Part 29

The succession of bishops in Cologne is traceable, except for a gap covering the troubled 5th century, from A.D. 313, when the see was founded. It was made the metropolitan see for the bishoprics of the Lower Rhine and part of Westphalia by Charlemagne, the first archbishop being Hildebold, who occupied the see from 785 to his death in 819. Of his successors one of the most illustrious was Bruno (q.v.), brother of the emperor Otto I., archbishop from 953 to 965, who was the first of the archbishops to exercise temporal jurisdiction, and was also "archduke" of Lorraine. The territorial power of the archbishops was already great when, in 1180, on the partition of the Saxon duchy, the duchy of Westphalia was assigned to them. In the 11th century they became _ex-officio_ arch-chancellors of Italy (see ARCHCHANCELLOR), and by the Golden Bull of 1356 they were finally placed among the electors (_Kurfürsten_) of the Empire. With Cologne itself, a free imperial city, the archbishop-electors were at perpetual feud; in 1262 the archiepiscopal see was transferred to Brühl, and in 1273 to Bonn; it was not till 1671 that the quarrel was finally adjusted. The archbishopric was secularized in 1801, all its territories on the left bank of the Rhine being annexed to France; in 1803 those on the right bank were divided up among various German states; and in 1815 by the congress of Vienna, the whole was assigned to Prussia. The last archbishop-elector, Maximilian of Austria, died in 1801.

In Archbishop Hildebold's day Cologne was still contained by the square of its Roman walls, within which stood the cathedral and the newly-founded church of St Maria (known later as "im Capitol"); the city was, however, surrounded by a ring of churches, among which those of St Gereon, St Ursula, St Severin and St Cunibert were conspicuous. In 881 Norman pirates, sailing up the Rhine, took and sacked the city; but it rapidly recovered, and in the 11th century had become the chief trading centre of Germany. Early in the 12th century the city was enlarged by the inclusion of suburbs of Oversburg; Niederich and St Aposteln; in 1180 these were enclosed in a permanent rampart which, in the 13th century, was strengthened with the walls and gates that survived till the 19th century.

The municipal history of Cologne is of considerable interest. In general it follows the same lines as that of other cities of Lower Germany and the Netherlands. At first the bishop ruled through his burgrave, advocate, and nominated jurats (_scabini_, _Schöffen_). Then, as the trading classes grew in wealth, his jurisdiction began to be disputed; the _conjuratio pro libertate_ of 1112 seems to have been an attempt to establish a commune (see Commune, Medieval). Peculiar to Cologne, however, was the _Richerzeche_ (_rigirzegheide_), a corporation of all the wealthy patricians, which gradually absorbed in its hands the direction of the city's government (the first record of its active interference is in 1225). In the 13th century the archbishops made repeated efforts to reassert their authority, and in 1259 Archbishop Conrad of Hochstaden, by appealing to the democratic element of the population, the "brotherhoods" (_fraternitates_) of the craftsmen, succeeded in overthrowing the Richerzeche and driving its members into exile. His successor, Engelbert II., however, attempted to overthrow the democratic constitution set up by him, with the result that in 1262 the brotherhoods combined with the patricians against the archbishop, and the Richerzeche returned to share its authority with the elected "great council" (_Weiter Rat_). As yet, however, none of the trade or craft gilds, as such, had a share in the government, which continued in the hands of the patrician families, membership of which was necessary even for election to the council and to the parochial offices. This continued long after the battle of Worringen (1288) had finally secured for the city full self-government, and the archbishops had ceased to reside within its walls. In the 14th century a narrow patrician council selected from the Richerzeche, with two burgomasters, was supreme. In 1370 an insurrection of the weavers was suppressed; but in 1396, the rule of the patricians, having been weakened by internal dissensions, a bloodless revolution led to the establishment of a comparatively democratic constitution, based on the organization of the trade and craft gilds, which lasted with but slight modification till the French Revolution.

