Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/915

Rh R L R L 849 Norse earls became with him extinct, the earldom of Caithness was granted to Magnus, second son of Gilbride, earl of Angus, who was apparently confirmed in the earldom by the king of Norway About 1321 the earldom passed from the Angus to the Strathearn line, and about 1379 to Henry St Clair, who erected the castle of Kirkwall, In 1468 the Orkneys and Shetlands were pledged by Christian I. of Denmark for the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret, betrothed to James III. of Scotland, and, as the money was never paid, their connexion with the crown of Scotland became perpetual. In 1 471 King James III. bestowed the castle and lands of Ravenscraig in Fife on William, earl of Orkney, in exchange for all his rights to the earldom of Orkney, and an Act of Parliament was passed 20th February of the same year annexing the earldom of Orkney and Shetland to the Scottish crown. In 1540 Kirkwall was visited by James V. In 1564 Lord Robert Stewart, natural son of James V., was made sheriff of the Orkneys and Shetlands, and received possession of the estates of the odallers ; in 1581 he was created earl of Orkney by James VI., the charter being ratified in 1591 to his son Patrick. In 1615 the earldom was again annexed to the crown. The islands were made the rendez vous of the disastrous expedition of Montrose in 1650. During the Protectorate the Orkneys were visited by a detachment of Crom well s troops, who initiated the inhabitants into various industrial arts and new methods of agriculture. In 1707 the islands were granted to James, twelfth earl, in mortgage, redeemable by the crown on payment of 30,000, and subject to an annual feu-duty of 500 ; but in 1766 his estates were sold to Sir Lawrence Dundas of the family of the earls of Zetland. Among the relics of the Norse settlement in the islands the most remarkable are the inscriptions on the great sepulchral cairn of Maeshow, the Orkahaug of the saga, which was, however, itself of Pictish origin. The topography, both of Orkney and of Shetland, is altogether Norse, and, although the influx of Scottish settlers gradually extinguished the old Norse tongue, many of the Norse names still linger, and even a form of the old odal succession and mode of land tenure still survives. Norse was generally spoken in the islands in the 16th century ; and, according to Barry, in Orkney as late as the end of the 17th century it continued to be spoken in four parishes in the Mainland by the people in their own houses ; but within his recollection it was almost entirely extinct, except in one parish in the heart of the Mainland. In Shetland it continued to be spoken much longer, and Low, during his tour in 1774, found the Norse language in Foula, &quot;but much worn out,&quot; He states that it was the language of the last age, and he gives several specimens, including the Lord s Prayer and an old ballad (Low s Tour, pp. 105-112). The Shetlanders are still of almost unmixed Norse lineage, and words and phrases of Norse origin still tinge their dialect. Low describes a monument with Runic inscrip tions in the churchyard of Crosskiik, Northmavine ; and a Runic fragment found at Mail s Voe, Cunningsburgh, Shetland, is now in the museum of the (Scottish) Society of Antiquaries. Broken swords and fragments of shield-bosses have been dug up in many places, and also many of the peculiar brooches buried as relics in the graves of the Norse women during the Pagan period. At Birsay are remains of an old palace of the jarls. In early times both the archbishop of Hamburg and the arch bishop of York disputed with the Norwegians ecclesiastical jurisdic tion over the Orkneys and the right of consecrating bishops ; but ultimately the Norwegian bishops, the first of whom was William the Old, consecrated in 1102, continued the canonical succession. The see remained vacant from 1580 to 1606, and from 1638 till the Restoration; and, after the accession of William III., episcopacy was in 1697 finally abolished, although many of the clergy refused to conform. Besides the cathedral-church of KIRKWALL (q.v,), the most interesting of the old churches are Egilshay church, built about the beginning of the 12th century, and possessing a round tower ; the ruins of the circular church at Orphir ; the remains of Christ Church, Birsay, built by Earl Thorfinn in the llth century ; the chapel of Weir, supposed to have been built in the 12th century ; St Peter s Church, Birsay ; and the remains of a chapel on the brough of Deerness. In Shetland there were at one time three towered churches St Lawrence in Burra, St Magnus at Tingwall, and Ireland Head ; but of these there are now no remains, There are ruins of an old cruciform church at Culbinsbrough, of an old Norse church dedicated is St Olaf at Papil, and of various chapels in several of the islands. The earliest written record on the Orkneys and Shetlands is The Orkneyinga Saga, an edition of which, with notes by Joseph Anderson, was