Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

_History and Antiquities._--Erris in Mayo was the scene of the landing of the chief colony of the Firbolgs, and the battle which is said to have resulted in the overthrow and almost annihilation of this tribe took place also in this county, at Moytura near Cong. At the close of the 12th century what is now the county of Mayo was granted, with other lands, by king John to William, brother of Hubert de Burgh. After the murder of William de Burgh, 3rd earl of Ulster (1333), the Bourkes (de Burghs) of the collateral male line, rejecting the claim of William's heiress (the wife of Lionel, son of King Edward III.) to the succession, succeeded in holding the bulk of the De Burgh possessions, what is now Mayo falling to the branch known by the name of "MacWilliam Oughter," who maintained their virtual independence till the time of Elizabeth. Sir Henry Sydney, during his first viceroyalty, after making efforts to improve communications between Dublin and Connaught in 1566, arranged for the shiring of that province, and Mayo was made shire ground, taking its name from the monastery of Maio or Mageo, which was the seat of a bishop. Even after this period the MacWilliams continued to exercise very great authority, which was regularized in 1603, when "the MacWilliam Oughter," Theobald Bourke, surrendered his lands and received them back, to hold them by English tenure, with the title of Viscount Mayo (see BURGH, DE). Large confiscations of the estates in the county were made in 1586, and on the termination of the wars of 1641; and in 1666 the restoration of his estates to the 4th Viscount Mayo involved another confiscation, at the expense of Cromwell's settlers. Killala was the scene of the landing of a French squadron in connexion with the rebellion of 1798. In 1879 the village of Knock in the south-east acquired notoriety from a story that the Virgin Mary had appeared in the church, which became the resort of many pilgrims.

There are round towers at Killala, Turlough, Meelick and Balla, and an imperfect one at Aughagower. Killala was formerly a bishopric. The monasteries were numerous, and many of them of considerable importance: the principal being those at Mayo, Ballyhaunis, Cong, Ballinrobe, Ballintober, Burrishoole, Cross or Holycross in the peninsula of Mullet, Moyne, Roserk or Rosserick and Templemore or Strade. Of the old castles the most notable are Carrigahooly near Newport, said to have been built by the celebrated Grace O'Malley, and Deel Castle near Ballina, at one time the residence of the earls of Arran.

See Hubert Thomas Knox, _History of the County of Mayo_ (1908).

MAYOR, JOHN EYTON BICKERSTETH (1825- ), English classical scholar, was born at Baddegama, Ceylon, on the 28th of January 1825, and educated in England at Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge. From 1863 to 1867 he was librarian of the university, and in 1872 succeeded H. A. J. Munro in the professorship of Latin. His best-known work, an edition of thirteen satires of Juvenal, is marked by an extraordinary wealth of illustrative quotations. His _Bibliographical Clue to Latin Literature_ (1873), based on E. Hübner's _Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die römische Litteraturgeschichte_ is a valuable aid to the student, and his edition of Cicero's _Second Philippic_ is widely used. He also edited the English works of J. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, i. (1876); Thomas Baker's _History of St John's College, Cambridge_ (1869); Richard of Cirencester's _Speculum historiale de gestis regum Angliae 447-1066_ (1863-1869); Roger Ascham's _Schoolmaster_ (new ed., 1883); the _Latin Heptateuch_ (1889); and the _Journal of Philology_.

His brother, JOSEPH BICKERSTETH MAYOR (1828- ), classical scholar and theologian, was educated at Rugby and St John's College, Cambridge, and from 1870 to 1879 was professor of classics at King's College, London. His most important classical works are an edition of Cicero's _De natura deorum_ (3 vols., 1880-1885) and _Guide to the Choice of Classical Books_ (3rd ed., 1885, with supplement, 1896). He also devoted attention to theological literature and edited the epistles of St James (2nd ed., 1892), St Jude and St Peter (1907), and the _Miscellanies_ of Clement of Alexandria (with F. J. A. Hort, 1902). From 1887 to 1893 he was editor of the _Classical Review_. His _Chapters on English Metre_ (1886) reached a second edition in 1901.

MAYOR (Lat. _major_, greater), in modern times the title of a municipal officer who discharges judicial and administrative functions. The French form of the word is _maire_. In Germany the corresponding title is _Bürgermeister_, in Italy _sindico_, and in Spain _alcalde_. "Mayor" had originally a much wider significance. Among the nations which arose on the ruins of the Roman empire of the West, and which made use of the Latin spoken by their "Roman" subjects as their official and legal language, _major_ and the Low Latin feminine _majorissa_ were found to be very convenient terms to describe important officials of both sexes who had the superintendence of others. Any female servant or slave in the household of a barbarian, whose business it was to overlook other female servants or slaves, would be quite naturally called a _majorissa_. So the male officer who governed the king's household would be the _major domus_. In the households of the Frankish kings of the Merovingian line, the _major domus_, who was also variously known as the _gubernator_, _rector_, _moderator_ or _praefectus palatii_, was so great an officer that he ended by evicting his master. He was the "mayor of the palace" (q.v.). The fact that his office became hereditary in the family of Pippin of Heristal made the fortune of the Carolingian line. But besides the _major domus_ (the major-domo), there were other officers who were _majores_, the _major cubiculi_, mayor of the bedchamber, and _major equorum_, mayor of the horse. In fact a word which could be applied so easily and with accuracy in so many circumstances was certain to be widely used by itself, or in its derivatives. The post-Augustine _majorinus_, "one of the larger kind," was the origin of the medieval Spanish _merinus_, who in Castillian is the _merino_, and sometimes the _merino mayor_, or chief merino. He was a judicial and administrative officer of the king's. The _gregum merinus_ was the superintendent of the flocks of the corporation of sheep-owners called the _mesta_. From him the sheep, and then the wool, have come to be known as _merinos_--a word identical in origin with the municipal title of mayor. The latter came directly from the heads of gilds, and other associations of freemen, who had their banner and formed a group on the populations of the towns, the _majores baneriae_ or _vexilli_.

