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The History Channel - Encyclopedia Category: History and Culture > History Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK Words: 25833

mask
Artificial covering for part or all of the face, or for the whole head, associated with ritual or theatrical performances in many cultures. Theatrical traditions using masks include ancient Greek...

Maso di Banco
(lived late 14th century) Italian painter. He was one of the principal followers of Giotto, mainly known by his frescoes of The Life of St Sylvester in the Bardi Chapel of Sta Croce, Florence. ...

Masolino
(c. 1383-c. 1447) Italian painter. He worked with Masaccio on the fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, 1425-28. Though he shared Masaccio's enthusiasm for the newly discovered...

Mason-Dixon Line
In the USA, the boundary line between Maryland and Pennsylvania (latitude 39° 43' 26.3'' N), named after Charles Mason (1730-1787) and Jeremiah Dixon (died 1777), English astronomers and surveyors...

Mason, A(lfred) E(dward) W(oodley)
(1865-1948) English novelist. He is best known for a tale of cowardice redeemed in the Sudan, The Four Feathers (1902) (filmed 1939); historical novels such as Fire Over England (1936); and a series featuring...

Mason, George
(1725-1792) US public official. He wrote Virginia's first constitution and declaration of rights in 1776, which were later used as models for both the Declaration of Independence...

Mason, James Murray
(1798-1871) US political leader, born at Georgetown, DC. He was a member of the National House of Representatives 1837-39, and of the US Senate from 1847-61, when he resigned with other Southern senators....

Mason, John
(c. 1600-c. 1672) English-born US soldier and public official. He emigrated to Massachusetts from England c. 1633. Commanding militia, Mason broke the power of the Pequot Indian tribe in 1637 with an attack on an...

Mason, Ronald Alison Kells
(1905-1971) New Zealand poet and dramatist. Classical studies influenced his characteristic stripped language, tense rhythms, and strict verse forms. These features, in combination with a sombre, sometimes...

Mason, Stevens Thomson
(1811-1843) US politician. At the age of 19, he took over from his father as secretary of the Michigan Territory (1831-36). He led the territory's statehood movement, winning the Upper Peninsula in a boundary...

Mason, Stevens Thomson
(1760-1803) US politician. He served as an aide to George Washington. A Democrat-Republican serving Viriginia, he was elected to the US Senate (1794-1803). He won fame for publicizing...

Mason, William
(c. 1724-1797) English poet. He was a profound admirer of the poet Thomas Gray, who praised his classical tragedy Caractacus 1759, but also pointed out his plagiarisms and his grammatical and other blunders. Mason...

masonry
The craft of constructing stonework walls. The various styles of masonry include random rubblework, irregular stones arranged according to fit;coursed rubblework, irregular stones placed in broad...

Maspero, Gaston Camille Charles
(1846-1916) French Egyptologist. He discovered many royal sarcophagi at Deir el-Bahri and made further discoveries in clearing the temple of Karnak. His most notable publication is Histoire ancienne des...

masque
Spectacular court entertainment with a fantastic or mythological theme in which music, dance, and extravagant costumes and scenic design figured larger than plot. Originating in Italy, where members...

masquerade
Festive gathering in which all the participants assume some form of disguise. In Italy it developed into an organized entertainment based on a theme and elaborated by explanatory songs....

Mass
In Christianity, the celebration of the Eucharist. ...

mass culture
Culture associated with products that are mass-produced to meet popular demand. Traditionally mass or popular culture has been deemed inferior to high culture but since the 1960s there has been a...

Mass of Bolsena, The
Fresco by the Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio (1512-14) in the Stanza d'Eliodoro of the Vatican, Rome. It is widely considered one of his greatest works. Commemorating the pontificate of Julius...

Massacre at Khíos, The
Painting by the French Romantic artist Eugèe Delacroix 1824. The scene shows Greek families `awaiting death or slavery` at the hands of Turks in 1822 during the Greek War of Independence. A...

