1.
Altshausen
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Altshausen is a small Swabian municipality near Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg, southern Germany. Altshausen is situated in Upper Swabia, about 40 kilometers north of Lake Constance, north-west of the village is the Upper Danube Nature Park while to the South-west is the hill-chain of the Altdorfer Wald. It is notable for its Teutonic Order castle and as the birthplace of Hermann of Reichenau, in the center of the town there is the Altshausen Schloss, which is the main palace still owned by the House of Wurttemberg. Altshausen is part of the Upper Swabian Baroque Route, a tourist road from the Swabian Alps to Upper Swabia, on both routes the tourists can visit many monuments and points of view. Bicske, Hungary Sausset-les-Pins, France Official website
2.
Music theory
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Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. The term is used in three ways in music, though all three are interrelated. The first is what is otherwise called rudiments, currently taught as the elements of notation, of key signatures, of time signatures, of rhythmic notation, Theory in this sense is treated as the necessary preliminary to the study of harmony, counterpoint, and form. The second is the study of writings about music from ancient times onwards, Music theory is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. However, this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries, Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses the methods and concepts composers and other musicians use in creating music. The development, preservation, and transmission of music theory in this sense may be found in oral and written music-making traditions, musical instruments, and other artifacts. In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are clearly visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music making. Many cultures, at least as far back as ancient Mesopotamia and ancient China, have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises, in modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology, the wider study of musical cultures and history. Etymologically, music theory is an act of contemplation of music, from the Greek θεωρία, a looking at, viewing, contemplation, speculation, theory, also a sight, a person who researches, teaches, or writes articles about music theory is a music theorist. University study, typically to the M. A. or Ph. D level, is required to teach as a music theorist in a US or Canadian university. Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by Western music notation, comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used. See for instance Paleolithic flutes, Gǔdí, and Anasazi flute, several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of a theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings. The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these dates from before 1500 BCE. Further, All the Mesopotamian texts are united by the use of a terminology for music that, much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear. The earliest texts about Chinese music theory are inscribed on the stone and they include more than 2800 words describing theories and practices of music pitches of the time. The bells produce two intertwined pentatonic scales three tones apart with additional pitches completing the chromatic scale, Chinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed, the Lüshi chunqiu from about 239 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun. On order of the Yellow Emperor, Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick, blowing on one of these like a pipe, he found its sound agreeable and named it huangzhong, the Yellow Bell
3.
Alma Redemptoris Mater
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Alma Redemptoris Mater is a Marian hymn, written in Latin hexameter, and one of four seasonal liturgical Marian antiphons sung at the end of the office of Compline. Hermannus Contractus is said to have authored the hymn based on the writings of Saints Fulgentius, Epiphanius and it is mentioned in The Prioresss Tale, one of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales. Formerly it was recited at compline only from the first Sunday in Advent until the Feast of the Purification, depending on the period, the following combinations of a versicle, response, and collect are added. Hear thou thy peoples cry, Star of the deep, and portal of the sky. Mother of Him Who thee from nothing made, Sinking we strive and call to thee for aid, Oh, by that joy which Gabriel brought to thee, Thou Virgin first and last, the Angel of the LORD brought tidings unto Mary ℟. And she conceived by the Holy Ghost, through the same Christ, our Lord. After childbirth, O Virgin, thou didst remain inviolate, intercede for us, O Mother of God
4.
Beatification
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Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead persons entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name. Local bishops had the power of beatifying until 1634, when Pope Urban VIII, in the apostolic constitution Cœlestis Jerusalem of 6 July, reserved the power of beatifying to the Apostolic See. The requirement of a miracle is not relevant to the canonization of those who died in martyrdom, the feast day for a Blessed person is not universal, but is celebrated only in regions where the person receives particular veneration. For instance, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha was especially honored in the United States, the person may also be honored in a particular religious order, diocese, or organization, such as John Duns Scotus among the Franciscans, the Archdiocese of Cologne and other places. Pope John Paul II markedly changed previous Catholic practice of beatification, by October 2004, he had beatified 1,340 people, more than the sum of all of his predecessors since Pope Sixtus V, who established a beatification procedure similar to that used today. The Pope himself still can preside, as happened on 19 September 2010, cultus confirmation is a somewhat different procedure, wherein the church recognizes a local cult of a person, asserting that veneration of that person is acceptable. Such a confirmation is more an official sanctioning of folk Catholicism than a step in a canonization procedure. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles. Juris Canonici et Juris Canonico-Civilis Compendium Nova Editio, Tomus Tertius, Pars Secunda List of all Blesseds in the Catholic Church by GCatholic. org
5.
Count
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Count or countess is a title in European countries for a noble of varying status, but historically deemed to convey an approximate rank intermediate between the highest and lowest titles of nobility. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning “companion”, the adjective form of the word is comital. The British and Irish equivalent is an earl, alternative names for the count rank in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as Graf in Germany and Hakushaku during the Japanese Imperial era. In the Western Roman Empire, Count came to indicate generically a military commander, in the Eastern Roman Empire, from about the seventh century, count was a specific rank indicating the commander of two centuries. Military counts in the Late Empire and the Germanic successor kingdoms were often appointed by a dux, the position of comes was originally not hereditary. By virtue of their estates, many counts could pass the title to their heirs—but not always. For instance, in Piast Poland, the position of komes was not hereditary, the title had disappeared by the era of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the office had been replaced by others. Only after the Partitions of Poland did the title of count resurface in the title hrabia, in the United Kingdom, the equivalent Earl can also be used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of a duke or marquess. In Italy, by contrast, all the sons of certain counts were counts, in Sweden there is a distinction between counts created before and after 1809. All children in comital families elevated before 1809 are called count/countess, the following lists are originally based on a Glossary on Heraldica. org by Alexander Krischnig. The male form is followed by the female, and when available, apart from all these, a few unusual titles have been of comital rank, not necessarily to remain there. Dauphin was a comital title in southern France, used by the Dauphins of Vienne and Auvergne. The Dauphin was the lord of the province known as the région Dauphiné. Conde-Barão Count-Baron is a title used in Portugal, notably by D. Luís Lobo da Silveira, 7th Baron of Alvito. His palace in Lisbon still exists, located in a named after him. The German Graf and Dutch graaf stems from the Byzantine-Greek grapheus meaning he who calls a meeting together), the Ottoman military title of Serdar was used in Montenegro and Serbia as a lesser noble title with the equivalent rank of a Count. Since Louis VII, the highest precedence amongst the vassals of the French crown was enjoyed by those whose benefice or temporal fief was a pairie, i. e. In the eleventh century, conti like the Count of Savoy or the Norman Count of Apulia, were virtually sovereign lords of broad territories
6.
