exhibitions and devote themselves to teaching. Towards 1862 a new boxer, J. Charlemont, was not only very clever with his fists and feet, but an excellent teacher, and the author of a treatise on the art. Lecour, Vigneron and Charlemont may be said to have created la boxe française, which, for defence at equal weights, the French claim to be better than the English.
See L’Art de la boxe française et de la canne, by J. Charlemont (Paris, 1899); The French Method of the Noble Art of Self Defence, by Georges d’Amoric (London, 1898).
BOXWOOD, the wood obtained from the genus Buxus, the
principal species being the well-known tree or shrub, B. sempervirens,
the common box, in general use for borders of garden
walks, ornamental parterres, &c. The other source of the
ordinary boxwood of commerce is B. balearica, which yields the
variety known as Turkey boxwood. The common box is grown
throughout Great Britain (perhaps native in the chalk-hills of
the south of England), in the southern part of the European
continent generally, and extends through Persia into India,
where it is found growing on the slopes of the western Himalayas.
There has been much discussion as to whether it is a true native
of Britain. Writing more than 200 years ago, John Ray, the
author of the important Historia Plantarum, says, “The Box
grows wild on Boxhill, hence the name; also at Boxwell, on the
Cotteswold Hills in Gloucestershire, and at Boxley in Kent....
It grows plentifully on the chalk hills near Dunstable.” On the
other hand the box is not wild in the Channel Islands, and in the
north of France, Holland and Belgium is found mainly in hedgerows
and near cultivation, and it may have been one of the many
introductions owed to the Romans. Only a very small proportion
of the wood suitable for industrial uses is now obtained in Great
Britain. The box is a very slow-growing plant, adding not more
than 112 or 2 in. to its diameter in twenty years, and on an average
attaining only a height of 16 ft., with a mean diameter of 1012 in.
The leaves of this species are small, oval, leathery in texture and
of a deep glossy green colour. B. balearica is a tree of considerable
size, attaining to a height of 80 ft., with leaves three times
larger than those of the common box. It is a native of the islands
of the Mediterranean, and grows in Turkey, Asia Minor, and
around the shores of the Black Sea, and is supposed to be the
chief source of the boxwood which comes into European commerce
by way of Constantinople. The wood of both species possesses
a delicate yellow colour; it is very dense in structure and
has a fine uniform grain, which has given it unique value for the
purposes of the wood-engraver. A large amount is used in the
manufacture of measuring rules, various mathematical instruments,
flutes and other musical instruments, as well as for turning
into many minor articles, and for inlaying, and it is a favourite
wood for small carvings. The use of boxwood for turnery and
musical instruments is mentioned by Pliny, Virgil and Ovid.
BOYACÁ, or Bojacá, an inland department of Colombia,
bounded by the departments of Santander and Cundinamarca
on the N., W. and S., and the republic of Venezuela on the E.,
and having an area of 33,321 sq. m., including the Casanare
territory. Pop. (1899, estimate) 508,940. The department is
very mountainous, heavily forested and rich in minerals. The
famous Muso emerald mines are located in the western part of
Boyacá. The capital, Tunja (pop. 1902, 10,000), is situated in
the Eastern Cordilleras, 9054 ft. above sea-level, and has a cool,
temperate climate, though only 512° N. of the equator. It was
an important place in colonial times, and occupies the site of one
of the Indian towns of this region (Hunsa), which had acquired
a considerable degree of civilization before the discovery of
America. Other towns of note in the department are Chiquinquira
(20,000), Moniquira (18,000), Sogamoso (10,787), and
Boyacá (7000), where on the 7th of August 1819 Bolivar defeated
the Spanish army and secured the independence of New Granada.
