1.
Jadwiga of Poland
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Jadwiga, also known as Hedwig, reigned as the first female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland from 16 October 1384 until her death. She was the youngest daughter of Louis the Great, also known in Poland as Louis the Hungarian, King of Hungary and Poland, Jadwiga was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, but had more close ancestors among the Polish Piasts. She was canonized in the Roman Catholic Church in 1997 and her marriage to William of Austria was planned in 1375 and she lived in Vienna between 1378 and 1380. However, Louis died and Mary was crowned King of Hungary on the demand of her mother in 1382, Sigismund of Luxemburg tried to seize Poland, but the Polish noblemen countered that they would only obey a daughter of King Louis if she settled in their country. Queen Elizabeth then nominated Jadwiga to reign in Poland, but did not send her to Kraków to be crowned, during the interregnum, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia, became a candidate for the Polish throne. The nobles of Greater Poland especially favoured him, proposing he marry Jadwiga, however, the noblemen of Lesser Poland opposed his election and persuaded Queen Elizabeth to send Jadwiga to Poland. Jadwiga was crowned king in Kraków on 16 October 1384 and her crowning either reflected the Polish lords opposition to her intended future husband, William, adopting the royal title without a further Act or only emphasized that she was a queen regnant. With her mothers consent, Jadwigas advisors opened negotiations with Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo, promising to convert to Roman Catholicism and to promote his pagan subjects conversion. Meanwhile, William of Habsburg hurried to Kraków to demand the consummation of his marriage with Jadwiga. Jogaila, who received the baptismal name Władysław, married Jadwiga on 15 February 1386, legend says that she had only agreed to marry him after long prayers, seeking divine inspiration. Władysław-Jogaila was crowned king on 4 March, as her co-ruler, Władysław closely cooperated with his wife. She acted as mediator between her husbands quarreling kinsmen, and between Poland and the Teutonic Knights, after her sister, Mary died in 1395, Jadwiga and Władysław-Jogaila laid claim to Hungary against the widowed Sigismund of Luxemburg, but the Hungarian lords did not support them. Jadwiga was the third and youngest daughter of Louis I, King of Hungary and Poland, both her grandmothers were Polish princesses, connecting her to the native Piast dynasty of Poland. Historian Oscar Halecki concluded that Jadwigas genealogical tree shows that had more Polish blood than any other. The date of her birth is unknown and she was probably born after 3 October 1373, on this day, her father issued a charter which listed her two older sisters, Catherine and Mary, without mentioning Jadwiga. Her name was first recorded in her fathers instructions to his envoys to France on 17 April 1384, if by then, Jadwiga had reached twelve years, she must have been born before 18 February 1374. She was named after her distant ancestor, Saint Hedwig of Silesia, King Louis who had not fathered any sons, wanted to ensure his daughters right to inherit his realms. Therefore, European royals regarded his three daughters as especially attractive brides, Leopold III, Duke of Austria, proposed his eldest son, William, to Jadwiga already on 18 August 1374
2.
Louis I of Brzeg
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Louis I the Fair, also known as the Wise or the Right or Louis I of Brzeg, a member of the Silesian Piasts, was a Silesian duke of Legnica from 1342 to 1346 and of Brzeg from 1358 until his death. Also, he was regent of Legnica during 1364–1373, Louis was the youngest son of the ducal couple who survived adulthood. The third and last son, Nikolaus was born and died in 1322, shortly before their mother. Like his elder brother, little was known of Louis Is early years, in the following years Louis spent much of his time at the royal court in Prague. It was there where he learned about politics and government. In 1342 Bolesław IIIs huge debts forced him to cede the Duchy of Legnica to his sons Wenceslaus and Louis, the formal divisionary treaty took place on 9 August 1345 in the Silesian capital Wroclaw and was personally signed by King John of Bohemia. Louis I received the richest part of the Duchy and the residence in Legnica, however, the breakdown between the brothers took place only one year later. As a temporary compensation, Louis received 400 pieces of silver per year and it soon became apparent the reality was totally different. The ill Wenceslaus wasnt in any danger of dying, in addition, the situation was more complicated after the birth of the first of Wenceslauss four sons, Rupert. Now Wenceslaus wanted to force his brother to renounce his succession rights, however, Louiss financial situation was not so bad as he was able to buy the town of Lubin from his father and moved there with his family. Between 1349 and 1350 Louis took part in a pilgrimage to Rome, after the death of his father Bolesław III in 1352, Louis opted for a military solution to the conflicts with his brother. The war lasted for six years. The final agreement concluded between the brothers was signed on 23 July 1359, for his part, Louis promised to pay half of his late fathers debts and formally renounced all claim over the Duchy of Legnica. Wenceslaus died on 2 June 1364, leaving four underage sons, Louis took the regency on behalf of his nephews until 1373. From the beginning of his regency, he made significant efforts to save the Legnica treasury and his talent in government affairs caused Louis I to be actively involved in the rule of Legnica by the request of his eldest nephew Rupert I, who followed most of his advice. Henry VII received his own only in 1395, Niemcza. Louis I participated actively in foreign politics, on 21 May 1379, with his brother Wenceslaus I, he renewed his homage to King Wenceslaus IV. On 12 June 1397 Louis took part in the Congress of Łubnicach, at which were present, among others, King Vladislaus II Jagiełło and Przemyslaus I Noszak, the dynastic politics of Louis I had also a good result
3.
Hedwig Codex
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The Hedwig Codex is a medieval illuminated manuscript of the life of Saint Hedwig of Silesia, spouse of the Silesian Piast duke Henry the Bearded. Based on her hagiography, the codex was produced in 1353 at the court workshop of Hedwigs descendant. According to a letter by Bishop Preczlaw of Pogarell he dedicated it to the newly established church at Brzeg. Upon the Protestant Reformation and the dissolution of the Brzeg collegiate chapter, purchased by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the original manuscript is today part of the Getty Museum collection as MS Ludwig XI7. A facsimile edition was published in Berlin in 1972 as Der Hedwigs-Codex von 1353, Wolfgang Braunfels, ed. Der Hedwigs-Codex von 1353, Sammlung Ludwig,2 volumes. Jacqueline E. Jung, The Tactile and the Visionary, available at yale. edu
4.
Lubin
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Lubin, is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. From 1975–1998 it belonged to the former Legnica Voivodeship, Lubin is the administrative seat of Lubin County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Lubin, although it is not part of the territory of the latter, as the town forms a separate urban gmina. As of the 2009 census, the town had a population of 74,552. Lubin is situated on the Zimnica river in the Lower Silesian historical region, the town is one of the major industrial locations in Lower Silesia, with the headquarters of the third-largest Polish corporation, the KGHM Polska Miedź mining company. It is unclear which of the two tribes, if either, founded the town, one legend states that the town derives its name from Luba, a young man credited with slaying a giant bear that had been terrifying the inhabitants. A papal bull dated to circa 1155 mentions Lubin as one of 13 Silesian castellanies, the settlement in the Duchy of Głogów was first mentioned under the Old Polish name of Lubin in a 1267 deed by Pope Clement IV as a fiefdom of Trzebnica Abbey. It obtained its city rights about 1295, from 1348 Lubin Castle served as the residence of the Piast duke Louis I the Fair and his descendants. In the quarrel with his elder brother Duke Wenceslaus I of Legnica a 1359 judgement by Emperor Charles IV allotted Lubin along with Krzeczyn Wielki, Krzeczyn Mały, Osiek and Pieszków to Louis. About 1353 he had a manuscript on the life of Saint Hedwig of Andechs drawn up, later called Schlackenwerth Codex, in the late 15th century the Lubin parish church was rebuilt in its present-day Gothic style, its high altar was moved to Wrocław Cathedral in 1951. With Bohemian Silesia, Lubin in 1526 fell to the Habsburg Monarchy and it was devastated several times during the Thirty Years War, conquered in the Silesian wars of King Frederick II of Prussia in the mid-18th Century, and became a part of Prussia and later Germany. In 1871, after creation of the German Empire, it was connected by rail to Liegnitz, during World War II about 70% of the towns buildings were destroyed. In 1945 between the days of 8–10 February Red Army soldiers mass-murdered 150 German pensioners in a home and 500 psychiatric hospital patients in Lubin. As a result of border changes promulgated at the 1945 Potsdam Conference, in 1982 the town saw significant demonstrations against the martial law declared by the Communist regime, which were put down by its death squads, resulting in the murder of three people. Uczelnia Zawodowa Zagłębia Miedziowego I Liceum Ogólnokształcące im, mikołaja Kopernika w Lubinie II Liceum Ogólnokształcące w Lubinie Zagłębie Lubin - mens Ekstraklasa football team, Polish champion in 1990-1991 and 2006-2007. Interferie Zagłębie Lubin - mens handball team playing in Polish Ekstraklasa Mens Handball League, roads, No.3 - Jakuszyce-Legnica-Lubin-Zielona Góra-Gorzów Wielkopolski-Szczecin-Świnoujście No.36 - Rawicz-Lubin-Prochowice Lubin has an international airport with a 1000m concrete/asphalt runway
5.
