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Berthe Morisot

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.

In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. Sponsored by the government and judged by Academicians, the Salon was the official, annual exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris. Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until, in 1874, she joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. It was held at the studio of the photographer Nadar. Morisot went on to participate in all but one of the following eight impressionist exhibitions, between 1874 and 1886.

Morisot was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet.

She was described by art critic Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" (The three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Early life

Morisot was born January 14, 1841, in Bourges, France, into an affluent bourgeois family. Her father, Edmé Tiburce Morisot, was the prefect (senior administrator) of the department of Cher. He also studied architecture at École des Beaux Arts. Her mother, Marie-Joséphine-Cornélie Thomas, was the great-niece of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, one of the most prolific Rococo painters of the ancien régime. She had two older sisters, Yves (1838–1893) and Edma (1839–1921), plus a younger brother, Tiburce, born in 1848. The family moved to Paris in 1852, when Morisot was a child.

It was commonplace for daughters of bourgeois families to receive art education, so Berthe and her sisters Yves and Edma were taught privately by Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne and Joseph Guichard. Morisot and her sisters initially started taking lessons so that they could each make a drawing for their father for his birthday. In 1857 Guichard, who ran a school for girls in Rue des Moulins, introduced Berthe and Edma to the Louvre gallery where from 1858 they learned by copying paintings. The Morisots were not only forbidden to work at the museum unchaperoned, but they were also totally barred from formal training. Guichard also introduced them to the works of Gavarni.

As art students, Berthe and Edma worked closely together until 1869, when Edma married Adolphe Pontillon, a naval officer, moved to Cherbourg, and had less time to paint. Letters between the sisters show a loving relationship, underscored by Berthe's regret at the distance between them and Edma's withdrawal from painting. Edma wholeheartedly supported Berthe's continued work and their families always remained close. Edma wrote "… I am often with you in thought, dear Berthe. I’m in your studio and I like to slip away, if only for a quarter of an hour, to breathe that atmosphere that we shared for many years…".

Her sister Yves married Theodore Gobillard, a tax inspector, in 1866 and was painted by Edgar Degas as Mrs Theodore Gobillard (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City).

As a copyist at the Louvre, Morisot met and befriended other artists such as Manet and Monet. In 1861 she was introduced to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, the pivotal landscape painter of the Barbizon school who also excelled in figure painting. Under Corot's influence, she took up the plein air (outdoors) method of working. By 1863 she was studying under Achille Oudinot, another Barbizon painter. In the winter of 1863–64 she studied sculpture under Aimé Millet, but none of her sculptures is known to survive.

Training, 1857–1870
It is hard to trace the stages of Morisot's training and to tell the exact influence of her teachers because she was never pleased with her work and she destroyed nearly all of the artworks she produced before 1869. Her first teacher, Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne, taught her the basics of drawing. After several months, Morisot began to take classes taught by Guichard. During this period, she drew mostly ancient classical figures. When Morisot expressed her interests in plein-air painting, Guichard sent her to follow Corot and Oudinot. Painting outdoors, she used watercolors which are easy to carry. At that time, Morisot also became interested in pastel.

Watercolorist, 1870–1874
During this period, Morisot still found oil painting difficult, and worked mostly in watercolor. Her choice of colors is rather restrained; however, the delicate repetition of hues renders a balanced effect. Due to specific characteristics of watercolors as a medium, Morisot was able to create a translucent atmosphere and feathery touch, which contribute to the freshness in her paintings.

Impressionism, 1875–1885
Having become more confident about oil painting, Morisot worked in oil, watercolor and pastel at the same time, as Degas did. She painted very quickly but did much sketching as preparation, so she could paint "a mouth, eyes, and a nose with a single brushstroke." She made countless studies of her subjects, which were drawn from her life so she became quite familiar with them. When it became inconvenient to paint outdoors, the highly finished watercolors done in the preparatory stages allowed her to continue painting indoors later.

Turning, 1885–1887
After 1885, drawing began to dominate in Morisot's works. Morisot actively experimented with charcoals and color pencils. Her reviving interest in drawing was motivated by her Impressionist friends, who are known for blurring forms. Morisot put her emphasis on the clarification of the form and lines during this period. In addition, she was influenced by photography and Japonisme. She adopted the style of placing objects away from the center of the composition from Japanese prints of the time.

Synthesis, 1887–1895
Morisot started to use the technique of squaring and the medium of tracing paper to transcribe her drawing to the canvas exactly. By employing this new method, Morisot was able to create compositions with more complicated interaction between figures. She stressed the composition and the forms while her Impressionist brushstrokes still remained. Her original synthesis of the Impressionist touch with broad strokes and light reflections, and the graphic approach featured by clear lines, made her late works distinctive.

Style and technique
Because she was a female artist, Morisot's paintings were often labeled as being full of "feminine charm" by male critics, for their elegance and lightness. In 1890, Morisot wrote in a notebook about her struggles to be taken seriously as an artist: "I don't think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal and that's all I would have asked for, for I know I'm worth as much as they." Her light brushstrokes often led to critics using the verb "effleurer" (to touch lightly, brush against) to describe her technique. In her early life, Morisot painted in the open air as other Impressionists to look for truths in observation. Around 1880 she began painting on unprimed canvases—a technique Manet and Eva Gonzalès also experimented with at the time —and her brushwork became looser. In 1888–89, her brushstrokes transitioned from short, rapid strokes to long, sinuous ones that define form. The outer edges of her paintings were often left unfinished, allowing the canvas to show through and increasing the sense of spontaneity. After 1885, she worked mostly from preliminary drawings before beginning her oil paintings. She often worked in oil paint, watercolors, and pastel simultaneously, and sketched using various drawing media. Morisot's works are almost always small in scale.

Morisot creates a sense of space and depth through the use of color. Although her color palette was somewhat limited, her fellow impressionists regarded her as a "virtuoso colorist". She typically made expansive use of white to create a sense of transparency, whether used as a pure white or mixed with other colors. In her large painting The Cherry Tree, the colors are more vivid but still emphasize the form.

Inspired by Manet's drawings, she kept the use of color to a minimum when constructing a motif. Responding to the experiments conducted by Manet and Edgar Degas, Morisot used barely tinted whites to harmonize the paintings. Like Degas, she played with three media simultaneously in one painting: watercolor, pastel, and oil paints. In the second half of her career, she learned from Renoir by mimicking his motifs. She also shared an interest in keeping a balance between the density of figures and the atmospheric traits of light with Renoir in her later works.

Subjects
Morisot painted what she experienced on a daily basis. Most of her paintings include domestic scenes of family, children, ladies, and flowers, depicting what women's life was like in the late nineteenth century. Instead of portraying the public space and society, Morisot preferred private, intimate scenes. This reflects the cultural restrictions of her class and gender at that time. Like her fellow Impressionist Mary Cassatt, she focused on domestic life and portraits in which she could use family and personal friends as models, including her daughter Julie and sister Edma. The stenographic presentation of her daily life conveys a strong hope to stop the fleeting passage of time. By portraying flowers, she used metaphors to celebrate womanhood. Prior to the 1860s, Morisot painted subjects in line with the Barbizon school before turning to scenes of contemporary femininity. Paintings like The Cradle (1872), in which she depicted current trends for nursery furniture, reflect her sensitivity to fashion and advertising, both of which would have been apparent to her female audience. Her works also include landscapes, garden settings, boating scenes, and themes of boredom or ennui. Later in her career Morisot worked with more ambitious themes, such as nudes. In her late works, she often referred to the past to recall a memory from her earlier life and youth, and her departed companions.

Impressionism

Morisot's first appearance in the Salon de Paris came at the age of twenty-three in 1864, with the acceptance of two landscape paintings. She continued to show regularly in the Salon, to generally favorable reviews, until 1873, the year before the First Impressionist Exhibition. She exhibited with the Impressionists from 1874 onwards, only missing the exhibition in 1878 when her daughter was born.

Impressionism's alleged attachment to brilliant color, sensual surface effects, and fleeting sensory perceptions led a number of critics to assert in retrospect that this style, once primarily the battlefield of insouciant, combative males, was inherently feminine and best suited to women's weaker temperaments, lesser intellectual capabilities, and greater sensibility.

During Morisot's 1874 exhibition with the Impressionists, such as Monet and Manet, Le Figaro critic Albert Wolff noted that the Impressionists consisted of "five or six lunatics of which one is a woman...[whose] feminine grace is maintained amid the outpourings of a delirious mind."

Morisot's mature career began in 1872. She found an audience for her work with Durand-Ruel, the private dealer, who bought twenty-two paintings. In 1877, she was described by the critic for Le Temps as the "one real Impressionist in this group." She chose to exhibit under her full maiden name instead of using a pseudonym or her married name. As her skill and style improved, many began to rethink their opinion toward Morisot. In the 1880 exhibition, many reviews judged Morisot among the best, even including Le Figaro critic Albert Wolff.

Personal life
Morisot came from an eminent family, the daughter of a government official and the great-niece of Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. She met her longtime friend and colleague, Édouard Manet, in 1868. By the introduction of Manet, Morisot was married to Édouard's brother, Eugène Manet in 1874. On November 14, 1878, she gave birth to her only child, Julie, who posed frequently for her mother and other Impressionist artists, including Renoir and her uncle Édouard.