Order of Saint Benedict
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Each community within the order maintains its own autonomy, while the order itself represents their mutual interests. Internationally, the order is governed by the Benedictine Confederation, a body, established in 1883 by Pope Leo XIIIs Brief Summum semper, individuals whose communities are members of the order generally add the initials OSB after their names. The monastery at Subiaco in Italy, established by Saint Benedict of Nursia circa 529, was the first of the monasteries he founded. He later founded the Abbey of Monte Cassino, there is no evidence, however, that he intended to found an order and the Rule of Saint Benedict presupposes the autonomy of each community. It was from the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome that Augustine, the prior, at various stopping places during the journey, the monks left behind them traditions concerning their rule and form of life, and probably also some copies of the Rule. Lérins Abbey, for instance, founded by Honoratus in 375, probably received its first knowledge of the Benedictine Rule from the visit of St. Augustine, in Gaul and Switzerland, it supplemented the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by Columbanus and others. In many monasteries it eventually displaced the earlier codes. Largely through the work of Benedict of Aniane, it became the rule of choice for monasteries throughout the Carolingian empire, Monastic scriptoria flourished from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Sacred Scripture was always at the heart of every monastic scriptorium, as a general rule those of the monks who possessed skill as writers made this their chief, if not their sole active work. In the Middle Ages monasteries were founded by the nobility. Cluny Abbey was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910, the abbey was noted for its strict adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict. The abbot of Cluny was the superior of all the daughter houses, one of the earliest reforms of Benedictine practice was that initiated in 980 by Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese community. The English Benedictine Congregation is the oldest of the nineteen Benedictine congregations, Augustine of Canterbury and his monks established the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterbury soon after their arrival in 597. Many of the sees of England were founded and governed by the Benedictines. Monasteries served as hospitals and places of refuge for the weak, the monks studied the healing properties of plants and minerals to alleviate the sufferings of the sick. Germany was evangelized by English Benedictines, willibrord and Boniface preached there in the seventh and eighth centuries and founded several abbeys. In the English Reformation, all monasteries were dissolved and their lands confiscated by the Crown, during the 19th century they were able to return to England, including to Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, one of the few great monastic churches to survive the Dissolution. St. Mildreds Priory, on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, was built in 1027 on the site of an abbey founded in 670 by the daughter of the first Christian King of Kent, currently the priory is home to a community of Benedictine nuns
7.
Theology
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Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as a discipline, typically in universities, seminaries. Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity, the term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or fields of study. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument to help understand, explain, test, critique, the English equivalent theology had evolved by 1362. Greek theologia was used with the discourse on god in the fourth century BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii. Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of discourse, mythical, rational and civil. Theologos, closely related to theologia, appears once in some manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation, apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy. The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of study, dealing with the motionless. Boethius definition influenced medieval Latin usage, Theology can also now be used in a derived sense to mean a system of theoretical principles, an ideology. They suggest the term is appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently. Kalam. does not hold the place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for theology in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as much as to kalam. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of theology is appropriate, can only do so, he says, I take theology not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God, within Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God and of the Atman. The Sanskrit word for the schools of Hindu philosophy is Darshana. Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been active and highly significant for Christian. It is sometimes claimed, however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be Rabbinical discussion of Jewish law, the history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. Modern Western universities evolved from the institutions and cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages
8.
Abbey of Reichenau
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Reichenau Island is an island in Lake Constance in southern Germany. It lies almost due west of the city of Konstanz, between the Gnadensee and the Untersee, two parts of Lake Constance. With a total surface of 4.3 square kilometres and a circumference of 11 kilometres. The highest point, the Hochwart, stands some 43 metres above the surface and 438.7 metres above mean sea level. A low road bridge allows the passage of boats but not of sailing-boats. The island was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 because of its monastery, the abbeys Münster is dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Mark. Two further churches were built on the island consecrated to Saint George and to Saints Peter, the famous artworks of Reichenau include the Ottonian murals of miracles of Christ, unique survivals from the 10th century. The abbeys bailiff was housed in a stone building to which two more storeys of timber framing were added in the 14th century, one of the oldest timber-frame buildings in south Germany. Among the Abbeys far-flung landholdings was Reichenau, a village on the upper Rhine in the municipality of Tamins in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, today the island is also famous for its vegetable farms. The Wollmatinger Ried next to the island is a nature preserve. The Alemannic name of the island was Sindleozesauua, but it was known as simply Ow, Auua – Latinized as Augia, later also Augia felix or Augia dives, hence Richenow. Pirmins conflict with Santfrid resulted in his leaving Reichenau in 727, under his successor Haito the monastery began to flourish. It gained influence in the Carolingian dynasty, under Abbot Waldo of Reichenau, Abbot Reginbert of Reichenau built up the important book collection. Abbot Walahfrid Strabo, who was educated at Reichenau, was renowned as a poet, the Abbey stood along a main north–south highway between Germany and Italy, where the lake passage eased the arduous route. An example of the production is the Pericopes of Henry II, made for the Emperor. Reichenau has preserved its precious relics, which include the pitcher from the wedding at Cana, the Abbey reached its apex under Abbot Berno of Reichenau. During his time, important scholars, such as Hermannus Contractus, when the abbey lands were secularized and the monks disbanded under Napoleon, part of Reichenaus famed library was preserved in the state library at Karlsruhe. The Geographus Bavarus and several important documents may be found in the Bavarian State Library in Munich
9.
