1.
Diptych
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A diptych is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. For example, the notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world was a diptych consisting of a pair of such plates that contained a recessed space filled with wax. Writing was accomplished by scratching the wax surface with a stylus, when the notes were no longer needed, the wax could be slightly heated and then smoothed to allow reuse. Ordinary versions had wooden frames, but more luxurious diptychs were crafted with more expensive materials, others may have been made to celebrate a wedding, or, perhaps like the Poet and Muse diptych at Monza, simply commissioned for private use. Some of the most important surviving works of the Late Roman Empire are diptychs, of some dozens survive. The largest surviving Byzantine ivory panel, is a leaf from a diptych in the Justinian court manner of c, from the Middle Ages many panel paintings took the diptych form, as small portable works for personal use, Eastern Orthodox ones may be called travelling icons. These suited the mobile lives of medieval elites, the ivories tended to have scenes in several registers crowded with small figures. The outsides, which received considerable wear from travelling, might have simpler decorative designs. Large altarpieces tended to be made in form, with two outer panels that could be closed across the main central representation. They are one type of the forms of painting known as polyptychs. The diptych was a format in Early Netherlandish painting and depicted subjects ranging from secular portraiture to religious personages and stories. Often a portrait and a Madonna and Child had a leaf each and it was especially popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. Painters such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Diptych is also often used in reference to films or pieces of literature that form a complementary pair. When taken together, they are viewed as illuminating each other, an example is the pair of Alan Ayckbourn plays, House and Garden. It is in form that the mention of diptychs in early Christian literature is found. The term refers to official lists of the living and departed that are commemorated by the local church, the living would be inscribed on one wing of the diptych, and the departed on the other. The inscribing of a name in the diptychs means that the local church considers itself to be in communion with him. The names in the diptychs would be read publicly by the deacon during the Divine Liturgy, diptychs were also used to inscribe the names of the saints
2.
National Gallery
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The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the century to 1900. The Gallery is a charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media. Its collection belongs to the public of the United Kingdom and entry to the collection is free of charge. It is among the most visited art museums in the world, after the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, after that initial purchase the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, notably Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which comprise two-thirds of the collection. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition, the present building, the third to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins from 1832 to 1838. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, wilkinss building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space, the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, an extension to the west by Robert Venturi, the current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi. The late 18th century saw the nationalisation of royal or princely art collections across mainland Europe, great Britain, however, did not emulate the continental model, and the British Royal Collection remains in the sovereigns possession today. In 1777 the British government had the opportunity to buy an art collection of international stature, the MP John Wilkes argued for the government to buy this invaluable treasure and suggested that it be housed in a noble gallery. The twenty-five paintings from that now in the Gallery, including NG1, have arrived by a variety of routes. This offer was declined and Bourgeois bequeathed the collection to his old school, Dulwich College, the collection opened in Britains first purpose-built public gallery, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, in 1814. The British Institution, founded in 1805 by a group of aristocratic connoisseurs, the members lent works to exhibitions that changed annually, while an art school was held in the summer months. However, as the paintings that were lent were often mediocre, some resented the Institution. One of the Institutions founding members, Sir George Beaumont, Bt, in 1823 another major art collection came on the market, which had been assembled by the recently deceased John Julius Angerstein. Angerstein was a Russian-born émigré banker based in London, his collection numbered 38 paintings, including works by Raphael, on 1 July 1823 George Agar Ellis, a Whig politician, proposed to the House of Commons that it purchase the collection. The appeal was given added impetus by Beaumonts offer, which came with two conditions, that the government buy Angersteins collection, and that a building was to be found
3.
Panel painting
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A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Panel painting is very old, it was a very prestigious medium in Greece and Rome, a series of 6th century BC painted tablets from Pitsa represent the oldest surviving Greek panel paintings. Most classical Greek paintings that were famous in their day seem to have been of a size comparable to modern works - perhaps up to a half-length portrait size. We can only attempt to imagine what these looked like from some detailed literary descriptions, the Severan Tondo, also from Egypt is one of the handful of non-funerary Graeco-Roman specimens to survive. Encaustic and tempera are the two used in antiquity. Encaustic largely ceased to be used after the early Byzantine icons, the earliest forms of panel painting were dossals, altar fronts and crucifixes. All were painted with images, commonly the Christ or the Virgin, with the saints appropriate to the dedication of the church. Donor portraits including members of the family are also often shown. Painted panels for altars are most numerous in Spain, especially Catalonia, the 13th and 14th centuries in Italy were a great period of panel painting, mostly altarpieces or other religious works. However, it is estimated that of all the paintings produced there,99.9 percent have been lost. The vast majority of Early Netherlandish paintings are on panel, and these include most of the earliest portraits, such as those by Jan van Eyck, and some other secular scenes. However, one of the earliest surviving oils on canvas is a French Madonna with angels of about 1410 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, which is very early indeed for oil painting also. By the 15th century with the wealth of Europe, and later the appearance of humanism. Secular art opened the way to the creation of chests, painted beds, birth trays, many such works are now detached and hung framed on walls in museums. Many double-sided wings of altarpieces have also been sawn into two one-sided panels, canvas took over from panel in Italy by the first half of the 16th century, a change led by Mantegna and the artists of Venice. His panels are of notoriously complicated construction, containing as many as seventeen pieces of wood, for smaller cabinet paintings, copper sheets were another rival support, from the end of the 16th century, used by many artists including Adam Elsheimer. Many Dutch painters of the Golden Age used panel for their small works, by the 18th century it had become unusual to paint on panel, except for small works to be inset into furniture, and the like. But, for example, The National Gallery in London has two Goya portraits on panel, many other painting traditions also painted, and still paint, on wood, but the term is usually only used to refer to the Western tradition described above
4.
Richard II of England
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Richard II, also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed on 30 September 1399. Richard, a son of Edward, the Black Prince, was born in Bordeaux during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III. Richard was the brother of Edward of Angoulême, upon whose death, Richard. Upon the death of Richards father prior to the death of Edward III, Richard, by primogeniture, with Edward IIIs death the following year, Richard succeeded to the throne at the age of ten. During Richards first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of councils, most of the aristocracy preferred this to a regency led by the kings uncle, John of Gaunt, yet Gaunt remained highly influential. The first major challenge of the reign was the Peasants Revolt in 1381, the young king played a major part in the successful suppression of this crisis. By 1389 Richard had regained control, and for the eight years governed in relative harmony with his former opponents. In 1397, Richard took his revenge on the appellants, many of whom were executed or exiled, the next two years have been described by historians as Richards tyranny. In 1399, after John of Gaunt died, the king disinherited Gaunts son, Henry of Bolingbroke, Henry invaded England in June 1399 with a small force that quickly grew in numbers. Claiming initially that his goal was only to reclaim his patrimony, meeting little resistance, Bolingbroke deposed Richard and had himself crowned as King Henry IV. Richard died in captivity in February 1400, he is thought to have starved to death. Richard was said to have tall, good-looking and intelligent. Less warlike than either his father or grandfather, he sought to bring an end to the Hundred Years War that Edward III had started, modern historians do not accept this interpretation, while not exonerating Richard from responsibility for his own deposition. While probably not insane, as historians of the 19th and 20th centuries believed, Richard of Bordeaux was the younger son of Edward, the Black Prince, and Joan of Kent. Edward, heir to the throne of England, had distinguished himself as a commander in the early phases of the Hundred Years War. After further military adventures, however, he contracted dysentery in Spain in 1370 and he never fully recovered and had to return to England the next year. Joan of Kent had been at the centre of a dispute between Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, and William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, from which Holland emerged victorious. Less than a year after Hollands death in 1360, Joan married Prince Edward, since she was a granddaughter of King Edward I and a first cousin of King Edward III, the marriage required papal approval
5.
Donor portrait
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A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family. Donor portraits are very common in works of art, especially paintings, of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Often, even late into the Renaissance, the portraits, especially when of a whole family, will be at a much smaller scale than the principal figures. By the mid-15th century donors began to be integrated into the main scene, as bystanders. The purpose of donor portraits was to memorialize the donor and his family, to do so during prayer is in accord with late medieval concepts of prayer, fully developed by the Modern Devotion. This process may be intensified if the praying beholder is the donor himself, when a whole building was financed, a sculpture of the patron might be included on the facade or elsewhere in the building. If they are on different sides, the males are normally on the left for the viewer, in family groups the figures are usually divided by gender. Groups of members of confraternities, sometimes with their wives, are also found, additional family members, from births or marriages, might be added later, and deaths might be recorded by the addition of small crosses held in the clasped hands. Although none have survived, there is evidence of donor portraits in small chapels from the Early Christian period. Their scale and composition are alone among large-scale survivals, also in Ravenna, there is a small mosaic of Justinian, possibly originally of Theoderic the Great in the Basilica of SantApollinare Nuovo. For example, a chapel at Mals in South Tyrol has two fresco donor figures from before 881, one lay and the other of a cleric holding a model building. In subsequent centuries bishops, abbots and other clergy were the donors most commonly shown, other than royalty, in these the portrait may adopt a praying pose, or may pose more like the subject in a purely secular portrait. The Wilton Diptych of Richard II of England was a forerunner of these, in some of these diptychs the portrait of the original owner has been over-painted with that of a later one. The person presenting might be a courtier making a gift to his prince, a later convention was for figures at about three-quarters of the size of the main ones. This innovation, however, did not appear in Venetian painting until the turn of the next century, normally the main figures ignore the presence of the interlopers in narrative scenes, although bystanding saints may put a supportive hand on the shoulder in a side-panel. But in devotional subjects such as a Madonna and Child, which were likely to have been intended for the donors home. Before the 15th century a physical likeness may not have often attempted, or achieved. In an often-quoted passage, John Pope-Hennessy caricatured 16th-century Italian donors, the elders in the story of Suzannah were some of the few figures respectable Venetians were unwilling to impersonate
6.
Patron saint
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Catholics believe that patron saints, having already transcended to the metaphysical, are able to intercede effectively for the needs of their special charges. Historically, a practice has also occurred in many Islamic lands. With regard to the omnipresence of this belief, the late Martin Lings wrote. Traditionally, it has been understood that the saint of a particular place prays for that places wellbeing and for the health. Saints often become the patrons of places where they were born or had been active, professions sometimes have a patron saint owing to that individual being involved somewhat with it, although some of the connections were tenuous. Lacking such a saint, an occupation would have a patron whose acts or miracles in some way recall the profession and it is, however, generally discouraged in some Protestant branches such as Calvinism, where the practice is considered a form of idolatry. In Islam, the veneration or commemoration and recognition of saints is found in many branches of traditional Sunnism
7.
John the Baptist
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John the Baptist, also known as John the Baptizer, was a Jewish itinerant preacher in the early first century AD. John is revered as a religious figure in Christianity, Islam, the Baháí Faith. He is called a prophet by all of these traditions, and is honoured as a saint in many Christian traditions, John used baptism as the central symbol or sacrament of his messianic movement. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus, scholars generally believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John and several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus early followers had previously been followers of John. John the Baptist is also mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus, according to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself. Christians commonly refer to John as the precursor or forerunner of Jesus, John is also identified with the prophet Elijah. John the Baptist is mentioned in all four canonical Gospels and the non-canonical Gospel of the Nazarenes, the Synoptic Gospels describe John baptising Jesus, in the Gospel of John it is implied in John 1, 32-34. The Gospel of Mark introduces John as a fulfilment of a prophecy from the Book of Isaiah about a messenger being sent ahead, John is described as wearing clothes of camels hair, living on locusts and wild honey. John proclaims baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, and says another will come after him who will not baptize with water, Jesus comes to John, and is baptized by him in the river Jordan. The account describes how, as he emerges from the water, the heavens open, a voice from heaven then says, You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased. Later in the gospel there is an account of Johns death and it is introduced by an incident where the Tetrarch Herod Antipas, hearing stories about Jesus, imagines that this is John the Baptist raised from the dead. It then explains that John had rebuked Herod for marrying Herodias, Herodias demands his execution, but Herod, who liked to listen to John, is reluctant to do so because he fears him, knowing he is a righteous and holy man. The account then describes how Herods daughter Herodias dances before Herod, when the girl asks her mother what she should request, she is told to demand the head of John the Baptist. Reluctantly, Herod orders the beheading of John, and his head is delivered to her, at her request, Johns disciples take the body away and bury it in a tomb. There are a number of difficulties with this passage, the Gospel wrongly identifies Antipas as King and the ex-husband of Herodias is named as Philip, but he is known to have been called Herod. Although the wording clearly implies the girl was the daughter of Herodias, many texts describe her as Herods daughter, Herodias. Since these texts are early and significant and the reading is difficult, many see this as the original version, corrected in later versions and in Matthew. Josephus says that Herodias had a daughter by the name of Salome, scholars have speculated about the origins of the story
8.
