Curbridge. Witney is the seat of an old-established industry in blanket-making, and gloves and other woollen goods are also made. The broad main street contains several picturesque houses of the 17th century and later, and in it stands the Butter Cross, supported on columns and dating from 1683. The grammar school was founded in 1683, and a Blue Coat School in 1723. The great church of St Mary is one of the finest in the county. It is cruciform with a lofty central tower and spire, the latter considered to be a direct development of the early spire of the cathedral at Oxford. The tower is Early English, but the church exhibits the other styles, including a remarkable Norman porch. At Coggs, in the water-meadows bordering the river immediately below Witney, a priory was attached to the Benedictine Priory of Fécamp, and of this there are Early English remains in the vicarage, while the church is mainly Decorated. The foundation, however, dates from the 11th century.
The manor of Witney (Wyttineye, Wytnay, Wytney) was held by the see of Winchester before the Conquest. It was sold in 1649, but was given back to the bishopric at the Restoration. In the middle of the 18th century it was leased by the bishop of Winchester to the duke of Marlborough. Witney was a borough by prescription at least as early as 1278, and sent representatives to parliament with more or less regularity from 1304 to 1330. The government was by the steward and bailiffs of the bishop of Winchester, assisted by constables, wardmen and other officers. A woollen industry was probably established at an early date, for there is reference to a fulling mill in a charter of King Edgar dated 909. In 1641 the blanket-makers petitioned the crown against vexatious trade regulations; in 1673 the town is described as “driving a good trade for blankets and rugs.” In 1711 the blanket-makers obtained a charter making them into a company, consisting of a master, assistants, two wardens and a commonalty. In 1231 the bishop of Winchester received a grant of a five days’ fair at Witney at the feast of St Leonard. In 1278 the bishop was declared to have at Witney a weekly market on Thursday and two fairs on the day of Ascension and on St Leonard’s day. A further grant of two yearly fairs was made in 1414 to the bishop of Winchester at his manor of Witney, namely, on the vigil and day of St Clement the Pope, and at the feast of St Barnabas.
See J. A. Giles, History of Witney (London, 1852); Victoria County History, Oxon; W. J. Monk, History of Witney (1894).
WITOWT, or Witold (1350–1430), grand-duke of Lithuania, son of Kiejstut, prince of Samogitia, first appears prominently in 1382, when the Teutonic Order set him up as a candidate for the throne of Lithuania in opposition to his cousin Jagiello (see Wladislaus), who had treacherously murdered Witowt’s father and seized his estates. Witowt, however, convinced himself that the German knights were far more dangerous than his Lithuanian rival; he accepted pacific overtures from Jagiello and became his ally. When Jagiello ascended the throne of Poland as Wladislaus II. in 1386, Witowt was at first content with the principality of Grodno; but jealousy of Skirgiello, one of Jagiello’s brothers, to whom Jagiello committed the government of Lithuania, induced Witowt to ally himself once more with the Teutonic Order (treaty of Königsberg, 24th of May 1390). He strengthened his position by giving his daughter Sophia in marriage to Vasily, grand-duke of Muscovy; but he never felt secure beneath the wing of the Teutonic Order, and when Jagiello removed Skirgiello from the government of Lithuania and offered it to Witowt, the compact of Ostrow (5th of August 1392) settled all differences between them. Nevertheless, subsequent attempts on the part of Poland to subordinate Lithuania drove Witowt for the third time into the arms of the Order, and by the treaty of Salin in 1398, Witowt, who now styled himself Supremus Dux Lithuaniae, even went so far as to cede his ancestral province of Samogitia to the knights, and to form an alliance with them for the conquest and partition of Pskov and Great Novgorod. His ambition and self-confidence at this period knew no bounds. He nourished the grandiose idea of driving out the hordes of Tamerlane, freeing all Russia from the Tatar yoke, and proclaiming himself emperor of the North and East. This dream of empire was dissipated by his