Lake Constance
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Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water, the Obersee, the Untersee, and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein. The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps and its shorelines lie in the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, and the Swiss cantons of Thurgau, St Gallen and Schaffhausen. Freshwater Lake Constance is central Europes third largest, after Lake Balaton and it is 63 km long, and at its widest point, nearly 14 km. It covers approximately 571 km2, and is 395 m above sea level, the greatest depth is 252 metres in the middle of the eastern part. Its volume is approximately 10×10^9 m3, the regulated Rhine flows into the lake in the southeast, through the Obersee, the city of Konstanz and the Untersee, and flows out near Stein am Rhein. The lake itself is an important drinking water source for southwestern Germany, the culminating point of the lakes drainage basin is the Tödi at 3,614 metres above sea level. Car ferries link Romanshorn to Friedrichshafen, and Konstanz to Meersburg, Lake Constance was formed by the Rhine Glacier during the ice age and is a zungenbecken lake. The Rhine, the Bregenzer Ache, and the Dornbirner Ache carry sediments from the Alps to the lake, thus decreasing the depth. Lake Constance was first mentioned by the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela about 43 AD and he noted that the Rhine flows through two lakes, and gave them the Latin names Lacus Venetus and Lacus Acronius. Pliny the Elder used the name Lacus Brigantinus, after the Roman city of Brigantium, the lake is also colloquially known as the Swabian Sea. The lake was frozen in the years 1077,1326,1378,1435,1465,1477,1491,1517,1571,1573,1600,1684,1695,1709,1795,1830,1880, and 1963. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of fish were caught by 150 professional fishermen in 2001 which was below the ten year average of 1,200 tonnes per year. The Lake Constance trout was almost extinct in the 1980s due to pollution, Lake Constance is the home of the critically endangered species of trout Salvelinus profundus, and formerly also the now extinct Lake Constance whitefish. After the Council of Constance, the Latin-speaking Catholic world gave the lake its current international name and it was derived from the city of Konstanz, that, in turn, was named after a Roman emperor. The German name, Bodensee, derives from the town of Bodman, Lake Constance is the only area in Europe where no borders exist, because there is no legally binding agreement as to where the borders lie between Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Legal questions pertaining to transport and fishing are regulated in separate treaties. One concerns a houseboat which was moored in two states, another concerns the rights to fish in the Bay of Bregenz, in relation to the latter, an Austrian family was of the opinion that it alone had the right to fish in broad portions of the bay. However, this was accepted neither by the Austrian courts nor by the organs, a 100-year flood around June 1999 raised the level about 2 metres above normal, flooding harbors and many shoreline buildings and hotels
10.
Music
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Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch, rhythm, dynamics, different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. The word derives from Greek μουσική, Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as the harmony of the spheres and it is music to my ears point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, There is no noise, the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. There are many types of music, including music, traditional music, art music, music written for religious ceremonies. For example, it can be hard to draw the line between some early 1980s hard rock and heavy metal, within the arts, music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art or as an auditory art. People may make music as a hobby, like a teen playing cello in a youth orchestra, the word derives from Greek μουσική. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the music is derived from mid-13c. Musike, from Old French musique and directly from Latin musica the art of music and this is derived from the. Greek mousike of the Muses, from fem. of mousikos pertaining to the Muses, from Mousa Muse. In classical Greece, any art in which the Muses presided, Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. With the advent of recording, records of popular songs. Some music lovers create mix tapes of their songs, which serve as a self-portrait. An environment consisting solely of what is most ardently loved, amateur musicians can compose or perform music for their own pleasure, and derive their income elsewhere. Professional musicians sometimes work as freelancers or session musicians, seeking contracts and engagements in a variety of settings, There are often many links between amateur and professional musicians. Beginning amateur musicians take lessons with professional musicians, in community settings, advanced amateur musicians perform with professional musicians in a variety of ensembles such as community concert bands and community orchestras. However, there are many cases where a live performance in front of an audience is also recorded and distributed. Live concert recordings are popular in classical music and in popular music forms such as rock, where illegally taped live concerts are prized by music lovers
11.
Liturgy of the Hours
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It consists primarily of psalms supplemented by hymns, readings and other prayers and antiphons. Together with the Mass, it constitutes the public prayer life of the Church. The Liturgy of the Hours also forms the basis of prayer within Christian monasticism, celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours is an obligation undertaken by priests and deacons intending to become priests, while deacons intending to remain deacons are obliged to recite only a part. The constitutions of religious institutes generally oblige their members to celebrate at least parts, the Liturgy of the Hours, along with the Eucharist, has formed part of the Churchs public worship from the earliest times. Christians of both Eastern and Western traditions celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours under various names, in Greek the corresponding services are found in the Ὡρολόγιον, meaning Book of Hours. Within Anglicanism, the Liturgy of the Hours is contained within the book of Daily Prayer of Common Worship and the Book of Common Prayer, as well as in the Anglican Breviary. Within Lutheranism, it is contained within the books used by the various Lutheran church bodies, such as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The primary worship resources in these churches include Lutheran Worship, the Lutheran Book of Worship, other names for the Liturgy of the Hours within the Latin liturgical rites include Diurnal and Nocturnal Office, Ecclesiastical Office, Cursus ecclesiasticus, or simply cursus. The early Christians continued the Jewish practice of reciting prayers at certain hours of the day or night, the Apostles observed the Jewish custom of praying at the third, sixth and ninth hour and at midnight. Other elements were added later in the course of the centuries, by the end of the 5th century, the Liturgy of the Hours was composed of seven offices. An eighth office, Prime, was added by Benedict of Nursia in the 6th century, however, it is found in Saint John Cassians Institutes and Conferences, which describe the monastic practices of the Desert Fathers of Egypt. After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI promulgated a new Roman Breviary, the structure of the offices, the distribution of psalms, and the prayers themselves were modified. In short, the burden was lessened,2, V. Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. R. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina, followed by the doxology, the verse is omitted if the hour begins with the Invitatory. The Invitatory is the introduction to the first hour said on the current day, the opening is followed by a hymn. The hymn is followed by psalmody, the psalmody is followed by a scripture reading. The reading is called a chapter if it is short, or a lesson if it is long, the reading is followed by a versicle. The hour is closed by an oration followed by a concluding versicle, other components are included depending on the exact type of hour being celebrated
12.
