1.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
2.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
3.
East Francia
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East Francia or the Kingdom of the East Franks was a successor state of Charlemagnes empire and precursor of the Holy Roman Empire. Until 911 it was ruled by Carolingian dynasty and it was created after the 840-43 civil war between Charlemagnes grandchildren which ended with the Treaty of Verdun which divided the former empire into three kingdoms. In August 843, after three years of war following the death of emperor Louis the Pious on 20 June 840. The division of lands was based on the Meuse, Scheldt. The contemporary East Frankish Annales Fuldenses describes the kingdom being divided in three and Louis acceding to the eastern part, while West and Middle Francia contained the traditional Frankish heartlands, the East consisted mostly of lands only annexed to the Frankish empire in the eighth century. These included the duchies of Alemannia, Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia, as well as the northern and eastern marches with the Danes, in 869 Lotharingia was divided between West and East Francia under the Treaty of Meersen. The short lived Middle Francia turned out to be the theatre of Franco-German wars up until the 20th century, all the Frankish lands were briefly reunited by Charles the Fat, but in 888 he was deposed by nobles and in East Francia Arnulf of Carinthia was elected king. The increasing weakness of royal power in East Francia meant that dukes of Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia, Saxony, Kings increasingly had to deal with regional rebellions. Because Conrad I was one of the dukes, he found it hard to establish his authority over them. Duke Henry of Saxony was in rebellion against Conrad I until 915 and struggle against Arnulf, on his deathbed Conrad I chose Henry of Saxony as the most capable successor. This kingship changed from Franks to Saxons, who had suffered greatly during the conquests of Charlemagne, by his death in July 936 Henry had prevented collapse of royal power as was happening in West Francia and left a much stronger kingdom to his successor Otto I. After Otto I was crowned as the Emperor in Rome in 962 the era of the Holy Roman Empire began, the term orientalis Francia originally referred to Franconia and orientales Franci to its inhabitants, the ethnic Franks living east of the Rhine. The use of the term in a sense, to refer to the eastern kingdom, was an innovation of Louis the Germans court. Since eastern Francia could be identified with old Austrasia, the Frankish heartland, under his grandson, Arnulf, the terminology was largely dropped and the kingdom, when it was referred to by name, was simply Francia. When it was necessary, as in the Treaty of Bonn with the West Franks, Henry I refers to himself as rex Francorum orientalium, king of the East Franks, in the treaty. By the 12th century, the historian Otto of Freising, in using the Carolingian terminology had to explain that the kingdom of the Franks was now called the kingdom of the Germans. The regalia of the Carolingian empire had divided by Louis the Pious on his deathbed between his two faithful sons, Charles the Bald and Lothair. Louis the German, then in rebellion, received nothing of the jewels or liturgical books associated with Carolingian kingship
4.
Imperial Estate
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An Imperial State or Imperial Estate was a part of the Holy Roman Empire with representation and the right to vote in the Imperial Diet. Rulers of these Estates were able to exercise significant rights and privileges and were immediate and they were thus able to rule their territories with a considerable degree of autonomy. The system of imperial states replaces the regular division of Germany into stem duchies in the early medieval period. From 1489, the imperial Estates represented in the Diet were divided into three chambers, the college of prince-electors, the college of imperial princes and the college of imperial cities. Counts and nobles were not directly represented in the Diet in spite of their immediate status, Imperial knights had immediate status but were unrepresented in the Diet. Imperial Estates could be either ecclesiastic or secular, the secular Estates, most notably, the four Prince-Electors of the County Palatine of the Rhine, Saxony, Brandenburg and Bohemia, later also Bavaria and Hanover. Imperial Princes including Grand Dukes, Dukes, Counts Palatine, Margraves and Landgraves, Reichsgrafen the Free, until 1582 the votes of the Free and Imperial Cities were only advisory. None of the rulers below the Holy Roman Emperor ranked as kings, the status of Estate was normally attached to a particular territory within the Empire, but there were some reichsständische Personalisten, or persons with imperial statehood. Originally, the Emperor alone could grant that status, but in 1653, the creation of a new Estate required the assent of the College of Electors and of the College of Princes. The ruler was required to agree to accept imperial taxation and military obligations, furthermore, the Estate was required to obtain admittance into one of the Imperial Circles. Theoretically, personalist Estates were forbidden after 1653, but exceptions were often made, once a territory attained the status of an Estate, it could lose that status under very few circumstances. A territory ceded to a foreign power ceased to be an Estate, from 1648 onwards, inheritance of the Estate was limited to one family, a territory inherited by a different family ceased to be an Estate unless the Emperor explicitly allowed otherwise. Finally, a territory could cease to be an imperial Estate by being subjected to the Imperial ban, in the German mediatization between 1803 and 1806, the vast majority of the Estates of the Holy Roman Empire were mediatised. They lost their imperial immediacy and became part of other Estates, the number of Estates was reduced from about three hundred to about thirty. Mediatisation went along with secularisation, the abolition of most of the ecclesiastical Estates and this dissolution of the constitution of the structure of the empire was soon followed by the dissolution of the empire itself, in 1806. Rulers of Imperial States enjoyed precedence over other subjects in the Empire, Electors were originally styled Durchlaucht, princes Hochgeboren and counts Hoch- und Wohlgeboren. In the eighteenth century, the electors were upgraded to Durchläuchtigste, princes to Durchlaucht, Imperial States enjoyed several rights and privileges. Rulers had autonomy inasmuch as their families were concerned, in particular and they were permitted to make treaties and enter into alliances with other Imperial States as well as with foreign nations
5.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
6.
