Chapter XXV: Part 25

"In the earlier ages of the Church, the definition of heresy
had been committed to episcopal authority. But the cognisance
of heretics and the determination of their punishment remained
in the hands of secular magistrates. At the end of the 12th
century the wide diffusion of the Albigensian heterodoxy
through Languedoc and Northern Italy alarmed the chiefs of
Christendom, and furnished the Papacy with a good pretext for
extending its prerogatives. Innocent III. in 1203 empowered
two French Cistercians, Pierre de Castelnau and Raoul, to
preach against the heretics of Provence. In the following year
he ratified this commission by a Bull, which censured the
negligence and coldness of the bishops, appointed the Abbot of
Citeaux Papal delegate in matters of heresy, and gave him
authority to judge and punish misbelievers. This was the first
germ of the Holy Office as a separate Tribunal. … Being a
distinct encroachment of the Papacy upon the episcopal
jurisdiction and prerogatives, the Inquisition met at first
with some opposition from the bishops. The people for whose
persecution it was designed, and at whose expense it carried
on its work, broke into rebellion; the first years of its
annals were rendered illustrious by the murder of one of its
founders, Pierre de Castelnau. He was canonised, and became
the first Saint of the Inquisition. … In spite of
opposition, the Papal institution took root and flourished.
Philip Augustus responded to the appeals of Innocent; and a
crusade began against the Albigenses, in which Simon de
Montfort won his sinister celebrity. During those bloody wars
the Inquisition developed itself as a force of formidable
expansive energy. Material assistance to the cause was
rendered by a Spanish monk of the Augustine order, who settled
in Provence on his way back from Rome in 1206. Domenigo de
Guzman, known to universal history as S. Dominic, organised a
new militia for the service of the orthodox Church between the
years 1215 and 1219. His order, called the Order of the
Preachers, was originally designed to repress heresy and
confirm the faith by diffusing Catholic doctrine and
maintaining the creed in its purity. It consisted of three
sections: the Preaching Friars; nuns living in conventual
retreat; and laymen, entitled the Third Order of Penitence or
the Militia of Christ, who in after years were merged with the
Congregation of S. Peter Martyr, and corresponded to the
familiars of the Inquisition. Since the Dominicans were
established in the heat and passion of a crusade against
heresy, by a rigid Spaniard who employed his energies in
persecuting misbelievers, they assumed at the outset a
belligerent and inquisitorial attitude. Yet it is not strictly
accurate to represent S. Dominic himself as the first Grand
Inquisitor.
{1751}
The Papacy proceeded with caution in its design of forming a
tribunal dependent on the Holy See and independent of the
bishops. Papal Legates with plenipotentiary authority were
sent to Languedoc, and decrees were issued against the
heretics, in which the Inquisition was rather implied than
directly named; nor can I find that S. Dominic, though he
continued to be the soul of the new institution until his
death, in 1221, obtained the title of Inquisitor.
Notwithstanding this vagueness, the Holy Office may be said to
have been founded by S. Dominic; and it soon became apparent
that the order he had formed was destined to monopolise its
functions. … This Apostolical Inquisition was at once
introduced into Lombardy, Romagna and the Marches of Treviso.
The extreme rigour of its proceedings, the extortions of
monks, and the violent resistance offered by the communes, led
to some relaxation of its original constitution. More
authority had to be conceded to the bishops; and the right of
the Inquisitors to levy taxes on the people was modified. Yet
it retained its true form of a Papal organ, superseding the
episcopal prerogatives, and overriding the secular
magistrates, who were bound to execute its biddings. As such
it was admitted into Tuscany, and established in Aragon.
Venice received it in 1289, with certain reservations that
placed its proceedings under the control of Doge and Council.
In Languedoc, the country of its birth, it remained rooted at
Toulouse and Carcassonne; but the Inquisition did not extend
its authority over central and northern France. In Paris its
functions were performed by the Sorbonne. Nor did it obtain a
footing in England, although the statute 'De Haeretico
Comburendo,' passed in 1401 at the instance of the higher
clergy, sanctioned the principles on which it existed. … The
revival of the Holy Office on a new and far more murderous
basis, took place in 1484. We have seen that hitherto there
had been two types of inquisition into heresy. The first,
which remained in force up to the year 1203, may be called the
episcopal. The second was the Apostolical or Dominican: it
transferred this jurisdiction from the bishops to the Papacy,
who employed the order of S. Dominic for the special service
of the tribunal instituted by the Imperial Decrees of
Frederick II. The third deserves no other name than Spanish,
though, after it had taken shape in Spain, it was transferred
to Portugal, applied in all the Spanish and Portuguese
colonies, and communicated with some modifications to Italy
and the Netherlands. Both the second and the third types of
inquisition into heresy were Spanish inventions, patented by
the Roman Pontiffs and monopolised by the Dominican order. But
the third and final form of the Holy Office in Spain
distinguished itself by emancipation from Papal and Royal
control, and by a specific organisation which rendered it the
most formidable of irresponsible engines in the annals of
religious institutions. … Castile had hitherto been free
from the pest. But the conditions of that kingdom offered a
good occasion for its introduction at the date which I have
named. During the Middle Ages the Jews of Castile acquired
vast wealth and influence. Few families but felt the burden of
their bonds and mortgages. Religious fanaticism, social
jealousy, and pecuniary distress exasperated the Christian
population; and as early as the year 1391, more than 5,000
Jews were massacred in one popular uprising. The Jews, in
fear, adopted Christianity. It is said that in the 15th
century the population counted some million of
converts—called New Christians, or, in contempt, Marranos: a
word which may probably be derived from the Hebrew Maranatha.
These converted Jews, by their ability and wealth, crept into
high offices of state, obtained titles of aristocracy, and
founded noble houses. … It was a Sicilian Inquisitor, Philip
Barberis, who suggested to Ferdinand the Catholic the
advantage he might secure by extending the Holy Office to
Castile. Ferdinand avowed his willingness; and Sixtus IV. gave
the project his approval in 1478. But it met with opposition
from the gentler-natured Isabella. … Then Isabella yielded;
and in 1481 the Holy Office was founded at Seville. It began
its work by publishing a comprehensive edict against all New
Christians suspected of Judaising, which offence was so
constructed as to cover the most innocent observance of
national customs. Resting from labour on Saturday; performing
ablutions at stated times; refusing to eat pork or puddings
made of blood; and abstaining from wine, sufficed to colour
accusations of heresy. … Upon the publication of this edict,
there was an exodus of Jews by thousands into the fiefs of
independent vassals of the crown—the Duke of Medina Sidonia,
the Marquis of Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos. All emigrants
were 'ipso facto' declared heretics by the Holy Office. During
the first year after its foundation, Seville beheld 298
persons burned alive, and 79 condemned to perpetual
imprisonment. A large square stage of stone, called the
Quemadero, was erected for the execution of those multitudes
who were destined to suffer death by hanging or by flame. In
the same year, 2,000 were burned and 17,000 condemned to
public penitence, while even a larger number were burned in
effigy, in other parts of the kingdom. … In 1483 Thomas of
Torquemada was nominated Inquisitor General for Castile and
Aragon. Under his rule a Supreme Council was established, over
which he presided for life. … In 1484 a General Council was
held, and the constitution of the Inquisition was established
by articles. … The two most formidable features of the
Inquisition as thus constituted were the exclusion of the
bishops from its tribunal and the secrecy of its procedure.
… In the autumn of 1484 the Inquisition was introduced into
Aragon; and Saragossa became its headquarters in that State.
… The Spanish Inquisition was now firmly grounded. Directed
by Torquemada, it began to encroach upon the crown, to insult
the episcopacy, to defy the Papacy, to grind the Commons, and
to outrage by its insolence the aristocracy. … The Holy
Office grew every year in pride, pretensions and exactions. It
arrogated to its tribunal crimes of usury, bigamy, blasphemous
swearing, and unnatural vice, which appertained by right to
the secular courts. It depopulated Spain by the extermination
and banishment of at least three million industrious subjects
during the first 139 years of its existence. … Torquemada
was the genius of evil who created and presided over this foul
instrument of human crime and folly.
{1752}
During his eighteen years of administration, reckoning from
1480 to 1498, he sacrificed, according to Llorente's
calculation, above 114,000 victims, of whom 10,220 were burned
alive, 6,860 burned in effigy, and 97,000 condemned to
perpetual imprisonment or public penitence. He, too, it was
who in 1492 compelled Ferdinand to drive the Jews from his
dominions. … The edict of expulsion was issued on the last
of March. Before the last of July all Jews were sentenced to
depart, carrying no gold or silver with them. They disposed of
their lands, houses, and goods for next to nothing, and went
forth to die by thousands on the shores of Africa and Italy.
… The exodus of the Jews was followed in 1502 by a similar
exodus of Moors from Castile, and in 1524 by an exodus of
Mauresques from Aragon. To compute the loss of wealth and
population inflicted upon Spain by these mad edicts would be
impossible. … After Torquemada, Diego Deza reigned as second
Inquisitor General from 1498 to 1507. In these years,
according to the same calculation, 2,592 were burned alive,
896 burned in effigy, 34,952 condemned to prison or public
penitence. Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros followed between 1507
and 1517. The victims of this decade were 3,564 burned alive.
… Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa, tutor to Charles V., and
afterwards Pope, was Inquisitor General between 1516 and 1525.
Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia, at this epoch, simultaneously
demanded a reform of the Holy Office from their youthful
sovereign. But Charles refused, and the tale of Adrian's
administration was 1,620 burned alive, 560 burned in effigy,
21,845 condemned to prison or public penitence. The total,
during 43 years, between 1481 and 1525, amounted to 234,526,
including all descriptions of condemned heretics. These
figures are of necessity vague, for the Holy Office left but
meagre records of its proceedings.".