Saint Afra
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Saint Afra was a Christian martyr and a saint of Augsburg. Her feast day is August 5, although many different accounts of her life exist, the most widely known is The Acts of St. Afra, which dates from the Carolingian period. In the opinion of most critics this is compilation of two different accounts, the story of the conversion of St. Afra, and the story of her martyrdom. The former is of later origin, and is merely a legendary narrative of Carlovingian times, in the late 3rd century, her pagan family journeyed from Cyprus to Augsburg. Afra was dedicated to the service of the goddess, Venus, by her mother, according to this source, she was originally a prostitute in Augsburg, having gone there from Cyprus, maybe even as the daughter of the King of Cyprus. She is reputed either to have run a brothel in that town or worked as a hierodule in the Temple of Venus. As the persecution of Christians during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian began, Bishop Narcissus of Girona sought refuge in Augsburg and lodged with Afra and her mother, through his teachings, Bishop Narcissus converted Afra and her family to Christianity. She continued to hide the bishop from the authorities, when it was learned that Afra was a Christian, she was brought before Diocletian and ordered to give glory to the pagan idols. She refused, and was condemned to death by fire on an island in the Lech River. Her mother and her maids later suffered the fate, for interring her in a burial vault. According to an account in an earlier document, Afra was beheaded. The Martyrologium Hieronymianum mentions that Afra suffered in the city of Augsburg and was buried there, first hand accounts provided in 2017 by a reincarnation of Saint Afra confirm that she was indeed burned. Her feast day is August 5, contrary to this, other ancient calendars portray Afra as a virgin. St. Ulrichs and St. Afras Abbey, Augsburg is a former Benedictine abbey dedicated to Saint Ulrich and Saint Afra in the south of the old city in Augsburg, Bavaria
13.
Wolfgang of Regensburg
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Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg was bishop of Regensburg in Bavaria from Christmas 972 until his death. He is a saint of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches and he is regarded as one of the three great German saints of the 10th century, the other two being Saint Ulrich and Saint Conrad of Constance. Wolfgang was descended from the family of the Swabian Counts of Pfullingen, when seven years old he had an ecclesiastic as tutor at home, later he attended the celebrated monastic school at Reichenau Abbey. After the death of Archbishop Henry of Trier in 964, Wolfgang entered the Benedictine order in the Abbey of Maria Einsiedeln, Switzerland, after their defeat in the Battle of the Lechfeld, the heathen Hungarians settled in ancient Pannonia. As long as they were not converted to Christianity they remained a constant menace to the empire and he was followed by other missionaries sent by Piligrim, Bishop of Passau, under whose jurisdiction the new missionary region came. After the death of Bishop Michael of Regensburg Bishop Piligrim obtained from the emperor the appointment of Wolfgang as the new bishop, Wolfgangs services in this new position were of the highest importance, not only for the diocese, but also for the cause of civilization. As Bishop of Regensburg, Wolfgang became the tutor of Emperor Saint Henry II, poppe, son of Margrave Luitpold, Archbishop of Trier, and Tagino, Archbishop of Magdeburg, also had him as their teacher. Wolfgang deserves credit for his labours in his diocese. His main work in this respect was connected with the ancient, in the Benedictine monk Romuald, whom Saint Wolfgang called from Saint Maximin at Trier, Saint Emmeram received a capable abbot. He also co-operated in the reform of the ancient and celebrated Benedictine Abbey of Niederaltaich, which had been founded by the Agilolfinger dynasty, and which from that time took on new life. As prince of the empire he performed his duties towards the emperor and the empire with the utmost scrupulousness and, like Saint Ulrich, was one of the mainstays of the Ottonian policies. He took part in the imperial diets, and, in the autumn of 978, accompanied the Emperor Otto II on his campaign to Paris. He was succeeded by Gebhard I and he was discovered by a hunter and brought back to Regensburg. His body was taken up the Danube by his friends Count Aribo of Andechs and Archbishop Hartwich of Salzburg to Regensburg, many miracles were performed at his grave, in 1052 he was canonized. Soon after Wolfgangs death many churches chose him as their patron saint, in Christian art he has been especially honoured by the great medieval Tyrolean painter, Michael Pacher, who created an imperishable memorial to him, the high altar of St. Wolfgang. In the panel pictures which are now exhibited in the Old Pinakothek at Munich are depicted in a manner the chief events in the saints life. The oldest portrait of Saint Wolfgang is a miniature, painted about the year 1100 in the celebrated Evangeliary of Saint Emmeram, a fine modern picture by Schwind is in the Schack Gallery at Munich. This painting represents the legend of Wolfgang forcing the devil to help him to build a church
14.
Geometry
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Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer, Geometry arose independently in a number of early cultures as a practical way for dealing with lengths, areas, and volumes. Geometry began to see elements of mathematical science emerging in the West as early as the 6th century BC. By the 3rd century BC, geometry was put into a form by Euclid, whose treatment, Euclids Elements. Geometry arose independently in India, with texts providing rules for geometric constructions appearing as early as the 3rd century BC, islamic scientists preserved Greek ideas and expanded on them during the Middle Ages. By the early 17th century, geometry had been put on a solid footing by mathematicians such as René Descartes. Since then, and into modern times, geometry has expanded into non-Euclidean geometry and manifolds, while geometry has evolved significantly throughout the years, there are some general concepts that are more or less fundamental to geometry. These include the concepts of points, lines, planes, surfaces, angles, contemporary geometry has many subfields, Euclidean geometry is geometry in its classical sense. The mandatory educational curriculum of the majority of nations includes the study of points, lines, planes, angles, triangles, congruence, similarity, solid figures, circles, Euclidean geometry also has applications in computer science, crystallography, and various branches of modern mathematics. Differential geometry uses techniques of calculus and linear algebra to problems in geometry. It has applications in physics, including in general relativity, topology is the field concerned with the properties of geometric objects that are unchanged by continuous mappings. In practice, this often means dealing with large-scale properties of spaces, convex geometry investigates convex shapes in the Euclidean space and its more abstract analogues, often using techniques of real analysis. It has close connections to convex analysis, optimization and functional analysis, algebraic geometry studies geometry through the use of multivariate polynomials and other algebraic techniques. It has applications in areas, including cryptography and string theory. Discrete geometry is concerned mainly with questions of relative position of simple objects, such as points. It shares many methods and principles with combinatorics, Geometry has applications to many fields, including art, architecture, physics, as well as to other branches of mathematics. The earliest recorded beginnings of geometry can be traced to ancient Mesopotamia, the earliest known texts on geometry are the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus and Moscow Papyrus, the Babylonian clay tablets such as Plimpton 322. For example, the Moscow Papyrus gives a formula for calculating the volume of a truncated pyramid, later clay tablets demonstrate that Babylonian astronomers implemented trapezoid procedures for computing Jupiters position and motion within time-velocity space
15.
