youth-and-old-age: see zinnia.

old-man's-beard, name for several plants, among them a clematis and a lichen.

old-age pension: see pension; social security.

old age: see geriatrics.

old English sheepdog, breed of large, wiry working dog developed in England in the early 19th cent. It stands from 21 to 25 in. (53.3-63.5 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs from 55 to 65 lb (24.9-29.5 kg). Its double coat is composed of dense, water-resistant underhairs and a profuse, harsh, curl-free outercoat. It may be any shade of gray, grizzle, blue, or blue-merle, with or without white. The tail is bobbed to approximately 11/2 in. (3.8 cm). The old English sheepdog was originally raised in W England as a drover of sheep and cattle. Today it is popular as a farm dog and show dog and as a pet. See dog.

Old Vic, London repertory company and theater. The Old Vic theater opened in 1818 as the Coburg, and was renamed the Royal Victoria in 1833, soon familiarized to the Old Vic. In 1914 it became a Shakespearean repertory company organized by Lillian Baylis; by 1923 the entire stage works of Shakespeare had been presented. After Baylis's death in 1937, other directors such as Michel St. Denis and Michael Benthall used the space for productions and actor training. From 1963-76 it was the temporary home of the National Theatre of Great Britain (see Royal National Theatre). Briefly closed due to funding cuts, it reopened in 1983. Again threatened by lack of funds, it was purchased and preserved by a charitable trust in 1998. In 2003 Sir Elton John became the theater's president, a restoration drive was organized, and the formation a new Old Vic company was announced. Directed by the American actor Kevin Spacey, the group is intended showcase new theatrical talent.

Old Testament, Christian name for the Hebrew Bible, which serves as the first division of the Christian Bible (see New Testament). The designations "Old" and "New" seem to have been adopted after c.A.D. 200 to distinguish the books of the Mosaic covenant and those of the "new" covenant in Christ. New Testament writers, however, simply call the Old Testament the "Scriptures."

The Books of the Old Testament

Among contemporary Christians, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes as deuterocanonical several books that are consigned to the Old Testament Apocrypha by most Protestant bodies, whose canon conforms to that of the contemporary Hebrew Bible. There the books follow the order of the Palestinian Hebrew canon, which appears to have been adopted by c.A.D. 100, although most of the books had clearly received canonical status well before this time. The order is as follows: (1) the Torah or Law, the five books of the Pentateuch, i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; (2) the Prophets, consisting of Joshua, Judges, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve (or Minor) Prophets; (3) the Writings (Hagiographa), a heterogeneous group to which belong (a) Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, (b) the Scrolls (Megillot), consisting of the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs), Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, and (c) Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and First and Second Chronicles.

The number of Old Testament books (not counting the Apocrypha) stands at 39; in the Hebrew Bible they are usually counted as 24. The discrepancy occurs because Ezra and Nehemiah are counted as one book, as are each of the following—First and Second Kings; First and Second Chronicles; and the 12 Prophets (Hosea through Malachi). Sometimes Judges and Ruth are also conflated, as are Jeremiah and Lamentations, making for 22 books, the number attested by Josephus (c.A.D. 36-A.D. 96).

Versions of the Old Testament

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with a small portion in Aramaic (parts of the books of Daniel, Ezra, and Jeremiah). The text of the Hebrew Bible (called the Masoretic text, see Masora) had been standardized by the 10th cent. A.D., but the only existing Hebrew texts of biblical books before this time have been found at Qumran (see Dead Sea Scrolls). The origin of the Masoretic version is unknown.

The original Old Testament canon was the Septuagint, long used in the Greek-speaking church and still retained by the Orthodox churches. This Hellenistic Jewish translation originated with the translation of the Pentateuch in the mid-3d cent. B.C. Later translations were made from it or patterned after it. The canon of the Septuagint included the books of the later Hebrew canon, with the addition of several others, most of which were those now reckoned deuterocanonical by Roman Catholics and apocryphal by Protestants. Dispute over the canonicity of these books has its source in the Latin Bible, which found its official form in the Vulgate, the work of St. Jerome; this largely agreed with the list of books of the Septuagint, and the list and order of the Vulgate was the canon accepted by the Western Church of the Middle Ages.