_J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction,
chapter 3 (part 1)._

ALSO IN:
_H. C. Lea,
History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages._

_J. A. Llorente,
History of the Inquisition,
chapters 1-12._

_W. H. Rule,
History of the Inquisition,
chapters 1-14._

_W. H. Prescott,
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,
part 1, chapters 7 and 17._

See, also,
JEWS: 8TH-15TH CENTURIES; and MOORS: A. D. 1492-1609.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1521-1568.
Introduction and work in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555; 1559-1562; and 1568.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1546.
Successful revolt against the Holy Office at Naples.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1528-1570.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1550-1816.
Establishment in Peru.

See PERU: A. D. 1550-1816.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1814-1820.
Restoration and abolition in Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.

----------INQUISITION: End----------

INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN.

See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (DECEMBER).

INSUBRIANS AND CENOMANIANS, The.

"North of the Po, in the country about Milan, dwelt [3d
century, B. C.] the great people of the Insubrians, while to
the east of these on the Mincio and the Adige lay the
Cenomanians; but these tribes, little inclined, seemingly, to
make common cause with their countrymen [the Boian and
Senonian Gauls] remained neutral in all the hostilities
against Rome." But the Insubrians were attacked and subdued,
B. C. 223.

_W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 4, chapter 5 (volume 2)._

See, also, ROME: B. C. 295-191.

INTERDICTS.

See EXCOMMUNICATIONS.

INTERIM OF CHARLES V., The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.

"INTERNATIONAL," The.

