2854. It lies on a ridge surrounded on all sides except the north-west by the river Avon and a small tributary. The church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, standing high, is a majestic fragment consisting of the greater part of the nave (with aisles) of a Benedictine abbey church. The ruined skeleton of the great tower arches now terminates the building eastward. The nave is transitional Norman, with a Decorated superstructure including the clerestory. The south porch is one of the finest Norman examples extant, both the outer and the inner doorways (especially the first) exhibiting the typical ornament of the period in remarkable exuberance. With the exception of a crypt, the monastic buildings have disappeared. In the market square stands a fine market cross of the 16th century, borne upon an octagonal battlemented basement. Early English fragments of a hospital of St John of Jerusalem appear in the corporation almshouse. Malmesbury has an agricultural trade, with breweries, tanneries and manufactures of silk and pillow lace. It is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 178 acres.
Maildulphus, a Scottish or Irish monk, who came into England about 635, built a hermitage near the site of the modern Malmesbury (Maildulphi-urbs, Maldelmesburh, Malmesbiri) and gathered disciples round him, thus forming the nucleus of the later abbey of which Aldhelm his pupil became the first abbot. Æthelstan, who was buried here (though his tomb in the church only dates from the 16th century), rebuilt and endowed the monastery. Round the abbey the town of Malmesbury grew up, and by the time of the Domesday Survey it had become one of the only two Wiltshire boroughs. The first charter, said to be a forgery, purports to have been given by Æthelstan. It granted to the burgesses all privileges and free customs such as they held in the time of Edward the Elder, with many additional exemptions, in return for help rendered against the Danes. The castle built at Malmesbury during the reign of Henry I. gave a further impetus to the growth of the town during the 12th and 13th centuries. It was not incorporated, however, until 1645, when it was made a free borough under the title of “aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Malmesbury, County Wilts.” By this charter it was governed until 1885. The borough returned two members to parliament from 1295 to 1832 when the number was reduced to one. Finally in 1885 its representation was merged in that of the county. A grant of a yearly fair on the 31st of March, the feast of St Aldhelm, was obtained from William II., and another for three days from the 25th of July from John. In 1792 fairs were held on the 28th of March, the 28th of April and the 29th of June, but in 1891 they had ceased entirely. John also granted a weekly market on Thursday. In the 16th and 18th centuries it was held on Saturday, and in 1891 on the third Wednesday in each month. In the middle ages Malmesbury possessed a considerable cloth manufacture, and at the Dissolution the abbey was bought by a rich clothier and fitted with looms for weaving. The trade in wool still flourished in 1751.
See Victoria County History: Wiltshire; and Registrum malmesburiense (1879–1880).
MALMÖ, a seaport of Sweden, chief town of the district (län)
of Malmöhus, on a small bay of the Sound, 384 m. S.S.W. of
Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1800), 38,054; (1900), 60,857. It is
connected with Copenhagen, 1714 m. W. by N., by steam-ferry,
the Sound being kept open in winter by an ice-breaker. It is also
the first important station in Sweden on the Berlin-Stockholm
route, which crosses the sea between Sassnitz in Rügen and
Trelleborg, 20 m. S.E. of Malmö. The town, which stands
upon a level plain, formerly had strong fortifications, of which
only the citadel (Malmöhus) remains; in it the earl of Bothwell
was imprisoned by Frederick II. of Denmark for some time
after his departure from Scotland in 1567. The town-hall (1546,
largely restored in 1864) contains a handsome chamber, the
Knutssal, formerly used by the council of the gild of Canute.
The hall fronts the central square (Stortorg) which is planted
with trees and contains a colossal statue of Charles X. by Johan
Helenus Börjeson (b. 1835) erected in 1896. The most notable
church is that of St. Peter (Peterkyrka), dating in part from
1319. Malmö is second to Stockholm as an industrial centre.
There are breweries and large works for the manufacture of
machinery, among which may be mentioned the Kockum
mechanical works, with yards for the construction of vessels of
war, and others; of cotton and woollen goods, gloves, chocolate,
sweetmeats and tobacco. A large export trade is carried on in
butter and other agricultural produce, and matches. Coal is the
chief import. The harborage includes an outer harbour of
22 ft. depth, and two inner basins admitting vessels of 21 ft.
draught, with dry dock and patent slip. Malmö returns four
members to the second chamber of the Riksdag (parliament).
Malmö (Malmhauge, Malmey, Malmöye, Malmoughe), sometimes called Ancona Scanorum or Ellenbogen, first appears in history about the middle of the 13th century. During the Hanseatic period it was the most important commercial town on the Sound, but in the 16th and 17th centuries greatly lost ground owing to the decay of its herring fisheries and the rise of its rival, Copenhagen. Its modern prosperity is largely due to the enterprise of Frans Snell, one of its merchants in the second half of the 18th century, who first constructed the harbour.
MALMSEY, a strong sweet wine, originally made at Monemvasia
(Gr. Μονεμβασία), Napoli di Malvasia, in the Morea,
Greece. The name of the place was corrupted in Med. Lat.
into malmasia, whence the English form of the word. The
corruption malvasia gives the O. Fr. malvesie, from which
comes the alternative English form “malvoisie.” The wine
is now made not only in Greece but also in Spain, Madeira and
the Azores.
MALOCELLO, LANCILOTO (“Lanzarote, the ‘Lancelot Maloisiel’ of the French”), leader of the first of modern European oceanic enterprises. This was a Genoese expedition, which about 1270 seems to have sailed into the Atlantic, re-discovered the “Fortunate Islands” or Canaries, and made something of a conquest and settlement in one of the most northerly isles
of this archipelago, still known (after the Italian captain) as Lanzarote. According to a Spanish authority of about 1345, the anonymous Franciscan’s Conosçimiento de todos los reinos, “Lancarote” was killed by the Canarian natives; but the castle built by him was standing in 1402–1404, when it was utilized for the storage of grain by the French conquerors under Gadifer
de la Salle. To Malocello’s enterprise, moreover, it is probable that Petrarch (born 1304) alludes when he tells how, within the memory of his parents, an armed fleet of Genoese penetrated to the “Fortunatae”; this passage some would refer, without sufficient authority, to the expedition of 1291. Malocello’s name and nationality are certainly preserved by those early Portolani or scientific charts (such as the “Dulcert” of 1339 and the “Laurentian Portolano” of 1351), in which the African islands appear, for the first time in history, in clear and recognizable form. Thus Dulcert reads Insula de Lanzarotus and Marocelus, the Laurentian map I. de Lanzarote, against Lanzarote Island, which is well depicted on both designs, and marked with the cross of Genoa. The Conosçimiento (as noticed above) explicitly derives the island-name from the Genoese commander who perished here. Malocello’s enterprise not only marks the beginning of the oversea expansion of western Europe in exploration, conquest and colonization (after the age of Scandinavian world-roving had passed); it is also probably not unconnected with the great Genoese venture of 1291 (in search of a waterway to India, which soon follows), with which this attempt at Canarian discovery and dominion has been by some unjustifiably identified.
See the Conosçimiento, p. 100, as edited by Marcos Jimenez de la Espada in the Boletin de la sociedad geográfica de Madrid, (February 1877); Le Canarien in P. Margry, Conquête des . . . Canaries, p. 177; M. A. P. d’Avezac in vol. vi., part ii., of L’Univers, pp. 1–41 (Îles africaines de l’océan atlantique); C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 411–413, 449, 451.
MALOLOS, a town and the capital of the province of Bulacán, island of Luzon, Philippine Islands, on a branch of the Pampanga
