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Bible Encyclopedias
Angora
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or or Enguri. (I) A city of Turkey (anc. Ancyra) in Asia, capital of the vilayet of the same name, situated upon a steep, rocky hill, which rises 500 ft. above the plain, on the left bank of the Enguri Su, a tributary of the Sakaria(Sangarius), about 220 m. E.S.E. of Constantinople. The hill is crowned by the ruins of the old citadel, which add to the picturesqueness of the view; but the town is not well built, its streets being narrow and many of its houses constructed of sun-dried mud bricks; there are, however, many fine remains of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine architecture, the most remarkable being the temple of Rome and Augustus, on the walls of which is the famous Monumentum Ancyranum (see Ancyra). Ancyra was the centre of the Tectosages, one of the three Gaulish tribes which settled in Galatia in the 3rd century B.C., and became the capital of the Roman province of Galatia when it was formally constituted in 25 B.C. During the Byzantine period, throughout which it occupied a position of great importance, it was captured by Persians and Arabs; then it fell into the hands of the Seljuk Turks, was held for eighteen years by the Latin Crusaders, and finally passed to the Ottoman Turks in 1360. In 1402 a great battle was fought in the vicinity of Angora, in which the Turkish sultan Bayezid was defeated and made prisoner by the Tatar conqueror Timur. In 1415 it was recovered by the Turks under Mahommed I., and since that period has belonged to the Ottoman empire. In 1832 it was taken by the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha. Angora is connected with Constantinople by railway, and exports wool, mohair, grain and yellow berries. Mohair cloth is manufactured, and the town is noted for its honey and fruit. From 1639 to 1768 there was an agency of the Levant Company here; there is now a British consul. Pop. estimated at 28,000 (Moslems,l8,000; Christians, largely Roman Catholic Armenians, about 9400; Jews, 400).
(2) A Turkish vilayet in north-central Asia Minor, which includes most of the ancient Galatia. It is an agricultural country, depending for its prosperity on its grain, wool (average annual export, 4,400,000 lb), and the mohair obtained from the beautiful Angora goats (average annual clip, 3,300,000 lb). The fineness of the hair may perhaps be ascribed to some peculiarity in the atmosphere, for it is remarkable that the cats, dogs and other animals of the country are to 'a certain extent affected in the same way, and that they all lose much of their distinctive beauty when taken from their native districts. The only important industry is carpet-weaving at Kir-sheher and Kaisarieh. There are mines of silver, copper, lignite and salt, and many hot springs, including some of great repute medicinally. Average annual exports 1896-1898, X920,762; imports, £411,836. Pop. about 900,000 (Moslems, 765,000 to 800,000, the rest being Christians, with a few hundred Jews). (J. G. C. A.) See C. Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien (vol. xviii., 1837-1839) ,V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, t. i. (1891); Murray's Handbook to Asia Minor (1895); and other works mentioned under ANcYRA.
[[Angouleme, Charles De Valois, Duke Of]] (1573-1650), the natural son of Charles IX. of France and Marie Touchet, was born on the 28th of April 1573, at the castle of Fayet in Dauphine. His father, dying in the following year, commended him to the care and favour of his brother and successor, Henry III., who faithfully fulfilled the charge. His mother married Francois de Balzac, marquis d'Entragues, and one of her daughters, Henriette, marchioness of Verneuil, afterwards became the mistress of Henry IV. Charles of Valois, was carefully educated, and was destined for the order of Malta. At the early age of sixteen he attained one of the highest dignities of the order, being made grand prior of France. Shortly after he came into possession of large estates left by Catherine de' Medici, from one of which he took his title of count of Auvergne. In 1591 he obtained a dispensation from the vows of the order of Malta, and married Charlotte, daughter of Henry, Marshal d'Amville, afterwards duke of Montmorency. In 1589 Henry III. was assassinated, but on his deathbed he commended Charles to the good-will of his successor Henry IV. By that monarch he was made colonel of horse, and in that capacity served in the campaigns during the early part of the reign. But the connexion between the king and the marchioness of Verneuil appears to have been very displeasing to Auvergne, and in 1601 he engaged in the conspiracy formed by the dukes of Savoy, Biron and Bouillon, one of the objects of which was to force Henry to repudiate his wife and marry the marchioness. The conspiracy was discovered; Biron and Auvergne were arrested and Biron was executed. Auvergne after a few months' imprisonment was released, chiefly through the influence of his half-sister, his aunt, the duchess of Angouleme and his father-in-law. He then entered into fresh intrigues with the court of Spain, acting in concert with the marchioness of Verneuil and her father d'Entragues. In 1604 d'Entragues and he were arrested and condemned to death; at the same time the marchioness was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in a convent. She easily obtained pardon, and the sentence of death against the other two was commuted into perpetual imprisonment. Auvergne remained in the Bastille for eleven years, from 1605 to 1616. A decree of the parlement (1606), obtained by Marguerite de Valois, deprived him of nearly all his possessions, including Auvergne, though he still retained the title. In 1616 he was released, was restored to his rank of colonel-general of horse, and despatched against one of the disaffected nobles, the duke of Longueville, who had taken Peronne. Next year he commanded the forces collected in the Ile de France, and obtained some successes. In 1619 he received by bequest, ratified in 1620 by royal grant, the duchy of Angouleme. Soon after he was engaged on an important embassy to Germany, the result of which was the treaty of Ulm, signed July 1620. In 1627 he commanded the large forces assembled at the siege of La Rochelle; and some years after in 1635, during the Thirty Years' War, he was general of the French army in Lorraine. In 1636 he was made lieutenantgeneral of the army. He appears to have retired from public life shortly after the death of Richelieu in 1643. His first wife died in 1636, and in 1644 he married Frangoise de Narbonne, daughter of Charles, baron of Mareuil. She had no children and survived her husband until 1713. Angouleme himself died on the 24th of September 1650. By his first wife he had three children: Henri, who became insane; Louis Emmanuel, who succeeded his father as duke of Angouleme and was colonel-general of light cavalry and governor of Provence; and Francois, who died in 1622.