The greatness of Cologne, in the middle ages as now, was due to her trade. Wine and herrings were the chief articles of her commerce; but her weavers had been in repute from time immemorial, and exports of cloth were large, while her goldsmiths and armourers were famous. So early as the 11th century her merchants were settled in London, their colony forming the nucleus of the Steelyard. When, in 1201, the city joined the Hanseatic League (q.v.) its power and repute were so great that it was made the chief place of a third of the confederation.

In spite of their feuds with the archbishops, the burghers of Cologne were stanch Catholics, and the number of the magnificent medieval churches left is evidence at once of their piety and their wealth. The university, founded in 1389 by the sole efforts of the citizens, soon gained a great reputation; in the 15th century its students numbered much more than a thousand, and its influence extended to Scotland and the Scandinavian kingdoms. Its decline began, however, from the moment when the Catholic sentiment of the city closed it to the influence of the Reformers; the number of its students sank to vanishing point, and though, under the influence of the Jesuits, it subsequently revived, it never recovered its old importance. A final blow was dealt it when, in 1777, the enlightened archbishop Maximilian Frederick (d. 1784) founded the university of Bonn, and in 1798, amid the confusion of the revolutionary epoch, it ceased to exist.

The same intolerance that ruined the university all but ruined the city too. It is difficult, indeed, to blame the burghers for resisting the dubious reforming efforts of Hermann of Wied, archbishop from 1515 to 1546, inspired mainly by secular ambitions; but the expulsion of the Jews in 1414, and still more the exclusion, under Jesuit influence, of Protestants from the right to acquire citizenship, and from the magistracy, dealt severe blows at the prosperity of the place. A variety of other causes contributed to its decay: the opening up of new trade routes, the gradual ossification of the gilds into close and corrupt corporations, above all the wars in the Netherlands, the Thirty Years' War, and the Wars of the Spanish and Austrian Succession. When in 1794 Cologne was occupied by the French, it was a poor and decayed city of some 40,000 inhabitants, of whom only 6000 possessed civic rights. When, in 1801, by the treaty of Lunéville, it was incorporated in France, it was not important enough to be more than the chief town of an arrondissement. On the death of the last elector in 1801 the archiepiscopal see was left vacant. With the assignment of the city to Prussia by the congress of Vienna in 1815 a new era of prosperity began. The university, indeed, was definitively established at Bonn, but the archbishopric was restored (1821) as part of the new ecclesiastical organization of Prussia, and the city became the seat of the president of a governmental district. Its prosperity now rapidly increased; when railways were introduced it became the meeting-place of several lines, and in 1881 its growth necessitated the pushing outward of the circle of fortifications.

See L. Ennen, _Gesch. der Stadt Köln_ (5 vols., Cologne, 1863-1880) to 1648, and _Frankreich und der Niederrhein_ (2 vols., ib., 1855, 1856), a history of the city and electorate of Cologne since the Thirty Years' War; R. Schultze and C. Steuernagel, _Colonia Agrippinensis_ (Bonn, 1895); K. Heldmann, _Der Kölngau und die Civitas Köln_ (Halle, 1900); L. Korth, _Köln im Mittelalter_ (Cologne, 1890); F. Lau, _Entwickelung der kommunalen Verfassung der Stadt Köln bis zum Jahre 1396_ (Bonn, 1898); K. Hegel, _Städte und Gilden der germanischen Völker im Mittelalter_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1891), ii. p. 323; H. Keussen, _Historische Topographie der Stadt Köln im Mittelalter_ (Bonn, 1906); W. Behnke, _Aus Kölns Franzosenzeit_ (Cologne, 1901); Helmken, _Köln und seine Sehenswürdigkeiten_ (20th ed., Cologne, 1903). For sources see L. Ennen and G. Eckertz, _Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln_ (6 vols., Cologne, 1860-1879); later sources will be found in U. Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources hist. Topo-bibliographie_ (Montbéliard, 1894-1899), s.v. Cologne, which gives also a full list of works on everything connected with the city; also in Dahlmann-Waitz, _Quellenkunde_ (ed. Leipzig, 1906), p. 17, Nos. 252, 253. For the archdiocese and electorate of Cologne see Binterim and Mooren, _Die Erzdiözese Köln bis zur französischen Staatsumwälzung_, new ed. by A. Mooren in 2 vols. (Düsseldorf, 1892, 1893).

