Synod
A synod is a council of a church convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word synod comes from the Greek σύνοδος meaning "assembly" or "meeting", it is synonymous with the Latin word concilium meaning "council". Synods were meetings of bishops, the word is still used in that sense in Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy. In modern usage, the word refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not, it is sometimes used to refer to a church, governed by a synod. Sometimes the phrase "general synod" or "general council" refers to an ecumenical council; the word synod refers to the standing council of high-ranking bishops governing some of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches. The day-to-day governance of patriarchal and major archiepiscopal Eastern Catholic Churches is entrusted to a permanent synod. In Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, synods of bishops are meetings of bishops within each autonomous Church and are the primary vehicle for the election of bishops and the establishment of inter-diocesan ecclesiastical laws.
A sobor is a formal gathering or council of bishops together with other clerical and lay delegates representing the church to deal with matters of faith, morality and canonical and cultural life. The synod in the Western churches is similar, but it is distinguished by being limited to an assembly of bishops; the term is found among those Eastern Orthodox Churches that use Slavic language, along with the Romanian Orthodox Church. The presence of clerical and lay delegates is for the purpose of discerning the consensus of the church on important matters. Kievan Rus' chronicles record the first known East Slavic church sobor as having taken place in Kiev in 1051. Sobors were convened periodically from on. Important sobors in the History of the Russian Orthodox Church are: Vladimir's Sobor in 1276 The Stoglavy Sobor in 1551 The Moscow Sobor of 1666–1667, to deal with disputes surrounding the ecclesiastical reforms of Patriarch Nikon The All-Russian Sobor of 1917, which restored the Moscow Patriarchate and elected Saint Tikhon as the first modern Patriarch of Moscow The All-Russian Sobor of 1988, called on the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus' to guide the church in the wake of glasnost and the loosening of the Soviet grip over the churchA bishop may call a sobor for his diocese, which again would have delegates from the clergy and parishes of his diocese, to discuss important matters.
Such diocesan sobors may be held only occasionally. In Roman Catholic usage and council are theoretically synonymous as they are of Greek and Latin origins both meaning an authoritative meeting of bishops for the purpose of church administration in the areas of teaching or governance. However, in modern use and council are applied to specific categories of such meetings and so do not overlap. A synod meets every three years and is thus designated an "Ordinary General Assembly." However, "Extraordinary" synods can be called to deal with specific situations. There are "Special" synods for the Church in a specific geographic area such as the one held November 16-December 12, 1997, for the Church in America. While the words "synod" and "council" refer to a transitory meeting, the term "Synod of Bishops" or "Synod of the Bishops", is applied to a permanent body established in 1965 as an advisory body of the pope, it holds assemblies at which bishops and religious superiors, elected by bishops conferences or the Union of Superiors General or appointed by the Pope vote on proposals to present for the pope's consideration, which in practice the pope uses as the basis of "post-synodal apostolic exhortations" on the themes discussed.
While an assembly of the Synod of Bishops thus expresses its collective wishes, it does not issue decrees, unless in certain cases the pope authorizes it to do so, then an assembly's decision requires ratification by the pope. The pope serves as president of an assembly or appoints the president, determines the agenda, summons and dissolves the assembly. Modern Catholic synod themes: X "The Bishop: Servant of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST for the hope of the world" 1998 XI "The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church 2005 XII "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church" 2008 XIII "New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith" 2012 Extraordinary General "The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization" 2014 Meetings of bishops in the Roman empire are known from the mid-third century and numbered twenty by the time of the First Council of Nicaea. Thereafter they continued by the hundreds into the sixth century; those authorized by an emperor and attended by him came to be called ecumenical, meaning throughout the world.
Today, Council in Roman Catholic canon law refers to an irregular meeting of the entire episcopate of a nation, region, or the world for the purpose of legislation with binding force. Those contemplated in canon law are the following: An ecumenical council is an irregular meeting of the entire episcopate in communion with the pope and is, along with the pope
Vikings
Vikings were Norse seafarers speaking the Old Norse language, who during the late 8th to late 11th centuries and traded from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of Europe, explored westwards to Iceland and Vinland. The term is commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Norse home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age; this period of Nordic military and demographic expansion constitutes an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, Kievan Rus' and Sicily. Facilitated by advanced sailing and navigational skills, characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East. Following extended phases of exploration and settlement, Viking communities and governments were established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, Belarus and European Russia, the North Atlantic islands and as far as the north-eastern coast of North America.