J. Paul Getty Museum
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The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in California housed on two campuses, the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and is the location of the museum. The collection features Western art from the Middle Ages to the present and its estimated 1.3 million visitors annually make it one of the most visited museums in the United States. The museums second location, the Getty Villa, is in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and displays art from ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. In 1974, J. Paul Getty opened a museum in a re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum on his property in Pacific Palisades, in 1982, the museum became the richest in the world when it inherited US$1.2 billion. In 1997, the moved to its current location in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Detailed information about the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collections is provided on GettyGuide, at the GettyGuide stations in the Museum, visitors can get information about exhibitions, interact with a timeline, watch videos on art-making techniques, and more. Also available at the Museum, the GettyGuide multimedia player features commentary from curators and conservators on many works of art, with GettyGuide on the Web, one may browse the Museum’s collection and bookmark works of art to create a customized tour and printable map. In 1984, Frel was demoted, and in 1986, he resigned, the Getty is involved in a controversy regarding proper title to some of the artwork in its collection. The museums previous curator of antiquities, Marion True, was indicted in Italy in 2005 on criminal charges relating to trafficking in stolen antiquities, similar charges have been addressed by the Greek authorities. The primary evidence in the case came from the 1995 raid of a Geneva, Switzerland, in 2005 True was forced to tender her resignation by the Board of Trustees, which announced her early retirement. Italy allowed the statute of limitations of the charges filed against her to expire in October 2010, True is currently under investigation by Greek authorities over the acquisition of a 2, 500-year-old funerary wreath. The wreath, along with a 6th-century BC statue of a woman, have returned to Greece and are exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. The Getty Museum resisted the requests of the Italian government for two decades, only to admit later that there might be problems attached to the acquisition. In 2006, Italian senior cultural official Giuseppe Proietti said, The negotiations havent made a step forward. Only after he suggested the Italian government to take cultural sanctions against the Getty, suspending all cultural cooperation, in another unrelated case in 1999, the Getty Museum had to hand over three antiquities to Italy after determining they were stolen. A Summary Catalogue of European Decorative Arts in the J. Paul Getty Museum was published in 2001, indeed, some discrete works are provided with annotations, e. g. In 2016, the head of the Greek god Hades was returned to Sicily
6.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
7.
Andechs
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Andechs is a municipality in the district of Starnberg in Bavaria in Germany. It is renowned in Germany and beyond for Andechs Abbey, a Benedictine monastery that has brewed beer since 1455, the monastery brewery offers tours to visitors. The 20th-century German composer Carl Orff is buried in the chapel of Andechs Abbey, media related to Andechs at Wikimedia Commons Andechs travel guide from Wikivoyage
8.
Duchy of Bavaria
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The Duchy of Bavaria was, from the sixth through the eighth century, a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom and was ruled by dukes under Frankish lordship. In the late ninth century a new duchy was created from this area and it was one of the stem duchies of the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. Between 1070 and 1180 the Emperor was opposed by Bavaria, especially by the House of Welf, in the final conflict between the Duke Henry the Lion and the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick I, Frederick I triumphed and deprived Henry of his fiefs. Bavaria then passed over to the House of Wittelsbach, which held it until 1918, the origins of the older Bavarian duchy can be traced to the year 551/555. In his Getica, the chronicler Jordanes writes, That area of the Swabians has the Bavarii in the east, until the end of the first duchy, all rulers descended from the family of the Agilolfings. The first documented duke was Garibald I, a scion of the Frankish Agilolfings, at around 743, the Bavarian duke Odilo vassalised the Slavic princes of Carantania, who had asked him for protection against the invading Avars. The residence of the largely independent Agilolfing dukes was then Regensburg, in the adjacent Alamannic lands west of the Lech river, Augsburg was a bishops seat. When Boniface established the Diocese of Passau in 739, he could build on local Early Christian traditions. In the south, Saint Rupert had founded in 696 the Diocese of Salzburg, probably after he had baptized Duke Theodo of Bavaria at his court in Regensburg, becoming the Apostle of Bavaria. In 798 Pope Leo III created the Bavarian ecclesiastical province with Salzburg as metropolitan seat and Regensburg, Passau, Freising, in the west, the Carolingian mayor of the palace Carloman had suppressed the last Alamannic revolt at the 746 Blood court at Cannstatt. The last tribal stem duchy to be incorporated was Bavaria in 788, the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by Charlemagne entailed the fall of Tassilo, who was deposed in 788. Bavaria was then administrated by Frankish prefects, from 825 Louis the German styled himself King of Bavaria in the territory that was to become the centre of his power. Carlomans natural son Arnulf of Carinthia, raised in the former Carantanian lands, secured possession of the March of Carinthia upon his fathers death in 880, Carinthia and Bavaria were the bases of his power, with Regensburg as the seat of his government. Due mainly to the support of the Bavarians, Arnulf could take the field against Charles in 887, in 899 Bavaria passed to Louis the Child, during whose reign continuous Hungarian ravages occurred. During the reign of Louis the Child, Luitpold, Count of Scheyern, the German king Conrad I unsuccessfully attacked Arnulf when the latter refused to acknowledge his royal supremacy. The Carolingian reign in East Francia ended in 911 when Arnulfs son, King Louis the Child, the discontinuation of the central authority led to a new strengthening of the German stem duchies. At the same time, East Francia was exposed to the threat from Hungarian invasions. In 907 the army of Luitpold, Margrave of Bavaria suffered a defeat at the Battle of Pressburg
9.
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
10.
Sanctuary of St. Jadwiga, Trzebnica
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Sanctuary of St. Jadwiga in Trzebnica, also Trebnitz or Trzebnica Abbey, is a convent for Cistercian nuns in Trzebnica, north of Wrocław, in Silesia, Poland, founded in 1203. It was abandoned for a few decades in the 19th century, the abbey was established by the Silesian Piast duke Henry I the Bearded and his wife Saint Hedwig of Andechs, confirmed by Pope Innocent III. The legend of its foundation relates that once Duke Henry when out hunting fell into a swamp from which he could not extricate himself, in return for the rescue from this perilous position, he vowed to build the abbey. With Hedwigs consent, her brother Ekbert of Andechs, then Bishop of Bamberg, the first abbess was Petrussa from Kitzingen Abbey, she was followed by Gertrude, the daughter of Hedwig. The abbey was endowed with lands by Duke Henry. When Hedwig became a widow in 1238, she went to live at Trzebnica and was buried there, up to 1515, the abbesses were first princesses of the Piast dynasty and afterwards members of the nobility. It is said that towards the end of the century the nuns numbered 120. The abbey also became a mausoleum of many rulers of the fragmented Silesian Piasts, in 1672 there were 32 nuns and 6 lay sisters, in 1805 there were 23 nuns and 6 lay sisters. The abbey suffered from all kinds of both in the Middle Ages and later, from famine in 1315,1338,1434, and 1617, from disastrous fires in 1413,1432,1464,1486,1505,1595. At the Protestant Reformation, most of the nuns were Poles, in 1742, in the aftermath of the First Silesian War and the Treaty of Breslau, Trebnitz found itself under the governance of Protestant Prussia and started to suffer from political discrimination. The last abbess, Dominica von Giller, died on 17 August 1810, and on 11 November 1810, the building, which was very extensive, was sold later and turned into a cloth factory. In late 19th century, the abbey was bought by Knights Hospitaller and later by female order of Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo as a hospital conducted by the sisters. The church, a basilica with pillars in the late Romanesque style and it features several paintings with scenes from the life of St. Hedwig by Michael Willmann. After the secularisation of the abbey, it became the Trebnitz parish church, the grave of St. Hedwig is located in a chapel to the right of the high altar, donated by her grandson Archbishop Ladislaus of Salzburg in 1267. The grave of Duke Henry I, her husband, is in front of the altar, the entry cites, SCHMIDT, Gesch. des Klosterstiftes Trebnitz, Bach. Und Beschreibung des Klosterstiftes in Trebnitz, JUNGNITZ, Wahrfahrtsbuchlein fur Verehrer der hl
11.
Duchy of Silesia
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Not to be confused with the Duchies of Silesia and Austrian Silesia. The Duchy of Silesia with its capital at Wrocław was a duchy located in the historic Silesian region of Poland. Soon after it was formed under the Piast dynasty in 1138, in 1327 the remaining Duchy of Wrocław as well as most other duchies ruled by the Silesian Piasts passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia as Duchies of Silesia. The acquisition was completed, when King Casimir III the Great of Poland renounced his rights to Silesia in the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin, during the time of its establishment, the Silesian lands covered the basin of the upper and middle Oder river. In the south the Sudetes mountain range up to the Moravian Gate formed the border with the lands of Bohemia - including Kłodzko Land -, after a more than century-long struggle, the boundary had just been determined by an 1137 agreement with the Bohemian duke Soběslav I. In the west Lower Silesia bordered on the German March of Lusatia, Silesia was limited by the Polish provinces of Greater Poland in the north and the Seniorate Province of Lesser Poland in the east, separated by the Przemsza and Biała rivers. After Silesia as a whole had become a Bohemian fief according to the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin, as the Silesian Province, the duchy was one of five main provinces established in medieval Poland according to the Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty. By the terms of the will from 1138-1146 it was controlled by the Senior Duke of Poland or High duke, Bolesławs first-born son Władysław II the Exile, the testament however failed to prevent a violent inheritance conflict between Władysław and his younger half-brothers, who allied against him. The duchy was then control of his half-brother High Duke Bolesław IV the Curly. With support from Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, who had campaigned in Greater Poland in 1157 and forced Bolesław IV to cede Silesia, Władysławs sons were able to return to the duchy in 1163. As long as they were under pressure by High Duke Bolesław IV, they ruled jointly at Wrocław, until tensions between them erupted into an open conflict in 1172. The second son, Mieszko I Tanglefoot, received a far smaller part in Upper Silesia and took his residence at Racibórz, in view of his disadvantage, the Polish High Duke Casimir II the Just ceded him further Lesser Polish territories in 1177. After a revolt by Bolesławs eldest son, Jarosław, who feared for his heritage, his father ceded him a strip of land around Opole, in turn Jarosław had to prepare for an ecclesiastical career and remain celibate. However, Bolesław I outlived both his youngest brother and his son, and both fell back to him in 1190 and 1201 resp. Bolesław I died in the year and was succeeded by his only surviving son Henry I the Bearded. In 1202 he had to face the invasion of his uncle Mieszko I, the Duchy of Opole remained with the estates of Mieszkos descendants, whereby the secession of Upper Silesia was conclusive. In 1206 Henry I came to an agreement with the Polish High Duke Władysław III Spindleshanks to swap Lubusz Land for the Greater Polish Kalisz region. The plan however was foiled, when Władysław III lost the seniorate, Duke Henry had to struggle for his northwestern outpost, which he regained upon the margraves death in 1210
12.
