or need. The occasions for demanding them and the amount to be demanded would thus be matters of dispute, while the loose use of the term to denote many different payments increases the difficulty of the subject.

See Bede, Historiae Ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896); Adamnan, Vita S. Columbae, edited by J. T. Fowler (Oxford, 1894).

AIDAN, or ÆDAN, first bishop of Lindisfarne, a monk of Hii (Iona), was sent by the abbot Senegi to Northumbria, at the request of King Oswald, A.D. 634-635. He restored Christianity, and in accordance with the traditions of Irish episcopacy chose the island of Lindisfarne, close to the royal city of Bamborough, as his see. Although he retained the Irish Easter, his character and energy in missionary work won him the respect of Honorius and Felix. He survived Oswald, and died shortly after the murder of his friend Oswine of Deira, on the 31st of August 651, in the 17th year of his episcopate.

See Bede, Hist. Eccl. (ed. Plummer), iii. 3, 5, 17, 25.

AIDE-DE-CAMP (Fr. for camp-assistant or, perhaps, fieldassistant), an officer of the personal staff of a general, who acts as his confidential secretary in routine matters. In Great Britain the office of aide-de-camp to the king is given as a reward or an honorary distinction. In many foreign armies the word adjutant is used for an aide-de-camp, and adjutant general for a royal aide-de-camp. The common abbreviation for aide-de-camp in the British service is "A.D.C.," and in the United States "aid." Civil governors, such as the lord lieutenant of Ireland, have also, as a rule, officers on their staffs with the title and functions of aides-de-camp.

AIDIN. (1) A vilayet in the S.W. of Asia Minor including the ancient Lydia, Ionia, Caria and western Lycia. It derives its name from the Seljuk emir who took Tralles, and is the richest and most productive province of Asiatic Turkey. The seat of government is Smyrna. (2) The principal town of the valley of the Menderes or Maeander, about 70 m. E.S.E. of Smyrna. It is called also Güzel Hissar from the beauty of its situation on the lower slopes of Mons Messogis and along the course of the ancient Eudon. It is the capital of a sanjak. It was taken by the Seljuks, Aidin and Mentesh, late in the 13th century, and about 1390, when ruled by Isa Bey, a descendant of the first-named, acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty. In the Seljuk period it was a secondary city under the provincial capital, Tireh (q.v.). In the 17th century it came under the power of the Karasmans of Manisa and remained so till about 1820. Aidin is on the SmyrnaDineir railway, has large tanneries and sweetmeat manufactories, and exports figs, cotton and raisins. It was greatly damaged by an earthquake in 1899. On a neighbouring height are to be seen the ruins of the ancient Tralles (q.v.), the site to which the name Güzel Hissar was particularly given by the Seljuks. Aidin is the seat of a British consular agent. As there are considerable numbers of Greeks, Armenians and Jews among the inhabitants, there are a Greek cathedral, several churches and synagogues in addition to the fine Turkish mosques. (D. G. H.) AIDONE, a town of Sicily, in the province of Caltanisetta. From the town of Caltanisetta it is 22 m. E.S.E. direct (18 m. S.S.W. of the railway station of Raddusa, which is 41 m. W. of Catania). Pop. (1901) 8548. There are some interesting churches of the 14th century (see E. Mauceri in L'Arte, 1906, 17). On the Serra Orlando, a mountain not far off, are the extensive remains of an unknown city, the finest in eastern Sicily, but rapidly suffering destruction from the spread of cultivation and unauthorized excavations.

See P. Orsi in Atti del Congresso di Scienze Storiche, vol. v. 178 (Rome, 1904).

AIDS, a term of medieval finance, were part of the service due to a lord from his men, and appear to have been based upon the

reason

Both in Normandy and in England, in the 12th century, the two recognized occasions on which, by custom, the lord could demand "aid," were (1) the knighting of his eldest son, (2) the marriage of his eldest daughter; but while in England the third occasion was, according to Glanvill, as in Normandy, his payment of relief on his succession, it was, according to the Great Charter (1215), the lord's ransom from captivity. By its provisions, the king covenanted to exact an 66 aid " from his barons on these three occasions alone—and then only a one except by "the common counsel" of his realm. Enormous importance has been attached to this provision, as establishing the principle of taxation by consent, but its scope was limited to the barons (and the city of London), and the word "aids was omitted from subsequent issues of the charter. The barons, on their part, covenanted to claim from their feudal tenants only the above three customary aids. The last levy by the crown was that of James I. on the knighting of his eldest

able

son (1609) and the marriage of his daughter (1613).

