Hitler's father Alois Hitler (June 7,1837-January 3,1903) was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schickl'Gruber (42 years old and unmarried), whose family had lived in the area for generations.
By 1837, Alois was born in the hamlet of Strones, parish of Dollers'Heim, in the Waldviertel, an area in NorthWest Lower Austria. She refused to reveal who the child's father was, so he was named Alois Schickl'Gruber and he word "illegitimate"was entered in place of the father's name. She cared for Alois in the house that she shared with her elderly father. The 3 Schickl'Gruber were joined after a while by Johann Georg Hiedler.
Maria Anna (April 15, 1795-January7, 1847), also, was born in the village of Strones, region of Arch'Duchy of Austria. She was the daughter of Theresia Pfeisinger (September7, 1769-November11, 1821), and farmer Johannes Schickl'Gruber. They were Catholics, and she was one of the couple's 11 children, only 6 of whom survived infancy. Maria Anna's early life was that of a poor peasant child in a rural forested area, in the NorthWest part of Lower Austria, NorthWest of Vienna.
Maria Anna's mother died when she was 26, and, she received an inheritance of 75 gulden, which she left invested in the Orphans' Fund until 1838. By that time it had more than doubled to 165 gulden in 15 years. At that time, a breeding pig cost 4 gulden, a cow 10-12 gulden and an entire Inn 500 gulden.
The village was very small and did not even have a church with a baptismal registry. Accordingly, Maria went to Doller'Sheim parish to record the birth. The same registry was altered some 39 years later when, in 1876, Alois legitimized Johann Georg Hiedler as his father and his surname was changed to Hitler.
Illigetitimacy was common in Lower Austria; in some areas it reached up to 40% and as late as 1903 the figure was 24%, with the children normally legitimized at a later day.
On May10, 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Maria Anna, in the village of Doller'Sheim, 5 years after Alois was born. Maria was 47 at the time of her marriage and her husband 50.
The village of Doller'Sheim, situated in the March of Austria, was a SouthEastern frontier of the Roman Empire created in 976CE out of the territory on the border with the Kingdom of Hungary. Originally under the over-lord-ship of the Dukes of Bavaria, it was ruled by the Franconian Baben'Berg dynasty.
Adolf Hitler ordered in 1938, after the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, that Doller'Sheim, Zwettl. Allent'Steig, and several other smaller neighboring villages to be evacuated in favor of a large military training area. The reason of the area's selection was its relatively sparse population, poor soils and consequently low agricultural yields, lack of industry, and from a military point of view, its very severe winter weather conditions.
Maria Anna's nature is described by some writers as being a "thrifty (avoiding wasteful or avoidable expenditure), reserved, and exceptionally shrewd (intelligent and worldly wise, clever and truthful) peasant woman.
Maria Anna died of tuberculosis during the 6th year (1847) of her marriage, at the age of 51 in Klein-Motten where she was living with her husband. She was buried at the parish church in Doller'Sheim. After the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germani in 1938, a search failed to find her grave so she was given an "honor grave" next to the church wall. In 1942, this area became part of the artillery training area and the local inhabitants were moved out. Military training continued under the Soviets after 1945, and also under the Austrian Army until about 1985, by which time most of the towns and villages were in ruins. The church at Doller'Sheim is now preserved and undergoing reconstruction. The cemetery is being tended, but there is no grave marker there now for Maria Anna Schickl'Gruber.
Johann Georg Hiedler (baptized February28, 1792-February9, 1857) was from Spital (part of Weitra), Austria, and made his living as an itinerant journeyman miller. A journeyman was a skilled worker who had successfully completed an official apprenticeship in a building trade or craft. Johann became the legal stepfather of Alois and his name was added to Alois's birth certificate later in his life and was officially accepted as the father of Alois to any legal matters. Whether he was in fact Alois' father is disputed by modern historians.
The first castle at Weitra, Austria, from where Alois's stepfather came, was established in 1201 by the Austrian noble Hadmar II of Kuenring, holder of Durn'Stein castle, where King Richard the Lion'Heart had been imprisoned in winter 1192-93.
