Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/318

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ELVEY—ELY
301

before its final occupation by the Portuguese in 1226. In 1570 it became an episcopal see. From 1642 until modern times it was the chief frontier fortress S. of the Tagus; and it twice withstood sieges by the Spanish, in 1658 and 1711. The French under Marshal Junot took it in March 1808, but evacuated it in August, after the conclusion of the convention of Cintra (see Peninsular War).


ELVEY, SIR GEORGE JOB (1816–1893), English organist and composer, was born at Canterbury on the 27th of March 1816. He was a chorister at Canterbury cathedral under Highmore Skeats, the organist. Subsequently he became a pupil of his elder brother, Stephen, and then studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Cipriani Potter and Dr Crotch. In 1834 he gained the Gresham prize medal for his anthem, “Bow down thine ear,” and in 1835 was appointed organist of St George’s chapel, Windsor, a post he filled for 47 years, retiring in 1882. He took the degree of Mus.B. at Oxford in 1838, and in 1840 that of Mus.D. Anthems of his were commissioned for the Three Choirs Festivals of 1853 and 1857, and in 1871 he received the honour of knighthood. He died at Windlesham in Surrey on the 9th of December 1893. His works, which are nearly all for the Church, include two oratorios, a great number of anthems and services, and some pieces for the organ. A memoir of him, by his widow, was published in 1894.


ELVIRA, SYNOD OF, an ecclesiastical synod held in Spain, the date of which cannot be determined with exactness. The solution of the question hinges upon the interpretation of the canons, that is, upon whether they are to be taken as reflecting a recent, or as pointing to an imminent, persecution. Thus some argue for a date between 300 and 303, i.e. before the Diocletian persecution; others for a date between 303 and 314, after the persecution, but before the synod of Arles; still others for a date between the synod of Arles and the council of Nicaea, 325. Mansi, Hardouin, Hefele and Dale are in substantial agreement upon 305 or 306, and this is probably the closest approximation possible in the present state of the evidence. The place of meeting, Elvira, was not far from the modern Granada, if not, as Dale thinks, actually identical with it. There the nineteen bishops and twenty-four presbyters, from all parts of Spain, but chiefly from the south, assembled, probably at the instigation of Hosius of Cordova, but under the presidency of Felix of Accis, with a view to restoring order and discipline in the church. The eighty-one canons which were adopted reflect with considerable fulness the internal life and external relations of the Spanish Church of the 4th century. The social environment of Christians may be inferred from the canons prohibiting marriage and other intercourse with Jews, pagans and heretics, closing the offices of flamen and duumvir to Christians, forbidding all contact with idolatry and likewise participation in pagan festivals and public games. The state of morals is mirrored in the canons denouncing prevalent vices. The canons respecting the clergy exhibit the clergy as already a special class with peculiar privileges, a more exacting moral standard, heavier penalties for delinquency. The bishop has acquired control of the sacraments, presbyters and deacons acting only under his orders; the episcopate appears as a unit, bishops being bound to respect one another’s disciplinary decrees. Worthy of special note are canon 33, enjoining celibacy upon all clerics and all who minister at the altar (the most ancient canon of celibacy); canon 36, forbidding pictures in churches; canon 38, permitting lay baptism under certain conditions; and canon 53, forbidding one bishop to restore a person excommunicated by another.

See Mansi ii. pp. 1-406; Hardouin i. pp. 247-258; Hefele (2nd ed.) i. pp. 148 sqq. (English translation, i. pp. 131 sqq.); Dale, The Synod of Elvira (London, 1882); and Hennecke, in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed.), s.v. “Elvira,” especially bibliography.  (T. F. C.) 


EL WAD, a town in the Algerian Sahara, 125 m. in a straight line S.S.E. of Biskra, and 190 m. W. by S. of Gabes. Pop. (1906) 7586. El Wad is one of the most interesting places in Algeria. It is surrounded by huge hollows containing noble palm groves; and beyond these on every side stretches the limitless desert with its great billows of sand, the encroachments of which on the oasis are only held at bay by ceaseless toil. The town itself consists of a mass of one-storeyed stone houses, each surmounted by a little dome, clustering round the market-place with its mosque and minaret. By an exception rare in Saharan settlements, there are no defensive works save the fort containing the government offices, which the French have built on the south side of the town. The inhabitants are of two distinct tribes, one, the Aduan, of Berber stock, the other a branch of the Shaʽambah Arabs. El Wad possesses a curious currency known as flous, consisting of obsolete copper coins of Algerian and Tunisian dynasties. Seven flous are regarded as equal to the French five-centime piece.

El Wad oasis is one of a group known collectively as the Suf. Five miles N.W. is Kuinine (pop. 3541) and 6 m. farther N.W. Guemar (pop. 6885), an ancient fortified town noted for its manufacture of carpets. Linen weaving is carried on extensively in the Suf. Administratively El Wad is the capital of an annexe to the territory of Tuggurt.


ELWOOD, a city of Madison county, Indiana, U.S.A., on Duck Creek, about 38 m. N.E. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1880) 751; (1890) 2284; (1900) 12,950 (1386 foreign-born); (1910) 11,028. Elwood is served by the Lake Erie & Western and the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, and by an interurban electric line. Its rapid growth in population and as a manufacturing centre was due largely to its situation in the natural gas region; the failure of the gas supply in 1903 caused a decrease in manufacturing, but the city gradually adjusted itself to new conditions. It has large tin plate mills, iron and steel foundries, saw and planing mills, wooden-ware and furniture factories, bottling works and lamp-chimney factories, flour mills and packing houses. In 1905 the value of the city’s factory product was $6,111,083; in 1900 it was $9,433,513; the glass product was valued at $223,766 in 1905, and at $1,011,803 in 1900. There are extensive brick-yards in the vicinity, and the surrounding agricultural country furnishes large supplies of grain, live-stock, poultry and produce, for which Elwood is the shipping centre. The site was first settled under the name of Quincy; the present name was adopted in 1869; and in 1891 Elwood received a city charter.


ELY, RICHARD THEODORE (1854–  ), American economist, was born at Ripley, New York, on the 13th of April 1854. Educated at Columbia and Heidelberg universities, he held the professorship of economics at Johns Hopkins University from 1881 to 1892, and was subsequently professor of economics at Wisconsin University. Professor Ely took an active part in the formation of the American Economic Association, was secretary from 1885 to 1892 and president from 1899 to 1901. He published a useful Introduction to Political Economy (1889); Outlines of Economics (1893); The Labour Movement in America (1883); Problems of To-day (1888); Social Aspects of Christianity (1889); Socialism and Social Reform (1894); Monopolies and Trusts (1900), and Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society (1903).


ELY, a cathedral city and market-town, in the Newmarket parliamentary division of Cambridgeshire, England, 16 m. N.N.E. of Cambridge by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 7713. It stands on a considerable eminence on the west (left) bank of the Ouse, in the Isle of Ely, which rises above the surrounding fens. Thus its situation, before the great drainage operations of the 17th century, was practically insular. The magnificent cathedral, towering above the town, is a landmark far over the wide surrounding level. The soil in the vicinity is fertile and market-gardening is carried on, fruit and vegetables (especially asparagus) being sent to the London markets. The town has a considerable manufacture of tobacco pipes and earthenware, and there are in the neighbourhood mills for the preparation of oil from flax, hemp and cole-seed. Besides the cathedral Ely has in St Mary’s church, lying almost under the shadow of the greater building, a fine structure ranging in style from Norman to Perpendicular, but in the main Early English. The sessions house and corn exchange are the