restitution by the emperor Ferdinand II. in 1629, there were three rival candidates for the see, and their struggles added to the confusion caused by the Thirty Years’ War. By the peace of Prague, however, in 1635, the archbishopric was given to Augustus, prince of Saxe-Weissenfels, who retained it until his death in 1680. In 1773 the area of the see was over 2000 sq. m. It included 29 towns and over 400 villages and contained about 250,000 inhabitants.
See the Regesta archiepiscopatus magdeburgensis, edited by G. A. von Mülverstedt (Magdeburg, 1876–1899); and K. Uhlirz, Geschichte des Erzbistums Magdeburg unter den Kaisern aus sächsischem Hause (Magdeburg, 1887).
Distinct both from the archbishopric and from the city was the Burgraviate of Magdeburg. The office of burgrave dates from the time of Charlemagne, although its holder was not at first called by this name, and it soon became one of great importance. The burgrave was the king’s representative; he was charged with the administration of the royal estates in a given district, and in general with watching the royal interests therein. The burgraviate of Magdeburg was held by several countly families in turn until 1269, when it was purchased by Archbishop Conrad II., who, however, soon sold it. In 1294 it was again united with the archbishopric and the prelates retained it until 1538; then in 1579 Augustus, elector of Saxony, made an arrangement which again gave the office to the archbishops, who held it until the secularization of the see.
The Magdeburg Centuries (Magdeburger Zenturien) is the name given to the first general history of the Christian Church written from a Protestant point of view. It was compiled in Magdeburg, and the history is divided into periods of one hundred years each. It was written in Latin in 1562, its principal author being the reformer Matthias Flacius, who was assisted by other Lutheran theologians. The cost of the undertaking was borne by some of the German Protestant princes. As the Historia ecclesiae Christi it was first published at Basel in seven volumes (1559–1574). It deals with the history of the Church down to 1400, and considering the time at which it was written it is a remarkable monument to the scholarship of its authors. The earlier part of it has been translated into German (Jena, 1560–1565).
See E. Schaumkell, Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Magdeburger Zenturien (Ludwigslust, 1898).
MAGEE, WILLIAM (1766–1831), archbishop of Dublin, was born at Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was elected fellow in 1788. He was ordained in 1790. Two sermons, preached in the college chapel in 1798 and 1799, form the basis of his Discourses on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice (1801), a polemic against Unitarian theology which was answered by Lant Carpenter. Magee was appointed professor of mathematics and senior fellow of Trinity in 1800, but in 1812 he resigned, and undertook the charge of the livings of Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, and Killeleagh, Co. Down. Next year he became dean of Cork. He was well known as a preacher and promoter of the Irish reformation, and in 1819 he was consecrated bishop of Raphoe. In 1822 the archbishop of Dublin was translated to Armagh, and Magee succeeded him at Dublin. Though in most respects a tolerant man, he steadily opposed the movement for Catholic Emancipation. He died on the 18th of August 1831.
A memoir of his life is included with the Works of the Most Reverend William Magee, D.D. (1842), by A. H. Kenney.
MAGEE, WILLIAM CONNOR (1821–1891), Anglican divine, archbishop of York, was born at Cork in 1821. His father was curate of the parish attached to the Protestant cathedral in that city; his grandfather was archbishop of Dublin. Young Magee entered Trinity College, Dublin, with a scholarship at thirteen. He was ordained to the curacy of St Thomas’s, Dublin, but, being threatened with consumption, went after two years to Malaga. On his return he took a curacy at Bath, and was speedily appointed to the Octagon Chapel, where his fame both as preacher and platform speaker continued to spread. Some years afterwards he was made prebendary of Wells Cathedral. In 1860 the delicate state of his health caused him to accept the living of Enniskillen. In 1864 he was made dean of Cork and chaplain to the lord lieutenant. Here he manifested those great gifts which ultimately raised him to high office; a powerful grasp of mental, moral and political problems, combined with eloquence of a high order, and illuminated with brilliant flashes of wit. In 1868 the question of the disestablishment of the Irish Church came to the front, and Magee threw himself into the task of its defence with his usual energy and vivacity. The success of his orations caused Disraeli to offer him the bishopric of Peterborough. He justified his appointment by his magnificent speech when the Disestablishment Bill reached the House of Lords in 1869, and then plunged into diocesan and general work in England. He preached three remarkable sermons on Christian Evidence in Norwich Cathedral in 1871. He took up the temperance question, and declared in the House of Lords that he would rather see “England free than England compulsorily sober,” an utterance which the extreme advocates of total abstinence misquoted and attacked. He was also a supporter of the movement for abolishing the recitation of the Athanasian Creed in the public services of the Church of England, believing, as he said, that the “presence” of the damnatory clauses, “as they stand and where they stand, is a real peril to the Church and to Christianity itself,” and that those clauses “are no essential part” of the creed. The project was laid aside in consequence of the hostility of a large body of the clergy, reinforced by the threat of Dr Pusey and Canon Liddon to abandon their offices if it were carried. Magee took a prominent part in the Ritual controversy, opposing what he conceived to be romanizing excess in ritual, as well as the endeavour of the opposite party to “put down Ritualism,” as Disraeli expressed it, by the operation of the civil law. His incisive way of putting things earned for him the title of the “Militant Bishop,” but, as he himself remarked in relation to this title, his efforts were ever for peace. Unfortunately for the Church, he was not elevated to the see of York until his energies were exhausted. He died on the 5th of May 1891, about four months after his appointment. Magee’s manifold activities, his capability as an administrator, his sound judgment, and his remarkable insight into the ecclesiastical problems of his time, rank him among the most distinguished of English prelates.
See Life and Letters, by Canon MacDonnell (2 vols. 1896).
MAGELLAN, FERDINAND (in Sp. Fernando Magallanes, in Port. Fernão de Magalhães) (c. 1480–1521), the first circumnavigator of the globe, was born at Sabrosa in the Villa Real district of the Traz-os-Montes province of Portugal. He was a son of Pedro de Magalhães, and belonged to the fourth order of Portuguese nobility (fidalgos de cota de armas). He was brought up as one of the pages of Queen Leonor, consort of King John (João) II “the Perfect.” In 1495 he entered the service of Manuel “the Fortunate,” John’s successor, and in 1504 enlisted as a volunteer for the Indian voyage of the first Portuguese viceroy in the East, Francisco d’Almeida. He sailed on the 25th of March 1505; was wounded at Cannanore on the 16th of March 1506; was then sent with Nuno Vaz Pereira to Sofala to build a Portuguese fortress at that place; returned to India early in 1508; and was again wounded at the battle of Diu on the 3rd of February 1509. At Cochin (Aug. 19, 1509) he joined Diogo Lopes de Sequeira on his famous voyage intended for the Spice Islands, when the Portuguese almost fell victims to Malay treachery at Malacca. In this crisis he fought bravely and skilfully (though it is not true, as often asserted, that he discovered the Malay plot); and before the 10th of October 1510 he had been rewarded for his many services with the rank of captain. He again distinguished himself at the taking of Malacca by Albuquerque (July-Aug., 1511), and was then sent on by the viceroy with Antonio d’Abreu to explore the Spice Islands (Moluccas). Leaving Malacca at the end of December 1511, this squadron sailed along the north of Java, passed between Java and Madura, left Celebes on their left, coasted by the Gunong Api volcano, touched at Bura, and so reached Amboyna and Banda. At the last-named they found