Arithmetic
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Arithmetic is a branch of mathematics that consists of the study of numbers, especially the properties of the traditional operations between them—addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Arithmetic is an part of number theory, and number theory is considered to be one of the top-level divisions of modern mathematics, along with algebra, geometry. The terms arithmetic and higher arithmetic were used until the beginning of the 20th century as synonyms for number theory and are still used to refer to a wider part of number theory. The earliest written records indicate the Egyptians and Babylonians used all the elementary arithmetic operations as early as 2000 BC and these artifacts do not always reveal the specific process used for solving problems, but the characteristics of the particular numeral system strongly influence the complexity of the methods. The hieroglyphic system for Egyptian numerals, like the later Roman numerals, in both cases, this origin resulted in values that used a decimal base but did not include positional notation. Complex calculations with Roman numerals required the assistance of a board or the Roman abacus to obtain the results. Early number systems that included positional notation were not decimal, including the system for Babylonian numerals. Because of this concept, the ability to reuse the same digits for different values contributed to simpler. The continuous historical development of modern arithmetic starts with the Hellenistic civilization of ancient Greece, prior to the works of Euclid around 300 BC, Greek studies in mathematics overlapped with philosophical and mystical beliefs. For example, Nicomachus summarized the viewpoint of the earlier Pythagorean approach to numbers, Greek numerals were used by Archimedes, Diophantus and others in a positional notation not very different from ours. Because the ancient Greeks lacked a symbol for zero, they used three separate sets of symbols, one set for the units place, one for the tens place, and one for the hundreds. Then for the place they would reuse the symbols for the units place. Their addition algorithm was identical to ours, and their multiplication algorithm was very slightly different. Their long division algorithm was the same, and the square root algorithm that was taught in school was known to Archimedes. He preferred it to Heros method of successive approximation because, once computed, a digit doesnt change, and the square roots of perfect squares, such as 7485696, terminate immediately as 2736. For numbers with a part, such as 546.934. The ancient Chinese used a positional notation. Because they also lacked a symbol for zero, they had one set of symbols for the place
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Astronomy
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Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets, while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, more generally, all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earths atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole, Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, during the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can play an active role, especially in the discovery. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, Astronomy means law of the stars. Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects. Although the two share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct. Generally, either the term astronomy or astrophysics may be used to refer to this subject, however, since most modern astronomical research deals with subjects related to physics, modern astronomy could actually be called astrophysics. Few fields, such as astrometry, are purely astronomy rather than also astrophysics, some titles of the leading scientific journals in this field includeThe Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics. In early times, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye, in some locations, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that possibly had some astronomical purpose. Before tools such as the telescope were invented, early study of the stars was conducted using the naked eye, most of early astronomy actually consisted of mapping the positions of the stars and planets, a science now referred to as astrometry. From these observations, early ideas about the motions of the planets were formed, and the nature of the Sun, Moon, the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a cycle known as a saros
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Astrolabe
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An astrolabe is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers and navigators, to measure the inclined position in the sky of a celestial body, day or night. It can thus be used to identify stars or planets, to determine local latitude given local time and vice versa, to survey and it was used in classical antiquity, the Islamic Golden Age, the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance for all these purposes. While the astrolabe is effective for determining latitude on land or calm seas, the mariners astrolabe was developed to solve that problem. OED gives the translation star-taker for the English word astrolabe and traces it, through medieval Latin, to the Greek word astrolabos from astron star, in the medieval Islamic world the word asturlab was given various etymologies. In Arabic texts, the word is translated as akhdh al-kawakib which corresponds to an interpretation of the Greek word, al-Biruni quotes and criticizes the medieval scientist Hamzah al-Isfahani who had stated, asturlab is an arabization of this Persian phrase. In medieval Islamic sources, there is also a fictional and popular etymology of the words as lines of lab, in this popular etymology, Lab is a certain son of Idris. This etymology is mentioned by a 10th-century scientist named al-Qummi but rejected by al-Khwarizmi, Lab in Arabic also means sun and black stony places. An early astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world by Apollonius of Perga, a marriage of the planisphere and dioptra, the astrolabe was effectively an analog calculator capable of working out several different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy. Theon of Alexandria wrote a treatise on the astrolabe. Some historians attribute the invention to Hypatia, the daughter of Theon of Alexandria, noting that Synesius. Astrolabes continued in use in the Greek-speaking world throughout the Byzantine period, about 550 AD the Christian philosopher John Philoponus wrote a treatise on the astrolabe in Greek, which is the earliest extant Greek treatise on the instrument. In addition, Severus Sebokht, a bishop who lived in Mesopotamia, Astrolabes were further developed in the medieval Islamic world, where Muslim astronomers introduced angular scales to the astrolabe, adding circles indicating azimuths on the horizon. It was widely used throughout the Muslim world, chiefly as an aid to navigation and as a way of finding the Qibla, the first person credited with building the astrolabe in the Islamic world is reportedly the 8th-century mathematician Muhammad al-Fazari. The mathematical background was established by the Muslim astronomer Albatenius in his treatise Kitab az-Zij, the earliest surviving dated astrolabe is dated AH315. In the Islamic world, astrolabes were used to find the times of sunrise and the rising of fixed stars, to help schedule morning prayers. In the 10th century, al-Sufi first described over 1,000 different uses of an astrolabe, in areas as diverse as astronomy, astrology, navigation, surveying, timekeeping, prayer, Salat, Qibla, etc. The spherical astrolabe, a variation of both the astrolabe and the sphere, was invented during the Middle Ages by astronomers and inventors in the Islamic world. The earliest description of the spherical astrolabe dates back to Al-Nayrizi, in the 12th century, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī invented the linear astrolabe, sometimes called the staff of al-Tusi, which was a simple wooden rod with graduated markings but without sights
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Western Europe
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Western Europe, or West Europe, is the region comprising the western part of Europe. Below, some different geographic and geopolitical definitions of the term are outlined, prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. This cultural and linguistic division was reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire. The division between these two was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived, in East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as the Far West. The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In his writings, Ricci referred to himself as Matteo of the Far West, the term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Post-war Europe would be divided into two spheres, the West, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Although some countries were neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political. This division largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe, the world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic, COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. Although the term Western Europe was more prominent during the Cold War, it remains much in use, in 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference, when the Western European Union was established and it was declared defunct in 2011, after the Treaty of Lisbon, and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries, six member countries, five observer countries. The CIA divides Western Europe into two smaller subregions, regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European Union is an economic and political union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe, some Western and Northern European countries of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are members of EFTA, though cooperating to varying degree with the European Union
