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Chlothar III

Chlothar III (also spelled Chlotar, Clothar, Clotaire, Chlotochar, or Hlothar; 652–673) was King of the Franks, ruling in Neustria and Burgundy from 657 to his death. He also briefly ruled Austrasia.

He was the eldest son of King Clovis II, and his queen Balthild and succeeded his father under the regency of his mother. Only a month beforehand, according to the near-contemporary Life of Eligius by the courtier Audoin (bishop) of Rouen, Saint Eligius had prophesied the death of Clovis, Balthild's downfall, and Chlothar's short reign.

Few things are known about the time of Chlothar's reign. The Historia Langobardorum reports that in the early 660s a Frankish army invaded Provence and then Italy. This force came upon the camp of the Lombard king Grimoald I of Benevento, at Rivoli near Asta. Grimuald pretended to flee. The Franks looted the camp and celebrated. Then, after midnight, Grimuald attacked and drove them back to Neustria.

After the death of Saint Eligius in 661, the Life of Eligius records that a plague reduced the population of France's cities. A plague in the British Isles, according to Bede, did the same there in 664.

During the regency, Austrasians requested a king of their own and, in 662, Chlothar's court sent another son of Clovis II, Childeric II, to be king there.

Also during his reign, the mayor of the palace Erchinoald died and a council of Franks elected Ebroin to replace him. Ebroin's early administrative authority was significant: Bede tells the story of how, in 668, the newly appointed Theodore of Canterbury could only travel through the Frankish kingdoms from Rome with the mayor's permission. Chlothar may have been more politically active after this time, as he reached the age of majority in 669. The nearest contemporary chronicle, the Liber Historiae Francorum of 727, relates only that he ruled for four years (presumably a reference to his active years 669–673) and then died. He is confirmed as still being in the sixteenth year of his reign in a chronological note in a Victorian Easter table of 673. His brother Theuderic III succeeded him as king later that same year.

title: Chlothar III


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Clara Bow

Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.

Bow appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927), and Wings (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost two-to-one, a "safe return". At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month, in January 1929.

Two years after marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933. In September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60.

Early life
Bow was born in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, at 697 Bergen Street, in a "bleak, sparsely furnished room above [a] dilapidated Baptist Church". Her birth year, according to the US Censuses of 1910 and 1920, was 1905. In US census records, enumerated April 15, 1910, and January 7, 1920, Bow's age is stated 4 and 14 years, respectively. The 1930 census stated an age of 23, and on her gravestone of 1965, the inscription says 1907, but 1905 is the year accepted by a majority of sources.

Bow was her parents' third child. Her two older sisters, born in 1903 and 1904, had died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Frances Bow (née Gordon, 1880–1923), was told by a doctor not to become pregnant again, for fear the next baby might die as well. Despite the warning, Sarah became pregnant with Clara in late 1904. In addition to the risky pregnancy, a heat wave besieged New York in July 1905, and temperatures peaked around 100 °F. Years later, Clara wrote: "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life."

Bow's parents were descended from English and Scots-Irish immigrants who had come to America the generation before. Bow said that her father, Robert Walter Bow (1874–1959), "had a quick, keen mind... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't... everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling". By the time Clara was four and a half, her father was out of work. Between 1905 and 1923, the family lived at 14 different addresses, but seldom outside Prospect Heights, with Clara's father often absent. "I do not think my mother ever loved my father", she said. "He knew it. And it made him very unhappy, for he worshipped her always."

When Bow's mother was 16, she fell from a second-story window and suffered a severe head injury. She was later diagnosed with "psychosis due to epilepsy". From her earliest years, Bow had learned how to care for her mother during the seizures, as well as how to deal with her psychotic and hostile episodes. She said her mother could be "mean to me—and she often was", but "she didn't mean to be and that it was because she couldn't help it". Still, Bow felt deprived of her childhood; "As a kid I took care of my mother, she didn't take care of me".

Sarah worsened gradually, and when she realized her daughter was set for a movie career, Bow's mother told her she "would be much better off dead". One night in February 1922, Bow awoke to a butcher knife held against her throat by her mother. Clara was able to fend off the attack, and locked her mother in her room. In the morning, Bow's mother had no recollection of the episode. Later, she was committed to a "sanatarium" by Robert Bow.

Clara spoke about the incident later:

"It was snowing. My mother and I were cold and hungry. We had been cold and hungry for days. We lay in each other's arms and cried and tried to keep warm. It grew worse and worse. So that night my mother—but I can't tell you about it. Only when I remember it, it seems to me I can't live."

According to Bow's biographer, David Stenn, Bow was raped by her father at age sixteen while her mother was institutionalized. On January 5, 1923, Sarah died at the age of 43 from her epilepsy. When relatives gathered for the funeral, Bow was so upset that she "went crazy" and tried to jump into the grave to be with her, shouting that they were "hypocrites" and that they hadn't loved or cared for her mother while she was alive.

Bow attended P.S. 111, P.S. 9, and P.S. 98. "P.S." stands for "Public School" in New York City. As she grew up, she felt shy among other girls, who teased her for her worn-out clothes and "carrot-top" hair. She said about her childhood, "I never had any clothes. ... And lots of time didn't have anything to eat. We just lived, that's about all. Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed."

From first grade, Bow preferred the company of boys, stating, "I could lick any boy my size. My right arm was quite famous. My right arm was developed from pitching so much ... Once I hopped a ride on behind a big fire engine. I got a lot of credit from the gang for that." A close friend, a younger boy who lived in her building, burned to death, something that haunted her. She heard his screams and ran to his aid, rolling him up in carpet to stop the fire, but he died in her arms. In 1919, Bow enrolled in Bay Ridge High School for Girls. "I wore sweaters and old skirts ... didn't want to be treated like a girl". Her mother had a long spell of good health, and changed Bow's appearance, cutting her hair more femininely. Bow said that "there was one boy who had always been my pal ... he kissed me ... I wasn't sore. I didn't get indignant. I was horrified and hurt ... I knew I could never go back to being a tomboy."

Bow's interest in sports and her physical abilities led her to plan for a career as an athletics instructor. She won five medals at the "cinder tracks" and credited her cousin Homer Baker—the national half-mile (c. 800 m) champion in 1913 and 1914 and 660-yard (c. 600 m) world-record holder—for being her trainer. The Bows and Bakers shared a house—still standing—at 33 Prospect Place in 1920.

Early years
In the early 1920s roughly 50 million Americans—half the population at that time—attended the movies every week. As Bow grew into womanhood, her stature as a "boy" in her old gang became "impossible". She did not have any girlfriends, and school was a "heartache" and her home was "miserable". On the silver screen she found consolation; "For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility, glamor". And further; "I always had a queer feeling about actors and actresses on the screen ... I knew I would have done it differently. I couldn't analyze it, but I could always feel it". "I'd go home and be a one girl circus, taking the parts of everyone I'd seen, living them before the glass." At 16, Bow says she "knew" she wanted to be a motion pictures actress, even if she was a "square, awkward, funny-faced kid."

Against her mother's wishes but with her father's support, Bow competed in Brewster publications' magazine's annual nationwide acting contest, "Fame and Fortune", in fall 1921. In previous years, other contest winners had found work in the movies. In the contest's final screen test, Bow was up against an already scene-experienced woman who did "a beautiful piece of acting". A set member later stated that when Bow did the scene, she actually became her character and "lived it". In the January issues 1922 of Motion Picture Classic, the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa McMein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded:

"She is very young, only 16. But she is full of confidence, determination and ambition. She is endowed with a mentality far beyond her years. She has a genuine spark of divine fire. The five different screen tests she had, showed this very plainly, her emotional range of expression provoking a fine enthusiasm from every contest judge who saw the tests. She screens perfectly. Her personal appearance is almost enough to carry her to success without the aid of the brains she indubitably possesses."

