Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Burgundy was a title borne by the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy, a small portion of traditional lands of Burgundians west of river Saône which in 843 was allotted to Charles the Bald's kingdom of West Franks. Under the Ancien Régime, the Duke of Burgundy was the premier lay peer of the kingdom of France. Beginning with Robert II of France, the title was held by the French royal family, it was granted to Robert's younger son, who founded the House of Burgundy. When the senior line of the House of Burgundy became extinct, it was inherited by John II of France through proximity of blood. John granted the duchy as an appanage for Philip the Bold; the Valois Dukes of Burgundy became dangerous rivals to the senior line of the House of Valois. When the male line of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy became extinct, the title was confiscated by Louis XI of France. Today, the title is used by the House of Bourbon as a revived courtesy title; the first margrave duke, of Burgundy was Richard of the House of Ardennes, whose duchy was created from the merging of several regional counties of the kingdom of Provence which had belonged to his brother Boso.
His descendants and their relatives by marriage ruled the duchy until its annexation over a century by the French crown, their suzerain. Richard the Justiciar Rudolph King of France Hugh the Black Gilbert Otto Eudes Henry the Great Otto William In 1004, Burgundy was annexed by the king, of the House of Capet. Otto William continued to rule, his descendants formed another House of Ivrea. Robert Henry Robert, son of Robert II of France, received the Duchy as a peace settlement, having disputed the succession to the throne of France with his brother Henry. John II of France, the second Valois king claimed the Duchy after the death of Philip, the last Capet duke. John passed the duchy to his youngest son Philip as an apanage. In 1477, the territory of the Duchy of Burgundy was annexed by France. In the same year, Mary married Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, giving the Habsburgs control of the remainder of the Burgundian Inheritance. Although the territory of the Duchy of Burgundy itself remained in the hands of France, the Habsburgs remained in control of the title of Duke of Burgundy and the other parts of the Burgundian inheritance, notably the Low Countries and the Free County of Burgundy in the Holy Roman Empire.
They used the term Burgundy to refer to it, until the late 18th century, when the Austrian Netherlands were lost to French Republic. The Habsburgs continued to claim Burgundy proper until the Treaty of Cambrai in 1529, when they surrendered their claim in exchange for French recognition of Imperial sovereignty over Flanders and Artois. Maximilian I Philip IV the Handsome, titular Duke of Burgundy as Philip IV Charles II 1506–1555Philip V 1556–1598 Philip VI 1598–1621 Philip VII 1621–1665 Charles III 1665–1700 Louis, Duke of Burgundy Philip VIII 1700–1713 Charles IV 1713–1740 Maria Theresa 1740–1780 Francis I Joseph 1780–1790 Leopold 1790–1792 Francis II 1792–1795/1835 Ferdinand Franz Joseph Charles V King Juan Carlos I of Spain King Felipe VI of Spain – the title is one of the titles of the Spanish Crown Prince Louis of Bourbon – the title is used by eldest son of the legitimist claimant to the French throne Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou. Duchess of Burgundy Kingdom of Burgundy King of Burgundy Duchy of Burgundy County of Burgundy Count of Burgundy Dukes of Burgundy family tree Arelat Calmette, Joseph.
Doreen Weightman, trans. The Golden Age of Burgundy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1962. Chaumé, Maurice. Les Origines du Duché de Bourgogne. 2v. in 4 parts. Dijon: Jobard, 1925. Michael, Nicholas. Armies of Medieval Burgundy 1364–1477. London: Osprey, 1983. ISBN 0-85045-518-9. Vaughan, Richard. Valois Burgundy. London: Allen Lane, 1975. ISBN 0-7139-0924-2
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that commenced around 1000 and lasted until around 1250. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around 1500. Key historical trends of the High Middle Ages include the increasing population of Europe, which brought about great social and political change from the preceding era, the Renaissance of the 12th century, including the first developments of rural exodus and of urbanization. By 1250, the robust population increase had benefited the European economy, which reached levels that would not be seen again in some areas until the 19th century; that trend faltered during the Late Middle Ages because of a series of calamities, most notably the Black Death, but numerous wars as well as economic stagnation. From around 780, Europe saw the last of the barbarian invasions and became more and politically organized; the Carolingian Renaissance led to philosophical activity in Northern Europe.
