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Gloucester, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of

(Encyclopedia)Gloucester, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of, 1355–97, English nobleman; youngest son of Edward III. He was betrothed (1374) to Eleanor, heiress of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, and became earl o...

Warbeck, Perkin

(Encyclopedia)Warbeck, Perkin, 1474?–1499, pretender to the English throne, b. Tournai. He lived in Flanders and later in Portugal and arrived in Ireland in the employ of a silk merchant in 1491. There adherents ...

chapter house

(Encyclopedia)chapter house, a building in which the chapter of the clergy meets. Its plan varies, the simplest being a rectangle. At Worcester, England, the Norman builders created a circular chapter house (c.1100...

jongleurs

(Encyclopedia)jongleurs zhông-glörˈ [key], itinerant entertainers of the Middle Ages in France and Norman England. Their repertoire included dancing, conjuring, acrobatics, the feats of the modern juggler, singi...

Monreale

(Encyclopedia)Monreale mōnrāäˈlā [key], town (1991 pop. 26,256), NW Sicily, Italy, near Palermo. An agricultural market and tourist center, it commands a magnificent view of the fertile Conca d'Oro plain. A fa...

Paul, Wolfgang

(Encyclopedia)Paul, Wolfgang, 1913–93, German physicist, Ph.D. Technical Univ., Berlin, 1939. A professor at the Univ. of Bonn from 1952, Paul developed an ion-trap technique (known as the Paul trap), which made ...

Marie de France

(Encyclopedia)Marie de France də fräNs [key], fl. 1155–90, poet. Born in France, she spent her adult life in England in aristocratic circles and wrote in Anglo-Norman. She is best known for some dozen lais; sev...

Ashdown Forest

(Encyclopedia)Ashdown Forest, area of heathland and forest, c.10 sq mi (2,500 ha), East Sussex, SE England, famous as the setting for the Winnie the Pooh books by A. A. Milne. E. H. Shepard's evocative illustration...

Lancaster, city, England

(Encyclopedia)Lancaster lăngˈkəstər [key], city (1991 pop. 43,902) and district, county seat of Lancashire, NW England, on the Lune River. The city's products include furniture, textiles, synthetic fiber, farm ...

Purbeck, Isle of

(Encyclopedia)Purbeck, Isle of, peninsula, c.12 mi (20 km) long and c.8 mi (13 km) wide, Dorset, S England, between Poole Harbour and the English Channel. St. Albans Head is the most southerly point of the rocky sh...