des jüd. Folkes, ed. 3, iii. 288 f. On Jewish and Mahommedan legends, see Jewish Cyclopaedia, “Adam.” On the belief in the Fall, see Tennant, The Sources of the Doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin (1903). (T. K. C.)
ADAM OF BREMEN, historian and geographer, was probably born in Upper Saxony (at Meissen, according to one tradition) before 1045. He came to Bremen about 1067–1068, most likely on the invitation of Archbishop Adalbert, and in the 24th year of the latter’s episcopate (1043?–1072); in 1069 he appears as a canon of this cathedral and master of the cathedral school. Not long after this he visited the king of Denmark, Sweyn Estrithson, in Zealand; on the death of Adalbert, in 1072, he began the Historia Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae, which he finished about 1075. He died on the 12th of October of a year unknown, perhaps 1076. Adam’s Historia—known also as Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, Bremensium praesulum Historia, and Historia ecclesiastica—is a primary authority, not only for the great diocese of Hamburg-and-Bremen, but for all North German and Baltic lands (down to 1072), and for the Scandinavian colonies as far as America. Here occurs the earliest mention of Vinland, and here are also references of great interest to Russia and Kiev, to the heathen Prussians, the Wends and other Slav races of the South Baltic coast, and to Finland, Thule or Iceland, Greenland and the Polar seas which Harald Hardrada and the nobles of Frisia had attempted to explore in Adam’s own day (before 1066). Adam’s account of North European trade at this time, and especially of the great markets of Jumne at the mouth of the Oder, of Birka in Sweden and of Ostrogard (Old Novgorod?) in Russia, is also of much value. His work, which places him among the first and best of German annalists, consists of four books or parts, and is compiled partly from written records and partly from oral information, the latter mainly gathered from experience or at the courts of Adalbert and Sweyn Estrithson. Of his minor informants he names several, such as Adelward, dean of Bremen, and William the Englishman, “bishop of Zealand,” formerly chancellor of Canute the Great, and an intimate of Sweyn Estrithson. The fourth (perhaps the most important) book of Adam’s History, variously entitled Libellus de Situ Daniae et reliquarum quae trans Daniam sunt regionum, Descriptio Insularum Aquilonis, &c., has often been considered, but wrongly, as a separate work.
Ten MSS. exist, of which the chief are (1-2) Copenhagen, Royal Library, Old Royal Collection, No. 2296, of 12th to 13th cents.; No. 718, of 15th cent.; (3) Leyden University, Voss. Lat. 123, of 11th cent.; (4) Rome, Vatican Library, 2010; (5) Vienna, Hofu. Staatsbibliothek, 413, of 13th cent.; (6) Wolfenbüttel, Ducal Library, Gud. 83, of 15th cent.
There are 15 editions of the Historia, in whole or part; the first published at Copenhagen, 1579 (the first of the Libellus or Descriptio Ins. Aquil. appeared at Stockholm in 1615), the best at Hanover, 1846 (by Lappenberg, in Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum; reissued by L. Weiland, 1876), and at Paris, 1884 (in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, cxlvi.). There are also three German versions, and one Danish; the best is by J. C. M. Laurent (and W. Wattenbach) in Geschichtsschreiber d. deutsch. Vorzeit, part vii. (1850 and 1888) . See also J. Asmussen, De fontibus Adami Bremensis, 1834; Lappenberg in Pertz, Archiv, vi, 770; Aug. Bernard, De Adamo Bremensi (Paris, 1895); Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, ii. 514-548 (1901).