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Chronicle
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A chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events and this is in contrast to a narrative or history, which sets selected events in a meaningful interpretive context and excludes those the author does not see as important. Some made use of materials, charters, letters, or the works of earlier chroniclers. Still others are tales of such unknown origins so as to hold mythical status, copyists also affected chronicles in creative copying, making corrections or in updating or continuing a chronicle with information not available to the original author. The reliability of a chronicle is an important determination for modern historians. In modern times various contemporary newspapers or other periodicals have adopted chronicle as part of their name, various fictional stories have also adopted chronicle as part of their title, to give an impression of epic proportion to their stories. A chronicle which traces world history is called a universal chronicle, scholars categorize the genre of chronicle into two subgroups, live chronicles, and dead chronicles. A dead chronicle is one where the author gathers his list of events up to the time of his writing, a live chronicle is where one or more authors add to a chronicle in a regular fashion, recording contemporary events shortly after they occur. Because of the immediacy of the information, historians tend to value live chronicles, such as annals, the earliest medieval chronicle to combine both retrospective and contemporary entries, is the Chronicle of Ireland, which spans the years 431 to 911. Chronicles are the predecessors of modern time lines rather than analytical histories, if the chronicles deal with events year by year, they are often called annals. Unlike the modern historian, most chroniclers tended to take their information as they found it, the point of view of most chroniclers is highly localised, to the extent that many anonymous chroniclers can be sited in individual abbeys. Later 16th century Scottish chronicles, written after the Reformation, shape history according to Catholic or Protestant viewpoints. It is impossible to say how many chronicles exist, as the many ambiguities in the definition of the make it impossible to draw clear distinctions of what should or should not be included. However, the Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle lists some 2,500 items written between 300 and 1500 AD
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Nativity of Jesus
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The nativity of Jesus or birth of Jesus is described in the gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the time of Herod the Great to a virgin whose name was Mary. In Christian theology the nativity marks the incarnation of Jesus as the second Adam, in fulfillment of the divine will of God, undoing the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. The artistic depiction of the nativity has been an important subject for Christian artists since the 4th century, the nativity plays a major role in the Christian liturgical year. Christian congregations of the Western tradition begin observing the season of Advent four Sundays before Christmas, the traditional feast-day of his birth, which falls on December 25. The date of birth for Jesus of Nazareth is not stated in the gospels or in any secular text, the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke place the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. However, Luke 1, 26–27 clearly states that Mary lived in Nazareth before the birth of Jesus, at the time of the Annunciation. The Gospel of Luke states that Mary gave birth to Jesus and placed him in a manger “because there was no place for them in the inn, but does not say exactly where Jesus was born. This could be a place to keep the sheep within the Bethlehem area, in the 2nd century, Justin Martyr stated that Jesus had been born in a cave outside the town, while the Protoevangelium of James described a legendary birth in a cave nearby. In Contra Celsum 1.51, Origen, who from around 215 travelled throughout Palestine, the Quranic birth of Jesus, like the Gospels, places the virgin birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was betrothed to Joseph, but was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Joseph intended to divorce her quietly, but an angel told him in a dream that he should take Mary as his wife and name the child Jesus, Joseph awoke and did all that the angel commanded. Chapter 1 of Matthews Gospel recounts Jesus birth and naming and the beginning of chapter 2 reveals that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the time of Herod the Great. Magi from the east came to Herod and asked him where they would find the King of the Jews, advised by the chief priests and teachers, Herod sent the Magi to Bethlehem, where they worshiped the child and gave him gifts. When they had departed an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod intended to kill him. The Holy Family remained in Egypt until Herod died, when Joseph took them to Nazareth in Galilee for fear of Herods son who now ruled in Jerusalem, so was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene. When the time of the birth drew near the Roman Emperor commanded a census of all the world, and Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem, the city of David, as he was of the House of David. In accordance with the Jewish law his parents presented the infant Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem, Joseph and Mary then returned to Nazareth
21.
Anno Domini
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The terms anno Domini and before Christ are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term anno Domini is Medieval Latin and means in the year of the Lord, There is no year zero in this scheme, so the year AD1 immediately follows the year 1 BC. This dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus of Scythia Minor, the Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world today. Traditionally, English followed Latin usage by placing the AD abbreviation before the year number, however, BC is placed after the year number, which also preserves syntactic order. The abbreviation is widely used after the number of a century or millennium. Because BC is the English abbreviation for Before Christ, it is sometimes concluded that AD means After Death. However, this would mean that the approximate 33 years commonly associated with the life of Jesus would not be included in either of the BC, astronomical year numbering and ISO8601 avoid words or abbreviations related to Christianity, but use the same numbers for AD years. The Anno Domini dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus to enumerate the years in his Easter table. His system was to replace the Diocletian era that had used in an old Easter table because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. The last year of the old table, Diocletian 247, was followed by the first year of his table. Thus Dionysius implied that Jesus Incarnation occurred 525 years earlier, without stating the year during which his birth or conception occurred. Blackburn & Holford-Strevens briefly present arguments for 2 BC,1 BC, There were inaccuracies in the list of consuls There were confused summations of emperors regnal years It is not known how Dionysius established the year of Jesuss birth. It is convenient to initiate a calendar not from the day of an event. For example, the Islamic calendar begins not from the date of the Hegira, at the time, it was believed by some that the Resurrection and end of the world would occur 500 years after the birth of Jesus. The old Anno Mundi calendar theoretically commenced with the creation of the based on information in the Old Testament. It was believed that, based on the Anno Mundi calendar, Anno Mundi 6000 was thus equated with the resurrection and the end of the world but this date had already passed in the time of Dionysius. The Anglo-Saxon historian the Venerable Bede, who was familiar with the work of Dionysius Exiguus, used Anno Domini dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. e. On the continent of Europe, Anno Domini was introduced as the era of choice of the Carolingian Renaissance by the English cleric and scholar Alcuin in the late eighth century
22.
