Chivalry
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal, varying code of conduct developed between 1170 and 1220, but never decided on or summarized in a single document. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; the ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature the Matter of Britain and Matter of France, the former based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written in the 1130s, which introduced the legend of King Arthur. All of these were taken as accurate until the beginnings of modern scholarship in the 19th century; the code of chivalry that developed in medieval Europe had its roots in earlier centuries. It arose in the Holy Roman Empire from the idealisation of the cavalryman—involving military bravery, individual training, service to others—especially in Francia, among horse soldiers in Charlemagne's cavalry; the term "chivalry" derives from the Old French term chevalerie, which can be translated as "horse soldiery". The term referred only to horse-mounted men, from the French word for horse, but it became associated with knightly ideals.
Over time, its meaning in Europe has been refined to emphasise more general social and moral virtues. The code of chivalry, as it stood by the Late Middle Ages, was a moral system which combined a warrior ethos, knightly piety, courtly manners, all combining to establish a notion of honour and nobility. In origin, the term chivalry means "horsemanship", formed in Old French, in the 11th century, from chevalier, from Medieval Latin caballārius; the French word chevalier meant "a man of aristocratic standing, of noble ancestry, capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of heavy cavalryman and, through certain rituals that make him what he is". In English, the term appears from 1292; the meaning of the term evolved over time because in the Middle Ages the meaning of chevalier changed from the original concrete military meaning "status or fee associated with a military follower owning a war horse" or "a group of mounted knights" to the ideal of the Christian warrior ethos propagated in the romance genre, becoming popular during the 12th century, the ideal of courtly love propagated in the contemporary Minnesang and related genres.
The ideas of chivalry are summarized in three medieval works: the anonymous poem Ordene de Chevalerie, which tells the story of how Hugh II of Tiberias was captured and released upon his agreement to show Saladin the ritual of Christian knighthood. None of the authors of these three texts knew the other two texts, the three combine to depict a general concept of chivalry, not in harmony with any of them. To different degrees and with different details, they speak of chivalry as a way of life in which the military, the nobility, religion combine; the "code of chivalry" is thus a product of the Late Middle Ages, evolving after the end of the crusades from an idealization of the historical knights fighting in the Holy Land and from ideals of courtly love. Gautier's Ten Commandments of chivalry, set out in the 19th century, hundreds of years after the time of medieval chivalry, are: Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and thou shalt observe all its directions. Thou shalt defend the Church.
Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, shalt constitute thyself the defender of them. Thou shalt love the country. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without mercy. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties. Thou shalt never lie, shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word. Thou shalt be generous, give largesse to everyone. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil. There is no reference to women, quests, or travel; this list would serve a soldier, or a clergyman. This "code" was created by Léon Gautier, a literary scholar, in 1883. No medieval knight came close to carrying out all of these "commandments" all of the time. Literary knights, being fictitious, did better, but not every "commandment" was followed or considered by every knight. Chivalry is to some extent a subjective term. Fans of chivalry have assumed since the late medieval period that there was a time in the past when chivalry was a living institution, when men acted chivalrically, when chivalry was alive and not dead, the imitation of which period would much improve the present.
This is the mad mission of Don Quixote, protagonist of the most chivalric novel of all time and inspirer of the chivalry of Sir Walter Scott and of the U. S. South:: to restore the age of chivalry, thereby improve his country, it is a version of the myth of the Golden Age. With the birth of modern historical and literary research, scholars have found that however far back in time "The Age of Chivalry" is searched for, it is always further in the past back to the Roman Empire. From Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi: We must not confound chivalry with the feudal system; the feudal system may be called the real life of the period of which we are treating, possessing its advantages and inconveniences, its virtues and its vice
Biblioteca Nacional de España
The Biblioteca Nacional de España is a major public library, the largest in Spain, one of the largest in the world. It is located on the Paseo de Recoletos; the library was founded by King Philip V in 1712 as the Palace Public Library. The Royal Letters Patent that he granted, the predecessor of the current legal deposit requirement, made it mandatory for printers to submit a copy of every book printed in Spain to the library. In 1836, the library's status as Crown property was revoked and ownership was transferred to the Ministry of Governance. At the same time, it was renamed the Biblioteca Nacional. During the 19th century, confiscations and donations enabled the Biblioteca Nacional to acquire the majority of the antique and valuable books that it holds. In 1892 the building was used to host the Historical American Exposition. On March 16, 1896, the Biblioteca Nacional opened to the public in the same building in which it is housed and included a vast Reading Room on the main floor designed to hold 320 readers.
