FLORA, in Roman mythology, goddess of spring-time and flowers, later identified with the Greek Chloris. Her festival at Rome, the Floralia, instituted 238 B.C. by order of the Sibylline books and at first held irregularly, became annual after 173. It lasted six days (April 28-May 3), the first day being the anniversary of the foundation of her temple. It included theatrical performances and animal hunts in the circus, and vegetables were distributed to the people. The proceedings were characterized by excessive merriment and licentiousness. According to the legend, her worship was instituted by Titus Tatius, and her priest, the flamen Floralis, by Numa. In art Flora was represented as a beautiful maiden, bedecked with flowers (Ovid, Fasti, v. 183 ff.; Tacitus, Annals, ii. 49).
The term “flora” is used in botany collectively for the plant-growth of a district; similarly “fauna” is used collectively for the animals.
FLORE AND BLANCHEFLEUR, a 13th-century romance. This tale, generally supposed to be of oriental origin, relates the passionate devotion of two children, and their success in overcoming all the obstacles put in the way of their love. The romance appears in differing versions in French, English, German, Swedish, Icelandic, Italian, Spanish, Greek and Hungarian. The various forms of the tale receive a detailed notice in E. Hausknecht’s version of the 13th-century Middle English poem of “Floris and Blauncheflur” (Samml. eng. Denkmäler, vol. v. Berlin, 1885). Nothing definite can be stated of the origin of the story, but France was in the 12th and 13th centuries the chief market of romance, and the French version of the tale, Floire et Blanchefleur, is the most widespread. Floire, the son of a Saracen king of Spain, is brought up in constant companionship with Blanchefleur, the daughter of a Christian slave of noble birth. Floire’s parents, hoping to destroy this attachment, send the boy away at fifteen and sell Blanchefleur to foreign slave-merchants. When Floire returns a few days later he is told that his companion is dead, but when he threatens to kill himself, his parents tell him the truth. He traces her to the tower of the maidens destined for the harem of the emir of Babylon, into which he penetrates concealed in a basket of flowers. The lovers are discovered, but their constancy touches the hearts of their judges. They are married, and Floire returns to his kingdom, when he and all his people adopt Christianity. Of the two 12th-century French poems (ed. Édélestand du Méril, Paris, 1856), the one contains the love story with few additions, the other is a romance of chivalry, containing the usual battles, single combats, &c. Two lyrics based on episodes of the story are printed by Paulin Paris in his Romancero français (Paris, 1883). The English poem renders the French version without amplifications, such as are found in other adaptations. Its author has less sentiment than his original, and less taste for detailed description. Among the other forms of the story must be noted the prose romance (c. 1340) of Boccaccio, Il Filocolo, and the 14th-century Leggenda della reina Rosana e di Rosana sua figliuola (pr. Leghorn, 1871). The similarity between the story of Floire and Blanchefleur and Chante-fable of Aucassin et Nicolete[1] has been repeatedly pointed out, and they have even been credited with a common source.
See also editions by I. Bekker (Berlin, 1844) and E. Hausknecht (Berlin, 1885); also H. Sundmacher, Die altfr. und mittelhochdeutsche Bearbeitung der Sage von Flore et Blanscheflur (Göttingen, 1872); H. Herzog, Die beiden Sagenkreise von Flore und Blanscheflur (Vienna, 1884); Zeitschrift für deut. Altertum (vol. xxi.) contains a Rhenish version; the Scandinavian Flores Saga ok Blankiflùr, ed. E. Kölbing (Halle, 1896); the 13th-century version of Konrad Fleck, Flore und Blanscheflur, ed. E. Sommer (Leipzig, 1846); the Swedish by G. E. Klemming (Stockholm, 1844). The English poem was also edited by Hartschorne (English Metrical Tales, 1829), by Laing (Abbotsford Club, 1829), and by Lumly (Early Eng. Text Soc., 1866, re-edited G. H. McKnight, 1901). J. Reinhold (Floire et Blanchefleur, Paris, 1906) suggests a parallelism with the story of Cupid and Psyche as told by Apuleius; also that the oriental setting does not necessarily imply a connexion with Arab tales, as the circumstances might with small alteration have been taken from the Vulgate version of the book of Esther.
