Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/253

 ciscan convent came to his aid on account of the kindness with which Caldwell's father had treated his catholic neighbours (, Peerage and Baronetage, 1837, ‘Caldwell, bart.’) Caldwell served with honour throughout the seven years' war; he soon rose to the rank of colonel, and received the cross of the order of Maria Theresa from the empress-queen for his gallant conduct at the battle of Domstädtl. His greatest exploit was at the sudden attack on the fortress of Schweidnitz, by General Loudon, on 30 Sept. 1761, when he led the stormers of the Garden Fort and carried it in a quarter of an hour, for which he was specially mentioned in Loudon's despatches. He died in the following year at Schweidnitz from a wound received during a sortie from the fortress, when it was being besieged by Frederick the great. Maria Theresa never forgot Caldwell's services; she created his elder brother, Sir James Caldwell, bart., count of Milan in the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1766, when he was passing through Vienna, she gave him a magnificently enamelled gold box to present to his mother, the Dowager Lady Caldwell.

[Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for 1837, ‘Caldwell, bart.;’ Von Jankos's article in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, where he refers to Hirtenfeld's Mil. Theresien Orden, i. 82, and Hirtenfeld's Oesterreich. Conversations-Lexikon, i. 601.] 

CALDWELL, JOHN (1628–1679). [See .]

CALENDAR,. [See .]

CALENIUS, WALTER (d. 1151), is the name given by Bale to a person whom earlier writers mention only as ‘Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford.’ There is strong reason for believing that the designation ‘Calenius’ was coined by Bale himself, or at all events that it was invented in the sixteenth century. Among the scholars of that period ‘Calena’ (a misreading for Calleva or Caleva, which occurs in Ptolemy and Antoninus as the name of a Roman station now known to have been at Silchester) was commonly understood to be a Latin name for Oxford. Thus in Elyot's Latin-English dictionary (3rd edition by Cooper, 1559) we find the explanation ‘Calena, a towne in Englande called Oxforde;’ and in Bale's own work (Script. Ill. Maj. Brit., Basle ed. 1557, pt. ii. p. 26) there is an article on Olenus Calenus, an Etruscan soothsayer who is mentioned by Pliny, and who, Bale informs us, ‘is said by some to have migrated to Britain, and to have given his name to the city of Calena, now called Oxford.’ Bale also quotes from Gesner's ‘Onomasticon’ the statement that ‘the Calena of Ptolemy is believed to have been the city which now bears the name of Oxford.’ It seems therefore certain that Bale's ‘Gualterus Calenius’ is nothing else than a pseudo-classical rendering of ‘Walter of Oxford.’ Subsequently, however, Calena was identified by Camden with Wallingford, on the fancied ground that the Welsh guall hen, ‘old wall,’ was the etymon both of the Roman and the modern name. This identification led Bishop Kennet to conjecture that Walter ‘Calenius’ was so called on account of his having been born at Wallingford. Kennet's conjecture obtained general currency from being adopted by Le Neve, and in many modern books (e.g. in the edition of Henry of Huntingdon published in the Rolls Ser.) the archdeacon of Oxford is designated by the quite unwarranted appellation of ‘Walter of Wallingford.’

Although the surname ‘Calenius’ is, as we have seen, merely a modern figment, it may be convenient to retain it for the sake of distinction, inasmuch as there were in the twelfth century two other archdeacons of Oxford who bore the name of Walter—viz. Walter of Coutances, appointed in 1183, and Walter Map, appointed in 1196. Leland confounded the subject of this article with Walter Map, and although Bale correctly distinguished between the two men, the confusion is still frequently met with.

The most important fact which is known respecting Walter ‘Calenius’ is that he brought over from Brittany the ‘British’ (i.e. either Breton or Welsh) book of which Geoffrey of Monmouth professed that his ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ was a translation. Geoffrey speaks of the archdeacon as ‘accomplished in the art of oratory and in foreign history;’ and in the course of his work he intimates that in his account of Arthur he has supplemented the statements of his British author by information which had been supplied to him by Walter himself. Ranulph Higden mentions Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, in his list of the authorities followed by him in his ‘Polychronicon.’ It is quite possible that Higden may have had access to some genuine work of Walter which is now lost. On the other hand, there is evidence that a recension of the ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ was in circulation, in which Geoffrey's connection with the work was ignored, and in which Walter himself was alleged to have translated it into the British tongue. The Welsh versions of this history, preserved in two manuscripts in the library of Jesus College, Oxford, distinctly