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

Constance, Council of
Council held by the Roman Catholic Church 1414-17 in Constance, Germany. It elected Pope Martin V, which ended the Great Schism 1378-1417 when there were rival popes in Rome and Avignon. ...

Constans II Pogonatus
(630-668) Byzantine emperor 641-68. He lost Syria, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Africa to the Saracens and Arabs, being defeated by the latter at sea, off Lycia, in 655. He also campaigned against the Slavs in the...

Constans, Flavius Julius
(c.AD 323-350) Roman emperor from 337, youngest son of the emperor Constantine the Great...

constant prices
Series of prices adjusted to reflect real purchasing power. If wages were to rise by 15% from £100 per week (to £115) and the rate of inflation was 10% (requiring £110 to maintain...

Constantine I
(1868-1923) King of the Hellenes (Greece) 1913-17 and 1920-22. He insisted on Greek neutrality in World War I and was forced by the rebel government of Eleuthérios Venizelos and the Allies to give up the...

Constantine II
(1940) King of the Hellenes (Greece). In 1964 he succeeded his father Paul I, went into exile in 1967, and was formally deposed in 1973. ...

Constantine III
(lived 5th century AD) Roman usurper emperor 408-10, a military leader. He began service as a common soldier in Britain during the reign of Honorius (AD 395-423). His troops proclaimed him emperor 407 and overran most...

Constantine IV
(648-685) Byzantine emperor 668-85. He halted the Arab advance towards Europe with a dramatic victory in 678, but was unable to prevent the establishment of a Bulgar state south of the Danube in 680. He...

Constantine IX Monomachus
(c. 980-1055) Byzantine emperor 1042-55. During his reign Byzantine influence in Italy practically disappeared, owing to the conquest of Lombardy by the Normans. A weak and extravagant ruler, he mismanaged the...

Constantine V Copronymus
(718-775) Byzantine emperor 740-18. He forced the Iconoclastic doctrines to be upheld throughout the Empire, and so caused a break with the papacy. This rift was emphasized when he let Ravenna fall to the...

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
(905-959) Byzantine emperor 912-59. More of a scholar than an emperor, he let others rule for him. The regency was at first shared, and disputed, between his mother, Zoe, and the patriarch Nicholas, until...

Constantine XI Palaeologus
(1404-1453) Last Byzantine emperor and despot of the Morea (Peloponnese) 1149-53. When the Ottoman sultan Muhammad II attacked Constantinople in 1453, Constantine led the final desperate resistance with about...

Constantinescu, Emil
(1939) Romanian political leader, president 1996-2000. He unsuccessfully challenged Ion Iliescu for the presidency in 1992, but led the centre-right Democratic Convention of Romania (DCR) coalition to...

Constantinople
Ancient city founded by the Greeks as Byzantium in about 660 BC and refounded by the Roman emperor Constantine (I) the Great in AD 330 as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Constantinople...

Constantius II, Flavius Julius
(AD 317-361) Roman emperor from 337, third son of Constantine the Great. After Constantine's death he became joint ruler with his brothers, Constantine II and Constans, and he was given Thrace, Macedonia,...

Constantius III
(died AD 421) Roman emperor AD 421. Constantius, an Illyrian, was a general serving under the emperor Honorius. He captured the usurper Constantine III 410 and having married Honorius's sister 417, he was made...

constitution
Body of fundamental (basic) laws of a state, laying down the system of government and defining the relations of the executive (administration), legislature (law-making body), and judiciary...

Constitution of Athens
One section of a lost work (Politieai) by Aristotle on the constitutional history of 158 states. It was known only by quoted fragments until 1890, when three rolls of papyruis (now in the British...

Constitution, US
See US Constitution. ...

Constitutional Convention
US convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1787, called to revise the Articles of Confederation but resulting in the drafting of the US Constitution. It was attended by delegates from all the...

constitutional law
That part of the law relating to the constitution. It sets out the rules defining the powers, limits, and rights of government. In countries without a written constitution, such as the United...

constructivism
Abstract art movement that originated in Russia in about 1914 and subsequently had great influence on Western art. Constructivism usually involves industrial materials such as glass, steel, and...

consul
Chief magistrate of the ancient Roman Republic, after the expulsion of the last king in 510 BC. Two consuls were elected annually by the comitiacenturiata (assembly of the Roman people), and their...

consumer
Person who purchases goods and services. Consumers demand goods which businesses provide, and they need to be protected by law from unfair traders; hence...

