amount of voluntary financial support; or a close general and financial inspection of charitable institutions—the method of reform adopted in New York; or payment for only those inmates who are sent by public authorities and admitted on their request.
The enormous extent to which children’s aid societies have been increased in the United States, sometimes with the help of considerable public grants, suggests the greatest need for caution from the point of the preservation of the family as the central element of social strength in the community. The problem of charity in relation to medical relief in the large towns of the United States is similar to that of England; its difficulties are alike.
Literature.—As good translations of the classics become accessible it is easy for the general reader or student to combine a study of the principles of charity in relation to the community with a study of history. Thus, and in connexion with special investigations and the conditions of practical charity, social economics may best be studied. In N. Masterman, Chalmers on Charity (1900); T. Mackay, Methods of Social Reform (1896); B. Bosanquet and others, Some Aspects of the Social Problem (1894); and C. S. Loch, Methods of Social Advance (1904), this point of view is generally assumed. Special investigations of importance may be found in the reports of medical officers of health. See Report of Committee on Physical Deterioration referred to above, and, for instance, Dr Newsholme’s Vital Statistics and Charles Booth’s Labour and Life in London. For the history of charity there is no good single work. On details there are many good articles in Daremberg’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, and similar works. Modern Methods of Charity, by C. H. Henderson and others (1904), supplies much general information in regard to poor relief and charity in different countries. Apart from books and official documents mentioned in the text as indicating the present state of charitable and public relief, or as aids to practical work, the following may be of service. England:—Annual Charities’ Register and Digest, with Introduction on “How to help Cases of Distress”; the Charity Organization Review; Occasional Papers (3 vols.), published by the London Charity Organization Society (1896–1906); Reports of Proceedings of Conferences of Poor-Law Guardians; The Strength of the People, by Helen Bosanquet; Homes of the London Poor and Our Common Land, by Miss Octavia Hill; The Queen’s Poor, by M. Loane. United States of America:—The Proceedings of the International Conference on Charities and Correction (1894), and the proceedings of the annual conferences; Friendly Visiting among the Poor, by Mary E. Richmond (1899); American Charities, by Amos G. Warner (1908); The Practice of Charity, by E. T. Devine; Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, by Dr J. Conrad, &c., vol. ii.; Das Armenwesen in den Vereinigten Staaten von America, by Dr Francis G. Peabody (1897); the Charities Review, published monthly by the New York Charity Organization Society; the Papers and Reports of the Boston and Baltimore societies. France:—La Bibliographie charitable, by Camille Granier (1891); La Charité avant et depuis 1789, by P. Hubert Valleroux; Fascicules of the Conseil supérieur de l’assistance publique, Revue d’assistance, published by the Société Internationale pour l’étude des questions d’assistance. Germany:—Reports and Proceedings of the Deutsche Vereine für Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit; Die Armenpflege, a practical handbook, by Dr E. Münsterberg (1897). Austria:—Österreichs Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen, 1848–1898, by Dr Ernest Mischler (1899). (C. S. L.)
CHARIVARI, a French term of uncertain origin, but probably onomatopoeic, for a mock serenade “rough music,” made by beating on kettles, fire-irons, tea-trays or what not. The charivari was anciently in France a regular wedding custom, all bridal couples being thus serenaded. Later it was reserved for ill-assorted and unpopular marriages, for widows or widowers who remarried too soon, and generally as a mockery for all who were unpopular. At the beginning of the 17th century, wedding charivaris were forbidden by the Council of Tours under pain of excommunication, but the custom still lingers in rural districts. The French of Louisiana and Canada introduced the charivari into America, where it became known under the corrupted name of “shivaree.”
