of his own. Eventually (1766) he became prelate at Murrhardt, where he died on the 10th of February 1782.
Oetinger’s autobiography was published by J. Hamberger in 1845. He published about seventy works, in which he expounded his theosophic views. A collected edition, Sämtliche Schriften (1st section, Homiletische Schriften, 5 vols., 1858–1866; 2nd section, Theosophische Werke, 6 vols., 1858–1863), was prepared by K. F. C. Ehmann, who also wrote Oetinger’s Leben und Briefe (1859). See also C. A. Auberlen, Die Theosophie Friedr. Chr. Oetinger’s (1847; 2nd ed., 1859), and Herzog, Friedrich Christoph Ötinger (1902).
OEYNHAUSEN, a town and watering-place of Germany, in
the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Werre, situated
just above its confluence with the Weser, 9 m. W. from Minden
by the main line of railway from Hanover to Cologne, with a
station on the Löhne-Hameln line. Pop. (1905) 3894. The
place, which was formerly called Rehme, owes its development
to the discovery in 1830 of its five famous salt springs, which
are heavily charged with carbonic acid gas. The waters are used
both for bathing and drinking, and are particularly efficacious
for nervous disorders, rheumatism, gout and feminine complaints.
OFFA, the most famous hero of the early Angli. He is said
by the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith to have ruled over Angel,
and the poem refers briefly to his victorious single combat,
a story which is related at length by the Danish historians Saxo
and Svend Aagesen. Offa (Uffo) is said to have been dumb or
silent during his early years, and to have only recovered his
speech when his aged father Wermund was threatened by the
Saxons, who insolently demanded the cession of his kingdom.
Offa undertook to fight against both the Saxon king’s son and
a chosen champion at once. The combat took place at Rendsburg
on an island in the Eider, and Offa succeeded in killing both his
opponents. According to Widsith Offa’s opponents belonged
to a tribe or dynasty called Myrgingas, but both accounts state
that he won a great kingdom as the result of his victory. A
somewhat corrupt version of the same story is preserved in the
Vitae duorum Offarum, where, however, the scene is transferred
to England. It is very probable that the Offa whose marriage
with a lady of murderous disposition is mentioned in Beowulf
is the same person; and this story also appears in the Vitae
duorum Offarum, though it is erroneously told of a later Offa,
the famous king of Mercia. Offa of Mercia, however, was a
descendant in the 12th generation of Offa, king of Angel. It is
probable from this and other considerations that the early Offa
lived in the latter part of the 4th century.
See H. M. Chadwick, Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907), where references to the original authorities will be found.
OFFA (d. 796), king of Mercia, obtained that kingdom in A.D.
757, after driving out Beornred, who had succeeded a few
months earlier on the murder of Æthelbald. He traced his
descent from Pybba, the father of Penda, through Eowa, brother
of that king, his own father’s name being Thingferth. In 779
he was at war with Cynewulf of Wessex from whom he wrested
Bensington. It is not unlikely that the Thames became the
boundary of the two kingdoms about this time. In 787 the
power of Offa was displayed in a synod held at a place called
Cealchyth. He deprived Tænberht, archbishop of Canterbury,
of several of his suffragan sees, and assigned them to Lichfield,
which, with the leave of the pope, he constituted as a separate
archbishopric under Hygeberht. He also took advantage
of this meeting to have his son Ecgferth consecrated as his
colleague, and that prince subsequently signed charters as
Rex Merciorum. In 789 Offa secured the alliance of Berhtric
of Wessex by giving him his daughter Eadburg in marriage.
In 794 he appears to have caused the death of Æthelberht of
East Anglia, though some accounts ascribe the murder to
Cynethryth, the wife of Offa. In 796 Offa died after a reign of
thirty-nine years and was succeeded by his son Ecgferth. It
is customary to ascribe to Offa a policy of limited scope, namely
the establishment of Mercia in a position equal to that of Wessex
and of Northumbria. This is supposed to be illustrated by his
measures with regard to the see of Lichfield. It cannot be
doubted, however, that at this time Mercia was a much more
formidable power than Wessex. Offa, like most of his predecessors,
probably held a kind of supremacy over all kingdoms south of
the Humber. He seems, however, not to have been contented
with this position, and to have entertained the design of putting
an end to the dependent kingdoms. At all events we hear of
no kings of the Hwicce after about 780, and the kings of Sussex
seem to have given up the royal title about the same time.
