1.
Kingdom of Bohemia
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The Kingdom of Bohemia, sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czech Republic. It was an Imperial State in the Holy Roman Empire, the kings of Bohemia, besides Bohemia ruled also the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, which at various times included Moravia, Silesia and parts of Saxony, Brandenburg and Bavaria. Numerous kings of Bohemia were also elected Holy Roman Emperors and the capital Prague was the seat in the late 14th century. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the became part of the Habsburg Austrian Empire. The Czech language was the language of the Diet and the nobility until 1627. German was then formally made equal with Czech and eventually prevailed as the language of the Diet until the Czech national revival in the 19th century. German was also used as the language of administration in many towns after Germans immigrated and populated some areas of the country in the 13th century. The royal court used the Czech, Latin, and German languages, depending on the ruler, following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I, both the Kingdom and Empire were dissolved. Bohemia became the part of the newly formed Czechoslovak Republic. In 1204 Ottokars royal status was accepted by Otto IV as well as by Pope Innocent III and it was officially recognized in 1212 by the Golden Bull of Sicily issued by Emperor Frederick II, elevating the Duchy of Bohemia to Kingdom status. Under these terms, the Czech king was to be exempt from all obligations to the Holy Roman Empire except for participation in the imperial councils. The imperial prerogative to ratify each Bohemian ruler and to appoint the bishop of Prague was revoked, the kings successor was his son Wenceslaus I, from his second marriage. Corresponding with the Pope, she established the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in 1233, four other military orders were present in Bohemia, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from c. 1160, the Order of Saint Lazarus from the late 12th century, 1200–1421, and the Knights Templar from 1232–1312. The 13th century was the most dynamic period of the Přemyslid reign over Bohemia, at the same time, the Mongol invasions absorbed the attention of Bohemias eastern neighbors, Hungary and Poland. Přemysl Ottokar II married a German princess, Margaret of Babenberg and he thereby acquired Upper Austria, Lower Austria, and part of Styria. He conquered the rest of Styria, most of Carinthia, and he was called the king of iron and gold. He campaigned as far as Prussia, where he defeated the natives and in 1256, founded a city he named Královec in Czech
2.
Louis II of Hungary
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Louis II was King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. He was killed during the Battle of Mohács fighting the Ottomans, born prematurely in Buda on 1 July 1506, the court doctors kept him alive by slaying animals and wrapping him in their warm carcasses as a primitive incubator. He was the son of Vladislaus II Jagiellon and his third wife. In 1515 Louis II was married to Mary of Austria, granddaughter of Emperor Maximilian I and his sister Anne was married to Marys brother Ferdinand, then a governor on behalf of his brother Charles V, and later Emperor Ferdinand I. As king of Bohemia, Louis II became known as Ludovicus the Child, the first thaler coins were minted during his reign in Bohemia, later giving the name to the dollars used in different countries. After his fathers death in 1516, the minor Louis II ascended to the throne of Hungary, Louis was adopted by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1515. When Maximilian I died in 1519, Louis was raised by his guardian, his cousin George. Following the accession to the throne of Suleiman I, the sultan sent an ambassador to Louis II to collect the tribute that Hungary had been subjected to. Louis refused to pay tribute and had the Ottoman ambassador executed. Louis believed that the Papal States and other Christian States including Charles V and this event hastened the fall of Hungary. Hungary was in a state of anarchy in 1520 under the rule of the magnates. The kings finances were a shambles, he borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact that they totaled about one-third of the national income. The countrys defenses weakened as border guards went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, in 1521 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was well aware of Hungarys weakness. The Ottoman Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Hungary, Suleiman postponed his plan to besiege Rhodes, Louis failed to coordinate and gather his forces. At the same time, Hungary was unable to get assistance from other European states, Belgrade and many strategic castles in Serbia were captured by the Ottomans. This was disastrous for Louis kingdom, without the important cities of Belgrade and Šabac, Hungary. After the siege of Rhodes, in 1526 Suleiman made an expedition to subdue all of Hungary. Louis made an error when he tried to stop the Ottoman army in an open field battle with a medieval army, insufficient firearms
3.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
4.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
5.
Dollar
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Dollar is the name of more than twenty currencies, including those of the United States, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Liberia, Jamaica and Namibia. Generally, one dollar is divided into one hundred cents, on 15 January 1520, the Czech Kingdom of Bohemia began minting coins from silver mined locally in Joachimsthal and marked on reverse with the Czech lion. The coins were called joachimsthaler, which became shortened in common usage to thaler or taler, the German name Joachimsthal literally means Joachims valley or Joachims dale. A later Dutch coin also depicting a lion was called the leeuwendaler or leeuwendaalder, the Dutch Republic produced these coins to accommodate its booming international trade. The leeuwendaler circulated throughout the Middle East and was imitated in several German and Italian cities and this coin was also popular in the Dutch East Indies and in the Dutch New Netherland Colony. It was in throughout the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th. The currencies of Romania and Bulgaria are, to this day, the modern American-English pronunciation of dollar is still remarkably close to the 17th century Dutch pronunciation of daler. Some well-worn examples circulating in the Colonies were known as dog dollars, Spanish pesos – having the same weight and shape – came to be known as Spanish dollars. By the time of the American Revolution, Spanish dollars gained significance because they backed paper money authorized by the individual colonies, common in the Thirteen Colonies, Spanish dollars were even legal tender in one colony, Virginia. On April 2,1792, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton reported to Congress the precise amount of found in Spanish dollar coins in common use in the states. As a result, the United States dollar was defined as a unit of silver weighing 371 4/16th grains. It was specified that the money of account of the United States should be expressed in those same dollars or parts thereof, in an act passed in January 1837, the dollars alloy was set at 15%. Subsequent coins would contain the amount of pure silver as previously. On February 21,1853, the quantity of silver in the coins was reduced. However, the dollars constitutional meaning has remained unchanged through the years, silver was mostly removed from U. S. coinage by 1965 and the dollar became a free-floating fiat currency without a commodity backing defined in terms of real gold or silver. The US Mint continues to make silver $1-denomination coins, but these are not intended for general circulation, there are many quotes in the plays of William Shakespeare referring to dollars as money. This might be supported by a reference to the sum of ten dollars in Macbeth. In 1804, a British five-shilling piece, or crown, was sometimes called dollar and it was an overstruck Spanish eight real coin, the original of which was known as a Spanish dollar
6.