Correspondence between Morisot and Édouard Manet shows warm affection, and Manet gave her an easel as a Christmas present. Morisot often posed for Manet and there are several portrait paintings of Morisot such as Repose (Portrait of Berthe Morisot) and Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet. Morisot died on March 2, 1895, in Paris, of pneumonia contracted while attending to her daughter Julie's similar illness, thus making Julie an orphan at the age of 16. She was interred in the Cimetière de Passy.

It has been speculated that there was a repressed love between Manet and Morisot, exemplified by the numerous portraits he did of her before she married his brother.

Selection of works

 * This list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it with certified entries.

This limited selection is based in part on the book Berthe Morisot by Charles F. Stuckey, William P. Scott and Susan G. Lindsay, which is in turn drawn from the 1961 catalogue by Marie-Louise Bataille, Rouaart Denis and Georges Wildenstein. There are variations between the dates of execution, first showing and purchase. Titles may vary between sources.

1864–1874

 * Étude, 1864, oil on canvas, 60.3 × 73 cm, private collection
 * Chaumière en Normandie, 1865, oil on canvas, 46 × 55 cm, private collection
 * La Seine en aval du pont d'Iéna, 1866, oil on canvas, 51 × 73 cm, private collection
 * La Rivière de Pont Aven à Roz-Bras, 1867, oil on canvas, 55 × 73 cm, private collection – Chicago
 * Bateaux à l'aurore, 1869, pastel on paper, 19.7 × 26.7 cm, private collection
 * Jeune fille à sa fenêtre, 1869, oil on canvas, 36.8 × 45.4 cm, private collection
 * Madame Morisot et sa fille Madame Pontillon (La Lecture), 1869–1870, oil on canvas, 101 × 81.8 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
 * Vue du petit port de Lorient (The Harbor at Lorient), 1869, oil on canvas, 43 × 72 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
 * Le Port de Cherbourg, 1871, crayon and watercolour on paper, 15.6 × 20.3 cm, private collection of Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia
 * Le Port de Cherbourg, 1871, oil on canvas, 41.9 × 55.9 cm, private collection of Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia
 * Vue de paris de hauteurs du Trocadéro, 1871, oil on canvas, 46.1 × 81.5 cm, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California
 * Femme et enfant au balcon, 1871–72, watercolor, 20.6 × 17.3 cm, Art Institute of Chicago
 * Intérieur, 1871, oil on canvas, 60 × 73 cm, private collection
 * Portrait de Madame Pontillon, 1871, pastel on paper, 85.5 × 65.8 cm, Louvre – drawings cabinet gift of Madame Edma Pontillon to the Louvre in 1921, in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay
 * L'Entrée du port, 1871, watercolour on paper, 24.9 × 15.1 cm, Musée Léon-Alègre, Bagnols-sur-Cèze – drawings cabinet
 * Madame Pontillon et sa fille Jeanne sur un canapé, 1871, watercolour on paper, 25.1 × 25.9 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington
 * Jeune fille sur un banc (Edma Pontillon), 1872, oil on canvas, 33 × 41 cm
 * Cache-cache, 1872, oil on canvas, 33 × 41 cm, Private collection
 * Le Berceau, 1872, oil on canvas, 56 × 46 cm Musée d'Orsay, Paris
 * La Lecture (Edma lisant), also titled L'Ombrelle verte, 1873, oil on canvas, 45.1 × 72.4 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
 * Sur la plage des Petites-Dalles, 1873, oil on canvas, 24.1 × 50.2 cm, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
 * Madame Boursier et sa fille, 1873, oil on canvas, 74 × 52 cm, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
 * Le Village de Maurecourt, 1873, pastel on paper, 47 × 71.8 cm, private collection
 * Coin de Paris vu de Passy, 1873, pastel on paper, 27 × 34.9 cm, private collection
 * Sur la terrasse, 1874, oil on canvas, 45 × 54 cm, Musée du Petit Palais, Paris
 * In a Villa by the Seaside, 1874, oil on canvas,50.2 x 61 cm, Norton Simon Art Foundation, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA
 * Portrait de Madame Hubbard, 1874, oil on canvas, 50.5 × 81 cm, Ordrupgaard museum de Copenhagen
 * Femme et enfant au bord de la mer , 1874, watercolor on paper, 16 × 21.3 cm, private collection
 * Dans le parc, c. 1874, pastel on paper, 72.5 × 91.8 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais.

1875–1884

 * Percher de blanchisseuses , 1875, Oil on canvas 33 × 40.8 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
 * Jeune fille au miroir, 1875, oil on canvas, 54 × 45 cm, private collection
 * Scène de port dans l'île de Wight, 1875, oil on canvas, 48 × 36 cm private collection
 * Scène de port dans l'île de Wight, 1875, oil on canvas, 43 × 64 cm, Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey
 * Eugène Manet à l'île de Wight, 1875, oil on canvas, 38 × 46 cm private collection
 * Avant d'un yacht, 1875, watercolour on paper, 20.6 × 26.7 cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
 * Femme à sa toilette, 1875, oil on canvas, 46 × 38 cm private collection
 *  Femme à sa toilette , 1875–1880, hst, dim; 60.3 × 80.4 cm, Coll. Art Institute of Chicago
 * Portrait de femme (Avant le théâtre), 1875, oil on canvas, 57 × 31 cm, Galerie Schröder & Leisewitz, Bremen
 * Jeune femme au bal encore intitulé Jeune femme en toilette de bal, 1876, oil on canvas, 86 × 53 cm Musée d'Orsay
 * Au Bal ou Jeune fille au bal, 1875, oil on canvas, 62 × 52 cm, Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris
 * Jeune Femme arrosant un arbuste, 1876, oil on canvas, 40.01 × 31.75 cm, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
 * Le Corsage noir , 1876, oil on canvas, 73 × 59.8 cm National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
 * La Psyché, 1876, oil on canvas, 65 × 54 cm, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
 * Rêveuse, 1877, pastel on canvas, 50.2 × 61 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
 * L'Été, encore intitulé Jeune femme près d'une fenêtre 1878, oil on canvas, 76 × 61 cm, Musée Fabre, Montpellier
 * Jeune feme assise, 1878–1879, oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm, private collection New York City
 * Jeune fille de dos à sa toilette, encore intitulé Femme à sa toilette 1879, oil on canvas, 60.3 × 80.4 cm Art Institute of Chicago
 * Le Lac du Bois de Boulogne (Jour d'été), 1879, 45.7 × 75.3 cm, National Gallery, London
 * Dans le jardin (Dames cueillant des fleurs), 1879, oil on canvas, 61 × 73.5 cm, Nationalmuseum Stockholm
 * Jeune femme en toilette de bal (Young Woman in Evening Dress), 1879, oil on canvas, 71 x 54 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris
 * Hiver, 1880, oil on canvas, 73.5 × 58.5 cm, Dallas Museum of Art
 * Deux filles assises près d'une table, 1880, crayon and watercolour on paper 19,6 × 26.6 cm private collection Germany
 * Bateaux sur la Seine. c. 1880, 25.5 × 50 cm. Provenance: acquired from the artist's family by the first owner, sold with a letter of authenticity from Daniel Wildenstein at Sotheby's, 1984.
 * Plage à Nice 1881–1882, watercolour on paper 42 × 55 cm, Nationalmuseum Stockholm
 * Le Port de Nice, 1881–1882, oil on canvas, 53 × 43 cm private collection
 * Le Port de Nice, 1881–1882, oil on canvas, 41 × 55 cm private collection
 * Le Port de Nice 1881 (?)third version format 38 × 46 cm conserved at Dallas Museum of Art
 * Le Thé, 1882, oil on canvas, 57.5 × 71.5 cm, Fondation Madelon Vaduz, Liechtenstein
 * Le Port de Nice, 1881–1882, oil on canvas, 53 × 43 cm private collection
 * La Fable, 1883, oil on canvas, 65 × 81 cm private collection
 * Le Jardin (Femmes dans le jardin) (1882–1883) oil on canvas, 99.1 × 127 cm, Sara Lee Corporation, Chicago
 * Eugène Manet et sa fille au jardin 1883, oil on canvas, 60 × 73, private collection
 * Dans le jardin à Maurecourt, 1883, oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm, Toledo Museum of Art
 * Le Quai de Bougival, 1883, oil on canvas, 55.5 × 46 cm, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
 * Julie et son bateau (Enfant jouant), 1883, watercolour on paper, 25 × 16 cm, private collection
 * La Meule de foin 1883, oil on canvas, 55.3 × 45.7 cm, private collection, New York
 * Dans la véranda, 1884, oil on canvas, 81 × 10 cm, private collection
 * Julie avec sa poupée, 1884, oil on canvas, 82 × 10 cm, private collection
 * Petite fille avec sa poupée (Julie Manet), 1884, pastel on paper, 60 × 46 cm, private collection
 * Sur le lac, 1884, oil on canvas, 65 × 54 cm, private collection
 * The Artist's Daughter, Julie, with her Nanny, c. 1884, oil on canvas, Minneapolis Institute of Art

