Category The Encyclopædia Britannica – 11th Edition – 1910

The Fly

Bran

My daughter has this thing about bugs. The sound of a nearby fly can send her into a panic; the sight of one causes a full-blown meltdown. Summer approaches rapidly, and we have begun to see the occasional housefly in our home and with them a proportionate increase in her outbursts. We wish she didn't react quite so strongly to their presence - in the age of modern sanitation, a fly here or there is not a major problem, but her reaction would be quite justified at the beginning of the 20th century, according to the classic encyclopedias of the time.

The 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in its article on the "Fly" (vol. 10, p. 584), refers to an interesting study conducted by the Department of Agriculture in 1909: Mr L. O. Howard (Circular 71 of the Bureau of Entomology U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, 1906) says that in 1900 he made a collection of the flies in dining-rooms in different parts of the United States, and out of a total of 23,087 flies, 22,808 were the common house-fly. Its geographical distribution is of the widest, and its rapidity of breeding, in manure and dooryard filth, so great that, as a carrier of germs of disease, especially cholera and typhoid, the house-fly is now recognized as a potent source of danger; and various sanitary regulations have been made, or precautions suggested, for getting rid of it. These are discussed by Mr Howard in the paper referred to, but in brief they all amount to measures of general hygiene, and the isolation, prompt removal, or proper sterilization of the animal or human excrement in which these flies breed.

Howard is also the leading authority quoted in the 1924 Encyclopedia Americana (vol. 11, pp. 352-354). Below are some excerpts from the article "Flies:"

A type of the group [those which cause "serious evils to mankind"] is found in the house-fly (Musca domestica), which represents the great family Muscidæ, in which most of the familiar flies about houses and stables are included, and its life-history represents that of its kind generally. Its eggs are laid preferably on horse-manure, but also on human or other excrement, decaying vegetables, etc., and hatch in six or eight hours, producing maggots. These mature in four or five days, when their skins harden and turn brown, forming a puparium, or case, within which the true pupa forms, and five days later gives birth to a perfected fly. Thus a total life cycle requires in midsummer only about 10 days, and a dozen generations may thus be born in warm climates within a single season. As each fly deposits on the average 120 eggs, and as the maggots of 1,200 house-flies may be sustained by a pound of manure, the possible rapidity of their multiplication is apparent. Most flies live but a few weeks, and toward the end of the season they die with great rapidity, becoming infested with reddish mites, which suck their juices, or with fatal fungous diseases. (See Fungi). In warm houses a few may survive a winter, but as a rule all adult flies die in the fall, and the species survives and recovers in the spring from the eggs or pupa left over winter in the manure-heap or other feeding-place. It is plain that attempts to mitigate the annoyance and danger resulting from many flies may best be directed toward the destruction of their eggs and young. That such destruction is desirable and the duty of society is plain when one considers the vast amount of injury these insects may do. [...]

Dr. L. O. Howard, of the United States Department of Agriculture, has given special attention to this matter, and has found that no less than 77 species of flies frequent human excrement and are therefore liable to obtain and carry disease germs. As the innumerable insects themselves are beyond reach, the measures for protection must be preventative. Dr. Howard says that in order to avoid epidemics of typhoid fever it is necessary to abolish the box privy, prevalent in rural and village districts, and substitute earth-closets, where water-closets cannot be installed; to place stable manure in receptacles and treat it with chloride of lime to destroy the maggots, throwing a shovelful over each day's addition. Pantries, dining-rooms and kitchens should be carefully screened to keep out flies; and especial pains taken in summer to keep flies out of sick-rooms. Detailed instructions and the reasons for them are given by Howard in his pamphlet, 'How Insects Affect Health in Rural Districts,' issued as Farmers' Bulletin 155, by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The article on the "Fly" in the 1919 World Book (vol. 4, pp. 2231-2235) is quite sensational and very thoroughly illustrated, but it is also charming in its optimistic belief that most people will rally behind science and facts to come together and solve large societal problems. I've reproduced the full article with pictures below:

The road from garbage can to baby's food

Fly. "A fly," wrote a small boy who had had a lesson in school on the harm the little pest can do, "is more dangerous than a lion, but I would rather have a fly bite me than a lion." Not many years ago flies were looked upon as a necessary nuisance; they were troublesome, but they were not dangerous, people thought, and there was no possible way of getting rid of them. A half-century ago it was common at mealtime during the summer months to have a servant or one of the children of the family stationed near the table with a leafy branch, wherewith to wave away the flies which were thick in the dining-room. A little later nettings were introduced, and then came wire screens, to keep out as many as possible; but to-day such measures are looked upon as all too passive, because the deadly nature of the insect is understood, and regular crusades are instituted against the fly.

But why? What can this little insect do that makes it as "dangerous as a lion," and has caused "Swat the fly" to become a slogan? Before discussing this question it is necessary to learn something about the insect.

What a Fly Is. The name fly is applied to many different kinds of insects; in fact, more than 40,000 species are known to-day, but they all have certain traits in common. The most noticeable of several resemblances is the fact that they have but two wings; the scientific name for flies is Diptera, which means two-winged. No other known insect has two wings except one little scale-insect. The wings of flies are always transparent, never folded as are the wings of grasshoppers, and they have prominent lengthwise veins. Instead of hind wings most flies have two small, rod-like organs which probably help the insect to balance and steer itself in flight. The head of a fly is usually small; by far the larger part of it is made up of two wonderful eyes, which are often composed of thousands of facets which enable their owner to see in almost any direction. A few species are provided with sucking mouth-parts, but fortunately the common house fly is not thus equipped.

The Commonest Fly. Of the true flies, a number of groups are very well known, as the gnats, blow flies, midges and mosquitoes; and the name is often applied to certain insects to which it does not really belong, as the dragon fly and the May fly. But there is one true fly which is so common all about the haunts of man that it has received the name of domestic fly, or house fly, and it is this little creature which is meant when the term fly is used without modification.

EGGS OF A FLY
Greatly enlarged.

Life History. There are some very interesting things about the house fly. Every child has watched with wonder its progress across the ceiling, to which it is held by the suckerlike hairs on its feet; but nothing about it is more remarkable than the amazing rapidity with which it breeds. If there were alive in the world at the beginning of April but one fly, and that an egg-laying female, there might be six months later, if all the eggs laid came to maturity, no fewer than 131,220,000,000,000,000,000 flies — over 131 quintillions of descendants of that one first fly! What wonder is it that a neighborhood which seemed free from flies may in a week or two be swarming with them!

DEVELOPMENT OF A FLY (a) Egg; (b) larva; (c) pupa; (d) mature insect.

The female lays her eggs in any warm, damp, decaying matter, whether it be the manure of a stable, the filth of a pig's pen or the fermenting garbage; and there the little white maggots are hatched out. Soon these change into pupae (plural of pupa, the intermediate state), and in from eight to fourteen days emerge as mature flies. Led by its strong sense of smell, the young fly hastens from its filthy hatching place to the nearest food-supply spot — perhaps an imperfectly screened kitchen or the baby's milk, where it begins to be indeed a deadly enemy.

Harm Done by Flies. Occasionally some person objects that the fly is receiving more than its share of censure, claiming that a little stingless insect cannot be one of the most dangerous things in the world; but doctors and scientists are ready with facts to prove the contrary. It is no longer a theory but a well-established fact that flies cause many of the cases of typhoid; that "summer complaint" might well be called "fly complaint," so clearly is it spread by flies; that tuberculosis and all filth diseases are carried by it; that domestic animals owe many of their diseases to its agency — in fact, that flies cost in Canada and the United States hundreds of millions of dollars and scores of thousands of lives every year.

How they accomplish all this is very evident, since their hairy legs are peculiarly well fitted for carrying germs and filth particles from their favorite breeding-haunts to food often left exposed for them to walk upon. More than 6,000,000 bacteria, it has been estimated, can be carried by one fly on its body as it flies from the manure pile or the spittoon or the sick room to the baby's lips or to the sugar bowl. It is not chance that the fly season coincides with the season of dangerous intestinal diseases and, very largely, with the typhoid season; it is a clear case of cause and effect.

