Ximenes

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

JACQUES (hē-ā'nas), a Spanish poet, living in the 16th century. He took part in the war of the Netherlands; wrote a poem , "The Invincible Knight, the Cid Ruy Diaz of Bivar" (1579); and left a collection of sonnets. , FRAN- CISCO, a Spanish cardinal and statesman; born of a noble though poor family, in Tordelaguna , Castile, in 1430. He studied at the University of Salamanca, where he took the degree of bachelor both of civil and canon law. In 1455 he went to Rome where he pleaded the cause of his countrymen in the consistorial courts with such success that he attracted the attention of the then pontiff. He returned in 1461 with an expective, which gave him a right to the first ecclesiastical preferment in a certain see that should fall vacant. A suitable office did fall vacant in 1473, but Carillo, Archbishop of Toledo, wished to fill it with a creature of his own. Ximenes refused to surrender his rights, whereupon the enraged prelate shut him up in prison for six years. Ximenes refused to yield, and at last attained his right . Preferments of one kind and another followed; but he finally determined to leave the ranks of the secular for those of the regular clergy. He became a Franciscan, one of the straightest of sects. But in vain he attempted to escape from the world. He was appointed guardian of the convent of Salzeda , in 1492 chaplain to Queen Isabella, and in 1495 chaplain of Toledo . He was now an old man of 60, but more than a lifetime's work lay before him . He engaged in important civil and clerical reforms , and these his determined energy enabled him to carry through in the face of much opposition. He founded the University of Alcalá (1500), endowed it magnificently , and made provisions therein for the encouragement of every liberal art. He collected a body of learned men and a vast number of important manuscripts, and with such aid he compiled the famous polyglot Bible known as the " Complutensian Polyglot," a work which took 15 years , and cost a vast sum of money. He projected also an edition of Aristotle, but this his manifold labors did not allow him to complete. He violently converted a large number of the "infidels" of Granada to the "true faith," and he carried on a victorious campaign against the Moors of northern Africa. On May 17, 1507, he was appointed cardinal, and when Ferdinand died in 1516 he ruled as regent for the young Carlos (afterward known as Karl V.) the whole of Spain. Here his prudent care disarmed the hostility of Ferdinand, the younger brother of Carlos (a youth whose pretensions to the crown were favored by many of the people), reconciled a discontented nobility, filled the royal treasury, and maintained the army and navy in a high state of efficiency. His regency lasted about two years. Then Carlos left the Netherlands for Spain. Almost his first act of sov sovereignty was the dismissal of the faithful regent. Ximenes was already on his deathbed , and it is doubtful if he ever knew of the act of the king. He died in Toledo, Nov. 8, 1517. XINGÚ (shēn-gö') a river of Brazil; one of the chief tributaries of the Amazon; it rises near lat. 15° S., lon. 59° W., and after flowing N. for 1,300 miles joins the Amazon 240 miles W. of Pará. Steamers can ascend it for 100 miles.