Roman Catholics. The chief industries are tanning, dyeing and the manufacture of damask linen woollen stuffs leather and beer.
In 1745, 1760 and 1779 engagements between the Austrians and Prussians took place near Neustadt, which on the last occasion was bombarded and set on fire.
See Weltzel, Geschichte der Stadt Neustadt (Neustadt, 1870).
NEUSTADT-AN-DER-HAARDT, a town of Germany, in the
Bavarian Palatinate, picturesquely situated under the eastern
slope of the Haardt Mountains and at the mouth of the valley
of the Speyerbach, 14 m. W. of Spires, and at the junction of
railway lines to Worms, Weissenburg and Monsheim. Pop.
(1905) 18,576. It has four churches, two Evangelical and two
Roman Catholic. The Protestant abbey church, a fine Gothic
edifice dating from the 14th century, contains the tombs of several
of the counts palatine of the Rhine. The Roman Catholic
Ludwigskirche is a modern Gothic structure. The chief industries
of the town are cloth, paper, furniture, soap, starch and
hats. It has also breweries and distilleries. A brisk trade is
carried on in wood, grain, fruit and wine, all of which are
extensively produced in the vicinity. Neustadt, which became a
town in 1275, is one of the centres of the Rhenish “grape-cure,”
and thus attracts numerous visitors.
NEU-STETTIN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province
of Pomerania, on the small Streitzig lake, 90 m. by rail
N.E. of Stettin, at the junction of railways to Belgard, Posen
and Stolpmiinde. Pop. (1905) 10,785. Its industries are iron-founding,
dyeing, brewing and the manufacture of machinery,
soap and matches, There is a considerable trade in cattle,
grain and other agricultural produce, and in timber and spirits.
Neu-Stettin was founded in 1313 by Wratislaus, duke of
Pomerania, on the model of Stettin.
See Wilcke, Chronik der Stadt Neu-Stettin (Neu-Stettin, 1862); and F. W. Kasiski, Beschreibung der vaterländischen Alterthümer in Neu-Stettin (Danzig, 1881).
NEU-STRELITZ, a town of Germany, capital of the grand-duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, situated between two small lakes, the Zierker See and the Glambecker See, 60 m. N. of Berlin, on the railway to Stralsund, at the junction of lines to Warnemünde and Buschhof. Pop. (1905) 11,656. It is built in the form of a star, the eight rays converging on a market-place adorned with a statue of the grand-duke George (d. 1860) . The ducal residence is a handsome edifice in a pseudo-classical style, with a library of 75,000 volumes, and collections of coins and antiquities. Other buildings are the churches (two Evangelical and one Roman Catholic), the Carolinum (a large hospital), the town hall, the barracks, the gymnasium and the theatre. Its manufactures are iron-ware, machinery, pottery, beer and mineral waters. Its trade, chiefly in corn, meal and timber, is facilitated by the Zierker See and by a canal connecting the town with the Havel and the Elde.
About 112 m. to the south lies Alt-Strelitz, the former capital of the duchy, a small town the inhabitants of which are employed in the manufacture of tobacco, leather and wax candles. Neu-Strelitz was not founded till 1726. In the vicinity is the château of Hohen-Zieritz, where Queen Louise of Prussia died in 1810.
NEUSTRIA, the old name given to the western kingdom of the Franks, as opposed to the eastern kingdom, Austrasia
(q.v.). The most ancient form of the word is Niuster, from niust,
which would make the word signify the “most recent” conquests
of the Franks. The word Neustria does not appear as
early as the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours, but is
found for the first time in Fredegarius. The kingdom of Chilperic
was retrospectively given this name, and in contemporary usage
it was given to the kingdom of Clovis II., as opposed to that of
Sigebert III., the two sons of Dagobert; and after that, the
princes reigning in the West were called kings of Neustria, and
those reigning in the East, kings of Austrasia. Under the new
Carolingian dynasty, Pippin and Charlemagne restored the unity
of the Frankish realm, and then the word Neustria was restricted
to the district between the Loire and the Seine, together with
part of the diocese of Rouen north of the Seine; while Austrasia
comprised only the Frankish dominions beyond the Rhine,
perhaps with the addition of the three cities of Mainz, Worms
and Spires on the left bank. The districts between Neustria
and Austrasia were called Media Francia or simply Francia.
