CAPITULATION CAPO D'ISTRIA. 



to effect, iu a certain degree, an uniformity of law 

 throughout his extensive dominions. \\ iili this 

 view, it is supposed, lu- added to the existing codes 

 of feudal Inws many other laws, divided into capitu- 

 laries, or small chapters or heads, sometimes to ex- 

 plain, sometimes to amend, and sometimes to recon- 

 cile or remove the difference between them. They 

 were generally promulgated in public assemblies, 

 r< imposed of the sovereign ami ihe chief-men of the 

 nation, both ecclesiastical and secular. They regu- 

 lated equally the spiritual and temporal aduiini-i ra- 

 tion of the kingdom ; and the execution of them was 

 intrusted to the bishops, the courts, and the missi 

 regii, officers so called because they were sent, by 

 the French kings of the first and second race, to 

 dispense law and justice in the provinces. Many 

 copies of these capitularies were made, one of which 

 was generally preserved in the royal archives. The 

 authority of the capitularies was very extensive. It 

 prevailed in every kingdom under the dominion of 

 i lie Pranks, and was submitted to in many parts of 

 Italy and Germany. The earliest collection of the 

 capitularies is that of Angesise, abbot of Tontenelles. 

 It was adopted by Louis the Debonnaire and Cliarles 

 the Bald, and was publicly approved of in many 

 councils of France and Germany. But, as Angesise 

 had omitted many capitularies in his collection, 

 Benedict, the Levite or deacon of the church of 

 Mentz, added three books to them. Each of the 

 collections was considered to be authentic, and of 

 course was appealed to as law. Subsequent additions 

 have been made to them. The best edition of them 

 is tliat of Baluze, in 1697. The capitularies re- 

 mained in force in Italy longer than in Germany, 

 and in France longer than in Italy. The incursions 

 of the Normans, the intestine confusion and weak- 

 ness of the government under the successors of 

 Cliarlemagne, and, above all, the publication of the 

 epitome of canon law, termed the Decretum of Gra- 

 tian, in the year 1150, which totally superseded 

 them in all religious concerns, put an end to their 

 authority in France. Butler's Horce Juridical Subse- 

 civee, p. 128131. 



CAPITULATION formerly signified a writing 

 drawn up in heads ; now commonly used, in military 

 language, to signify the act of surrendering to an 

 enemy upon stipulated terms, in opposition to sur- 

 render at discretion. In the fifteenth century, capi- 

 tulations, as they were called, were presented by the 

 ecclesiastical establishments in Germany to their 

 newly chosen abbots and bishops, who were obliged 

 to swear to observe them as laws and conditions for 

 their future rule. The ecclesiastical electors ob- 

 tained, after the fell of the Hohenstaufen family, 

 certain advantageous promises from the new emper- 

 ors, which were called capitulations. When Charles 

 V. was proposed as emperor, and it was apprehended, 

 on account of his foreign education, that he would 

 disregard the German constitution, he was obliged 

 to make oath, that he would not reside without the 

 German empire, nor appoint foreigners to office in 

 the empire, &c. This was called his election capitu- 

 lation. Such a JVahlcapitulation was afterwards 

 presented to every new emperor, as a fundamental 

 law of the empire, and shook the constitution of the 

 German government to its very foundations, since the 

 electors, at the choice of every new emperor, made 

 some new infringement on the imperial privileges. 

 The fVahlcapitulationen were acknowledged bar- 

 gains, certainly unique in history. 