Facing the Fly Problem. The average person feels helpless and hopeless in facing the question of what is to be done about it. "There always have been flies, therefore there always will be flies," is his opinion, despite any little efforts on his part. Serious, scientific men have faced the problem in a sober-minded, scientific manner, and have found ways and means which, if generally adopted, would do much toward ridding the world of this pest. In agricultural communities, such favorable breeding-grounds as manure heaps and open swill barrels can be replaced by covered manure bins and screened-top barrels, and the flies be kept down; cities and villages, however, may, with proper care, be flyless.

THE HOUSE FLY
Greatly enlarged.

Some of the remedies are easy to apply and have been employed for many years. Windows and doors may be screened and "sticky fly-paper" may be placed to catch those which do slip in; but this is not beginning at the source. First of all, the fight must be carred out-of-doors. "why not," asked a thirteen-year-old boy, who had become interested in the extermination of flies, "put all the flies in jail and let ourselves out?" The annual cost of screening windows and doors, estimated for the United States and Canada at $15,000,000 would, if properly expended, make screens unnecessary.

Preventive Methods. The first step in a definite campaign is to kill the winter fly — the occasional specimen that survives in a sheltered place and in the spring crawls out to bask and gain strength in the sunshine. Kill it without pity — it may be that thereby the world is being rid of countless millions of summer flies. Until these winter flies have obtained abundant food they cannot lay eggs, and as they are extremely hungry they are easier to catch in traps than at almost any other time. If every family in a community would in the early spring days get rid of every fly about the premises there would be no summer campaign, and noonday meals could be eaten on unscreened porches with pleasure and with safety.

Next, breeding-places should be done away with, so far as possible, by providing proper sanitation and by banishing all unnecessary garbage and rubbish. Refuse should be buried or covered with kerosene and burned. Outside slop barrels should be scalded, and in communities where domestic animals are raised care should be taken to have them and the premises kept in a sanitary condition. Much of this work can be done by families in and about their homes; much remains to be done by the public authorities, who can best be urged to a proper conception of their task by enlightened public opinion. Indeed, it may be said that only as community feeling is aroused can really effective work be done, for what good does it do a family to rid its own home of flies so long as the meat it gets from the market and the butter and milk it gets from the dairies are contaminated by their presence?

ENLARGED HEAD OF A FLY, FRONT VIEW
The two large areas studded with thousands of lenses are compound eyes. There are three simple eyes at the top, in the center; the fly can therefore see in every direction.

The Active Fight. If the work of prevention by means of killing winter flies and destroying breeding-places is begun early enough, it is all-sufficient; but even if a few flies have been allowed to reproduce themselves and their descendants in their turn have been allowed to breed, the fight is not yet hopeless, though it is rendered more difficult.

THE FOOT OF A FLY
(a) Lower joints of the foot, one hundred sixty times actual size.
(b) The part of (a) shown within the dotted area, magnified 1,500 times its actual size. The deadly typhoid bacilli are shown on the tip. The drawing is reproduced from a photograph.

It remains but to catch the flies as soon as possible after they have emerged, before they have reached the egg-laying stage; for it is well to remember at every stage of the campaign that the fly must feed for two weeks before it can lay its first eggs. And these young flies should be caught out-of-doors, before they have had time to carry filth germs into the house. Somewhere near every house, whether it be in the city or in the country, there is a garbage pail — the flies' favorite feeding-ground. Now if, as they swarm about this, they can be coaxed by some especially attractive bait into a trap which stands above the garbage pail, the work is done, in large measure. Then if another trap be placed outside the screen door, and another in the stable window or barnyard, it is not likely that many flies would feed through the whole two weeks without getting caught. The "catch" may be quickly killed by immersion in boiling water, or by fumigation with sulphur. Humane methods should be employed, even with flies.

