1.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
2.
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom
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It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas. Soon after his death in 1785, they joined with William Wilberforce, though anti-slavery sentiment was widespread by the late 18th century, the colonies and emerging nation-states that used slave labour continued to do so. The slave trade had been banned in England in 1102, in a 1569 court case involving Cartwright, who had bought a slave from Russia, the court ruled that English law could not recognise slavery, as it was never established officially. This ruling was overshadowed by later developments and it was upheld in 1700 by Lord Chief Justice Sir John Holt when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in England. English colonists imported slaves to the North American colonies and by the 18th century, traders began to import slaves from Africa, India and East Asia to London and Edinburgh to work as servants. Men who migrated to the North American colonies often took their East Indian slaves or servants with them, some of the first freedom suits, court cases in Britain to challenge the legality of slavery, took place in Scotland in 1755 and 1769. The cases were Montgomery v. Sheddan and Spens v. Dalrymple, each of the slaves had been baptised in Scotland and challenged the legality of slavery. They set the precedent of legal procedure in British courts that would lead to success for the plaintiffs. In these cases, deaths of the plaintiff and defendant, respectively, African slaves were not bought or sold in London itself but were brought by masters from other places. Together with people from nations, especially non-Christian ones, Africans were considered foreigners. At the time, England had no naturalisation procedure, the African slaves legal status was unclear until the 1772 Somersetts Case, when the fugitive slave James Somersett forced a decision by the courts. Somersett had escaped and his master, Charles Steuart, had him captured and imprisoned on board a ship, while in London, Somersett had been baptised and three godparents issued a writ of habeas corpus. As a result, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of the Kings Bench, had to judge whether Somersetts abduction was lawful or not under English Common Law, no legislation had ever been passed to establish slavery in England. The case received national attention and five supported the action on behalf of Somersett. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England, and therefore the black must be discharged. The decision did not apply to British overseas territories, e. g. the American colonies had established slavery by positive laws, Somersetts case became a significant part of the common law of slavery in the English-speaking world and it helped launch the movement to abolish slavery. After reading about Somersetts Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved African who had purchased by his master John Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland. Married and with a child, he filed a freedom suit, in the case of Knight v. Wedderburn, Wedderburn said that Knight owed him perpetual servitude
3.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
4.
Reign of Terror
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The Reign of Terror or The Terror, is the label given by some historians to a period of violence during the French Revolution. Different historians place the date at either 5 September 1793 or June 1793 or March 1793 or September 1792 or July 1789. Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, but the total number of deaths in France in 1793–96 in only the civil war in the Vendée is estimated at 250,000 counter-revolutionaries and 200,000 republicans. During 1794, revolutionary France was beset with conspiracies by internal, within France, the revolution was opposed by the French nobility, which had lost its inherited privileges. The Catholic Church opposed the revolution, which had turned the clergy into employees of the state, in addition, the French First Republic was engaged in a series of wars with neighboring powers, and parts of France were engaging in civil war against the loyalist regime. The latter were grouped in the parliamentary faction called the Mountain. Through the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Terrors leaders exercised broad powers, the Reign was a manifestation of the strong strain on centralized power. Many historians have debated the reasons the French Revolution took such a turn during the Reign of Terror of 1793–94. The public was frustrated that the equality and anti-poverty measures that the revolution originally promised were not materializing. Jacques Rouxs Manifesto of the Enraged on 25 June 1793, describes the extent to which, four years into the revolution, the foundation of the Terror is centered on the April 1793 creation of the Committee of Public Safety and its militant Jacobin delegates. Those in power believed the Committee of Public Safety was an unfortunate, according to Mathiez, they touched only with trepidation and reluctance the regime established by the Constituent Assembly so as not to interfere with the early accomplishments of the revolution. Similar to Mathiez, Richard Cobb introduced competing circumstances of revolt, counter-revolutionary rebellions taking place in Lyon, Brittany, Vendée, Nantes, and Marseille were threatening the revolution with royalist ideas. Cobb writes, the revolutionaries themselves, living as if in combat… were easily persuaded that only terror, Terror was used in these rebellions both to execute inciters and to provide a very visible example to those who might be considering rebellion. Cobb agrees with Mathiez that the Terror was simply a response to circumstances, at the same time, Cobb rejects Mathiezs Marxist interpretation that elites controlled the Reign of Terror to the significant benefit of the bourgeoisie. Instead, Cobb argues that social struggles between the classes were seldom the reason for actions and sentiments. Widespread terror and a consequent rise in executions came after external and internal threats were vastly reduced, with the backing of the national guard, they persuaded the convention to arrest 29 Girondist leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. On 13 July the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat – a Jacobin leader, georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the king, was removed from the committee. The Jacobins identified themselves with the movement and the sans-culottes
5.
