travels to India in the disguise of a merchant, and gains access to Prince Josaphat, to whom he imparts the Christian doctrine and commends the monastic life. Suspicion arises and Barlaam departs. But all attempts to shake the prince s convictions fail. As a last resource the king sends for Theudas, a magician, who removes the prince s attendants and substitutes seductive girls; but all their blandishments are resisted through prayer. The king abandons these efforts and associates his son in the government. The prince uses his power to promote religion, and everything prospers in his hands. At last Abenner himself yields to the faith, and after some years of penitence dies. Josaphat surrenders the kingdom to a friend called Barachias, and departs for the wilderness. After two years of pain ful search, and much buffeting by demons, he finds Barlaam. The latter dies, and Josaphat survives as a hermit many years. King Barachias afterwards arrives, and transfers the bodies of the two saints to India, where they are the source of many miracles.
Now this story is, in all essentials and in many details, mutatis mutandis, the story of Buddha. For particulars we must refer to the papers of M. Miiller and F. Liebrecht cited below; we can indicate but one example in the prominent episode of Sakya s youth, his education in a secluded palace, his encounter successively with a decrepit old man, with a man in mortal disease and poverty, with a dead body, and, lastly, with a religious recluse radiant with peace and dignity, and his consequent abandonment of his princely state for the ascetic life in the jungle. Some of the correspondences in the two stories are most minute, and Prof. Miiller has pointed out that even the phraseology, in which some of the details of Josaphat s history are described, almost literally renders the Sanskrit of the Lalita Vistara.
We have given but the skeleton of the history of Barlaam and Josaphat. It is filled out with episodes and apologues, several of which also have been traced to Buddhist sources. These stories no doubt promoted the vast medieval popularity of the legend in both the Greek and the Latin Churches. Its first favour in the former seems to have been due to its embodiment in the Lives of the Saints, as compiled anew by Simeon the Metaphrast, a person of disputed age, but not of later date than 1150 A.D. Selections from his work, in which this legend takes the lead, continue to be issued in Romaic as works of popular edification.
At what time the two saints first found their place in the Roman martyrology we have not been able to ascertain, but their story figures at length in the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, and more briefly in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, both of the 13th century. There is a church bearing the dedication Divo losaphat in Palermo, and probably others in other Catholic cities.
The story continued for centuries to be one of the most popular works in Christendom. It was translated into most European tongues, including Bohemian, Polish, and Ice landic. A version in the last, executed by a Norwegian king, dates from 1204 ; in the East there were versions in (at least) Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Hebrew ; whilst a translation into the Tagala language of the Philippines was printed at Manilla in 1712. The story was rendered into poems and miracle plays. Moreover, its episodes and apologues have furnished material to poets and story-writers of very diverse ages and characters, e.g., to Boccaccio, to Gower, to the compiler of the Gesta Eomanorum, to Shake speare himself, and to the late W. Adams, author of the King s Messengers.
The identity of the stories of Buddha and St Josephat was recognized by the historian of Portuguese India, Diogo de Couto, as may be seen m his history (Dec. v. liv. vi. cap. 2). In modern times it was first noticed (according to Prof. M. Miiller) by M. Laboulaye, in the Journal des Debuts (21-26 July, 1859) but it was more elaborately set forth by the learned Dr Felix Liebrecht a year later (Jahrbuch fur Roman, und Engl. Litteratur, ii p 3U) r,h r s tr ^ ted <^- th his usuai s^ b y pr f - Miiiier himsei f in fcs lecture on the Miration of Fables " (see Contemp. Review for July lo/O, pp. 588 syq.)
(h. y.)
BARLETTA, the ancient Bardulum, called in the Middle Ages Barolum, a fortified seaport town of Italy, the seat of an archbishop, in the province of Terra di Bari. It is 33 miles N.W. of Bari,inlat.41 19 26" N., long. 1G 18 1(T E. The town is well built and handsome ; the houses are large, and the streets wide and well paved. It has a fine Gothic cathedral (S. Maria Maggiore) with a lofty spire, a number of churches and convents, an orphan asylum, a college, a theatre, and a colossal statue, supposed by some to be of the Emperor Heraclius, but this is denied by other art critics. The harbour is formed by a mole, on which a lighthouse is erected, and it is commanded by the citadel. It is only capable of admitting small vessels, but the town has a considerable trade in grain, wine, oil, fruit, salt, &c. Barletta was once one of the strongest cities in Italy, and in the 13th and 14th centuries was a favourite residence of the kings of Naples. It was here that the first tourna ment in that part of Italy was held in 1259, and in 1503 a remarkable combat took place in the neighbourhood between two chosen bands of Italian and French knights, led by Colonna and Bayard respectively. Population, 28,61 3. (See Marullo, Diss. stor. sopra il colosso di Barldta y Naples, 1816.)
BARLEY (Hordeum), a most important genus of the cereal plants which belongs peculiarly to temperate regions. Four distinct species of barley, cultivated for the produc tion of grain, are commonly enumerated, 1st, common or two-rowed barley, Hordcum distichum ; 2d, Bere or Bigg, //. vidgare ; 3d, six-rowed barley, //. hextastichum ; and 4th, fan, spratt, or battledore barley, II. zeocriton. Of these species, but chiefly of the first two, very many varieties are recognized by cultivators, and new kinds are constantly being introduced. Barley is the most hardy of all cereal grains, its limit of cultivation extending further north than any other ; and, at the same time, it can be profitably cultivated in sub-tropical countries. The opinion of Pliny, that it is the most ancient aliment of mankind, appears to be well founded, for no less than three varieties have been found in the lake dwellings of Switzerland, in deposits belonging to the Stone Period. According to Professor Heer these varieties are the common two-rowed (H. distichum), the large six-rowed (H. hextastichum densum),and the small six-rowed (//. hexta stichum sanctum). The last variety is both the most ancient and the most commonly found, and is the sacred barley of antiquity, ears of which are frequently represented plaited in the hair of the goddess Ceres, besides being figured on ancient coins. The cultivation of barley in ancient Egypt is indicated in Exod. ix. 31. Till within recent times barley formed an important source of food in northern countries, and barley cakes are still to some extent eaten. Owing, however, to its poverty in that form of nitrogenous compound called gluten, so abundant in wheat, barley-flour cannot be baked into vesiculated bread ; still it is a highly nutritious substance, the salts it contains having a high proportion of phosphoric acid, and on it the Greeks trained their athletes. The following is the composition of barley- meal according to Von Bibra, omitting the salts:—
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Water 15 per cent. Nitrogenous compounds 12 9S1 Gum C 744 Sugar 3-200 Starch 59 "950 Fat 2-170
spirits and beer (see Brewing), but it is also largely employed in domestic cookery. For the latter purpose the hard, somewhat flinty grains are preferable, and they are prepared by grinding off the outer cuticle which forms " pot barley." When the attrition is carried farther, so that the grain is reduced to small round pellets, it is termed " pearl barley." Patent barley is either pot or pearl barley
reduced to flour. Under the name decoctum hordei, a pre-