History of Poland during the Piast dynasty
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The period of rule by the Piast dynasty between the 10th and 14th centuries is the first major stage of the history of the Polish nation. The dynasty was founded by a series of dukes listed by the chronicler Gallus Anonymous in the early 12th century, (Siemowit, Lestek and it was Mieszko I, the son of Siemomysł, who is now considered the proper founder of the Polish state at about 960 AD. The ruling house then remained in power in the Polish lands until 1370, Mieszko converted to Christianity of the Western Latin Rite in an event known as the Baptism of Poland in 966, which established a major cultural boundary in Europe based on religion. He also completed a unification of the West Slavic tribal lands that was fundamental to the existence of the new country of Poland. Mieszkos son Bolesław I Chrobry established a Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Gniezno, the first Piast monarchy collapsed with the death of Mieszko II Lambert in 1034, followed by its restoration under Casimir I in 1042. In the process, the dignity for Polish rulers was forfeited. Bolesław III, the last duke of the period, succeeded in defending his country. Upon his death in 1138, Poland was divided among his sons, the resulting internal fragmentation eroded the initial Piast monarchical structure in the 12th and 13th centuries and caused fundamental and lasting changes. Konrad I of Masovia invited the Teutonic Knights to help him fight the Baltic Prussian pagans, which led to centuries of Polands warfare with the Knights and the German Prussian state. In 1320, the kingdom was restored under Władysław I the Elbow-high, the western provinces of Silesia and Pomerania were lost after the fragmentation, and Poland began expanding to the east. The period ended with the reigns of two members of the Capetian House of Anjou between 1370 and 1384, the consolidation in the 14th century laid the base for the new powerful kingdom of Poland that was to follow. Accelerated rebuilding of old tribal fortified settlements, construction of new ones. The Polish state developed from these roots in the second half of the century. According to the 12th-century chronicler Gallus Anonymus, the Polans were ruled at this time by the Piast dynasty, in existing sources from the 10th century, Piast ruler Mieszko I was first mentioned by Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae, a chronicle of events in Germany. Widukind reported that Mieszkos forces were defeated in 963 by the Veleti tribes acting in cooperation with the Saxon exile Wichmann the Younger. Under Mieszkos rule, his tribal state accepted Christianity and became the Polish state, the viability of the Mieszkos emerging state was assured by the persistent territorial expansion of the early Piast rulers. Beginning with a small area around Gniezno, the Piast expansion lasted throughout most of the 10th century. The Polanie tribe conquered and merged with other Slavic tribes and first formed a tribal federation, after the addition of Lesser Poland, the country of the Vistulans, and of Silesia, Mieszkos state reached its mature form, including the main regions regarded as ethnically Polish
13.
Canonization
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Originally, persons were recognized as saints without any formal process. Later, different processes were developed, such as used today in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The first persons honored as saints were the martyrs, pious legends of their deaths were considered affirmations of the truth of their faith in Christ. The Roman Rites Canon of the Mass contains only the names of martyrs, along with that of the Blessed Virgin Mary and, since 1962, that of St. Joseph her spouse. By the fourth century, however, confessors—people who had confessed their faith not by dying but by word, examples of such people are Saint Hilarion and Saint Ephrem the Syrian in the East, and Saint Martin of Tours and Saint Hilary of Poitiers in the West. Their names were inserted in the diptychs, the lists of saints venerated in the liturgy. Since the witness of their lives was not as unequivocal as that of the martyrs and this process is often referred to as local canonization. This approval was required even for veneration of a reputed martyr, and Saint Cyprian recommended that the utmost diligence be observed in investigating the claims of those who were said to have died for the faith. Evidence was sought from the records of the trials or from people who had been present at the trials. Saint Augustine of Hippo tells of the procedure which was followed in his day for the recognition of a martyr, the bishop of the diocese in which the martyrdom took place set up a canonical process for conducting the inquiry with the utmost severity. Other churches still use the older practice, in the Catholic Church, canonization is a decree that allows universal veneration of the saint in the liturgy of the Roman Rite. For permission to venerate merely locally, only beatification is needed, only acceptance of the cultus by the Pope made the cultus universal, because he alone can rule the universal Catholic Church. In the Medieval West, the Apostolic See was asked to intervene in the question of canonizations so as to more authoritative decisions. Swibert by Pope Leo III in 804, thereafter, recourse to the judgment of the Pope was had more frequently. Pope Urban II, Pope Calixtus II, and Pope Eugene III conformed to this discipline, a decree of Pope Alexander III1170 gave the prerogative to the ope thenceforth, so far as the Western Church was concerned. However, the procedure initiated by the decretal of Pope Alexander III was confirmed by a bull of Pope Innocent III issued on the occasion of the canonization of St. Cunegunda in 1200. The bull of Pope Innocent III resulted in increasingly elaborate inquiries to the Apostolic See concerning canonizations and he further regulated both of these acts by issuing his Decreta servanda in beatificatione et canonizatione Sanctorum on 12 March 1642. His work published from 1734-8 governed the proceedings until 1917, the article Beatification and canonization process in 1914 describes the procedures followed until the promulgation of the Codex of 1917
14.
Pope Clement IV
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Pope Clement IV, born Gui Foucois and also known as Guy le Gros, was bishop of Le Puy, archbishop of Narbonne, cardinal of Sabina, and Pope from 5 February 1265 until his death. Pope Clement was a patron of Thomas Aquinas and of Roger Bacon, encouraging Bacon in the writing of his Opus Majus, which included important treatises on optics and the scientific method. Clement was born in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in the Languedoc region of France, at the age of nineteen, he enrolled as a soldier to fight the Moors in Spain. He then pursued the study of law in Toulouse, Bourges and Orleans, in the latter capacity he acted as secretary to King Louis IX, to whose influence he was chiefly indebted for his elevation to the cardinalate. He married the daughter of Simon de Malbois and had two daughters, upon the death of his wife, he followed his fathers example and gave up secular life for the Church. Ordained in the abbey of Saint-Magloire, Paris, he became pastor of Saint-Gilles in 1255. In 1257, he was appointed Bishop of Le Puy, in 1259, he was appointed Archbishop of Narbonne and he was the papal legate in England between 1262 and 1264. He was named grand penitentiary in 1263, Clement IV, who was in France at the time of his election, was compelled to enter Italy in disguise. He immediately took steps to ally himself with Charles of Anjou, his erstwhile patrons brother, then, fortified with papal money and supplies, Charles marched into Naples. Within months Clement IV was dead as well, and was buried at the Dominican convent, Santa Maria in Gradi, just outside Viterbo, in 1885, his remains were transferred to the church, San Francesco alla Rocca, in Viterbo. Owing to irreconcilable divisions among the cardinals, the throne remained vacant for nearly three years. Clement IVs private character was praised by contemporaries for his asceticism and he also ordered the Franciscan scholar Roger Bacon to write the Opus Majus, which is addressed to him. In 1264, Clement IV renewed the prohibition of the Talmud promulgated by Gregory IX, in February 1265 Clement summoned Thomas Aquinas to Rome to serve as papal theologian. It was during this period that Aquinas also served as regent master for the Dominicans at Rome and this studium was the forerunner of the 16th century College of Saint Thomas at Santa Maria sopra Minerva and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum. In 1267–68 Clement engaged in correspondence with the Mongol Ilkhanate rule Abaqa, the latter proposed a Franco-Mongol alliance between his forces, those of the West, and the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologos. Pope Clement welcomed Abaqas proposal in a manner, but did inform him of an upcoming Crusade. In 1267, Pope Clement IV and King James I of Aragon sent an ambassador to the Mongol ruler Abaqa in the person of Jayme Alaric de Perpignan and you wrote to us that you wished to join your father-in-law to assist the Latins. We abundantly praise you for this, but we cannot tell you yet, before having asked to the rulers, what road they are planning to follow
15.
Shrine
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A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other objects associated with the figure being venerated. A shrine at which offerings are made is called an altar. Shrines can be found in various settings, such as churches, temples, cemeteries, or in the home, a shrine may become a focus of a cult image. Many shrines are located buildings and in the temples designed specifically for worship, such as a church in Christianity. A shrine here is usually the centre of attention in the building, in such cases, adherents of the faith assemble within the building in order to venerate the deity at the shrine. In classical temple architecture, the shrine may be synonymous with the cella, historically, in Hinduism, Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, and also in modern faiths, such as Neopaganism, a shrine can commonly be found within the home or shop. This shrine is usually a structure or a setup of pictures and figurines dedicated to a deity that is part of the official religion. Small household shrines are common among the Chinese and people from South and Southeast Asia, whether Hindu. Usually a small lamp and small offerings are kept daily by the shrine, Buddhist household shrines must be on a shelf above the head, Chinese shrines must stand directly on the floor. Small outdoor yard shrines are found at the bottom of many gardens, following various religions, including historically. Shrines are found in most, though not all, religions, Shrines therefore attract the practice of pilgrimage. Shrines are found in many, though not all, forms of Christianity, Roman Catholicism, the largest denomination of Christianity, has many shrines, as do Orthodox Christianity and Anglicanism. For a shrine to be described as national, the approval of the Episcopal Conference is necessary, for it to be described as international, the approval of the Holy See is required. Another use of the shrine in colloquial Catholic terminology is a niche or alcove in most – especially larger – churches used by parishioners when praying privately in the church. They were also called Devotional Altars, since they could look like small Side Altars or bye-altars, Shrines were always centered on some image of Christ or a saint – for instance, a statue, painting, mural or mosaic, and may have had a reredos behind them. However, Mass would not be celebrated at them, they were used to aid or give a visual focus for prayers. Side altars, where Mass could actually be celebrated, were used in a way to shrines by parishioners
16.