In 1931 the Reading Room was reorganised, providing it with a major collection of reference works, the General Reading Room was created to cater for students and general readers. During the Spanish Civil War close to 500,000 volumes were collected by the Confiscation Committee and stored in the Biblioteca Nacional to safeguard works of art and books held until in religious establishments and private houses. During the 20th century numerous modifications were made to the building to adapt its rooms and repositories to its expanding collections, to the growing volume of material received following the modification to the Legal Deposit requirement in 1958, to the numerous works purchased by the library. Among this building work, some of the most noteworthy changes were the alterations made in 1955 to triple the capacity of the library's repositories, those started in 1986 and completed in 2000, which led to the creation of the new building in Alcalá de Henares and complete remodelling of the building on Paseo de Recoletos, Madrid.
In 1986, when Spain's main bibliographic institutions - the National Newspaper Library, the Spanish Bibliographic Institute and the Centre for Documentary and Bibliographic Treasures - were incorporated into the Biblioteca Nacional, the library was established as the State Repository of Spain's Cultural Memory, making all of Spain's bibliographic output on any media available to the Spanish Library System and national and international researchers and cultural and educational institutions. In 1990 it was made an Autonomous Entity attached to the Ministry of Culture; the Madrid premises are shared with the National Archaeological Museum. The Biblioteca Nacional is Spain's highest library institution and is head of the Spanish Library System; as the country's national library, it is the centre responsible for identifying, preserving and disseminating information about Spain's documentary heritage, it aspires to be an essential point of reference for research into Spanish culture. In accordance with its Articles of Association, passed by Royal Decree 1581/1991 of October 31, 1991, its principal functions are to: Compile and conserve bibliographic archives produced in any language of the Spanish state, or any other language, for the purposes of research and information.
Promote research through the study and reproduction of its bibliographic archive. Disseminate information on Spain's bibliographic output based on the entries received through the legal deposit requirement; the library's collection consists of more than 26,000,000 items, including 15,000,000 books and other printed materials, 4,500,000 graphic materials, 600,000 sound recordings, 510,000 music scores, more than 500,000 microforms, 500,000 maps, 143,000 newspapers and serials, 90,000 audiovisuals, 90,000 electronic documents, 30,000 manuscripts. The current director of the Biblioteca Nacional is Ana Santos Aramburo, appointed in 2013. Former directors include her predecessors Glòria Pérez-Salmerón and Milagros del Corral as well as historian Juan Pablo Fusi and author Rosa Regàs. Given its role as the legal deposit for the whole of Spain, since 1991 it has kept most of the overflowing collection at a secondary site in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid; the Biblioteca Nacional provides access to its collections through the following library services: Guidance and general information on the institution and other libraries.
Bibliographic information about its collection and those held by other libraries or library systems. Access to its automated catalogue, which contains close to 3,000,000 bibliographic records encompassing all of its collections. Archive consultation in the library's reading rooms. Interlibrary loans. Archive reproduction. Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, digital library launched in 2008 by the Biblioteca Nacional de España List of libraries in Spain Media related to Biblioteca Nacional de España at Wikimedia Commons Official site Official web catalog
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city located in the central West Bank, about 10 km south of Jerusalem. Its population is 25,000 people, it is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. The economy is tourist-driven; the earliest known mention of the city was in the Amarna correspondence of 1350–1330 BCE during its habitation by the Canaanites. The Hebrew Bible, which says that the city of Bethlehem was built up as a fortified city by Rehoboam, identifies it as the city David was from and where he was crowned as the king of Israel; the Gospels of Matthew and Luke identify Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. Bethlehem was destroyed by the Emperor Hadrian during the second-century Bar Kokhba revolt; the church was badly damaged by the Samaritans, who sacked it during a revolt in 529, but was rebuilt a century by Emperor Justinian I. Bethlehem became part of Jund Filastin following the Muslim conquest in 637. Muslim rule continued in Bethlehem until its conquest in 1099 by a crusading army, who replaced the town's Greek Orthodox clergy with a Latin one.
