Socinianism
Socinianism is a system of Christian doctrine named for Fausto Sozzini, developed among the Polish Brethren in the Minor Reformed Church of Poland during the 16th and 17th centuries and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period. It is most famous for its nontrinitarian Christology but contains a number of other unorthodox beliefs as well; the ideas of Socinianism date from the element of the Protestant Reformation known as the Radical Reformation and have their root in the Italian Anabaptist movement of the 1540s, such as the Antitrinitarian Council of Venice in 1550. Lelio Sozzini was the first of the Italian Antitrinitarians to go beyond Arian beliefs in print and deny the pre-existence of Christ in his Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput – a commentary on the meaning of the Logos in John 1:1–15. Lelio Sozzini considered that the "Beginning" of John 1:1 was the same as 1 John 1:1 and referred to the new creation, not the Genesis creation, his nephew Fausto Sozzini published his own longer Brevis explicatio developing his uncle's arguments.
Many years after the death of his uncle in Switzerland, Fausto Sozzini consulted with the Unitarian Church in Transylvania, attempting to mediate in the dispute between Giorgio Biandrata and Ferenc Dávid. He moved to Poland, where he married the daughter of a leading member of the Polish Brethren, the anti-trinitarian minority, or ecclesia minor. In 1565, it had split from the Calvinist Reformed Church in Poland. Sozzini never joined the ecclesia minor, but he was influential in reconciling several controversies among the Brethren: on conscientious objection, on prayer to Christ, on the virgin birth. Fausto persuaded many in the Polish Brethren who were Arian, such as Marcin Czechowic, to adopt his uncle Lelio's views. Fausto Sozzini furthered his influence through his Racovian Catechism, published posthumously, which set out his uncle Lelio's views on Christology and replaced earlier catechisms of the Ecclesia Minor, his influence continued after his death through the writings of his students published in Polish and Latin from the press of the Racovian Academy at Raków, Kielce County.
The name "Socinian" started to be used in Holland and England from the 1610s onward, as the Latin publications were circulated among early Arminians, Remonstrants and early English Unitarians. In the late 1660s, Fausto Sozzini's grandson Andreas Wiszowaty and great-grandson Benedykt Wiszowaty published the nine-volume Biblioteca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant in Amsterdam, along with the works of F. Sozzini, the Austrian Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen, the Poles Johannes Crellius, Jonasz Szlichtyng, Samuel Przypkowski; these books circulated among English and French thinkers, including Isaac Newton, John Locke and Pierre Bayle. In Britain and North America, "Socinianism" became a catch-all term for any kind of dissenting belief. Sources in the 18th and 19th centuries attributed the term "Socinian" anachronistically, using it to refer to ideas that embraced a much wider range than the narrowly defined position of the Racovian catechisms and library. Socinian theology, as summarised in the Racovian Catechism, rejected the views of orthodox Christian theology on God's knowledge, on the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, on soteriology.
The Racovian publications, like the Sozzinis, rejected the pre-existence of Christ and held that Jesus Christ did not exist until he was conceived of the virgin birth as a human being. This view had been put forward before by the 4th-century bishop Photinus, but it differed from the mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic views, which hold that the Logos referred to in the Gospel of John was God, thus is uncreated and eternal; the Socinians held that humans were created mortal in the beginning and would have died whether Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree or not. They rejected the doctrine of original sin. Socinianism rejected the propitiatory view of atonement; the Socinians believed that God's omniscience was limited to what was a necessary truth in the future and did not apply to what was a contingent truth. They believed that, if God knew every possible future, human free will was impossible and as such rejected the "hard" view of omniscience. Writers such as Archibald Alexander Hodge asserted that Socinian theology was rooted in skepticism.
