13 broad and 160 sq. m. in area. The surface is generally flat (only a few sand-hills rising to any height) and is diversified by moor, fen, lakes and forest. Agriculture, cattle-rearing, fishing and other maritime pursuits are the chief occupations of the inhabitants. Swinemünde and Usedom (pop. 1700) are the chief towns, and Heringsdorf, Ahlbeck and Zinnowitz are frequented watering-places. Pop. (1900) 33,000.
See Gadebusch, Chronik der Insel Usedom (Anklam, 1863), and C. Müller, Die Seebäder der Inseln Usedom und Wollin (6th ed., Berlin, 1896).
USELIS (mod. Usellus), an ancient town of Sardinia, situated
in the hills to the S.E. of Oristano, 900 ft. above sea-level. A
bronze tablet of A.D. 158 (a labula palronalus, setting forth
that M. Aristius Balbinus had accepted the position of patron
of the town for himself and his heirs) speaks of the place as
Colonia Julia Augusta Uselis. From this it would seem that
it had become a colony under Augustus, were it not that Pliny
(H.N. iii. 85) asserts that Turris Libisonis was the only colony
in Sardinia at his time. It may be that civic rights were
obtained from Augustus (Th. Mommsen in Corp. Inscr. Lat. x.
p. 816). The site of the ancient town is marked by the church
of S. Reparata, and various antiquities have been found there.
The episcopal see was transferred to Ales in the 12th century,
though the old name is still officially used.
USES, in law, equitable or beneficial interests in land. In
early law a man could not dispose of his estate by will nor could
religious houses acquire it. As a method of evading the common
law arose the practice of making feoffments to the use of, or
upon trust for, persons other than those to whom the seisin or
legal possession was delivered, to which the equitable jurisdiction
of the chancellor gave effect. To remedy the abuses
which it was said were occasioned by this evasion of the law
was passed the famous Statute of Uses (1536), which, however,
failed to accomplish its purpose. Out of this failure of the
Statute of Uses arose the modern law of Trusts, under which
heading will be found a full history of uses. See also Conveyancing.
USHAK, a town of Asia Minor, altitude 3160 ft. in the Kutaiah
sanjak of the Brusa vilayet, situated in a fertile district,
on a tributary of the Menderes, and connected with
Smyrna and Konia by rail. Pop. 9000 Moslems and 2000
Christians. It is noted for its heavy pile carpets, khali, known
as “ Turkey carpets.” The Oriental character of the carpets
has been almost destroyed by the adoption of aniline dyes and
the introduction of Western patterns. The town has a trade in
valonia, cereals and opium.
USHANT (Fr. Ouessant), the most westerly of the islands off
the coast of France, about 14 m. from the coast of Finistère, of
which department it forms a canton and commune. Pop. (1906)
2761. Ushant is about 3850 acres in extent and almost entirely
granitic, with steep and rugged coasts accessible only at a few
points, and rendered more dangerous by the frequency of fogs.
The island affords pasturage to a breed of small black sheep, and
about half its area is occupied by cereals or potatoes. The male
inhabitants are principally pilots and fishermen, the women
working in the fields. Ushant was ravaged by the English in
1388. The lordship was made a marquisate in 1597 in favour
of René de Rieux de Sourdéac, governor of Brest. In 1778
a naval action without decisive result was fought off Ushant
between the English under Keppel and the French under the
Count d'Orvilliers.
USHER (or Ussher), JAMES (1581–1656), Anglican divine
and archbishop, was born in the parish of St Nicholas, Dublin,
on the 4th of January 1581. He was descended from the house
of Nevill, one of whose scions, accompanying John Plantagenet
to Ireland in the capacity of usher in 1185, adopted his official
title as a surname. James Usher was sent to a school in Dublin
opened by two political agents of James VI. of Scotland, who
adopted this manner of averting the suspicions of Elizabeth's
government from their real object, which was to secure a party
for James in Ireland in the event of the queen's death. In 1594
Usher matriculated at the newly founded university of Dublin,
whose charter had just been obtained by his uncle, Henry Usher,
archbishop of Armagh. He proved a diligent student, devoting
much attention to controversial theology, graduated as M.A.
in 1600 and became a fellow of Trinity College. On the death
of his father in 1598 he resigned the family estate to his younger
brother, reserving only a small rent-charge upon it for his own
maintenance, and prepared to take orders. When he was but
nineteen he accepted a challenge put forth by Henry Fitzsimons,
a learned Jesuit, then a prisoner in Dublin, inviting discussion
of Bellarmine's arguments in defence of Roman Catholicism,
and acquitted himself with much distinction. In 1600 he was
appointed proctor of his college and catechetical lecturer in the
university, though still a layman, and was ordained deacon and
priest on the same day, in 1601, while still under the canonical
age, by his uncle the primate. In 1607 he became regius professor of divinity and also chancellor of St Patrick's cathedral,
Dublin. He was a frequent visitor to England, and made the
acquaintance of contemporary scholars like Camden, Selden,
Sir Thomas Bodley and Sir Robert Cotton. In 1613 he
published his first printed work, though not his first literary
composition—Gravissimae Quaestionis de Christianarum Ecclesiarum,
in Occidentis praesertim partibus, ab Apostolicis temporibus
ad nostram usque aetatem, continua successione et statu,
Historica Explicatio, wherein he took up the history of the
Western Church from the point where Jewel had left off in his
Apology for the Church of England, and carried it on from the 6th
till past the middle of the 13th century, but never completed it.
In 1615 he took part in an attempt of the Irish clergy to impose
a Calvinistic confession, embodying the Lambeth Articles of
1595, upon the Irish Church, and was delated to King James
in consequence. But on his next visit to England in 1619 he
brought with him an attestation to his orthodoxy and high
professional standing, signed by the lord deputy and the
members of the privy council, which, together with his own
demeanour in a private conference with the king, so influenced
the latter that he nominated Usher to the vacant see of Meath,
of which he was consecrated bishop in 1621. In 1622 he
published a controversial Discourse of the Religion anciently Professed by the Irish and British, designed to show that they
were in agreement with the Church of England and opposed to
the Church of Rome on the points in debate between those
churches. In 1623 he was made a privy councillor for Ireland,
and in the same year was summoned to England by the king
that he might more readily carry on a work he had already
begun upon the antiquity of the British churches. While he
was detained on this business the archbishop of Armagh died in
January 1625, and the king at once nominated Usher to the
vacant primacy; but severe illness and other causes impeded
his return to Ireland until August 1626.
For many years Usher was actively employed both in the government of his diocese and in the publication of several learned works, amongst which may be specified Emmanuel (a treatise upon the Incarnation), published in 1638, and Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, in 1639. In 1629 he discountenanced Bishop William Bedell's proposal to revive the Irish language in the service. In 1634 he took part in the convocation which drafted the code of canons that formed the basis of Irish ecclesiastical law till the disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869, and defeated the attempt of John Bramhall, then bishop of Deny and later his own successor in Armagh, to conform the Irish Church exactly to the doctrinal standards of the English. He put the matter on the ground of preserving the independence of the Irish Church, but the real motive at work was to maintain the Calvinistic element introduced in 1615. In 1640 he paid another visit to England on one of his usual scholarly errands, meaning to return when it was accomplished. But the rebellion of 1641 broke out while he was still at Oxford, and he never saw his native country again. He published a collection of tracts at Oxford in that year, including a defence of episcopacy and the doctrine of non-resistance. All Usher's property in Ireland was lost to him through the rebellion, except his books and some plate and furniture, but he was