The Kuering family of 'ministerialis' (raised up from peasants level to be placed in positions of power and responsibility) fell from grace after the extinction of the ruling House of Baben'Berg in 1246, as they had sided with King Ottokar II of Bohemia against the rising Habs'Burg dynasty.
When Maria Anna died, Alois, her only son, was 10. At that specific moment in his short period of life, he was sent to live with his step father brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, who owned a farm in Spital. Alois attended school there and took lessons in shoe-making from a local cobbler.
At the age of 13 he left the farm and went to Vienna as an apprentice cobbler, working there for about 5 years. In response to a recruitment drive by the Austrian government offering employment in the civil service to people from rural areas, Alois joined the frontier guards (custom service) of the Austrian Finance Ministry in 1855 at the age of 18. The work involved frequent reassigments and he served in a variety of places across Austria.
By 1860, he reached the rank of 'Revenue guard superintendent.' He later became an inspector of customs posted at Braunau in 1875. He eventually rose to full inspector of customs and could go no higher because he lacked the necessary school degrees.
As a rising young junior custom official, he used his birth name of Schickl'Gruber, but in mid-1876, thirty nine years old and well established in his career, he asked permission to use his stepfather's family name. His birth certificate was amended and the civil authorities automatically processed the decision. The official change was registered at the government office in Mistel'Bach in 1877 and transformed him into "Alois Hitler." It is not known who decided on the spelling of "Hitler" instead of "Hiedler."
In early 1869 Alois had an affair with Thekla Penz (born September 24, 1844) of Leopold'Stein, Arbe'Bach in the district of Zwettel, Lower Austria. This led to the birth of Theresia Penz on October 31, 1869. Thekla later married a man by the name of Horner, while Theresia married Johan Ramer and produced at least 6 children while living in the Town of Schwert'Berg.
Alois was 36 years old when he married for the 1st time. Anna Glasl-Horer was a wealthy 50-year-old daughter of a custom official. She was sick when they married and was either an invalid or became one shortly afterwards.
Not long after the marriage, Alois hired Klara Polzl as a household servant. She was the 16-year-old granddaughter of his stepfather, Nepomuk.
At the same time Alois began an affair with Franziska "Fanni" Matzels'Berger, one of the young female servants employed at the Pommer Inn, in the city of Braunau Inn, a town in Upper Austria on the border with Germany, where he was renting the top floor as a lodging. Alois had numerous affairs in the 1870s, resulting in his wife initiating legal action. On November 7, 1880, Alois and Anna became separated by mutual agreement. The 19-year-old Matzels'Berger became the girlfriend of the 43-year-old Alois. She demanded him that the servant girl, Klara Polzl find another job, and Alois sent Polzl away.
On January 13, 1882, Matzels'Berger gave birth to Alois's illegitimate son. Since they were not married, the child's name was Alois Matzels'Berger. Alois kept Matzels'Berger as his girlfriend while his lawful wife, Anna, grew sicker and died on April 6, 1883. A month after the funeral, on May 22 Alois married Matzels'Berg at a ceremony in Braunau with fellow custom officials as witnesses. Alois was 45 and Franzisca 22. He then legitimized his son as Alois Hitler, Jr. His 2nd child, Angela, was born on July 28, 1883.
Alois was secure in his profession and no longer an ambitious climber. He was hard, unsympathetic, and short-tempered guy. Franziska, still only 23, acquired a lung disorder and became too ill to function. She was moved to Ranshofen, a small village near Braunau. During the last months of her life, Klara Polzl returned to Alois' home to look after the invalid and the 2 children (Alois Jr and Angela). Franziska died in Ranshofen on August 10, 1884, at the age of 23. After the death of his 2nd wife, Polzl remained in his home as housekeeper.
Klara Polzl was soon to be pregnant by Alois. Assuming that his step-uncle was the real brother of his biological father, Klara was Hitler's half-niece. If his biological father was Johann Georg, she was then his first-cousin. Because of the affidavit, Alois couldn't marry her until his position as a cousin had to be legally removed. He submitted an appeal to the church for a humanitarian waiver. Permission came, and on January 7, 1885 a wedding was held at Alois rented rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn.
A meal was served for the few guests and witnesses. Alois then went to work for the rest of the day. Even Klara found the wedding to be a short ceremony.
