acres. The component rock is a hard granite, except at the south, where slate occurs. This granite was used in the construction of the Victoria Embankment, London. An extreme elevation of about 450 ft. is found in the southern half of the island; the northern sloping gently to the sea, but the greater part of the coast is cliff-bound and very beautiful. The landing, at the south-east, is sheltered by the small Rat Island, where the once common black rat survives. There are a few prehistoric remains on Lundy, and the foundations of an ancient chapel of St Helen. There are also ruins, and the still inhabited keep, of Marisco Castle, occupying a strong precipitous site on the south-east, held in the reign of Henry II. by Sir Jordan de Marisco. The Mariscos, in their inaccessible retreat, lived lawlessly until in 1242 Sir William Marisco was hanged for instigating an attempt on the life of Henry III. In 1625 the island was reported to be captured by Turkish pirates, and in 1633 by Spaniards. Later it became an object of attack and a hiding place for French privateers. The island, which is reckoned as extra-parochial, has some cultivable land and heath pasture, and had a population in 1901 of 94.
LÜNEBURG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province
of Hanover, situated near the foot of a small hill named the
Kalkberg, on the navigable Ilmenau, 14 m. above its confluence
with the Elbe and 30 m. by rail S.E. of Hamburg by the main
line to Hanover. Pop. (1905) 26,751. Numerous handsome
medieval buildings testify to its former prosperity as a prominent
member of the Hanseatic league, and its many quaint houses
with high gables and overhanging eaves have gained for it the
appellation “the Nüremberg of the North.” Portions of the
old walls survive, but the greater part of the former circumvallation
has been converted into promenades and gardens,
outside which a modern town has sprung up. The finest of its
squares are the market-place and the so-called Sand. The
churches of St John, with five aisles and a spire 375 ft. in height;
of St Michael, containing the tombs of the former princes of
Lüneburg, and of St Nicolas, with a huge nave and a lofty
spire, are fine Gothic edifices of the 14th and 15th centuries.
The old town-hall in the market square is a huge pile, dating
originally from the 13th century, but with numerous additions.
It has an arcade with frescoes, restored by modern Munich
artists, and contains a magnificent hall—the Fürstensaal—richly
decorated with wood-carving and stained-glass windows.
Galvanoplastic casts of the famous Lüneburg silver plate, consisting
of 36 pieces which were acquired in 1874 by the Prussian
government for £33,000 and are now housed in the art museum
in Berlin, are exhibited here. Among other public edifices are
the old palace; the convent of St Michael (now converted into
a school and law court), and the Kaufhaus (merchants’ hall).
There are a museum, a library of 36,000 volumes, classical and
commercial schools, and a teachers’ seminary. Lüneburg owes
its importance chiefly to the gypsum and lime quarries of the
Kalkberg, which afford the materials for its cement works, and
to the productive salt-spring at its base which has been known
and used since the 10th century. Hence the ancient saying
which, grouping with these the commercial facilities afforded
by the bridge over the Ilmenau, ascribes the prosperity of Lüneburg
to its mons, fons, pons. Other industries are the making
of chemicals, ironware, soda and haircloth. There is a considerable
trade in French wines, for which Lüneburg has for
centuries been one of the chief emporia in north Germany, and
also in grain and wool. Celebrated are its lampreys, Lüneburger
Bricken.
Lüneburg existed in the days of Charlemagne, but it did not gain importance until after the erection of a convent and a castle on the Kalkberg in the 10th century. After the destruction of Bardowiek, then the chief commercial centre of North Germany, by Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, in 1189, Lüneburg inherited much of its trade and subsequently became one of the principal towns of the Hanseatic league. Having belonged to the extensive duchy of Saxony it was the capital of the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1235 to 1369; later it belonged to one or other of the branches of the family of Brunswick, being involved in the quarrels, and giving its name to cadet lines, of this house. From the junior line of Brunswick-Lüneburg the reigning family of Great Britain is descended. The reformed doctrines were introduced into the town in 1530 and it suffered heavily during the Thirty Years’ War. It reached the height of its prosperity in the 15th century, and in the 17th century it was the depot for much of the merchandise exported from Saxony and Bavaria to the mouth of the Elbe; then after a period of decay the 19th century witnessed a revival of its prosperity. In 1813 the German war of liberation was begun by an engagement with the French near Lüneburg.