Joachimsthal
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Jáchymov, until 1945 known by its German name of Sankt Joachimsthal or Joachimsthal is a spa town in the Karlovy Vary Region of Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. It is situated at an altitude of 733 m above sea level in the eponymous St. Joachims valley in the Ore Mountains, the town was mostly German-speaking until the end of the Second World War. In 1938, it was annexed by Germany as part of the Sudetenland, the German-speaking population was expelled in 1945 and replaced by Czech-speaking settlers. The silver Joachimsthaler coins minted there since the 16th century became known as Thaler for short, at the beginning of the 16th century, silver was found in the area of Joachimsthal. The exploitation of this valuable resource caused the place to grow rapidly, the Schlicks had coins minted, which were called Joachimsthalers. They gave their name to the Thaler and the dollar, in 1523, the Protestant Reformation began. In the Schmalkaldic War Joachimsthal was occupied for a time by Saxon troops, when in 1621 the Counter-reformation and re-Catholicisation took effect in the town, many Protestant citizens and people from the mountains migrated to nearby Saxony. Until 1918, the town was in the Austrian part of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, head of the district with the same name, in the 19th century the town was also the location of a Court, and of an administrative office responsible for mines and iron production. Mining was still significant in this period and it was run partly by state-owned and partly by privately owned firms. In addition to ore, nickel, bismuth and uranium ore were also extracted. There were also other industries, a tobacco factory employed 1,000 women. In addition, there was the manufacture of gloves and corks, on 31 March 1873 the town almost entirely burnt down. At the end of the 19th century, Marie Curie discovered, in tons of ore containing uraninite from Joachimsthal. Until the First World War this was the foremost source of radium in the world, the first radon spa in the world was founded in Joachimsthal in 1906, joining the famous spas of the region, like Karlsbad, Franzensbad, Marienbad. In 1929, Dr Löwy of Prague established that mysterious emanations in the led to a form of cancer. Ventilation and watering measures were introduced, miners were given pay and longer vacations. In 1938, it was annexed by Germany as one of the municipalities in Sudetenland, the German-speaking population was expelled in 1945 and replaced by Czech settlers. After the Communist party took control of Czechoslovakia in 1948, large camps were established in the town
7.
Czech Republic
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The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with mostly temperate continental climate and it is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents. The Czech Republic includes the territories of Bohemia, Moravia. The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire, after the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Roman Catholicism, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Czech country lost the majority of its German-speaking inhabitants after they were expelled following the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections. Following the 1948 coup détat, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence, in 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed, on 6 March 1990, the Czech Socialistic Republic was renamed to the Czech Republic. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, it is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, the OSCE, and it is a developed country with an advanced, high income economy and high living standards. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development, the Czech Republic also ranks as the 6th most peaceful country, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union, the traditional English name Bohemia derives from Latin Boiohaemum, which means home of the Boii. The current name comes from the endonym Čech, spelled Cžech until the reform in 1842. The name comes from the Slavic tribe and, according to legend, their leader Čech, the etymology of the word Čech can be traced back to the Proto-Slavic root *čel-, meaning member of the people, kinsman, thus making it cognate to the Czech word člověk. The country has traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the southeast, and Czech Silesia in the northeast. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word geographical name in English, the name Czechia /ˈtʃɛkiə/ was recommended by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
8.
Czech language
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Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. It is spoken by over 10 million people and is the language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of being intelligible to a very high degree. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the written standard was codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, the Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are mostly also counted as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak. The Czech phoneme inventory is moderate in size, comprising five vowels, words may contain uncommon consonant clusters, including one consonant represented by the grapheme ř, or lack vowels altogether. Czech orthography is simple, and has used as a model by phonologists. Czech is classified as a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and this branch includes Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is by far the closest genetic neighbor of Czech, the West Slavic languages are spoken in an area classified as part of Central Europe. Around the 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries, the Bohemian language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the early 14th century, the first complete Bible translation also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were produced outside the university as well, literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century, the publication of the Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt which was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620 and this emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, the modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. Changes include the shift of í to ej and é to í and the merging of í
9.
Balkans
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The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania
10.
Romanian leu
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The Romanian leu, Romanian Lion is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani, the word bani is also used for money in the Romanian language. The name of the currency means lion, and is derived from the Dutch thaler, in 1860, the Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza attempted to create a national românul and the romanat, however the project was not approved by the Ottoman Empire. On April 22,1867, a currency was adopted. The first leu coin was minted in Romania in 1870, before 1878 the silver Russian ruble was valued so highly as to drive the native coins out of circulation. Consequently, in 1889, Romania unilaterally joined the Latin Monetary Union, silver coins were legal tender only up to 50 lei. Romania left the standard in 1914 and the leus value fell. The exchange rate was pegged at 167.20 lei =1 U. S. Dollar on February 7,1929,135.95 lei on November 5,1936,204.29 lei on May 18,1940, and 187.48 Lei on March 31,1941. During Romanias World War II alliance with Nazi Germany, the leu was pegged to the Reichsmark at a rate of 49.50 lei =1 Reichsmark, during Soviet occupation, the exchange rate was 1 ruble =100 lei. After the war, the value of the currency fell dramatically and the National Bank issued a new lei, a revaluation took place on August 15,1947, replacing the old leu at a rate of 20,000 old lei =1 new leu. No advance warning was given and there were limits for the sums to be converted in the new currency,5 million old lei for farmers and 3 million old lei for workers and pensioners. Out of the 48.5 billion old lei in circulation, the most affected was the middle and upper classes, who were later also affected by the nationalization of 1948. At the time of its introduction,150 new lei equaled 1 U. S. dollar, on January 28,1952, another new leu was introduced. Unlike the previous revaluation, different rates were employed for different kinds of exchange and these rates ranged from 20 to 400 old lei for 1 new leu. Again, no warning was given before the reform took place. Between 1970 and 1989, the exchange rate was fixed by the government through law. This exchange rate was used by the government to calculate the value of foreign trade, owning or attempting to buy or sell foreign currency was a criminal offence, punishable with a prison sentence that could go up to 10 years
11.
Moldovan leu
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The leu is the currency of Moldova. Like the Romanian leu, the Moldovan leu is subdivided into 100 bani, the name of the currency originates in Romania and means lion. Between 1918 and 1940 and again between 1941 and 1944, when Moldova was part of Romania, the Romanian leu was used in what was then the part of the broader Romanian region of Moldavia. The Moldovan leu was established on 29 November 1993, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and it replaced the temporary cupon currency at a rate of 1 leu =1000 cupon. In Transnistria, an unrecognized state claimed in whole by Moldova, the currency is not honoured by Moldova or any other state. In November 1993 coins of 1,5,10,25 and 50 bani in aluminium as well as nickel-plated-steel 1 and 5 leu coins were put in circulation, the aluminium 50 bani, nickel-plated-steel 1 and 5 leu coins were later withdrawn from circulation. Starting January 1998 the aluminium 50 bani was replaced by one constructed of brass-clad steel, no new 1- and 5 leu coins have been issued. 1-Ban coins were last minted in 2006 and they remain legal tender, but are rarely seen in circulation, effectively leading to Swedish rounding. Since 1996 several commemorative coins for collectors have been issued, a complete listing can be found here. There have been two series of Moldovan leu banknotes, the first series was short-lived and only included 1,5, and 10 lei. The front of all of these notes—and all subsequent notes—feature a portrait of Ștefan cel Mare, the first two lines of the Miorița ballad appear on the back, printed vertically between the denomination numeral and the vignette of the fortress. The Miorița is an old Romanian pastoral ballad considered one of the most important pieces of Romanian folklore. The lines “Pe-un picior de plai, Pe-o gură de rai” translate as “Near a low foothill, the first two lines of the Miorița ballad are written in the white circle on the front side of each banknote. On the back side of all the banknotes there are depicted Trajans Column, economy of Moldova Coins of Moldova at CISCoins. net Catalog of Banknotes of Moldova
12.
