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Glastonbury, town, England

(Encyclopedia)Glastonbury glăsˈtənbərē [key], town, Somerset, SW England. It has a leather industry, but ...

George, Saint

(Encyclopedia)George, Saint, 4th cent.?, perhaps a soldier in the imperial army who died for the faith in Asia Minor. His life is cloaked in legends; Gibbon's identification of him with George of Cappadocia is fals...

Nicholas, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Nicholas, Saint, patron of children and sailors, of Greece, Sicily, and Russia, and of many other places and persons. Little is known of him, but he is traditionally identified as a 4th-century bishop...

Artois

(Encyclopedia)Artois ärtwäˈ [key], region and former province, in Pas-de-Calais dept., N France, near the English Channel, between Picardy and Flanders. Arras is the chief city. Largely agricultural, it contains...

Lydgate, John

(Encyclopedia)Lydgate, John lĭdˈgāt [key], c.1370–c.1450, English poet, a monk of Bury St. Edmunds. A professed disciple of Chaucer, he was one of the most influential, voluminous, and versatile writers of the...

minstrel

(Encyclopedia)minstrel, professional secular musician of the Middle Ages. The modern application of the term is general and includes the jongleurs. Certain very able jongleurs ceased their wanderings and were attac...

romance

(Encyclopedia)romance [O.Fr.,=something written in the popular language, i.e., a Romance language]. The roman of the Middle Ages was a form of chivalric and romantic literature widely diffused throughout Europe fro...

Braşov

(Encyclopedia)Braşov bräshôvˈ [key], Hung. Brassó, Ger. Kronstadt, city, central Romania, in Trans...

Toulon

(Encyclopedia)Toulon to͞olôNˈ [key], city (1990 pop. 170,167), Var dept., SE France, in Provence, on the Mediterranean Sea. An important commercial port and industrial center, Toulon is France's principal naval ...

blazonry

(Encyclopedia)blazonry blāˈzənrē [key], science of describing or depicting armorial bearings. The introduction, since the Middle Ages, of artificial rules and fanciful medieval terms has complicated the science...