DICTIONARIES AND REBELLIONS

Just a quick Saturday entry. Besides gunpowder, treason and plot, the 5^th November marks  two other events, one literary and one political.

The 5^th November 1499 saw the publication of the Catholicon in Tréguier (Brittany). This Breton-French-Latin dictionary was written in 1464 by Jehan Lagadeuc. It is the first Breton dictionary as well as the first French dictionary. Catholicon (from the Greek Καθολικόν, universal) contains six thousand entries. A manuscript of the dictionary is preserved in the nationale library in Paris identified as Latin 7656.

Nathaniel "Nat" Turner was an American slave who led a slave rebellion in Virginia on 21^st August, 1831 that resulted in 60 white deaths and at least 100 black deaths, the largest number of fatalities to occur in one uprising prior to the American Civil War in the southern United States. He gathered supporters in Southampton County Virginia.

The rebellion was suppressed within two days, but Turner eluded capture until October 30, when he was discovered hiding in a hole covered with fence rails. One hundred and eighty years ago on 5 November, 1831, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Turner was hanged on November 11 in Jerusalem, Virginia, now known as Courtland, Virginia. His body was flayed, beheaded and quartered. In the aftermath of the insurrection there were 45 slaves, including Turner, and 5 free blacks tried for insurrection and related crimes in Southampton. Of the 45 slaves tried, 15 were acquitted. Of the 30 convicted, 18 were hanged, while 12 received mercy and were sold out of state. Of the 5 free blacks tried for participation in the insurrection, one was hanged, while the others were acquitted.