William Wordsworth
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William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworths magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was known as the poem to Coleridge. Wordsworth was Britains Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850 and his sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. Wordsworths father was a representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant from him until his death in 1783. However, he did encourage William in his reading, and in particular set him to commit to memory large portions of verse, including works by Milton, Shakespeare, William was also allowed to use his fathers library. William also spent time at his mothers house in Penrith, Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors, but did not get along with his grandparents or his uncle. His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide, Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, after the death of his mother, in 1778, Wordsworths father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for nine years. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine and that same year he began attending St Johns College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in 1791 and he returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland. In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enchanted with the Republican movement and he fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Financial problems and Britains tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year. The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raised doubts as to his wish to marry Annette. With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited Annette, the purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson
6.
Scottish people
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The Scottish people, or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, who founded the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century, and are thought to have been ethnolinguistically Celts. Later, the neighbouring Cumbrian Britons, who spoke a Celtic language, as well as Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons. In modern usage, Scottish people or Scots is used to refer to anyone whose linguistic, cultural, the Latin word Scotti, originally the word referred specifically to the Gaels, but came to describe all inhabitants of Scotland. Considered archaic or pejorative, the term Scotch has also used for Scottish people. John Kenneth Galbraith in his book The Scotch documents the descendants of 19th-century Scottish pioneers who settled in Southwestern Ontario and he states the book was meant to give a true picture of life in the community in the early decades of the 20th century. People of Scottish descent live in countries other than Scotland. Scottish emigrants took with them their Scottish languages and culture, large populations of Scottish people settled the new-world lands of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. Canada has the highest level of Scottish descendants per capita in the world, Scotland has seen migration and settlement of many peoples at different periods in its history. The Gaels, the Picts and the Britons have their origin myths. The Venerable Bede tells of the Scotti coming from Spain via Ireland, Germanic peoples, such as the Anglo-Saxons, arrived beginning in the 7th century, while the Norse invaded and colonized parts of Scotland from the 8th century onwards. In the High Middle Ages, from the reign of David I of Scotland, there was emigration from France, England. Some famous Scottish family names, including bearing the names which became Bruce, Balliol, Murray. Today Scotland is one of the countries of the United Kingdom, culturally, these peoples are grouped according to language. Most of Scotland until the 13th century spoke Celtic languages and these included, at least initially, the Britons, as well as the Gaels and the Picts. Germanic peoples included the Angles of Northumbria, who settled in south-eastern Scotland in the region between the Firth of Forth to the north and the River Tweed to the south. They also occupied the south-west of Scotland up to and including the Plain of Kyle and their language, south-east of the Firth of Forth, then in Lothian and the Borders, a northern variety of Old English, also known as Early Scots, was spoken. The Northern Isles and some parts of Caithness were Norn-speaking, from 1500 on, Scotland was commonly divided by language into two groups of people, Gaelic-speaking Highlanders and the Inglis-speaking Lowlanders
7.
Welsh people
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The Welsh people or the Welsh are a nation and ethnic group native to, or otherwise associated with, Wales and the Welsh language. Prior to the 20th century, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh, the term Welsh people applies to people from Wales and people of Welsh ancestry perceiving themselves or being perceived as sharing a cultural heritage and shared ancestral origins. Over 300,000 Welsh people live in London, the same etymological origin is shared by the names of various other Celtic or Latin peoples such as the Walloons and the Vlachs, as well as of the Swiss canton of Valais. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. They thus carry a sense of land of fellow-countrymen, our country, the word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century. It is attested in a poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. During their time in Britain, the ancient Romans encountered tribes in present-day Wales that they called the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Silures and the Deceangli. The people of what is now Wales were not distinguished from the rest of the peoples of southern Britain, all were called Britons and spoke the common British language, a Brythonic Celtic tongue. Celtic language and culture seems to have arrived in Britain during the Iron Age, the claim has also been made that Indo-European languages may have been introduced to the British Isles as early as the early Neolithic, with Goidelic and Brythonic languages developing indigenously. The genetic evidence in this case would show that the change to Celtic languages in Britain may have occurred as a cultural rather than through migration as was previously supposed. The assumed genetic imprint of Neolithic incomers is seen as a cline, with stronger Neolithic representation in the east of Europe, when the Roman legions departed Britain around 400, a Romano-British culture remained in the areas the Romans had settled, and the pre-Roman cultures in others. According to Stephen Oppenheimer 96% of lineages in Llangefni in north Wales derive from Iberia, Genetic marker R1b averages from 83–89% amongst the Welsh. The people in what is now Wales continued to speak Brythonic languages with additions from Latin, the surviving poem Y Gododdin is in early Welsh and refers to the Brythonic kingdom of Gododdin with a capital at Din Eidyn and extending from the area of Stirling to the Tyne. John Davies places the change from Brythonic to Welsh between 400 and 700, offas Dyke was erected in the mid-8th century, forming a barrier between Wales and Mercia. The genetic tests suggested that between 50% and 100% of the population of what was to become England was wiped out. In 2001, research for a BBC programme on the Vikings suggested a strong link between the Celts and Basques, dating back tens of thousands of years. The UCL research suggested a migration on a huge scale during the Anglo-Saxon period and it appears England is made up of an ethnic cleansing event from people coming across from the continent after the Romans left, said Dr Mark Thomas, of the Centre for Genetic Anthropology at UCL
8.
