1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Byward Street
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Byward Street is a road in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It forms part of the A3211 route and, if travelling eastward, is a continuation of Lower Thames Street from a junction with Great Tower Street. It is located within the City ward of Tower, constructed between 1895 and 1906 through the Met. and Dist. Railways Act,1882, Byward Street replaced the much older Black Swan Court, a number of retail outlets and restaurants also line Byward Street. It formed part of the course of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The womens Olympic marathon took place on 5 August and the mens on 12 August, the Paralympic marathons were held on 9 September. Other nearby streets, Mark Lane Mincing Lane Pepys Street Savage Gardens
3.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
4.
EC postcode area
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The EC postcode area, also known as the London EC postal area, is a group of postcode districts in central London, England. It includes almost all of the City of London and parts of the London Boroughs of Islington, Camden, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, the area covered is of very high density development. Deliveries for the EC postcode area are made from Mount Pleasant Mail Centre, the current postcode districts are relatively recent divisions of the EC1, EC2, EC3 and EC4 districts established in 1917. Where the districts are used for other than the sorting of mail, such as use as a geographic reference and on street signs. Postcode Address File List of postcode areas in the United Kingdom London postal district Royal Mails Postcode Address File A quick introduction to Royal Mails Postcode Address File
5.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
6.
Christian denomination
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A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity, identified by traits such as a name, organisation, leadership and doctrine. Individual bodies, however, may use alternative terms to describe themselves, groups of denominations—often sharing broadly similar beliefs, practices, and historical ties—are sometimes known as branches of Christianity or denominational families. Individual Christian groups vary widely in the degree to which they recognize one another, several groups claim to be the direct and sole authentic successor of the church founded by Jesus Christ in the 1st century AD. Others, however, believe in denominationalism, where some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same regardless of their distinguishing labels, beliefs. Because of this concept, some Christian bodies reject the term denomination to describe themselves, however, the Catholic Church does not view itself as a denomination, but as the original pre-denominational church. This view is rejected by other Christian denominations, Protestant denominations account for approximately 37 percent of Christians worldwide. Together, Catholicism and Protestantism comprise Western Christianity, Western Christian denominations prevail in Western, Northern, Central and Southern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and Oceania. The Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 225–300 million adherents, is the second-largest Christian organization in the world, unlike the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church is itself a communion of fully independent autocephalous churches that mutually recognize each other to the exclusion of others. The Eastern Orthodox Church, together with Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East, Eastern Christian denominations are represented mostly in Eastern Europe, North Asia, the Middle East and Northeast Africa. Christians have various doctrines about the Church and about how the church corresponds to Christian denominations. Both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox hold that their own organizations faithfully represent the One Holy catholic and Apostolic Church to the exclusion of the other, sixteenth-century Protestants separated from the Catholic Church because of theologies and practices that they considered to be in violation of their own interpretation. But some non-denominational Christians do not follow any particular branch, though regarded as Protestants. Each group uses different terminology to discuss their beliefs and this section will discuss the definitions of several terms used throughout the article, before discussing the beliefs themselves in detail in following sections. A denomination within Christianity can be defined as an autonomous branch of the Christian Church, major synonyms include religious group, sect, Church. Some traditional and evangelical Protestants draw a distinction between membership in the church and fellowship within the local church. Becoming a believer in Christ makes one a member of the universal church, a related concept is denominationalism, the belief that some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same religion regardless of their distinguishing labels, beliefs, and practices. Protestant leaders differ greatly from the views of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, each church makes mutually exclusive claims for itself to be the direct continuation of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, from whom other denominations later broke away. These churches, and a few others, reject denominationalism, Christianity can be taxonomically divided into five main groups, the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism
7.
Church of England
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The Church of England is the state church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior cleric, although the monarch is the supreme governor, the Church of England is also the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It dates its establishment as a church to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. The English church renounced papal authority when Henry VIII sought to secure an annulment from Catherine of Aragon in the 1530s, the English Reformation accelerated under Edward VIs regents before a brief restoration of papal authority under Queen Mary I and King Philip. This is expressed in its emphasis on the teachings of the early Church Fathers, as formalised in the Apostles, Nicene, in the earlier phase of the English Reformation there were both Catholic martyrs and radical Protestant martyrs. The later phases saw the Penal Laws punish Roman Catholic and nonconforming Protestants, in the 17th century, political and religious disputes raised the Puritan and Presbyterian faction to control of the church, but this ended with the Restoration. Papal recognition of George III in 1766 led to religious tolerance. Since the English Reformation, the Church of England has used a liturgy in English, the church contains several doctrinal strands, the main three known as Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical and Broad Church. Tensions between theological conservatives and progressives find expression in debates over the ordination of women and homosexuality, the church includes both liberal and conservative clergy and members. The governing structure of the church is based on dioceses, each presided over by a bishop, within each diocese are local parishes. The General Synod of the Church of England is the body for the church and comprises bishops, other clergy. Its measures must be approved by both Houses of Parliament, according to tradition, Christianity arrived in Britain in the 1st or 2nd century, during which time southern Britain became part of the Roman Empire. The earliest historical evidence of Christianity among the native Britons is found in the writings of such early Christian Fathers as Tertullian, three Romano-British bishops, including Restitutus, are known to have been present at the Council of Arles in 314. Others attended the Council of Sardica in 347 and that of Ariminum in 360, Britain was the home of Pelagius, who opposed Augustine of Hippos doctrine of original sin. Consequently, in 597, Pope Gregory I sent the prior of the Abbey of St Andrews from Rome to evangelise the Angles and this event is known as the Gregorian mission and is the date the Church of England generally marks as the beginning of its formal history. A later archbishop, the Greek Theodore of Tarsus, also contributed to the organisation of Christianity in England, the Church of England has been in continuous existence since the days of St Augustine, with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its episcopal head. Despite the various disruptions of the Reformation and the English Civil War, while some Celtic Christian practices were changed at the Synod of Whitby, the Christian Church in the British Isles was under papal authority from earliest times. The Synod of Whitby established the Roman date for Easter and the Roman style of monastic tonsure in Britain and this meeting of the ecclesiastics with Roman customs with local bishops was summoned in 664 at Saint Hildas double monastery of Streonshalh, later called Whitby Abbey
8.
Roman Catholic
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
9.
Churchmanship
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Churchmanship is a way of talking about and labelling different tendencies, parties, or schools of thought within the Church of England and the sister churches of the Anglican Communion. The word churchmanship itself was first used in 1680 to refer to the attitude of these supporters, while many Anglicans are content to label their own churchmanship, not all Anglicans would feel happy to be described as anything but Anglican. In official contexts the term tradition is preferred. High and Low, the oldest labels, date from the late 17th century and their meaning shifted as historical settings changed and towards the end of the 19th century they were being used to describe different views on the ceremonies to be used in worship. Shortly after the introduction of the High/Low distinction, a section of the Low Church was nicknamed Latitudinarian because of its indifference to doctrinal definition. In the 19th century, this gave birth to the Broad Church which in its turn produced the Modernist movement of the first half of the 20th century. Today, the parties are usually thought of as Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals, and Liberals, and, with the exception of High Church, the precise shades of meaning of any term vary from user to user and mixed descriptions such as liberal-catholic are found. Today Broad Church may be used today with a different sense to the one mentioned above and used to identify Anglicans who are neither markedly high. It is an Anglican commonplace to say that authority in the church has three sources, Scripture, Reason, and Tradition. In general, the Low churchman and Evangelical tend to put emphasis on Scripture, the Broad churchman and Liberal on reason. The emphasis on parties and differences is necessary but in itself gives an incomplete picture, cyril Garbett wrote of his coming to the Diocese of Southwark, I found the different parties strongly represented with their own organizations and federations. But where there was true reverence and devotion I never felt any difficulty in worshipping and preaching in an Anglo-Catholic church in the morning, and when there was a call for united action. The clergy and laity without distinction of party were ready to join in prayer, work, High Church and Low Church were not exclusive categories of though and churchmanship. They were blurred and broad streams within Anglicanism that often merged, overlapped and coincided, sometimes the concept of churchmanship has been extended to other denominations. In Lutheran churches it can be liberal Protestant, pietist, confessional Lutheran, central Churchmanship Liberal Anglo-Catholicism Conservative Evangelicalism in Britain Homosexuality and the Anglican Communion Balleine, G. R. A History of the Evangelical Party, bebbington, D. W. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. CS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Bennett, Gareth, the Church and the Age of Reason 1648–1789. The Caroline Captivity of the Church, the Claims of the Church of England
10.