In 843 Brittany took from Neustria the countships of Rennes
and Nantes; and gradually the term Neustria came to be
restricted to the district which was later called Normandy.
Dudo of Saint Quentin, who flourished about the year 1000,
gives the name Neustria to the lands ceded to Rollo and his
followers during the 10th century. In the year 1663, the Père
de Moustier gave to his work on the churches and abbeys of
Normandy the title of Neustria pia.
At the time of Charlemagne, Lombardy was divided into five provinces: Neustria, Austrasia, Aemilia, Littoraria maris and Tuscia. Austrasia was the name given to eastern Lombardy, and Neustria that given to western Lombardy, the part last occupied by the Lombards.
See F. Bourquelet, “Sens des mots France et Neustrie sous le régime mérovingien,” in the Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes, xxvi. 566-574; Longnon, Atlas historique de la France, both atlas and text. (C. Pf.)
NEUTITSCHEIN (Czech Nový Jičín), a town of Austria, in
Moravia, 75 m. N.E. of Brünn by rail. Pop. (1900) 11,891,
chiefly German. It is situated on a spur of the Carpathians, and
on the banks of the Titsch, an affluent of the Oder. It is the chief
place in the Kuhländchen, a fertile valley peopled by German
settlers, who rear cattle and cultivate flax. At Neutitschein
manufactures of woollen cloth, flannel, hats, carriages and
tobacco are carried on; and it is also the centre of a brisk trade.
The town was founded in 1311. Neutitschein was in 1790 the
headquarters of the Austrian field-marshal Loudon, who died
here in the same year and is buried in the parish church.
NEUTRALITY, the state or condition of being neutral (Lat. neuter, neither of two), of not being on or inclined to one side or
another, particularly, in international law, the condition of a
state which abstains from taking part in a dispute between other
states. Neutrality is the most progressive branch of modern
International Law. It is also that branch of International
Law in which the practice of self-restraint takes the place
of the direct sanctions of domestic law most effectively. The
rapid changes it is undergoing are in fact bringing the state-system
of the modern world nearer to the realization of the dream
of many great writers and thinkers, of a community of nations
just as much governed by legal methods as any community of
civilized men. While the right of war was simply the right of
the stronger, there was no room for neutral rights, for, without
going back to the time of the ancients, the so-called rights of war
and conquest are nothing but survivals of the right of brute
strength. No nation or community down to comparatively recent
times was treated as having a right to what it could not keep.
It is the growth of a law of neutrality, through the modern
possibility of concerted action among neutral states, which is
bringing about improvement, and, though the signs of our times
are not always reassuring, we have taken a long stride forward
since Molloy, in his De Jure maritimo et navali (1680), wrote:
“As a neuter neither purchases friends nor frees himself from
enemies, so commonly he proves a prey to the victor; hence it
is held more advantage to hazard in a conquest with a companion
than to remain in a state wherein he is in all probability of being
ruined by the one or the other.”
It was the great commercial communities, the Hansa in the north and Venice and the Mediterranean maritime republics in the south, which were first able to insist on some sort of regulation of the usages of war for their own protection. With the growth of intercourse among nations a further advance was made, by treaty stipulations entered into in time of peace, to provide rules for their guidance in the event of war, but it is only in our own time that the idea of a substantive neutral right has obtained recognition. To our own time belongs the final acceptance of the principle that the neutral flag protects an enemy’s goods except contraband, the conception of neutralization of territory, the abolition of fictitious blockades, the practice of declarations of
