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Ranters
Ranters name given to the adherents of an antinomian movement in England about the time of the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1649-59). Its principal teaching was pantheistic, that God is present in nature. The Ranters appealed to the inner experience of Jesus and denied the authority of Scripture....
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Nichiren
Nichiren [Jap.,=sun lotus], 1222-82, Japanese Buddhist priest, founder of Nichiren Buddhism. Of humble birth, Nichiren (whose given name was Zennichimaro) early became a monk, and traveled to many temples in search of true Buddhism. In 1253, convinced that contemporary Buddhism was inadequate for a...
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bail
bail in law, procurement of release from prison of a person awaiting trial or an appeal, by the deposit of security to insure his submission at the required time to legal authority. The monetary value of the security—known also as the bail, or, more accurately, the bail bond—is set by t...
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Ronald Firbank
Ronald Firbank (Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank), 1886-1926, English author. Of a delicate and eccentric nature, Firbank lived the life of a leisured aesthete. His novels, which have appealed to a small but appreciative audience, include Vainglory (1915), Valmouth (1919), Prancing Nigger (1924...
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William Squire Kenyon
William Squire Kenyon 1869-1933, U.S. Senator (1911-22) from Iowa, b. Elyria, Ohio. He practiced law at Fort Dodge, Iowa, was county prosecutor, and became a state district court judge before serving (1910-11) as assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1911 and ...
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Samuel Woodworth
Samuel Woodworth 1784-1842, American author, b. Scituate, Mass. He edited (1823-24) the New York Mirror and was author of the song "The Old Oaken Bucket." His comedy The Forest Rose (1825) was one of the most popular American plays before the Civil War.
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Albert Bigelow Paine
Albert Bigelow Paine 1861-1937, American author, b. New Bedford, Mass. He is best remembered as the author of the authorized biography of Mark Twain (3 vol., 1912) and as the editor of Twain's letters (1917). Among his other works are several children's books, including The Hollow Tree and The A...
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Constitutions of Clarendon
Constitutions of Clarendon 1164, articles issued by King Henry II of England at the Council of Clarendon defining the customs governing relations between church and state. In the anarchic conditions of the previous reign, the church had extended its jurisdiction in various ways, and it was the ki...
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Mafia
Mafia , name given to a number of organized groups of Sicilian brigands in the 19th and 20th cent. Unlike the Camorra in Naples, the Mafia had no hierarchic organization; each group operated on its own. The Mafia originated in feudal times, when lords hired brigands to guard their estates in excha...
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J. K. Rowling
J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling) , 1965-, English author known for her popular children's books, b. Chipping Sodbury, grad. Exeter Univ. (1986). While unemployed she completed her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1996), a vivid tale of a young wizard and his friends, ...
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