Berwick-upon-Tweed
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Berwick-upon-Tweed is a town in the county of Northumberland. It is the northernmost town in England and it is located 2 1⁄2 miles south of the Scottish border, at the mouth of the River Tweed on the east coast. It is about 56 miles east-south east of Edinburgh,65 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne and 345 miles north of London, the United Kingdom Census 2011 recorded Berwicks population as 12,043. A civil parish and town council were created in 2008, Berwick was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement during the time of the Kingdom of Northumbria, which was annexed by England in the 10th century. The area was for more than 400 years central to historic border wars between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, and several times possession of Berwick changed hands between the two kingdoms, the last time it changed hands was when England retook it in 1482. Berwick remains a market town and also has some notable architectural features, in particular its medieval town walls, its Elizabethan ramparts. The name Berwick is of Old English origin, and is derived from the term bere-wīc, combining bere, meaning barley, Berwick thus means barley village or barley farm. In the post-Roman period, the area was inhabited by the Brythons of Bryneich, later, the region became part of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia. Bernicia later united with the kingdom of Deira to form Northumbria, Berwick remained part of the Earldom of Northumbria until control passed to the Scots following the Battle of Carham of 1018. The town itself was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement during the time of the Kingdom of Northumbria, between the late 10th and early 11th centuries, the land between the rivers Forth and Tweed came under Scottish control, either through conquest by Scotland or through cession by England. Berwick was made a burgh in the reign of David I. A mint was present in the town by 1153, while under Scottish control, Berwick was referred to as South Berwick in order to differentiate it from the town of North Berwick, East Lothian, near Edinburgh. Berwick had a hospital for the sick and poor which was administered by the Church. Dated at Edinburgh June 8, in the 20th year of his reign, Berwicks strategic position on the Anglo-Scottish border during centuries of war between the two nations and its relatively great wealth led to a succession of raids, sieges and takeovers. William I of Scotland invaded and attempted to capture northern England in 1173-74, after his defeat, Berwick was ceded to Henry II of England. It was later back to William by Richard I of England in order to raise funds for his Crusade. Berwick had become a town by the middle of the 13th century. In 1291–92 Berwick was the site of Edward I of Englands arbitration in the contest for the Scottish crown between John Balliol and Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, the decision in favour of Balliol was pronounced in the Great Hall of Berwick Castle on 17 November 1292
9.
Andrew Kippis
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Andrew Kippis was an English nonconformist clergyman and biographer. The son of Robert Kippis, a silk-hosier, he was born at Nottingham, having gone to school at Sleaford in Lincolnshire he passed at the age of sixteen to the Dissenting academy at Northampton, of which Dr Philip Doddridge was then president. Kippis took a prominent part in the affairs of his church, from 1763 till 1784 he was classical and philological tutor in the Coward Trusts academy at Hoxton, and subsequently in the New College at Hackney. In 1778 he was elected a fellow of the Antiquarian Society, and he contributed largely to The Gentlemans Magazine, The Monthly Review and The Library, and he established the New Annual Register. He published sermons and pamphlets, and he prefixed a life to Nathaniel Lardners Works and he wrote a life prefixed to Philip Doddridges Exposition of the New Testament. His major work is his edition of the Biographia Britannica, he lived to publish five volumes. In this work he had the assistance of Joseph Towers, minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church, one of the works by Kippis is Cooks Voyages. This was first published in London in 1788 and includes a letter by Kippis to George III of the United Kingdom dated 13 June 1788. The book has accounts of the three voyages — 1768-1771, 1772–1775, and 1776-1779 — as well as an account of the character of James Cook, the effects of his voyages, and a commentary on his services. Josiah Tucker This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Works by Andrew Kippis at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Andrew Kippis at Internet Archive
10.
