Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/349

Rh infallibility at the Vatican council. The capital is Frauenfeld (5811 inhabitants), and Romanshorn (population 3647) is an important railway centre on the lake. The canton has many small villages, and the population is chiefly employed in agricultural pursuits, though cotton-spinning is rapidly increasing. The orchards are so splendid that Thurgau has been called "the garden of Helvetia." A network of well-made roads traverses it in every direction.

The Thurgau originally took in all the country, roughly speaking, between the Reuss, the Lake of Lucerne, the Rhine, and the Lake of Constance; but many smaller districts (Zürichgau, Toggenburg, Appenzell, St Gall) were gradually carved out of it, and the county was reduced to about the size of the present canton when in 1264 it passed by the gift of the last count of Kyburg to his nephew Rudolph of Hapsburg, chosen emperor in 1273. In 1415 the count, Duke Frederick of Austria (a Hapsburg), was put under the ban of the empire by the emperor Sigismund for having aided to escape from Constance, and the county was overrun, Sigismund in 1417 mortgaging to the city of Constance the appellate jurisdiction in all civil and criminal matters ("landgericht" and "blutbann") arising within the county, which he had declared to be forfeited in consequence of Frederick's conduct. In 1460 some of the Confederates, now becoming very eager for conquests, overran and seized the county. Winterthur was saved, but in 1461 Frederick's son, Duke Sigismund, had perforce to cede the county to the Confederates. Henceforth it was ruled as a "subject district" by seven members of the League,—Bern, occupied in the west, not being admitted to a share in the government till 1712, after one of the wars of religion. It was only in 1499 that the Confederation (then consisting of ten members) obtained from Constance her supreme jurisdiction, through the mediation of the duke of Milan, but there were still forty-two minor jurisdictions belonging to various lords, spiritual and temporal, which went on till 1798 and greatly limited the power of the Confederates. Thurgau had hoped, but in vain, to be admitted in 1499 a full member of the Confederation.

At the time of the Reformation many of the inhabitants became Protestants, and bitter quarrels ensued between the Protestant and Catholic (the latter having a large majority) members of the Confederation who had rights over Thurgau, with regard to the toleration of the new doctrines in the "subject districts" such as Thurgau. By the first peace of Kappel (1529) the majority in each "commune" was to settle the religion of that "commune," but by the second (1531, after Zwingli's death) both religions were to be allowed side by side in each "commune." Thurgau thus became a "canton of parity," as it is to this day. Its rulers, however, continued to watch each other very closely, and Kilian Kesselring, one of the chief military commanders in Thurgau, was in 1633, on suspicion of having connived at the advance of the Swedes through Thurgau on Constance, seized by the Catholic cantons and severely punished. In 1798 Thurgau became free, and was one of the nineteen cantons of the Helvetic republic, being formally received (like the other "subject lands") as a full member of the Swiss Confederation in 1803 by the Act of Mediation. It was one of the very first cantons to revise, in 1830, after the July revolution in Paris, its constitution in a very liberal sense, and in 1831 proposed a revision of the federal pact of 1815. This failed, but the new federal constitutions of 1848 (of which one of the two drafters was Kern of Thurgau) and 1874 were approved by very large majorities. In 1849 the cantonal constitution was revised and the veto introduced, by which the people might reject a bill passed by the cantonal assembly. Finally, in 1869, the existing constitution was drawn up, by which the "initiative" (or right of 2500 electors to compel the cantonal assembly to take any subject into consideration) and the "obligatory referendum" (by which all laws passed by the cantonal assembly, and all financial resolutions involving a capital expenditure of 50,000 francs or an annual one of 10,000, must be submitted to a popular vote) were introduced. The cantonal government consists of a legislative assembly (now of ninety-seven members, one to every 250 electors) and an executive council of five members, both elected directly by the people; 5000 electors can at any time call for a popular vote on the question of the dismissal of either one or the other. Further, to show the very democratic character of the constitution, it may be added that members of both houses of the federal assembly are in Thurgau elected direct by the people. The "communes" in Thurgau are of no less than eleven or twelve varieties. The division of the lands, &c., of the old "burgher communes" between them and the new communes, consisting of all residents (with whom political power rests), was carried out (1872) in all of the 214 communes; but there are still thirty-eight guilds or corporations with special rights over certain forests, &c.

The best history of the canton is that by J. A. Pupikofer, of which a second and very much enlarged edition is now (1887) being published.

 THURII, or, a city of on the Gulf of, near the site of the older (q.v.), but farther inland. It owed its origin to an attempt made in 452 by Sybarite exiles and their descendants to repeople their old home. The new settlement was crushed by, but the Athenians lent aid to the fugitives, and in 446, or rather in 443, sent out to Thurii a mixed body of colonists from various parts of , among whom were  and the orator. The pretensions of the Sybarite colonists led to dissensions and ultimately to their expulsion; peace was made with, and also, after a period of war, with , and Thurii rose rapidly in power and drew settlers from all parts of , especially from Peloponnesus, so that the tie to was not always acknowledged. The of  determined that the city had no founder but, and in the Athenian war in  Thurii was at first neutral, though it finally helped the Athenians. Thurii had a democratic constitution and good laws, and, though we hear little of its history till in 390 it received a severe defeat from the rising power of the Lucanians, many beautiful coins testify to the wealth and splendour of its days of prosperity. In the 4th century it continued to decline, and at length called in the help of the Romans against the Lucanians, and then in 282 against. Thenceforward its position was dependent, and in the, after several vicissitudes, it was depeopled and plundered by (204). In 194 a Roman colony was founded, with Latin rights, known for a time as Copiæ, but afterwards by the old name of Thurii. It continued to be a place of some importance, the situation being favourable and the region fertile, and does not seem to have been wholly abandoned till the Middle Ages. Its site, near Terranova di Sibari, is marked by considerable ruins of the Roman period (cf. Lenormant, in Academy, xvii. 73, and Barnabei, ibid., xvi. 55 sq.).  THURINGIA (Germ. Thüringen), a territorial term without modern political significance, designates, strictly speaking, only that district in Upper Saxony that is bounded by the, the , the , and the Thuringian Forest; but in common parlance it is frequently used as equivalent to the Thuringian states, i.e., the group of small duchies and principalities lying between Prussia, Hesse-Nassau, , and the kingdom of Saxony. The name is derived, with great probability, from that of the Hermunduri, a branch of the great Suevic family; and the ancient Thuringians, a heathen tribe first mentioned in the 5th century by, are believed to be the descendants of that. The Thuringians seem at one time to have occupied territories stretching from the not far from  to the  at ; but about 531 their empire was overthrown by the united  and. The north part of their lands fell to the, and was known for some time as the North Thuringian gau; the district to the south of the Thuringian Forest was called Franconia after its conquerors; and the name Thuringia was restricted almost to the narrow limits to which it now properly applies. The advance of the to the east bank of the  about the middle of the 7th century made the limitation still more exact. Thuringia remained under Frankish dominion, and various Frankish counts ruled in the different "gaus" into which it was divided. , if not introduced, was confirmed in this district by the British Boniface; a