1.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
2.
Inquisition
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The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the government system of the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. It started in 12th-century France to combat religious sectarianism, in particular the Cathars, other groups investigated later included the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites and Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, the term Medieval Inquisition covers these courts up to mid-15th century. During the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the concept and scope of the Inquisition significantly expanded in response to the Protestant Reformation and it expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese operated inquisitorial courts throughout their empires in Africa, Asia, the institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, but in 1908 was given the new name of Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. In 1965 it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the term Inquisition comes from Medieval Latin inquisitio, which referred to any court process that was based on Roman law, which had gradually come back into usage in the late medieval period. Today, the English term Inquisition can apply to any one of several institutions that worked against heretics within the system of the Roman Catholic Church. He Inquisition, as a church-court, had no jurisdiction over Moors, generally, the Inquisition was concerned only with the heretical behaviour of Catholic adherents or converts. The overwhelming majority of sentences seem to have consisted of penances like wearing a cross sewn on ones clothes, going on pilgrimage, etc. The laws were inclusive of proscriptions against certain religious crimes, thus the inquisitors generally knew what would be the fate of anyone so remanded, and cannot be considered to have divorced the means of determining guilt from its effects. The 1578 edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum spelled out the purpose of inquisitorial penalties, quoniam punitio non refertur primo & per se in correctionem & bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur. Such punishments had a number of opponents, although some countries punished heresy with the death penalty. In the 12th century, to counter the spread of Catharism, the Church charged councils composed of bishops and archbishops with establishing inquisitions. The first Inquisition was temporarily established in Languedoc in 1184, the murder of Pope Innocents papal legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208 sparked the Albigensian Crusade. The Inquisition was permanently established in 1229, run largely by the Dominicans in Rome, historians use the term Medieval Inquisition to describe the various inquisitions that started around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition and later the Papal Inquisition. Other Inquisitions followed after these first inquisition movements, by 1256 inquisitors were given absolution if they used instruments of torture. In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX assigned the duty of carrying out inquisitions to the Dominican Order, Most inquisitors were friars who taught theology and/or law in the universities. They used inquisitorial procedures, a legal practice adapted from the earlier Ancient Roman court procedures
3.
Late Middle Ages
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The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th and 15th centuries. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the modern era. Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt, a series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare, France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict in the Hundred Years War. To add to the problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively these events are called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of progress in the arts. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing, which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, eroded the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire and cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the expedition of Columbus to the Americas in 1492 and their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations. The changes brought about by these developments have led scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of modern history. However, the division is artificial, since ancient learning was never entirely absent from European society. As a result there was continuity between the ancient age and the modern age. Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the Late Middle Ages at all, but rather see the period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance. The term Late Middle Ages refers to one of the three periods of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People. Flavio Biondo used a framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire. Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, for 18th-century historians studying the 14th and 15th centuries, the central theme was the Renaissance, with its rediscovery of ancient learning and the emergence of an individual spirit
4.
Toulouse
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Toulouse is the capital city of the southwestern French department of Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Occitanie region. The city lies on the banks of the River Garonne,150 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea,230 km from the Atlantic Ocean and it is the fourth-largest city in France with 466,297 inhabitants in January 2014. The Toulouse Metro area is, with 1312304 inhabitants as of 2014, Frances 4th metropolitan area after Paris, Lyon and Marseille and ahead of Lille and Bordeaux. Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, the Airbus Group, ATR and the Aerospace Valley. The city also hosts the European headquarters of Intel and CNESs Toulouse Space Centre, thales Alenia Space, and Astrium Satellites, Airbus Groups satellite system subsidiary, also have a significant presence in Toulouse. The University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe and, with more than 103,000 students, is the fourth-largest university campus in France, after the Universities of Paris, Lyon and Lille. The air route between Toulouse Blagnac and Paris Orly is the busiest in Europe, transporting 2.4 million passengers in 2014, according to the rankings of LExpress and Challenges, Toulouse is the most dynamic French city. It is now the capital of the Occitanie region, the largest region in metropolitan France, sernin, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 because of its significance to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, the city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi and the rivers Garonne, Touch and Hers-Mort. Toulouse has a subtropical climate which can be qualified as submediterranean due to its proximity to the Mediterranean climate zone. The Garonne Valley was a point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa, it is of unknown meaning or origin, possibly from Aquitanian, or from Iberian, Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC, when it became a Roman military outpost. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city of Gallia Narbonensis. In the 5th century, Tolosa fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its cities, in the early 6th century even serving as its capital. From this time, Toulouse was the capital of Aquitaine within the Frankish realm, in 721, Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeated an invading Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse. Odos victory was an obstacle to Muslim expansion into Christian Europe. Charles Martel, a later, won the Battle of Tours. The Frankish conquest of Septimania followed in the 750s, and a quasi-independent County of Toulouse emerged within the Carolingian sub-kingdom of Aquitaine by the late 8th century
5.
