Page:EB1911 - Volume 11.djvu/785

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764
GERARD—GÉRARD, F.
  

young plants should be raised from cuttings about March, and grown on during the summer, but should not be allowed to flower. When blossoms are required, they should be placed close up to the glass in a light house with a temperature of 65°, only just as much water being given as will keep them growing. For bedding purposes the zonal varieties are best struck towards the middle of August in the open air, taken up and potted or planted in boxes as soon as struck, and preserved in frames or in the greenhouse during winter.

The fancy varieties root best early in spring from the half-ripened shoots; they are slower growers, and rather more delicate in constitution than the zonal varieties, and very impatient of excess of water at the root.

GERARD (d. 1108), archbishop of York under Henry I., began his career as a chancery clerk in the service of William Rufus. He was one of the two royal envoys who, in 1095, persuaded Urban II. to send a legate and Anselm’s pallium to England. Although the legate disappointed the king’s expectations, Gerard was rewarded for his services with the see of Hereford (1096). On the death of Rufus he at once declared for Henry I., by whom he was nominated to the see of York. He made difficulties when required to give Anselm the usual profession of obedience; and it was perhaps to assert the importance of his see that he took the king’s side on the question of investitures. He pleaded Henry’s cause at Rome with great ability, and claimed that he had obtained a promise, on the pope’s part, to condone the existing practice of lay investiture. But this statement was contradicted by Paschal, and Gerard incurred the suspicion of perjury. About 1103 he wrote or inspired a series of tracts which defended the king’s prerogative and attacked the oecumenical pretensions of the papacy with great freedom of language. He changed sides in 1105, becoming a stanch friend and supporter of Anselm. Gerard was a man of considerable learning and ability; but the chroniclers accuse him of being lax in his morals, an astrologer and a worshipper of the devil.

See the Tractatus Eboracenses edited by H. Bochmer in Libelli de lite Sacerdotii et Imperii, vol. iii. (in the Monumenta hist. Germaniae, quarto series), and the same author’s Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899).  (H. W. C. D.) 

GERARD (c. 1040–1120), variously surnamed Tum, Tunc, Tenque or Thom, founder of the order of the knights of St John of Jerusalem (q.v.), was born at Amalfi about the year 1040. According to other accounts Martigues in Provence was his birthplace, while one authority even names the Château d’Avesnes in Hainaut. Either as a soldier or a merchant, he found his way to Jerusalem, where a hospice had for some time existed for the convenience of those who wished to visit the holy places. Of this institution Gerard became guardian or provost at a date not later than 1100; and here he organized that religious order of St John which received papal recognition from Paschal II. in 1113, by a bull which was renewed and confirmed by Calixtus II. shortly before the death of Gerard in 1120.

GERARD OF CREMONA (c. 1114–1187), the medieval translator of Ptolemy’s Astronomy, was born at Cremona, Lombardy, in or about 1114. Dissatisfied with the meagre philosophies of his Italian teachers, he went to Toledo to study in Spanish Moslem schools, then so famous as depositories and interpreters of ancient wisdom; and, having thus acquired a knowledge of the Arabic language, he appears to have devoted the remainder of his life to the business of making Latin translations from its literature. The date of his return to his native town is uncertain, but he is known to have died there in 1187. His most celebrated work is the Latin version by which alone Ptolemy’s Almagest was known to Europe until the discovery of the original Μεγάλη Σύνταξις. In addition to this, he translated various other treatises, to the number, it is said, of sixty-six; among these were the Tables of “Arzakhel,” or Al Zarkala of Toledo, Al Farabi On the Sciences (De scientiis), Euclid’s Geometry, Al Farghani’s Elements of Astronomy, and treatises on algebra, arithmetic and astrology. In the last-named latitudes are reckoned from Cremona and Toledo. Some of the works, however, with which he has been credited (including the Theoria or Theorica planetarum, and the versions of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine—the basis of the numerous subsequent Latin editions of that well-known work—and of the Almansorius of Abu Bakr Razi) are probably due to a later Gerard, of the 13th century, also called Cremonensis but more precisely de Sabloneta (Sabbionetta). This writer undertook the task of interpreting to the Latin world some of the best work of Arabic physicians, and his translation of Avicenna is said to have been made by order of the emperor Frederic II.