Nancy, France
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Nancy is the capital of the north-eastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, and formerly the capital of the Duchy of Lorraine, and then the French province of the same name. The metropolitan area of Nancy had a population of 410,509 inhabitants at the 1999 census,103,602 of whom lived in the city of Nancy proper. The motto of the city is Non inultus premor, Latin for Im not touched with impunity—a reference to the thistle, the earliest signs of human settlement in the area date back to 800 BC. Early settlers were attracted by easily mined iron ore and a ford in the Meurthe River. A small fortified town named Nanciacum was built by Gérard, Duke of Lorraine around 1050, Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, was defeated and killed in the Battle of Nancy in 1477, René II, Duke of Lorraine became the ruler. In 1736 Emperor Charles arranged her marriage to Duke François of Lorraine, exiled Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński, father-in-law of French king Louis XV, was given the vacant duchy instead. Under his nominal rule, Nancy experienced growth and a flowering of Baroque culture and architecture, with his death in 1766, the duchy became a regular French province and Nancy lost its position as a residential capital city with its own princely court and patronage. As unrest surfaced within the French armed forces during the French Revolution, a few reliable units laid siege to the town and shot or imprisoned the mutineers. In 1871, Nancy remained French when Prussia annexed Alsace-Lorraine, the flow of refugees reaching Nancy doubled its population in three decades. Artistic, academic, financial and industrial excellence flourished, establishing what is still the Capital of Lorraines trademark to this day, Nancy was freed from Nazi Germany by the U. S. Third Army in September 1944, during the Lorraine Campaign of World War II at the Battle of Nancy ), in 1988, Pope John Paul II visited Nancy. In 2005, French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Nancy is situated on the left bank of the river Meurthe, about 10 km upstream from its confluence with the Moselle. The Marne–Rhine Canal runs through the city, parallel to the Meurthe, Nancy is surrounded by hills that are about 150 m higher than the city center, which is situated at 200 m amsl. The area of Nancy proper is small,15 km2. Its built-up area is continuous with those of its adjacent suburbs, the neighboring communes of Nancy are, Jarville-la-Malgrange, Laxou, Malzéville, Maxéville, Saint-Max, Tomblaine, Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy and Villers-lès-Nancy. Adjacent to its south is the quarter Charles III – Centre Ville and this quarter contains the famous Place Stanislas, the Nancy Cathedral, the Opéra national de Lorraine and the main railway station. The old city centers heritage dates from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, the cathedral of Nancy, the Triumphal Arch and the Place de la Carriere are a fine examples of 18th-century architecture. The Palace of the Dukes of Lorraine is the princely residence of the rulers
7.