However, the original Polish Socinians were believers in miracles, the virgin birth, though there were a few radicals, such as Symon Budny and Jacobus Palaeologus, who denied these. Although not directly a doctrinal belief, the principle of conscientious objection and the obedient relation of the believer to the state became a distinct position of "Socinianism" as it was formalized in the Racovian publications. Before F. Sozzini's arrival in Poland, there had been a wide range of positions from the total otherworldiness, common property, withdrawal from the state of Marcin Czechowic of Lublin through to the advocacy of military service by Symon Budny; the next generation of Polish Brethren stabilized between these two positions, carrying wooden swords to follow the letter of the law and allowing senior Socinians such as Hieronim Moskorzowski to vote in the Sejm. The direct doctrinal descendants of the original Socinians are the Unitarian Christians of Transylvania and England. Although the Polish Brethren never adopted the name "Unitarian" while in Poland, when they were disbanded in 1658, those who fled to Holland embraced the term "Unitarian", as they preferred not to be called "Socinians."
The term had been used by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania as ear
Benedictines
The Benedictines the Order of Saint Benedict, are a monastic Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are sometimes called the Black Monks, in reference to the colour of the members' religious habits. Despite being called an order, the Benedictines do not operate under a single hierarchy but are instead organised as a collection of independent monastic communities, with each community within the order maintaining its own autonomy. Unlike other religious orders, the Benedictines do not have a superior general or motherhouse with universal jurisdiction. Instead, the order is represented internationally by the Benedictine Confederation, an organisation, set up in 1893 to represent the order's shared interests; the monastery at Subiaco in Italy, established by Saint Benedict of Nursia c. 529, was the first of the dozen monasteries he founded. He founded the Abbey of Monte Cassino. There is no evidence, that he intended to found an order and the Rule of Saint Benedict presupposes the autonomy of each community.
When Monte Cassino was sacked by the Lombards about the year 580, the monks fled to Rome, it seems probable that this constituted an important factor in the diffusion of a knowledge of Benedictine monasticism. It was from the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome that Augustine, the prior, his forty companions set forth in 595 on their mission for the evangelization of England. At various stopping places during the journey, the monks left behind them traditions concerning their rule and form of life, also some copies of the Rule. Lérins Abbey, for instance, founded by Honoratus in 375 received its first knowledge of the Benedictine Rule from the visit of St. Augustine and his companions in 596. Gregory of Tours says that at Ainay Abbey, in the sixth century, the monks "followed the rules of Basil, Cassian and other fathers and using whatever seemed proper to the conditions of time and place", doubtless the same liberty was taken with the Benedictine Rule when it reached them. In Gaul and Switzerland, it supplemented the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by Columbanus and others.
In many monasteries it entirely displaced the earlier codes. By the ninth century, the Benedictine had become the standard form of monastic life throughout the whole of Western Europe, excepting Scotland and Ireland, where the Celtic observance still prevailed for another century or two. Through the work of Benedict of Aniane, it became the rule of choice for monasteries throughout the Carolingian empire. Monastic scriptoria flourished from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Sacred Scripture was always at the heart of every monastic scriptorium; as a general rule those of the monks who possessed skill as writers made this their chief, if not their sole active work. An anonymous writer of the ninth or tenth century speaks of six hours a day as the usual task of a scribe, which would absorb all the time available for active work in the day of a medieval monk. In the Middle Ages monasteries were founded by the nobility. Cluny Abbey was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910; the abbey was noted for its strict adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict.
The abbot of Cluny was the superior of all the daughter houses, through appointed priors. One of the earliest reforms of Benedictine practice was that initiated in 980 by Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese community; the dominance of the Benedictine monastic way of life began to decline towards the end of the twelfth century, which saw the rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans. Benedictines took a fourth vow of "stability". Not being bound by location, the mendicants were better able to respond to an "urban" environment; this decline was further exacerbated by the practice of appointing a commendatory abbot, a lay person, appointed by a noble to oversee and to protect the goods of the monastery. Oftentimes, this resulted in the appropriation of the assets of monasteries at the expense of the community which they were intended to support; the English Benedictine Congregation is the oldest of the nineteen Benedictine congregations. Augustine of Canterbury and his monks established the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterbury soon after their arrival in 597.
