Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/530

* BRETSCHNEIDER. 468 BBEXJGHEL. and satirical writing. He was born at Gera, and was educated first at the Institute of the Mora- vian Brothers, at Elbersdorf, and afterwards at the gymnasium at Gera. He became captain of horse in a Prussian volunteer corps, in which ser- vice he was taken ])risoner. and was confined in n French fortification until 176.'!. In 1775 he visited England, France, and Holland; in 1776 he entered the senice of the Austrian Govern- ment, and in 1778 was nominated librarian of the University of Buda. wliove through his eccen- tricities he came in conllict with the Jesuits. This circumstance brought him under the notice of the Emperor, Joseph II., who. in 1782, appointed him one of the inspectors of studies. He was the author of many tales, poems, and satires. The latter are attacks upon every kind of injustice and false- hood. In his Almanac of the Haiiits (Almaiiach der Heiligen), for the year 1788, the priesthood is severely attacked, and the legends of the monks ridiculed. BRETSCHNEIDER, Karl Gottlieb (1776- 1848). A German Protestant theologian. He was born at Gersdorf, Saxony; studied at the University of Leipzig; was a lecturer on philoso- phy and theology at Wittenbeig from 1804 to 1800; and in 1807 became pastor at Schneeberg. In 1816 he was appointed superintendent-general and a member of the supreme consistorial court at Gotha. He was a representative of the school of so-called rational supranaturalism, whose in- termediate position is indicated by its name. His many and varied works display scholarly aeute- ness and literary skill, but lack speculative depth. His Probnhilia de Evangelii et Epistola- rum Joannis Apostoli Indole et Origi)ie (1820) aroused considerable controversy. He is best known for the Systcmatische EntiHckelung alter in der Dogmatik vorkommenden liegriffe (1814; 4th ed., 18;{8) ; and in particular for the Lexicon Manuale in Libros Xoi'i Trstamenti (2 vols., 1824; 3d ed., 1840). He established the Corpus Reformatoruni (Halle, 1834 et seq.); and from 1832 was editor of the Allgemrine Kirchcn~eititng of Darmstadt. A part of his autobiography (1851) is to be found translated in Biblioiheca Hucra, Vols. IX and X. BRETT, Wn.LiAM Baliol. See Esher, Wil- LiAii Baliol Bbett, First Viscount. BRET'TEN (in the Eighth Century, Bred^- heim). A town of Baden, on the Saalbach, about 13 miles cast of Karlsruhe, celebrated as the birthplace of Melanchtlion. Population, in 1890, about 4000; in 1000, 4S0O. BRETTON, lljcxBY ue. A variant of Bbac- TO-N. BRETTS AND SCOTS, The Laws of the. The name given, in the Thirteenth Century, to a code of primitive laws in use among the Celtic tribes in Scotland. The 'Scots' were the Celtic people dwelling in the western and more moun- tainous districts north of the Forth and the Clyde, who, when it became necessarj- to distin- guish them from the Teutonic inhabitants of the low country, received the names of 'the wild Scots,' and, more recently, 'the Scotch Highland- ers.' The 'Bretts' were the British or Welsh in- habitants of the region lying sotith of the Forth and Clyde. This province was for some centuries an independent kingdom, known by the names of 'Cambria,' 'Cumbria,' and 'Slrathclydc.' It be- came, about the middle of the Tenth Century, a tributary principality held of the King of the English by the heir of the King of the Scots. It so continued till after the beginning of the Twelfth Century, when, Cumberland having been incorporated with England, the gradual absorp- tion of the rest of the territory into the domin- ions of the King of the Scots seems to have been imperceptibly completed. No more is heard of Cumbria as a principality, but 'the Welsh' continue to be named among its inhabitants, in the charters of the Scotch kings, and they seem to have retaine<l more or less of their ancient Celtic laws tuitil after the beginning of the Fourteenth Century. It was not till the year 1305 that an ordinance of King Edward I. of England, who appeared then to have reduced all Scotland to his subjection, decreed "that the usages of the Scots and the Bretts be abolished, and no more used." It is unknown how far this prohibition took effect. Of the code which it pro- scribed only a fragment has been [ueserved. The best edition is that preserved in the Acts of the Parliaments of Srulland, Vol. I., pp. 299-301 (Edinburgh, 1844), where the laws are given in three languages — Latin, French, and English. The French version, which is the oldest, is print- ed from a manuscript of about 1270, now in the register house in Edinburgh. The fragment of the "laws of the Bretts and the Scots' thus pub- lished is of much the same nature as the ancient laws of the Anglo-Saxons, the Welsh, the Irish, and other nations of Western Europe. They are principally concerned with crimes of violence, and contain elaborate provisions for determining the penalty of such crimes, and the terms on which they might be commuted. They fix the cro, or price at which every man was valued, accord- ing to his degree, from the King down to the churl, and which, if he were slain, was to be paid to his kindred by the homicide or his kindred. The cro of the King was 1000 cows; of the King's son. or of an earl, 'yO cows; of an earl's sun or of a thane, 100 cows; of a thane's son, 66% cows; of the nephew of a thane, or of an ogthiern, 44 cows and 21% pence; and of a villain or churl, 16 cows — all persons of lower birth than a thane's nephew, or an ogthiern, being accounted villains or churls. A chapter "of blood-drawing" — corre- sponding with the blodiryte of the Anglo-Saxons — fixes the fine for .a blow to the effusion of blood accoriling to the degree of the person woiinded and the place of the wound. See Bloou Fkui); Bi.ooiiMoxKY: Brkhon Laws; Wf.kgilu. BREUGHEL, or BRUEGHEL, bru'Kel. A family of Flemish painters whose name is derived from the Dutch town of their birth, near Breda. PlETER. the elder (c.1525-69), was a pupil of Koek, studied in France and Italy, and settled at Antwerp, and in 1563 at Brussels. His sub- jects are humorous peasant scenes, somewhat coarse in character, but possessing spirit and comic jjower. His works are numerous in Dutch and German galleries, and especially at Vienna. His .son PiETKB. the younger (1364-1037), often called "Hollen-Breughel" by reason of his fond- ness for representations of devils, witches, and robbers, is less iini)ortant. He also painted re- ligions subjects. .Ian (1508-1025). a brother of Pieter, born at Brussels, excelled his father and brother in technique, and was called "Velvet Breughel" from the softness and smoothness of his style. He began as a painter of fruit and fiowers, but afterwards became celebrated for