Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/507

 CHITTY CHIVALRY 495 was a leading member of the convention at Windsor, July 2, 1777, which formed the first constitution of Vermont, and was president of the council of safety, which was vested with all the powers of government, executive, legisla- tive, and judicial, to be exercised until the gov- ernment should be organized under the consti- tution. In 1778 he was elected governor of Vermont, which office he held with the excep- tion of one year till his death. A memoir of him, with a history of the constitution of Ver- mont during his administration, by Daniel Ohipman, was published in 1849. n. Martin, son of the preceding, born at Salisbury, Conn., March 12, 1766, died at Williston, Vt., Sept. 5, 1840. He graduated at Dartmouth college in 1789, and commenced farming at Jericho, Ohittenden co. ; was a member of the conven- tion in Vermont that adopted the constitution of the United States ; was appointed side judge of the county court, and reflected for three years, and then appointed chief judge of the same court, and reflected seven years succes- sively. In 1803 he was elected member of con- gress, and received four reelections. From 1813 to 1815 he was governor of Vermont. CHITTY, Joseph, an English lawyer, born in 1776, died in 1841. He was eminent in his day as a special pleader, but has a more endu- ring fame as a writer of legal text books, indis- pensable to students and practitioners in Eng- lish law. His chief works are a ' ' Treatise on the Parties to Actions and to Pleadings " (1809) ; "Treatise on the Law of Nations relative to the Legal Effects of War on the Commerce of Belligerents and Neutrals, and on Orders in Council in Licenses " (1812) ; a " Practical Treatise on the Criminal Law " (4 vols., 1816) ; and a " Synopsis of Practice in the King's Bench and Common Pleas " (1816). CHIl'SA, an Italian word for a narrow moun- tain pass, as for instance the Chiusa dell' Adige, near Verona, and the name of a number of localities in Italy, including a Benedictine abbey, San Michele della Chiusa, on Monte Pirchiriano, near a hamlet called La Chiusa, about 11 m. N. E. of Turin, now used as a hospice and as the burial place of the royal family. The following are the largest towns of the name. I. Chinsa dl Pesio, in the province and 7 m. S. E. of Cuneo, on the left bank of the Pesio ; pop. about 6,500. It is well built, and contains ruins of the old castle of Mira- bella. Silk and glass, and particularly mirrors, are extensively manufactured here. A contin- uation of the Roman ^Emilian way passed in this vicinity. II. Chiusa Sdafani, Sicily, in the province and 30 m. S. by W. of Palermo ; pop. about 7,000. It was founded about 1320 by Matteo Sclafani, count of Aderno. The prom- inent buildings are the parish church, with pointed arches resting on stunted columns, and a Capuchin convent with a fine picture of the "Adoration of the Magi." Precious metals and iron are said to have been found here in ancient times, and jasper and especially 186 VOL. iv. 32 agates still abound. On a rock 2 m. S. W. of Chiusa is the village of Giuliana, with a castle and fortification constructed by Frederick II. of Aragon. CHIUSI (the Camars of the Etruscans, and Clusium of the Romans), a city of Italy, in the province and 38 m. S. E. of Siena, situated Chiusi. on a hill in the valley of the Chiana; pop. about 4,200. It was the ancient capital of King Porsena. Its decline was caused in the llth century by the accumulation of the waters of the Chiana, which changed the surrounding valley into a pestilential marsh. Dante (Para- diso, xvi.) describes its depopulation. The val- ley was drained by works completed in 1823, and Chiusi is now the seat of a bishopric, has a beautiful cathedral, and several rich mu- seums of Etruscan and Roman antiquities. On a mountain E. of the town stands the monastery Sagra di San Michele, one of the most notable religious structures in central Italy. (See CLUSITTM.) CHIVALRY (Fr. chevalerie, riders of horses), an institution forming the special characteris- tic of European civilization in the middle ages. It flourished from about the beginning of the 10th century to the end of the 15th ; a century more for its rise and another for its decline will include the period of its existence as an organized institution. Almost every feature of chivalry has existed in all ages and among all peoples except utter savages. Its germs, especially in its avowed relations to the female sex, existed in the German forests long before the Christian era, although they remained un- developed until after the destruction of the Roman empire and the establishment upon its ruins of the states of modern Europe. During the period between the 5th and 10th centuries there existed in that part of Europe which had been a portion of the Roman empire scarcely a trace of culture except in the cloisters, scarcely any safety to person or property except such