In England the major is the modern representative of the lord's bailiff or reeve (see BOROUGH). We find the chief magistrate of London bearing the title of portreeve for considerably more than a century after the Conquest. This official was elected by popular choice, a privilege secured from king John. By the beginning of the 11th century the title of portreeve[1] gave way to that of mayor as the designation of the chief officer of London,[2] and the adoption of the title by other boroughs followed at various intervals.

A mayor is now in England and America the official head of a municipal
government. In the United Kingdom the Municipal Corporations Act,
1882, s. 15, regulates the election of mayors. He is to be a fit
person elected annually on the 9th of November by the council of the
borough from among the aldermen or councillors or persons qualified to
be such. His term of office is one year, but he is eligible for
re-election. He may appoint a deputy to act during illness or absence,
and such deputy must be either an alderman or councillor. A mayor who
is absent from the borough for more than two months becomes
disqualified and vacates his office. A mayor is _ex officio_ during
his year of office and the next year a justice of the peace for the
borough. He receives such remuneration as the council thinks
reasonable. The office of mayor in an English borough does not entail
any important administrative duties. It is generally regarded as an
honour conferred for past services. The mayor is expected to devote
much of his time to ornamental functions and to preside over meetings
which have for their object the advancement of the public welfare. His
administrative duties are merely to act as returning officer at
municipal elections, and as chairman of the meetings of the council.

The position and power of an English mayor contrast very strongly with
those of the similar official in the United States. The latter is
elected directly by the voters within the city, usually for several
years; and he has extensive administrative powers.

The English method of selecting a mayor by the council is followed for
the corresponding functionaries in France (except Paris), the more
important cities of Italy, and in Germany, where, however, the central
government must confirm the choice of the council. Direct appointment
by the central government exists in Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden and the smaller towns of Italy and Spain. As a rule, too, the
term of office is longer in other countries than in the United
Kingdom. In France election is for four years, in Holland for six, in
Belgium for an indefinite period, and in Germany usually for twelve
years, but in some cases for life. In Germany the post may be said to
be a professional one, the burgomaster being the head of the city
magistracy, and requiring, in order to be eligible, a training in
administration. German burgomasters are most frequently elected by
promotion from another city. In France the _maire_, and a number of
experienced members termed "adjuncts," who assist him as an executive
committee, are elected directly by the municipal council from among
their own number. Most of the administrative work is left in the hands
of the _maire_ and his adjuncts, the full council meeting
comparatively seldom. The _maire_ and the adjuncts receive no salary.

Further information will be found in the sections on local government
in the articles on the various countries; see also A. Shaw, _Municipal
Government in Continental Europe_; J. A. Fairlie, _Municipal
Administration_; S. and B. Webb, _English Local Government_; Redlich
and Hirst, _Local Government in England_; A. L. Lowell, _The
Government of England_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] If a place was of mercantile importance it was called a port
(from _porta_, the city gate), and the reeve or bailiff, a
"portreeve."

[2] The mayors of certain cities in the United Kingdom (London, York,
Dublin) have acquired by prescription the prefix of "lord." In the
case of London it seems to date from 1540. It has also been conferred
during the closing years of the 19th century by letters patent on
other cities--Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield,
Leeds, Cardiff, Bradford, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Belfast, Cork. In 1910
it was granted to Norwich. Lord mayors are entitled to be addressed
as "right honourable."

MAYOR OF THE PALACE.--The office of mayor of the palace was an institution peculiar to the Franks of the Merovingian period. A landowner who did not manage his own estate placed it in the hands of a steward (_major_), who superintended the working of the estate and collected its revenues. If he had several estates, he appointed a chief steward, who managed the whole of the estates and was called the _major domus_. Each great personage had a _major domus_--the queen had hers, the king his; and since the royal house was called the palace, this officer took the name of "mayor of the palace." The mayor of the palace, however, did not remain restricted to domestic functions; he had the discipline of the palace and tried persons who resided there. Soon his functions expanded. If the king were a minor, the mayor of the palace supervised his education in the capacity of guardian (_nutricius_), and often also occupied himself with affairs of state. When the king came of age, the mayor exerted himself to keep this power, and succeeded. In the 7th century he became the head of the administration and a veritable prime minister. He took part in the nomination of the counts and dukes; in the king's absence he presided over the royal tribunal; and he often commanded the armies. When the custom of commendation developed, the king charged the mayor of the palace to protect those who had commended themselves to him and to intervene at law on their behalf. The mayor of the palace thus found himself at the head of the _commendati_, just as he was at the head of the functionaries.

It is difficult to trace the names of some of the mayors of the palace, the post being of almost no significance in the time of Gregory of Tours. When the office increased in importance the mayors of the palace did not, as has been thought, pursue an identical policy. Some--for instance, Otto, the mayor of the palace of Austrasia towards 640--were devoted to the Crown. On the other hand, mayors like Flaochat (in Burgundy) and Erkinoald (in Neustria) stirred up the great nobles, who claimed the right to take part in their nomination, against the king. Others again, sought to exercise the power in their own name both against the king and against the great nobles--such as Ebroïn (in Neustria), and, later, the Carolingians Pippin II., Charles Martel, and Pippin III., who, after making use of the great nobles, kept the authority for themselves. In 751 Pippin III., fortified by his consultation with Pope Zacharias, could quite naturally exchange the title of mayor for that of king; and when he became king, he suppressed the title of mayor of the palace. It must be observed that from 639 there were generally separate mayors of Neustria, Austrasia and Burgundy, even when Austrasia and Burgundy formed a single kingdom; the mayor was a sign of the independence of the region. Each mayor, however, sought to supplant the others; the Pippins and Charles Martel succeeded, and their victory was at the same time the victory of Austrasia over Neustria and Burgundy.

