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 by rail S.W. of Karlsruhe. Pop. (1905) 14,404. The old palace of the margraves of Baden, a large Renaissance edifice in red sandstone, is now partly used for military purposes and contains a collection of pictures, antiquities and trophies from the Turkish wars. The chief manufactures are stoves, beer and tobacco. Until the end of the 17th century Rastatt was unimportant, but after its destruction by the French in 1689 it was rebuilt on a larger scale by Louis William, margrave of Baden, the imperial general in the Turkish wars. It was then the residence of the mar graves until 1771. The Baden revolution of 1849 began with a mutiny of soldiers at Rastatt in May 1849, and ended here a few weeks later with the capture of the town by the Prussians. For some years Rastatt was one of the strongest fortresses of the German empire, but its fortifications were dismantled in 1890.

See Schuster, Rastatt, die ehemalige badische Residenz und Bundesfestung (Lahr, 1902); and Lederle, Rastatt und seine Urngebung (Rastatt, 1905).

Rastatt has been the scene of two congresses. At the first congress, which was opened in November 1713, negotiations were carried on between France and Austria for the purpose of ending the war of the Spanish succession. These culminated in the treaty of Rastatt signed on the 7th of March 1714. The second congress, which was opened in December 1797, was intended to rearrange the map of Germany by providing compensation for those princes whose lands on the left bank of the Rhine had been seized by France. It had no result, however, as it was ended by the outbreak of the European war, but it had a sequel of some interest. As the three French representatives were leaving the town in April 1799 they were waylaid, and two of them were assassinated by some Hungarian soldiers. The origin of this outrage remains shrouded in mystery, but the balance of evidence seems to show that the Austrian authorities had commanded their men to seize the papers of the French plenipotentiaries in order to avoid damaging disclosures about Austria's designs on Bavaria, and that the soldiers had exceeded their instructions. On the other hand, some authorities think that the deed was the work of French emigrants, or of the party in France in favour of war.

For fuller particulars of the two sides of this controversy see K. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Der Rastadter Gesandtenmord (Heidelberg, 1869); J. A. F reiherr von Helfert, Der Rastadter Gesandtenmord (Vienna, 1874); Bohtlingk, Napoleon und der Rastadter Gesandtenmord (Leipzig, 1883); and Zum Rastadter Gesandtenmord (Heidelberg, 1895); H. Hiiffer, Der Rastadter Gesandtenrnord (Bonn, 1896); and H. von Sybel, in Band 39 of the Historische Zeitschrift.

RASTELL (or ), JOHN (d. 1536), English printer and author, was born in London towards the end of the 15th century. He is vaguely reported by Anthony a Wood to have been “educated for a time in grammatical and philosophical” at Oxford. He became a member of Lincoln's Inn, and practised successfully as a barrister. He was also M.P. for Dunheved, Cornwall, from 1529 to the time of his death. He began his printing business some time before 1516, for in his preface to the undated Liber Assisarum he announced the forthcoming publication of Sir A. Fitzherbe1t's Abbreviamentum librorum legurn Anglorurn, dated 1516. Among the works issued from the “sygne of the meremayd at Powlysgate, ” where he lived and worked from 1520 onwards, are The Mery Gestys of the Wydow Edyth (1525), and A Dyaloge of Syr Thomas More (1529). The last of his dated publications was Fabyl's Ghoste (1533), a poem. In 1530 he wrote, in defence of the Roman doctrine of Purgatory, A New Boke of Purgatory (1530), dialogues on the subject between “Comyngs and Almayn a Christen man, and one Gyngemyn a Turke.” This was answered by John Frith in A Disputacion of Purgatorie, Rastell replied with an Apology against John Fryth, also answered by the latter. Rastell had married Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas More, with whose Catholic theology and political views he was in sympathy. More had begun the controversy with John Frith, and Rastell joined him in attacking the Protestant writer, who, says Foxe (Actes and Monurnents, ed. G. Townsend, vol. v. p. 9), did so “overthrow and confound” his adversaries that he converted Rastell to his side. Separated from his Catholic friends, Rastell does not seem to have been fully trusted by the opposite party, for in a letter to Cromwell, written probably in 1536, he says that he had spent his time in upholding the king's cause and opposing the pope, with the result that he had lost both his printing business and his legal practice, and was reduced to poverty. He was imprisoned in 1536, perhaps because he had written against the payment of tithes. He probably died in prison, and his will, of which Henry VIII. had originally been appointed an executor, was proved on the 18th of July 1536. He left two sons: William, noticed below, and John. The Jesuit, John Rastell (1532~1577), who has been frequently confounded with him, was no relation.