Bow won an evening gown and a silver trophy, and the publisher committed to help her "gain a role in films", but nothing happened. Bow's father told her to "haunt" Brewster's office, located in Brooklyn, until they came up with something. "To get rid of me, or maybe they really meant to (give me) all the time and were just busy", Bow was introduced to director Christy Cabanne, who cast her in Beyond the Rainbow, produced late 1921 in New York City and released February 19, 1922. Bow did five scenes and impressed Cabanne with her ability to produce tears on call, but was cut from the final print. "I was sick to my stomach", she recalled and thought her mother was right about the movie business.

Bow dropped out of school in her senior year, after she was notified about winning the "Fame and Fortune Contest", possibly in October 1921, and got an ordinary office job. However, movie ads and newspaper editorial comments from 1922 to 1923 suggest that Bow was not cut from Beyond the Rainbow. .

Early silent films
Encouraged by her father, Bow continued to visit studio agencies asking for parts. "But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually I was too fat." Eventually, director Elmer Clifton needed a tomboy for his movie Down to the Sea in Ships, saw Bow in Motion Picture Classic magazine, and sent for her. In an attempt to overcome her youthful looks, Bow put her hair up and arrived in a dress she "sneaked" from her mother. Clifton said she was too old, but broke into laughter as the stammering Bow made him believe she was the girl in the magazine. Clifton decided to take Bow with him and offered her $35 a week. Bow held out for $50 and Clifton agreed, but he could not say whether she would "fit the part". Bow later learned that one of Brewsters' subeditors had urged Clifton to give her a chance.

Down to the Sea in Ships, shot on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and produced by independent "The Whaling Film Corporation", documented life, love, and work in the whale-hunter community. The production relied on a few less-known actors and local talents. It premiered at the Olympia Theater in New Bedford, on September 25, 1922, and went on general distribution on March 4, 1923. Bow was billed 10th in the film, but shone through:
 * "Miss Bow will undoubtedly gain fame as a screen comedienne".
 * "Clara Bow who has reached the front rank of motion picture principal player ... [has] scored a tremendous hit in Down To The Sea In Ships."
 * "With her beauty, her brains, her personality and her genuine acting ability it should not be many moons before she enjoys stardom in the fullest sense of the word. You must see 'Down to the Sea in Ships'".
 * "In movie parlance, she 'stole' the picture ..."

By mid-December 1923, primarily due to her merits in Down to the Sea in Ships, Bow was chosen the most successful of the 1924 WAMPAS Baby Stars. Three months before Down to the Sea in Ships was released, Bow danced on a table, uncredited in Enemies of Women (1923). During the year she made a short film, The Pill Pounder (1923). In spring Bow got a part in The Daring Years (1923), where she befriended actress Mary Carr, who taught her how to use make-up. In the summer, she got a "tomboy" part in Grit, a story that dealt with juvenile crime and was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bow met her first boyfriend, cameraman Arthur Jacobson, and she got to know director Frank Tuttle, with whom she worked in five later productions. Tuttle remembered:

"Her emotions were close to the surface. She could cry on demand, opening the floodgate of tears almost as soon as I asked her to weep. She was dynamite, full of nervous energy and vitality and pitifully eager to please everyone."

Grit was released on January 7, 1924. The Variety review said, "Clara Bow lingers in the eye, long after the picture has gone." While shooting Grit at Pyramid Studios, in Astoria, New York, Bow was approached by Jack Bachman of independent Hollywood studio Preferred Pictures. He wanted to contract her for a three-month trial, fare paid, and $50 a week. "It can't do any harm," he said. "Why can't I stay in New York and make movies?" Bow asked her father, but he told her not to worry. On July 21, 1923, she befriended Louella Parsons, who interviewed her for The New York Morning Telegraph. In 1931, when Bow came under tabloid scrutiny, Parsons defended her and stuck to her first opinion on Bow:

"She is as refreshingly unaffected as if she had never faced a means to pretend. She hasn't any secrets from the world, she trusts everyone ... she is almost too good to be true ... (I) only wish some reformer who believes the screen contaminates all who associate with it could meet this child. Still, on second thought it might not be safe: Clara uses a dangerous pair of eyes."

The interview also revealed that Bow already was cast in Maytime and liked chop suey restaurants.

Preferred Pictures

On July 22, 1923, Bow left New York, her father, and her boyfriend behind for Hollywood. As chaperone for the journey and her subsequent southern California stay, the studio appointed writer/agent Maxine Alton, whom Bow later branded a liar. In late July, Bow entered studio chief B. P. Schulberg's office wearing a simple high-school uniform in which she "had won several gold medals on the cinder track". She was tested and a press release from early August says Bow had become a member of Preferred Pictures' "permanent stock".

Bow signed with Preferred Pictures, also working with other studios. Alton and Bow rented an apartment at The Hillview near Hollywood Boulevard. Preferred Pictures was run by Schulberg, who had started as a publicity manager at Famous Players–Lasky, but in the aftermath of the power struggle around the formation of United Artists, ended up on the losing side and lost his job. He founded Preferred in 1919 as a result, at the age of 27.

Maytime was Bow's first Hollywood picture, an adaptation of the popular operetta Maytime, in which she essayed "Alice Tremaine". Before the film was finished, Schulberg announced that Bow was given the lead in the studio's upcoming film Poisoned Paradise. But first she was lent to First National Pictures to co-star in the adaptation of Gertrude Atherton's 1923 best seller Black Oxen, shot in October, and to co-star with Colleen Moore in Painted People, shot in November. Director Frank Lloyd was casting for the part of high-society flapper Janet Oglethorpe, and more than 50 women auditioned, most with previous screen experience. Bow reminisced: "but he had not found exactly what he wanted and finally somebody suggested me to him ... When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Lloyd told the press, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental." It was released on January 4, 1924.

"The flapper, impersonated by a young actress, Clara Bow, ... had five speaking titles, and every one of them was so entirely in accord with the character and the mood of the scene that it drew a laugh from what, in film circles, is termed a 'hard-boiled' audience." The Los Angeles Times commented that "Clara Bow, the prize vulgarian of the lot. She was amusing and spirited but she never belonged in the picture". Variety said that "the horrid little flapper is adorably played".

Colleen Moore made her flapper debut in a successful adaptation of the daring novel Flaming Youth, released November 12, 1923, six weeks before Black Oxen. Both films were produced by First National Pictures, and while Black Oxen was still being edited and Flaming Youth not yet released, Bow was requested to co-star with Moore as her kid sister in Painted People (The Swamp Angel). Moore essayed the baseball-playing tomboy and Bow, according to Moore, said "I don't like my part, I wanna play yours."

Moore, a well-established star earning $1200 a week—Bow got $200—took offense and blocked the director from shooting close-ups of Bow. Moore was married to the film's producer and Bow's protests were futile. "I'll get that bitch", she told her boyfriend Jacobson, who had arrived from New York. Bow had sinus problems and decided to have them attended to that very evening. With Bow's face now in bandages, the studio had no choice but to recast her part.