Consumer Credit Act 1974
Act of the UK Parliament that regulates the giving of credit by companies. Under the act, any company wishing to offer credit to c ...

consumer durable
Any commodity for personal use that has a long life, such as furniture and electrical goods, as opposed to food and drink, which are consumables and have to be replaced frequently. Consumer durables...

consumer protection
Laws and measures designed to ensure fair trading for buyers. Responsibility for checking goods and services for quality, safety, and suitability has in the past few years moved increasingly away...

consumer sovereignty
Situation where consumers decide what is to be produced by producers. In a market economy, this is achieved through companies being forced to compete to attract the spending of consumers. The...

consumption
In economics, the purchase of goods and services for final use, as opposed to spending by firms on capital goods, known as capital formation. In the official UK statistics, two types of consumption...

Consus
In Roman mythology, originally the god of the corn-store bins. Later he was regarded as the god either of good counsel or of secret deliberations. His festivals on 21 August and 15 December were...

contado
In northern and central Italy from the 9th to the 13th century, the territory under a count's jurisdiction. During the 13th century, this jurisdiction passed to...

Contadora Group
Alliance formed between Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela in January 1983 to establish a general peace treaty for Central America and a Central American parliament (similar...

containment
US policy (adopted from the late 1940s) designed to prevent the spread of communism from the USSR. It was first stated by George Kennan, then director of the State Department's policy planning...

Contarini
One of the 12 Italian families who elected the first doge...

contempt of court
Behaviour that shows lack of respect for the authority of a court of law, such as disobeying a court order, breach of an injunction, or improper use of legal documents. Behaviour that disrupts,...

context
In archaeology, an artefact's matrix (the sediment or material surrounding it), its provenance (its three-dimensional position within that matrix), and its association with other...

Conti, House of
Junior branch of the French house of Bourbon-Condé, founded by Armand de Bourbon (1629-1666), second son of Henri II, Prince of Condé. The family line continued until 1814. In 1551 Elenore de...

Continental Congress
In US history, the federal legislature of the original 13 states, acting as a provisional government before the American Revolution. It convened in Philadelphia from 1774 to 1789, when the US...

Continental System
System of economic preference and protection within Europe from 1806 to 1813 created by the French emperor Napoleon in order to exclude British trade; see France: history 1515-1815, the Napoleonic...

Continuity IRA
An extremist Irish republican terrorist group which split away from the IRA in 1995. It was responsible for blowing up Killyhevlin Hotel, near Enniskillen, in July 1996...

contour
In art, a line that defines a shape more three-dimensionally than an ordinary outline in drawing. By changing the thickness and intensity (darkness), a contour line can give the impression of...

Contra
Member of a Central American right-wing guerrilla force attempting to overthrow the democratically elected Nicaraguan Sandinista government between 1979 and 1990. The Contras, many of them...

contract
Legal agreement between two or more parties, where each party agrees to do something. For example, a contract of employment is a legal agreement between an employer and an employee and lays out the...

contract archaeology
Archaeological survey and/or excavation undertaken under the aegis of state legislation, most often in advance of road construction or urban development. ...

contract of employment
The legal basis of an agreement between an employer and an employee. ...

contracting out
In industrial relations, an agreement between an employer and employee in Britain whereby the employee does not participate in a financial contributory scheme administered by the employer. This...

contrapposto
In the visual arts, a pose in which one part of the body twists away from another part, the weight of the body being balanced on one leg rather than two. First achieved in Greek sculpture of the 6th...

convent
Religious house for nuns. ...

Conventicle Act
Statute of 1664 in England designed to suppress nonconformists, prohibiting five or more persons from holding religious meetings other than of the established Church. Similar to an Elizabethan...

conventionalism
The view that a priori truths, logical axioms, or scientific laws have no absolute validity but are disguised conventions representing one of a number of possible alternatives. The French...

Converse, Harriet (Arnot) Maxwell
(1836-1903) US author and defender of American Indian rights. She wrote essays and romantic verse. To study and preserve Iroquois culture, she published works no longer highly regarded, but, more lastingly, she...

conversion
In religion, the act of winning new adherents to a particular faith, or of being won over to it. The term can also mean a change to a more pious attitude with repentance, leading to a general...

converso
In Spanish history, a Jew who had converted to Christianity. Despite their conversion, and the fact that many of them rose to positions of power in the 14th and 15th century, conversos and their...

convertible loan stock
Stock or bond (paying a fixed interest) that may be converted into a stated number of shares at a specific date. ...

conveyancing
Administrative process involved in transferring title to land, usually on its sale or purchase. In England and Wales, conveyancing is usually done by solicitors, but, since 1985, can also be done by...

convoy system
Grouping of ships to sail together under naval escort in wartime. In World War I (1914-18) navy escort vessels were at first used only to accompany troopships, but the convoy system was adopted...

