GISLEBERT (or Gilbert) OF MONS (c. 1150–1225), Flemish chronicler, became a clerk, and obtained the positions of provost of the churches of St Germanus at Mons and St Alban at Namur, in addition to several other ecclesiastical appointments. In official documents he is described as chaplain, chancellor or notary, of Baldwin V., count of Hainaut (d. 1195), who employed him on important business. After 1200 Gislebert wrote the Chronicon Hanoniense, a history of Hainaut and the neighbouring lands from about 1050 to 1195, which is specially valuable for the latter part of the 12th century, and for the life and times of Baldwin V.
The chronicle is published in Band xxi. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica (Hanover, 1826 fol.); and separately with introduction by W. Arndt (Hanover, 1869). Another edition has been published by L. Vanderkindere in the Recueil de textes pour servir à l’étude de l’histoire de Belgique (Brussels, 1904); and there is a French translation by G. Menilglaise (Tournai, 1874).
See W. Meyer, Das Werk des Kanzlers Gislebert von Mons als verfassungsgeschichtliche Quelle (Königsberg, 1888); K. Huygens, Sur la valeur historique de la chronique Gislebert de Mons (Ghent, 1889); and W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Band ii. (Berlin, 1894).
GISORS, a town of France, in the department of Eure, situated
in the pleasant valley of the Epte, 44 m. N.W. of Paris on the
railway to Dieppe. Pop. (1906) 4345. Gisors is dominated by
a feudal stronghold built chiefly by the kings of England in the
11th and 12th centuries. The outer enceinte, to which is attached
a cylindrical donjon erected by Philip Augustus, king of France,
embraces an area of over 7 acres. On a mound in the centre of
this space rises an older donjon, octagonal in shape, protected
by another enceinte. The outer ramparts and the ground they
enclose have been converted into promenades. The church of
St Gervais dates in its oldest parts—the central tower, the choir
and parts of the aisles—from the middle of the 13th century,
when it was founded by Blanche of Castile. The rest of the
church belongs to the Renaissance period. The Gothic and
Renaissance styles mingle in the west façade, which, like the
interior of the building, is adorned with a profusion of sculptures;
the fine carving on the wooden doors of the north and west
portals is particularly noticeable. The less interesting buildings
of the town include a wooden house of the Renaissance era,
an old convent now used as an hôtel de ville, and a handsome
modern hospital. There is a statue of General de Blanmont,
born at Gisors in 1770. Among the industries of Gisors are
felt manufacture, bleaching, dyeing and leather-dressing.
In the middle ages Gisors was capital of the Vexin. Its position on the frontier of Normandy caused its possession to be hotly contested by the kings of England and France during the 12th century, at the end of which it and the dependent fortresses of Neaufles and Dangu were ceded by Richard Cœur de Lion to Philip Augustus. During the wars of religion of the 16th century it was occupied by the duke of Mayenne on behalf of the League, and in the 17th century, during the Fronde, by the duke of Longueville. Gisors was given to Charles Auguste Fouquet in 1718 in exchange for Belle-Ile-en-Mer and made a duchy in 1742. It afterwards came into the possession of the count of Eu and the duke of Penthièvre.
GISSING, GEORGE ROBERT (1857–1903), English novelist,
was born at Wakefield on the 22nd of November 1857. He was
educated at the Quaker boarding-school of Alderley Edge and
at Owens College, Manchester. His life, especially its earlier
period, was spent in great poverty, mainly in London, though
he was for a time also in the United States, supporting himself
chiefly by private teaching. He published his first novel,
Workers in the Dawn, in 1880. The Unclassed (1884) and Isabel
Clarendon (1886) followed. Demos (1886), a novel dealing with
socialistic ideas, was, however, the first to attract attention. It
was followed by a series of novels remarkable for their pictures
of lower middle class life. Gissing’s own experiences had preoccupied
him with poverty and its brutalizing effects on character.