On May 17, 1885, five months after the wedding, Klara gave birth to her 1st child, Gustav. A year later, on September 25, 1886, she gave birth to a daughter, Ida.
In 1887 diphtheria struck Alois household, resulting in the death of both Gustav, and Ida. Klara had been Alois' wife for 3 years and both of her children were death. Alois still had Alois Jr. and Angela from his previous relationship with Franziska Matzels'Berger.
On April 20, 1889, she gave birth to another son, Adolf. He was a sickly child, and his mother fretted over him. Alois was 51 when he was born. Alois had little interest in child rearing and left it all to his wife. When not at work he was either in a tavern or busy with his hobby, keeping bees.
In June 1892, Otto was born but died days later. Alois was transferred from Braunau to Passau. He was 55, Klara 32, Alois 10, Angela 9, and Adolf 3 years old.
On August 1, the family was living at Theresienstr. One month after Alois accepted a better paying position in Linz. On April 1st, 1893, his wife and children moved to a 2nd floor room on Kapuzinerstr.
Klara had just given birth to Edmund, so it was decided that she and the children stay in Passau for the time being.
On January 21, 1896, Paula, Adolf's younger sister, was born. Now Alois was more often at home with his family. He had 5 children ranging in age from infancy to 14. Edmund died of measles on February 2nd, 1900. Alois wanted Adolf to seek a career in the civil service. Adolf became so alienated from his father that he was repulsed by whatever Alois wanted. Adolf sneered at the thought of a lifetime spent enforcing petty rules. Alois tried to browbeat Adolf into obedience while his son did his best to be the opposite of whatever Alois wanted. One of the closest friends of the family noted that Alois was rough with his wife, Klara, and hardly ever spoke a word to her at home. If he was in a bad mood, he picked on the older children or Klara herself, in front of them, and used to beat them. After Alois and his oldest son Alois Jr had a climatic and violent argument, Alois Jr left home, and his father swore he would never give the boy a penny of inheritance beyond what the law required.
In February 1895, Alois purchased a house on a 9 acre (36,000 m2) plot in Hafeld near Lam'Bach, 30 mi/48 km SouthWest of Linz. He moved his family to the farm and retired on June 25, 1895 at the age of 58 after 40 years in the customs service. He found farming difficult; he lost money, and the value of the property declined.
On the morning of January 3rd 1903, Alois went to Gasthaus Wiesinger as usual to drink his morning glass of wine. He was offered the newspaper and promptly collapsed. He was taken to an adjoining room and a doctor was summoned, but Alois died at the Inn from pleural hemorrhage.
Adolf was 13 when his father died. When he saw the body of his dead father he burst out into an uncontrollable weeping.
Hitler's ancestry came into question when his opponents began spreading rumors that his paternal tree was Jewish since one of Nazism's major principles was that to be considered a pure "Aryan" and one had to have a documented ancestry certificate.
Adolf, following the rumors, in 1931 ordered the SS (Schutzstaffel) to investigate the alleged rumors regarding his ancestry; they found no evidence of any Jewish ancestors.
Although Johann Georg Hiedler was considered the official paternal grandfather of Adolf by the Third Reich, the question of who his grandfather was has caused much speculation and has remained unknown.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Saturday, September 24, 2016
WHO WAS PARACELSUS?
Paracelsus, byname of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim (Nov11/Dec17 1493-Sept 24, 1541) was born and raised in the village of Einsiedeln in Switzerland. Around 1529, he officially adopted the name Paracelsus (above or beyond Celsus), reflecting the fact that he regarded his views as even greater than Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a renowed 1st century Roman medical writer.
He was the only son of Wilhelm Bombast Von Hohenhein, a Swabian (German) chemist and physician. His mother was a Swiss and presumably died in his childhood. In 1502 the family moved to Vilach, Carinthia in Southern Austria, where his father worked as a physician, attending to the medical needs of the pilgrims. Paracelsus attended the Berg'Schule, founded by the wealthy Fugger family of merchant bankers of Augs'Burg, where his father taught chemical theory and practice, and at home,
Paracelsus was educated by his father in botany, medicine, mineralogy, and natural philosophy.
