1.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
2.
Autonomous communities of Spain
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Spain is not a federation, but a highly decentralized unitary state. Some scholars have referred to the system as a federal system in all. There are 17 autonomous communities and two cities that are collectively known as autonomies. The two autonomous cities have the right to become autonomous communities, but neither has yet used this right and this unique framework of territorial administration is known as the State of Autonomies. The autonomous communities are governed according to the constitution and their own organic laws known as Statutes of Autonomy, since devolution was intended to be asymmetrical in nature, the scope of competences vary for each community, but all have the same parliamentary structure. Spain is a country made up of different regions with varying economic and social structures, as well as different languages. While the entire Spanish territory was united under one crown by the 16th century, the constituent territories—be it crowns, kingdoms, principalities or dominions—retained much of their former institutional existence, including limited legislative, judicial or fiscal autonomy. These territories also exhibited a variety of customs, laws. From the 18th century onwards, the Bourbon kings and the government tried to establish a more centralized regime, leading figures of the Spanish Enlightenment advocated for the building of a Spanish nation beyond the internal territorial boundaries. This culminated in 1833, when Spain was divided into 49 provinces and these were the Basque Country and Catalonia. This gave rise to peripheral nationalisms along with Spanish nationalism, therefore, economic and social changes that had produced a national cultural unification in France had the opposite effect in Spain. In a response to Catalan demands, limited autonomy was granted to Catalonia in 1913 and it was granted again in 1932 during the Second Spanish Republic, when the Generalitat, Catalonias mediaeval institution of government, was restored. During General Francos dictatorial regime, centralism was most forcefully enforced as a way of preserving the unity of the Spanish nation, peripheral nationalism, along with communism and atheism were regarded by his regime as the main threats. When Franco died in 1975, Spain entered into a phase of transition towards democracy, the then Prime Minister of Spain, Adolfo Suárez, met with Josep Tarradellas, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in exile. An agreement was made so that the Generalitat would be restored and limited competencies would be transferred while the constitution was still being written. In the end, the constitution, published and ratified in 1979, found a balance in recognizing the existence of nationalities and regions in Spain, within the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation. The starting point in the organization of Spain was the second article of the constitution. In order to exercise this right, the established a open process whereby the nationalities
3.
Santiago de Compostela
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Santiago de Compostela, commonly known as Santiago, is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the cathedral, as destination of the Way of St. James. In 1985 the citys Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Santiago is the local Galician evolution of Vulgar Latin Sanctus Iacobus Saint James. Other etymologies derive the name from Latin compositum, local Vulgar Latin Composita Tella, meaning ground, or simply from Latin compositella. Other sites in Galicia share this toponym, akin to Compostilla in the province of León, the cathedral borders the main plaza of the old and well-preserved city. Legend has it that the remains of the apostle James were brought to Galicia for burial, in 813, according to medieval legend, the light of a bright star guided a shepherd who was watching his flock at night to the burial site in Santiago de Compostela. The shepherd quickly reported his discovery to the bishop of Iria, the bishop declared that the remains were those of the apostle James and immediately notified King Alfonso II in Oviedo. To honour St. James, the cathedral was built on the spot where his remains were said to have been found, along the western side of the Praza do Obradoiro is the elegant 18th century Pazo de Raxoi, now the city hall. The Obradoiro façade of the cathedral, the best known, is depicted on the Spanish euro coins of 1 cent,2 cents, Santiago is the site of the University of Santiago de Compostela, established in the early 16th century. The main campus can be seen best from an alcove in the municipal park in the centre of the city. Within the old town there are many narrow winding streets full of historic buildings, the new town all around it has less character though some of the older parts of the new town have some big flats in them. Santiago de Compostela has a substantial nightlife, both in the new town and the old town, a mix of middle-aged residents and younger students maintain a lively presence until the early hours of the morning. Santiago gives its name to one of the four orders of Spain, Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara. One of the most important economic centres in Galicia, Santiago is the seat for organisations like Association for Equal, under the Köppen climate classification, Santiago de Compostela has a temperate oceanic climate, with mild to warm and somewhat dry summers and mild, wet winters. The prevailing winds from the Atlantic and the surrounding mountains combine to give Santiago some of Spain’s highest rainfall, about 1,545 millimetres annually. The climate is mild, frosts are common only in December, January and February, with an average of just 8 days per year, while snow is rare, temperatures over 30 °C are exceptional. The population of the city in 2012 was 95,671 inhabitants, in 2010 there were 4,111 foreigners living in the city, representing 4. 3% of the total population. The main nationalities are Brazilians, Portuguese and Colombians, by language, according to 2008 data, 21% of the population always speak in Galician, 15% always speak in Spanish and the rest use both interchangeably
4.