Traps may be bought at a reasonable price, or they may be constructed at home still more cheaply. Any box or other receptacle of transparent material, provided with a crack at the bottom and baited with banana peel, sugar and vinegar, meat or other food attractive to flies, will serve the purpose. One point must be borne in mind — the crack at the bottom must not be too wide, or the flies will crawl out after they have fed and then proceed to lay their eggs. The crack should never be more than a quarter of an inch in width and should open up toward the bait and not down, as flies show a strong tendency to crawl upward toward the light.

Summary. It may sound at first somewhat visionary — this campaign which has as its aim to "get the last one" — but it has been proved to be sane and practical. Small towns have rid themselves almost completely of the pests; big cites have done such effective work that in the huge public markets no more than half a dozen flies may be found at one time; and neighborhoods have won for themselves relief from the nuisance when other parts of the city have swarmed with flies. These insects do not travel great distances, and a neighborhood campaign will be effective even though the town as a whole does not take up the work. It can be done — that much is certain; but it will be done only when the people are convinced of the absolute necessity. When a housewife begins to feel that it is a disgrace, a sure sign of untidiness and careless housekeeping to have even one fly about; when the storekeeper or dairyman is made to realize that he is looked upon as a spreader of disease if he does not protect his products; when a community really appreciates the fact that not only unpleasantness but sickness and death result from the presence of flies — then, and not till then, the campaign will be undertaken in earnest. The United States Department of Agriculture has shown an active interest in the problem and has for distribution bulletins which discuss the fly in all its phases, suggesting effective means of combating the danger the fly creates.

W.A.E.

Consult Cragin's Our Insect Friends and Foes; Comstock's Insect Life; Ross's The Reduction of Domestic Flies.

Knitting

Bran

I just upgraded my knitting needles. I have been using KnitPro / Knitter's Pride / KnitPicks (they're all the same!) interchangeable needles since February 2012, when I purchased the KnitPro Nova Deluxe Set for 43.85€. I was a graduate student in Germany, and that was an insanely expensive purchase for me at the time. They've served me well - they are essentially hollow brass needles coated with nickel plating that screw on to flexible cords of different lengths. I slowly supplemented the initial set over the years with additional needle and cord sizes, but there have been a few issues. Quality control has sometimes been lacking - one pair of needle tips completely lacked the screw connection to attach to the cable, for example, and the actual needle sizes have not always matched up to the claimed size. Over the past couple of years all of them, whether I've actively used them or kept them secure in their case, have developed some sort of sticky film that makes knitting difficult. So, after consulting the internet and a dear friend, I decided to splurge on a set of ChiaoGoo stainless steel interchangeable needles, which arrived this last week. So far I'm enjoying them - no goo and the cables are much more flexible than my other set.

Knitting doesn't get much attention in early encyclopedia sets - if there is an entry on the subject, it tends to be short. Here's the entry from Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia (1887), found in volume 4 on page 613:

Knit'ting [Ang. Sax. cnyttan or knittan; Ger. knutten, knot; Hind. ganth; Sans. gnanthi, a "knot"], a manner of weaving or twisting a single thread into a kind of cloth by means of steel, ivory, or wooden implements called knitting-needles, which are made of various sizes, according to the fineness of thread used and the tightness of stitch required.

Knitting is a far more modern invention than its kindred art, netting. Many antiquaries affirm that knitting was invented in Scotland, and thence introduced into France; others say that it is of Spanish origin, and was first known in England in the reign of Henry VIII. But in a rare collection of the acts of Edward VI. is one specifying, among other woollen articles, "knitte hose, knitte peticotes, knitte gloves, knitte slieves." In 1527 the French knitters formed themselves into a corporation, styled "Communauté des Maîtres Bonnetiers au Tricot," choosing for their patron St. Fiacre.