BOYAR (Russ. boyarin, plur. boyare), a dignity of Old Russia
conterminous with the history of the country. Originally the
boyars were the intimate friends and confidential advisers of
the Russian prince, the superior members of his druzhina or
bodyguard, his comrades and champions. They were divided
into classes according to rank, most generally determined by
personal merit and service. Thus we hear of the “oldest,”
“elder” and the “younger” boyars. At first the dignity
seems to have been occasionally, but by no means invariably,
hereditary. At a later day the boyars were the chief members
of the prince’s duma, or council, like the senatores of Poland
and Lithuania. Their further designation of luchshie lyudi or
“the best people” proves that they were generally richer than
their fellow subjects. So long as the princes, in their interminable
struggles with the barbarians of the Steppe, needed the assistance
of the towns, “the best people” of the cities and of the druzhina
proper mingled freely together both in war and commerce; but
after Yaroslav’s crushing victory over the Petchenegs in 1036
beneath the walls of Kiev, the two classes began to draw apart,
and a political and economical difference between the members
of the princely druzhina and the aristocracy of the towns becomes
discernible. The townsmen devote themselves henceforth more
exclusively to commerce, while the druzhina asserts the privileges
of an exclusively military caste with a primary claim upon the
land. Still later, when the courts of the northern grand dukes
were established, the boyars appear as the first grade of a fullblown
court aristocracy with the exclusive privilege of possessing
land and serfs. Hence their title of dvoryane (courtiers), first used
in the 12th century. On the other hand there was no distinction,
as in Germany, between the Dienst Adel (nobility of service)
and the simple Adel. The Russian boyardom had no corporate
or class privileges, (1) because their importance was purely local
(the dignity of the principality determining the degree of dignity
of the boyars), (2) because of their inalienable right of transmigration
from one prince to another at will, which prevented the
formation of a settled aristocracy, and (3) because birth did not
determine but only facilitated the attainment of high rank, e.g.
the son of a boyar was not a boyar born, but could more easily attain
to boyardom, if of superior personal merit. It was reserved
for Peter the Great to transform the boyarstvo or boyardom into
something more nearly resembling the aristocracy of the West.
See Alexander Markevich, The History of Rank-priority in the Realm of Muscovy in the 15th–18th Centuries (Russ.) (Odessa, 1888); V. Klyuchevsky, The Boyar Duma of Ancient Russia (Russ.) (Moscow, 1888). (R. N. B.)
BOY-BISHOP, the name given to the “bishop of the boys”
(episcopus puerorum or innocentium, sometimes episcopus scholariorum or chorestarum), who, according to a custom very
wide-spread in the middle ages, was chosen in connexion with
the festival of Holy Innocents. For the origin of the curious
authority of the boy-bishop and of the rites over which he
presided, see Fools, Feast of. In England the boy-bishop
was elected on December 6, the feast of St Nicholas, the patron
of children, and his authority lasted till Holy Innocents’ day
(December 28). The election made, the lad was dressed in full
bishop’s robes with mitre and crozier and, attended by comrades
dressed as priests, made a circuit of the town blessing the people.
At Salisbury the boy-bishop seems to have actually had ecclesiastical
patronage during his episcopate, and could make valid
appointments. The boy and his colleagues took possession of
the cathedral and performed all the ceremonies and offices
except mass. Originally, it seems, confined to the cathedrals,
the custom spread to nearly all the parishes. Several ecclesiastical
councils had attempted to abolish or to restrain the
abuses of the custom, before it was prohibited by the council
of Basel in 1431. It was, however, too popular to be easily
suppressed. In England it was abolished by Henry VIII. in
1542, revived by Mary in 1552 and finally abolished by Elizabeth.
On the continent it survived longest in Germany, in the so-called
Gregoriusfest, said to have been founded by Gregory IV. in 828
in honour of St Gregory, the patron of schools. A school-boy
was elected bishop, duly vested, and, attended by two boy-deacons
and the town clergy, proceeded to the parish church,
where, after a hymn in honour of St Gregory had been sung, he
preached. At Meiningen this custom survived till 1799.
See Brand, Pop. Antiquities of Great Britain (1905); Gasquet, Parish Life in Medieval England (1906); Du Cange, Glossarium (London, 1884), s.v. “Episcopus puerorum.”
