LASCAR, the name in common use for all oriental, and especially Indian, sailors, which has been adopted in England into the Merchant Shipping Acts, though without any definition. It is derived from the Persian lashkar = army, or camp, in which sense it is still used in India, e.g. Lashkar, originally the camp, now the permanent capital, of Sindhia at Gwalior. It would seem to have been applied by the Portuguese, first to an inferior class of men in military service (cf. “gun-lascars”), and then to sailors as early as the 17th century. The form askari on the east coast of Africa, equivalent to “sepoy,” comes from the Arabic ‘askar = army, which is believed to be itself taken from the Persian.
LASCARIS, CONSTANTINE (d. 1493 or 1500), Greek scholar and grammarian, one of the promoters of the revival of Greek
learning in Italy, was born at Constantinople. He was a member
of the noble Bithynian family, which had furnished three emperors
of Nicaea during the 13th century. After the fall of
Constantinople in 1453, he took refuge first in Corfu and then
in Italy, where Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, appointed
him Greek tutor to his daughter. Here was published his
Grammatica Graeca, sive compendium octo orationis partium,
remarkable as being the first book entirely in Greek issued
from the printing press. After leaving Milan, Lascaris taught
in Rome under the patronage of Cardinal Bessarion, and in
Naples, whither he had been summoned by Ferdinand I. to
deliver a course of lectures on Greece. Ultimately, on the
invitation of the inhabitants, he settled in Messina, Sicily, where
he continued to teach publicly until his death. Among his
numerous pupils here was Pietro Bembo. Lascaris bequeathed
his library of valuable MSS. to the senate of Messina; the
collection was afterwards carried to Spain and lodged in the
Escurial.
The Grammatica, which has often been reprinted, is the only work of value produced by Lascaris. Some of his letters are given by J. Iriarte in the Regiae Bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci manuscripti, i. (Madrid, 1769). His name is known to modern readers in the romance of A. F. Villemain, Lascaris, ou les Grecs du quinzième siècle (1825). See also J. E. Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol., ed. 2, vol. ii. (1908), pp. 76 foll.
LASCARIS, JOANNES [John], or Janus (c. 1445–1535), Greek scholar, probably the younger brother of Constantine Lascaris, surnamed Rhyndacenus from the river Rhyndacus in Bithynia, his native province. After the fall of Constantinople he was taken to the Peloponnese, thence to Crete, and ultimately
found refuge in Florence at the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici,
whose intermediary he was with the sultan Bayezid II. in
the purchase of Greek MSS. for the Medicean library. On
the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, at the invitation
of Charles VIII. of France, Lascaris removed to Paris (1495),
where he gave public instruction in Greek. By Louis XII.
he was several times employed on public missions, amongst
others to Venice (1503–1508), and in 1515 he appears to have
accepted the invitation of Leo X. to take charge of the Greek
college he had founded at Rome. We afterwards (1518) find
Lascaris employed along with Budaeus (Budé) by Francis I.
in the formation of the royal library at Fontainebleau, and also
again sent in the service of the French crown to Venice. He
died at Rome, whither he had been summoned by Pope Paul
III., in 1535. Among his pupils was Musurus.
Amongst other works, Lascaris edited or wrote: Anthologia epigrammatum Graecorum (1494), in which he ascribed the collection of the Anthology to Agathias, not to Planudes; Didymi Alexandrini scholia in Iliadem (1517); Porphyrius of Tyre’s Homericarum quaestionum liber (1518); De veris Graecarum litterarum formis ac causis apud antiquos (Paris, 1556). See H. Hody, De Graecis illustribus (London, 1742); W. Roscoe, Life of Leo X. ii. (1846); C. F. Börner, De doctis hominibus Graecis (Leipzig, 1750); A. Horawitz in Ersch & Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie; J. E. Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol., ed. 2, vols. ii. (1908), p. 78.