Other foundations followed. Through the influence of Wilfrid, Benedict Biscop, Dunstan, the Benedictine Rule spread with extraordinary rapidity, in the North it was adopted in most of the monasteries, founded by the Celtic missionaries from Iona. Many of the episcopal sees of England were founded and governed by the Benedictines, no fewer than nine of the old cathedrals were served by the black monks of the priories attached to them. Monasteries served as places of refuge for the weak and homeless; the monks studied the healing properties of plants and minerals to alleviate the sufferings of the sick. Germany was evangelized by English Benedictines. Willibrord and Boniface preached there in the seventh and eighth centuries and founded several abbeys. In the English Reformation, all monasteries were dissolved and their lands confiscated by the Crown, forcing their Catholic members to flee into exile on the Continent. During the 19th century they were able to return to England, including to Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, one of the few great monastic churches to survive the Dissolution.
St. Mildred's Priory, on the Isle of Thanet, was built in 1027 on the site of an abbey founded in 670 by the daughter of the first Christian King of Kent; the priory is home to a community of Benedictine nuns. Five of
National Library of Poland
The National Library of Poland is the central Polish library, subject directly to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland. The library collects books, journals and audiovisual publications published in the territory of Poland, as well as Polonica published abroad, it is the most important humanities research library, the main archive of Polish writing and the state centre of bibliographic information about books. It plays a significant role as a research facility and is an important methodological center for other Polish libraries; the National Library receives a copy of every book published in Poland as legal deposit. The Jagiellonian Library is the only other library in Poland to have a national library status. There are three general sections: The Library The Bibliographic Institute of the National Library The Book and Readership Institute The National Library's history has origins in the 18th century including items from the collections of John III Sobieski which were obtained from his grand daughter Maria Karolina Sobieska, Duchess of Bouillon.
However, the Załuski collection was confiscated by troops of Russian tsarina Catherine II in the aftermath of the second Partition of Poland and sent to Saint Petersburg, where the books formed the mass of the Imperial Public Library on its formation in 1795. Parts of the collection were damaged or destroyed as they were mishandled while being removed from the library and transported to Russia, many were stolen. According to the historian Joachim Lelewel, the Zaluskis' books, "could be bought at Grodno by the basket"; because of that, when Poland regained her independence in 1918, there was no central institution to serve in the capacity of a national library. On 24 February 1928, by the decree of president Ignacy Mościcki, the National Library was created in its modern form, it was opened in 1930 and had 200 thousand volumes. Its first Director General was Stefan Demby, succeeded in 1934 by Stefan Vrtel-Wierczyński; the collections of the library were extended. For instance, in 1932 president Mościcki donated all of the books and manuscripts from the Wilanów Palace Museum to the library, some 40 thousand volumes and 20 thousand pictures from the collection of Stanisław Kostka Potocki.
The National Library lacked a seat of its own. Because of that, the collections had to be accommodated in several places; the main reading room was located in the newly built library building of the Warsaw School of Economics. In 1935 the Potocki Palace in Warsaw became home for the special collections. A new, purpose-built building for the library was planned in what is now the Pole Mokotowskie, in a planned monumental "Government District". However, its construction was hampered by the outbreak of World War II. Before World War II, the library collections consisted of: 6.5 million books and journals from 19th and 20th centuries 3,000 early prints 2,200 incunables 52,000 manuscripts maps and musicIn 1940 the Nazi occupants changed the National Library into Municipal Library of Warsaw and divided it as follows: Department of Books for Germans Restricted Department, containing books that were not available to readers All special collections from various Warsaw offices and institutions In 1944 the special collections were set ablaze by the Nazi occupants as a part of repressions after the Warsaw Uprising.
80,000 early printed books, including priceless 16th-18th century Polonica, 26,000 manuscripts, 2,500 incunables, 100,000 drawings and engravings, 50,000 pieces of sheet music and theatre materials were destroyed. It is estimated that out of over 6 million volumes in Warsaw's major libraries in 1939, 3.6 million volumes were lost during World War II, a large part of them belonging to the National Library. Today the collections of the National Library are one of the largest in the country. Among 7,900,000 volumes held in the library are 160,000 objects printed before 1801, over 26,000 manuscripts, over 114,000 music prints and 400,000 drawings; the library collections include photographs and other iconographic documents, more than 101,000 atlases and maps, over 2,000,000 ephemera, as well as over 2,000,000 books and about 800,000 copies of journals from 19th to 21st centuries. Notable items in the collection include 151 leaves of the Codex Suprasliensis, inscribed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme Register in 2007 in recognition for its supranational and supraregional significance.