The 11th edition (1911) of the Encyclopædia Britannica's entry appears in volume 15, p. 869:

KNITTING (from O.E. cnyttan, to knit; cf. Ger. Knütten; the root is seen in "knot"), the art of forming a single thread or strand of yarn into a texture or fabric of a loop structure, by employing needles or wires. "Crochet" work is an analogous art in its simplest form. It consists of forming a single thread into a single chain of loops. All warp knit fabrics are built on this structure. Knitting may be said to be divided into two principles, viz. (1) hand knitting and (2) frame-work knitting (see Hosiery). In hand knitting, the wires, pins or needles used are of different lengths or gauges, according to the class of work wanted to be produced. They are made of steel, bone, wood or ivory. Some are headed to prevent the loops from slipping over the ends. Flat or selvedged work can only be produced on them. Others are pointed at both ends, and by employing three or more a circular or circular-shaped fabric can be made. In hand knitting each loop is formed and thrown off individually and in rotation and is left hanging on the new loop formed. The cotton, wool and silk fibres are the principle materials from which knitting yarns are manufactured, wool being the most important and most largely used. "Lamb's-wool," "wheeling," "fingering" and worsted yarns are all produced from the wool fibre, but may differ in size or fineness and quality. Those yarns are largely used in the production of knitted underwear. Hand knitting is to-day principally practised as a domestic art, but in some of the remote parts of Scotland and Ireland it is prosecuted as an industry to some extent. In the Shetland Islands the wool of the native sheep is spun, and used in its natural colour, being manufactured into shawls, scarfs, ladies' jackets, &c. The principal trade of other districts is hose and half-hose, made from the wool of the sheep native to the district. The formation of the stitches in knitting may be varied in a great many ways, by "purling" (knitting or throwing loops to back and front in rib form), "slipping" loops, taking up and casting off and working in various coloured yarns to form stripes, patterns, &c. The articles may be shaped according to the manner in which the wires and yarns are manipulated.

Here is the Encyclopedia Americana (1924) on the subject (vol.16, pages 488):

KNITTING, an industrial and ornamental art akin to weaving, but of much later origin. It does not appear to be more than three or four centuries old, and seems to have been first used in the manufacture of stockings. It consists in forming a series of loops with a single thread, through which another row of loops is passed, and so on consecutively in spiraled circles, the garment being shaped by variations in the number of loops in a row. In hand-knitting, steel-wires or bone or composition needles are used, termed knitting needles, and on these the loops are formed. For manufacturing purposes hand-knitting has been entirely superseded by machinery (see Knitting-Machine), which is constantly receiving new improvements. Hand-knitting, however, still forms an agreeable domestic occupation and also furnishes many women in some parts of the world with means of subsistence. Promptly upon America's entrance into the World War, many patriotic societies, and women of the Red Cross in particular, started a work of knitting sweaters for soldiers and sailors. The movement was taken up by thousands of women, who devoted their otherwise idle time to knitting, and it became common to see women everywhere with knitting bags on their arms, that they might work whenever they had spare moments. On the street cars, at social gatherings, in intervals of business, there was industrious knitting, resulting in a great volume of very serviceable sweaters and some other knitted garments being provided for the "boys at the front."

By mid-century, knitting started getting more attention in the encyclopedia sets. Hand-knitting didn't appear at all in my 1919 World Book, for example, but my 1958 set features a diagram on how to "cast on" stitches and notes that "knitting is older than written history." The article (volume 10, pages 4188-4189) also comments on knitting education: Knitting is taught to girls in some European schools. Schools in the United States do not usually teach knitting. The reason is that there are only two main stitches used in knitting — the knit and the purl — and the rest depends upon practice alone. Department stores and small "knit shops" in the United States have made knitting a popular hobby. Hand knitting reached a peak in the United States in 1935, partly because stores selling yarn offered free lessons in knitting. I wonder what the mid-century World Book would think of "stitch-and-bitch" sessions.

The 14th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (my copy is from 1965) concentrates on machine knitting under "Knitting," but directs the reader interested in hand-knitting to the article on "Needlework" (vol. 16, p. 183), which describes with diagrams (see picture below) the basics of the craft. I, for one, would not want these illustrations to be my sole reference for learning the craft, but it shows the trend towards including illustration. In general, the newer the encyclopedia set, the more likely there will be both illustrative examples of what knitted work looks like and diagrams demonstrating the basic stitches. The 1992 World Book, for example, features two-color diagrams illustrating the stitches as well as full-color close-up photographs of finished stockinette and garter-stitch knitting.