"The year of the London Exhibition, and under the auspices of
the Emperor Napoleon III., a number of Paris working-men
visited the English capital. They were welcomed by a London
Committee of artisans, and on this occasion the wish for a
closer union between the labourers of different countries was
expressed on both sides. Then the Polish insurrection broke
out, and masses of London and Paris working-men took steps
simultaneously to manifest sympathy with the insurgents. A
deputation was again sent over from Paris, and the result of
this measure was a resolution to delay preparations for
co-operation no longer. For some time the international idea
was carefully given prominence in labour circles in various
countries, and on September 28th, 1864, a congress of many
nations was held in St. Martin's Hall, London, under the
presidency of Professor Beesly. A committee was appointed,
representing England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and
Switzerland, for the drawing up of statutes for an
International Working Men's Association, whose seat should be
London. … It was not long before the International
Association became a power which caused alarm to not a few
European Governments."

_W. H. Dawson,
German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle,
chapter 13._

INTERREGNUM, The Great.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272.

INTERREX.

A temporary king, in ancient Rome.

See ROME: B. C. 509; also, SENATE, ROMAN.

INTRANSIGENTISTS.

In European politics, the extreme radicals—the uncompromising
and irreconcilable factions—are frequently so called.

INVERLOCHY, Battle of (1645).

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.

INVESTITURES, The War of.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122;
and GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122.

INVISIBLE EMPIRE, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871.

IONA, Monastery and Schools of.

See COLUMBAN CHURCH;
and EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.

IONIA.

The Ionian cities on the coast of Asia Minor bore collectively
the name Ionia, though no national union was signified by the
designation.

See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES, and after.

IONIAN (DELIAN) CONFEDERACY, The.

See GREECE: B. C. 478-477;
and ATHENS: B. C. 466-454, and after.

----------IONIAN ISLANDS: Start--------

IONIAN ISLANDS:
To 1814.
Under Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and French rule.

"Acarnania, as a glance at the map will show, is the most
western part of continental Greece. But in close proximity to
the mainland there stretch along the west coast a number of
islands, some of them of considerable area, the history and
traditions of which are inseparably intertwined with those of
Hellas. They have long been known as the Ionian Islands,
deriving the name, in all likelihood, from the sea in which
they are situated; for their ancient inhabitants were not, so
far as is known, of Ionic descent.
{1753}
They are very numerous, but only six of them are of
any historic importance. The most northerly is Corcyra
(Corfu), a long, narrow island, which extends like a lofty
breakwater in front of the coast of Epirus." The other five
are Paxos (Paxo), Leucadia (Santa Maura), Cephallenia
(Cephalonia), Ithaca (Thiaki), Zacynthus (Zante), and Cythera
(Cerigo). "Though not the largest, Corcyra is the most
populous and important of the islands. It has a place in the
mythic tradition, and a still greater one in the ascertained
history, of ancient Hellas.

See KORKYRA;
also, GREECE: B. C. 435-432, and 432.

… With the other islands in the Ionian Sea, Corcyra passed
under the dominion of Rome, and subsequently became part of
the Eastern Empire. In 540 A. D. the fleet of the Gothic
leader Totila ravaged the coasts of the island, but did not
capture the city, the fortifications of which had been greatly
strengthened by the Romans. Five centuries later the island
and its capital fell into the hands of a more formidable
invader—the Norman Robert Guiscard, who captured them on his
way from Italy to prosecute that invasion of the Byzantine
Empire which was at one time so nearly attended with success.
The first Norman supremacy did not last long; but in 1144 A.
D., Roger, the Norman king of Sicily, took occasion of a
rising of the Corcyreans (or, as they now began to be called,
the Corfiotes) against the Byzantine Emperor Manuel to
introduce a garrison into the city. Four years later Manuel,
who was an energetic and warlike prince, laid siege to Corfu,
and was assisted by the Venetians. The Norman garrison offered
a most determined resistance, but were ultimately obliged to
surrender on honourable terms. After the overthrow of the
Byzantine emperors, in the early part of the 13th century,
Corfu, with the other Ionian Islands, became part of the
dominions of the Venetian republic, and so continued, with
brief intervals, for nearly 500 years. The Venetian rule was
on the whole favourable to the material prosperity of the
island: it was admirably cultivated, and became the centre of
a large commerce. Unlike most of the other possessions of
Venice in the eastern Mediterranean, Corfu never fell into the
hands of the Turks. They overran and ravaged the island in
1537, carrying off, according to their custom, many of the
young women and children as slaves; and they besieged the
capital, but its fortifications had been much strengthened by
the Venetians, and the garrison was able to offer a successful
resistance. In 1716 another memorable siege [see TURKS: A. D.
1714-1718] took place, during the war in which Sultan Achmet
III. engaged with Austria and the Venetian republic. A large
Ottoman army under Kara Mustapha beleaguered Corfu; but the
garrison was commanded by a distinguished soldier, Count
Schulemburg, who baffled an the efforts of the Turks, and at
last compelled them to withdraw to their ships after they had
lost 15,000 men. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, dictated in
1797 to Austria by Napoleon after his marvellous Italian
campaign, the Ionian Islands were transferred to France [see
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER)], the rest of the Venetian
territories falling to the share of Austria. The French
garrisons were, however, expelled in 1799 by a Russo-Turkish
expedition, and the islands constituted a republic [called the
Republic of the Seven Islands]. But in 1807, when the course
of events had changed Russia into an ally of the French
emperor, the latter again obtained possession of the islands
under the Treaty of Tilsit. The English, being masters of the
Mediterranean, soon drove the French out of all the islands
except Corfu. This was under French rule till 1814; and it is
only fair to say that they did much for the improvement of the
island, constructing some substantial roads in the interior.
In 1814, during the general cataclysm of the gigantic empire
of Napoleon, the French garrison was driven out of the island
after a gallant resistance, and in the following year the
Ionian Islands were reconstituted a republic under British
protection and supremacy."