Edward the Confessor
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Edward the Confessor, also known as Saint Edward the Confessor, was among the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England, and usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066. When Edward died in 1066, he was succeeded by Harold Godwinson, Edgar the Ætheling, who was of the House of Wessex, was proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but never ruled and was deposed after about eight weeks. As discussed below, historians disagree about Edwards fairly long reign and his nickname reflects the traditional image of him as unworldly and pious. Confessor reflects his reputation as a saint who did not suffer martyrdom, some portray this kings reign as leading to the disintegration of royal power in England and the advance in power of the House of Godwin, because of the infighting after his heirless death. About a century later, in 1161, Pope Alexander III canonised the late king, Saint Edward was one of Englands national saints until King Edward III adopted Saint George as the national patron saint c. His feast day is 13 October, celebrated by both the Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Edward was the seventh son of Æthelred the Unready, and the first by his second wife, Emma of Normandy. Edward was born between 1003 and 1005 in Islip, Oxfordshire, and is first recorded as a witness to two charters in 1005 and he had one full brother, Alfred, and a sister, Godgifu. In charters he was always listed behind his older half-brothers, showing that he ranked behind them, during his childhood England was the target of Viking raids and invasions under Sweyn Forkbeard and his son, Cnut. Following Sweyns seizure of the throne in 1013, Emma fled to Normandy, followed by Edward and Alfred, Sweyn died in February 1014, and leading Englishmen invited Æthelred back on condition that he promised to rule more justly than before. Æthelred agreed, sending Edward back with his ambassadors, Æthelred died in April 1016, and he was succeeded by Edwards older half-brother Edmund Ironside, who carried on the fight against Sweyns son, Cnut. According to Scandinavian tradition, Edward fought alongside Edmund, as Edward was at most thirteen years old at the time, Edmund died in November 1016, and Cnut became undisputed king. Edward then again went into exile with his brother and sister, in the same year Cnut had Edwards last surviving elder half-brother, Eadwig, executed, leaving Edward as the leading Anglo-Saxon claimant to the throne. Edward spent a quarter of a century in exile, probably mainly in Normandy and he probably received support from his sister Godgifu, who married Drogo of Mantes, count of Vexin in about 1024. In the early 1030s Edward witnessed four charters in Normandy, signing two of them as king of England, Edward was said to have developed an intense personal piety during this period, but modern historians regard this as a product of the later medieval campaign for his canonisation. In Frank Barlows view in his lifestyle would seem to have been that of a member of the rustic nobility. He appeared to have a slim prospect of acceding to the English throne during this period, Cnut died in 1035, and Harthacnut succeeded him as king of Denmark. It is unclear whether he was intended to have England as well and it was therefore decided that his elder half-brother Harold Harefoot should act as regent, while Emma held Wessex on Harthacnuts behalf. In 1036 Edward and his brother Alfred separately came to England, Alfred was captured by Godwin, Earl of Wessex who turned him over to Harold Harefoot
9.
Edmund the Martyr
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Edmund the Martyr was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death. Almost nothing is known about Edmund and he is thought to have been of East Anglian origin and was first mentioned in an annal of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written some years after his death. The kingdom of East Anglia was devastated by the Vikings, who destroyed any evidence of his reign. Later writers produced fictitious accounts of his life, asserting that he was born in 841, the son of Æthelweard, an obscure East Anglian king, whom it was said Edmund succeeded when he was fourteen. Later versions of Edmunds life relate that he was crowned on 25 December 855 at Burna, which at that time functioned as the capital. In 869, the Great Heathen Army advanced on East Anglia and killed Edmund. According to one legend, his head was thrown into the forest. Commentators have noted how Edmunds death bears resemblance to the fate suffered by St Sebastian, St Denis, a coinage commemorating Edmund was minted from around the time East Anglia was absorbed by the kingdom of Wessex and a popular cult emerged. In about 986, Abbo of Fleury wrote of his life, the saints remains were temporarily moved from Bury St Edmunds to London for safekeeping in 1010. His shrine at Bury was visited by kings, including Canute, who was responsible for rebuilding the abbey. During the Middle Ages, when Edmund was regarded as the saint of England, Bury and its magnificent abbey grew wealthy. Edmund is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle annal for 870, by tradition, Edmund is thought to have been born in 841 and to have acceded to the East Anglian throne in around 855. Nothing is known of his life or reign, as no contemporary East Anglian documents from this period have survived, later medieval chroniclers have provided dubious accounts of his life, in the absence of any real details. The most credible theory for Edmund’s parentage suggests Ealhhere, brother-in-law to King Æthelstan of Kent, as Edmund’s father, Edmund cannot be placed within any ruling dynasty. Numismatic evidence suggests he succeeded Æthelweard and it is known that a variety of different coins were minted by Edmunds moneyers during his reign. The letters AN, standing for Anglia, only appear on the coins of Edmund and Æthelstan of East Anglia, later specimens read + EADMUND REX and so it is possible for his coins to be divided chronologically. Otherwise, no chronology for his coins has been confirmed and it relates that Her rad se here ofer Mierce innan East Engle and wiñt setl namon. And þy wint Eadmund cying him wiþ feaht. and þa Deniscan sige naman þone cyning ofslogon. by tradition the leaders who slew the king were Ivar the Boneless and his brother Ubba
10.
International Gothic
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International Gothic is a period of Gothic art which initially developed in Burgundy, France and northern Italy in the late 14th and early 15th century. It then spread widely across Western Europe, hence the name for the period. The main influences were northern France, the Duchy of Burgundy, the Imperial court in Prague, royal marriages such as that between Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia helped to spread the style. It was initially a style of courtly sophistication, but somewhat more robust versions spread to art commissioned by the mercantile classes. Usage of the terms by art historians varies somewhat, with using the term more restrictively than others. Some art historians feel the term is in many ways, since it tends to skate over both differences and details of transmission. The important Bohemian version of the style developed in the court of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor in Prague, which for a brief period became a leading force in the development of European art. Charles came from the Luxembourg dynasty, was tutored by the future Pope Clement VI, the Bohemian style initially lacked the elongated figures of other centres, but had a richness and sweetness in female figures that were very influential. Charles had at least one Italian altarpiece, apparently made in Italy and sent to Prague, for St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, he first used a French architect, and then the German Peter Parler. As the style developed in Northern Europe, Italian artists were in turn influenced by it, from this period come the earliest surviving panel portraits of monarchs, and royal manuscripts show a greatly increased number of realistic portraits of the monarch who commissioned them. In painting and sculpture, the style is known in German as the Schöne Stil or Weicher Stil. Stylistic features are a dignified elegance, which replaces monumentality, along with rich decorative colouring, elongated figures and it also makes a more practised use of perspective, modelling, and setting. Figures begin to be more space in their settings, and interest is taken in realistically depicted plants. In some works, above all the calendar scenes of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Decoration became increasingly ornate as the style developed in Northern Europe, claus Sluter was the leading sculptor in Burgundy, and was one artist able to use the style with a strongly monumental effect. Most sculptors are unknown, and the style tended to survive longer in Northern sculpture than painting, smaller painted wood figures, most often of the Madonna, were significant, and being relatively portable, probably helped to disseminate the style across Europe. In Burgundy Jean Malouel, Melchior Broederlam and Henri Bellechose were succeeded by Robert Campin, master Bertram and Conrad von Soest were leading regional masters in Germany, working largely for city burghers. Surviving panel paintings of the best quality from before 1390 are very rare except from Italy, many of these artists moved between countries or regions during their careers, exposing them to the styles of other centres
11.
Tempera
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Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium. Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium, Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist. Egg tempera was a method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting. Tempera painting has been found on early Egyptian sarcophagi decorations, many of the Fayum mummy portraits use tempera, sometimes in combination with encaustic. A related technique has been used also in ancient and early medieval paintings found in several caves, high-quality art with the help of tempera was created in Bagh Caves between the late 4th and 10th centuries AD and in the 7th century AD in Ravan Chhaya rock shelter, Orissa. Tempera painting was the panel painting medium for nearly every painter in the European Medieval. For example, every surviving panel painting by Michelangelo is egg tempera, oil paint, which may have originated in Afghanistan between the 5th and 9th centuries and migrated westward in the Middle Ages eventually superseded tempera. Oil replaced tempera as the medium used for creating artwork during the 15th century in Early Netherlandish painting in northern Europe. Around 1500, oil paint replaced tempera in Italy, in the 19th and 20th centuries, there were intermittent revivals of tempera technique in Western art, among the Pre-Raphaelites, Social Realists, and others. Tempera painting continues to be used in Greece and Russia where it is the medium for Orthodox icons. Tempera is traditionally created by hand-grinding dry powdered pigments into an agent or medium, such as egg, glue, honey, water, milk. Tempera painting starts with placing an amount of the powdered pigment onto a palette, dish or bowl and adding about an equal volume of the binder. Some pigments require slightly more binder, some require less, a few drops of distilled water are added, then the binder is added in small increments to the desired transparency. The more egg emulsion, the more transparent the paint, the most common form of classical tempera painting is egg tempera. For this form most often only the contents of the egg yolk is used, the white of the egg and the membrane of the yolk are discarded. Egg yolk is never used by itself with pigment, it dries almost immediately, some agent is always added, in variable proportions. One recipe calls for vinegar, other recipes suggest white wine, some schools of egg tempera use various mixtures of egg yolk and water. The paint mixture has to be adjusted to maintain a balance between a greasy and watery consistency by adjusting the amount of water and yolk
12.
Gold leaf
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Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-karat yellow gold, Gold leaf is a type of metal leaf, but the term is rarely used when referring to gold leaf. The term metal leaf is used for thin sheets of metal of any color that do not contain any real gold. Real yellow gold leaf is about 91. 7% pure gold, silver colored white gold is approximately 50% pure gold. Layering gold leaf over a surface is called gold leafing or gilding, traditional water gilding is the most difficult and highly regarded form of gold leafing. It has remained unchanged for hundreds of years and is still done by hand. Gold leaf is used in art in a raw state. It has been used in jewellery in various periods, often as small pieces hanging freely. Gold glass is gold leaf held between two pieces of glass, and was used for decorated Ancient Roman vessels, where some of the gold was scraped off to form an image, Gold leaf is also used in Buddhist art to decorate statues and symbols. Gold leafing can also be seen on domes in religious and public architecture, from the ancient temples to modern day buildings, gold leaf has been an integral component of architecture to designate important structures since the dawn of humankind. Due to gold’s resilience, golden-domed buildings can stand up to weather, deterioration and even modern pollution, Gold in architecture became an integral component of Byzantine and Roman churches and basilicas in 400 AD, most notably Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The church was built by Pope Sixtus III and is one of the earliest examples of gold mosaics, the mosaics were made of stone, tile or glass backed on gold leaf walls, giving the church a beautifully intricate backdrop. The 14th century campanile, or bell tower, is the highest in Rome, the apse mosaic, the Coronation of the Virgin, is from 1295, signed by the Franciscan friar, Jacopo Torriti. It is also the location of ceremonial spaces, such as the Hall of Honour, the Memorial Chamber. Capping the room is a ceiling with deep octagonal coffers, each filled with heraldic symbols, including maple leaves, fleur-de-lis, lions rampant, clàrsach, Welsh Dragons. This plane rests on six pairs and four pilasters, each of which is capped by a caryatid. Below the windows is an architrave, broken only by baldachins at the base of each of the above pilasters
13.