Bulgarian lev
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The lev is the currency of Bulgaria. It is divided in 100 stotinki, in archaic Bulgarian the word lev meant lion, a word which in the modern language became Pringle. The lev was introduced as Bulgarias currency in 1881 with a equal to the French franc. The gold standard was suspended between 1899 and 1906 and suspended again in 1912, until 1916, Bulgarias silver and gold coins were issued to the same specifications as those of the Latin Monetary Union. Banknotes issued until 1928 were backed by gold or silver, in 1928, a new gold standard of 1 lev =10.86956 mg gold was established. During World War II, in 1940, the lev was pegged to the German Reichsmark at a rate of 32.75 leva =1 Reichsmark, with the Soviet occupation in September 1944, the lev was pegged to the Soviet ruble at 15 leva =1 ruble. A series of pegs to the U. S. dollar followed,120 leva =1 dollar in October 1945,286.50 leva in December 1945 and 143.25 leva in March 1947. No coins were issued after 1943, only banknotes were issued until the reform of 1952. Between 1881 and 1884, bronze 2,5 and 20 stotinki, gold 10 and 20 leva were issued in 1894. Bronze 1 stotinka were introduced in 1901, production of silver coins ceased in 1916, with zinc replacing cupro-nickel in the 5,10 and 20 stotinki in 1917. In 1923, aluminum 1 and 2 leva coins were introduced, followed by pieces in 1925. In 1930, cupro-nickel 5 and 10 leva and silver 20,50 and 100 leva were introduced, with coins issued until 1937. In 1940, cupro-nickel 20 and 50 leva were issued, followed, in 1941, in 1943, nickel-clad-steel 5,10 and 50 leva were struck. These were the last coins issued for this version of the lev, in 1885, the Bulgarian National Bank introduced notes for 20 and 50 gold leva, followed in 1887 by 100 gold leva and, in 1890, by 5 and 10 gold leva notes. In 1899,5,10 and 50 silver leva notes were issued, followed by 100 and 500 silver leva in 1906 and 1907,500 gold leva notes were also introduced in 1907. In 1916,1 and 2 silver leva and 1000 gold leva notes were introduced, followed by 2500 and 10,000 gold leva notes in 1919, in 1924,5000 leva notes were issued, the first to lack a metal designation. In 1928, a new series of notes was introduced which gave the denominations solely in leva, denominations introduced were 5,10,20,50,100,500,1000 and 5000 leva. These were followed in 1929 by 200 and 250 leva, in 1930, coins up to 100 leva replaced notes, although 20-lev notes were issued between 1943 and 1950
13.
Spice
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A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, sometimes, spices may be ground into a powder for convenience. Spices are sometimes used in medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics or perfume production, the spice trade developed throughout South Asia and Middle East by at least 2000 BCE with cinnamon and black pepper, and in East Asia with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for mummification and their demand for exotic spices and herbs helped stimulate world trade. The word spice comes from the Old French word espice, which became epice, and which came from the Latin root spec, by 1000 BCE, medical systems based upon herbs could be found in China, Korea, and India. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, archaeological excavations have uncovered clove burnt onto the floor of a kitchen, dated to 1700 BCE, at the Mesopotamian site of Terqa, in modern-day Syria. The ancient Indian epic Ramayana mentions cloves, the Romans had cloves in the 1st century CE, as Pliny the Elder wrote about them. In the story of Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers to spice merchants, in the biblical poem Song of Solomon, the male speaker compares his beloved to many forms of spices. The earliest written records of spices come from ancient Egyptian, Chinese, the Ebers Papyrus from Early Egyptians that dates from 1550 B. C. E. Describes some eight hundred different medicinal remedies and numerous medicinal procedures, historians believe that nutmeg, which originates from the Banda Islands in Southeast Asia, was introduced to Europe in the 6th century BCE. Indonesian merchants traveled around China, India, the Middle East, Arab merchants facilitated the routes through the Middle East and India. This resulted in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria being the trading center for spices. The most important discovery prior to the European spice trade were the monsoon winds, sailing from Eastern spice cultivators to Western European consumers gradually replaced the land-locked spice routes once facilitated by the Middle East Arab caravans. Spices were among the most demanded and expensive available in Europe in the Middle Ages. Given medieval medicines main theory of humorism, spices and herbs were indispensable to balance humors in food, in addition to being desired by those using medieval medicine, the European elite also craved spices in the Middle Ages. An example of the European aristocracys demand for spice comes from the King of Aragon and he was specifically looking for spices to put in wine, and was not alone among European monarchs at the time to have such a desire for spice. Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them expensive, from the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian city-states. The trade made the region rich and it has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages
14.
Porcelain
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Porcelain /ˈpɔːrsəlᵻn, ˈpɔːrslᵻn/ is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain was first developed in China around 2,000 years ago, then spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe. It combines well with both glazes and paint, and can be modelled very well, allowing a range of decorative treatments in tablewares, vessels. It also has uses in technology and industry. The European name, porcelain in English, come from the old Italian porcellana because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell, Porcelain is also referred to as china or fine china in some English-speaking countries, as it was first seen in imports from China. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent, however, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases, a high proportion of modern porcelain is made of the variant bone china. Kaolin is the material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word paste is an old term for both the unfired and fired material, a more common terminology these days for the unfired material is body, for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor. The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the mineral kaolinite is often a raw material. Other raw materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse, the clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity, short clays are cohesive and have lower plasticity. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays and they wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow. The following section provides information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 °C, coated with glaze, another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation
15.
Silk
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Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity, Silk is produced by several insects, but generally only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. There has been research into other types of silk, which differ at the molecular level. Silk is mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, Silk production also occurs in Hymenoptera, silverfish, mayflies, thrips, leafhoppers, beetles, lacewings, fleas, flies, and midges. Other types of arthropod produce silk, most notably various arachnids such as spiders, the word silk comes from Old English sioloc, from Greek σηρικός serikos, silken, ultimately from an Asian source. Several kinds of silk, which are produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm, have been known and used in China, South Asia. However, the scale of production was far smaller than for cultivated silks. Thus, the way to obtain silk suitable for spinning into textiles in areas where commercial silks are not cultivated was by tedious. Commercial silks originate from reared silkworm pupae, which are bred to produce a silk thread with no mineral on the surface. The pupae are killed by either dipping them in boiling water before the adult moths emerge or by piercing them with a needle. These factors all contribute to the ability of the cocoon to be unravelled as one continuous thread. Wild silks also tend to be difficult to dye than silk from the cultivated silkworm. Genetic modification of domesticated silkworms is used to facilitate the production of more types of silk. Silk fabric was first developed in ancient China, the earliest example of silk fabric is from 3630 BC, and it was used as wrapping for the body of a child from a Yangshao culture site in Qingtaicun at Xingyang, Henan. Legend gives credit for developing silk to a Chinese empress, Leizu, because of its texture and lustre, silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants. Silk was in demand, and became a staple of pre-industrial international trade. In July 2007, archaeologists discovered intricately woven and dyed silk textiles in a tomb in Jiangxi province, Silk is described in a chapter on mulberry planting by Si Shengzhi of the Western Han
16.