COLOMAN (1070-1116), king of Hungary, was the son of King Geza of Hungary by a Greek concubine. King Ladislaus would have made the book-loving youth a monk, and even designated him for the see of Eger; but Coloman had no inclination for an ecclesiastical career, and, with the assistance of his friends, succeeded in escaping to Poland. On the death of Ladislaus (1095), he returned to Hungary and seized the crown, passing over his legitimately born younger brother Almos, the son of the Greek princess Sinadene. Almos did not submit to this usurpation, and was more or less of an active rebel till 1108, when the emperor Henry V. espoused his cause and invaded Hungary. The Germans were unsuccessful; but Coloman thought fit to be reconciled with his kinsman and restored to him his estates. Five years later, however, fearing lest his brother might stand in the way of his heir, the infant prince Stephen, Coloman imprisoned Almos and his son Béla in a monastery and had them blinded. Despite his adoption of these barbarous Byzantine methods, Coloman was a good king and a wise ruler. In foreign affairs he preserved the policy of St Ladislaus by endeavouring to provide Hungary with her greatest need, a suitable seaboard. In 1097 he overthrew Peter, king of Croatia, and acquired the greater part of Dalmatia, though here he encountered formidable rivals in the Greek and German emperors, Venice, the pope and the Norman-Italian dukes, all equally interested in the fate of that province, so that Coloman had to proceed cautiously in his expansive policy. By 1102, however, Zara, Traú, Spalato and all the islands as far as the Cetina were in his hands. But it was as a legislator and administrator that Coloman was greatest (see HUNGARY: _History_). He was not only one of the most learned, but also one of the most statesmanlike sovereigns of the earlier middle ages. Coloman was twice married, (1) in 1097 to Buzella, daughter of Roger, duke of Calabria, the chief supporter of the pope, and (2) in 1112 to the Russian princess, Euphemia, who played him false and was sent back in disgrace to her kinsfolk the following year. Coloman died on the 3rd of February 1116.

COLOMB, PHILIP HOWARD (1831-1899), British vice-admiral, historian, critic and inventor, the son of General G. T. Colomb, was born in Scotland, on the 29th of May 1831. He entered the navy in 1846, and served first at sea off Portugal in 1847; afterwards, in 1848, in the Mediterranean, and from 1848 to 1851 as midshipman of the "Reynard" in operations against piracy in Chinese waters; as midshipman and mate of the "Serpent" during the Burmese War of 1852-53; as mate of the "Phoenix" in the Arctic Expedition of 1854; as lieutenant of the "Hastings" in the Baltic during the Russian War, taking part in the attack on Sveaborg. He became what was known at that time as a "gunner's lieutenant" in 1857, and from 1859 to 1863 he served as flag-lieutenant to rear-admiral Sir Thomas Pasley at Devonport. Between 1858 and 1868 he was employed in home waters on a variety of special services, chiefly connected with gunnery, signalling and the tactical characteristics and capacities of steam warships. From 1868 to 1870 he commanded the "Dryad," and was engaged in the suppression of the slave trade. In 1874, while captain of the "Audacious," he served for three years as flag-captain to vice-admiral Ryder in China; and finally he was appointed, in 1880, to command the "Thunderer" in the Mediterranean. Next year he was appointed captain of the steam reserve at Portsmouth; and after serving three years in that capacity, he remained at Portsmouth as flag-captain to the commander-in-chief until 1886, when he was retired by superannuation before he had attained flag rank. Subsequently he became rear-admiral, and finally vice-admiral on the retired list.

