Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/566

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562 CUJAS CULDEES are also many other modifications in Persian, Turkish, Hindostanee, and Malay chirographs. Cufic characters are found on the coins of almost all Mohammedan nations. The coins of the earlier rulers are mostly without an effigy, and ill-stamped ; hut the most celebrated ones show the face of the ruler, although this is anti-Mohammedan ; and those of later times exhibit either a sign of the zodiac or stars, or the heraldic sign (tamgha) of the Turkish sovereigns. The inscriptions on the coins con- tain the name of the potentate by whom they are issued, the year of coinage, &c., and most frequently the phrase, " Coined in the name of Allah," either around or on the edge, and sometimes in two lines. The form is, on the whole, either Byzantine or Persian, in the style of Nushirvan or Chosroes I., and of Parviz or Chosroes II., both Sassanides. The dates of these coins extend from the Ommiyades, who ruled at Damascus from 661 to 750, down to the emirs of Ghuzni, who bore sway in Turkistan, Persia, and India as late as the 12th century; most of them, however, belong to the 10th century of our era. Those of gold are called dinar ; those of silver, dirhem ; those of bronze or copper, fuls. Of some only halves and quarters of the original pieces- now exist. The inscriptions are in several languages, some in two at once, some even in Arabic and Kussian. They are found in Africa and Asia, from the Caspian and Euxine to the Baltic, in Pomerania,, Brandenburg, &c., where they have been brought by commerce ; and they are also met with in Spain, Naples, Sicily, &c. Glass medals are also found bearing Cufic inscriptions on either face or on both ; they are about a quarter of an inch thick, and some have a higher margin on one side than on the other. These probably belong to the Fatimite dynasty of Egypt; and some of them come down to the Mameluke sultans (1766). It is uncertain whether they were current as money. See G. C. Adler, Museum Borgianum (Altona, 1780) ; Sylvestre de Sacy, Memoires de Vacademie francaise ; Lindenberg, Sur quelques medail- les coufiques et sur quelques M8S. coufiques (Copenhagen, 1830) ; Moller, OrientaliscJie PalaograpJiie (Gotha, 1844) ; and other trea- tises, especially those of Fraelm, published at Kazan and St. Petersburg, and more recently those of Dorn, Stickel, De Saulcy, Olshausen, and Loret. CUJAS (CtrjACius), Jacques, a French jurist, born in Toulouse about 1522, died in Bourges, Oct. 4, 1590. He was the son of a tanner, and was educated at the university of Toulouse; spent several years in acquiring a knowledge of law, and of ancient languages, history, gram- mar, philosophy, mathematics, and poetry ; and at the age of 25 commenced a course of instruc- tion on the Institutes of Justinian. In 1554 the professorship of Roman law in the univer- sity of Toulouse became vacant, and Cujas, not being chosen to it, left Toulonse, and accepted a vacant chair at Cahors ; but in 1555 he re- paired to Bourges, then perhaps the chief seat of the study of civil law. The jealousy of rival professors having forced him to leave this place, he went to Paris, and published a por- tion of his works, including the Observationum et Emendationum XXVIII libri, which, in the hyperbolical language of the time, received the name of opus incomparabile, opus dimnum. In 1557 he was invited to fill a chair in Va- lence, whence in 1560, one of his rivals in Bourges being dead, he was called to that city, and there his principal works were published. In 1566 he went to Turin to lecture in the university, and in 1567 returned to France, fixing his residence at Valence. In June, 1577, he finally returned to Bourges, which he never afterward quitted. The latter part of his life was clouded by domestic cares and by distress at the unhappy condition of his country. After the assassination of Henry III. in 1589, the league, who were powerful in Bourges, endeav- ored to extort from Cujas a written opinion in favor of the claims of Cardinal Bourbon to the succession. He refused, exclaiming, u lt is not for me to corrupt the laws of my country. " He died soon after, broken-hearted, it is supposed, at the evils which preyed upon France. The jurists of Europe agree in considering him the greatest, as he was among the first of modern interpreters of the civil law. Besides the In- stitutes, Pandects, &c., of Justinian, he pub- lished, with explanations, a part of the Theo- dosian code, the Basilica, a Greek version of the laws of Justinian, and commentaries on the Consuetudines Feudorum, and on some books of the Decretals. His "Observations and Corrections," extending not merely to books of law, but to a number of Greek and Latin authors, have been of great value to phi- lologists. The edition of Fabrot (10 vols. fpl., Paris, 1658) was the first complete collection of his writings; but the reprints at Naples, Venice, and Modena, in 1758-'83, in 11 vols. folio, and at Prato in 1836-'47, in 13 vols. 8vo, contain important additions. Cujas was also distinguished as a teacher. In 1850 Toulouse erected a statue to him. CULDEES, or Keldns, a religious fraternity who at one time were spread over the greater part of Great Britain and Ireland. The name ap- pears to be of Celtic origin, a corruption of Ceile De, which in the Irish language signifies an " attendant of God." Others derive it from the Lat. cultor Dei, "worshipper of God." Their history has been raised to importance by cer- tain modern writers, who claim that in the 2d or 3d century they were the priests of a Scot- tish Christian church which had no bishops, and resembled the Presbyterian organization. But the most recent investigations render it probable that they differed in no material point from the other clergy of Great Britain. Dr. Reeves, in the proceedings of the royal Irish academy for 1860, has given the best account of the Irish Culdees, and Mr. Grub, in his "Ecclesiastical History of Scotland" (Aber-