Groschen
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Groschen was the name for a coin used in various German-speaking states as well as some non-German-speaking countries of Central Europe and the Danubian Principalities. The name, like that of the English groat, derives from the Italian denaro grosso, or large penny, via the Czech form groš. The Qirsh, Arabic, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish names for currency denominations in, historically it was equal to between several and a dozen denarii. The type was introduced in 1271 by Duke Meinhard II of Tyrol in Merano, the 1286 example depicted here weighs 1. In Poland for example, since 1526 these included coins of 1⁄2 grosz,1 grosz and their weight gradually dropped to 1.8 grams of silver and since 1752 they were replaced by copper coins of the same name. The word has lost popularity with the introduction of the Euro, although it can still be heard on occasion, in Ukraine, grosh is still a slang term for the kopiyka, a 1⁄100 part of a hryvnia. The Ukrainian and Belarusian word for money, hroshi, ultimately derives from this term also, in Bulgaria, the grosh was used as a currency until the lev was introduced in the 19th century. In Palestine during the British Mandate, a grush was a coin with a hole in it and it was named after an Ottoman coin. When the pound was replaced by the lira after Israeli statehood in 1948, the name persisted for a while after the lira was replaced by the shekel in 1980, but it gradually lost its standing as the name of a certain coin. Now it is a slang for a small value. In Germany, the name Groschen replaced Schilling as the name for a 12 pfennig coin. In the 18th century it was used predominantly in the states as a coin worth 1⁄24 of a Reichsthaler. Following German unification and decimalisation, the Groschen was replaced by the 10 pfennig coin, for the same reason, the name Sechser remained in use regionally for the half-Groschen coin,5 Pfennigs. There is a Beethoven rondo for piano, opus 129 entitled Die Wut über den verlorenen Groschen, austria introduced the Groschen in 1924 as the subdivision of the schilling. It was restored, along with the schilling, in 1945, prague groschen Kraków grosz Guldengroschen Silbergroschen Neugroschen Die Dreigroschenoper, The Threepenny Opera Qirsh Kuruş Groat Venetian grosso
17.
Lira
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Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current currency of Turkey and also the name of the currencies of Lebanon. It is the currency of Italy, Malta, San Marino and the Vatican City, all of which were replaced in 2002 with the euro, and of Israel. The term originates from the value of a Troy pound of high purity silver, the libra was the basis of the monetary system of the Roman Empire. When Europe resumed a monetary system, during the Carolingian Empire, the Roman system was adopted, particularly this system was kept during the Middle Ages and Modern Age in England, France, and Italy. In each of countries the libra was translated into local language, pound in England, livre in France. The Venetian lira was one of the currencies in use in Italy, during the 19th century, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire adopted the lira as their national currency, equivalent to 100 piasters or kuruş. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in years 1918-1922, many among the successor states kept the lira as their national currency. In some countries, such as Cyprus, which have belonged to both empires, the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire, the lira and pound are used as equivalents. For Turkish lira, the Turkish lira sign is used, otherwise L, sometimes in a double-crossed script form or less often single-crossed, is usually used as the symbol. The Turkish lira was introduced in 1844 during the Ottoman reign, the Turkish Lira is now the currency of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Lebanese pound is called lira in Arabic, which is the language of Lebanon. The Syrian pound is called lira in Arabic, which is the language of Syria. The Jordanian dinar is widely called a lira, the Bulgarian and Romanian languages refer to the English pound as lira in opposition to Croatian which refers to the Italian currency as lira. Cipolla, Le avventure della lira, Bologna, Il Mulino,1975, stefano Poddi, La lunga storia della lira, stralcio, Fondazioni, n.2 marzo-aprile,2008. Stefano Poddi, La lunga storia della lira, articolo completo, Difesa e Lavoro, overview of Italian lira from the BBC
18.
Tornesel
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The tornesel, tornesol, or tornese was a silver coin of Europe in the late Middle Ages and the early modern era. It took its name from the denier Tournois, the denier of Tours, marco Polo referred to the tornesel in recounts of his travels to East Asia when describing the currencies of the Yuan Empire. His descriptions were based on the conversion of 1 bezant =20 groats =133 1/3 tornesel, the tornese was a subunit of the Neapolitan, Sicilian, and Two Sicilies ducats
19.
Sigismund, Archduke of Austria
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Sigismund of Austria, Duke, then Archduke of Further Austria was a Habsburg archduke of Austria and ruler of Tirol from 1446 to 1490. Sigismund was born in Innsbruck, his parents were Frederick IV, Duke of Austria and he was a first cousin of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, who served as regent until 1446. In 1449, he married Eleanor of Scotland, the daughter of James I, for much of his reign, Sigismund was engaged in disputes with Nicholas of Cusa, then bishop of Brixen, for the control of the Eisack, Puster and Inn valleys. In 1460, when he had Nicholas imprisoned, he was excommunicated by Pope Pius II, the bishop fled to Todi, but died before the archduke surrendered in order to receive the papal pardon. In 1469, he sold his lands on the Rhine and in the Alsace to Charles, in any case, he bought back these possessions in 1474, and together with the Swiss and the Alsatian cities, he sided against Charles in the Battle of Héricourt. In 1477, Frederick III made him archduke, three years later, Eleanor died, and 1484, Sigismund married the 16-year-old Catherine of Saxony, daughter of Albert, Duke of Saxony. He had no offspring from either marriage and this coin was the ancestor of many of the major European coin denominations to come later and also of the US dollar. This production of large coinage exploded as silver from Spains colonies in the Americas flooded the European economy and it is from these reforms in part that Sigismund acquired the nickname of der Münzreiche, or rich in coin. Sigismund was easily swayed by the bad advice of his council and in March 1487 entered into a war with the Republic of Venice. Tyrol stormed the Pass of Calliano and later besieged the castle at Rovereto using a massive bombard, the war continued through summer but ended with no decisive victory for either side. One notable casualty of the conflict was the condottiero Roberto Sanseverino dAragona, by 1490 the opposition of the population of Tirol compelled Sigismund to hand over the rulership to Archduke Maximilian I, who later became Holy Roman Emperor. Whether Sigismund voluntarily handed over power to Maximilian or was coerced by the latter is not clear. History of the House of Austria, london, Henry G. Bohn, New York Street, Covent Garden
20.
German Tyrol
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German Tyrol is a historical region in the Alps now divided between Austria and Italy. It includes largely ethnic German areas of historical County of Tyrol, the Austrian state of Tyrol, however, South Tyrol had been promised as spoils of war to Italy by the Entente powers in the Treaty of London. The remainder of German Tyrol became the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, the status of Tyrol was definitively settled by the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye that established the division of the region that remains to this day. German Austria History of Tyrol Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino
21.