_C. H. Hanson,
The Land of Greece,
chapter 4._

IONIAN ISLANDS: A. D. 1815-1862.
The British protectorate.
Its relinquishment.
Annexation to the kingdom of Greece.

"These seven islands [the Ionian] were constituted a sort of
republic or commonwealth by the Treaty of Vienna [1815]. But
they were consigned to the protectorate of Great Britain;
which had the right of maintaining garrisons in them. Great
Britain used to appoint a Lord High Commissioner, who was
generally a military man, and whose office combined the duties
of Commander-in-Chief with those of Civil Governor. The little
republic had a Senate of six members and a Legislative
Assembly of forty members. It seems almost a waste of words to
say that the islanders were not content with British
government. For good or ill, the Hellenes, wherever they are
found, are sure to be filled with an impassioned longing for
Hellenic independence. The people of the Ionian Islands were
eager to be allowed to enter into one system with the kingdom
of Greece. It was idle to try to amuse them by telling them
they constituted an independent republic, and were actually
governing themselves, … while they saw themselves presided
over by an English Lord High Commissioner who was also the
Commander-in-Chief of a goodly British army garrisoned in
their midst. … It is certain that they got a great deal of
material benefit from the presence of the energetic
road-making British power. But they wanted to be, above all
things, Greek. … Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton [who was
then—1858—Secretary for the Colonies in the British
Government] … thought the causes of the complaints and the
dissatisfaction were well worth looking into, and he resolved
on sending a statesman of distinction out to the islands to
make the enquiry. Mr. Gladstone had been for some years out of
office. He had been acting as an independent supporter of Lord
Palmerston's Government. It occurred to Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton that Mr. Gladstone was the man best fitted to conduct
the enquiry. … He offered, therefore, to Mr. Gladstone the
office of Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian
Islands, and Mr. Gladstone accepted the offer and its duties."
Arriving in Corfu in November, 1858, "he called together the
Senate, and endeavoured to satisfy them as to the real nature
of his mission. He explained that he had not come there to
discuss the propriety of maintaining the English protectorate,
but only to enquire into the manner in which the just claims
of the Ionian Islands might be secured by means of that
protectorate."
{1754}
But "the population of the islands persisted in regarding him,
not as the commissioner of a Conservative English Government,
but as 'Gladstone the Philhellene.' He was received wherever
he went with the honours due to a liberator. … The visit of
Mr. Gladstone, whatever purpose it may have been intended to
fulfil, had the effect of making them [the Ionians] agitate
more strenuously than ever for annexation to the kingdom of
Greece. Their wish, however, was not to be granted yet. A new
Lord High Commissioner was sent out after Mr. Gladstone's
return. … Still … the idea held ground that sooner or
later Great Britain would give up the charge of the islands. A
few years after, an opportunity occurred for making the
cession. The Greeks got rid quietly of their heavy German king
Otho [see GREECE: A. D. 1830-1862], and on the advice chiefly
of England they elected as sovereign a brother of the Princess
of Wales. … The second son of the King of Denmark was made
King of Greece; and Lord John Russell, on behalf of the
English Government, then [1862] handed over to the kingdom of
Greece the islands of which Great Britain had had so long to
bear the unwilling charge."

_J. McCarthy,
History of our Own Times,
chapter 39 (volume 3)._

----------IONIAN ISLANDS: End--------

IONIAN REVOLT, The.

See PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.

IONIANS, The.

See DORIANS AND IONIANS.

IONIC (PAN-IONIC) AMPHIKTYONY.

"There existed at the commencement of historical Greece, in
776 B. C., besides the Ionians in Attica and the Cyclades,
twelve Ionian cities of note on or near the coast of Asia
Minor, besides a few others less important. Enumerated from
south to north, they stand—Milêtus, Myûs, Priênê, Samos,
Ephesus, Kolophôn, Lebedus, Teôs, Erythræ, Chios, Klazomenæ,
Phôkæa. … Milêtus, Myûs and Priênê were situated on or near
the productive plain of the river Mæander; while Ephesus was
in like manner planted near the mouth of the Kaïster … :
Kolophon is only a very few miles north of the same river.
Possessing the best means of communication with the interior,
these towns seem to have thriven with greater rapidity than
the rest; and they, together with the neighbouring island of
Samos, constituted in early times the strength of the
Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony. The situation of the sacred precinct of
Poseidôn (where this festival was celebrated) on the north
side of the promontory of Mykalê, near Priênê, and between
Ephesus and Milêtus, seems to show that these towns formed the
primitive centre to which the other Ionian settlements became
gradually aggregated. For it was by no means a centrical site
with reference to all the twelve. … Moreover, it seems that
the Pan-Ionic festival [the celebration of which constituted
the Amphiktyony], though still formally continued, had lost
its importance before the time of Thucydidês, and had become
practically superseded by the more splendid festival of the
Ephesia, near Ephesus, where the cities of Ionia found a more
attractive place of meeting."

_G. Grote,
History of Greece
part 2, chapter 13 (volume 3)_.

----------IOWA: Start--------

IOWA: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALLEGHANS,
and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

IOWA: A. D. 1803.
Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

IOWA: A. D. 1834-1838.
Joined to Michigan Territory;
then to Wisconsin;
then separately organized.

See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.

IOWA: A. D. 1845.
Admission into the Union, with Florida for a slave-state
counterweight.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845.

----------IOWA: End--------

IOWAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY,
and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

IPSUS, Battle of (B. C. 301).

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301.

IQUIQUE, Battle of (1891).

See CHILE: A. D. 1885-1891.

IRACA.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1536-1731.

IRAK.

