CONRAD VON WURZBURG 



CONSCIKNCK 



125 



Aragon. Tin- tragic till" has furnished materials 

 for ninny poeN. Sec Sn'ii.i \N VKSI-KKS; also Del 

 (liiulice, La Cnmftiiuia di Corradino (Naples, 



< onr.-ul von WllrzburK, one of the most 



celebrated poets of tin- middle ages, died at Basel 

 in ll'sT. Conrad is fertile in imagination, learned, 

 and although marking the decline of Mi>l<llc 

 Ili^li ( icnnaii poetry by his prolix and artiiicial 

 probably the most perfect i muster of German 

 vei>iii.-:ition that hail appeared up to his own day. 

 His la-t poem, which he left in an unfinished con- 

 dition, lias for its subject The Trojan War. But 

 Conrad appears to most advantage in his smaller 

 narrative poems, of which the best are Engellmrt, 

 Otto, Der Welt Lohn, Silvester, Alexius, Der 

 >V/< n-niiritter, and Die Goldene Schmiede. His Lieder 

 have leen edited by Bartsch ( 1870). 



Consalvi, ERCOLE, CARDINAL, a distinguished 

 reformer of abuses in the Papal States, was oorn at 

 Home, June 8, 1757. He was made cardinal and 

 secretary of state by Pope Pius VII., and in this 

 capacity concluded the concordat with Napoleon in 

 1801. His staunch maintenance of the rights of his 

 own sovereign against the insidious encroachments 

 of France offended Napoleon. He was the papal 

 representative at the Congress of Vienna, and 

 secured the restoration of the Papal States. As 

 papal secretary he reformed numerous abuses, sup- 

 pressing all monopolies, feudal taxes, and ex- 

 clusive rights. He was a liberal patron of science, 

 but especially of the fine arts, and employed his 

 leisure in the study of literature and music. In 

 diplomacy he displayed great address, and was 

 generally successful. He died in Rome, January 

 24, 1824. 



Consanguinity (Lat. con, ' together,' and san- 

 guis, ' blood ' ), the relationship which subsists be- 

 tween pei-sons who are of the same blood. It is 

 either direct, which is the relationship between 

 ascendants and descendants, or collateral, between 

 persons sprung from a common ancestor. In the 

 direct line, a son is said to stand in the first degree 

 to his father ; a grandson, in the second degree to 

 his grandfather; and so on. Affinity (q.v.) is the 

 relationship brought al>out by marriage between a 

 husband and the blood-relations of his wife, or 

 between a wife and the blood-relations of her 

 husband. 



Consanguinity and affinity have been in all parts 

 of the world more or less looked on as impediments 

 to marriage l>etween the parties related. Among 

 the ancient Persians ana Egyptians, marriages 

 were sometimes sanctioned between brother and 

 sister, and even father and daughter ; and in the 

 book of ( Jenesis we read of Abraham marrying his 

 half-sister. 



The Roman law prohibited marriage between 

 ascendants and defendants, a prohibition extended 

 to relations by adoption. In the collateral line, 

 the prohibited degrees included brother and sister, 

 and all cases where one party stood in loco van- at is 

 to the other, as uncle ana niece. Marriage between 

 cousins-gernian, at one time prohibited, was de- 

 clared lawful by Arcadius and Honorius. The 

 degrees prohibited in consanguinity were by Con- 

 stantine also prohibited in affinity. 



By the old canon law and early decretals, mar- 

 riages were prohibited between persons as far 

 removed as the seventh degree of consanguinity or 

 affinity. The fourth council of Lateran, 1215 A.D., 

 narrowed the prohibition from the seventh to the 

 fourth degree ; i.e. the grandchildren of cousins- 

 german. A marriage Iwtween persons related in 

 any of these ways was accounted incestuous, and 

 the children bastards. The pope assumed the right 

 of granting dispensations from impediments to 



marriage arising from consanguinity and affinity, a 

 which seems to have been first exercued in 



the 12th century. 



In the countries which embraced the Reforma- 

 tion, a general relaxation took place in the pro- 

 hibitions to marriage from consanguinity and 

 allinity. In England, an act of l.">47 allowed all 

 persons to marry who were not prohibited by the 

 I.evitical law; and according to tin; interpretation 

 put on this statute, the prohibitions included all 

 relations in the direct line, brother and sister, and 

 collaterals, when one party is brother or sister to 

 the direct ascendant or descendant of the other ; 

 the degrees prohibited in consanguinity In-ing 

 equally prohibited in affinity. In Scotland, act of 

 1567, professing to take the Levitical law as the 

 standard, assimilated the prohibitions from con 

 sanguinity and affinity to those of England. In 

 France, the Code Napoldon prohibits marriage 

 between ascendants and descendants lawful or 

 natural, and persons similarly connected by affinity ; 

 and in the collateral line between brothers and 

 sisters lawful or natural, and persons similarly con- 

 nected by affinity. Marriage between uncle and 

 niece, ami aunt and nephew, is also prohibited. In 

 various countries of Europe, as Denmark, no pro- 

 hibitions from affinity, except in the direct line, 

 are recognised. In most of the United States of 

 America, marriage is allowed between uncle and 

 niece. See AFFINITY, DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER ; 

 and for exogamy and curious savage methods of 

 counting relationship, MARRIAGE. 



On the much-vexed question whether the mar- 

 riage of relations tends to injure the constitution 

 of their offspring, either by the intensification of 

 hereditary taint or more directly, see The Marriage 

 of Near Kin (2d ed. 1888), by A. H. Huth (who 

 takes the negative view), and the bibliography 

 there given of works on both sides of the question. 

 See also BREED, CATTLE. 



Conscience. See ETHICS. 



Conscience* HENDRIK, a popular Flemish 

 novelist, was born December 3, 1812, at Antwerp. 

 His father, the inspector of the dockyards there, 

 was a native of Besancon, but his mother was of 

 Flemish birth. At fifteen the boy had to shift for 

 his living as an under-master in a school, but at 

 the outbreak of the revolution in 1830 he joined 

 the Belgian ranks, and served till 1836. Patriotism 

 and poverty together impelled him to write, and 

 between them produced in 1837 his first volume in 

 Flemish, In't Wonderjaer, 1566. Wappers the 

 painter finally got him apj>ointed in 1841 to an 

 office in the Antwerp Academy, which he con- 

 tinued to fill until 1854. Three years later he 

 received a place in the local administration of Cour- 

 trai, and became in 1806 director of the Wiertz 

 Museum at Brussels. Here he die*!, September 

 10, 1883. His Phantazy (1837), a fine collection 

 of tales, and his most popular romance, De Leeitto 

 fin, \'/,i,-i/tli-riii (1838), early made his name dear 

 to his fellow-countrymen ; but it was his series of 

 charming pictures of quiet Flemish life, beginning 

 with the little Ixwk, If of men schihlcr u-iirdt ( 1843), 

 that, through French, German, and English trans- 

 lations, carried his fame over Europe. Amongst 

 ilne translated into English, besides the Lion of 

 l-'lii tillers, are Blind Rosa, liickttn-l.ctitck, The Poor 

 (,'i-iif/n,i>iti, The Miser, and The Demon of Gold. 

 The historical accuracy of his 0MdbMiMM nut 

 Belnicn (184.~>) was somewhat impaired by his 

 Catholic predilections. The vast insularity of Con- 

 science's novels depended mainly on the unflagging 

 vigour and interest of the incidents in which they 

 abounded, although these often enough defied ail 

 historical consistency and verisimilitude alike. It 

 should be remembered to 1m credit, as, indeed, it 