Schwaz
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Schwaz is a city in the Austrian state of Tyrol. It is the center of the Schwaz district. Schwaz is located in the lower Inn valley, Schwaz lies in the middle of the Lower Inn Valley at the foot of the Kellerjoch and Eiblschrofen mountains. It is located approximately 30 km east of Innsbruck, the city covers an area of 20.17 km2. Neighbouring communities include, Buch bei Jenbach, Fügenberg, Gallzein, Pill, Stans, the Counts of Tyrol guarded Schwaz from nearby Burg Freundsberg. During this period, its population of about 20,000 inhabitants made it the second largest city in the Austrian Empire, Schwaz received its city rights in 1898 by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Schwaz is the birthplace of 16th-century pulpit orator Georg Scherer and 20th-century philosopher Hans Köchler
22.
Hall in Tirol
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Hall in Tirol is a town in the Innsbruck-Land district of Tyrol, Austria. Located at an altitude of 574 m, about 5 km east of the states capital Innsbruck in the Inn valley, Hall in the County of Tyrol was first mentioned as a salina near Thaur castle in a 1232 deed. The current name dates back to 1256, and similarly to Halle, Hallein, since the 13th century the salt mine at Absam in the Hall Valley north of the town formed the main industry of the town and its surroundings. The first adit was laid out in 1272 at the behest of Count Meinhard II of Tyrol, in 1303 Hall became a town. Its development suffered a setback in 1447, when large parts of the upper town area were razed by a fire. In 1477 it got the right of coinage, when the Tyrolian mint was moved from Meran to Hall and it was here, in 1486, that the first high-grade silver Taler, the precursor of the dollar, was coined. In the 16th century the mint in Hall also introduced the worlds first automated coining machine, today a reconstruction of this revolutionary machine can be seen in the Hall Mint Museum in the Burg Hasegg. In the 15th and 16th century, Hall was one of the most important towns in the Habsburg Empire and this period saw the construction of many of the churches, monasteries and convents that still shape the appearance of the town. Today Hall has the biggest intact old town in the part of Austria. During the Habsburg Monarchy a military garrison was established in Hall and this, along with the large freight train station, became a target of heavy bombardment during World War II, which destroyed the train station but left the old town almost unscathed. From 1938 to 1974 the town was called Solbad Hall - Solbad was dropped from the name a few years after the salt mining was closed in 1967. Janine Flock, skeleton racer, was born here, christoph Grienberger, the Jesuit astronomer, was born here. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is Dfc, city-Tour with many pictures of Hall in Tirol
23.
Guldengroschen
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The Guldengroschen was a large silver coin originally minted in Tirol in 1486. The Guldengroschens name comes from the fact that it has an equivalent denomination value in silver relative to that of the goldgulden, in 1484, small numbers of half guldengroschens valued at 30 kreuzer were issued. This was a leap in denomination from the smaller pieces. Finally in 1486 the full sized guldengroschen of 60 kreuzers was put into circulation, for a long time thereafter such coins were also called unciales because their actual silver weight was very nearly one ounce. As large quantities of silver became available other states began issuing guldiners of their own, bern, in modern-day Switzerland was one of the earliest to follow Tirol by issuing its guldiners in 1493. In 1500, Saxonys mint at Annaberg took minting of guldiners to new heights, the original Tiroler guldiner was designed so that eight coins minted would weigh in pure silver at one Tiroler Mark. This was fine for Tirol, but much of Europe was accustomed to measuring by the widely used Cologne mark. The penultimate development of the guldiner occurred in 1518 when the Joachimsthal mint in Habsburg-controlled Bohemia slightly altered the weight of the coin from 31.93 g down to 29.20 g. This made it possible to mint nine guldiners to have the weight equivalent of one Cologne Mark. This new coin was known as the Joachimsthaler, but like the guldengroschen being contracted to guldiner and this new coin was an instant success and was the great grandfather of many other similar weight coins like the daalder, dollar, tolar, tallero, etc. Guldengroschen itself, has been the motive for many collectors coins. One of the most recent is the Austrian 700 Years City of Hall in Tyrol commemorative coin, the reverse side of the coin shows the Guldiner silver coin. However, the design is negative, representing a coin die, as a reference to Hall’s history as a significant centre for minting coins
24.
Groat (coin)
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The immediate ancestor to the groat was the French gros tournois or groat of Tours, which was known as the groot in the Netherlands. The name groat also refers to a range of other European coins such as those of the Italian peninsula known as a grosso including the grosso of Venice, marco Polo referred to the groat in recounts of his travels to East Asia when describing the currencies of the Yuan Empire. His descriptions were based on the conversion of 1 bezant =20 groats = 133⅓ tornesel and it was after the French silver coin had circulated in England that an English groat was first minted under King Edward I. Scots groats were not issued until the reign of David II, scots groats were originally also worth fourpence, but later issues were valued at eightpence and a shilling. Irish groats were minted first in 1425 and the last ones were minted under the reign of Elizabeth I of England, there were also two more issues, both emergency coinage. The weight was reduced to 72 grains under Edward III,60 grains under Henry IV, from 1544 to 1560 the silver fineness was less than sterling, and after the 1561 issue they were not generally issued for circulation again for about a hundred years. From the reigns of Charles II to George III, groats were issued on a basis for general circulation, the only years of mintage after 1786 being in 1792,1795. After this the only circulating issues were from 1836 to 1855, with proofs known from 1857 and 1862 and these last coins had the weight further reduced to about 27 grains and were the same diameter as the silver threepenny pieces of the day although thicker. Some groats continued to circulate in Scotland until the 20th century, at times in the past, silver twopenny coins have been called half-groats. The groat ceased to be minted in the United Kingdom in 1856, but in 1888 a special request was made for a variety to be minted for use in British Guiana. The groat remained in circulation in British Guiana right up until that territory adopted the system in 1955. In the 1600s and 1700s, chaplains were employed in English Navy ships of war by the Captain, the Navys wages did not rise between 1653 and 1797, during which time the Ordinary Seaman was paid 19 shillings, as was the chaplain. The word groat has entered into a number of English and Scottish expressions, in the north of England, there is the saying Blood without groats is nothing meaning family without fortune is worthless. The allusion is to black pudding, which consists chiefly of blood and oats formed into a sausage, not worth a groat is an old saying meaning not worth a penny, i. e. worthless. Benjamin Franklin, in his book, Necessary Hints gives the following thrifty advice, He that spends a groat a day idly, beatrix Potters The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin features the following riddle, Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote. A little wee man in a red red coat, a staff in his hand, and a stone in his throat, If youll tell me this riddle, Ill give you a groat. This refers to the Victorian fourpenny piece, the mention of cab fares is related to the fact that the standard minimum was fourpence, so many passengers paid with a sixpenny piece, allowing the cabbie to keep the twopence change as a tip. The slang name Joey was transferred to the silver/cupronickel threepenny pieces in use in the first third of the twentieth century, in A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Sara Crewe picks up a fourpenny piece from the street and uses it to buy buns
25.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
26.
Tolar
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Tolar is the Czech name for the silver coin mined in Kingdom of Bohemia in the 16th century in Jáchymov. The modern word dollar was derived from the Spanish dollar, so-called in the English-speaking world because they were of similar size, the German Thalers were so named because they were first minted from a silver mine in 1520 in Joachimsthal. It was the currency in Bohemia from 1520 to 1750. Slovenian tolar, the currency of Slovenia from 1991 to 2006, media related to Tolars at Wikimedia Commons
27.
