portable vessel in which burning incense (q.v.) can be carried. The censer, to use the more general term, is a vessel which contains burning charcoal on which the aromatic substances to be burned are sprinkled. The early Jewish portable censer would seem to have been a bowl with a handle, resembling a ladle. A similar form was used by the ancient Egyptians long prior to the Jewish use. There are very numerous representations on the monuments; in some the censer appears as a small cup or bowl held by a human hand to which a long handle is attached on which is a small box to hold the incense. The Greek and Roman censers (θυμιατήριον and turibulum or thuribulum) are of quite different shape. They are small portable braziers (foculi) of bronze or sometimes of silver and of highly ornate design. One type took the form of a candelabrum with a small flat brazier on the top. They were carried in processions and were lifted by cords. Terra cotta censers have also been found of a similar shape. The censers or thuribles in Christian usage have been specially adapted to be swung, though there are in existence many early specimens of heavy weight and made of gold or silver which were obviously not meant to be used in this way and have handles and not chains. The thurible, the proper ecclesiastical term for the vessel in the Western Church, is usually spherical in form, though often square or polygonal, containing a small receptacle for the charcoal and covered by a perforated lid; it is carried and swung by three chains, a fourth being attached to the lid, thus allowing it to be raised at intervals for the volume of smoke to be increased. The early thuribles were usually simple in design; but in the medieval period an architectural form was given to the lids by ornamenting them with towers, battlements and traceries, varying according to the prevalent Gothic style of the period. A censer lid with a late Saxon tower upon it, now in the British Museum, dates from the 12th century or earlier.
THURII, or Thurium, a city of Magna Graecia on the Gulf of Tarentum, near the site of the older Sybaris (q.v.). It owed its origin to an attempt made in 452 B.C. by Sybarite exiles and their descendants to repeople their old home. The new settlement was crushed by Crotona, but the Athenians lent aid to the fugitives and in 443 Pericles sent out to Thurii a mixed body of colonists from various parts of Greece, among whom were Herodotus and the orator Lysias. The pretensions of the Sybarite colonists led to dissensions and ultimately to their expulsion; peace was made with Crotona, and also, after a period of war, with Tarentum, and Thurii rose rapidly in power and drew settlers from all parts of Greece, especially from Peloponnesus, so that the tie to Athens was not always acknowledged. The oracle of Delphi determined. that the city had no founder but Apollo, and in the Athenian War in Sicily Thurii was at first neutral, though it finally helped the Athenians. Thurii had a democratic constitution and good laws, and, though we hear little of its history till in 390 it received a severe defeat from the rising power of the Lucanians, many beautiful coins testify to the wealth and splendour of its days of prosperity. In the 4th century it continued to decline, and at length called in the help of the Romans against the Lucanians, and then in 2S2 against Tarentum. Thenceforward its position was dependent, and in the Second Punic War, after several vicissitudes, it was depopulated and plundered by Hannibal (204). In 194 a Roman colony was founded, with Latin rights, known for a time as Copiae, but afterwards by the old name of Thurii. It continued to be a place of some importance, the situation being favourable and the region fertile, and does not seem to have been wholly abandoned till the middle ages. The site of the original Greek city is not accurately known, though that of the Roman town, which probably though not certainly occupied the same site, is fixed by insignificant ruins as being 4 m. to the east of Terranova di Sibari, and as occupying an area some 4 m. in circuit. The tombs found in 1879–1880 (see Sybaris) lie a little to the. east of the site.
See F. Lenormant, La Grande-Grèce i. 317 (Paris, 1881). (T. As.)
THURINGIA (German Thüringen), an historical division of
Germany, but now a territorial term without political significance.
It strictly designates only that district in upper Saxony that
is bounded by the Werra, the Harz Mountains, the Saale and
the Thuringian Forest; in common parlance, however, it is
frequently used as equivalent to the Thuringian states, i.e. the
group of small duchies and principalities lying between Prussia,
Hesse-Nassau, Bavaria and the kingdom of Saxony. Such
Thuringian states are Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,
Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt,
Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and the two principalities
of Reuss, all of which are separately described. Besides these,
the term Thuringia also, of course, includes the various “exclaves”
of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria and Bohemia which lie
embedded among them.
The Thuringians are first mentioned by Vegetius Renatus about A.D. 420 when they occupied the district between the Harz Mountains and the Thuringian Forest. They were probably descended from the Hermunduri, a Suevic people referred to by Tacitus as living in this region during the 1st century. They were tributary to Attila the Hun, under whom they served at the battle of Châlons in 451. They were governed by kings, whose realm in the early 6th century touched both the Danube and the lower Elbe. At this time King Basin divided Thuringia among his three sons. The eldest, Hermannfried, eventually obtained sole possession by the help of Theuderich I., king of Austrasia, but having refused to pay the price he had promised for this assistance, was defeated by Theuderich in a series of battles and murdered by him in 531. The northern portion of the kingdom was given to the Saxons who had joined him against Hermannfried; the southern part was added to Austrasia; and the name of Thuringia was confined to the district bounded by the Harz Mountains, the Werra, the Thuringian Forest and the Saale. It remained under the direct rule of the Frankish kings until 634, when Radulf was appointed duke of the Thuringians by King Dagobert I. Radulf made himself practically independent of the Franks, in spite of an attack made on him by Sigebert III., king of Austrasia. About this time the conversion of the Thuringians to Christianity was begun by British missionaries and continued by St Boniface, who founded a bishopric at Erfurt. They were again reduced to dependence on the Franks by Charles Martel, who abolished the office of duke and divided the country among Frankish counts. About 804 Charlemagne, in order to defend the line of the Saale against the Slavs, founded the Thuringian mark, which soon became practically coextensive with the former duchy. In 849 King Louis the German recognized Thakulf as duke (dux Sorabici limitis), and some of his successors bore the title of margrave until the death of Burkhard in 908, when the country was seized by Otto the Illustrious, duke of Saxony. Thuringia was retained by Otto's son and successor, Henry I. the Fowler, in spite of the opposition of the German king, Conrad I., and ceased for a time to enjoy a separate political existence. It appears to have been united with Meissen for some time, and this was certainly the case from 1046 to 1067, when both countries were ruled by William and Otto, counts of Weimar. During the nth century the Thuringians refused to pay tithes to Siegfried, archbishop of Mainz, and this was probably one reason why they joined the rising of the Saxons against the emperor Henry IV. in 1073.
About this time a new dominion was founded by Louis the Bearded, who by purchase, gift or marriage obtained several counties in Thuringia. These passed on his death in 1056 to his son Louis the Springer (d. 1123), who took part in the Saxon risings against the emperors Henry IV. and Henry V., built the castle of the Wartburg near Eisenach, which was the residence of his family for nearly 200 years, and founded the monastery of Reinhardsbrunn, where as a monk he passed his last days. His son Louis was appointed landgrave of Thuringia in 1130 by the emperor Lothair II.; by his marriage with Hedwig of Gudensberg in 1137 he obtained a large part of Hesse. He was succeeded in 1140 by his son Louis II. the Hard, who married Judith, a sister of the emperor Frederick I., and on his behalf took a leading part in the opposition to his powerful neighbour Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony. In 1172 he was succeeded
