1.
Frankfurt
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The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.8 million and is Germanys second-largest metropolitan region after Rhine-Ruhr. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2013, the centre of the EU is about 40 km to the east of Frankfurts CBD. Frankfurt is culturally and ethnically diverse, with half of the population. A quarter of the population are foreign nationals, including many expatriates, Frankfurt is an alpha world city and a global hub for commerce, culture, education, tourism and traffic. Its the site of many global and European headquarters, Frankfurt Airport is among the worlds busiest. Automotive, technology and research, services, consulting, media, Frankfurts DE-CIX is the worlds largest internet exchange point. Messe Frankfurt is one of the worlds largest trade fairs, major fairs include the Frankfurt Motor Show, the worlds largest motor show, the Music Fair, and the Frankfurt Book Fair, the worlds largest book fair. Frankfurt is home to educational institutions, including the Goethe University, the UAS, the FUMPA. Its renowned cultural venues include the concert hall Alte Oper, Europes largest English Theatre and many museums, Frankfurts skyline is shaped by some of Europes tallest skyscrapers. In sports, the city is known as the home of the top football club Eintracht Frankfurt, the basketball club Frankfurt Skyliners, the Frankfurt Marathon. Its the seat of German sport unions for Olympics, football, Frankfurt is the largest financial centre in continental Europe. It is home to the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is one of the worlds largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and accounts for more than 90 percent of the turnover in the German market. Frankfurt is considered a city as listed by the GaWC groups 2012 inventory. Among global cities it was ranked 10th by the Global Power City Index 2011, among financial centres it was ranked 8th by the International Financial Centers Development Index 2013 and 9th by the Global Financial Centres Index 2013. Its central location within Germany and Europe makes Frankfurt a major air, rail, Frankfurt Airport is one of the worlds busiest international airports by passenger traffic and the main hub for Germanys flag carrier Lufthansa. Frankfurter Kreuz, the Autobahn interchange close to the airport, is the most heavily used interchange in the EU, in 2011 human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Frankfurt as seventh in its annual Quality of Living survey of cities around the world. According to The Economist cost-of-living survey, Frankfurt is Germanys most expensive city, Frankfurt has many high-rise buildings in the city centre, forming the Frankfurt skyline. It is one of the few cities in the European Union to have such a skyline and because of it Germans sometimes refer to Frankfurt as Mainhattan, the other well known and obvious nickname is Bankfurt
2.
Regensburg
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Regensburg is a city in south-east Germany, situated at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. With over 140,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the fourth-largest city in the State of Bavaria after Munich, the city is the political, economic and cultural centre of Eastern Bavaria and the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate. The medieval centre of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 2014, Regensburg was among the top sights and travel attractions in Germany. Generally known in English as Ratisbon until well into the twentieth century, the first settlements in Regensburg date from the Stone Age. The Celtic name Radasbona was the oldest given to a settlement near the present city, around AD90, the Romans built a fort there. In 179, a new Roman fort Castra Regina was built for Legio III Italica during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It is believed that as early as in late Roman times the city was the seat of a bishop, from the early 6th century, Regensburg was the seat of a ruling family known as the Agilolfings. From about 530 to the first half of the 13th century, Regensburg remained an important city during the reign of Charlemagne. After the partition of the Carolingian Empire in 843, the city became the seat of the Eastern Frankish ruler, two years later, fourteen Bohemian princes came to Regensburg to receive baptism there. This was the point of Christianization of the Czechs. These events had a impact on the cultural history of the Czech lands, as they were consequently part of the Roman Catholic. A memorial plate at St Johns Church was unveiled a few years ago, commemorating the incident in the Czech, on 8 December 899 Arnulf of Carinthia, descendant of Charlemagne, died at Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany. In 800 AD the city had 23,000 inhabitants and by 1000 AD this had almost doubled to 40,000 people. In 1096, on the way to the First Crusade, Peter the Hermit led a mob of Crusaders that attempted to force the conversion of the Jews of Regensburg. Between 1135 and 1146, the Stone Bridge across the Danube was built at Regensburg and this bridge opened major international trade routes between northern Europe and Venice, and this began Regensburgs golden age as a residence of wealthy trading families. Regensburg became the centre of southern Germany and was celebrated for its gold work. In 1245 Regensburg became a Free Imperial City and was a centre before the shifting of trade routes in the late Middle Ages. At the end of the 15th century in 1486, Regensburg became part of the Duchy of Bavaria, the city adopted the Protestant Reformation in 1542 and its Town Council remained entirely Lutheran
3.
Old High German
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Old High German is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 700 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the half of the 8th century. There are, however, a number of Elder Futhark inscriptions dating to the 6th century, as well as single words, during the migration period, the Elbe Germanic tribes settled in what became Alamannia, the Duchy of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Lombardy. Old High German comprises the dialects of these groups which underwent the Second Sound Shift during the 6th Century, namely all of Elbe Germanic, in the south, the Langobards, who had settled in Northern Italy, maintained their dialect until their conquest by Charlemagne in 774. This area did not become German-speaking again until the German eastward expansion of the early 12th century, though there was some attempt at conquest, Old High German literacy is a product of the monasteries, notably at St. Gallen, Reichenau and Fulda. Its origins lie in the establishment of the German church by Boniface in the mid 8th century, einhard tells how Charlemagne himself ordered that the epic lays should be collected for posterity. It was the neglect or religious zeal of later generations that led to the loss of these records, thus, it was Charlemagnes weak successor, Louis the Pious, who destroyed his fathers collection of epic poetry on account of its pagan content. Hrabanus Maurus, a student of Alcuins and abbot at Fulda from 822, was an important advocate of the cultivation of German literacy, among his students were Walafrid Strabo and Otfrid of Weissenburg. Notker Labeo towards the end of the Old High German period was among the greatest stylists in the language, the main difference between Old High German and the West Germanic dialects from which it developed is that it underwent the High German consonant shift. This is generally dated approximately to the late 5th and early 6th centuries—hence dating its start to around 500, the result of this sound change is that the consonantal system of German remains different from all other West Germanic languages, including English and Low German. Grammatically, however, Old High German remained very similar to Old English, Old Dutch, by the mid 11th century the many different vowels found in unstressed syllables had all been reduced to /ə/. Since these vowels were part of the endings in the nouns and verbs. For these reasons,1050 is seen as the start of the Middle High German period, for this reason the dialects may be termed monastery dialects. It declined after the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by the Franks in 774 and it is classified as Upper German on the basis of evidence of the Second Sound Shift. The continued existence of a West Frankish dialect in the Western, claims that this might have been the language of the Carolingian court or that it is attested in the Ludwigslied, whose presence in a French manuscript suggests bilingualism, are controversial. The charts show the vowel and consonant systems of the East Franconian dialect in the 9th century and this is the dialect of the monastery of Fulda, and specifically of the Old High German Tatian. Old High German had five long vowels and six phonemic short vowels. Both occurred in stressed and unstressed syllables, notes, All back vowels likely had front-vowel allophones as a result of Umlaut
4.
Old Saxon
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Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German. It belongs to the West Germanic branch and is most closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages and it is documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples and it is close enough to Old Anglo-Frisian that it partially participates in the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, it is also closely related to Old Dutch. The grammar of Old Saxon was fully inflected with five grammatical cases, the dual forms occurred in the first and second persons only and referred to groups of two. For a long time, Old Saxon and Old Dutch were not distinguished, there are also various differences in their phonological evolutions, Old Saxon being considered as an Ingvaeonic language whereas Old Dutch is an Istvaeonic language. Old Saxon probably evolved primarily from Ingvaeonic dialects in the West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic in the 5th century. However, it seems that some Middle Dutch took the Old Saxon a-stem ending from some Middle Low German dialects, however,1150 marks the inceptive period of profuse Low German writing wherein the language is patently different from Old Saxon. One of the most striking differences between Middle Low German and Old Saxon is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction, while round vowels in word-final syllables were rather frequent in Old Saxon, in Middle Low German, such are leveled to a schwa. Thus, such Old Saxon words like gisprekan or dagô became gespreken and daghe, Old Saxon did not participate in the High German consonant shift, and thus preserves stop consonants p, t, k that have been shifted in Old High German to various fricatives and affricates. The Germanic diphthongs ai, au consistently develop into long vowels ē, ō, whereas in Old High German they appear either as ei, ou or ē, ō depending on the following consonant. Old Saxon, alone of the West Germanic languages except for Frisian, consistently preserves Germanic -j- after a consonant, Germanic umlaut, when it occurs with short a, is inconsistent, e. g. hebbean or habbian to have. This feature was carried over into the descendant-language of Old Saxon, Middle Low German, apart from the e, however, the umlaut is not marked in writing. The table below lists the consonants of Old Saxon, phonemes written in parentheses represent allophones and are not independent phonemes. Notes, The voiceless spirants /f/, /θ/, and /s/ gain voiced allophones when between vowels and this change is only faithfully reflected in writing for. The other two continued to be written as before. Beginning in the later Old Saxon period, stops became devoiced word-finally as well, notably, geminated /v/ gave /bb/, and geminated /ɣ/ probably gave /ɡɡ/. Germanic *h is retained as in these positions and thus merges with devoiced /ɣ/, notes, Long vowels were rare in unstressed syllables and mostly occurred due to suffixation or compounding. Notes, The closing diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ sometimes occur in texts, probably under the influence of Franconian or High German dialects, the situation for the front opening diphthongs is somewhat unclear in some texts
5.