This period of expansion witnessed the wider dissemination of Norse culture, while introducing strong foreign cultural influences into Scandinavia itself, with profound developmental implications in both directions. Popular, modern conceptions of the Vikings—the term applied casually to their modern descendants and the inhabitants of modern Scandinavia—often differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and historical sources. A romanticised picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century. Perceived views of the Vikings as alternatively violent, piratical heathens or as intrepid adventurers owe much to conflicting varieties of the modern Viking myth that had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations of the Vikings are based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy; these representations are not always accurate — for example, there is no evidence that they wore horned helmets.
One etymology derives víking from the feminine vík, meaning "creek, small bay". Various theories have been offered that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Viken, meaning "a person from Viken". According to this theory, the word described persons from this area, it is only in the last few centuries that it has taken on the broader sense of early medieval Scandinavians in general. However, there are a few major problems with this theory. People from the Viken area were not called'Viking' in Old Norse manuscripts, but are referred to as víkverir,'Vík dwellers'. In addition, that explanation could explain only the masculine and ignore the feminine, a serious problem because the masculine is derived from the feminine but hardly vice versa; the form occurs as a personal name on some Swedish runestones. The stone of Tóki víking was raised in memory of a local man named Tóki who got the name Tóki víking because of his activities as a viking; the Gårdstånga Stone uses the phrase "ÞeR drængaR waRu wiða unesiR i wikingu", referring to the stone's dedicatees as vikings.
The Västra Strö 1 Runestone has an inscription in memory of a Björn, killed when "i viking". In Sweden there is a locality known since the middle ages as Vikingstad; the Bro Stone was risen in memory of Assur, said to have protected the land from vikings. There is little indication of any negative connotation in the term before the end of the Viking Age. Another etymology, one that gained support in the early twenty-first century, derives Viking from the same root as Old Norse vika, f.'sea mile', originally'the distance between two shifts of rowers', from the root *weik or *wîk, as in the Proto-Germanic verb *wîkan,'to recede'. This is found in the Proto-Nordic verb *wikan,'to turn', similar to Old Icelandic víkja'to move, to turn', with well-attested nautical usages. Linguistically, this theory is better attested, the term most predates the use of the sail by the Germanic peoples of North-Western Europe, because the Old Frisian spelling shows that the word was pronounced with a palatal k and thus in all probability existed in North-Western Germanic before that palatalisation happened, that is, in the 5th century or before.
In that case, the idea behind it seems to be that the tired rower moves aside for the rested rower on the thwart when he relieves him. The Old Norse feminine víking may have been a sea journey characterised by the shifting of rowers, i.e. a long-distance sea journey, because in the pre-sail era, the shifting of rowers would distinguish long-distance sea journeys. A víkingr would originally have been a participant on a sea journey characterised by the shifting of rowers. In that case, the word Viking was not connected to Scandinavian seafarers but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians begun to dominate the seas. In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, which dates from the 9th century. In Old English, in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term referred to Scandi
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
Treaty of Meerssen
The Treaty of Mersen or Meerssen, concluded on 8 August 870, was a treaty of partition of the realm of Lothair II, by his uncles Louis the German of East Francia and Charles the Bald of West Francia, the two surviving sons of Emperor Louis I the Pious. The empire of Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, had split in three parts by the 843 Treaty of Verdun: Lothair I, his eldest son, received the Imperial crown and the personal realm of Middle Francia Louis the German, the second born son, received East Francia Charles the Bald, his half-brother, received West Francia, although this was disputed by Pepin II of Aquitaine until he was captured Upon the death of Lothair I in 855, his realm of Middle Francia was partitioned between his sons by the Treaty of Prüm: Louis II of Italy, the eldest son, received the imperial crown and Italy Charles of Provence became King of Provence partitioned by Louis II and Lothair II Lothair II received Austrasia and Upper Burgundy - this realm came to be named Lotharii Regnum East Francia and West Francia remained as before: Louis the German ruled East Francia Charles the Bald ruled West Francia Lothair II ceded the southeastern parts of Upper Burgundy to his brothers, whereas Charles of Provence received the bishoprics of Belley and Tarentaise in 859, Louis II of Italy the bishoprics of Geneva and Sion a year later.
