1.
Diplomacy
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Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of states. International treaties are negotiated by diplomats prior to endorsement by national politicians. The scholarly discipline of diplomatics, dealing with the study of old documents, derives its name from the same source, but its modern meaning is quite distinct from the activity of diplomacy. Some of the earliest known records are the Amarna letters written between the pharaohs of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt and the Amurru rulers of Canaan during the 14th century BC. Following the Battle of Kadesh in c, Relations with the government of the Ottoman Empire were particularly important to Italian states. The maritime republics of Genoa and Venice depended less and less upon their nautical capabilities, interactions between various merchants, diplomats and clergy men hailing from the Italian and Ottoman empires helped inaugurate and create new forms of diplomacy and statecraft. Eventually the primary purpose of a diplomat, which was originally a negotiator and it became evident that all other sovereigns felt the need to accommodate themselves diplomatically, due to the emergence of the powerful political environment of the Ottoman Empire. One could come to the conclusion that the atmosphere of diplomacy within the modern period revolved around a foundation of conformity to Ottoman culture. One of the earliest realists in international relations theory was the 6th century BC military strategist Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War. However, a deal of diplomacy in establishing allies, bartering land, and signing peace treaties was necessary for each warring state. The treaty was renewed no less than nine times, but did not restrain some Xiongnu tuqi from raiding Han borders. The Koreans and Japanese during the Chinese Tang Dynasty looked to the Chinese capital of Changan as the hub of civilization, the Japanese sent frequent embassies to China in this period, although they halted these trips in 894 when the Tang seemed on the brink of collapse. After the devastating An Shi Rebellion from 755 to 763, the Tang Dynasty was in no position to reconquer Central Asia, after several conflicts with the Tibetan Empire spanning several different decades, the Tang finally made a truce and signed a peace treaty with them in 841. Both diplomats secured the borders of the Song Dynasty through knowledge of cartography. There was also a triad of warfare and diplomacy between these two states and the Tangut Western Xia Dynasty to the northwest of Song China. After warring with the Lý Dynasty of Vietnam from 1075 to 1077, Song, long before the Tang and Song dynasties, the Chinese had sent envoys into Central Asia, India, and Persia, starting with Zhang Qian in the 2nd century BC. Another notable event in Chinese diplomacy was the Chinese embassy mission of Zhou Daguan to the Khmer Empire of Cambodia in the 13th century, Chinese diplomacy was a necessity in the distinctive period of Chinese exploration. Since the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese also became heavily invested in sending diplomatic envoys abroad on missions into the Indian Ocean, to India, Persia, Arabia, East Africa
2.
Document
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A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought. The word originates from the Latin documentum, which denotes a teaching or lesson, in the past the word was usually used to denote a written proof useful as evidence of a truth or fact. In the computer age, document usually denotes a primarily textual computer file, including its structure and format, e. g. fonts, colors, contemporarily, document is not defined by its transmission medium, e. g. paper, given the existence of electronic documents. Documentation is distinct because it has more denotations than document, the concept of document has been defined as any concrete or symbolic indication, preserved or recorded, for reconstructing or for proving a phenomenon, whether physical or mental. The shift to digital technology would seem to make this even more important. Levys thoughtful analyses have shown that an emphasis on the technology of digital documents has impeded our understanding of digital documents as documents. A conventional document, such as a message or a technical report, exists physically in digital technology as a string of bits. As an object of study, it has made into a document. It has become physical evidence by those who study it, template, Citation is problematic and should be verified. The classic example provided by Suzanne Briet is an antelope, An antelope running wild on the plains of Africa should not be considered a document she rules. But if it were to be captured, taken to a zoo and made an object of study and it has become physical evidence being used by those who study it. Indeed, scholarly articles written about the antelope are secondary documents and this opinion has been interpreted as an early expression of actor–network theory. Documents are sometimes classified as secret, private, or public and they may also be described as drafts or proofs. When a document is copied, the source is denominated the original, standards are accepted for specific applications in various fields, e. g. Academia, manuscript, thesis, paper, and journal, government, law, and politics, application, brief, certificate, commission, constitutional document, form, gazette, identity document, license, summons, and white paper. Such standard documents can be drafted based on a template, the page layout of a document is the manner in which information is graphically arranged in the space of the document, e. g. on a page. If the appearance of the document is of concern, page layout is generally the responsibility of a graphic designer, typography concerns the design of letter and symbol forms and their physical arrangement in the document. Information design concerns the communication of information, especially in industrial documents
3.
