Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 12 (1/2)

BLANCHE OF CASTILE (1188-1252), wife of Louis VIII. of France, third daughter of Alphonso VIII., king of Castile, and of Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II., was born at Valencia. In consequence of a treaty between Philip Augustus and John of England, she was betrothed to the former's son, Louis, and was brought to France, in the spring of 1200, by John's mother Eleanor. On the 22nd of May 1200 the treaty was finally signed, John ceding with his niece the fiefs of Issoudun and Gracay, together with those that Andre de Chavigny, lord of Chateauroux, held in Berry, of the English crown. The marriage was celebrated the next day, at Portmort on the right bank of the Seine, in John's domains, as those of Philip lay under an interdict.

Blanche first displayed her great qualities in 1216, when Louis, who on the death of John claimed the English crown in her right, invaded England, only to find a united nation against him. Philip Augustus refused to help his son, and Blanche was his sole support. The queen established herself at Calais and organized two fleets, one of which was commanded by Eustace the Monk, and an army under Robert of Courtenay; but all her resolution and energy were in vain. Although it would seem that her masterful temper exercised a sensible influence upon her husband's gentler character, her role during his reign (1223-1226) is not well known. Upon his death he left Blanche regent and guardian of his children. Of her twelve or thirteen children, six had died, and Louis, the heir--afterwards the sainted Louis IX.,--was but twelve years old. The situation was critical, for the hard-won domains of the house of Capet seemed likely to fall to pieces during a minority. Blanche had to bear the whole burden of affairs alone, to break up a league of the barons (1226), and to repel the attack of the king of England (1230).

But her energy and firmness overcame all dangers. There was an end to the calumnies circulated against her, based on the poetical homage rendered her by Theobald IV., count of Champagne, and the prolonged stay in Paris of the papal legate, Romano Bonaventura, cardinal of Sant'

Angelo. The n.o.bles were awed by her warlike preparations or won over by adroit diplomacy, and their league was broken up. St Louis owed his realm to his mother, but he himself always remained somewhat under the spell of her imperious personality. After he came of age (1236) her influence upon him may still be traced. In 1248 she again became regent, during Louis IX.'s absence on the crusade, a project which she had strongly opposed. In the disasters which followed she maintained peace, while draining the land of men and money to aid her son in the East. At last her strength failed her. She fell ill at Melun in November 1252, and was taken to Paris, but lived only a few days. She was buried at Maubuisson.

Besides the works of Joinville and William of Nangis, see elie Berger, ”Histoire de Blanche de Castille, reine de France,” in _Bibliotheque des ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome_, vol. lxx. (Paris, 1895); Le Nain de Tillemont, ”Vie de Saint Louis,” ed. by J. de Gaulle for the _Societe de l'histoire de France_ (6 vols., 1847-1851); and Paulin Paris, ”Nouvelles recherches sur les moeurs de la reine Blanche et de Thibaud,” in _Cabinet historique_ (1858).

BLANCH FEE, or BLANCH HOLDING (from Fr. _blanc_, white), an ancient tenure in Scottish land law, the duty payable being in silver or white money in contradistinction to gold. The phrase was afterwards applied to any holding of which the quit-rent was merely nominal, such as a penny, a peppercorn, &c.

BLANDFORD, or BLANDFORD FORUM, a market town, and munic.i.p.al borough in the northern parliamentary division of Dorsets.h.i.+re, England, on the Stour, 19 m. N.W. of Bournemouth by the Somerset & Dorset railway. Pop.

(1901) 3649. The town is ancient, but was almost wholly destroyed by fire in the 18th century. The church of St Peter and St Paul, a cla.s.sical building, was built in 1732. There are a grammar-school (founded in 1521 at Milton Abbas, transferred to Blandford in 1775), a Blue Coat school (1729), and other educational charities. Remnants of a mansion of the 14th century, Damory Court, are seen in a farmhouse, and an adjoining Perpendicular chapel is used as a barn. There are numerous early earthworks on the chalk hills in the neighbourhood. The fine modern mansion of Bryanston, in the park adjoining the town, is the seat of Lord Portman. The munic.i.p.al borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 145 acres.

BLANDRATA, or BIANDRATA, GIORGIO (c. 1515-1588), Italian physician and polemic, who came of the De Blandrate family, powerful from the early part of the 13th century, was born at Saluzzo, the youngest son of Bernardino Blandrata. He graduated in arts and medicine at Montpellier in 1533, and specialized in the functional and nervous disorders of women. In 1544 he made his first acquaintance with Transylvania; in 1553 he was with Alciati in the Grisons; in 1557 he spent a year at Geneva, in constant intercourse with Calvin, who distrusted him. He attended the English wife (Jane Stafford) of Count Celso Ma.s.similiano Martinengo, preacher of the Italian church at Geneva, and fostered anti-trinitarian opinions in that church. In 1558 he found it expedient to remove to Poland, where he became a leader of the heretical party at the synods of Pinczow (1558) and Ksionzh (1560 and 1562). His point was the suppression of extremes of opinion, on the basis of a confession literally drawn from Scripture. He obtained the position of court physician to the queen dowager, the Milanese Bona Sforza. She had been instrumental in the burning (1539) of Catharine Weygel, at the age of eighty, for anti-trinitarian opinions; but the writings of Ochino had altered her views, which were now anti-Catholic. In 1563 Blandrata transferred his services to the Transylvanian court, where the daughters of his patroness were married to ruling princes. He revisited Poland (1576) in the train of Stephen Bathory, whose tolerance permitted the propagation of heresies; and when (1579) Christopher Bathory introduced the Jesuits into Transylvania, Blandrata found means of conciliating them. Throughout his career he was accompanied by his two brothers, Ludovico and Alphonso, the former being canon of Saluzzo. In Transylvania, Blandrata co-operated with Francis David (d. 1579), the anti-trinitarian bishop, but in 1578 two circ.u.mstances broke the connexion. Blandrata was charged with ”Italian vice”; David renounced the wors.h.i.+p of Christ. To influence David, Blandrata sent for Faustus Socinus from Basel. Socinus was David's guest, but the discussion between them led to no result. At the instance of Blandrata, David was tried and condemned to prison at Deva (in which he died) on the charge of innovation. Having ama.s.sed a fortune, Blandrata returned to the communion of Rome. His end is obscure. According to the Jesuit, Jacob Wujek, he was strangled by a nephew (Giorgio, son of Alphonso) in May 1588. He published a few polemical writings, some in conjunction with David.