Listed building
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A listed building or listed structure, in the United Kingdom, is one that has been placed on the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. The statutory bodies maintaining the list are Historic England in England, Cadw in Wales, Historic Scotland in Scotland, however, the preferred term in Ireland is protected structure. In England and Wales, an amenity society must be notified of any work to a listed building which involves any element of demolition. Owners of listed buildings are, in circumstances, compelled to repair and maintain them. When alterations are permitted, or when listed buildings are repaired or maintained, slightly different systems operate in each area of the United Kingdom, though the basic principles of the listing remain the same. It was the damage to caused by German bombing during World War II that prompted the first listing of buildings that were deemed to be of particular architectural merit. The listings were used as a means of determining whether a building should be rebuilt if it was damaged by bombing. Listing was first introduced into Northern Ireland under the Planning Order 1972, the listing process has since developed slightly differently in each part of the UK. In the UK, the process of protecting the historic environment is called ‘designation’. A heritage asset is a part of the environment that is valued because of its historic. Only some of these are judged to be important enough to have legal protection through designation. However, buildings that are not formally listed but still judged as being of heritage interest are still regarded as being a consideration in the planning process. Almost anything can be listed – it does not have to be a building, Buildings and structures of special historic interest come in a wide variety of forms and types, ranging from telephone boxes and road signs, to castles. Historic England has created twenty broad categories of structures, and published selection guides for each one to aid with assessing buildings and these include historical overviews and describe the special considerations for listing each category. Both Historic Scotland and Cadw produce guidance for owners, in England, to have a building considered for listing or delisting, the process is to apply to the secretary of state, this can be done by submitting an application form online to Historic England. The applicant does not need to be the owner of the building to apply for it to be listed, full information including application form guidance notes are on the Historic England website. Historic England assesses buildings put forward for listing or delisting and provides advice to the Secretary of State on the architectural, the Secretary of State, who may seek additional advice from others, then decides whether or not to list or delist the building. In England and Wales the authority for listing is granted to the Secretary of State by the Planning Act 1990, Listed buildings in danger of decay are listed on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register
11.
Diocese
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The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can also be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
12.
Diocese of London
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The Diocese of London forms part of the Church of Englands Province of Canterbury in England. Historically the diocese covered an area north of the Thames and bordered the dioceses of Norwich and Lincoln to the north. The present diocese covers 177 square miles and 17 London boroughs, covering most of Greater London north of the River Thames and this area covers nearly all of the historic county of Middlesex. It includes the City of London in which lies its cathedral, St Pauls, essex formed part of the diocese until 1846 when the county became part of the Diocese of Rochester. It is further divided into archdeaconries and deaneries, as shown below, the suffragan see of Stepney was created in 1895, Kensington in 1901, Willesden in 1911 and Edmonton in 1970. The suffragan see of Marlborough existed from 1888 to 1918, on 1 May 2015, it was announced that Chartres proposal to take the See of Islington out of abeyance for the appointment of a bishop for church plants would go ahead. Ric Thorpe was consecrated Bishop suffragan of Islington on 29 September 2015, alternative episcopal oversight is provided by a fifth suffragan bishop, Jonathan Baker, Bishop of Fulham, who has the same ministry in the Southwark and Rochester dioceses. During a lengthy vacancy in that see, alternative episcopal oversight was offered by the area Bishop of Edmonton, 2002–present, Edward Holland, retired Bishop of Colchester, lives in Hammersmith and is also licensed in the Diocese in Europe. 2003–present, Walter Makhulu, Archbishop emeritus of Central Africa and retired Bishop of Botswana, 2006–present, Sandy Millar, a former vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, lives in Alderburgh, Suffolk and is also an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. 2009–present, Robert Ladds, former Bishop suffragan of Whitby, lives in Hendon, 2013–present, Michael Colclough, retired Canon Pastor of St Pauls Cathedral and former Bishop of Kensington, lives in Chelsea. He is also licensed in the Diocese in Europe
13.
Priest
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A priest or priestess, is a person authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites, in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of and their office or position is the priesthood, a term which also may apply to such persons collectively. The necessity to read sacred texts and keep temple or church records helped foster literacy in early societies. Priests exist in many religions today, such as all or some branches of Judaism, Christianity, the question of which religions have a priest depends on how the titles of leaders are used or translated into English. In some cases, leaders are more like those that other believers will often turn to for advice on spiritual matters, for example, clergy in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are priests, but in Protestant Christianity they are typically minister and pastor. The terms priest and priestess are sufficiently generic that they may be used in a sense to describe the religious mediators of an unknown or otherwise unspecified religion. In many religions, being a priest or priestess is a full-time position, many Christian priests and pastors choose or are mandated to dedicate themselves to their churches and receive their living directly from their churches. In other cases it is a part-time role, for example, in the early history of Iceland the chieftains were titled goði, a word meaning priest. In some religions, being a priest or priestess is by election or human choice. In Judaism the priesthood is inherited in familial lines, in a theocracy, a society is governed by its priesthood. The word priest, is derived from Greek, via Latin presbyter. Old High German also has the disyllabic priester, priestar, apparently derived from Latin independently via Old French presbtre, the Latin presbyter ultimately represents Greek presbyteros, the regular Latin word for priest being sacerdos, corresponding to Greek hiereus. That English should have only the term priest to translate presbyter. The feminine English noun, priestess, was coined in the 17th century, in the 20th century, the word was used in controversies surrounding the ordination of women. In the case of the ordination of women in the Anglican communion, it is common to speak of priests. In historical polytheism, a priest administers the sacrifice to a deity, in the Ancient Near East, the priesthood also acted on behalf of the deities in managing their property. Priestesses in antiquity often performed sacred prostitution, and in Ancient Greece, some such as Pythia, priestess at Delphi. Sumerian and Akkadian Entu or EN were top-ranking priestesses who were distinguished with special ceremonial attire and they owned property, transacted business, and initiated the hieros gamos ceremony with priests and kings
14.
Mary, mother of Jesus
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Mary, also known by various titles, styles and honorifics, was a 1st-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran. The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin, the miraculous birth took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the Gospel of Luke begins its account of Marys life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. According to canonical gospel accounts, Mary was present at the crucifixion and is depicted as a member of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her life her body was assumed directly into Heaven. Mary has been venerated since Early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion and she is claimed to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, there is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, many Protestants minimize Marys role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references. Mary also has a position in Islam, where one of the longer chapters of the Quran is devoted to her. Marys name in the manuscripts of the New Testament was based on her original Aramaic name ܡܪܝܡ. The English name Mary comes from the Greek Μαρία, which is a form of Μαριάμ. Both Μαρία and Μαριάμ appear in the New Testament, in Christianity, Mary is commonly referred to as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the belief that she conceived Jesus miraculously through the Holy Spirit without her husbands involvement. The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are Theotokos, Aeiparthenos as confirmed in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, Catholics use a wide variety of titles for Mary, and these titles have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions. For example, the title Our Lady of Sorrows has inspired such masterpieces as Michelangelos Pietà, the title Theotokos was recognized at the Council of Ephesus in 431. However, this phrase in Greek, in the abbreviated form ΜΡ ΘΥ, is an indication commonly attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God, some Marian titles have a direct scriptural basis. For instance, the title Queen Mother has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, the scriptural basis for the term Queen can be seen in Luke 1,32 and the Isaiah 9,6. Queen Mother can be found in 1 Kings 2, 19-20 and Jeremiah 13, other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions for calling on Mary
15.
Anglicanism
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Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising the Church of England and churches which are historically tied to it or hold similar beliefs, worship practices and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to the Magna Carta and before, adherents of Anglicanism are called Anglicans. As the name suggests, the churches of the Anglican Communion are linked by bonds of tradition, affection and they are in full communion with the See of Canterbury, and thus the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his person, is a unique focus of Anglican unity. He calls the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference, chairs the meeting of primates, Anglicans base their Christian faith on the Bible, traditions of the apostolic Church, apostolic succession, and writings of the Church Fathers. Anglicanism forms one of the branches of Western Christianity, having declared its independence from the Holy See at the time of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. Many of the new Anglican formularies of the mid-16th century corresponded closely to those of contemporary Protestantism, the word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English Church. Adherents of Anglicanism are called Anglicans, as an adjective, Anglican is used to describe the people, institutions and churches, as well as the liturgical traditions and theological concepts developed by the Church of England. As a noun, an Anglican is a member of a church in the Anglican Communion, the word is also used by followers of separated groups which have left the communion or have been founded separately from it, although this is sometimes considered as a misuse. The word Anglicanism came into being in the 19th century, although the term Anglican is found referring to the Church of England as far back as the 16th century, its use did not become general until the latter half of the 19th century. Elsewhere, however, the term Anglican Church came to be preferred as it distinguished these churches from others that maintain an episcopal polity, as such, it is often referred to as being a via media between these traditions. Anglicans understand the Old and New Testaments as containing all necessary for salvation and as being the rule. Reason and Tradition are seen as means to interpret Scripture. Anglicans understand the Apostles Creed as the symbol and the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. Anglicans celebrate the sacraments, with special emphasis being given to the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion. Unique to Anglicanism is the Book of Common Prayer, the collection of services that worshippers in most Anglican churches used for centuries and it was called common prayer originally because it was intended for use in all Church of England churches which had previously followed differing local liturgies. The term was kept when the church became international because all Anglicans used to share in its use around the world, in 1549, the first Book of Common Prayer was compiled by Thomas Cranmer, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury. The founding of Christianity in Britain is commonly attributed to Joseph of Arimathea, according to Anglican legend, Saint Alban, who was executed in 209 AD, is the first Christian martyr in the British Isles. A new culture emerged around the Irish Sea among the Celtic peoples with Celtic Christianity at its core, what resulted was a form of Christianity distinct from Rome in many traditions and practices
16.