Letter (message)
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A letter is a written message from one party to another containing information. Letters promote the preservation of communication between parties, they may bring friends or relatives closer together, enrich professional relationships and provide a means of self-expression. Letters contribute to the protection and conservation of literacy, Letters have been sent since antiquity and are mentioned in the Iliad. Works by both Herodotus and Thucydides also mention letters, historically, letters have existed from the time of ancient India, ancient Egypt and Sumer, through Rome, Greece and China, up to the present day. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, letters were used to self-educate, Letters were a way to practice critical reading, self-expressive writing, polemical writing and also exchange ideas with like-minded others. For some people, letters were seen as a written performance, for others, it was not only seen as a performance but also as a way of communication and a method of gaining feedback. Letters make up several of the books of the Bible, archives of correspondence, whether for personal, diplomatic, or business reasons, serve as primary sources for historians. At certain times, the writing of letters has risen to be an art form, in the ancient world letters were written on a various different materials, including metal, lead, wax-coated wooden tablets, pottery fragments, animal skin, and papyrus. From Ovid, we learn that Acontius used an apple for his letter to Cydippe, as communication technology has diversified, posted letters have become less important as a routine form of communication. For example, the development of the telegraph drastically shortened the time taken to send a communication, at the telegraph office closest to the destination, the signal was converted back into writing on paper and delivered to the recipient. The next step was the telex which avoided the need for local delivery, then followed the fax machine, a letter could be transferred electrically from the sender to the receiver through the telephone network as an image. Due to the timelessness and universality of letter writing, there is a wealth of letters, the study of letter writing usually involves both the study of rhetoric and grammar. Despite email, letters are still popular, particularly in business, Letters have the following advantages over email, No special device is needed to receive a letter, just a postal address, and the letter can be read immediately on receipt. An advertising mailing can reach every address in a particular area, a letter provides immediate, and in principle permanent, physical record of communication, without the need for printing. A letter in the senders own handwriting is more personal than an email, if required, small physical objects can be enclosed in the envelope with the letter. Letters are unable to transmit malware or other files that can be transmitted by email. Letter writing leads to the mastery of the technique of good writing, letter writing can provide an extension of the face-to-face therapeutic encounter. Here is how a letter gets from the sender to the recipient, Sender writes letter, Sender ensures that the recipients address includes the Zip or Postal Code and often includes his/her return address on the envelope
4.
Palaeography
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Palaeography or paleography is the study of ancient and historical handwriting. The discipline is important for understanding, authenticating, and dating ancient texts, however, it cannot in general be used to pinpoint dates with high precision. Palaeography can be a skill for historians and philologists, as it tackles two main difficulties. First, since the style of an alphabet in each given language has evolved constantly. Second, scribes often used many abbreviations, usually so as to more quickly and sometimes to save space. Knowledge of individual letter-forms, ligatures, punctuation, and abbreviations enables the palaeographer to read, the palaeographer must know, first, the language of the text, and second, the historical usages of various styles of handwriting, common writing customs, and scribal or notarial abbreviations. Philological knowledge of the language, vocabulary, and grammar generally used at a time or place can help palaeographers identify ancient or more recent forgeries versus authentic documents. Knowledge of writing materials is essential to the study of handwriting. Palaeography can be used to provide information about the date at which a document was written, scholars also tend to oversimplify diachronic development, assuming models of simplicity rather than complexity. It spread from the Mediterranean coast to the borders of India, becoming popular and being adopted by many people. The Aramaic script was written in a form with a direction from right to left. One innovation in Aramaic is the matres lectionis system to indicate certain vowels, Early Phoenician-derived scripts did not have letters for vowels, and so most texts recorded just consonants. Most likely as a consequence of changes in North Semitic languages. The letter aleph was employed to write /ā/, he for /ō/, yod for /ī/, Aramaic writing and language supplanted Babylonian cuneiform and Akkadian language, even in their homeland in Mesopotamia. The wide diffusion of Aramaic letters led to its writing being used not only in monumental inscriptions, Aramaic papyri have been found in large numbers in Egypt, especially at Elephantine – among them are official and private documents of the Jewish military settlement in 5 BC. In the Aramaic papyri and potsherds, words are separated usually by a small gap, at the turn of the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC, the heretofore uniform Aramaic letters developed new forms, as a result of dialectal and political fragmentation in several subgroups. The most important of these is the so-called square Hebrew block script, followed by Palmyrene, Nabataean, Aramaic is usually divided into three main parts, Old Aramaic Middle Aramaic, and Modern Aramaic of the present day. Old Aramaic appeared in the 11th century BC as the language of the first Aramaean states
5.