Illustration from the 14th Edition Encyclopædia Britannica, "Needlework"

Church Disagreements Around the Calculation of Easter

Bran

My last post, The Calculation of Easter, featured an encyclopedia article showing the commonly accepted Western calculation for the holiday. This has not, however, always been the method employed, and throughout the history of Christianity, different regions and denominations came up with their own method for determining when the holiday should occur. The 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica's entry on "Easter" presents a detailed history of these disagreements (including some amusing anecdotes, like a royal household which was split on when to celebrate the holiday). The entry can be found in volume 8, pages 828 - 829; it starts with a discussion of the meaning of the word itself. This is then followed by the aforementioned history of the controversy surrounding the setting of the date, and the article then finishes with a few notes on church ritual, including a discussion of candle sizes.

EASTER, the annual festival observed throughout Christendom in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The name Easter (Ger. Ostern), like the names of the days of the week, is a survival from the old Teutonic mythology. According to Bede (De Temp. Rat., c. xv.) it is derived from Eostre, or Ostâra, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month answering to our April, and called Eostur-monath, was dedicated. This month, Bede says, was the same as the mensis paschalis, "when the old festival was observed with the gladness of a new solemnity."

The name of the festival in other languages (as Fr. pâques; Ital. pasqua; Span. pascua; Dan. paaske; Dutch paasch; Welsh pasg) is derived from the Lat. pascha and the Gr. πάσχα. These in turn come from the Chaldee or Aramaean form פַסְהָא pascha', of the Hebrew name of the Passover festival פֶסַח pesach, from פָּסַח "he passed over," in memory of the great deliverance, when the destroying angel "passed over the houses, of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians" (Exod. xii. 27).

An erroneous derivation of the word pascha from the Greek πάσχειν, "to suffer," thus connected with the sufferings or passion of the Lord, is given by some of the Fathers of the Church, as Irenaeus, Tertullian and others, who were ignorant of Hebrew. St Augustine (In Joann. Tract. 55) notices this false etymology, shows how similarity of sound had led to it, and gives the correct derivation.

There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers. The sanctity of special times was an idea absent from the minds of the first Christians. "The whole of time is a festival unto Christians because of the excellency of the good things which have been given" is the comment of St Chrysostom on I Cor. v. 7, which has been erroneously supposed to refer to an apostolic observance of Easter. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates (Hist. Eccl. v. 22) states, with perfect truth, that neither the Lord nor his apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival. He says: "The apostles had no thought of appointing festival days, but of promoting a life of blamelessness and piety"; and he attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of an old usage, "just as many other customs have been established."

This is doubtless the true statement of the case. The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus the Passover, with a new conception added to it of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb and the first fruits from the dead, continued to be observed, and became the Christian Easter.

Although the observance of Easter was at a very early period the practice of the Christian church, a serious difference as to the day for its observance soon arose between the Christians of Jewish and those of Gentile descent, which led to a long and bitter controversy. The point at issue was when the Paschal fast was to be reckoned as ending. With the Jewish Christians, whose leading thought was the death of Christ as the Paschal Lamb, the fast ended at the same time as that of the Jews, on the fourteenth day of the moon at evening, and the Easter festival immediately followed, without regard to the day of the week. The Gentile Christians, on the other hand, unfettered by Jewish traditions, identified the first day of the week with the Resurrection, and kept the preceding Friday as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month. With the one the observance of the day of the month, with the other the observance of the day of the week, was the guiding principle.