1885–1894

 * Autoportrait, 1885, pastel on paper, 47.5 × 37.5 cm, Art Institute of Chicago
 * Autoportrait avec Julie, 1885, oil on canvas, 72 × 91 cm, private collection
 * Jeune femme assise au Bois de Boulogne, 1885, watercolour on paper, 19 × 28 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
 * La Forêt de Compiègne, 1885, oil on canvas, 54.2 × 64.8 cm, Art Institute of Chicago
 * Le Bain (Jeune file se coiffant), 1885–1886, oil on canvas, 81.1 × 72.3 cm, Art Institute of Chicago
 * Dans la salle à manger, 1885–1886, oil on canvas, 61.3 × 50 cm, National Gallery of Art
 * Le Lever, 1886, oil on canvas, 65 × 54 cm, collection Durand-Ruel
 * Intérieur à Jersey (Intérieur de cottage), 1886, oil on canvas, 50 × 60 cm, Musée communal des beaux-arts d'Ixelles
 * Femme s'essuyant, 1886–1887, pastel on paper, 42 × 41 cm, Non localisé
 * Julie avec un chat, 1887, drypoint, 14.5 × 11.3 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington
 * Nu de dos, 1887, charcoal on paper, 57 × 43 cm, private collection
 * Éventail en médaillon, 1887, watercolour on silk fan, private collection
 * Portrait de Paule Gobillard, 1887, coloured pencil on paper, 27.9 × 22.9 cm, Reader's Digest Association, New York
 * Le Lac du Bois de Boulogne, 1887, watercolour on paper, 29.5 × 22.2 cm, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington
 * Fillette lisant (La lecture), 1888, oil on canvas, 74.3 × 92.7 cm, Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida)
 * Jeune Fille dans un parc (Young Girl in a Park), 1888–1893, oil on canvas, 90 × 81 cm, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse
 * Berthe Morisot and Julie Manet, c.1888–1890, drypoint, 18.42 x 13.49 cm, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
 * La Cueillette des oranges, 1889, pastel, 61 × 46 cm, Musée d'art et d'histoire de Provence, Grasse
 * La Petite Niçoise (The Small Girl from Nice), 1889, oil on canvas, 64 × 52 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
 * Sous l'oranger (Julie), 1889, oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm, private collection
 * L'Île du Bois de Boulogne, 1889, oil on canvas, 68.4 × 54.6 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington
 * Le Flageolet (Julie Manet et Jeanne Gobillard), 1891, oil on canvas, 56 × 87 cm, private collection
 * Le Cerisier 1891, 1891, oil on canvas, 138 × 88.9 cm, private collection, Washington
 *  Étude pour Le Cerisier, 1891, pastel on paper, 45.7 × 48.9 cm, The Reader's Digest Association
 * Julie Manet avec son lévrier, 1893, oil on canvas, 73× 80 cm, Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris
 * Les Enfants de Gabriel Thomas, 1894, oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
 * La Coiffure, 1894, oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires)
 * Jeune fille aux cheveux noirs, 1894, pencil and watercolour, 23.1 × 16.8 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Art market
Morisot's work sold comparatively well. She achieved the two highest prices at a Hôtel Drouot auction in 1875, the Interior (Young Woman with Mirror) sold for 480 francs, and her pastel On the Lawn sold for 320 francs. Her works averaged 250 francs, the best relative prices at the auction.

In February 2013, Morisot became the highest priced female artist, when After Lunch (1881), a portrait of a young redhead in a straw hat and purple dress, sold for $10.9 million at a Christie's auction. The painting achieved roughly three times its upper estimate, and it exceeded the 2012 record of $10.7 million for a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois.

Legacy
She was portrayed by actress Marine Delterme in a 2012 French biographical TV film directed by Caroline Champetier. The character of Beatrice de Clerval in Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves is largely based on Morisot.

She was featured as the "A First Impressionist" in an article written by Anne Truitt in the New York Times on June 3, 1990.

From Melissa Burdick Harmon, an editor at Biography magazine, "While some of Morisot's work may seem to us today like sweet depictions of babies in cradles, at the time these images were considered extremely intimate, as objects related to infants belonged exclusively to the world of women."

In 2019, the Musée d'Orsay devoted a temporary exhibition to Berthe Morisot to pay tribute to her work.

title: Berthe Morisot


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Barnard College

Barnard College, officially titled as Barnard College, Columbia University, is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia University's trustees to create an affiliated college named after Columbia's then-recently deceased 10th president, Frederick A.P. Barnard. The college is one of the original Seven Sisters—seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that were historically women's colleges.

Barnard is currently one of four Columbia undergraduate colleges with independent admission, curriculum, and financials. Students share classes, libraries, clubs, sororities, athletic fields, and dining halls with Columbia as well as sports teams. This is through the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium, an agreement that makes Barnard the only women's college to offer its students the ability to compete in NCAA Division I athletics. Students receive a diploma from Columbia University.

Barnard offers Bachelor of Arts degree programs in about 50 areas of study. Students may also pursue elements of their education at Columbia, the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and The Jewish Theological Seminary which are also based in New York City. Its 4 acre campus is located in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Morningside Heights, stretching along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets. It is directly across from Columbia's main campus.

Barnard College alumnae include leaders in science, religion, politics, the Peace Corps, medicine, law, education, communications, theater, and business. Barnard graduates have been recipients of Emmy, Tony, Grammy, Academy, and Peabody Awards, Guggenheim Fellowships, MacArthur Fellowships, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Founding
From its founding in 1754 until the mid-1980s, Columbia College of Columbia University admitted only men for undergraduate study. Barnard College was founded in 1889 as a response to Columbia's refusal to admit women. Classes took place in a rented brownstone at 343 Madison Avenue, where a faculty of six offered instruction to 36 students.

The college was named after Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard, a deaf American educator and mathematician who later served as Columbia's president for over twenty years. He advocated for coeducational settings and proposed in 1879 that Columbia admit women. Columbia's Board of Trustees repeatedly rejected Barnard's suggestion, but in 1883 agreed to create a syllabus that would allow the college's students to receive degrees. The first such graduate received her bachelor's degree in 1887. A former student of the program, Annie Meyer, and other prominent New York women persuaded the board in 1889 to create a women's college connected to Columbia. Men and women were evenly represented among the founding Trustees of Barnard College.

Morningside campus
When Columbia University announced in 1892 its impending move to Morningside Heights, Barnard built a new campus nearby with gifts from Mary E. Brinckerhoff, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson and Martha Fiske. Two of these gifts were made with several stipulations attached. Brinckerhoff insisted that Barnard acquire land within 1,000 feet of the Columbia campus within the next four years. The Barnard trustees purchased land between 119th–120th Streets after receiving funds for that purpose in 1895. Anderson requested that Charles A. Rich be hired. Rich designed the Milbank, Brinckerhoff, and Fiske Halls, built in 1897–1898; these were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. The first classes at the new campus were held in 1897. Despite Brinckerhoff's, Anderson's, and Fiske's gifts, Barnard remained in debt.

Ella Weed supervised the college in its first four years; Emily James Smith succeeded her as Barnard's first dean. Jessica Finch is credited with coining the phrase "current events" while teaching at Barnard College in the 1890s.

The college received the three blocks south of 119th Street from Anderson in 1903. Rich provided a master plan for the campus, but only Brooks Hall was built, being constructed between 1906 and 1908. None of Rich's other plans were carried out. Students' Hall, now known as Barnard Hall, was built in 1916 to a design by Arnold Brunner. Hewitt Hall was the last structure to be erected, in 1926–1927. All three buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

By the mid-20th century, Barnard had succeeded in its original goal of providing a top-tier education to women. Between 1920 and 1974, only the much larger Hunter College and University of California, Berkeley produced more women graduates who later received doctorates. In the 1970s, Barnard faced considerable pressure to merge with male only Columbia College, which was fiercely resisted by its president, Jacquelyn Mattfeld.

Presidents
Presidents and deans of Barnard College from 1889 to present include:
 * Ella Weed (1889–1894)
 * Emily James Smith Putnam (1894–1900)
 * Laura Drake Gill (1901–1907)
 * Virginia Gildersleeve (1911–1947)
 * Millicent McIntosh (1947–1962)
 * Rosemary Park (1962–1967)
 * Martha Peterson (1967–1975)
 * Jacquelyn Mattfeld (1976–1980)
 * Ellen V. Futter (1980–1993)
 * Judith R. Shapiro (1994–2008)
 * Debora L. Spar (2008–2017)
 * Sian Beilock (2017–2023)
 * Laura Rosenbury (2023–present)

Academics
Barnard students are able to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in about 50 areas of study. Joint programs for the Bachelor of Science and other degrees exist with Columbia University, Juilliard School, and The Jewish Theological Seminary. The most popular majors at the college by 2021 graduates, were .:
 * Econometrics and Quantitative Economics (62)
 * Research and Experimental Psychology (56)
 * History (43)
 * English Language and Literature (39)
 * Political Science and Government (36)
 * Neuroscience (33)
 * Art History, Criticism and Conservation (33)

The liberal arts general education requirements are collectively called Foundations. Students must take two courses in the sciences (one of which must be accompanied by a laboratory course), study a single foreign language for two semesters, and take two courses in the arts/humanities as well as two in the social sciences. In addition, students must complete at least one three-credit course in the so-called "Modes of Thinking" series, and fulfill other requirements.