In May, Moore renewed her efforts in The Perfect Flapper, produced by her husband. Despite good reviews she suddenly withdrew. "No more flappers ... they have served their purpose ... people are tired of soda-pop love affairs", she told the Los Angeles Times, which had commented a month earlier, "Clara Bow is the one outstanding type. She has almost immediately been elected for all the recent flapper parts". In November 1933, looking back to this period of her career, Bow described the atmosphere in Hollywood as like a scene from a movie about the French Revolution, where "women are hollering and waving pitchforks twice as violently as any of the guys ... the only ladies in sight are the ones getting their heads cut off."

By New Year 1924 Bow had defied the possessive and brought her father to Hollywood. Bow remembered their reunion: "I didn't care a rap, for (her), nor B. P. Schulberg, nor my motion picture career, nor Clara Bow, I just threw myself into his arms and kissed and kissed him, and we both cried like a couple of fool kids. Oh, it was wonderful." Bow felt "Mrs Smith", the pseudonym Alton used, had misused her trust: "She wanted to keep a hold on me so she made me think I wasn't getting over and that nothing but her clever management kept me going."

Bow and her father moved in at 1714 North Kingsley Drive in Hollywood, together with Jacobson, who by then also worked for Preferred. When Schulberg learned of this arrangement, he fired Jacobson for potentially getting "his big star" into a scandal. When Bow found out, "She tore up her contract and threw it in his face and told him he couldn't run her private life." Jacobson concluded, "[Clara] was the sweetest girl in the world, but you didn't cross her and you didn't do her wrong." On September 7, 1924, The Los Angeles Times, in a significant article "A dangerous little devil is Clara, impish, appealing, but oh, how she can act!", her father is titled "business manager" and Jacobson referred to as her brother.

Bow appeared in eight releases in 1924, two were released the same day. In Poisoned Paradise, released on February 29, 1924, Bow got her first lead; "the clever little newcomer whose work wins fresh recommendations with every new picture in which she appears". Atypical of that time, her character, "skilled in the art of self-defense, preparedness and all the other devices with which the modern flapper is endowed," fearlessly beats off the villain. In Daughters of Pleasure, also released on February 29, 1924, Bow and Marie Prevost "flapped unhampered as flappers De luxe ... I wish somebody could star Clara Bow. I'm sure her 'infinite variety' would keep her from wearying us no matter how many scenes she was in."

Loaned out to Universal, Bow top-starred, for the first time, in the prohibition, bootleg drama/comedy Wine, released on August 20, 1924. The picture exposes the widespread liquor traffic in the upper classes, and Bow portrays an innocent girl who develops into a wild "red-hot mama", "a naughty, inebriated flapper". Carl Sandburg reviewed it on September 29 saying; "If not taken as information, it is cracking good entertainment". Alma Whitaker of the Los Angeles Times observed on September 7, 1924:

"She radiates sex appeal tempered with an impish sense of humor ... She hennas her blond hair so that it will photograph dark in the pictures ... Her social decorum is of that natural, good-natured, pleasantly informal kind ... She can act on or off the screen—takes a joyous delight in accepting a challenge to vamp any selected male—the more unpromising specimen the better. When the hapless victim is scared into speechlessness, she gurgles with naughty delight and tries another."

Bow remembered: "All this time I was 'running wild', I guess, in the sense of trying to have a good time ... maybe this was a good thing, because I suppose a lot of that excitement, that joy of life, got onto the screen." In 1925, Bow appeared in 14 productions: six for her contract owner, Preferred Pictures, and eight as an "out-loan". Motion Picture Classic magazine wrote in June that "Clara Bow ... shows alarming symptoms of becoming the sensation of the year", and featured her on the cover.

"I'm almost never satisfied with myself or my work or anything ... by the time I'm ready to be a great star I'll have been on the screen such a long time that everybody will be tired of seeing me ... (Tears filled her big round eyes and threatened to fall)."

"I worked in two and even three pictures at once. I played all sorts of parts in all sorts of pictures ... It was very hard at the time and I used to be worn out and cry myself to sleep from sheer fatigue after 18 hours a day on different sets, but now [Early 1928] I am glad of it."

Preferred Pictures loaned Bow to producers "for sums ranging from $1500 to $2000 a week" while paying Bow a salary of $200 to $750 a week. The studio, like any other independent studio or theater at that time, was under attack from "The Big Three", MPAA, which had formed a trust to block out Independents and enforce the monopolistic studio system. On October 21, 1925, Schulberg filed Preferred Pictures for bankruptcy, with debts at $820,774 and assets $1,420.

Three days later it was announced that Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor to become associate producer of Paramount Pictures, "catapulted into this position because he had Clara Bow under personal contract".

Adolph Zukor, Paramount Picture CEO, wrote in his memoirs: "All the skill of directors and all the booming of press-agent drums will not make a star. Only the audiences can do it. We study audience reactions with great care." Adela Rogers St. Johns had a different take. In 1950, she wrote, "If ever a star was made by public demand, it was Clara Bow." Louise Brooks in 1980 stated: "[Bow] became a star without nobody's help".

The Plastic Age was Bow's final effort for Preferred Pictures and her biggest hit up to that time. Bow starred as the good-bad college girl, Cynthia Day, against Donald Keith. It was shot on location at Pomona College in the summer of 1925, and released on December 15. Due to block booking, it was not shown in New York until July 21, 1926. Photoplay was displeased: "The college atmosphere is implausible and Clara Bow is not our idea of a college girl." Theater owners were happy, the manager of The Liberty Theater saying that "The picture is the biggest sensation we ever had in our theater ... It is 100 per cent at the box-office." Some critics felt Bow had conquered new territory, "[Bow] presents a whimsical touch to her work that adds greater laurels to her fast ascending star of screen popularity." Time singled out Bow, complimenting her on saving the picture as, "Only the amusing and facile acting of Clara Bow rescues the picture from the limbo of the impossible."

Bow began to date her co-star Gilbert Roland, who became her first fiancé. In June 1925, Bow was credited for being the first to wear hand-painted legs in public, and was reported to have many followers at the Californian beaches. Throughout the 1920s, Bow played with gender conventions and sexuality in her public image. Along with her tomboy and flapper roles, she starred in boxing films and posed for promotional photographs as a boxer. By appropriating traditionally androgynous or masculine traits, Bow presented herself as a confident, modern woman.

Paramount Pictures
"Rehearsals sap my pep", Bow explained in November 1929, and from the beginning of her career she relied on immediate direction: "Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it." Bow was keen on poetry and music, but according to Rogers St. Johns, her attention span did not allow her to appreciate novels. Bow's focal point was the scene, and her creativity made directors call in extra cameras to cover her spontaneous actions, rather than holding her down.

Years after Bow left Hollywood, director Victor Fleming compared Bow to a Stradivarius violin: "Touch her, and she responded with genius." Director William Wellman was less poetic: "Movie stardom isn't acting ability—its personality and temperament ... I once directed Clara Bow (Wings). She was mad and crazy, but WHAT a personality!". And in 1981, Budd Schulberg described Bow as "an easy winner of the dumbbell award" who "couldn't act," and compared her to a puppy that his father B. P. Schulberg "trained to become Lassie."