Generally speaking, the Western churches kept Easter on the first day of the week, while the Eastern churches followed the Jewish rule, and kept Easter on the fourteenth day. St Polycarp, the disciple of St John the Evangelist and bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in 159 to confer with Anicetus, the bishop of that see, on the subject; and urged the tradition, which he had received from the apostle, of observing the fourteenth day. Anicetus, however, declined to admit the Jewish custom in the churches under his jurisdiction, but readily communicated with Polycarp and those who followed it. About forty years later (197) the question was discussed in a very different spirit between Victor, bishop of Rome, and Polycrates, metropolitan of proconsular Asia. That province was the only portion of Christendom which still adhered to the Jewish usage, and Victor demanded that all should adopt the usage prevailing at Rome. This Polycrates firmly refused to agree to, and urged many weighty reasons to the contrary, whereupon Victor proceeded to excommunicate Polycrates and the Christians who continued the Eastern usage. He was, however, restrained from actually proceeding to enforce the decree of excommunication, owing to the remonstrance of Irenaeus and the bishops of Gaul. Peace was thus maintained, and the Asiatic churches retained their usage unmolested (Euseb. H.E. v. 23-25). We find the Jewish usage from time to time reasserting itself after this, but it never prevailed to any large extent.

A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the council of Nicaea in 325. At that time the Syrians and Antiochenes were the solitary champions of the observance of the fourteenth day. The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and "that none should hereafter follow the blindness of the Jews" (Socrates, H.E. i. 9). The correct date of the Easter festival was to be calculated at Alexandria, the home of astronomical science, and the bishop of that see was to announce it yearly to the churches under his jurisdiction, and also to the occupant of the Roman see, by whom it was to be communicated to the Western churches. The few who afterwards separated themselves from the unity of the church and continued to keep the fourteenth day, were named Quartodecimani, and the dispute itself is known as the Quarto-deciman controversy. Although measures had thus been taken to secure uniformity of observance, and to put an end to a controversy which had endangered Christian unity, a new difficulty had to be encountered owing to the absence of any authoritative rule by which the paschal moon was to be ascertained. The subject is a very difficult and complex one (see also Calendar.) Briefly, it may be explained here that Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. This, of course, varies in different longitudes, while a further difficulty occurred in the attempt to fix the correct time of Easter by means of cycles of years, when the changes of the sun and moon more or less exactly repeat themselves. At first an eight years' cycle was adopted, but it was found to be faulty, then the Jewish cycle of 84 years was used, and remained in force at Rome till the year 457, when a more accurate calculation of a cycle of 532 years, invented by Victorius of Acquitaine, took its place. Ultimately a cycle of 19 years was accepted, and it is the use of the cycle which makes the Golden Number and Sunday Letter, explained in the preface to the Book of Common Prayer, necessary. Owing to this lack of decision as to the accurate finding of Easter, St Augustine tells us (Epist. 23) that in the year 387 the churches of Gaul kept Easter on the 21st of March, those of Italy on the 18th of April, and those of Egypt on the 25th of April; and it appears from a letter of Leo the Great (Epist, 64, ad Marcian.) that in 455 there was a difference of eight days between the Roman and the Alexandrine Easter. Gregory of Tours relates that in 577 "there was a doubt about Easter. In Gaul we with many other cities kept Easter on the fourteenth calends of May, others, as the Spaniards, on the twelfth calends of April."

The ancient British and Celtic churches followed the cycle of 84 years which they had originally received from Rome, and their stubborn refusal to abandon it caused much bitter controversy in the 8th century between their representatives and St Augustine in Canterbury and the Latin missionaries. These latter unfairly attempted to fix the stigma of the Quartodeciman observance on the British and Celtic churches, and they are even now sometimes ignorantly spoken of as having followed the Asiatic practice as to Easter. This, however, is quite erroneous. The British and Celtic churches always kept Easter according to the Nicene decree on a Sunday. The difference between them and the Roman Church, at this period, was that they still followed the 84 years' cycle in computing Easter, which had been abandoned by Rome for the more accurate cycle of 532 years. This difference of calculation led to Easter being observed on different Sundays, in certain years, in England, by the adherents of the two churches. Thus Bede records that in a certain year (which must have been 645, 647, 648 or 651) Queen Eanfleda, who had received her instruction from a Kentish priest of the Roman obedience, was fasting and keeping Palm Sunday, while her husband, Oswy, king of Northumbria, following the rule of the British church, was celebrating the Easter festival. This diversity of usage was ended, so far as the kingdom of Northumbria was concerned, by the council of Streaneshalch, or Whitby, in 654. To Archbishop Theodore is usually ascribed the credit of ending the difference in the rest of England in 669.