Andechs Abbey
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The Benedictine priory and erstwhile abbey of Andechs is a place of pilgrimage on a hill east of the Ammersee in the Landkreis of Starnberg in Germany, in the municipality Andechs. Andechs Abbey is famed for its flamboyant Baroque church and its brewery, composer Carl Orff is buried in the church. The abbey runs a brewery, Klosterbrauerei Andechs, in 1132 the count donated his ancestral seat at Dießen to the Holy See and moved to Andechs. Otto II of Andechs was bishop of Bamberg,1177 –1196, saint Hedwig of Andechs born at Andechs, was one of eight children born to Berthold IV, Count of Dießen-Andechs and Duke of Istria. Of her four brothers, two bishops, Ekbert of Bamberg, and Berthold, Patriarch of Aquileia, Otto succeeded his father as Duke of Dalmatia. When the dukes of Andechs-Merania were extinguished in the male line in 1248. A history of the house of Andechs was written by Joseph Hormayr, Baron zu Hortenburg, the historian-statesman, and published in 1796. In 955, relics which Rasso, count of Diessen, had brought from Rome and the Holy Land to his monastery at Wörth had been transferred to this site to preserve them from the ravages of the Hungarians. In the 12th century three consecrated Hosts, two of which are reputed to have been consecrated by Pope Gregory I the other by Pope Leo IX were added to the relics at the heilige Berg. The first documented pilgrimages to Andechs were in 1138, when count Berthold II ordered his subjects to make the journey to venerate the relics in the chapel of St Nicholas at the Schloss, the legendary rediscovery of long-lost reliquaries in 1388 revived the ancient pilgrimage trade. The Andechs hosts were approved by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, otherwise a foe of such cults of wonder hosts. The late-Gothic collegiate church which Duke Ernest I had erected in 1423 was changed into a Benedictine monastery by Duke Albert III in 1455 and it was refounded in 1850 as a Benedictine priory, affiliated to the Abbey of St Boniface in Munich. The present church dates from the 18th century, the 20th-century German composer Carl Orff is buried there. There are also the graves of 11 members of the House of Wittelsbach inside the church, erling, huddled at the foot of the abbey was created an independent town in 1818. Erling, Frieding and Machtlfing were united in 1978 as the Gemeinde Andechs
17.
St. Hedwig's Cathedral
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St. Hedwigs Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral on the Bebelplatz in Berlin, Germany. It is the seat of the archbishop of Berlin, St. Hedwigs Church was built in the 18th century following a request from local parishioners to King Frederick II. He donated the land on which the church was built, the church was dedicated to the patron of Silesia and Brandenburg, Saint Hedwig of Andechs. It was the first Catholic church built in Prussia after the Protestant Reformation, the building was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff and modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. Construction started in 1747, interrupted and delayed several times by economic problems and it was not opened until November 1,1773, when the kings friend, Ignacy Krasicki, the Bishop of Warmia, officiated at the cathedrals consecration. Lichtenberg was later jailed by the Nazis and died on the way to the camp at Dachau. In 1965 Lichtenbergs remains were transferred to the crypt at St. Hedwigs, the cathedral was severely damaged by allied bombing in an air raid on 1 March 1943. Only the damaged shell of the building was left standing, reconstruction started in 1952 and on the 1st of November 1963, All Saints Day, the new high altar was consecrated by the Bishop of Berlin, Alfred Cardinal Bengsch. Between 1949 and 1990 St. Hedwigs was in East Berlin, three impressive tapestries are now used in the reconstructed catherdral. All three share the motif of the heavenly Jerusalem but only one is set up and viewable at any one time, the tapestry of former Bauhaus student Margaretha Reichardt of Erfurt was handwoven in 1963. It depicts a city with the names of the apostles inscribed on foundation stones. God is represented by the Tree of Life and a lamb features as a symbol of Christ, de, Anton Wendling made a colorful appliqué work. It is a geometric composition using themes from the Book of Revelation, the three-part woven carpet made by de, Else Bechteler-Moses was made in cooperation with Nürnberger Gobelinmanufaktur GmbH, a tapestry weaving company, between 1979 and 1981. This also uses themes from Revelations, konrad von Preysing Alfred Bengsch Bernhard Lichtenberg Georg Sterzinsky Historical Pictures Interior View Religion in Berlin Website of the cathedral, includes mass schedule
18.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
19.
Calendar of saints
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The word feast in this context does not mean a large meal, typically a celebratory one, but instead an annual religious celebration, a day dedicated to a particular saint. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, a calendar of saints is called a Menologion, Menologion may also mean a set of icons on which saints are depicted in the order of the dates of their feasts, often made in two panels. As the number of recognized saints increased during Late Antiquity and the first half of the Middle Ages, eventually every day of the year had at least one saint who was commemorated on that date. To deal with this increase, some saints were moved to days in some traditions or completely removed. For example, St. Perpetua and Felicity died on 7 March, when the 1969 reform of the Catholic calendar moved him to 28 January, they were moved back to 7 March. Both days can thus be said to be their feast day, the Roman Catholic calendars of saints in their various forms, which list those saints celebrated in the entire church, contains only a selection of the saints for each of its days. A fuller list is found in the Roman Martyrology, and some of the saints there may be celebrated locally, Saint Martin of Tours is said to be the first or at least one of the first non-martyrs to be venerated as a saint. The title confessor was used for saints, who had confessed their faith in Christ by their lives rather than by their deaths. Martyrs are regarded as dying in the service of the Lord, a broader range of titles was used later, such as, Virgin, Pastor, Bishop, Monk, Priest, Founder, Abbot, Apostle, Doctor of the Church. Pope Pius XII added a common formula for Popes, the 1962 Roman Missal of Pope John XXIII omitted the common of Apostles, assigning a proper Mass to every feast day of an Apostle. The present Roman Missal has common formulas for the Dedication of Churches, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Martyrs, Pastors, Doctors of the Church, Virgins, some Christians continue the tradition of dating by saints days, their works may appear dated as The Feast of Saint Martin. Poets such as John Keats commemorate the importance of The Eve of Saint Agnes, as different Christian jurisdictions parted ways theologically, differing lists of saints began to develop. In the present ordinary form of the Roman Rite, feast days are ranked as solemnities and those who use even earlier forms of the Roman Rite rank feast days as Doubles, Semidoubles, and Simples. See Ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite, in the Eastern Orthodox Church the ranking of feasts varies from church to church. In the Russian Orthodox Church they are, Great Feasts, middle, each portion of such feasts may also be called feasts as follows, All-Night Vigils, Polyeleos, Great Doxology, Sextuple. There are also distinctions between Simple feasts and Double, in Double Feasts the order of hymns and readings for each feast are rigidly instructed in Typikon, the liturgy book. In the Church of England, there are Principal Feasts and Principal Holy Days, Festivals, Lesser Festivals, and Commemorations. com
20.
Patron saint
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Catholics believe that patron saints, having already transcended to the metaphysical, are able to intercede effectively for the needs of their special charges. Historically, a practice has also occurred in many Islamic lands. With regard to the omnipresence of this belief, the late Martin Lings wrote. Traditionally, it has been understood that the saint of a particular place prays for that places wellbeing and for the health. Saints often become the patrons of places where they were born or had been active, professions sometimes have a patron saint owing to that individual being involved somewhat with it, although some of the connections were tenuous. Lacking such a saint, an occupation would have a patron whose acts or miracles in some way recall the profession and it is, however, generally discouraged in some Protestant branches such as Calvinism, where the practice is considered a form of idolatry. In Islam, the veneration or commemoration and recognition of saints is found in many branches of traditional Sunnism
21.
Brandenburg
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Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federated states of Germany. It lies in the northeast of the country covering an area of 29,478 square kilometers and has 2.48 million inhabitants, the capital and largest city is Potsdam. Brandenburg surrounds but does not include the capital and city-state Berlin forming a metropolitan area. Brandenburg is one of the states that was re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former East Germany. Governed by the Hohenzollern dynasty from 1415, it contained the future German capital Berlin, after 1618 the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia were combined to form Brandenburg-Prussia, which was ruled by the same branch of the House of Hohenzollern. In 1701 the state was elevated as the Kingdom of Prussia, Brandenburg is situated in territory known in antiquity as Magna Germania, which reached to the Vistula river. By the 7th century, Slavic peoples are believed to have settled in the Brandenburg area, the Slavs expanded from the east, possibly driven from their homelands in present-day Ukraine and perhaps Belarus by the invasions of the Huns and Avars. They relied heavily on river transport, the two principal Slavic groups in the present-day area of Brandenburg were the Hevelli in the west and the Sprevane in the east. Beginning in the early 10th century, Henry the Fowler and his successors conquered territory up to the Oder River, Slavic settlements such as Brenna, Budusin, and Chośebuz came under imperial control through the installation of margraves. Their main function was to defend and protect the eastern marches, in 948 Emperor Otto I established margraves to exert imperial control over the pagan Slavs west of the Oder River. Otto founded the Bishoprics of Brandenburg and Havelberg, the Northern March was founded as a northeastern border territory of the Holy Roman Empire. However, an uprising of Wends drove imperial forces from the territory of present-day Brandenburg in 983. The region returned to the control of Slavic leaders, the Roman Catholic Church brought bishoprics which, with their walled towns, afforded protection from attacks for the townspeople. With the monks and bishops, the history of the town of Brandenburg an der Havel, in 1134, in the wake of a German crusade against the Wends, the German magnate, Albert the Bear, was granted the Northern March by the Emperor Lothar III. He formally inherited the town of Brandenburg and the lands of the Hevelli from their last Wendish ruler, Pribislav, after crushing a force of Sprevane who occupied the town of Brandenburg in the 1150s, Albert proclaimed himself ruler of the new Margraviate of Brandenburg. Albert, and his descendants the Ascanians, then made progress in conquering, colonizing, Christianizing. Within this region, Slavic and German residents intermarried, during the 13th century, the Ascanians began acquiring territory east of the Oder, later known as the Neumark. In 1320, the Brandenburg Ascanian line came to an end, under the Luxembourgs, the Margrave of Brandenburg gained the status of a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire
22.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
23.