See G. H. Pertz, _Geschichte der merowingischen Hausmeier_ (Hanover,
1819); H. Bonnell, _De dignitate majoris domus_ (Berlin, 1858); E.
Hermann, _Das Hausmeieramt, ein echt germanisches Amt_, vol. ix. of
_Untersuchungen zur deutschen Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte_, ed. by O.
Gierke (Breslau, 1878, seq.); G. Waitz, _Deutsche
Verfassungsgeschichte_, 3rd ed., revised by K. Zeumer; and Fustel de
Coulanges, _Histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France:
La monarchie franque_ (Paris, 1888). (C. Pf.)

MAYORUNA, a tribe of South American Indians of Panoan stock. Their country is between the Ucayali and Javari rivers, north-eastern Peru. They are a fine race, roaming the forests and living by hunting. They cut their hair in a line across the forehead and let it hang down their backs. Many have fair skins and beards, a peculiarity sometimes explained by their alleged descent from Ursua's soldiers, but this theory is improbable. They are famous for the potency of their blow-gun poison.

MAYO-SMITH, RICHMOND (1854-1901), American economist, was born in Troy, Ohio, on the 9th of February 1854. Educated at Amherst, and at Berlin and Heidelberg, he became assistant professor of economics at Columbia University in 1877. He was an adjunct professor from 1878 to 1883, when he was appointed professor of political economy and social science, a post which he held until his death on the 11th of November 1901. He devoted himself especially to the study of statistics, and was recognized as one of the foremost authorities on the subject. His works include _Emigration and Immigration_ (1890); _Sociology and Statistics_ (1895), and _Statistics and Economics_ (1899).

MAYOTTE, one of the Comoro Islands, in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the African mainland. It has belonged to France since 1843 (see COMORO ISLANDS).

MAYOW, JOHN (1643-1679), English chemist and physiologist, was born in London in May 1643. At the age of fifteen he went up to Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a scholar a year later, and in 1660 he was elected to a fellowship at All Souls. He graduated in law (bachelor, 1665, doctor, 1670), but made medicine his profession, and "became noted for his practice therein, especially in the summer time, in the city of Bath." In 1678, on the proposal of R. Hooke, he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society. The following year, after a marriage which was "not altogether to his content," he died in London in September 1679. He published at Oxford in 1668 two tracts, on respiration and rickets, and in 1674 these were reprinted, the former in an enlarged and corrected form, with three others "De sal-nitro et spiritu nitro-aereo," "De respiratione foetus in utero et ovo," and "De motu musculari et spiritibus animalibus" as _Tractatus quinque medico-physici_. The contents of this work, which was several times republished and translated into Dutch, German and French, show him to have been an investigator much in advance of his time.

Accepting as proved by Boyle's experiments that air is necessary for
combustion, he showed that fire is supported not by the air as a whole
but by a "more active and subtle part of it." This part he called
_spiritus igneo-aereus_, or sometimes _nitro-aereus_; for he
identified it with one of the constituents of the acid portion of
nitre which he regarded as formed by the union of fixed alkali with a
_spiritus acidus_. In combustion the _particulae nitro-aereae_--either
pre-existent in the thing consumed or supplied by the air--combined
with the material burnt; as he inferred from his observation that
antimony, strongly heated with a burning glass, undergoes an increase
of weight which can be attributed to nothing else but these particles.
In respiration he argued that the same particles are consumed, because
he found that when a small animal and a lighted candle were placed in
a closed vessel full of air the candle first went out and soon
afterwards the animal died, but if there was no candle present it
lived twice as long. He concluded that this constituent of the air is
absolutely necessary for life, and supposed that the lungs separate it
from the atmosphere and pass it into the blood. It is also necessary,
he inferred, for all muscular movements, and he thought there was
reason to believe that the sudden contraction of muscle is produced by
its combination with other combustible (salino-sulphureous) particles
in the body; hence the heart, being a muscle, ceases to beat when
respiration is stopped. Animal heat also is due to the union of
nitro-aerial particles, breathed in from the air, with the combustible
particles in the blood, and is further formed by the combination of
these two sets of particles in muscle during violent exertion. In
effect, therefore, Mayow--who also gives a remarkably correct
anatomical description of the mechanism of respiration--preceded
Priestley and Lavoisier by a century in recognizing the existence of
oxygen, under the guise of his _spiritus nitro-aereus_, as a separate
entity distinct from the general mass of the air; he perceived the
part it plays in combustion and in increasing the weight of the calces
of metals as compared with metals themselves; and, rejecting the
common notions of his time that the use of breathing is to cool the
heart, or assist the passage of the blood from the right to the left
side of the heart, or merely to agitate it, he saw in inspiration a
mechanism for introducing oxygen into the body, where it is consumed
for the production of heat and muscular activity, and even vaguely
conceived of expiration as an excretory process.

MAYSVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Mason county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the Ohio river, 60 m. by rail S.E. of Cincinnati. Pop. (1890) 5358; (1900) 6423 (1155 negroes); (1910) 6141. It is served by the Louisville & Nashville, and the Chesapeake & Ohio railways, and by steamboats on the Ohio river. Among its principal buildings are the Mason county public library (1878), the Federal building and Masonic and Odd Fellows' temples. The city lies between the river and a range of hills; at the back of the hills is a fine farming country, of which tobacco of excellent quality is a leading product. There is a large plant of the American Tobacco Company at Maysville, and among the city's manufactures are pulleys, ploughs, whisky, flour, lumber, furniture, carriages, cigars, foundry and machine-shop products, bricks and cotton goods. The city is a distributing point for coal and other products brought to it by Ohio river boats. Formerly it was one of the principal hemp markets of the country. The place early became a landing point for immigrants to Kentucky, and in 1784 a double log cabin and a blockhouse were erected here. It was then called Limestone, from the creek which flows into the Ohio here, but several years later the present name was adopted in honour of John May, who with Simon Kenton laid out the town in 1787, and who in 1790 was killed by the Indians. Maysville was incorporated as a town in 1787, was chartered as a city in 1833, and became the county-seat in 1848.