Bow appeared in eight releases in 1926: five for Paramount, including the film version of the musical Kid Boots with Eddie Cantor, and three loan-outs that had been filmed in 1925. In late 1925, Bow returned to New York to co-star in the Ibsenesque drama Dancing Mothers, as the good/bad "flapperish" upper-class daughter Kittens. Alice Joyce starred as her dancing mother, with Conway Tearle as "bad-boy" Naughton. The picture was released on March 1, 1926. Local reviews were very positive; "Clara Bow, known as the screen's perfect flapper, does her stuff as the child, and does it well", and "her remarkable performance in Dancing Mothers ... ". Louise Brooks remembered her in Brownlow's book; "She was absolutely sensational in the United States ... in Dancing Mothers ... she just swept the country ... I know I saw her ... and I thought ... wonderful."

On April 12, 1926, Bow signed her first contract with Paramount: "to retain your services as an actress for the period of six months from June 6, 1926 to December 6, 1926, at a salary of $750.00 per week". Bow negotiated her Paramount contract to not have a morals clause. In Victor Fleming's comedy-triangle Mantrap Bow, as Alverna the manicurist, cures lonely hearts Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence) of the great northern, as well as pill-popping New York divorce attorney runaway Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont). Bow commented: "(Alverna] ... was bad in the book, but—darn it!—of course, they couldn't make her that way in the picture. So I played her as a flirt."

The film was released on July 24, 1926, to rave reviews. Variety said that "Clara Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she walks into camera range", while Photoplay told readers that "When she is on the screen nothing else matters. When she is off, the same is true." Carl Sandburg wrote that it was "The smartest and swiftest work as yet seen from Miss Clara Bow." and Sam Carver of the Newman Theater was quoted in The Reel Journal as saying that "Clara Bow is taking the place of Gloria Swanson...(and)...filling a long need for a popular taste movie actress." On August 16, 1926, Bow's agreement with Paramount was renewed into a five-year deal: "Her salary will start at $1700 a week and advance yearly to $4000 a week for the last year." Bow added that she intended to leave the motion picture business at the expiration of the contract, i.e., in 1931. In 1927 Bow appeared in six Paramount releases: It, Children of Divorce, Rough House Rosie, Wings, Hula and Get Your Man. In the Cinderella based story It, the poor shop-girl Betty Lou Spence (Bow) conquers the heart of her employer Cyrus Waltham (Antonio Moreno). The personal quality—"It"— provides the magic to make it happen. The film gave Bow her nickname, "The 'It' Girl." Reviews were nothing less than outstanding: The New York Times said that "(Bow)...is vivacious and, as Betty Lou, saucy, which perhaps is one of the ingredients of It."

The Film Daily wrote that "Clara Bow gets a real chance and carries it off with honors...(and)...she is really the whole show", and Variety said "You can't get away from this Clara Bow girl. She certainly has that certain 'It'...and she just runs away with the film." Carl Sandburg wrote that "'It' is smart, funny and real. It makes a full-sized star of Clara Bow." Dorothy Parker is often said to have referred to Bow when she wrote, "It, hell; she had Those." Parker in actuality was not referring to Bow or to Bow's character in the film It, but to a different character, Ava Cleveland, in the novel of the same name.

In 1927, Bow starred in Wings, a war picture rewritten to accommodate her, as she was Paramount's biggest star, but was not happy about her part: "[Wings is]...a man's picture and I'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie." The film went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1928, Bow appeared in four Paramount releases: Red Hair, Ladies of the Mob, The Fleet's In, and Three Week-Ends, all of which are lost. Adela Rogers St. Johns, a noted screenwriter who had done a number of pictures with Bow, wrote about her:

"[T]here seems to be no pattern, no purpose to her life. She swings from one emotion to another, but she gains nothing, stores up nothing for the future. She lives entirely in the present, not even for today, but in the moment. Clara is the total nonconformist. What she wants she gets, if she can. What she desires to do she does. She has a big heart, a remarkable brain, and the most utter contempt for the world in general. Time doesn't exist for her, except that she thinks it will stop tomorrow. She has real courage, because she lives boldly. Who are we, after all, to say she is wrong?"

Bow's bohemian lifestyle and "dreadful" manners were considered reminders of the Hollywood elite's uneasy position in high society. Bow fumed: "They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples for me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs ... I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!" MGM executive Paul Bern said Bow was "the greatest emotional actress on the screen, ... she is sentimental, simple, childish and sweet and the hard-boiled attitude is a defense mechanism."

Sound films

With "talkies" The Wild Party, Dangerous Curves, and The Saturday Night Kid, all released in 1929, Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood. Neither the quality of Bow's voice nor her Brooklyn accent was an issue to Bow, her fans, or Paramount. However, Bow, like Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks, and most other silent film stars, did not embrace the novelty: "I hate talkies ... they're stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there's no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me."

A visibly nervous Bow had to do a number of retakes in The Wild Party because her eyes kept wandering up to the microphone overhead. "I can't buck progress ... I have to do the best I can," she said. In October 1929 Bow described her nerves as "all shot", saying that she had reached "the breaking point", and Photoplay cited reports of "rows of bottles of sedatives" by her bed. "Now they're having me sing. I sort of half-sing, half-talk, with hips-and-eye stuff. You know what I mean—like Maurice Chevalier. I used to sing at home and people would say, 'Pipe down! You're terrible!' But the studio thinks my voice is great."

With Paramount on Parade, True to the Navy, Love Among the Millionaires, and Her Wedding Night, Bow was second at the box-office only to Joan Crawford in 1930. With No Limit and Kick In, Bow held the position as fifth at box-office in 1931, but the pressures of fame, public scandals, and overwork, took their toll on Bow's fragile emotional health.

A damaging court trial charged her secretary Daisy DeVoe with financial mismanagement, by Paramount-friendly officials: Los Angeles District Attorney Buron Fitts, Assistant District Attorney David Clark, and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Doran.

According to the 1930 census, Bow lived at 512 Bedford Drive, together with her secretary and hairdresser, Daisy DeBoe (later DeVoe), in a house valued $25,000 with neighbors titled "Horse-keeper", "Physician", "Builder". Bow stated she was 23 years old, i.e., born 1906, contradicting the censuses of 1910 and 1920.

As she slipped closer to a major breakdown her manager, B.P. Schulberg, began referring to her as "Crisis-a-day-Clara". In April, Bow was taken to a sanatorium and, at her request, Paramount released her from her final undertaking: City Streets (1931). At 25 her career was essentially over. B. P. Schulberg tried to replace Bow with his girlfriend Sylvia Sidney, but Paramount went into receivership, lost its position as the biggest studio (to MGM), and fired Schulberg. David Selznick explained:

"...[when] Bow was at her height in pictures we could make a story with her in it and gross a million and a half, where another actress would gross half a million in the same picture and with the same cast.—Selznick"

Bow left Hollywood for Rex Bell's ranch in Nevada, her "desert paradise", in June and married him in then small-town Las Vegas in December. In an interview on December 17, Bow detailed her way back to health: sleep, exercise, and food, and the day after it she returned to Hollywood "for the sole purpose of making enough money to be able to stay out of it." Soon every studio in Hollywood (except Paramount) and even overseas wanted her services. Mary Pickford stated that Bow "was a very great actress" and wanted her to play her sister in Secrets (1933),

Howard Hughes offered her a three-picture deal, and MGM wanted her to star in Red-Headed Woman (1932). Bow agreed to the script, but eventually rejected the offer since Irving Thalberg required her to sign a long-term contract. On April 28, 1932, Bow signed a two-picture deal with Fox Film Corporation, for Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933). Both were successful. Variety favored Hoop-La. The October 1934, Family Circle Film Guide rated the film as "pretty good entertainment" and stated: "This is the most acceptable bit of talkie acting Miss Bow has done." However, they noted, "Miss Bow is presented in her dancing duds as often as possible, and her dancing duds wouldn't weigh two pounds soaking wet." Bow commented on her revealing costume in Hoop-La: "Rex accused me of enjoying showing myself off. Then I got a little sore. He knew darn well I was doing it because we could use a little money these days. Who can't?"