In 2012 the library signed an agreement to add 1.3 million Polish library records to WorldCat. List of libraries damaged during the World War II Digital Library of the National Library of Poland National Library website Polona - National Digital Library A Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures
Zürich
Zürich or Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich; the municipality has 409,000 inhabitants, the urban agglomeration 1.315 million and the Zürich metropolitan area 1.83 million. Zürich is a hub for railways and air traffic. Both Zürich Airport and railway station are the busiest in the country. Permanently settled for over 2,000 years, Zürich was founded by the Romans, who, in 15 BC, called it Turicum. However, early settlements have been found dating back more than 6,400 years ago. During the Middle Ages, Zürich gained the independent and privileged status of imperial immediacy and, in 1519, became a primary centre of the Protestant Reformation in Europe under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli; the official language of Zürich is German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect, Zürich German. Many museums and art galleries can be found in the city, including the Swiss National Museum and the Kunsthaus.
Schauspielhaus Zürich is one of the most important theatres in the German-speaking world. Zürich is a leading global city and among the world's largest financial centres despite having a small population; the city is home to a large number of financial institutions and banking companies. Most of Switzerland's research and development centres are concentrated in Zürich and the low tax rates attract overseas companies to set up their headquarters there. Monocle's 2012 "Quality of Life Survey" ranked Zürich first on a list of the top 25 cities in the world "to make a base within". According to several surveys from 2006 to 2008, Zürich was named the city with the best quality of life in the world as well as the wealthiest city in Europe in terms of GDP per capita; the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Ranking sees Zürich rank among the top ten most liveable cities in the world. In German, the city name is written Zürich, pronounced in Swiss Standard German. In Zürich German, the local dialect of Swiss German, the name is pronounced without the final consonant, as Züri, although the adjective remains Zürcher.
The city is called Zurich in French, Zurigo in Italian, Turitg in Romansh. In English, the name used to be written without the umlaut. So, standard English practice for German calques is to either preserve the umlaut or replace it with the base letter followed by e, it is pronounced ZEWR-ik, more sometimes with /ts/, as in German. The earliest known form of the city's name is Turicum, attested on a tombstone of the late 2nd century AD in the form STA TURICEN; the name is interpreted as a derivation from a given name Gaulish personal name Tūros, for a reconstructed native form of the toponym of *Turīcon. The Latin stress on the long vowel of the Gaulish name, was lost in German but is preserved in Italian and in Romansh; the first development towards its Germanic form is attested as early as the 6th century with the form Ziurichi. From the 9th century onward, the name is established in an Old High German form Zurih. In the early modern period, the name became associated with the name of the Tigurini, the name Tigurum rather than the historical Turicum is sometimes encountered in Modern Latin contexts.
Settlements of the Neolithic and Bronze Age were found around Lake Zürich. Traces of pre-Roman Celtic, La Tène settlements were discovered near the Lindenhof, a morainic hill dominating the SE - NW waterway constituted by Lake Zurich and the river Limmat. In Roman times, during the conquest of the alpine region in 15 BC, the Romans built a castellum on the Lindenhof. Here was erected Turicum, a tax-collecting point for goods trafficked on the Limmat, which constituted part of the border between Gallia Belgica and Raetia: this customs point developed into a vicus. After Emperor Constantine's reforms in AD 318, the border between Gaul and Italy was located east of Turicum, crossing the river Linth between Lake Walen and Lake Zürich, where a castle and garrison looked over Turicum's safety; the earliest written record of the town dates from the 2nd century, with a tombstone referring to it as to the Statio Turicensis Quadragesima Galliarum, discovered at the Lindenhof. In the 5th century, the Germanic Alemanni tribe settled in the Swiss Plateau.