Silesia
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Silesia is a region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is about 40,000 km2, and its population about 8,000,000, Silesia is located along the Oder River. It consists of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia, the region is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesias largest city and historical capital is Wrocław, the biggest metropolitan area is the Upper Silesian metropolitan area, the centre of which is Katowice. Parts of the Czech city of Ostrava fall within the borders of Silesia, Silesias borders and national affiliation have changed over time, both when it was a hereditary possession of noble houses and after the rise of modern nation-states. The first known states to hold there were probably those of Greater Moravia at the end of the 9th century. In the 10th century, Silesia was incorporated into the early Polish state, in the 14th century, it became a constituent part of the Bohemian Crown Lands under the Holy Roman Empire, which passed to the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in 1526. Most of Silesia was conquered by Prussia in 1742, later becoming part of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the varied history with changing aristocratic possessions resulted in an abundance of castles in Silesia, especially in the Jelenia Góra valley. The remaining former Austrian parts of Silesia were partitioned to Czechoslovakia, in 1945, after World War II, the bulk of Silesia was transferred to Polish jurisdiction by the Potsdam Agreement of the victorious Allied Powers and became part of Poland. The small Lusatian strip west of the Oder-Neisse line, which had belonged to Silesia since 1815 and its centres are Görlitz and Bautzen. Most inhabitants of Silesia today speak the languages of their respective countries. The population of Upper Silesia is native, while Lower Silesia was settled by a German-speaking population before 1945, an ongoing debate exists whether Silesian speech should be considered a dialect of Polish or a separate language. Also, a Lower Silesian German dialect is used, although today it is almost extinct and it is used by expellees within Germany, as well as Germans who were left behind. The names all relate to the name of a river and mountain in mid-southern Silesia, the mountain served as a cultic place. Ślęża is listed as one of the numerous Pre-Indo-European topographic names in the region, according to some Polish Slavists, the name Ślęża or Ślęż is directly related to the Old Slavic words ślęg or śląg, which means dampness, moisture, or humidity. They disagree with the hypothesis of an origin for the name Śląsk from the name of the Silings tribe, in the fourth century BC, Celts entered Silesia, settling around Mount Ślęża near modern Wrocław, Oława, and Strzelin. Germanic Lugii tribes were first recorded within Silesia in the 1st century, Slavic peoples arrived in the region around the 7th century, and by the early ninth century, their settlements had stabilized. Local Slavs started to erect boundary structures like the Silesian Przesieka, the eastern border of Silesian settlement was situated to the west of the Bytom, and east from Racibórz and Cieszyn
24.
Trzebnica
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Trzebnica is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is the seat of Trzebnica County, and of the administrative district called Gmina Trzebnica. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany, the town lies within the eastern Trzebnickie Hills in the historic Lower Silesia region, approximately 20 kilometres north of the regional capital Wrocław. As at 2010, it has a population of 12,460, in the 12th century, the area was among the possessions of the Premonstratensian St. Vincent monastery at Wrocław. Trzebnica itself was first mentioned in an 1138 deed, then held by the Polish voivode Peter Wlast and later seized by the Silesian duke Władysław II the Exile. In 1202 Władysławs grandson Duke Henry I the Bearded of Silesia and his wife Hedwig of Andechs founded a Cistercian convent, present-day Sanctuary of St. Jadwiga in Trzebnica, the first in Poland. The couple signed the deed of donation on 23 June 1203 in the presence of Hedwigs brother Ekbert Bishop of Bamberg, in 1218 Hedwigs daughter Gertrude became abbess of Trzebnica, the first of many Piast princesses to hold this office. After Duke Henry died in 1238 and was buried in the church, Hedwig died in October 1243 and was buried there also, while some of her relics are preserved at Andechs Abbey in Bavaria, she was canonized in 1267. In 1250 Trzebnica received town privileges, it passed under the jurisdiction of the Lower Silesian Duchy of Oels in 1323, in 1480 Duke Konrad X the White granted the town to the Cistercian abbey. Town and monastery were devastated several times, by fires as well as by the plague, during the Thirty Years War, Trebnitz was plundered by Swedish forces and the nuns had to flee across the border to nearby Poland. After the war the premises were rebuilt in its present Baroque style, in 1742 Trebnitz with most of Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and the monastery was finally securalized in 1810. Meanwhile, the town had become a centre of cloth manufacturing, in 1870 the Order of Saint John acquired the former abbeys estates to establish a hospital, cared for by the Sisters of Mercy of St. Borromeo up to today. The town was damaged during the Vistula–Oder Offensive of the Red Army in the last days of World War II
25.
Orphan
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An orphan is a child whose parents are dead or have permanently abandoned the child. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan, when referring to animals, only the mothers condition is usually relevant. If she has gone, the offspring is an orphan, regardless of the fathers condition, various groups use different definitions to identify orphans. One legal definition used in the United States is a minor bereft through death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, in the common use, an orphan does not have any surviving parent to care for him or her. However, the United Nations Childrens Fund, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, in this approach, a maternal orphan is a child whose mother has died, a paternal orphan is a child whose father has died, and a double orphan has lost both parents. This contrasts with the use of half-orphan to describe children that had lost only one parent. Orphans are relatively rare in developed countries, because most children can expect both of their parents to survive their childhood, much higher numbers of orphans exist in war-torn nations such as Afghanistan. 2001 figures from 2002 UNICEF/UNAIDS report China, A survey conducted by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in 2005 showed that China has about 573,000 orphans below 18 years old. Russia, According to Russian reports from 2002 cited in the New York Times,650,000 children are housed in orphanages and they are released at age 16, and 40% become homeless, while 30% become criminals or commit suicide. Latin America, Street children have a presence in Latin America. Although not all children are orphans, all street children work. Famous orphans include world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Andrew Jackson, the Hebrew prophet Moses and the Muslim prophet Muhammad, writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, the American orphan Henry Darger portrayed the horrible conditions of his orphanage in his art work. Wars and great epidemics, such as AIDS, have created many orphans. The Second World War, with its numbers of deaths and population movements. Orphaned characters are common as literary protagonists, especially in childrens. The lack of leaves the characters to pursue more interesting and adventurous lives, by freeing them from familial obligations and controls. It creates characters that are self-contained and introspective and who strive for affection, Orphans can metaphorically search for self-understanding through attempting to know their roots. Parents can also be allies and sources of aid for children, all these characteristics make orphans attractive characters for authors
26.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
27.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
28.
Bavarians
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Bavarians are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The groups dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern, like the neighboring Swabians and Austrians, Bavarians are traditionally Catholic. There is no distinction between Bavarians and Austrians. The Bavarian language is divided into three dialects, Upper Palatinian is spoken in northern Bavaria. Danube Bavarian is spoken in central and south-eastern Bavaria and in Central, alpine Bavarian is spoken in south-western Bavaria, in southern Austria and in South Tyrol. On the southern side of the river Danube was the Roman controlled province of Raetia, Bavarians are first mentioned in the mid 6th century, in the foothills north of the Alps, on both sides of the Danube river. It is difficult to distinguish the mobile and mixing groups of the Danube in this period archaeologically and they seem to have been closely related to the Lombards who were developing as a force to the east of them. Their legal system shows heavy Roman influence, and their unification appears to have been under a Duke installed by the Franks, Elbe Germans, came from the Elbe river to the north, which was under Thuringian rule, and is where the Lombards had also been. But also more northern groups had moved along the Elbe from the direction of the North Sea, as did some Saxons who joined the Lombards, and possibly the Heruls. Also, East Germanic groups such as the Goths had entered the Pannonian region east of the Bavarians in the leading up to the empire of Attila. These peoples had not only contributed to the Hunnic empire, Slavs and Avars were settling to the north-east, and Goths and Langobards to the east and south were later displaced by Slavs and Magyars. A Diocese of Laureacum had been in existence since the 4th century, in the 8th century moved to Passau, the Bishopric of Regensburg was founded in 739 by Boniface. The Lex Baiuvariorum was a codex of Germanic law, comprising 23 articles of traditional law recorded in the 740s, Bavaria within the Carolingian Empire was bordering on Swabia in the west, Thuringia in the north, Lombardy in the south and Slavic Carinthia in the east. The Duchy of Bavaria was a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, established in the 10th century. In the 14th and 15th centuries, upper and lower Bavaria were repeatedly subdivided, four Duchies existed after the division of 1392, Lower Bavaria-Straubing, lower Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Munich. Munich, now the capital and cultural center of Bavaria, was founded in the medieval period. In 1503, Bavaria was re-united by Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich, in 1623, Bavaria was elevated to Electorate. The Kingdom of Bavaria was established at the Peace of Pressburg, the kingdoms territory fluctuated greatly over the following years, eventually fixed at the Treaty of Paris, which established most of what remain the borders of the modern state
29.
Counts of Andechs
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The House of Andechs was a feudal line of German princes in 12th and 13th century. One Count Rasso is documented in Dießen, who fought against the invading Magyars in the early 10th century. By their ancestor Count Palatine Berthold of Reisensburg, a grandson of the Bavarian duke Arnulf the Bad, Berthold appears a fierce enemy of King Otto I of Germany and was blamed as a traitor at the 955 Battle of Lechfeld against the Hungarians. He probably married a daughter of Duke Frederick I of Upper Lorraine, his descendant Count Berthold II and he served as vogt of Benediktbeuern Abbey and by marriage with Sophie, daughter of Margrave Poppo II, came into property of lands in the March of Istria and Carniola. In the year 1180, the County of Andechs acquired the town of Innsbruck, Otto II of Andechs was bishop of Bamberg in 1177–1196. In 1208, when Philip of Swabia, King of the Germans, was assassinated at Bamberg by Otto VIII of Wittelsbach, saint Hedwig of Andechs was one of eight children born to Berthold IV, Duke of Merania, Count of Dießen-Andechs and Margrave of Istria. Of her four brothers, two bishops, Ekbert of Bamberg, and Berthold, Patriarch of Aquileia. Otto succeeded his father as Duke of Dalmatia, and Henry became Margrave of Istria, a history of the House of Andechs was written by the statesman and historian Joseph Hormayr, Baron zu Hortenburg, and published in 1796
30.