Spanish Empire
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The Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in history. The Spanish Empire became the foremost global power of its time and was the first to be called the empire on which the sun never sets, the Spanish Empire originated during the Age of Discovery after the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Following the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain ceded its last colonies in the Caribbean and its last African colonies were granted independence or abandoned during Decolonisation of Africa finishing in 1976. The unity did not mean uniformity, nevertheless, some historians assert that Portugal was part of the Spanish monarchy at the time, while others draw a clear distinction between the Portuguese and Spanish empires. During the 15th century, Castile and Portugal became territorial and commercial rivals in the western Atlantic. The conquest was completed with the campaigns of the armies of the Crown of Castile between 1478 and 1496, when the islands of Gran Canaria, La Palma, and Tenerife were subjugated. The Portuguese tried in vain to keep secret their discovery of the Gold Coast in the Gulf of Guinea, chronicler Pulgar wrote that the fame of the treasures of Guinea spread around the ports of Andalusia in such way that everybody tried to go there. Worthless trinkets, Moorish textiles, and above all, shells from the Canary and Cape Verde islands were exchanged for gold, slaves, ivory and Guinea pepper. The Crown officially organized this trade with Guinea, every caravel had to get a government license, the treaty delimited the spheres of influence of the two countries, establishing the principle of the Mare clausum. It was confirmed in 1481 by the Pope Sixtus IV, in the papal bull Æterni regis, thus, the limitations imposed by the Alcáçovas treaty were overcome and a new and more balanced worlds division would be reached at Tordesillas between both emerging maritime powers. Seven months before the treaty of Alcaçovas, King John II of Aragon died, Ferdinand and Isabella drove the last Moorish king out of Granada in 1492 after a ten-year war. The Catholic Monarchs then negotiated with Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor attempting to reach Cipangu by sailing west, Castile was already engaged in a race of exploration with Portugal to reach the Far East by sea when Columbus made his bold proposal to Isabella. Columbus discoveries inaugurated the Spanish colonization of the Americas and these actions gave Spain exclusive rights to establish colonies in all of the New World from north to south, as well as the easternmost parts of Asia. The treaty of Tordesillas was confirmed by Pope Julius II in the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis on 24 January 1506, Spains expansion and colonization was driven by economic influences, a yearning to improve national prestige, and a desire to spread Catholicism into the New World. The Catholic Monarchs had developed a strategy of marriages for their children in order to isolate their long-time enemy, the Spanish princes married the heirs of Portugal, England and the House of Habsburg. Following the same strategy, the Catholic Monarchs decided to support the Catalan-Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII of France in the Italian Wars beginning in 1494. As King of Aragon, Ferdinand had been involved in the struggle against France and Venice for control of Italy, these conflicts became the center of Ferdinands foreign policy as king. Only a year later, Ferdinand became part of the Holy League against France and this war was less of a success than the war against Venice, and in 1516, France agreed to a truce that left Milan in its control and recognized Spanish control of Upper Navarre
11.
Pacifism
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Pacifism is opposition to war, militarism, or violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud, a related term is ahimsa, which is a core philosophy in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. While modern connotations are recent, having been explicated since the 19th century, in Christianity, Jesus Christs injunction to love your enemies and asking for forgiveness for his crucifiers for they know not what they do have been interpreted as calling for pacifism. In modern times, interest was revived by Leo Tolstoy in his late works, Mohandas Gandhi propounded the practice of steadfast nonviolent opposition which he called satyagraha, instrumental in its role in the Indian Independence Movement. Its effectiveness served as inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr. James Lawson, James Bevel, Thich Nhat Hanh and many others in the Civil Rights Movement. Pacifism was widely associated with the much publicized image of Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 with the Tank Man, historians of pacifism Peter Brock and Thomas Paul Socknat define pacifism in the sense generally accepted in English-speaking areas as an unconditional rejection of all forms of warfare. Philosopher Jenny Teichman defines the form of pacifism as anti-warism. Teichmans beliefs have been summarized by Brian Orend as, a pacifist rejects war and believes there are no moral grounds which can justify resorting to war. War, for the pacifist, is always wrong, in a sense the philosophy is based on the idea that the ends do not justify the means. Pacifism may be based on moral principles or pragmatism, principled pacifism holds that at some point along the spectrum from war to interpersonal physical violence, such violence becomes morally wrong. Pragmatic pacifism holds that the costs of war and interpersonal violence are so substantial that better ways of resolving disputes must be found, some pacifists follow principles of nonviolence, believing that nonviolent action is morally superior and/or most effective. Some however, support physical violence for emergency defence of self or others, by no means is all nonviolent resistance based on a fundamental rejection of all violence in all circumstances. Many leaders and participants in such movements, while recognizing the importance of using non-violent methods in particular circumstances, have not been absolute pacifists, sometimes, as with the civil rights movements march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, they have called for armed protection. The interconnections between civil resistance and factors of force are numerous and complex, the principle is described as difficult to abide by consistently, due to violence not being available as a tool to aid a person who is being harmed or killed. It is further claimed that such a pacifist could logically argue that violence leads to undesirable results than non-violence. Although all pacifists are opposed to war between states, there have been occasions where pacifists have supported military conflict in the case of civil war or revolution. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, French pacifist René Gérin urged support for the Spanish Republic, Gérin argued that the Spanish Nationalists were comparable to an individual enemy and the Republics war effort was equivalent to the action of a domestic police force suppressing crime. Advocacy of pacifism can be found far back in history and literature, during the Warring States period, the pacifist Mohist School opposed aggressive war between the feudal states
12.