Rastell's best-known work is The Pastyrne of People, the Chronycles of dyvers Realmys and most specially of the Realme of England (1529), a chronicle dealing with English history from the earliest times to the reign of Richard III., edited by T. F. Dibdin in 1811. His Expositiones terminorurn legum Angliae (in French, translated into English, 1527; reprinted 1629, 1636, 1641, &c., as Les Termes de la Ley), and The Abbrez/iacion of Statutis (1519), of which fifteen editions appeared before 1625, are the best known of his legal works.

Rastell was also the author of a morality play, A new Interlude and a Mery of the 1111 Elements, written about 1519, which is no doubt the “large and ingenious comedy” attributed to him by Wood. The unique copy in the British Museum is incomplete, and contains neither the date nor the name of the author, identified with John Rastell on the authority of Bale, who catalogues Natura Naturata amon his works, adding a Latin version of the first line of the piece. This interlude was printed in W. C. Hazlitt's edition of Dodsley's Old English Plays, by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps for the Percy Soc. (Early English Poetry, vol. 22, 1848), and by Julius Fischer (Marburger Studien zur englischen Philologie, vol. v., 1903). See also an article on “John Rastell and his Contemporaries" in Bibliographica, vol. II, 437 seq., by Mr. H. R. Plomer, who unearthed in the Record Office an account of a law-suit (1534-35) in connexion with Rastell's premises at the “Mermaid.” For the books issued from his press see a catalogue by R. Proctor, in Hand-Lists of English Printers (Bibliographical Soc., 1896).

RASTELL, WILLIAM (c. 1508-1565), English printer and judge, son of the preceding, was born in London about 1508. At the age of seventeen he went to the university of Oxford, but did not take a degree, being probably called home to superintend his father's business. The first work which bears his own imprint was A Dyaloge of Sir Thomas More (1531), a reprint of the edition published by his father in 1529. He also brought out a few law-books, some poetry, an edition of Fabyan's Cronycle (1533), and The Apologye (1533) and The Supplycacyon of Soulys of his uncle Sir Thomas More. His office was “in Fletestrete in saynt Brydys chyrche yarde.” He became a student at Lincoln's Inn on 12th September 1532, and gave up the printing business two years later. In 1547 he was appointed reader. On account of his Catholic convictions he left England for Louvain; but upon the accession of Mary he returned, and was made serjeant-at-law and treasurer of Lincoln's Inn in 1555. His patent as judge of the Queen's Bench was granted on the 27th of October 1558. Rastell continued on the bench until 1562, when he retired to Louvain without the queen's licence. By virtue of a special commission issued by the barons of the Exchequer on the occasion an inventory of his goods and chattels was taken. It furnishes an excellent idea of the modest nature of the law library (consisting of twenty-four works) and of the chambers of an Elizabethan judge (see Law Magazine, February 1844). He died at Louvain on the 27th of August 1565.

It is difficult to distinguish between the books written by him and those by his father. The following are believed to be his: A Collection of all the Statutes (1559), A Table collected of the Yeares of the Kynges of Englande (1561), both frequently reprinted with continuations, and A Colleccion of Entrees, of Declarations, &c. (1566), also frequently reprinted. The entries are not of Rastell's own drawing, but have been selected from printed and MS. collections; their “pointed brevity and precision" are commended by Story. He supplied tables or indexes to several law-books, and edited La novel natura brevium de Monsieur Anton. Fitzherbert (1534) and The Workes of Sir T. More in the English Tonge (1557). He is also stated to have written a life of Sir T. More, but it has not come down to us.