Admissions
Admissions to Barnard are considered "most selective" by U.S. News & World Report. It is the most selective women's college in the nation; in 2017, Barnard had the lowest acceptance rate of the five Seven Sisters that remain single-sex in admissions.

The class of 2026's admission rate was 8% of the 12,009 applicants, the lowest acceptance rate in the institution's history. The median SAT composite score of enrolled students was 1440, with median subscores of 720 in Math and 715 in Evidence-Based Reading and Writing. The median ACT Composite score was 33.

In 2015, Barnard announced that it would admit transgender women who "consistently live and identify as women, regardless of the gender assigned to them at birth" and would continue to support and enroll those students who transitioned to male after they had already been admitted.

The college practices need-blind admission for domestic first-year applicants.

Rankings
Barnard is ranked tied at 11th of 185 overall and tied for 25th of 36 for "Best Undergraduate Teaching," among U.S. liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report. Forbes ranked Barnard 73rd of 500 colleges in 2023.

Library
While Barnard students have access to the libraries at Columbia University, the college has always maintained a library of its own. The Barnard Library also encompasses the Archives and Special Collections, with material that documents Barnard's history from its founding to the present day. Among the collections are the Ntozake Shange papers.

Zine Collection
The Barnard Zine Library is a unit of the Barnard Library and Academic Information Systems (BLAIS). Zine collections target primarily female, default queer, intentionally of color, and gender expansive topics. In 2004, it became the first zine library in the United States to be fully cataloged in the OCLC. It opened for circulation in 2008, and holds roughly 5,000 processed zines as of 2018. The library supports the student-run Barnard Zine Club.

Student organizations
Every Barnard student is part of the Student Government Association (SGA), which elects a representative student government. SGA aims to facilitate the expression of opinions on matters that directly affect the Barnard community.

Student groups include theater and vocal music groups, language clubs, literary magazines, a freeform radio station called WBAR, a biweekly magazine called the Barnard Bulletin, Club Q, community service groups, and others.

Barnard students can join extracurricular activities or organizations at Columbia University, while Columbia University students are allowed in most, but not all, Barnard organizations. Barnard's McIntosh Activities Council organizes various community focused events on campus, such as Big Sub and Midnight Breakfast. There are sub-committees focussed on cultural events (Mosaic), health and wellness (Wellness), networking (Network), even-planning (Community), and service (Action).

Sororities
Barnard students participate in various sororities. , Barnard does not fully recognize the National Panhellenic Conference sororities at Columbia, but it does provide some funding to account for Barnard students living in Columbia housing through these organizations.

Traditions
Barnard Greek Games: One of Barnard's oldest traditions, the Barnard Greek Games were first held in 1903, and occurred annually until the Columbia University protests in 1968. Since then they have been sporadically revived. The games consist of competitions between each graduating class at Barnard, and events have traditionally included Greek poetry recitation, dance, chariot racing, and a torch race.

Take Back the Night: Each April, Barnard and Columbia students participate in the Take Back the Night march and speak-out. This annual event grew out of a 1988 Seven Sisters conference. The march grew from less than 200 participants in 1988 to more than 2,500 in 2007.

Midnight Breakfast marks the beginning of finals week. As a highly popular event and long-standing college tradition, Midnight Breakfast is hosted by the student-run activities council, McAC (McIntosh Activities Council). In addition to providing standard breakfast foods, each year's theme is also incorporated into the menu. Past themes have included "I YUMM the 90s," "Grease," and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." The event is a school-wide affair as college deans, trustees and the president serve food to about a thousand students. It takes place the night before finals begin every semester.

Big Sub: Towards the beginning of each fall semester, Barnard College supplies a 700+ feet long subway sandwich. Students from the college can take as much of the sub as they can carry. The sub has kosher, dairy free, vegetarian, and vegan sections. This event is organized by the student-run activities council, McAC.

Relationship with Columbia University
The Barnard Bulletin in 1976 described the relationship between the college and Columbia University as "intricate and ambiguous". Barnard president Debora Spar said in 2012 that "the relationship is admittedly a complicated one, a unique one and one that may take a few sentences to explain to the outside community". Outside sources often describe Barnard as part of Columbia; The New York Times in 2013, for example, called Barnard "an undergraduate women's college of Columbia University". Its front gates read "Barnard College of Columbia University."

Barnard describes itself as "both an independently incorporated educational institution and an official college of Columbia University" that is "one of the University's four colleges, but we're largely autonomous, with our own leadership and purse strings", and advises students to state "Barnard College, Columbia University" or "Barnard College of Columbia University" on résumés.

Columbia describes Barnard as an affiliated institution that is a faculty of the university or is "in partnership with" it. Both the college and Columbia evaluate Barnard faculty for tenure, and Barnard graduates receive Columbia diplomas signed by the Barnard and the Columbia presidents.

Before coeducation at Columbia
Smith and Columbia president Seth Low worked to open Columbia classes to Barnard students. By 1900 they could attend Columbia classes in philosophy, political science, and several scientific fields. That year Barnard formalized an affiliation with the university which made available to its students the instruction and facilities of Columbia. Franz Boas, who taught at both Columbia and Barnard in the early 1900s, was among those faculty members who reportedly found Barnard students superior to their male Columbia counterparts. From 1955, Columbia and Barnard students could register for the other school's classes with the permission of the instructor; from 1973 no permission was needed.

Except for Columbia College, by the 1940s, other undergraduate and graduate divisions of Columbia University admitted women. Columbia president William J. McGill predicted in 1970, that Barnard College and Columbia College would merge within five years. In 1973, Columbia and Barnard signed a three-year agreement to increase sharing classrooms, facilities, and housing, and cooperation in faculty appointments, which they described as "integration without assimilation"; by the mid-1970s, most Columbia dormitories were coed. The university's financial difficulties during the decade increased its desire to merge to end what Columbia described as the "anachronism" of single-sex education, but Barnard resisted doing so because of Columbia's large debt, rejecting in 1975 Columbia dean Peter Pouncey's proposal to merge Barnard and the three Columbia undergraduate schools. The 1973–1976 chairwoman of the board at Barnard, Eleanor Thomas Elliott, led the resistance to the takeover. The college's marketing emphasized the Columbia relationship, however; the Bulletin in 1976 said that Barnard described it as identical to the one between Harvard College and Radcliffe College ("who are merged in practically everything but name at this point").

After Barnard rejected later merger proposals from Columbia and a one-year extension to the 1973 agreement expired, in 1977, the two schools began discussing their future relationship. By 1979, the relationship had so deteriorated that Barnard officials stopped attending meetings. Because of an expected decline in enrollment, in 1980 a Columbia committee recommended that Columbia College begin admitting women without Barnard's cooperation. A 1981 committee found that Columbia was no longer competitive with other Ivy League universities without women, and that admitting women would not affect Barnard's applicant pool. That year Columbia president Michael Sovern agreed for the two schools to cooperate in admitting women to Columbia, but Barnard faculty's opposition caused president Ellen Futter to reject the agreement.

A decade of negotiations for a Columbia-Barnard merger akin to Harvard and Radcliffe had failed. In January 1982, the two schools instead announced that Columbia College would begin admitting women in 1983, and Barnard's control over tenure for its faculty would increase; previously, a committee on which Columbia faculty outnumbered Barnard's three to two controlled the latter's tenure. Applications to Columbia rose 56% that year, making admission more selective, and nine Barnard students transferred to Columbia. Eight students admitted to both Columbia and Barnard chose Barnard, while 78 chose Columbia. Within a few years, however, selectivity rose at both schools as they received more women applicants than expected.

After coeducation
The Columbia-Barnard affiliation continued. , Barnard pays Columbia about $5 million a year under the terms of the "interoperate relationship", which the two schools renegotiate every 15 years. Despite the affiliation Barnard is legally and financially separate from Columbia, with an independent faculty and board of trustees. It is responsible for its own separate admissions, health, security, guidance and placement services, and has its own alumnae association. Nonetheless, Barnard students participate in the academic, social, athletic and extracurricular life of the broader University community on a reciprocal basis. The affiliation permits the two schools to share some academic resources; for example, only Barnard has an urban studies department, and only Columbia has a computer science department. Most Columbia classes are open to Barnard students and vice versa. Barnard students and faculty are represented in the University Senate, and student organizations such as the Columbia Daily Spectator are open to all students. Barnard students play on Columbia athletics teams, and Barnard uses Columbia email, telephone and network services.

Barnard athletes compete in the Ivy League (NCAA Division I) through the Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium, which was established in 1983. Through the arrangement, Barnard is the only women's college offering DivisionI athletics. There are 15 intercollegiate teams, and students also compete at the intramural and club levels. From 1975 to 1983, before the establishment of the Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium, Barnard students competed as the "Barnard Bears". Prior to 1975, students referred to themselves as the "Barnard honeybears".

Controversies
In the spring of 1960, Columbia University president Grayson Kirk complained to the president of Barnard that Barnard students were wearing inappropriate clothing. The garments in question were pants and Bermuda shorts. The administration forced the student council to institute a dress code. Students would be allowed to wear shorts and pants only at Barnard and only if the shorts were no more than two inches above the knee and the pants were not tight. Barnard women crossing the street to enter the Columbia campus wearing shorts or pants were required to cover themselves with a long coat.