Duchy of Greater Poland
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The Duchy of Greater Poland was a historical Polish province established in 1138 according to the Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty. It existed during the period of fragmentation of Poland until 1320, centered at Poznań, Gniezno, upon the death of Polish Piast duke Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1138, his country was divided by his will into 4-5 hereditary provinces distributed among his sons. The late duke had also established the Seniorate Province of Kraków for the eldest Władysław II, as one of these provinces, Greater Poland was given to Mieszko III the Old, the third son of late Duke Bolesław. Duke Mieszko III the Old at first ruled over the part of the Greater Polish lands at Poznań. His dominion bordered on the Polish Duchy of Silesia in the south, on the Seniorate Province in the east and on the Pomeranian lands in the north. In the west the Greater Polish lands stretched up to Lubusz Land on the western Polish border, where in 1157 the Ascanian count Albert the Bear established the Imperial Margraviate of Brandenburg. After the death of his Mieszkos brother Bolesław IV the Curly in 1173, casimir assumed the high ducal title, while in 1179 Odon even expelled his father from the Greater Polish lands. Mieszko fled to the Duchy of Pomerania at the court of Duke Bogislaw I, with support by Pomeranian forces, Mieszko in 1181 was able to return to his duchy and also to conquer the adjacent lands of Gniezno and Kalisz, formerly part of the Seniorate Province. Odon was forced to leave Poznań and only retained a small strip of south of the Obra river. When Mieszko the Younger died in 1193, his father reconciled with his eldest son Odon, by 1994 Mieszko the Old had outlived his brothers. However, Casimirs son Leszek I the White, like his father, upon Mieszkos death in 1202, his son Władysław soon was confronted with the rivaling claims raised by his cousin. In 1206 Władysław Spindleshanks finally lost the ducal title to Leszek and furthermore had to deal with his rebellious nephew Władysław Odonic. Władysław Odonic claimed the lands of Kalisz, which his father had held in 1193/94 and was able to gain the support by the Archbishop of Gniezno, nevertheless his attempts to depose his uncle failed. However, even with the help of the Pomerelian duke, Władysław Odonic only was able to conquer the Greater Polish lands of Ujście in 1223, in 1227 Swietopelk raided a ducal assembly at Gąsawa, whereby High Duke Leszek was killed and Duke Henry the Bearded seriously wounded. Władysław Spindleshanks did not attend the meeting, which saved his life. Furthermore, he got rid of his long-time rival Leszek, whom he now could succeed as high duke, Władysław Odonic, accused of involvement in the assault, retired to the Duchy of Masovia, where he forged another alliance with Duke Konrad I. With both Pomerelian and Masovian support he was enabled to take the whole Duchy of Greater Poland from Władysław Spindleshanks in 1229, Władysław Spindleshanks fled to Silesia and died without issue two years later, whereafter his nephew became the sole heir of the Greater Polish line. Nevertheless, he was confronted by claims raised by the Silesian duke Henry I the Bearded, also Polish high duke from 1232, when Henry I was succeeded by his son Henry II the Pious in 1238, Władysław Odonic was confined to the lands around Ujście
31.
Berthold, Duke of Merania
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Berthold IV, a member of the House of Andechs, was Margrave of Istria and Carniola. About 1180/82 he already bore the title of a Duke of Merania, that is, Berthold was the son of Count Berthold III of Andechs and his wife Hedwig of Wittelsbach. His father had been a loyal liensman of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, young Berthold IV first appeared in 1170 and was mentioned as Count of Andechs in a 1172 deed. In 1175 he served as co-ruler in the March of Istria, after Emperor Frederick deposed Duke Henry the Lion in 1180, his mothers relative Otto of Wittelsbach received the Duchy of Bavaria, while Berthold was received the Duchy of Merania. In 1186, he accompanied Emperor Fredericks son Henry VI to Italy, in 1189, he led the third division of the imperial army and was its standard-bearer on the Third Crusade. In 1195, he appeared as Vogt of Tegernsee Abbey in Bavaria, Berthold committed himself to join the Crusade of 1197, however, he did not participate until Henrys death in the same year. Though he had opposed the emperors Erbreichsplan, he backed the claims of Henrys younger brother Philip of Swabia against the politics of Pope Innocent III who supported Philips Welf rival Otto IV. At this juncture, the House of Andechs was at the height of its power and influence, Berthold died in 1204 and was buried at the Andechs private monastery in Dießen, Bavaria. About 1180, Berthold married Agnes of Rochlitz, a daughter of Margrave Dedi III of Lusatia from the Saxon House of Wettin, while passing through Serbia on the Third Crusade, Frederick Barbarossa met the Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja in Niš on 27 July 1189. There it was negotiated that a daughter of Berthold would marry Tohu and this marriage does not seem to have taken place and the Historia de Expeditione Friderici Imperatoris does not name the daughter. Scholars are divided whether it was one of Bertholds known daughters or else a fifth daughter not otherwise recorded
32.
Agnes of Rochlitz
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Agnes of Rochlitz came from the Wettin family and was daughter of Dedi III, Margrave of Lusatia and his wife, Matilda of Heinsburg. She is also known as Agnes of Wettin, Agnes married Berthold IV, Duke of Merania. From this marriage Agnes gained the titles of Duchess of Merania, in 1186, Agnes husband accompanied Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, to the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1189, he led the division of the imperial army and was its standard-bearer on the Third Crusade. Gertrude became Queen of Hungary, but was murdered because she gave Hungarian lands to her relatives, hedwig was eventually canonized in 1267. Agnes is a descendent of several women with the same name, one of them was Agnes of Germany, who married Frederick I, Duke of Swabia. Their daughter was Bertha of Swabia, Agnes of Germany was a daughter of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor and his first wife Bertha of Savoy. Henrys parents were Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor and Agnes of Poitou, Agnes of Poitou was a daughter of William V, Duke of Aquitaine and his third wife Agnes of Burgundy
33.
Agnes of Merania
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Agnes Maria of Andechs-Merania was a Queen of France. She is called Marie by some of the French chroniclers, Agnes Maria was the daughter of Berthold, Duke of Merania, who was Count of Andechs, a castle and territory near Ammersee, Bavaria. Her mother was Agnes of Rochlitz, in June 1196 Agnes married Philip II of France, who had repudiated his second wife Ingeborg of Denmark in 1193. Pope Innocent III espoused the cause of Ingeborg, but Philip did not submit until 1200, Agnes died broken-hearted in July of the next year, at the castle of Poissy, and was buried in the Convent of St Corentin, near Nantes. Agnes and Philip had two children, Philip I, Count of Boulogne and Mary, were legitimized by the Pope in 1201 at the request of the King, little is known of the personality of Agnes, beyond the remarkable influence which she seems to have exercised over Philip. She has been made the heroine of a tragedy by François Ponsard, Agnès de Méranie and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Agnes of Meran. Endnotes, See The notes of Robert Davidsohn in Philipp II, a genealogical notice is furnished by the Chronicon of the monk Alberic of Fontaines, in Pertz, Scriptores, vol. xxiii. Pp.872 f. and by the Genealogia Wettinensis, ibid. p.229, media related to Agnes of Merania at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Philip II of France
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Philip II, known as Philip Augustus, was King of France from 1180 to 1223, a member of the House of Capet. Philips predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philip became the first French monarch to style himself king of France. The son of King Louis VII and his wife, Adèle of Champagne, he was originally nicknamed Dieudonné God-given because he was the first son of Louis VII. Philip was given the nickname Augustus by the chronicler Rigord for having extended the Crown lands of France so remarkably, the military actions surrounding the Albigensian Crusade helped prepare the expansion of France southward. Philip did not participate directly in these actions, but he allowed his vassals, Philip transformed France from a small feudal state into the most prosperous and powerful country in Europe. He checked the power of the nobles and helped the towns to free themselves from seigniorial authority and he built a great wall around Paris, re-organized the French government and brought financial stability to his country. Philip was born in Gonesse on 21 August 1165 and he spent much of the following night attempting to find his way out, but to no avail. Exhausted by cold, hunger and fatigue, he was discovered by a peasant carrying a charcoal burner. His father went on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas Becket to pray for Philips recovery and was told that his son had indeed recovered, however, on his way back to Paris, he suffered a stroke. In declining health, Louis VII had his 14-year-old son crowned and anointed as king at Rheims on 1 November 1179 by the Archbishop Guillaume aux Blanches Mains. He was married on 28 April 1180 to Isabelle of Hainaut, the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut, and Margaret I, Countess of Flanders, who brought the County of Artois as her dowry. From the time of his coronation, all power was transferred to Philip. Eventually, Louis died on 18 September 1180, while the royal demesne had increased under Philip I and Louis VI, it had diminished slightly under Louis VII. In April 1182, partially to enrich the French crown, Philip expelled all Jews from the demesne, Philips eldest son Louis was born on 5 September 1187 and inherited the County of Artois in 1190, when his mother Isabelle died. The main source of funding for Philips army was from the royal demesne, in times of conflict, he could immediately call up 250 knights,250 horse sergeants,100 mounted crossbowmen,133 crossbowmen on foot,2,000 foot sergeants, and 300 mercenaries. Towards the end of his reign, the king could muster some 3,000 knights,9,000 sergeants,6,000 urban militiamen, using his increased revenues, Philip was the first Capetian king to build a French navy actively. By 1215, his fleet could carry a total of 7,000 men, within two years, his fleet included 10 large ships and many smaller ones. In 1181, Philip began a war with Philip, Count of Flanders, over the Vermandois, which King Philip claimed as his wifes dowry, finally the Count of Flanders invaded France, ravaging the whole district between the Somme and the Oise before penetrating as far as Dammartin
35.