Monastery
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A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone. A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church or temple, a monastery complex typically comprises a number of buildings which include a church, dormitory, cloister, refectory, library, balneary and infirmary. These may include a hospice, a school and a range of agricultural and manufacturing such as a barn. In English usage, the monastery is generally used to denote the buildings of a community of monks. In modern usage, convent tends to be applied only to institutions of female monastics, historically, a convent denoted a house of friars, now more commonly called a friary. Various religions may apply these terms in specific ways. The earliest extant use of the term monastērion is by the 1st century AD Jewish philosopher Philo in On The Contemplative Life, in England the word monastery was also applied to the habitation of a bishop and the cathedral clergy who lived apart from the lay community. Most cathedrals were not monasteries, and were served by canons secular, however, some were run by monasteries orders, such as York Minster. Westminster Abbey was for a time a cathedral, and was a Benedictine monastery until the Reformation. They are also to be distinguished from collegiate churches, such as St Georges Chapel, in most of this article, the term monastery is used generically to refer to any of a number of types of religious community. In the Roman Catholic religion and to some extent in certain branches of Buddhism, there is a more specific definition of the term. Buddhist monasteries are generally called vihara, viharas may be occupied by males or females, and in keeping with common English usage, a vihara populated by females may often be called a nunnery or a convent. However, vihara can also refer to a temple, in Tibetan Buddhism, monasteries are often called gompa. In Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, a monastery is called a wat, in Burma, a monastery is called a kyaung. A Christian monastery may be an abbey, or a priory and it may be a community of men or of women. A charterhouse is any monastery belonging to the Carthusian order, in Eastern Christianity, a very small monastic community can be called a skete, and a very large or important monastery can be given the dignity of a lavra. The great communal life of a Christian monastery is called cenobitic, as opposed to the life of an anchorite. In Hinduism monasteries are called matha, mandir, koil, or most commonly an ashram, jains use the Buddhist term vihara
23.
Literacy
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Literacy is traditionally understood as the ability to read, write, and use arithmetic. The concept of literacy is expanding in OECD countries to include skills to access knowledge through technology and ability to assess complex contexts. A person who travels and resides in a country but is unable to read or write in the language of the host country would also be regarded by the locals as being illiterate. The key to literacy is reading development, a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand words and decode written words. The inability to do so is called illiteracy or analphabetism, Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society. Literacy is thought to have first emerged with the development of numeracy, script developed independently at least four times in human history in Mesopotamia, Egypt, lowland Mesoamerica, and China. The earliest forms of written communication originated in Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia about 3500-3000 BCE, writing systems in Mesopotamia first emerged from a recording system in which people used impressed token markings to manage trade and agricultural production. The token system served as a precursor to early cuneiform writing once people began recording information on clay tablets, proto-cuneiform texts exhibit not only numerical signs, but also ideograms depicting objects being counted. Egyptian hieroglyphs emerged from 3300-3100 BCE and depicted royal iconography that emphasized power amongst other elites, the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system was the first notation system to have phonetic values. Writing in lowland Mesoamerica was first put into practice by the Olmec and Zapotec civilizations in 900-400 BCE and these civilizations used glyphic writing and bar-and-dot numerical notation systems for purposes related to royal iconography and calendar systems. The earliest written notations in China date back to the Shang Dynasty in 1200 BCE and these systematic notations were found inscribed on bones and recorded sacrifices made, tributes received, and animals hunted, which were activities of the elite. These oracle-bone inscriptions were the ancestors of modern Chinese script and contained logosyllabic script. According to social anthropologist Jack Goody, there are two interpretations that regard the origin of the alphabet, many classical scholars, such as historian Ignace Gelb, credit the Ancient Greeks for creating the first alphabetic system that used distinctive signs for consonants and vowels. Thus, many argue that the ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of northern Canaan invented the consonantal alphabet as early as 1500 BCE. Much of this development is credited to English archeologist Flinders Petrie. Ten years later, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner reasoned that these contain an alphabet. In 1948, William F. Albright deciphered the text using additional evidence that had been discovered subsequent to Goodys findings and this included a series of inscriptions from Ugarit, discovered in 1929 by French archaeologist Claude F. A. Schaeffer. Some of these inscriptions were mythological texts that consisted of a 32-letter cuneiform consonantal alphabet, another significant discovery was made in 1953 when three arrowheads were uncovered, each containing identical Canaanite inscriptions from twelfth century BCE
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Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
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Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
26.
Mathematics
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Mathematics is the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. There is a range of views among mathematicians and philosophers as to the exact scope, Mathematicians seek out patterns and use them to formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proof, when mathematical structures are good models of real phenomena, then mathematical reasoning can provide insight or predictions about nature. Through the use of abstraction and logic, mathematics developed from counting, calculation, measurement, practical mathematics has been a human activity from as far back as written records exist. The research required to solve mathematical problems can take years or even centuries of sustained inquiry, rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclids Elements. Galileo Galilei said, The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and it is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth, carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as the Queen of the Sciences. Benjamin Peirce called mathematics the science that draws necessary conclusions, David Hilbert said of mathematics, We are not speaking here of arbitrariness in any sense. Mathematics is not like a game whose tasks are determined by arbitrarily stipulated rules, rather, it is a conceptual system possessing internal necessity that can only be so and by no means otherwise. Albert Einstein stated that as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, finance and the social sciences. Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics, Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, the history of mathematics can be seen as an ever-increasing series of abstractions. The earliest uses of mathematics were in trading, land measurement, painting and weaving patterns, in Babylonian mathematics elementary arithmetic first appears in the archaeological record. Numeracy pre-dated writing and numeral systems have many and diverse. Between 600 and 300 BC the Ancient Greeks began a study of mathematics in its own right with Greek mathematics. Mathematics has since been extended, and there has been a fruitful interaction between mathematics and science, to the benefit of both. Mathematical discoveries continue to be made today, the overwhelming majority of works in this ocean contain new mathematical theorems and their proofs. The word máthēma is derived from μανθάνω, while the modern Greek equivalent is μαθαίνω, in Greece, the word for mathematics came to have the narrower and more technical meaning mathematical study even in Classical times
27.
Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
28.