Massasoit
(c. 1590-1661) American Indian chief of the Wampanoag, a people inhabiting the coasts of Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod. He formed alliances with Plymouth Colony 1621 and Massachusetts Bay Colony 1638. After his...

Masséna, André
(1758-1817) Marshal of France. He served in the French Revolutionary Wars and under the emperor Napoleon was created marshal in 1804, duke of Rivoli in 1808, and prince of Essling in 1809. He was in command in...

Masses, The
US left-wing magazine that published many prominent radical writers 1911-17, including John Reed and Max Eastman. It was superseded by The Liberator 1918-25 and then by New Masses, which...

Massey, (Charles) Vincent
(1887-1967) Canadian Liberal Party politician. He was the first Canadian to become governor general of Canada 1952-59. He helped to establish the Massey Foundation in 1918, which funded the building of Massey...

Massey, Anna
(1937) English character actor of the stage and screen. Massey broke into the film industry in the 1960s, featuring, in one of her best-known film roles, as the serial killer's inquisitive neighbour in...

Massey, Gerald
(1828-1907) English poet and mystic. His first book of verse was published 1848 and was followed by several others; a selection from these was published in My Lyrical Life 1889. Later he wrote and lectured on...

Massey, William Ferguson
(1856-1925) New Zealand right-of-centre politician, prime minister 1912-25. He concentrated initially on controlling militant unions and the newly formed Federation of Labour. He drew upon fellow farmers,...

Massilia
Ancient name for the port of Marseille in southern France. ...

Massillon, Jean-Baptiste
(1663-1742) French preacher. He was a popular preacher at the court of Versailles. His sermons are moralizing and philosophical rather than dogmatic. He became bishop of Clermont in 1717....

Massinger, Philip
(1583-1640) English dramatist. He was the author of A New Way to Pay Old Debts (c. 1625). He collaborated with John Fletcher and Thomas Dekker, and has been credited with a share in writing Shakespeare's Two...

Massingham, Harold John
(1888-1952) English journalist and nature writer. He wrote several studies of bird and animal life, folklore, and the English countryside. His works include Some Birds of the Countryside (1921), Untrodden Ways...

Massinissa
Alternative spelling of Masinissa, the king of the Massyli, the easternmost tribe of ancient Numidia, North Africa. ...

Masson, André Aimé René
(1896-1987) French artist and writer. He was a leader of the surrealist movement until 1929 when he quarrelled with AndréBreton. His interest in the unconscious mind led him to experiment with automatic...

Masson, Antoine
(1636-1700) French engraver and painter. He was engraver-in-ordinary to the first of the Bourbon kings, Henry IV. His reputation rests on his engravings of paintings by Rubens, Charles Lebrun, Pierre...

Massorah
Collection of philological notes on the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. It was at first an oral tradition, but was committed to writing in the Aramaic language at Tiberias, Palestine, between the...

mastaba
Ancient Egyptian tomb. A mastaba had an outer chamber, in which offerings were made, and an inner chamber which contained a statue of the dead person and a shaft which descended...

master
In Western art history, broadly any artist of outstanding ability (the old masters). Historically the term meant an artist with a studio workshop employing pupils, such as...

Master of 1499
(lived late 15th century) Anonymous Flemish painter who worked in Bruges. There are four works attributed to him in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp, the reverse side of a panel of the Madonna bearing the...

Master of Avignon
Anonymous French painter of the School of Avignon who painted the Avignon Pietà in about 1450 (Louvre, Paris). In its emotional feeling and simplicity and breadth of treatment, it is a great work...

Master of Moulins
(lived late 15th-early 16th century) Anonymous painter, probably Dutch, working at the Bourbon court in Moulins (now in Allier département). His Triptych of the Virgin in Glory (c. 1498-1500, Moulins Cathedral) shows both Flemish...