Old Frisian
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Old Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Weser on the European North Sea coast. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland also spoke Old Frisian, the language of the earlier inhabitants of the region between the Zuiderzee and Ems River is attested in only a few personal names and place-names. Old Frisian evolved into Middle Frisian, spoken from the 16th to the 19th century, in the early Middle Ages, Frisia stretched from the area around Bruges, in what is now Belgium, to the Weser River in northern Germany. At the time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern North Sea coast and this region is referred to as Greater Frisia or Frisia Magna, and many of the areas within it still treasure their Frisian heritage. However, by 1300, their territory had been pushed back to the Zuiderzee, hence, a close relationship exists between Old Frisian and Old English. Generally, Old Frisian phonologically resembles Old English, in particular, it shares the palatalisation of velar consonants also found in Old English. For example, whereas the closely related Old Saxon and Old Dutch retain the velar in dag, Old Frisian has dei, when followed by front vowels the Germanic /k/ changed to a /tʃ/ sound. The Old Frisian for church was tzirke or tzerke, in Old English it was ċiriċe, while Old Saxon, another feature shared between the two is Anglo-Frisian brightening, which fronted a to e under some circumstances. In unstressed syllables, o merges into a, and i into e as in Old English, the old Germanic diphthongs *ai and *au become ē/ā and ā, respectively, in Old Frisian, as in ēn/ān from Proto-Germanic *ainaz, and brād from *braudą. In comparison, these diphthongs become ā and ēa in Old English, the diphthong *eu generally becomes ia, and Germanic *iu is retained. These diphthongs initially began with a i, but the stress later shifts to the second component, giving to iā. For example, thiād and liūde from Proto-Germanic *þeudō and *liudīz, between vowels, h generally disappears, as in Old English and Old Dutch. Word-initial h- on the hand is retained. Some of the texts that are preserved from this period are from the 12th or 13th centuries, generally, all these texts are restricted to legal writings. These runic writings however usually consist of no more than inscriptions of a single or few words, amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins,2009. They show a degree of linguistic uniformity. Westeremden yew-stick Fon Alra Fresena Fridome Hunsigo MSS H1, H2, Ten Commandements,17 petitiones Londriucht Thet Freske Riim Skeltana Riucht law code
6.
Old Frankish language
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Frankish, Old Franconian, or Old Frankish was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks between the 4th and 8th century. The language itself is attested, but it gave rise to numerous loanwords in Old French. Old Dutch is the term for the Old Franconian dialects spoken in the Low Countries until about the 12th century when it evolved into Middle Dutch, during the Merovingian period, Frankish had significant influence on the Romance languages spoken in Gaul. As a result, many modern French words and placenames have a Germanic origin, France itself is still known in German as Frankreich and in Dutch as Frankrijk, i. e. the Frankish Realm. The Frankish language as spoken before the Carolingian period is mostly reconstructed from Old French loanwords, a notable exception is the Bergakker inscription, which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. In a modern context, the language is variously called Old Frankish or Old Franconian. In philology, the language spoken by the Salian Franks from around the 5th to the 10th century was called Old Dutch or, sometimes, Old Low Franconian, compare the somewhat analogous usage, in philological versus linguistic contexts, of Old English vs. Anglo-Saxon. The English term Old Frankish is, for reasons, usually not used in the context of the Ripuarian Franks. It is more used in the Salian Frank and Dutch contexts. The language spoken by the Salian Franks has sometimes referred to as Old West Low Franconian. The Germanic languages are divided into three groups, West, East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, the language spoken by the Franks was part of the West Germanic language group, which had features from Proto-Germanic in the late Jastorf culture. The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North, the West Germanic varieties of the time are generally split into three dialect groups, Ingvaeonic, Istvaeonic and Irminonic. While each had its own characteristics, there certainly must have still been a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these dialects. It is speculated that these tribes spoke a range of related Istvaeonic dialects in the West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic. Sometime in the 4th or 5th centuries, it becomes appropriate to speak of Old Franconian rather than an Istvaeonic dialect of Proto-Germanic, very little is known about what the language was like during this period. One older runic sentence is on the sheath of Bergakker which is either the singular direct attestation of the Old Franconian language or the earliest attestation of Old Low Franconian language. Another early sentence from the early 6th century AD is found in the Lex Salica and this phrase was used to free a serf, Maltho thi afrio lito These are the earliest sentences yet found of Old Franconian
7.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
8.
Slavic languages
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The Slavic languages are the Indo-European languages native to the Slavic peoples, originally from Eastern Europe. The Slavic languages are divided intro three subgroups, East, West, and South, which constitute more than twenty languages. Furthermore, the diasporas of many Slavic peoples have established isolated minorities of speakers of their languages all over the world, the number of speakers of all Slavic languages together is estimated to be 315 million. The Old Novgorod dialect may have reflected some idiosyncrasies of this group, mutual intelligibility also plays a role in determining the West, East, and South branches. Speakers of languages within the branch will in most cases be able to understand each other at least partially. The tripartite division of the Slavic languages does not take account the spoken dialects of each language. For example, Slovak and Ukrainian are bridged by the Rusyn of Eastern Slovakia, similarly, Polish shares transitional features with both western Ukrainian and Belarusian dialects. The Croatian Kajkavian dialect is similar to Slovene than to the standard Croatian language. Within the individual Slavic languages, dialects may vary to a degree, as those of Russian, or to a much greater degree. The secession of the Balto-Slavic dialect ancestral to Proto-Slavic is estimated on archaeological and glottochronological criteria to have occurred sometime in the period 1500–1000 BCE, the imposition of Church Slavonic on Orthodox Slavs was often at the expense of the vernacular. The use of such media hampered the development of the languages for literary purposes. Lockwood also notes that these languages have enriched themselves by drawing on Church Slavonic for the vocabulary of abstract concepts, the situation in the Catholic countries, where Latin was more important, was different. The Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski and the Croatian Baroque writers of the 16th century all wrote in their respective vernaculars, although Church Slavonic hampered vernacular literatures, it fostered Slavonic literary activity and abetted linguistic independence from external influences. Only the Croatian vernacular literary tradition nearly matches Church Slavonic in age, the most important early monument of Croatian literacy is the Baška tablet from the late 11th century. It is a stone tablet found in the small Church of St. Lucy, Jurandvor on the Croatian island of Krk. The independence of Dubrovnik facilitated the continuity of the tradition, more recent foreign influences follow the same general pattern in Slavic languages as elsewhere and are governed by the political relationships of the Slavs. In the 17th century, bourgeois Russian absorbed German words through direct contacts between Russians and communities of German settlers in Russia, in the 19th century, Russian influenced most literary Slavic languages by one means or another. The Proto-Slavic language existed until around AD500, by the 7th century, it had broken apart into large dialectal zones
9.
King of the Franks
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The Franks were originally led by dukes and reguli. The Salian Merovingians rose to dominance among the Franks and conquered most of Roman Gaul and they also conquered the Gaulish territory of the Visigothic Kingdom in 507. The sons of Clovis conquered the Burgundians and Alamanni and they acquired Provence and made the Bavarii and Thuringii their clients. The Merovingians were later replaced by a new dynasty called the Carolingians in the 8th century, by the end of the 9th century, the Carolingians themselves were replaced throughout much of their realm by other dynasties. The idea of a King of the Franks or Rex Francorum gradually disappeared over the 12th and 13th centuries. A timeline of Frankish rulers is difficult since the realm was, according to old Germanic practice, frequently divided among the sons of a leader upon his death and this list of early rulers is incomplete, as our sources leave open many gaps. He took his seat at Paris, which along with Soissons, Reims, Metz, upon his death, the kingdom was split among his four sons, Chlothar I eventually inherited all of the Frankish kingdoms after the deaths of his brothers or their successors. After his own death, the kingdom was again split among his four sons, Chlothar II defeated Brunhilda and her grandson. However, in 623, in order to appease particularistic forces and also to secure the borders and his son and successor, Dagobert I, emulated this move by appointing a sub-king for Aquitaine, with a seat at Toulouse, in 629 and Austrasia in 634. Theuderic III was recognized as king of all the Franks in 679, from then on, the kingdom of the Franks can be treated as a unity again for all but a very brief period of civil war. This is the period of the kings who were increasingly overshadowed by their mayors of the palace. The Carolingians were initially mayors of the palace under the Merovingian kings, first in Austrasia and later in Neustria, between 715 and 716, the descendants of Pippin disputed the succession. The Carolingians displaced the Merovingians as the ruling dynasty, however, following the emperors death in 840, the empire was plunged into a civil war that lasted three years. The Frankish kingdom was divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Charles was confirmed in Aquitaine, where Pepin Is son Pepin II was opposing him, and granted West Francia, louis the German was confirmed in Bavaria and granted East Francia, the lands east of Lothairs kingdom
10.
Louis the German
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Louis the German, also known as Louis II, was the first king of East Francia. His early years were spent at the court of his grandfather, Charlemagne. Louis ruled from Regensburg, the old capital of the Bavarii, in 825 he became involved in wars with the Wends and Sorbs on his eastern frontier. In 827 he married Hemma, sister of his stepmother Judith of Bavaria, Louis soon began to interfere in the quarrels arising from Judiths efforts to secure a kingdom for her son Charles the Bald and the consequent struggles of his brothers with their father. In 832 he led an army of Slavs into Alamannia and completely subjugated it, Louis the Pious disinherited him, but to no effect, the emperor was soon captured by his own rebellious sons and deposed. Upon his swift reinstatement, however, the emperor Louis made peace with his son Louis, Louis was the instigator of the third civil war, which began in 839. A strip of his land having been given to the young haf-brother Charles and this time emperor Louis responded quickly, and soon the younger Louis was forced into the far southeastern corner of his realm, the March of Pannonia. Peace was then made by force of arms, in June 842 the three brothers met on an island in the river Saône to negotiate a peace, and each appointed forty representatives to arrange the boundaries of their respective kingdoms. His territories included Bavaria, Thuringia, Franconia, and Saxony, Louis may be called the founder of the German kingdom, though his attempts to maintain the unity of the Empire proved futile. Having in 842 crushed the Stellinga rising in Saxony, in 844 he compelled the Obotrites to own his authority and put their prince, Gozzmovil, to death. Thachulf, Duke of Thuringia, then undertook campaigns against the Bohemians, Moravians, and other tribes, in 852 Louis sent his son Louis the Younger to Aquitaine, where nobles had grown resentful of Charles the Balds rule. The younger Louis did not set out until 854, and returned the following year, encouraged by his nephews Pepin of Herstal and Charles of Provence, Louis invaded in West Francia in 858. Charles the Bald could not even raise an army to resist the invasion, later that year Louis issued a charter dated the first year of the reign in West Francia. In 868 at Metz Louis and Charles agreed to partition Lotharingia, when Lothair II died in 869, Louis was lying seriously ill, and his armies were engaged in a war with the Moravians. The later years of Louis the German were troubled by rebellions of his sons, the eldest, Carloman of Bavaria, revolted in 861 and again two years later. This was followed by the second son Louis the Younger, who was joined by his brother Charles the Fat, in 864 Louis was forced to grant Carloman the kingdom of Bavaria, which he himself had once held under his father. In 865 he divided the remainder of his lands - Saxony with Franconia and Thuringia went to Louis the Younger and Swabia with Raetia to Charles the Fat. A report that the emperor Louis II of Italy had died led to a peace between father and sons and attempts by Louis the German to gain the crown for his oldest son Carloman
11.
