Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/143

ADAMNAN. west Donegal, the extreme northwest county, about the year 625, but entered the monasteriy of Iona. His father, Ronan, was the great-great-grandson of the uncle of St. Columba, and also claimed kin with many Irish kings. The paternal grandfather was Tinne, from whom came the patronymic Ua Tinne, or grandson of Tinne, an appellative which is occasionally found coupled with Adamnan's name. Ronnat, the mother of Adamnan, was descended from Enna, son of Niall, whose race, the Cinel Enna, possessed themselves of the tract lying between the channels of the Foyle and Swilly, which was called the Tir Enna, or Land of Enna, and answers to the modern barony of Raphoe. In the year 697 he was elected abbot of Iona. His rule over that community was not, however, destined to be peaceful and fortunate. The Irish Church then held the Oriental views about dates for observing Easter and the form of the tonsure. In his intercourse with the Saxon Church, Adamnan had adopted the Roman or orthodox views, as they are termed, and endeavored to put them in practice in his own community. He was thwarted in this object, and it is said that mortification at the failure caused his death. He died in Iona, September 23, 704. He left behind him an ac- count of the Holy Land, containing matters which he says were communicated by Arculfus, a French ecclesiastic who had lived in Jerusa- lem, which is valuable as the earliest informa- tion we possess of Palestine in the early ages of Christianity. But far more valuable is his Vita Sancti Columbæ, his life of St. Columba, the converter of the Picts, and founder of Iona. Along with miracles and many other stories palpably incredible, this book reveals a great deal of distinct and minute matter concerning the remarkable body to which both the author and his hero belonged. The standard edition of the book is that of William Reeves. D.D., edited in 1857 for the Bannatyne Society of Edinburgh, and the Irish Archæological Society (Dublin, 1857). which, with an English translation, forms the sixth volume of Historians of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1874). reissued with additional notes by J. T. Fowler (Oxford, 1895). Nearly all the information to be had about the early Scoto-Irish Church is comprised in that volume.

AD'AM OF BREM'EN. A German historian. He was born, probably, at Meissen, Saxony (the date uncertain), and came to Bremen in 1067 from Magdeburg, and became a canon of the cathedral, and in 1068 principal of the cathedral school. He won perpetual fame by writing (between 1072 and 1076) from all available sources, including the oral testimony of Svend Estridson, King of Demnark, to see whom he made a special journey, a history of the Hamburg Church, which is one of the most precious of mediæval histories. The best edition of this great work, Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiæ Pontificum, is by Lappenberg (Hanover, 1876).

The third edition of the German translation, by J. C. M. Laurent, appeared in the series Die Geschictschreiber der Deutschen Vorzeit (Berlin, 1893). As the appendix to the third and last book Adam gives a general account of the lands belonging to the Danes and Swedes, and of Norway. In it occurs this interesting passage referring to America: "Besides this he (Svend Estridson, King of Denmark) told of still another island that had been found by many in that ocean (the Atlantic). It is called Wineland, because vines spring up there spontaneously, producing excellent wine. I mention this confidently, for I have learned from no fabulous rumor, but through definite information from Danes, that crops also grow there in abundance without having been sown." (Cap. 247, or § 38). In his book Adam quotes from preceding chroniclers, from Cicero, from the Latin poets, Vergil, Horace, Lucan. Juvenal, and Persius; from the Latin Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory the Great; from Bede, Cassiodorus, and Paulus Diaconus. But the style is defective and the Latin difficult and faulty, notwithstanding that he took Sallust as his master. Although the day of his death, October 12, is known from the church record of Bremen, the year is not, but probably it was about 1076.

ADAM OF ST. VICTOR (?-c. 1192). A monastic poet of France. Nothing is known of him except that he died in the abbey of St. Victor in Paris. Yet he was "the most prominent and prolific of the Latin hymnists of the Middle Ages." His works — complete as far as discovered, but doubtless far from being really so — were edited by Léon Gautier (third edition, Paris, 1894; English translation, London, 1881, 3 volumes). Consult: Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1888); French, Sacred Latin Poetry (1874); and Duffield, Latin Hymns (1888).

ADAMS. A town, including the villages of Renfrew, Maple Grove, and Zylonite, in Berkshire Co., Mass., 16 miles north of Pittsfield, on the Hoosac River and the Pittsfield and North Adams branch of the Boston and Albany Railroad (Map:, A 2). Within the town limits is Greylock Mountain (3535 feet), the highest point in Massachusetts. The town has a public library of over 7000 volumes, and manufactures cotton and woolen goods, paper, foundry products, shirts, etc. Laid out and settled as &ldquo;East Hoosuck&rdquo; in 1749, Adams was incorporated under its present name (in honor of Samuel Adams) in 1778. It originally included both North and South Adams. The government is administered by town meeting. Pop., 1890, 9213; 1900, 11,134. Consult: J. G. Holland, History of Western Massachusetts (Springfield, 1855).

ADAMS, (1744-1818). The wife of John Adams, second President of the United States, and daughter of Rev. William Smith, minister of the Congregational church at Weymouth, Mass. She was born at Weymouth, Mass., and died at Quincy, Mass. Through her mother, Elizabeth Quincy, she was descended from the Puritan preacher, Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, and though of defective education, delicate health, and nervous temperament, she was one of the most influential women of her day, and one of its most vigorous and elegant stylists, owing little to teaching but much to influence and environment. During and after the Revolutionary War, she was at times separated from her husband, who was a delegate to Congress and who afterward engaged in diplomatic business in Europe. Joining him in France in 1784, she accompanied him to London, where she had unpleasant social experiences. From 1789 to 1801 she lived at Washington, then till her death at Braintree, in what is now Quincy. The Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife, published with a memoir by C. F. Adams (1876), show her