The duke was the author of the following works: - (i) Memoires, from the assassination of Henri III. to the battle of Argues (1589-1593), published at Paris by Boneau, and reprinted by Buchon in his Choix de chroniques (1836) and by Petitot in his Memoires (1st series, vol. xliv.); (2) Les Harangues, prononces en assemblee de MM. les princes Protestants d'Allemagne, par Monseigneur le duc d'Angouleme (1620); (3) a translation of a Spanish work by Diego de Torres. To him has also been ascribed the work, La generate et fidele Relation de tout ce qui s'est passe en l'isle de Re, envoyee par le roi a la royne sa mere (Paris, 1627).
Angouleme, a city of south-western France, capital of the department of Charente, 83 m. N.N.E. of Bordeaux on the railway between Bordeaux and Poitiers. Pop. (1906) 30,040. The town proper occupies an elevated promontory, washed on the north by the Charente and on the south and west by the Anguienne, a small tributary of that river. The more important of the suburbs lie towards the east, where the promontory joins the main plateau, of which it forms the north-western extremity. The main line of the Orleans railway passes through a tunnel beneath the town. In place of its ancient fortifications Angouleme is encircled by boulevards known as the Remparts, from which fine views may be obtained in all directions. Within the town the streets are often dark and narrow, and, apart from the cathedral and the hotel de ville, the architecture is of little interest. The cathedral of St Pierre (see Cathedral), a church in the Byzantine-Romanesque style, dates from the 11 th and 12th centuries, but has undergone frequent restoration, and was partly rebuilt in the latter half of the 19th century by the architect Paul Abadie. The façade, flanked by two towers with cupolas, is decorated with arcades filled in with statuary and sculpture, the whole representing the Last Judgment. The crossing is surmounted by a dome, and the extremity of the north transept by a fine square tower over 160 ft. high. The hotel de ville, also by Abadie, is a handsome modern structure, but preserves two towers of the château of the counts of Angouleme, on the site of which it is built. It contains museums of paintings and archaeology. Angouleme is the seat of a bishop, a prefect, and a court of assizes. Its public institutions include tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a council of tradearbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. It also has a lycee, training-colleges, a school of artillery, a library and several learned societies. It is a centre of the paper-making industry, with which the town has been connected since the 14th century. Most of the mills are situated on the banks of the watercourses in the neighbourhood of the town. The subsidiary industries, such as the manufacture of machinery and wire fabric, are of considerable importance. Iron and copper founding, brewing, tanning, and the manufacture of gunpowder, confectionery, heavy iron goods, gloves, boots and shoes and cotton goods are also carried on. Commerce is carried on in wine, brandy and building-stone.
Angouleme (Iculisma) was taken by Clovis from the Visigoths in 507, and plundered by the Normans in the 9th century. In 1360 it was surrendered by the peace of Bretigny to the English; they were, however, expelled in 1373 by the troops of Charles V., who granted the town numerous privileges. It suffered much during the Wars of Religion, especially in 1568 after its capture by the Protestants under Coligny.
The countship of Angouleme dated from the 9th century, the most important of the early counts being William Taillefer, whose descendants held the title till the end of the 12th century. Withdrawn from them on more than one occasion by Richard Coeur-de-Lion, it passed to King John of England on his marriage with Isabel, daughter of Count Adhemar, and by her subsequent marriage in 1220 to Hugh X. passed to the Lusignan family, counts of Marche. On the death of Hugh XIII. in 1302 without issue, his possessions passed to the crown. In 1394 the countship came to the house of Orleans, a member of which, Francis I., became king of France in 1515 and raised it to the rank of duchy in favour of his mother Louise of Savoy. The duchy afterwards changed hands several times, one of its holders being Charles of Valois, natural son of Charles IX. The last duke was LouisAntoine, eldest son of Charles X., who died in 1844.
See A. F. Lievre, Angouleme: histoire, institutions et monuments (Angouleme, 1885).
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Angora'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/a/angora.html. 1910.