At the Reformation, Protestant bodies withdrew recognition of the canonicity of those portions of the Old Testament that appeared in the Vulgate but not in the Masoretic canon, although the English church considered them (i.e., the deuterocanonical books) suitable for instruction and edification, but not for establishing or confirming doctrine. To set these books clearly apart, the translators who produced the Authorized Version (see Bible) assembled them in the Apocrypha as an appendix to the Old Testament. Thus the Protestant canon became exactly like the Masoretic, except that it retained the order of the books as they appeared in the Vulgate.

Chronology and Authorship

The critical study of the Old Testament is called higher criticism when dealing with literary-historical problems and lower criticism when dealing with questions of a purely textual nature. Chronology and authorship present great difficulties. Before c.1000 B.C. there is little likelihood of any outside source against which to check biblical chronology, but from the time of David it is possible to devise a chronology with some checks from nonbiblical sources, especially Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions and records.

The Old Testament represents the confession of the people of Israel that God first became active in their affairs in the experience of their Hebrew pastoral ancestors. Through the centuries, he continued to protect, admonish, and guide their vulnerable descendants. Under Joshua they came into possession of the land of Canaan, which they inhabited, except for their exile (586-539 B.C.) in Babylon, until the Romans decimated the population of Jerusalem and burned the Temple in A.D. 70.

As it now stands, the Old Testament presents a history of once disparate tribal groups with different traditions as the story of one people. The whole nation in embryo went down into Egypt with the patriarch Jacob and his 12 sons, and was brought out from there under Moses' leadership some centuries later. Subsequently, the 12 tribes entered Canaan together and established a tribal league in the days of the Judges. It is more likely, however, that it was only in the days of the tribal league that the 12 tribes were first brought together.

In the 10th cent. B.C. the first of a series of editors collected materials from earlier traditional folkloric and historical records (i.e., both oral and written sources) to compose a narrative of the history of the Hebrews who now found themselves united under David and Solomon. Stemming from differing traditions originating among those living in what was later the northern kingdom of Israel and those in the southern kingdom of Judah, we can trace two dominant compilations, known as the E (preferring the epithet "Elohim" for God) and the J (preferring the epithet "Yahweh"), respectively. These were combined by a Judaean some time after the fall of the northern kingdom and are to be found inextricably associated in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, First and Second Samuel, and First and Second Kings. According to scholars, this combined JE narrative is the bulk of the earlier Old Testament.

The prophets began to confront Israel in the days of the divided monarchy, indicting the people for failure to heed the moral demand of God and for failing to protect the weak in society. Their warnings of doom came to pass as Israel fell before the imperial might of Assyria and Babylon. Faithful disciples of the prophets guarded their oracles, even supplementing them, long after their masters had passed from the scene.

To Deuteronomy, scholars assign a late 7th-century B.C. origin. Deuteronomy, the book of the law "found" in the Temple during the reign of Josiah, was written, scholars argue, for a specific purpose—to provide a written law for the people, and to authenticate the reforms Josiah had instigated. Deuteronomy gave rise to a historical work, called the Deuteronomic History, in which the older JE traditions were reworked in light of its theology. Leviticus, with its emphasis on priestly matters, probably reached its final form in the post-exilic era in the establishment of post-exilic Judaism. The books of Chronicles and of Ezra and Nehemiah provide a theological agenda for post-exilic Judaism, stressing Temple worship, ethnic purity, and adherence to the Mosaic law.

Old Style dates: see calendar.

Old Stone Age: see Paleolithic period.

Old Sarum, site of a former city, Wiltshire, S England, just N of Salisbury (New Sarum). Excavations in the old settlement's mound have revealed remains of an ancient British camp, the Roman station Sorbiodunum, and a later Saxon then Norman town. The bishopric, moved to Old Sarum from Sherborne in 1075, was transferred to Salisbury in 1220. Old Sarum's cathedral was torn down and parts of it were used in the construction of the cathedral at Salisbury. At Old Sarum the Use of Sarum, a ritual adopted in S England, was compiled. Old Sarum was an important city until strife between the men of the castle and garrison and the men of the religious institution arose. It was that turmoil which led to the cathedral's removal and eventually to the decay of the old city; water shortage and harsh winds may also have been causes of its decline. The "rotten borough" of Old Sarum continued to be represented in Parliament until the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed.