Charles of Provence suffered from epilepsy and died heirless in 863, his kingdom was partitioned between his brothers. Lothair II, his heir, received only the western Lower Burgundian parts which were bordering his western Upper Burgundy, while Louis II received the whole rest of the Kingdom of Provence. In 869 Lothair II died without legitimate children so his heir was his brother, Emperor Louis II of Italy; as Louis was at that time campaigning against the Emirate of Bari, his uncles, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, took his inheritance. Charles had himself crowned in Metz the same year, but was forced by his brother to partition the short-lived Lotharingia, together with the lands Lothair II acquired after the death of Charles of Provence, as they had agreed at Metz in 868, their contract of 870 at Meerssen replaced the 843 Treaty of Verdun, after which the Carolingian Empire was split into three parts, by dividing the northern half of Middle Francia stretching from the Rhone valley to the North Sea, in effect recombining sundered territories of Francia into two larger east and west divisions.
However, at this time large parts of the Frisian coast were under Viking control and therefore only divided on paper. The borderline ran along the rivers Meuse, Moselle and Rhone. In the north, Louis received most of Lothair's Austrasia, with his eastern part including both Aachen and Metz, most of Frisia, but in the south, while Louis received most of Upper Burgundy, left to Lothair, Charles received Lothair's inheritance in Lower Burgundy and a small western part of Upper Burgundy - this opened him the way to Italy. Louis joined the newly acquired parts of central Austrasia to the subkingdom of his son Louis the Younger in eastern Austrasia, while the illegitimate son of Lothair II, was granted the Duchy of Alsace; the arrangement did not endure more than ten years. Upon the death of Louis the German in 876, Charles the Bald, by King of Italy and Emperor, attacked eastern Lotharingia, but was defeated by Louis the Younger in the Battle of Andernach. In turn, after Charles the Bald had died and his successors struggled to consolidate their rule over West Francia, Louis the Younger campaigned in western Lotharingia in 879.
Charles's grandsons were forced to cede the whole Lotharingia to him, sealed by the 880 Treaty of Ribemont, according to which it became part of East Francia. Carolingian dynasty Treaty of Verdun Treaty of Prüm Treaty of Ribemont Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Mersen, Treaty of". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press
Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald was the King of West Francia, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. After a series of civil wars during the reign of his father, Louis the Pious, Charles succeeded by the Treaty of Verdun in acquiring the western third of the Carolingian Empire, he was the youngest son of Louis the Pious by his second wife, Judith. He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder brothers were adults and had been assigned their own regna, or subkingdoms, by their father; the attempts made by Louis the Pious to assign Charles a subkingdom, first Alemannia and the country between the Meuse and the Pyrenees were unsuccessful. The numerous reconciliations with the rebellious Lothair and Pepin, as well as their brother Louis the German, King of Bavaria, made Charles's share in Aquitaine and Italy only temporary, but his father did not give up and made Charles the heir of the entire land, once Gaul. At a diet in Aachen in 837, Louis the Pious bade. Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, whereupon Charles at last received that kingdom, which angered Pepin's heirs and the Aquitainian nobles.
The death of the emperor in 840 led to the outbreak of war between his sons. Charles allied himself with his brother Louis the German to resist the pretensions of the new Emperor Lothair I, the two allies defeated Lothair at the Battle of Fontenoy-en-Puisaye on 25 June 841. In the following year, the two brothers confirmed their alliance by the celebrated Oaths of Strasbourg; the war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Verdun in August 843. The settlement gave Charles the Bald the kingdom of the West Franks, which he had been up until governing and which corresponded with what is now France, as far as the Meuse, the Saône, the Rhône, with the addition of the Spanish March as far as the Ebro. Louis received the eastern part of the Carolingian Empire, known as East Francia and as Germany. Lothair retained the Kingdom of Italy, he received the central regions from Flanders through the Rhineland and Burgundy as king of Middle Francia. The first years of Charles's reign, up to the death of Lothair I in 855, were comparatively peaceful.