Master of Spes Nostra
(lived late 15th century) Anonymous Netherlandish painter. The most important work attributed to the Master of Spes Nostra is the allegorical painting The Vanity of Human Life (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). ...

Master of St Giles
(lived early 16th century) Anonymous painter of Netherlandish training, active in Paris in 1500. The artist is named after two pictures in the National Gallery, London:St Giles and the Hind and The Mass of St Giles. The style...

Master of the Death of the Virgin
(lived early 16th century) Anonymous Netherlandish painter. Thought to be responsible for a large group of works, he derived his name from two altarpieces of The Death of the Virgin- one in Cologne and one in Munich. He is...

Master of the Female Half-Lengths
(lived early 16th century) Anonymous Netherlandish painter. He painted a large group of works featuring young women, distinctive by their oval features and almond-shaped eyes, playing musical instruments or reading. He is...

Master of the Housebook
(lived late 15th century) Anonymous German painter and engraver. He is called after the drawings in the Hausbuch of Castle Wolfegg in the Rhineland. His engravings show scenes of everyday life. One of his paintings is The...

Master of the Legend of St Lucy
(lived late 15th century) Anonymous Netherlandish painter. He is named after the altarpiece Scenes from the Life of St Lucy in the church of St Jacques, Bruges. He worked in Bruges in a style influenced by Hans Memling and...

Master of the Legend of St Ursula
(lived late 15th century) Anonymous Netherlandish painter. He was named after the diptych Four Scenes from the Legend of St Ursula in the Convent of Les SÅ`urs Noires, Bruges. He was active in Bruges, and his work shows the...

Master of the Life of Mary
(lived second half of the 15th century) Anonymous German painter and stained-glass designer. He is named after the panels of The Life of the Virgin from the church of St Ursula, Cologne. Their style suggests a Netherlandish training. He...

Master of the Magdalen Legend
(lived early 16th century) Anonymous Netherlandish painter. He was active in Brussels, painting religious subjects and portraits. ...

Master of the Rolls
English judge who is the president of the civil division of the Court of Appeal, besides being responsible for Chancery records and for the admission of solicitors. ...

Master of the Virgo inter Virgines
(lived second half of the 15th century) Anonymous Netherlandish painter. He probably worked in Delft, and is named after the painting The Virgin and Child with Four Female Saints (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). ...

Master of Trebon
(lived mid-late 14th century) Anonymous Bohemian Gothic painter. He created the paintings that form part of an altarpiece in the Augustinian church at Trebon, now in the National Gallery, Prague. The outstanding panel is The...

masterpiece
Originally the piece of work executed by an artist or craftsman on completing his training and becoming a master within his guild. It is now applied to the most outstanding works...

Masters, Edgar Lee
(1869-1950) US poet. In Spoon River Anthology 1915, a collection of free-verse epitaphs, the people of a small town tell of their frustrated lives. ...

Masters, John
(1914-1983) British novelist. Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), he served in the Indian army 1934-47. He wrote a series of books dealing with the Savage family throughout the period of the Raj - for example,...

Masterson, Bat (William Barclay)
(1853-1921) US marshal and sportswriter. In 1878 he succeeded his murdered brother, Edward, as marshal in Dodge City, Kansas. He moved to New York 1902, where he became a sportswriter...

Masurian Lakes, Battles of
In World War I, two battles in which German forces defeated the Russians between the Masurian Lakes (now the Mazowsze region of Poland) and Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). First...

Mata Hari
(1876-1917) Dutch courtesan, dancer, and probable spy. In World War I she had affairs with highly placed military and government officials on both sides and told Allied secrets to the Germ ...

Matanzima, Kaiser
(1915-2003) South African politician. He was chief minister of the Transkei, which became independent in 1976. He believed in separate black development, and has advocated a confederation of black states to...