At the time of the Mahometan conquest, "Chaldea and Babylonia
occupied the rich region south of the river Tigris, watered by
the Euphrates, and were known as Irak of the Arabs, as
distinguished from Irak of the Persians, which corresponded
somewhat nearly to the modern kingdom of Persia. … Irak of
Arabia was at this time under the jurisdiction of Persia, and
the wandering Arabs who roamed over the broad desert were
tributary to Persia when they pitched their tents on the
eastern side, and to Rome when sojourning on the side towards
Syria; though they were at no time trusty allies or subjects.
The region of Irak contains many relics of a former
civilization; there are the mounds that mark the site of old
Babylon."

_A. Gilman,
Story of the Saracens,
pages 226-227._

IRAN, Table-Land of.

"Between the valley of the Indus and the land of the Euphrates
and Tigris, bounded on the south by the ocean and the Persian
Gulf, on the north by the broad steppes which the Oxus and
Jaxartes vainly attempt to fertilise, by the Caspian Sea and
the valley of the Aras [embracing modern Persia, Baluchistan,
Afghanistan and Russian Turkestan], lies the table-land of
Iran. Rising to an average height of 4,000 feet above the
level of the sea, it forms an oblong, the length of which from
east to west is something more than 1,500 miles. … As far
back as our information extends, we find the table-land of
Iran occupied by a group of nations closely related to each
other, and speaking dialects of the same language."

_M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 7, chapter 1._

See, also, ARYANS.

IRDJAR, Russian defeat at.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

----------IRELAND: Start--------

A Logical Outline of Irish History

In Which The Dominant Conditions And
Influences Are Distinguished By Colors.

Physical or material. (Red)
Ethnological. (Blue)
Social and political. (Green)
Intellectual, moral and religious. (Tan)
Foreign. (Black)

(Blue)
In the history of the two islands which form the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland there is a contrast of
fortune which nothing will account for save unexplainable
qualities of race. The Celtic warmth prevailing on one side of
St. George's Channel has worked ill in politics as against the
Teutonic coolness on the other; and it is probable that no
change of circumstances or conditions would have altered
greatly the relations of the two peoples. In their situation
as close neighbors, it was inevitable that one should dominate
the other. It seems to have been no less inevitable that the
mastery should settle where it did; and simply by the force of
more masterful qualities in the English race.

(Red)
If those who dwelt nearer to the mainland of Europe held
advantages over those of the farther island, they took nothing
from them in the earlier generations, but were overleaped and
passed by when the first movements of Christianity and
Christian culture into the West began; and it was Ireland, not
England, for three centuries, which nourished the purest faith
and the highest civilization of the age. If other advantages
belonged to the island which was richer in iron and coal, the
English were not helped by them to an ascendancy which they
had won before the mining of their riches began.

(Green)
In the early years of the eleventh century, when most of the
island had submitted to the rule of Brian Born, and when he
had shaken the grasp of the intruding Danes on the seaports of
the eastern and southern coasts, the state and prospects of
Ireland would have seemed to be well-nigh as good as those of
England at the same time. But that appearance vanished soon,
and it never returned. Among the English, the tendency toward
national union grew stronger with every generation; among the
Irish it got no growth. The political genius of the race,
remarkable to the present day in municipal politics, but
rarely successful in the greater political arenas, has always
been tribal or provincial in its range, and wanting in a
national comprehensiveness.

(Tan)
The Norman conquest of England was helpful to the
consolidation of an English kingdom. The Anglo-Norman conquest
of Ireland occurring a century later, promoted, on the
contrary, the divisions and disorders of the island. It
brought a new faction into Irish quarrels, instead of a new
sovereign to extinguish them. It was complete enough to forbid
the growth of order from any native root of influence or
authority, but not complete enough to carry order with itself.
In the full sense of the term it was never a conquest. It was
rather a persistent invasion, continued and repeated through
more than five centuries. In every generation it inflamed anew
the fierce animosity which an incomplete conquest will not
suffer to die out, until the very descendants of the older
intruders were infected with the native hatred of their
later-coming kindred. After four hundred years of inconclusive
conflict, the English were hardly nearer to mastery, the Irish
hardly nearer to submission, than at first.

Then arose between them a new difference to embitter their
antagonism. The Reformation of religion was accepted by one
race as naturally as it was rejected by the other. But
Protestantism under English patronage assumed a more hateful
aspect in Irish eyes, and Irishmen as Papists became doubly
odious to the English mind. So political hostilities and
religious enmities fomented one another, from that time, while
the primitive antagonism of race gave energy to both.

Under Cromwell and under William of Orange the subjugation was
completed at last in the spirit of a Protestant crusade, and
used as crusading victories have been wont to be used. The
triumphant Church, planting its strong settlements in the
land, assumed to itself all civil and political rights. Every
office and every honorable profession were closed against the
adherents of the defeated faith; its ministrations were
forbidden; its priests were expelled.

(Green)
But this was not all. As British commerce grew and British
industries were built up, they contributed yet another to the
malign confederacy of passions which oppressed the Irish
people. The merchant, the manufacturer, the landowner and the
farmer, on the English side, were banded by common jealousies
to suppress competition in Ireland. They hindered the
improvement of its resources and paralyzed its energies by
atrocious legislation. They reduced its population to
dependence on the most restricted production, leaving little
except husbandry for a vocation, and that under grinding
terms. They created by such measures a nation of peasants, as
poor and as helpless as serfs, living wretchedly on precarious
holdings of soil, at the mercy of landlords who regarded them
with dislike and contempt.

It was under such crushing conditions as these that Ireland
remained until near the end of the eighteenth century, always
hating the oppressors, often resisting the oppression, but
weakly or rashly, without judgment or enduring resolution.
Then began a great change in the tenor of her history. Two
influences of the age came into play, one acting on the
conscience of the English people, the other on the mind and
temper of the Irish. One has worked to the yielding of
justice, the other to the firmer pressing of demands for it.