City of London
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The City of London is a city and county within London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, the City is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, it one of the 33 local authority districts of Greater London, however, the City of London is not a London borough. The City of London is widely referred to simply as the City and is colloquially known as the Square Mile. Both of these terms are often used as metonyms for the United Kingdoms trading and financial services industries. The name London is now used for a far wider area than just the City. London most often denotes the sprawling London metropolis, or the 32 London boroughs and this wider usage of London is documented as far back as 1888, when the County of London was created. The local authority for the City, namely the City of London Corporation, is unique in the UK and has some unusual responsibilities for a local council and it is also unusual in having responsibilities and ownerships beyond its boundaries. The Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the current Lord Mayor, as of November 2016, is Andrew Parmley. The City is a business and financial centre. Throughout the 19th century, the City was the primary business centre. London came top in the Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index, published in 2008, the insurance industry is focused around the eastern side of the City, around Lloyds building. A secondary financial district exists outside of the City, at Canary Wharf,2.5 miles to the east, the City has a resident population of about 7,000 but over 300,000 people commute to and work there, mainly in the financial services sector. It used to be held that Londinium was first established by merchants as a trading port on the tidal Thames in around 47 AD. However, this date is only supposition, many historians now believe London was founded some time before the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD. They base this notion on evidence provided by both archaeology and Welsh literary legend, archaeologists have claimed that as much as half of the best British Iron Age art and metalwork discovered in Britain has been found in the London area. One of the most prominent examples is the famously horned Waterloo Helmet dredged from the Thames in the early 1860s and now exhibited at the British Museum. Also, according to an ancient Welsh legend, a king named Lud son of Heli substantially enlarged and improved a pre-existing settlement at London which afterwards came to be renamed after him, the same tradition relates how this Lud son of Heli was later buried at Ludgate
17.
Tower of London
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The Tower of London, officially Her Majestys Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle located on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England. The White Tower, which gives the castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression. The castle was used as a prison from 1100 until 1952, a grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion, mainly under Kings Richard the Lionheart, Henry III, the general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site. The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history and it was besieged several times, and controlling it has been important to controlling the country. The Tower has served variously as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the home of the Royal Mint, a record office. From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II, in the absence of the monarch, the Constable of the Tower is in charge of the castle. This was a powerful and trusted position in the medieval period, in the late 15th century, the castle was the prison of the Princes in the Tower. Under the Tudors, the Tower became used less as a royal residence and this use has led to the phrase sent to the Tower. Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, in the latter half of the 19th century, institutions such as the Royal Mint moved out of the castle to other locations, leaving many buildings empty. Anthony Salvin and John Taylor took the opportunity to restore the Tower to what was felt to be its medieval appearance, in the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage. After the Second World War, damage caused during the Blitz was repaired, today, the Tower of London is one of the countrys most popular tourist attractions. Under the ceremonial charge of the Constable of the Tower, it is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces and is protected as a World Heritage Site. The Tower was orientated with its strongest and most impressive defences overlooking Saxon London and it would have visually dominated the surrounding area and stood out to traffic on the River Thames. The castle is made up of three wards, or enclosures, the innermost ward contains the White Tower and is the earliest phase of the castle
18.
The Blitz
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By September 1940—two months into the battle—faulty German intelligence suggested that the Royal Air Force was close to defeat at the hands of the Luftwaffe. The German air fleets were ordered to attack London, thereby drawing up the last remnants of RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation, Adolf Hitler and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, sanctioned the change in emphasis on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, one year into the war, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 out of the following 57 days, on 15 September 1940, a large daylight attack against London was repulsed with significant German losses. Thereafter, the Luftwaffe gradually decreased daylight operations in favour of nocturnal attacks, ports and industrial centres outside London were also attacked. The main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was bombed, the North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, was subjected to raids in the Hull Blitz during the war. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, by May 1941, the threat of an invasion of Britain had ended, and Hitlers attention turned to Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or significantly damage the war economy, the eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production and the war industries continued to operate and expand. The German offensives greatest effect was forcing the dispersal of aircraft production, British wartime studies concluded that cities generally took 10 to 15 days to recover when hit severely but exceptions like Birmingham took three months. The German air offensive failed for several reasons, discussions in OKL revolved around tactics rather than strategy. Poor intelligence on British industry and economic efficiency was also a factor, in the 1920s and 1930s, air power theorists Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell espoused the idea that air forces could win wars, without a need for land and sea fighting. It was thought there was no defence against air attack, particularly at night, enemy industry, seats of government, factories and communications could be destroyed, taking away their means to resist. It was also thought the bombing of residential centres would cause a collapse of civilian will, democracies, where the populace was allowed to show overt disapproval of the state, were thought particularly vulnerable. This thinking was prevalent in both the RAF and the United States Army Air Corps, the policy of RAF Bomber Command became an attempt to achieve victory through the destruction of civilian will, communications and industry. In the Luftwaffe, there was a view of strategic bombing. OKL did not believe that air power alone could be decisive, contrary to popular belief, evidence suggests that the Luftwaffe did not adopt an official bombing policy in which civilians became the primary target until 1942. The vital industries and transport centres that would be targeted for shutdown were valid military targets and it could be claimed civilians were not to be targeted directly, but the breakdown of production would affect their morale and will to fight. German legal scholars of the 1930s carefully worked out guidelines for what type of bombing was permissible under international law. Wever outlined five points of air strategy, To destroy the air force by bombing its bases and aircraft factories
19.
Saxons
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The Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany, in the late Roman empire. They were soon mentioned as raiding and settling in many North Sea areas, as well as pushing south inland towards the Franks. Significant numbers settled in parts of Great Britain in the early Middle Ages. Many Saxons however remained in Germania, where they resisted the expanding Frankish Empire through the leadership of the semi-legendary Saxon hero, the Saxons earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This general area also included the probable homeland of the Angles, Saxons, along with the Angles and other continental Germanic tribes, participated in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century. The British-Celtic inhabitants of the isles tended to refer to all of these collectively as Saxons. It is unknown how many Saxons migrated from the Continent to Britain, the Saxons may have derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known. The seax has a symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon. The Elizabethan era play Edmund Ironside suggests the Saxon name derives from the Latin saxa, Their names discover what their natures are, More hard than stones, in the Celtic languages, the words designating English nationality derive from the Latin word Saxones. The most prominent example, a loanword in English, is the Scottish Gaelic Sassenach and it derives from the Scottish Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, Saxon, from the Latin Saxones. Scots- or Scottish English-speakers in the 21st century usually use it as a term for an English person. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. Sasanach, the Irish word for an Englishman, has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people, Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language, England in Scottish Gaelic is Sasainn. Other examples include the Welsh Saesneg, Irish Sasana, Breton saoz, and Cornish Sowson, Sowsnek, the label Saxons was also applied to German settlers who migrated during the 13th century to southeastern Transylvania. From Transylvania, some Saxons migrated to neighbouring Moldavia, as the name of the town, Sas-cut, sascut is located in the part of Moldavia that is today part of Romania. The Finns and Estonians have changed their usage of the term Saxony over the centuries to denote now the country of Germany
20.
Barking Abbey
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Barking Abbey is a former royal monastery located in Barking, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It has been described as one of the most important nunneries in the country, originally established in the 7th century, from the late 10th century the abbey followed the Rule of St. Benedict. The abbey had an endowment and sizable income but suffered severely after 1377, when the River Thames flooded around 720 acres of the abbeys land. Despite this, at the time of the dissolution it was still the third wealthiest nunnery in England, the abbey continued to operate for almost 900 years, until its closure in 1539, as part of King Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries. During its existence, the abbey had many notable abbesses including several saints, former queens, the abbess of Barking held precedence over all other abbesses in England. The ruined remains of Barking Abbey now form part of an open space known as Abbey Green. Barking Abbey was one of two founded in the 7th century by Saint Erkenwald. Erkenwald founded Chertsey Abbey for himself, and Barking Abbey for his sister Saint Ethelburga, Erkenwald and Ethelburga were of royal ancestry and were born in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Lindsey. It is said Ethelburga chose to become a nun to avoid having to marry King Edwin of Northumbria, however, this seems doubtful and there may have been confusion between Ethelburga and Æthelburh of Kent. Either way, Ethelburgas brother Erkenwald founded Barking Abbey specifically for her, Ethelburga served as the Abbeys first abbess. Saint Hildelitha, a nun brought from abroad to teach Ethelburga, Erkenwald himself would die at the abbey in 693, although his body was taken to Chertsey Abbey for burial. The abbey was endowed by the East Saxon Princes, who came from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of the East Saxons/Kingdom of Essex, the abbey was initially dedicated to Saint Mary. However, it was dedicated to both Saint Mary and Saint Ethelburga. Saint Wulfhilda became abbess of Barking Abbey during the 10th century, Wulfhilda had grown up at Wilton Abbey, Wiltshire. King Edgar the Peaceful fell in love with Wulfhilda at Wilton, eventually Edgar tried to entrap Wulfhilda, getting her aunt, Abbess Wenflaeda of Wherwell to fake an illness and summon Wulfhilda, Edgar was the one waiting when Wulfhila arrived. On arriving, Wulfhilda found his fervour so alarming that she fled, leaving her sleeve in his hand, Wulfhilda pursued her ambition and became a nun. King Edgar then created her Abbess of Barking and donated considerable estates to Barking Abbey, Wulfhilda herself donated 20 villages to the abbey and established another monastery at Horton in Kent. King Edgars eventual queen, Ælfthryth became jealous of Wulfhilda, Wulfhilda was later restored by Edgars and Ælfthryths son, King Æthelred the Unready
21.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
22.
