THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Strelitz has only one superintendent, under whom are six proepositi and the provost at Ratzeburg. There are 153 churches. With reference to other ecclesiastical conditions the statements as to Mecklenburg- Schwerin generally apply here as well. Heinrich Behm.
Bibliography: Consult the literature under Mecklen-
BTJRG-SCHWERIN.
MEDARDUS, SAINT: Missionary bishop in northern France; b. at Salentiacum (Salency) in Picardy, not far from the present St. Quentin, c. 4.57; d. c. 545. He was educated in the school of his native city where he distinguished himself by his diligence, piety, and charity. He received holy orders at an early age, and about 530 succeeded the bishop of Veromandum (Vermand), but soon removed the see to Xoviomagus (Noyon) which, as a fortified place, offered better protection against the barbarians. After the death of Bishop Eleutherius, about 532, he was elected also bishop of Tournay, and for the rest of his life administered both dioceses, being very active and successful in spreading Christianity. By his pure and pious conduct and the enduring steadfastness with which he bore all sufferings and struggles for the advancement of the Christian faith, he occupied a well deserved place among the confessors. He is commemorated by the Roman Catholic Church on June 8, and is considered the patron of horticulture and agriculture, more specifically of haymaking. A church and a monastery were built over his grave at Soissons. Besides this city, the chief seat of devotion to Medardus, Dijon, Jodoigne (Geldonacum) near Louvain, Cologne, Treves, Paris, and Prague boasted the possession of relics of the saint. (O. ZocKLEEf.)
Bibliography: The two early biographies of Medardus were by Fortunatus Venantius and Bishop Radbod, which with other lives, documents and commentary are collected in ASB, June, ii. 72-105. Early material is found also in MPL, lxxi. 1117-1118, lxxxviii. 533-540, cxxxii. 629-639, and a Carmen by Fortunatus Venantius is in MGH, Auct. ant., iv. 1 (1881), 44-48. Consult: J. Corblet, Notice historique sur le culte de S. Medard, Amiens, 1856; DCB, iii. 887-888.
MEDD, PETER GOLDSMITH: Church of England; b. at Leyburn (36 m. n.w. of York) July 18, 1829; d. at North Cerney (near Cirencester, 15 m. s.e. of Gloucester) July 25, 1908. He was educated at King's College, London, and University College, Oxford (B.A., 1852; M.A., 1855). He was ordained deacon in 1853 and priest in 1859. He was curate of St. John Baptist, Oxford (1858-67); rector of Barnes, Surrey (1870-76); and in 1876 became rector of North Cerney, Gloucestershire. He was fellow of University College, Oxford, from 1852 to 1877 lecturer, tutor, bursar, and dean from 1853 to 1870 and Bampton lecturer in 1882. His works include The Priest to the Altar, or Aids to the Devout Celebration of Holy Communion (London, 1865) ; Sermons Preached in the Parish Church of Barnes (1877); and The One Mediator (1884), Bampton lectures. Together with W. Bright he edited the Latin version of the Book of Common Prayer (1865).
MEDEBA: A town on the table-land of Moab east of the Jordan. It is situated almost directly east from Bethlehem, about five miles slightly west
of south from Heshbon, at an elevation of 2,940 feet, and is the site of a modern town built on a pile of early Christian ruins having a circumference of a mile and a half. New interest attaches to the town because of the discovery there of a mosaic map of Christian Palestine and part of Egypt. The place was anciently of considerable importance and finds frequent mention in the Old Testament (Num. xxi. 30; Josh. xiii. 9, 16; I Chron. xix. 7; Isa. xv. 2; I Mace. ix. 36) and on the Moabite Stone (q.v.). It was originally Moabitic territory, but was taken by the Amorites, then by Israel; in David's time it was an Ammonitic point of defense, was captured by Omri (Moabite Stone, line 8, Mehedeba) and recaptured by Mesha, the Moabitic king who indited the Moabite Stone. The place comes into later mention as the home of the robber band which accomplished the death of John the Maccabee; John Hyrcanus took the city after a siege of six months (Josephus, Ant., XIII., ix. 1), and it had to be retaken by Alexander Jannaeus. Ptolemy the geographer mentions it (V., xvii. 6) as lying between Bostra and Petra. After the Christian era it appears as the seat of a bishop who attended the Council of Chalcedon (451). After that it was lost to sight until in 1880 a Christian colony, mostly of Greeks, from Kerak settled there, and there is also a Roman Catholic mission. The preparations for building led to a series of discoveries of interesting antiquities. These include a large pool (324 feet by 309, and from 10 to 13 feet deep), ruins of several churches, the remains of a colonnaded street, inscriptions, mosaic pavements, and especially the map referred to above. The character of some of the ruins show that parts of the town had pretensions to elegance.
The story of the mosaic furnishes a lamentable instance of the loss to knowledge and to art which accrues from ignorance or stupidity. The first notice of the map came through a monk belonging to the Christian colony settled at Medeba in 1S80, the find having been uncovered in clearing a floor for a new church on the lines of an old one. In 1882 this monk wrote concerning the mosaic to the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, who simply filed the letter, which remained hidden till the new patriarch, Gerosinos, found it. The latter sent a master-mason (with the title of architect!) to examine the mosaic and with directions to include it in the new church if found worthy. The deputy reported that it was unimportant, and in the building of the church large portions were destroyed, it being calculated that only eighteen square meters remain of an original area of perhaps 280 square meters. In 1896 the patriarch sent Cleopas Koskylides, librarian of the Society of the Holy Sepulcher, to reexamine tha map, and he recognized its importance. Large parts had been covered by cement for the flooring of the new church, while nearly all the rest had been destroyed, traces being left, however, which showed how great had been the destruction wrought.
The piece of the map remaining covers the territory from Nablus to the Nile. It is decorative and free in execution, somewhat lacking in perspective, but its location of places is approximately accurate. The East is at the top; the northern portion is