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 and Champagne. Until 1284 he held, in his wife’s right, the custody of Champagne. This he was compelled to renounce upon the marriage of Joan to Philip the Fair, the heir to the crown of France. But he retained the possession of his wife’s dowerlands in Champagne, and is described in an official document of Champagne so late as the year 1287, as “the Count Edmund.” He was employed by his brother as a mediator with Philip the Fair in 1293–1294. When Philip’s court pronounced that the king of England had forfeited Gascony, Edmund renounced his homage to Philip and withdrew with his wife to England. He was appointed lieutenant of Gascony in 1296, but died in the same year, leaving a son Thomas to succeed him in his English possessions.

 EDMUNDS, GEORGE FRANKLIN (1828–&emsp;&emsp;), American lawyer and political leader, was born in Richmond, Vermont, on the 1st of February 1828. He began the practice of law in 1849. He was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives in 1854, 1855, 1857, 1858 and 1859, acting for the last two years as speaker, and was a member and president pro tem. of the state Senate in 1861–1862. In 1866 he became a member, as a Republican, of the United States Senate, where he remained until 1891, when he resigned in order to have more time for the practice of his profession. He took an active part in the attempt to impeach President Johnson. He was influential in providing for the electoral commission to decide the disputed presidential election of 1876, and became one of the commissioners. In the national Republican nominating conventions of 1880 and 1884 he was a candidate for the presidential nomination. From 1882 to 1885 he was president pro tem. of the Senate. As senator he was conspicuous on account of his legal and parliamentary attainments, his industry and his liberal opinions. He was the author of the so-called Edmunds Act (22nd of March 1882) for the suppression of polygamy in Utah, and of the anti-trust law of 1890, popularly known as the Sherman Act.  EDOM, the district situated to the south of Palestine, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of ʽAkaba (Aelanitic Gulf), the inhabitants of which were regarded by the Israelites as a “brother” people (see ). On the E. it touched Moab, the tribes of the great desert and the northern part of Arabia; on the W. its boundaries were determined by the Sinaitic peninsula, Egypt and Israel. Both Kadesh and Mt. Hor (perhaps Jebel Mādera) are represented as lying on its border (Num. xx. 16, 22), and the modern Wadi el-Fikreh, in which the “Scorpion pass” was probably situated (Judg. i. 36; Num. xxxiv. 4), may have marked its limits from Jebel Mādera north-west towards the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. Kadesh (ʽAin Ḳadis), however, lies about 50 m. south of Beersheba (the southern end of Israel as opposed to Dan in the north), and the precise borders must always have been determined by political conditions: by the relations between Edom and its neighbours, Judah, the Philistine states, Moab, and the restless desert tribes with which Edom was always very closely allied.

The land of Edom is unfruitful and forbidding, with the notable exception of fertile districts immediately south of the Dead Sea and along its eastern border. It was traversed by an important trade-route from Elath (the junction for routes to Egypt and Arabia) which ran northwards by Maʽān and Moab; but cross-routes turned from Maʽān and Petra to Gaza or up the Ghor (south end of Dead Sea) to Hebron and Jerusalem. Thus Edom formed a prominent centre for traffic from Arabia and its seats of culture to Egypt, the Philistine towns, Palestine and the Syrian states, and it enjoyed a commercial importance which made it a significant factor in Palestinian history.

The earliest history of Edom is that of the “sand-dwellers,” “archers” or Shasu (perhaps “marauders”), whose conflicts with ancient Egypt are not infrequently mentioned. The first clear reference is in the eighth year of Mineptah II. (close of 13th century ), when a tribe of Shasu from Aduma received permission to enter Egypt and feed their flocks. A little more than a century later Rameses III. claims to have overthrown the Saaru among the tribes of the Shasu, and the identification of this name with Seir is usually recognized, although it is naturally uncertain whether the Edomites of Old Testament tradition are meant. According to the latter, the Edomites were a new race who drove out the Horites from Mt. Seir. The designation suggests that these were “cave-dwellers,” but although many caves and hollows have been found about Petra (and also in Palestine), this tradition probably “serves only to express the idea entertained by later generations concerning their predecessors” (Nöldeke).

Not only is Edom as a nation recognized as older than Israel, but a list of eight kings, who reigned before the Israelite monarchy, is preserved in Gen. xxxvi.

Saul, the first king of Israel, conquered Edom (1 Sam. xiv. 47). Of the conquest of Edom by David, the first king of the united Judah and Israel, several details are given (2 Sam. viii. 13 seq.; 1 Kings xi. 14 sqq.; 1 Chron. xviii. 11 seq.; cf. Ps. lx. title and ver. 8 seq.), although the account of the slaughter is certainly exaggerated. The scene was the valley of Salt, probably to the south of the Dead Sea. Of the escape of the Edomite prince Hadad, and of his residence in Egypt, a twofold account is