Lapis lazuli
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Lapis lazuli, or lapis for short, is a deep blue, semi-precious stone prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, in Shortugai, Lapis was highly valued by the Indus Valley Civilisation. Lapis beads have been found at burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus. It was used in the mask of Tutankhamun. At the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli began to be exported to Europe, where it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, today, mines in northeast Afghanistan and Pakistan are still the major source of lapis lazuli. Important amounts are produced from mines west of Lake Baikal in Russia. Smaller quantities are mined in Italy, Mongolia, the United States, the name Lapis lazuli came to be associated with its color. The English word azure, French azur, Italian azzurro, Polish lazur, Romanian azur and azuriu, Portuguese and Spanish azul, the most important mineral component of lapis lazuli is lazurite, a feldspathoid silicate mineral with the formula 861-2. Most lapis lazuli also contains calcite, sodalite, and pyrite, some samples of lapis lazuli contain augite, diopside, enstatite, mica, hauynite, hornblende, nosean, and sulfur-rich löllingite geyerite. Lapis lazuli usually occurs in marble as a result of contact metamorphism. The intense blue color is due to the presence of the radical anion in the crystal. An electronic excitation of one electron from the highest doubly filled molecular orbital into the lowest singly occupied orbital results in an intense absorption line at λmax ~617 nm. Lapis lazuli is found in limestone in the Kokcha River valley of Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, Afghanistan was the source of lapis for the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as the later Greeks and Romans. Ancient Egyptians obtained this material through trade from Afghanistan, during the height of the Indus Valley Civilisation about 2000 BC, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines. In addition to the Afghan deposits, lapis is also extracted in the Andes and it is mined in smaller amounts in Angola, Argentina, Burma, Pakistan, Canada, Italy, India, and in the United States in California and Colorado. Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, small statues, during the Renaissance, Lapis was ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for use in frescoes and oil painting. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint largely ended in the early 19th century when a chemically identical synthetic variety became available, Lapis lazuli is commercially synthesized or simulated by the Gilson process, which is used to make artificial ultramarine and hydrous zinc phosphates. It may also be substituted by spinel or sodalite, or by dyed jasper or howlite, Lapis lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan and exported to the Mediterranean world and South Asia since the Neolithic age
14.
Vermilion
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Vermilion is a brilliant red or scarlet pigment originally made from the powdered mineral cinnabar, and is also the name of the resulting color. The word vermilion came from the Old French word vermeillon, which was derived from vermeil, from the Latin vermiculus and it has the same origin as the English word vermin. The name originated because it had a color to the natural red dye made from an insect, the Kermes vermilio. The words for the color in Portuguese, Galician and Catalan have the same origin, the first recorded use of vermilion as a color name in English was in 1289. The term cinnabar was used interchangeably with vermilion until the 17th century, by the late 18th century cinnabar applied to the unground natural mineral only. Vermilion is a dense, opaque pigment with a clear, brilliant hue, the pigment was originally made by grinding a powder of cinnabar, which contains mercury. The chemical formula of the pigment is HgS, like most mercury compounds, Vermilion is not one specific hue, Mercuric sulfides make a range of warm hues – from bright orange-red to a duller reddish-purple that resembles fresh duck liver. Differences in hue are caused by the size of the particles of pigment. Larger crystals produce duller and less-orange hue, Cinnabar pigment was a side-product of the mining of mercury, and mining cinnabar was difficult, expensive and dangerous, because of the toxicity of mercury. The Greek philosopher Theophrastus of Eresus described the process in De Lapidibus, efforts began early to find a better way to make the pigment. The Chinese were probably the first to make a synthetic vermilion as early as the 4th century BC, the Greek alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis wrote that such a method existed. In the early ninth century the process was described by the Arab or Persian alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan in his book of recipes of colors. The process described by Jabir ibn Hayyan was fairly simple, Mercury and sulfur were mixed together, forming a black compound of sulphide of mercury, called Aethiopes mineralis. This was then heated in a flask, the compound vaporized, and recondensed in the top of the flask. The flask was broken, the vermilion was taken out, when first created the pigment was almost black, but as it was ground the red color appeared. The longer the color was ground, the finer the color became, the Italian Renaissance artist Cennino Cennini wrote, if you were to grind it every day even for twenty years it would keep getting better and more perfect. During the 17th century a new method of making the pigment was introduced, Mercury and melted sulfur were mashed to make black mercury sulfide, then heated in retort, producing vapors condensing as a bright, red mercury sulfide. To remove the sulfur these crystals were treated with an alkali, washed
15.
Emblem
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An emblem is an abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept, like a moral truth, or an allegory, or a person, like a king or saint. Although the words emblem and symbol are used interchangeably, an emblem is a pattern that is used to represent an idea or an individual. An emblem crystallizes in concrete, visual terms some abstraction, a deity, an emblem may be worn or otherwise used as an identifying badge or patch. For example, in America, police officers badges refer to their personal metal emblem whereas their woven emblems on uniforms identify members of a particular unit. A real or metal shell, the emblem of St. James the Apostle, sewn onto the hat or clothes. In the Middle Ages, many saints were given emblems, which served to them in paintings and other images, St. Catherine had a wheel, or a sword, St. Anthony Abbot, a pig. These are also called attributes, especially when carried by or close to the saint in art. Kings and other grand persons increasingly adopted personal devices or emblems that were distinct from their family heraldry. The most famous include Louis XIV of Frances sun, the salamander of Francis I of France, the boar of Richard III of England, pisanello produced many of the earliest and finest of these. A symbol, on the hand, substitutes one thing for another, in a more concrete fashion, The Christian cross is a symbol of the Crucifixion. The Red Cross is one of three representing the International Red Cross. A red cross on a background is the emblem of humanitarian spirit. The crescent shape is a symbol of the moon, it is an emblem of Islam, the skull and crossbones is a symbol identifying a poison. The skull is an emblem of the nature of human life. A totem is specifically an animal emblem that expresses the spirit of a clan, heraldry knows its emblems as charges. The lion passant serves as the emblem of England, the lion rampant as the emblem of Scotland, an icon consists of an image, that has become standardized by convention. A logo is an impersonal, secular icon, usually of a corporate entity, since the 15th century the terms of emblem and emblematura belong to the termini technici of architecture. They mean an iconic painted, drawn, or sculptural representation of a concept affixed to houses, Emblem in this sense refers to a didactic or moralizing combination of picture and text intended to draw the reader into a self-reflective examination of his or her own life
16.
Cloth of gold
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Cloth of gold or gold cloth is a fabric woven with a gold-wrapped or spun weft—referred to as a spirally spun gold strip. In most cases, the yarn is silk wrapped with a band or strip of high content gold. In rarer instances, fine linen and wool have been used as the core and it is mentioned on both Roman headstones for women and in the Book of Psalms as a fabric befitting a princess. The Ancient Greek reference to the Golden Fleece is seen by some as a reference to gold cloth, Cloth of gold has been popular for ecclesiastical use for many centuries. Under Henry VII of England, its use was reserved to royalty and it is also used today by companies such as Charvet for neckwear. Few extant examples have survived in Roman provincial tombs, later producers of cloth of gold include the Byzantine Empire and Medieval Italian weavers, particularly in Genoa, Venice and Lucca. In the 14th century, cloth of gold made in China was called marramas, a similar cloth of silver was also made. It is still made in India and Europe today, most modern metallic fabrics made in the West are known as lamé. Cloth of gold is a name occasionally applied to the venomous Conus textile species of cone shell. Field of the Cloth of Gold Samite The Roman Textile Industry, a Birthday Tribute to John Peter Wild. Edited by Penelope Walton Rodgers, et al
17.
Heraldic badge
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A heraldic badge, an emblem, an impresa, or device, or personal device worn as a badge indicates allegiance to, or the property of, an individual or family. Medieval forms are called a livery badge, and also a cognizance. They are para-heraldic, not necessarily using elements from the coat of arms of the person or family they represent, though many do and their use was more flexible than that of arms proper. Badges worn on clothing were common in the late Middle Ages, livery collars were also given to important persons, often with the badge as a pendant. The badge would also be embroidered or appliqued on standards, horse trappings, livery uniforms, many medieval badges survive in English pub names. Badges are occasionally taken from a charge in the coat of arms. More often, badges commemorated some remarkable exploit, illustrated a family or feudal alliance, some badges are rebuses, making a pun or play-on-words of the owners name. It was not uncommon for the same personage or family to use more than one badge, in the Wilton Diptych, Richards own badge has pearls on the antler tips, which the angels badges lack. The British Museum also has a badge in flat lead. The mob attacked him, pulling him off his horse and the badge off him, over twenty years later, after Gaunts son Henry IV had deposed Richard, one of Richards servants was imprisoned by Henry for continuing to wear Richards livery badge. Many of the number of badges of various liveries recovered from the Thames in London were perhaps discarded hurriedly by retainers who found themselves impoliticly dressed at various times. Richard offered to give up his own badges, to the delight of the House of Commons of England, but the House of Lords refused to give up theirs, and the matter was put off. In 1390 it was ordered that no one below the rank of banneret should issue badges, livery badges issues by guilds and corporations, and mayors, were exempt, and these continued in use until the 19th century in some cases. In fact modern historical analysis of the records shows few prosecutions. The Collar of Esses became in effect a badge of office, indeed, by the 16th century, emblems were adopted by intellectuals and merchants who had no heraldry of their own. Later emblem books contained large numbers of emblems, partly to allow people to one they thought suited them. The device, to all intents and purposes identical to the Italian impresa, structurally, the device normally consists of two parts while most emblems have three or more. These include the porcupine of Louis XII with its motto Eminus et cominus or De pres et de loin and these and many more were collected by Claude Paradin and published in his Devises héroïques of 1551 and 1557, which gives the motto of Louis XII as Ultos avos Troiae
18.
White Hart
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The White Hart was the personal badge of Richard II, who probably derived it from the arms of his mother, Joan The Fair Maid of Kent, heiress of Edmund of Woodstock. It may also have been a pun on his name, as in Rich-hart, in English Folklore, the white hart is associated with Herne the Hunter. There are still many inns and pubs in England that sport a sign of the white hart and this pub was fictional, but was based on a real pub named the White Horse where the science fiction community of London met in the 1940s and 1950s. The White Hart Hotel in Braintree dates back as far as the 14th Century in its current guise and it was a coaching inn that ran services to Sudbury and Norwich daily, up until the arrival of the railway in 1848. It has recently had a renovation by its currents owners and provides an affordable stay, the White Hart in Brentwood is the oldest pub in the town, dating back to before 1480. It may have been so named after King Richard II passed through Brentwood in 1392 and it became a coaching inn in the 18th century and survived long enough that in 1910 even offered repairs to motor vehicles. Now operating as a nightclub and restaurant called Sugar Hut, the building can be seen on reality TV programme, The Only Way Is Essex. The small park next door crossed by a path is the graveyard. The pub has a nice garden, with bat and trap in summer. There is also a meeting room available for hire. The White Hart Inn in Colyford sits on the A3052, which runs along the south coast from Bridport to Exeter, crawley became an important coaching stop on the London to Brighton road after it became fully turnpiked in 1770. By 1668, a mid-15th century Wealden open hall-house which was originally a dwelling had been converted into an inn called The Whyte Harte, later standardised to The White Hart. The great increase in coaching traffic in the late 18th century meant its capacity was exceeded, so it was sold in 1753. This was built around the core of an early 17th-century timber-framed building, as of 2011, it continues to trade under the White Hart name, as a tied house owned by Harveys Brewery. The White Hart is the name of the bar and restaurant within the estate of Dartington Hall, the medieval Dartington Hall was built for John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon and half-brother to Richard II of England. The Dartington Morris Men side was formed at Dartington Hall in 1968 and was given permission to use the crest of the white hart on a red rose as its emblem, in Edinburgh, The White Hart is an inn in the Grassmarket, established early in the 16th century. It stood a few hundred steps from the place where public hangings were held, robert Burns and William Wordsworth were among its notable visitors, and Burke and Hare found some of the victims of their murder-for-body-parts scheme there. There is a string of White Hart pubs along what was one of the old coaching inn roads from London to Salisbury
19.