See Pipini, “Cronica,” in Muratori, Script. rer. Ital. vol. ix.; Nicol. Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana vetus, vol. ii.; Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura Italiana, vols. iii. (333) and iv.; Arisi, Cremona literata; Jourdain, Recherches sur . . . l’origine des traductions latines d’Aristote; Chasles, Aperçu historique des méthodes en géométrie, and in Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. xiii. p. 506; J. T. Reinaud, Géographie d’Aboulféda, introduction, vol. i. pp. ccxlvi.-ccxlviii.; Boncompagni, Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese e di Gherardo da Sabbionetta (Rome, 1851). Much of the work of both the Gerards remains in manuscript, as in Paris, National Library, MSS. Lat. 7400, 7421; MSS. Suppl. Lat. 49; Rome, Vatican library, 4083, and Ottobon, 1826; Oxford, Bodleian library, Digby, 47, 61. The Vatican MS. 2392 is stated to contain a eulogy of “Gerard of Cremona” and a list of “his” translations, apparently confusing the two scholars. The former’s most valuable work was in astronomy; the latter’s in medicine.  (C. R. B.) 

GÉRARD, ÉTIENNE MAURICE, Count (1773–1852), French general, was born at Damvilliers (Meuse), on the 4th of April 1773. He joined a battalion of volunteers in 1791, and served in the campaigns of 1792–1793 under Generals Dumouriez and Jourdan. In 1795 he accompanied Bernadotte as aide-de-camp. In 1799 he was promoted chef d’escadron, and in 1800 colonel. He distinguished himself at the battles of Austerlitz and Jena, and was made general of brigade in November 1806, and for his conduct in the battle of Wagram he was created a baron. In the Spanish campaign of 1810 and 1811 he gained special distinction at the battle of Fuentes d’Onor; and in the expedition to Russia he was present at Smolensk and Valutina, and displayed such bravery and ability in the battle of Borodino that he was made general of division. He won further distinction in the disastrous retreat from Moscow. In the campaign of 1813, in command of a division, he took part in the battles of Lützen and Bautzen and the operations of Marshal Macdonald, and at the battle of Leipzig (in which he commanded the XI. corps) he was dangerously wounded. After the battle of Bautzen he was created by Napoleon a count of the empire. In the campaign of France of 1814, and especially at La Rothière and Montereau, he won still greater distinction. After the first restoration he was named by Louis XVIII. grand cross of the Legion of Honour and chevalier of St Louis. In the Hundred Days Napoleon made Gérard a peer of France and placed him in command of the IV. corps of the Army of the North. In this capacity Gérard took a brilliant part in the battle of Ligny (see Waterloo Campaign), and on the morning of the 18th of June he was foremost in advising Marshal Grouchy to march to the sound of the guns. Gérard retired to Brussels after the fall of Napoleon, and did not return to France till 1817. He sat as a member of the chamber of deputies in 1822–1824, and was re-elected in 1827. He took part in the revolution of 1830, after which he was appointed minister of war and named a marshal of France. On account of his health he resigned the office of war minister in the October following, but in 1831 he took the command of the northern army, and was successful in thirteen days in driving the army of Holland out of Belgium. In 1832 he commanded the besieging army in the famous scientific siege of the citadel of Antwerp. He was again chosen war minister in July 1834, but resigned in the October following. In 1836 he was named grand chancellor of the Legion of Honour in succession to Marshal Mortier, and in 1838 commander of the National Guards of the Seine, an office which he held till 1842. He became a senator under the empire in 1852, and died on the 17th of April in the same year.

GÉRARD, FRANÇOIS, Baron (1770–1837), French painter, was born on the 4th of May 1770, at Rome, where his father occupied a post in the house of the French ambassador. At the age of twelve Gérard obtained admission into the Pension du Roi at Paris. From the Pension he passed to the studio of