In the mid-13th century, the Mamluks demolished the city's walls, which were subsequently rebuilt under the Ottomans in the early 16th century. Control of Bethlehem passed from the Ottomans to the British at the end of World War I. Bethlehem came under Jordanian rule during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since the 1995 Oslo Accords, Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority. Bethlehem now has a Muslim majority, but is still home to a significant Palestinian Christian community. Bethlehem's chief economic sector is tourism, which peaks during the Christmas season when Christians make pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity, as they have done for 2,000 years. Bethlehem has 300 handicraft workshops. Rachel's Tomb, an important Jewish holy site, is located at the northern entrance of Bethlehem; the earliest reference to Bethlehem appears in the Amarna correspondence. In one of his six letters to Pharaoh, Abdi-Heba, Egypt's governor for Jerusalem, appeals for aid in retaking Bit-Laḫmi in the wake of disturbances by Apiru mercenaries: "Now a town near Jerusalem, Bit-Lahmi by name, a village which once belonged to the king, has fallen to the enemy...
Let the king hear the words of your servant Abdi-Heba, send archers to restore the imperial lands of the king!" It is thought that the similarity of this name to its modern forms indicates that this was a settlement of Canaanites who shared a Semitic cultural and linguistic heritage with the arrivals. Laḫmu was the Akkadian god of fertility, worshipped by the Canaanites as Leḥem; some time in the third millennium BCE, Canaanites erected a temple on the hill now known as the Hill of the Nativity dedicated to Lehem. The temple, subsequently the town that formed around it, would have been known as Beyt Leḥem, "House of Lehem"; the Philistines established a garrison there. Biblical scholar William F. Albright noted that the pronunciation of the name remained the same for 3,500 years, but has meant different things: "'Temple of the God Lakhmu' in Canaanite,'House of Bread' in Hebrew and Aramaic,'House of Meat' in Arabic."A burial ground discovered in spring 2013, surveyed in 2015 by a joint Italian-Palestinian team found that the necropolis covered 3 hectares and contained more than 100 tombs in use between 2200 B.
C. and 650 B. C; the archaeologists were able to identify at least 30 tombs. Archaeological confirmation of Bethlehem as a city in the Kingdom of Judah was uncovered in 2012 at the archaeological dig at the City of David in the form of a bulla in ancient Hebrew script that reads "From the town of Bethlehem to the King," indicating that it was used to seal the string closing a shipment of grain, wine, or other goods sent as a tax payment in the 8th or 7th century BCE. Biblical scholars believe Bethlehem, located in the "hill country" of Judah, may be the same as the Biblical Ephrath, which means "fertile", as there is a reference to it in the Book of Micah as Bethlehem Ephratah; the Bible calls it Beth-Lehem Judah, the New Testament describes it as the "City of David". It is first mentioned in the Tanakh and the Bible as the place where the matriarch Rachel died and was buried "by the wayside". Rachel's Tomb, the traditional grave site, stands at the entrance to Bethlehem. According to the Book of Ruth, the valley to the east is where Ruth of Moab gleaned the fields and returned to town with Naomi.
It was the home of Jesse, father of King David of Israel, the site of David's anointment by the prophet Samuel. It was from the well of Bethlehem that three of his warriors brought him water when he was hiding in the cave of Adullam. Writing in the 4th century, the Pilgrim of Bordeaux reported that the sepulchers of David, Asaph, Job and Solomon were located near Bethlehem. There has been no corroboration of this; the Gospel of Matthew 1:18–2:23 and the Gospel of Luke 2:1–39 represent Jesus as having been born in Bethlehem. Modern scholars, regard the two accounts as contradictory and the Gospel of Mark, the earliest gospel, mentions nothing about Jesus having been born in Bethlehem, saying only that he came from Nazaret
Arabic literature
Arabic literature is the writing, both prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is "Adab", derived from a meaning of etiquette, which implies politeness and enrichment. Arabic literature emerged in the 5th century with only fragments of the written language appearing before then; the Qur'an regarded by people as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language, would have the greatest lasting effect on Arabic culture and its literature. Arabic literature flourished during the Islamic Golden Age, but has remained vibrant to the present day, with poets and prose-writers across the Arab world, as well as rest of the world, achieving increasing success; the Qur'an had a significant influence on the Arab language. The language used in it is called classical Arabic, while modern Arabic is similar, the classical has social prestige. Not only is the Qur'an the first work of any significant length written in the language it has a far more complicated structure than the earlier literary works with its 114 suras which contain 6,236 ayat.
