The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 112

CASTLEWOOD, the heroine in Thackeray's "Esmond."

CASTOR AND POLLUX, the Dioscuri, the twin sons of Zeus by Leda; great, the former in horsemans.h.i.+p, and the latter in boxing; famed for their mutual affection, so that when the former was slain the latter begged to be allowed to die with him, whereupon it was agreed they should spend a day in Hades time about; were raised eventually to become stars in the sky, the Gemini, twin signs in the zodiac, rising and setting together; this name is also given to the electric phenomenon called ST. ELMO'S FIRE (q. v.).

CASTREN, MATHIAS ALEXANDER, an eminent philologist, born in Finland, professor of the Finnish Language and Literature in Helsingfors; travelled all over Northern Europe and Asia, and left accounts of the races he visited and their languages; translated the "KALEVALA"

(q. v.) the epic of the Finns; died prematurely, worn out with his labours (1813-1852).

CASTRES (22), a town in the dep. of Tarn, 46 m. E. of Toulouse; was a Roman station, and one of the first places in France to embrace Calvinism.

CASTRO, GUILLEN DE, a Spanish dramatist, author of the play of "The Cid," which gained him European fame; he began life as a soldier, got acquainted with Lope de Vega, and took to dramatic composition (1569-1631).

CASTRO, INEZ DE, a royal heiress of the Spanish throne in the 14th century, the beloved wife of Don Pedro, heir of the Portuguese throne; put to death out of jealousy of Spain by the latter's father, but on his accession dug out of her grave, arrayed in her royal robes, and crowned along with him, after which she was entombed again, and a magnificent monument erected over her remains.

CASTRO, JUAN DE, a Portuguese soldier, born at Lisbon, distinguished for his exploits in behalf of Portugal; made viceroy of the Portuguese Indies, but died soon after in the arms of Francis Xavier (1500-1548).

CASTRO, VACA DE, a Spaniard, sent out by Charles V. as governor of Peru, but addressing himself to the welfare of the natives rather than the enrichment of Spain, was recalled, to pine and die in prison in 1558.

CASTROGIOVANNI (18), a town in a strong position in the heart of Sicily, 3270 ft. above the sea-level; at one time a centre of the wors.h.i.+p of Ceres, and with a temple to her.

CASTRUCCIO-CASTRACANI, Duke of Lucca, and chief of the Ghibelline party in that town, the greatest war-captain in Europe in his day; lord of hundreds of strongholds; wore on a high occasion across his breast a scroll, inscribed, "He is what G.o.d made him," and across his back another, inscribed, "He shall be what G.o.d will make"; _d_. 1328, "crushed before the moth."

CATACOMBS, originally underground quarries, afterwards used as burial-places for the dead, found beneath Paris and in the neighbourhood of Rome, as well as elsewhere; those around Rome, some 40 in number, are the most famous, as having been used by the early Christians, not merely for burial but for purposes of wors.h.i.+p, and are rich In monuments of art and memorials of history.

CATALANI, ANGELICA, a celebrated Italian singer and prima donna, born near Ancona; began her career in Rome with such success that it led to engagements over all the chief cities of Europe, the enthusiasm which followed her reaching its climax when she came to England, where, on her first visit, she stayed eight years; by the failure of an enterprise in Paris she lost her fortune, but soon repaired it by revisiting the capitals of Europe; died of cholera in Paris (1779-1840).

CATALONIA (1,900), old prov. of Spain, on the NE.; has a most fertile soil, which yields a luxuriant vegetation; chief seat of manufacture in the country, called hence the "Lancas.h.i.+re of Spain"; the people are specially distinguished from other Spaniards for their intelligence and energy.

CATAMAR'CA (ISO), NW. prov. of the Argentine Republic; rich in minerals, especially copper.

CATA'NIA (123), an ancient city at the foot of Etna, to the S., on a plain called the Granary of Sicily; has been several times devastated by the eruptions of Etna, particularly in 1169, 1669, and 1693; manufactures silk, linen, and articles of amber, &c., and exports sulphur, grain, and fruits.

CATANZA'RO (20), a city in Calabria, 6 m. from the Gulf of Squillace, with an old castle of Robert Guiscard.

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE, Kant's name for the self-derived moral law, "universal and binding on every rational will, a commandment of the autonomous, one and universal reason."

CATEGORIES are either cla.s.ses under which all our Notions of things may be grouped, or cla.s.ses under which all our Thoughts of things may be grouped; the former called Logical, we owe to Aristotle, and the latter called Metaphysical, we owe to Kant. The Logical, so derived, that group our notions, are ten in number: Substance or Being, Quant.i.ty, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Position, Possession, Action, Pa.s.sion. The Metaphysical, so derived, that group our thoughts, are twelve in number: (1) as regards _quant.i.ty_, Totality, Plurality, Unity; (2) as regards _quality_, Reality, Negation, Limitation; (3) as regards _relation_, Substance, Accident, Cause and Effect, Action and Reaction; (4) as regards _modality_, Possibility and Impossibility, Existence and Nonexistence, Necessity and Contingency. John Stuart Mill resolves the categories into five, Existence, Co-existence, Succession, Causation, and Resemblance.

