Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/292

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276
BAL—BAL

in the cleft of a rock that said, " Let Hel keep its booty." This was Loki, and so Baldur came not back to Valhal. His death was revenged by his son Vale, who, being only one night old, slew Hoder ; but Loki fled from the revenge of the gods. In Baldur was personified the light of the sun ; in his death the quenching of that light in winter. In his invulnerable body is expressed the incorporeal quality of light ; what alone can wound it is mistletoe, the symbol of the depth of winter. It is noticeable that the Druids, when they cut down this plant with a golden sickle, did so to prevent it from wounding Baldur again. According to the Voluspa, Baldur will return, after Ragna- rb k, to the new heavens and the new earth ; so the sun returns in spring to the renovated world. In the later versions it was no ordinary season, but the Fimbul winter, which no summer follows, which Baldur s death prefigured. It must not be overlooked that the story of Baldur is not merely a sun-myth, but a personification of that glory, purity, and innocence of the gods which was believed to have been lost at his death, thus made the central point of the whole drama of the great Scandinavian mythology. Baldur has been also considered, in relation to some state ments of Saxo Gramniaticus, to have been a god of peace, peace attained through warfare ; this theory has been advanced by Weinhold with much ingenuity. Several myths have been cited as paralleling the story of the death of Baldur ; those of Adonis and of Persephone may be

considered as the most plausible.

(e. w. g.)

BALDUS, an eminent professor of the civil law, and also of the canon law, in the university of Perugia. He came of the noble family of the Ubaldi; and his two brothers, Angelas de Ubaldis and Petrus de Ubaldis, were almost of equal eminence with himself as jurists. He was born in 1327, and studied civil law under Bartolus at Perugia, where he was admitted to the degree of doctor of civil law at the early age of seventeen in 1344. Fredericus Petrucius of Siena is said to have been the master under whom he studied canon law. Upon his pro motion to the doctorate he at once proceeded to Bologna, where he taught law for three years ; after which he was advanced to a professorial chair at Perugia, which he occupied for thirty-three years. He taught law subsequently at Pisa, at Florence, at Padua, and at Pavia, at a time when the schools of law in those universities disputed the palm with the school of Bologna. Baldus has not left behind him any works which bear out the great reputation which he acquired amongst his contemporaries. This circumstance may be in some respects accounted for by the active part which he took in public affairs, and by the fame which he acquired by his consultations, of which five volumes have been published by Diplovataccius. Baldus was the master of Peter Beaufort, the nephew of Pope Clement VI., who became himself Pope under the title of Gregory XL, and whose immediate successor, Urban VI., summoned Baldus to Eome to assist him by his consulta tions against the anti-pope Clement VII. Cardinal de Zabarella and Paulus de Castro were also amongst his pupils. His Commentary on the Liber Fendorum is con sidered to be one of the best of his works, which have been unfortunately left by him for the most part in an incomplete state.

BALDWIN, Thomas, a celebrated English prelate of the 12th century, was born of obscure parents at Exeter, where, in the early part of his life, he taught a grammar school. After this he took orders, and was made archdeacon of Exeter ; but he resigned that dignity, and became a Cister cian monk in the monastery of Ford in Devonshire, of which, in a few years, he was made abbot. In the year 1180 he was consecrated bishop of Worcester. In 1184 he was promoted to the see of Canterbury, and by Urban IIL was appointed legate for that diocese. He laid the founda tion of a church and monastery in honour of Thomas a Becket at Hackington, near Canterbury, for secular priests ; but being opposed by the monks of Canterbury and the Pope, he was obliged to desist. Baldwin then laid the foundation of the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth. In 1189 he crowned King Richard I. at Westminster, and two years later, after making a pilgrimage through Wales to preach the Crusade, followed that prince to the Holy Land, where he died at the siege of Ptolemais or St Jean d Acre. Giraldus Cambrensis, who accompanied him in an expedition through Whales, says he was of moderate habits and of an extremely mild disposition. He wrote various tracts on religious subjects, some of which were collected and published by Bertrand Tissier in 1662.

BALE, John, Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland, was born at Cove, near Dunwich in Suffolk, in November 1495. He was educated in the monastery of the Carmelites at Norwich, and afterwards at Jesus College, Oxford. He belonged at first to the Roman Catholic Church, but was converted to the Protestant religion by Thomas Lord Wentworth. On the death of Lord Cromwell, the favourite of Henry VIIL, who had protected him from the persecutions of the Romish clergy, he was obliged to take refuge in Flanders, where he continued eight years. Soon after the accession of Edward VI. he was recalled ; and being first presented to the living of Bishop s Stocke (Bishopstoke), in Hampshire, he was nominated in 1552 to the see of Ossory, in Ireland. During his residence there he was remarkably assiduous in propagating the Protestant doctrines, but with little suc cess, and frequently at the hazard of his life. On the accession of Queen Mary the tide of opposition became so powerful that, to avoid assassination, he embarked for Holland ; and, after various vicissitudes, reached Basel in Switzerland, where he continued till the accession of Queen Elizabeth. After his return to England he was, in 1560, made prebendary of Canterbury, where he died in Novem ber 1563, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. Bale is noted as being one of the last (though not the last, as has some times been said) of those who wrote miracle-plays. Several of his are extant, and a list of titles of about twenty is given by Collier (ii. 238). They are remarkable for the determi nation they manifest to introduce and inculcate the doctrines of the Reformed religion. The best of his historical plays, Kynge Johan, has been published by the Camden Society, 1838. Of his numerous other works the most noted is his collection of British biography, entitled Illustrium Mojoris Britannice Scriptorum Catalogus, a Japheto sandissimi Noahfilio ad An. Dom. 1559. This work was first pub lished in quarto in 1548, and afterwards, with various additions, in folio, in 1557-59. Although slightly inaccu rate, it is still a work of great value for the minute notices it gives of writers, concerning whom little is otherwise known. A selection from his works was published in 1849 by the Parker Society, containing the Examinations of Cobham, Thorpe, and Anne Askew, and the Image of the two Churches. Bale s style is frequently coarse and violent, and his truthfulness has been sometimes challenged.

BALEARIC ISLANDS, a remarkable group in the

western part of the Mediterranean Sea, lying to the S. and E. of Spain, between 38 40 and 40 5 N. lat., and between 1 and 5 E. long. The name, as now employed, includes not only the ancient Insulae Baleares (Major and Minor), but also the Filyusce or Pine Islands, as the two more western were called. The origin of the name Baleares is a mere matter of conjecture, and the reader may choose any of the derivations usually offered with about an equal chance of not being right. On the other hand, it is obvious that

the modern Majorca (or, in Spanish, Mallorca) and Minorca