Mather Vma-thorV Cotton (b. Feb. 12, 1663, Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony—d. Feb. 13, 1728, Bos¬ ton) American Puritan leader. The son of Increase Mather, he earned a master’s degree from Harvard Col¬ lege and was ordained a Congrega¬ tional minister in 1685, after which he assisted his father at Boston’s North Church (1685-1723). He helped work for the ouster of the unpopular British governor of Mas¬ sachusetts, Edmund Andros (1689).
Though his writings on witchcraft fed the hysteria that resulted in the Salem witch trials, he disapproved of the trials and argued against the use of “spectral evidence.” His best- known writings include Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), a church history of New England, and his Diary (1711—12). His Curio sa Americana (1712-24) won him membership in the Royal Society of London. He was an early supporter of smallpox inoculation. See also Congregationalism; Puritanism.
Mather, Henry See Charles S. and Henry M. Greene
Mather, Increase (b. June 21,
1639, Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony—d. Aug. 23, 1723, Bos¬ ton) American Puritan leader. The son of a Puritan cleric, he was edu¬ cated at Harvard College and at Trin¬ ity College, Dublin. He returned to New England and served as minister of Boston’s North Church (1661—
1723). He and his son Cotton Mather lobbied successfully for the removal of the hated governor of Massachu¬ setts, Edmund Andros, and obtained a new charter for the colony in 1691.
He served as president of Harvard College (1685-1701). His writings include Case of Conscience Con¬ cerning Evil Spirits Personating Men (1693), which helped end the Salem witch trials. See also Puritanism.
Mathewson, Christy in full Christopher Mathewson (b.
Aug. 12, 1880, Factoryville, Pa.,
Cotton Mather, portrait by Peter Pel¬ ham; in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, WORCESTER, MASS.
Mathewson, 1909
CULVER PICTURES
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U.S.—d. Oct. 7, 1925, Saranac Lake, N.Y.) U.S. baseball pitcher. Mathew- son played football and baseball for Bucknell University and was one of the first college-educated men to enter the major leagues. Throwing right- handed for the New York Giants (1900-16), he won more than 20 games in each of 13 seasons, and 30 or more in four of those years. He ranks third in all-time wins (373) and shutouts (80) and fourth in earned run average (2.13). He played for and managed the Cincinnati Reds (1916— 18) and later served as president of the Boston Braves (1923-25). He died of tuberculosis at 45.
Mathias \m3-'thl-3s\, Bob in full Robert Bruce Mathias (b. Nov. 17, 1930, Tulare, Calif., U.S.) U.S. decathlete. He suffered from anemia as a child and turned to athletics to gain strength. In 1948, at age 17, he won a gold medal in the Olympic decathlon, becoming the youngest gold medalist ever to win an Olympic track-and-field event. He won a second decathlon gold medal in 1952; that same year he played fullback on Stan¬ ford University’s gridiron football team at the Rose Bowl. He won all 11 decathlon competitions he entered in his career. He later served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mathura art Vmo-to-roX Buddhist visual art that flourished in the trad¬ ing and pilgrimage center of Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India, from the 2nd century bc to the 12th cen¬ tury ad. Standing and seated Bud¬ dhas are represented with broad shoulders, large chest, legs apart, and feet firmly planted, conveying a sense of enormous energy. Female figures are frankly sensuous.
Matilda or Maud (b. 1102, Lon¬ don, Eng.—d. Sept. 10, 1167, near Rouen, Fr.) Daughter of Henry I of England and claimant to the English throne. She married Emperor Henry V in 1114; he died in 1125, and she made a second marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet. Her brother’s death in 1120 left her as Henry I’s sole legiti¬ mate heir, and Henry named her as his successor in 1127. Stephen of Blois, Henry’s nephew, seized the throne on the king’s death in 1135, and his army defeated Matilda’s sup¬ porters in 1141. She continued her resistance and retired to Normandy in 1148. Her son became Henry II of England, and she remained his adviser and oversaw his continental possesions.