The Roman castle remained standing until the 7th century. A Carolingian castle, built on the site of the Roman castle by the grandson of Charlemagne, Louis the German, is mentioned in 835. Louis founded the Fraumünster abbey in 853 for his daughter Hildegard, he endowed the Benedictine convent with the lands of Zürich and the Albis forest, granted the convent immunity, placing it under his direct authority. In 1045, King Henry III granted the convent the right to hold markets, collect tolls, mint coins, thus made the abbess the ruler of the city. Zürich gained Imperial immediacy in 1218 with the extinction of the main line of the Zähringer family and attained a status comparable to statehood. During the 1230s, a city wall was built, enclosing 38 hectares, when the earliest stone houses on the Rennweg were built as well; the Carolingian castle was used as a quarry, as it had st
Bruchsal
Bruchsal is a city at the western edge of the Kraichgau 20 km northeast of Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on Bertha Benz Memorial Route. Bruchsal is the largest city in the district of Karlsruhe and is known for being Europe's largest asparagus producer and one of the economic centers of the region of Karlsruhe; the Bruchsal area includes the cities and towns of Bad Schönborn, Hambrücken, Karlsdorf-Neuthard, Kronau, Oberhausen-Rheinhausen, Östringen, Ubstadt-Weiher and Waghäusel. Until 1972 Bruchsal was the seat of the district of Bruchsal, merged into the district of Karlsruhe as a result of the district reform, effective January 1, 1973. Bruchsal's population passed the 20,000 mark around 1955; when the new Body of Municipal Law for Baden-Württemberg went into effect on April 1, 1956, the city was therefore awarded Große Kreisstadt status. In addition, Bruchsal cooperates with the neighboring communities of Forst, Hambrücken and Karlsdorf-Neuthard in administrative matters.
Bruchsal is located at the edge of the Upper Rhine River Plains and the Kraichgau along the Saalbach, a small tributary of the Rhine that joins it between Philippsburg and Oberhausen. The following cities and towns share a border with Bruchsal, they all belong to the district of Karlsruhe and are listed clockwise, starting in the North: Forst, Ubstadt-Weiher, Bretten, Walzbachtal, Weingarten and Karlsdorf-Neuthard. In addition the exclave of Bruchsal situated North of Karlsdorf-Neuthard shares borders with the towns of Graben-Neudorf, Waghäusel und Hambrücken; the city of Bruchsal is made up of Bruchsal proper along with the boroughs of Büchenau, Helmsheim and Untergrombach. A few neighborhoods within the city limits are known by their own name, but their limits are not documented. Furthermore, former homesteads are located inside today's city limits; these only consist of one or several buildings, such as Langental, Rohrbacher Hof, Scheckenbronnerhof, Talmühle and Auf dem Michaelsberg in the borough of Untergrombach.
Excavations and artifacts provide evidence of a settlement on the Michelsberg as early as 4000 BC during the Neolithic. In the core of Bruchsal the oldest settlement discovered was dated back to 640 AD, it is located near the present Peterskirche. The first mention of Bruchsal in official documents occurred in 976. During October of the year 980, Otto II and his Court stayed at the King's palace in Bruchsal for several days. Henry II became ruler of Bruchsal in 1002 following the subjugation of his rival Herrmann of Swabia. In 1056 Henry III presented the settlement to the bishop of Speyer as a gift; the city remained part the diocese until the German Mediatisation in 1802. It was the seat of an administrative district that only consisted of the core of Bruchsal. In 1067 Henry IV resided in Bruchsal from time to time. 1248 was the first time Bruchsal was referred to as a city, in 1278 St. Peter's Church is mentioned for the first time. After extensive damage to both, the Palace and the Peterskirch were reconstructed in 1320.
