Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Belle-Isle, Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de

(Encyclopedia)Belle-Isle, Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de shärl lwē ōgüstˈ fo͞okāˈ dük də bĕl-ēlˈ [key], 1684–1761, marshal of France and diplomat; grandson of Nicolas Fouquet. His support of t...

Lotharingia

(Encyclopedia)Lotharingia lŏthərĭnˈjə [key], name given to the northern portion of the lands assigned (843) to Emperor of the West Lothair I in the first division of the Carolingian empire (see Verdun, Treaty ...

Utrecht, Peace of

(Encyclopedia)Utrecht, Peace of, series of treaties that concluded the War of the Spanish Succession. It put an end to French expansion and signaled the rise of the British Empire. By the treaty between England and...

Zrinyi

(Encyclopedia)Zrinyi zrĭnˈyē [key], noble Hungarian family of Croatian origin. Nicholas Zrinyi, 1508–66, distinguished himself in the defense of Vienna (1529) against Sultan Sulayman I, took part in the campai...

Sforza

(Encyclopedia)Sforza sfôrˈtsä [key], Italian family that ruled the duchy of Milan from 1450 to 1535. Rising from peasant origins, the Sforzas became condottieri and used this military position to become rulers i...

papacy

(Encyclopedia)CE5 papacy pāˈpəsē [key], office of the pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church. He is pope by reason of being bishop of Rome and thus, according to Roman Catholic belief, successor in the see ...

William III, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland

(Encyclopedia)William III, 1650–1702, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1689–1702); son of William II, prince of Orange, stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and of Mary, oldest daughte...

legate

(Encyclopedia)legate lĕgˈət [key] [Lat. legare=to send], one sent as a representative of a state or of some high authority. In Roman history a legate was sent by the senate to the provinces as an envoy of the em...

Ladislaus I, king of Hungary

(Encyclopedia)Ladislaus I or Saint Ladislaus lädˈĭslousˌ [key], 1040–95, king of Hungary (1077–95). He supported Pope Gregory VII against Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, but rejected Gregory's suggestion that ...

Enzio

(Encyclopedia)Enzio ānˈtsō [key], c.1220–72, king of Sardinia, illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. He married a Sardinian heiress and was made king of Sardinia by his father. In the wars betwe...