Pope Clement V
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Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got, was Pope from 5 June 1305 to his death in 1314. Bertrand was elected Pope Clement V in June 1305 and consecrated on 14 November, Bertrand was neither Italian nor a cardinal, and his election might have been considered a gesture towards neutrality. The contemporary chronicler Giovanni Villani reports gossip that he had himself to King Philip IV of France by a formal agreement before his elevation. Whether this was true or not, it is likely that the pope had conditions laid down for him by the conclave of cardinals. Among his first acts was the creation of nine French cardinals, at Clements coronation the Duke of Brittany, John II, was leading the Popes horse through the crowd during the celebrations. So many spectators had piled atop the walls one of the walls crumbled and collapsed on top of the Duke. Clement V had to yield to pressures for this trial, begun on 2 February 1309 at Avignon. In the document that called for the witnesses, Clement V expressed both his conviction of the innocence of Boniface VIII and his resolution to satisfy the king. Finally, in February 1311, Philip IV wrote to Clement V abandoning the process to the council of Vienne. For his part, Clement V absolved all the participants in the abduction of Boniface at Anagni, in pursuance of the kings wishes, Clement V in 1311 summoned the Council of Vienne, which refused to convict the Templars of heresy. The Pope abolished the order anyway, as the Templars seemed to be in bad repute and had outlived their usefulness as papal bankers and protectors of pilgrims in the East. Their French estates were granted to the Knights Hospitallers, but Philip IV held them until his death and expropriated the Templars bank outright. In March 1309, the papal court moved from Poitiers to the Comtat Venaissin, around the city of Avignon, which was not then part of France. Clement Vs pontificate was also a time for Italy. The Papal States were entrusted to a team of three cardinals, but Rome, the battleground of the Colonna and Orsini factions, was ungovernable. In 1310, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII entered Italy, established the Visconti as vicars in Milan, in Ferrara, which was taken into the Papal states to the exclusion of the Este family, papal armies clashed with Venice and their populace. Clement died on 20 April 1314, according to one story, while his body was lying in state, a thunderstorm developed during the night and lightning struck the church where his body lay, igniting the building. The fire was so intense that when it was extinguished, the body of Pope Clement V was almost destroyed and he was buried at the collegiate church in Uzeste close to his birthplace in Villandraut as put down in his will
6.
Pope John XXII
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Pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze, was Pope from 7 August 1316 to his death in 1334. Like his predecessor, Clement V, Pope John centralized power and income in the Papacy, the son of a shoemaker in Cahors, Jacques Duèze studied medicine in Montpellier and law in Paris, yet could not read a regal letter written to him in French. Duèze taught both canon and civil law at Toulouse and Cahors, on the recommendation of Charles II of Naples he was made Bishop of Fréjus in 1300. In 1309 he was appointed chancellor of Charles II, and in 1310 he was transferred to Avignon and he delivered legal opinions favorable to the suppression of the Templars, but he also defended Boniface VIII and the Bull Unam Sanctam. On 23 December 1312, Clement V made him Cardinal-Bishop of Porto-Santa Rufina, the death of Pope Clement V in 1314 was followed by an interregnum of two years due to disagreements between the cardinals, who were split into two factions. After two years, Philip, in 1316, finally managed to arrange a papal conclave of cardinals in Lyon. This conclave elected Duèze, who took the name John XXII and was crowned in Lyon and he set up his residence in Avignon rather than Rome, continuing the Avignon Papacy of his predecessor. John XXII involved himself in the politics and religious movements of many European countries in order to advance the interests of the Church and his close links with the French crown created widespread distrust of the papacy. Pope John XXII was an excellent administrator and efficient at reorganizing the Church and he had sent a letter of thanks to the Muslim ruler Uzbeg Khan, who was very tolerant of Christians and treated Christians kindly. John XXII has traditionally been credited with having composed the prayer Anima Christi, and the basis for the hymn Soul of Christ, Sanctify My Breast. On 27 March 1329 John XXII condemned many writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical in his papal bull In Agro Dominico, prior to John XXIIs election a contest had begun for the Holy Roman Empires crown between Louis IV of Bavaria and Frederick I of Austria. Louis IV was assisted in his dispute with the papacy by Marsilius of Padua. Louis IV invaded Italy, entered Rome and set up Pietro Rainalducci as Antipope Nicholas V in 1328, guelphic predominance at Rome was later restored, and Pope John excommunicated William of Ockham. However, Louis IV had silenced the claims and John XXII stayed the rest of his life in Avignon. In 1317, John XXII formally condemned the group of known as the Fraticelli. The experts disagreed among themselves, but the majority condemned the idea on the grounds that it would condemn the Churchs right to have possessions. On 12 November 1323, he issued the bull Quum inter nonnullos, influential members of the order protested, such as the minister general Michael of Cesena, the English provincial William of Ockham, and Bonagratia of Bergamo. In 1324, Louis the Bavarian sided with the Spirituals and accused the Pope of heresy, in 1328 Michael of Cesena was summoned to Avignon to explain the Orders intransigence in refusing the Popes orders and its complicity with Louis of Bavaria
7.