Revolution Controversy
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The Revolution Controversy was a British debate over the French Revolution, lasting from 1789 through 1795. A pamphlet war began in earnest after the publication of Edmund Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in France, because he had supported the American colonists in their rebellion against England, his views sent a shock-wave through the country. Many writers responded, defending the revolution in France, among them Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, alfred Cobban calls the debate that erupted perhaps the last real discussion of the fundamentals of politics in Britain. The themes articulated by those responding to Burke would become a feature of the radical working-class movement in Britain in the nineteenth century. Most Britons celebrated the storming of the Bastille in 1789, believing that Frances monarchy should be curtailed by a democratic form of government. However, by December 1795, after the Reign of Terror and war with France, when he failed to do so, it shocked the populace and angered his friends and supporters. Burkes book sold 30,000 copies in two years, the Reflections defended the aristocratic concepts of paternalism, loyalty, chivalry, the hereditary principle and property. Burke criticized the view of many British thinkers and writers who had welcomed the early stages of the French Revolution and he viewed the French Revolution as the violent overthrow of a legitimate government, contending that citizens do not have the right to overthrow their government. Civilizations and governments, he maintained, are the result of social and political consensus, liberals such as William Godwin, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft argued for republicanism, agrarian socialism, and anarchism. Many of their works were published by Joseph Johnson, who was jailed for his seditious activities. Wollstonecraft had been influenced by the ideas she ingested from Prices sermons at Newington Green Unitarian Church. These seeds germinated into A Vindication of the Rights of Men, wollstonecrafts most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written in 1792, in the spirit of rationalism extending Prices arguments about equality to women. Butler, Marilyn, ed. Burke, Paine, Godwin, Vindication, A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft
13.
Storming of the Bastille
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The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming but was a symbol of abuses by the monarchy, in France, Le quatorze juillet is a public holiday, usually called Bastille Day in English. During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced an economic crisis, partially initiated by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution. The king initially opposed this development, but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which subsequently renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July. The commoners had formed the National Guard, sporting tricolour cockades of blue, white and red, formed by combining the red and blue cockade of Paris and the white cockade of the king. These cockades, and soon simply their colour scheme, became the symbol of the revolution and, later, Paris, close to insurrection and, in François Mignets words, intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm, showed wide support for the Assembly. The press published the Assemblys debates, political debate spread beyond the Assembly itself into the public squares, the Palais-Royal and its grounds became the site of an ongoing meeting. The Assembly recommended the imprisoned guardsmen to the clemency of the king, they returned to prison, the rank and file of the regiment, previously considered reliable, now leaned toward the popular cause. News of Neckers dismissal reached Paris in the afternoon of Sunday,12 July, the Parisians generally presumed that the dismissal marked the start of a coup by conservative elements. Crowds gathered throughout Paris, including more than ten thousand at the Palais-Royal and this very night all the Swiss and German battalions will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all, one resource is left, to take arms. By early July, approximately half of the 25,000 regular troops in Paris, the crowd clashed with the Royal German Cavalry Regiment between the Place Vendôme and the Tuileries Palace. From atop the Champs-Élysées, the Prince de Lambesc unleashed a cavalry charge that dispersed the protesters at Place Louis XV—now Place de la Concorde. The Royal commander, Baron de Besenval, fearing the results of a blood bath amongst the poorly armed crowds or defections among his own men, then withdrew the cavalry towards Sèvres. Meanwhile, unrest was growing among the people of Paris who expressed their hostility against state authorities by attacking customs posts blamed for causing increased food, the people of Paris started to plunder any place where food, guns and supplies could be hoarded. That night, rumors spread that supplies were being hoarded at Saint-Lazare, a property of the clergy. An angry mob broke in and plundered the property, seizing 52 wagons of wheat and that same day multitudes of people plundered many other places including weapon arsenals. The Royal troops did nothing to stop the spreading of chaos in Paris during those days
14.
September Massacres
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The September Massacres were a wave of killings in Paris and other cities in late summer 1792, during the French Revolution. There was a fear that foreign and royalist armies would attack Paris, radicals called for preemptive action, especially journalist Jean-Paul Marat, who called on draftees to kill the prisoners before they could be freed. The action was undertaken by mobs of National Guardsmen and some fédérés, it was tolerated by the city government, the Paris Commune, by 6 September, half the prison population of Paris had been summarily executed, some 1200 to 1400 prisoners. Of these,233 were nonjuring Catholic priests who refused to submit to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, however, the great majority of those killed were common criminals. The massacres were repeated in many other French cities, no one was prosecuted for the killings, but the political repercussions first injured the Girondists and later the Jacobins. The political situation in Paris on the eve of the September Massacres was highly excited and aroused by rumors of traitors. The next day the insurrectionists stormed the Tuileries Palace, the 48 sections of Paris were fully equipped with munitions from the plundered arsenals in the days before the assault, substituting for the 60 National Guard battalions. Now, supported by a new armed force, the Commune and its sans-culottes took control of the city and dominated the Legislative Assembly, for some weeks the Commune functioned as the actual government of France. These events meant a change of direction from the political and constitutional perspective of the Girondists to a more social approach given by the Commune, besides these measures, the Commune engaged in a policy of political repression of all suspected counter-revolutionary activities. Beginning on 11 August, every Paris section named its committee of vigilance, mostly these decentralized committees, rather than the Commune, brought about the repression of August and September 1792. From 15 to 25 August, around 500 detentions were registered, half the detentions were made against non-juring priests, but even priests who had sworn the required oath were caught in the wave. In Paris, all monasteries were closed and the rest of the orders were dissolved by the law of 15 August. On 2 September, news reached Paris that the Duke of Brunswicks Prussian army had invaded France and he was advancing quickly toward the capital. On 1 August, Brunswick had issued the Brunswick Manifesto, additionally, the Manifesto threatened the French population with instant punishment should it resist the Imperial and Prussian armies, or the reinstatement of the monarchy. Such information fueled this first wave of mob hysteria of the Revolution, by the end of August, rumors circulated that many in Paris – such as non-juring priests – who opposed the Revolution, would support the First Coalition of foreign powers allied against it. Furthermore, Paris lacked extensive food stocks, when news that Brunswick had captured Verdun reached the Convention, they ordered the alarm guns fired, which escalated the sense of panic. Of 284 prisoners,135 were killed,27 were transferred,86 were set free, in the afternoon of 2 September 150 priests in the convent of Carmelites were massacred, mostly by sans-culottes. On 3 and 4 September, groups broke into other Paris prisons, where they murdered the prisoners, from 2 to 7 September, summary trials took place in all Paris prisons
15.