Salve Regina
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The Salve Regina, also known as the Hail Holy Queen, is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons within the Christian liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. The Salve Regina is traditionally sung at Compline in the time from the Saturday before Trinity Sunday until the Friday before the first Sunday of Advent, the Hail Holy Queen is also the final prayer of the Rosary. The work was composed during the Middle Ages and originally appeared in Latin, though traditionally ascribed to the eleventh-century German monk Hermann of Reichenau, it is regarded as anonymous by most musicologists. Traditionally it has sung in Latin, though many translations exist. These are often used as spoken prayers, Marian antiphons have been sung, since the thirteenth century, at the close of Compline, the last Office of the day. Peter Canisius noted that one praises God in Mary when one turns to her in song, liturgically, the Salve Regina is the best known of four prescribed Marian Anthems recited after Compline, and, in some uses, after Lauds or other Hours. Its use after Compline is likely traceable to the practice of intoning it in chapel. It was set down in its current form at the Abbey of Cluny in the 12th century, the Cistercians chanted the Salve Regina daily from 1218. It was popular at universities as evening song, and according to Fr. Juniper Carol, it came to be part of the ritual for the blessing of a ship, while the anthem figured largely in liturgical and in general popular Catholic devotion, it was especially dear to sailors. In the 18th century, the Salve Regina served as the outline for the classic Roman Catholic Mariology book The Glories of Mary by Alphonsus Liguori. In the first part of the book Alphonsus, a Doctor of the Church, discusses the Salve Regina and it was added to the series of prayers said at the end of Low Mass by Pope Leo XIII. The Salve Regina is traditionally sung at the end of a priests funeral Mass by the decedents fellow priests in attendance, as a prayer, it is commonly said at the end of the rosary. Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ, Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle. Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte, Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria. In some cases, the following versicle, response, and collect are added, ℣ Ora pro nobis, ℟ Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi. Traditional English Translation, Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Our life, our sweetness, to you do we cry, Poor banished children of Eve, To you do we send up our sighs, Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, Your eyes of mercy toward us, And after this our exile, Show us the blessed fruit of your womb, O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary
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Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
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Galina Ustvolskaya
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Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya, also Ustwolskaja, Oustvolskaia or Oestwolskaja, was a Russian composer of classical music. From 1937 to 1947 she studied at the attached to the Leningrad Conservatory. She subsequently became a student and taught composition at the college. Her composition teacher Dmitri Shostakovich, said of her, I am convinced that the music of G. I, Ustvolskaya will achieve worldwide renown, to be valued by all who perceive truth in music to be of paramount importance. On several occasions Shostakovich supported her in the Union of Soviet Composers against opposition from his colleagues and he sent some of his own as yet unfinished works to Ustvolskaya, attaching great value to her comments. The intimate spiritual and artistic relationship between the two composers has been compared to that of Schoenberg and Webern and she was a pupil of Shostakovich from 1939 to 1947 but retained little influence of his style from the 1950s onwards. As a modernist, she had few performances, until 1968 none of her works were performed other than patriotic pieces written for official consumption. Until the fall of the USSR, only the violin sonata of 1952 was played with any frequency, Ustvolskaya developed her own very particular style, of which she said, There is no link whatsoever between my music and that of any other composer, living or dead. The music of Galina Ustvolskaya is not avant-garde in the accepted sense of the term. However, she was accused of being unwilling to communicate and of ‘narrowness’ and it is only in the recent past that her critics have begun to realize that these supposed deficiencies are in fact the distinguishing qualities of her music. The composer Boris Tishchenko has aptly compared the ‘narrowness’ of her style with the light of a laser beam that is able to pierce through metal. Galina Ustvolskaya’s works of the 1940s and 1950s sometimes sound as if they had been written today. Her specific idealism is informed by an almost fanatical determination, this should be construed not only as a typically Russian trait and it is not you who are influenced by me, rather, it is I who am influenced by you. All of Ustvolskayas works are large-scaled in intent, no matter how long they are or how players are involved. Ustvolskayas music is based on tension and density. All the symphonies have parts for solo voices, the latter four having religious texts, the texts are either conventional invocations or, in the case of the fifth symphony, the Lords Prayer. As Frans Lemaire has written, Most of the time, the words present themselves as a complaint or an insistent supplication. Galina Ustvolskayas relationship with Shostakovich from her time as a student through the 1950s is characterized in William T Vollmanns historical fiction Europe Central and her oeuvre is small, with only 21 pieces in her characteristic style
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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University of St Andrews
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The University of St Andrews is a British public research university in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. It is the oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland, St Andrews was founded between 1410 and 1413, when the Avignon Antipope Benedict XIII issued a papal bull to a small founding group of Augustinian clergy. St Andrews is made up from a variety of institutions, including three constituent colleges and 18 academic schools organised into four faculties, the university occupies historic and modern buildings located throughout the town. The academic year is divided into two terms, Martinmas and Candlemas, in term time, over one-third of the towns population is either a staff member or student of the university. It is ranked as the third best university in the United Kingdom in national league tables, the Times Higher Education World Universities Ranking names St Andrews among the worlds Top 50 universities for Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. St Andrews has the highest student satisfaction amongst all multi-faculty universities in the United Kingdom, St Andrews has many notable alumni and affiliated faculty, including eminent mathematicians, scientists, theologians, philosophers, and politicians. Six Nobel Laureates are among St Andrews alumni and former staff, a charter of privilege was bestowed upon the society of masters and scholars by the Bishop of St Andrews, Henry Wardlaw, on 28 February 1411. Wardlaw then successfully petitioned the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII to grant the university status by issuing a series of papal bulls. King James I of Scotland confirmed the charter of the university in 1432, subsequent kings supported the university with King James V confirming privileges of the university in 1532. A college of theology and arts called St Johns College was founded in 1418 by Robert of Montrose, St Salvators College was established in 1450, by Bishop James Kennedy. St Leonards College was founded in 1511 by Archbishop Alexander Stewart, St Johns College was refounded by Cardinal James Beaton under the name St Marys College in 1538 for the study of divinity and law. Some university buildings that date from this period are still in use today, such as St Salvators Chapel, St Leonards College Chapel, at this time, the majority of the teaching was of a religious nature and was conducted by clerics associated with the cathedral. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the university had mixed fortunes and was beset by civil. He described it as pining in decay and struggling for life, in the second half of the 19th century, pressure was building upon universities to open up higher education to women. In 1876, the University Senate decided to allow women to receive an education at St Andrews at a roughly equal to the Master of Arts degree that men were able to take at the time. The scheme came to be known as the L. L. A and it required women to pass five subjects at an ordinary level and one at honours level and entitled them to hold a degree from the university. In 1889 the Universities Act made it possible to admit women to St Andrews. Agnes Forbes Blackadder became the first woman to graduate from St Andrews on the level as men in October 1894
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Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