C APNIST, or KAPNIST, M^ASSIL WASSILJEWITSCH, 

 Russian counsellor of state, member of the academy 

 of St Petersburg and other learned societies, one of 

 the first' lyric poets of Russia, born in 1756, was the 

 rival of his friend and relation, the celebrated poet 



Dcrsclmvin (q. \.) He translated Horace with ap- 

 pljuise. The collection of his works appeared at 

 I eterslmrg in 1801J (Lyric Poems, by \\assil Cap- 

 nist). He wrote a comedy, called Jabeda, in 1799, 

 and a tragedy, called Antigone, in 1815. His cril iquc 

 on Homer's Odyssey, published in Hus>ian and 

 French, is more acute than profound. His odes have 

 not the easy and bold character by which those of 

 Derschavin are distinguished, but they have a charm 

 of another kind. Purity of style, richness of thought , 

 and a sound philosophy, connected with deep 'aiid 

 genuine feeling, are Capnist's characteristic tr.iii.s. 

 Some years ago, he retired to Obuchowka. his coun- 

 try-seat, in Little Russia, where he lived devoted to 

 the muses till his death, which took place Oct. 28, 

 isv.s. in his sixty-seventh year. 



CAPO D'ISTRIA (the ancient .Egida) ; a seaport 

 of Austria, on the gulf of Trieste, eight miles south 

 of Trieste; Ion. 13 43' E. ; lat. 45 31' N. ; popu- 

 lation 5,119 ; is a bishop's see, and the capital of a 

 district, containing 65,150 inliabitants. The town 

 is two miles in circumference, and has, besides the 

 cathedral, thirty other churches, six convents, hos- 

 pitals, and other public buildings. 



CAPO D'ISTRIA, JOHN, count of, formerly Rus- 

 sian secretary of state, afterwards president of 

 Greece, was born at Corfu, 1780, where his father 

 was a physician, and studied medicine at Venice. 

 When the Russian troops occupied the Ionian islands, 

 in 1799, Anthony Maria de Capo d'Istria, his father, 

 was at the head of the government. But, after the 

 islands were again made dependent on France, in 

 1807, in consequence of the peace of Tilsit, he en- 

 tered into the Russian service. He afterwards re- 

 turned to Corfu, became a senator there, and died, 

 April 17, 1821, aged eighty years. The son still 

 continued in Russia, where he was first employed in 

 the office of count Rumanzoff, and afterwards went 

 as Russian ambassador to Vienna. In 1812, lie con- 

 ducted the diplomatic business of the army of the 

 Danube, of which admiral Tschitschagoff was com- 

 mander-in-chief. When this army was united with 

 the great Russian army, after the retreat of the 

 French, Capo d'Istria managed the diplomatic cor- 

 respondence at head-quarters, under the emperor's 

 direction, and soon gained the confidence of his mo- 

 narch to such a degree, that he was afterwards en- 

 gaged in the most important public business, and ap- 

 pointed secretary of state for the department of fo- 

 reign affairs. He was made grand-cross of the WJa- 

 dimir order, knight of St Ann, grand-cross of the royal 

 Austrian Leopold order, and of the Prussian order of 

 the red eagle. In 1813 he was Russian ambassador 

 to Switzerland, negotiated with the Austrian ambas- 

 sadors the new relations of this republic, and, in 

 Sept., 1814, was present at the congress of Vienna 

 as Russian plenipotentiary, from which the downfall 

 of Napoleon, in 1815, recalled him to the head-quar- 

 ters of the allies at Paris. As imperial Russian plen- 

 ipotentiary, he subscribed the treaty of Paris, Nov. 

 20, 1815, and returned with his monarch to Peters- 

 burg, where he took a very active part in the bust- 

 ness of the council of state. His endeavours for the 

 restoration of the republic of the Ionian islands, for 

 the support of the established religion in Russia 

 against the intrigues of the Jesuits, and for the deli- 

 verance of the Greeks from the Turkish yoke, are 

 well known. But, as Russia disapproved of the at- 

 tempts of the Greeks, and Stroganoff returned from 

 his mission to Constantinople, in 1822 count Capo 

 d'Istria left the public service, and retired, as a pri- 

 vate man, to Germany and Switzerland, living chiefly 

 at Geneva, till the year 1827, when he was elected 

 president of the Greek republic. Whether from 

 his attachment to Russian interests, or from th 