In March 1968, The New York Times ran an article on students who cohabited, identifying one of the persons they interviewed as a student at Barnard College from New Hampshire named "Susan". Barnard officials searched their records for women from New Hampshire and were able to determine that "Susan" was the pseudonym of a student (Linda LeClair) who was living with her boyfriend, a student at Columbia University. She was called before Barnard's student-faculty administration judicial committee, where she faced the possibility of expulsion. A student protest included a petition signed by 300 other Barnard women, admitting that they too had broken the regulations against cohabitating. The judicial committee reached a compromise and the student was allowed to remain in school, but was denied use of the college cafeteria and barred from all social activities. The student briefly became a focus of intense national attention. She eventually dropped out of Barnard.

Notable people
Barnard College has graduated many prominent leaders in science, religion, politics, the Peace Corps, medicine, law, education, communications, theater, and business as well as acclaimed actors, architects, artists, astronauts, engineers, human rights activists, inventors, musicians, philanthropists, and writers. Graduates include academic Louise Holland (1914), author Zora Neale Hurston (1928), Grace Lee Boggs, author and political activist (1935), television host Ronnie Eldridge (1952), Phyllis E. Grann, CEO of Penguin Putnam, U.S. Representative Helen Gahagan (1924), Helene D. Gayle, Spelman College's 11th President and former chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (1970), Susan N. Herman, president of the American Civil Liberties Union (1968), Judith Kaye, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals (1958), Wilma B. Liebman, chair of the National Labor Relations Board (1971), Laurie Anderson, musician and performance artist (1969), Cynthia Nixon, actress, activist, and gubernatorial candidate (1988), Ann Brashares, author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (1989), Amy Hwang, The New Yorker cartoonist (2000), Kelly McCreary, actress from Grey's Anatomy (2003), Greta Gerwig, writer and director (2004), and Christy Carlson Romano, Disney Channel actress (2015).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Barnard College


text:
Benedictines

The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (Ordo Sancti Benedicti, abbreviated as OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529 they are the oldest of all the religious orders in the Latin Church. The male religious are also sometimes called the Black Monks, especially in English speaking countries, after the colour of their habits. Not all Benedictines wear black however, with some like the Olivetans wearing white. They were founded by Benedict of Nursia, a 6th-century Italian monk who laid the foundations of Benedictine monasticism through the formulation of his Rule. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, possibly his twin, also became a religious from an early age, but chose to live as a hermit. They retained a close relationship until her death.

Despite being called an order, the Benedictines do not operate under a single hierarchy but are instead organized as a collection of autonomous monasteries and convents, some known as abbeys. The order is represented internationally by the Benedictine Confederation, an organization set up in 1893 to represent the order's shared interests. They do not have a superior general or motherhouse with universal jurisdiction but elect an Abbot Primate to represent themselves to the Vatican and to the world.

Benedictine nuns are given the title Dame in preference to Sister.

Historical development

The monastery at Subiaco in Italy, established by Benedict of Nursia c. 529, was the first of the dozen monasteries he founded. He later founded the Abbey of Monte Cassino. There is no evidence, however, that he intended to found an order and the Rule of Saint Benedict presupposes the autonomy of each community. When Monte Cassino was sacked by the Lombards about the year 580, the monks fled to Rome, and it seems probable that this constituted an important factor in the diffusion of a knowledge of Benedictine monasticism.

Copies of Benedict's Rule survived; around 594 Pope Gregory I spoke favorably of it. The rule is subsequently found in some monasteries in southern Gaul along with other rules used by abbots. Gregory of Tours says that at Ainay Abbey, in the sixth century, the monks "followed the rules of Basil, Cassian, Caesarius, and other fathers, taking and using whatever seemed proper to the conditions of time and place", and doubtless the same liberty was taken with the Benedictine Rule when it reached them. In Gaul and Switzerland, it gradually supplemented the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by Columbanus and others. In many monasteries it eventually entirely displaced the earlier codes.

By the ninth century, however, the Benedictine had become the standard form of monastic life throughout the whole of Western Europe, excepting Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, where the Celtic observance still prevailed for another century or two. Largely through the work of Benedict of Aniane, it became the rule of choice for monasteries throughout the Carolingian empire.

Monastic scriptoria flourished from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Sacred Scripture was always at the heart of every monastic scriptorium. As a general rule those of the monks who possessed skill as writers made this their chief, if not their sole active work. An anonymous writer of the ninth or tenth century speaks of six hours a day as the usual task of a scribe, which would absorb almost all the time available for active work in the day of a medieval monk.

In the Middle Ages monasteries were often founded by the nobility. Cluny Abbey was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910. The abbey was noted for its strict adherence to the Rule of Saint Benedict. The abbot of Cluny was the superior of all the daughter houses, through appointed priors.

One of the earliest reforms of Benedictine practice was that initiated in 980 by Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese community. The Cistercians branched off from the Benedictines in 1098; they are often called the "White monks".

The dominance of the Benedictine monastic way of life began to decline towards the end of the twelfth century, which saw the rise of the mendicant Franciscans and nomadic Dominicans. Benedictines by contrast, took a vow of "stability", which professed loyalty to a particular foundation in a particular location. Not being bound by location, the mendicants were better able to respond to an increasingly "urban" environment. This decline was further exacerbated by the practice of appointing a commendatory abbot, a lay person, appointed by a noble to oversee and to protect the assets of the monastery. Often, however, this resulted in the appropriation of the assets of monasteries at the expense of the community which they were intended to support.

Austria - Germany
Saint Blaise Abbey in the Black Forest of Baden-Württemberg is believed to have been founded around the latter part of the tenth century. Between 1070 and 1073 there seem to have been contacts between St. Blaise and the Cluniac Abbey of Fruttuaria in Italy, which led to St. Blaise following the Fruttuarian reforms. The Empress Agnes was a patron of Fruttuaria, and retired there in 1065 before moving to Rome. The Empress was instrumental in introducing Fruttuaria's Benedictine customs, as practiced at Cluny, to Saint Blaise Abbey in Baden-Württemberg. Other houses either reformed by, or founded as priories of, St. Blasien were Muri Abbey (1082), Ochsenhausen Abbey (1093), Göttweig Abbey (1094), Stein am Rhein Abbey (before 1123) and Prüm Abbey (1132). It also had significant influence on the abbeys of Alpirsbach (1099), Ettenheimmünster (1124) and Sulzburg (c. 1125), and the priories of Weitenau (now part of Steinen, c. 1100), Bürgel (before 1130) and Sitzenkirch (c. 1130).

France
Fleury Abbey in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, Loiret was founded in about 640. It is one of the most celebrated Benedictine monasteries of Western Europe, and possesses the relics of St. Benedict. Like many Benedictine abbeys it was located on the banks of a river, here the Loire. Ainey Abbey is a ninth century foundation on the Lyon peninsula. In the twelfth century on the current site there was a romanesque monastery, subsequently rebuilt.

The seventeenth century saw a number of Benedictine foundations for women, some dedicated to the indigent to save them from a life of exploitation, others dedicated to the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament such as the one established by Catherine de Bar (1614–1698). In 1688 Dame Mechtilde de Bar assisted Marie Casimire Louise de La Grange d'Arquien, queen consort of Poland, to establish a Benedictine foundation in Warsaw.

Abbeys were among the institutions of the Catholic Church swept away during the French Revolution. Monasteries and convents were again allowed to form in the 19th century under the Bourbon Restoration. Later that century, under the Third French Republic, laws were enacted preventing religious teaching. The original intent was to allow secular schools. Thus in 1880 and 1882, Benedictine teaching monks were effectively exiled; this was not completed until 1901.

In 1898 Marie-Adèle Garnier, in religion, Mother Marie de Saint-Pierre, founded in Montmartre (Mount of the Martyr), Paris a Benedictine house. However, the Waldeck-Rousseau's Law of Associations, passed in 1901, placed severe restrictions on religious bodies which were obliged to leave France. Garnier and her community relocated to another place associated with executions, this time it was in London, near the site of Tyburn tree where 105 Catholic martyrs—including Saint Oliver Plunkett and Saint Edmund Campion had been executed during the English Reformation. A stone's throw from Marble Arch, the Tyburn Convent is now the Mother House of the Congregation.

Poland - Lithuania

Benedictines are thought to have arrived in the Kingdom of Poland in the 11th-century. One of the earliest foundations is Tyniec Abbey on a promontory by the Vistula river. The Tyniec monks led the translation of the Bible into Polish vernacular. Other surviving Benedictine houses can be found in Stary Kraków Village, Biskupów, Lubiń. Older foundations are in Mogilno, Trzemeszno, Łęczyca, Łysa Góra and in Opactwo, among others. In the Middle Ages the city of Płock, also on the Vistula, had a successful monastery, which played a significant role in the local economy. In the 18th-century benedictine convents were opened for women, notably in Warsaw's New Town.

A 15th-century Benedictine foundation can be found in Senieji Trakai, a village in Eastern Lithuania.

Switzerland
Kloster Rheinau was a Benedictine monastery in Rheinau in the Canton of Zürich, Switzerland, founded in about 778. The abbey of Our Lady of the Angels was founded in 1120.