Youngsters were trained at the Berg'Schule as oversees and analysts for mining operations in gold, tin, and mercury, as well as in iron, copper, alum, and copper-sulfate ores.
The young Paracelsus learned of metals that grow in the earth, watched the transformations of metallic constituents in smelting vats, and the transmutation of lead into gold, a conversion believed to be possible by the alchemists of the time. Those experiences gave Paracelsus insight into metallurgy and chemistry, which likely laid the foundations of his later remarkable discoveries in the field of chemotherapy.
In 1507 he joined the many wandering youths who traveled throughout Europe seeking famous teachers at one university after another. He is said to have attended the universities of Basel, Tubingen, Vienna, Witten'Berg, Leipzig. Heidel'Berg, and Cologne during the next 5 years but was disappointed with them all. He wrote later that he wondered how "the high colleges managed to produce so many high asses," a typical Paracelsian jibe. He upset the traditional attitudes of schoolmen. He wrote, "the universities do not teach all things, so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. A doctor must be a traveller ... Knowledge is experience." Paracelsus held that the crude language of the innkeeper, the barber, and the teamster had more real dignity and common sense than the dry scholasticism of Aristotle, Galen of Pergamum, and Avicenna, the recognized Greek and Arab medical authorities of his day.
He received also a profound humanistic and theological education from local clerics and the convent school of St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal. He specifically accounts for being tutored by Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim.
- Johannes Trithemius (1February1462-13December 1516) was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath (having learned much) active in the German Renaissance as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and paranormal knowledge. His students included Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. When he was still an infant his father died. His stepfather was hostile to education and thus Johannes could only learn in secrecy and with many difficulties. He learned Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. When he was 17 years old he escaped from his home and wandered around looking for good teachers, traveling to Trier, Cologne, the Netherlands and Heidelberg.
The byname Trithemius refers to his native town of Trittenheim on the Moselle River, at the time part of the Electorate of Trier. It was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the end of the 9th to the early 19th century. It consisted of the temporal possessions of the prince-archbishop of Trier also prince-elector of the empire. There were only 2 other ecclesiastical prince-electors in the Empire: the Electorate of Cologne and the Electorate of Mainz, among which Mainz ranked first.
Paracelsus is said to have graduated in medicine in 1510, from the University of Vienna. He then went for a doctoral degree to the University of Ferrara in Italy, where he was free to express his rejection of the prevailing view that the stars and the planets controlled all the parts of the human body. Soon after taking his degree, he set out upon many years of wandering through almost every country in Europe, including England, Ireland, and Scotland. He took part in the Netherlandish Wars as an army surgeon. Later he went to Russia, was held captive by the Tartars, escaped into Lithuania, and went South into Hungary. In 1521 he again served as an army surgeon in Italy. His wanderings eventually took him to Egypt, Arabia, the Holy Land, and, finally, Constantinople. Everywhere he went, he sought out the most learned exponents of practical alchemy, not only to discover the most effective means of medical treatment but also to discover "the latent forces of Nature," and how to use them.
Paracelsus was a contemporary of Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci, and Martin Luther. In 1524 Paracelsus returned to his home in Villach to find that his fame for many cures had preceded him. He was subsequently appointed town physician and lecturer in medicine at the University of basel in Switzerland, and students from all parts of Europe went to the city to hear his lectures. Pinning a program of his forthcoming lectures to the notice board of the university on June, 1527, he invited not only students but anyone and everyone. He was compared with Luther because his ideas were different from the mainstream and partly because of openly defiant acts against the existing authorities in medicine. Paracelsus rejected the comparison. Famously Paracelsus said, "I leave it to Luther to defend what he says and I will be responsible for what I say. That which you wish to Luther, you wish also to me: You wish us both in the fire."
Three weeks later, on June 24, 1527, Paracelsus reportedly burned the books of Avicenna, the Arab "Prince of Physicians," and those of the Greek physician Galen, in front of the university.
Paracelsus is credited as providing the 1st clinical/scientific mention of the unconscious. In his work he writes: "Thus, the cause of the cerebrovascular disease, 'chorea', as a consequence of a rheumatic fever, is a mere opinion and idea, assumed by imagination, affecting those who believe in such a thing. This opinion and idea are the origin of the disease both in children and adults. In children the case is also imagination, based not on thinking but on perceiving, because they have heard or seen something. The reason is this: their sight and hearing are so strong that unconsciously they have fantasies about what they have seen or heard."