Lotharingia
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It was named after King Lothair II who received this territory after the kingdom of Middle Francia of his father Lothair I was divided among his sons in 855. Neither Lotharingia nor Middle Francia had any natural coherence, but each was conceived after territorial division of a larger realm. Conflict between East and West Francia over Lotharingia was based on the fact that these were the old Frankish homelands of Austrasia, the latter term, formed with the Germanic suffix -ing, indicating ancestral or familial relationships, gave rise to the Latin term Lotharingia in the tenth century. Later French terms like Lorraine and Lothier are derived from this Latin term, in 817 emperor Louis the Pious made plans for division of the Carolingian Empire among his three sons after his death. Unforeseen in 817 was a further heir besides Louiss three grown sons, a fourth son, Charles the Bald was born to Louiss second wife Judith of Bavaria in 823. When Louis tried in 833 to re-divide the empire for the benefit of Charles, he met with opposition of his sons, Lothair, Pepin. A decade of war and fluctuating alliances followed, punctuated by brief periods of peace. Pepin died in 838, and Louis the Pious in 840, the remaining three brothers made peace and divided Empire with the 843 Treaty of Verdun. Lothair, as the eldest, kept the title and received a long strip of territories stretching from the North Sea to southern Italy. Middle Francia thus included all the land between Aachen and Rome and it has sometimes called by historians the Lotharingian axis. In 855, when Lothair I was dying in Prüm Abbey, to the eldest son, Louis II went Italy, with the imperial title. To the youngest, Charles, still a minor, went Provence, to the middle son, Lothair II, went the remaining territories to the north of Provence, a kingdom which lacked ethnic or linguistic unity. Lothair II ruled from Aachen and did not venture outside his kingdom, when he died in 869 Lothair II left no legitimate children, but one illegitimate son - Hugh, Duke of Alsace. Thus Lotharingia, as a kingdom, ceased to exist for some years. In 876 Charles the Bald invaded eastern Lotharingia with the intent to capture it, in 879 Louiss son, king Louis the Younger was invited by a faction of the West Frankish nobility to succeed king Louis the Stammerer, Charless son, on the throne of West Francia. After a brief war, Louis the Stammerers young sons, Carloman II and Louis III, the border between the two kingdoms was established at Saint-Quentin in 880 by the Treaty of Ribemont. In November 887 Arnulf of Carinthia called a council of East Frankish nobility to depose emperor Charles the Fat, who by 884 had succeeded to thrones of all the kingdoms of the Empire. The Lotharingian aristocracy, in attempt to assert its right to elect a sovereign, joined the other East Frankish nobles in deposing Charles the Fat in 887 and elected Arnulf as their king
8.
Early modern France
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The Kingdom of France in the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Revolution, was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon. This corresponds to the so-called Ancien Régime, the territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country, and it also included the territories of the first French colonial empire overseas. In the mid 15th century, France was significantly smaller than it is today, in addition, certain provinces within France were ostensibly personal fiefdoms of noble families. The late 15th, 16th and 17th centuries would see France undergo a massive territorial expansion, France also embarked on exploration, colonisation, and mercantile exchanges with the Americas, India, the Indian Ocean, the Far East, and a few African trading posts. The administrative and legal system in France in this period is called the Ancien Régime. The Black Death had killed an estimated one-third of the population of France from its appearance in 1348, the concurrent Hundred Years War slowed recovery. It would be the early 16th century before the population recovered to mid-14th century levels and these demographic changes also led to a massive increase in urban populations, although on the whole France remained a profoundly rural country. Paris was one of the most populated cities in Europe, other major French cities include Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Marseille. These centuries saw several periods of epidemics and crop failures due to wars, between 1693 and 1694, France lost 6% of its population. In the extremely harsh winter of 1709, France lost 3. 5% of its population, in the past 300 years, no period has been so proportionally deadly for the French, both World Wars included. Linguistically, the differences in France were extreme, before the Renaissance, the language spoken in the north of France was a collection of different dialects called Oïl languages whereas the written and administrative language remained Latin. Nevertheless, in 1790, only half of the spoke or understood standard French. The southern half of the continued to speak Occitan languages, and other inhabitants spoke Breton, Catalan, Basque, Dutch. In the north of France, regional dialects of the various langues doïl continued to be spoken in rural communities, during the French revolution, the teaching of French was promoted in all the schools. The French used would be that of the system, which differed from the French spoken in the courts of France before the revolution. Like the orators during the French revolution, the pronunciation of every syllable would become the new language, France would not become a linguistically unified country until the end of the 19th century. The Peace of Etaples marks, for some, the beginning of the modern period in France. The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII in 1494 began 62 years of war with the Habsburgs, in 1445, the first steps were made towards fashioning a regular army out of the poorly disciplined mercenary bands that French kings traditionally relied on
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