ADAM (or Adan) DE LE HALE (died c. 1288), French trouvère, was born at Arras. His patronymic is generally modernized to La Halle, and he was commonly known to his contemporaries as Adam d’Arras or Adam le Bossu, sometimes simply as Le Bossu d’Arras. His father, Henri de le Hale, was a well-known Citizen of Arras, and Adam studied grammar, theology and music at the Cistercian abbey of Vaucelles, near Cambrai. Father and son had their share in the civil discords in Arras, and for a short time took refuge in Douai. Adam had been destined for the church, but renounced this intention, and married a certain Marie, who figures in many of his songs, rondeaux, motets and jeux-partis. Afterwards he joined the household of Robert II., count of Artois; and then was attached to Charles of Anjou, brother of Charles IX., whose fortunes he followed in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Italy. At the court of Charles, after he became king of Naples, he wrote his Jeu de Robin et Marion, the most famous of his works. He died between 1285 and 1288. Adam’s shorter pieces are accompanied by music, of which a transcript in modern notation, with the original score, is given in Coussemaker’s edition. His Jeu de Robin et Marion is cited as the earliest French play with music on a secular subject. The pastoral, which tells how Marion resisted the knight, and remained faithful to Robert the shepherd, is based on an old chanson, Robin m’aime, Robin m’a. It consists of dialogue varied by refrains already current in popular song. The melodies to which these are set have the character of folk-music, and are more spontaneous and melodious than the more elaborate music of his songs and motets. A modern adaptation, by Julien Tiersot, was played at Arras by a company from the Paris Opéra Comique on the occasion of a festival in 1896 in honour of Adam de le Hale. His other play, Le jeu Adan or Le jeu de la Feuillée (c. 1262), is a satirical drama in which he introduces himself, his father and the citizens of Arras with their peculiarities. His works include a Congé, or satirical farewell to the city of Arras, and an unfinished chanson de geste in honour of Charles of Anjou, Le roi de Sicile, begun in 1282; another short piece, Le jeu du pèlerin, is sometimes attributed to him.
The only MS. which contains the whole of Adam’s work is the La Vallière MS. (No. 25,566) in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, dating from the latter half of the 13th century. Many of his pieces are also contained in Douce MS. 308, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. His Œuvres complètes (1872) were edited by E. de Coussemaker. See also an article by Paulin Paris in the Histoire littéraire de La France (vol. xx. pp. 638-675); G. Raynaud, Recueil des motets français des XIIᵉ et XIIIᵉ siècles (1882); Canchons et Partures des . . . Adan delle Hale (Halle, 1900), a critical edition by Rudolf Berger; an edition of Adam’s two jeux in Monmerqué and Michel’s Théâtre français au moyen âge (1842); E. Langlois, Le jeu de Robin et Marion (1896), with a translation in modern French; A. Guesnon, La Satire à Arras au XIIIᵉ, siècle (1900); and a full bibliography of works on the subject in No. 6 of the Bibliothèque de bibliographies critiques, by Henri Guy.
ADAM, ALEXANDER (1741–1809), Scottish writer on Roman antiquities, was born on the 24th of June 1741, near Forres, in Morayshire. From his earliest years he showed uncommon diligence and perseverance in classical studies, notwithstanding many difficulties and privations. In 1757 he went to Edinburgh, where he studied at the university. His reputation as a classical scholar secured him a post as assistant at Watson’s Hospital and the headmastership in 1761. In 1764 he became private tutor to Mr Kincaid, afterwards Lord Provost of Edinburgh, by whose influence he was appointed (in 1768) to the rectorship of the High School on the retirement of Mr Matheson, whose substitute he had been for some time before. From this period he devoted himself entirely to the duties of his office and to the preparation of his numerous works on classical literature. His popularity and success as a teacher are strikingly illustrated by the great increase in the number of his pupils, many of whom subsequently became distinguished men, among them being Sir Walter Scott, Lord Brougham and Jeffrey. He succeeded in introducing the study of Greek into the curriculum of the school, notwithstanding the opposition of the university headed by Principal Robertson. In 1780 the university of Edinburgh conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. He died on the 18th of December 1809, after an illness of five days, during which he occasionally imagined himself still at work, his last words being, “It grows dark, boys, you may go.” Dr Adam’s first publication was his Principles of Latin and English Grammar (1772), which, being written in English instead of Latin, brought down a storm of abuse upon him. This was followed by his Roman Antiquities (1791), A Summary of Geography and History (1794) and a Compendious Dictionary of the Latin Tongue (1805). The MS. of a projected larger Latin dictionary, which he did not live to complete, lies in the library of the High School. His best work was his Roman Antiquities, which has passed through a large number of editions and received the unusual compliment of a German translation.
See An Account of the Life and Character of A. A., by A. Henderson (1810).
ADAM, SIR FREDERICK (1781–1853), British general, was the son of the Rt. Hon. W. Adam of Blair-Adam, lord-lieutenant of Kinross-shire. He was gazetted an ensign at the age of fourteen and was subsequently educated at Woolwich. He became
