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Ordericus Vitalis

(Encyclopedia)Ordericus Vitalis ôrdĕrˈĭkəs vĭtălˈĭs [key], 1075–c.1143, Norman monk and chronicler, b. England. He spent most of his life in Saint-Évroul in Normandy. His Ecclesiastical History (4 vol.,...

Durham, town, England

(Encyclopedia)Durham, town, county seat of Durham, NE England, on the sides of a hill nearly encircled by the Wear River. The town's small factories produce organs an...

Cefalù

(Encyclopedia)Cefalù chāfälo͞oˈ [key], town, N Sicily, Italy, a port on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is a co...

Reigate

(Encyclopedia)Reigate rīˈgĭt [key], city (1991 pop. 52,554), Surrey, S England. Largely residential, Reigate has numerous parks that attract visitors from London. In the partly Norman church is the tomb of Lord ...

Apulia

(Encyclopedia)Apulia əpyo͞oˈlēə [key], Ital. Puglia, region, 7,469 sq mi (19,345 sq km), S Italy, bordering on the Adriatic Sea in the east and the Strait of Otranto and Gulf of Ta...

chapter house

(Encyclopedia)chapter house, a building in which the chapter of the clergy meets. Its plan varies, the simplest being a rectangle. At Worcester, England, the Norman builders created a circular chapter house (c.1100...

jongleurs

(Encyclopedia)jongleurs zhông-glörˈ [key], itinerant entertainers of the Middle Ages in France and Norman England. Their repertoire included dancing, conjuring, acrobatics, the feats of the modern juggler, singi...

Monreale

(Encyclopedia)Monreale mōnrāäˈlā [key], town (1991 pop. 26,256), NW Sicily, Italy, near Palermo. An agricultural market and tourist center, it commands a magnificent view of the fertile Conca d'Oro plain. A fa...

Paul, Wolfgang

(Encyclopedia)Paul, Wolfgang, 1913–93, German physicist, Ph.D. Technical Univ., Berlin, 1939. A professor at the Univ. of Bonn from 1952, Paul developed an ion-trap technique (known as the Paul trap), which made ...

Marie de France

(Encyclopedia)Marie de France də fräNs [key], fl. 1155–90, poet. Born in France, she spent her adult life in England in aristocratic circles and wrote in Anglo-Norman. She is best known for some dozen lais; sev...