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knight

(Encyclopedia)knight, in ancient and medieval history, a noble who did military service as a mounted warrior. As the feudal system disintegrated, knight service was with growing frequency commuted into cash pay...

Testament of Moses

(Encyclopedia)Testament of Moses, an early Jewish apocalypse discovered in 1861 and extant only in an incomplete 6th cent. a.d. Latin manuscript. The original work was probably written in Hebrew in the early 1st ce...

Lusignan

(Encyclopedia)Lusignan lüzēnyäNˈ [key], French noble family. The name is derived from a castle in Poitou, built, according to legend, by Mélusine. The family was powerful in the Middle Ages and ruled (13th–1...

Taylor, Francis Henry

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Francis Henry, 1903–57, American museum director, b. Philadelphia, studied throughout Europe. He began his museum career as assistant curator (1927–28) and then curator of medieval art (19...

Callisthenes

(Encyclopedia)Callisthenes kəlĭsˈthənēz [key], c.360–c.327 b.c., Greek historian of Olynthus; nephew of Aristotle. He accompanied Alexander the Great into Asia as the historian of the expedition. At first he...

Corpus Christi, in Christianity

(Encyclopedia)Corpus Christi [Lat.,=body of Christ], feast of the Western Church, observed on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (or on the following Sunday). The feast, which celebrates the founding of the sacramen...

Foix

(Encyclopedia)Foix fwä [key], town, capital of Ariège dept., S France, on the Ariège River at the foot o...

Cennini, Cennino

(Encyclopedia)Cennini, Cennino chān-nēˈnō chān-nēˈnē [key], c.1370–1440, Florentine painter, follower of Agnolo Gaddi. None of his paintings is extant. He is most famous for having written the Libro dell'...

Zittau

(Encyclopedia)Zittau tsĭtˈou [key], city (1994 pop. 30,874), Saxony, E central Germany, on the Lusatian Neisse River, near the Polish and Czech borders. It is a road and rail hub and a center for the environmenta...

clerestory

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Clerestory clerestory or clearstory both: klĭrˈstōrˌē, –stôrˌē [key], a part of a building whose walls rise higher than the roofs of adjoining parts of the structure. Pierced by wind...