Old Red Sandstone, series of red and brown sandstones, conglomerates, and shales deposited in Wales and Scotland and in England near the Welsh and Scottish borders in the Devonian period of geologic time. The Old Red Sandstone, in contrast to the typical formations of the Devonian, is largely a continental formation, laid down in freshwater and on land as a result of the erosion of the highlands of the Silurian period. It is very thick in Scotland and contains a large assemblage of well-preserved fossils, particularly of the Devonian fishes. The Old Red Sandstone was correlated with the marine Devonian by the British geologists Rodney Murchison and Adam Sedgwick. The New Red Sandstone is a thick red sandstone of Permian and Triassic age found in the British Isles.

Old Pretender: see Stuart, James Francis Edward.

Old Orchard Beach, town (1990 pop. 7,789), York co., SW Maine, on the Atlantic coast; settled c.1631, inc. 1883. For many years a popular summer resort, it has a beach and amusement facilities. A trading post was located nearby before 1630.

Old Northwest: see Northwest Territory.

Old Norse literature, the literature of the Northmen, or Norsemen, c.850-c.1350. It survives mainly in Icelandic writings, for little medieval vernacular literature remains from Norway, Sweden, or Denmark.

The Norwegians who settled Iceland late in the 9th cent. brought with them a body of oral mythological poetry that flourished there in a sturdy, seafaring world removed from the warring mainland. The first great period, which lasted until c.1100, was oral, as writing was not introduced until well after the establishment of Christianity (c.1000). From c.1100 to c.1350 both the oral poetry and new compositions were set down. The conscious, clear prose style that developed for both saga and history antedates that of all other modern European literatures except Gaelic. In the later 13th cent., with Iceland's loss of independence to Norway, literary activity declined and had virtually disappeared a century later.

The surviving body of literature can best be discussed as consisting of several types. Eddic writings (see Edda) were condensations of ancient lays, in alliterative verse (see alliteration), on old gods and heroes. Many of the heroic lays involve the legend of Siegfried and Brunhild; the mythological lays, focusing on Norse gods, include "The Lay of Thrym," a narrative about Thor, and "The Seeress' Prophecy," which begins with creation and anticipates the gods' demise.

Also composed in alliterative verse, but more complex and artificial in form, was scaldic poetry, which flourished in Norway about the 10th cent. and reached its height slightly later in Iceland. Comprising poems of praise, triumph, lamentation, and love, it is subjective in approach and highly mannered in technique. Intricate metrical schemes are meticulously observed, and diction is polished to the point of preciousness, especially in the incessant use of the kenning (a metaphoric substituted phrase, e.g., "ship-road" for "sea"), found also in Anglo-Saxon literature. As the scalds became a group apart, and only the initiated could understand their highly allusive verse, Snorri Sturluson was prompted to write the Prose Edda (c.1222) as a text of scaldic poetry, in a vain attempt to promote and preserve the old techniques.

As scaldic poetry declined, new forms rose to replace it, among them the ballad and the sacred hymn. A new rhymed verse developed, somewhat analogous to that in Middle English literature and used for much the same purpose—translation and paraphrase of foreign romances. The bulk of medieval Norse literature, and the most readable today, survives in the form of sagas, that is, prose narratives, sometimes interspersed with verse, which relate the lives of legendary or historical figures with objectivity and skillful characterization and which reflect the old Icelandic devotion to personal honor and family.

Historical writing of the 11th and 12th cent. is also noteworthy. In this field Snorri Sturluson contributed his Heimskringla. Ari Thorgilsson produced Islendingabók (c.1125), an account of the island's history, an abridged version of which has survived. He was probably partly responsible also for the Landnámabók, a topographical and genealogical account of Iceland; other works by Thorgilsson have been lost. Finally, all the Scandinavian countries produced medieval ballads, but these were not written down until much later. There remain numerous unsolved problems concerning oral composition, transmission of origins and influences, and dating.

Old Man of the Mountain, in Islamic history: see Assassin.

Old Man of the Mountain, N.H.: see Franconia Mountains.

Old Lyme, residential and resort town (1990 pop. 6,535), New London co., SE Conn., on Long Island Sound, at the mouth of the Connecticut River; settled c.1655, inc. 1855. Its noteworthy old houses built by sea captains have attracted many artists to the town. The Congregational Church (1817; burned in 1909, but carefully restored) has been portrayed by Childe Hassam.

Old Ironsides: see Constitution, ship.

Old Hundredth: see doxology.

Old Faithful, geyser: see Yellowstone National Park.

Old English: see type; English language; Anglo-Saxon literature.

Old Church Slavonic: see Church Slavonic.