Albi
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Albi is a commune in southern France. It is the prefecture of the Tarn department and it is located on the River Tarn, c.85 km northeast of Toulouse. It was the seat of the Archbishop of Albi and is the seat of the Diocese of Albi, the episcopal city, situated in the center of the actual city, around the cathedral Sainte-Cécile, was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 2010. Albi is the seat of 6 cantons, covering 18 communes, the first human settlement in Albi was in the Bronze Age. After the Roman conquest of Gaul in 51 BC, the town became Civitas Albigensium, archaeological digs have not revealed any traces of Roman buildings, which seems to indicate that Albi was a modest Roman settlement. In 1040, Albi expanded and constructed the Pont Vieux, new quarters were built, indicative of considerable urban growth. The city grew rich at this time, thanks to trade and commercial exchanges, in 1208, the Pope and the French king joined forces to combat the Cathars, who had developed their own version of Christianity, and so a heresy considered dangerous by the dominant Catholic Church. Repression was severe, and many Cathars were burnt at the stake throughout the region, the area, until then virtually independent, was reduced to such a condition that it was subsequently annexed by the French Crown. He ordered the building of the cathedral of Sainte-Cécile starting in 1282, the town enjoyed a period of commercial prosperity largely due to the cultivation of Isatis Tinctoria, commonly known as woad. The fine houses built during the Renaissance bear witness to the vast fortunes amassed by the pastel merchants, Albi had a small Jewish community during medieval times, until it was annihilated in the 1320s shepherds Crusade. Ever since, Jews were only allowed to transit the town by payment, in 1967, approximately 70 Jews lived in Albi, most of them of North-African origin. Albi has conserved its rich heritage which encapsulates the various brilliant periods of its history. Considerable improvement and restoration work has been done, to embellish the old quarters and to them a new look. Albi was built around the cathedral and episcopal group of buildings. This historic area covers 63 hectares, red brick and tiles are the main feature of most of the edifices. Along with Toulouse and Montauban, Albi is one of the cities built in Languedoc-style red brick. Among the buildings of the town is the Sainte Cécile cathedral and it is characterised by a strong contrast between its austere, defensive exterior and its sumptuous interior decoration. The rood screen is a work in stone in the Flamboyant Gothic style
8.