Conway Castle
Castle in Conway, Wales, at the northeastern end of the Menai Strait. It was one of several castles built by Edward I in order to subjugate the Welsh. Begun in 1283, it was built to the design of...

Conway, William Martin
(1856-1937) British traveller, mountaineer, and writer, from 1901 to 1904 Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge University. He travelled in the East, the Himalayas, the Alps, Spitsbergen, and also the...

Conwell, Russell (Herman)
(1843-1925) US lawyer, Baptist minister, and lecturer. Admitted to the bar in 1865, he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he established a law practice. In 1882 he took charge of the Grace Baptist Church in...

Coogan, Steve
(1958) English comic actor and writer who, after being named `best newcomer` at the 1993 British Comedy Awards, was named `top comedy personality` and `best male performer` at the 1994 British...

Cook, Arthur James
(1883-1931) Welsh miners' leader. Born in Wookey, Somerset, he became a coal miner in the Rhondda and a leading figure in the South Wales branch of the Union of Mineworkers. A left-wing socialist, he became...

Cook, Beryl
(1926) English naive painter. She depicts plump, jovial figures in everyday situations, often with a sense of saucy humour. She started painting when she was in her 40s and had her first exhibition in...

Cook, Frederick Albert
(1865-1940) US explorer who was surgeon to the Robert Peary's Arctic expedition of 1891-92, and the Belgian Arctic Expedition, 1897-99. In 1909 he startled the world by announcing that he had reached the...

Cook, James
(1728-1779) English naval explorer. After surveying the St Lawrence River in North America in 1759, he made three voyages: 1768-71 to Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia; 1772-75 to the South Pacific; and...

Cook, Robin Robert Finlayson
(1946-2005) Scottish Labour politician, leader of the Commons 2002-03. A member of the moderate-left Tribune Group, he entered Parliament in 1974 and became a leading member of Labour's shadow cabinet,...

Cook, Roger
(1943) New Zealand-born investigative reporter famous for his face-to-face confrontations with fraudsters and other criminals on his long-running Independent Television (ITV)...

Cooke, George Frederick
(1756-1812) English actor. His appearance at Covent Garden, London, in 1800 as Richard III in Shakespeare's play was an immediate success, and he remained there for ten years. He was at his best in powerful,...

Cooke, John (Esten)
(1830-1886) US writer. He wrote historical romances set in old Virginia, such as The Virginia Comedians (1854). He also wrote war novels and biographies of `Stonewall` Jackson (1863) and R E Lee (1871). He...

Cookson, Catherine (Ann)
(1906-1998) English popular novelist. She was a prolific author of best-selling fiction. Her books, characterized by romance, were often period pieces, drawing in part from her own life experiences as a young...

Coolbrith, Ina Donna
(1847-1928) US poet. Much of her poetry is coloured by her experience of life in the mining districts of California. Her publications include A Perfect Day and other Poems (1881), The Singer of the Sea (1894),...

Coolidge, (John) Calvin
(1872-1933) 30th president of the USA 1923-29, a Republican. As governor of Massachusetts in 1919, he was responsible for crushing a Boston police strike. As Warren Harding's vice-president 1921-23, he...

Coolidge, Susan
(1835-1905) US writer. Her books for girls have become classics. They include the Katy books (What Katy Did 1872, What Katy Did at School 1873, What Katy Did Next 1886)...

coolie
Unskilled indentured labourer of India and East Asia. Coolies were introduced into many parts of the world, especially the Caribbean, Africa, Fiji Islands, Malaya, and Ceylon, when labour was needed...

cooling-off period
In industrial relations, the practice of allowing a period of time to elapse between the start of a dispute and the taking of industrial action by a trade union. The practice may be voluntary or...

Coon, Carleton (Stevens)
(1904-1981) US anthropologist. His many expeditions led him to discover the remains of Aterian fossil man (in North Africa in 1939) and the second Jebel Ighoud man (Sierra Leone in 1965). His books include The...

Coop Himmelbau
Viennese-based architectural practice, founded 1968 by Wolf Prix (1942) and Helmut Swiczonsky (1944), that promotes a radical skeletal architecture, essentially constructivist in...

