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John of Nepomuk, Saint

(Encyclopedia)John of Nepomuk, Saint nāˈpōmo͝ok [key], d. 1393, patron saint of Bohemia, a martyr. He is also called John Nepomucen. He was vicar general of Bohemia under King Wenceslaus IV (later Holy Roman Em...

diet, parliamentary body

(Encyclopedia)diet, parliamentary bodies in Japan, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, the Scandinavian nations, and Germany have been called diets. In German history, the diet originated as a meeting of landholders and burg...

Waldemar I

(Encyclopedia)Waldemar I (Waldemar the Great) wälˈdəmär [key], 1131–82, king of Denmark (1157–82). In 1147, Waldemar, Sweyn III, and Canute (son of Magnus the Strong and grandson of King Niels) each claimed...

Leo V, Byzantine emperor

(Encyclopedia)Leo V (Leo the Armenian), d. 820, Byzantine emperor (813–20), successor of Michael I. A former general, Leo successfully defended (813) Constantinople against the Bulgars and concluded a 30-year tru...

Constantine XI, Byzantine emperor

(Encyclopedia)Constantine XI (Constantine Palaeologus), d. 1453, last Byzantine emperor (1449–53), brother and successor of John VIII. To secure Western aid against the Turkish assault on what remained of the emp...

John XII, pope

(Encyclopedia)John XII, c.937–964, pope (955–64), a Roman (count of Tusculum) named Octavian; successor of Agapetus II and predecessor of either Leo VIII or Benedict V. His father, Alberic, secured John's elect...

Piccolomini, Ottavio

(Encyclopedia)Piccolomini, Ottavio ōt-täˈvyō pēk-kōlôˈmēnē [key], 1599–1656, Italian general in the service of the Holy Roman emperor during the Thirty Years War (1618–48). He came of a distinguished ...

Herzog, Roman

(Encyclopedia)Herzog, Roman, 1934–2017, German political leader and legal scholar. After receiving his doctorate in law from Ludwig Maximilian Univ., Munich (1958), he taught there, at the Free Univ. of Berlin (1...

Jakobson, Roman

(Encyclopedia)Jakobson, Roman rəmänˈ yäkˈôbsən [key], 1896–1982, Russian-American linguist and literary critic, b. Moscow. He coined the term structural linguistics and stressed that the aim of historical ...

nouveau roman

(Encyclopedia)nouveau roman or new novel: see French literature; Robbe-Grillet, Alain. ...