Matapan
Southernmost cape of mainland Greece, off which, on 28 March 1941, during World War II, a British fleet under Admiral Cunningham sank an Italian squadron. ...

material culture
The physical, human-made remains of past societies (tools, buildings, and so on) which constitute the major source of evidence for archaeology. ...

material product
System of national accounting used by socialist countries which includes all productive services but usually does not include non-public services and financial activities that would be included in...

materialism
Philosophical theory that there is nothing in existence over and above matter and matter in motion. Such a theory excludes the possibility of deities. It also sees mind as an attribute of the...

Mather, Cotton
(1663-1728) American theologian and writer. He was a Puritan minister in Boston, Massachusetts, and wrote over 400 works of history, science, annals, and theology, including Magnalia Christi Americana/The Great...

Mather, Increase
(1639-1723) American colonial and religious leader. As a defender of the colonial right to self-government, he advocated the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1683, and went to England as the...

Mather, Richard
(1596-1669) English-born US Protestant minister and writer. He took the lead in defining New England Congregationalism, as seen in such works as Church Government and Church-Covenant Discussed (1643) and...

Matheson, Scott Milne
(1929) US politician. A Utah lawyer, he worked for the Union Pacific Railroad (1958-76), becoming solicitor general in 1972. As Democratic governor of Utah (1977-85), he led a coalition of western...

Mathews, Charles James
(1803-1878) English actor. He was the most accomplished light comedian of his time, especially in adaptations of French comedy. He married Lucia Vestris...

Mathews, John Joseph
(c. 1894-1979) US writer. He is noted for his historical and biographical texts about the life of the Osage Indians, as in Wah 'Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man's Road (1932). An Osage Indian, Matthews was...

mathnavi
In Persian literature, a long narrative or didactic poem in which the two half-lines of each line rhyme, the rhyme changing from couplet to couplet. Among poets who used this form are Firdausi,...

Matilda
Slow, heavily armoured British tank developed in 1937 to accompany an infantry assault. The Matilda I was used in France in 1940. It was an 11 ton tank with a crew of two, armed with a single...

Matilda, the Empress Maud
(1102-1167) Claimant to the throne of England as daughter of Henry I. In 1127 Henry forced the barons to accept Matilda, his only surviving legitimate child since the death of his son, as his successor as...

matins
The first Roman Catholic office (or non-Eucharistic service) of the day. It is also used by the Anglican Church to refer to Morning Prayer. ...

Matisse, Henri Emile Benoît
(1869-1954) French painter, sculptor and illustrator. Matisse was one of the most original creative forces in early 20th-century art. He was a leading figure in fauvism and later developed a style...

matrix
In archaeology, the physical material within which cultural debris or fossils are contained or embedded, such as soil, ash, peat, etc. ...

Matsudaira, Tsuneo
(1877-1949) Japanese diplomat and politician who became the first chair of the Japanese Diet (parliament) after World War II. He negotiated for Japan at the London Naval Conference of 1930 and acted as imperial...

Matsukata, Masayoshi, Prince
(1835-1924) Japanese politician, premier 1891-92 and 1896-98. As minister of finance 1881-91 and 1898-1900, he paved the way for the modernization of the Japanese economy. ...

Matsuoka, Yosuke
(1880-1946) Japanese politician, foreign minister 1940-41. A fervent nationalist, Matsuoka led Japan out of the League of Nations in 1933 when it condemned Japan for the seizure of Manchuria. As foreign...

Matsushita
Japanese electrical and electronics hardware company, the world's 12th-largest company in 1990 with annual revenues of $45 billion, controlling 87 companies in Japan and almost as many abroad,...

Matta, Roberto
(1911-2002) Chilean-born French painter. He was a leading figure, along with AndréMasson, of surrealist-inspired automatic painting, in which images are allowed to flow from the unconscious through the...

Matteo di Giovanni
(1435-1495) Italian painter. He was active in Siena and his work has the traditional delicacy and charm of the early Sienese School. An example is The Assumption of the Virgin (National Gallery, London). He...