Rosemary
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It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae, which includes many other herbs. The name rosemary derives from the Latin for dew and sea, the plant is also sometimes called anthos, from the ancient Greek word ἄνθος, meaning flower. Rosemary has a root system. Rosmarinus officinalis is one of 2–4 species in the genus Rosmarinus, the other species most often recognized is the closely related, Rosmarinus eriocalyx, of the Maghreb of Africa and Iberia. The genus was named by the 18th-century naturalist and founding taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, Rosemary is an aromatic evergreen shrub with leaves similar to hemlock needles. It is native to the Mediterranean and Asia, but is hardy in cool climates. It can withstand droughts, surviving a severe lack of water for lengthy periods, forms range from upright to trailing, the upright forms can reach 1.5 m tall, rarely 2 m. The leaves are evergreen, 2–4 cm long and 2–5 mm broad, green above, the plant flowers in spring and summer in temperate climates, but the plants can be in constant bloom in warm climates, flowers are white, pink, purple or deep blue. Rosemary also has a tendency to flower outside its normal flowering season, it has known to flower as late as early December. According to legend, it was draped around the Greek goddess Aphrodite when she rose from the sea, the Virgin Mary is said to have spread her blue cloak over a white-blossomed rosemary bush when she was resting, and the flowers turned blue. The shrub then became known as the Rose of Mary, Rosemary is used as a decorative plant in gardens where it may have pest control effects. The leaves are used to various foods, such as stuffings. Since it is attractive and drought-tolerant, rosemary is used as a plant in gardens and for xeriscape landscaping. It is considered easy to grow and pest-resistant, Rosemary can grow quite large and retain attractiveness for many years, can be pruned into formal shapes and low hedges, and has been used for topiary. It is easily grown in pots, the groundcover cultivars spread widely, with a dense and durable texture. Rosemary grows on friable loam soil with good drainage in an open and it will not withstand waterlogging and some varieties are susceptible to frost. It grows best in neutral to alkaline conditions with average fertility and it can be propagated from an existing plant by clipping a shoot 10–15 cm long, stripping a few leaves from the bottom, and planting it directly into soil. Numerous cultivars have been selected for garden use, fresh or dried leaves are used in traditional Mediterranean cuisine
20.
Anne of Bohemia
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Anne of Bohemia was Queen of England as the first wife of King Richard II. A member of the House of Luxembourg, she was the eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia and she died at 28 after 12 years of marriage, she was childless, and greatly mourned by her husband. But Anne appears to have won many English people over with her personality, and her efforts to help obtain royal pardons. Her fathers court, based in Prague, was a centre of the International Gothic style, then at its height, and her arrival seems to coincide with, and probably caused, new influences on English art. The Crown of Princess Blanche, now in Munich, may have made for Anne. She had four brothers, including Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and she also had five half-siblings from her fathers previous marriages. Anne is buried in Westminster Abbey beside her husband, Richard II married Anne of Bohemia as a result of the Western Schism in the Papacy that had resulted in two rival popes. Annes father was the most powerful monarch in Europe at the time, ruling over about half of Europes population and territory. The marriage was against the wishes of many members of his nobility and members of parliament and she brought with her no dowry, and in return for her hand in marriage, Richard gave 20,000 florins in payment to her brother Wenceslas. It is therefore no surprise that the marriage was unpopular, the Westminster Chronicler called her a tiny scrap of humanity, and Thomas Walsingham related a disastrous omen upon her arrival, where her ships smashed to pieces as soon as she had disembarked. Nevertheless, Anne and King Richard II were married in Westminster Abbey on 20 January 1382, tournaments were held for several days after the ceremony, in celebration. They then made a tour of the realm, staying at many major abbeys along the way, in 1383 Anne of Bohemia visited the city of Norwich, where at the Great Hospital a ceiling comprising 252 black eagles was made in her honour. Anne and Richard were only 14 years old when they first met, yet these two wispy teenagers soon fell into a loving relationship and over the years the king proved truly devoted to his new wife. Annes wedding to Richard II was the royal wedding in Westminster Abbey and was not followed by any other royal wedding in Westminster Abbey for another 537 years. They were married for 12 years, but had no children, Annes death from plague in 1394 at Shene Manor was a devastating blow to Richard. Historians have speculated that her counsel had an effect on Richard during her lifetime. This is supported by his conduct in the years after Annes death that lost him his throne. Richard married his wife, Isabella of Valois, on 31 October 1396
21.
Livery collar
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A livery collar or chain of office is a collar or heavy chain, usually of gold, worn as insignia of office or a mark of fealty or other association in Europe from the Middle Ages onwards. One of the oldest and best-known livery collars is the Collar of Esses, various forms of livery were used in the Middle Ages to denote attachment to a great person by friends, servants, and political supporters. From the collar hung a badge or device indicating the person the livery related to, equally gold collars that had no livery connotations were worn. Livery collars seem to be first recorded in the 14th century, the collar of Esses is first recorded earlier than this, as being given by John of Gaunt, and remained in use by the House of Lancaster throughout the Wars of the Roses. The same collar was worn by Henry IV on the way to his crowning, the inventory shows that Queen Annes collar, was made up of sprigs of rosemary garnished with pearls. The York collar had falcons and fetterlocks, and the Lancaster collar was doubtless that Collar of Esses used by the son, Henry of Bolingbroke, as an earl, duke. The oldest effigy bearing it is that in Spratton church of Sir John Swynford, who died in 1371. Swynford was a follower of John of Gaunt, and the date of his death easily disposes of the theory that the Esses were devised by Henry IV to stand for his motto or word of Soverayne. Many explanations are given of the origin of these letters, in one of Henry VIs own collars the S was joined to the broomcod of the French device, symbolizing the kings claim to the two kingdoms. The kings of the house of York and their chief followers wore the Yorkist collar of suns and roses, with the lion of March. It was presented to ministers and courtiers, and came to represent more a symbol of office by the time of Elizabeth I, the term Collar of SS was preferred by Victorian antiquaries. Since World War II, as SS is usually associated with the Schutzstaffel, besides these royal collars, the 14th and 15th centuries show many private devices. A monumental brass at Mildenhall shows a knight whose badge of a dog or wolf circled by a crown hangs from a collar with edges suggesting a pruned bough or the ragged staff. The Elizabethan artist Nicholas Hilliard was both a goldsmith and miniaturist, and so produced the whole of pieces like the Armada Jewel, given by Queen Elizabeth I of England to a courtier. When the Earl of Rutland returned from an embassy to Denmark, sixteen members of his party were given chains of gold with the James I of Englands picture, during the sixteenth century collars became marks of a specific office or Order, and subsequently remained so. Most British and Irish mayors wear a collar/chain of office, the mayors spouse may have a much smaller version. These are worn over normal clothes when on official duties, following British practice, most Canadian, Australian and New Zealand mayors also wear chains of office. Collars of various devices are worn by the knights of some of the European orders of knighthood
22.
Cytisus scoparius
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Cytisus scoparius, the common broom or Scotch broom, syn. Sarothamnus scoparius, is a leguminous shrub native to western. In other English-speaking countries, the most prevalent common name is Scotch broom, there are two subspecies of Cytisus scoparius, Cytisus scoparius subsp. Differs in prostrate growth, not over 0.4 m tall, plants of Cytisus scoparius typically grow to 1–3 m tall, rarely to 4 m, with main stems up to 5 cm thick, rarely 10 cm. The shrubs have green shoots with small deciduous trifoliate leaves 5–15 mm long, flowering occurs after 50–80 growing degree days. In late summer, its legumes mature black, 2–3 cm long,8 mm broad and 2–3 mm thick, they burst open, often with an audible crack and this species is adapted to mediterranean and coastal climates, and its range is limited by cold winter temperatures. Especially the seeds, seedlings and young shoots are sensitive to frost, but adult plants are hardier, C. scoparius contains toxic alkaloids that depress the heart and nervous system. Cytisus scoparius is found in sites, usually on dry, sandy soils at low altitudes. It is common in Great Britain and Ireland, as a legume, this shrub can fix nitrogen in the soil through a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria. These shrubs commonly grow in disturbed areas and along utility and transportation rights-of-way, the prolific growth of this species after timber harvest inhibits reforestation by competing with seedling trees. It is estimated that it is responsible for US$47 million in lost timber production each year in Oregon, in New Zealand, broom is estimated to cost the forestry industry NZ$90 million, and to cost farmers NZ$10 million. Biological control for broom has been investigated since the mid-1980s with a number of species being trialled. They include the broom twig miner, the seed beetle, the broom gall mite, the sap-sucking broom psyllid, the Scotch broom seed weevil and recently the broom leaf beetle. The method used to remove broom is dependent on the prolific seed cycle, care should be taken to avoid disturbing the ground or the seeding plants between late spring and mid fall. From late fall, through winter, to mid spring are preferred times to eradicate mature plants, there are several methods, cutting, pulling, burning, herbicide or introducing chickens and goats. Often new plants will grow from roots or seed, requiring repeated treatments, drought areas respond well to cutting while the seed pods are young and still green. In cooler wetter areas pulling is the method and hand operated broom pullers are available. The name of the House of Plantagenet, rulers of England in the Middle Ages, may have derived from common broom
23.
House of Plantagenet
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The House of Plantagenet was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II, until 1485, under the Plantagenets, England was transformed, although this was only partly intentional. The Plantagenet kings were forced to negotiate compromises such as Magna Carta. These constrained royal power in return for financial and military support, the king was no longer just the most powerful man in the nation, holding the prerogative of judgement, feudal tribute and warfare. He now had defined duties to the realm, underpinned by a justice system. A distinct national identity was shaped by conflict with the French, Scots, Welsh and Irish, in the 15th century, the Plantagenets were defeated in the Hundred Years War and beset with social, political and economic problems. Popular revolts were commonplace, triggered by the denial of numerous freedoms, the Tudors worked to centralise English royal power, which allowed them to avoid some of the problems that had plagued the last Plantagenet rulers. The resulting stability allowed for the English Renaissance, and the advent of early modern Britain, Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, adopted Plantagenet as his family name in the 15th century. Plantegenest had been a 12th-century nickname for his ancestor Geoffrey, count of Anjou, one of many popular theories suggests the common broom, planta genista in medieval Latin, as the source of the nickname. It is uncertain why Richard chose this name, although during the Wars of the Roses it emphasised Richards status as Geoffreys patrilineal descendant. It was only in the late 17th century that it passed into common usage among historians, the three Angevin kings were Henry II, Richard I and John, Angevin can also refer to the period of history in which they reigned. Many historians identify the Angevins as a distinct English royal house, Angevin is also used in reference to any sovereign or government derived from Anjou. The term Angevin Empire was coined by Kate Norgate in 1887, the Empire portion of Angevin Empire has been controversial. In 1986 a convention of historians concluded that there had not been an Angevin state, and therefore no Angevin Empire, nonetheless, historians have continued to use Angevin Empire. The later counts of Anjou, including the Plantagenets, descended from Geoffrey II, Count of Gâtinais, in 1060 the couple inherited the title via cognatic kinship from an Angevin family that was descended from a noble named Ingelger, whose recorded history dates from 870. During the 10th and 11th centuries, power struggles occurred between rulers in northern and western France including those of Anjou, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou, Blois, Maine, and the kings of France. In the early 12th century Geoffrey of Anjou married Empress Matilda, King Henry Is only surviving legitimate child and heir to the English throne. As a result of marriage, Geoffreys son Henry II inherited the English throne as well as Norman and Angevin titles, thus marking the beginning of the Angevin
24.
Charles VI of France
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Charles VI, called the Beloved and the Mad, was King of France from 1380 to his death. He was a member of the House of Valois, Charles VI was only 11 when he inherited the throne in the midst of the Hundred Years War. The government was entrusted to his four uncles, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, John, Duke of Berry, Louis I, Duke of Anjou, and Louis II, Duke of Bourbon. Although the royal age of majority was fixed at 14, the dukes maintained their grip on Charles until he took power at the age of 21, as royal funds drained, new taxes had to be raised, which caused several revolts. In 1388 Charles VI dismissed his uncles and brought back to power his fathers former advisers, political and economic conditions in the kingdom improved significantly, and Charles earned the epithet the Beloved. But in August 1392 en route to Brittany with his army in the forest of Le Mans, Charles suddenly went mad and slew four knights and almost killed his brother, from then on, Charles bouts of insanity became more frequent and of longer duration. During these attacks, he had delusions, believing he was made of glass or denying he had a wife and he could also attack servants or run until exhaustion, wailing that he was threatened by his enemies. Between crises, there were intervals of months during which Charles was relatively sane, however, unable to concentrate or make decisions, political power was taken away from him by the princes of the blood, which would cause much chaos and conflict in France. A fierce struggle for power developed between Louis of Orléans, the brother, and John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. When John instigated the murder of Louis in November 1407, the conflict degenerated into a war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. John offered large parts of France to King Henry V of England, when Charles VI died, he was succeeded by his son Charles VII, who found the Valois cause in a desperate situation. Charles was born in Paris, in the residence of the Hôtel Saint-Pol, on 3 December 1368, the son of the king of France Charles V, of the House of Valois. As heir to the French throne, his brothers having died before he was born. At his fathers death on 16 September 1380, he inherited the throne of France and his coronation took place on 4 November 1380, at Reims Cathedral. Although the royal age of majority was 14, Charles did not terminate the regency and he married Isabeau of Bavaria on 17 July 1385, when he was 17 and she was 14. Isabeau had 12 children, most of whom died young, isabeaus first child, named Charles, was born in 1386, and was Dauphin of Viennois, but survived only 3 months. Her second child, Joan, was born on 14 June 1388 and her third child, Isabella, was born in 1389. She was married to Richard II, King of England in 1396, at the age of 6, Richard died in 1400 and they had no children
25.