Jagiellonian dynasty
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The dynasty reigned in several Central European countries between the 14th and 16th centuries. Members of the dynasty were Kings of Poland, Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Kings of Hungary, one Jagiellonian briefly ruled both Poland and Hungary, and two others ruled both Bohemia and Hungary and then continued in the distaff line as a branch of the House of Habsburg. The cultural flowering had its base in the prosperity of the elites. The name comes from Jogaila, the first Grand Duke of Lithuania to become King of Poland, the rule of Piasts, the earlier Polish ruling house had ended with the death of King Casimir III the Great. Gediminids, the predecessors of the first Jagiellonian, were rulers of medieval Lithuania with the title of Grand Duke. Their realm, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was inhabited by Lithuanians and Ruthenians. Jogaila, the eponymous first ruler of the Jagiellonin dynasty, started as the Grand Duke of Lithuania, as a result of the Union of Krewo he then converted to Christianity and married the 11-year-old Hedwig of Poland. Thereby he became King of Poland and founded the dynasty, angevin rulers were the second and Jagiellonian third dynasty of Polish Kings. In 1385 the Union of Krewo was signed between Queen Jadwiga of Poland and Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, the last pagan state in Europe, the act arranged for Jogailas baptism and for the couples marriage and constituted the beginning of the Polish–Lithuanian union. The Union strengthened both nations in their opposition to the Teutonic Knights and the growing threat of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Uniquely in Europe, the union connected two states located on the opposite sides of the great civilizational divide between the Western or Latin, and the Eastern or Byzantine worlds. The intention of the Union was to create a state under Władysław II Jagiełło. Geographic consequences of the union and the preferences of the Jagiellonian kings accelerated the process of reorientation of Polish territorial priorities to the east. The political influence of the Jagiellonian kings was diminishing during this period, the royal dynasty, however, had a stabilizing effect on Polands politics. The Jagiellonian Era is often regarded as a period of political power, great prosperity, and in its later stage. The offensive that followed lost its impact with the siege of Malbork. The failure to take the fortress and eliminate the Teutonic state had for Poland dire historic consequences in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, the Peace of Thorn had given Poland and Lithuania rather modest territorial adjustments, including Samogitia. Afterwards there were negotiations and peace deals that didnt hold, more military campaigns and arbitrations, one attempted, unresolved arbitration took place at the Council of Constance
28.
Mint (facility)
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A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins that can be used in currency. The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins, in the beginning, hammered coinage or cast coinage were the chief means of coin minting, with resulting production runs numbering as little as the hundreds or thousands. In modern mints, coin dies are manufactured in large numbers, with the mass production of currency, the production cost is weighed when minting coins. For example, it costs the United States Mint much less than 25 cents to make a quarter, metals were well suited to represent wealth, owing to their great intrinsic value and their durability, divisibility and rarity. The first mint was established in Lydia in the 7th century BC, for coining gold, silver. The Lydian innovation of manufacturing coins under the authority of the spread to neighboring Greece. Some of the earliest Greek mints were within city-states on Greek islands such as Crete, at about the same time, coins and mints appeared independently in China and spread to Korea and Japan. The manufacture of coins in the Roman Empire, dating from about the 4th century BC, the origin of the word mint is ascribed to the manufacture of silver coin at Rome in 269 BC at the temple of Juno Moneta. This goddess became the personification of money, and her name was applied both to money and to its place of manufacture, Roman mints were spread widely across the Empire, and were sometimes used for propaganda purposes. The populace often learned of a new Roman Emperor when coins appeared with the new Emperors portrait, Ancient coins were made by casting in moulds or by striking between engraved dies. The Romans cast their larger copper coins in clay moulds carrying distinctive markings, not because they knew nothing of striking, casting is now used only by counterfeiters. The most ancient coins were cast in bulletshaped or conical moulds, the blank or unmarked piece of metal was placed on a small anvil, and the die was held in position with tongs. The reverse or lower side of the received a rectangular mark made by the sharp edges of the little anvil. Subsequently the anvil was marked in ways, and decorated with letters and figures of beasts. The spherical blanks soon gave place to lenticular-shaped ones, the blank was made red-hot and struck between cold dies. One blow was usually insufficient, and the method was similar to that used in striking medals in high relief. With the substitution of iron for bronze as the material for dies, about 300 AD, in the Middle Ages bars of metal were cast and hammered out on an anvil. Portions of the sheets were then cut out with shears
29.
Joachim
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Joachim was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus, according to the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. The story of Joachim and Anne first appears in the apocryphal Gospel of James, Joachim and Anne are not mentioned in the Bible. His feast day is July 26, according to tradition, Saint Anne was born in Bethlehem, and married Joachim of Nazareth, both descendants of David. In the Protoevangelium of James, Joachim is described as a rich and pious man, tradition has it that the parents of the Blessed Virgin, who, apparently, first lived in Galilee, came later on to settle in Jerusalem. However, the high priest rejected Joachim and his sacrifice, as their childlessness was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure, Joachim consequently withdrew to the desert where he fasted and did penance for forty days. Angels then appeared to both Joachim and Anne to promise them a child, Joachim later returned to Jerusalem and embraced Anne at the city gate. There was ancient belief that a child born of a mother who had given up hope of having offspring was destined for great things. Parallels occur in the Old Testament in the case of Hannah, Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate was a popular subject in artistic renditions of the Life of the Virgin. The cycle of legends concerning Joachim and Anne were included in the Golden Legend, no liturgical celebration of Saint Joachim was included in the Tridentine Calendar. It was added to the General Roman Calendar in 1584, for celebration on March 20, in 1738, it was transferred to the Sunday after the Octave of the Assumption of Mary. It was then celebrated as a Double of the 2nd Class, in the 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar it was joined to that of Anne, for celebration on July 26. The Eastern Orthodox Churches and Greek Catholics commemorate Joachim on September 9, the Synaxis of Joachim and Anne, in the Quran, Joachim is known as Imran, the father of Maryam. The name is mentioned in several locations and it is said that his family was one of those preferred over all of Gods creatures, St. Joachim is named as the patron of fathers, grandfathers, grandparents, married couples, cabinet makers and linen traders. Symbols associated with Saint Joachim include, a book or scroll representing linen makers, a staff for the Christian word. He is almost always clothed in green, the color of hope, the San Joaquin Valley, California was named after the San Joaquin river, which was given its name in the early 19th century by the Spanish explorer Lieutenant Gabriel Moraga. Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, and Feast, Franciscan Media ISBN 978-0-86716-887-7 St. Joachim, Father of the Virgin at the Christian Iconography web site
30.