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Otto I, traditionally known as Otto I the Great, was German king from 936 and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 962 until his death in 973. He was the oldest son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda, Otto inherited the Duchy of Saxony and the kingship of the Germans upon his fathers death in 936. He continued his fathers work of unifying all German tribes into a single kingdom, through strategic marriages and personal appointments, Otto installed members of his family in the kingdoms most important duchies. This reduced the various dukes, who had previously been co-equals with the king, Otto transformed the Roman Catholic Church in Germany to strengthen royal authority and subjected its clergy to his personal control. After putting down a brief civil war among the duchies, Otto defeated the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The victory against the pagan Magyars earned Otto a reputation as a savior of Christendom, by 961, Otto had conquered the Kingdom of Italy and extended his realms borders to the north, east, and south. The patronage of Otto and his immediate successors facilitated a so-called Ottonian Renaissance of arts, following the example of Charlemagnes coronation as Emperor of the Romans in 800, Otto was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962 by Pope John XII in Rome. Ottos later years were marked by conflicts with the papacy and struggles to stabilize his rule over Italy, reigning from Rome, Otto sought to improve relations with the Byzantine Empire, which opposed his claim to emperorship and his realms further expansion to the south. To resolve this conflict, the Byzantine princess Theophanu married his son Otto II in April 972, Otto finally returned to Germany in August 972 and died at Memleben in May 973. Otto II succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor, Otto was born on 23 November 912, the oldest son of the Duke of Saxony, Henry the Fowler and his second wife Matilda, the daughter of Dietrich of Ringelheim, a Saxon count in Westphalia. Otto had four siblings, Hedwig, Gerberga, Henry. On 23 December 918, Conrad I, King of East Francia and Duke of Franconia, although Conrad and Henry had been at odds with one another since 912, Henry had not openly opposed the king since 915. Furthermore, Conrads repeated battles with German dukes, most recently with Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria, after several months of hesitation, Eberhard and the other Frankish and Saxon nobles elected Henry as king at the Imperial Diet of Fritzlar in May 919. For the first time, a Saxon instead of a Frank reigned over the kingdom, Burchard II of Swabia soon swore fealty to the new king, but Arnulf of Bavaria did not recognize Henrys position. According to the Annales Iuvavenses, Arnulf was elected king by the Bavarians in opposition to Henry, in 921, Henry besieged Arnulfs residence at Ratisbon and forced him into submission. Arnulf had to accept Henrys sovereignty, Bavaria retained some autonomy, Otto first gained experience as a military commander when the German kingdom fought against Slavic tribes on its eastern border. While campaigning against the Slavs in 929, Ottos illegitimate son William, with Henrys dominion over the entire kingdom secured by 929, the king probably began to prepare his succession over the kingdom. No written evidence for his arrangements is extant, but during this time Otto is first called king in a document of the Abbey of Reichenau, while Henry consolidated power within Germany, he also prepared for an alliance with Anglo-Saxon England by finding a bride for Otto
12.
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
13.
Treaty of Verdun
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The treaty signed in Verdun-sur-Meuse ended the three-year Carolingian Civil War. Lothairs brother Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald refused to acknowledge Lothairs suzerainty, each of the three brothers was already established in one kingdom, Lothair in Italy, Louis the German in Bavaria, and Charles the Bald in Aquitaine. In the settlement, Lothair retained his title as emperor and, Lothair received Middle Francia and his domain later became the Low Countries, Lorraine, Alsace, Burgundy, Provence, and the Kingdom of Italy. He also received the two cities, Aachen and Rome, and the imperial title, but it conferred only nominal overlordship of his brothers lands. Louis the German received the eastern portion, Charles the Bald received the western portion, which later became France. Pepin II was granted the kingdom of Aquitaine, but only under the authority of Charles, Charles received all lands west of the Rhône, which was called West Francia. Lothairs eldest son, Louis II inherited Italy and his fathers claim to the Imperial, the division of the Frankish realm by the Treaty of Verdun, carried out without any regard to linguistic and cultural continuities, resulted in conflicts in Western Europe until the 20th century. Since the Middle Frankish Kingdom combined lengthy and vulnerable borders with poor internal communications as it was severed by the Alps, it was not a viable entity. This made it difficult for a ruler to reassemble Charlemagnes empire. Only Charles the Fat achieved this briefly, in 855, the northern section became fragile Lotharingia, which became disputed by the more powerful states that evolved out of West Francia and East Francia. Generations of kings of France and Germany were unable to establish a rule over Lothair’s kingdom. In 1766, it passed to France after the death of Stanislaw Leszcyznski, in 1871, Alsace-Lorraine became German, after the victory of Prussia and its German allies over the French in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1919, it became French again by the Treaty of Versailles, in 1940, Germany reannexed Alsace-Lorraine following Germanys successful invasion of France. Finally, in 1945, after World War II, Alsace-Lorraine was solidified as French territory, the collapse of the Middle Frankish Kingdom also compounded the disunity of the Italian Peninsula, which persisted into the 19th century. Oaths of Strasbourg Treaty of Prüm Treaty of Meerssen Treaty of Ribemont Media related to Treaty of Verdun at Wikimedia Commons
14.
Treaty of Meerssen
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Charles of Provence suffered from epilepsy and died heirless in 863, and his kingdom was partitioned between his brothers. Lothair II, his heir, received only the western Lower Burgundian parts which were bordering his western Upper Burgundy, lothair II died in 869 without legitimate children so his heir was his brother, Emperor Louis II of Italy. As Louis was at that time campaigning against the Emirate of Bari, his uncles, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, however, at this time large parts of the Frisian coast were under Viking control and therefore only divided on paper. The borderline ran roughly along the rivers Meuse, Ourthe, Moselle, in the north, Louis received most of Lothairs Austrasia, with his eastern part including both Aachen and Metz, and most of Frisia. The arrangement did not endure more than ten years, upon the death of Louis the German in 876, Charles the Bald, by then King of Italy and Emperor, attacked eastern Lotharingia, but was rejected by Louis the Younger in the Battle of Andernach. In turn, after Charles the Bald had died and his successors struggled to consolidate their rule over West Francia, Charles grandsons were forced to cede the whole Lotharingia to him, sealed by the 880 Treaty of Ribemont, according to which it finally became part of East Francia. Carolingian dynasty Treaty of Verdun Treaty of Prüm Treaty of Ribemont Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Mersen, Treaty of
15.
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
16.
Holy Roman Emperor
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The Holy Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. From an autocracy in Carolingian times the title evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the Prince-electors, until the Reformation the Emperor elect was required to be crowned by the Pope before assuming the imperial title. The title was held in conjunction with the rule of the Kingdom of Germany, in theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was primus inter pares among the other Catholic monarchs, in practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances made him. Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, effectively became hereditary holders of the title, after the Reformation many of the subject states and most of those in Germany were Protestant while the Emperor continued to be Catholic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by the last Emperor as a result of the collapse of the polity during the Napoleonic wars, from the time of Constantine I the Roman emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. In the west, the title of Emperor was revived in 800, as the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was known as the Investiture Controversy. After Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, no pope appointed an emperor again until the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. Under Otto and his successors, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, the various German princes elected one of their peers as King of the Germans, after which he would be crowned as emperor by the Pope. After Charles Vs coronation, all succeeding emperors were called elected Emperor due to the lack of papal coronation, the term sacrum in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa. Charles V was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope, the final Holy Roman Emperor-elect, Francis II, abdicated in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Empires final dissolution. The standard designation of the Holy Roman Emperor was August Emperor of the Romans, the word Holy had never been used as part of that title in official documents. In German-language historiography, the term Römisch-deutscher Kaiser is used to distinguish the title from that of Roman Emperor on one hand, the English term Holy Roman Emperor is a modern shorthand for emperor of the Holy Roman Empire not corresponding to the historical style or title. Successions to the kingship were controlled by a variety of complicated factors, elections meant the kingship of Germany was only partially hereditary, unlike the kingship of France, although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty until there were no more male successors. The Electoral council was set at seven princes by the Golden Bull of 1356, another elector was added in 1690, and the whole college was reshuffled in 1803, a mere three years before the dissolution of the Empire. After 1438, the Kings remained in the house of Habsburg and Habsburg-Lorraine, with the exception of Charles VII. Maximilian I and his successors no longer travelled to Rome to be crowned as Emperor by the Pope, Maximilian therefore named himself Elected Roman Emperor in 1508 with papal approval. This title was in use by all his uncrowned successors, of his successors only Charles V, the immediate one, received a papal coronation
17.