66 aids'

From at least the days of Henry I. the term aid was also applied (1) to the special contributions of boroughs to the king's revenue, (2) to a payment in lieu of the military service due from the crown's knights. Both these occur on the pipe roll of 1130, the latter as auxilium militum (and possibly as auxilium comitatus). The borough were alternatively known as gifts" (dona), resembling in this the "benevolences" of later days. When first met with, under Henry I., they are fixed round sums, but under Henry II. (as the Dialogue on the Exchequer explains) they were either assessed on a population basis by crown officers or were sums offered by the towns and accepted by them as sufficient. In the latter case the townsfolk were collectively responsible for the amount. The Great Charter, as stated above, extended specially to London the limitation on baronial "aids," but left untouched its liability to tallage, a lower and more arbitrary form of taxation, which the towns shared with the crown's demesne manors, and which London resisted in vain. The two exactions, although distinct, have to be studied together, and when in 1296-1297 Edward I. was forced to his great surrender, he was formerly supposed by historians to have pledged himself, under De tallagio non concedendo, to levy no tallage or aid except by common consent of his people. It is now held, however, that he limited this conaides, mises," and "prises," retaining the right to tallage. Eventually, by a statute of 1340, it was provided that 66 to make any common the nation should not be called upon aid or sustain charge except by consent of parliament. The aids spoken of at this period are of yet another character, namely, the grant of a certain proportion of all "movables" (i.e. personal property), a form of taxation introduced about 1188 and now rapidly increasing in importance. These subsidies were conveniently classed under the vague term “aids," as were also the grants made by the clergy in convocation, the term covering both feudal and non-feudal levies from the higher clergy and proportions not only of "movables" but of ecclesiastical revenues as well.

cession to

The "knight's aid" of 1130 spoken of above is probably identical with auxilium exercitus spoken of in the oldest custumals of Normandy, where the phrase appears to represent what was known in England as "scutage." Even in England the 99 occurs in phrase “quando Rex accipit auxilium de militibus 1166 and appears to be loosely used for scutage. The same loose use enabled the early barons to demand aid" from their tenants on various grounds, such as their indebtedness to the Jews, as is well seen in the Norfolk fragments of returns to the Inquest of Sheriffs (1170).

Sheriff's aid was a local payment of a fixed nature paid in early days to the sheriff for his service. It was the subject of a hot dispute between Henry II. and Becket in 1163.

AUTHORITIES.-Stubbs' Constitutional History and Select Charters; M'Kechnie's Magna Carta; Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law; Maitland's Domesday Book and Beyond; Dialogus de Scaccario (Oxford, 1892); Madox's History of the Exchequer; Round's Feudal England and The Commune of London; The Pipe Rolls (Record Commission and Pipe Roll Society). (J. H. R.) AIGRETTE (from the Fr. for egret, or lesser white heron), the tufted crest, or head-plumes of the egret, used for adorning a woman's head-dress, the term being also given to any similar ornament, in gems, &c. An aigrette is also worn by certain ranks of officers in the French army. By analogy the word is used in various sciences for feathery excrescences of like appearance, as for the tufts on the heads of insects, the feathery down of the dandelion, the luminous rays at the end of electrified bodies, or the luminous rays seen in solar eclipses, diverging from the moon's edge.

AIGUES-MORTES, a town of south-eastern France, in the department of Gard 25 m. S.S.W. of Nîmes, on a branch line of the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway. Pop. (1906) 3577. Aigues-Mortes occupies an isolated position in the marshy plain at the western extremity of the Rhone delta, 23 m. from the Golfe du Lion. It owes its celebrity to the medieval fortifications of remarkable completeness with which it is surrounded. They form a parallelogram 596 yds. long by 149 yds. broad, and consist of crenellated walls from 25 to 36 ft. in height, dominated at intervals by towers. Of these, the Tour de Constance, built by Louis IX., is the most interesting; it commands the northwestern angle of the ramparts, and contains two circular, vaulted chambers, used as prisons for Protestants after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The remainder of the fortifications were built in the reign of Philip III. AiguesMortes is the meeting-place of several canals connecting it with Beaucaire, with Cette, with the Lesser Rhone and with the Mediterranean, on which it has a small port. Fishing and the manufacture of soda are the chief industries with which the town is connected. It has trade in coal, oranges and other fruits, and in wine. In the surrounding country there are important vineyards, which are preserved from disease by periodical submersion. There is a statue in the town in memory of Louis IX. who embarked from Aigues-Mortes in 1248 and 1270 for the seventh and eighth crusades. To further the prosperity of the town a most liberal charter was granted to it, and in addition the trade of the port was artificially fostered by a decree requiring that every vessel navigating within sight of its lights should put in there. This ordinance remained in force till the reign of Louis XIV.