Bow reflected on her career:

"My life in Hollywood contained plenty of uproar. I'm sorry for a lot of it but not awfully sorry. I never did anything to hurt anyone else. I made a place for myself on the screen and you can't do that by being Mrs. Alcott's idea of a Little Woman."

Retirement and later years

Bow and actor Rex Bell (later a lieutenant governor of Nevada) had two sons, Tony Beldam (born 1934, changed name to Rex Anthony Bell, Jr., died 2011) and George Beldam, Jr. (born 1938). Bow retired from acting in 1933. In September 1937, she and Bell opened The 'It' Cafe in the Hollywood Plaza Hotel at 1637 N Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. It closed in 1943. Her last public performance, albeit fleeting, came in 1947 on the radio show Truth or Consequences. Bow was the mystery voice in the show's "Mrs. Hush" contest.

Health issues
"All the time the flapper is laughing and dancing, there's a feeling of tragedy underneath, she's unhappy and disillusioned, and that's what people sense."

Bow eventually began showing symptoms of psychiatric illness. She became socially withdrawn and, although she refused to socialize with her husband, she also refused to let him leave the house alone. In 1944, while Bell was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Bow attempted suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life.

In 1949, she checked into The Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains. Shock treatment was tried and numerous psychological tests performed. Bow's IQ was measured "bright normal", while others claimed she was unable to reason, had poor judgment and displayed inappropriate or even bizarre behavior. Her pains were considered delusional and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia; however, she experienced neither auditory nor visual hallucinations. Analysts tied the onset of the illness, as well as her insomnia, to the "butcher knife episode" back in 1922, but Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the institute. She did not return to her family. After leaving the institution, Bow lived alone in a bungalow, which she rarely left, until her death.

Death

Bow spent her last years in Culver City, under the constant care of a nurse, Estalla Smith, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. In 1965, at age 60, she died of a heart attack, which her autopsy attributed to atherosclerosis. She was interred in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her pallbearers were Harry Richman, Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dempsey, and Buddy Rogers.

Legacy
Film historian Leonard Maltin said in 1999: "You think of Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish, all these great names, great actresses. Clara Bow was more popular in terms of box-office dollars, in terms of consistently bringing audiences into the theaters. She was right on top." In 1999 the American Film Institute excluded Bow from its finalized "100 Years...100 Stars" list, although she was on the list of nominees.

Film historian Kevin Brownlow did not mention Bow in his 1968 book on silent films, The Parade's Gone By. Louise Brooks, who received an entire chapter in the book, wrote to Brownlow, "You brush off Clara Bow for some old nothing like Brooks. Clara made three pictures that will never be surpassed: Dancing Mothers, Mantrap, and It." In a conversation with filmmaker Thomas Hamilton, Brownlow explained that he had planned to include a chapter on Bow but was unable to secure an interview with the reclusive star before her death, and since all chapters were based on first-hand accounts, it would have been inconsistent to include a chapter based on second-hand anecdotes. Brownlow made up for this omission by including an entire segment about Bow in his television documentary Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980), for which he interviewed Brooks.

Awards and honors

 * For her contributions to the film industry, Bow was awarded a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Her star is located at 1500 Vine Street.
 * In 1994, she was honored with an image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

In popular culture

 * Max Fleischer's cartoon character Betty Boop was modelled after Bow's appearance and after the voice of entertainer Helen Kane (the "boop-boop-a-doop-girl").
 * Bow's mass of tangled red hair was one of her most famous features. When fans of the new star found out she put henna in her hair, sales of the dye tripled.
 * An autographed picture of Bow is offered as a consolation prize of a beauty contest in the 1931 George Gershwin musical Of Thee I Sing.
 * During her lifetime, Bow was the subject of wild rumors regarding her sex life; many of them were untrue. A tabloid called The Coast Reporter published lurid allegations about her in 1931, accusing her of exhibitionism, incest, lesbianism, bestiality, drug addiction, alcoholism, and having contracted a venereal disease. The publisher of the tabloid then tried to blackmail Bow, offering to cease printing the stories for $25,000, which led to his arrest by federal agents and, later, an eight-year prison sentence.
 * The lead character of Peppy Miller from the 2011 film The Artist was inspired principally by Clara Bow, and in playing the part, actress Bérénice Bejo invoked many of Bow's screen mannerisms.
 * Bow inspired the name of the player character Laura Bow in the video games The Colonel's Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra.
 * On July 5, 2016, Variety announced that Silver Bullet Entertainment and MJW Media were producing a film based on David Stenn's biography, Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild.
 * Bow is mentioned in the Prince song "Condition of the Heart" from his 1985 album Around the World in a Day.
 * "Clara Bow" is also the title of a song on alternative rock-band 50 Foot Wave's debut album 50 Foot Wave.
 * The song "Picture Show" in the Broadway musical Bonnie and Clyde mentions "Clara Bow", the "It Girl", to reference a movie star.
 * The 16th track and closing song on Taylor Swift's 2024 studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, is titled "Clara Bow", and references the struggles of stardom encountered by Bow.

Fictional portrayals

 * Bow was played by Jennifer Tilly in the motion picture Return to Babylon (2013).
 * Margot Robbie plays a fictionalized character based on Bow in the 2022 film Babylon.

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

title: Clara Bow


text:
Soil pH

Soil pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity (alkalinity) of a soil. Soil pH is a key characteristic that can be used to make informative analysis both qualitative and quantitatively regarding soil characteristics. pH is defined as the negative logarithm (base 10) of the activity of hydronium ions ( or, more precisely, ) in a solution. In soils, it is measured in a slurry of soil mixed with water (or a salt solution, such as $0.01 M$ ), and normally falls between 3 and 10, with 7 being neutral. Acid soils have a pH below 7 and alkaline soils have a pH above 7. Ultra-acidic soils (pH < 3.5) and very strongly alkaline soils (pH > 9) are rare.

Soil pH is considered a master variable in soils as it affects many chemical processes. It specifically affects plant nutrient availability by controlling the chemical forms of the different nutrients and influencing the chemical reactions they undergo. The optimum pH range for most plants is between 5.5 and 7.5; however, many plants have adapted to thrive at pH values outside this range.

