630 



MAIL- -MAIMON, 



without impeding the motion of the wearer. The 

 plate m:.ii was much more cumbrous tlum the chain 

 mail, a complete suit of ring mail, still in existence, 

 wfih'mg thirty-nine pounds, while one of plate weighs 

 between seventy and eighty, and, in many cases much 

 more. (For a more particular account of the body 

 armour, see Cuirass.) The hands were defended by 

 gauntlets, sometimes of chain mail, but more 

 frequently of small plates of iron riveted together, 

 so as to yield to every motion of the hand. Some 

 gauntlets enclosed the whole hand as in a box or case : 

 others were divided into fingers, each finger consisting 

 of eight or ten separate pieces, the inside being gloved 

 with buff-leather ; some of these reached no higher 

 than the wrist, others to the elbow. The thighs of 

 the cavalry were defended by small strips of iron 

 plate laid horizontally over each other, and riveted 

 together, forming what were called cuissarts, or 

 thigh-pieces. Of these, some entirely enclosed the 

 thighs ; others only covered the front of them, the 

 inside, next the horse, being unarmed. They were 

 made flexible at the kiiees by joints, like those in the 

 tail of a lobster. Tassets or shirts, hooked on to the 

 front of the cuirass, were used by the infantry. For 

 the defence of the legs, there were a sort of iron boots, 

 called greaves. Plates of iron, covering the front of 

 the leg, were also frequently worn over the stockings 

 of mail. The greaves commonly covered the leg all 

 round ; with these they had broad-toed iron shoes, 

 with joints at the ankle. Boots of jack-leather, called 

 curbully (cuir boutlH-), were also worn by horsemen. 

 The different pieces of armour covering the body 

 were called, collectively, a coat of mail. Complete 

 coats of mail continued to be used through the seven- 

 teenth, and even in the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century. Armour gradually continued decreasing, 

 both from innovations and from its utility being dimi- 

 nished, and, in 1690, most of the defensive armour 

 throughout Great Britain was returned to the Tower, 

 whence it had been issued. 



The subjoined cut re- 

 presents a Roman coat of 

 mail, or lorica. It was 

 generally made of leather, 

 covered with plates of 

 iron in the form of scales, 

 or iron rings twisted with- 

 in one another with chains 

 (Hanris concerto], 



Instead of the coat of 

 mail, however, the most 

 of the ancient military 

 used only a plate of brass 

 which covered the breast, 

 the thorax or pectorale. 



The tufal of the Greeks is represented below. 



MAIL, and MAIL COACHES. See Posts. 



MAIMBOURG, Louis ; a celebrated French ec- 

 clesiastical historian, was born at Nancy in 1620, en- 

 tered into the society of Jesuits at sixteen years of age, 

 and when he had finished the usual course of study, 



became classical teacher for six yean*. Havin? 

 written a treatise in defence of the rights of the Gal- 

 lican church against the pretensions of the see of 

 Rome, he was expelled from the society of Jesus 

 (1682), by order or pope Innocent XI. ; for which 

 disgrace he was compensated by a pension from 

 Louis XIV. He died in 1686. As an historian, he 

 is partial and inexact. His complete historical 

 works (26 vols. 12mo, 1686), contain Histories of the 

 Crusades ; of the League ; of the Decline of the 

 Empire after Charlemagne ; of the Pontificates of St 

 Gregory and St Leo ; of the Schism of the Greeks ; 

 of the Grand Schism in the East; of Arianism ; of 

 the Iconoclasts ; of Lutheranism, and of Calvinism. 



MAIMON, MOSES BEN, or MAIMONIDES, one 

 of the most distinguished Jewish scholars, was born 

 at Cordova, in Spain, in 1139. With the lessons of 

 the Arabian Thophail and Averroes in medicine and 

 philosophy, he united the study of the ancient philo- 

 sophers, particularly of Aristotle, and thus rendered 

 himself an object of suspicion to his Jewish brethren. 

 To escape their persecutions, he went to Egypt, and 

 became physician to the sultan Saladin, under whose 

 protection he established a celebrated seminary in 

 Alexandria. The intrigues of his enemies soon 

 obliged him to leave that city, and the remainder of 

 his life, which he closed in Cairo or in Palestine, in 

 1205, was passed in continual wanderings. Among 

 his writings, the most celebrated is his Moreh Nevo- 

 chim (the Teacher of the Perplexed), an attempt to 

 reconcile the doctrines of the Old Testament with 

 reason, or a sort of religious philosophy, which bears 

 strong testimony to his acuteness and clear under- 

 standing. It was written originally in Arabic, and 

 translated by some Jews into Hebrew, and by Bux- 

 torf into Latin (1629). Among his other works his 

 Commentray on the Mischna, in Hebrew and Latin 

 (Amsterdam, 6 vols. fol.) ; his Jad Chazakha (Strong 

 Hand), an abridgment of the Talmud (Venice, 4 

 vols. fol.) ; his Sepher Hammisoth, or book of Pre- 

 cepts, Hebrew and Latin (Amsterdam, 1640), an 

 exposition of 613 affirmative and negative precepts 

 of the law, deserve mention. He was also author 

 of a book on Idolatry, translated by Vossius ; one on 

 Christ, translated by Genebrard; several medical 

 and other works, letters and essays. The Jews call 

 him the doctor, the great eagle, the glory of the West, 

 the light of the East, and consider him inferior only 

 to Moses. They often designate him according to 

 their usual custom, by the four letters II. M. B. M. 

 (Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon), whence the name 

 Rambm. 



MAIMON, SOLOMON, a distinguished Jewish phi- 

 losopher, born in Lithuania, 1753, was the son of a 

 poor rabbi, who directed his studies to the Talmud. 

 After having lived in extreme poverty, his thirst for 

 knowledge carried him to Germany, where he became 

 known to Mendelssohn, in Berlin, and obtained assis- 

 tance from him. He pursued his studies, particu- 

 larly in philosophy, with great zeal, turned his 

 attention for some time to pharmacy, travelled to 

 Hamburg, Amsterdam, Breslau, returned to Ber- 

 lin, and died in Silesia, in 1800. He wrote Me- 

 moirs of his own Life (Berlin, 1792 93, 2 vols). 

 Maimoniana, illustrative of his character, were 

 published by S. J. Wolff (Berlin, 1813). He was 

 the author of Essays on the Transcendental Philoso- 

 phy (Berlin, 1790); Essay toward a new Logic, with 

 letters to ^Enesidemus (Berlin 1794), in which he 

 attempts to correct and define more accurately Kant's 

 transcendental logic ; a work On the Categories 

 of Aristotle (1794); and Critical Inquiries into the 

 Human Mind (Leipsic, 1797). In these writings he 

 developes the doctrines of the critical philosophy 

 with great ingenuity. 