Mary, mother of Jesus
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Mary, also known by various titles, styles and honorifics, was a 1st-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran. The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin, the miraculous birth took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the Gospel of Luke begins its account of Marys life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. According to canonical gospel accounts, Mary was present at the crucifixion and is depicted as a member of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her life her body was assumed directly into Heaven. Mary has been venerated since Early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion and she is claimed to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, there is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, many Protestants minimize Marys role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references. Mary also has a position in Islam, where one of the longer chapters of the Quran is devoted to her. Marys name in the manuscripts of the New Testament was based on her original Aramaic name ܡܪܝܡ. The English name Mary comes from the Greek Μαρία, which is a form of Μαριάμ. Both Μαρία and Μαριάμ appear in the New Testament, in Christianity, Mary is commonly referred to as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the belief that she conceived Jesus miraculously through the Holy Spirit without her husbands involvement. The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are Theotokos, Aeiparthenos as confirmed in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, Catholics use a wide variety of titles for Mary, and these titles have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions. For example, the title Our Lady of Sorrows has inspired such masterpieces as Michelangelos Pietà, the title Theotokos was recognized at the Council of Ephesus in 431. However, this phrase in Greek, in the abbreviated form ΜΡ ΘΥ, is an indication commonly attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God, some Marian titles have a direct scriptural basis. For instance, the title Queen Mother has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, the scriptural basis for the term Queen can be seen in Luke 1,32 and the Isaiah 9,6. Queen Mother can be found in 1 Kings 2, 19-20 and Jeremiah 13, other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions for calling on Mary
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Coat of arms of the Czech Republic
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The coat of arms of the Czech Republic displays the three historical regions—the Czech lands—which make up the nation. The current coat of arms, which was adopted in 1992, was designed by Czech heraldist Jiří Louda, the arms of Bohemia show a silver double-tailed lion on a red background. This Bohemian Lion makes up the first and the quarters of the greater coat of arms. The Moravian red-and-silver chequered eagle is shown on a blue background, between 1915 and 1918 the Moravian Eagle was chequered in the red-and-gold colors. The dukes of Bohemia originally bore for arms a chequered black, in the 12th century, Emperor Frederick granted new arms to King Vladislaus II consisting of a silver lion on a red field, to symbolise his valor. The lion was at first represented with its tail between its legs, causing the people of Bohemia to laugh at it, calling it an ape. Upon hearing this, the Emperor jokingly decreed that the lion should henceforth be represented with two tails and a crown, and it has been shown as such ever since. The oldest surviving full color depiction of the arms of Bohemia appears in the Passional of Abbes Cunegund from the 1310s, the Moravian Eagle was first documented on the seal of Ottokars uncle, Margrave Přemysl. The Silesian Eagle stems from the dynasty of the Piasts and was first applied by Duke Henry II the Pious. The shields also appeared on the emblems of the Crown of Bohemia established by Emperor Charles IV, today the greater shield is also used as the badge for the Czech national ice hockey team. On the other hand, Czech national football team is traditionally using just lesser Czech Lion, the lesser coat of arms is blazoned in Czech law. Coat of arms of Czechoslovakia Coat of arms of Moravia
32.
Tsardom of Russia
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From 1551 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 per year. After a military victory over Sweden and Poland, he implemented substantial reforms and proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721. While the oldest endonyms of the Grand Duchy of Moscow used in its documents were Rus and the Russian land, in the 1480s Russian state scribes Ivan Cherny and Mikhail Medovartsev mention Russia under the name Росиа, Medovartsev also mentions the sceptre of Russian lordship. In England of the 16th century, it was both as Russia and Muscovy. In Northern Europe and at the court of the Holy Roman Empire, however, muscovites refute this, saying that their country was originally called Russia. When they are asked what nation they are, they respond Russac, which means Russians, and when they are asked what place they are from, by the 16th century, the Russian ruler had emerged as a powerful, autocratic figure, a Tsar. By assuming that title, the sovereign of Moscow tried to emphasize that he was a ruler or emperor on par with the Byzantine emperor or the Mongol khan. At first, the Byzantine term autokrator expressed only the meaning of an independent ruler. Ivan IV was crowned Tsar and thus was recognized, at least by the Russian Orthodox Church and that concept was to resonate in the self-image of Russians in future centuries. The development of the Tsars autocratic powers reached a peak during the reign of Ivan IV, Ivan strengthened the position of the Tsar to an exceptional degree, demonstrating the risks of unrestrained power in the hands of a mentally unstable individual. Although apparently intelligent and energetic, Ivan suffered from breakdowns of paranoia and depression, Ivan IV became Grand Prince of Moscow in 1533 at the age of three. The Shuysky and Belsky factions of the boyars competed for control of the regency until Ivan assumed the throne in 1547, reflecting Moscows new imperial claims, Ivans coronation as Tsar was a ritual modeled after those of the Byzantine emperors. With the continuing assistance of a group of boyars, Ivan began his reign with a series of useful reforms, in the 1550s, he declared a new law code, revamped the military, and reorganized local government. These reforms undoubtedly were intended to strengthen the state in the face of continuous warfare, the key documents prepared by the so-called Select Council of advisors and promulgated during this period are as follows. Muscovy remained a fairly unknown society in Western Europe until Baron Sigismund von Herberstein published his Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii in 1549 and this provided a broad view of what had been a rarely visited and poorly reported state. In the 1630s, the Russian Tsardom was visited by Adam Olearius, whose lively, further information about Russia was circulated by English and Dutch merchants. One of them, Richard Chancellor, sailed to the White Sea in 1553, upon his return to England, the Muscovy Company was formed by himself, Sebastian Cabot, Sir Hugh Willoughby, and several London merchants. Ivan the Terrible used these merchants to exchange letters with Elizabeth I, despite the domestic turmoil of the 1530s and 1540s, Russia continued to wage wars and to expand
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Wild man
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The defining characteristic of the figure is its wildness, from the 12th century they were consistently depicted as being covered with hair. The image of the man survived to appear as supporter for heraldic coats-of-arms, especially in Germany. Renaissance engravers in Germany and Italy were particularly fond of men, wild women. The first element of woodwose is usually explained as from wudu wood, the second element is less clear. It has been identified as a hypothetical noun *wāsa being, from the verb wesan, wosan to be, the Old English form is unattested, but it would have been *wudu-wāsa or *wude-wāsa. It may also mean a forlorn or abandoned person, cognate with the German Waise, terminology in the Middle Ages was more varied. In Middle English, there was the term woodwose, wodwos occurs in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Old High German had schrat, scrato or scrazo, which appear in glosses of Latin works as translations for fauni, silvestres, or pilosi, some of the local names suggest connections with figures from ancient mythology. Common in Lombardy and the Italian-speaking parts of the Alps is the term salvan or salvang, which derives from the Latin Silvanus, the name of the Roman tutelary god of gardens and the countryside. Similarly, folklore in Tyrol and German-speaking Switzerland into the 20th century included a woman known as Fange or Fanke, which derives from the Latin fauna. Various languages and traditions include names suggesting affinities with Orcus, a Roman, for many years people in Tyrol called the wild man Orke, Lorke, or Noerglein, while in parts of Italy he was the orco or huorco. The French ogre has the same derivation, as do modern literary orcs, importantly, Orcus is associated with Maia in a dance celebrated late enough to be condemned in a 9th- or 10th-century Spanish penitential. The term was replaced in literature of the Early Modern English period by classically derived equivalents, or wild man. Wild man and its cognates is the term for the creature in most modern languages, it appears in German as wilder Mann, in French as homme sauvage. Figures similar to the European wild man occur worldwide from very early times, the earliest recorded example of the type is the character Enkidu in the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. The portrayal of Nebuchadnezzar II in the Book of Daniel greatly influenced the medieval European concepts, Daniel 4 depicts God humbling the Babylonian king for his boastfulness, stricken mad and ejected from human society, he grows hair on his body and lives like a beast. This image was popular in medieval depictions of Nebuchadnezzar, similarly, late medieval legends of Saint John Chrysostom portray the saints asceticism as making him so isolated and feral that hunters who capture him cannot tell if he is man or beast. The medieval wild-man concept also drew on lore about similar beings from the Classical world such as the Roman faun, several folk traditions about the wild man correspond with ancient practices and beliefs
34.