At this day it may be said that oppression in Ireland, whether
religious or political, is wholly and forever extinct; that
whatever remains in dispute between Celt and Saxon is from
questions such as rise in every nation, and that the
bitterness which stays in Anglo-Irish politics is the
lingering rancor of a hateful past, not quickly to be
extinguished.

----------A Logical Outline of Irish History: End--------

IRELAND:
The name.

"Ireland was known by many names from very early ages. Thus,
in the Celtic it was called Inis-Fall, the isle of destiny;
Inis-Ealga, the noble island; Fiodh-Inis, the woody island;
and Eire, Fodhla, and Banba. By the Greeks it was called
Ierne, probably from the vernacular name of Eire, by
inflection Erin; whence, also, no doubt, its Latin name of
Juverna; Plutarch calls it Ogygia, or the ancient land; the
early Roman writers generally called it Hibernia, probably
from its Iberian inhabitants, and the later Romans and
mediæval writers Scotia, and sometimes Hibernia; and finally
its name of Ireland was formed by the Anglo-Normans from its
native name of Eire."

_M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
page 76, note._

See, also,
SCOTLAND: THE NAME;
and IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

{1755}

IRELAND:
The primitive inhabitants.

"The first people … of whose existence in Ireland we can be
said to know anything are commonly asserted to have been of
Turanian origin, and are known as 'Formorians.' As far as we
can gather, they were a dark, low-browed, stunted race,
although, oddly enough, the word Formorian in early Irish
legend is always used as synonymous with the word giant. They
were, at any rate, a race of utterly savage hunters and
fishermen, ignorant of metal, of pottery, possibly even of the
use of fire; using the stone hammers or hatchets of which vast
numbers remain in Ireland to this day, and specimens of which
may be seen in every museum. How long they held possession no
one can tell, although Irish philologists believe several
local Irish names to date from this almost inconceivably
remote epoch. Perhaps if we think of the Lapps of the present
day, and picture them wandering about the country, … it will
give us a fairly good notion of what these very earliest
inhabitants of Ireland were probably like.

See FOMORIANS.

Next followed a Belgic colony, known as the Firbolgs, who
overran the country, and appear to have been of a somewhat
higher ethnological grade, although, like the Formorians,
short, dark, and swarthy. Doubtless the latter were not
entirely exterminated to make way for the Firbolgs, any more
than the Firbolgs to make way for the Danaans, Milesians, and
other successive races; such wholesale exterminations being,
in fact, very rare, especially in a country which like Ireland
seems specially laid out by kindly nature for the protection
of a weaker race struggling in the grip of a stronger one.
After the Firbolgs, though I should be sorry to be obliged to
say how long after, fresh and more important tribes of
invaders began to appear. The first of these were the
Tuatha-da-Danaans, who arrived under the leadership of their
king Nuad, and took possession of the east of the country.
These Tuatha-da-Danaans are believed to have been large,
blue-eyed people of Scandinavian origin, kinsmen and possibly
ancestors of those Norsemen or 'Danes' who in years to come
were destined to work such woe and havoc upon the island. …
What their end was no man can tell you, save that they, too,
were, in their turn, conquered by the Milesians or 'Scoti,'
who next overran the country, giving to it their own name' of
Scotia, by which name it was known down to the end of the
twelfth century, and driving the earlier settlers before them,
who thereupon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the
forests, whence they emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant
effect upon their conquerors, as another defeated race did
upon their conquerors in later days."

_E. Lawless,
The Story of Ireland,
chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
volume 1, chapter 5._

IRELAND:
Tribes of early Celtic inhabitants.

"On the northern coast dwelt the Veniconii, in the modern
county of Donegal, and the Robogdii, in Londonderry and
Antrim. Adjoining to the Veniconii, westward, were the Erdini
or Erpeditani, and next to them the Magnatæ, all in Donegal.
Farther south were the Auteri, in Sligo; the Gangani, in Mayo;
and the Velibori, or Ellebri, in the district between Galway
and the Shannon. The south-west part of the island, with a
great portion of the interior, was inhabited by the Iverni,
who gave name not only to the great river but to the whole
island, and who may, perhaps, be considered as the aboriginal
inhabitants. … In the modern counties of Waterford and
Tipperary, Ptolemy places a tribe called the Usdiæ or Vodiæ,
according to the variations of the manuscripts. In the modern
county of Wexford dwelt the Brigantes; and northward from them
were the Coriondi, in Wicklow; the Menapii, in Dublin; the
Cauci, on the banks of the Boyne; the Blanii, or Eblani, on
the bay of Dundalk; the Voluntii, in Down; and the Darini,
bordering on the Robogdii, in Antrim. Three, at least, of the
tribes who held the eastern coast of Ireland, the Brigantes,
the Menapii, and the Voluntii, were, no doubt, colonies from
the opposite shores of Britain."

_T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon,
chapter 2._

IRELAND:
5th-8th Centuries.
The coming of St. Patrick and the Christianizing of the Island.
Its Schools and its Missionaries.

"Lying on the extreme verge of Europe, the last land then
known to the adventurous Scandinavian, and beyond which fable
had scarcely projected its dreams, it was in the fifth century
since the Redemption that Christianity reached them.
Patricius, a Celt of Gaul it is said, carried into Erin as a
slave by one of the Pagan kings, some of whom made military
expeditions to North and South Britain, and even to the Alps
and the Loire, became the Apostle of Ireland. Patrick escaped
from slavery, was educated at Rome, but in mature manhood
insisted on returning to the place of his bondage, to preach
Christianity to a people who seem to have exercised over the
imagination of the Apostle the same spell of sympathy which in
later times subdued strangers of many nations. He was received
with extraordinary favour, and before his death nearly the
whole island had embraced Christianity. The coming of Patrick
took place in the year of our Lord 432, and he laboured for
sixty years after; planting churches and schools, rooting out
the practices and monuments of Paganism, and disciplining the
people in religion and humanity. It was a noble service, and
it impressed itself for ever on the memory of the race whom he
served. … In the succeeding century the Church which he
planted became possessed by a passion which it has never
entirely lost, the passion for missionary enterprise. Its
fathers projected the conversion of the fierce natives of the
Continent to the new creed of humility and self-denial, and by
the same humane agents which Patrick had employed in
Ireland—persuasion and prayer; a task as generous as any of
which history has preserved the record. In this epoch Ireland
may, without exaggeration, be said to have been a Christian
Greece, the nurse of science and civilisation. The Pagan
annals of the country are overlaid by fable and extravagance,
but the foundation of Oxford or the mission of St. Augustine
does not lie more visibly within the boundaries of legitimate
history than the Irish schools, which attracted students from
Britain and Gaul, and sent out missionaries through the
countries now known as Western Europe.