Crypt
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A crypt is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics, originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a church, such as at the Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre, but were later located beneath chancel, naves and transepts as well. Occasionally churches were raised high to accommodate a crypt at the level, such as St Michaels Church in Hildesheim. Crypt developed as a form of the Latin vault as it was carried over into Late Latin. It also served as a vault for storing important and/or sacred items, crypta, however, is also the female form of crypto hidden. The earliest known origin of both is in the Ancient Greek κρύπτω, the first person singular indicative of the verb to conceal, first known in the early Christian period, in particular North Africa at Chlef and Djemila in Algeria, and Byzantium at Saint John Studio in Constantinople. Where Christian churches have been built over mithraea, the mithraeum has often been adapted to serve as a crypt, crypts were introduced into Frankish church building in the mid-8th century, as a feature of its Romanization. Their popularity then spread widely in western Europe under Charlemagne. Examples from this period are most common in the early medieval West, for example in Burgundy at Dijon, after the 10th century the early medieval requirements of a crypt faded, as church officials permitted relics to be held in the main level of the church. By the Gothic period crypts were built, however burial vaults continued to be constructed beneath churches. In more modern terms, a crypt is most often a stone chambered burial vault used to store the deceased, crypts are usually found in cemeteries and under public religious buildings, such as churches or cathedrals, but are also occasionally found beneath mausolea or chapels on personal estates. Wealthy or prestigious families will often have a family crypt or vault in which all members of the family are interred, many royal families, for example, have vast crypts containing the bodies of dozens of former royalty. In some localities an above ground crypt is more commonly called a mausoleum, there was a trend in the 19th century of building crypts on medium to large size family estates, usually subtly placed on the edge of the grounds or more commonly incorporated into the cellar. After a change of owner these are often blocked up and the house deeds will not allow this area to be re-developed, catacomb Mausoleum Tumulus Ossuary Tomb Cemetery Media related to Crypt at Wikimedia Commons Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Crypt
23.
Edward IV of England
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Edward IV was the King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was the first Yorkist King of England, before becoming king, he was 4th Duke of York, 7th Earl of March, 5th Earl of Cambridge and 9th Earl of Ulster. He was also the 65th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Edward of York was born at Rouen in France, the second son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville. He was the eldest of the four sons who survived to adulthood and he bore the title Earl of March before his fathers death and his accession to the throne. Edwards father Richard, Duke of York, had been heir to King Henry VI until the birth of Henrys son Edward in 1453, Richard carried on a factional struggle with the kings Beaufort relatives. He established a dominant position after his victory at the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, in which his chief rival Edmund Beaufort, however, Henrys Queen, Margaret of Anjou, rebuilt a powerful faction to oppose the Yorkists over the following years. The Yorkist leaders fled from England after the collapse of their army in the confrontation at Ludford Bridge, the Duke of York took refuge in Ireland, while Edward went with the Nevilles to Calais where Warwick was governor. In 1460 Edward landed in Kent with Salisbury, Warwick and Salisburys brother William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, raised an army and this left Edward, now Duke of York, at the head of the Yorkist faction. He defeated a Lancastrian army at Mortimers Cross in Herefordshire on 2–3 February 1461 and he then united his forces with those of Warwick, whom Margarets army had defeated at the Second Battle of St Albans, during which Henry VI had been rescued by his supporters. Edwards father had restricted his ambitions to becoming Henrys heir, and he then advanced against the Lancastrians, having his life saved on the battlefield by the Welsh Knight Sir David Ap Mathew. He defeated the Lancastrian army in the exceptionally bloody Battle of Towton in Yorkshire on 29 March 1461, Edward had effectively broken the military strength of the Lancastrians, and he returned to London for his coronation. King Edward IV named Sir David Ap Mathew Standard Bearer of England, Lancastrian resistance continued in the north, but posed no serious threat to the new regime and was finally extinguished by Warwicks brother John Neville in the Battle of Hexham in 1464. Henry VI had escaped into the Pennines, where he spent a year in hiding, Queen Margaret fled abroad with the young Prince Edward and many of their leading supporters. Even at the age of nineteen, Edward exhibited remarkable military acumen and he also had a notable physique and was described as handsome and affable. His height is estimated at 6 feet 4.5 inches, making him the tallest among all English, Scottish, most of Englands leading families had remained loyal to Henry VI or remained uncommitted in the recent conflict. The new regime, therefore, relied heavily on the support of the Nevilles, however, the king increasingly became estranged from their leader the Earl of Warwick, due primarily to his marriage. Warwick, acting on Edwards behalf, made arrangements with King Louis XI of France for Edward to marry either Louis daughter Anne or his sister-in-law Bona of Savoy. He was humiliated and enraged to discover that, while he was negotiating, Edward had secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, Edwards marriage to Elizabeth Woodville has been criticised as an impulsive action that did not add anything to the security of England or the York dynasty
24.
Chantry
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It was believed such masses would speed the deceaseds soul through its undesirable and indeterminate period in Purgatory onwards to eternal rest in Heaven. Clearly once the soul had reached Heaven the ideal state for the Christian human soul had been attained, thus the concept of Purgatory was central to the perceived need for chantries. Chantries were commonly established in England and were endowed with lands, rents from specified properties and other assets by the donor, the income from these assets maintained the chantry priest. A chantry chapel is a building on land or a dedicated area or altar within a parish church or cathedral. A chantry may occupy for premises a single altar, for example in the aisle of a church, rather than an enclosed chapel within a larger church. Many such chantry altars became richly endowed, often with gold furnishings, over the centuries, chantries increased their wealth, often by attracting new donors, and chantry priests, or those feoffees who employed them, were in many cases able to enjoy great wealth. In some instances this led to corruption of the consecrated life expected of clerics and it also led in general to an accumulation of great wealth and power by the Church, beyond the feudal control of the Crown. This evident corruption was one of the utilized by King Henry VIII to order the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England. At that time, chantries were abolished and their assets were sold or granted to persons at the discretion of King Henry VIII and his son King Edward VI, via the Court of Augmentations. The Roman Catholic practice of saying masses to benefit the soul of a deceased person supposed to be in Purgatory is recorded as early as the 8th century, the most common form was the anniversarium or missa annualis, a mass said annually on the date of the persons death. Catholics believe that the prayer the better, including the offering of the Mass. At the Council of Attigny in 765, about 40 abbots and bishops agreed to say masses, before the year 1000 in Italy, France and England, great churches extended the benefits of such associations to lay persons. Kings and great magnates asked that prayers for their souls be said in the monasteries they founded on their estates, the word chantry derives, via Old French chanter, from the Latin cantare and its mediaeval derivative, cantaria. The French term for this institution is chapellenie. The Latin word obiit, used in English as a noun with the meaning as a chantry, means literally he is dead from the verb obire, from the verb ire to go plus the preposition ob- away. Current theories locate the origins of the chantry in the expansion of regular monasteries in the 11th century. The abbey of Cluny and its hundreds of houses were central to this. The Cluniac order emphasised an elaborate liturgy as the centre of its life, it developed an unrivalled liturgy for the dead
25.
Great Fire of London
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The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London from Sunday,2 September to Wednesday,5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall and it threatened but did not reach the aristocratic district of Westminster, Charles IIs Palace of Whitehall, and most of the suburban slums. It consumed 13,200 houses,87 parish churches, St Pauls Cathedral and it is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the Citys 80,000 inhabitants. The death toll is unknown but traditionally thought to have been small, a melted piece of pottery on display at the Museum of London found by archaeologists in Pudding Lane, where the fire started, shows that the temperature reached 1250 °C. The Great Fire started at the bakery of Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday,2 September, by the time that large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm that defeated such measures. The fire pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City, order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of suspicious foreigners setting fires. The fears of the focused on the French and Dutch, Englands enemies in the ongoing Second Anglo-Dutch War. The social and economic problems created by the disaster were overwhelming, evacuation from London and resettlement elsewhere were strongly encouraged by Charles II, who feared a London rebellion amongst the dispossessed refugees. Despite numerous radical proposals, London was reconstructed on essentially the same street plan used before the fire, by the 1660s, London was by far the largest city in Britain, estimated at half a million inhabitants. By inartificial, Evelyn meant unplanned and makeshift, the result of organic growth, London had been a Roman settlement for four centuries and had become progressively more crowded inside its defensive city wall. It had also pushed outwards beyond the wall into squalid extramural slums such as Shoreditch, Holborn, and Southwark, the City was surrounded by a ring of inner suburbs where most Londoners lived. The City was then, as now, the heart of the capital. The aristocracy shunned the City and lived either in the countryside beyond the suburbs, or in the exclusive Westminster district. The relationship was tense between the City and the Crown. The City magistrates were of the generation that had fought in the Civil War and they were determined to thwart any similar tendencies in his son, and when the Great Fire threatened the City, they refused the offers that Charles made of soldiers and other resources. Even in such an emergency, the idea of having the unpopular Royal troops ordered into the City was political dynamite, by the time that Charles took over command from the ineffectual Lord Mayor, the fire was already out of control. The City was essentially medieval in its plan, an overcrowded warren of narrow, winding. It had experienced major fires before 1666, the most recent in 1632
26.