published in 1873. Next to the saga in antiquity is Jo Ben s Descriptio Insularum Orchadi- nrum, 1529. Several works on both groups were written during last century, or about the beginning of the present, including Wallace, Account of the Islands of Orkney, 1700 ; Brand, Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, c, 1701 ; Gifford, Description of the Zetland Islands in 1733, published in 1S79 ; Low, Tour through the Islands of Orkney and Shetland in 1774, published in 1879 ; Barry, History if the Orkney Islands, 1805 ; Edmonston, Zetland Island-s, 1809 ; and Shirreff, General View of the Agriculture of the Orkney and Shetland Inlands, 1814. On the natural history there have been published Low, Fauna Orcadensis, 1813 ; Baikie and Heddle, Historia Naturalis Orcadensis, part i., 1848 ; and Crichton, A Naturalist s Ramble to the Orcodes, 18G6, See also Gorrie, Summers and Winters in the Orkneys, 1808 ; Hibbert, Description of the Shetland Isles, 1862 ; Reid, Art Rambles in Shetland, ]809; Cowie, Shetland, 1874-80; Tudor, Orkneys and Shetland; their Past and Present State, 1SS3, and Rampini, Shetland and the Shetlanders, 1884. (I. J jj.) ORLEANS, a city of France, chief town, of the depart ment of Loiret, lies on the right bank of the Loire, 75 miles south-south-west of Paris. At Les Aubrais, a mile to the north, is one of the chief railway junctions in the country. Besides the Paris and Orleans Railway, which there divides into two main lines a western to Nantes and Bordeaux via Tours, and a southern to Bourges and Toulouse via Vierzon branches leave Les Aubrais east wards for Pithiviers, Chalons-sur-Marne, and Gien, north west for Chateaudun and Rouen. The whole town of Orleans is clustered together on the right bank of the river and surrounded by fine boulevards, beyond which it sends out suburbs along the various roads. With the suburb of St Marceau on the left bank it is connected by a hand some stone bridge (1092 feet long and 51 feet wide) of nine arches, erected in the 18th century. Farther up is the railway bridge. The river is canalized on the right, and serves as a continuation of the Orleans Canal, which unites the Loire with the Seine by the canal of the Loing. Owing to its position on the northmost point of the Loire Orleans has long been the centre of communica tion between the Loire basin and Paris. Wines, grain, wool, and trees for planting are the main products of the surrounding districts and the commercial staples of the city, which, while devoted rather to trade than to manu factures, has establishments for the making of vinegar, blankets, hosiery, worsted, the so-called Rheims biscuits, confectionery, preserved foods, pins, pottery, boilers, paper, cardboard, soap, and dressed skins. The chief interest of the place, however, lies in its public buildings and the historical events of which it has been the scene. Proceed ing from the railway station to the bridge over the Loire, the visitor crosses Orleans from north to south and passes through the Place du Martroi, the heart of the city. In the middle of the square stands an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, 30 feet high, in bronze, resting on a granite pedestal surrounded by bas-reliefs representing the leading episodes in the life of the heroine. In 1855 it took the place of an older statue executed in the beginning of the century, which was then transferred to the left bank of the Loire at the end of the bridge, a few paces from the spot where a simple cross marks the site of the Fort des Tournelles captured by Joan of Arc on 7th May 1429. From the Place du Martroi, the Rue Jeanne d Arc leads to the cathedral of Ste Croix. This church, commenced in 1287, was burned by the Huguenots in 1567 before its comple tion, Henry IV., in 1601, laid the first stone of the new structure, the building of which has continued until now. It is a Gothic cathedral on a large scale, consisting of a vestibule, a nave with double aisles, a corresponding choir, a transept, and an apse. Its length is 482 feet, its greatest width 206, and the height of the central vaults 108 feet. The west front has two flat-topped towers each of three stories, of which the first is square, the second octagonal, and the third cylindrical, The whole front is Gothic, but was designed and constructed in the 18th century and exhibits all the defects of the period. A central spire 328 feet high, on the other hand, raised about twenty-five years ago, recalls the pure ogival style of the 13th century. In the interior the choir chapels and the apse, dating from the original erection of the building, are worthy of note. In the episcopal palace and the great seminary are several remarkable pictures and pieces of wood-carving ; and the latter building has a crypt which some antiquaries hold to belong to the 6th century, The church of St Aignan, said to have been founded by the son of Constantine, and often rebuilt, contains in a gilded and carved wooden shrine the remains of its patron saint, who occupied the XVII. 107