Pfennig
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The pfennig or penny is a former German coin or note, which was official currency from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002. Pfennig was also the name of the subunit of the Danzig mark, the etymology of all of these is not completely clear, but seems to rely on the way coins were minted during the Middle Ages, the base material were thin flat metal discs. The value was embossed from one side, creating a pan -like coin, in some German countries, coins had similar but different names, as pfenning, penning, pending, pfanding and penny. This was for better handling due to different currencies used simultaneously, the symbol is encoded in Unicode at U+20B0 ₰ GERMAN PENNY SIGN. In the 8th century Charlemagne declared that 240 pfennigs should be minted from a pound of silver, a single coin had a mass of 1.7 grams after the coinage reform of circa 790. Until the 13th century, the pfennig was made from real silver, from the 12th century on, the German King was no longer able to enforce the regalia to mint coins, so many towns and local lords made their own coins. Mostly, less valuable metals and less metal per coin was used, by the late 17th century, the pfennigs had lost most of their value. The last pfennig coins containing traces of silver are rarities minted in 1805, the Mark gold currency, introduced in 1871 as currency of the newly founded German Reich, was divided as 1 Mark =100 Pfennig. This partition was retained through all German currencies until 2001, the last West German one- and two-pfennig coins were steel with a copper coating. The five- and ten-pfennig coins were steel with a brass coating, the latter was called a Groschen, while the five-pfennig coin, half a groschen, was regionally also referred to as the Sechser, deriving from the former duodecimal division of the groschen. All four coins had their value imprinted on the obverse and an oak on the reverse, the coins of the Mark der DDR were made of aluminium, except for the 20 pfennigs coin, which was made of an aluminium copper alloy. After the introduction of the euro, some, mainly older, the pfennig ligature is defined and coded in Unicode as follows, Bracteate Penny Denier, the French penny
18.
Francia
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The kingdom was founded by Clovis I, crowned first King of the Franks in 496. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Most Frankish Kings were buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis, modern France is still named Francia in Spanish and Italian. The Franks emerged in the 3rd century as a confederation of smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Sicambri, Bructeri, Ampsivarii, Chamavi and Chattuarii, in the area north and east of the Rhine. Some of these peoples, such as the Sicambri and Salians, already had lands in the Roman Empire, in 357 the Salian king entered the Roman Empire and made a permanent foothold there by a treaty granted by Julian the Apostate, who forced back the Chamavi to Hamaland. As Frankish territory expanded, the meaning of Francia expanded with it, after the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus. Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it difficult to manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c, around 428 the Salian king Chlodio, whose kingdom included Toxandria and the civitatus Tungrorum, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum and the Somme. The kingdom of Chlodio changed the borders and the meaning of the word Francia permanently, Francia was no longer barbaricum trans Rhenum, but a landed political power on both sides of the river, deeply involved in Roman politics. Chlodios family, the Merovingians, extended Francia even further south, the core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia. Chlodios successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I, possibly his grandson, Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on good terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects. In a thirty-year reign Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Roman exclave of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni, Clovis defeated the Visigoths and conquered their entire kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, and conquered the Bretons and made them vassals of Francia. He conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine, by the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast. The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy, the Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance, dividing their lands among their sons. Cloviss sons made their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul, Theuderic I made his capital at Reims, Chlodomer at Orléans, Childebert I at Paris, and Chlothar I at Soissons. During their reigns, the Thuringii, Burgundes, and Saxons and Frisians were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, the fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, and part of Venetia
19.
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
20.
Kingdom of Germany
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The Kingdom of Germany or German Kingdom developed out of the eastern half of the former Carolingian Empire. Like Anglo-Saxon England and medieval France, it began as a conglomerate, East Francia was formed by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, and was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911, after which the kingship was elective. The initial electors were the rulers of the duchies, who generally chose one of their own. After 962, when Otto I was crowned emperor, the formed the bulk of the Holy Roman Empire. The term rex teutonicorum first came into use in the chancery of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Controversy, in the twelfth century, in order to stress the imperial and transnational character of their office, the emperors began to employ the title rex Romanorum on their election. Distinct titulature for Germany, Italy and Burgundy, which traditionally had their own courts, laws, there are nevertheless relatively few references to a German realm and an instability in the terms use. The eastern division of the Treaty of Verdun was called the regnum Francorum Orientalium or Francia Orientalis and it was the eastern half of the old Merovingian regnum Austrasiorum. The east Franks themselves were the people of Franconia, which had settled by Franks. Foreign kings and ecclesiastics continued to refer to the regnum Alemanniae, the term regnum Germaniae begins to appear even in German sources at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Therefore, throughout the Middle Ages, the convention was that the king of Germany was also Emperor of the Romans and his title was royal from his election to his coronation in Rome by the Pope, thereafter, he was emperor. After the death of Frederick II in 1250, the trend toward a clearly conceived German kingdom found no real consolidation. The title of king of the Romans became less and less reserved for the emperor-elect but uncrowned in Rome, the reign was dated to begin either on the day of election or the day of the coronation. The election day became the starting date permanently with Sigismund, ultimately, Maximilian I changed the style of the emperor in 1508, with papal approval, after his German coronation, his style was Dei gratia Romanorum imperator electus semper augustus. That is, he was emperor elect, a term that did not imply that he was emperor-in-waiting or not yet fully emperor, at the same time, the custom of having the heir-apparent elected as king of the Romans in the emperors lifetime resumed. For this reason, the king of the Romans came to mean heir-apparent. The Archbishop of Mainz was ex officio arch-chancellor of Germany, as his colleagues the Archbishop of Cologne and Archbishop of Trier were, respectively, arch-chancellors of Italy and these titles continued in use until the end of the empire, but only the German chancery actually existed. The tripartite division of the Carolingian Empire effected by the Treaty of Verdun was challenged early on with the death of the Emperor Lothair I in 855. He had divided his kingdom of Middle Francia between his three sons and immediately the northernmost of the three divisions, Lotharingia, was disputed between the kings of East and West Francia, the war over Lotharingia lasted until 925
21.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
22.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
23.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
24.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
25.
Slovenia
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Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a nation state in southern Central Europe, located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and it covers 20,273 square kilometers and has a population of 2.06 million. It is a republic and a member of the United Nations, European Union. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana, additionally, the Dinaric Alps and the Pannonian Plain meet on the territory of Slovenia. The country, marked by a significant biological diversity, is one of the most water-rich in Europe, with a river network, a rich aquifer system. Over half of the territory is covered by forest, the human settlement of Slovenia is dispersed and uneven. Slovenia has historically been the crossroads of South Slavic, Germanic, Romance, although the population is not homogeneous, the majority is Slovene. South Slavic language Slovene is the language throughout the country. Slovenia is a largely secularized country, but its culture and identity have been influenced by Catholicism as well as Lutheranism. The economy of Slovenia is small, open, and export-oriented and has strongly influenced by international conditions. It has been hurt by the Eurozone crisis, started in the late 2000s. The main economic field is services, followed by industry and construction, Historically, the current territory of Slovenia was part of many different state formations, including the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In October 1918, the Slovenes exercised self-determination for the first time by co-founding the State of Slovenes, Croats, in December 1918, they merged with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During World War II, Slovenia was occupied and annexed by Germany, Italy, and Hungary, with a tiny area transferred to the Independent State of Croatia, in June 1991, after the introduction of multi-party representative democracy, Slovenia split from Yugoslavia and became an independent country. Present-day Slovenia has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and there is evidence of habitation from around 250,000 years ago. A pierced cave bear bone, dating from 43100 ±700 BP, in the 1920s and 1930s, artifacts belonging to the Cro-Magnon such as pierced bones, bone points, and needle were found by archaeologist Srečko Brodar in Potok Cave. It shows that wooden wheels appeared almost simultaneously in Mesopotamia and Europe, in the transition period between the Bronze age to the Iron age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Archaeological remains dating from the Hallstatt period have been found, particularly in southeastern Slovenia, among them a number of situlas in Novo Mesto, in the Iron Age, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until the 1st century BC
26.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
27.
Czech Republic
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The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with mostly temperate continental climate and it is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents. The Czech Republic includes the territories of Bohemia, Moravia. The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire, after the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Roman Catholicism, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Czech country lost the majority of its German-speaking inhabitants after they were expelled following the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections. Following the 1948 coup détat, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence, in 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed, on 6 March 1990, the Czech Socialistic Republic was renamed to the Czech Republic. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, it is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, the OSCE, and it is a developed country with an advanced, high income economy and high living standards. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development, the Czech Republic also ranks as the 6th most peaceful country, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union, the traditional English name Bohemia derives from Latin Boiohaemum, which means home of the Boii. The current name comes from the endonym Čech, spelled Cžech until the reform in 1842. The name comes from the Slavic tribe and, according to legend, their leader Čech, the etymology of the word Čech can be traced back to the Proto-Slavic root *čel-, meaning member of the people, kinsman, thus making it cognate to the Czech word člověk. The country has traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the southeast, and Czech Silesia in the northeast. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word geographical name in English, the name Czechia /ˈtʃɛkiə/ was recommended by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
28.
Slovakia
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Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Slovakias territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres and is mostly mountainous. The population is over 5 million and comprises mostly ethnic Slovaks, the capital and largest city is Bratislava. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present-day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries, in the 7th century, they played a significant role in the creation of Samos Empire and in the 9th century established the Principality of Nitra. In the 10th century, the territory was integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary, which became part of the Habsburg Empire. After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a separate Slovak Republic existed in World War II as a client state of Nazi Germany. In 1945, Czechoslovakia was reëstablished under Communist rule as a Soviet satellite, in 1989 the Velvet Revolution ended authoritarian Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The country maintains a combination of economy with universal health care. The country joined the European Union in 2004 and the Eurozone on 1 January 2009, Slovakia is also a member of the Schengen Area, NATO, the United Nations, the OECD, the WTO, CERN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. The Slovak economy is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and its legal tender, the Euro, is the worlds 2nd most traded currency. Although regional income inequality is high, 90% of citizens own their homes, in 2016, Slovak citizens had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 165 countries and territories, ranking the Slovak passport 11th in the world. Slovakia is the world’s biggest per-capita car producer with a total of 1,040,000 cars manufactured in the country in 2016 alone, the car industry represents 43 percent of Slovakia’s industrial output, and a quarter of its exports. Radiocarbon datingputs the oldest surviving archaeological artefacts from Slovakia – found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom – at 270,000 BC and these ancient tools, made by the Clactonian technique, bear witness to the ancient habitation of Slovakia. Other stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic era come from the Prévôt cave near Bojnice, the most important discovery from that era is a Neanderthal cranium, discovered near Gánovce, a village in northern Slovakia. The most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth-bone, the statue was found in the 1940s in Moravany nad Váhom near Piešťany. Numerous necklaces made of shells from Cypraca thermophile gastropods of the Tertiary period have come from the sites of Zákovská, Podkovice, Hubina and these findings provide the most ancient evidence of commercial exchanges carried out between the Mediterranean and Central Europe. The Bronze Age in the territory of modern-day Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BC
29.