It contains injunctions, homilies, direct addresses from God and comments on itself on how it will be received and understood. It is paradoxically, admired for its layers of metaphor as well as its clarity, a feature it mentions itself in sura 16:103; the word Qur'an means'recite', in early times the text was transmitted orally. The first attempt at an authentic written version was during the reign of the third'Rightly Guided Caliph', Uthman. Although it contains elements of both prose and poetry, therefore is closest to Saj or rhymed prose, the Qur'an is regarded as apart from these classifications; the text is believed to be divine revelation and is seen by Muslims as being eternal or'uncreated'. This leads to the doctrine of i'jaz or inimitability of the Qur'an which implies that nobody can copy the work's style. Say, Bring you ten chapters like unto it, call whomsoever you can, other than God, if you speak the truth! This doctrine of i'jaz had a slight limiting effect on Arabic literature.
Whilst Islam allows Muslims to write and recite poetry, the Qur'an states in the 26th sura that poetry, blasphemous, praiseworthy of sinful acts or attempts to challenge the Qu'ran's content and form is forbidden for Muslims. And as to the poets, those who go astray follow them Do you not see that they wander about bewildered in every valley? And that they say that which they do not do Except those who believe and do good works and remember Allah much and defend themselves after they are oppressed; this may have exerted dominance over the pre-Islamic poets of the 6th century whose popularity may have vied with the Qur'an amongst the people. There were a marked lack of significant poets until the 8th century. One notable exception was Hassan ibn Thabit who wrote poems in praise of Muhammad and was known as the "prophet's poet". Just as the Bible has held an important place in the literature of other languages, The Qur'an is important to Arabic, it is the source of many ideas and quotes and its moral message informs many works.
Aside from the Qur'an the hadith or tradition of what Muhammed is supposed to have said and done are important literature. The entire body of these acts and words are called sunnah or way and the ones regarded as sahih or genuine of them are collected into hadith; some of the most significant collections of hadith include those by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj and Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari. The other important genre of work in Qur'anic study is the tafsir or commentaries Arab writings relating to religion includes many sermons and devotional pieces as well as the sayings of Ali which were collected in the 10th century as Nahj al-Balaghah or The Peak of Eloquence; the research into the life and times of Muhammad, determining the genuine parts of the sunnah, was an important early reason for scholarship in or about the Arabic language. It was the reason for the collecting of pre-Islamic poetry. Muhammad inspired the first Arabic biographies, known as al-sirah al-nabawiyyah. Whilst covering the life of the prophet they told of the battles and events of early Islam and have numerous digressions on older biblical traditions.
Some of the earliest work studying the Arabic language was started in the name of Islam. Tradition has it that the caliph Ali, after reading a copy of Qur'an with errors in it, asked Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali to write a work codifying Arabic grammar. Khalil ibn Ahmad would write Kitab al-Ayn, the first dictionary of Arabic, along with works on prosody and music, his pupil Sibawayh would produce the most respected work of Arabic grammar known as al-Kitab or The Book. Other caliphs exerted their influence on Arabic with'Abd al-Malik making it the official language for administration of the new empire, al-Ma'mun setting up the Bayt al-Hikma or House of Wisdom in Baghdad for research and translations. Basrah and Kufah were two other important seats of learning in the early Arab world, between which there was a strong rivalry; the institutions set up to investigate more the Islamic religion were invaluable in studying many other subjects. Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik was ins
English literature
See also: British literature This article is focused on English-language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, the Crown dependencies, the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from countries of the former British Empire, including the United States. However, until the early 19th century, it only deals with the literature of the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies and Ireland, it does not include literature written in the other languages of Britain. The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years; the earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible as well as the Great Vowel Shift.