Textual criticism
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Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants in either manuscripts or printed books. Ancient scribes made alterations when copying manuscripts by hand, given a manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original document, the textual critic might seek to reconstruct the original text as closely as possible. The same processes can be used to attempt to reconstruct intermediate versions, or recensions, the ultimate objective of the textual critics work is the production of a critical edition containing a scholarly curated text. There are three approaches to textual criticism, eclecticism, stemmatics, and copy-text editing. Techniques from the discipline of cladistics are currently also being used to determine the relationships between manuscripts. Textual criticism has been practiced for two thousand years. Early textual critics were concerned with preserving the works of antiquity, many ancient works, such as the Bible and the Greek tragedies, survive in hundreds of copies, and the relationship of each copy to the original may be unclear. Textual scholars have debated for centuries which sources are most closely derived from the original, hence which readings in those sources are correct. Although biblical books that are letters, like Greek plays, presumably had one original, interest in applying textual criticism to the Quran has also developed after the discovery of the Sanaa manuscripts in 1972, which possibly date back to the 7–8th centuries. However, the application of textual criticism to non-religious works does not antedate the invention of printing, while Christianity has been relatively receptive to textual criticism, application of it to the Jewish Torah and the Quran is, to the devout, taboo. The business of textual criticism is to produce a text as close as possible to the original, Maas comments further that A dictation revised by the author must be regarded as equivalent to an autograph manuscript. The lack of autograph manuscripts applies to many cultures other than Greek, in such a situation, a key objective becomes the identification of the first exemplar before any split in the tradition. That exemplar is known as the archetype, if we succeed in establishing the text of, the constitutio is considerably advanced. The textual critics ultimate objective is the production of a critical edition and this contains the text that the author has determined most closely approximates the original, and is accompanied by an apparatus criticus or critical apparatus. Before mechanical printing, literature was copied by hand, and many variations were introduced by copyists, the age of printing made the scribal profession effectively redundant. Printed editions, while less susceptible to the proliferation of variations likely to arise during manual transmission, are not immune to introducing variations from an authors autograph. Instead of a scribe miscopying his source, a compositor or a shop may read or typeset a work in a way that differs from the autograph. Since each scribe or printer commits different errors, reconstruction of the lost original is often aided by a selection of readings taken from many sources, an edited text that draws from multiple sources is said to be eclectic
6.
Order of Saint Benedict
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Each community within the order maintains its own autonomy, while the order itself represents their mutual interests. Internationally, the order is governed by the Benedictine Confederation, a body, established in 1883 by Pope Leo XIIIs Brief Summum semper, individuals whose communities are members of the order generally add the initials OSB after their names. The monastery at Subiaco in Italy, established by Saint Benedict of Nursia circa 529, was the first of the monasteries he founded. He later founded the Abbey of Monte Cassino, there is no evidence, however, that he intended to found an order and the Rule of Saint Benedict presupposes the autonomy of each community. It was from the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome that Augustine, the prior, at various stopping places during the journey, the monks left behind them traditions concerning their rule and form of life, and probably also some copies of the Rule. Lérins Abbey, for instance, founded by Honoratus in 375, probably received its first knowledge of the Benedictine Rule from the visit of St. Augustine, in Gaul and Switzerland, it supplemented the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by Columbanus and others. In many monasteries it eventually displaced the earlier codes. Largely through the work of Benedict of Aniane, it became the rule of choice for monasteries throughout the Carolingian empire, Monastic scriptoria flourished from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Sacred Scripture was always at the heart of every monastic scriptorium, as a general rule those of the monks who possessed skill as writers made this their chief, if not their sole active work. In the Middle Ages monasteries were founded by the nobility. Cluny Abbey was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910, the abbey was noted for its strict adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict. The abbot of Cluny was the superior of all the daughter houses, one of the earliest reforms of Benedictine practice was that initiated in 980 by Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese community. The English Benedictine Congregation is the oldest of the nineteen Benedictine congregations, Augustine of Canterbury and his monks established the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterbury soon after their arrival in 597. Many of the sees of England were founded and governed by the Benedictines. Monasteries served as hospitals and places of refuge for the weak, the monks studied the healing properties of plants and minerals to alleviate the sufferings of the sick. Germany was evangelized by English Benedictines, willibrord and Boniface preached there in the seventh and eighth centuries and founded several abbeys. In the English Reformation, all monasteries were dissolved and their lands confiscated by the Crown, during the 19th century they were able to return to England, including to Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, one of the few great monastic churches to survive the Dissolution. St. Mildreds Priory, on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, was built in 1027 on the site of an abbey founded in 670 by the daughter of the first Christian King of Kent, currently the priory is home to a community of Benedictine nuns
7.