AIGUILLE (Fr. for needle), the sharp jagged points above the snow-line, standing upon the massif of a mountain split by frost action along joints or planes of cleavage with sides too steep for snow to rest upon them. Aiguilles are thus the forms remaining from the splitting up of the high ridges with houseroof structure into detached pinnacles.

AIGUILLETTE (Fr. diminutive of aiguille, a needle; the obsolete English form is "aglet "), originally a tag of metal, often made of precious metals and richly chased, attached to the end of a lace or ribbon, and pointed, so as to pass more easily through eyelet holes. The term was, in time, applied to any bright ornament or pendant for the dress made of metal, and is now specially used of ornamental cords and tags of gold and silver lace, worn on naval and military uniforms. The aiguillette is fastened to the shoulder, the various cords hanging down therefrom being fastened at their other end on the front of the

coat.

AIGUILLON, EMMANUEL ARMAND DE WIGNEROD DU PLESSIS DE RICHELIEU, DUC D' (1720-1782), French statesman, nephew of the maréchal de Richelieu, was born on the 31st of July 1720. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and at the age of nineteen was made colonel of the regiment of Brie. He served in the campaigns in Italy during the War of the Austrian Succession, was seriously wounded at the siege of Château-Dauphin (1744), was taken prisoner (1746) and was made maréchal de camp in 1748. His marriage in 1740 with Louise Félicité de Bréhan, daughter of the comte de Plélo,

coupled with his connexion with the Richelieu family, gave him an important place at court. He was a member of the so-called parti dévot, the faction opposed to Madame de Pompadour, to the Jansenists and to the parlement, and his hostility to the new ideas drew upon him the anger of the pamphleteers. In 1753 he was appointed commandant (governor) of Brittany and soon became unpopular in that province, which had retained a large number of privileges called "liberties." He first came into collision with the provincial estates on the question of the royal imposts (1758), but was then blamed for his inertia in the preparation of a squadron against England (1759), and finally alienated the parlement of Brittany by violating the privileges of the province (1762). In June 1764 the king, at the instance of d'Aiguillon, quashed a decree of the parlement forbidding the levying of new imposts without the consent of the estates, and refused to receive the remonstrances of the parlement against the duke. On the 11th of November 1765 La Chalotais, the procureur of the parlement, was arrested, but whether at the instigation of d'Aiguillon is not certain. The conflict between d'Aiguillon and the Bretons lasted two years. In the place of the parlement, which had resigned, d'Aiguillon organized a tribunal of more or less competent judges, who were ridiculed by the pamphleteers and ironically termed the bailliage d'Aiguillon. In 1768 the duke was forced to suppress this tribunal, and returned to court, where he resumed his intrigue with the parti dévot and finally obtained the dismissal of the minister Choiseul (December 24, 1770). When Louis XV., acting on the advice of Madame Dubarry, reorganized the government with a view to suppressing the resistance of the parlements, d'Aiguillon was made minister of foreign affairs, Maupeou and the Abbé Terray (1715-1778) also obtaining places in the ministry. The new ministry, albeit one of reform, was very unpopular, and was styled the "triumvirate." All the failures of the government were attributed to the mistakes of the ministers. Thus d'Aiguillon was blamed for having provoked the coup d'état of Gustavus III., king of Sweden, in 1772, although the instructions of the comte de Vergennes, the French ambassador in Sweden, had been written by the minister, the duc de la Vrillière. D'Aiguillon, however, could do nothing to rehabilitate French diplomacy; he acquiesced in the first division of Poland, renewed the Family Compact, and, although a supporter of the Jesuits, sanctioned the suppression of the society. After the death of Louis XV. he quarrelled with Maupeou and with the young queen, Marie Antoinette, who demanded his dismissal from the ministry (1774). He died, forgotten, in 1782. In no circumstances had he shown any special ability. He was more fitted for intrigue than for government, and his attempts to restore the status of French diplomacy met with scant success.

See Mémoires du ministère du duc d'Aiguillon (3rd ed., Paris and Lyons, 1792), probably written by J. L. Soulavie. On d'Aiguillon's governorship of Brittany see Carré, La Chalotais et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1893); Marion, La Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1898); and Barthélemy Pocquet, Le Duc d'Aiguillon et La Chalotais (Paris, 1901-1902). The three last have full bibliographies. See also Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements (Paris, 1883); Frédéric Masson, Le Cardinal de Bernis (Paris, 1884).

