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Orff, Carl

(Encyclopedia)Orff, Carl ôrf [key], 1895–1982, German composer and educator. After studying at the Academy of Music at Munich, he helped to found the Günter School there in 1924. As a composer Orff wished to si...

Grail, Holy

(Encyclopedia)Grail, Holy, a feature of medieval legend and literature. It appears variously as a chalice, a cup, or a dish and sometimes as a stone or a caldron into which a bleeding lance drips. It was identified...

Strathclyde

(Encyclopedia)Strathclyde străthˌklīdˈ [key] [Gaelic,=Clyde valley], one of several early medieval Celtic or Welsh kingdoms in present-day S Scotland and N England. Strathclyde was in SW Scotland. To the east w...

Haakon IV

(Encyclopedia)Haakon IV (Haakon Haakonsson), 1204–63, king of Norway (1217–63), illegitimate son of Haakon III and grandson of Sverre. Secretly reared by the Birkebeiner faction (see Sverre), he was chosen king...

Cathay

(Encyclopedia)Cathay kăthāˈ [key], name for North China used by medieval Europeans, derived from the Khitan (or Khitai), a Manchurian people who conquered S Manchuria and N China and founded the Liao dynasty (93...

Ruiz, Juan

(Encyclopedia)Ruiz, Juan hwän ro͞oēthˈ [key], 1283?–1350?, Spanish poet, musician, and archpriest of Hita. Ruiz suffered 13 years in prison, during which time he revised his masterpiece, El Libro de buen amor...

Mandeville, Sir John

(Encyclopedia)Mandeville, Sir John, 14th-century English author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. Originally written in Norman French, the work became enormously popular and was translated into English, Latin,...

Ghazali, al-

(Encyclopedia)Ghazali, al- ăl-găzäˈlē [key], 1058–1111, Islamic theologian, philosopher, and mystic. He was born at Tus in Khorasan, of Persian origin. He is considered the greatest theologian in Islam. Al-G...

allegory

(Encyclopedia)allegory, in literature, symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no individual persona...

Cambridge, city, England

(Encyclopedia)Cambridge, city and district, Cambridgeshire, E central England, on the River Cam. The city, set in flat country, is most famous as the site of the Univ...
 

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