{1756}

Among the forests of Germany, on the desert shores of the
Hebrides, in the camp of Alfred, at the court of Charlemagne,
in the capital of the Christian world, where Michelet
describes their eloquence as charming the counsellors of the
Emperor, there might be found the fervid preachers and subtle
doctors of the Western Isle. It was then that the island won
the title still fondly cherished, 'insula sanctorum'. The
venerable Bede describes nobles and students at this epoch as
quitting the island of Britain to seek education in Ireland,
and he tells us that the hospitable Celts found them teachers,
books, food and shelter at the cost of the nation. The school
at Armagh, where St. Patrick had established the primacy of
the Church, is reputed to have attracted 7,000 students, and
there were schools at Lismore, Bangor, Clonmacnoise, and Mayo,
which rivalled it in importance. Monasteries multiplied in a
still greater number, and with results as beneficial. …
Writers who are little disposed to make any other concession
to Ireland admit that this was a period of extraordinary
intellectual activity, and of memorable services to
civilization. The arts, as far as they were the handmaidens of
religion, attained a surprising development. The illuminated
copies of the Scripture, the croziers and chalices which have
come down to us from those days, the Celtic crosses and Celtic
harps, the bells and tabernacles, are witnesses of a distinct
and remarkable national culture. The people were still partly
shepherds and husbandmen, partly soldiers, ruled by the Chief,
the Brehon, and the Priest. … After this generous work had
obtained a remarkable success, it was disturbed by contests
with the Sea Kings. … The Cathedral and city of St. Patrick,
the schools of Bangor, the cloisters of Clonmacnoise, and many
more seats of piety and learning, fell into their hands. The
sacred vessels of the altar were turned into drinking cups,
and the missals, blazing with precious stones, were torn from
their costly bindings to furnish ornaments for their sword
hilts, and gifts to the Scalds who sang their achievements.
These pagans burned monasteries, sacked churches, and murdered
women and priests, for plunder or sport. … Before the
dangers and troubles of a long internecine war, the School of
the West gradually dwindled away, and it had fallen into
complete decay before Brian Borhoime, at the beginning of the
11th century, finally subdued the invaders."

_Sir C. G. Duffy,
A Bird's Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,
pages 7-12 (or chapter 4, in "Young Ireland")._

"Ireland, that virgin island on which proconsul never set
foot, which never knew either the orgies or the exactions of
Rome, was also the only place in the world of which the Gospel
took possession without bloodshed. … From the moment that
this Green Erin, situated at the extremity of the known world,
had seen the sun of faith rise upon her, she had vowed herself
to it with an ardent and tender devotion which became her very
life. The course of ages has not interrupted this; the most
bloody and implacable of persecutions has not shaken it; the
defection of all northern Europe has not led her astray; and
she maintains still, amid the splendours and miseries of
modern civilisation and Anglo-Saxon supremacy, an
inextinguishable centre of faith, where survives, along with
the completest orthodoxy, that admirable purity of manners
which no conqueror and no adversary has ever been able to
dispute, to equal, or to diminish. … The Irish communities,
joined by the monks from Gaul and Rome, whom the example of
Patrick had drawn upon his steps, entered into rivalry with
the great monastic schools of Gaul. They explained Ovid there;
they copied Virgil; they devoted themselves especially to
Greek literature; they drew back from no inquiry, from no
discussion. … A characteristic still more distinctive of the
Irish monks, as of all their nation, was the imperious
necessity of spreading themselves without, of seeking or
carrying knowledge and faith afar, and of penetrating into the
most distant regions to watch or combat paganism. This monastic
nation, therefore, became the missionary nation 'par
excellence'."

_Count de Montalembert,
The Monks of the West,
book 7 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapter 10-14 (volume 1),
and chapter 18 (volume 2)._

_D. DeVinné,
The Irish Primitive Church._

See, also, CHRISTIANITY; 5TH-9TH CENTURIES.

IRELAND: 9th-10th Centuries.
The Danish conquests and settlements.

"The people popularly known in our history as Danes comprised
swarms from various countries in the north of Europe, from
Norway, Sweden, Zealand, Jutland, and, in general, from all
the shores and islands of the Baltic. … In the Irish annals
they are variously called Galls, or foreigners; Geinti, or
Gentiles; and Lochlanni, or inhabitants of Lochlann, or
Lake-land, that is, Norway; and they are distinguished as the
Finn Galls, or White Foreigners, who are supposed to have been
the inhabitants of Norway; and the Dubh Galls, or Black
Foreigners, who were probably the people of Jutland, and of
the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. A large tract of
country north of Dublin still retains the name of the former.
… The Danes never obtained the dominion of Ireland as they
did that of England."

