a small but strong town of Upper Hungary, capital of a county of the same name, with a good castle, seated on a mountain near the Danube. E. Long. 18. 10. N. Lat. 47. 50.

small but strong town of Dalmatia, with a castle, and subject to the Turks; seated on a lake of the same name, near the gulph of Venice. E. Long. 16. 45. N. Lat. 44. 30.

very strong place of Servia, subject to the Turks; seated near the Danube. E. Long. 26. 5. N. Lat. 45. 5.

NOVICE, a person not yet skilled or experienced in an art or profession.

In the ancient Roman militia, novicii, or novitii, were the young raw soldiers, distinguished by this appellation from the veterans.

In the ancient orders of knighthood, there were novices, or clerks in arms, who went through a kind of apprenticeship ere they were admitted knights. See Knight.

Novice is more particularly used in monasteries for a religious yet in his, or her, year of probation, and who has not made the vows.

In some convents, the sub-prior has the direction of the novices. In nunneries, the novices wear a white veil; the rest a black one.

NOVICATE, a year of probation appointed for the trial of religious, whether or no they have a vocation, and the necessary qualities for living up to the rule; the observation whereof they are to bind themselves to by vow. The noviciate lasts a year at least; in some houses more. It is esteemed the bed of the civil death of a novice, who expires to the world by profession.