Hungary
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Hungary is a unitary parliamentary republic in Central Europe. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken language in Europe. Hungarys capital and largest metropolis is Budapest, a significant economic hub, major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr. His great-grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne in 1000, converting the country to a Christian kingdom, by the 12th century, Hungary became a middle power within the Western world, reaching a golden age by the 15th century. Hungarys current borders were established in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, when the country lost 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, following the interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a four-decade-long communist dictatorship. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became again a democratic parliamentary republic, in the 21st century, Hungary is a middle power and has the worlds 57th largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the 58th largest by PPP, out of 188 countries measured by the IMF. As a substantial actor in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds 36th largest exporter and importer of goods, Hungary is a high-income economy with a very high standard of living. It keeps up a security and universal health care system. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and part of the Schengen Area since 2007, Hungary is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe and Visegrád Group. Well known for its cultural history, Hungary has been contributed significantly to arts, music, literature, sports and science. Hungary is the 11th most popular country as a tourist destination in Europe and it is home to the largest thermal water cave system, the second largest thermal lake in the world, the largest lake in Central Europe, and the largest natural grasslands in Europe. The H in the name of Hungary is most likely due to historical associations with the Huns. The rest of the word comes from the Latinized form of Medieval Greek Oungroi, according to an explanation the Greek name was borrowed from Proto-Slavic Ǫgǔri, in turn borrowed from Oghur-Turkic Onogur. Onogur was the name for the tribes who later joined the Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars. The Hungarians likely belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance and it is possible they became its ethnic majority. The Hungarian endonym is Magyarország, composed of magyar and ország, the word magyar is taken from the name of one of the seven major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes, magyeri
30.
Croatia
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Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a sovereign state between Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital city is Zagreb, which one of the countrys primary subdivisions. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres and has diverse, mostly continental, Croatias Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The countrys population is 4.28 million, most of whom are Croats, the Croats arrived in the area of present-day Croatia during the early part of the 7th century AD. They organised the state into two duchies by the 9th century, tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Petar Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which seceded from Austria-Hungary, a fascist Croatian puppet state backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany existed during World War II. After the war, Croatia became a member and a federal constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991 Croatia declared independence, which came wholly into effect on 8 October of the same year, the Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration. A unitary state, Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system, the International Monetary Fund classified Croatia as an emerging and developing economy, and the World Bank identified it as a high-income economy. Croatia is a member of the European Union, United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization, the service sector dominates Croatias economy, followed by the industrial sector and agriculture. Tourism is a significant source of revenue during the summer, with Croatia ranked the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world, the state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatias most important trading partner, since 2000, the Croatian government constantly invests in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors. Internal sources produce a significant portion of energy in Croatia, the rest is imported, the origin of the name is uncertain, but is thought to be a Gothic or Indo-Aryan term assigned to a Slavic tribe. The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of variable stem, the first attestation of the Latin term is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir from the year 852. The original is lost, and just a 1568 copy is preserved—leading to doubts over the authenticity of the claim, the oldest preserved stone inscription is the 9th-century Branimir Inscription, where Duke Branimir is styled as Dux Cruatorvm. The inscription is not believed to be dated accurately, but is likely to be from during the period of 879–892, the area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period
31.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, in short, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city, in the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and the northeast is predominantly flatland. The inland is a larger region and has a moderate continental climate, with hot summers and cold. The southern tip of the country has a Mediterranean climate and plain topography, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a region that traces permanent human settlement back to the Neolithic age, during and after which it was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations. Culturally, politically, and socially, the country has a rich history, the Ottomans brought Islam to the region, and altered much of the cultural and social outlook of the country. This was followed by annexation into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which lasted up until World War I. In the interwar period, Bosnia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and after World War II, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the country proclaimed independence in 1992, which was followed by the Bosnian War, lasting until late 1995. The country is home to three ethnic groups or, officially, constituent peoples, as specified in the constitution. Bosniaks are the largest group of the three, with Serbs second and Croats third, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, is identified in English as a Bosnian. The terms Herzegovinian and Bosnian are maintained as a rather than ethnic distinction. Moreover, the country was simply called Bosnia until the Austro-Hungarian occupation at the end of the 19th century, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a three-member Presidency composed of a member of each major ethnic group. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is itself complex and consists of 10 cantons, additionally, the country has been a member of the Council of Europe since April 2002 and a founding member of the Mediterranean Union upon its establishment in July 2008. The name is believed to have derived from the hydronym of the river Bosna coursing through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could be derived from Illyrian Bass-an-as which would be a diversion of the Proto-Indo-European root bos or bogh, meaning the running water. According to English medievalist William Miller the Slavic settlers in Bosnia adapted the Latin designation Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna, the name Herzegovina originates from Bosnian magnate Stephen Vukčić Kosačas title, Herceg of Hum and the Coast. Hum, formerly Zahumlje, was a medieval principality that was conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century. Bosnia is located in the western Balkans, bordering Croatia to the north and west, Serbia to the east and it has a coastline about 20 kilometres long surrounding the city of Neum. It lies between latitudes 42° and 46° N, and longitudes 15° and 20° E, the countrys name comes from the two regions Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have a very vaguely defined border between them
32.
Serbia
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Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a sovereign state situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. Relative to its territory, it is a diverse country distinguished by a transitional character, situated along cultural, geographic, climatic. Serbia numbers around 7 million residents, and its capital, Belgrade, following the Slavic migrations to the Balkans from the 6th century onwards, Serbs established several states in the early Middle Ages. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by Rome and the Byzantine Empire in 1217, in the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the regions first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro which dissolved peacefully in 2006, in 2008 the parliament of the province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community. Serbia is a member of organizations such as the UN, CoE, OSCE, PfP, BSEC. An EU membership candidate since 2012, Serbia has been negotiating its EU accession since January 2014, the country is acceding to the WTO and is a militarily neutral state. Serbia is an income economy with dominant service sector, followed by the industrial sector. The country ranks high on the Social Progress Index as well as the Global Peace Index, relatively high on the Human Development Index, located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe, Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. Serbia lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E. The country covers a total of 88,361 km2, which places it at 113th place in the world, with Kosovo excluded, the area is 77,474 km2. Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km, all of Kosovos border with Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are under control of the Kosovo border police. The Pannonian Plain covers the third of the country while the easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain. The terrain of the part of the country, with the region of Šumadija at its heart. Mountains dominate the third of Serbia. Dinaric Alps stretch in the west and the southwest, following the flow of the rivers Drina, the Carpathian Mountains and Balkan Mountains stretch in a north–south direction in eastern Serbia. Ancient mountains in the southeast corner of the country belong to the Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system, elevation ranges from the Midžor peak of the Balkan Mountains at 2,169 metres to the lowest point of just 17 metres near the Danube river at Prahovo. The largest lake is Đerdap Lake and the longest river passing through Serbia is the Danube, the climate of Serbia is under the influences of the landmass of Eurasia and the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
33.
History of Germany
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Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charlemagnes heirs in 843, in 962, Otto I became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state. In the High Middle Ages, the dukes, princes. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the states became Protestant. The two parts of the Holy Roman Empire clashed in the Thirty Years War, which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians living in both states. The Thirty Years War brought tremendous destruction to Germany, more than 1/4 of the population,1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, feudalism fell away, the Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, led to the rapid growth of cities and to the emergence of the Socialist movement in Germany. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power, German universities became world-class centers for science and the humanities, while music and the arts flourished. The new Reichstag, a parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government. Germany joined the other powers in colonial expansion in Africa and the Pacific, Germany was the dominant power on the continent. By 1900, its rapidly expanding industrial economy passed Britains, allowing a naval race, Germany led the Central Powers in World War I against France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States. Defeated and partly occupied, Germany was forced to pay war reparations by the Treaty of Versailles and was stripped of its colonies as well as Polish areas and Alsace-Lorraine. The German Revolution of 1918–19 deposed the emperor and the kings and princes, leading to the establishment of the Weimar Republic. In the early 1930s, the worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared, in 1933, the Nazi party under Adolf Hitler came to power and quickly established a totalitarian regime. Political opponents were killed or imprisoned, after forming a pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe. After a Phoney War in spring 1940 the German blitzkrieg swept Scandinavia, only the British Commonwealth and Empire stood opposed, along with Greece. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in 1942, the German invasion of the Soviet Union faltered, and after the United States had entered the war, Britain became the base for massive Anglo-American bombings of German cities. Germany fought the war on multiple fronts through 1942–1944, however following the Allied invasion of Normandy, millions of ethnic Germans fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced rapid economic expansion, and became the dominant economy in Western Europe
34.