Classification of soil pH ranges
The United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service classifies soil pH ranges as follows:

Determining pH
Methods of determining pH include:
 * Observation of soil profile: certain profile characteristics can be indicators of either acid, saline, or sodic conditions. Examples are:
 * Poor incorporation of the organic surface layer with the underlying mineral layer – this can indicate strongly acidic soils;
 * The classic podzol horizon sequence, since podzols are strongly acidic: in these soils, a pale eluvial (E) horizon lies under the organic surface layer and overlies a dark B horizon;
 * Presence of a caliche layer indicates the presence of calcium carbonates, which are present in alkaline conditions;
 * Columnar structure can be an indicator of sodic condition.
 * Observation of predominant flora. Calcifuge plants (those that prefer an acidic soil) include Erica, Rhododendron and nearly all other Ericaceae species, many birch (Betula), foxglove (Digitalis), gorse (Ulex spp.), and Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris). Calcicole (lime loving) plants include ash trees (Fraxinus spp.), honeysuckle (Lonicera), Buddleja, dogwoods (Cornus spp.), lilac (Syringa) and Clematis species.
 * Use of an inexpensive pH testing kit, where in a small sample of soil is mixed with indicator solution which changes colour according to the acidity.
 * Use of litmus paper. A small sample of soil is mixed with distilled water, into which a strip of litmus paper is inserted. If the soil is acidic the paper turns red, if basic, blue.
 * Certain other fruit and vegetable pigments also change color in response to changing pH. Blueberry juice turns more reddish if acid is added, and becomes indigo if titrated with sufficient base to yield a high pH. Red cabbage is similarly affected.
 * Use of a commercially available electronic pH meter, in which a glass or solid-state electrode is inserted into moistened soil or a mixture (suspension) of soil and water; the pH is usually read on a digital display screen.
 * In the 2010s, spectrophotometric methods were developed to measure soil pH involving addition of an indicator dye to the soil extract. These compare well to glass electrode measurements but offer substantial advantages such as lack of drift, liquid junction and suspension effects.

Precise, repeatable measures of soil pH are required for scientific research and monitoring. This generally entails laboratory analysis using a standard protocol; an example of such a protocol is that in the USDA Soil Survey Field and Laboratory Methods Manual. In this document the three-page protocol for soil pH measurement includes the following sections: Application; Summary of Method; Interferences; Safety; Equipment; Reagents; and Procedure.

Factors affecting soil pH
The pH of a natural soil depends on the mineral composition of the parent material of the soil, and the weathering reactions undergone by that parent material. In warm, humid environments, soil acidification occurs over time as the products of weathering are leached by water moving laterally or downwards through the soil. In dry climates, however, soil weathering and leaching are less intense and soil pH is often neutral or alkaline.

Sources of acidity
Many processes contribute to soil acidification. These include:
 * Rainfall: Average rainfall has a pH of 5.6 and is moderately acidic due to dissolved atmospheric carbon dioxide  that combines with water to form carbonic acid .  When this water flows through the soil it results in the leaching of basic cations as bicarbonates; this increases the percentage of  and  relative to other cations.
 * Root respiration and decomposition of organic matter by microorganisms release which increases the carbonic acid  concentration and subsequent leaching.
 * Plant growth: Plants take up nutrients in the form of ions (e.g., , , ), and they often take up more cations than anions. However, plants must maintain a neutral charge in their roots. In order to compensate for the extra positive charge, they will release ions from the root. Some plants also exude organic acids into the soil to acidify the zone around their roots to help solubilize metal nutrients that are insoluble at neutral pH, such as iron (Fe).
 * Fertilizer use: Ammonium fertilizers react in the soil by the process of nitrification to form nitrate, and in the process release  ions.
 * Acid rain: The burning of fossil fuels releases oxides of sulfur and nitrogen into the atmosphere. These react with water in the atmosphere to form sulfuric and nitric acid in rain.
 * Oxidative weathering: Oxidation of some primary minerals, especially sulfides and those containing, generate acidity. This process is often accelerated by human activity:
 * Mine spoil: Severely acidic conditions can form in soils near some mine spoils due to the oxidation of pyrite.
 * Acid sulfate soils formed naturally in waterlogged coastal and estuarine environments can become highly acidic when drained or excavated.

Sources of alkalinity
Total soil alkalinity increases with:
 * Weathering of silicate, aluminosilicate and carbonate minerals containing, , and ;
 * Addition of silicate, aluminosilicate and carbonate minerals to soils; this may happen by deposition of material eroded elsewhere by wind or water, or by mixing of the soil with less weathered material (such as the addition of limestone to acid soils);
 * Addition of water containing dissolved bicarbonates (as occurs when irrigating with high-bicarbonate waters).

The accumulation of alkalinity in a soil (as carbonates and bicarbonates of Na, K, Ca and Mg) occurs when there is insufficient water flowing through the soils to leach soluble salts. This may be due to arid conditions, or poor internal soil drainage; in these situations most of the water that enters the soil is transpired (taken up by plants) or evaporates, rather than flowing through the soil.

The soil pH usually increases when the total alkalinity increases, but the balance of the added cations also has a marked effect on the soil pH. For example, increasing the amount of sodium in an alkaline soil tends to induce dissolution of calcium carbonate, which increases the pH. Calcareous soils may vary in pH from 7.0 to 9.5, depending on the degree to which or  dominate the soluble cations.

Acid soils
High levels of aluminium occur near mining sites; small amounts of aluminium are released to the environment at the coal-fired power plants or incinerators. Aluminium in the air is washed out by the rain or normally settles down but small particles of aluminium remain in the air for a long time.

Acidic precipitation is the main natural factor to mobilize aluminium from natural sources and the main reason for the environmental effects of aluminium; however, the main factor of presence of aluminium in salt and freshwater are the industrial processes that also release aluminium into air. Plants grown in acid soils can experience a variety of stresses including aluminium (Al), hydrogen (H), and/or manganese (Mn) toxicity, as well as nutrient deficiencies of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg).

Aluminium toxicity is the most widespread problem in acid soils. Aluminium is present in all soils to varying degrees, but dissolved Al3+ is toxic to plants; Al3+ is most soluble at low pH; above pH 5.0, there is little Al in soluble form in most soils. Aluminium is not a plant nutrient, and as such, is not actively taken up by the plants, but enters plant roots passively through osmosis. Aluminium can exist in many different forms and is a responsible agent for limiting growth in various parts of the world. Aluminium tolerance studies have been conducted in different plant species to see viable thresholds and concentrations exposed along with function upon exposure. Aluminium inhibits root growth; lateral roots and root tips become thickened and roots lack fine branching; root tips may turn brown. In the root, the initial effect of Al3+ is the inhibition of the expansion of the cells of the rhizodermis, leading to their rupture; thereafter it is known to interfere with many physiological processes including the uptake and transport of calcium and other essential nutrients, cell division, cell wall formation, and enzyme activity.

Proton (H+ ion) stress can also limit plant growth. The proton pump, H+-ATPase, of the plasmalemma of root cells works to maintain the near-neutral pH of their cytoplasm. A high proton activity (pH within the range 3.0–4.0 for most plant species) in the external growth medium overcomes the capacity of the cell to maintain the cytoplasmic pH and growth shuts down.

In soils with a high content of manganese-containing minerals, Mn toxicity can become a problem at pH 5.6 and lower. Manganese, like aluminium, becomes increasingly soluble as pH drops, and Mn toxicity symptoms can be seen at pH levels below 5.6. Manganese is an essential plant nutrient, so plants transport Mn into leaves. Classic symptoms of Mn toxicity are crinkling or cupping of leaves.

Nutrient availability in relation to soil pH

Soil pH affects the availability of some plant nutrients:

As discussed above, aluminium toxicity has direct effects on plant growth; however, by limiting root growth, it also reduces the availability of plant nutrients. Because roots are damaged, nutrient uptake is reduced, and deficiencies of the macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium) are frequently encountered in very strongly acidic to ultra-acidic soils (pH<5.0). When aluminum levels increase in the soil, it decreases the pH levels. This does not allow for trees to take up water, meaning they cannot photosynthesize, leading them to die. The trees can also develop yellowish colour on their leaves and veins.

Molybdenum availability is increased at higher pH; this is because the molybdate ion is more strongly sorbed by clay particles at lower pH.

Zinc, iron, copper and manganese show decreased availability at higher pH (increased sorption at higher pH).

