extinct. Eccelino, who is sometimes called the tyrant, acquired a terrible reputation on account of his cruelties, a reputation that won for him the immortality of inclusion in Dante’s Inferno; but his unswerving loyalty to Frederick II. forms a marked contrast to the attitude of many of his contemporaries.
Eccelino is the subject of a novel by Cesare Cantu and of a drama by J. Eichendorff.
See J. M. Gittermann, Ezzelino da Romano (Freiburg, 1890); S. Mitis, Storia d’ Ezzelino IV. da Romano (Maddaloni, 1896); and F. Stieve, Ezzelino von Romano (Leipzig, 1909).
ECCENTRIC (from Gr. ἐκ, out of, and κέντρον, centre), literally “out from the centre,” and thus used to connote generally any deviation from the normal. In astronomy the word denotes a circle round which a body revolves, but whose centre is displaced from the visible centre of motion. In the ancient astronomy the ellipses in which it is now known that the planets revolve around the sun could not be distinguished from circles, but the unequal angular motion due to ellipticity was observed. The theory of the eccentric was that the centre of the epicycle of each planet moved uniformly in a circle, the centre of which was displaced from that of the earth by an amount double the eccentricity of the actual ellipse, as the case is now understood. When measured around this imaginary centre, which is so situated on the major axis of the ellipse that the focus, or place of the real sun, is midway between it and the centre of the ellipse, the motion is approximately uniform. In engineering, an eccentric is a mechanical device for converting rotary into reciprocating motion (see Steam-engine). For eccentric angle see Ellipse.
ECCHELLENSIS (or Echellensis), ABRAHAM (d. 1664), a learned Maronite, whose surname is derived from Eckel in Syria, where he was born towards the close of the 16th century. He was educated at the Maronite college in Rome, and, after taking his doctor’s degree in theology and philosophy, returned for a time to his native land. He then became professor of Arabic and Syriac in the college of the Propaganda at Rome. Called to Paris in 1640 to assist Le Jay in the preparation of his polyglot Bible, he contributed to that work the Arabic and Latin versions of the book of Ruth and the Arabic version of the third book of Maccabees. In 1646 he was appointed professor of Syriac and Arabic at the Collège de France. Being invited by the Congregation of the Propaganda to take part in the preparation of an Arabic version of the Bible, Ecchellensis went again in 1652 or 1653 to Rome. He published several Latin translations of Arabic works, of which the most important was the Chronicon Orientale of Ibnar-Rāhib (Paris, 1653), a history of the patriarchs of Alexandria. He was engaged in an interesting controversy with John Selden as to the historical grounds of episcopacy, in the course of which he published his Eutychius vindicatus, sive Responsio ad Seldeni Origines (Rome, 1661). Conjointly with Giovanni Borelli he wrote a Latin translation of the 5th, 6th and 7th books of the Conics of Apollonius of Perga (1661). He died at Rome in 1664.
ECCLES, a municipal borough in the Eccles parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 4 m. W. of Manchester, of which it forms practically a suburb. Pop. (1901) 34,369. It is served by the London & North-Western railway and by the Birkenhead railway (North-Western and Great Western joint). The Manchester Ship Canal passes through. The church of St Mary is believed to date from the 12th century, but has been enlarged and wholly restored in modern times. There are several handsome modern churches and chapels, a town hall, and numerous cotton mills, while silk-throwing and the manufacture of fustians and ginghams are also among the industries, and there are also large engine works. A peculiar form of cake is made here, taking name from the town, and has a wide reputation. Eccles was incorporated in 1892, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. The borough maintains the tramway service, &c., but water and gas are supplied from Manchester and Salford respectively. Area, 2057 acres.
Before the Reformation the monks of Whalley Abbey had a grange here at what is still called Monks’ Hall; and in 1864 many thousands of silver pennies of Henry III. and John of England and William I. of Scotland were discovered near the spot. Robert Ainsworth, the author of the Latin and English dictionary so long familiar to English students, was born at Eccles in 1660; and it was at the vicarage that William Huskisson expired on the 15th of September 1830 from injuries received at the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester railway. From early times “wakes” were held at Eccles, and bull-baiting, bear-baiting and cock-fighting were carried on. Under Elizabeth these festivals, which had become notoriously disorderly, were abolished, but were revived under James I., and maintained until late in the 19th century on public ground. The cockpit remained on the site of the present town hall. A celebration on private property still recalls these wakes.
ECCLESFIELD, a township in the Hallamshire parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 5 m. N. of Sheffield, on the Great Central and Midland railways. The church of St Mary is Perpendicular, with a central tower, and contains excellent woodwork. It formerly bore, and must have deserved, the familiar title of the “Minster of the Moors.” Ecclesfield was the seat of a Benedictine priory, which passed to the Carthusians in the 14th century. Cutlery and tools are largely manufactured, and there are coal-mines, paper mills and iron and fire-clay works. After the inclusion within the county borough of Sheffield of part of the civil parish of Ecclesfield in 1901, the population was 18,324.
ECCLESHALL, a market town in the north-western parliamentary division of Staffordshire, England; 7 m. N.W. from Stafford, and 4 W. of Norton Bridge station on the London & North-Western main line. Pop. (1901) 3799. The church of the Holy Trinity, one of the most noteworthy in Staffordshire, is principally Early English, and has fine stained glass. Several bishops of Lichfield are buried here, as Eccleshall Castle was the episcopal residence from the 13th century until 1867. Of this the ancient remains include a picturesque tower and bridge. To the west on the borders of Shropshire is Blore Heath, the scene of a defeat of the Lancastrians by the Yorkists in 1459.
ECCLESIA (Gr. ἐκκλησία, from ἐκ, out, and καλεῖν, to call), in ancient Athens, the general assembly of all the freemen of the state. In the primitive unorganized state the king was theoretically absolute, though his great nobles meeting in the Council (see Boulē) were no doubt able to influence him considerably. There is, however, no doubt that in the earliest times the free people, i.e. the fighting force of the state, were called together to ratify the decisions of the king, and that they were gradually able to enforce their wishes against those of the nobles. In Athens, as in Rome, where the Plebs succeeded in their demand for the codification of the laws (the Twelve Tables), it was no doubt owing to the growing power of the people meeting in the Agora that Draco was entrusted with the task of publishing a code of law and so putting an end to the arbitrary judicature of the aristocratic party. But there is no evidence that the Ecclesia had more than a de facto existence before Solon’s reforms.
The precise powers which Solon gave the people are not known. It is clear that the executive power in the state (see Archon) was still vested in the Eupatrid class. It is obvious, therefore, that a moderate reformer would endeavour to give to the people some control over the magistracy. Now in speaking of the Thetes (the lowest of the four Solonian classes; see Solon), Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens says that Solon gave them merely “a share in the Ecclesia and the Law Courts,” and in the Politics we find that he gave them the right of electing the magistrates and receiving their accounts at the end of the official year. Thus it seems that the “mixed” character of Solon’s constitution consisted in the fact that though the officials of the state were still necessarily Eupatrid, the Ecclesia elected those of the Eupatrids whom they could trust, and further had the right of criticizing their official actions. Secondly, all our accounts agree that Solon admitted the Thetes to the Ecclesia, thus recognizing them as citizens. Under Cleisthenes the Ecclesia remained the sovereign power, but the Council seems to have become to some extent a separate administrative body. The relation of Boulē and Ecclesia in the Cleisthenic democracy was of the