Military history of Germany
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While German-speaking people have a long history, Germany as a nation state dates only from 1871. Earlier periods are subject to definition debates, the Franks, for instance, were a union of Germanic tribes, nevertheless, some of the Franks later identified themselves as Dutch, Flemish, French and again others as Germans. The capital of medieval ruler Charlemagnes empire was the city of Aachen, now part of Germany, France was named after the Franks and the Dutch and Flemish people are the only ones to speak a language that descends from Frankish. Hence nearly all continental Western European historians can claim his victories as their heritage, the Holy Roman Empire he founded was largely but far from entirely German speaking. The Kingdom of Prussia, which unified Germany in the 19th century, had significant territory in what is now Poland, in the early 19th century, the philosopher Schlegel referred to Germany as a Kulturnation, a nation of shared culture and political disunity, analogous to ancient Greece. Until the unification of 1871, Austria was considered a part of Germany even though much of its empire was not in the Holy Roman Empire and was non-German, during the ancient and early medieval periods the Germanic tribes had no written language. What we know about their military history comes from accounts written in Latin. Germanic wars against the Romans are fairly well documented from the Roman perspective, Germanic wars against the early Celts remain mysterious because neither side recorded the events. Germanic tribes are thought to have originated during the Nordic Bronze Age in northern Germany, the tribes spread south, possibly motivated by the deteriorating climate of that area. They crossed the River Elbe, probably overrunning the territories of the Celtic Volcae in the Weser Basin, the Romans recorded one of these early migrations when the Cimbri and the Teutons tribes threatened the Republic itself around the late 2nd century BC. In the East, other tribes, such as Goths, Rugii and Vandals, settled along the shores of the Baltic Sea pushing southward, the Angles and Saxons migrated to England. It was never a state, from the beginning it was made up of many ethnicities and languages. Its unifying characteristic was its Carolingian heritage and strong religious connotations, its claim to German-ness the ethnicity of most of its subjects, from 919-36, the Germanic peoples were united under Henry the Fowler, then Duke of Saxony, who took the title of King. For the first time, the term Kingdom of the Germans was applied to the Frankish kingdom, in 955, the Hungarians were decisively defeated at Lechfeld by his son Otto the Great, ending the threat from the Eurasian steppes for four centuries. In 962, partly on the strength of victory, Otto went to Rome and was crowned the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by the pope. By 1155, the German states had descended into disorder, Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa managed to restore peace through diplomacy and skillfully arranged marriages. He claimed direct control over Italy and made several incursions into northern Italy. In 1189, Frederick embarked on the Third Crusade, after a few initial successes against the Turks, notably at the Battle of Iconium, Frederick died when trying to cross a river
35.
Economic history of Germany
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Germany before 1800 was heavily rural, with some urban trade centers. In the 19th century it began a stage of economic growth and modernization. By 1900 it had the largest economy in Europe, a factor that played a role in its entry into World War I. Devastated by World War II, West Germany became an economic miracle in the 1950s and 1960s with the help of the Marshall Plan, currently it is the largest individual economy in the EU with GDP of roughly 3 trillion USD. Medieval Germany, lying on the open Northern European Plain, was divided into hundreds of contending kingdoms, principalities, dukedoms, bishoprics, and free cities. Economic prosperity did not mean geographical expansion, it required collaboration with some, competition with others, and an understanding among government, commerce. A desire to save was also born in the German experience of political, military, the German lands had a population of about 5 or 6 million. The great majority were farmers, typically in a state of serfdom under the control of nobles and monasteries, a few towns were starting to emerge. From 1100, new towns were founded around imperial strongholds, castles, the towns began to establish municipal rights and liberties. Several cities such as Cologne became Imperial Free Cities, which did not depend on princes or bishops, the towns were ruled by patricians. The craftsmen formed guilds, governed by rules, which sought to obtain control of the towns. Society was divided into sharply demarcated classes, the clergy, physicians, merchants, various guilds of artisans, political tensions arose from issues of taxation, public spending, regulation of business, and market supervision, as well as the limits of corporate autonomy. Colognes central location on the Rhine river placed it at the intersection of the trade routes between east and west and was the basis of Colognes growth. The economic structures of medieval and early modern Cologne were characterized by the status as a major harbor. It was governed by its burghers, long-distance trade in the Baltic intensified, as the major trading towns came together in the Hanseatic League, under the leadership of Lübeck. The chief cities were Cologne on the Rhine River, Hamburg and Bremen on the North Sea, the Hanseatic cities each had its own legal system and a degree of political autonomy. The Thirty Years War was ruinous to the twenty million civilians and set back the economy for generations, the fighting often was out of control, with marauding bands of hundreds or thousands of starving soldiers spreading plague, plunder, and murder. The armies that were under control moved back and forth across the year after year, levying heavy taxes on cities
36.
Territorial evolution of Germany
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The territorial changes of Germany include all changes in the borders and territory of Germany from its formation in 1871 to the present. Modern Germany was formed in 1871 when Otto von Bismarck unified most of the German states, with the exception of Austria. After the First World War Germany lost about 10% of its territory to its neighbours and this republic included territories to the east of todays German borders. The period of Nazi rule from the 1930s through the end of the Second World War brought significant territorial losses for the country, Nazi Germany initially expanded the countrys territory dramatically and conquered most of Europe, though not all areas were added to Germany proper. The Nazis fortunes changed after the failure of the invasion of Soviet Union, the Nazi regime eventually collapsed, and the Allies occupied Germany. The former eastern territories of Germany were ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union, in the west, the Saar area formed a French-controlled protectorate with limited autonomy, but its own citizenship laws. With the onset of the Cold War, the part of Germany was unified as the Trizone. Western-occupied West Berlin declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 but was denied by the occupying powers, the Soviet zone, including the Soviet sector of Berlin, became the communist German Democratic Republic in October the same year. Effective 1 January 1957 the Saar Protectorate declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany, part of the motivation behind the territorial changes is based on historical events in Germany and Western Europe. Migrations that took place more than a millennium led to pockets of Germans living throughout Central. The existence of these enclaves was sometimes used by German nationalists, such as the Nazis, the territorial changes of Germany after World War II can be interpreted in the context of the evolution of global nationalism and European nationalism. The latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century saw the rise of nationalism in Europe, previously, a country consisted largely of whatever peoples lived on the land that was under the dominion of a particular ruler. As principalities and kingdoms grew through conquest and marriage, a ruler could wind up with different ethnicities under his dominion. The concept of nationalism was based on the idea of a people who shared a bond through race, religion, language. Furthermore, nationalism asserted that people had a right to its own state. Many interior conflicts were a result of more or less pressurising citizens of alternative ethnicities and/or other native languages to assimilate to the ethnicity dominant in the state, switzerland was the bright exception showing that patriotism only needs civic pride and legal equality, not a common native language. Much conflict would arise when one nation asserted territorial rights to land outside its borders on the basis of a bond with the people living on the land. Yet another source of conflict was the desire of some nations to expel people from territory within its borders because people did not share a bond with the majority of people of that nation
37.
Germanic peoples
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The Germanic peoples are an ethno-linguistic Indo-European group of Northern European origin. They are identified by their use of Germanic languages, which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the term Germanic originated in classical times when groups of tribes living in Lower, Upper, and Greater Germania were referred to using this label by Roman scribes. Tribes referred to as Germanic by Roman authors generally lived to the north, in about 222 BCE, the first use of the Latin term Germani appears in the Fasti Capitolini inscription de Galleis Insvbribvs et Germ. This may simply be referring to Gaul or related people, the term Germani shows up again, allegedly written by Poseidonios, but is merely a quotation inserted by the author Athenaios who wrote much later. Somewhat later, the first surviving detailed discussions of Germani and Germania are those of Julius Caesar, from Caesars perspective, Germania was a geographical area of land on the east bank of the Rhine opposite Gaul, which Caesar left outside direct Roman control. This usage of the word is the origin of the concept of Germanic languages. In other classical authors the concept sometimes included regions of Sarmatia, also, at least in the south there were Celtic peoples still living east of the Rhine and north of the Alps. Caesar, Tacitus and others noted differences of culture which could be found on the east of the Rhine, but the theme of all these cultural references was that this was a wild and dangerous region, less civilised than Gaul, a place that required additional military vigilance. Caesar used the term Germani for a specific tribal grouping in northeastern Belgic Gaul, west of the Rhine. He made clear that he was using the name in the local sense and these are the so-called Germani Cisrhenani, whom Caesar believed to be closely related to the peoples east of the Rhine, and descended from immigrants into Gaul. Caesar described this group of both as Belgic Gauls and as Germani. Gauls are associated with Celtic languages, and the term Germani is associated with Germanic languages, but Caesar did not discuss languages in detail. It has been claimed, for example by Maurits Gysseling, that the names of this region show evidence of an early presence of Germanic languages. The etymology of the word Germani is uncertain, the likeliest theory so far proposed is that it comes from a Gaulish compound of *ger near + *mani men, comparable to Welsh ger near, Old Irish gair neighbor, Irish gar- near, garach neighborly. Another Celtic possibility is that the name meant noisy, cf. Breton/Cornish garm shout, however, here the vowel does not match, nor does the vowel length ). Others have proposed a Germanic etymology *gēr-manni, spear men, cf. Middle Dutch ghere, Old High German Ger, Old Norse geirr. However, the form gēr seems far too advanced phonetically for the 1st century, has a vowel where a short one is expected. The term Germani, therefore, probably applied to a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul who may or may not have spoken a Germanic language
38.
Migration Period
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The Migration Period was a time of widespread migrations within or into Europe in the middle of the first millennium AD. It has also been termed the Völkerwanderung and, from the Roman, many of the migrations were movements of Germanic, Slavic, and other peoples into the territory of the then Roman Empire, with or without accompanying invasions or war. Although immigration was common throughout the time of the Roman Empire, later invasions, also had significant effects, however, they are outside the scope of the Migration Period. Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward, moving into southern Germany up to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul by 100 BC and it is this western group which was described by the Roman historian Tacitus and Julius Caesar. A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians, the Barbarian Invasions may be divided into two phases. The first phase, occurring between AD300 and 500, is documented by Greek and Latin historians but difficult to verify archaeologically. It puts Germanic peoples in control of most areas of what was then the Western Roman Empire, the Tervingi entered Roman territory in 376. Some time thereafter in Marcianopolis, the escort to Fritigern was killed while meeting with Lupicinus, fending off challenges from the Allemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths, the Frankish kingdom became the nucleus of what would later become France and Germany. The initial Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain occurred during the fifth century, the Burgundians settled in North Western Italy, Switzerland and Eastern France in the fifth century. The second phase took place between 500 and 700 and saw Slavic tribes settling in central and eastern Europe, gradually making it predominantly Slavic, additionally, Turkic tribes such as the Avars became involved in this phase. In 567, the Avars and the Lombards destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom, the Lombards, a Germanic people, settled in Italy with their Herulian, Suebian, Gepid, Thuringian, Bulgarian, Sarmatian and Saxon allies in the 6th century. They were later followed by the Bavarians and the Franks, who conquered and ruled most of Italy, during the Khazar–Arab Wars, the Khazars stopped the Arab expansion into Europe across the Caucasus. At the same time, the Moors invaded Europe via Gibraltar and these battles broadly demarcated the frontiers between Christendom and Islam for the next millennium. The following centuries saw the Muslims successful in conquering most of Sicily from the Christians by 902, the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin from around 895, and the Viking expansion from the late 8th century conventionally mark the last large movements of the period. Christianity gradually converted the non-Islamic newcomers and integrated them into the medieval Christian order, a number of contemporary historical references worldwide refer to an extended period of extreme weather during 535–536. Evidence of this period is also found in dendrochronology and ice cores. The consequences of this period are debated
39.