Carcassonne
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Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the Region of Occitanie. Inhabited since the Neolithic period, Carcassonne is located in the Aude plain between historic trade routes, linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean sea and the Massif Central to the Pyrénées and its strategic location led successive rulers to expand its fortifications until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The city is famous for the Cité de Carcassonne, a medieval fortress restored by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1853, consequently, Carcassonne relies heavily on tourism but also counts manufacture and wine-making as some of its other key economic sectors. Carcassonne is located in the south of France, about 80 kilometres east from the city of Toulouse and its strategic location between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea has been known since the neolithic era. The towns area is about 65 km2, which is larger than the numerous small towns in the Aude department. The rivers Aude, Fresquel and the Canal du Midi flow through the town, the Volcae Tectosages fortified the oppidum. The folk etymology – involving a châtelaine named Carcas, a ruse ending a siege, Carcas on a column near the Narbonne Gate, is of modern invention. The name can be derived as an augmentative of the name Carcas, Carcassonne became strategically identified when Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 BC and eventually made the colonia of Julia Carsaco, later Carcasum. The main part of the courses of the northern ramparts dates from Gallo-Roman times. In 462 the Romans officially ceded Septimania to the Visigothic king Theodoric II who had held Carcassonne since 453 and he built more fortifications at Carcassonne, which was a frontier post on the northern marches, traces of them still stand. Theodoric is thought to have begun the predecessor of the basilica that is now dedicated to Saint Nazaire, in 508 the Visigoths successfully foiled attacks by the Frankish king Clovis. A medieval fiefdom, the county of Carcassonne, controlled the city and it was often united with the County of Razès. The origins of Carcassonne as a county probably lie in local representatives of the Visigoths, Bello founded a dynasty, the Bellonids, which would rule many honores in Septimania and Catalonia for three centuries. In 1067, Carcassonne became the property of Raimond-Bernard Trencavel, viscount of Albi and Nîmes, through his marriage with Ermengard, in the following centuries, the Trencavel family allied in succession either with the counts of Barcelona or of Toulouse. They built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of St. Nazaire, in 1096, Pope Urban II blessed the foundation stones of the new cathedral. Carcassonne became famous for its role in the Albigensian Crusades, when the city was a stronghold of Occitan Cathars, in August 1209 the crusading army of the Papal Legate, Abbot Arnaud Amalric, forced its citizens to surrender. Raymond-Roger de Trencavel was imprisoned whilst negotiating his citys surrender and died in mysterious circumstances three months later in his own dungeon, simon De Montfort was appointed the new viscount. In 1240, Trencavels son tried to reconquer his old domain, the city submitted to the rule of the kingdom of France in 1247
9.
Limoges
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Limoges is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin in west-central France. Limoges is known for its medieval and Renaissance enamels on copper, for its 19th-century porcelain and for its oak barrels which are used for Cognac, some are even exported to wineries in California. Scarce remains of settlements have been found in the area of Limoges. The city proper was founded as Augustoritum by the Romans, around 10 BC, the foundation was part of the reorganization of the province by the emperor Augustus, hence the new name. The Roman city included an amphitheatre measuring 136 x 115 metres, a theatre, according to tradition, a temple consecrated to Venus, Diana, Minerva and Jupiter was located near the modern cathedral. The city was on the typical Roman square plan, with two main crossing in the centre. It had a Senate and a currency of its own, a sign of its importance in the imperial age, Limoges was evangelized by Saint Martial, who came to the city around 250 with two companions, Alpinianus and Austriclinienus. However, in the late 3rd century it was increasingly abandoned, the population was concentrated instead in a more easily fortifiable site, the modern Puy Saint-Étienne, which is the centre of the modern Limoges. Starting from the 11th century, thanks to the presence of the Abbey of St. Martial and its large library, Limoges became a flourishing artistic centre. It was home to an important school of music composition. In the 13th century, at the peak of its splendour, the town proper, with a new line of walls encompassing the Vienne River, inhabited mainly by clerks and workers. It has a bridge on the Vienne river named after Saint-Étienne, built by the bishops, sacked in 1370, it never recovered entirely. The castle, with 12 meter-high walls, including the abbey and controlled by the abbot, traces of the walls can still be seen in the city centre. Outside the lines of walls were the popular quarters, in 1370, Limoges was occupied by Edward, the Black Prince, who massacred some 300 residents, perhaps a sixth of the normal population, with another 60 members of the garrison of 140 dead as well. The city and castle were united in 1792 to form the city of Limoges. During the French Revolution several religious edifices, considered symbols of the Ancien Régime, were destroyed by the population, some years later the porcelain industry started to develop, favoured by the presence of kaolinite which was discovered near Limoges in 1768. Factories in Limoges and St Junien still produce luxury leather shoes, gloves, in the 19th century Limoges saw strong construction activity, which included the destruction and rebuilding of much of the city centre. The unsafe conditions of the population is highlighted by the outbreak of several riots, including that of July–November 1830
10.