Few men of his day had seen more active and more varied service than Colomb. But the real work on which his title to remembrance rests is the influence he exercised on the thought and practice of the navy. He was one of the first to perceive the vast changes which must ensue from the introduction of steam into the navy, which would necessitate a new system of signals and a new method of tactics. He set himself to devise the former as far back as 1858, but his system of signals was not adopted by the navy until 1867.

What he had done for signals Colomb next did for tactics. Having first determined by experiment--for which he was given special facilities by the admiralty--what are the manoeuvring powers of ships propelled by steam under varying conditions of speed and helm, he proceeded to devise a system of tactics based on these data. In the sequel he prepared a new evolutionary signal-book, which was adopted by the royal navy, and still remains in substance the foundation of the existing system of tactical evolutions at sea. The same series of experimental studies led him to conclusions concerning the chief causes of collisions at sea; and these conclusions, though stoutly combated in many quarters at the outset, have since been generally accepted, and were ultimately embodied in the international code of regulations adopted by the leading maritime nations on the recommendation of a conference at Washington in 1889.

After his retirement Colomb devoted himself rather to the history of naval warfare, and to the large principles disclosed by its intelligent study, than to experimental inquiries having an immediate practical aim. As in his active career he had wrought organic changes in the ordering, direction and control of fleets, so by his historic studies, pursued after his retirement, he helped greatly to effect, if he did not exclusively initiate, an equally momentous change in the popular, and even the professional, way of regarding sea-power and its conditions. He did not invent the term "sea-power,"--it is, as is shown elsewhere (see SEA-POWER), of very ancient origin,--nor did he employ it until Captain Mahan had made it a household word with all. But he thoroughly grasped its conditions, and in his great work on naval warfare (first published in 1891) he enunciated its principles with great cogency and with keen historic insight. The central idea of his teaching was that naval supremacy is the condition precedent of all vigorous military offensive across the seas, and, conversely, that no vigorous military offensive can be undertaken across the seas until the naval force of the enemy has been accounted for--either destroyed or defeated and compelled to withdraw to the shelter of its own ports, or at least driven from the seas by the menace of a force it dare not encounter in the open. This broad and indefeasible principle he enunciated and defended in essay after essay, in lecture after lecture, until what at first was rejected as a paradox came in the end to be accepted as a commonplace. He worked quite independently of Captain Mahan, and his chief conclusions were published before Captain Mahan's works appeared.

He died quite suddenly and in the full swing of his literary activity on the 13th of October 1899, at Steeple Court, Botley, Hants. His latest published work was a biography of his friend Sir Astley Cooper Key, and his last article was a critical examination of the tactics adopted at Trafalgar, which showed his acumen and insight at their best.

His younger brother, SIR JOHN COLOMB (1838-1909), was closely associated in the pioneer work done for British naval strategy and Imperial defence, and his name stands no less high among those who during this period promoted accurate thinking on the subject of sea-power. Entering the Royal Marines in 1854, he rose to be captain in 1867, retiring in 1869; and thenceforth he devoted himself to the study of naval and military problems, on which he had already published some excellent essays. His books on _Colonial Defence and Colonial Opinions_ (1873), _The Defence of Great and Greater Britain_ (1879), _Naval Intelligence and the Protection of Commerce_ (1881), _The Use and the Application of Marine Forces_ (1883), _Imperial Federation: Naval and Military_ (1887), followed later by other similar works, made him well known among the rising school of Imperialists, and he was returned to parliament (1886-1892) as Conservative member for Bow, and afterwards (1895-1906) for Great Yarmouth. In 1887 he was created C.M.G., and in 1888 K.C.M.G. He died in London on the 27th of May 1909. In Kerry, Ireland, he was a large landowner, and became a member of the Irish privy council (1903), and in 1906 he sat on the Royal Commission dealing with congested districts.

COLOMBES, a town of France in the department of Seine, arrondissement of St Denis, 7 m. N.N.W. of Paris. Pop. (1906) 28,920. It has a 16th-century church with 12th-century tower, a race-course, and numerous villa residences and boarding-schools. Manufactures include oil, vinegar and measuring-instruments. A castle formerly stood here, in which died Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I. of England.