William Penn
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He was an early advocate of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans. Under his direction, the city of Philadelphia was planned and developed, in 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his American land holdings to William Penn to appease the debts the king owed to Penns father. This land included present-day Pennsylvania and Delaware, Penn immediately set sail and took his first step on American soil in New Castle in 1682 after his trans-Atlantic journey. On this occasion, the colonists pledged allegiance to Penn as their new proprietor, afterwards, Penn journeyed up the Delaware River and founded Philadelphia. However, Penns Quaker government was not viewed favourably by the Dutch, Swedish and they had no historical allegiance to Pennsylvania, so they almost immediately began petitioning for their own assembly. In 1704 they achieved their goal when the three southernmost counties of Pennsylvania were permitted to split off and become the new colony of Lower Delaware. As the most prominent, prosperous and influential city in the new colony, as one of the earlier supporters of colonial unification, Penn wrote and urged for a union of all the English colonies in what was to become the United States of America. The democratic principles that he set forth in the Pennsylvania Frame of Government served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution, as a pacifist Quaker, Penn considered the problems of war and peace deeply. He developed a project for a United States of Europe through the creation of a European Assembly made of deputies that could discuss. He is therefore considered the very first thinker to suggest the creation of a European Parliament, a man of extreme religious convictions, Penn wrote numerous works in which he exhorted believers to adhere to the spirit of Primitive Christianity. He was imprisoned several times in the Tower of London due to his faith, and his book No Cross, No Crown, William Penn, Sr. served in the Commonwealth Navy during the English Civil War and was rewarded by Oliver Cromwell with estates in Ireland. The lands were seized from Irish Catholics in retaliation for the failed Irish Rebellion of 1641, Admiral Penn took part in the restoration of Charles II and was eventually knighted and served in the Royal Navy. At the time of his sons birth, Captain Penn was twenty-three, William Penn grew up during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, who succeeded in leading a Puritan rebellion against King Charles I, the king was beheaded when Penn was age 5. Penns father was often at sea, little William caught smallpox at a young age, losing all his hair, prompting his parents to move from the suburbs to an estate in Essex. The country life made an impression on young Penn. Penn was educated first at Chigwell School, by private tutors whilst in Ireland, at that time, there were no state schools and nearly all educational institutions were affiliated with the Anglican Church. Children from poor families had to have a sponsor to get an education. Penns education heavily leaned on the authors and no novelties or conceited modern writers were allowed including William Shakespeare
27.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and it was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12,1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the states largest city of Philadelphia, during the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washingtons headquarters during the winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west, of a total 46,055 square miles,44,817 square miles are land,490 square miles are inland waters, and 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States, Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America
28.
Samuel Pepys
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Samuel Pepys FRS was an administrator of the navy of England and Member of Parliament who is most famous for the diary that he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Pepys had no experience, but he rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II through patronage, hard work, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy, the detailed private diary that Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War. Pepys was born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, London on 23 February 1633, the son of John Pepys, a tailor and his great uncle Talbot Pepys was Recorder and briefly Member of Parliament for Cambridge in 1625. His fathers first cousin Sir Richard Pepys was elected MP for Sudbury in 1640, appointed Baron of the Exchequer on 30 May 1654, Pepys was the fifth of eleven children, but child mortality was high and he was soon the oldest survivor. He was baptised at St Brides Church on 3 March, Pepys did not spend all of his infancy in London, for a while, he was sent to live with nurse Goody Lawrence at Kingsland, just north of the city. In about 1644, Pepys attended Huntingdon Grammar School before being educated at St Pauls School, London and he attended the execution of Charles I in 1649. In 1650, he went to Cambridge University, having received two exhibitions from St Pauls School and a grant from the Mercers Company. In October, he was admitted as a sizar to Magdalene College, he moved there in March 1651, later in 1654 or early in 1655, he entered the household of another of his fathers cousins, Sir Edward Montagu, who was later created 1st Earl of Sandwich. From a young age, Pepys suffered from stones in his urinary tract – a condition from which his mother and brother John also later suffered. He was almost never without pain, as well as other symptoms, by the time of his marriage, the condition was very severe. In 1657 Pepys decided to undergo surgery, not an option, as the operation was known to be especially painful. Nevertheless, Pepys consulted surgeon Thomas Hollier and, on 26 March 1658, Pepys stone was successfully removed and he resolved to hold a celebration on every anniversary of the operation, which he did for several years. However, there were long-term effects from the operation, the incision on his bladder broke open again late in his life. The procedure may have left him sterile, though there is no evidence for this. In mid-1658 Pepys moved to Axe Yard, near the modern Downing Street and he worked as a teller in the Exchequer under George Downing. On 1 January 1660, Pepys began to keep a diary and he recorded his daily life for almost ten years
29.
Victorian restoration
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It was not the same process as is understood today by the term building restoration. The change was embraced by the Church of England which saw it as a means of reversing the decline in church attendance. It is estimated that around 80% of all Church of England churches were affected in some way by the movement, varying from minor changes to complete demolition, in retrospect, the period of Victorian restoration has been viewed in a generally unfavourable light. A number of working together led to the spate of Victorian restoration. This situation lasted for about 250 years with the fabric of many churches, the severity of the problem was demonstrated when the spire of Chichester Cathedral suddenly telescoped in on itself in 1861. But towards the end of the 18th century the burgeoning Gothic Revival, the popularity of the Gothic Revival was seen by Church officials as a way to reverse the decline in church attendance, and thereby start to reassert the Churchs power, prosperity and influence. They therefore pushed for massive restoration programs, the rise in dissenter denominations, such as Methodism and the Religious Society of Friends, was seen as further evidence of this shortfall. To fulfil this need, between 1818 and 1824 the Government had granted £1.5 million for building new churches. Known as Commissioners churches, most of them cost only £4,000 to £5,000 each to build and it rapidly became popular, its membership increased from 8 to 180 in its first 12 months. Ecclesiology obviously struck a chord in society, it was linked with the ongoing interest in medievalism. The CCS stated that there were two ways in which a church could be restored. And if the earliest portions were too late, then it was a candidate for a rebuild in the correct style. To restore, The Ecclesiologist declared, is to revive the original appearance, lost by decay, accident or ill-judged alteration. They did later admit, though, that such restoration might create a state that the building had never been in. Another consequence was that a chancel was required for the associated ritual. Some figures give an idea of the scale, a total of 3,765 new and rebuilt churches were consecrated in the forty years up to 1875, with the most active decade being the 1860s in which there were more than 1,000 such consecrations. Over 7,000 parish churches in England and Wales — which is nearly 80% of all of them — were restored in some way between 1840 and 1875, butterfields restoration involved the removal of some original features, including the obliteration of paintings on the pillars. Butterfield also installed clear windows in the clerestory, allowing light to enter the nave
30.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
31.
Monumental brass
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The Earl of Moray had been assassinated, and his monumental brass carries the Moray arms and figures representing Religion and Justice. The fine memorials of the house of Saxony in the cathedrals of Meissen and Freiberg are the most artistic. Among the 13th-century examples existing in German churches are the memorials of Yso von Welpe, Prince-Bishop of Verden. Many fine Flemish specimens exist in Belgium, especially at Bruges, the majority of extant memorial brasses are now found in England, where it is calculated that there may be about 4,000 still remaining in various churches. They are most abundant in the counties, and this fact has been frequently adduced in support of the opinion that they were of Flemish manufacture. Flemish brasses can be found in England, but they are not common, the Flemish examples have the figures engraved in the centre of a large plate, the background filled in with diapered or scroll work, and the inscription placed round the edge of the plate. The English examples have the cut out to the outline and inserted in corresponding cavities in the slab. This is not a distinction, however, as figure-brasses of Flemish origin are found both at Bruges and in England. Scarcely any of the brasses which now exist in England can be referred to the first half of the 13th century. The full-sized brass of Sir John dAubernon at Stoke dAbernon in Surrey has the decorations of the filled in with a species of enamel. A well-known 13th-century example is that of Sir Roger de Trumpington, about half a dozen examples of this stylistic feature are known. The 14th-century brasses are more numerous, and present a remarkable variety in their details. The finest specimen is that of Nicholas Lord Burnell in the church of Acton Burnell, in the 15th century the design and execution of monumental brasses had attained their highest excellence. The beautiful brass of Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick, and his wife Margaret, an interesting monumental brass of John Rudying dated 1481 in the Church of St Andrew in Biggleswade shows the figure of Death about to strike Archdeacon Rudying with a spear. It is only in the 16th century that the engraved representations become portraits, previous to that period the features were invariably represented conventionally, though sometimes personal peculiarities were added. A large number of brasses in England are palimpsests, the back of an ancient brass having been engraved for the more recent memorial. Thus a brass commemorative of Margaret Bulstrode at Hedgerley, on being removed from its position, was discovered to have been previously the memorial of Thomas Totyngton, abbot of St Edmundsbury. The abbey was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1539, so that before the year was out the work of spoliation had begun
32.
Brass rubbing
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The concept of recording textures of things is more generally called making a rubbing. What distinguishes rubbings from frottage is that rubbings are meant to reproduce the form of something being transferred, now most brass rubbers purchase special paper rolls of heavy duty black velvety material, and the crayons are gold, silver or bronze. Brass plaques are slowly but surely worn away by the rubbing process, Brass rubbing centres with replicas of original brass plaques have become a prime source for brass rubbings in the UK. Replicas are often not the scale as the original. Bronze and brass ornamental work Monumental Brasses as Art and History ed. Jerome Bertram, Monumental Brass Society History. uk. coms guide to brass rubbing
33.