AIGUILLON, MARIE MADELEINE DE WIGNEROD DU PONT DE COURLAY, DUCHESSE D' (1604-1675), daughter of Cardinal Richelieu's sister. In 1620 she married a nephew of the constable de Luynes, Antoine de Beauvoir du Roure, sieur de Combalet, who died in 1622. In 1625, through her uncle's influence, she was made a lady-in-waiting (dame d'atour) to the queen-mother, and in 1638 was created duchess of Aiguillon. She did not marry a second time, although Richelieu wished to marry her to a prince-either to the comte de Soissons or to the king's brother. After the death of the cardinal (1642) she retained her honours and titles, but withdrew from the court, and devoted herself entirely to works of charity. She entered into relations with Saint Vincent de Paul and helped him to establish the hospital for foundlings. She also took part in organizing the General Hospital and several others in the provinces. She died on the 17th of April 1675. She was the patroness of Corneille, who in 1636 dedicated to her his tragedy of The Cid.

See E. Fléchier, Oraison funèbre de Mme. Marie de Wignerod, duchesse d'Aiguillon; Bonneau-Avenant, La duchesse d'Aiguillon (1879); Mémoires de Saint-Simon, ed. by A. de Boislisle (1879 et seq.).

AIGUN, or AIHUN (also Sakhalyan-ula-khoto), a town of China, province Hei-lung-kiang, in northern Manchuria, situated on the right bank of the Amur, in a fertile and populous region, 20 m. below Blagovyeshchensk, where it occupies nearly 2 m. on the bank of the river. There is a palisaded fort in the middle of the town, inside of which is the house of the fu-tu (governor). Its merchants carry on an active local trade in grain, mustard, oil and tobacco, and some of its firms supply the Russian administration with grain and flour. During the " Boxer " rising of 1900 it was, for a few weeks, the centre of military action directed against the Russians. The population, of some 20,000, includes a few hundred Mussulmans. The town was founded first on the left bank of the Amur, below the mouth of the Zeya, but was abandoned, and the present town was founded in 1684. It was here that Count Muraviev concluded, in May 1857, the Aihun treaty, according to which the left bank of the Amur was conceded to Russia.

AIKEN, a city and the county-seat of Aiken county, South Carolina, U.S.A., 17 m. E.N.E. of Augusta, Georgia. Pop. (1890) 2362; (1900) 3414 (2131 of negro descent); (1910) 3911. It is served by the Southern railway, and by an electric line connecting with Augusta. Aiken is a fashionable winter resort, chiefly frequented by Northerners, and is pleasantly situated about 500 ft. above sea level in the heart of the famous sand-hill and pine-forest region of the state. The dry and unusually equable temperature (mean for winter 50° F., for spring 57° F., and for autumn 64° F.) and the balmy air laden with the fragrance of the pine forests have combined to make Aiken a health and pleasure resort; its climate is said to be especially bene1 ficial for those afflicted with pulmonary diseases. There are fine hotels, club houses and cottages, and the Palmetto Golf Links near the city are probably the finest in the southern states; fox-hunting, polo, tennis and shooting are among the popular sports. There are some excellent drives in the vicinity. The city is the seat of the Aiken Institute (for whites) and the Schofield Normal and Industrial School (for negroes). There are lumber mills, cotton mills and cotton-gins; and cotton, farm products and artificial stone are exported. Considerable quantities of aluminium are obtained from the kaolin deposits in the vicinity. The city's water supply is obtained from artesian wells. Aiken was settled in the early part of the 19th century, but was not incorporated until 1835, when it was named in honour of William Aiken (1806-1887), governor of the state in 1844-1847, and a representative in Congress in 1851-1857.

AIKIN, ARTHUR (1773-1854), English chemist and mineralogist, was born on the 19th of May 1773, at Warrington in Lancashire. He studied chemistry under Priestley and gave attention to the practical applications of the science. To mineralogy he was likewise attracted, and he was one of the founders of the Geological Society of London, 1807, and honorary secretary, 1812-1817. To the transactions of that society he contributed papers on the Wrekin and the Shropshire coalfield, &c. Later he became secretary of the Society of Arts, and in 1841 treasurer of the Chemical Society. In early life he had been for a short time a Unitarian minister. He was highly esteemed as a man of sound judgment and wide knowledge. He died in London on the 15th of April 1854.