Paracelsus called for the humane treatment of the mentally ill (but was ignored for several centuries) as he saw them not to be possessed by evil spirits, but merely 'brothers' ensnared in a treatable malady.
Carl Gustav Jung (26July1875-6June1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist, studied Paracelsus intensively. His work further drew from alchemical symbolism as a tool in psychotherapy. Following Paracelsus' path, it was Jung who first theorized that the symbolic language of alchemy was an expression of innate but unconscious psychological processes.
Paracelsus reached the peak of his career at basel. He gave birth to clinical diagnosis and the administration of highly specific medicines. This was uncommon for a period heavily exposed to cure-all remedies. The Germ Theory was anticipated by him as he proposed that diseases were 'entities in themselves', rather than states of being. In his lectures, he stressed the healing power of nature and denounced the use of methods of treating wounds that prevented natural draining.
This specific empirical knowledge originated from his personal experience as an army physician in the Venetian wars. Paracelsus demanded that the application of cow dung, feathers and other concoctions to wounds be surrendered in favor of keeping the wounds clean, stating, "if you prevent infection, Nature will heal the wound all by herself." During his time as a military surgeon, Paracelsus was exposed to the crudity of medical knowledge at the time, when doctors believed that infection was a natural part of the healing process. He advocated for cleanliness and protection of wounds, as well as the regulation of diet. Popular ideas of the time opposed these theories and suggested sewing or plastering wounds.
He also attacked many other medical malpractices of his time, including the use of worthless pills, salves, infusions, balsams, fumigants, and drenches.
By the spring of 1528, he fell into a disrepute with local doctors, apothecaries, and magistrates. He left Basel and stayed at various places with friends and continued to travel for the next 8 years. During this time, he revised old manuscripts and wrote new treatises. With the publication of "Great Surgery Book" in 1536 he restored and even extended the revered reputation he had earned at Basel. He became wealthy and was sought by royalty.
In May 1538, at the zenith of that 2nd period of renown, Paracelsus returned to Villach again to see his father, only to find that his father had died 4 years earlier. In 1541 Paracelsus himself died in mysterious circumstances at the White Horse Inn, Salz'Burg, where he had taken up an appointment under the prince-archbishop, Duke Ernst of Bavaria.
Historians of syphilitic disease, a sexually transmitted infection, credit Paracelsus with the recognition of the inherited character of syphilis. In his first short pamphlet of syphilis treatment that was also the most comprehensive clinical description the period ever produced, he wrote a clinical description of syphilis in which he maintained that it could be treated by carefully measured doses of mercury. Similarly, he was the first to discover that the disease could only by contracted by contact.
Hippocrates (460-370BC) put forward the theory that illness was caused by an imbalance of the 4 humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. These ideas were further developed by Galen (September 129 AD-200/216) into an extremely 'influential' and 'highly persistent' set of medical beliefs that were to last until the mid-1850s. In opposition to this idea, Paracelsus believed in 3 humors: salt (representing stability), sulfur (representing combustibility), and mercury (representing liquidity); he defined disease as a separation of one humor from the other two. He believed that body organs functioned alchemically, that is, they separated pure from impure. The dominant medical treatments in Paracelsus' time were specific diets to help in the "cleansing of the putrefied juices" combined with purging and bloodletting to restore the balance of the 4 humors. Paracelsus supplement and challenged this view with his beliefs that illnesses was the result of the body being attacked by outside agents. He objected to excessive bloodletting, saying that the process disturbed the harmony of the system, and the blood could not be purified by lessening its quantity.
One of his most overlooked achievements was the systematic study of minerals and the curative powers of alpine mineral springs. His countless wanderings also brought him deep into many areas of the Alps, where such therapies were already practiced on a less common scale than today.
