impurities which arise in the manufacture of sugar may be similarly effected. Other “decolourizers” are sulphurous acid, permanganates and manganates, all of which have received application in the sugar industry.
DECORATED PERIOD, in architecture, the term given by
Richman to the second pointed or Gothic style, 1307–1377. It
is characterized by its window tracery, geometrical at first and
flowing in the later period, owing to the omission of the circles
in the tracery of windows, which led to the juxtaposition of the
foliations and their pronounced curves of contre-flexure. This
flowing or flamboyant tracery was introduced in the first quarter
of the century and lasted about fifty years. The arches are
generally equilateral, and the mouldings bolder than in the Early
English, with less depth in the hollows and with the fillet largely
used. The ball flower and a four-leaved flower take the place of
the dog-tooth, and the foliage in the capitals is less conventional
than in Early English and more flowing, and the diaper patterns
in walls are more varied. The principal examples are those of the
east end of Lincoln and Carlisle cathedral; the west fronts of
York and Lichfield; the crossing of Ely cathedral, including the
lantern and three west bays of choir and the Lady Chapel; and
Melrose Abbey.
(R. P. S.)
DE COSTA, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1831–1904), American
clergyman and historical writer, was born in Charlestown,
Massachusetts, on the 10th of July 1831. He graduated in 1856
at the Biblical Institute at Concord, New Hampshire (now a
part of Boston University), became a minister in the Episcopal
Church in 1857, and during the next three years was a rector
first at North Adams, and then at Newton Lower Falls, Mass.
After serving as chaplain in two Massachusetts regiments during
the first two years of the Civil War, he became editor (1863) of
The Christian Times in New York, and subsequently edited The
Episcopalian and The Magazine of American History. He was
rector of the church of St John the Evangelist in New York city
from 1881 to 1899, when he resigned in consequence of being
converted to Roman Catholicism. He was one of the organizers
and long the secretary of the Church Temperance Society, and
founded and was the first president (1884–1899) of the American
branch of the White Cross Society. He became a high authority
on early American cartography and the history of the period of
exploration. He died in New York city on the 4th of November
1904. In addition to numerous monographs and valuable
contributions to Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of
America, he published The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America
by the Northmen (1868); The Northmen in Maine (1870); The
Moabite Stone (1871); The Rector of Roxburgh (1871), a novel
under the nom de plume of “William Hickling”; and Verrazano
the Explorer; being a Vindication of his Letter and Voyage (1880).
DE COSTER, CHARLES THÉODORE HENRI (1827–1879),
Belgian writer, was born at Munich on the 20th of August 1827.
His father, Augustin de Coster, was a native of Liége, who was
attached to the household of the papal nuncio at Munich, but
soon returned to Belgium. Charles was placed in a Brussels bank,
but in 1850 he entered the university of Brussels, where he
completed his studies in 1855. He was one of the founders of the
Société des Joyeux, a small literary club, more than one member
of which was to achieve literary distinction. De Coster made
his début as a poet in the Revue trimestrielle, founded in 1854,
and his first efforts in prose were contributed to a periodical
entitled Uylenspiegel (founded 1856). A correspondence covering
the years 1850–1858, his Lettres à Élisa, were edited by
Ch. Potvin in 1894. He was a keen student of Rabelais and
Montaigne, and familiarized himself with 16th-century French.
He said that Flemish manners and speech could not be rendered
faithfully in modern French, and accordingly wrote his best
works in the old tongue. The success of his Légendes flamandes
(1857) was increased by the illustrations of Félicien Rops and
other friends. In 1861 he published his Contes brabançons, in
modern French. His masterpiece is his Légende de Thyl Uylenspiegel
et de Lamme Goedzak (1867), a 16th-century romance, in
which Belgian patriotism found its fullest expression. In the
preparation for this prose epic of the gueux he spent some ten
years. Uylenspiegel (Eulenspiegel) has been compared to Don
Quixote, and even to Panurge. He is the type of the 16th-century
Fleming, and the history of his resurrection from the grave itself
was accepted as an allegory of the destiny of the race. The
exploits of himself and his friend form the thread of a semi-historical
narrative, full of racy humour, in spite of the barbarities
that find a place in it. This book also was illustrated by
Rops and others. In 1870 De Coster became professor of general
history and of French literature at the military school. His
works however were not financially profitable; in spite of his
government employment he was always in difficulties; and he
died in much discouragement on the 7th of May 1879 at Ixelles,
Brussels. The expensive form in which Uylenspiegel was produced
made it open only to a limited class of readers, and when
a new and cheap edition in modern French appeared in 1893 it
was received practically as a new book in France and Belgium.
DECOY, a contrivance for the capture or enticing of duck
and other wild fowl within range of a gun, hence any trap
or enticement into a place or situation of danger. Decoys are
usually made on the following plan: long tunnels leading from
the sea, channel or estuary into a pool or pond are covered
with an arched net, which gradually narrows in width; the
ducks are enticed into this by a tame trained bird, also known
as a “decoy” or “decoy-duck.” In America the “decoy”
is an artificial bird, placed in the water as if it were feeding,
which attracts the wild fowl within range of the concealed
sportsman. The word “decoy” has, etymologically, a complicated
history. It appears in English first in the 17th century
in these senses as “coy” and “coy-duck,” from the Dutch kooi,
a word which is ultimately connected with Latin cavea, hollow
place, “cage.”[1] The de-, with which the word begins, is either
a corruption of “duck-coy,” the Dutch article de, or a corruption
of the Dutch eende-kooi, eende, duck. The New English
Dictionary points out that the word “decoy” is found in
the particular sense of a sharper or swindler as a slang term
slightly earlier than “coy” or “decoy” in the ordinary sense,
and, as the name of a game of cards, as early as 1550, apparently
with no connexion in meaning. It is suggested that “coy” may
have been adapted to this word.
DECREE (from the past participle, decretus, of Lat. decernere),
in earlier form Decreet, an authoritative decision having the force
of law; the judgment of a court of justice. In Roman law, a
decree (decretum) was the decision of the emperor, as the supreme
judicial officer, settling a case which had been referred to him.
In ecclesiastical law the term was given to a decision of an ecclesiastical
council settling a doubtful point of doctrine or discipline
(cf. also Decretals). In English law decree was more particularly
the judgment of a court of equity, but since the Judicature
Acts the expression “judgment” (q.v.) is employed in reference
to the decisions of all the divisions of the supreme court. A
“decree nisi” is the conditional order for a dissolution of marriage
made by the divorce court, and it is made “absolute” after six
months (which period may, however, be shortened) in the absence
of sufficient cause shown to the contrary. (See Divorce.) Decreet
arbitral is a Scottish phrase for the award of an arbitrator.
DECRETALS (Epistolae decretales), the name (see Decree
above), which is given in Canon Law to those letters of the pope
which formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law; they are generally
given in answer to consultations, but are sometimes due to the
initiative of the popes. These furnish, with the canons of the
councils, the chief source of the legislation of the church, and form
the greater part of the Corpus Juris. In this connexion they are
dealt with in the article on Canon Law (q.v.).
The False Decretals. A special interest, however, attaches to the celebrated collection known by this name. This collection, indeed, comprises at least as many canons of councils as decretals, and the decretals contained in it are not all forgeries. It is an amplification and interpolation, by means of spurious decretals, of the canonical collection in use in the Church of Spain in the 8th century, all the documents in which are perfectly authentic.
- ↑ Distinguish “coy,” affectedly shy or modest, from O. Fr. coi, Lat. quietus, quiet.