Ostsiedlung
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The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia in the south to Estonia in the north, and extended into Transylvania in the southeast. In part, Ostsiedlung followed the expansion of the Empire. German historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often exaggerated the importance of the adoption of Salic law and settlement in Central, thus Ostsiedlung is part of a process termed Ostkolonisation or Hochmittelalterlicher Landesausbau, although these terms are sometimes used synonymously. Ethnic conflicts erupted between the newly arrived settlers and local populations and expulsions of native populations are known of. In several areas subject to the Ostsiedlung, the population was later discriminated against. Central Europe underwent dramatic changes after the Migration period of 300 to 700 CE, the Roman Empire had lost its dominant position. The Franks had created an empire that, besides former Roman Gallia, had united the former West Germanic tribes, East Francia, an early predecessor of Germany, aimed to be the successor to the Christian Western Roman Empire, and developed into the Holy Roman Empire. In Scandinavia, the former North Germanic tribes entered the Viking Age, affecting the whole of Europe through trade, some former East Germanic tribes had entered and merged into Rome, their own culture ceasing to exist. The Slavs living within the reach of the Frankish Empire were collectively called Wends and they seldom formed larger political entities, but rather constituted various small tribes, dwelling as far west as to a line from the Eastern Alps and Bohemia to the Saale and Elbe rivers. As the Frankish Empire expanded, various Wendish tribes were conquered or allied with the Franks, such as the Obodrites, the conquered Wendish areas were organized by the Franks into marches, which were administered by an entrusted noble who collected the tribute, reinforced by military units. The establishing of marches was also accompanied by missionary efforts, Frankish kings initiated numerous, yet not always successful, military campaigns to maintain their authority. Weakened by ongoing conflicts and constant warfare, the independent Wendish territories finally lost the capacity to provide effective military resistance. From 1119 to 1123, Pomerania invaded and subdued the northeastern parts of the Liutizian lands, in 1124 and 1128, the Pomeranian duke Wartislaw I, at that time a vassal of Poland, invited bishop Otto von Bamberg to Christianize the Pomeranians and Liutizians of his duchy. In 1147, as a campaign of the Northern Crusade, the Wendish Crusade was mounted in the Duchy of Saxony to retake the marches lost in 983, the crusaders also headed for Pomeranian Demmin and Stettin, despite these areas having already been successfully Christianized. The Havelberg bishopric was set up again to Christianize the Wends, after Henry the Lion lost an internal struggle with Emperor Frederick I, Mecklenburg and Pomerania became part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1181. Terra Mariana was the name for Medieval Livonia or Old Livonia which was formed in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade in the territories comprising present day Estonia and Latvia. It was established on February 2,1207 as a principality of the Holy Roman Empire, the nominal head of Terra Mariana as well as the city of Riga was the Archbishop of Riga as the apex of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In 1561, during the Livonian war, Terra Mariana ceased to exist, the island of Saaremaa became part of Denmark
40.
Germany in the early modern period
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The German-speaking states in the early modern period were divided politically and religiously. They all suffered greatly in the Thirty Years War, catholic Austria and Lutheran Prussia were the major players. The Holy Roman Empire was dominated by the House of Habsburg throughout the Early Modern period and this was a result of German artists who had traveled to Italy to learn more and become inspired by the Renaissance movement. Many areas of the arts and sciences were influenced, notably by the spread of humanism to the various German states and principalities, there were many advances made in the development of new techniques in the fields of architecture, the arts, and the sciences. This also marked the time within Germany of a rise of power, independent city states, the German Reformation initiated by Martin Luther leads to the German Peasants War in 1524-1525. At a religious conference with the Zwinglians in 1529, Melanchthon joined with Luther in opposing a union with Zwingli, with the protestation of the Lutheran princes at the Diet of Speyer and rejection of the Lutheran Augsburg Confession at Augsburg, a separate Lutheran church finally emerged. In Northern Europe Luther appealed to the national consciousness of the German states because he denounced the Pope for involvement in politics as well as religion. Moreover, he backed the nobility, which was now justified to crush the Great Peasant Revolt of 1525 and this explains the attraction of some territorial princes to Lutheranism. However, the Elector of Brandenburg, Joachim I, blamed Lutheranism for the revolt, though Charles V fought the Reformation, it is no coincidence either that the reign of his nationalistic predecessor Maximilian I saw the beginning of the Reformation. The Reformation and printing press combined to mark a major breakthrough in the spread of literacy, from 1517 onward religious pamphlets flooded Germany and much of Europe. By 1530 over 10,000 publications are known, with a total of ten million copies, the Reformation was thus a media revolution. Luther strengthened his attacks on Rome by depicting a good against bad church, from there, it became clear that print could be used for propaganda in the Reformation for particular agendas. Reformist writers used pre-Reformation styles, clichés, and stereotypes and changed items as needed for their own purposes, illustrations in the newly translated Bible and in many tracts popularized Luthers ideas. Lucas Cranach the Elder, the great painter patronized by the electors of Wittenberg, was a friend of Luther. He dramatized Luthers views on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, while remaining mindful of Luthers careful distinctions about proper and improper uses of visual imagery, the Thirty Years War was a religious war principally fought in Germany, where it involved most of the European powers. The conflict began between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, but gradually developed into a general, political war involving most of Europe. The Thirty Years War was a continuation of the France-Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, the major impact of the Thirty Years War, fought mostly by mercenary armies, was the extensive destruction of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies. Episodes of famine and disease significantly decreased the populace of the German states, some of the quarrels that provoked the war went unresolved for a much longer time
41.
Kleinstaaterei
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Estimates of the total number of German states at any given time during the 18th century vary, ranging from 294 to 348 or more. Furthermore, many German states were composed of two or more parts, often politically united through a marriage. Most states had at least one or two enclaves or exclaves, and some considerably more, during the early modern period, these small states modernised their military, judicial, and economic administrations. These hardly existed at the level, and the emperor was little more than a feudalistic confederal figurehead. After the Reformation, the Empires small states were divided along religious lines and those headed by Roman Catholic dynasties faced those ruled by Protestant dynasties in the Thirty Years War and other conflicts. After French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte forced the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, to dissolve the Empire in 1806, Kleinstaaterei was altered and this confederation did not survive Napoleons military defeat at the hands of the allies, but the previous principalities were not entirely restored. Prussia and the Austrian Empire—the successor state to the Habsburg Monarchy—were the only major German powers, the resulting territorial division resulted in a consolidated version—around 40 states—of the pre-Napoleonic Kleinstaaterei. The rise of nationalism across Europe brought movements striving for nation-states, German nationalists began to insist on a unified Germany. The founding of the German Empire created a largely German nation-state, the unification of the German Empire put Germany on the map as a major European power, albeit too late to become a major colonial presence. The decentralised nature of Kleinstaaterei made it difficult for the German economy to live up to its potential, varying systems of weights and measures, different currencies and numerous tariffs impeded trade and investment, although the creation of the German Customs Union had begun to lift these barriers. The startling rapidity of Germanys economic growth after unification under Bismarck provided further evidence that the Kleinstaaterei had been economically repressive, the system did contribute to cultural diversity within Germany, and the numerous rival courts—though usually politically insignificant—often gained some renown through patronage. Balkanisation German Mediatisation List of participants in the Reichstag of 1792 List of states in the Holy Roman Empire
42.
18th-century history of Germany
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Germany in the era 1680s to 1789 comprised many small territories. Germany, or more exactly the old Holy Roman Empire, in the 18th century entered a period of decline that would lead to the dissolution of the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Empire had been fragmented into independent states. In 1701 Elector Frederick of Brandenburg was crowned King in Prussia, from 1713 to 1740, King Frederick William I, also known as the Soldier King, established a highly centralized state. The term German dualism describes the conflict between the two largest German states Austria and Prussia from 1740 to 1866 when Prussia finally forced Austria out of the German Confederation. The Kingdom of Prussia emerged as the state of the Empire. Frederick III became King Frederick I of Prussia in 1701, since there was only one King of the Germans within the Empire, Frederick gained the assent of Emperor Leopold I to his adoption of the title of King in Prussia based on his non-imperial territories. The title came into general acceptance with the Treaty of Utrecht, Swedens defeat by Russia, Saxony, Poland, Denmark–Norway, Hanover, and Prussia in the Great Northern War marked the end of significant Swedish power on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. In the Prusso–Swedish Treaty of Stockholm, Prussia regained Stettin and other parts of Swedens holding in Pomerania, the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg had held the reversion to the Duchy of Pomerania since 1472. During this time, the set in motion by the Great Elector reached their culmination, as the Junkers. In 1740, King Frederick II came to the throne, in 1744, Frederick invaded again to forestall reprisals and to claim, this time, the province of Bohemia. When Frederick preemptively invaded Saxony and Bohemia over the course of a few months in 1756–57 and this war was a desperate struggle for the Prussian Army, and the fact that it managed to fight much of Europe to a draw bears witness to Fredericks military skills. The situation became progressively grimmer until the death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, the accession of the Prussophile Peter III relieved the pressure on the eastern front. This result confirmed Prussias major role within the German states and established the country as a European great power and this gave the start to the rivalry between Prussia and Austria for the leadership of Germany, referred to as German dualism. From 1763, against resistance from the nobility and citizenry, an enlightened absolutism was established in Prussia and Austria, the economy developed and legal reforms were undertaken, including the abolition of torture and the improvement in the status of Jews, the emancipation of the peasants began. The Kingdom of Prussia annexed most of the Polish province of Royal Prussia, including Warmia, the new territory connected East Prussia with Pomerania, uniting the kingdoms eastern territories. After Frederick died in 1786, his nephew Fredrick William II continued the partitions, in 1795, the Kingdom of Poland ceased to exist and a large area to the south of East Prussia became part of Prussia. These new territories were organized into the Provinces of New Silesia, South Prussia, the French Revolution sparked a new war between France and several of its Eastern neighbors, including Prussia and Austria
43.