He was the only son of Wilhelm Bombast Von Hohenhein, a Swabian (German) chemist and physician. His mother was a Swiss and presumably died in his childhood. In 1502 the family moved to Vilach, Carinthia in Southern Austria, where his father worked as a physician, attending to the medical needs of the pilgrims. Paracelsus attended the Berg'Schule, founded by the wealthy Fugger family of merchant bankers of Augs'Burg, where his father taught chemical theory and practice, and at home,
Paracelsus was educated by his father in botany, medicine, mineralogy, and natural philosophy.
Youngsters were trained at the Berg'Schule as oversees and analysts for mining operations in gold, tin, and mercury, as well as in iron, copper, alum, and copper-sulfate ores.
The young Paracelsus learned of metals that grow in the earth, watched the transformations of metallic constituents in smelting vats, and the transmutation of lead into gold, a conversion believed to be possible by the alchemists of the time. Those experiences gave Paracelsus insight into metallurgy and chemistry, which likely laid the foundations of his later remarkable discoveries in the field of chemotherapy.
In 1507 he joined the many wandering youths who traveled throughout Europe seeking famous teachers at one university after another. He is said to have attended the universities of Basel, Tubingen, Vienna, Witten'Berg, Leipzig. Heidel'Berg, and Cologne during the next 5 years but was disappointed with them all. He wrote later that he wondered how "the high colleges managed to produce so many high asses," a typical Paracelsian jibe. He upset the traditional attitudes of schoolmen. He wrote, "the universities do not teach all things, so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. A doctor must be a traveller ... Knowledge is experience." Paracelsus held that the crude language of the innkeeper, the barber, and the teamster had more real dignity and common sense than the dry scholasticism of Aristotle, Galen of Pergamum, and Avicenna, the recognized Greek and Arab medical authorities of his day.
He received also a profound humanistic and theological education from local clerics and the convent school of St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal. He specifically accounts for being tutored by Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim.
- Johannes Trithemius (1February1462-13December 1516) was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath (having learned much) active in the German Renaissance as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and paranormal knowledge. His students included Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. When he was still an infant his father died. His stepfather was hostile to education and thus Johannes could only learn in secrecy and with many difficulties. He learned Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. When he was 17 years old he escaped from his home and wandered around looking for good teachers, traveling to Trier, Cologne, the Netherlands and Heidelberg.
The byname Trithemius refers to his native town of Trittenheim on the Moselle River, at the time part of the Electorate of Trier. It was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the end of the 9th to the early 19th century. It consisted of the temporal possessions of the prince-archbishop of Trier also prince-elector of the empire. There were only 2 other ecclesiastical prince-electors in the Empire: the Electorate of Cologne and the Electorate of Mainz, among which Mainz ranked first.
Paracelsus is said to have graduated in medicine in 1510, from the University of Vienna. He then went for a doctoral degree to the University of Ferrara in Italy, where he was free to express his rejection of the prevailing view that the stars and the planets controlled all the parts of the human body. Soon after taking his degree, he set out upon many years of wandering through almost every country in Europe, including England, Ireland, and Scotland. He took part in the Netherlandish Wars as an army surgeon. Later he went to Russia, was held captive by the Tartars, escaped into Lithuania, and went South into Hungary. In 1521 he again served as an army surgeon in Italy. His wanderings eventually took him to Egypt, Arabia, the Holy Land, and, finally, Constantinople. Everywhere he went, he sought out the most learned exponents of practical alchemy, not only to discover the most effective means of medical treatment but also to discover "the latent forces of Nature," and how to use them.
Paracelsus was a contemporary of Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci, and Martin Luther. In 1524 Paracelsus returned to his home in Villach to find that his fame for many cures had preceded him. He was subsequently appointed town physician and lecturer in medicine at the University of basel in Switzerland, and students from all parts of Europe went to the city to hear his lectures. Pinning a program of his forthcoming lectures to the notice board of the university on June, 1527, he invited not only students but anyone and everyone. He was compared with Luther because his ideas were different from the mainstream and partly because of openly defiant acts against the existing authorities in medicine. Paracelsus rejected the comparison. Famously Paracelsus said, "I leave it to Luther to defend what he says and I will be responsible for what I say. That which you wish to Luther, you wish also to me: You wish us both in the fire."
Three weeks later, on June 24, 1527, Paracelsus reportedly burned the books of Avicenna, the Arab "Prince of Physicians," and those of the Greek physician Galen, in front of the university.