See Malacarne, _Commentario delle Opere e delle Vicende di G.

Blandrata_ (Padova, 1814); Wallace, _Anti-trinitarian Biography_, vol.

ii. (1850). (A. Go.*)

BLANE, SIR GILBERT (1740-1834), Scottish physician, was born at Blanefield, Ayrs.h.i.+re, on the 29th of August 1749. He was educated at Edinburgh university, and shortly after his removal to London became private physician to Lord Rodney, whom he accompanied to the West Indies in 1779. He did much to improve the health of the fleet by attention to the diet of the sailors and by enforcing due sanitary precautions, and it was largely through him that in 1795 the use of lime-juice was made obligatory throughout the navy as a preventive of scurvy. Enjoying a number of court and hospital appointments he built up a good practice for himself in London, and the government constantly consulted him on questions of public hygiene. He was made a baronet in 1812 in reward for the services he rendered in connexion with the return of the Walcheren expedition. He died in London on the 26th of June 1834. Among his works were _Observations on the Diseases of Seamen_ (1795) and _Elements of Medical Logic_ (1819).

BLANFORD, WILLIAM THOMAS (1832-1905), English geologist and naturalist, was born in London on the 7th of October 1832. He was educated in private schools in Brighton and Paris, and with a view to the adoption of a mercantile career spent two years in a business house at Civita Vecchia. On returning to England in 1851 he was induced to enter the newly established Royal School of Mines, which his younger brother Henry F. Blanford (1834-1893), afterwards head of the Indian Meteorological Department, had already joined; he then spent a year in the mining school at Freiburg, and towards the close of 1854 both he and his brother obtained posts on the Geological Survey of India. In that service he remained for twenty-seven years, retiring in 1882. He was engaged in various parts of India, in the Raniganj coalfield, in Bombay, and in the coalfield near Talchir, where boulders considered to have been ice-borne were found in the Talchir strata--a remarkable discovery confirmed by subsequent observations of other geologists in equivalent strata elsewhere. His attention was given not only to geology but to zoology, and especially to the land-mollusca and to the vertebrates. In 1866 he was attached to the Abyssinian expedition, accompanying the army to Magdala and back; and in 1871-1872 he was appointed a member of the Persian Boundary Commission. The best use was made of the exceptional opportunities of studying the natural history of those countries. For his many contributions to geological science Dr Blanford was in 1883 awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London; and for his labours on the zoology and geology of British India he received in 1901 a royal medal from the Royal Society. He had been elected F.R.S. in 1874, and was chosen president of the Geological Society in 1888. He was created C.I.E. in 1904. He died in London on the 23rd of June 1905. His princ.i.p.al publications were: _Observations on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia_ (1870), and _Manual of the Geology of India_, with H.B.

Medlicott (1879).

Biography, with bibliography and portrait, in _Geological Magazine_, January 1905.

BLANK (from the Fr. _blanc_, white), a word used in various senses based on that of ”left white,” i.e. requiring something to be filled in; thus a ”blank cheque” is one which requires the amount to be inserted, an insurance policy in blank, where the name of the beneficiary is lacking, ”blank verse” (_q.v_.) verse without rhyme, ”blank cartridge” that contains only powder and no ball or shot. The word is also used, as a substantive, for a ticket in a lottery or sweepstake which does not carry a number or the name of a horse running or for an unstamped metal disc in coining.

BLANKENBERGHE, a seaside watering-place on the North Sea in the province of West Flanders, Belgium, 12 m. N.E. of Ostend, and about 9 m. N.W. of Bruges, with which it is connected by railway. It is more bracing than Ostend, and has a fine parade over a mile in length. During the season, which extends from June to September, it receives a large number of visitors, probably over 60,000 altogether, from Germany as well as from Belgium. There is a small fis.h.i.+ng port as well as a considerable fis.h.i.+ng-fleet. Two miles north of this place along the dunes is Zeebrugge, the point at which the new s.h.i.+p-ca.n.a.l from Bruges enters the North Sea. Fixed population (1904) 5925.

BLANKENBURG. (1) A town and health resort of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, at the N. foot of the Harz Mountains, 12 m. by rail S.W. from Halberstadt. Pop. (1901) 10,173. It has been in large part rebuilt since a fire in 1836, and possesses a castle, with various collections, a museum of antiquities, an old town hall and churches. There are pine-needle baths and a hospital for nervous diseases. Gardening is a speciality. In the vicinity is a cliff or ridge of rock called Teufelsmauer (Devil's wall), from which fine views are obtained across the plain and into the deep gorges of the Harz Mountains.