The effect of pH on phosphorus availability varies considerably, depending on soil conditions and the crop in question. The prevailing view in the 1940s and 1950s was that P availability was maximized near neutrality (soil pH 6.5–7.5), and decreased at higher and lower pH. Interactions of phosphorus with pH in the moderately to slightly acidic range (pH 5.5–6.5) are, however, far more complex than is suggested by this view. Laboratory tests, glasshouse trials and field trials have indicated that increases in pH within this range may increase, decrease, or have no effect on P availability to plants.

Water availability in relation to soil pH
Strongly alkaline soils are sodic and dispersive, with slow infiltration, low hydraulic conductivity and poor available water capacity. Plant growth is severely restricted because aeration is poor when the soil is wet; while in dry conditions, plant-available water is rapidly depleted and the soils become hard and cloddy (high soil strength). The higher the pH in the soil, the less water available to be distributed to the plants and organisms that depend on it. With a decreased pH, this does not allow for plants to uptake water like they normally would. This causes them to not be able to photosynthesize.

Many strongly acidic soils, on the other hand, have strong aggregation, good internal drainage, and good water-holding characteristics. However, for many plant species, aluminium toxicity severely limits root growth, and moisture stress can occur even when the soil is relatively moist.

Plant pH preferences
In general terms, different plant species are adapted to soils of different pH ranges. For many species, the suitable soil pH range is fairly well known. Online databases of plant characteristics, such as USDA PLANTS and Plants for a Future can be used to look up the suitable soil pH range of a wide range of plants. Documents like Ellenberg's indicator values for British plants can also be consulted.

However, a plant may be intolerant of a particular pH in some soils as a result of a particular mechanism, and that mechanism may not apply in other soils. For example, a soil low in molybdenum may not be suitable for soybean plants at pH 5.5, but soils with sufficient molybdenum allow optimal growth at that pH. Similarly, some calcifuges (plants intolerant of high-pH soils) can tolerate calcareous soils if sufficient phosphorus is supplied. Another confounding factor is that different varieties of the same species often have different suitable soil pH ranges. Plant breeders can use this to breed varieties that can tolerate conditions that are otherwise considered unsuitable for that species – examples are projects to breed aluminium-tolerant and manganese-tolerant varieties of cereal crops for food production in strongly acidic soils.

The table below gives suitable soil pH ranges for some widely cultivated plants as found in the USDA PLANTS Database. Some species (like Pinus radiata and Opuntia ficus-indica) tolerate only a narrow range in soil pH, whereas others (such as Vetiveria zizanioides) tolerate a very wide pH range.

In natural or near-natural plant communities, the various pH preferences of plant species (or ecotypes) at least partly determine the composition and biodiversity of vegetation. While both very low and very high pH values are detrimental to plant growth, there is an increasing trend of plant biodiversity along the range from extremely acidic (pH 3.5) to strongly alkaline (pH 9) soils, i.e. there are more calcicole than calcifuge species, at least in terrestrial environments. Although widely reported and supported by experimental results, the observed increase of plant species richness with pH is still in need of a clearcut explanation. Competitive exclusion between plant species with overlapping pH ranges most probably contributes to the observed shifts of vegetation composition along pH gradients.

pH effects on soil biota
Soil biota (soil microflora, soil animals) are sensitive to soil pH, either directly upon contact or after soil ingestion or indirectly through the various soil properties to which pH contributes (e.g. nutrient status, metal toxicity, humus form). According to the various physiological and behavioural adaptations of soil biota, the species composition of soil microbial and animal communities varies with soil pH. Along altitudinal gradients, changes in the species distribution of soil animal and microbial communities can be at least partly ascribed to variation in soil pH. The shift from toxic to non-toxic forms of aluminium around pH5 marks the passage from acid-tolerance to acid-intolerance, with few changes in the species composition of soil communities above this threshold, even in calcareous soils. Soil animals exhibit distinct pH preferences when allowed to exert a choice along a range of pH values, explaining that various field distributions of soil organisms, motile microbes included, could at least partly result from active movement along pH gradients. Like for plants, competition between acido-tolerant and acido-intolerant soil-dwelling organisms was suspected to play a role in the shifts in species composition observed along pH ranges.

The opposition between acido-tolerance and acido-intolerance is commonly observed at species level within a genus or at genus level within a family, but it also occurs at much higher taxonomic rank, like between soil fungi and bacteria, here too with a strong involvement of competition. It has been suggested that soil organisms more tolerant of soil acidity, and thus living mainly in soils at pH less than 5, were more primitive than those intolerant of soil acidity. A cladistic analysis on the collembolan genus Willemia showed that tolerance to soil acidity was correlated with tolerance of other stress factors and that stress tolerance was an ancestral character in this genus. However the generality of these findings remains to be established.

At low pH, the oxidative stress induced by aluminium (Al3+) affects soil animals the body of which is not protected by a thick chitinous exoskeleton like in arthropods, and thus are in more direct contact with the soil solution, e.g. protists, nematodes, rotifers (microfauna), enchytraeids (mesofauna) and earthworms (macrofauna).

Effects of pH on soil biota can be mediated by the various functional interactions of soil foodwebs. It has been shown experimentally that the collembolan Heteromurus nitidus, commonly living in soils at pH higher than 5, could be cultured in more acid soils provided that predators were absent. Its attraction to earthworm excreta (mucus, urine, faeces), mediated by ammonia emission, provides food and shelter within earthworm burrows in mull humus forms associated with less acid soils.

Effects of soil biota on soil pH
Soil biota affect soil pH directly through excretion, and indirectly by acting on the physical environment. Many soil fungi, although not all of them, acidify the soil by excreting oxalic acid, a product of their respiratory metabolism. Oxalic acid precipitates calcium, forming insoluble crystals of calcium oxalate and thus depriving the soil solution from this necessary element. On the opposite side, earthworms exert a buffering effect on soil pH through their excretion of mucus, endowed with amphoteric properties.

By mixing organic matter with mineral matter, in particular clay particles, and by adding mucus as a glue for some of them, burrowing soil animals, e.g. fossorial rodents, moles, earthworms, termites, some millipedes and fly larvae, contribute to decrease the natural acidity of raw organic matter, as observed in mull humus forms.

Increasing pH of acidic soil
Finely ground agricultural lime is often applied to acid soils to increase soil pH (liming). The amount of limestone or chalk needed to change pH is determined by the mesh size of the lime (how finely it is ground) and the buffering capacity of the soil. A high mesh size (60 mesh = 0.25 mm; 100 mesh = 0.149 mm) indicates a finely ground lime that will react quickly with soil acidity. The buffering capacity of a soil depends on the clay content of the soil, the type of clay, and the amount of organic matter present, and may be related to the soil cation exchange capacity. Soils with high clay content will have a higher buffering capacity than soils with little clay, and soils with high organic matter will have a higher buffering capacity than those with low organic matter. Soils with higher buffering capacity require a greater amount of lime to achieve an equivalent change in pH. The buffering of soil pH is often directly related to the quantity of aluminium in soil solution and taking up exchange sites as part of the cation exchange capacity. This aluminium can be measured in a soil test in which it is extracted from the soil with a salt solution, and then is quantified with a laboratory analysis. Then, using the initial soil pH and the aluminium content, the amount of lime needed to raise the pH to a desired level can be calculated.