Gertrude of Merania
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Gertrude of Merania was Queen of Hungary as the first wife of Andrew II from 1205 until her assassination. She was regent during her husbands absence, Gertrudes elder sister was Agnes of Merania, a famous beauty, who married King Philip II of France. Her younger sister was St. Hedwig of Silesia, wife of the Piast duke Henry I the Bearded and their brother was Otto, who succeeded their father as Duke of Merania. The king had his brother arrested, but Andrew managed to escape shortly afterwards, during this time, Gertrude was sent back to her father. Gertrude was killed in 1213, by Hungarian noblemen, who were jealous over the advancement of her German relatives at court, while the king was in battle, Gertrude gave out Hungarian land as gifts to her favorites. According to medieval chroniclers, one third of the country was given away, during the frequent absence of her husband, the queen was regent and, as Dietrich of Apolda states, conducted the affairs of the kingdom like a man. In 1206 her younger brother Berthold was installed as Archbishop of Kalocsa, Gertrudes body was torn to pieces, her brother and Duke Leopold narrowly escaped with their lives. Due to the current political situation most of her murderers remained unpunished during the rule of Andrew II, only Gertrudes son King Béla IV took revenge after his accession to the throne. Gertrudes tomb was of a Gothic style and her tomb was excavated between 1967 and 1980. On Gertrudes death, Andrew married Yolanda de Courtenay and she is the main character in Ferenc Erkels opera, Bánk bán. It is based on a fact, Lord Bánk, a nobleman went touring the country on Gertrudes order. His young wife stayed at home, Gertrudes brother fell in love with the young woman but she was afraid of him. When Lord Bánk heard of this, he was very angry and her brother fled for his life
36.
Andrew II of Hungary
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Andrew II, also known as Andrew of Jerusalem, was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1205 and 1235. He ruled the Principality of Halych from 1188 until 1189/1190, and he was the younger son of Béla III of Hungary, who entrusted him with the administration of the newly conquered Principality of Halych in 1188. Andrews rule was unpopular, and the boyars expelled him, Béla III willed property and money to Andrew, obliging him to lead a crusade to the Holy Land. Instead, Andrew forced his brother, King Emeric of Hungary. The following year, Andrew occupied Hum, despite the fact that Andrew did not stop conspiring against Emeric, the dying king made Andrew guardian of his son, Ladislaus III, in 1204. After the premature death of Ladislaus, Andrew ascended the throne in 1205, Andrew introduced a new grants policy, the so-called new institutions, giving away money and royal estates to his partisans despite the loss of royal revenues. He was the first Hungarian monarch to adopt the title of King of Halych and he waged at least a dozen wars to seize the two Rus principalities, but the local boyars and neighboring princes prevented him from conquering the principalities. He participated in the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1217–1218, when the servientes regis, or royal servants, rose up, Andrew was forced to issue the Golden Bull of 1222, confirming their privileges. This led to the rise of the nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary and his Diploma Andreanum of 1224 listed the liberties of the Transylvanian Saxon community. The employment of Jews and Muslims to administer the royal revenues led him into conflict with the Holy See, Andrew pledged to respect the privileges of the clergymen and to dismiss his non-Christian officials in 1233, but he never fulfilled the latter promise. Andrews first wife, Gertrude of Merania, was murdered in 1213, because her blatant favoritism towards her German kinsmen, the veneration of their daughter, Elizabeth of Hungary, was confirmed by the Holy See during Andrews lifetime. After Andrews death, his sons, Béla and Coloman, accused his wife, Beatrice dEste, of adultery and never considered her son, Stephen. Andrew was the son of King Béla III and Bélas first wife. The year of Andrews birth is not known, but modern historians agree that he was born around 1177, Andrew was first mentioned in connection to his fathers invasion of the Principality of Halych in 1188. That year, Béla III invaded Halych upon the request of its prince, Vladimir II Yaroslavich. Béla forced the new prince, Roman Mstislavich, to flee, after conquering Halych, he granted it to Andrew. Béla also captured Vladimir Yaroslavich and imprisoned him in Hungary, after Bélas withdrawal from Halych, Roman Mstislavich returned with the assistance of Rurik Rostislavich, Prince of Belgorod Kievsky. They tried to expel Andrew and his Hungarian retinue, but the Hungarians routed the forces of Mstislavich and Rostislavich
37.
Order of Saint Benedict
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Each community within the order maintains its own autonomy, while the order itself represents their mutual interests. Internationally, the order is governed by the Benedictine Confederation, a body, established in 1883 by Pope Leo XIIIs Brief Summum semper, individuals whose communities are members of the order generally add the initials OSB after their names. The monastery at Subiaco in Italy, established by Saint Benedict of Nursia circa 529, was the first of the monasteries he founded. He later founded the Abbey of Monte Cassino, there is no evidence, however, that he intended to found an order and the Rule of Saint Benedict presupposes the autonomy of each community. It was from the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome that Augustine, the prior, at various stopping places during the journey, the monks left behind them traditions concerning their rule and form of life, and probably also some copies of the Rule. Lérins Abbey, for instance, founded by Honoratus in 375, probably received its first knowledge of the Benedictine Rule from the visit of St. Augustine, in Gaul and Switzerland, it supplemented the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by Columbanus and others. In many monasteries it eventually displaced the earlier codes. Largely through the work of Benedict of Aniane, it became the rule of choice for monasteries throughout the Carolingian empire, Monastic scriptoria flourished from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Sacred Scripture was always at the heart of every monastic scriptorium, as a general rule those of the monks who possessed skill as writers made this their chief, if not their sole active work. In the Middle Ages monasteries were founded by the nobility. Cluny Abbey was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910, the abbey was noted for its strict adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict. The abbot of Cluny was the superior of all the daughter houses, one of the earliest reforms of Benedictine practice was that initiated in 980 by Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese community. The English Benedictine Congregation is the oldest of the nineteen Benedictine congregations, Augustine of Canterbury and his monks established the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterbury soon after their arrival in 597. Many of the sees of England were founded and governed by the Benedictines. Monasteries served as hospitals and places of refuge for the weak, the monks studied the healing properties of plants and minerals to alleviate the sufferings of the sick. Germany was evangelized by English Benedictines, willibrord and Boniface preached there in the seventh and eighth centuries and founded several abbeys. In the English Reformation, all monasteries were dissolved and their lands confiscated by the Crown, during the 19th century they were able to return to England, including to Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, one of the few great monastic churches to survive the Dissolution. St. Mildreds Priory, on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, was built in 1027 on the site of an abbey founded in 670 by the daughter of the first Christian King of Kent, currently the priory is home to a community of Benedictine nuns
38.
Kitzingen
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Kitzingen is a town in the German state of Bavaria, capital of the district Kitzingen. It is part of the Franconia geographical region and has around 21,000 inhabitants, surrounded by vineyards, Kitzingen County is the largest wine producer in Bavaria. It is said to be Franconias wine trade center, according to legend, Kitzingen was founded when the Countess of Schwanberg lost her jeweled scarf while standing on the ramparts of her castle. The castle was located high above the section of the Main River Valley where Kitzingen now lies. The Countess promised to build a cloister on the spot where the scarf was found, when it was found by a shepherd named Kitz, she kept her word and built a cloister which she called Kitzingen. That Benedictine cloister, founded in the 8th century on the site of the present town of Kitzingen, Kitzingens history is closely tied to Würzburg. Kitzingen became an imperial city around the year 1000. During the next century the town changed rulers often, mostly being ruled by Würzburg prince-bishops who sold the town twice to fill their empty treasury, in 1629, Prince-Bishop Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg of Würzburg took up his option to repurchase Kitzingen after the Peasants Revolt in 1525. He abolished Protestantism and forced more than 1,000 residents to leave the town and this blow to the towns strength was followed by the Swedish three-year occupation during the Thirty Years War. Kitzingens revival is credited to the wisdom of Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn of Würzburg and this is why both Catholicism and Protestantism are present in Kitzingen today. The resulting prosperity carried Kitzingen through the 18th century as one of the most important ports on the Main River, Kitzingens life under the Prince-Bishops ended with the coming of French revolutionary armies and Napoleon. In 1814 the Congress of Vienna confirmed Kitzingens passing, along with the rest of the region, during World War II Harvey and Larsen Barracks were both German military bases. The German Air Force used Harvey Barracks for an airport and they would flood the landing strip there when Allied forces would fly overhead, below Harvey Barracks were multiple levels of hangars which still contain some German World War II aircraft. The hangars were booby-trapped by the retreating Germans close to the end of World War II, underground tunnels were said to have been constructed by the Germans from the airfield out to the nearest highway, so that aircraft could be launched off of the road to intercept allied planes. Because of the danger involved, no one had been inside the tunnels, again for safety reasons no one has explored those tunnels since World War II. During the Cold War, Kitzingen was an area for the U. S. European Commands air defenses against possible Soviet air and nuclear attack, two U. S. Army Bases, Larson Barracks and Harvey Barracks, were located in the town. For many years it housed the 2nd Brigade of the Third infantry division, one of these battalions, 6-41 Field Artillery, was deployed to Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and served with distinction
39.