Old Catholics, Christian denomination established by German Catholics who separated themselves from the Roman Catholic Church when they rejected (1870) the decrees of the First Vatican Council, especially the dogma of the infallibility of the pope. The Old Catholic movement began publicly with a meeting of professors at Nuremberg (1870) under the leadership of Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger. By 1874, a new church had been established with a bishop consecrated by a Jansenist bishop (see under Jansen, Cornelis) of the Church of Utrecht, which had itself separated from Rome in an earlier (1724) schism considered to be a precursor of the Old Catholic movement. Church doctrines were codified by the Declaration of Utrecht (1889), which rejected communion with the pope and many Roman Catholic doctrines and practices; priests were allowed to marry and confession was made optional. Roman ritual was retained but was usually performed in the vernacular.

Old Catholicism spread to Switzerland and Austria and then to other nations, arriving in the United States as early as 1885. The Polish National Catholic Church of America, one of the most important early groups, was formed in 1897. Christ Catholic Church, established in 1968, is one of the newest. In 1990, U.S. membership in various Old Catholic churches numbered some 500,000. Other important Old Catholic groups include the Philippine Independent Church, with approximately 3 million adherents, and the German Old Catholics, with some 24,000 members. The German church began ordaining women in 1996.

Old Castile, Spain: see Castile.

Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

London theatre company. The company's theatre opened in 1818 as the Royal Coburg; renamed the Royal Victoria in 1833, it became popularly known as the Old Vic. The company, managed by Lilian Baylis, began a regular Shakespeare season in 1914. From the 1930s it was noted for its memorable productions of Shakespeare's plays and other classics, with actors such as John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, and Ralph Richardson. The company was dissolved in 1963 and formed the nucleus of the new National Theatre, which performed at the Old Vic theatre until moving to a new building in 1976.

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Sacred scriptures of Judaism and, with the New Testament, of Christianity. Written almost entirely in the Hebrew language between 1200 and 100 BC, the Old Testament (also called the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) is an account of God's dealings with the Hebrews as his chosen people. In the Hebrew Bible, the first six books tell how the Israelites became a people and settled in the Promised Land, the following seven books describe the development of Israel's monarchy and the messages of the prophets, and the last 11 books contain poetry, theology, and some additional historical works. Christians divided some of the original Hebrew books into two or more parts, specifically, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles (two parts each), Ezra-Nehemiah (two separate books), and the Minor Prophets (12 separate books). The content of the Old Testament varies according to religious tradition, the Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant canons all differing from each other as to which books they include. Seealso Apocrypha, Bible.

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or Old Stone Age

Ancient technological or cultural stage characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools. During the Lower Paleolithic (circa 2,500,000–200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools and crude stone choppers were made by the earliest humans. About 700,000 years ago, the first rough hand ax appeared; it was later refined and used with other tools in the Acheulean industry. A flake-tool tradition emerged in the Middle Paleolithic, as exemplified by implements of the Mousterian industry. The Upper Paleolithic (40,000–10,000 BC) saw the emergence of more complex, specialized, and diverse regional stone-tool industries, such as the Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian. The two principal forms of Paleolithic art are small sculptures—such as the so-called Venus figurines and various carved or shaped animal and other figures—and monumental paintings, incised designs, and reliefs on the walls of caves such as Altamira (in Spain) and Lascaux Grotto (in France). The end of the Paleolithic is marked by the emergence of the settled agricultural villages of the Neolithic Period.

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Shaggy working dog developed in early 18th-century England and used primarily to drive sheep and cattle to market. It has a shuffling, bearlike gait and a dense, solid-coloured or white-marked gray or blue-gray coat. It stands 21–26 in. (53–66 cm) tall and weighs over 55 lb (25 kg). Its long, dense, weather-resistant coat covers the eyes but does not obscure vision. The tail is usually removed soon after birth.

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orig. James Francis Edward Stuart

(born June 10, 1688, London, Eng.—died Jan. 1, 1766, Rome, Papal States) Claimant to the English and Scottish thrones. Son of the exiled James II of England, he was raised in France as a Catholic. On the death of his father (1701), he was proclaimed king of England by the French king Louis XIV, but the English Parliament passed a bill of attainder against him. He served with the French army in the War of the Spanish Succession. In the Jacobite uprising (1715), James landed in Scotland, but within two months the uprising collapsed and he returned to France. He lived thereafter in Rome under the pope's patronage. He became known as the “Old Pretender” to distinguish him from his son, Charles Edward, the Young Pretender.

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