Girondins
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The Girondins were members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active within the Legislative Assembly and they were part of the Jacobin movement, though not every Girondin was a member of the Jacobin Club. The Girondins campaigned for the end of the monarchy, but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the Revolution and they came into conflict with The Mountain, a radical faction within the Jacobin Club. This conflict eventually led to the fall of the Girondins and their mass execution, Girondin leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, thus the Girondins were the war party in 1792–93. Other prominent Girondins included Jean Marie Roland and his wife Madame Roland and they had an ally in the English-born, sometime American activist Thomas Paine. Brissot and Madame Roland were executed and Jean Roland committed suicide when he learned what had transpired, Paine was arrested and imprisoned but narrowly escaped execution. The famous painting Death of Marat depicts the killing of the radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat by the Girondin sympathizer Charlotte Corday. The collective name Girondins is used to describe a a loosely knit group of French deputies who contested the Montagnards for control of the National Convention and they were never an official organization or political party. Other names were employed at the time too, but Girondins ultimately became the term favored by historians, the term became standard with Alphonse de Lamartines History of the Girondists in 1847. Twelve deputies represented the département of the Gironde, and there were six who sat for this département in both the Legislative Assembly of 1791-92 and the National Convention of 1792-95. Five were lawyers, Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud, Marguerite Élie Guadet, Armand Gensonné, Jean Antoine Laffargue de Grangeneuve, the other, Jean François Ducos, was a tradesman. Madame Roland, whose salon became their gathering place, had a influence on the spirit. The group was identified by its enemies at the start of the National Convention, Brissotins and Girondins were terms of opprobrium used by their enemies in a separate faction of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced them as enemies of democracy. In the Legislative Assembly, the Girondins represented the principle of democratic revolution within France and they supported an aggressive foreign policy and constituted the war party in the period 1792-93, when revolutionary France initiated a long series of revolutionary wars with other European powers. Brissot proposed a military plan to spread the Revolution internationally. The Girondins also called for war against Austria, arguing it would rally patriots around the Revolution, liberate oppressed peoples from despotism, in all of this activity, there was no apparent line of cleavage between La Gironde and The Mountain. Montagnards and Girondins alike were opposed to the monarchy, both were democrats as well as republicans, both were prepared to appeal to force in order to realise their ideals. Despite being accused of wanting to weaken the government, the Girondins desired as little as the Montagnards to break up the unity of France
16.