terrible defeat on the Lower Dnieper by the Tatars on the 12th of August 1399. He was now convinced that the true policy of Lithuania was the closest possible alliance with Poland. A union between the two countries was effected at Vilna on the 18th of January 1401, and was confirmed and extended by subsequent treaties. Witowt was to reign over Lithuania as an independent grand-duke, but the two states were to be indissolubly united by a common policy. The result was a whole series of wars with the Teutonic Order, which now acknowledged Swidrygiello, another brother of Jagiello, as grand-duke of Lithuania; and though Swidrygiello was defeated and driven out by Witowt, the Order retained possession of Samogitia, and their barbarous methods of “converting” the wretched inhabitants finally induced Witowt to rescue his fellow-countrymen at any cost from the tender mercies of the knights. In the beginning of 1409 he concluded a treaty with Jagiello at Novogrudok for the purpose, and on the 9th of July 1410 the combined Polish-Lithuanian forces, reinforced by Hussite auxiliaries, crossed the Prussian border. The rival forces encountered at Grünewald, or Tannenberg, and there on the 14th or 15th July 1410 was fought one of the decisive battles of the world, for the Teutonic Knights suffered a crushing blow from which they never recovered. After this battle Poland-Lithuania began to be regarded in the west as a great power, and Witowt stood in high favour with the Roman curia. In 1429, instigated by the emperor Sigismund, whom he magnificently entertained at his court at Lutsk, Witowt revived his claim to a kingly crown, and Jagiello reluctantly consented to his cousin’s coronation; but before it could be accomplished Witowt died at Troki, on the 27th of October 1430. He was certainly the most imposing personality of his day in eastern Europe, and his martial valour was combined with statesmanlike foresight.
See Jozef Ignacz Kraszewski, Lithuania under Witowt (Pol.) (Wilna, 1850); Augustin Themer, Vetera Monumenta Poloniae (Rome, 1860–1864); Karol Szajnocha, Jadwiga and Jagiello (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1850–1856); Teodor Narbutt, History of the Lithuanian Nation (Pol.) (Wilna, 1835–1836); Codex epistolaris Witoldi Magni (ed. Prochaska, Cracow, 1882). (R. N. B.)
WITSIUS, HERMANN (1636–1708), Dutch theologian, was
born at Enkhuysen, North Holland, and studied at Groningen,
Leiden and Utrecht. He was ordained to the ministry, becoming
pastor at Westwoud in 1656 and afterwards at Wormeren,
Goesen and Leeuwaarden, and became professor of divinity
successively at Franeker (1675) and at Utrecht (1680). In
1698 he went to Leiden as the successor of Friedrich Spanheim
the younger (1632–1701). He died at Leiden on the 22nd of
October 1708.
Witsius tried to mediate between the orthodox theology and the “federal” system of Johannes Cocceius, but did not succeed in pleasing either party. The more important of his works are: Judaeus christianizans—circa principia fidei et SS. Trinitatem (Utrecht, 1661); De oeconomia foederum Dei cum hominibus (1677, still regarded as one of the clearest and most suggestive expositions of the so-called “federal” theology); Diatribe de septem epistolarum apocalypticarum sensu historico ac prophetico (Franeker, 1678); Exercitationes sacrae in symbolum quod apostolorum dicitur et in orationem Dominicam (Franeker, 1681); Miscellanea sacra (Utrecht, 1692–1700, 2 vols.).
WITTE, SERGE JULIEVICH, Count (1849–), Russian statesman, was born at Tiflis, where his father (of Dutch extraction) was a member of the Viceregal Council of the Caucasus. His mother was a lady of the Fadeyev family, by whom he was brought up as a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church and thoroughly imbued with nationalist feeling in the Russian sense of the term. After completing his studies at Odessa University, in the faculty of mathematics and physical science, and devoting some time to journalism in close relations with the Slavophils and M. Katkov, he entered in 1877 the service of the Odessa State railway, and so distinguished himself in the transport operations necessitated by the Turkish campaign of 1877–1878, that he was soon afterwards appointed general traffic manager of the South-Western railway of Russia and member of an Imperial commission which had to study the whole question of railway construction and management throughout