Matthew, St
(lived 1st century AD) Christian apostle and evangelist, the traditional author of the first listed Gospel of the New Testament. He is usually identified with Levi, who was a tax collector in the service of Herod Antipas,...

Matthews, (Albert) Franklin
(1858-1917) US journalist. As reporter and editor of the New York Sun (1890-1912), he covered the Spanish-American War and the around-the-world cruise of the US Navy's `Great White Fleet`...

Matthews, A(lbert) E(dward)
(1869-1960) English actor. He made his first appearance in l886 and continued to act until shortly before his death. He excelled in farce, from the works of Arthur Pinero and Oscar Wilde in his early days to...

Matthews, Herbert
(1900-1977) US journalist. A foreign correspondent and, later, editorialist for the New York Times (1922-67), he reported on the Spanish civil war of the 1930s and the Cuban revolution of the 1950s; he was...

Matthews, James Brander
(1852-1929) US writer. His critical works include French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century 1881, Aspects of Fiction 1896 and 1902, Molière, his Life and his Works 1910, and Playwrights on Playmaking 1923....

Matthews, Jessie
(1907-1981) English actor. A hugely popular star in musical revues of the 1920s, she made a successful transition into film roles in the 1930s. Although these films were largely undistinguished, her appeal...

Matthews, Stanley
(1824-1889) US jurist. Appointed by President Garfield as associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1881-99, his most important decision, Hurtado v. California (1888), was an important constitutional...

Matthews, Walter Robert
(1881-1973) British cleric. After a succession of appointments he was dean of Exeter 1932-34, and dean of St Paul's 1934-62. His works include God in Christian Thought and Experience (1930), The Adventures...

Matthias
(1557-1619) Austrian ruler. He was king of Bohemia from 1609, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1612. A weak and childless Emperor, Matthias was unable to prevent his cousin...

Matthias Corvinus
(c. 1440-1490) King of Hungary from 1458. His aim of uniting Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia involved him in long wars with Holy Roman emperor Frederick III and the kings of Bohemia and Poland, during which he...

Matthiessen, Peter
(1927) US writer. His novels, At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965) and Far Tortuga (1975), as well as his short fiction, won critical acclaim, but he was best noted for his non-fiction work, such as...

Matthijs
Dutch landscape artists. Jakob was a painter of water, clouds, and misty skies, whereas his brother Willem painted peaceful sunlit meadows. Influenced by the Barbizon School, they in turn had some...

Matura, Mustapha
(1939) Trinidad-born British dramatist. He co-founded the Black Theatre Cooperative in 1978; his plays deal with problems of ethnic diversity and integration, and include As Time Goes By (1971), Play...

Maturin, Charles Robert
(1782-1824) Irish novelist and dramatist. Born into a Huguenot family in Dublin, Maturin was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and ordained in 1803. He is best remembered for his `horror` novels Montario...

Mau Mau
Kenyan secret guerrilla movement 1952-60, an offshoot of the Kikuyu Central Association banned in World War II. Its aim was to end British colonial rule. This was achieved in 1960 with the...

Maude, (Frederick) Stanley
(1864-1917) British general in World War I. Maude served in the Sudan and then in the South African War 1899-1902, where he won the DSO. He went to France as a staff officer August 1914 and commanded a...

Maude, Anthony Aylmer
(1953) UK politician, member of Parliament for Horsham, and chairman of the Conservative Party from 2005. A barrister by training, he was first elected to the House of Commons in 1983 for North...

Maude, Cyril Francis
(1862-1951) English actor. He was one of the finest light comedians of his time, and played in the first performance of Arthur Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray in 1893. He was co-manager at the Haymarket,...

Maudling, Reginald
(1917-1979) British Conservative politician, chancellor of the Exchequer 1962-64, contender for the party leadership in 1965, and home secretary 1970-72. Born in London and educated at Merchant Taylors' and...