Harz
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The Harz is a Mittelgebirge that has the highest elevations in Northern Germany and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name Harz derives from the Middle High German word Hardt or Hart, the Brocken is the highest summit in the Harz with an elevation of 1,141.1 metres above sea level. The Wurmberg is the highest peak located entirely within the state of Lower Saxony, the Harz has a length of 110 kilometres, stretching from the town of Seesen in the northwest to Eisleben in the east, and a width of 35 kilometres. The following districts fall wholly or partly within the Harz, Goslar and Osterode am Harz in the west, Harz and Mansfeld-Südharz in the north and east, and Nordhausen in the south. The districts of the Upper Harz are Goslar and Osterode, whilst the Lower Harz is on the territory of Harz and Mansfeld-Südharz districts. The Upper Harz is generally higher and features fir forests, whilst the Lower Harz gradually descends into the area and has deciduous forests interspersed with meadows. The dividing line between Upper and Lower Harz follows approximately a line from Ilsenburg to Bad Lauterberg, which separates the catchment areas for the Weser. Only on the perimeter of the Upper Harz, which is also called the High Harz. Its highest peak is the Brocken, its peaks are the Heinrichshöhe to the southeast. Other prominent hills in the Harz are the Acker-Bruchberg ridge, the Achtermannshöhe, in the far east, the mountains merge into the East Harz foothills, which are dominated by the Selke Valley. Part of the south Harz lies in the Thuringian district of Nordhausen, the Harz National Park is located in the Harz, the protected area covers the Brocken and surrounding wilderness area. Approximately 600,000 people live in towns and villages of the Harz Mountains, because of the heavy rainfall in the region the rivers of the Harz Mountains were dammed from an early date. Examples of such dams are the two largest, the Oker Dam and the Rappbode Dam. The clear, cool water of the streams was also dammed by early mountain folk to form the various mountain ponds of the Upper Harz waterways. The 17 dams in the Harz block a total of twelve rivers, because the Harz is one of the regions of Germany that experiences the most rainfall, its water power was used from early times. Today the dams are used to generate electricity, to provide drinking water, to prevent flooding. Modern dam-building began in the Harz with the construction of the Söse Valley Dam, the dams of the Upper Harz lakes are some of the oldest dams in Germany that are still in operation. → See List of dams in the Harz The largest rivers in the Harz are the Innerste, the Oker and the Bode in the north, the Wipper in the east, the Innerste merges into the Leine and its tributaries are the Nette and the Grane
35.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
36.
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Leopold I was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia and King of Serbia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, by his first wife, Maria Anna of Spain, elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1658, Leopold would rule as such until his death in 1705. Leopolds reign is known for the conflicts with the Ottoman Empire in the east, and the rivalry with Louis XIV, after more than a decade of warfare, Leopold emerged victorious from the Great Turkish War thanks to military talents of Prince Eugene of Savoy. By the Treaty of Karlowitz, Leopold recovered almost all of the Kingdom of Hungary which had fallen under the Turkish yoke in the years after the 1526 Battle of Mohács. Leopold fought three wars against France including the Dutch War, the Nine Years War, and the War of the Spanish Succession, in this last, Leopold sought to give his younger son the entire Spanish inheritance, disregarding the late Spanish kings will. To this end, he started a war which soon engulfed much of Europe, when peace returned at the end of it all, Austria could not be said to have emerged as triumphant as it did from the war against the Turks. Born on 9 June 1640 in Vienna, Leopold received an education by excellent teachers. From an early age Leopold showed an inclination toward learning and he became fluent in several languages, Latin, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. In addition to German, Italian would be the most favored language at his court, Leopold was schooled in the classics, history, literature, natural science and astronomy, and was particularly interested in music, having inherited his fathers musical talents. Originally intended for the Church, Leopold had received an ecclesiastical education. But fate put in motion a different plan for him when smallpox took his elder brother Ferdinand on 9 July 1654, nonetheless, Leopolds church education had clearly marked him. Leopold remained influenced by the Jesuits and his education throughout his life, and was uncommonly knowledgeable for a monarch about theology, metaphysics, jurisprudence and he also retained his interest in astrology and alchemy which he had developed under Jesuit tutors. A deeply religious and devoted person, Leopold personified the pietas Austriaca, Leopold was said to have typically Habsburg physical attributes. Short, thin, and of sickly constitution, Leopold was cold and reserved in public, however, he is also said to have been open with close associates. Coxe described Leopold in the manner, His gait was stately, slow and deliberate, his air pensive, his address awkward, his manner uncouth, his disposition cold. He grew to manhood without the military ambition that characterized most of his fellow monarchs, from the beginning, his reign was defensive and profoundly conservative. Hungary elected Leopold as its king in 1655, with Bohemia and Croatia following suit in 1656 and 1657 respectively. To conciliate France, which had influence in German affairs thanks to the League of the Rhine
37.
Vereinsthaler
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The Vereinsthaler was a standard silver coin used in most German states and the Austrian Empire in the years before German unification. The Vereinsthaler was introduced in 1857 to replace the previous standard Thaler which was slightly heavier. The Vereinsthaler was used as the base for several different currencies, in Prussia and several other northern German states, the Vereinsthaler was the standard unit of account, divided into 30 Silbergroschen, each of 12 Pfennig. In Saxony, the Neugroschen was equal to the Prussian Silbergroschen but was divided into 10 Pfennig, in southern Germany, states including Bavaria used the Gulden as the standard unit of account, with 1 3⁄4 Gulden =1 Vereinsthaler. The Gulden was divided into 60 Kreuzer, each of 4 Pfennig or 8 Heller, see Bavarian Gulden, Baden Gulden, Württemberg Gulden. In the Austrian Empire, a different Gulden was the unit of account, the Gulden was divided into 100 Kreuzer. German unification saw the introduction of the Goldmark at a rate of 3 mark =1 Vereinsthaler, consequently, the new 10 pfennig coins were equivalent to the old Groschen of northern Germany and this became a nickname for the denomination. The Vereinsthaler coins continued to circulate as 3 mark coins until 1908, the name Thaler for 3 marks persisted until the 1930s. Austria-Hungary stopped issuing Vereinsthaler coins in 1867, following the Austro-Prussian War
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