United Kingdom
The English Benedictine Congregation is the oldest of the nineteen Benedictine congregations. Through the influence of Wilfrid, Benedict Biscop, and Dunstan, the Benedictine Rule spread rapidly, and in the North it was adopted in most of the monasteries that had been founded by the Celtic missionaries from Iona. Many of the episcopal sees of England were founded and governed by the Benedictines, and no fewer than nine of the old cathedrals were served by the black monks of the priories attached to them. Monasteries served as hospitals and places of refuge for the weak and homeless. The monks studied the healing properties of plants and minerals to alleviate the sufferings of the sick.

During the English Reformation, all monasteries were dissolved and their lands confiscated by the Crown, forcing those who wished to continue in the monastic life to flee into exile on the Continent. During the 19th century English members of these communities were able to return to England.

St. Mildred's Priory, on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, was built in 1027 on the site of an abbey founded in 670 by the daughter of the first Christian King of Kent. Currently the priory is home to a community of Benedictine nuns. Five of the most notable English abbeys are the Basilica of St Gregory the Great at Downside, commonly known as Downside Abbey, The Abbey of St Edmund, King and Martyr commonly known as Douai Abbey in Upper Woolhampton, Reading, Berkshire, Ealing Abbey in Ealing, West London, and Worth Abbey. Prinknash Abbey, used by Henry VIII as a hunting lodge, was officially returned to the Benedictines four hundred years later, in 1928. During the next few years, so-called Prinknash Park was used as a home until it was returned to the order.

St. Lawrence's Abbey in Ampleforth, Yorkshire was founded in 1802. In 1955, Ampleforth set up a daughter house, a priory at St. Louis, Missouri which became independent in 1973 and became Saint Louis Abbey in its own right in 1989. As of 2015, the English Congregation consists of three abbeys of nuns and ten abbeys of monks. Members of the congregation are found in England, Wales, the United States of America, Peru and Zimbabwe.

In England there are also houses of the Subiaco Cassinese Congregation: Farnborough, Prinknash, and Chilworth: the Solesmes Congregation, Quarr and St Cecilia's on the Isle of Wight, as well as a diocesan monastery following the Rule of Saint Benedict: The Community of Our Lady of Glastonbury.

Since the Oxford Movement, there has also been a modest flourishing of Benedictine monasticism in the Anglican Church and Protestant Churches. Anglican Benedictine Abbots are invited guests of the Benedictine Abbot Primate in Rome at Abbatial gatherings at Sant'Anselmo.

In 1168 local Benedictine monks instigated the anti-semitic blood libel of Harold of Gloucester as a template for explaining child deaths. According to historian Joe Hillaby, the blood libel of Harold was crucially important because for the first time an unexplained child death occurring near the Easter festival was arbitrarily linked to Jews in the vicinity by local Christian churchmen: "they established a pattern quickly taken up elsewhere. Within three years the first ritual murder charge was made in France."

Monastic libraries in England
The forty-eighth Rule of Saint Benedict prescribes extensive and habitual "holy reading" for the brethren. Three primary types of reading were done by the monks in medieval times. Monks would read privately during their personal time, as well as publicly during services and at mealtimes. In addition to these three mentioned in the Rule, monks would also read in the infirmary. Monasteries were thriving centers of education, with monks and nuns actively encouraged to learn and pray according to the Benedictine Rule. Rule 38 states that 'these brothers' meals should usually be accompanied by reading, and that they were to eat and drink in silence while one read out loud.

Benedictine monks were not allowed worldly possessions, thus necessitating the preservation and collection of sacred texts in monastic libraries for communal use. For the sake of convenience, the books in the monastery were housed in a few different places, namely the sacristy, which contained books for the choir and other liturgical books, the rectory, which housed books for public reading such as sermons and lives of the saints, and the library, which contained the largest collection of books and was typically in the cloister.

The first record of a monastic library in England is in Canterbury. To assist with Augustine of Canterbury's English mission, Pope Gregory the Great gave him nine books which included the Gregorian Bible in two volumes, the Psalter of Augustine, two copies of the Gospels, two martyrologies, an Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles, and a Psalter. Theodore of Tarsus brought Greek books to Canterbury more than seventy years later, when he founded a school for the study of Greek.

United States
The first Benedictine to live in the United States was Pierre-Joseph Didier. He came to the United States in 1790 from Paris and served in the Ohio and St. Louis areas until his death. The first actual Benedictine monastery founded was Saint Vincent Archabbey, located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1832 by Boniface Wimmer, a German monk, who sought to serve German immigrants in America. In 1856, Wimmer started to lay the foundations for St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. In 1876, Herman Wolfe, of Saint Vincent Archabbey established Belmont Abbey in North Carolina. By the time of his death in 1887, Wimmer had sent Benedictine monks to Kansas, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Illinois, and Colorado.

Wimmer also asked for Benedictine sisters to be sent to America by St. Walburg Convent in Eichstätt, Bavaria. In 1852, Sister Benedicta Riepp and two other sisters founded St. Marys, Pennsylvania. Soon they would send sisters to Michigan, New Jersey, and Minnesota.

By 1854, Swiss monks began to arrive and founded St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana, and they soon spread to Arkansas and Louisiana. They were soon followed by Swiss sisters.

There are now over 100 Benedictine houses across America. Most Benedictine houses are part of one of four large Congregations: American-Cassinese, Swiss-American, St. Scholastica, and St. Benedict. The congregations mostly are made up of monasteries that share the same lineage. For instance the American-Cassinese congregation included the 22 monasteries descended from Boniface Wimmer.

Benedictine vows and life
A sense of community has been the defining characteristic of the order since the beginning. To that end, section 17 in chapter 58 of the Rule of Saint Benedict specifies the solemn vows candidates joining a Benedictine community are required to make: a vow of stability, to remain in the same community), and to adopt a "conversion of habits", in Latin, conversatio morum and obedience to the community's superior. The "Benedictine vows" are equivalent to the evangelical counsels accepted by all candidates entering a religious order. The interpretation of conversatio morum understood as "conversion of the habits of life" has generally been replaced by notions such as adoption of a monastic manner of life, drawing on the Vulgate's use of conversatio as indicating "citizenship" or "local customs", see Philippians 3:20. The Rule enjoins monks and nuns "to live in this place as a religious, in obedience to its rule and to the abbot or abbess."

Benedictine abbots and abbesses have jurisdiction over their abbey and thus canonical authority over the monks or nuns who are resident. This authority includes the power to assign duties, to decide which books may or may not be read, to regulate comings and goings, and to punish and to excommunicate, in the sense of an enforced isolation from the monastic community.

A tight communal timetable – the horarium – is meant to ensure that the time given by God is not wasted but used in God's service, whether for prayer, work, meals, spiritual reading or sleep. The order's motto is Ora et Labora "pray and work".

Although Benedictines do not take a vow of silence, hours of strict silence are set, and at other times silence is maintained as much as is practically possible. Social conversations tend to be limited to communal recreation times. Such details, like other aspects of the daily routine of a Benedictine house are left to the discretion of the superior, and are set out in its customary, the code adopted by a particular Benedictine house by adapting the Rule to local conditions.

According to the norms of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, a Benedictine abbey is a "religious institute" and its members therefore participate in consecrated life which Canon 588 §1 explains is intrinsically "neither clerical nor lay." Males in consecrated life, however, may be ordained.

Benedictines' rules contain a reference to ritual purification, which is inspired by Benedict's encouragement of bathing. Benedictine monks have played a role in the development and promotion of spas.

Organization
Benedictine monasticism differs from other Christian religious orders in that as congregations sometimes with several houses, some of them in other countries, they are not bound into a unified religious order headed by a "Superior General". Each Benedictine congregation is autonomous and governed by an abbot or abbess.

The autonomous houses are characterised by their chosen charism or specific dedication to a particular devotion. For example, In 1313 Bernardo Tolomei established the Order of Our Lady of Mount Olivet. The community adopted the Rule of Saint Benedict and received canonical approval in 1344. The Olivetans are part of the Benedictine Confederation. Other specialisms, such as Gregorian chant as at Solesmes in France, or Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament have been adopted by different houses, as at the Warsaw Convent, or the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre at Tyburn Convent in London. Other houses have dedicated themselves to books, reading, writing and printing them as at Stanbrook Abbey in England. Others still are associated with the places where they were founded or their founders centuries ago, hence Cassinese, Subiaco, Camaldolese or Sylvestrines.

All Benedictine houses became federated in the Benedictine Confederation brought into existence by Pope Leo XIII's Apostolic Brief "Summum semper" on 12 July 1893. Pope Leo also established the office of Abbot Primate as the abbot elected to represent this Confederation at the Vatican and to the world. The headquarters of the Benedictine Confederation and the Abbot Primate is the Primatial Abbey of Sant'Anselmo built by Pope Leo XIII in Rome.

Other orders
The Rule of Saint Benedict is also used by a number of religious orders that began as reforms of the Benedictine tradition such as the Cistercians and Trappists. These groups are separate congregations and not members of the Benedictine Confederation.

Although Benedictines are traditionally Catholic, there are also other communities that follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. For example, of an estimated 2,400 celibate Anglican religious (1,080 men and 1,320 women) in the Anglican Communion as a whole, some have adopted the Rule of Benedict. Likewise, such communities can be found in Eastern Orthodox Church, and Lutheran Church.