Through the influence of the British Empire, the English language has spread around the world since the 17th century. Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England c. 450, after the withdrawal of the Romans, "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, sermons, Bible translations, legal works and riddles. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period. Widsith, which appears in the Exeter Book of the late 10th century, gives a list of kings of tribes ordered according to their popularity and impact on history, with Attila King of the Huns coming first, followed by Eormanric of the Ostrogoths, it may be the oldest extant work that tells the Battle of the Goths and Huns, told in such Scandinavian works as Hervarar's saga and Gesta Danorum. Lotte Hedeager argues that the work is far older and that it dates back to the late 6th or early 7th century, citing the author's knowledge of historical details and accuracy as proof of its authenticity.
She does note, that some authors, such as John Niles, have argued the work was invented in the 10th century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, from the 9th century, that chronicle is the history of the Anglo-Saxons; the poem Battle of Maldon deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion. Oral tradition was strong in early English culture and most literary works were written to be performed. Epic poems were popular, some, including Beowulf, have survived to the present day. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia; the only surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex, the precise date of, debated, but most estimates place it close to the year 1000. Beowulf is the conventional title, its composition is dated between the 8th and the early 11th century. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous: twelve are known by name from medieval sources, but only four of those are known by their vernacular works with any certainty: Cædmon, Alfred the Great, Cynewulf.
Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known, his only known surviving work Cædmon's Hymn dates from the late 7th century. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry, it is one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The poem, The Dream of the Rood, was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross. Two Old English poems from the late 10th century are The Seafarer. Both have a religious theme, Richard Marsden describes The Seafarer as "an exhortatory and didactic poem, in which the miseries of winter seafaring are used as a metaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian ". Classical antiquity was not forgotten in Anglo-Saxon England, several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts; the longest is King Alfred's 9th-century translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.
After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts and polite society; as the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives, the Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman. From until the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. Political power was no longer in English hands, so that the West Saxon literary language had no more influence than any other dialect and Middle English literature was written in the many dialects that corresponded to the region, history and background of individual writers. In this period religious literature continued to enjoy popularity and Hagiographies were written and translated: for example, The Life of Saint Audrey, Eadmer's. At the end of the 12th century, Layamon in Brut adapted the Norman-French of Wace to produce the first English-language work to present the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
It was the first historiography written in English since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Middle English Bible translations, notably Wycliffe's Bible, helped to establish English as
Public domain
The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable; the works of William Shakespeare and Beethoven, most early silent films, are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by copyright, are therefore in the public domain—among them the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes, all computer software created prior to 1974. Other works are dedicated by their authors to the public domain; the term public domain is not applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as "under license" or "with permission". As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another; some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public-domain status for a work in that country.
The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". Although the term "domain" did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the concept "can be traced back to the ancient Roman Law, as a preset system included in the property right system." The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be owned" as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as things not yet appropriated; the term res communes was defined as "things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air and ocean." The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, the term res universitatis meant things that were owned by the municipalities of Rome. When looking at it from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res communes, res publicae, res universitatis in early Roman law.
When the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by French jurists in the 18th century. Instead of "public domain", they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law; the phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-19th century France to describe the end of copyright term. The French poet Alfred de Vigny equated the expiration of copyright with a work falling "into the sink hole of public domain" and if the public domain receives any attention from intellectual property lawyers it is still treated as little more than that, left when intellectual property rights, such as copyright and trademarks, expire or are abandoned. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a, "little coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain." Copyright law differs by country, the American legal scholar Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being "different sizes at different times in different countries".
Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more regard the public domain as a negative space. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions; such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair-use rights and limitation on ownership. A conceptual definition comes from Lange, who focused on what the public domain should be: "it should be a place of sanctuary for individual creative expression, a sanctuary conferring affirmative protection against the forces of private appropriation that threatened such expression". Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "here are certain materials – the air we breathe, rain, life, thoughts, ideas, numbers – not subject to private ownership.
The materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival." The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". A public-domain book is a book with no copyright, a book, created without a license, or a book where its copyrights expired or have been forfeited. In most countries the term of protection of copyright lasts until January first, 70 years after the death of the latest living author; the longest copyright term is in Mexico, which has life plus 100 years for all deaths since July 1928. A notable exception is the United States, where every book and tale published prior to 1924 is in the public domain.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition
The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication; some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time. This edition of the encyclopedia, containing 40,000 entries, is now in the public domain, many of its articles have been used as a basis for articles in Wikipedia. However, the outdated nature of some of its content makes its use as a source for modern scholarship problematic; some articles have special value and interest to modern scholars as cultural artifacts of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The 1911 eleventh edition was assembled with the management of American publisher Horace Everett Hooper. Hugh Chisholm, who had edited the previous edition, was appointed editor in chief, with Walter Alison Phillips as his principal assistant editor. Hooper bought the rights to the 25-volume 9th edition and persuaded the British newspaper The Times to issue its reprint, with eleven additional volumes as the tenth edition, published in 1902.
Hooper's association with The Times ceased in 1909, he negotiated with the Cambridge University Press to publish the 29-volume eleventh edition. Though it is perceived as a quintessentially British work, the eleventh edition had substantial American influences, not only in the increased amount of American and Canadian content, but in the efforts made to make it more popular. American marketing methods assisted sales; some 14% of the contributors were from North America, a New York office was established to coordinate their work. The initials of the encyclopedia's contributors appear at the end of selected articles or at the end of a section in the case of longer articles, such as that on China, a key is given in each volume to these initials; some articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time, such as Edmund Gosse, J. B. Bury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Muir, Peter Kropotkin, T. H. Huxley, James Hopwood Jeans and William Michael Rossetti. Among the lesser-known contributors were some who would become distinguished, such as Ernest Rutherford and Bertrand Russell.
Many articles were carried over from some with minimal updating. Some of the book-length articles were divided into smaller parts for easier reference, yet others much abridged; the best-known authors contributed only a single article or part of an article. Most of the work was done by British Museum scholars and other scholars; the 1911 edition was the first edition of the encyclopædia to include more than just a handful of female contributors, with 34 women contributing articles to the edition. The eleventh edition introduced a number of changes of the format of the Britannica, it was the first to be published complete, instead of the previous method of volumes being released as they were ready. The print type was subject to continual updating until publication, it was the first edition of Britannica to be issued with a comprehensive index volume in, added a categorical index, where like topics were listed. It was the first not to include long treatise-length articles. Though the overall length of the work was about the same as that of its predecessor, the number of articles had increased from 17,000 to 40,000.
It was the first edition of Britannica to include biographies of living people. Sixteen maps of the famous 9th edition of Stielers Handatlas were translated to English, converted to Imperial units, printed in Gotha, Germany by Justus Perthes and became part this edition. Editions only included Perthes' great maps as low quality reproductions. According to Coleman and Simmons, the content of the encyclopedia was distributed as follows: Hooper sold the rights to Sears Roebuck of Chicago in 1920, completing the Britannica's transition to becoming a American publication. In 1922, an additional three volumes, were published, covering the events of the intervening years, including World War I. These, together with a reprint of the eleventh edition, formed the twelfth edition of the work. A similar thirteenth edition, consisting of three volumes plus a reprint of the twelfth edition, was published in 1926, so the twelfth and thirteenth editions were related to the eleventh edition and shared much of the same content.
However, it became apparent that a more thorough update of the work was required. The fourteenth edition, published in 1929, was revised, with much text eliminated or abridged to make room for new topics; the eleventh edition was the basis of every version of the Encyclopædia Britannica until the new fifteenth edition was published in 1974, using modern information presentation. The eleventh edition's articles are still of value and interest to modern readers and scholars as a cultural artifact: the British Empire was at its maximum, imperialism was unchallenged, much of the world was still ruled by monarchs, the tragedy of the modern world wars was still in the future, they are an invaluable resource for topics omitted from modern encyclopedias for biography and the history of science and technology. As a literary text, the encyclopedia has value as an example of early 20th-century prose. For example, it employs literary devices, such as pathetic fallacy, which are not as common in modern reference texts.
In 1917, using the pseudonym of S. S. Van Dine, the US art critic and author Willard Huntington Wright published Misinforming a Nation, a 200+
Baynes, T.S., ed. (1878), , Encyclopædia Britannica, 2 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 100
Baynes, T.S., ed. (1878), 
