are derived from different authors who moved in the same circles.[1]
As regards the John mentioned in the Apocalypse, he is now identified by a majority of critics with John the Presbyter, and further the trend of criticism is in favour of transferring all the Johannine writings to him, or rather to his school in Asia Minor.[2]
For an independent discussion of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, see John, Gospel of St. (R. H. C.)
REVELS, MASTER OF THE.[3]—The history of the Revels office has an interesting place in that of the English stage (see also Drama, and Theatre). Among the expenses of the royal Wardrobe we find provision made for tunicae and viseres in 1347 for the Christmas ludi of Edward III.; during the reign of Henry VII. payments are also recorded for various forms of court revels; and it became regular, apparently, to appoint a special functionary, called Master of the Revels, to superintend the royal festivities, quite distinct from the Lord of Misrule (q.v.). In Henry VII.’s time he seems to have been a minor official of the household. In Henry VIII.’s time, however, the post became more important, and an officer of the Wardrobe was permanently employed to act under the Master of the Revels. With the patent given to John Farlyon in 1534 as Yeoman of the Revels, what may be considered as an independent office of the Revels (within the general sphere of the lord chamberlain) came into being; and in 1544 Sir Thomas Cawarden received a patent as Master of the Revels, he being the first to become head of an independent office, Magister Jocorum, Revelorum et Mascorum omnium et singularium nostrorum vulgariter nuncupatorum Revells and Masks. Cawarden was Master till 1559. Soon after his appointment, the office and its stores were transferred to a dissolved Dominican monastery at Blackfriars, having previously been housed at Warwick Inn in the city, the Charterhouse, and then at the priory of St John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell, to which a return was made after Cawarden’s death. Sir Thomas Benger succeeded Cawarden, and Edmund Tylney followed him (1579–1610); it was the appointment of the latter’s nephew, Sir George Buck, as deputy-master, with the reversion to the mastership, which led to so much repining on the part of the dramatist, John Lyly, who was himself a candidate. Under Tylney, the functions of Master of the Revels gradually became extended to a general censorship of the stage, which in 1624 was put directly in the hands of the lord chamberlain, thus leading to the licensing act of 1737 (see Drama).
See E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (1904); and his Notes on the History of the Revels Office under the Tudors (1906), with authorities quoted.
REVELSTOKE, an incorporated town of British Columbia, on the Columbia river and the Canadian Pacific railway, 381 m. E. of Vancouver. Pop. (1907) 3526. It is the capital of Kootenay county, and the shipping centre for the mining and lumbering district. It contains large railway shops, several breweries, and saw and shingle mills.
REVENTLOW, CHRISTIAN DITLEV FREDERICK, Count (1748–1827), Danish statesman and reformer, the son of Privy Councillor Christian Ditlev Reventlow, born on March 11, 1748. After being educated at the academy of Sorö and at Leipzig, Reventlow, in company with his younger brother Johan Ludwig and the distinguished Saxon economist Carl Wendt (1731–1815), the best of cicerones on such a tour, travelled through Germany, Switzerland, France and England, to examine the social, economical and agricultural conditions of civilized Europe. A visit to Sweden and Norway to study mining and metallurgy completed the curriculum, and when Reventlow in the course of 1770 returned to Denmark he was an authority on all the economic questions of the day. In 1774 he held a high position in the Kammerkollegiet, or board of trade, two years later he entered the Department of Mines, and in 1781 he was a member of the Overskattedirectionen, or chief taxing board. He had, in 1774, married Frederica Charlotte von Beulwitz, who bore him thirteen children, and on his father’s death in 1775 inherited the family estate in Laaland. Reventlow overflowed with progressive ideas, especially as regards agriculture, and he devoted himself, heart and soul, to the improvement of his property and the amelioration of his serfs. Fortunately, the ambition to play a useful part in a wider field of activity than he could find in the country ultimately prevailed. His time came when the ultra-conservative ministry of Hoegh Guldberg was dismissed (April 14th, 1784) and Andreas Bernstorff, the statesman for whom Reventlow had the highest admiration, returned to power.
Reventlow was an excellently trained specialist in many departments, and was always firm and confident in those subjects which he had made his own. Moreover, he was a man of strong and warm feelings, and deeply religious.
The condition of the peasantry especially interested him. He was convinced that free labour would be far more profitable to the land, and that the peasant himself would be. better if released from his thraldom.
His favourite field of labour was thrown open to him when, on the 6th of August 1784, he was placed at the head of the Rentekammeret, which took cognisance of everything relating to agriculture. His first step was to appoint a small agricultural commission to better the condition of the crown serfs, and amongst other things enable them to turn their leaseholds into freeholds. Observing that the Crown Prince Frederick was also favourably disposed towards the amelioration of the peasantry, Reventlow induced him, in July 1786, to appoint a grand commission to take the condition of all the peasantry in the kingdom into immediate consideration. This celebrated agricultural commission continued its labours for many years, and introduced a whole series of reforms of the highest importance. Thus the ordinance of 8th June 1787 modified the existing leaseholds, greatly to the advantage of the peasantry; the ordinance of 20th June 1788 abolished villeinage and completely transformed the much-abused hoveri system whereby the feudal tenant was bound to cultivate his lord’s land as well as his own; and the ordinance of 6th December 1799, which did away with hoveri altogether. Reventlow was also instrumental in starting the public credit banks, for enabling small cultivators to borrow money on favourable terms. In conjunction with his friend, Heinrich Ernst Schimmelmann (1747–1831), he also procured the passing of the ordinances permitting free trade between Denmark and Norway,
- ↑ There are several analogies in Jewish literature. Thus the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs—a universalist work—and the Book of Jubilees—a particularistic work—are from different authors, though they are written within a few years of each other by Pharisees and use much common material. Similarly with regard to the Apocalypse of Baruch and 4 Ezra.
- ↑ Several converging lines of testimony tend to prove that John the son of Zebedee was, like his brother James, put to death by the Jews. First, we have the express testimony of Papias to this effect, which is preserved in George Hamartolus and in an epitome of Philip of Side. Attempts have been made to explain away this testimony by Lightfoot, Harnack, Drummond, and Bernard (Irish Church Quarterly, 1908, 52 sqq.). Secondly, Papias’s testimony receives support from Jesus’s own words in Mark x. 39; for, as Wellhausen remarks on this passage, “the prophecy refers not only to James but also to John; and if it had remained only half fulfilled, it would hardly have kept its place in the Gospel.” The third strand of evidence is found in the Martyrologies, Carthaginian, Armenian and Syrian. Bernard (op. cit.) has tried to prove that the Martyrologies do not imply the martyrdom but only the faithful witness of John. Finally, Clement of Alexandria (Bousset, Die Offenbarung, p. 8) furnishes evidence in the same direction; for in Clem. Alex. Strom. iv., 71, the Gnostic Heracleon gives a list of the Apostles who had not been martyred, and these were: “Matthew, Philip, Thomas and Levi” (corrupt for Lebbaeus). If we accept this evidence, the martyrdom cannot have been later than A.D. 69, and may have been considerably earlier. In either case such a fact, if it is a fact, is against an Apostolic origin of the Johannine writings. John the Presbyter is in that case “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and the founder of the Johannine school in Asia Minor. But the question is still at issue.
- ↑ The word “revel” meant properly a noisy or riotous tumult or merry-making, and is derived from O. Fr. reveler, to rebel, to riot, make a noise; Lat. rebellare.
