the "dogmatic and irritating" nature of his inaugural address. He was ordained a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1899. His scholarship procured for him the honorary degree of D.D. from Edinburgh (1884) and from Glasgow (1901), and that of Litt.D. from Oxford (1901). With S.R. Driver and Francis Brown he prepared a revised _Hebrew and English Lexicon_ (1891-1905), and with Driver edited the "International Commentary Series." His publications include _Biblical Study: Its Principles, Methods and History_ (1883); _Hebrew Poems of the Creation_ (1884); _American Presbyterianism: Its Origin and Early History_ (1885); _Messianic Prophecy_ (1886); _Whither? A Theological Question for the Times_ (1889); _The Authority of the Holy Scripture_ (1891); _The Bible, the Church and the Reason_ (1892); _The Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch_ (1893); _The Messiah of the Gospels_ (1804), _The Messiah of the Apostles_ (1894); _New Light on the Life of Jesus_ (1904); _The Ethical Teaching of Jesus_ (1904); _A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms_ (2 vols., 1906-1907), in which he was assisted by his daughter; and _The Virgin Birth of Our Lord_ (1909).

BRIGGS, HENRY (1556-1630), English mathematician, was born at Warley Wood, near Halifax, in Yorkshire. He graduated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1581, and obtained a fellowship in 1588. In 1592 he was made reader of the physical lecture founded by Dr Thomas Linacre, and in 1596 first professor of geometry in Gresham House (afterwards College), London. In his lectures at Gresham House he proposed the alteration of the scale of logarithms from the hyperbolic form which John Napier had given them, to that in which unity is assumed as the logarithm of the ratio of ten to one; and soon afterwards he wrote to the inventor on the subject. In 1616 he paid a visit to Napier at Edinburgh in order to discuss the suggested change; and next year he repeated his visit for a similar purpose. During these conferences the alteration proposed by Briggs was agreed upon; and on his return from his second visit to Edinburgh in 1617 he accordingly published the first chiliad of his logarithms. (See NAPIER, JOHN.) In 1619 he was appointed Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford, and resigned his professorship of Gresham College on the 25th of July 1620. Soon after his settlement at Oxford he was incorporated master of arts. In 1622 he published a small tract on the _North-West Passage to the South Seas, through the Continent of Virginia and Hudson's Bay_; and in 1624 his _Arithmetica Logarithmica_, in folio, a work containing the logarithms of thirty thousand natural numbers to fourteen places of figures besides the index. He also completed a table of logarithmic sines and tangents for the hundredth part of every degree to fourteen places of figures besides the index, with a table of natural sines to fifteen places, and the tangents and secants for the same to ten places; all of which were printed at Gouda in 1631 and published in 1633 under the title of _Trigonometria Britannica_ (see TABLE, MATHEMATICAL). Briggs died on the 26th of January 1630, and was buried in Merton College chapel, Oxford. Dr Smith, in his _Lives of the Gresham Professors_, characterizes him as a man of great probity, a contemner of riches, and contented with his own station, preferring a studious retirement to all the splendid circumstances of life.

His works are: _A Table to find the Height of the Pole, the Magnetical Declination being given_ (London, 1602, 4to); "Tables for the Improvement of Navigation," printed in the second edition of Edward Wright's treatise entitled _Certain Errors in Navigation detected and corrected_ (London, 1610, 4to); _A Description of an Instrumental Table to find the part proportional, devised by Mr Edward Wright_ (London, 1616 and 1618, 12mo); _Logarithmorum Chilias prima_ (London, 1617, 8vo); _Lucubrationes et Annotationes in opera posthuma J. Neperi_ (Edinburgh, 1619, 4to); _Euclidis Elementorum VI. libri priores_ (London, 1620. folio); _A Treatise on the North-West Passage to the South Sea_ (London, 1622, 4to), reprinted in Purchas's _Pilgrims_, vol. iii. p. 852; _Arithmetica Logarithmica_ (London, 1624, folio); _Trigonometria Britannica_ (Goudae, 1663, folio); two _Letters_ to Archbishop Usher; _Mathematica ab Antiquis minus cognita_. Some other works, as his _Commentaries on the Geometry of Peter Ramus_, and _Remarks on the Treatise of Longomontanus respecting the Quadrature of the Circle_, have not been published.

BRIGHOUSE, a municipal borough in the Elland parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 5½ m. N. of Huddersfield by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway, on the river Calder. Pop. (1901) 21,735. It is in the heart of the manufacturing district of the West Riding, and has large woollen and worsted factories; carpets, machinery and soap are also produced. The town was incorporated in 1893, and is governed by a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area, 2231 acres.

BRIGHT, SIR CHARLES TILSTON (1832-1888), English telegraph engineer, who came of an old Yorkshire family, was born on the 8th of June 1832, at Wanstead, Essex. At the age of fifteen he became a clerk under the Electric Telegraph Company. His talent for electrical engineering was soon shown, and his progress was rapid; so that in 1852 he was appointed engineer to the Magnetic Telegraph Company, and in that capacity superintended the laying of lines in various parts of the British Isles, including in 1853 the first cable between Great Britain and Ireland, from Portpatrick to Donaghadee. His experiments convinced him of the practicability of an electric submarine cable connexion between Ireland and America; and having in 1855 already discussed the question with Cyrus Field, who with J. W. Brett controlled the Newfoundland Telegraph Company on the other side of the ocean, Bright organized with them the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1856 for the purpose of carrying out the idea, himself becoming engineer-in-chief. The story of the first Atlantic cable is told elsewhere (see TELEGRAPH), and it must suffice here to say that in 1858, after two disappointments, Bright successfully accomplished what to many had seemed an impossible feat, and within a few days of landing the Irish end of the line at Valentia he was knighted in Dublin. Subsequently Sir Charles Bright supervised the laying of submarine cables in various regions of the world, and took a leading part as pioneer in other developments of the electrical industry. In conjunction with Josiah Latimer Clark, with whom he entered into partnership in 1861, he invented improved methods of insulating submarine cables, and a paper on electrical standards read by them before the British Association in the same year led to the establishment of the British Association committee on that subject, whose work formed the foundations of the system still in use. From 1865 to 1868 he was Liberal M.P. for Greenwich. He died on the 3rd of May 1888, at Abbey Wood, near London.

See _Life Story of Sir C. T. Bright_, by his son Charles Bright (revised ed. 1908).