Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 05.djvu/309

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
LEFT
253
RIGHT

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE 253 JESUIT JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE. See Artichoke. JERUSALEM CHERRY, a name given to two shrubs of the genus Sol- anmn (potato genus) cultivated as or- namental plants. JERVIN, or JERVINE, in chemistry, CwHjo NiOa • 2H:0, an alkaloid discovered by E. Simon in the root of white hel- lebore (Veratrum album), in which it exists together with veratrine. JESSE, in Scripture the son of Obed and father of David. He was a grand- son of Ruth, the Moabitess, finding asylum in her land while David was in danger from the pursuit of Saul. JESTERS, persons formerly kept in the households of princes and lesser dig- in the 8th century, and probably much earlier in India. The famous Calif Har- oun al-Raschid had a jester named Bah- alul, some of whose sayings and doings have been preserved by Arabian writers. JESUIT, a companion of the Society of Jesus, the most celebrated ecclesiastical order of modern times. The great re- ligious revolution of the 16th century ran through the three stages which tend to occur in revolutions in general. First, there was a moderate departure from the previously existing state of things; then the Anabaptists burst loose from control, and went into extravagances and excesses. Reaction then became in- evitable, and if a suitable leader should arise was bound to become powerful. That leader was found in Don Inigo Lo- pez de Recalde, generally known from MOSQUE OF OMAK, JERUSALEM nitaries to furnish amusement by their real or affected folly, and hence com- monly called court fools. It is not known when they first became a feature of European courts but in the reign of William the Conqueror, an almost con- temporary historian, Maitre Wace, has left a curious account of the preserva- tion of William's life, when he was only Duke of Normandy, by his fool Goles. Other fools whose names have descended are the Hitard of Edmund Ironside, the Will Somers of Henry VIII., Archie Armstrong, and in France Caillet and Triboulet in the time of Francis I., and Chicot in the reign of Henry III. Tri- boulet figures in Rabelais, and is the hero of Hugo's "The King Amuses Him- self" and of Verdi's "Rigoletto." The last private person to keep a fool in England is said to have been Sir Pexall Brocas, who died in 1630. In the East the office of jester existed Vol. V- the castle of Loyola, where he was born, in 1491, as Ignatius Loyola. He became an officer of great bravery in the army. Dreadfully wounded in 1521 while de- fending Pampeluna against the French, and long confined in consequence to a sick bed, he saw the vanity of the world, and resolved on a devotedly religious life. At the University of Paris, he made converts of two fellow students who lodged with him, one a youth of aristocratic descent, Francis Xavier, afterward the Apostle of the Indies. In 1534 he and they, with four others, seven in all, foi-med a kind of religious society, the members of which preached through the country. On Aug. 15 of that year they took vows of chastity, absolute pov- erty, devotion to the care of Christians, and to the conversion of infidels. This was the germ of the Jesuit order. A soldier, he bethought him of an army in which inferiors should give implicit obe- -Oyc — Q