Amendments other than agricultural lime that can be used to increase the pH of soil include wood ash, industrial calcium oxide (burnt lime), magnesium oxide, basic slag (calcium silicate), and oyster shells. These products increase the pH of soils through various acid–base reactions. Calcium silicate neutralizes active acidity in the soil by reacting with H+ ions to form monosilicic acid (H4SiO4), a neutral solute.

Decreasing the pH of alkaline soil
The pH of an alkaline soil can be reduced by adding acidifying agents or acidic organic materials. Elemental sulfur (90–99% S) has been used at application rates of 300 - 500 kg/ha – it slowly oxidizes in soil to form sulfuric acid. Acidifying fertilizers, such as ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate and urea, can help to reduce the pH of a soil because ammonium oxidises to form nitric acid. Acidifying organic materials include peat or sphagnum peat moss.

However, in high-pH soils with a high calcium carbonate content (more than 2%), it can be very costly and/or ineffective to attempt to reduce the pH with acids. In such cases, it is often more efficient to add phosphorus, iron, manganese, copper and/or zinc instead, because deficiencies of these nutrients are the most common reasons for poor plant growth in calcareous soils.

title: Soil pH


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Childebert I

Childebert I (c. 496 – 13 December 558) was a Frankish King of the Merovingian dynasty, as third of the four sons of Clovis I who shared the kingdom of the Franks upon their father's death in 511. He was one of the sons of Saint Clotilda, born at Reims. He reigned as King of Paris from 511 to 558 and Orléans from 524 to 558.

Biography
In the partition of the realm, Childebert received as his share the town of Paris, the country to the north as far as the river Somme, to the west as far as the English Channel, and the Armorican peninsula (modern Brittany). His brothers ruled in different lands: Theuderic I in Metz, Chlodomer in Orléans, and Chlothar I in Soissons.

In 523, Childebert participated with his brothers in a war against Godomar of Burgundy. Chlodomer died in the Battle of Vézeronce (524). Thereafter, concerned that the three sons of Chlodomer would inherit the kingdom of Orléans, Chlothar conspired with Childebert to oust them. They sent a representative to their mother, Clotilde. The representative presented a pair of scissors and a sword, offering her the choice to shear the three young boys, thereby depriving them of the long hair considered a symbol of royal power, or to have them killed. She famously replied, "It is better for me to see them dead rather than shorn, if they are not raised to the kingship". After the murder of Chlodomer's two elder children—the third, Clodoald, escaping to a monastic life—Childebert annexed the cities of Chartres and Orléans.

He took part in later various expeditions against the kingdom of Burgundy. He besieged Autun in 532 and, in 534, having conquered the kingdom along with his brother Chlothar and Theuderic's son Theudebert I, received as his share of the spoils of that kingdom the towns of Mâcon, Geneva and Lyons. When Witiges, the king of the Ostrogoths, ceded Provence to the Franks in 535, the possession of Arles and Marseille was guaranteed to Childebert by his brothers. The annexation of that province was completed, with Clotaire's help, in the winter of 536–537.

In 531, he received pleas from his sister Chrotilda, wife of King Amalaric of the Visigoths. The Arian king of Hispania, Chrotilda claimed, was grossly mistreating her, a Catholic. Childebert went down with an army and defeated the Gothic king. Amalaric retreated to Barcelona, where he was assassinated. Chrotilda died on her return journey to Paris of unknown causes.

Childebert made other expeditions against the Visigoths. In 542, he took possession of Pamplona with the help of his brother Clotaire and besieged Zaragoza, but was forced to retreat. From this expedition he brought back to Paris a precious relic, the tunic of Saint Vincent, in honour of which he built at the gates of Paris the famous monastery of Sainte-Croix-et-Saint-Vincent, known later as St-Germain-des-Prés.

He died on 13 December 558, and was buried in the abbey he had founded, where his tomb has been discovered. St-Germain-des-Prés became the royal necropolis for the Neustrian kings until 675. He left two daughters, Chrodoberge and Chrodesinde, by his wife Ultragotha. Childebert was an acquisitive monarch. He expanded his domains in more foreign wars than any of his brothers, fighting in Burgundy (more than once), Spain (more than once), Provence and elsewhere in Gaul. Gregory of Tours, a contemporary Neustrian, cites Childebert as saying: "Velim unquam Arvernam Lemanem quae tantae jocunditatis gratia refulgere dicitur, oculis cernere" ("Would that I could set eyes on the Auvergne Limagne, which is spoken of so highly"). Childbert was also one of the more religious of the sons of Clovis, cooperating with his brothers, rescuing his sister, and constructing the famous monastery of Saint Vincent to house his relics.

title: Childebert I


text:
Childebert II

Childebert II (c.570–596) was the Merovingian king of Austrasia (which included Provence at the time) from 575 until his death in March 596, and the king of Burgundy from 592 to his death, as the adopted son of his uncle Guntram.

Childhood
Born c. 570, Childebert was the son of Sigebert I and Brunhilda of Austrasia. When his father was assassinated in 575 by two slaves of Queen-consort Fredegund of Soissons, Childebert was taken from Paris by Gundobald (according to one story, after being lowered from a window in a bag by his mother), one of his faithful lords, to Metz (the Austrasian capital), where he was recognized as sovereign. He was then only five years old, and during his long minority the power was disputed between his mother Brunhilda and the nobles, with Brunhilda being dominant until Childebert came of age in 585.

Chilperic I, king at Paris, and the Burgundian king Guntram, sought an alliance with Childebert, who was adopted by both in turn. Because Guntram was lord of half of Marseille, the district of Provence became a centre of a brief dispute between the two.

Guntram allied with Dynamius of Provence, who instigated the canons of the Diocese of Uzès to elect their deacon Marcellus, as bishop in opposition to their already-elected bishop Jovinus, a former governor of Provence. While Jovinus and Theodore, Bishop of Marseille, were travelling to the court of Childebert, Guntram had them arrested. Dynamius, meanwhile, blocked Gundulf, a duke of an important senatorial family and Childebert's former domesticus, from entering Marseille on behalf of Childebert. Eventually he was forced to yield, though he later arrested Theodore again and had him sent to Guntram. Childebert replaced him in Provence by Nicetius (585). Despite his revolt, Childebert formally restored Dynamius to favour on 28 November 587.

Heir, king and war leader
With the assassination of Chilperic in 584 and the dangers occasioned to the French monarchy by the expedition of Gundoald in 585, Childebert threw himself unreservedly to the side of Guntram. By the Treaty of Andelot of 587, Childebert was recognised as Guntram's heir, and with his uncle's help in 587 he quelled the revolt of Dukes Rauching, Ursio, and Berthefried, and succeeded in seizing the castle of Woëvre. Many attempts were made on his life by Fredegund, wife of Chilperic, who was anxious to secure Guntram's inheritance for her son Clotaire II. Childebert II had relations with the Byzantine Empire, and fought on several occasions in the name of the Emperor Maurice against the Lombards in Italy, with limited success.

With Guntram, he authorized the Irish monk Saint Colomban to found the abbey of Luxeuil and two other monasteries in the heart of the Vosges and to work with his monks in the various missions and foundations in all the Frankish kingdoms.

On the death of Guntram in 592, Childebert annexed the kingdom of Burgundy, and even contemplated seizing Clotaire's estates and becoming sole king of the Franks. However, he and his young wife Faileuba died after being poisoned in 596. He and Faileuba had: the older, Theudebert II, inherited Austrasia with its capital at Metz, and the younger, Theuderic II, received Guntram's former kingdom of Burgundy, with its capital at Orléans.

title: Childebert II