During these years the three brothers continued the system of "confraternal government", meeting with one another, at Koblenz, at Meerssen, at Attigny. In 858, Louis the German, invited by disaffected nobles eager to oust Charles, invaded the West Frankish kingdom. Charles was so unpopular that he was unable to summon an army, he fled to Burgundy, he was saved only by the support of the bishops, who refused to crown Louis the German king, by the fidelity of the Welfs, who were related to his mother, Judith. In 860, he in his turn tried to seize the kingdom of his nephew, Charles of Provence, but was repulsed. On the death of his nephew Lothair II in 869, Charles tried to seize Lothair's dominions by having himself consecrated as King of Lotharingia at Metz, but he was compelled to open negotiations when Louis found support among Lothair's former vassals. Lotharingia was partitioned between Louis in the resulting treaty. Besides these family disputes, Charles had to struggle against repeated rebellions in Aquitaine and against the Bretons.
Led by their chiefs Nomenoë and Erispoë, who defeated the king at the Battle of Ballon and the Battle of Jengland, the Bretons were successful in obtaining a de facto independence. Charles fought against the Vikings, who devastated the country of the north, the valleys of the Seine and Loire, up to the borders of Aquitaine. At the Vikings' successful siege and sack of Paris in 845 and several times thereafter Charles was forced to purchase their retreat at a heavy price. Charles led various expeditions against the invaders and, by the Edict of Pistres of 864, made the army more mobile by providing for a cavalry element, the predecessor of the French chivalry so famous during the next 600 years. By the same edict, he ordered fortified bridges to be put up at all rivers to block the Viking incursions. Two of these bridges at Paris saved the city during its siege of 885–886. In 875, after the death of the Emperor Louis II, Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII, traveled to Italy, receiving the royal crown at Pavia and the imperial insignia in Rome on 29 December.
Louis the German a candidate for the succession of Louis II, revenged himself by invading and devastating Charles' dominions, Charles had to return hastily to West Francia. After the death of Louis the German, Charles in his turn attempted to seize Louis's kingdom, but was decisively beaten at the Battle of Andernach on 8 October 876. In the meantime, John VIII, menaced by the Saracens, was urging Charles to come to his defence in Italy. Charles again crossed the Alps, but this expedition was received with little enthusiasm by the nobles, by his regent in Lombardy and they refused to join his army. At the same time Carloman, son of Louis the German, entered northern Italy. Charles, ill and in great distress, started on his way back to Gaul, but died while crossing the pass of Mont Cenis at Brides-les-Bains, on 6 October 877. According to the Annals of St-Bertin, Charles was hastily buried at the abbey of Nantua, Burgundy because the bearers were unable to withstand the stench of his decaying body.
He was to have been may have been transferred there later. It was recorded that there was a memorial brass there, melted down at the Revolution. Charles was succeeded by Louis. Charles was
Provence
Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône River to the west to the Italian border to the east, is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It corresponds with the modern administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, includes the départements of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and parts of Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse; the largest city of the region is Marseille. The Romans made the region the first Roman province beyond the Alps and called it Provincia Romana, which evolved into the present name; until 1481 it was ruled by the Counts of Provence from their capital in Aix-en-Provence became a province of the Kings of France. While it has been part of France for more than five hundred years, it still retains a distinct cultural and linguistic identity in the interior of the region; the coast of Provence has some of the earliest known sites of human habitation in Europe. Primitive stone tools dating back 1 to 1.05 million years BC have been found in the Grotte du Vallonnet near Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, between Monaco and Menton.
More sophisticated tools, worked on both sides of the stone and dating to 600,000 BC, were found in the Cave of Escale at Saint Estėve-Janson, tools from 400,000 BC and some of the first fireplaces in Europe were found at Terra Amata in Nice. Tools dating to the Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic were discovered in the Observatory Cave, in the Jardin Exotique of Monaco; the Paleolithic period in Provence saw great changes in the climate. Two ice ages came and went, the sea level changed dramatically. At the beginning of the Paleolithic, the sea level in western Provence was 150 meters higher than today. By the end of the Paleolithic, it had dropped to 100 to 150 metres below the sea level today; the cave dwellings of the early inhabitants of Provence were flooded by the rising sea or left far from the sea and swept away by erosion. The changes in the sea level led to one of the most remarkable discoveries of signs of early man in Provence. In 1985, a diver named Henri Cosquer discovered the mouth of a submarine cave 37 metres below the surface of the Calanque de Morgiou near Marseille.