Paracelsus is credited as providing the 1st clinical/scientific mention of the unconscious. In his work he writes: "Thus, the cause of the cerebrovascular disease, 'chorea', as a consequence of a rheumatic fever, is a mere opinion and idea, assumed by imagination, affecting those who believe in such a thing. This opinion and idea are the origin of the disease both in children and adults. In children the case is also imagination, based not on thinking but on perceiving, because they have heard or seen something. The reason is this: their sight and hearing are so strong that unconsciously they have fantasies about what they have seen or heard."
Paracelsus called for the humane treatment of the mentally ill (but was ignored for several centuries) as he saw them not to be possessed by evil spirits, but merely 'brothers' ensnared in a treatable malady.
Carl Gustav Jung (26July1875-6June1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist, studied Paracelsus intensively. His work further drew from alchemical symbolism as a tool in psychotherapy. Following Paracelsus' path, it was Jung who first theorized that the symbolic language of alchemy was an expression of innate but unconscious psychological processes.
Paracelsus reached the peak of his career at basel. He gave birth to clinical diagnosis and the administration of highly specific medicines. This was uncommon for a period heavily exposed to cure-all remedies. The Germ Theory was anticipated by him as he proposed that diseases were 'entities in themselves', rather than states of being. In his lectures, he stressed the healing power of nature and denounced the use of methods of treating wounds that prevented natural draining.
This specific empirical knowledge originated from his personal experience as an army physician in the Venetian wars. Paracelsus demanded that the application of cow dung, feathers and other concoctions to wounds be surrendered in favor of keeping the wounds clean, stating, "if you prevent infection, Nature will heal the wound all by herself." During his time as a military surgeon, Paracelsus was exposed to the crudity of medical knowledge at the time, when doctors believed that infection was a natural part of the healing process. He advocated for cleanliness and protection of wounds, as well as the regulation of diet. Popular ideas of the time opposed these theories and suggested sewing or plastering wounds.
He also attacked many other medical malpractices of his time, including the use of worthless pills, salves, infusions, balsams, fumigants, and drenches.
By the spring of 1528, he fell into a disrepute with local doctors, apothecaries, and magistrates. He left Basel and stayed at various places with friends and continued to travel for the next 8 years. During this time, he revised old manuscripts and wrote new treatises. With the publication of "Great Surgery Book" in 1536 he restored and even extended the revered reputation he had earned at Basel. He became wealthy and was sought by royalty.
In May 1538, at the zenith of that 2nd period of renown, Paracelsus returned to Villach again to see his father, only to find that his father had died 4 years earlier. In 1541 Paracelsus himself died in mysterious circumstances at the White Horse Inn, Salz'Burg, where he had taken up an appointment under the prince-archbishop, Duke Ernst of Bavaria.
Historians of syphilitic disease, a sexually transmitted infection, credit Paracelsus with the recognition of the inherited character of syphilis. In his first short pamphlet of syphilis treatment that was also the most comprehensive clinical description the period ever produced, he wrote a clinical description of syphilis in which he maintained that it could be treated by carefully measured doses of mercury. Similarly, he was the first to discover that the disease could only by contracted by contact.
Hippocrates (460-370BC) put forward the theory that illness was caused by an imbalance of the 4 humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. These ideas were further developed by Galen (September 129 AD-200/216) into an extremely 'influential' and 'highly persistent' set of medical beliefs that were to last until the mid-1850s. In opposition to this idea, Paracelsus believed in 3 humors: salt (representing stability), sulfur (representing combustibility), and mercury (representing liquidity); he defined disease as a separation of one humor from the other two. He believed that body organs functioned alchemically, that is, they separated pure from impure. The dominant medical treatments in Paracelsus' time were specific diets to help in the "cleansing of the putrefied juices" combined with purging and bloodletting to restore the balance of the 4 humors. Paracelsus supplement and challenged this view with his beliefs that illnesses was the result of the body being attacked by outside agents. He objected to excessive bloodletting, saying that the process disturbed the harmony of the system, and the blood could not be purified by lessening its quantity.