Isabella of Valois
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Isabella of France was Queen consort of England as the second spouse of King Richard II. Her parents were King Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria and she married the king at the age of seven and was widowed three years later. She later married Charles, Duke of Orléans, dying in childbirth at the age of nineteen, Isabellas younger sister, Catherine, was Queen of England from 1420 until 1422, wife of Henry V and mother of Henry VI. Catherine was also a grandmother of Henry VII, Isabella lived during a period of political tension between France and England known as the Hundred Years War, the situation exacerbated by the mental instability of her father. On 31 October 1396, almost the age of seven, Isabella married the widower King Richard II of England in a move for peace with France, although the union was political, Richard II and the child Isabella developed a mutually respectful relationship. By May of 1399, the Queen had been moved to Portchester Castle for protection while Richard went on a campaign in Ireland. King Henry IV then decided Queen Isabella should marry his son, the future Henry V of England, knowing her husband was dead, she went into mourning, ignoring Henry IVs demands. Eventually he let her go back to France, on 29 June 1406, Queen Isabella married her cousin Charles, Duke of Orléans. She died in childbirth at the age of 19, leaving one daughter, Joan, Isabella was interred in Blois, in the abbey of St. Laumer, where her body was found entire in 1624, curiously wrapped in bands of linen plated over with quicksilver. It was then transferred to the church of the Celestines in Paris, in Shakespeares play Richard II Richards queen appears in two significant scenes at the time of his deposition, but she is portrayed as an adult. She is forced by the new king Henry IV to leave for France after the deposition, two well-regarded novels about Isabellas life appeared in the late 1950s. Hilda Lewis The Gentle Falcon is about Isabellas marriage to Richard II, while Gladys Malverns My Lady, My Love is about Isabellas later years after Richards death and her return to France
26.
Ronde-bosse
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The new method involved the partial concealment of the underlying gold, or sometimes silver, from which the figure was formed. In the technique of enamel en ronde-bosse small figures are created in gold or silver and their surfaces lightly roughened to provide a key for the enamel, in places the framework may only be wire. After this period smaller works continued to be produced, and there was a revival of larger works c, 1500-1520, although it is not clear where these were made. The technique was used on parts of a large sculpture in Benvenuto Cellinis famous Salt Cellar and remained common through to the Baroque, usually in small works. The Russian House of Fabergé made much use of the technique from the 19th century until the Russian Revolution, in the works from around 1400, the recently developed white enamel usually predominates. An Introduction to Medieval Enamels,1983, HMSO for V&A Museum, ISBN 0-11-290385-1 Chapuis, patronage at the Early Valois Courts. 1400, National Gallery of Art, Washington Saint Catherine of Alexandria in ronde-bosse, and The Dead Christ with the Virgin, Saint John, 1390–1405, both from the Metropolitan Museum of Arts
27.
Vitreous enamel
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Vitreous enamel, also called porcelain enamel, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C. The powder melts, flows, and then hardens to a smooth, durable vitreous coating on metal, so in technical terms fired enamelware is an integrated layered composite of glass and metal. Enamelling is an old and widely adopted technology, for most of its history mainly used in jewelry, enamelled and enamelling are the preferred spellings in British English, while enameled and enameling are preferred in American English. The term enamel is most often restricted to work on metal, enamelled glass is also called painted, and overglaze decoration to pottery is often called enamelling. The word enamel comes from the Old High German word smelzan via the Old French esmail, or from a Latin word smaltum, used as a noun, an enamel is usually a small decorative object coated with enamel. Since the 19th century the term also to industrial materials and many metal consumer objects, such as some cooking vessels, dishwashers, laundry machines, sinks. The ancient Egyptians applied enamels to stone objects, pottery, and sometimes jewellery, the ancient Greeks, Celts, Georgians, and Chinese also used enamel on metal objects. Enamel powder could be produced in two ways, either by powdering coloured glass, or by mixing colourless glass powder with pigments such as a metallic oxide, designs were either painted freehand or over the top of outline incisions, and the technique probably originated in metalworking. Once painted, enamelled glass vessels needed to be fired at a high enough to melt the applied powder. Ancient Persians used this method for colouring and ornamenting the surface of metals by fusing over it brilliant colours that are decorated in an intricate design and called it Meenakari. Gold has been used traditionally for Meenakari Jewellery as it holds the enamel better, lasts longer, initially, the work of Meenakari often went unnoticed as this art was traditionally used as a backing for the famous kundan or stone-studded jewellery. This also allowed the wearer to reverse the jewellery as also promised a special joy in the secret of the hidden design, the Byzantine enamel style was widely adopted by the barbarian peoples of Migration Period northern Europe. The Byzantines then began to use cloisonné more freely to create images, the champlevé technique was considerably easier and very widely practiced in the Romanesque period. In Gothic art the finest work is in basse-taille and ronde-bosse techniques, from either Byzantium or the Islamic world, the cloisonné technique reached China in the 13-14th centuries. The first written reference to cloisonné is in a book from 1388, cloisonné remained very popular in China until the 19th century and is still produced today. Starting from the century, the Japanese also produced large quantities of very high technical quality. A resurgence in enamel-based art took place near the end of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, led by artists like Alexei Maximov, in Australia, abstract artist Bernard Hesling brought the style into prominence with his variously sized steel plates. Enamel was first applied commercially to sheet iron and steel in Austria, industrialization increased as the purity of raw materials increased and costs decreased
28.
Dunstable Swan Jewel
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The Dunstable Swan Jewel is a gold and enamel brooch in the form of a swan made in England or France in about 1400 and now in the British Museum, where it is on display in Room 40. The jewel is a medieval example of the then recently developed. The jewel is formed as a standing or walking mute swan gorged with a collar in the form of a royal crown with six fleur-de-lys tines. There is a chain terminating in a ring attached to the crown. The swan is 3.2 cm high and 2.5 cm wide, the swans body is in white enamel, its eyes are of black enamel, which also once covered the legs and feet, where only traces now remain. Tiny fragments of pink or red enamel remain on the beak, the jewel is a unique survival of the most expensive form of livery badge, otherwise only known from inventories and representations in paintings. In the Wilton Diptych, Richards own badge has pearls on the antler tips, which the angels badges lack. In 1483 King Richard III ordered 13,000 fustian badges with his emblem of a boar for the investiture of his son Edward as Prince of Wales, a huge number given the population at the time. The British Museum also has a flat lead swan badge with low relief, the mob attacked him, pulling him off his horse and the badge off him, and he had to be rescued by the mayor from suffering serious harm. Over twenty years later, after Gaunts son Henry IV had deposed Richard, many of the large number of badges of various liveries recovered from the Thames in London were perhaps discarded hurriedly by retainers who found themselves impoliticly dressed at various times. Richard offered to give up his own badges, to the delight of the House of Commons of England, but the House of Lords refused to give up theirs, and the matter was put off. In 1390 it was ordered that no one below the rank of banneret should issue badges, and no one below the rank of esquire wear them. In the end it took a determined campaign by Henry VII to largely stamp out the use of badges by others than the king. The widespread use of the swan as a badge derives from the legend of the Swan Knight. A group of Old French chansons de geste called the Crusade cycle had associated the legend with the ancestors of Godfrey of Bouillon, the hero of the First Crusade. Although Godfrey had no issue, his family had many descendants among the aristocracy of Europe. The swan with the crown and chain is associated with Lancastrian use, it echoes the crown and chain of Richard IIs white hart. He declared to Parliament that he had exchanged liveries with his uncles as a sign of amity at various moments of reconciliation and it was also used by his grandson Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales before his death in the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471
29.
House of Lancaster
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The House of Lancaster was the name of two cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The first house was created when Henry III of England created the Earldom of Lancaster—from which the house was named—for his second son Edmund Crouchback in 1267 and this brought him—and Henry, his younger brother—into conflict with their cousin Edward II of England, leading to Thomass execution. Henry inherited Thomass titles and he and his son, who was also called Henry, the second house of Lancaster was descended from John of Gaunt, who married the heiress of the first house. Edward III married all his sons to wealthy English heiresses rather than following his predecessors practice of finding continental political marriages for royal princes. Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster, had no male heir so Edward married his son John to Henrys heiress daughter and this gave John the vast wealth of the House of Lancaster. Their son Henry usurped the throne in 1399, creating one of the factions in the Wars of the Roses, there was an intermittent dynastic struggle between the descendants of Edward III. In these wars, the term Lancastrian became a reference to members of the family, the family provided England with three kings, Henry IV, who ruled from 1399 to 1413, Henry V, and Henry VI. Later grants included the first Earldom of Lancaster on 30 June 1267, Edmund was also Count of Champagne and Brie from 1276 by right of his wife. Edmunds second marriage to Blanche of Artois, the widow of the King of Navarre, Blanches daughter Joan I of Navarre was queen regnant of Navarre and through her marriage to Philip IV of France was queen consort of France. Edmunds son Thomas became the most powerful nobleman in England, gaining the Earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury through marriage to the heiress of Henry de Lacy and his income was £11,000 per annum—double that of the next wealthiest earl. After initially supporting Edward, Thomas became one of the Lords Ordainers, who demanded the banishment of Piers Gaveston, after Gaveston was captured, Thomas took the lead in his trial and execution at Warwick in 1312. Edwards authority was weakened by poor governance and defeat by the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn and this allowed Thomas to restrain Edwards power by republishing the Ordinances of 1311. Following this achievement Thomas took little part in the governance of the realm and this allowed Edward to regroup and re-arm, leading to a fragile peace in August 1318 with the Treaty of Leake. In 1321 Edwards rule again collapsed into civil war, Thomas raised a northern army but was defeated and captured at the Battle of Boroughbridge. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered but because he was Edwards cousin he was given a death by beheading. Henry joined the revolt of Edwards wife Isabella of France and her lover Mortimer in 1326 and his restored prestige led to him knighting the young King Edward III of England before his coronation. Mortimer lost support over the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton that formalised Scotlands independence, when Mortimer called a parliament to make his new powers and estates permanent with the title of Earl of March in 1328, Henry led the opposition and held a counter-meeting. In response, Mortimer ravaged the lands of Lancaster and checked the revolt, Edward III was able to assume control in 1330 but Henrys further influence was restricted by poor health and blindness for the last fifteen years of his life
30.