In 1830, when the question of "internal improvements" by the National
government was an important political issue, Congress passed a bill
directing the government to aid in building a turnpike road from
Maysville to Lexington. President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill on
the ground that the proposed improvement was a local rather than a
national one; but one-half the capital was then furnished privately,
the other half was furnished through several state appropriations, and
the road was completed in 1835 and marked the beginning of a system of
turnpike roads built with state aid.

MAZAGAN (_El Jadida_), a port on the Atlantic coast of Morocco in 33° 16´ N. 8° 26´ W. Pop. (1908), about 12,000, of whom a fourth are Jews and some 400 Europeans. It is the port for Marrákesh, from which it is 110 m. nearly due north, and also for the fertile province of Dukálla. Mazagan presents from the sea a very un-Moorish appearance; it has massive Portuguese walls of hewn stone. The exports, which include beans, almonds, maize, chick-peas, wool, hides, wax, eggs, &c., were valued at £360,000 in 1900, £364,000 in 1904, and £248,000 in 1906. The imports (cotton goods, sugar, tea, rice, &c.) were valued at £280,000 in 1900, £286,000 in 1904, and £320,000 in 1906. About 46% of the trade is with Great Britain and 34% with France. Mazagan was built in 1506 by the Portuguese, who abandoned it to the Moors in 1769 and established a colony, New Mazagan, on the shores of Para in Brazil.

See A. H. Dyé, "Les ports du Maroc" in _Bull. Soc. Geog. Comm. Paris_,
xxx. 325-332 (1908), and British consular reports.

MAZAMET, an industrial town of south-western France in the department of Tarn, 41 m. S.S.E. of Albi by rail. Pop. (1906), town, 11,370; commune, 14,386. Mazamet is situated on the northern slope of the Montagnes Noires and on the Arnette, a small sub-tributary of the Agout. Numerous establishments are employed in wool-spinning and in the manufacture of "swan-skins" and flannels, and clothing for troops, and hosiery, and there are important tanneries and leather-dressing, glove and dye works. Extensive commerce is carried on in wool and raw hides from Argentina, Australia and Cape Colony.

MAZANDARAN, a province of northern Persia, lying between the Caspian Sea and the Elburz range, and bounded E. and W. by the provinces of Astarabad and Gilan respectively, 220 m. in length and 60 m. in (mean) breadth, with an area of about 10,000 sq. m. and a population estimated at from 150,000 to 200,000. Mazandaran comprises two distinct natural regions presenting the sharpest contrasts in their relief, climate and products. In the north the Caspian is encircled by the level and swampy lowlands, varying in breadth from 10 to 30 m., partly under impenetrable jungle, partly under rice, cotton, sugar and other crops. This section is fringed northwards by the sandy beach of the Caspian, here almost destitute of natural harbours, and rises somewhat abruptly inland to the second section, comprising the northern slopes and spurs of the Elburz, which approach at some points within 1 or 2 m. of the sea, and are almost everywhere covered with dense forest. The lowlands, rising but a few feet above the Caspian, and subject to frequent floodings, are extremely malarious, while the highlands, culminating with the magnificent Demavend (19,400 ft.), enjoy a tolerably healthy climate. But the climate, generally hot and moist in summer, is everywhere capricious and liable to sudden changes of temperature, whence the prevalence of rheumatism, dropsy and especially ophthalmia, noticed by all travellers. Snow falls heavily in the uplands, where it often lies for weeks on the ground. The direction of the long sandbanks at the river mouths, which project with remarkable uniformity from west to east, shows that the prevailing winds blow from the west and north-west. The rivers themselves, of which there are as many as fifty, are little more than mountain torrents, all rising on the northern slopes of Elburz, flowing mostly in independent channels to the Caspian, and subject to sudden freshets and inundations along their lower course. The chief are the Sardab-rud, Chalus, Herhaz (Lar in its upper course), Babul, Tejen and Nika, and all are well stocked with trout, salmon (_azad-mahi_), perch (_safid-mahi_), carp (_kupur_), bream (_subulu_), sturgeon (_sag-mahi_) and other fish, which with rice form the staple food of the inhabitants; the sturgeon supplies the caviare for the Russian market. Near their mouths the rivers, running counter to the prevailing winds and waves of the Caspian, form long sand-hills 20 to 30 ft. high and about 200 yds. broad, behind which are developed the so-called _múrd-áb_, or "dead waters," stagnant pools and swamps characteristic of this coast, and a main cause of its unhealthiness.

The chief products are rice, cotton, sugar, a little silk, and fruits in great variety, including several kinds of the orange, lemon and citron. Some of the slopes are covered with extensive thickets of the pomegranate, and the wild vine climbs to a great height round the trunks of the forest trees. These woodlands are haunted by the tiger, panther, bear, wolf and wild boar in considerable numbers. Of the domestic animals, all remarkable for their small size, the chief are the black, humped cattle somewhat resembling the Indian variety, and sheep and goats.

