cultivating it with zeal and success. His setting of the beautiful words " Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" is still regarded by the Germans as their representative national hymn. Eccard and his school are in the same way inseparably connected with the history of the Reformation. Of Eccard s sougs a great many collections are extant ; for an enumeration of the old and rare editions the reader is referred to the works by Winterfeldt, who has devoted
great care to the study of Eccard, and by Doring (Choralkunde, p. 47).ECCELINO, or Ezzelino da Romano (1194–1259), fourth of the name, a famous Ghibelline chief, was born April 25, 1194. The family traced its origin to Eccelin, a knight who about 1036 followed the emperor Conrad II. into Italy, and received from him among other fiefs that of Romano, in the neighbourhood of Padua. Eccelino IV. was the elder of the two sons of Eccelino III., surnamed the Monk, who divided his little principality between them in 1223, and died in 1235. In his youth Eccelino displayed the dauntless courage and the power of dissimulation which characterized him through life. In 1226, at the head of a party of Ghibellines, he got possession of Verona, and was appointed podestat. He became one of the most faithful servants of the great emperor Frederick II., who by a charter granted in 1232 confirmed him in his possessions. Four years later (1236) he invited Frederick to enter Italy to his assistance, and in August met him at Trent. Eccelino was soon after besieged in Verona by the Guelf.s, and the siege was raised by the emperor. Vicenza was next stormed, and the government was given to Eccelino. In 1237 the latter marched against Padua, became master of the city by capitulation, and crushed the spirit of the people by remorseless cruelty. The same year he took part in the siege of Mantua, and made himself master of Trevisa. On the return of Frederick to Italy he joined him with a large force, and contributed to the great victory over the Guelfs at Cortenuova (November). In the follow ing year he strengthened his connection with the emperor by marriage with Selvaggia, his natural daughter. In 1239, after entering Padua with Frederick, he was excommunicated and declared deprived of his estates by the Pope. But he still went on fighting and augmenting his dominions and perpetrating such incredible cruelties that the emperor, it is said, would fain have been rid of him. Nevertheless Eccelino was among the auxiliaries of Frederick at the siege of Parma in 1247. At the time of Frederick s death, in 1250, Eccelino, who had been named vicar-imperial of all the districts between the Trentine Alps and the river Aglio, had extended his autharity from the Adriatic to the environs of Milan. He had married a second wife in 1249. At length (1256) a crusade against this foe of the church was proclaimed by Pope Alexander IV., and a powerful league was formed, which the Venetians joined. Padua was soon lost to him ; but in 1258 he defeated the army of the league and reduced Brescia. In 1259 he was called to Milan by the Ghibelline party and attempted to march on the city. He was, however, encountered by his enemies at Cassano, September 16, 1259, and was severely wounded and taken prisoner. His troops then disbanded. The great leader was resolved not to survive his fall, nor would he make his peace with the church. He tore the bandages from his wounds, refused to take food, and died at Soncino, September 26, 1259. By the death of his brother Alberico about a year later the family became extinct, and their possessions were distributed among the conquerors. The character of Eccelino is thus drawn by Mr Kington in his History of Frederick the Second (i. p. 503) : " He was bold, clear-sighted in politics, and staunch to the side he had chosen as his own. He had a most commanding intellect, and his counsels were sure not to be slighted. He was a first-rate soldier, and could overawe his enemies with a glance. He was, however, superstitious, as many found to their cost. Covetous of power, he was unscrupulous as to the means by which it was won or kept. His merciless cruelty and his callousness to human suffering brand him as an enemy to mankind." In the Divina Commedia (Inferno, xii.) Eccelino is seen amongst those who expiate the sin of cruelty in the lake of blood in the seventh circle of hell.
ECCHELLENSIS, or Echellensis, Abraham, a learned Maronite, whose surname is derived from Eckel in Syria, where he was born towards the close of the 16th century. He was educated at the Maronite college in Rome, and, after taking his doctor s degree in theology and philosophy, became professor of Arabic and Syriac in the college of the Propagandists. Called to Paris in 1630 to assist Le Jay in the preparation of his polyglot bible, he contributed to that work the Arabic and Latin versions of the book of Ruth and the Arabic version of the third book of Maccabees. A quarrel with Gabriel Sionita, one of his coadjutors, whose work he had revised, led to a sharp controversy in which De Flavigny took part. He returned to Rome in 1642, but resumed his residence in Paris in 1645. Being invited by the Congregation of the Propaganda to take part in the preparation of an Arabic version of the Scriptures, he went again in 1652 or 1653 to Rome, where he died in 1664. Ecchellensis published several Latin translations of Arabic works, of which the most important was the Ghronicon Orient ale of Ibu-ar Rahib (Paris, 1653). He was engaged in an interesting controversy with Selden as to the historical grounds of episcopacy, in the course of which he published his Eutychius Vindicates, sive Responsio ad Seldeni Origines (Rome, 1661). Conjointly with Borelli he wrote a Latin translation of the 5th, 6th, and 7th books of the Conies of Apollonius of Perga (1661).
ECCLES, a populous village of England, in the county of Lancaster, four miles west of Manchester by railway, and practically an outlying suburb of that city. The parish church of St Mary, an ancient structure, was enlarged and extensively repaired in 1863-4 ; and several dissenting places of worship have been built in the present century. The cotton-manufacture is extensively carried on in the immediate neighbourhood. Previous to the Reformation the monks of Whalley Abbey had a grange at what is still called Monks Hall ; and in 1864 many thousands of silver pennies of Henry III. and John of England and William I. of Scotland were discovered near the spot. Ainsworth, the author of the Latin and English dictionary so long familiar to English students, was born at Eccles in 1660 ; and it was at the vicarage that the Right Hon. William Huskisson expired on 15th September 1830 from injuries received at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
of Athenian citizens, who met from time to time to discuss public affairs. Ecclesiae were of two kinds, ordinary and extraordinary. The first of these were held, according to the laws of Solon, four times in each prytany, or period of thirty-five days ; while the others were only summoned on some pressing emergency. When any measure of unusual importance was to be publicly debated, the people were summoned from the country by special messengers. An assembly thus convened was called a cataclesia. Much dis cussion has taken place as to the exact days of the month on which the ecclesise were held ; but the result has only been to prove either that there were no days invariably fixed for them, or that we have no data by which to deter mine accurately what these days were. In Ulpian it is stated that when there were three assemblies a-month, the
first fell on the eleventh, the second on the twentieth, and