Salon (gathering)
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These gatherings often consciously followed Horaces definition of the aims of poetry, either to please or to educate. Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, were carried on until as recently as the 1940s in urban settings, the salon was an Italian invention of the 16th century which flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The salon continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century, one important place for the exchange of ideas was the salon. The word salon first appeared in France in 1664, Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, like cabinet, réduit, ruelle and alcôve. Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were held in the bedroom. This practice may be contrasted with the formalities of Louis XIVs petit lever. She established the rules of etiquette of the salon which resembled the earlier codes of Italian chivalry, the historiography of the salons is far from straightforward. The salons have been studied in depth by a mixture of feminist, Marxist, each of these methodologies focus on different aspects of the salons, and thus have varying analyses of the salons’ importance in terms of French history and the Enlightenment as a whole. Major historiographical debates focus on the relationship between the salons and the sphere, as well as the role of women within the salons. Breaking down the salons into historical periods is complicated due to the various historiographical debates that surround them, most studies stretch from the early 16th century up until around the end of the 18th century. Goodman is typical in ending her study at the French Revolution where, she writes, Steven Kale is relatively alone in his recent attempts to extend the period of the salon up until Revolution of 1848. This world did not disappear in 1789, as recently as the 1940s, salons hosted by Gertrude Stein gained notoriety for including Pablo Picasso and other twentieth-century luminaries like Alice B. The content and form of the salon to some extent defines the character, contemporary literature about the salons is dominated by idealistic notions of politesse, civilité and honnêteté, but whether the salons lived up to these standards is matter of debate. Older texts on the salons tend to paint a picture of the salons. Today, however, this view is considered an adequate analysis of the salon. Dena Goodman claims that rather than being leisure based or schools of civilité salons were instead at the heart of the philosophic community. In short, Goodman argues, the 17th and 18th century saw the emergence of the academic, Enlightenment salons, politeness, argues Goodman, took second-place to academic discussion. The period in which salons were dominant has been labeled the age of conversation, the topics of conversation within the salons - that is, what was and was not polite to talk about - are thus vital when trying to determine the form of the salons
17.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of womens rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men and she suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecrafts life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships, after two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay, Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement. Wollstonecraft died at the age of 38, eleven days after giving birth to her second daughter and this daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, became an accomplished writer herself, as Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. After Wollstonecrafts death, her widower published a Memoir of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and work as important influences. Wollstonecraft was born on 27 April 1759 in Spitalfields, London and she was the second of the seven children of Elizabeth Dixon and Edward John Wollstonecraft. Although her family had a comfortable income when she was a child, consequently, the family became financially unstable and they were frequently forced to move during Wollstonecrafts youth. The familys financial situation became so dire that Wollstonecrafts father compelled her to turn over money that she would have inherited at her maturity. Moreover, he was apparently a violent man who would beat his wife in drunken rages, as a teenager, Wollstonecraft used to lie outside the door of her mothers bedroom to protect her. Wollstonecraft played a similar role for her sisters, Everina and Eliza. The human costs, however, were severe, her sister suffered social condemnation and, because she could not remarry, was doomed to a life of poverty, two friendships shaped Wollstonecrafts early life. The first was with Jane Arden in Beverley, the two frequently read books together and attended lectures presented by Ardens father, a self-styled philosopher and scientist. Wollstonecraft revelled in the atmosphere of the Arden household and valued her friendship with Arden greatly. Wollstonecraft wrote to her, I have formed romantic notions of friendship, I am a little singular in my thoughts of love and friendship, I must have the first place or none. In some of Wollstonecrafts letters to Arden, she reveals the volatile, unhappy with her home life, Wollstonecraft struck out on her own in 1778 and accepted a job as a ladys companion to Sarah Dawson, a widow living in Bath. However, Wollstonecraft had trouble getting along with the irascible woman, in 1780 she returned home, called back to care for her dying mother. Rather than return to Dawsons employ after the death of her mother and she realized during the two years she spent with the family that she had idealized Blood, who was more invested in traditional feminine values than was Wollstonecraft
18.
Francisco de Miranda
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Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez de Espinoza, commonly known as Francisco de Miranda, was a military leader and Venezuelan revolutionary. Miranda led a romantic and adventurous life in the political and intellectual climate that emerged from the Age of Enlightenment that influenced all of the Atlantic Revolutions. He participated in three major historical and political movements of his time, the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolution and he described his experiences over this time in his journal, which reached to 63 bound volumes. An idealist, he developed a plan to liberate and unify all of Spanish America. He was handed over to his enemies and four years later, Miranda was born in Caracas, Venezuela Province, in the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, and baptized on April 5,1750. Growing up, Miranda enjoyed a wealthy upbringing and attended the finest private schools, however, he was not necessarily a member of high society, he faced some discrimination due to his Canarian roots, and his heritage was continually put into question by the Criollo aristocracy. Miranda was first tutored by Jesuits, Jorge Lindo and Juan Santaella, on January 10,1762, Miranda began his studies at the Royal and Pontifical University of Caracas, where he studied Latin, the early grammar of Nebrija, and the Catechism of Ripalda for two years. Miranda completed this course in September 1764 and became an upperclassman. Between 1764 and 1766, Miranda continued his studies, studying the writings of Cicero and Virgil, grammar, history, religion, geography, in June 1767, Miranda received his baccalaureate degree in the Humanities. It is unknown if Miranda received the title of Doctor, as the evidence in favor of this title is his personal testimony stating he received it in 1767. Beginning in 1767, Mirandas studies were disrupted in part due to his fathers rising prominence in Caracas society. In 1764, Sebastian de Miranda was appointed the captain of the militia known as the Company of the White Canary Islanders by the governor. Sebastian de Miranda directed his regiment for five years, but his new title, in retaliation, a competing faction formed a militia of its own and two local aristocrats, Don Juan Nicolas de Ponte and Don Martin Tovar Blanco, filed a complaint against Sebastian de Miranda. In 1769, Sebastian produced a genealogy to prove that his family had no African ancestors. In 1770, Sebastian won his familys rights through a royal patent, signed by Charles III. Miranda landed at the Port of Cadiz on March 1,1771, on March 28,1771, Miranda travelled to Madrid and took an interest in the libraries, architecture, and art that he found there. In Madrid, Miranda pursued his education, especially modern languages and he also sought to expand his knowledge of mathematics, history, and political science, as he aimed to serve the Spanish Crown as a military officer. It was in Madrid that Miranda began to build his personal library, in January 1773, Mirandas father transferred 85,000 reales vellon, to help his son obtain the position of captain in the Princesss Regiment
19.