_M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapters 13-14._

"Ireland was as yet [in the 9th century] a more tempting prey
for the pirates than even Gaul. It was at the monasteries that
these earlier raids were mainly aimed; and nowhere were the
monastic houses so many and so rich. It was in these retreats
indeed, sheltered as men deemed by their holiness from the
greed of the spoiler, that the whole wealth of the country was
stored; and the gold work and jewelry of their shrines, their
precious chalices, the silver-bound horn which king or noble
dedicated at their altars, the curiously-wrought covering of
their mass-books, the hoard of their treasure-chests, fired
the imagination of the northern marauders as the treasures of
the Incas fired that of the soldiers of Spain. News spread
fast up dale and fiord how wealth such as men never dreamed of
was heaped up in houses guarded only by priests and shavelings
who dared not draw sword. The Wikings had long been drawing
closer to this tempting prey. From the coast of Norway a sail
of twenty-four hours with a fair wind brings the sailor in
sight of the Shetlands; Shetlands and Orkneys furnished a base
for the advance of the pirates along the western shores of
Britain, where they found a land like their own in the dales
and lochs of Ross and Argyll, and where the names of Caithness
and Sutherland tell of their conquest and settlement on the
mainland; while the physical appearance of the people still
records their colonization of the Hebrides. Names such as that
of the Orm's Head mark their entrance at last into the Irish
Channel."

_J. R. Green,
The Conquest of England,
chapter 2._

{1757}

"The 9th century was the period of Danish plunder, and of
settlement along the coasts and in convenient places for
purposes of plunder. Towards the latter end of this century
the Irish in Ireland, like the English in England, succeeded
in driving out the enemy, and there was peace for forty years.
Then came the Danes again, but bent more definitely than
before on permanent settlement; and their most notable work
was the establishment of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, with
its centre at one of their old haunts, Ath Cliath on the
Liffey, where the city of Dublin was built by them. The
establishment of this kingdom dates from the year 919, and its
extent may be traced to-day as conterminous with the diocese
of Dublin, extending from Holmpatrick and Skerries on the
north, to Arklow and Wicklow on the south, and inland no
farther than seven or eight miles to Leixlip. Until quite
recently this was also the district over which extended the
jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of Dublin as Admiral of the
Port of Dublin. On College Green used to be held the assembly
of the freemen of the kingdom of Dublin, while the chiefs took
their seats on the steep hill that once stood where St.
Andrew's Church now stands, opposite to 'the old house on
College Green,' which is so dear to the national aspirations
of the modern Irishmen. There the Danes held their
parliaments, agreeing on laws, consenting to judgments and
contracts, feasting and making merry, just as the old Irish
held their parliaments at Tara, Carman, Armagh, and elsewhere.
Nor was Dublin the only Danish city. Limerick, Cork,
Waterford, Wexford, all became the centres of petty Danish
kingdoms, active in commerce, skilful for those times, in
domestic architecture, and with political and legislative
ideas identical in their essence with those of the people
among whom they settled. In the course of the 10th century the
Danes nominally became, for the most part, converts to
Christianity. But it appears that they derived their
Christianity mainly from English sources; and when they began
to organize their Church, they did so after the Roman manner,
and in connection with the see of Canterbury. It was not,
however, till after the wars of Brian Born that Danish
Christianity became either very real or at all organized."

_S. Bryant,
Celtic Ireland,
chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_C. Haliday,
The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin._

_C. F. Keary,
The Vikings in Western Christendom,
chapter 6_.

See, also,
NORMANS: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES,

IRELAND: A. D. 1014.
The Battle of Clontarf and the great defeat of the Danes.

By a revolution which occurred in the year 1000, Malachy II.
of the dynasty which had reigned long at Tara, was deposed
from the chief sovereignty, and Brian Boromh or Boru, of the
royal family of Munster, who had fought his way up to
masterful power, became the Ardrigh or over-king of Ireland.
In 1014 Brian was called upon to face a great combination
which the Danes of Dublin had effected with their fellow
Northmen, including those of Denmark, Norway, Scotland and all
the isles. It was the Danish intention now to accomplish
completely the conquest of Ireland and bring their long
struggle with its Celtic inhabitants to an effectual close,
King Brian and his countrymen made equal exertions on their
side to meet the attack, and the great battle of Clontarf,
fought on Good Friday of the year 1014, gave them a decisive
victory. "Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches
along the crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbor, from
the ancient salmon weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards the
promontory of Howth. Both horns of the crescent were held by
the enemy, and communicated with his ships: the inland point
terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the seaward marked by
the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow land between sloped
gently upward and inward from the beach, and for the myriad
duels which formed the ancient battle, no field could present
less positive vantage ground to combatants on either side. The
invading force had possession of both wings, so that Brian's
army, which had first encamped at Kilmainham, must have
crossed the Liffey higher up, and marched round by the present
Drumcondra in order to reach the appointed field. The day
seems to have been decided on by formal challenge. … The
forces on both sides could not have fallen short of 20,000
men. … The utmost fury was displayed on all sides. …
Hardly a nobly born man escaped, or sought to escape. The ten
hundred in armor, and 3,000 others of the enemy, with about an
equal number of the men of Ireland, lay dead upon the field.
One division of the enemy were, towards sunset, retreating to
their ships, when Brodar the Viking, perceiving the tent of
Brian, standing apart, without a guard, and the aged king on
his knees before the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a
single blow, and then continued his flight. … The deceased
hero took his place at once in history, national and foreign.
… The fame of the event went out through all nations. The
chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals of
Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles, all
record the event. … 'Brian's battle,' as it is called in the
Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as prevented any general
northern combination for the subsequent invasion of Ireland.
Not that the country was entirely free from their attacks till
the end of the 11th century; but, from the day of Clontarf
forward, the long cherished Northern idea of a conquest of
Ireland seems to have been gloomily abandoned by that
indomitable people."

_T. D'Arcy McGee,
Popular History of Ireland,
book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapter 21 (volume 2)._

See, also,
NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: 10TH-13TH CENTURIES.

IRELAND: 12th Century.
The great tribes and kingdoms and the ruling families.