The Bergfried was erected in 1358, the city wall was completed in 1452. In 1460 the first coin was minted in Bruchsal. In 1502 the first peasant revolt, led by Joß Fritz of Untergrombach, chose Bruchsal as its target. Traitors to the rebellion allowed the authorities to take the revolt's leaders into custody. Ten were decapitated in the Bruchsal Palace courtyard. Joß Fritz went into hiding in the Southern Black Forest. In 1525 the peasant revolts peaked. Inflation and the Plague added to the desperation, the revolts were forcibly put down by the Prince; the known peasant leaders Hall and the Minister Eisenhut were captured and decapitated in the Palace courtyard. During the 30 Years War in 1622 Bruchsal was destroyed, in 1644 the French garrison in Philippsburg raided the city. In 1676 the French again destroyed parts of Bruchsal, on August 10, 1689 the city was bombarded by the French general Duras and was destroyed. After that Bruchsal counted only 130 residents. By April 24, 1711 Bruchsal had recovered sufficiently to play host to Prince Eugene of Savoy of the Habsburg Court in Vienna.
In 1716 the Bishop of Speyer, Heinrich von Rollingen, moved his residence into the Bruchsal Palace. This move elevated the city's status to that of an official residence of the Diocese of Speyer. At the same time, Bruchsal became the seat of the "Vizedomamt", the most important office held by the Diocese on the West bank of the Rhine. In 1719 Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schönborn became the new Bishop, after settling in he commissioned in, among others, the new baroque château and the new Peter's Church. Both were built and, in part, designed by Balthasar Neumann. In the Bishop's honor, the Southern gate out of the château grounds is referred to as Damian's Gate to this day. In 1743 Franz Christof von Hutten, Schönborn's successor, completed the extensive construction of the baroque city of Bruchsal, by adding Damian's Gate, the military barracks and the Water Château. In 1753 the Schönborn Gymnasium was founded by Bishop von Hutten. In 1770 the new Bishop, Count August von Limburg-Stirum, took up office.
Bruchsal now counted 6,000 residents. In 1796 French troops occupied the city. German Mediatisation turned all property owned by the Diocese of Speyer ove
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and largest city of the Grand Est region of France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department. In 2016, the city proper had 279,284 inhabitants and both the Eurométropole de Strasbourg and the Arrondissement of Strasbourg had 491,409 inhabitants. Strasbourg's metropolitan area had a population of 785,839 in 2015, making it the ninth largest metro area in France and home to 13% of the Grand Est region's inhabitants; the transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 915,000 inhabitants in 2014. Strasbourg is one of the de facto capitals of the European Union, as it is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union; the city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.
Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île, was classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a cultural bridge between France and Germany for centuries through the University of Strasbourg the second largest in France, the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture, it is home to the largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque. Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road and river transportation; the port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Germany. Before the 5th century, the city was known as Argantorati, a Celtic Gaulish name Latinized first as Argentorate, as Argentoratum; that Gaulish name is a compound of -rati, the Gaulish word for fortified enclosures, cognate to the Old Irish ráth, arganto-, the Gaulish word for silver, but any precious metal gold, suggesting either a fortified enclosure located by a river gold mining site, or hoarding gold mined in the nearby rivers.
After the 5th century, the city became known by a different name Gallicized as Strasbourg. That name is of Germanic origin and means "Town of roads"; the modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata, while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz. Gregory of Tours was the first to mention the name change: in the tenth book of his History of the Franks written shortly after 590 he said that Egidius, Bishop of Reims, accused of plotting against King Childebert II of Austrasia in favor of his uncle King Chilperic I of Neustria, was tried by a synod of Austrasian bishops in Metz in November 590, found guilty and removed from the priesthood taken "ad Argentoratensem urbem, quam nunc Strateburgum vocant", where he was exiled. Strasbourg is situated at the eastern border of France with Germany; this border is formed by the Rhine, which forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl.
The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the river Ill, which here flows parallel to, 4 kilometres from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city; the city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres and 151 metres above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km to the west and the Black Forest 25 km to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north–south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks; the city is some 397 kilometres east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies 450 kilometres to the north, or 650 kilometres as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres to the south, or 150 kilometres by river. In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as oceanic, but a "semicontinental" climate with some degree of maritime influence in relation to the mild patterns of Western and Southern France.
The city has warm sunny summers and cool, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year; the highest temperature recorded was 38.5 °C in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature eve
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Capito, Wolfgang". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 