365 tician. He constructed a clock which exhibited day and night, the day of the month, the festivals of the year, and the courses of the sun and moon. He also first discovered the secret of making salt from the water of the Albano. He died in 1350. He wrote, 1. Promptuarium Medicinæ, Venice. 2. De Fontibus calidis Patavina agri. 3. De fluxis et refluxis Maris. CLEMENT CLEMENTINUS, a learned physician of Amelia, near Spoleto in Italy. He was one of the restorers of medicine, and was well versed in the works of Hippocrates, and the rest of the fathers in that science. He taught philosophy and mathematics for some years at Padua, and appears to have imbibed the principles of astrology, with which his medical works are tinged. From Padua he was called to Rome where he was appointed physician to pope Leo X., whom he outlived only a short time. RICARDUS ANGLICUS, an early English medical writer, mentioned by Leland, flourished about 1230. He studied first at Oxford, and afterwards at Paris. Simphonius Champerius, in his treatise on medical writers, mentions him as one of the most eminent of his profession; and the best proof of his medical abilities is given in the list of his works which are numerous and important. Leland says he wrote works which are not now extant, JOHN GILES, D. D., and M. D., a native of St. Albans, was the first Englishman who entered among the Dominicans. He was a physician in ordinary to Philip IV. of France, and was professor of medicine in the universities at Paris and Montpellier. In his Latin tracts he is styled Johannes Ægidius. ALBRICUS, a native of London, known as a learned physician and philosopher. He studied at Oxford about 1217, and travelled for improvement. GILBERTUS ANGLICUS, an eminent English physician. He wrote a Compendium of Physic PERIOD XXIX. FROM JOHN V. TO JOHN VII: [CENT. XIV.] REMARKABLE FACTS, EVENTS, AND DISCOVERIES. A.D. 1302 The mariner's compass invented and improved, by Giovia, of Naples. The university of Avignon founded. 1304 Sir William Wallace betrayed by Monteith, and barbarously murdered by Edward I. 1307 William Tell, the illustrious Swiss patriot, delivered his country from the German yoke, and gives rise to the republic of Switzerland. 1308 The popes remove to Avignon, in France, for seventy years. 1310 Lincoln's Inn Society established. The knights of St. John take possession of the isle of Rhodes. 1314 The battle of Bannockburn, between Edward II. and Robert Bruce, which establishes the latter on the throne of Scotland. The cardinals set fire to the conclave, and separate. A vacancy in the papal chair for two years. 1325 The first treaty of commerce between England and Venice. 1330 Gunpowder invented by a monk of Cologne. 1344 Edward III. first grants titles by patents. 1345 Edward III., with four pieces of cannon, gains the battle of Cressy. 1347 David II. king of Scots, taken prisoner at the battle of Durham. 1352 The Turks first enter Europe. 1356 The battle of Poictiers, in which John, king of France, and his son were taken prisoners by Edward the Black Prince. 1358 Arms of England and France quartered by Edward III. University of Cologne founded. Tamerlane began to reign in Persia. 1362 The pleadings in England changed from French to English. The order of Janissaries established among the Turks. 1365 The universities of Vienna and Geneva founded. 1369 John Wickliffe, an Englishman, opposes the errors of the church of Rome. 1370 The office of grand Vizir established. 1387 The office of lord high admiral of England instituted. 1388 The battle of Otterburn, between earl Percy and earl Douglas. Bombs invented at Venloo. IN 1335, the family of Ghenhiz Khan becoming extinct in Persia, a long civil war ensued, during which, Timur Bek, one of the petty princes, among whom the Tartar dominions were divided, found means to aggrandize himself in a manner similar to what Ghenhiz Khan had done. Ghenhiz, indeed, was the model whom he proposed to imitate; but it must be allowed, that Timur was more merciful than Ghenhiz, if, indeed, the word can be applied to such inhuman tyrants. The plan on which Ghenhiz Khan conducted his expeditions, was that of total extermination. For some time, he utterly extirpated the inhabitants of those places which he conquered, designing to people them anew with his Moguls; and in consequence of this resolution, he sometimes employed his army in beheading 100,000 prisoners at once. Timur's cruelty, on the other hand, seldom went further than the pounding of 3000 or 4000 people in large mortars, or building them among bricks and mortar into a wall. Timur was not a Deist, but a Mahometan, and conquered expressly for the purpose of spreading the Mahometan religion; for the Moguls had now adopted all the superstitions and absurdities of Mahomet. Thus was all the eastern quarter of the world threatened anew with the most dreadful devastations, while the western nations were exhausting themselves in fruitless attempts to regain the Holy Land. The Turks were the only people who, at this period, seem to have been gathering strength, and by their perpetual encroachments, threatened to swallow up the western nations, as the Tartars had done the eastern. In 1362, Timur invaded Bukharia, which he reduced in five years. He proceeded in his conquests, though not with the same celerity as Ghenhiz Khan, till 1387, when he had subdued all Persia, Armenia, Georgia, Karazim, and great part of Tartary. After this, he proceeded westward, subduing all the countries to the Euphrates; made himself master of Bagdad, and even Russia, where he pillaged Moscow. From thence, he turned his army to the cast, and totally subdued India. In 1393, he invaded and reduced Syria; and having turned his arms against the Turks, forced their sultan, Bajazet I., to raise the siege of Constantinople. This brought on an engagement, in which Bajazet was entirely defeated, and taken prisoner, which broke the power of the Turks to such a degree, that they were not, for some time, able to recover themselves. At last, this great conqueror died, in 1405, while on his way to conquer China. The death of Timur was followed almost immediately by the dissolution of his empire. Most of the nations