LAS CASAS, BARTOLOMÉ DE (1474–1566), for some time
bishop of Chiapa in Mexico, and known to posterity as “The
Apostle of the Indies,” was a native of Seville. His father,
one of the companions of Columbus in the voyage which resulted
in the discovery of the New World, sent him to Salamanca,
where he graduated. In 1498 he accompanied his father in
an expedition under Columbus to the West Indies, and in 1502
he went with Nicolás de Ovando, the governor, to Hayti, where
in 1510 he was admitted to holy orders, being the first priest
ordained in the American colonies. In 1511 he passed over
to Cuba to take part in the work of “population and pacification,”
and in 1513 or 1514 he witnessed and vainly endeavoured
to check the massacre of Indians at Caonao. Soon afterwards
there was assigned to him and his friend Renteria a large village
in the neighbourhood of Zagua, with a number of Indians attached
to it in what was known as repartimiento (allotment); like the
rest of his countrymen he made the most of this opportunity
for growing rich, but occasionally celebrated mass and preached.
Soon, however, having become convinced of the injustice connected
with the repartimiento system, he began to preach against
it, at the same time giving up his own slaves. With the consent
of his partner he resolved to go to Spain on behalf of the oppressed
natives, and the result of his representations was that
in 1516 Cardinal Jimenes caused a commission to be sent out
for the reform of abuses, Las Casas himself, with the title of
“protector of the Indians,” being appointed to advise and
report on them. This commission had not been long at San
Domingo before Las Casas perceived the indifference of his
coadjutors to the cause which he himself had at heart, and
July 1517 found him again in Spain, where he developed his
scheme for the complete liberation of the Indians—a scheme
which not only included facilities for emigration from Spain,
but was intended to give to each Spanish resident in the colonies
the right of importing twelve negro slaves. The emigration
movement proved a failure, and Las Casas lived long enough
to express his shame for having been so slow to see that Africans
were as much entitled to freedom as were the natives of the
New World. Overwhelmed with disappointment, he retired
to the Dominican monastery in Haiti; he joined the order in
1522 and devoted eight years to study. About 1530 he appears
to have revisited the Spanish court, but on what precise errand
is not known; the confusion concerning this period of his life
extends to the time when, after visits to Mexico, Nicaragua,
Peru and Guatemala, he undertook an expedition in 1537 into
Tuzulutlan, the inhabitants of which were, chiefly through
his tact, peaceably converted to Christianity, mass being celebrated
for the first time amongst them in the newly founded
town of Rabinal in 1538. In 1539 Las Casas was sent to Spain
to obtain Dominican recruits, and through Loaysa, general
of the order, and confessor of Charles V., he was successful
in obtaining royal orders and letters favouring his enterprise.
During this stay in Europe, which lasted more than four years,
he visited Germany to see the emperor; he also (1542) wrote
his Veynte Razones, in defence of the liberties of the Indians
and the Brevisima Relacion de la Destruycion des las Indias
occidentales, the latter of which was published some twelve
years later. In 1543 he refused the Mexican bishopric of Cuzco,
but was prevailed upon to accept that of Chiapa, for which he
sailed in 1544. Thwarted at every point by the officials, and
outraged by his countrymen in his attempt to carry out the
new laws which his humanity had procured, he returned to
Spain and resigned his dignity (1547). In 1550 he met Sepúlveda
in public debate on the theses drawn from the recently
published Apologia pro libro de justis belli causis, in which
the latter had maintained the lawfulness of waging unprovoked
war upon the natives of the New World. The course of the
discussion may be traced in the account of the Disputa contained
in the Obras (1552). In 1565 Las Casas successfully
remonstrated with Philip II. against the financial project for
selling the reversion of the encomiendas—a project which
would have involved the Indians in hopeless bondage. In July
of the following year he died at Madrid, whither he had gone
to urge (and with success) the necessity of restoring a court
of justice which had been suppressed in Guatemala. His
Historia de las Indias was not published till 1875–1876.
Sir Arthur Helps’ Life of Las Casas (London, 1868) has not been superseded; but see also F. A. MacNutt, Bartholomew de Las Casas (1909).