COLOMBEY, a village of Lorraine, 4 m. E. of Metz, famous as the scene of a battle between the Germans and the French fought on the 14th of August 1870. It is often called the battle of Borny, from another village 2½ m. E. of Metz. (See METZ and FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.)

COLOMBIA, a republic of South America occupying the N.W. angle of that continent and bounded N. by the Caribbean Sea and Venezuela, E. by Venezuela and Brazil, S. by Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, and W. by Ecuador, the Pacific Ocean, Panama and the Caribbean Sea. The republic is very irregular in outline and has an extreme length from north to south of 1050 m., exclusive of territory occupied by Peru on the north bank of the upper Amazon, and an extreme width of 860 m. The approximate area of this territory, according to official calculations, is 481,979 sq. m., which is reduced to 465,733 sq. m. by Gotha planimetrical measurements. This makes Colombia fourth in area among the South American states.

The loss of the department of Panama left the republic with unsettled frontiers on every side, and some of the boundary disputes still unsolved in 1909 concern immense areas of territory. The boundary with Costa Rica was settled in 1900 by an award of the President of France, but the secession of Panama in 1903 gave Colombia another unsettled line on the north-west. If the line which formerly separated the Colombian departments of Cauca and Panama is taken as forming the international boundary, this line follows the water-parting between the streams which flow eastward to the Atrato, and those which flow westward to the Gulf of San Miguel, the terminal points being near Cape Tiburon on the Caribbean coast, and at about 7° 10' N. lat. on the Pacific coast. The boundary dispute with Venezuela was referred in 1883 to the king of Spain, and the award was made in 1891. Venezuela, however, refused to accept the decision. The line decided upon, and accepted by Colombia, starts from the north shore of Calabozo Bay on the west side of the Gulf of Maracaibo, and runs west and south-west to and along the water-parting (Sierra de Perija) between the drainage basins of the Magdalena and Lake Maracaibo as far as the source in lat. 8° 50' N. of a small branch of the Catatumbo river, thence in a south-easterly direction across the Catatumbo and Zulia rivers to a point in 72° 30' W. long., 8° 12' N. lat., thence in an irregular southerly direction across the Cordillera de Mérida to the source of the Sarare, whence it runs eastward along that river, the Arauca, and the Meta to the Orinoco. Thence the line runs south and south-east along the Orinoco, Atabapo and Guainia to the Pedra de Cucuhy, which serves as a boundary mark for three republics. Of the eastern part of the territory lying between the Meta and the Brazilian frontier, Venezuela claims as far west as the meridian of 69° 10'. Negotiations for the settlement of the boundary with Brazil (q.v.) were resumed in 1906, and were advanced in the following year to an agreement providing for the settlement of conflicting claims by a mixed commission. With Ecuador and Peru the boundary disputes are extremely complicated, certain parts of the disputed territory being claimed by all three republics. Colombia holds possession as far south as the Napo in lat. 2° 47' S., and claims territory occupied by Peru as far south as the Amazon. On the other hand Peru claims as far north as La Chorrera in 0° 49' S. lat., including territory occupied by Colombia, and the eastern half of the Ecuadorean department of Oriente, and Ecuador would extend her southern boundary line to the Putumayo, in long. 71° 1' S., and make that river her northern boundary as far north as the Peruvian claim extends. The provisional line starts from the Japura river (known as the Caqueta in Colombia) in lat. 1° 30' S., long. 69° 24' W., and runs south-west to the 70th meridian, thence slightly north of west to the Igaraparana river, thence up that stream to the Peruvian military post of La Chorrera, in 0° 49' S. lat., thence west of south to Huiririmachico, on the Napo. Thence the line runs north-west along the Napo, Coca and San Francisco rivers to the Andean watershed, which becomes the dividing line northward for a distance of nearly 80 m., where the line turns westward and reaches the Pacific at the head of Panguapi Bay, into which the southern outlet of the Mira river discharges (about 1° 34' N. lat.).