Further, there is no evidence for any kings in Kent from 784
until after Offa’s death. To Offa is ascribed by Asser, in his
life of Alfred, the great fortifications against the Welsh which
is still known as “Offa’s dike.” It stretched from sea to sea
and consisted of a wall and a rampart. An account of his Welsh
campaigns is given in the Vitae duorum Offorum, but it is difficult
to determine how far the stories there given have an historical
basis.
See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. J. Earle and C. Plummer (Oxford, 1899), s.a. 755, 777, 785, 787, 792, 794, 796, 836; W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885–1893), vol. i.; Asser, Life of Alfred, cd. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904); Vitae duorum Offarum (in works of Matthew Paris, ed. W. Wats, London, 1640).
OFFAL, refuse or waste stuff, the “off fall,” that which falls
off (cf. Dutch afval, Ger. Abfall). The term is applied especially
to the waste parts of an animal that has been slaughtered for
food, to putrid flesh or carrion, and to waste fish, especially
to the little ones that get caught in the nets with the larger
and better fish, and are thrown away or used as manure. As
applied to grain “offal” is used of grains too small or light for
use for flour, and also in flour milling of the husk or bran of
wheat with a certain amount of flour attaching, sold for feeding
beasts (see Flour).
OFFENBACH, JACQUES (1819–1880), French composer of opéra bouffe, was born at Cologne, of German Jewish parents, on the 21st of June 1819. His talent for music was developed at a very early age; and in 1833 he was sent to Paris to study the violoncello at the conservatoire, where, under the care of Professor Vaslin, he became a fairly good performer. In 1834 he became a member of the orchestra of the Opéra Comique; and he turned his opportunities to good account, so that eventually he was made conductor at the Théâtre Français. There, in 1848, he made his first success as a composer in the Chanson de Fortunio in Alfred de Musset’s play Le Chandelier. From this time forward his life became a ceaseless struggle for the attainment of popularity. His power of production was apparently inexhaustible. His first complete work, Pepito, was produced at the Opéra Comique in 1853. This was followed by a crowd of dramatic pieces of a light character, which daily gained in favour with Parisian audiences, and eventually effected a complete revolution in the popular taste of the period. Encouraged by these early successes, Offenbach boldly undertook the delicate task of entirely remodelling both the form and the style of the light musical pieces which had so long been welcomed with acclamation by the frequenters of the smaller theatres in Paris. With this purpose in view he obtained a lease of the Théâtre Comte in the Passage Choiseul, reopened it in 1855 under the title of the Bouffes Parisiens, and night after night attracted crowded audiences by a succession of brilliant, humorous trifles. Ludovic Halévy, the librettist, was associated with him from the first, but still more after 1860, when Halévy obtained Henri Meilhac’s collaboration (see Halévy). Beginning with Les Deux Aveugles and Le Violoneux, the series of Offenbach’s operettas was rapidly continued, until in 1867 its triumph culminated in La Grande Duchesse de Gèrolstein, perhaps the most popular opéra bouffe that ever was written, not excepting even his Orphée aux enfers, produced in 1858. From this time forward the success of Offenbach’s pieces became an absolute certainty, and the new form of opéra bouffe, which he had gradually endowed with as much consistency as it was capable of assuming, was accepted as the only one worth cultivating. It found imitators in Lecocq and other aspirants of a younger generation, and Offenbach’s works found their way to every town in Europe in which a theatre existed. Tuneful, gay and exhilarating, their want of refinement formed no obstacle to their popularity, and perhaps even contributed to it. In 1866 his own connexion with the Bouffes Parisiens ceased, and he wrote for various