CHARKHARI, a native state in the Bundelkhand agency of Central India. Area, 745 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 123,594; estimated revenue £33,000. It is surrounded on all sides by other states of Central India, except near Charkhari town, where it meets the United Provinces. It was founded by Bijai Bahadur (vikramaditya), a sanad being granted him in 1804 and another in 1811. The chief, whose title is maharaja, is a Rajput of the Bundela clan, descended from Chhatar Sal, the champion of the independence of Bundelkhand in the 18th century. In 1857 Raja Ratan Singh received a hereditary salute of 11 guns, a khilat and a perpetual jagir of £1300 a year in recognition of his services during the Mutiny. The town of Charkhari (locally Maharajnagar) is 40 m. W. of Banda; pop. (1901) 11,718.
CHARLATAN (Ital. ciarlatano, from ciarlare, to chatter), originally one who “patters” to a crowd to sell his wares, like a “cheap-jack” or “quack” doctor—“quack” being similarly derived from the noise made by a duck; so an impostor who pretends to have some special skill or knowledge.
CHARLEMAGNE [Charles the Great] (c. 742–814), Roman emperor, and king of the Franks, was the elder son of Pippin the Short, king of the Franks, and Bertha, or Bertrada, daughter of Charibert, count of Laon. The place of his birth is unknown and its date uncertain, although some authorities give it as the 2nd of April 742; doubts have been cast upon his legitimacy, and it is just possible that the marriage of Pippin and Bertha took place subsequent to the birth of their elder son. When Pippin was crowned king of the Franks at St Denis on the 28th of July 754 by Pope Stephen II., Charles, and his brother Carloman were anointed by the pope as a sign of their kingly rank. The rough surroundings of the Frankish court were unfavourable to the acquisition of learning, and Charles grew up almost ignorant of letters, but hardy in body and skilled in the use of weapons.
In 761 he accompanied his father on a campaign in Aquitaine, and in 763 undertook the government of several counties. In 768 Pippin divided his dominions between his two sons, and on his death soon afterwards Charles became the ruler of the northern portion of the Frankish kingdom, and was crowned at Noyon on the 9th of October 768. Bad feeling had existed for some time between Charles and Carloman, and when Charles early in 769 was called upon to suppress a rising in Aquitaine, his brother refused to afford him any assistance. This rebellion, however, was easily crushed, its leader, the Aquitainian duke Hunold, was made prisoner, and his territory more closely attached to the Frankish kingdom. About this time Bertha, having effected a temporary reconciliation between her sons, overcame the repugnance with which Pope Stephen III. regarded an alliance between Frank and Lombard, and brought about a marriage between Charles and a daughter of Desiderius, king of the Lombards. Charles had previously contracted a union, probably of an irregular nature, with a Frankish lady named Himiltrude, who had borne him a son Pippin, the “Hunchback.” The peace with the Lombards, in which the Bavarians as allies of Desiderius joined, was, however, soon broken. Charles thereupon repudiated his Lombard wife (Bertha or Desiderata) and married in 771 a princess of the Alamanni named Hildegarde. Carloman died in December 771, and Charles was at once recognized at Corbeny as sole king of the Franks. Carloman’s widow Gerberga had fled to the protection of the Lombard king, who espoused her cause and requested the new pope, Adrian I., to recognize her two sons as the lawful Frankish kings. Adrian, between whom and the Lombards other causes of quarrel existed, refused to assent to this demand, and when Desiderius invaded the papal territories he appealed to the Frankish king for help. Charles, who was at the moment engaged in his first Saxon campaign, expostulated with Desiderius; but when such mild measures proved useless he led his forces across the Alps in 773. Gerberga and her children were delivered up and disappear from history; the siege of Pavia was undertaken; and at Easter 774 the king left the seat of war and visited Rome, where he was received with great respect.
During his stay in the city Charles renewed the donation which his father Pippin had made to the papacy in 754 or 756. This transaction has given rise to much discussion as to its trustworthiness and the extent of its operation. Our only authority, a passage in the Liber Pontificalis, describes the gift as including the whole of Italy and Corsica, except the lands north of the Po, Calabria and the city of Naples. The vast extent of this donation, which, moreover, included territories not owning Charles’s authority, and the fact that the king did not execute, or apparently attempt to execute, its provisions, has caused many scholars to look upon the passage as a forgery; but the better