He made no attempt at popular writing, and for a long
time the sincerity of his work was appreciated only by a limited
public. Among his more characteristic novels were: Thyrza
(1887), A Life’s Morning (1888), The Nether World (1889), New
Grub Street (1891), Born in Exile (1892), The Odd Women (1893),
In the Year of Jubilee (1894), The Whirlpool (1897). Others,
e.g. The Town Traveller (1901), indicate a humorous faculty,
but the prevailing note of his novels is that of the struggling
life of the shabby-genteel and lower classes and the conflict
between education and circumstances. The quasi-autobiographical
Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903) reflects
throughout Gissing’s studious and retiring tastes. He was a good
classical scholar and had a minute acquaintance with the
late Latin historians, and with Italian antiquities; and his
posthumous Veranilda (1904), a historical romance of Italy in
the time of Theodoric the Goth, was the outcome of his favourite
studies. Gissing’s powers as a literary critic are shown in his
admirable study on Charles Dickens (1898). A book of travel,
By the Ionian Sea, appeared in 1901. He died at St Jean de
Luz in the Pyrenees on the 28th of December 1903.
See also the introductory essay by T. Seccombe to The House of Cobwebs (1906), a posthumous volume of Gissing’s short stories.
GITSCHIN (Czech Jičin), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 65 m. N.E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 9790, mostly Czech. The parish church was begun by Wallenstein after the model of the pilgrims’ church of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, but not completed till 1655. The castle, which stands next to the church, was built by Wallenstein and finished in 1630. It was here that the emperor Francis I. of Austria signed the treaty of 1813 by which he threw in his lot with the Allies against Napoleon. Wallenstein was interred at the neighbouring Carthusian monastery, but in 1639 the head and right hand were taken by General Banér to Sweden, and in 1702 the other remains were removed by Count Vincent of Waldstein to his hereditary burying ground at Münchengrätz. Gitschin was originally the village of Zidiněves and received its present name when it was raised to the dignity of a town by Wenceslaus II. in 1302. The place belonged to various noble Bohemian families, and in the 17th century came into the hands of Wallenstein, who made it the capital of the duchy of Friedland and did much to improve and extend it. His murder, and the miseries of the Thirty Years’ War, brought it very low; and it passed through several hands before it was bought by Prince Trauttmannsdorf, to whose family it still belongs. On the 29th of June 1866 the Prussians gained here a great victory over the Austrians. This victory made possible the junction of the first and second Prussian army corps, and had as an ultimate result the Austrian defeat at Königgrätz.
GIUDICI, PAOLO EMILIANO (1812–1872), Italian writer, was born in Sicily. His History of Italian Literature (1844) brought him to the front, and in 1848 he became professor of Italian literature at Pisa, but after a few months was deprived of the chair on account of his liberal views in politics. On the re-establishment of the Italian kingdom he became professor of aesthetics (resigning 1862) and secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence, and in 1867 was elected to the chamber of deputies. He held a prominent place as an historian, his works including a Storia del teatro (1860), and Storia dei comuni italiani (1861), besides a translation of Macaulay’s History of England (1856). He died at Tonbridge in England, on the 8th of September 1872.
A Life appeared at Florence in 1874.
GIULIO ROMANO, or Giulio Pippi (c. 1492–1546), the head
of the Roman school of painting in succession to Raphael.
This prolific painter, modeller, architect and engineer receives
his common appellation from the place of his birth—Rome,
in the Macello de’ Corbi. His name in full was Giulio di Pietro
de Filippo de’ Giannuzzi—Giannuzzi being the true family name,
and Pippi (which has practically superseded Giannuzzi) being
an abbreviation from the name of his grandfather Filippo.
The date of Giulio’s birth is a little uncertain. Vasari (who
knew him personally) speaks of him as fifty-four years old at
the date of his death, 1st November 1546; thus he would have
been born in 1492. Other accounts assign 1498 as the date of
birth. This would make Giulio young indeed in the early and
in such case most precocious stages of his artistic career, and