The first universities started operating in Bologna, Paris and Modena. The Vikings settled in the British Isles and elsewhere, Norse Christian kingdoms started developing in their Scandinavian homelands; the Magyars ceased their expansion in the 10th century, by the year 1000, a Christian Kingdom of Hungary had become a recognized state in Central Europe, forming alliances with regional powers. With the brief exception of the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, major nomadic incursions ceased; the powerful Byzantine Empire of the Macedonian and the Komnenos dynasties gave way to the resurrected Serbia and Bulgaria and to a successor crusader state, which countered the continuous threat of the Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor. In the 11th century, populations north of the Alps began a more intensive settlement, targeting "new" lands, some of which areas had reverted to wilderness after the end of the Roman Empire. In what is known as the "great clearances", Europeans cleared and cultivated some of the vast forests and marshes that lay across of the continent.
At the same time, some settlers moved beyond the traditional boundaries of the Frankish Empire to new frontiers beyond the Elbe River, which tripled the size of Germany in the process. The Catholic Church, which reached the peak of its political power around called armies from across Europe to a series of Crusades against the Seljuk Turks; the crusaders founded the Crusader States in the Levant. Other wars led to the Northern Crusades; the Christian kingdoms took much of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim control, the Normans conquered southern Italy, all part of the major population increases and the resettlement patterns of the era. The High Middle Ages produced many different forms of intellectual and artistic works; the age saw the rise of ethnocentrism, which evolved into modern civic nationalisms in most of Europe, the ascent of the great Italian city-states and the rise and fall of the Muslim civilization of Al-Andalus. The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle led Thomas Aquinas and other thinkers of the period to expand Scholasticism, a combination of Catholicism and ancient philosophy.
For much of this period, Constantinople remained Europe's most populous city, Byzantine art reached a peak in the 12th century. In architecture, many of the most notable Gothic cathedrals were built or completed around this period; the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages began at the start of the 14th century and marked the end of the period. In England, the Norman Conquest of 1066 resulted in a kingdom ruled by a Francophone nobility; the Normans invaded Ireland by force in 1169 and soon established themselves throughout most of the country, although their stronghold was the southeast. Scotland and Wales were subdued to vassalage at about the same time, though Scotland asserted its independence and Wales remained under the rule of independent native princes until the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in 1282; the Exchequer was founded in the 12th century under King Henry I, the first parliaments were convened. In 1215, after the loss of Normandy, King John signed the Magna Carta into law, which limited the power of English monarchs.
Much of the Iberian peninsula had been occupied by the Moors after 711, although the northernmost portion was divided between several Christian states. In the 11th century, again in the thirteenth, the Christian kingdoms of the north drove the Muslims from central and most of southern Iberia. In Italy, independent city states grew affluent on eastern maritime trade; these were in particular the thalassocracies of Pisa, Amalfi and Venice. From the mid-tenth to the mid-11th centuries, the Scandinavian kingdoms were unified and Christianized, resulting in an end of Viking raids, greater involvement in European politics. King Cnut of Denmark ruled over both Norway. After Cnut's death in 1035, England and Norway were lost, with the defeat of Valdemar II in 1227, Danish predominance in the region came to an end. Meanwhile, Norway extended its Atlantic possessions, ranging from Greenland to the Isle of Man, while Sweden, under Birger Jarl, built up a power-base in the Baltic Sea. However, the Norwegian influence started to decline in the same period, marked by the Treaty of Perth of 1266.
Civil wars raged in Norway between 1130 and 1240. By the time of the High Middle Ages, the Carolingian Empire had been divided and replaced by separate successor kingdoms called France and Germany, although not with their modern boundaries. Germany was under the banner of the Holy Roman Empire, which reached its high-water mark of unit
War of the Second Coalition
The War of the Second Coalition was the second war on revolutionary France by the European monarchies, led by Britain and Russia, including the Ottoman Empire, Naples, various German monarchies and Sweden. Their goal was to contain the expansion of the French Republic and to restore the monarchy in France, they failed to overthrow the revolutionary regime and French territorial gains since 1793 were confirmed. In the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801, France held all of its previous gains and obtained new lands in Tuscany, while Austria was granted Venetia and the Dalmatian coast. Britain and France signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing an interval of peace in Europe that lasted for 14 months. By May 1803 Britain and France were again at war and in 1805 Britain assembled the Third Coalition to resume the war against France. On 20 April 1792, the French Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria. In the War of the First Coalition, France fought against most of the states with which it shared a border, as well as Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire.
