Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/752

JOHN the nomination as governor-general of the archduke Matthias, under whom Orange continued to hold the actual supremacy, while Don John s control was almost entirely confined to the south-western part of the Netherlands. He now (January 1578) declared war against the insurgent provinces, and the dismissed Spanish troops were soon with other forces reassembling under his standard. A large army brought from Lombardy by Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma (Don John s nephew), raised the Spanish forces to a virtual equality in numbers with those of their opponents ; and Farnese s victory of Gemblours (January 31, 1578) hopefully opened the .campaign. It remained an open question whether the aid of France (which appeared to be warranted by the arrival with an army of the duke of Anjou, the " protector" of the liberties of the Netherlands), together with the money of England and the men of the Palatinate, would suffice to make the cause of freedom prevail against the determination of Philip, the ambitious devotion of Don John, and the military genius of Alexander Farnese. On the other hand, it seemed doubtful whether the disunion among Philip s adversaries would weaken them more than his parsimony and suspicion vexed the soul and crippled the energies of his brother. Such was the situation when Don John was removed by death. After having shortly before escaped the dagger of an English assassin (a Catholic refugee, who had hoped by the act to secure the pardon of the queen), Don John succumbed to a sudden illness at Namur on October 1, 1578. An altogether unwarranted, but under the circumstances far from inexplicable, suspicion accused King Philip of having by poison brought about the death of a half-brother whose action his jealousy and distrust of all the world except himself had thwarted after Gemblours as after Lepanto. The settlement of the Netherlands, after whatever fashion Don John might have accomplished it, was a harder task than any he ever executed ; and the subjection of heretic England to the authority of a Catholic queen seems to posterity a dream more marvellous than were even the actual glories of Lepanto. But his life, which spanned but little more than thirty-three years, was the reverse of an empty or an ignoble one, and though it was full of imperfections and disappointments, yet its enthusiasm shines forth even under the cold shade spread over it by the fraternal jealousy of a Philip II. The only modern monograph on the life of Don John of Austria is that by Professor W. Havemann (Gotha, 1865), which corrects some of Motley s vivacities. For the rebellion of the Moriscoes and the battle of Lepanto see Prescott s Reign of Philip 11:+ and Forneron s Histoire de Philippe II. (vols. i. and ii., Paris, 1880); for the battle, see also Ranlce s Die Osmanen u. die Spanische Monarchic (4th ed., 1877). (A. W. W.) JOHN OP DAMASCUS. See DAMASCENUS, vol vi. p. 789. JOHN OF GAUNT. See LANCASTER, DUKE OP. JOHN, ST, OF NEPOMUK, or POMUK (c. 1330-1393), the patron saint of Bohemia, was born at Pomuk about 1330. After studying at the university of Prague he took holy orders and was for some time a priest in the diocese of Prague. In 1372 he is mentioned as imperial notary; in 1380 he became rector of the church of St Gall in Prague, and notary and secretary of the archbishop ; and in 1381 he was made doctor of canon law and canon of the metro politan chapter. He appears to have taken an important part as adviser or supporter of the archbishop John of Janstein in his disputes with King Wenceslaus, and on this account, after suffering cruel torture, he was drowned in the Moldau. The chief events of his life were afterwards adorned with a variety of legends, and in 1729 he was canonized by Benedict XIII. An annual procession in his honour takes place at Prague on May 16. See Abel, Die Lerjende vom St Johann von Nepomuk, Berlin, 1855. JOHN OF SALISBURY (c. 1115-1180), a distinguished writer of the 12th century, was born at Salisbury in Wiltshire between the years 1110 and 1120. From the cognomen Parvus, which he applies to himself, and from the fact that he was of Saxon, not of Norman race, it may be inferred that his name was Short, or Small, or Little. Few details are known regarding his early life or rank in society; but from his own statements it is gathered that he crossed to France about the year 1131, and began regular studies in Paris under Abelard, who had there for a brief period reopened his famous school on Mont St Genevieve. After Abelard s retirement, John carried on his studies under Alberich, Robert of Melun, and Robert Pulleyn. Three years he spent at the great school of Chartres, mainly under William of Conches, though it would seem that he had been a pupil of the founder of the school, Bernard Silvester. Bernard s teaching was distin guished partly by its pronounced Platonic tendency, partly by the stress laid upon literary study of the greater Latin writers ; and the influence of the latter feature is noticeable in all John of Salisbury s works. Returning to Paris, he spent some years there, partly as teacher, partly as pupil of Adam de Ponto Parvo and Gilbert de la Porre e. Whether he attended any of the teachers of the Victorin school is uncertain, but his mode of thinking in theological subjects bears unmistakable traces of the peculiar views of these writers. Probably in the year 1147 or 1148 he crossed to England, with a letter of recommendation from Peter of Celli to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury. For thirteen years he acted as secretary to Theobald, and was frequently ambassador from the English primate to the papal see. During this time he composed his greatest works, published almost certainly in 1159, the Policraticus, sive de Nuyis Curialium et de Vestiyiis Philosophorum and the Meta- logicus, writings invaluable as storehouses of information regarding the matter and form of scholastic education, and remarkable for their cultured literary style and humanist tendency. After the death of Theobald in 1061, John continued to occupy the post of secretary to his successor, the famous chancellor Thomas Becket, and took an active part in the long disputes between the primate and his sovereign, Henry II. His letters are of great value for the light they throw upon the obscure course of the consti tutional struggle then agitating the English world. With Becket he withdrew to France during the king s displea sure; he returned with him in 1169, and was present at his assassination in 1170. In the following years, during which he continued in an influential situation in Canter bury, but at what precise date is unknown, he drew up the Life of St Thomas & Becket, and somewhat later the Life of St Anselm. In 1176 he was made bishop of Chartres, where he passed the remainder of his life. The date of his death has been variously given as 1182, 1181, or 1 180 ; the strongest reasons are in favour of the last. John s writings are not in any strict sense philosophical, but they give much information regarding the general currents of thinking at the time, and enable us to under stand with much completeness the literary and scientific position of the 12th century. So far as his own views are concerned, they are such as one might expect from a cultured intelligence well versed in practical affairs. His doctrine, on the whole, is a kind of a utilitarianism, with a strong leaning, on the side of speculative questions, to the modified, literary scepticism of Cicero. For Cicero, indeed, he has unbounded admiration, and his Latin style, unusually excellent when compared with the average Latinity of the scholastic writers, is evidently moulded on that of Cicero. The remarkable feature of his writings, apart from their value as giving information respecting studies in the 12th century, is their strongly marked humanist tendency. To