See W. F. Volger, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Lüneburg (3 vols., Lüneburg, 1872–1877); E. Bodemann, Die älteren Zunfturkunden der Stadt Lüneburg (Hanover, 1883); O. Jürgens, Geschichte der Stadt Lüneburg (Lüneburg, 1891); Des Propstes Jakob Schomaker Lüneburger Chronik, edited by T. Meyer (Hanover, 1904); A. Wrede, Die Einführung der Reformation in Lüneburg (Göttingen, 1887), and W. Reinecke, Lüneburgs ältestes Stadtbuch und Verfasstungsregister (Hanover, 1903). For the history of the principality see von Leuthe, Archiv für Geschichte und Verfassung des Fürstentums Lüneburg (Celle, 1854–1863).
LÜNEBURGER HEIDE, a district of Germany, in the Prussian
province of Hanover, lying between the Aller and the Elbe
and intersected by the railways Harburg-Hanover and Bremen-Stendal.
Its main character is that of a broad saddle-back,
running for 55 m. from S.E. to N.W. of a mean elevation of about
250 ft. and attaining its greatest height in the Wilseder Berg
(550 ft.) at its northern end. The soil is quartz sand and is
chiefly covered with heather and brushwood. In the north, and
in the deep valleys through which the streams descend to the
plain, there are extensive forests of oak, birch and beech, and
in the south, of fir and larch. Though the climate is raw and
good soil rare, the heath is not unfertile. Its main products
are sheep—the celebrated Heidschnucken breed,—potatoes,
bilberries, cranberries and honey. The district is also remarkable
for the numerous Hun barrows found scattered throughout its
whole extent.
See Rabe, Die Lüneburger Heide und die Bewirthschaftung der Heidhöfe (Jena, 1900); Kniep, Führer durch die Lüneburger Heide (Hanover, 1900); Linde, Die Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg, 1905), and Kück, Das alte Bauernleben der Lüneburger Heide (Leipzig, 1906).
LUNETTE (French diminutive of lune, moon), a crescent-shaped, semi-circular object. The term is particularly applied in architecture to a circular opening at the intersection of vaulting by a smaller vault, as in a ceiling for the entrance of light or in the lower stories of towers for the passage of bells. It is also used of a panel space of semi-circular shape, filled by a fresco or other decorative treatment. In fortification a “lunette” was originally an earthwork of half-moon shape; later it became a redan with short flanks, in trace somewhat resembling a bastion standing by itself without curtains on either side. The gorge was generally open.
LUNÉVILLE, an industrial and garrison town of north-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 21 m. E.S.E. of Nancy on the railway to Strassburg. Pop. (1906) town, 19,199; commune, 24,266 (including troops). The town stands on the right bank of the Meurthe between that river and its affluent the Vezouze, a little above their confluence. Its château, designed early in the 18th century by the royal architect Germain Boffrand, was the favourite residence of Duke Leopold of Lorraine, where he gathered round him an academy composed of eminent men of the district. It is now a cavalry barracks, and the gardens form a public promenade. Lunéville is an important cavalry station with a large riding school. The church of St Jacques with its two domed towers dates from 1730–1745. There are statues of General Count Antoine de Lasalle, and of the Conventional Abbé Henri Grégoire. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect, and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. It carries on cotton-spinning and the manufacture of railway material, motor vehicles, porcelain, toys, hosiery, embroidery, straw-hats and gloves. Trade is in grain, wine, tobacco, hops and other agricultural produce.
The name of Lunéville (Lunae villa) is perhaps derived from
