Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

268 results found

investiture

(Encyclopedia)investiture, in feudalism, ceremony by which an overlord transferred a fief to a vassal or by which, in ecclesiastical law, an elected cleric received the pastoral ring and staff (the symbols of spiri...

iconoclasm

(Encyclopedia)iconoclasm īkŏnˈōklăzəm [key] [Gr.,=image breaking], opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures, Christian doctrine, and biblical ev...

plainsong

(Encyclopedia)plainsong or plainchant, the unharmonized chant of the medieval Christian liturgies in Europe and the Middle East; usually synonymous with Gregorian chant, the liturgical music of the Roman Catholic C...

Catherine of Siena, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Catherine of Siena, Saint sēĕnˈə [key], 1347–80, Italian mystic and diplomat, a member of the third order of the Dominicans, Doctor of the Church. The daughter of Giacomo Benincasa, a Sienese dy...

Clavius, Cristoph

(Encyclopedia)Clavius, Cristoph krĭsˈtôf klāˈvēəs [key], 1537–1612, German astronomer and mathematician. He entered the Jesuit order in 1555 and studied at Coimbra and Rome. He taught mathematics at the Co...

Smith, George Pearson

(Encyclopedia)Smith, George Pearson, 1941–, American biologist, b. Norwalk, Ct., Ph.D. Harvard, 1970. Smith has been a professor at the Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, since 1975 (emeritus since 2015). He shared hal...

Boleslaus II

(Encyclopedia)Boleslaus II, c.1039–1081, duke (1058–76), and later king (1076–79) of Poland; son and successor of Casimir I. Throughout his reign he opposed the influence of the Holy Roman Empire. He asserted...

Brill

(Encyclopedia)Brill or Bril, Flemish painters, brothers. Mattys Brill mäˈtīs [key], 1550–83, went to Rome early in his career and executed frescoes for Gregory XIII in the Vatican. Paul Brill, 1554–1626, pro...

Wenceslaus I, king of Bohemia

(Encyclopedia)Wenceslaus I, d. 1253, king of Bohemia (1230–53), son and successor of Ottocar I. He invited large numbers of Germans to settle in the villages and towns of Bohemia and Moravia. In some villages pea...

Charles X, king of France

(Encyclopedia)Charles X, 1757–1836, king of France (1824–30); brother of King Louis XVI and of King Louis XVIII, whom he succeeded. As comte d'Artois he headed the reactionary faction at the court of Louis XVI....