he had conquered, recovered their liberty. The Turks had now no farther obstacle to the conquest of Constantinople. The western nations having exhausted themselves in the crusades, had lost that insatiable thirst after conquest, which for so long a time possessed the minds of men. They had already made considerable advances in civilization, and began to study the arts of peace. Gunpowder was invented, and applied to the purposes of war; and though no invention threatened to be more destructive, none of the warlike kind was ever more beneficial to the human race. By the use of fire-arms, nations are put more on a level with each other than formerly; war is reduced to a regular system, which may be studied with as much success as any other science. Conquests are not now to be made with the same ease as formerly; and hence, the last ages of the world have been much more quiet and peaceable than the preceding ages. GOVERNMENT. ROME. JOHN V., Cantacuzenus, emperor, or usurper, was of a noble race, descended from the paladins of France. He was one of the principal confidants of the younger Andronicus, at the time of his revolt from his grandfather; and he acted with great vigour and fidelity in the service of the young prince, whatever might be the justice of his conduct with respect to the old emperor. In the reign of young Andronicus, he held the office of great domestic, by virtue of which, he ruled both the em peror and the empire. At the death of that prince, in 1341, Cantacuzenus was left guardian to the eldest of his sons, then nine years of age, and regent of the empire. He governed with equity and prudence, and carefully attended to the education of the younger emperor and his brother; but the tranquillity of his administration was disturbed by the ambition and artifice of the great duke Apocaucus, who infused a jealousy of the regent into the empress dowager, and encouraged her to assert a maternal right to the tutelage of her son. The patriarch John joined in the opposition, and brought forward his own claim to the office of guardian; and such was the power of the cabal, that Cantacuzenus, during an absence from court, received an order to resign; and upon his refusal, till he should have openly justified his conduct, was declared a public enemy. Being thus driven to desperate measures, he listened to the advice of his friends, and caused himself to be declared emperor at Didymoticum, in 1342. A civil war ensued, in which Cantacuzenus was at first deserted by his followers, and obliged to take refuge in Servia. Hostilities continued for several years, to the great prejudice of the empire, which was desolated by the barbarian troops hired by each party. In particular, Cantacuzenus, by marrying his daughter to a Turkish emir, and showing the Mahometans the way into Europe, did great injury to the Christian cause. The death of Apocaucus, at length gave a preponderance to his party, and he was received as a conqueror into Constantinople, in January, 1347. He caused himself to be proclaimed colleague in the empire with his ward, to whom he married his daughter. This union, however, was soon interrupted by intestine divisions. The young emperor, John Palæologus, and the friends of his house, still regarded John Cantacuzenus as a usurper; and the former, who had been removed to a distance from the capital, assisted by the despot of Servia, took up arms in 1353. Cantacuzenus, with the aid of the Turks, gave the army of Palæologus an entire defeat, and obliged him to take shelter at Tenedos. In order to cut off his future hopes, Cantacuzenus associated with himself his son Matthew, and thus attempted to establish the succession in his own family. The fugitive emperor, however, had still many friends in the capital; and a noble Genoese, who espoused his cause, entering the harbour with two galleys and a few troops, effected a general rising in his favour. Cantacuzenus, after an unsuccessful struggle, put an end to further contest, by a voluntary abdication, in 1355, and took the religious habit in the monastery of mount Athos. Here he usefully employed himself in composing a history of the transactions to which he had been a witness; and this work, in four books, comprising a period of forty years, from the revolt of the younger Andronicus to his own abdication, is one of the most elegant productions of the modern Greeks. It is thus characterised by Gibbon: "Retired in a cloister, from the vices and passions of the world, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the life of an ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true counsels and characters of men, he displays the smooth and specious surface of events, highly varnished with his own praises, and those of his friends." He likewise engaged in religious controversy, and wrote four books against the Jews and Mahometans. He also defended the superstition of the divine light of Mount Thabar. A letter to him from pope Gregory XI., in 1375, is extant. His death is placed, by an authority called respectable by Gibbon, in 1411, which would imply a life of above a century. His controversial work was published at Basil, with a Latin version, in 1543; of his history, there is a Louvre edition, three volumes, folio, 1655. MATTHEW CANTACUZENUS, son of John, of Constantinople, was partner on the throne with him in 1354. On his father's abdication, Matthew took for his partner, John Palæologus; but the divided power produced quarrels, and Matthew being defeated, resigned the crown to his opponent, and retired to mount Athos, where he composed Commentaries on Solomon's Song. JOHN VI., Palæologus, emperor of Constantinople, succeeded his father, Andronicus the younger, 1341, and had the good fortune to free himself from the power of John Cantacuzenus, his father-in-law, the usurper. He afterwards defended himself against the Turks, but a more formidable opposition awaited him in the rebellion of his son Andronicus. During these civil commotions, the Turks renewed their attacks against Constantinople, and imposed upon the emperor very disgraceful terms. This unfortunate monarch died of chagrin, 1390, aged sixty. ANDRONICUS IV., was associated to his father John VI., |