Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/544

Rh (N. W. T.; J. F. M'L.)

WESEL, JOHANN RUCHRAT VON (d. 1481), German theologian, was born at Oberwesel early in the 15th century. He appears to have been one of the leaders of the humanist movement in Germany, and to have had some intercourse and sympathy with the leaders of the Hussites in Bohemia. Erfurt was in his day the headquarters of a humanism which was both devout and opposed to the realist metaphysic and the Thomist theology which prevailed in the universities of Cologne and Heidelberg. Wesel was one of the professors at Erfurt between 1445 and 1456, and was vice-rector in 1458. In 1460 he was appointed preacher at Mainz, in 1462 at Worms, and in 1479, when an old and worn-out man, he was brought before the Dominican inquisitor Gerhard Elten of Cologne. The charges brought against him took a theological turn, though they were probably prompted by dislike of his philosophical views. They were chiefly based on a treatise, De indulgentiis, which he had composed while at Erfurt twenty-five years before. He had also written De potestate ecclesiastica. He died under sentence of imprisonment for life in the Augustinian convent in Mainz in 1481.

It is somewhat difficult to determine the exact theological position of Wesel. Ullmann claims him as a &ldquo;reformer before the Reformation,&rdquo; but, while he mastered the formal principle of Protestantism, that scripture is the sole rule of faith, it is more than doubtful that he had that experimental view of the doctrines of grace which lay at the basis of Reformation theology. He held that Christ is men's righteousness in so far as they are guided by the Holy Ghost, and the love towards God is shed abroad in their hearts, which clearly shows that he held the medieval idea that justification is an habitual grace implanted in men by the gracious act of God. He seems, however, to have protested against certain medieval ecclesiastical ideas which he held to be excrescences erroneously grafted on Christian faith and practice. He objected to the whole system of indulgences; he denied the infallibility of the church, on the ground that the church contains within it sinners as well as saints; he insisted that papal authority could be upheld only when the pope remained true to the evangel; and he held that a sharp distinction ought to be drawn between ecclesiastical sentences and punishments, and the judgments of God.

WESEL, a fortress town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia at the confluence of the Rhine and the Lippe, 46 m. S.W. of Munster and 35 m. N.W. of Duisburg. Pop. (1905) 23,237 (43% Protestants), including a considerable garrison. There is a junction of five railway lines, and the Rhine is crossed by a large railway bridge and by a bridge of boats. The inner line of fortifications was razed in 1890, and the defensive works now consist only of the citadel and three detached forts, one of which. Fort Blücher, serves as a tête-de-pont on the left bank of the Rhine. Wesel contains some quaint old houses, and a town hall, dating from 1396, with an elaborate facade, and containing a valuable collection of old silver plate. The large Protestant church of St Willibrord has a choir, built 1424–1526, which is one of the noblest Gothic structures on the Lower Rhine, and a modern nave (1882–96). The Mathena church dates from 1429–1477. The two Roman Catholic churches, the castle, now the commandant's house (built in 1417), the Berliner Tor—Berlin gate—(built in 1722 and recently restored), the Lower-Rhenish museum of antiquities and the modern gymnasium and military hospital, are among the other chief buildings. Wesel carries on a considerable trade in grain, timber, colonial goods, tobacco, &c., facilitated by new harbour accommodation and wharves at the mouth of the Lippe. It has manufactures of wire, leaden pipes and other metal goods, cement, sugar, &c.

Wesel, formerly known as Lippemünde, was one of the points from which Charlemagne directed his operations against the heathen Saxons. Incorporated in 1241, it became a flourishing commercial town, and though repeatedly subject to the counts of Cleves, was a member of the Hanseatic League, and as late as 1521 a free imperial city. It was occupied by the Spaniards in 1614, by the Dutch in 1629, by the French in 1672, also during the Seven Years' War, and in 1805, and was ceded to Prussia in 1814. A monument outside. the town commemorates eleven of Ferdinand von Schill's officers who were shot here on the 16th of September 1809 after their unsuccessful attempt at Stralsund. Wesel is occasionally spoken of as Unterwesel, to distinguish it from Oberwesel, a small town on the Rhine, above St Goar.

See Gantesweiler, Chronik der Stadt Wesel (Wesel, 1881), and Reinhold, Verfassungsgeschichte Wesels (Breslau. 1888).

 WESER (O. Ger. Visuracha, Wisura, Lat. Visurgis), one of the chief rivers of Germany, formed by the union of the Werra and the Fulda at Münden, in the Prussian province of Hanover, flowing generally north and entering the North Sea below Bremerhaven, between Jade Bay and the estuary of the Elbe. The mouth is 170 m. from Münden, but the winding course of the river is 270 m. long; if the measurement be made from the source of the Werra, in the Thüringer Wald, the total length of the stream is 440 m. At Münden the river surface is 380 ft. above sea-level; the most rapid fall in its course is between Karlshafen and Minden in Westphalia. Nearly the entire course of the Wescr lies in Prussia, but it also touches part of Brunswick and Lippe, and after flowing through Bremen expands into an estuary separating the duchy of Oldenburg from the Prussian province of Hanover. Between Münden and Minden its course lies through a picturesque valley flanked by irregular and disjointed ranges of hills (Reinhardswald, Sollinger Wald, Weser Hills, &c.); but after it emerges from these mountains by the narrow pass called the " Porta Westfalica," near Minden, its banks become flat and uninteresting. The breadth of the river varies from 110 yds. at Münden to 220 yds. at Minden, 250 yds. at Bremen, 1¼ m. at Elsfleth and 7½ m. at its entrance into the sea.

The Weser on the whole is shallow, and navigation above Bremen is sometimes interrupted by drought. Until 1894 the fairway up to Bremen had a minimum depth of little over 8 ft.; thereafter important works were undertaken, the minimum depth was made 18 ft., and the importance of Bremen as a port was greatly enhanced. Boats of 350 tons can ascend generally as far as Münden. A system of watenvays (the Gccste and Hadelncr canals, meeting one another at Bederkesa) connects the estuary of the Weser with that of the Elbe; a canal between the Hunte and the Leda gives connexion with the Ems. On the upper Weser (above Bremen) the navigation, which is interrupted by occasional rapids, is assisted by locks and weirs. The principal tributaries on the right are the Aller, Wumme, Drepte, Lune and Geeste, and on the left the Diemel, Nethe, Emmer, Werra, Aue and Hunte. The Werra and Fulda are both navigable when they unite to form the Weser, the Fulda being canalized between Cassel and the town of Fulda for a distance of 17¼ m.; the Aller, Wumme, Geeste and Hunte are also navigable. Below the junction of the Hunte the Weser, hitherto a single stream, is divided into several channels by islands. The Weser drains a basin estimated at 18,530 sq. m.

The navigation of the Weser was long hampered by the various and vexatious claims and rights of the different states through whose territories it ran. Before 1866 the joint stream, including the Werra and the Fulda, changed its ruler no less than thirty-five times on its way to the sea. In 1823, however, a treaty was made establishing a fixed toll and a uniform system of management; this was further improved in 1856 and 1865; and when Prussia took possession of Hanover and Hesse-Nassau in 1866 the chief difficulties in the way of organizing the river-trade disappeared. The principal town on the Weser is Bremen. Other towns past which it flows