Ancient history
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Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of recorded human history and extending as far as the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script, the term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC. This roughly coincides with the date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome. In India, ancient history includes the period of the Middle Kingdoms, and, in China. Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world, archaeology and the study of source texts, primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on. Archaeology is the excavation and study of artefacts in an effort to interpret, archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived. The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, the city of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans. The Terracotta Army, the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China, the discovery of Knossos by Minos Kalokairinos and Sir Arthur Evans. The discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquitys own historians. Although it is important to take account the bias of each ancient author. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, Plutarch, Polybius, Sima Qian, Sallust, Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, furthermore, the reliability of the information obtained from these surviving records must be considered. Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history, the earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, the Roman Empire was one of the ancient worlds most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived, prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago, the controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia
8.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
9.
Reformation
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The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits. In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague. Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds. It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable
10.
Counter-Reformation
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It also involved political activities that included the Roman Inquisition. The 14th, 15th and 16th centuries saw a revival in Europe. This became known as the Catholic Reformation, several theologians harked back to the early days of Christianity and questioned their spirituality. Their debates expanded across the whole of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, whilst secular critics also examined religious practice, clerical behavior, several varied currents of thought were active, but the ideas of reform and renewal were led by the clergy. The reforms decreed at Lateran V had only a small effect, some positions got further and further from the churchs official positions, leading to the break with Rome and the formation of Protestant churches. Even so, conservative and reforming parties still survived within the Catholic Church even as the Protestant Reformation spread, the Protestant Church decisively broke from the Catholic Church in the 1520s. The two distinct positions within the Catholic Church solidified in the 1560s. The Catholic Reformation became known as the Counter-Reformation, defined as a reaction to Protestantism rather than as a reform movement, the regular orders made their first attempts at reform in the 14th century. The Benedictine Bull of 1336 reformed the Benedictines and Cistercians, in 1523, the Camaldolese Hermits of Monte Corona were recognized as a separate congregation of monks. In 1435, Saint Francis of Paola founded the Poor Hermits of Saint Francis of Assisi, in 1526, Matteo de Bascio suggested reforming the Franciscan rule of life to its original purity, giving birth to the Capuchins, recognized by the pope in 1619. This order was well-known to the laity and play an important role in public preaching, to respond to the new needs of evangelism, clergy formed into religious congregations, taking special vows but with no obligation to assist in a monasterys religious offices. These regular clergy taught, preached and took confession but were under a bishops direct authority, in Italy, the first congregation of regular clergy was the Theatines founded in 1524 by Gaetano and Cardinal Caraffa. In 1524, a number of priests in Rome began to live in a community centred on Philip Neri, the Oratorians were given their institutions in 1564 and recognized as an order by the pope in 1575. They used music and singing to attract the faithful, the Council upheld the basic structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious orders, and doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the Roman Catholic faith, the Council upheld salvation appropriated by grace through faith and works of that faith because faith without works is dead, as the Epistle of St. James states. This reaffirmed the previous Council of Rome and Synods of Carthage, the Council also commissioned the Roman Catechism, which still serves as authoritative Church teaching. While the traditional fundamentals of the Church were reaffirmed, there were changes to answer complaints that the Counter-Reformers were, tacitly. Often, these rural priests did not know Latin and lacked opportunities for theological training
11.