The Gregorian correction of the calendar in 1582 has once more led to different days being observed. So far as Western Christendom is concerned the corrected calendar is now universally accepted, and Easter is kept on the same day, but it was not until 1752 that the Gregorian reformation of the calendar was adopted in Great Britain and Ireland. Jealousy of everything emanating from Rome still keeps the Eastern churches from correcting the calendar according to the Gregorian reformation, and thus their Easter usually falls before, or after, that of the Western churches, and only very rarely, as was the case in 1865, do the two coincide.

Easter, as commemorating the central fact of the Christian religion, has always been regarded as the chief festival of the Christian year, and according to a regulation of Constantine it was to be the first day of the year. This reckoning of the year as the beginning of Easter lingered in France till 1565, when, by an ordinance of Charles IX., the 1st of January finally took its place.

Four different periods may be mentioned as connected with the observance of Easter, viz. (1) the preparatory fast of the forty days of Lent; (2) the fifteen days, beginning with the Sunday before and the Sunday after Easter, during which the ceremonies of Holy Week and the services of the Octave of Easter were observed; this period, called by the French the Quinzaine de Pâques, was specially observed in that country; (3) the Octave of Easter, during which the newly-baptized wore their white garments, which they laid aside on the Sunday after Easter, known as Dominica in albis depositis from this custom; another name for this Sunday was Pascha clausum, or the close of Easter, and from a clipping of the word "close" the English name of "Low" Sunday is believed to be derived; (4) Eastertide proper, or the paschal season beginning at Easter and lasting till Whit Sunday, during the whole of which time the festival character of the Easter season was maintained in the services of the church.

Many ecclesiastical ceremonies, growing up from early times, clustered round the celebration of the Easter festival. One of the most notable of these was the use of the paschal candle. This was a candle of very large dimensions, set in a candlestick big enough to hold it, which was usually placed on the north side, just below the first ascent to the high alter. It was kept alight during each service till Whitsuntide. The Paschal, as it was called at Durham cathedral, was one of the chief sights of that church before the Reformation. It was an elaborate construction of polished brass, and, contrary to the usual custom, seems to have been placed in the centre of the altar-step, long branches stretching out towards the four cardinal points, bearing smaller candles. The central stem of the candlestick was about 38 ft. high, and bore the paschal candle proper, and together they reached a combined height of about 70 ft., the candle being lighted from an opening above. Other paschal candles seem to have been of scarcely less size. At Lincoln, c. 1300, the candle was to weigh three stones of wax; at Salisbury in 1517 it was to be 36 ft. long; and at Whitsuntide what remained was made into smaller candles for the funerals of the poor. In the ancient churches at Rome the paschal candlesticks were fixtures, but elsewhere they were usually movable, and were brought into the church and set up on the Thursday before Easter. At Winchester the paschal candlestick was of silver, and was the gift of Canute. Others of more or less importance are recorded as having been at Canterbury, Bury St Edmunds, Hereford and York. The burning of the paschal candle still forms part of the Easter ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church (see Lights, Ceremonial).

The liturgical colour for Easter was everywhere white, as the sign of joy, light and purity, and the churches and altars were adorned with the best ornaments that each possessed. Flowers and shrubs no doubt in early times were also used for this purpose, but what evidence there is goes against the medieval use of such decorations, which are so popular at the present day.

It is not the purpose of this article to enter on the wide subject of the popular observances, such as the giving and sending of Pasch or Easter eggs as presents. For such the reader may consult Brand's Popular Antiquities, Hone's Every-Day Book, and Chambers's Book of Days.

Authorities. — Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church; Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England; Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer (London, 1901); Surtees Society, Rites of Durham, ed. J. T. Fowler (1903); De Morgan, Companion to the Almanac (1845); De Moleon, Voyages liturgiques (Paris, 1718).

(T.M.F.)