Kinneir, Fraser and other observers speak unfavourably of the
Mazandarani people, whom they describe as very ignorant and bigoted,
arrogant, rudely inquisitive and almost insolent towards strangers.
The peasantry, however, are far from dull, and betray much shrewdness
where their interests are concerned. In the healthy districts they are
stout and well made, and are considered a warlike race, furnishing
some cavalry (800 men) and eight battalions of infantry (5600 men) to
government. They speak a marked Persian dialect, but a Turki idiom
closely akin to the Turkoman is still current amongst the tribes,
although they have mostly already passed from the nomad to the settled
state. Of these tribes the most numerous are the Modaunlu, Khojehvand
and Abdul Maleki, originally of Lek or Kurd stock, besides branches of
the royal Afshar and Kajar tribes of Turki descent. All these are
exempt from taxes in consideration of their military service.

The export trade is chiefly with Russia from Meshed-i-Sar, the
principal port of the province, to Baku, where European goods are
taken in exchange for the white and coloured calicoes, caviare, rice,
fruits and raw cotton of Mazandaran. Great quantities of rice are also
exported to the interior of Persia, principally to Teheran and Kazvin.
Owing to the almost impenetrable character of the country there are
scarcely any roads accessible to wheeled carriages, and the great
causeway of Shah Abbas along the coast has in many places even
disappeared under the jungle. Two routes, however, lead to Teheran,
one by Firuz Kuh, 180 m. long, the other by Larijan, 144 m. long, both
in tolerably good repair. Except where crossed by these routes the
Elburz forms an almost impassable barrier to the south.

The administration is in the hands of a governor, who appoints the
sub-governors of the nine districts of Amol, Barfarush, Meshed-i-Sar,
Sari, Ashref, Farah-abad, Tunakabun, Kelarrustak and Kujur into which
the province is divided. There is fair security for life and property;
and, although otherwise indifferently administered, the country is
quite free from marauders; but local disturbances have latterly been
frequent in the two last-named districts. The revenue is about
£30,000, of which little goes to the state treasury, most being
required for the governors, troops and pensions. The capital is Sari,
the other chief towns being Barfarush, Meshed-i-Sar, Ashref and
Farah-abad. (A. H.-S.)

MAZARIN, JULES (1602-1661), French cardinal and statesman, elder son of a Sicilian, Pietro Mazarini, the intendant of the household of Philip Colonna, and of his wife Ortensia Buffalini, a connexion of the Colonnas, was born at Piscina in the Abruzzi on the 14th of July 1602. He was educated by the Jesuits at Rome till his seventeenth year, when he accompanied Jerome Colonna as chamberlain to the university of Alcala in Spain. There he distinguished himself more by his love of gambling and his gallant adventures than by study, but made himself a thorough master, not only of the Spanish language and character, but also of that romantic fashion of Spanish love-making which was to help him greatly in after life, when he became the servant of a Spanish queen. On his return to Rome, about 1622, he took his degree as Doctor _utriusque juris_, and then became captain of infantry in the regiment of Colonna, which took part in the war in the Valtelline. During this war he gave proofs of much diplomatic ability, and Pope Urban VIII. entrusted him, in 1629, with the difficult task of putting an end to the war of the Mantuan succession. His success marked him out for further distinction. He was presented to two canonries in the churches of St John Lateran and Sta Maria Maggiore, although he had only taken the minor orders, and had never been consecrated priest; he negotiated the treaty of Turin between France and Savoy in 1632, became vice-legate at Avignon in 1634, and nuncio at the court of France from 1634 to 1636. But he began to wish for a wider sphere than papal negotiations, and, seeing that he had no chance of becoming a cardinal except by the aid of some great power, he accepted Richelieu's offer of entering the service of the king of France, and in 1639 became a naturalized Frenchman.

In 1640 Richelieu sent him to Savoy, where the regency of Christine, the duchess of Savoy, and sister of Louis XIII., was disputed by her brothers-in-law, the princes Maurice and Thomas of Savoy, and he succeeded not only in firmly establishing Christine but in winning over the princes to France. This great service was rewarded by his promotion to the rank of cardinal on the presentation of the king of France in December 1641. On the 4th of December 1642 Cardinal Richelieu died, and on the very next day the king sent a circular letter to all officials ordering them to send in their reports to Cardinal Mazarin, as they had formerly done to Cardinal Richelieu. Mazarin was thus acknowledged supreme minister, but he still had a difficult part to play. The king evidently could not live long, and to preserve power he must make himself necessary to the queen, who would then be regent, and do this without arousing the suspicions of the king or the distrust of the queen. His measures were ably taken, and when the king died, on the 14th of May 1643, to everyone's surprise her husband's minister remained the queen's. The king had by a royal edict cumbered the queen-regent with a council and other restrictions, and it was necessary to get the parlement of Paris to overrule the edict and make the queen absolute regent, which was done with the greatest complaisance. Now that the queen was all-powerful, it was expected she would at once dismiss Mazarin and summon her own friends to power. One of them, Potier, bishop of Beauvais, already gave himself airs as prime minister, but Mazarin had had the address to touch both the queen's heart by his Spanish gallantry and her desire for her son's glory by his skilful policy abroad, and he found himself able easily to overthrow the clique of Importants, as they were called. That skilful policy was shown in every arena on which the great Thirty Years' War was being fought out. Mazarin had inherited the policy of France during the Thirty Years' War from Richelieu. He had inherited his desire for the humiliation of the house of Austria in both its branches, his desire to push the French frontier to the Rhine and maintain a counterpoise of German states against Austria, his alliances with the Netherlands and with Sweden, and his four theatres of war--on the Rhine, in Flanders, in Italy and in Catalonia.

