Bartholomew
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Bartholomew. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Massacre of St., in French history, a slaughter of Protestants by the Catholics on the night of St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1572. France had been plunged into civil war, but at this time the Protestants and Catholics were nominally at peace. They were engaged in bitter strife for the control of the government. Assassinations had been perpetrated by both sides, and party feeling ran high. Catherine de Medici, the mother of the king, is blamed for the guilty deed. A midnight bell gave the signal. The Catholics fell upon their neighbors unawares. De Coligni, the venerable leader of the Huguenots, and many thousand Protestants were slain. Companies of soldiers ran from house to house butchering and killing, flinging the dead bodies of the slain into the streets. The butchery was continued for a number of days, and orders were sent into the provinces to exterminate root and branch. To their credit, be it said, many governors refused to stain their hands in the blood of their fellow citizens. The massacre belongs to a bloody period of history and is not to be judged by modern standards. It was due to a mixture of bigotry and political passion. The feelings of the excitable French people were no doubt played upon by the Italian advisers of the queen, who persuaded them that their lives, and the very existence of France, were in danger. At Rome, the slaughter was reported as a great victory over a conspiracy of the Huguenots who had banded together to murder the king and establish the Protestant religion. The authorities accordingly ordered the Te Deum to be chanted and a medal struck off commemorating the glorious event. Authorities estimate the number of slain variously at from thirty to seventy thousand. See Coligni ; Huguenot; Catherine De Medici
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ST., the apostle, probably the same person as Nathanael, mentioned, in the Gospel of St. John, as an upright Israelite, and one of the first disciples of Jesus. He is said to have taught Christianity in the south of Arabia, and to have carried there the Gospel of St. Matthew, in the Hebrew language, according to Eusebius. Chrysostom mentions that he preached in Armenia and Natolia. The ancient church had an apocryphal Gospel bearing his name, of which nothing has been preserved. The Catholic Church celebrates a feast in his honor , on the 24th of August.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account puts the dead at "from thirty to seventy thousand"; modern historians work with far smaller figures, on the order of two to three thousand killed in Paris and perhaps five to ten thousand in the provincial massacres that followed. The old confidence that Catherine de Medici was simply "blamed for the guilty deed" has also softened: scholars now read the killings as beginning with a royal council decision to eliminate Coligny and the Huguenot leadership after the failed attempt on his life, which then spilled into uncontrolled mob violence the crown could not stop. The medal Aiton mentions was real, struck under Gregory XIII, and in August 1997 Pope John Paul II publicly expressed regret for the massacre while in Paris. Collier's 1921 note on Bartholomew the apostle stands much as written, though the identification with Nathanael remains a traditional guess rather than an established fact.
Written for this edition, 2026.