FLORENCE, WILLIAM JERMYN (1831–1891), American actor, of Irish descent, whose real name was Bernard Conlin, was born on the 26th of July 1831 at Albany, N.Y., and first attracted attention as an actor at Brougham’s Lyceum in 1851. Two years later he married Mrs Malvina Pray Littell (d. 1906), in association with whom, until her retirement in 1889, he won all his successes, notably in Benjamin Woolf’s The Mighty Dollar, said to have been presented more than 2500 times. In 1856 they had a successful London season, Mrs Florence being one of the first American actresses to appear on the English stage. In 1889 Florence entered into partnership with Joseph Jefferson, playing Sir Lucius O’Trigger to his Bob Acres and Mrs John Drew’s Mrs Malaprop on a very successful tour. His last appearance was with Jefferson on the 14th of November 1891, as Ezekiel Homespun in The Heir-at-law, and he died on the 18th of November in Philadelphia.
FLORENCE OF WORCESTER (d. 1118), English chronicler, was a monk of Worcester, who died, as we learn from his continuator, on the 7th of July 1118. Beyond this fact nothing is known of his life. He compiled a chronicle called Chronicon ex chronicis which begins with the creation and ends in 1117. The basis of his work was a chronicle compiled by Marianus Scotus, an Irish recluse, who lived first at Fulda, afterwards at Mainz. Marianus, who began his work after 1069, carried it up to 1082. Florence supplements Marianus from a lost version of the English Chronicle, and from Asser. He is always worth comparing with the extant English Chronicles; and from 1106 he is an independent annalist, dry but accurate. Either Florence or a later editor of his work made considerable borrowings from the first four books of Eadmer’s Historia novorum. Florence’s work is continued, up to 1141, by a certain John of Worcester, who wrote about 1150. John is valuable for the latter years of Henry I. and the early years of Stephen. He is friendly to Stephen, but not an indiscriminate partisan.
The first edition of these two writers is that of 1592 (by William Howard). The most accessible is that of B. Thorpe (Eng. Hist. Soc., 2 vols., 1848–1849); but Thorpe’s text of John’s continuation needs revision. Thorpe gives, without explanations, the insertions of an ill-informed Gloucester monk who has obscured the accurate chronology of the original. Thorpe also prints a continuation by John Taxter (died c. 1295), a 13th-century writer and a monk of Bury St Edmunds. Florence and John of Worcester are translated by J. Stevenson in his Church Historians of England, vol. ii. pt. i. (London, 1853); T. Forester’s translation in Bohn’s Antiquarian Library (London, 1854) gives the work of Taxter also. (H. W. C. D.)
FLORENCE, the county-seat of Lauderdale county, Alabama,
U.S.A., on the N. bank of the Tennessee river, at the foot of
Muscle Shoals Canal, and about 560 ft. above sea-level. Pop.
(1880) 1359; (1890) 6012; (1900) 6478 (1952 negroes); (1910)
6689. It is served by the Southern, the Northern Alabama
(controlled by the Southern), and the Louisville & Nashville
railways, and by electric railway to Sheffield and Tuscumbia,
and the Tennessee river is here navigable. Florence is situated
in the fertile agricultural lands of the Tennessee river valley on
the edge of the coal and iron districts of Alabama, and has
various manufactures, including pig-iron, cotton goods, wagons,
stoves, fertilizers, staves and mercantile supplies. At Florence
are the state Normal College, the Florence University for
Women, and the Burrell Normal School (for negroes; founded
in 1903 by the American Missionary Association). Florence
was founded in 1818, Andrew Jackson, afterwards president
of the United States, and ex-president James Madison being
among the early property holders. For several years Florence
and Nashville, Tennessee, were commercial rivals, being situated
respectively at the head of navigation on the Tennessee and
Cumberland rivers. The first invasion of Alabama by Federal
troops in the Civil War was by a gunboat raid up the Tennessee
to Florence on the 8th of February 1862. On the 11th of April
1863 another Federal gunboat raid was attempted, but the vessels
were repulsed by a force under Gen. S. A. Wood. On the 26th
- ↑ Ed. H. Suchier (Paderborn, 1878, 5th ed. 1903); modern French by G. Michaut, with preface by J. Bédier (Tours, 1901); English by Andrew Lang (1887), by F. W. Bourdillon (Oxford, 1896), and by Laurence Housman (1902).