Cooper, Edith
English writer; her works with Katharine Bradley were published under the pseudonym Michael Field. ...

Cooper, Eileen
(1933) English artist. Her paintings, executed in a bold linear fashion, explore a wide range of emotions, often from a feminist viewpoint, and are frequently haunting in their simplicity. Samples of her...

Cooper, Giles Stannus
(1918-1966) Irish playwright and actor. Born in Carrickmines, County Dublin, he was the author of several stage plays, but was particularly noted for his radio and television dramas, which include Mathry Beacon...

Cooper, James Fenimore
(1789-1851) US writer, considered the first great US novelist. He wrote some 50 novels, mostly about the frontier, wilderness life, and the sea, first becoming popular with The Spy (1821). He is best remembered...

Cooper, Jilly
(1937) English author and journalist. Having attended Godolphin school in Salisbury, England, she worked as a journalist on regional newspapers before writing for national newspapers...

Cooper, Samuel
(1609-1672) English portrait miniaturist. His subjects included Milton, members of Charles II's court, the diarist Samuel Pepys' wife, and Oliver Cromwell. He departed from the tradition of Hilliard and Oliver...

Cooper, Susie
(1902-1995) English pottery designer. Her designs varied from colourful art deco to softer, pastel decoration on more classical shapes, with simply-styled patterns of bands, spots, flowers, and animals. She...

Cooper, Thomas
(1805-1892) English poet and supporter of the democratic movement of Chartism. The Purgatory of Suicides (1845), his longest poem, was written in prison. His two novels, Alderman Ralph and The Family Feud,...

Cooper, Thomas
(1759-1839) English-born US social agitator, scientist, and educator. His strong individualism and libertarianism led him to become a defender of states' rights and he promoted the southern view on the...

Cooper, Whina Josephine
(1895-1994) New Zealand campaigner for Maori rights, and particularly for claims to traditionally-held land. Despite traditional prejudice about the role women should play, by the strength of her intellect...

Cooper, William
(1910-2002) English novelist. After Trina (1934), set in Yugoslavia, and three further novels under his own name, he published Scenes from Provincial Life (1950) under his pen-name, to protect identities....

cooperative movement
The banding together of groups of people for mutual assistance in trade, manufacture, the supply of credit, housing, or other services. The original principles of the cooperative movement were laid...

Cooperative Party
Former political party founded in Britain in 1917 by the cooperative movement to maintain its principles in parliamentary and local government. A written constitution was adopted in 1938. The party...

Coornheert, Dirck Volckertszoon
(1522-1590) Dutch humanist, scholar, and engraver. From 1566 he was a keen supporter of William the Silent in the...

Coote, Eyre
(1726-1783) Irish general in British India. His victory in 1760 at Wandiwash, followed by the capture of Pondicherry, ended French hopes of supremacy. He returned to India as commander-in-chief in 1779, and...

Coover, Robert (Lowell)
(1932) US writer. His first novel, The Origin of the Brunists (1966), established him as a postmodernist who recombined elements of mythology, Bible stories, and popular culture. His fiction, which often...

cope
Semicircular cape, without sleeves, worn by priests of the Western Christian church in processions and on some other formal occasions, but not when officiating at Mass. ...

Cope, John
(died 1760) English general. Commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. He was humiliatingly defeated at Prestonpans, southeast Scotland, on 21 September 1745 by...

Cope, Wendy
(1945) English poet. Her talent for parody, and for light-hearted demolitions of men, targets male authors such as Ted Hughes or Philip Larkin; the titles Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (1986)...

Copeau, Jacques
(1879-1949) French theatre director. He advocated a simplification of stage setting. He founded a company at the Vieux-Columbier Theatre 1913, where he directed plays by Molière and Shakespeare, notably The...

Copenhagen, Battle of
Naval victory on 2 April 1801 by a British fleet under Sir Hyde Parker (1739-1807) and Nelson over the Danish fleet. Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and refused to see Parker's signal...

Coper, Hans
(1920-1981) German potter. He was originally an engineer. His work resembles Cycladic Greek pots in its monumental quality. ...

Copley, John Singleton
(1738-1815) US painter. He was the leading portraitist of the colonial period, but from 1775 lived mainly in London, where he painted lively historical scenes such as The Death of Major Pierson (1783; Tate...

Coppard, A(lfred) E(dward)
(1878-1957) English short-story writer and poet. His stories have a lyric, almost poetic quality. His first book was Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (1921); others include The Black Dog (1923), The Field of Mustard...