Although the Coalition forces achieved several victories at the outset of the war, they were repulsed from French territory and lost significant territories to the French, who began to set up client republics in their occupied territories. The efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte in the northern Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars pushed Austrian forces back and resulted in the negotiation of the Treaty of Leoben and the subsequent Treaty of Campo Formio. In the summer of 1798, Bonaparte led an expedition to Egypt, where his army was trapped and which, after he returned to France, surrendered. Meanwhile, during his absence from Europe, the outbreak of violence in Switzerland drew French support against the old Swiss Confederation; when revolutionaries overthrew the cantonal government in Bern, the French Army of the Alps invaded, ostensibly to support the Swiss Republicans. In northern Italy, Russian general Aleksandr Suvorov won a string of victories, driving the French under Moreau out of the Po Valley, forcing them back on the French Alps and the coast around Genoa.
However, the Russian armies in the Helvetic Republic were defeated by French commander André Masséna, Suvorov withdrew. The Russians left the Coalition when Great Britain insisted on the right to search all vessels it stopped at sea. In Germany, Archduke Charles of Austria drove the French under Jean-Baptiste Jourdan back across the Rhine and won several victories in Switzerland. Jourdan was replaced by Massena, who combined the Armies of the Danube and Helvetia. From October 1797 until March 1799, the signatories of the Treaty of Campo Formio avoided armed conflict. Despite their agreement at Campo Formio, two primary combatants and Austria, remained suspicious of each other and several diplomatic incidents undermined the agreement; the French demanded additional territory not mentioned in the Treaty. The Habsburgs were reluctant to hand over much less additional ones; the Congress at Rastatt proved inept at orchestrating the transfer of territories to compensate the German princes for their losses.
Ferdinand of Naples refused to pay tribute to France, followed by the Neapolitan rebellion and the subsequent establishment of the Parthenopaean Republic. Republicans in the Swiss cantons, supported by the French army, overthrew the central government in Bern and established the Helvetic Republic. Other factors contributed to the rising tensions. On his way to Egypt, Napoleon had stopped at the fortified port city of Valletta, the capital city of Malta. Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim, who ruled the island, would only allow two ships at a time into the harbour, in accordance with the island's neutrality. Bonaparte ordered the bombardment of Valletta and on 11 June, General Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers directed a landing of several thousand French troops at strategic locations around the island; the French Knights of the order deserted, the remaining Knights failed to mount a successful resistance. Bonaparte forcibly removed the other Knights from their possessions, angering Paul, Tsar of Russia, the honorary head of the Order.
The French Directory, was convinced that the Austrians were conniving to start another war. Indeed, the weaker the French Republic seemed, the more the Austrians, the Neapolitans, the Russians and the British discussed this possibility. Military planners in Paris understood that the Upper Rhine Valley, the south-western German territories, Switzerland were strategically important for the defence of the Republic; the Swiss passes commanded access to northern Italy. Toward this end, in early November 1798, Jourdan arrived in Hüningen to take command of the French forces there, the so-called Army of Observation because its function was to observe the security of the French border on the Rhine. Once there, he assessed the quality and disposition of the forces and identified needed supplies and manpower, he found the army woefully inadequate for its assignment. The Army of the Danube, its two flanking armies, the Army of Helvetia and the Army of Mayence, or Mainz, were short of manpower, supplies and training.
Jourdan documented assiduously these shortages, pointing out in lengthy correspondence to the Directory the consequences of an under-manned and under-supplied army.