Kingdom of Prussia
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It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia was a power from the time it became a kingdom, through its predecessor, Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia continued its rise to power under the guidance of Frederick II, more known as Frederick the Great. After the might of Prussia was revealed it was considered as a power among the German states. Throughout the next hundred years Prussia went on to win many battles and it was because of its power that Prussia continuously tried to unify all the German states under its rule. Attempts at creation of a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when war ensued between its two most powerful states, Prussia and Austria. The North German Confederation which lasted from 1867–1871, created a union between the Prussian-aligned states while Austria and most of Southern Germany remained independent. The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War, the German Empire lasted from 1871–1918 with the successful unification of all the German states under Prussian hegemony. This was due to the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, in 1871, Germany unified into a single country, minus Austria and Switzerland, with Prussia the dominant power. Prussia is considered the predecessor of the unified German Reich. The Kingdom left a significant cultural legacy, today notably promoted by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in 1415 a Hohenzollern Burgrave came from the south to the March of Brandenburg and took control of the area as elector. In 1417 the Hohenzollern was made an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, after the Polish wars, the newly established Baltic towns of the German states including Prussia, suffered many economic setbacks. Many of the Prussian towns could not even afford to attend political meetings outside of Prussia, the towns were poverty stricken, with even the largest town, Danzig, having to borrow money from elsewhere to pay for trade. Poverty in these towns was partly caused by Prussias neighbors, who had established and developed such a monopoly on trading that these new towns simply could not compete and these issues led to feuds, wars, trade competition and invasions. However, the fall of these gave rise to the nobility, separated the east and the west. It was clear in 1440 how different Brandenburg was from the other German territories, not only did it face partition from within but also the threat of its neighbors. It prevented the issue of partition by enacting the Dispositio Achillea which instilled the principle of primogeniture to both the Brandenburg and Franconian territories, the second issue was solved through expansion
44.
Unification of Germany
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The unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor after the French capitulation in the Franco-Prussian War. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which had included more than 500 independent states, was dissolved when Emperor Francis II abdicated during the War of the Third Coalition. Economically, the creation of the Prussian Zollverein in 1818, and its subsequent expansion to other states of the German Confederation. Emerging modes of transportation facilitated business and recreational travel, leading to contact, the model of diplomatic spheres of influence resulting from the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15 after the Napoleonic Wars endorsed Austrian dominance in Central Europe. The negotiators at Vienna took no account of Prussias growing strength within and among the German states and this German dualism presented two solutions to the problem of unification, Kleindeutsche Lösung, the small Germany solution, or Großdeutsche Lösung, the greater Germany solution. Reaction to Danish and French nationalism provided foci for expressions of German unity, military successes—especially those of Prussia—in three regional wars generated enthusiasm and pride that politicians could harness to promote unification. This experience echoed the memory of mutual accomplishment in the Napoleonic Wars, by establishing a Germany without Austria, the political and administrative unification in 1871 at least temporarily solved the problem of dualism. 1797, The French First Republic annexed the Left Bank of the Rhine as a result of the War of the First Coalition,1802, Previous annexations by France confirmed following its victory in the War of the Second Coalition. 1804, Francis I of Austria declared the new Austrian Empire as a reaction to Napoleon Bonapartes proclamation of the First French Empire in 1804. 1806, As a result of the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon I annexed some territories East of the Rhine,1807, Prussia lost one half of its territory following the War of the Fourth Coalition. 1815, After the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna reinstated the Germanic states into the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire,1834, The Prussian-led custom union evolved into the Zollverein that included almost all Confederation states except the Austrian Empire. 1848, Revolts across the German Confederation, such as in Berlin, Dresden and Frankfurt, in the meantime, the Frankfurt Parliament was set up in 1848 and attempted to proclaim a united Germany, but this was refused by William IV. The question of a united Germany under the Kleindeutsch solution or the so-called Großdeutsch began to surface,1864, The Danish-Prussian War started as Prussia protested against Danish incorporation of Schleswig into the Kingdom of Denmark. The Austrian Empire was deliberately drawn into war by Otto von Bismarck. The Austro-Prussian victory led to Schleswig, the part, being governed by Prussia and Holstein. 1866, Bismarck accused the Austrian Empire of stirring up troubles in Prussian-held Schleswig, Prussian troops drove into Austrian-held Holstein and took control of the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein. Austria declared war on Prussia and, after fighting the Austro-Prussian War, was swiftly defeated, Napoleon III declared war against Prussia
45.
Confederation of the Rhine
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The Confederation of the Rhine was a confederation of client states of the First French Empire. It was formed initially from 16 German states by Napoleon after he defeated Austria and Russia in the Battle of Austerlitz, the Treaty of Pressburg, in effect, led to the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine. It lasted from 1806 to 1813, the members of the confederation were German princes from the Holy Roman Empire. They were later joined by 19 others, all together ruling a total of over 15 million subjects providing a significant strategic advantage to the French Empire on its eastern front, Prussia and Austria were not members. Napoleon sought to consolidate the modernizing achievements of the revolution, but he wanted the soldiers, Napoleon required it to supply 63,000 troops to his army. The success of the Confederation depended on Napoleons success in battle, on 12 July 1806, on signing the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine in Paris,16 states in present-day Germany joined together in a confederation. On 1 August, the members of the confederation formally seceded from the Holy Roman Empire, Francis and his Habsburg dynasty continued as emperors of Austria. According to the treaty, the confederation was to be run by common constitutional bodies, as such, he was President of the College of Kings and presided over the Diet of the Confederation, designed to be a parliament-like body although it never actually assembled. The President of the Council of the Princes was the Prince of Nassau-Usingen, in return for their support of Napoleon, some rulers were given higher statuses, Baden, Hesse, Cleves, and Berg were made into grand duchies, and Württemberg and Bavaria became kingdoms. States were also made larger by incorporating the many smaller Kleinstaaten and they had to pay a very high price for their new status, however. The Confederation was above all a military alliance, the members had to maintain substantial armies for mutual defense, as events played out the members of the confederation found themselves more subordinated to Napoleon than they had been to the Habsburgs. After Prussia lost to France in 1806, Napoleon cajoled most of the states of Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine. Eventually, an additional 23 German states joined the Confederation and it was at its largest in 1808, when it included 36 states—four kingdoms, five grand duchies,13 duchies, seventeen principalities, and the Free Hansa towns of Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen. Only Austria, Prussia, Danish Holstein, and Swedish Pomerania stayed outside, not counting the west bank of the Rhine and the Principality of Erfurt, which were annexed by the French empire. In 1810 large parts of what is now northwest Germany were quickly annexed to France in order to monitor the trade embargo with Great Britain. The Confederation of the Rhine collapsed in 1813, in the aftermath of Napoleons failed campaign against the Russian Empire, many of its members changed sides after the Battle of Leipzig, when it became apparent Napoleon would lose the War of the Sixth Coalition. The following table shows the members of the confederation, with their date of joining, the allies opposing Napoleon dissolved the Confederation of the Rhine on 4 November 1813. It was dissolved on 20 June 1815, on 30 May 1814 the Treaty of Paris declared the German states independent
46.
German Confederation
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Most historians have judged the Confederation to have been weak and ineffective, as well as an obstacle to the creation of a German nation-state. It collapsed due to the rivalry between Prussia and Austria, warfare, the 1848 revolution, and the inability of the members to compromise. In 1848, revolutions by liberals and nationalists were an attempt to establish a unified German state. Talks between the German states failed in 1848, and the Confederation briefly dissolved, but was re-established shortly after and it decidedly fell apart only after the Prussian victory in the Seven Weeks War of 1866. This led to the creation of the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership in 1867, a number of South German states remained independent until they joined the North German Confederation, which was renamed the German Empire. The War of the Third Coalition lasted from about 1803 to 1806, following defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz by the French under Napoleon in December 1805, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II abdicated, and the Empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806. The resulting Treaty of Pressburg established the Confederation of the Rhine in July 1806, after the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt of October 1806 in the War of the Fourth Coalition, various other German states, including Saxony and Westphalia, also joined the Confederation. Only Austria, Prussia, Danish Holstein, Swedish Pomerania and the French-occupied Principality of Erfurt stayed outside the Confederation of the Rhine and these nations would later join in the War of the Sixth Coalition from 1812 to 1814. The German Confederation was created by the 9th Act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. The Confederation was formally created by a treaty, the Final Act of the Ministerial Conference to Complete and Consolidate the Organization of the German Confederation. This treaty was not concluded and signed by the parties until 15 May 1820, States joined the German Confederation by becoming parties to the second treaty. The German Confederation ended as a result of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 between Austrian Empire and its allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia and its allies on the other. In the Prague peace treaty, on 23 August 1866, Austria had to accept that the Confederation was considered to be dissolved, the following day, the remaining member states confirmed the dissolution. The treaty allowed Prussia to create a new Bundesverhältnis in the North of Germany, the South German states were proposed to create a South German Confederation but this did not come into existence. Prussia and its allies created the North German Confederation in 1867, because of French intervention it had to exclude, besides Austria, the South German states Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt. During November 1870 the four states joined the North German Confederation by treaty. The North German Confederation Reichstag and Bundesrat accepted to rename the North German Confederation as the German Empire, the new constitution of the state, the Constitution of the German Confederation, introduced the new name and title on 1 January 1871. The Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia were the largest, Austria and Prussia each had one vote in the Federal Assembly
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