Baptismal font
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A baptismal font is an article of church furniture used for baptism. The fonts of many Christian denominations are for baptisms using an immersion method, the simplest of these fonts has a pedestal with a holder for a basin of water. The materials vary greatly consisting of carved and sculpted marble, wood, many are eight-sided as a reminder of the new creation and as a connection to the practice of circumcision, which traditionally occurs on the eighth day. Some are three-sided as a reminder of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, in many churches of the Middle Ages and Renaissance there was a special chapel or even a separate building for housing the baptismal fonts, called a baptistery. Both fonts and baptisterys were often octagonal, saint Ambrose wrote that fonts and baptistries were octagonal because on the eighth day, by rising, Christ loosens the bondage of death and receives the dead from their graves. Saint Augustine similarly described the day as everlasting. Hallowed by the resurrection of Christ, the quantity of water is usually small. There are some fonts where water pumps, a natural spring and this visual and audible image communicates a living waters aspect of baptism. Some church bodies use special holy water while others use water straight out of the tap to fill the font. A special silver vessel called a ewer can be used to fill the font, the mode of a baptism at a font is usually one of sprinkling, pouring, washing, or dipping in keeping with the Koine Greek verb βαπτιζω. Βαπτιζω can also mean immerse, but most fonts are too small for that application, some fonts are large enough to allow the immersion of infants, however. The earliest baptismal fonts were designed for full immersion, and were often cross-shaped with steps leading down into them, often such baptismal pools were located in a separate building, called a baptistery, near the entrance of the church. As infant baptism became common, fonts became smaller. Full-immersion baptisms may take place in a tank or pool. The entire body is immersed, dunked, submerged or otherwise placed completely under the water. This practice symbolizes the death of the old nature, as found in Romans 6, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, baptism is always by full triple immersion, even in the case of infant baptism. For this reason, Eastern baptismal fonts tend to be larger than Western, and are shaped like a large chalice. During the baptismal service, three candles will be lit on or around the font, in honor of the Holy Trinity
34.
Grinling Gibbons
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Gibbons was born and educated in Holland of English parents, his father being a merchant. He was a member of the Drapers Company of London and he is widely regarded as the finest wood carver working in England, and the only one whose name is widely known among the general public. He also worked in stone, mostly for churches, by the time he was established he led a large workshop, and the extent to which his personal hand appears in later work varies. Very little is known about his early life, the name Grinling is formed from sections of two family names. He moved to Deptford, England around 1667, and by 1693 had accepted commissions from the family and had been appointed as a master carver. By 1680 he was known as the Kings Carver, and carried out exquisite work for St Pauls Cathedral, Windsor Castle. His carving was so fine that it was said a pot of carved flowers above his house in London would tremble from the motion of passing coaches, the diarist Evelyn first discovered Gibbons talent by chance in 1671. Evelyn, from whom Gibbons rented a cottage near Evelyns home in Sayes Court, Deptford, wrote the following, I saw the man at his carving. I saw him to be engaged on a representation of Tintorettos Crucifixion. Later that same evening, Evelyn described what he had seen to Sir Christopher Wren, Wren and Evelyn then introduced him to King Charles II who gave him his first commission - still resting in the dining room of Windsor Castle. Gibbons is buried at St Pauls, Covent Garden, London, Gibbons was employed by Wren to work on St Pauls Cathedral and later was appointed as master carver to George I. He was also commissioned by King William III to create carvings, an example of his work can be seen in the Presence Chamber above the fireplace, which was originally intended to frame a portrait of Queen Mary II after her death in 1694. Also in the Orangery at Kensington, you can see some his pieces, many fine examples of his work can still be seen in the churches around London - particularly the choir stalls and organ case of St Pauls Cathedral. Some of the finest Gibbons carvings accessible to the public are those on display at the National Trusts Petworth House in West Sussex. At Petworth the Carved Room is host to a fine and extensive display of intricate carvings by Gibbons. His association with Deptford is commemorated locally, Grinling Gibbons Primary School is in Clyde Street, most of present day New Cross and Brockley wards were in 1978-1998 part of the Grinling Gibbons ward. His work can be seen in the London churches of St Michael Paternoster Royal and St James, Piccadilly, the Anglican dislike of painted altarpieces typically left a large space on the east wall that needed filling, which often gave Grinlings garlands a very prominent position, as here. The famous sculptor of Brussels Peter van Dievoet had collaborated with Grinling Gibbons, St Michael and All Angels Church, Badminton, has a monument by Gibbons to Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort
35.
Parish register
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Along with these vital details, church goods, terriers, the parish’s response to briefs, and notes on various happenings in the parish were also recorded. These elaborate records existed for the purpose of preventing bigamy and consanguineous marriage, the information recorded was also considered significant for State records, resulting in the Church supplying it with a copy of all parish registers. A good register permits the family structure of the community to be reconstituted as far back as the sixteenth century, thus, these records were distilled for the definitive study of the history of several nations’ populations. They also provide insight into the lives and interrelationships of parishioners, before this, a few Roman Catholic religious’ houses and parish priests had kept informal notes on the baptisms, marriages and burials of the prominent local families. This injunction was addressed to the rector or vicar of every parish in England, however, this order had nothing to do with religious doctrine or the papacy and rather indicated the desire of the central government to have full knowledge of the population of the country. The book was to be kept in a coffer with two locks and keys. A fine of 3 sols,4 deniers was to be levied for failure to comply, many parishes ignored this order as it was commonly thought that it presaged a further tax. Finally, in 1597, both Queen and Convocation reaffirmed the injunction, adding that the registers were of ‘permagnus usus’, previous records had to be copied into the new books and copies of each year’s entries had to be sent to the bishop’s registrar. The parish clerk was paid to copy the old records into a new parchment book in order to keep the record up to date. During the English Civil War and in the following Commonwealth period, records were poorly kept and this parsimony and neglect was remedied by depositing the registers in county record offices where they were safeguarded and made accessible. On the other hand, the parish registers of New France were rarely damaged by external events such as war, revolution. Thus,300,00 entries were available for the time period 1621 to 1760, separate, printed registers were to be supplied by the Kings Printer, and used for baptisms, marriages and burials. These are more or less unchanged to this day, in the United States, at least the parishes in the Roman Catholic dioceses maintained a similar practice of recording baptisms, marriages, burials, and often also confirmations and first communions. From the earliest pioneer churches ministered by itinerant priests, the records were written in ecclesiastical Latin, but after the Second Vatican Council and its reforms that included translating the Mass into local languages, most register entries gradually came to be written in English. In Protestant communions with stronger similarities to Roman Catholicism, parish registers are also important sources that document baptisms, marriages, in Protestant and Evangelical churches, individual ministers often kept records of faith-related events among the congregation, but under much less guidance from any central governing body. Prior to 1563, the oldest registers of baptisms are preserved since 1379 in Gemona del Friuli,1381 in Siena,1428 in Florence or 1459 in Bologna, in France, parish registers had been in use since the Middle Ages. The oldest surviving registers date back to 1303 and are posted in Givry, other existing registers prior to orders of civil legislation in 1539 reside in Roz-Landrieux 1451, Paramé1453, Lanloup 1467, Trans-la-Forêt 1479 and Signes 1500. They had to be sent every year to the bailiwick or sénéchaussée in the south of France, in April 1667, the Ordinance of Saint-Germain-en-Laye ordered a copy to be kept by the parish clergy as before the ordinance
36.
John Quincy Adams
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John Quincy Adams was an American statesman who served as a diplomat, United States Senator, member of the House of Representatives, and was the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican and he was the son of President John Adams and Abigail Adams and thus contributed to the formation of the Adams political family. Adams shaped U. S. foreign policy using his ardently nationalist commitment to U. S. republican values, as a diplomat, Adams played an important role in negotiating key treaties, most notably the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated with Britain over the United States northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, historians generally concur that he was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history. Adams was elected president in a close and controversial four-way contest in 1824, as president he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education. Adams enacted a part of his agenda and paid off much of the national debt, however he was stymied time and again by a Congress controlled by opponents, and his lack of patronage networks helped politicians sabotage him. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson, after leaving office, he was elected as U. S. Representative from Massachusetts in 1830, serving for the last 17 years of his life with greater acclaim than he had achieved as president, animated by his growing revulsion against slavery, Adams became a leading opponent of the Slave Power. Adams predicted the Unions dissolution over slavery, and in such a case, historians have in the aggregate ranked Adams as the 21st most successful president. John Quincy Adams was born on July 11,1767, to John Adams and he was named for his mothers maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts, is named. Young Adams was educated by private tutors – his cousin James Thaxter and his fathers law clerk and he soon began to exhibit his literary skills in 1779, when he initiated a diary which he kept until just before he died in 1848. The diary comprised an unprecedented fifty volumes, representing one of the most extensive, much of Adams youth was spent accompanying his father overseas. He accompanied his father on diplomatic missions to France from 1778 until 1779, Adams acquired an education at institutions such as Leiden University. He matriculated in Leiden on January 10,1781, for nearly three years, beginning at the age of 14, he accompanied Francis Dana as a secretary on a mission to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to obtain recognition of the new United States. He spent time in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark and, in 1804, during these years overseas, Adams became fluent in French and Dutch and became familiar with German and other European languages. Though Adams enjoyed Europe, he and his family decided he needed to return to the United States to complete his education and he entered Harvard College, graduated in 1787 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and was elected by Phi Beta Kappa. Adams, mainly with the influence of his father, had excelled in studies and reached fluency in Latin. Upon entering Harvard he had already translated Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, after graduating from Harvard, he studied law with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport, Massachusetts from 1787 to 1789
37.