Aulic Council
The Aulic Council was one of the two supreme courts of the Holy Roman Empire, the other being the Imperial Chamber Court. It had not only concurrent jurisdiction with the latter court, but in many cases exclusive jurisdiction, in all feudal processes, in criminal affairs, over the immediate feudatories of the Emperor and in affairs which concerned the Imperial Government; the seat of the Aulic Council was at the Hofburg residence of the Habsburg emperors in Vienna. The Aulic Council was an executive-judicial council for the Empire. Originating during the Middle Ages as a paid Council of the Emperor, it was organized in its form by the German king Maximilian I by decree of 13 December 1497, it was meant as a rival to the separate Imperial Chamber Court, which the Imperial Estates had forced upon him by promulgating the Ewiger Landfriede at the Diet of Worms two years before. Maximilian emphasised the fact that the Emperor embodied supreme legal authority and would continue to answer legal requests addressed to him.
Each emperor summoned a new Council upon his accession to the throne. According to a regulation issued by Emperor Ferdinand I in 1559, the Council was composed of a president, a vice-president, a vice-chancellor, 18 councillors, who were all chosen and paid by the Emperor, with the exception of the vice-chancellor, appointed by the Elector of Mainz in his capacity as Imperial archchancellor. Of the 18 councilors, six were Protestants, whose votes, when they were unanimous, were an effective veto, so that a religious parity was to some extent preserved. On the death of the Emperor, the Council had to be reconstructed by his successor; when Napoleon I's gains after the Battle of Austerlitz and the Peace of Pressburg culminated in the end of the Holy Roman Empire, the Aulic Council ceased to exist in 1806 as an imperial institution. A war council of the same name was created in the Austrian Empire. Order of the Aulic Council of March 16th, 1654 in full-text This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C..
"Aulic Council". New International Encyclopedia. New York: Dodd, Mead; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Aulic Council". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press
Rhine
The Rhine is one of the major European rivers, which has its sources in Switzerland and flows in an northerly direction through Germany and The Netherlands to the North Sea. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps, forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, Swiss-German and the Franco-German border flows through the German Rhineland and the Netherlands and empties into the North Sea; the largest city on the Rhine is Cologne, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe, at about 1,230 km, with an average discharge of about 2,900 m3/s; the Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days, the Rhine has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. Its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire is supported by the many castles and fortifications built along it. In the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism.
Among the biggest and most important cities on the Rhine are Cologne, Düsseldorf, Rotterdam and Basel. The variants of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, adapted in Roman-era geography as Greek Ῥῆνος, Latin Rhenus; the spelling with Rh- in English Rhine as well as in German Rhein and French Rhin is due to the influence of Greek orthography, while the vocalisation -i- is due to the Proto-Germanic adoption of the Gaulish name as *Rīnaz, via Old Frankish giving Old English Rín,Old High German Rīn, early Middle Dutch Rijn. The diphthong in modern German Rhein is a Central German development of the early modern period, the Alemannic name Rī retaining the older vocalism, as does Ripuarian Rhing, while Palatine has diphthongized Rhei, Rhoi. Spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-; the Gaulish name Rēnos belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- "to move, run" found in other names such as the Reno in Italy.
The grammatical gender of the Celtic name is masculine, the name remains masculine in German and French. The Old English river name was variously inflected as feminine; the length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in "Rhine-kilometers", a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance to Hoek van Holland. The river is shortened from its natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century; the "total length of the Rhine", to the inclusion of Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine is more difficult to measure objectively. Its course is conventionally divided as follows: The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Rein Anteriur/Vorderrhein and Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein next to Reichenau in Tamins. Above this point is the extensive catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine, it belongs exclusively to the Swiss canton of Graubünden, ranging from Saint-Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino and Italy in the south to the Flüela Pass in the east.
Traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Anterior Rhine and the Rhine as a whole. The Posterior Rhine rises in the Rheinwald below the Rheinwaldhorn; the source of the river is considered north of Lai da Tuma/Tomasee on Rein Anteriur/Vorderrhein, although its southern tributary Rein da Medel is longer before its confluence with the Anterior Rhine near Disentis. The Anterior Rhine springs from Lai da Tuma/Tomasee, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide; the Posterior Rhine starts near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory. After three main valleys separated by the two gorges and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau in Tamins; the Anterior Rhine arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva and flows in an easterly direction. One source is Lai da Tuma with the Rein da Tuma, indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it.
Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Rein da Medel, the Rein da Maighels, the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, which crosses the geomorphologic Alpine main ridge from the south. All streams in the source area are sometimes captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants; the culminating point of the Anterior Rhine's drainage basin is the Piz Russein of the Tödi massif of the Glarus Alps at 3,613 metres above sea level. It starts with the creek Aua da Russein. In its lower course the Anterior Rhine flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta; the whole stretch of the Anterior Rhine to the Alpine Rhine confluence next to Reichen
Tax
A tax is a mandatory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer by a governmental organization in order to fund various public expenditures. A failure to pay, along with resistance to taxation, is punishable by law. Taxes may be paid in money or as its labour equivalent. Most countries have a tax system in place to pay for public, common or agreed national needs and government functions; some levy a flat percentage rate of taxation on personal annual income, but most scale taxes based on annual income amounts. Most countries charge a tax both on corporate income and dividends. Countries or subunits also impose wealth taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, value-added taxes, payroll taxes or tarrifs; the legal definition, the economic definition of taxes differ in some ways such as economists do not regard many transfers to governments as taxes. For example, some transfers to the public sector are comparable to prices. Examples include, tuition at public universities, fees for utilities provided by local governments.
Governments obtain resources by "creating" money and coins, through voluntary gifts, by imposing penalties, by borrowing, by confiscating wealth. From the view of economists, a tax is a non-penal, yet compulsory transfer of resources from the private to the public sector, levied on a basis of predetermined criteria and without reference to specific benefit received. In modern taxation systems, governments levy taxes in money; the method of taxation and the government expenditure of taxes raised is highly debated in politics and economics. Tax collection is performed by a government agency such as the Ghana Revenue Authority, Canada Revenue Agency, the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in the United Kingdom or Federal Tax Service in Russia; when taxes are not paid, the state may impose civil penalties or criminal penalties on the non-paying entity or individual. The levying of taxes aims to raise revenue to fund governing or to alter prices in order to affect demand.
States and their functional equivalents throughout history have used money provided by taxation to carry out many functions. Some of these include expenditures on economic infrastructure, scientific research and the arts, public works, data collection and dissemination, public insurance, the operation of government itself. A government's ability to raise taxes is called its fiscal capacity; when expenditures exceed tax revenue, a government accumulates debt. A portion of taxes may be used to service past debts. Governments use taxes to fund welfare and public services; these services can include education systems, pensions for the elderly, unemployment benefits, public transportation. Energy and waste management systems are common public utilities. According to the proponents of the chartalist theory of money creation, taxes are not needed for government revenue, as long as the government in question is able to issue fiat money. According to this view, the purpose of taxation is to maintain the stability of the currency, express public policy regarding the distribution of wealth, subsidizing certain industries or population groups or isolating the costs of certain benefits, such as highways or social security.
Effects can be divided in two fundamental categories: Taxes cause an income effect because they reduce purchasing power to taxpayers. Taxes cause a substitution effect when taxation causes a substitution between taxed goods and untaxed goods. If we consider, for instance, two normal goods, x and y, whose prices are px and py and an individual budget constraint given by the equation xpx + ypy = Y, where Y is the income, the slope of the budget constraint, in a graph where is represented good x on the vertical axis and good y on the horizontal axes, is equal to -py/px; the initial equilibrium is in the point, in which budget constraint and indifference curve are tangent, introducing an ad valorem tax on the y good, the budget constraint's slope becomes equal to -py/px. The new equilibrium is now in the tangent point with a lower indifferent curve; as can be noticed the tax's introduction causes two consequences: It changes the consumers' real income It raises the relative price of y good. The income effect shows the variation of y good quantity given by the change of real income.
The substitution effect shows the variation of y good determined by relative prices' variation. This kind of taxation can be considered distortionary. Another example can be the Introduction of an income lump-sum tax, with a parallel shift downward of the budget constraint, can be produced a higher revenue with the same loss of consumers' utility compared with the property tax case, from another point of view, the same revenue can be produced with a lower utility sacrifice; the lower utility or the lower revenue given by a distortionary tax are called excess pressure. The same result, reached with an income lump-sum tax, can be obtained with these following types of taxes (all of them cause only a budget constraint's shift without causi