The entrance led to a cave above sea level. Inside, the walls of the Cosquer Cave are decorated with drawings of bison, auks and outlines of human hands, dating to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC; the end of the Paleolithic and beginning of the Neolithic period saw the sea settle at its present level, a warming of the climate and the retreat of the forests. The disappearance of the forests and the deer and other hunted game meant that the inhabitants of Provence had to survive on rabbits and wild sheep. In about 6000 BC, the Castelnovian people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues, were among the first people in Europe to domesticate wild sheep, to cease moving from place to place. Once they settled in one place they were able to develop new industries. Inspired by pottery from the eastern Mediterranean, in about 6000 BC they created the first pottery made in France. Around 6000 BC, a wave of new settlers from the east, the Chasséens, arrived in Provence, they were farmers and warriors, displaced the earlier pastoral people from their lands.
They were followed about 2500 BC by another wave of people farmers, known as the Courronniens, who arrived by sea and settled along the coast of what is now the Bouches-du-Rhône. Traces of these early civilisations can be found in many parts of Provence. A Neolithic site dating to about 6,000 BC was discovered in Marseille near the Saint-Charles railway station, and a dolmen from the Bronze Age can be found near Draguignan. Between the 10th and 4th century BC, the Ligures were found in Provence from Massilia as far as modern Liguria, they were of uncertain origin. Strabo distinctly states they were not of a different race from the Gauls, they did not have their own alphabet, but their language remains in place names in Provence ending in the suffixes -asc, -osc. -inc, -ates, -auni. The ancient geographer Posidonios wrote of them: "Their country is dry; the soil is so rocky. The men compensate for the lack of wheat by hunting... They climb the mountains like goats." They were warlike. Traces of the Ligures remain today in the dolmens and other megaliths found in eastern Provence, in the primitive stone shelters called'Bories' found in the Luberon and Comtat, in the rock carvings in the Valley of Marvels near Mont Bégo in the Alpes-Maritimes, at an altitude of 2,000 meters.
Between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, tribes of Celtic peoples coming from Central Europe began moving into Provence. They had weapons made of iron, which allowed them to defeat the local tribes, who were still armed with bronze weapons. One tribe, called the Segobriga, settled near modern-day Marseille; the Caturiges and Cavares settled to the west of the Durance river. Celts and Ligurians spread throughout the area and the Celto-Ligures shared the territory of Provence, each tribe in its own alpine valley or settlement along a river, each with its own king and dynasty, they built hilltop forts and settlements given the Latin name oppida. Today the traces 165 oppida are found in the Var, as many as 285 in the Alp
Pope Adrian II
Pope Adrian II was Pope from 14 December 867 to his death in 872. He was a member of a noble Roman family who became pope despite his objections, he maintained, but with less energy, the policies of his predecessor Nicholas I. Lothar II, king of Lotharingia, who died in 869, left Adrian to mediate between the Frankish kings with a view to assuring the Holy Roman Emperor Louis II the inheritance of Lothar II, Louis's brother. Adrian sought to maintain good relations with Louis, since the latter's campaigns in southern Italy had the potential to free the papacy from the threat posed by the Muslims. Photius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, shortly after the council in which he had pronounced sentence of deposition against Pope Nicholas I, was driven from the patriarchate by a new emperor, Basil the Macedonian, who favoured his rival Ignatius. An Ecumenical Council was convoked as the Fourth Council of Constantinople to decide this matter. At this council Adrian was represented by legates who presided at the condemnation of Photius as a heretic, but did not succeed in coming to an understanding with Ignatius on the subject of jurisdiction over the Bulgarian church.
Like his predecessor Nicholas I, Adrian was forced to submit in temporal affairs to the interference of the emperor Louis II, who placed him under the surveillance of Arsenius, bishop of Orte, his confidential adviser, Arsenius' nephew Anastasius, the librarian. Adrian had in his youth married a woman named Stephania, by whom he had a daughter, both were still living at his election, following which they lived with him in the Lateran Palace. In 868, they were carried off and murdered by Arsenius' son Eleutherius, who had forcibly married the daughter. Adrian died in 872 after five years as pope. Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes List of Catholic saints List of popes Dvornik, Francis; the Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ostrogorsky, George. History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Siecienski, Anthony Edward; the Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195372045. Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed..
"Adrian s.v. II". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1. Cambridge University Press. P. 215. Loughlin, James Francis. "Pope Adrian II". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company