Thomas Paine
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Thomas Paine was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of human rights. He has been called a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, virtually every rebel read his powerful pamphlet Common Sense, proportionally the all-time best-selling American title, which crystallized the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. His The American Crisis was a pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote Rights of Man, in part a defense of the French Revolution against its critics and his attacks on Anglo-Irish conservative writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention, the Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy, in December 1793, he was arrested and was taken to Luxembourg Prison in Paris. While in prison, he continued to work on The Age of Reason, future President James Monroe used his diplomatic connections to get Paine released in November 1794. He also published the pamphlet Agrarian Justice, discussing the origins of property, in 1802, he returned to the U. S. where he died on June 8,1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity, Paine was born on January 29,1736, the son of Joseph Pain and Frances, in Thetford, Norfolk, England. Joseph was a Quaker and Frances an Anglican, born Thomas Pain, despite claims that he changed his family name upon his emigration to America in 1774, he was using Paine in 1769, while still in Lewes, Sussex. He attended Thetford Grammar School, at a time there was no compulsory education. At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to his stay-maker father, Paine researchers contend his fathers occupation has been widely misinterpreted to mean that he made the stays in ladies corsets, which likely was an insult later invented by his political foes. Actually, the father and apprentice son made the thick rope stays used on sailing ships, Thetford historically had maintained a brisk trade with the downriver, then major, port town of Kings Lynn. A connection to shipping and the sea explains why, in adolescence, Thomas enlisted and briefly served as a privateer. There, he became a master stay-maker, establishing a shop in Sandwich, on September 27,1759, Thomas Paine married Mary Lambert. Mary became pregnant, and, after they moved to Margate, she went into labor, in which she
20.
Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
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Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a French writer and botanist. He is best known for his 1788 novel Paul et Virginie, now largely forgotten, at the age of twelve he had read Robinson Crusoe and went with his uncle, a skipper, to the West-Indies. After returning from this trip he was educated as an engineer at the École des Ponts, then he joined the French Army and was involved in the Seven Years War against Prussia and England. In 1768 he traveled to Mauritius and studied plants, in 1771 he became friendly with and a pupil of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Together they studied the plants in and around Paris, in 1795 he was elected to the Institut de France, in 1797 manager of the Botanical Gardens and in 1803 member of the Académie française. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre maintained that an animal in devouring its prey alive committed a sin against the laws of its own nature
21.
Sonnet
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A sonnet is a poem in a specific form which originated in Italy, Giacomo da Lentini is credited with its invention. The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto, by the thirteenth century it signified a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history, writers of sonnets are sometimes called sonneteers, although the term can be used derisively. The sonnet was created by Giacomo da Lentini, head of the Sicilian School under Emperor Frederick II, guittone dArezzo rediscovered it and brought it to Tuscany where he adapted it to his language when he founded the Siculo-Tuscan School, or Guittonian school of poetry. Other Italian poets of the time, including Dante Alighieri and Guido Cavalcanti, wrote sonnets, other fine examples were written by Michelangelo. The structure of a typical Italian sonnet of the included two parts that together formed a compact form of argument. First, the octave, forms the proposition, which describes a problem, or question, followed by a sestet, typically, the ninth line initiates what is called the turn, or volta, which signals the move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that dont strictly follow the structure, the ninth line still often marks a turn by signaling a change in the tone, mood. Later, the abba, abba pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets, for the sestet there were two different possibilities, cde, cde and cdc, cdc. In time, other variants on this scheme were introduced. Petrarch typically used an abba, abba pattern for the octave, in English, both the English or Shakespearean sonnet, and the Italian Petrarchan sonnet are traditionally written in iambic pentameter. Early twentieth-century American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote mostly Petrarchan sonnets, on His Blindness by Milton, gives a sense of the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, Most Sonnets in Dantes La Vita Nuova are Petrarchan. Chapter VII gives sonnet O voi che per la via, with two sestets and two quatrains, and Ch. VIII, Morte villana, with two sestets and two quatrains and it was written by Paolo Lanfranchi da Pistoia and is addressed to Peter III of Aragon. It employs the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b, a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d-c-d and this poem is historically interesting for its information on north Italian perspectives concerning the War of the Sicilian Vespers, the conflict between the Angevins and Aragonese for Sicily. It congratulates Robert of Naples on his recent victory, there are also two poorly regarded sonnets by the Italian Dante de Maiano. By the late 17th century poets on increasingly relied on stanza forms incorporating rhymed couplets, and by the 18th century fixed-form poems – and, in particular, the resulting versification – less constrained by meter and rhyme patterns than Renaissance poetry – more closely mirrored prose. The Romantics were responsible for a return to many of the poems used during the 15th and 16th centuries. The sonnet however was used until the Parnassians brought it back into favor
