ILLTYD
661
ILLUMINATI
down upon the Illinois the swift vengeance of the
confederated northern tribes, who began a war of
extermination that in a few years reduced the nation
to a handful of refugees among the French settlements.
In 177S there remained only 3S0 in two villages in the
neighbourhood of Kaskaskia, completely demoralized
by drunkenness. In 183.3 the survivors, represented
by Kaskaskia and Peoria, sold their remaining lands
in Illinois and removed to north-east Oklahoma,
where they are now confederated with the remnant
of the Wea and Piankishaw (part of the Miami), under
the official designation of "Peoria and confederated
tribes", the entire body numbering in 190S only 204,
all of mixed white blood, but still retaining some
share of their language and their Catholic inheritance.
Charlevoix. Histoire et description gi-nerale de la Nouvclle
France. 3 vols. (Paris. 1744; tr. London. 1761-3: Dublin, 1766:
New York, 1866-72); Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual
Report (Wa.shington — ); Margry, Dt'rouvcrtes et Etablissements
des Fran^ais, etc., 6 vols. (Paris. 1S75-1SS6) ; Monette, Discov-
ery and Settlement of the Valley of the Alississippi, 2 vols. (New
York. 1.S4S): Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontine (Boston, 1S51,
and later eds.); Idem, Discovery of the Great West (Boston, 1869.
and later editions); Shea, Catholic Missions among the Indian
Tribes of the United States (New York, 1854); Thwaites (ed.).
The Jesuit Relations {Illinois missions] (73 vols., Cleveland,
1896-1901).
James Mooney.
Illtyd (Iltuttjs), Saint, flourished in the latter part of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century, antl was held in high veneration in Wales, where many churches were dedicated to him, chiefly in Glamor- ganshire. Born in Armorica, of Bicanys and Rieni- guilida, sister of Emyr Llydaw, he was a grand- nephew of St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre. Accord- ing to one account he crossed to Britain and joined King Arthur's Court, and later went to Glamorgan, where he was miraculously converted by St. Cadoc. These details, however, rest on a late life of the saint (Cottonian MS., Ve.sp. A XIV). He is supposed to have been ordained by St. Dubricius, Bishop of Llandaff, and with the assistance of Meirchion, a Glamorgan chieftain, to have built a church and a monastery, which became a centre of learning, one of the three great monastic schools in the Diocese of Llandaff. Among the .scholars who flocked thither were Sts. Gildas, Samson, and Maglorius, whose lives, written about 600 ("Acta SS. Ordinis S. Benedicti", Venice, 1733), constitute the earliest source of informa- tion on St. Illtyd. According to these, his school was situated on a small waste island, which, at his inter- ce.ssion, was miraculously reunited with the mainland, and was known as Llanilltyd Fawr, the Welsh form of Llantwit Major, Glamorganshire. The story of the miracle may have been inspired Ijy the fact that the saint was skilled in agricvdture, for he is supposed to have introduced among the Welsh better methods of ploughing, and to have helped them reclaim land from the sea. The legendary place of his burial is close by the chapel dedicated to him in Brecknockshire, and is called Bedd Gwyl Illtyd, or the "grave of St. Illtyd's eve", the old cu.stom having been to keep vigil there on the eve of his feast, which was celebrated 7 Febru- ary. There is still to be seen in Llantwit Major a cross, probably of the ninth century, bearing the in- scription: SAMSON POSUIT HANC CRUCE.M PRO ANIMA EIUS ILTET SAMSON REGIS SAMUEL EBIS.^.R.
Rees, Cambro- British Saints: Capgrave, Nova legenda Anglice; Thomas in Diet. Nat. Biog.; Boase in Diet. Christ. Biog.
F. M. RUDQE.
lUuminati, the name assumed by the members of a secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776.
History. — Weishaupt was born of Westphalian parents at Ingolstadt (Bavaria), on 6 February, 1748, and lost his father in 1753. .-Although educated at a Jesuit school, he fell early under the influence of his free-thinking godfather, the director of the high- school of Ickstatt, to whom he owed his appointment
as professor of civil law at the University of Ingol-
stadt in 1772. He was the first layman to occupy the
chair of canon law at this university (1773), but, in
consequence of the growing rationalistic influence
which he exerted over the students both in his aca-
demic capacity and in his personal intercourse with
them, he came into ever sharper collision with the
loyal adherents of the Church and with those who
were influential in government circles. As, further-
more, his obstinate nature led him to quarrel with
almost everyone with whom his intercourse was at all
prolonged, he felt the need of a powerful secret
organization to support him in the conflict with his
adversaries and in the execution of his rationalistic
schemes along ecclesiastical and political lines. At
first (1774) he aimed at an arrangement with the
Freemasons. Closer inquiry, however, destroyed his
high estimate of this organization, and he resolved to
found a new society which, surrounded with the great-
est possible secrecy, would enable him most effect-
ually to realize his aims and could at all times be
precisely adapted to the needs of the age and local
conditions.
His order was to be based entirely on human nature and obser\'ation ; hence its degrees, ceremonies, and statutes were to be developed only gradually; then, in the light of experience and wider knowledge, and with the co-operation of all the members, they were to be steadily improved. For his prototype he relied mainly on Freemasonry, in accordance with which he modelled the degrees and ceremonial of his order. After the pattern of the Society of Jesus, though dis- torting to the point of caricature its essential features, he built up the strictly hierarchical organization of his society. "To utilize for good purposes the very means which that order employed for evil ends", such was, according to Philo (Endl. Erkl., 60 sq.), "his pet design ". For the realization of his plans, he regarded as essential the "despotism of superiors" and the "blind, unconditional obedience of subor- dinates" (ibid.), along with the utmost secrecy and mysteriousness. At the beginning of 1777 he entered a Masonic Lodge and endeavoured, with other mem- bers of the order, to render Freemasonry as subser- vient as possible to his aims. As Weishaupt, how- ever, despite all his activity as an agitator and the theoretic shrewdness he displayed, was at bottom only an unpractical bookworm, without the necessary experience of the world, his order for a long time made no headway. The accession to it, in 1780, of the Masonic agent Freiherr von Knigge (Philo), a man of wide experience and well known everywhere in Ma- sonic circles, gave matters a decisive turn. In com- pany with Weishaupt, who, as a philosopher and jurist, evolved the ideas and main lines of the con- stitution, Knigge began to elaborate rapidly the necessary degrees and statutes (until 1780 the Min- erval degree was the only one in use), and at the same time worked vigorously to extend the order, for which within two years he secured 500 members. When the great international convention of Freemasons was held at Wilhelmsbad (16 July to 29 August, 1782) the " Illuminated Freemasonry ", which Knigge and Weis- haupt now proclaimed to be the only "pure" Free- masonry, had already gained such a reputation that almost all the members of the convention clamoured for admission into the new institution. Particularly valuable for the order was the accession of Bode (Amelius), who commanded the highest respect in all Masonic circles. Assisted by Bode, Knigge laboured diligently to convert the whole Masonic body into "Illuminated Freemasons". A number of the most prominent representatives of Freemasonry and "en- lightenment" became lUuminati, including, in 1783, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, the foremost leader of European Freemasonry and the princely repre- sentative of the illuminism of his age. Other famous