Society of Jesus
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The Society of Jesus Latin, Societas Iesu, S. J. SJ or SI) is a religious congregation of the Catholic Church which originated in Spain. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents, Jesuits work in education, intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, and promote social justice, Ignatius of Loyola founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, ignatiuss plan of the orders organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by a bull containing the Formula of the Institute. Ignatius was a nobleman who had a background, and the members of the society were supposed to accept orders anywhere in the world. The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and, later, in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, the Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General. The Society of Jesus on October 3,2016 announced that Superior General Adolfo Nicolás resignation was officially accepted, on October 14, the 36th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus elected Father Arturo Sosa as its thirty-first Superior General. The headquarters of the society, its General Curia, is in Rome, the historic curia of St. Ignatius is now part of the Collegio del Gesù attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit Mother Church. In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first Jesuit Pope, the Jesuits today form the largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church. As of 1 January 2015, Jesuits numbered 16,740,11,986 clerics regular,2,733 scholastics,1,268 brothers and 753 novices. In 2012, Mark Raper S. J. wrote, Our numbers have been in decline for the last 40 years—from over 30,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 18,000 today. The steep declines in Europe and North America and consistent decline in Latin America have not been offset by the significant increase in South Asia, the Society is divided into 83 Provinces with six Independent Regions and ten Dependent Regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and their average age was 57.3 years,63.4 years for priests,29.9 years for scholastics, and 65.5 years for brothers. The current Superior General of the Jesuits is Arturo Sosa, the Society is characterized by its ministries in the fields of missionary work, human rights, social justice and, most notably, higher education. It operates colleges and universities in countries around the world and is particularly active in the Philippines. In the United States it maintains 28 colleges and universities and 58 high schools and he ensured that his formula was contained in two papal bulls signed by Pope Paul III in 1540 and by Pope Julius III in 1550. The formula expressed the nature, spirituality, community life and apostolate of the new religious order, the meeting is now commemorated in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, Montmartre
12.
Merovingian dynasty
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The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that ruled the Franks for nearly 300 years in a region known as Francia in Latin, beginning in the middle of the 5th century. Their territory largely corresponded to ancient Gaul as well as the Roman provinces of Raetia, Germania Superior and the southern part of Germania. The Merovingian dynasty was founded by Childeric I, the son of Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks, after the death of Clovis there were frequent clashes between different branches of the family, but when threatened by its neighbours the Merovingians presented a strong united front. During the final century of Merovingian rule, the kings were increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role, the Merovingian rule ended in March 752 when Pope Zachary formally deposed Childeric III. Zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, confirmed and anointed Pepin the Short in 754, the Merovingian ruling family were sometimes referred to as the long-haired kings by contemporaries, as their long hair distinguished them among the Franks, who commonly cut their hair short. The Merovingian dynasty owes its name to the semi-legendary Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks, the victories of his son Childeric I against the Visigoths, Saxons, and Alemanni established the basis of Merovingian land. Childerics son Clovis I went on to unite most of Gaul north of the Loire under his control around 486, when he defeated Syagrius, the Roman ruler in those parts. He won the Battle of Tolbiac against the Alemanni in 496, at time, according to Gregory of Tours. He subsequently went on to defeat the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouillé in 507. After Cloviss death, his kingdom was partitioned among his four sons, leadership among the early Merovingians was probably based on mythical descent and alleged divine patronage, expressed in terms of continued military success. In 1906 the British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie suggested that the Marvingi recorded by Ptolemy as living near the Rhine were the ancestors of the Merovingian dynasty, upon Cloviss death in 511, the Merovingian kingdom included all of Gaul except Burgundy and all of Germania magna except Saxony. To the outside, the kingdom, even when divided under different kings, maintained unity, after the fall of the Ostrogoths, the Franks also conquered Provence. After this their borders with Italy and Visigothic Septimania remained fairly stable, internally, the kingdom was divided among Cloviss sons and later among his grandsons and frequently saw war between the different kings, who quickly allied among themselves and against one another. The death of one king created conflict between the brothers and the deceaseds sons, with differing outcomes. Later, conflicts were intensified by the personal feud around Brunhilda, however, yearly warfare often did not constitute general devastation but took on an almost ritual character, with established rules and norms. Eventually, Clotaire II in 613 reunited the entire Frankish realm under one ruler, later divisions produced the stable units of Austrasia, Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitania. The frequent wars had weakened royal power, while the aristocracy had made great gains and these concessions saw the very considerable power of the king parcelled out and retained by leading comites and duces. Very little is in fact known about the course of the 7th century due to a scarcity of sources, clotaires son Dagobert I, who sent troops to Spain and pagan Slavic territories in the east, is commonly seen as the last powerful Merovingian King