Franconia
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However, there is no fixed area that is officially defined as Franconia. The German word Franken - Franconians - also refers to the people group and they are to be distinguished from the Germanic tribe of the Franks and who historically formed their easternmost settlement area. The origins of Franconia lie in the settlement of the Franks from the 6th century in the area probably populated until then mainly by the Elbe Germanic people in the Main river area. Known from the 9th century as Francia Orientalis. in the Middle Ages the region formed much of the part of the Duchy of Franconia and, from 1500. In the course of the restructuring of the south German states by Napoleon after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, the German name for Franconia, Franken, comes from the dative plural form of Franke, a member of the Germanic tribe known as the Franks. The onomatologists largely follow the book compiled by early medieval scholar, Saint Isidore of Seville. This syllable occurs in the Middle Dutch vrac, avaricious, and old Norwegian frakkr, quick, bold, according to this the Franks were thus the brave ones, courageous ones or audacious ones. From the 9th century the name no longer referred to the whole of France, but increasingly to the region along the River Main. The German word frank in the sense of free is, by contrast, not a description of the Franks. Not until the 15th century was the German word frei borrowed from the French, other large rivers include the upper Werra in Thuringia and the Tauber, as well as the upper Jagst and Kocher streams in the west, both right tributaries of the Neckar. In southern Middle Franconia, the Altmühl flows towards the Danube, the man-made Franconian Lake District has become a popular destination for day-trippers and tourists. The landscape is characterized by numerous Mittelgebirge ranges of the German Central Uplands, to the north rise the Rennsteig ridge of the Thuringian Forest, the Thuringian Highland and the Franconian Forest, the border with the Upper Saxon lands of Thuringia. In the east, the Fichtel Mountains lead to Vogtland, Bohemian Egerland in the Czech Republic, the hills of the Franconian Jura in the south mark the border with the Upper Bavarian region, historical Swabia, and the Danube basin. The northern parts of the Upper Bavarian Eichstätt District, territory of the historical Bishopric of Eichstätt, are counted as part of Franconia. In the west, Franconia proper comprises the Tauber Franconia region along the Tauber river, the states larger Heilbronn-Franken region also includes the adjacent Hohenlohe and Schwäbisch Hall districts. In the city of Heilbronn, beyond the Haller Ebene plateau, furthermore, in those easternmost parts of the Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis which had formerly belonged to the Bishopric of Würzburg, the inhabitants have preserved their Franconian identity. Franconian areas in East Hesse along Spessart and Rhön comprise Gersfeld, the two largest cities of Franconia are Nuremberg and Würzburg. Though located on the periphery of the area, the Nuremberg metropolitan area is often identified as the economic
40.
Elizabeth of Hungary
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Francis, by which she is honored as its patroness. Elizabeth was married at the age of 14, and widowed at 20, after her husbands death she sent her children away and regained her dowry, using the money to build a hospital where she herself served the sick. She became a symbol of Christian charity after her death at the age of 24 and was quickly canonized, Elizabeth was the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and Gertrude of Merania. Her mothers sister was St. Hedwig of Andechs, wife of Duke Heinrich I of Silesia and her ancestry included many notable figures of European royalty, going back as far as Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus. According to tradition, she was born in Kingdom of Hungary, possibly in the castle of Sárospatak, on 7 July 1207. A sermon printed in 1497 by the Franciscan friar Osvaldus de Lasco, the veracity of this account is not without reproach, Osvaldus also transforms the miracle of the roses to Elizabeths childhood in Sárospatak, and has her leave Hungary at the age of five. According to a different tradition she was born in Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary and she was raised by the Thuringian court, so she would be familiar with the local language and culture. In 1221, at the age of fourteen, Elizabeth married Louis, the year he was enthroned as Landgrave. After her marriage, she continued her charitable practices, which included spinning wool for the clothing of the poor, in 1223, Franciscan friars arrived, and the teenage Elizabeth not only learned about the ideals of Francis of Assisi, but started to live them. It was also about time that the priest and later inquisitor Konrad von Marburg gained considerable influence over Elizabeth when he was appointed as her confessor. Elizabeth assumed control of affairs at home and distributed alms in all parts of their territory, even giving away state robes, below Wartburg Castle, she built a hospital with twenty-eight beds and visited the inmates daily to attend to them. Elizabeths life changed irrevocably on 11 September 1227 when Louis, en route to join the Sixth Crusade, died of a fever in Otranto, on hearing the news of her husbands death, Elizabeth is reported to have said, He is dead. It is to me as if the world died today. His remains were returned to Elizabeth in 1228 and entombed at the Abbey of Reinhardsbrunn, after Louis death, his brother, Henry Raspe, assumed the regency during the minority of Elizabeths eldest child, Hermann. About 1888 various investigators asserted that Elizabeth left the Wartburg voluntarily and she was not able at the castle to follow Konrads command to eat only food obtained in a way that was certainly right and proper. Following her husbands death, Elizabeth made solemn vows to Konrad similar to those of a nun and these vows included celibacy, as well as complete obedience to Konrad as her confessor and spiritual director. Konrads treatment of Elizabeth was extremely harsh, and he held her to standards of behavior which were almost impossible to meet, among the punishments he is alleged to have ordered were physical beatings, he also ordered her to send away her three children. Her pledge to celibacy proved a hindrance to her familys political ambitions, Elizabeth was more or less held hostage at Pottenstein, the castle of her uncle, Bishop Ekbert of Bamberg, in an effort to force her to remarry
41.
Henry the Bearded
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Henry was the fourth son of Duke Bolesław I the Tall of Silesia, by his second wife Christina, probably a German. He was born in Głogów, Lower Silesia, Henrys three older brothers Boleslaw, Conrad and John died. His older half-brother Jarosław of Opole became a priest, possibly because of the scheming of Henrys mother Christina, Henry became Bolesławs sole heir in 1190. Through his marriage with Hedwig of Andechs, Henry was connected to the rulers of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Henrys father, Bolesław I, died 8 December 1201. Early in 1202 Henrys uncle, Duke Mieszko IV Tanglefoot of Upper Silesia, attacked and took the Duchy of Opole, Mieszko wanted more than Opole, but was opposed by Archbishop of Gniezno, Henry Kietlicz and the Bishop of Wrocław, Cyprian. They supported Henry because he paid them 1,000 pieces of silver, when the Holy Roman Empire was in the middle of the struggles between the Staufer and the Welfs, at first, Henry wasnt directly involved in this fight. After 1207, Henry betrothed his daughter Gertrude to the Bavarian Pfalzgraf Otto VII of Wittelsbach and his wife Agnes, of the ducal House of Andechs, were strong supporters of the Staufer. Henry remained neutral, and refused to part in the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire, the Staufer and the Welfs. Otto VII murdered the German Hohenstaufer King Philip of Swabia and was executed in 1209, in 1202 the Polish High Duke Mieszko III the Old died. He was from the Greater Polish branch of the royal Piast dynasty, two opposing groups emerged, 1) Mieszko IV Tanglefoot, and Duke Władysław III Spindleshanks of Greater Poland, and 2) Dukes Leszek the White of Sandomierz, Konrad I of Masovia, and Władysław Odonic. Władysław III Spindleshanks had assumed the throne at Kraków, but was deposed in 1206, Leszek became High Duke and Duke of Kraków. The loss of the Seniorate Province caused Władysław III to change his alliance and he proposed to Henry an exchange of territories, the Silesian Lubusz Land for the Greater Poland Kalisz region. Henry accepted the offer, but the exchange resulted in political confusion, Władysław Odonic had been expecting to inherit Lubusz and Greater Poland from his uncle Władysław III. Odonic counted on the support of the church, headed by Archbishop Henry Kietlicz of Gniezno, Władysław III had his two opponents, Odonic and the archbishop, exiled. Henry was now in a difficult situation and he owed a debt of gratitude to the archbishop, who helped him at the beginning of his reign, but he decided to support Władysław III. He gave the newly acquired Kalisz to Odonic, except for Poznań, in 1208, the relationship was mended during a meeting in Głogów. In 1210 Pope Innocent III excommunicated High Duke Leszek, Mieszko IV Tanglefoot quickly conquered Kraków and took the title of High Duke. The excommunication bull was issued at the request of an anonymous Duke of Silesia, the situation became quite confused and no one was sure who held the real power
42.
Silesian Piasts
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The Silesian Piasts were the elder of four lines of the Polish Piast dynasty beginning with Władysław II the Exile, eldest son of Duke Bolesław III of Poland. By Bolesławs testament, Władysław was granted Silesia as his hereditary province, the history of the Silesian Piasts began with the feudal fragmentation of Poland in 1138 following the death of the Polish duke Bolesław III Wrymouth. Władysław soon entered into conflicts with his brothers and the Polish nobility. When in 1146 he attempted to control of the whole of Poland, he was excomunicated by Archbishop Jakub ze Żnina of Gniezno. He was received by King Conrad III of Germany, his brother-in-law by Władysławs consort Agnes of Babenberg, Silesia and the Seniorate Province came under the control of second-born Bolesław IV the Curly, Duke of Masovia. In the same year King Conrad III attempted to power for Władysław. He died in 1159 without returning to Poland, the Duchy of Silesia remained within the Polish seniorate constitution, but Władysławs sons were obliged to pay a yearly tribute to the Holy Roman Emperor. Mieszko Tanglefoot the smaller Duchy of Racibórz around Racibórz and Cieszyn and their minor brother Konrad Spindleshanks received Żagań, Głogów and Krosno from the hands of Bolesław the Tall. In the same year, Poland abolished the seniorate and the Silesian duchies became independent entities, Henry I the Bearded actively took part in the inner-Polish conflicts and expanded his dominion with determination. Henry, before securing in 1229 the sovereignty in Kraków, had no less persevering efforts to bring Greater Poland also under his dominion. From the beginning of the century he had not ceased to intervene in the disputes which were carried on between the descendants of Mieszko the Old. At last in 1234, a half of that province was formally ceded to him. As a guardian of minor dukes, Henry moreover ruled over Opole and this Silesian prince not only intended to enlarge his possessions, he proposed to make them the nucleus of a restored Kingdom of Poland. He became duke of Kraków in 1232, which gave him the title of the Senior Duke of Poland, Henry expanded his realm also outside Poland ruling over Barnim, Teltow as well as parts of Lower Lusatia. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, he never gained the Polish crown, the royal crown, almost forgotten since the fall of Bolesław II, was destined by him for his eldest son, whom he associated in his rule towards the end of his life. This Henry II the Pious, who succeeded his father in 1238, was, in fact, pursuing the very able policy of Henry the Bearded, his son was moreover able to obtain the support of the clergy, with whom his father had had frequent disagreements. Following an old tradition of his dynasty, he placed himself under the protection of the Holy See, in 1241, he died as a Christian hero in the Battle of Legnica, in which he was attempting to arrest the Mongolian invasion. His death left the Silesian Piast dynasty deeply shaken, after Henrys death in 1241 his brother Bolesław II ruled on behalf of his underage brothers
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