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GISBORNE, a seaport of New Zealand, in Cook county, provincial district of Auckland, on Poverty Bay of the east coast of North Island. Pop. (1901) 2733; (1906) 5664. Wool, frozen mutton and agricultural produce are exported from the rich district surrounding. Petroleum has been discovered in the neighbourhood, and about 40 m. from the town there are warm medicinal springs. Near the site of Gisborne Captain Cook landed in 1769, and gave Poverty Bay its name from his inability to obtain supplies owing to the hostility of the natives. Young Nick's Head, the southern horn of the bay, was named from Nicholas Young, his ship's boy, who first observed it. Entry: GISBORNE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory"     1910-1911

St Francis's attitude towards this change is of primary importance for the interpretation of Franciscan history. There can be little doubt that his affections never altered from his first love, and that he looked back regretfully on the "Umbrian idyll" that had passed away; on the other hand, there seems to be no reason for doubting that he saw that the methods of the early days were now no longer possible, and that he acquiesced in the inevitable. This seems to be Professor Goetz's view, who holds that Sabatier's picture of Francis's agonized sadness at witnessing the destruction of his great creation going on under his eyes, has no counterpart in fact, and who rejects the view that the changes were forced on Francis against his better judgment by Hugolino and Elias (see "Note on Sources" at end of article FRANCIS OF ASSISI; also ELIAS OF CORTONA); Goetz holds that the only conflict was the inevitable one between an unrealizable ideal and its practical working among average men. But there does seem to be evidence that Francis deplored tendencies towards a departure from the severe simplicity of life and from the strict observance of poverty which he considered the ground-idea of his institute. In the final redaction of his Rule made in 1223 and in his Testament, made after it, he again clearly asserts his mind on these subjects, especially on poverty; and in the Testament he forbids any glosses in the interpretation of the Rule, declaring that it is to be taken simply as it stands. Sabatier's view as to the difference between the "First Rule" and that of 1223 is part of his general theory, and is, to say the least, a grave exaggeration. No doubt the First Rule, which is fully four times as long, gives a better picture of St Francis's mind and character; the later Rule has been formed from the earlier by the elimination of the frequent scripture texts and the edificatory element; but the greater portion of it stood almost verbally in the earlier. Entry: FRANCISCANS

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 1 "Franciscans" to "French Language"     1910-1911

John had kindled very keen animosity, not only among the upholders of the independence of the lay power, but also among the upholders of absolute religious poverty, the exalted Franciscans. Clement V., at the council of Vienne, had attempted to bring back the Spirituals to the common rule by concessions; John, on the other hand, in the bull _Quorundam exigit_ (April 13, 1317), adopted an uncompromising and absolute attitude, and by the bull _Gloriosam ecclesiam_ (January 23, 1318) condemned the protests which had been raised against the bull _Quorundam_ by a group of seventy-four Spirituals and conveyed to Avignon by the monk Bernard Délicieux. Shortly afterwards four Spirituals were burned at Marseilles. These were immediately hailed as martyrs, and in the eyes of the exalted Franciscans at Naples and in Sicily and the south of France the pope was regarded as antichrist. In the bull _Sancta Romana et universa ecclesia_ (December 28, 1318) John definitively excommunicated them and condemned their principal book, the _Postil_ (commentary) on the Apocalypse (February 8, 1326). The bull _Quia nonnunquam_ (March 26, 1322) defined the derogations from the rule punished by the pope, and the bull _Cum inter nonnullos_ (November 12, 1323) condemned the proposition which had been admitted at the general chapter of the Franciscans held at Perugia in 1322, according to which Christ and the Apostles were represented as possessing no property, either personal or common. The minister general, Michael of Cesena, though opposed to the exaggerations of the Spirituals, joined with them in protesting against the condemnation of the fundamental principle of evangelical poverty, and the agitation gradually gained ground. The pope, by the bull _Quia quorundam_ (November 10, 1324), cited Michael to appear at Avignon at the same time as Occam and Bonagratia. All three fled to the court of Louis of Bavaria (May 26, 1328), while the majority of the Franciscans made submission and elected a general entirely devoted to the pope. But the resistance, aided by Louis and merged as it now was in the cause sustained by Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, became daily bolder. Treatises on poverty appeared on every side; the party of Occam clamoured with increasing imperiousness for the condemnation of John by a general council; and the Spirituals, confounded in the persecution with the Beghards and with Fraticelli of every description, maintained themselves in the south of France in spite of the reign of terror instituted in that region by the Inquisition. Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 4 "Jevons, Stanley" to "Joint"     1910-1911

The art of painting, as re-created by Giotto, was carried on throughout Italy by his pupils and successors with little change or development for nearly a hundred years, until a new impulse was given to art by the combined influences of naturalism and classicism in the hands of men like Donatello and Masaccio. Most of the anecdotes related of the master are probably inaccurate in detail, but the general character both as artist and man which tradition has agreed in giving him can never be assailed. He was from the first a kind of popular hero. He is celebrated by the poet Petrarch and by the historian Villani. He is made the subject of tales and anecdotes by Boccaccio and by Franco Sacchetti. From these notices, as well as from Vasari, we gain a distinct picture of the man, as one whose nature was in keeping with his country origin; whose sturdy frame and plain features corresponded to a character rather distinguished for shrewd and genial strength than for sublimer or more ascetic qualities; a master craftsman, to whose strong combining and inventing powers nothing came amiss; conscious of his own deserts, never at a loss either in the things of art or in the things of life, and equally ready and efficient whether he has to design the scheme of some great spiritual allegory in colour or imperishable monument in stone, or whether he has to show his wit in the encounter of practical jest and repartee. From his own hand we have a contribution to literature which helps to substantiate this conception of his character. A large part of Giotto's fame as painter was won in the service of the Franciscans, and in the pictorial celebration of the life and ordinances of their founder. As is well known, it was a part of the ordinances of Francis that his disciples should follow his own example in worshipping and being wedded to poverty,--poverty idealized and personified as a spiritual bride and mistress. Giotto, having on the commission of the order given the noblest pictorial embodiment to this and other aspects of the Franciscan doctrine, presently wrote an ode in which his own views on poverty are expressed; and in this he shows that, if on the one hand his genius was at the service of the ideals of his time, and his imagination open to their significance, on the other hand his judgment was shrewdly and humorously awake to their practical dangers and exaggerations. Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory"     1910-1911

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