Emerald
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Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7. 5–8 on the Mohs scale, most emeralds are highly included, so their toughness is classified as generally poor. The word emerald is derived, from Vulgar Latin, esmaralda/esmaraldus, a variant of Latin smaragdus, emeralds, like all colored gemstones, are graded using four basic parameters–the four Cs of Connoisseurship, Color, Clarity, Cut and Carat weight. Before the 20th century, jewelers used the water, as in a gem of the finest water. Normally, in the grading of colored gemstones, color is by far the most important criterion, however, in the grading of emeralds, clarity is considered a close second. A fine emerald must possess not only a pure verdant green hue as described below, in the 1960s, the American jewelry industry changed the definition of emerald to include the green vanadium-bearing beryl as emerald. As a result, vanadium emeralds purchased as emeralds in the United States are not recognized as such in the UK, in America, the distinction between traditional emeralds and the new vanadium kind is often reflected in the use of terms such as Colombian Emerald. In gemology, color is divided into three components, hue, saturation, and tone, emeralds occur in hues ranging from yellow-green to blue-green, with the primary hue necessarily being green. Yellow and blue are the normal secondary hues found in emeralds, only gems that are medium to dark in tone are considered emerald, light-toned gems are known instead by the species name green beryl. The finest emerald are approximately 75% tone on a scale where 0% tone would be colorless, in addition, a fine emerald should be well saturated and have a hue that is bright. Gray is the normal saturation modifier or mask found in emerald, Emerald tends to have numerous inclusions and surface breaking fissures. Unlike diamond, where the standard, i. e. 10× magnification, is used to grade clarity. Thus, if an emerald has no visible inclusions to the eye it is considered flawless, stones that lack surface breaking fissures are extremely rare and therefore almost all emeralds are treated to enhance the apparent clarity. The inclusions and fissures within an emerald are sometime described as jardin, imperfections are unique for each emerald and can be used to identify a particular stone. Eye-clean stones of a vivid primary green hue, with no more than 15% of any hue or combination of a medium-dark tone. The relative non-uniformity motivates the cutting of emeralds in cabochon form, faceted emeralds are most commonly given an oval cut, or the signature emerald cut, a rectangular cut with facets around the top edge. Most emeralds are oiled as part of the process, in order to fill in surface-reaching cracks so that clarity and stability are improved. Cedar oil, having a refractive index, is often used in this widely adopted practice
31.
Philip the Good
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Philip the Good was Duke of Burgundy as Philip III from 1419 until his death. He was a member of a line of the Valois dynasty. During his reign, Burgundy reached the apex of its prosperity and prestige, Philip is known in history for his administrative reforms, his patronage of Flemish artists such as Jan van Eyck and Franco-Flemish composers such as Gilles Binchois, and the capture of Joan of Arc. In political affairs, he alternated between alliances with the English and the French in an attempt to improve his dynastys position. As ruler of Flanders, Brabant, Limburg, Artois, Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, Friesland and Namur, born in 1396 in Dijon, Philip was the son of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria-Straubing. His father succeeded Philips grandfather Philip the Bold as Duke of Burgundy in 1404 and they were married in June 1409. Bonne of Artois lived only a year after Philip married her, Philip was married for a third time to Isabella of Portugal, a daughter of John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster, in Bruges on 7 January 1430. Corneille and Anthony were his favorite bastard sons and successively bore the title Grand bâtard de Bourgogne, Philip became duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders, Artois and Franche-Comté upon the assassination of his father in 1419. Philip accused Charles, the Dauphin of France and Philips brother-in-law, of planning the murder of his father, because of this, he continued to prosecute the civil war between the Burgundians and Armagnacs. In 1420, Philip allied himself with Henry V of England under the Treaty of Troyes, in 1423, the marriage of Philips sister Anne to John, Duke of Bedford, regent for Henry VI of England, strengthened the English alliance. In 1430, Philips troops captured Joan of Arc at Compiègne and later handed her over to the English, Philip signed the treaty for a variety of reasons, one of which may have been a desire to be recognised as the preeminent duke in France. He then attacked Calais, a possession of the English, Philip supported the revolt of the French nobles the following year and offered shelter to the Dauphin Louis, who had rebelled against his father Charles VII. In 1456, Philip also managed to ensure his illegitimate son David was elected Bishop of Utrecht and it is not surprising that in 1435 Philip began to style himself the Grand Duke of the West. In 1463, Philip gave up some of his territory to King Louis XI of France and that year he also created an Estates-General for the Netherlands based on the French model. The first meeting of the Estates-General was to obtain a loan for a war against France, in 1465 and 1467, Philip crushed two rebellions in Liège. Philip died in Bruges in 1467, Philips court can only be described as extravagant. He declined membership in the English Order of the Garter in 1422, instead, he created his own Order of the Golden Fleece, based on the Knights of the Round Table and the myth of Jason, in 1430. Philip had no fixed capital and moved the court between various palaces, the urban ones being Brussels, Bruges, and Lille
32.
Duchy of Burgundy
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Upon the extinction of the line with the death of Duke Philip I in 1361, the duchy fell back to King John II of France and the royal House of Valois. The Burgundian duchy rose to a complex of a European scale after in 1363 King John II of France ceded the duchy to his younger son Philip of Valois. By his marriage with Countess Margaret of Flanders, he laid the foundation for a Burgundian realm further north in the Low Countries collectively known as the Burgundian Netherlands. The Burgundian sphere, in its own right, was one of the largest ducal territories that existed at the time of the emergence of Early Modern Europe. Including the thriving regions of Flanders and Brabant, it was a centre of trade. After about one hundred years of Valois-Burgundy rule, however, the last duke Charles the Bold rushed to the Burgundian Wars and was killed in the 1477 Battle of Nancy. With the abdication of the Habsburg emperor Charles V in 1556, the Burgundians settled in the area around Dijon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Mâcon, Autun and Châtillon-sur-Seine, and gave the name to the region. The Kingdom of the Burgundians was annexed by the Merovingian Kings of the Franks Childebert I in 534 following their defeat by the Franks and it was recreated, however, on several occasions when Frankish territories were redivided between the sons on the death of a Frankish king. As part of the Kingdom of the Franks, Burgundy maintained a semi-autonomous existence, with the Burgundians maintaining their own law code, however, southern Burgundy was pillaged by the Saracen invasion of the 8th century. When Charles Martel drove the invaders out, he divided Burgundy into four commands, Arles-Burgundy, Vienne-Burgundy, Alamanic Burgundy and he appointed his brother Childebrand governor of Frankish Burgundy. Under the Carolingians, Burgundian separatism lessened and Burgundy became a geographical term. As a vital military defender of the West Frankish border, Guerin was sometimes known by the Latin term for leader – Dux or Duke, by the time of Richard the Justiciar, the Duchy of Burgundy was beginning to emerge. Richard was officially recognised by the king as a duke, he stood as individual count of each county he held. As Duke of Burgundy, he was able to wield an increasing amount of power over his territory, to the collective body of his territory there came to be applied the term ducatus. Included in the ducatus of Richard were the regions of Autunais, Beaunois, Avalois, Lassois, Dijonais, Memontois, Attuyer, Oscheret, under Richard, these territories were given law and order, protected from the Normans, and served as a haven for persecuted monks. It was from his territories in Burgundy that he drew the resources needed to fight those who challenged his right to rule, under Hugh the Black came the beginning of what would be a long and troubled saga for Burgundy. His neighbours were the Robertian family, who held the title of Duke of Francia and this family, wanting to improve their standing in France and against the Carolingian kings, attempted to subject the duchy to the suzerainty of their own duchy. They failed, eventually, when they appeared close to success, they were forced to scrap the scheme, two brothers of Hugh Capet, the first Capetian King of France, took up the rule of Burgundy as duke
33.
Spinel
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Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4 in the crystal system. Its name comes from Latin spina, balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety of spinel. Spinel crystallizes in the system, common crystal forms are octahedra. It has an imperfect cleavage and a conchoidal fracture. Its hardness is 8, its gravity is 3. 5–4.1. It may be colorless, but is usually shades of red, blue, green, yellow, brown, black. There is a natural white spinel, now lost, that surfaced briefly in what is now Sri Lanka. The Samarian Spinel is the largest known spinel in the world, the transparent red spinels were called spinel-rubies or balas rubies. In the past, before the arrival of modern science, spinels, after the 18th century the word ruby was only used for the red gem variety of the mineral corundum and the word spinel came to be used. Balas is derived from Balascia, the ancient name for Badakhshan, mines in the Gorno Badakhshan region of Tajikistan was for centuries the main source for red and pink spinels. Spinel has long been found in the gravel of Sri Lanka and in limestones of the Badakshan Province in modern-day Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Recently gem quality spinels also found in the marbles of Luc Yen, Mahenge and Matombo, Tsavo and in the gravels of Tunduru and this is why spinel and ruby are often found together. Spinel, 2O4, is common in peridotite in the uppermost Earths mantle, Spinel, Al2O4, is a common mineral in the Ca-Al-rich inclusions in some chondritic meteorites. Synthetic spinel, accidentally produced in the middle of the 18th century, has described more recently in scientific publications in 2000 and 2004. By 2015, transparent spinel was being made in sheets and other shapes through sintering, synthetic spinel which looks like glass but has notably higher strength against pressure, can also have applications in military and commercial use. Spinel group Ceylonite The Samarian Spinel, the largest known spinel in the world, part of the Iranian Crown Jewels Black Princes Ruby Deer, Howie, an Introduction to the Rock-Forming Minerals, Longman, pp. 424–433, ISBN 0-582-44210-9. Gemstones of the World 3rd edition, Sterling, pp. 116–117, Spinel structure at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay Spinel structure at the Institut for materials science of the University of Kiel Value of Spinel
34.
Sapphire
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Sapphire is a gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide. It is typically blue in color, but natural fancy sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, the only color which sapphire cannot be is red - as red colored corundum is called ruby, another corundum variety. This variety in color is due to amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, copper. Commonly, natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in jewelry and they also may be created synthetically in laboratories for industrial or decorative purposes in large crystal boules. Sapphire is the birthstone for September and the gem of the 45th anniversary, a sapphire jubilee occurs after 65 years. Sapphire is one of the two gem-varieties of corundum, the other being ruby, although blue is the best-known sapphire color, they occur in other colors, including gray and black, and they can be colorless. A a pinkish orange variety of sapphire is called padparadscha, significant sapphire deposits are found in Eastern Australia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Madagascar, East Africa, and in North America in a few locations, mostly in Montana. Sapphire and rubies are often found in the geological setting. Every sapphire mine produces a range of quality - and origin is not a guarantee of quality. For sapphire, Kashmir receives the highest premium although Burma, Sri Lanka, the cost of natural sapphires varies depending on their color, clarity, size, cut, and overall quality. For gems of exceptional quality, an independent determination from a respected laboratory such as the GIA, gemstone color can be described in terms of hue, saturation, and tone. Hue is commonly understood as the color of the gemstone, saturation refers to the vividness or brightness of the hue, and tone is the lightness to darkness of the hue. Blue sapphire exists in various mixtures of its primary and secondary hues, various tonal levels, blue sapphires are evaluated based upon the purity of their primary hue. Purple, violet, and green are the most common secondary hues found in blue sapphires, violet and purple can contribute to the overall beauty of the color, while green is considered to be distinctly negative. Blue sapphires with up to 15% violet or purple are generally said to be of fine quality, gray is the normal saturation modifier or mask found in blue sapphires. Gray reduces the saturation or brightness of the hue, and therefore has a negative effect. The 423-carat Logan sapphire in the National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, sapphires in colors other than blue are called fancy or parti colored sapphires. Fancy sapphires are found in yellow, orange, green sapphires, brown, purple
35.
Paradise
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Paradise is the term for a place of timeless harmony. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury, Paradise is often described as a higher place, the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell. In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead, in Christian and Islamic understanding, Heaven is a paradisaical relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the otherworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment, for the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a land of plenty where the heroic. The Vedic Indians held that the body was destroyed by fire. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the Best Existence and the House of Song are places of the righteous dead, on the other hand, in cosmological contexts paradise describes the world before it was tainted by evil. The concept is a theme in art and literature, particularly of the pre-Enlightenment era, the word paradise entered English from the French paradis, inherited from the Latin paradisus, from Greek parádeisos, from an Old Iranian *paridayda- walled enclosure. By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been adopted as Assyrian pardesu domain and it subsequently came to indicate the expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire. The term eventually appeared in Greek as parádeisos park for animals in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BCE Athenian Xenophon, aramaic pardaysa similarly reflects royal park. Hebrew פרדס appears thrice in the Tanakh, in the Song of Solomon 4,13, Ecclesiastes 2,5, in those contexts it could be interpreted as an orchard or a fruit garden. In the Septuagint, Greek παράδεισος parádeisos was used to translate both Hebrew pardes and Hebrew gan, garden, it is from this usage that the use of paradise to refer to the Garden of Eden derives. The same usage appears in Arabic and in the Quran as firdaws فردوس. The words etymology is derived from a PIE root *dheigʷ to stick. It is reflected in Avestan as pairi-daêza-, the literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word is walled, from pairi- around and -diz to make, form, build. The word is not attested in other Old Iranian languages, the idea of a walled enclosure was not preserved in most Iranian usage, and generally came to refer to a plantation or other cultivated area, not necessarily walled. For example, the Old Iranian word survives as Pardis in New Persian as well as its derivative pālīz, later in Second Temple era Judaism paradise came to be associated with the Garden of Eden and prophesies of restoration of Eden, and transferred to heaven. The Septuagint uses the word around 30 times, both of Eden, and of Eden restored, in the Apocalypse of Moses, Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise after having been tricked by the serpent
36.
