soldiers, formed by the emperor Maximilian I. about the end of the 15th century, and the Swiss, the “men of the mountains,” at that time the typical mercenary infantry of Europe. After the battles of Marignan and Pavia, where the military reputation of the Swiss had been broken, the Swabian landsknechte came to be considered the best fighting troops in Europe. Though primarily a German force and always the mainstay of imperial armies, they served in organized bodies as mercenaries elsewhere in Europe; in France they fought for the League and for the Protestants indiscriminately. In fact landsknecht, and more particularly its French corruption lansquenet, became in western Europe a general term for mercenary foot-soldiers. It is owing to the lange Spiesse (long pike or lance), the typical weapon with which they were armed, that the corrupted French form, as well as a German form, lanzknecht, and an English “lance-knight” came into use.
The landsknechts were raised by colonels (Oberst), to whom the emperor issued recruiting commissions corresponding to the English “indents”; they were organized in regiments made up of a colonel, lieut.-colonel and regimental staff, with a varying number of companies, “colours” (Fähnlein), commanded by captains (Hauptmann); subaltern officers were lieutenants and ensigns (Fähnrich). In thus defining the titles and duties of each rank, and in almost every detail of regimental customs and organization, discipline and interior economy, the landsknechts may be considered as the founders of the modern military system on a regimental basis (see further Army).
LANDSKRONA, a seaport of Sweden, on the east side of the
Sound, 15 m. N.E. of Copenhagen. Pop. (1900) 14,399. The
harbour is excellent, giving a depth of 35 ft., with 15 ft. beside
the quays. The town is among the first twelve manufacturing
centres of Sweden in value of output, the principal industries
being tanning and sugar manufacture and refining from beetroot.
On the little island of Hven, immediately opposite the town, Tycho
Brahe built his famous subterranean observatory of Uranienborg
in the second half of the 16th century. Landskrona,
originally called Landora or Landör, owed its first importance
to King Erik XIII., who introduced a body of Carmelite monks
from Germany in 1410, and bestowed on the place the privileges
of a town. During the wars of the 16th and 17th centuries it
played too conspicuous a part for its own prosperity. On the
24th of July 1677 a great naval battle was fought in the neighbourhood
in which the Swedes defeated the Danes.
LANDSTURM, the German equivalent of the levée en masse,
or general levy of all men capable of bearing arms and not
included in the other regularly organized forces, standing army
or its second line formations, of Continental nations.
LANDWEHR, a German word meaning “defence of the
country”; but the term as applied to an insurrectional militia
is very ancient, and “lantveri” are mentioned in Baluzii
Capitularia, as quoted in Hallam’s Middle Ages, i. 262, 10th ed.
The landwehr in Prussia was first formed by a royal edict of
the 17th of March 1813, which called up all men capable of
bearing arms between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and
not serving in the regular army, for the defence of the country.
After the peace of 1815 this force was made an integral part of
the Prussian army, each brigade being composed of one line and
one landwehr regiment. This, however, retarded the mobilization
and diminished the value of the first line, and by the
re-organization of 1859 the landwehr troops were relegated to
the second line. In Austria the landwehr is a totally different
organization. It is in reality a cadre force existing alongside
the regular army, and to it are handed over such recruits as,
for want of vacancies, cannot be placed in the latter. In Switzerland
the landwehr is a second line force, in which all citizens
serve for twelve years, after passing twelve in the “Auszug” or
field army.
LANE, EDWARD WILLIAM (1801–1876), English Arabic
scholar, son of Dr Theophilus Lane, prebendary of Hereford,
was born on the 17th of September 1801. He was educated at
Bath and Hereford grammar schools, where he showed marked
mathematical ability, and was designed for Cambridge and the
church, but this purpose was abandoned, and for some time he
studied the art of engraving. Failure of health compelled him
to throw aside the burin, and in 1825 he started for Egypt, where
he spent three years, twice ascended the Nile, proceeding as far
as the second cataract, and composed a complete description of
Egypt, with a portfolio of one hundred and one drawings. This
work was never published, but the account of the modern
Egyptians, which formed a part of it, was accepted for separate
publication by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
To perfect this work Lane again visited Egypt in 1833–1835,
residing mainly in Cairo, but retiring to Luxor during the plague
of 1835. Lane took up his residence in the Mahommedan
quarter, and under the name of Mansur Effendi lived the life
of an Egyptian scholar. He was fortunate in the time when he
took up his work, for Cairo had not then become a modern city,
and he was thus able to describe aspects of Arabian life that no
longer exist there. Perfected by the additional observations
collected during these years, the Modern Egyptians appeared in
1836, and at once took the place which it has never lost as the
best description of Eastern life and an Eastern country ever
written. It was followed from 1838 to 1840 by a translation of
the Arabian Nights, with notes and illustrations, designed to
make the book a sort of encyclopaedia of Eastern manners.
The translation itself is an admirable proof of scholarship, but
is characterized by a somewhat stilted mannerism, which is
not equally appropriate to all parts of the motley-coloured
original. The character of some of the tales and the tedious
repetitions of the same theme in the Arabic collection induced
Lane to leave considerable parts of the work untranslated.
The value of his version is increased by the exhaustive notes on
Mahommedan life and customs. In 1840 Lane married a Greek
lady. A useful volume of Selections from the Kur-ān was published
in 1843, but before it passed through the press Lane was again
in Egypt, where he spent seven years (1842–1849) collecting
materials for a great Arabic lexicon, which the munificence of
Lord Prudhoe (afterwards duke of Northumberland) enabled
him to undertake. The most important of the materials amassed
during this sojourn (in which he was accompanied by his wife
and by his sister, Mrs Poole, authoress of the Englishwoman in
Egypt, with her two sons, afterwards well known in Eastern
letters) was a copy in 24 thick quarto volumes of Sheikh Murtadā’s
great lexicon, the Tāj el ʽArūs, which, though itself a
compilation, is so extensive and exact that it formed the main
basis of Lane’s subsequent work. The author, who lived in
Egypt in the 18th century, used more than a hundred sources,
interweaving what he learned from them with the al-Qāmūs of
Fairūzābādī in the form of a commentary. By far the larger
part of this commentary was derived from the Lisān el ʽArab of
Ibn Mokarram, a work of the 13th century, which Lane was also
able to use while in Cairo.
Returning to England in 1849, Lane devoted the remaining twenty-seven years of his life to digesting and translating his Arabic material in the form of a great thesaurus of the lexicographical knowledge of the Arabs. In spite of weak health he continued this arduous task with unflagging diligence till a few days before his death at Worthing on the 10th of August 1876. Five parts appeared during his lifetime (1863–1874), and three posthumous parts were afterwards edited from his papers by S. Lane-Poole. Even in its imperfect state the Lexicon is an enduring monument, the completeness and finished scholarship with which it is executed making each article an exhaustive monograph. Two essays, the one on Arabic lexicography and the other on Arabic pronunciation, contributed to the magazine of the German Oriental Society, complete the record of Lane’s publications. His scholarship was recognized by many learned European societies. He was a member of the German Oriental Society, a correspondent of the French Institute, &c. In 1863 he was awarded a small civil list pension, which was after his death continued to his widow. Lane was not an original mind; his powers were those of observation, industry and sound judgment. His personal character was elevated and pure, his strong sense of religious and moral duty being of the type that
