266 



CIRENCESTER 



CISTERCIANS 



well-appointed circus. English and American 

 equestrians are superior to those of any other 

 nationality, and their services are eagerly sought 

 for on the Continent, where the bulk of the per- 

 formers are English. Astley ( q. v. ) was the most 

 famous of English circus-managers. The Paris 

 hippodrome is celebrated. But the circus in con- 

 nection with Barnum (q.v. ) and Bailey's 'Greatest 

 Show on Earth' is probably the most important 

 ever organised, including a whole army of per- 

 formers, ' mid-air artists,' and male and female 

 equestrians. 



Cirencester, a town of Gloucestershire, amid 

 the Coteswold Hills, on the Churn, a headstream of 

 the Thames, and on the Thames and Severn Canal, 

 14 miles SSE. of Cheltenham, and 18 by rail NW. 

 of Swindon. It has a very fine Perpendicular 

 church (restored 1867), a public hall (1863), some 

 remains of an abbey (1117), and, 1 mile distant, 

 an agricultural college (1846), a Tudor edifice (see 

 AGRICULTURE). Near this is the handsome seat 

 of Earl Bathurst. There is a considerable trade 

 in wool and agricultural produce, and the town 

 is a hunting centre. Till 1867 it returned two 

 members ; till 1885 one. Pop. ( 1851 ) 6096 ; ( 1891 ) 

 7441. Cirencester (pronounced Cisseter) was the 

 Roman Corinium, at the junction of five Roman 

 roads ; and there is a good collection of Roman 

 antiquities found in the neighbourhood. Canute 

 held a council here in 1020. Rupert stormed Ciren- 

 cester in 1642 and 1643. The early English chroni- 

 cler Richard (q.v.) of Cirencester was a native. 



Cirrhosis* the drunkard's liver. See LIVER, 

 ALCOHOLISM. 



Cirripedia (Gr., 'curl-footed'), a degenerate 

 sub-class of Crustacea, including the numerous 

 forms of Barnacles and Acorn-shells (q.v.). Cirrho'- 

 poda was a form of the name once commonly in 

 use. 



Cirrus. See CLOUDS. 



Cirrus, CIRRHUS, in Botany, see CLIMBING- 

 PLANTS and (under Plants) MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 

 The term cirrus, in Zoology, may designate any 

 curled filament, and has been applied to the curiously 

 modified abdominal limbs of the Cirripedia (q.v.). 



Cirta, the capital of ancient Numidia, now 

 Constantine ( q. v. ). 



Cis, a Latin preposition, meaning ' on this side ' 

 (as opposed to trans or ultra, ' beyond '), which is 

 often prefixed to names of rivers and mountains to 

 form adjectives ; Cisalpine, Cispadane. ' on this 

 side of the Alps,' 'of the Po.' As most of these 

 words are of Roman origin, Rome is usually the 

 point of view; but in Ultramontane (q.v.) it is 

 otherwise, as also in Cisleithania, a division of the 

 Austrian dominions see AUSTRIA, Vol. I. p. 595. 



Cisalpine Republic. After the battle of 

 Lodi, in May 1796, General Bonaparte proceeded to 

 organise tv/o states one on the south of the Po, 

 the Cispadane Republic, and one on the north, the 

 Transpadane. These two were on 9th July 1797 

 united into one under the title of the Cisalpine 

 Republic, which embraced Lombardy, Mantua, 

 Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Verona, and Rovigo, 

 the duhy of Modena, the principalities of Massa 

 and Cararra, and the three legations of Bologna, 

 Ferfara, and the Romagna. The republic had a 

 territory of more than 16,000 sq. m., and a popula- 

 tion of 3J millions. Milan was the seat of the 

 government or Directoiy. The army consisted of 

 20,000 French troops, paid by the republic. The 

 republic was dissolved for a time in 1799 by the 

 victories of the Russians and Austrians, but was 

 restored by Bonaparte after the victory of Marengo, 

 with some modifications of constitution and increase 

 of territory. In 1802 it took the name of the 



Italian Republic, and chose Bonaparte for its 

 president. A deputation from the republic in 1805 

 conferred on the Emperor Napoleon the title of 

 King of Italy ; after which it formed the kingdom 

 of Italy till 1814. See ITALY. 



Cissam'pelos, a genus of Menispermacese, of 

 which one species, C. Pareira, was formerly re- 



firded as the source of the drug known as Pareira 

 rava (q.v.), also called Butua Root. 

 CiSSOid (Gr., 'ivy-like, 'from the shape), a plane 

 curve consisting of two infinite branches symmet- 

 rically placed with reference to the diameter of a 

 circle, so that at one of its extremities they form a 

 Cusp (q.v.), while the tangent to the circle at the 

 other extremity is their common asymptote. It 

 was invented by Diocles of Alexandria to solve the 

 problem of finding two mean proportionals ; but 

 Newton first showed how to describe the curve by 

 continuous motion. The area included between 

 the two branches and the asymptote is exactly 

 equal to thrice the generating circle. In later 

 times the term has been generalised to comprise 

 higher curves described by the same law, but where 

 the generating curve is not a circle. When the 

 asymptote is vertical, the circular cissoid seems to 



grow towards it as ivy does to a wall, &c. Draw 

 any straight line AB to the tangent. Measure 

 AO = BC, and thus O traces the curve. 



Cissus. See ViTACE^E. 



Cis-Sutlei States, a term first given to the 

 Sikh principalities which arose south of the Sutlej 

 in the end of the 18th century, and now includes 

 the British districts of Umballa (Ambala), Ludhi- 

 ana, Firozpur, Hissar, and the native states of 

 Patiala, Jind, and Nabha. 



Cist. See COFFIN, BARROW, BURIAL. 



Cistercians, a monastic order founded by 

 the Benedictine abbot Robert of Champagne, in 

 France, who, after repeated attempts at first in 

 the forest of Molesme at a reformation of the 

 secularised monastic life, established in 1098, in the 

 forest of Citeaux ( Cistercium ), a small hamlet near 

 Dijon, along with twenty companions, a monastery 

 for the purpose of carrying out the strictest obser- 

 vance of the rule of St Benedict. By command of 

 the pope Robert returned in 1099 to Molesme, where 

 he died in 1 108 ; but his successor, Alberic ( who died 

 in 1 109 ) succeeded in gaining the pope's favour and 

 the confirmation of the order, and drew up the 

 Instituta Monachorum Cisterciensium, which repre- 

 sented the new foundation as the only true Bene- 

 dictinism. His successor, Stephen Harding, ruled 

 in the same spirit, and still further stamped the 

 order with its distinctive character of austerity. Yet 

 Citeaux was near extinction when the famous St 

 Bernard, together with thirty companions, joined 

 the Cistercians in 1113. Two years afterwards he 

 became the first abbot of Clairvaux, which thence- 

 forward was the centre of the influence he wielded 

 throughout Europe. In 1119 the Abbot Stephen 

 issued a new rule, the ' Charter of Charity,' for the 

 monks of the order, which was already augmented 

 by two additional monasteries. It gained great 

 accessions in Spain and Portugal, as well as in 

 France, where the Cistercians now also bore the 

 name of Bernardines. Before the end of the 12th 



