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investiture

(Encyclopedia)investiture, in feudalism, ceremony by which an overlord transferred a fief to a vassal or by which, in ecclesiastical law, an elected cleric received the pastoral ring and staff (the symbols of spiri...

Piccolomini, Ottavio

(Encyclopedia)Piccolomini, Ottavio ōt-täˈvyō pēk-kōlôˈmēnē [key], 1599–1656, Italian general in the service of the Holy Roman emperor during the Thirty Years War (1618–48). He came of a distinguished ...

Sigismund

(Encyclopedia)Sigismund sĭjˈĭsmənd, sĭgˈ– [key], 1368–1437, Holy Roman emperor (1433–37), German king (1410–37), king of Hungary (1387–1437) and of Bohemia (1419–37), elector of Brandenburg (1376�...

Herzog, Roman

(Encyclopedia)Herzog, Roman, 1934–2017, German political leader and legal scholar. After receiving his doctorate in law from Ludwig Maximilian Univ., Munich (1958), he taught there, at the Free Univ. of Berlin (1...

Jakobson, Roman

(Encyclopedia)Jakobson, Roman rəmänˈ yäkˈôbsən [key], 1896–1982, Russian-American linguist and literary critic, b. Moscow. He coined the term structural linguistics and stressed that the aim of historical ...

nouveau roman

(Encyclopedia)nouveau roman or new novel: see French literature; Robbe-Grillet, Alain. ...

Roman art

(Encyclopedia)Roman art, works of art produced in ancient Rome and its far-flung provinces. The continued striving after three-dimensional illusionist effects revealed in the various phases of painting was dup...

Roman literature

(Encyclopedia)Roman literature: see Latin literature. ...

Roman Question

(Encyclopedia)Roman Question: see Lateran Treaty. ...

Roman roads

(Encyclopedia)Roman roads, ancient system of highways linking Rome with its provinces. Their primary purpose was military, but they also were of great commercial importance and brought the distant provinces in touc...