During the last five years of the great war it was Mazarin alone who directed the French diplomacy of the period. He it was who made the peace of Brömsebro between the Danes and the Swedes, and turned the latter once again against the empire; he it was who sent Lionne to make the peace of Castro, and combine the princes of North Italy against the Spaniards, and who made the peace of Ulm between France and Bavaria, thus detaching the emperor's best ally. He made one fatal mistake--he dreamt of the French frontier being the Rhine and the Scheldt, and that a Spanish princess might bring the Spanish Netherlands as dowry to Louis XIV. This roused the jealousy of the United Provinces, and they made a separate peace with Spain in January 1648; but the valour of the French generals made the skill of the Spanish diplomatists of no avail, for Turenne's victory at Zusmarshausen, and Condé's at Lens, caused the peace of Westphalia to be definitely signed in October 1648. This celebrated treaty belongs rather to the history of Germany than to a life of Mazarin; but two questions have been often asked, whether Mazarin did not delay the peace as long as possible in order to more completely ruin Germany, and whether Richelieu would have made a similar peace. To the first question Mazarin's letters, published by M. Chéruel, prove a complete negative, for in them appears the zeal of Mazarin for the peace. On the second point, Richelieu's letters in many places indicate that his treatment of the great question of frontier would have been more thorough, but then he would not have been hampered in France itself.

At home Mazarin's policy lacked the strength of Richelieu's. The Frondes were largely due to his own fault. The arrest of Broussel threw the people on the side of the parlement. His avarice and unscrupulous plundering of the revenues of the realm, the enormous fortune which he thus amassed, his supple ways, his nepotism, and the general lack of public interest in the great foreign policy of Richelieu, made Mazarin the especial object of hatred both by bourgeois and nobles. The irritation of the latter was greatly Mazarin's own fault; he had tried consistently to play off the king's brother Gaston of Orleans against Condé, and their respective followers against each other, and had also, as his _carnets_ prove, jealously kept any courtier from getting into the good graces of the queen-regent except by his means, so that it was not unnatural that the nobility should hate him, while the queen found herself surrounded by his creatures alone. Events followed each other quickly; the day of the barricades was followed by the peace of Ruel, the peace of Ruel by the arrest of the princes, by the battle of Rethel, and Mazarin's exile to Brühl before the union of the two Frondes. It was while in exile at Brühl that Mazarin saw the mistake he had made in isolating himself and the queen, and that his policy of balancing every party in the state against each other had made every party distrust him. So by his counsel the queen, while nominally in league with De Retz and the parliamentary Fronde, laboured to form a purely royal party, wearied by civil dissensions, who should act for her and her son's interest alone, under the leadership of Mathieu Molé, the famous premier president of the parlement of Paris. The new party grew in strength, and in January 1652, after exactly a year's absence, Mazarin returned to the court. Turenne had now become the royal general, and out-manoeuvred Condé, while the royal party at last grew to such strength in Paris that Condé had to leave the capital and France. In order to promote a reconciliation with the parlement of Paris Mazarin had again retired from court, this time to Sedan, in August 1652, but he returned finally in February 1653. Long had been the trial, and greatly had Mazarin been to blame in allowing the Frondes to come into existence, but he had retrieved his position by founding that great royal party which steadily grew until Louis XIV. could fairly have said "L'État, c'est moi." As the war had progressed, Mazarin had steadily followed Richelieu's policy of weakening the nobles on their country estates. Whenever he had an opportunity he destroyed a feudal castle, and by destroying the towers which commanded nearly every town in France, he freed such towns as Bourges, for instance, from their long practical subjection to the neighbouring great lord.

The Fronde over, Mazarin had to build up afresh the power of France at home and abroad. It is to his shame that he did so little at home. Beyond destroying the brick-and-mortar remains of feudalism, he did nothing for the people. But abroad his policy was everywhere successful, and opened the way for the policy of Louis XIV. He at first, by means of an alliance with Cromwell, recovered the north-western cities of France, though at the price of yielding Dunkirk to the Protector. On the Baltic, France guaranteed the Treaty of Oliva between her old allies Sweden, Poland and Brandenburg, which preserved her influence in that quarter. In Germany he, through Hugues de Lionne, formed the league of the Rhine, by which the states along the Rhine bound themselves under the headship of France to be on their guard against the house of Austria. By such measures Spain was induced to sue for peace, which was finally signed in the Isle of Pheasants on the Bidassoa, and is known as the Treaty of the Pyrenees. By it Spain recovered Franche Comté, but ceded to France Roussillon, and much of French Flanders; and, what was of greater ultimate importance to Europe, Louis XIV. was to marry a Spanish princess, who was to renounce her claims to the Spanish succession if her dowry was paid, which Mazarin knew could not happen at present from the emptiness of the Spanish exchequer. He returned to Paris in declining health, and did not long survive the unhealthy sojourn on the Bidassoa; after some political instruction to his young master he passed away at Vincennes on the 9th of March 1661, leaving a fortune estimated at from 18 to 40 million livres behind him, and his nieces married into the greatest families of France and Italy.

