1558. A later result of his visit was his Historia Ecclesiastica del scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra (1588–1594), often reprinted, and used in later editions of N. Sander’s De Origine et Progressu Schismatis Anglicani. In 1560 he was made Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Tuscany, thence transferred as Provincial to Sicily in 1563, again employed in Flanders, and from 1571 in Spain. In 1574 he settled in Madrid, where he died on the 10th of September 1611. His most important work is the Life of Loyola (1572), which he was the first to write. In his first edition of the Life, as also in the second enlarged issue (1587), Ribadeneira affirmed that Loyola had wrought no miracle, except the foundation of his Society (thus making his claim parallel with that of Mahomet, whose only miracle, originally, was the Koran). In the process for the canonization of Loyola, a narrative published by Ribadeneira in 1609 exhibited miracles; and these are recorded in an abridgment of the Life by Ribadeneira (published posthumously in 1612) with a statement by Ribadeneira that he had known of them in 1572 but was not then satisfied of their proof. For this change of opinion he is taken to task by Bayle. That Ribadeneira was, though an able, a very credulous writer, is shown by his lives of the successors of Loyola in the generalship of the Society, Lainez and Borgia; and especially by his Flos Sanctorum (1599–1610), a collection of saints’ lives, entirely superseded by the labours of the Bollandists. His other works are numerous but of little moment, including his Tratado de la religion (1595), intended as a refutation of Machiavelli’s Prince.
See his autobiography in his Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu (1602 and 1608, supplemented by P. Alegambe and N. Sotwell in 1676); N. Antonio, Biotheea Hispana Nova (1788); Biographie Universelle (Michaud) (1842–1865). (A. Go.*)
RIBALD, a word now only used in the sense of jeering, irreverent, abusive, particularly applied to the uses of low, offensive or mocking jests. It has an interesting early history, of which Du Cange (Gloss. s.v. Ribaldi) gives a full account. It is one of those words, like the Greek τύραννος, an unconstitutional ruler, and the Latin latro, a hired soldier, mercenary, later robber, which have acquired a degraded and evil significance. The ribaldi were light-armed soldiers, on whom fell the duty of being first in attack, the enfans perdus or “forlorn hope” of the armies of the French kings; thus Rigordus, in his contemporary history of the reign of Philip Augustus, for the year 1189, speaks of the Ribaldi . . . qui primos impetus in expuguandis munitionibus facere consueverunt. Later we find the ribaldi among the rabble of camp-followers of an army, and Giovanni Villani, in his 16th-century Chronicle (11, 139), speaks of ribaldi et i raguazzi del hoste, and Froissart of the ribaux as the lowest ranks in an army. Ribaldus (ribaut) was thus a common name for everything ruffianly and abandoned, and Matthew Paris (Ann. 1251) says: Fures, exules, fugitivi, excommuncati, quos omnes Ribaldos Francia vulgariter consuevit appellare. The name (ribaldae or ribaldi) was particularly applied to prostitutes, brothel-keepers and all who frequent haunts of vice, and there was at the French court from the 12th century an official, known as Rex Ribaldorum, king of the ribalds, changed in the reign of Charles VI. to Praepositus Hospitii Regis, whose duty was to investigate and hold judicial inquiry into all crimes committed within the precincts of the court, and control vagrants, prostitutes, brothels and gambling-houses. The etymology of the word has been much discussed, and no certainty can be arrived at. The termination—ald—points to a Teutonic origin, and connexion has been suggested with O.H.Ger. Hripá, M.H.Ger. Ribe, prostitute, with Ger. reiben, rub, or with rauben, rob. Neither Skeat nor the New English Dictionary find any relation to the English “bawd,” procuress, pander.
RIBAULT (or Ribaut), JEAN (c. 1520–1565), French navigator, famous for his connexion with the early settlement of Florida, was born at Dieppe, probably about 1520. Appointed by Admiral Coligny to the command of an expedition to prepare an asylum for French Protestants in America, Ribault sailed on the 18th of February 1562, with two vessels, and on the 1st of May landed in Florida at St John’s river, or, as he called it, Rivière de Mai. Having settled his colonists at Port Royal Harbour (now Paris Island, South Carolina), and built Fort Charles for their protection, he returned to France to find the country in the throes of the Civil War. In 1563 he appears to have been in England and to have issued True and Last Discoverie of Florida (Hakluyt Soc., vol. vii.). In April 1564 Coligny was in a position to despatch another expedition under René de Laudonnière, but meanwhile Ribault’s colony had come to an untimely end—the unfortunate adventurers, destitute of supplies from home, having revolted against their governor and attempted to make their way back to Europe in a boat which was happily picked up, when they were in the last extremities, by an English vessel. In 1565 Ribault was again sent out to satisfy Coligny as to Laudonnière’s management of his new settlement, Fort Caroline, on the Rivière de Mai. While he was still there the Spaniards, under Menendez de Aviles, though their country was at peace with France, attacked the French ships at the mouth of the river. Ribault set out to retaliate on the Spanish fleet, but his vessels were wrecked by a storm near Matanzas Inlet and he had to attempt to return to Fort Caroline by land. The fort had by this time fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, who had slaughtered all the colonists except a few who got off with two ships under Ribault’s son. Induced to surrender by false assurances of safeguard, Ribault and his men were also put to the sword in October 1565. The massacre was avenged in kind by Dominique de Gourgues (d. 1583) two years later.
See E. and E. Haag, La France protestante (1846–1859); and F. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World (new ed., 1899).
RIBBECK, JOHANN CARL OTTO (1827–1898), German classical scholar, was born at Erfurt in Saxony on the 23rd of July 1827. Having held professorial appointments at Kiel and Heidelberg, he succeeded his tutor Ritschl in the chair of classical philology at Leipzig, where he died on the 18th of July 1898. Ribbeck was the author of several standard works on the poets and poetry of Rome, the most important of which are the following: Geschichte der römischen Dichtung (2nd ed., 1894–1900); Die römische Tragödie im Zeitalter der Republik (1875); Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta, including the tragic and comic fragments (3rd ed., 1897). As a textual critic he was distinguished by considerable rashness, and never hesitated to alter, rearrange or reject as spurious what failed to reach his standard of excellence. These tendencies are strikingly shown in his editions of the Epistles and Ars Poetica of Horace (1869), the Satires of Juvenal (1859) and in the supplementary essay Der echte und unechte Juvenal (1865). In later years, however, he became much more conservative. His edition of Virgil (2nd ed., 1894–1895), although only critical, is a work of great erudition, especially the Prolegomena. His biography of Ritschl (1879–1881) is one of the best works of its kind. The influence of his tutor may be seen in Ribbeck’s critical edition of the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, and Beiträge zur Lehre von den lateinischen Partikeln, a work of much promise, which causes regret that he did not publish further results of his studies in that direction. His miscellaneous Reden und Vorträge were published after his death (Leipzig, 1899). He took great interest in the monumental Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, and it was chiefly owing to his efforts that the government of Saxony was induced to assist its production by a considerable subsidy.
The chief authority for his life is Otto Ribbeck; ein Bild seines Lebens aus seinen Briefen (1901), ed. by Emma Ribbeck.
RIBBON-FISHES (Trachypteridae), a family of marine fishes readily recognized by their long, compressed, tape-like body, short head, narrow mouth and feeble dentition. A high dorsal fin occupies the whole length of the back; an anal is absent, and the caudal, if present, consists of two fascicles of rays of which the upper is prolonged and directed upwards. The pectoral fins are small, the ventrals composed of several rays, or of one long ray only. Ribbon-fishes possess all the characteristics of fishes living at very great depths. They are