Parish
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A parish is a church territorial unit constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the care and clerical jurisdiction of a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or more curates. Historically, a parish often covered the same area as a manor. By extension the term refers not only to the territorial unit. In England this church property was technically in ownership of the parish priest ex-officio, the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore of Tarsus appended the parish structure to the Anglo-Saxon township unit, where it existed, and where minsters catered to the surrounding district. In the wider picture of ecclesiastical polity, a parish comprises a division of a diocese or see, parishes within a diocese may be grouped into a deanery or vicariate forane, overseen by a dean or vicar forane, or in some cases by an archpriest. Some churches of the Anglican Communion have deaneries as units of an archdeaconry, in the Roman Catholic Church, each parish normally has its own parish priest, who has responsibility and canonical authority over the parish. These are called assistant priests, parochial vicars, curates, or, in the United States, associate pastors, each diocese is divided into parishes, each with their own central church called the parish church, where religious services take place. An example is that of personal parishes established in accordance with the 7 July 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum for those attached to the form of the Roman Rite. Most Catholic parishes are part of Latin Rite dioceses, which cover the whole territory of a country. There can also be overlapping parishes of eparchies of Eastern Catholic Churches, the Church of England geographical structure uses the local parish church as its basic unit. The parish system survived the Reformation with the Anglican Churchs secession from Rome remaining largely untouched, Church of England parishes nowadays all lie within one of 44 dioceses divided between the provinces of Canterbury,30 and York,14. A chapelry was a subdivision of a parish in England. It had a status to a township but was so named as it had a chapel which acted as a subsidiary place of worship to the main parish church. In England civil parishes and their parish councils evolved in the 19th century as ecclesiastical parishes began to be relieved of what became considered to be civic responsibilities. Thus their boundaries began to diverge, the word parish acquired a secular usage. Since 1895, a council elected by public vote or a parish meeting administers a civil parish and is formally recognised as the level of local government below a district council. The parish is also the level of church administration in the Church of Scotland
5.
Celts
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The history of pre-Celtic Europe remains very uncertain. According to one theory, the root of the Celtic languages, the Proto-Celtic language, arose in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe. Thus this area is called the Celtic homeland. The earliest undisputed examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions beginning in the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names, Insular Celtic languages are attested beginning around the 4th century in Ogham inscriptions, although it was clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century, coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge, survive in 12th century recensions. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a cohesive cultural entity. They had a linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from the culture of the surrounding polities. By the 6th century, however, the Continental Celtic languages were no longer in wide use, Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels and the Celtic Britons of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their historical territories, and Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival. The first recorded use of the name of Celts – as Κελτοί – to refer to a group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC. In the fifth century BC Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the head of the Danube, the etymology of the term Keltoi is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *kʲel ‘to hide’, IE *kʲel ‘to heat’ or *kel ‘to impel’, several authors have supposed it to be Celtic in origin, while others view it as a name coined by Greeks. Linguist Patrizia De Bernardo Stempel falls in the group. Yet he reports Celtic peoples in Iberia, and also uses the ethnic names Celtiberi and Celtici for peoples there, as distinct from Lusitani, pliny the Elder cited the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed. Latin Gallus might stem from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name originally and its root may be the Proto-Celtic *galno, meaning “power, strength”, hence Old Irish gal “boldness, ferocity” and Welsh gallu “to be able, power”. The tribal names of Gallaeci and the Greek Γαλάται most probably have the same origin, the suffix -atai might be an Ancient Greek inflection. Proto-Germanic *walha is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae and this means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin Gallia, though it does refer to the same ancient region
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