Maurists
Members of the Congregation of Saint Maur, a prerevolutionary French congregation of Benedictines known for their scholarship:

Oblates
Benedictine Oblates endeavor to embrace the spirit of the Benedictine vow in their own life in the world. Oblates are affiliated with a particular monastery.

title: Benedictines


text:
Bayezid I

Bayezid I (بايزيد اول; I. Bayezid), also known as Bayezid the Thunderbolt (یلدیرم بايزيد; Yıldırım Bayezid; c. 1360 – 8 March 1403), was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1389 to 1402. He adopted the title of Sultan-i Rûm, Rûm being the Arabic name for the Eastern Roman Empire. In 1394, Bayezid unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople. Bayezid vanquished all the Beyliks and proceeded to conquer and vassalize the entirety of Anatolia. In 1402, he once more besieged Constantinople, appearing to find success, but he ultimately withdrew due to the invasion of the Mongol conqueror Timur. He defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Nicopolis in what is now Bulgaria in 1396. He was later defeated and captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and died in captivity in March 1403, which triggered the Ottoman Interregnum.

Biography
Bayezid was the son of Murad I and his Greek wife, Gülçiçek Hatun. His first major role was as governor of Kütahya, a city that he earned by marrying the daughter of a Germiyanid ruler, Devletşah. He was an impetuous soldier, earning the nickname "Thunderbolt" in a battle against the Karamanids. Bayezid ascended to the throne following the death of his father, Murad I, who was killed by Serbian knight Miloš Obilić during (15 June), or immediately after (16 June), the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the battle in which Serbia became a vassal of the Ottoman Sultanate. Immediately after obtaining the throne, he had his younger brother strangled to avoid a plot. In 1390, Bayezid took as a wife Princess Olivera Despina, the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia, who also lost his life in Kosovo. Bayezid recognized Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, as the new Serbian leader - later despot - with considerable autonomy.

Upper Serbia resisted the Ottomans until Bayezid captured Skopje in 1391, converting the city into an important base of operations.

Efforts to unify Anatolia
Meanwhile, the sultan began unifying Anatolia under his rule. Forcible expansion into Muslim territories could have endangered the Ottoman relationship with the gazis, who were an important source of warriors for this ruling house on the European frontier. Thus Bayezid began the practice of first securing fatwas, or legal rulings from Islamic scholars, to justify wars against these Muslim states. However, Bayezid doubted the loyalty of his Muslim Turkish followers, so he relied heavily on his Serbian and Byzantine vassal troops in these conquests.

In a single campaign over the summer and fall of 1390, Bayezid conquered the beyliks of Aydin, Saruhan and Menteshe. His major rival Sulayman, the emir of Karaman, responded by allying himself with the ruler of Sivas, Kadi Burhan al-Din and the remaining Turkish beyliks. Nevertheless, Bayezid pushed on and overwhelmed the remaining beyliks (Hamid, Teke, and Germiyan), as well as taking the cities of Akşehir and Niğde, as well as their capital Konya from the Karaman. At this point, Bayezid accepted peace proposals from Karaman (1391), concerned that further advances would antagonize his Turkoman followers and lead them to ally with Kadi Burhan al-Din. Once peace had been made with Karaman, Bayezid moved north against Kastamonu which had given refuge to many fleeing from his forces, and conquered both that city as well as Sinop. However, his subsequent campaign was stopped by Burhan al-Din at the Battle of Kırkdilim.

From 1389 to 1395 he conquered Bulgaria and northern Greece. In 1394 Bayezid crossed the River Danube to attack Wallachia, ruled at that time by Mircea the Elder. The Ottomans were superior in number, but on 10 October 1394 (or 17 May 1395), in the Battle of Rovine, on forested and swampy terrain, the Wallachians won the fierce battle and prevented Bayezid's army from advancing beyond the Danube.

In 1394, Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Anadoluhisarı fortress was built between 1393 and 1394 as part of preparations for the second Ottoman siege of Constantinople, which took place in 1395. On the urgings of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, a new crusade was organized to defeat him. This proved unsuccessful: in 1396 the Christian allies, under the leadership of the King of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor (in 1433) Sigismund, were defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis. Bayezid built the magnificent Ulu Cami in Bursa, to celebrate this victory.

Thus the siege of Constantinople continued, lasting until 1402. The beleaguered Byzantines had their reprieve when Bayezid fought the Timurid Empire in the east. At this time, the empire of Bayezid included Thrace (except Constantinople), Macedonia, Bulgaria, and parts of Serbia in Europe. In Asia, his domains extended to the Taurus Mountains. His army was considered one of the best in the Islamic world.

Clash with Timur

In 1397, Bayezid defeated the emir of Karaman in Akçay, killing him and annexing his territory. In 1398, the sultan conquered the Djanik emirate and the territory of Burhan al-Din, violating the accord with the Turco-Mongol emir Timur. Finally, Bayezid occupied Elbistan and Malatya.

In 1400, Timur succeeded in rousing the local Turkic beyliks who had been vassals of the Ottomans to join him in his attack on Bayezid, who was also considered one of the most powerful rulers in the Muslim world during that period. Years of insulting letters had passed between Timur and Bayezid. Both rulers insulted each other in their own way while Timur preferred to undermine Bayezid's position as a ruler and play down the significance of his military successes.

This is the excerpt from one of Timur's letters addressed to Ottoman sultan:

"Believe me, you are but pismire ant: don't seek to fight the elephants for they'll crush you under their feet. Shall a petty prince such as you are contend with us? But your s [ ] are not extraordinary; for a Turcoman never spoke with judgement. If you don't follow our counsels you will regret it."

In the fateful Battle of Ankara, on 20 July 1402, the Ottoman army was defeated. Bayazid tried to escape, but was captured and taken to Timur. Historians describe their first meeting as follows: "When Timur saw Bayezid, he laughed. Bayezid, offended by this laugh, told Timur that it was indecent to laugh at misfortune; to which Timur replied: 'It is clear then that fate does not value power and possession of vast lands if it distributes them to cripples: to you, the crooked, and to me, the lame.'"

Many writers claim that Bayezid was mistreated by the Timurids. However, writers and historians from Timur's own court reported that Bayezid was treated well, and that Timur even mourned his death. One of Bayezid's sons, Mustafa Çelebi, was captured with him and held captive in Samarkand until 1405.

Four of Bayezid's sons, specifically Süleyman Çelebi, İsa Çelebi, Mehmed Çelebi, and Musa Çelebi, however, escaped from the battlefield and later started a civil war for the Ottoman throne known as the Ottoman Interregnum. After Mehmed's victory, his coronation as Mehmed I, and the deaths of the other three, Bayezid's other son Mustafa Çelebi emerged from hiding and began two failed rebellions against his brother Mehmed and, after Mehmed's death, his nephew Murad II.

Bayezid in captivity
In Europe, the legend of Bayezid's humiliation in captivity was very popular. He was allegedly chained, and forced to watch how his beloved wife, Olivera, serve Timur at dinner. According to a legend, Timur took Bayezid with himself everywhere in a barred palanquin or cage, humiliating him in various ways, used Bayezid as a support under his legs, and at dinner had him placed under the table where bones were thrown at him.

Different versions on Bayezid's death existed, too. One of them mentioned the suicide of Bayezid. Allegedly, the Sultan committed suicide through hitting his head against the bars of his cell or taking poison. The version was promoted by Ottoman historians: Lutfi Pasha, Ashik Pasha-Zade. There was also a version where Bayezid was supposedly poisoned by Timur's order. This is considered unlikely, because there is evidence that the Turkic ruler entrusted the care of Bayezid to his personal doctors.

In the descriptions of contemporaries and witnesses of the events, neither a cell nor humiliation is mentioned.

German traveller and writer Johann Schiltberger did not write anything about the cell, bars or violent death. Another contemporary, Jean II Le Maingre, who witnessed Bayezid's captivity, wrote nothing about the cell or poisoning either. Clavijo, who came to Timur's court in 1404 as part of the embassy and visited Constantinople on his return trip, also did not mention the cell. All Greek sources of the first decade of the 15th century are equally silent about the cell. Sharafaddin Yazdi (? -1454) in Zafar-nama wrote that Bayezid was treated with respect, and at his request, Turco-Mongols found his son among the captives and brought him to his father. Regarding Bayezid's wife, Sharafaddin wrote that Timur sent her and his daughters to her husband. Olivera allegedly became a Muslim under the influence of Timur.

First references to a disrespectful attitude towards Bayazid appear in the works of ibn Arabshah (1389–1450) and Constantine of Ostrovica. Ibn Arabshah wrote that "Bayezid's heart was broken to pieces" when he saw that his wives and concubines were serving at a banquet.

Ibn Arabshah wrote the following about the captivity of Bayezid: "Ibn Usman became a prey and was locked up like a bird in a cage."

However, this is just a "flowery style", and not a real cell. According to literary historian H.A.R. Gibb, "the flowery elegance of style has also affected historiography. Most of the authors of the Timurid era succumbed to its influence ."

Constantine of Ostrovica wrote neither about the cell, nor about the nudity of Bayezid's wife; though he did write that Bayezid committed suicide. In the story of Constantine, just like in that of ibn Arabshah, the sultan was so struck by the fact that his wife carried wine to a feast that he poisoned himself with a poison from his ring.