Impalement
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Impalement, as a method of execution, is the penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by complete or partial perforation of the torso. It was used particularly in response to crimes against the state and regarded across a number of cultures as a very harsh form of punishment and recorded in myth. Impalement was also used during wartime to suppress rebellion, punish traitors or collaborators, offenders have also been impaled for a variety of cultural, sexual and religious reasons. References to impalement in Babylonia and the Neo-Assyrian Empire are found as early as the 18th century BC, within the Ottoman Empire, this form of execution continued into the 20th century. The survival time on the stake is quite variedly reported, from a few seconds or minutes to a few hours or 1 to 3 days. A critical determinant for survival length seems to be precisely how the stake was inserted, If it went into the parts, vital organs could easily be damaged. However, by letting the stake follow the spine, the impalement procedure would not damage the vital organs, a detailed description of an execution in this manner comes from 17th century Košice. A woman was to be executed for infanticide, the executioner had two assistants to help him, first, a grave, some one-and-a-half ell deep was dug. The woman was placed within it, her hands and feet secured by driving nails through them, then, the executioner placed a small thorn bush upon her face. He then placed and held vertically a wooden stave at her heart and her head, though, was kept free of earth, at the behest of the clerics, because that would have quickened her death process. Once the earth had been piled upon her, the executioner grabbed with a pair of tongs a rod made of iron, which had been made red hot. He positioned the glowing iron rod beside the wooden stave, and as one of his assistants hammered the rod in and it is said that a scream was heard, and that the earth actually moved upwards for a moment, before all was over. He is then released, and depending on how the hooks enter his body, forty years earlier than de Tournefort, de Thévenot described much the same process, adding that it was seldom used because it was regarded as too cruel. Some 80 years prior to de Thevenot, in 1579, Hans Jacob Breuning von Buchenbach witnessed a variant of the gaunching ritual, on top of the cross bar, the executioner situated himself and performed various torture on the impaled man below him. Thomas Shaw, who was chaplain for the Levant Company stationed at Algiers during the 1720s, according to one source, these hooks in the wall as an execution method were introduced with the construction of the new city gate in 1573. Before that time, gaunching as described by de Tournefort was in use, as for the actual frequency of throwing persons on hooks in Algiers, Capt. Davies adds that these deaths are very seldom, but that he had personally witnessed it. A slightly variant way of executing people by means of impalement was to force an iron meat hook beneath a persons ribs, a recurring horror story on many websites and popular media outlets is that Japanese soldiers during World War II inflicted bamboo torture upon prisoners of war. The victim was supposedly tied securely in place above a young bamboo shoot, over several days, the sharp, fast growing shoot would first puncture, then completely penetrate the victims body, eventually emerging through the other side
37.
Livery
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Often, elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or corporate body feature in the livery. Alternatively, some kind of an emblem or badge, or a distinctive colour, is featured. The word itself derives from the French livrée, meaning dispensed, handed over. Most often it would indicate that the wearer of the livery was a servant, dependant, follower or friend of the owner of the livery, or, in the case of objects, that the object belonged to them. In the late medieval phenomenon of bastard feudalism, livery badges worn by the retainers of great lords, sometimes in effect private armies, in the 14th century, livery referred to an allowance of any kind, but especially clothes provided to servants and members of the household. Such things might be kept in a livery cupboard, during the 14th century, specific colours denoting a great person began to be used for both his soldiers and his civilian followers, and the modern sense of the term began to form. Usually two different colours were used together, but the ways in which they were combined varied with rank, often the colours used were different each year. As well as embroidered badges, metal ones were sewn on to clothing, municipalities and corporations copied the behaviour of the great households. The grandest of these is the livery collar, william, Lord Hastings the favourite of King Edward IV of England had a Coller of gold of K. Edwards lyverys valued at the enormous sum of £40 in an inventory of 1489. This would have similar to the collars worn by Hastings sister and her husband Sir John Donne in the Donne Triptych by Hans Memling. Lords gave their servants lead or pewter badges to sew onto their clothes, in the 15th century European royalty sometimes distributed uniform suits of clothes to courtiers, as the House of Fugger, the leading bankers, did to all employees. This practice later contracted to the provision of standardized clothing to male servants, the term most notably referred to the embroidered coats, waistcoats, knee breeches and stockings in 18th-century style, worn by footmen on formal occasions in grand houses. Plainer clothing in dark colours and without braiding was worn by footmen, chauffeurs, for reasons of economy the employment of such servants, and their expensive dress, died out after World War I except in royal households. Most European royal courts still use their state liveries on formal occasions and these are generally in traditional national colours, and are based on 18th century clothing with fine gold embroidery. Only male royal servants normally wear livery, knee breeches are worn, normally with white silk stockings, one exception being the Spanish court which prescribes red. At the British royal court red state livery are still worn by pages, footmen, coachmen, the state livery worn by footmen includes foils. The scarlet coats are handmade, and embroidered in gold braid with the cypher of the monarch. Gold buttons and other trimmings are of designs and patterns which date from the 18th century, unlike the tailor-made uniform clothing issued to full-time royal staff, the seldom-worn full-state dress reserved for court pages is not bespoke
38.
The White Hart
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The White Hart was the personal badge of Richard II, who probably derived it from the arms of his mother, Joan The Fair Maid of Kent, heiress of Edmund of Woodstock. It may also have been a pun on his name, as in Rich-hart, in English Folklore, the white hart is associated with Herne the Hunter. There are still many inns and pubs in England that sport a sign of the white hart and this pub was fictional, but was based on a real pub named the White Horse where the science fiction community of London met in the 1940s and 1950s. The White Hart Hotel in Braintree dates back as far as the 14th Century in its current guise and it was a coaching inn that ran services to Sudbury and Norwich daily, up until the arrival of the railway in 1848. It has recently had a renovation by its currents owners and provides an affordable stay, the White Hart in Brentwood is the oldest pub in the town, dating back to before 1480. It may have been so named after King Richard II passed through Brentwood in 1392 and it became a coaching inn in the 18th century and survived long enough that in 1910 even offered repairs to motor vehicles. Now operating as a nightclub and restaurant called Sugar Hut, the building can be seen on reality TV programme, The Only Way Is Essex. The small park next door crossed by a path is the graveyard. The pub has a nice garden, with bat and trap in summer. There is also a meeting room available for hire. The White Hart Inn in Colyford sits on the A3052, which runs along the south coast from Bridport to Exeter, crawley became an important coaching stop on the London to Brighton road after it became fully turnpiked in 1770. By 1668, a mid-15th century Wealden open hall-house which was originally a dwelling had been converted into an inn called The Whyte Harte, later standardised to The White Hart. The great increase in coaching traffic in the late 18th century meant its capacity was exceeded, so it was sold in 1753. This was built around the core of an early 17th-century timber-framed building, as of 2011, it continues to trade under the White Hart name, as a tied house owned by Harveys Brewery. The White Hart is the name of the bar and restaurant within the estate of Dartington Hall, the medieval Dartington Hall was built for John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon and half-brother to Richard II of England. The Dartington Morris Men side was formed at Dartington Hall in 1968 and was given permission to use the crest of the white hart on a red rose as its emblem, in Edinburgh, The White Hart is an inn in the Grassmarket, established early in the 16th century. It stood a few hundred steps from the place where public hangings were held, robert Burns and William Wordsworth were among its notable visitors, and Burke and Hare found some of the victims of their murder-for-body-parts scheme there. There is a string of White Hart pubs along what was one of the old coaching inn roads from London to Salisbury
39.
Benediction
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A benediction is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at the end of worship service. It can also refer to a specific Christian religious service including the exposition of the eucharistic host in the monstrance, from the earliest church, Christians adopted ceremonial benedictions into their liturgical worship, particularly at the end of a service. Such benedictions have been practiced both in the Christian East and West. Among the benedictions of the Roman Catholic Church, include the Apostolic Benediction made by the Pope and his delegates, the Anglican Church retained the principle of benediction after the Protestant Reformation, and as a result, the benediction or blessing ends most Anglican services. A common form of benediction in Baptist and liturgical Protestant churches is for the leader to raise his hands. This addition to the Mass was made by Martin Luther in his Deutsche Messe, many Protestant denominations, such as the Methodist Church, incorporate the use of benedictions in the closing of their church services. Such benedictions may be taken from Scripture, written by a church member, an often complex and lengthy blessing before communion took place in the mass of the Gallican Rite and in some French sees survived until the Gallican rites controversy when they were suppressed. Pope John Paul II, however, gave permission for these sees to restore this traditional element of their local rite. In the Orthodox Church, benedictions will occur at both the beginning and the end of service, and there may be other benedictions during the course of the service. The final benediction is the most important, and will often mention of the feast or saint being commemorated that day. The priest will bless with his hand, and the bishop will bless with both hands. In both cases, the hand is held so that the form the initials IC XC. More solemn benedictions, such as that comes at the end of the Divine Liturgy. It is also the custom of some high-church Anglican churches to hold this service. At the end, the priest or deacon, his shoulders enveloped in a veil, takes the monstrance into his hands. Benediction is often employed as a conclusion to other services, e. g. Vespers, Compline, the Stations of the Cross, there is a good deal of diversity of usage in different countries with regard to details, but some of the elements are constant. The use of incense and wax candles, the singing of the Tantum ergo with its versicle and prayer, and the blessing given with the Blessed Sacrament are obligatory everywhere. In Rome, the portion of the service which is to be regarded as strictly liturgical is the singing of the Tantum ergo
40.
Pennon
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A pennon or pennant is a flag that is larger at the hoist than at the fly. It can have several shapes, such as triangular, tapering or triangular and it was one of the principal three varieties of flags carried during the Middle Ages. Pennoncells and streamers or pendants are minor varieties of this style of flag, the pennon is a flag resembling the guidon in shape, but only half the size. It does not contain any coat of arms, but only crests, mottos and heraldic, pennon comes from the Latin penna meaning a wing or a feather. The pennon was sometimes pointed, but more generally forked or swallow-tailed at the end, in the 11th century, the pennon was generally square, the fly end being decorated with the addition of pointed tongues or streamers, somewhat similar to the oriflamme. During the reign of Henry III, the acquired the distinctive swallow-tail. Another version of the pennon was introduced in the 13th century. In shape this was a triangle, obtained by cutting diagonally the vertically oblong banner. The pennon was a personal ensign. A pennoncell was a diminutive pennon carried by the esquires, pennons were also used for any special ceremonial occasion, and more particularly at state funerals. For instance, there were XII doz, among the fittings of the ship that took Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, to France in the reign of Henry VII was a great streamer for the ship 40 yards in length 8 yards in breadth. Besides the white ensign, ships commissioned in the Royal Navy fly a long streamer from the maintopgallant masthead and this, which is called a pennant, is in fact the sign of command, and it is first hoisted when a captain commissions his ship. Now, however the pennant is a long white streamer with the St Georges cross in the inner portion close to the mast, pennants have been carried by men-of-war from the earliest times, prior to 1653 at the yard-arm, but since that date at the maintopgallant masthead. There are other navies that also fly pennant in a similar manner, the commissioning pennant in ships may end in a point, but they can also be forked, in which case it is also called a banderole. Pennants are also associated with American sports teams, such as Major League Baseball, in Australian rules football, a pennant is awarded to the winner of major competitions. For many years, this was the prize given. As a result, a League Championship is often referred to as a pennant, as in, and in Australian football, a premiership can also be referred to as a flag. In the Netherlands, an orange pennon is always used on the Kings Day and it is flown alongside the standard Dutch flag
41.