Heresy
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Heresy /hār ə sē/ is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs. A heretic is a proponent of such claims or beliefs, the term is usually used to refer to violations of important religious teachings, but is used also of views strongly opposed to any generally accepted ideas. It is used in particular in reference to Christianity, Judaism, the word heresy is usually used within a Christian, Jewish, or Islamic context, and implies slightly different meanings in each. The founder or leader of a movement is called a heresiarch. Heresiology is the study of heresy, according to Titus 3,10 a divisive person should be warned two times before separating from him. The Greek for the phrase divisive person became a term in the early Church for a type of heretic who promoted dissension. In contrast correct teaching is called not only because it builds up the faith. The Church Fathers identified Jews and Judaism with heresy and they saw deviations from orthodox Christianity as heresies that were essentially Jewish in spirit. The use of the word heresy was given currency by Irenaeus in his 2nd century tract Contra Haereses to describe. He described the beliefs and doctrines as orthodox and the Gnostics teachings as heretical. He also pointed out the concept of succession to support his arguments. By Roman law the Emperor was Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the College of Pontiffs of all recognized religions in ancient Rome. To put an end to the doctrinal debate initiated by Arius, Constantine called the first of what would afterwards be called the ecumenical councils and then enforced orthodoxy by Imperial authority. The first known usage of the term in a context was in AD380 by the Edict of Thessalonica of Theodosius I. Prior to the issuance of this edict, the Church had no state-sponsored support for any particular legal mechanism to counter what it perceived as heresy, by this edict the states authority and that of the Church became somewhat overlapping. One of the outcomes of this blurring of Church and state was the sharing of state powers of legal enforcement with church authorities and this reinforcement of the Churchs authority gave church leaders the power to, in effect, pronounce the death sentence upon those whom the church considered heretical. The edict of Theodosius II provided severe punishments for those who had or spread writings of Nestorius and those who possessed writings of Arius were sentenced to death. For some years after the Reformation, Protestant churches were known to execute those they considered heretics
11.
Nobility
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The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary, and vary from country to country and era to era. There is often a variety of ranks within the noble class. g, san Marino and the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles often distinguish nobles from non-nobles, although in many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil. The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the noun of the adjective nobilis. In modern usage, nobility is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies and it rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income. Being wealthy or influential cannot, ipso facto, make one noble, various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se, usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small and it also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live nobly, that is, from the proceeds of these possessions, work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. In some countries, the lord could impose restrictions on such a commoners movements. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting, in France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. In some parts of Europe the right of war long remained the privilege of every noble. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised, in France, a seigneurie might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a nobles prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged, if erected by the crown into, e. g. a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled, in other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. Nobility might be inherited or conferred by a fons honorum
12.
Manichaeism
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Manichaeism was a major religious movement that was founded by the Iranian prophet Mani in the Sasanian Empire. Manichaeism taught a dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light. Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements, Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the Aramaic-Syriac speaking regions. It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world, Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism, while most of Manichaeisms original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived. An adherent of Manichaeism is called, especially in older sources, Mani, an Arsacid Persian by birth, was born 216 AD in Mesopotamia, which was ruled by Persia, then within the Sassanid Empire province of Asuristan. According to the Cologne Mani-Codex, Manis parents were members of the Jewish Christian Gnostic sect known as the Elcesaites, Mani composed seven writings, six of which were written in Syriac Aramaic. The seventh, the Shabuhragan, was written by Mani in Middle Persian and presented by him to the contemporary King of Sassanid Persia, Shapur I, in the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. Although there is no proof Shapur I was a Manichaean, he tolerated the spread of Manichaeism, while Manichaeism was spreading, existing religions such as Zoroastrianism were still popular and Christianity was gaining social and political influence. Although having fewer adherents, Manichaeism won the support of many high-ranking political figures, with the assistance of the Persian Empire, Mani began missionary expeditions. The date of his death is estimated at AD 276–277, Mani believed that the teachings of Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus were incomplete, and that his revelations were for the entire world, calling his teachings the Religion of Light. Manichaean writings indicate that Mani received revelations when he was 12 and again when he was 24, with the discovery of the Mani-Codex, it also became clear that he was raised in a Jewish-Christian baptism sect, the Elcesaites, and was influenced by their writings as well. It taught him truths which he developed into a religion and his divine Twin or true Self brought Mani to self-realization. He claimed to be the Paraclete of the Truth, as promised in the New Testament, Manichaeisms views on Jesus are described by historians, Jesus in Manichaeism possessed three separate identities, Jesus the Luminous, Jesus the Messiah and Jesus patibilis. Jesus the Messiah was a historical being who was the prophet of the Jews, however, the Manichaeans believed he was wholly divine. He never experienced human birth as notions of physical conception and birth filled the Manichaeans with horror, since he was the light of the world, where was this light, they asked, when he was in the womb of the Virgin. Jesus the Messiah was truly born at his baptism as it was on occasion that the Father openly acknowledged his sonship
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Bernard Guidonis". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