Ottoman historian Mehmed Neshri (1450–1520) described Bayezid's imprisonment and mentioned the cell twice. According to him, Timur asked Bayezid what he would do in Timur's place with regard to the captive. "I would have planted him in an iron cage," Bayezid answered. To which Timur replied: "This is a bad answer." He ordered to prepare the cage and the Sultan was put into it.

The complete set of legends may perhaps be found in the work of Pope Pius II Asiae Europaeque elegantissima descriptio, written in 1450–1460 (published in 1509): Bayezid is kept in a cage, fed with garbage under the table, Timur uses Bayezid as a support to get on or off a horse. Further development can be found in later authors, such as Theodore Spandounes. The first version of his story was written in Italian and completed in 1509, and a French translation was published in 1519. In these versions of the text, Spandounes wrote only about the golden chains and that the sultan was used as a stand. Spandounes added the cell only in later versions of the text. Later versions of the text also include a description of the public humiliation of Bayezid's wife:

"He had a wife of Ildrim [Yıldırım, i.e., Bayezid], who was also a captive. They ripped off her clothes to the navel, exposing shameful areas. And he (Timur) made her serve food to him and his guests like that."

Consorts
Bayezid I had at least nine consorts:

 * Fülane Hatun. Daughter of Konstantin of Kostendil, she married Bayezid in 1372 while her older sister married Murad I and an other her sister married Yakub Çelebi, son of Murad and half-brother of Bayezid.
 * Devletşah Sultan Hatun (c. 1365 - 23 January 1414). Daughter of Süleyman of Germiyan and Mutahhare Abide Hatun, granddaughter of Rumi, she married Bayezid in 1378.
 * A daughter of John V Palaiologos and Helena Kantakouzene. She married Bayezid in 1386.
 * Devlet Hatun (died in 1422). Slave concubine, mother of Mehmed I.
 * Maria Olivera Despina Hatun (1372 – 1444). Serbian princess, daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia and Princess Miliza, she married Bayezid in 1390. She was the Bayezid's favorite consort, but was extremely unpopular with the Ottomans court and people: she was accused of bribing the sultan and introducing alcohol to the court. She was captured by Timur together with her husband, and possibly forced to serve him naked.
 * Hafsa Hatun. Daughter of Fahreddin Isa Bey of the Aydinids, she married Bayezid in 1390.
 * Maria Fadrique (1370 - 1394). Daughter of Louis Fadrique and Helena Asanina Kantakuzene, she entered in Bayezid's harem in 1393 or early 1394. She died, maybe executed, in 1395 or 1394.
 * Angelina Hatun. Greek noblewoman, she was freed by Timur and handed over to Henry III of Castile. She later married Diego Gonzalez of Contreras.
 * Maria Hatun. Daughter of the Hungarian count Janos, she was freed by Timur and handed over to Henry III of Castile. She later married Payo Gomez de Soto Mayor.

Sons
Bayezid I had at least twelve sons:
 * Ertuğrul Çelebi (1376 –1400 ), wali of Aydin. He was born in Küthaya. He took part in the Candar campaign and fought in the Battle of Kirkdilim, on 20 July 1391. He died of unknown causes and was buried in Bursa.
 * Süleyman Çelebi (1377 - 1411). Emir of Rumelia, claimant to the Ottoman throne during the Ottoman Interregnum.
 * İsa Çelebi (1380 - 1403) – with Devletşah Hatun. Governor of Anatolia, claimant to the Ottoman throne during the Ottoman Interregnum.
 * Mustafa Çelebi (1380 – 1402 or 1422?). Claimant to the Ottoman throne during Mehmed I and Murad II's reigns.
 * Musa Çelebi (died in 1413) – with Devletşah Hatun. Emir of Rumelia, claimant to the Ottoman throne during the Ottoman Interregnum.
 * Mehmed I (c. 1386–1421) – with Devlet Hatun. Governor of Anatolia, he won the civils wars during the Ottoman Interregnum and later became Sultan.
 * Yusuf Çelebi. Süleyman Çelebi sent him as a hostage to Constantinople for order of Manuel II, where he converted to Christianity and changed his name to Demetrios.
 * Kasım Çelebi. Süleyman Çelebi sent him as a hostage to Constantinople together with his full-sister, Fatma Hatun, for order of Manuel II. He had a son, Orhan Çelebi.
 * Hasan Çelebi. Still a child at the time of his father's death, he was killed during the subsequent civil wars between his older brothers.
 * Ömer Çelebi.
 * Korkud Çelebi.
 * Ibrahim Çelebi.

Daughters
Bayezid I had at least five daughters:
 * Fatma Hundi Sultan Hatun (1375–1430). She married to Seyyid Şemseddin Mehmed Buhari Emir Sultan in 1390 and she had four sons, Emir Ali and other three, and two twins daughters. Legend has it that Hundi and Seyyid were married in secret after having a vision of Muhammad, and that Bayezid only accepted their marriage after his son-in-law was "miraculously" saved from soldiers sent to kill him. According to another version, Seyyd, guest of Bayezid, took advantage of his absence from court to seduce Hundi and marry her.
 * Erhundi Hatun. She married to Yakup Bey, son of Pars Bey. In 1393, she was offered in marriage to Ladislaus of Naples, who wanted Ottoman help against Sigismund of Hungary, but the marriage never materialized due to the clause requiring the princess's conversion to Christianity.
 * Öruz Hatun - with Despina Hatun. In 1403 she married Abu Bakr Mirza, son of Mirza Celaleddin Miranşah, son of Timur. She had at least a daughter, Ayşe Hatun.
 * Paşa Melek Hatun - with Despina Hatun. In 1403 she married Şemseddin Mehmed, son of Emîr Celaluddîn İslâm, a Timur's general, in Samarkand.
 * Fatma Hatun (1393–1417). Süleyman Çelebi sent her as a hostage to Constantinople together with her full-brother, Kasim Çelebi, for order of Manuel II. Later she married an Ottoman sanjak-bey in 1413.

Personality
According to the British orientalist, Lord Kinross, Bayezid was distinguished by haste, impulsivity, unpredictability and imprudence. He cared little for state affairs, which he entrusted to his governors. As Kinross writes, between campaigns Bayezid was often engaged in pleasures: gluttony, drunkenness and debauchery. The court of the sultan was famous for its luxury and was comparable to the Byzantine court during its heyday.

At the same time, the sultan was a talented commander. In all 13 years of his reign, Bayezid suffered only one defeat, which eventually turned out to be fatal for him. Despite his lust for earthly pleasures, Bayezid was a religious man and used to spend hours in his personal mosque in Bursa. He also kept Islamic theologians in his circle.

In the words of the contemporary Greek historian Doukas: "[Bayezid] was a feared man, precipitate in deeds of war, a persecutor of Christians as no other around him, and in the religion of the Arabs a most ardent disciple of Muhammad, whose unlawful commandments were observed to the utmost, never sleeping, spending his nights contriving intrigues and machinations against the rational flock of Christ.... His purpose was to increase the nation of the Prophet and to decrease that of the Romans. Many cities and provinces did he add to the dominion of the Muslims."

Evaluation of rule
Bayezid managed to expand the territory of the Ottoman empire to the Danube and the Euphrates. However, his reign culminated with a humiliating defeat at Ankara, whereby the empire was reduced to the size of a beylik from the time of Orhan. This small territory was divided between Bayezid's two sons by Timur and many beyliks regained their independence. The defeat at Ankara marked the beginning of the Ottoman interregnum, which lasted 10 years.

In fiction

The defeat of Bayezid became a popular subject for later Western European writers, composers, and painters. They embellished the legend that he was taken by Timur to Samarkand with a cast of characters to create an oriental fantasy that has maintained its appeal over the years. Christopher Marlowe's play Tamburlaine the Great was first performed in London in 1587, three years after the formal opening of English-Ottoman trade relations when William Harborne sailed for Constantinople as an agent of the Levant Company.

In 1648, the play Le Gran Tamerlan et Bejezet by Jean Magnon appeared in London, and in 1725, Handel's Tamerlano was first performed and published in London; Vivaldi's version of the story, Bajazet, was written in 1735. Magnon had given Bayezid an intriguing wife and daughter; the Handel and Vivaldi renditions included, as well as Tamerlane and Bayezid and his daughter, a prince of Byzantium and a princess of Trebizond (Trabzon) in a passionate love story. A cycle of paintings in Schloss Eggenberg, near Graz in Austria, translated the theme to a different medium; this was completed in the 1670s shortly before the Ottoman army attacked the Habsburgs in central Europe.

The historical novel The Grand Cham (1921) by Harold Lamb focuses on the quest of its European hero to gain the assistance of Tamerlane in defeating Bayezid. Bayezid (spelled Bayazid) is a central character in the Robert E. Howard story Lord of Samarcand, where he commits suicide at Tamerlane's victory banquet. Bayazid is a main character in the novel The Walls of Byzantium (2013) by James Heneage.

In popular culture
Sultan Bayezid was portrayed in the Serbian 1989 historical drama film Battle of Kosovo, as a participant of the Battle of Kosovo by actor Branislav Lečić, and in the Romanian historical drama Mircea (Proud heritage) by Ion Ritiu as a young Sultan who fought in the battles of Rovine, Nicopolis and Angora.

In the 29th Degree of the Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, Bayezid appears as a central figure in a drama that is historical fiction.

title: Bayezid I