CATESBY, MARK, an English naturalist and traveller, wrote a natural history of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahamas (1680-1750).

CATESBY, ROBERT, born in Northamptons.h.i.+re, a Catholic of good birth; concerned in the famous Gunpowder Plot; shot dead three days after its discovery by officers sent to arrest him (1573-1605).

CATH'ARI, OR CATHARISTS, i. e. purists or puritans, a sect of presumably Gnostic derivation, scattered here and there under different names over the S. and W. of Europe during the Middle Ages, who held the Manichaean doctrine of the radically sinful nature of the flesh, and the necessity of mortifying all its desires and affections to attain purity of soul.

CATHARINE, ST., OF ALEXANDRIA, a virgin who, in 307, suffered martyrdom after torture on the wheel, which has since borne her name; is represented in art as in a vision presented to Christ by His Mother as her sole husband, who gives her a ring. Festival, Nov. 25.

CATHARINE I., wife of Peter the Great and empress of Russia, daughter of a Livonian peasant; "a little stumpy body, very brown,...

strangely chased about from the bottom to the top of the world,... had once been a kitchen wench"; married first to a Swedish dragoon, became afterwards the mistress of Prince Menschikoff, and then of Peter the Great, who eventually married her; succeeded him as empress, with Menschikoff as minister; for a time ruled well, but in the end gave herself up to dissipation, and died (1682-1727).

CATHARINE II. THE GREAT, empress of Russia, born at Stettin, daughter of Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst; "a most-clever, clear-eyed, stout-hearted woman"; became the wife of Peter III., a scandalous mortal, who was dethroned and then murdered, leaving her empress; ruled well for the country, and though her character was immoral and her reign despotic and often cruel, her efforts at reform, the patronage she accorded to literature, science, and philosophy, and her diplomatic successes, ent.i.tle her to a high rank among the sovereigns of Russia; she reigned from 1763 to 1796, and it was during the course of her reign, and under the sanction of it, that Europe witnessed the three part.i.tions of Poland (1729-1796).

CATHARINE DE' MEDICI, daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, wife of Henry II. of France, and mother of his three successors; on the accession of her second son, Charles IX.--for the reign of her first, Francis II., was very brief--acted as regent during his minority; joined heart and soul with the Catholics in persecuting the Huguenots, and persuaded her son to issue the order which resulted in the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew; on his death, which occurred soon after, she acted as regent during the minority of her third son, Henry III., and lived to see both herself and him detested by the whole French people, and this although she was during her ascendency the patroness of the arts and of literature (1519-1589).

CATHARINE OF ARAGON, fourth daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and wife of Henry VIII., her brother-in-law as widow of Arthur, from whom, and at whose instance, after 18 years of married life, and after giving birth to five children, she was divorced on the plea that, as she had been his brother's wife before, it was not lawful for him to have her; after her divorce she remained in the country, led an austere religious life, and died broken-hearted. The refusal of the Pope to sanction this divorce led to the final rupture of the English Church from the Church of Rome, and the emanc.i.p.ation of the nation from priestly tyranny (1483-1536).

CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA, the wife of Charles II. of England, of the royal house of Portugal; was unpopular in the country as a Catholic and neglected by her husband, on whose death, however, she returned to Portugal, and did the duties ably of regent for her brother Don Pedro (1638-1705).

CATHARINE OF SIENNA, born at Sienna, a sister of the Order of St.

Dominic, and patron saint of the Order; celebrated for her ecstasies and visions, and the marks which by favour of Christ she bore on her body of His sufferings on the Cross (1347-1380). Festival, April 30. Besides her, are other saints of the same name.

CATHARINE OF VALOIS, daughter of Charles VI. of France, and wife of Henry V. of England, who, on his marriage to her, was declared heir to the throne of France, with the result that their son was afterwards, while but an infant, crowned king of both countries; becoming a widow, she married Owen Tudor, a Welsh gentleman, whereby a grandson of his succeeded to the English throne as Henry VII., and the first of the Tudors (1401-1438).

CATHARINE PARR, the sixth wife of Henry VIII. and the daughter of a Westmoreland knight; was of the Protestant faith and obnoxious to the Catholic faction, who trumped up a charge against her of heresy and treason, from which, however, she cleared herself to the satisfaction of the king, over whom she retained her ascendency till his death; _d_.

1548.

CATHARINE THEOT, a religious fanatic, born in Avranches; gave herself out as the Mother of G.o.d; appeared in Paris in 1794, and declared Robespierre a second John the Baptist and forerunner of the Word; the Committee of Public Safety had her arrested and guillotined.

CATHAY, the name given to China by mediaeval writers, which it still bears in Central Asia.