Matilda of Canossa \ko-'na-s3\
Italian Matilde known as Mat¬ ilda the Great Countess (b.
1046, Lucca, Tuscany—d. July 24,
1115, Bondeno, Romagna) Countess of Tuscany. A close friend of Pope Gregory VII, she backed him in his struggle against King Henry IV (see Investiture Controversy), and it was at her castle at Canossa that the king performed his barefoot penance before Gregory (1077). After Hen¬ ry’s second excommunication, she was intermittently at war with him until his death (1106), sometimes donning armour to lead her own troops, and she helped finance the pope’s military operations and encouraged Henry’s son Conrad to rebel against his father (1093). Her unwavering support for the popes of Rome was honoured by her reburial in St. Peter’s Basilica in 1634.
Matisse \ma-'tes\, Henri (-Emile-BenoTt) (b. Dec. 31, 1869, Le Cateau, Picardy, Fr.—d. Nov. 2, 1954, Nice) French painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. He was a law clerk when he became interested in art. After study with Gustave Moreau at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he exhibited four
paintings at the Salon and scored a triumph when the government bought his Woman Reading (1895). Self-confident and venturesome, he experi¬ mented with pointillism but eventually abandoned it in favour of the swirls of spontaneous brushwork and riots of colour that became known as Fau- vism. Though his subjects were largely domestic and figurative, his works exhibit a distinctive Mediterranean verve. He also took up sculpture and would produce some 60 pieces during his lifetime. The Armory Show exhibited 13 of his paintings. In 1917 he moved to the French Riviera, where his paintings became less daring but his output remained prodigious. After 1939 he became increasingly active as a graphic artist and in 1947 published Jazz, a book of reflections on art and life with brilliantly coloured illustrations made by “drawing with scissors”: the motifs were pasted together after being cut out of sheets of coloured paper. He was ill during most of his last 13 years; he designed the magnificent Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence (1948—51) as a gift to the Dominican nuns who cared for him. His well-known paintings include Joy of Life (1906), The Red Studio (1915), Piano Lesson (1916), and The Dance I and The Dance // (1931—33).
Matlock Town (pop., 1995 est.: 14,000), Derbyshire Dales district, administrative and historic county of Derbyshire, north-central England. It consists of a group of settlements built along the River Derwent, in a region noted for its beautiful valleys and rugged hills. Between Cromford (site of Richard Arkwright’s first water-powered mill in 1771) and the 16th-century Matlock Bridge, the river runs through a narrow gorge. The town was once a famous spa offering hydropathic treatment.
Mato Grosso Vma-tu-'gro-siA State (pop., 2003 est.: 2,651,335), south¬ western Brazil. It covers an area of 348,788 sq mi (903,358 sq km), and its capital is Cuiaba. It is bounded by Bolivia on the southwest and west. Cuiaba was founded in 1719 after gold was discovered nearby. In 1748 Mato Grosso became an independent captaincy, in 1822 a province of the empire, and in 1889 a state of the federal union. One of the few great frontier regions still in existence, it consists of grassland, dense forest, and highland plains, with some areas that remain largely unexplored.
matriarchy \'ma-tre-,ar-ke\ Social system in which familial and politi¬ cal authority is wielded by women. Under the influence of Charles Dar¬ win’s theories of evolution and, particularly, the work of the Swiss anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen (b. 1815, Basel, Switz.—d. 1887, Basel), some 19th-century scholars believed that matriarchy followed a stage of general promiscuity and preceded male ascendancy (patriarchy) in human society’s evolutionary sequence. Like other elements of the evolutionist view of culture, the notion of matriarchy as a universal stage of development is now generally discredited, and the modern consensus is that a strictly matriarchal society has never existed. Nevertheless, in those societies in which matrilineal descent occurs, access to socially pow¬ erful positions is mediated through the maternal line of kin. See also SOCIOCULTURAL EVOLUTION.