Saint George's Cross
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Saint Georges Cross, also called Cross of Saint George, is a red cross on a white background. Sometimes associated with Saint George, the saint, often depicted as a crusader from the late Middle Ages, the cross has appeared on many flags, emblems, standards. Its first documented use was as the ensign of the Republic of Genoa, the cross is also found, for various reasons, on the provincial flags of Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel and Barcelona. In Northern Ireland the cross appears on the flag of the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force, Saint George became widely venerated as a warrior saint during the Third Crusade. There was a legend that he had miraculously assisted Godfrey of Bouillon, however, there was no association of the red cross with St George before the end of the crusades. The red-on-white combination was chosen by Genoa and Aragon, among others, Saint George was depicted as a crusader knight during this time, but the red cross had no particular association with him. A crusader-era fresco in the crypt of Trani cathedral shows Saint George wearing a cross on a red surcoat. It continued to be used as the Reichssturmfahne of the Holy Roman Empire, eventually giving rise to the flag of Savoy and the present-day flags of Switzerland and Denmark). The association with the Saint of the red-on-white cross probably arises in Genoa, a vexillum beati Georgii is mentioned in the Genovese annals for the year 1198, referring to a red flag with a depiction of St George and the dragon. An illumination of this flag is shown in the annals for the year 1227, the Genoese flag with the red cross was used alongside this Georges flag, from at least 1218, and was known as the insignia cruxata comunis Janue. The flag showing the saint himself was the principal war flag. The cross ceased to be a symbol associated with the taking of the cross. With the development of heraldry, there was great demand for variations of the cross symbol. Juliana Berners reports that there were Crossis innumerabull born dayli, the term St Georges cross was at first associated with any plain Greek cross touching the edges of the field. Thomas Fuller in 1647 spoke of the plain or St Georges cross as the mother of all the others. Edward III of England chose Saint George as the saint of his Order of the Garter in 1348. There was a tradition claiming that Richard the Lionheart himself adopted both the flag and the patron saint from Genoa at some point during his crusade. This idea can be traced to the Victorian era, Perrin refers to it as a common belief, the English Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for this privilege
42.
Richard II (play)
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King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in approximately 1595. Although the First Folio edition of Shakespeares works lists the play as a history play, the play spans only the last two years of Richards life, from 1398 to 1400. Bolingbrokes father, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, meanwhile, the tournament scene is very formal with a long, ceremonial introduction, but as the combatants are about to fight, Richard interrupts and sentences both to banishment from England. Bolingbroke is originally sentenced to ten years banishment, but Richard changes this to six years, Mowbray predicts that the king will sooner or later fall at the hands of Bolingbroke. John of Gaunt dies and Richard II seizes all of his land and they then help Bolingbroke to return secretly to England, with a plan to overthrow Richard II. There remain, however, subjects who continue faithful to the King, among them Bushy, Bagot, Green, when King Richard leaves England to attend to the war in Ireland, Bolingbroke seizes the opportunity to assemble an army and invades the north coast of England. Executing both Bushy and Green, he wins over the Duke of York, whom Richard has left in charge of his government in his absence, upon Richards return, Bolingbroke not only reclaims his lands but lays claim to the very throne. Crowning himself King Henry IV, he has Richard taken prisoner to the castle of Pomfret, after interpreting King Henrys living fear as a reference to the still-living Richard, an ambitious nobleman goes to the prison and murders him. King Henry repudiates the murderer and vows to journey to Jerusalem to cleanse himself of his part in Richards death, a somewhat more complicated case is presented by the anonymous play sometimes known as The First Part of Richard II. This play, which exists in one manuscript copy is subtitled Thomas of Woodstock. This play treats the leading up to the start of Shakespeares play. The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 29 August 1597 by the bookseller Andrew Wise, the second and third quartos followed in 1598 – the only time a Shakespearean play was printed in three editions in two years. Q4 followed in 1608, and Q5 in 1615, the play was next published in the First Folio in 1623. Richard II exists in a number of variations, the quartos vary to some degree from one another, and the folio presents further differences. The first three quartos lack the deposition scene, the fourth quarto, published in 1608, includes a version of the deposition scene shorter than the one later printed, presumably from a prompt-book, in the 1623 First Folio. The scant evidence makes explaining these differences largely conjectural, there is no external evidence for this hypothesis, however, and the title page of the 1608 quarto refers to a lately acted deposition scene. The play is divided into five acts and its structure is as formal as its language and it has a double complementary plot describing the fall of Richard II and the rise of Bolingbroke, later known as Henry IV. Critic John R. Elliott Jr. notes that this particular play can be distinguished from the other history plays because it contains an ulterior political purpose
43.
Royal Collection
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The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family and the largest private art collection in the world. The Queen owns some objects in the collection in right of the Crown, the Queens Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London was built specially to exhibit pieces from the collection on a rotating basis. There is an art gallery next to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The Crown Jewels are on display in the Jewel House at the Tower of London. About 3,000 objects are on loan to museums throughout the world, few items from before King Henry VIII survive. The most important additions to the collection were made by Charles I, a collector of Italian paintings. Many works have been given from the collection to museums, especially by George III and Victoria, in particular, most of the then royal library was given by George III to the British Museum, now the British Library, where many books are still catalogued as Royal. The core of this collection was the purchase by James I of the collections of Humphrey Llwyd, Lord Lumley. Throughout the reign of Elizabeth II, there have been significant additions to the collection through purchases, bequests and through gifts from nation states. Numbering over 7,000 works, spread across the Royal Residences, numbering over 300 items, the Royal Collection holds one of the greatest and most important collections of French furniture ever assembled. The collection is noted for its range as well as counting the greatest cabinet-makers of the Ancien Régime. The Royal Collection is privately owned, although some of the works are displayed in areas of palaces, some of the collection is owned by the monarch personally, and everything else is described as being held in trust by the monarch in right of the Crown. All works of art acquired by monarchs up to the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 are heirlooms which fall into the latter category. Items the British royal family acquired later, including official gifts, ambiguity surrounds the status of objects that have come into Queen Elizabeth IIs possession during her reign. The Royal Collection Trust has confirmed that all pieces left to the Queen by the Queen Mother belong to her personally, non-personal items are said to be inalienable as they can only be willed to the monarchs successor. The legal accuracy of this claim has never been substantiated in court, in a 2000 television interview, the Duke of Edinburgh said that the Queen was technically, perfectly at liberty to sell them. In 1995, Iain Sproat, then Secretary of State for National Heritage, a registered charity, the Royal Collection Trust was set up in 1993 after the Windsor Castle fire with a mandate to conserve the works and enhance the publics appreciation and understanding of art. It employs around 500 staff and is one of the five departments of the Royal Household, buildings do not come under its remit
44.
Edward III of England
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Edward III transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. Edward was crowned at age fourteen after his father was deposed by his mother, Isabella of France, at age seventeen he led a successful coup against Mortimer, the de facto ruler of the country, and began his personal reign. After a successful campaign in Scotland he declared himself heir to the French throne in 1337. This started what would become known as the Hundred Years War, following some initial setbacks the war went exceptionally well for England, victories at Crécy and Poitiers led to the highly favourable Treaty of Brétigny. Edwards later years, however, were marked by international failure and domestic strife, largely as a result of his inactivity, Edward III was a temperamental man but capable of unusual clemency. He was in ways a conventional king whose main interest was warfare. Admired in his own time and for centuries after, Edward was denounced as an adventurer by later Whig historians such as William Stubbs. This view has been challenged recently and modern historians credit him with some significant achievements, Edward was born at Windsor Castle on 13 November 1312, and was often referred to as Edward of Windsor in his early years. The reign of his father, Edward II, was a problematic period of English history. One source of contention was the inactivity, and repeated failure. Another controversial issue was the kings patronage of a small group of royal favourites. The birth of an heir in 1312 temporarily improved Edward IIs position in relation to the baronial opposition. To bolster further the independent prestige of the prince, the king had him created Earl of Chester at only twelve days of age. In 1325, Edward II was faced with a demand from his brother-in-law, Charles IV of France, Edward was reluctant to leave the country, as discontent was once again brewing domestically, particularly over his relationship with the favourite Hugh Despenser the Younger. Instead, he had his son Edward created Duke of Aquitaine in his place, the young Edward was accompanied by his mother Isabella, who was the sister of King Charles, and was meant to negotiate a peace treaty with the French. While in France, however, Isabella conspired with the exiled Roger Mortimer to have Edward deposed, to build up diplomatic and military support for the venture, Isabella had Prince Edward engaged to the twelve-year-old Philippa of Hainault. An invasion of England was launched and Edward IIs forces deserted him completely, the king was forced to relinquish the throne to his son on 25 January 1327. The new king was crowned as Edward III on 1 February 1327 and it was not long before the new reign also met with other problems caused by the central position at court of Roger Mortimer, who was now the de facto ruler of England
45.
House of Commons of England
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In 1801, with the union of Great Britain and Ireland, that house was in turn replaced by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The Parliament of England developed from the Magnum Concilium that advised the English monarch in medieval times and this royal council, meeting for short periods, included ecclesiastics, noblemen, as well as representatives of the counties. The chief duty of the council was to approve taxes proposed by the Crown, in many cases, however, the council demanded the redress of the peoples grievances before proceeding to vote on taxation. The first parliament to invite representatives of the towns was Montforts Parliament in 1265. At the Model Parliament of 1295, representatives of the boroughs were admitted, thus, it became settled practice that each county send two knights of the shire, and that each borough send two burgesses. Any show of independence by burgesses would thus be likely to lead to the exclusion of their towns from Parliament, the knights of the shire were in a better position, although less powerful than their noble and clerical counterparts in what was still a unicameral Parliament. They formed what became known as the House of Commons, while the clergy, although they remained subordinate to both the Crown and the Lords, the Commons did act with increasing boldness. The Commons even proceeded to some of the Kings ministers. Mare was soon released after the death of King Edward III, during the reign of the next monarch, Richard II, the Commons once again began to impeach errant ministers of the Crown. They began to insist that they could control both taxation and public expenditures, despite such gains in authority, however, the Commons still remained much less powerful than the Lords and the Crown. The influence of the Crown was increased by the wars of the late fifteenth century. Both houses of Parliament held little power during the years. The domination of the monarch grew further under the House of Tudor in the sixteenth century and this trend, however, was somewhat reversed when the House of Stuart came to the English throne in 1603. The first two Stuart monarchs, James I and Charles I, provoked conflicts with the Commons over issues such as taxation, religion, and royal powers. The differences between Charles I and Parliament were great, and resulted in the English Civil War, in which the forces of Parliament were victorious. In December 1648 the House of Commons was purged by the New Model Army, prides Purge was the only military coup in English history. Subsequently, King Charles I was beheaded and the Upper House was abolished, in 1653, when leading figures in this Parliament began to disagree with the army, it was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell. However, the monarchy and the House of Lords were both restored with the Commons in 1660, the influence of the Crown had been decreased, and was further diminished after James II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of Rights 1689 was enacted
46.
House of Lords
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The House of Lords of the United Kingdom, referred to ceremonially as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Unlike the elected House of Commons, all members of the House of Lords are appointed, the membership of the House of Lords is drawn from the peerage and is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. The Lords Spiritual are 26 bishops in the established Church of England, of the Lords Temporal, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. However, they include some hereditary peers including four dukes. Very few of these are female since most hereditary peerages can only be inherited by men, while the House of Commons has a defined 650-seat membership, the number of members in the House of Lords is not fixed. There are currently 805 sitting Lords, the House of Lords is the only upper house of any bicameral parliament to be larger than its respective lower house. The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends Bills from the Commons, while it is unable to prevent Bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay Bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the House of Commons that is independent from the electoral process, Bills can be introduced into either the House of Lords or the House of Commons. Members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, the House of Lords has its own support services, separate from the Commons, including the House of Lords Library. The Queens Speech is delivered in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, the House also has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual. This new parliament was, in effect, the continuation of the Parliament of England with the addition of 45 MPs and 16 Peers to represent Scotland, the Parliament of England developed from the Magnum Concilium, the Great Council that advised the King during medieval times. This royal council came to be composed of ecclesiastics, noblemen, the first English Parliament is often considered to be the Model Parliament, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and representatives of the shires and boroughs of it. The power of Parliament grew slowly, fluctuating as the strength of the monarchy grew or declined, for example, during much of the reign of Edward II, the nobility was supreme, the Crown weak, and the shire and borough representatives entirely powerless. In 1569, the authority of Parliament was for the first time recognised not simply by custom or royal charter, further developments occurred during the reign of Edward IIs successor, Edward III. It was during this Kings reign that Parliament clearly separated into two chambers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The authority of Parliament continued to grow, and, during the fifteenth century