William Laud
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William Laud was an English archbishop and academic. He was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, during the rule of Charles I. Arrested in 1640, he was executed in 1645, in matters of church polity, Laud was autocratic. They were precursors to later High Church views, in theology, Laud was accused of being an Arminian and opponent of Calvinism, as well as covertly favouring Roman Catholic doctrines. On all three grounds, he was regarded by Puritan clerics and laymen as a formidable and dangerous opponent, Laud favoured scholars, and was a major collector of manuscripts. He pursued ecumenical contacts with the Greek Orthodox Church, the pun give great praise to the Lord, and little Laud to the devil is a warning to King Charles attributed to Archibald Armstrong, the official court jester. Laud was known to be touchy about his diminutive stature and he was educated at Reading School, and went in 1589 to St Johns College, Oxford, matriculating on 17 October. In 1593 he became a fellow of the college and he graduated B. A. in 1594, M. A. in 1598, and D. D. in 1608. As an undergraduate Laud had for his tutor John Buckeridge, who became president of St Johns in 1605, Laud was ordained deacon on 4 January 1601, and priest on 5 April in the same year. On 4 May 1603 he was one of the proctors for the year, when Buckeridge left St Johns in 1611, Laud succeeded him as President, but only after a hard patronage struggle reaching high court circles. The rival candidate, John Rawlinson, was chaplain to Lord Ellesmere, Laud was chaplain to Richard Neile, who was Clerk of the Closet. Eventually King James brushed aside irregularities in the election, settling matters in Lauds favour, Laud became Dean of Gloucester in 1616. At Gloucester Cathedral he began ceremonial innovations with the communion table, by local custom, the table stood in the middle of the choir, as was then usual in a parish church, rather than at the east end as was typical of cathedrals. Laud believed he had the blessing to renovate and improve the run-down building. Neile attempted, but could not obtain, Lauds appointment as Dean of Westminster, but at the end of 1621, and despite the kings view of Laud as a troublemaker, Laud received the relatively lowly see as the Bishop of St Davids. Laud became a confidant of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham at the end of the reign, the Buckingham household employed John Percy, a Jesuit, as chaplain, and the king wished to counter well-founded rumours that Percy was making Catholic converts there. In a three-day series of debates with Percy in 1622, Laud was introduced to argue the Protestant case on the final day. He then displaced John Preston as religious adviser to the Duke, historians believe Laud had homosexual leanings, which he nevertheless seems to have managed discreetly
38.
St John's College, Oxford
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St Johns College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1555 by the merchant Sir Thomas White, the college occupies a central location on St Giles and has a student body of approximately 390 undergraduates and 250 postgraduates. As well as over 100 academic staff, the college is supported by a number of other staff. On 1 May 1555, Sir Thomas White, lately Lord Mayor of London, initially the new St Johns College was rather small and not well endowed financially. During the reign of Elizabeth I the fellows lectured in rhetoric, Greek, and dialectic, however, St Johns initially had a strong focus on the creation of a proficient and educated priesthood. White was Master of the Merchant Taylors Company, and established a number of educational foundations, although the College was closely linked to such institutions for many centuries, it became a more open society in the later 19th century. Female students were first admitted in 1979, and Elizabeth Fallaize was appointed as the first female fellow in 1990, although primarily a producer of Anglican clergymen in the earlier periods of its history, St Johns also gained a reputation for both law and medicine. The patronage of the parish of St Giles was included in the endowment of the college by Thomas White, vicars of St Giles were formerly either Fellows of the College, or ex-Fellows who were granted the living on marriage. The College retains the right to present candidates for the benefice to the bishop, today St Johns maintains the largest endowment of the Oxford colleges, for example owning the Oxford Playhouse building and the Millwall F. C. training ground. The college is situated on a single 5.5 hectares site, most of the college buildings are organised around seven quadrangles. The Front Quadrangle mainly consists of buildings built for the Cistercian St Bernards College. Construction started in 1437, though when the site passed to the crown in 1540, due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, much of the exterior was as it is now, christ Church took control of the site in 1546 and Thomas White acquired it in 1554. Front Quad was gravelled until the colleges 400th anniversary when the current circular lawn, the turret clock, made by John Knibb, dates from 1690. The chapel was built and dedicated to St Bernard of Clairvaux in 1530, the chapel was re-dedicated to St John the Baptist in 1557. The Baylie chapel in the north-east corner was added 1662-9 and refitted in 1949, in 1840 the chapels interior underwent major changes which created the gothic revival pews, roof, wall arcading and west screen. Thomas White, William Laud and William Juxon are buried beneath the chapel, all three were presidents of the college, with the latter two also holding the role of Archbishop of Canterbury. Choral services have been sung in the chapel since 1618, orlando Gibbonss famous anthem This is the record of John was written at the Colleges request, and presumably received its first performance here. The college in 1620 commissioned the anthem As they departed from Michael East, the college choir today sings evensong services on Sundays and Wednesdays during term time, as well as singing the grace at Sunday formal hall
39.
Altar
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An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes, and by extension the Holy table of post-reformation Anglican churches. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches, today they are used particularly in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, as well as in Neopaganism and Ceremonial Magic. Judaism used such a structure until the destruction of the Second Temple, many historical faiths also made use of them, including Greek and Norse religion. Altars in the Hebrew Bible were typically made of earth or unwrought stone, altars were generally erected in conspicuous places. The first altar recorded in the Hebrew Bible is that erected by Noah, altars were erected by Abraham, by Isaac, by Jacob, and by Moses. In Catholic and Orthodox Christian theology, the Eucharist is a re-presentation, hence, the table upon which the Eucharist is consecrated is called an altar. The altar plays a role in the celebration of the Eucharist, which takes place at the altar on which the bread. The altar is often on a higher elevation than the rest of the church, in Reformed and Anabaptist churches, a table, often called a Communion table, serves an analogous function. In some colloquial usage, the altar is used to denote the altar rail also. The main altar was also referred to as the high altar, in the earliest days of the Church, the Eucharist appears to have been celebrated on portable altars set up for the purpose. Some historians hold that, during the persecutions, the Eucharist was celebrated among the tombs in the Catacombs of Rome, other historians dispute this, but it is thought to be the origin of the tradition of placing relics beneath the altar. Although in the days of the Jerusalem Temple the High Priest indeed faced east when sacrificing on Yom Kippur, the ministers, celebrated the Eucharist facing east, towards the entrance. Some hold that for the part of the celebration the congregation faced the same way. After the sixth century the contrary orientation prevailed, with the entrance to the west and the altar at the east end. Then the ministers and congregation all faced east during the whole celebration, most rubrics, even in books of the seventeenth century and later, such as the Pontificale Romanum, continued to envisage the altar as free-standing. The rite of the Dedication of the Church continued to presume that the officiating Bishop could circle the altar during the consecration of the church and its altar. Despite this, with the increase in the size and importance of the reredos, most altars were built against the wall or barely separated from it. This diversity was recognized in the rubrics of the Roman Missal from the 1604 typical edition of Pope Clement VIII to the 1962 edition of Pope John XXIII, Si altare sit ad orientem, versus populum
40.
