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 was besieged by Bertrand du Guesclin, constable of France, in 1378; it was taken several times by the English during the first half of the 15th century, and by Admiral de Coligny in 1563. The fortress was razed in 1589.

 BERNAYS, JAKOB (1824–1881), German philologist and philosophical writer, was born at Hamburg of Jewish parents on the 11th of September 1824. His father, Isaac Bernays (1792–1849), a man of wide culture, was the first orthodox German rabbi to preach in the vernacular. Jakob studied from 1844 to 1848 at the university of Bonn, the philological school of which, under Welcker and Ritschl (whose favourite pupil Bernays became), was the best in Germany. In 1853 he accepted the chair of classical philology at the newly founded Jewish theological college (the Fränkel seminary) at Breslau, where he formed a close friendship with Mommsen. In 1866, when Ritschl left Bonn for Leipzig, Bernays returned to his old university as extraordinary professor and chief librarian. He remained at Bonn until his death on the 28th of May 1881. His chief works, which deal mainly with the Greek philosophers, are:—Die Lebensbeschreibung des J. J. Scaliger (1855); Über das Phokylidische Gedicht (1856); Die Chronik des Sulpicius Severus (1861); Die Dialoge des Aristoteles im Verhältniss zu seinen übrigen Werken (1863); Theophrastos’ Schrift über Frömmigkeit (1866); Die Heraklitischen Briefe (1869); Lucian und die Cyniker (1879); Zwei Abhandlungen über die Aristolelische Theorie des Dramas (1880). The last of these was a republication of his Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlungen des Aristoteles über die Wirkung der Tragödie (1857), which aroused considerable controversy.

His brother, (1834–1897), was born in Hamburg on the 27th of November 1834. He studied first law and then literature at Bonn and Heidelberg, and obtained a considerable reputation by his lectures on Shakespeare at Leipzig and an explanatory text to Beethoven’s music to Egmont. Having refused an invitation to take part in the editorship of the Preussiche Jahrbücher, in the same year (1866) he published his celebrated Zur Kritik und Geschichte des Goetheschen-Textes. He confirmed his reputation by his lectures at the university of Leipzig, and in 1873 accepted the post of extraordinary professor of German literature at Munich specially created for him by Louis II. of Bavaria. In 1874 he became an ordinary professor, a position which he only resigned in 1889 when he settled at Carlsruhe. He died at Carlsruhe on the 25th of February 1897. At an early age he had embraced Christianity, whereas his brother Jakob remained a Jew. Among his other publications were: Briefe Goethes an F. A. Wolf (1868); Zur Enstehungsgeschichte des Schlegelschen Shakespeare (1872); an introduction to Hirzel’s collection entitled Der junge Goethe (1875); and he edited a revised edition of Voss’s translation of the Odyssey. From his literary remains were published Schriften zur Kritik und Litteraturgeschichte (1895–1899).

 BERNBURG, a town in the duchy of Anhalt, Germany, on the Saale, 29 m. N. by W. from Halle by rail, formerly the capital of the new incorporated duchy of Anhalt-Bernburg. Pop. (1900) 34,427; (1905) 34,929. It consists of four parts, the Altstadt or old town, the Bergstadt or hill town, the Neustadt or new town, and the suburb of Waldau—the Bergstadt on the right and the other three on the left of the river Saale, which is crossed by a massive stone bridge. It is a well-built city, the principal public buildings being the government house, the church of St Mary, the gymnasium and the house of correction. The castle, formerly the ducal residence, is in the Bergstadt, defended by moats, and surrounded by beautiful gardens. Bernburg is the seat of considerable industry, manufacturing machinery and boilers, sugar, pottery and chemicals, and has lead and zinc smelting. Market-gardening is also extensively carried on, and there is a large river traffic in grain and agricultural produce.

Bernburg is of great antiquity. The Bergstadt was fortified by Otto III. in the 10th century, and the new town was founded in the 13th. For a long period the different parts were under separate municipalities, the new town uniting with the old in 1560, and the Bergstadt with both in 1824. Prince Frederick removed the ducal residence to Ballenstedt in 1765.

 BERNERS, JOHN BOURCHIER, (1469–1533), English translator, was born probably at Tharfield, Hertfordshire, about 1469. His father was killed at Barnet in 1471, and he inherited his title in 1474 from his grandfather, John Bourchier, who was a descendant of Edward III. It is supposed that he was educated at Oxford, perhaps at Balliol. His political life began early, for in 1484 he was implicated in a premature attempt to place Henry, duke of Richmond (afterwards Henry VII.), on the throne, and fled in consequence to Brittany. In 1497 he helped to put down an insurrection in Cornwall and Devonshire, raised by Michael Joseph, a blacksmith, and from this time was in high favour at court. He accompanied Henry VIII. to Calais in 1513, and was a captain of pioneers at the siege of Therouanne. In the next year he was again sent to France as chamberlain to the king’s sister Mary on her marriage with Louis XII., but he soon returned to England. He had been given the reversion of the office of lord chancellor, and in 1516 he received the actual appointment. In 1518 he was sent to Madrid to negotiate an alliance with Charles of Spain. He sent letters to Henry chronicling the bull-fights and other doings of the Spanish court, and to Wolsey complaining of the expense to which he was put in his position as ambassador. In the next year he returned to England, and with his wife Catherine Howard, daughter of the duke of Norfolk, was present in 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. But his affairs were greatly embarrassed. He was harassed by lawsuits about his Hertfordshire property and owed the king sums he was unable to repay. Perhaps in the hope of repairing his fortune, he accepted the office of deputy of Calais, where he spent the rest of his life in comparative leisure, though still harassed by his debts, and died on the 16th of March 1533.

His translation of Syr Johan Froyssart of the Cronycles of England, France, Spayne, Portyngale, Scotland, Bretayne, Flaunders: and other places adjoynynge, was undertaken at the request of Henry VIII., and was printed by Richard Pynson in two volumes dated 1523 and 1525. It was the most considerable historical work that had yet appeared in English, and exercised great influence on 16th-century chroniclers. Berners tells us in his prefaces of his own love of histories of all kinds, and in the introduction to his story of Arthur of Little Britain he excuses its “fayned mater” and “many unpossybylytees” on the ground that other well reputed histories are equally incredible. He goes on to excuse his deficiencies by saying that he knew himself to be unskilled in the “facundyous arte of retoryke,” and that he was but a “lerner of the language of Frensshe.” The want of rhetoric is not to be deplored. The style of his translation is clear and simple, and he rarely introduces French words or idioms. Two romances from the French followed: The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux (printed 1534? by Wynkyn de Worde), and The Hystory of the Moost noble and valyaunt knight Arthur of lytell brytayne. His other two translations, The Castell of Love (printed 1540), from the Carcel de Amor of Diego de San Pedro, and The Golden Boke of Marcus Aurelius (completed six days before his death, printed 1534), from a French version of Antonio Guevara’s book, are in a different manner. The Golden Boke gives Berners a claim to be a pioneer of Euphuism, although Lyly was probably acquainted with Guevara not through his version, but through Sir Thomas North’s Dial of Princes. Berners is also credited with a book on the duties of the inhabitants of Calais, which Mr Sidney Lee thinks may be identical with the ordinance for watch and ward of Calais preserved in the Cotton MSS. and with a lost comedy, Ite in vineam meam, which used to be acted at Calais after vespers.

A biographical account of Berners is to be found in Mr Sidney Lee’s introduction to Huon of Bourdeaux (Early English Text Society