The man who could have had such success, who could have made the
Treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees, who could have weathered the
storm of the Fronde, and left France at peace with itself and with
Europe to Louis XIV., must have been a great man; and historians,
relying too much on the brilliant memoirs of his adversaries, like De
Retz, are apt to rank him too low. That he had many a petty fault
there can be no doubt; that he was avaricious and double-dealing was
also undoubted; and his _carnets_ show to what unworthy means he had
recourse to maintain his influence over the queen. What that influence
was will be always debated, but both his _carnets_ and the Brühl
letters show that a real personal affection, amounting to passion on
the queen's part, existed. Whether they were ever married may be
doubted; but that hypothesis is made more possible by M. Chéruel's
having been able to prove from Mazarin's letters that the cardinal
himself had never taken more than the minor orders, which could always
be thrown off. With regard to France he played a more patriotic part
than Condé or Turenne, for he never treated with the Spaniards, and
his letters show that in the midst of his difficulties he followed
with intense eagerness every movement on the frontiers. It is that
immense mass of letters that prove the real greatness of the
statesman, and disprove De Retz's portrait, which is carefully
arranged to show off his enemy against the might of Richelieu. To
concede that the master was the greater man and the greater statesman
does not imply that Mazarin was but a foil to his predecessor. It is
true that we find none of those deep plans for the internal prosperity
of France which shine through Richelieu's policy. Mazarin was not a
Frenchman, but a citizen of the world, and always paid most attention
to foreign affairs; in his letters all that could teach a diplomatist
is to be found, broad general views of policy, minute details
carefully elaborated, keen insight into men's characters, cunning
directions when to dissimulate or when to be frank. Italian though he
was by birth, education and nature, France owed him a great debt for
his skilful management during the early years of Louis XIV., and the
king owed him yet more, for he had not only transmitted to him a
nation at peace, but had educated for him his great servants Le
Tellier, Lionne and Colbert. Literary men owed him also much; not only
did he throw his famous library open to them, but he pensioned all
their leaders, including Descartes, Vincent Voiture (1598-1648), Jean
Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654) and Pierre Corneille. The last-named
applied, with an adroit allusion to his birthplace, in the dedication
of his _Pompée_, the line of Virgil:--

"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento." (H. M. S.)

AUTHORITIES.--All the earlier works on Mazarin, and early accounts of
his administration, of which the best were Bazin's _Histoire de France
sous Louis XIII. et sous le Cardinal Mazarin_, 4 vols. (1846), and
Saint-Aulaire's _Histoire de la Fronde_, have been superseded by P. A.
Chéruel's admirable _Histoire de France pendant la minorité de Louis
XIV._, 4 vols. (1879-1880), which covers from 1643-1651, and its
sequel _Histoire de France sous le ministère de Cardinal Mazarin_, 2
vols. (1881-1882), which is the first account of the period written by
one able to sift the statements of De Retz and the memoir writers, and
rest upon such documents as Mazarin's letters and _carnets_. Mazarin's
_Lettres_, which must be carefully studied by any student of the
history of France, have appeared in the _Collection des documents
inédits_, 9 vols. For his _carnets_ reference must be made to V.
Cousin's articles in the _Journal des Savants_, and Chéruel in _Revue
historique_ (1877), see also Chéruel's _Histoire de France pendant la
minorité_, &c., app. to vol. iii.; for his early life to Cousin's
_Jeunesse de Mazarin_ (1865) and for the careers of his nieces to
Renée's _Les Nièces de Mazarin_ (1856). For the Mazarinades or squibs
written against him in Paris during the Fronde, see C. Moreau's
_Bibliographie des mazarinades_ (1850), containing an account of 4082
Mazarinades. See also A. Hassall, _Mazarin_ (1903).

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, a town of Afghanistan, the capital of the province of Afghan Turkestan. Owing to the importance of the military cantonment of Takhtapul, and its religious sanctity, it has long ago supplanted the more ancient capital of Balkh. It is situated in a malarious, almost desert plain, 9 m. E. of Balkh, and 30 m. S. of the Pata Kesar ferry on the Oxus river. In this neighbourhood is concentrated most of the Afghan army north of the Hindu Kush mountains, the fortified cantonment of Dehdadi having been completed by Sirdar Ghulam Ali Khan and incorporated with Mazar. Mazar-i-Sharif also contains a celebrated mosque, from which the town takes its name. It is a huge ornate building with minarets and a lofty cupola faced with shining blue tiles. It was built by Sultan Ali Mirza about A.D. 1420, and is held in great veneration by all Mussulmans, and especially by Shiites, because it is supposed to be the tomb of Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet.

MAZARRÓN, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Murcia, 19 m. W. of Cartagena. Pop. (1900), 23,284. There are soap and flour mills and metallurgic factories in the town, and iron, copper and lead mines in the neighbouring Sierra de Almenara. A railway 5 m. long unites Mazarron to its port on the Mediterranean, where there is a suburb with 2500 inhabitants (mostly engaged in fisheries and coasting trade), containing barracks, a custom-house, and important leadworks. Outside of the suburb there are saltpans, most of the proceeds of which are exported to Galicia.

MAZATLÁN, a city and port of the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, 120 m. (direct) W.S.W. of the city of Durango, in lat. 23° 12´ N., long 106° 24´ W. Pop. (1895), 15,852; (1900), 17,852. It is the Pacific coast terminus of the International railway which crosses northern Mexico from Ciudad Porfirio Diaz, and a port of call for the principal steamship lines on this coast. The harbour is spacious, but the entrance is obstructed by a bar. The city is built on a small peninsula. Its public buildings include a fine town-hall, chamber of commerce, a custom-house and two hospitals, besides which there is a nautical school and a meteorological station, one of the first established in Mexico. The harbour is provided with a sea-wall at Olas Altas. A government wireless telegraph service is maintained between Mazatlán and La Paz, Lower California. Among the manufactures are saw-mills, foundries, cotton factories and ropeworks, and the exports are chiefly hides, ixtle, dried and salted fish, gold, silver and copper (bars and ores), fruit, rubber, tortoise-shell, and gums and resins.

MAZE, a network of winding paths, a labyrinth (q.v.). The word means properly a state of confusion or wonder, and is probably of Scandinavian origin; cf. Norw. _mas_, exhausting labour, also chatter, _masa_, to be busy, also to worry, annoy; Swed. _masa_, to lounge, move slowly and lazily, to dream, muse. Skeat (_Etym._ Dict.) takes the original sense to be probably "to be lost in thought," "to dream," and connects with the root _ma-man_-, to think, cf. "mind," "man," &c. The word "maze" represents the addition of an intensive suffix.