PUBLICATIONS. Journal of a Tour through North Wales and part of Shropshire; with observations in Mineralogy and other branches of Natural History (London, 1797); A Manual of Mineralogy (1814; ed. 2, 1815); A Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy (with his brother C. R. Aikin), 2 vols. (London, 1807, 1814).

AIKIN, JOHN (1747-1822), English doctor and writer, was born at Kibworth-Harcourt, and received his elementary education at the Noncomformist academy at Warrington, where his father was tutor. He studied medicine in the university of Edinburgh, and in London under Dr William Hunter. He practised as a surgeon at Chester and Warrington. Finally,

he went to Leyden, took the degree of M.D. (1780), and in 1784 established himself as a doctor in Yarmouth. In 1792 he removed to London, where he practised as a consulting physician. But he concerned himself more with the advocacy of liberty of conscience than with his professional duties, and he began at junction with his sister, Mrs Barbauld (q.v.), he published a an early period to devote himself to literary pursuits. In conpopular series of volumes entitled Evenings at Home (6 vols., 1792-1795), excellently adapted for elementary family reading, which were translated into almost every European language. himself with great industry to various literary undertakings, In 1798 Dr Aikin retired from professional life and devoted among which his General Biography (10 vols., 1799-1815) holds a conspicuous place. Besides these, he published Biog. Memoirs of Medicine (1780); Lives of John Selden and Archbishop Usher (1812) and other works. He edited the Monthly Magazine from 1796 to 1807, and conducted a paper called the Athenaeum from Aikin died in 1822. 1807 to 1809, when it was discontinued.

His daughter, LUCY AIKIN (1781-1864), born at Warrington on the 6th of November 1781, had some repute as a historical writer. After producing various books for the young, and a novel, Lorimer (1814), she published in 1818 her Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, which passed through several editions. This was followed by Memoirs of the Court of James I. (1822), Memoirs of the Court of Charles I. (1833) and a Life of Addison (1843). Miss Aikin died at Hampstead, where she had lived for forty years, on the 29th of January 1864.

See a Memoir of John Aikin, with selections of his miscellaneous pieces (1823), by his daughter; and the Memoirs, Miscellanies and 1842) with William Ellery Channing, edited by P. H. Le Breton. Letters of Lucy Aikin (1864), including her correspondence (1826

AIKMAN, WILLIAM (1682–1731), British portrait-painter, was born at Cairney, Forfarshire. He was intended by his father for the bar, but followed his natural bent by becoming a pupil under Sir John Medina, the leading painter of the day in Scotland. In 1707 he went to Italy, resided in Rome for three years, afterwards travelled to Constantinople and Smyrna, and in 1712 returned home. In Edinburgh, where he practised as a portraitpainter for some years, he enjoyed the patronage of the duke of Argyll; and on his removal to London in 1723 he soon obtained many important commissions. Perhaps his most successful He also painted porwork was the portrait of the poet Gay. traits of himself, Fletcher of Saltoun, William Carstares and Thomson the poet. The likenesses were generally truthful and the style was modelled very closely upon that of Sir Godfrey Kneller. Aikman held a good position in literary society and counted among his personal friends Swift, Pope, Thomson, Allan Ramsay, Somervile and Mallet.

AILANTHUS (more correctly ailantus, from ailanto, an Tree of the Gods," or Amboyna word probably meaning "Tree of Heaven "), a genus of trees belonging to the natural The best known species, A. glandulosa, order Simarubaceae. Chinese sumach or tree of heaven, is a handsome, quick-growing tree with spreading branches and large compound leaves, resembling those of the ash, and bearing numerous pairs of long pointed leaflets. The small greenish flowers are borne on branched panicles; and the male ones are characterized by having a disgusting odour. The fruits are free in clusters, and each is drawn out into a long wing with the seed in the middle. The wood is fine grained and satiny. The tree, which is a native of China and Japan, was introduced into England in 1751 and is a favourite in parks and gardens. A silk spinning moth, the ailanthus moth (Bombyx or Philosamia cynthia), lives on its leaves, and yields a silk more durable and cheaper than mulberry silk, but inferior to it in fineness and gloss. This moth is common near many towns in the eastern United States; it is about 5 in. across, with angulated wings, and in colour olive brown, with white markings. Other species of ailanthus are: A. imberbiflora and A. punctata, important Australian timber-trees; and A. excelsa, common in India.

AILLY, PIERRE D' (1350-1420), French theologian, was born at Compiègne in 1350 of a bourgeois family, and studied in Paris