Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/475

P N P N 455 forces, and one by the Royalists. After its capitulation to Lambert in March 1649 it was dismantled. Below the castle is All Saints church, which suffered severely during the siege of the castle, but still retains some work of the 12th century. In 1837 the tower and transepts were fitted up for divine service. The church of St Giles, formerly a chapel of ease to All Saints, but made parochial in the 18th century, is of Norman date, but most of the present structure is modern. The 17th-century spire was removed in 1707, and replaced by a square tower, which was rebuilt in 1797; the chancel was rebuilt in 1869. In Southgate is an ancient hermitage and oratory cut out of the solid rock, which dates from 1396. On St Thomas s Hill, where Thomas, earl of Lancaster, was beheaded in 1322, a chantry was erected in 1373, the site of which is now occupied by a windmill built of its stones. At Monkhill there are the remains of a Tudor building called the Old Hall, probably constructed out of the old priory of St John s. A grammar school of ancient foundation, renewed by Queen Elizabeth and by George III., is now in abeyance. The town-hall was built in 1796 on the site of one erected in 1656, which succeeded the old moot-hall, dating from Saxon times. Among other buildings are the court-house, the market-hall, the assembly rooms (a hand some building adjoining the town-hall), and the dispensary. The principal alms-house, that of St Nicholas, dates from Saxon times. Trinity Hospital was founded in the 14th century by the celebrated Sir Robert Knolles. There are extensive gardens and nurseries in the neighbourhood, and liquorice is largely grown for the manufacture of the cele brated Pomfret cakes. The town possesses iron found ries, sack and matting manufactories, tanneries, breweries, corn mills, arid brick and terra-cotta works. The popula tion of the municipal borough (extended in 1875) in 1871 was 6432, and in 1881 it was 8798, the population of the parliamentary borough (area 7316 acres) in the same years being 11,563 and 15,322. The increase is mainly due to the fact that Pontefract is now a military centre. There are indications that the Romans were stationed near the present town, which adjoins the Ermine Street. In Domesday it Is called Tateshale, and is said previously to have been held by the king (Edward the Confessor). It then possessed a church and priest, one fishery, and three mills. Subsequently it is mentioned as Kirkby. Of the cause of the change of the name to Pontefract various unsatisfactory explanations are given. According to one account it was because when William advanced to the conquest of the north his passage was delayed by a broken bridge (but this was at Ferrybridge, 3 miles off); according to a second the name was bestowed on it by its Norman possessor from Pontfrete in Nor- maudy (which, however, never existed) ; and according to a third the name perpetuates the remarkable preservation from drowning of those who fell into the river when the concourse of people made the bridge give way on the arrival of St William of Canterbury in 1153 (although all contemporary historians call the place Ponte fract when Archbishop Thurstan died there in 1140). The town received a charter from Roger de Lacy in 1194, and was incorpor ated in the time of Richard III. As early as 1297 it returned two members to parliament ; but there was a long discontinuance in the 14th, loth, and 16th centuries. The practice was revived under James I. The "redistribution" measure of 1885 deprives it of one of its members. The municipal borough is divided into three wards, and is governed by six aldermen and eighteen councillors. PONTEVEDRA, a maritime province of Spain, is bounded on the N. by Coruna, on the E. by Lugo and Orense, on the S. by Portugal (Entre Douro e Minho), and on the W. by the Atlantic, and has an area of 1739 square miles. The general character of the province is hilly, with a deeply indented coast ; its products are those common to all GALICIA (q.v. of which historical province it formed a part. The population in 1877 was 451,946, the municipalities with a population over 10,000 being La Estrada (23,528), Lalin (16,217), Lavadores (13,658), PONTEVEDRA (noticed below), Puenteareas (14,566), Redon- dela (10,073), Silleda (13,346), Tomiilo ( 11,150), Tuy (11,710), and Vigo (13,416). Vigo is connected by rail with Tuy and Orense, and the line from Santiago to Vigo is open as far as to Carril. PONTEVEDRA, capital of the above province, and an episcopal see, is a picturesque old granite-built town, pleasantly situated at the head of the Ria de Pontevedra, where the Lerez is spanned by the old Roman bridge (whence the name pons vetus). The inhabitants engage in agriculture, sardine fishing, and the manufacture of cloth and hats. The population of the municipality in 1877 was 19,857. PONTIANAK. See BORNEO. PONTIFEX. The principal college of priests in ancient Rome consisted of the pontifices, the rex sacrorum, and the flamines, under the headship of the pontifex maximus. The rex sacrorum was the functionary who under the republic succeeded to the sacrificial duties which in old time had been performed by the king ; the flamines were sacrificial priests of particular gods, the most important being the flamen Dialis, or priest of Jupiter, whose wife, the flaminica Dialis, was priestess of Juno. The pontifices on the other hand were not assigned to the service of particular gods, but performed general functions of the state religion ; and their head, the pontifex maximus, was the highest religious authority in the state. For, while the rex sacrorum succeeded to the liturgical functions of the king, it was the pontifex maximus who inherited the substance of power in sacred things ; the other members of the college were his counsellors and helpers, but no more. It is probable that there was no supreme pontifex under the kings, but that in accordance with the general rule that sacred officers went in threes, following the number of the old tribes, the king sat as sixth and chief among the five pontifices whom Numa is said to have instituted. The functions of pontifex maximus were indeed too weighty to be discharged by a subject in a monarchical government, and from Augustus to Gratian (382 A.D.) this supreme priesthood was held by the emperors in person. The original idea of the pontificate is as obscure as the name ; it is by no means certain that pontifex means bridge-maker (as the commonest etymology has it) with reference to the duty of maintenance of the sacred Sublician bridge, for there were pontifices from of old in other parts of Italy. Marquardt conjectures that the name originally denoted atoning functions, from the same root as appears in purus, poena. In historical times the pontifices had a very extended sphere of duties, and claimed to possess professional "knowledge of things human and divine." The supreme pontiff was in the religion of the state what the father was in the religion of the family. His dwelling was in the regia close to the altar of Vesta, the sacred hearth of the state ; and the most sacred objects of national worship, the penatcs publici and tLe mysterious palladia of Roman sovereignty, were his special care. The flamens and vestal virgins were appointed by him and stood under his paternal power, and the stated service of their cults, as well as those exercises of public religion for which no special priests were provided, were under his charge or that of the college in which he pre sided. The pontiffs, moreover, supplied technical guidance and help in those religious functions in which the senate or magistrates had the first part ; while the charge of the calendar with its complicated intercalation and system of feast days gave them an important influence on affairs of civil life. The control of the calendar is closely connected with the duties pertaining to the pontifical archives, which, besides a mass of ritual directions and the like, embraced the calendars of past years (including the fasti consulares} and the annales maximi or annual chronicle of public

events. Further the pontiffs had the weighty function of