MAZEPA-KOLEDINSKY, IVAN STEPANOVICH (1644?-1709), hetman of the Cossacks, belonging to a noble Orthodox family, was born possibly at Mazeptsina, either in 1629 or 1644, the latter being the more probable date. He was educated at the court of the Polish king, John Casimir, and completed his studies abroad. An intrigue with a Polish married lady forced him to fly into the Ukraine. There is a trustworthy tradition that the infuriated husband tied the naked youth to the back of a wild horse and sent him forth into the steppe. He was rescued and cared for by the Dnieperian Cossacks, and speedily became one of their ablest leaders. In 1687, during a visit to Moscow, he won the favour of the then all-powerful Vasily Golitsuin, from whom he virtually purchased the hetmanship of the Cossacks (July 25). He took a very active part in the Azov campaigns of Peter the Great and won the entire confidence of the young tsar by his zeal and energy. He was also very serviceable to Peter at the beginning of the Great Northern War, especially in 1705 and 1706, when he took part in the Volhynian campaign and helped to construct the fortress of Pechersk. The power and influence of Mazepa were fully recognized by Peter the Great. No other Cossack hetman had ever been treated with such deference at Moscow. He ranked with the highest dignitaries in the state; he sat at the tsar's own table. He had been made one of the first cavaliers of the newly established order of St Andrew, and Augustus of Poland had bestowed upon him, at Peter's earnest solicitation, the universally coveted order of the White Eagle. Mazepa had no temptations to be anything but loyal, and loyal he would doubtless have remained had not Charles XII. crossed the Russian frontier. Then it was that Mazepa, who had had doubts of the issue of the struggle all along, made up his mind that Charles, not Peter, was going to win, and that it was high time he looked after his own interests. Besides, he had his personal grievances against the tsar. He did not like the new ways because they interfered with his old ones. He was very jealous of the favourite (Menshikov), whom he suspected of a design to supplant him. But he proceeded very cautiously. Indeed, he would have preferred to remain neutral, but he was not strong enough to stand alone. The crisis came when Peter ordered him to co-operate actively with the Russian forces in the Ukraine. At this very time he was in communication with Charles's first minister, Count Piper, and had agreed to harbour the Swedes in the Ukraine and close it against the Russians (Oct. 1708). The last doubt disappeared when Menshikov was sent to supervise Mazepa. At the approach of his rival the old hetman hastened to the Swedish outposts at Horki, in Severia. Mazepa's treason took Peter completely by surprise. He instantly commanded Menshikov to get a new hetman elected and raze Baturin, Mazepa's chief stronghold in the Ukraine, to the ground. When Charles, a week later, passed Baturin by, all that remained of the Cossack capital was a heap of smouldering mills and ruined houses. The total destruction of Baturin, almost in sight of the Swedes, overawed the bulk of the Cossacks into obedience, and Mazepa's ancient prestige was ruined in a day when the metropolitan of Kiev solemnly excommunicated him from the high altar, and his effigy, after being dragged with contumely through the mud at Kiev, was publicly burnt by the common hangman. Henceforth Mazepa, perforce, attached himself to Charles. What part he took at the battle of Poltava is not quite clear. After the catastrophe he accompanied Charles to Turkey with some 1500 horsemen (the miserable remnant of his 80,000 warriors). The sultan refused to surrender him to the tsar, though Peter offered 300,000 ducats for his head. He died at Bender on the 22nd of August 1709.

See N. I. Kostomarov, _Mazepa and the Mazepanites_ (Russ.) (St
Petersburg), 1885; R. Nisbet Bain, _The First Romanovs_ (London,
1905); S. M. Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Russ.), vol. xv. (St
Petersburg, 1895). (R. N. B.)

MAZER, the name of a special type of drinking vessel, properly made of maple-wood, and so-called from the spotted or "birds-eye" marking on the wood (Ger. _Maser_, spot, marking, especially on wood; cf. "measles"). These drinking vessels are shallow bowls without handles, with a broad flat foot and a knob or boss in the centre of the inside, known technically as the "print." They were made from the 13th to the 16th centuries, and were the most prized of the various wooden cups in use, and so were ornamented with a rim of precious metal, generally of silver or silver gilt; the foot and the "print" being also of metal. The depth of the mazers seems to have decreased in course of time, those of the 16th century that survive being much shallower than the earlier examples. There are examples with wooden covers with a metal handle, such as the Flemish and German mazers in the Franks Bequest in the British Museum. On the metal rim is usually an inscription, religious or bacchanalian, and the "print" was also often decorated. The later mazers sometimes had metal straps between the rim and the foot.

A very fine mazer with silver gilt ornamentation 3 in. deep and 9½ in.
in diameter was sold in the Braikenridge collection in 1908 for £2300.
It bears the London hall-mark of 1534. This example is illustrated in
the article PLATE: see also DRINKING VESSELS.

MAZURKA (Polish for a woman of the province of Mazovia), a lively dance, originating in Poland, somewhat resembling the polka.It is danced in couples, the music being in 3/8 or ¾ time.

MAZZARA DEL VALLO, a town of Sicily, in the province of Trapani, on the south-west coast of the island, 32 m. by rail S. of Trapani. Pop. (1901), 20,130. It is the seat of a bishop; the cathedral, founded in 1093, was rebuilt in the 17th century. The castle, at the south-eastern angle of the town walls, was erected in 1073. The mouth of the river, which bears the same name, serves as a port for small ships only. Mazzara was in origin a colony of Selinus: it was destroyed in 409, but it is mentioned again as a Carthaginian fortress in the First Punic War and as a post station on the Roman coast road, though whether it had municipal rights is doubtful.[1] A few inscriptions of the imperial period exist, but no other remains of importance. On the west bank of the river are grottoes cut in the rock, of uncertain date: and there are quarries in the neighbourhood resembling those of Syracuse, but on a smaller scale.