Richard I of England
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Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes and he was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was known as Richard Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a military leader. He was also known in Occitan as Oc e No, because of his reputation for terseness, by the age of 16, Richard had taken command of his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father. Richard spoke both French and Occitan and he was born in England, where he spent his childhood, before becoming king, however, he lived most of his adult life in the Duchy of Aquitaine, in the southwest of France. Following his accession, he spent very little time, perhaps as little as six months, most of his life as king was spent on Crusade, in captivity, or actively defending his lands in France. Rather than regarding his kingdom as a responsibility requiring his presence as ruler, nevertheless, he was seen as a pious hero by his subjects. He remains one of the few kings of England remembered by his epithet, rather than regnal number, Richard was born on 8 September 1157, probably at Beaumont Palace, in Oxford, England, son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was a brother of Count William IX of Poitiers, Henry the Young King. As the third son of King Henry II, he was not expected to ascend the throne. He was also a brother of Duke Geoffrey II of Brittany, Queen Eleanor of Castile, Queen Joan of Sicily, and Count John of Mortain. Richard was the younger maternal half-brother of Countess Marie of Champagne, the eldest son of Henry II and Eleanor, William, died in 1156, before Richards birth. Richard is often depicted as having been the son of his mother. His father was Angevin-Norman and great-grandson of William the Conqueror, contemporary historian Ralph of Diceto traced his familys lineage through Matilda of Scotland to the Anglo-Saxon kings of England and Alfred the Great, and from there linked them to Noah and Woden. According to Angevin legend, there was even infernal blood in the family, while his father visited his lands from Scotland to France, Richard probably spent his childhood in England. His first recorded visit to the European continent was in May 1165 and his wet nurse was Hodierna of St Albans, whom he gave a generous pension after he became king. Little is known about Richards education, during his captivity, English prejudice against foreigners was used in a calculated way by his brother John to help destroy the authority of Richards chancellor, William Longchamp, who was a Norman. One of the charges laid against Longchamp, by Johns supporter Hugh
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Holy Land
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The Holy Land is an area roughly located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that also includes the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River. Traditionally, it is synonymous with both the biblical Land of Israel and historical Palestine, the term usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian territories, western Jordan, and parts of southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria. It is considered holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, many sites in the Holy Land have long been pilgrimage destinations for adherents of the Abrahamic religions, including Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Baháís. Pilgrims visit the Holy Land to touch and see physical manifestations of their faith, confirm their beliefs in the context with collective excitation. Jews do not commonly refer to the Land of Israel as Holy Land, the Tanakh explicitly refers to it as holy land in only one passage, in Zechariah 2,16. The holiness of the Land of Israel is generally implied in the Tanakh by the Land being given to the Israelites by God, that is, it is the promised land, an integral part of Gods covenant. In the Torah many mitzvot commanded to the Israelites can only be performed in the Land of Israel, for example, in the Land of Israel, no land shall be sold permanently. Shmita is only observed with respect to the land of Israel, according to Eliezer Schweid, The uniqueness of the Land of Israel is. geo-theological and not merely climatic. This is the land which faces the entrance of the spiritual world, Jerusalem, as the site of the Temple, is considered especially significant. Sacred burials are still undertaken for diaspora Jews who wish to lie buried in the soil of Israel. According to Jewish tradition, Jerusalem is Mount Moriah, the location of the binding of Isaac, the Hebrew Bible mentions the name Jerusalem 669 times, often because many mitzvot can only be performed within its environs. The name Zion, which refers to Jerusalem, but sometimes the Land of Israel. The Talmud mentions the religious duty of colonising Israel, so significant in Judaism is the act of purchasing land in Israel, the Talmud allows for the lifting of certain religious restrictions of Sabbath observance to further its acquisition and settlement. Rabbi Johanan said that one who walks a distance of 4 cubits in Israel may be confident of a share in the future world, a story says that when R. Eleazar b. Due to the Jewish population being concentrated in Israel, emigration was generally prevented, many Jews wanted Israel to be the place where they died. R. Anan said, To be buried in Israel is like being buried under the altar, the saying His land will absolve His people implies that burial in Israel will cause one to be absolved of all ones sins. Christian books, including editions of the Bible, often had maps of the Holy Land, for instance, the Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae of Heinrich Bünting, a German Protestant pastor, featured such a map. As a geographic term, the description Holy Land loosely encompasses modern-day Israel, in the Quran, the term الأرض المقدسة is mentioned at least seven times, once when Moses proclaims to the Children of Israel, O my people
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Toc H
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Toc H is an international Christian movement. The name is an abbreviation for Talbot House, Toc signifying the letter T in the spelling alphabet used by the British Army in World War I. A soldiers rest and recreation centre named Talbot House was founded in December 1915 at Poperinghe and it aimed to promote Christianity and was named in memory of Gilbert Talbot, son of Edward Talbot, then Bishop of Winchester, who had been killed at Hooge in July 1915. The founders were Gilberts elder brother Neville Talbot, then an army chaplain. Talbot House was styled as an Every Mans Club, where all soldiers were welcome and it was an alternative for the debauched recreational life of the town. In 1920, Clayton founded a Christian youth centre in London, also called Toc H, the original building at Poperinghe has been maintained and redeveloped as a museum and tourist venue. Branches of Toc H were established in countries around the world. An Australian branch was formed in Victoria in 1925 by the heretical Rev Herbert Hayes, another was formed in Adelaide the same year. Toc H members seek to ease the burdens of others through acts of service and they also promote reconciliation and work to bring disparate sections of society together. Branches may organise localised activities such as hospital visits, entertainment for the residents of care homes, the organisation suffered a progressive decline in membership and closure of branches during the later 20th century. In 2008, continued operation was ensured by dispensing with paid staff, in the 21st century, Toc H trustees have planned for it to become a stronger, voluntary movement still guided by the ethos of the original Talbot House. At the outbreak of World War I Neville Talbot, a senior Church of England chaplain in the British Army, one of his recruits was the Reverend Phillip Byard Clayton, who was assigned to the East Kent and Bedfordshire regiments. In 1915 Clayton was sent to France and then on to the town of Poperinge in Belgium, sitting a few miles back from the trenches around Ypres, Poperinge was a busy transfer station where troops on their way to and from the battlefields of Flanders were billeted. Clayton, universally known as Tubby, was instructed by Neville Talbot to set up sort of rest house for the troops. Clayton chose the Coevoet house – temporarily vacated by its owner, the house had received significant damage from shellfire, especially the hop loft and the garden. Repairs were begun in September by the Royal Engineers and it opened on 11 December 1915. Clayton decided to steer away from the traditional church club and set up an Everyman’s House and it was named Talbot House in honour of Lieutenant Gilbert Talbot who had been killed earlier in the year. Of course, soldiers being soldiers, Talbot House soon became known by its initials TH, the focus of religious services and devotions was a chapel created in the attic, known as the Upper Room
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George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys
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George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys of Wem, PC, also known as The Hanging Judge, was a Welsh judge. He became notable during the reign of King James II, rising to the position of Lord Chancellor and his conduct as a judge was to enforce royal policy, resulting in a historical reputation for severity and bias. Jeffreys was born at the estate of Acton Hall, in Wrexham, in North Wales. His grandfather, John Jeffreys, had been Chief Justice of the Anglesey circuit of the Great Sessions and his father, also John Jeffreys, was a Royalist during the English Civil War, but was reconciled to the Commonwealth and served as High Sheriff of Denbighshire in 1655. His brothers were people of note, Thomas, later Sir Thomas, was English Consul in Spain and a Knight of Alcántara. William was vicar of Holt, near Wrexham, from 1668 to 1675 and his younger brother, James, made a good ecclesiastical career, becoming Vice-Dean of Canterbury in 1685. George was educated at Shrewsbury School from 1652 to 1659, his grandfathers old school, where he was tested by Philip Henry. He attended St Pauls School, London, from 1659 to 1661 and Westminster School, London and he became an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge University, in 1662, leaving after one year without graduating, and entering the Inner Temple for law in 1663. Jeffreys, presumably after being granted the title 1st Baron of Wem, took the residence of Lowe Hall in Wem, the extant Wem Hall was built in 1666, although it has subsequently been significantly remodelled. He also had Bultrode Park built for him in 1686, in 1667, he married Sarah Neesham or Needham, by whom he had seven children, she died in 1678. She was the daughter of the vicar of Stoke dAbernon. A story is published, that Jeffreys sought to marry a daughter of a rich City merchant and had a correspondence with her, through Sarah, her kinswoman. When the merchant discovered the plot he refused his home to Sarah and they married in the church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower in the City of London. He married secondly in 1679, Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Bloodworth, being only 29 at the time of her second marriage, she was described as a brisk young widow and there were some rumours about her. He embarked on a career in 1668, becoming a Common Serjeant of London in 1671. He was aiming for the post of Recorder of London, but was passed over for this in 1676 in favour of William Dolben and he turned instead to the Court and became Solicitor General to the Duke of York and of Albany, the younger brother of Charles II. Despite his Protestant upbringing, he found favour under the Roman Catholic Duke, during the Popish Plot he was frequently on the bench which condemned numerous innocent men on the perjured evidence of Titus Oates. These condemnations were remembered against him in 1685 when he secured the conviction of Oates for his perjury at the same trials
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Thomas More
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Sir Thomas More, venerated by Roman Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532 and he also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary ideal island nation. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther, More also opposed the Kings separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason, of his execution, he was reported to have said, I die the Kings good servant, but Gods first. Pope Pius XI canonised More in 1935 as a martyr, Pope John Paul II in 2000 declared him the heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians. Since 1980, the Church of England has remembered More liturgically as a Reformation martyr, the Soviet Union honoured him for the Communist attitude toward property rights expressed in Utopia. From 1490 to 1492, More served John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, Morton enthusiastically supported the New Learning, and thought highly of the young More. Believing that More had great potential, Morton nominated him for a place at the University of Oxford, More began his studies at Oxford in 1492, and received a classical education. Studying under Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn, he became proficient in both Latin and Greek, More left Oxford after only two years—at his fathers insistence—to begin legal training in London at New Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery. In 1496, More became a student at Lincolns Inn, one of the Inns of Court, where he remained until 1502, according to his friend, theologian Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, More once seriously contemplated abandoning his legal career to become a monk. Between 1503 and 1504 More lived near the Carthusian monastery outside the walls of London, although he deeply admired their piety, More ultimately decided to remain a layman, standing for election to Parliament in 1504 and marrying the following year. In spite of his choice to pursue a career, More continued ascetic practices for the rest of his life, such as wearing a hair shirt next to his skin. A tradition of the Third Order of Saint Francis honours More as a member of that Order on their calendar of saints, More married Jane Colt in 1505. She was five years younger than her husband, quiet and good-natured, Erasmus reported that More wanted to give his young wife a better education than she had previously received at home, and tutored her in music and literature. The couple had four children before Jane died in 1511, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, going against friends advice and common custom, within thirty days More had married one of the many eligible women among his wide circle of friends. He certainly expected a mother to care of his little children and, as the view of his time considered marriage as an economic union, he chose a rich widow. More was not viewed as being in haste to remarry for the gratification of sexual pleasure, as Alice was older than he, and their marriage was possibly not consummated. The speed of the marriage was so unusual that More had to get a dispensation of the banns, Alice More lacked Janes docility, Mores friend Andrew Ammonius derided Alice as a hook-nosed harpy