One of his most overlooked achievements was the systematic study of minerals and the curative powers of alpine mineral springs. His countless wanderings also brought him deep into many areas of the Alps, where such therapies were already practiced on a less common scale than today.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
THE ORIGEN OF THE CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY.
The Carolingian Dynasty was a Frank'Ish noble family with origins in the Arnold or Pipp'Inid clans of the 7th CE. The dynasty is considered to have been founded by Arnold, Bishop of Metz, who wielded a great deal of power and influence in the Mero'Vingian kingdoms.
The name 'Carolingian' derives from the latin name of Charles Martel, 'Carolus.' The family consolidated its power in the late 8th CE, eventually making the offices of 'major of the palace' and 'Duke and Prince of the Franks' hereditary and becoming the real power behind the throne.
Charles Martel (688-22 Oct.741) was a Frankish statesman and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was 'de facto' ruler of France from 718 until his death. He was the son of Pepin of Herstal and his 2nd wife Alpaida. Pepin worked to establish his family, the Pippinids, as the strongest in France. He united all the Frankish realms by the conquest of Neustria and Burgundy in 687. Also increased the power of the Franks in foreign conflicts, by the subjugation of the Alemanni, the Frisians, and the Franconians. Pepin also began the process of 'evangelization' of Germany. His statesmanship was notable for the further diminution of Mero'Vingian royal authority, and for the acceptance of the undisputed right to rule for his family. Therefore, Pepin was able to name as heir, his grandson, Theudoald. But, this was not accepted by his powerful son Charles Martel, leading to a civil war after his death in which Charles emerged victorious.
Charles was described as 'illegitimate,' but polygamy was a legitimate Frankish practice at the time. The idea of illegitimacy was derived of Pepin's 1st wife. Plectrude, and her desire to see her progeny as heirs to Pepin's power. Prior to Pepin's death in December 714, Plectrude urged him to designate Theudoald, his grandson by his late son Grimoald, his heir in his entire realm. The motion was entirely opposed by the nobles because Theudoald was a child of only 8 years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, she had him imprisoned in Cologne, preventing an uprising in Austrasia, but not in Neustria. Charles escaped from prison and was acclaimed Major by the nobles of the kingdom.
Between 718 and 723, Charles secured his power through a series of victories winning the loyalty of several important bishops and abbots by donating lands and money for the foundation of abbeys, such as the commune with town status of Lechternach in Eastern Luxem'Burg.
Having unified the Frankish under his banner, Charles was determined to punish the Saxons who had invaded Austrasia. He defeated them in the Teuto'Burg Forest, a range of low, forested hills in the today German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-West'Phalia. Although he did not trust the language of the non Christians, Aldegisel, a Frisian king, in the coastal region along the South Eastern corner of the North Sea in what today is mostly a large part of Netherlands, including modern Friesland and smaller part of Germany, accepted Christianity, and Charles sent Willibrord, a North'Umbriam bishop of Utrecht, to convert the people, he was later known as the 'Apostle of the Frisians.' Charles also did much to support, in his own language, Winfrid, later Boniface, the 'Apostle of the Germans.'
In 725 CE, Charles concentrated his attention to the Umayyads Caliphate, virtually for the remainder of his life. With the activity of the Muslims in Acquitane, Charles believed he needed a virtually full-time army -one he could train intensely- as a core of veteran Franks who would be augmented with the usual conscripts called up in time of war. During the Early Middle Ages, troops were only available after the crops had been planted and before harvesting time. To train the kind of infantry that could withstand the Muslim heavy cavalry, Charles needed them year-round, and he needed to pay them so their families could buy the food they would have otherwise grown. To obtain the money he seized church lands and property, and used the funds to pay his soldiers. The same Charles who had secured the support of the Christian Church by donating land, seized some of it back between 724 and 732 CE. Of course, Church officials were enraged, and, for a time, it looked as though Charles might even be punished by excommunication for his actions. But then came a significant invasion.
The Muslims were not aware, at that time, of the true strength of the Franks, or the fact that they were building a disciplined army instead of the typical barbarian hordes that dominated Europe after Rome's fall. The Arab awareness of the Franks as a growing military power came only after the Battle of Tours when the Caliph expressed shock at his army's catastrophic defeat.
Charles ability to coordinate infantry and cavalry veterans was unequaled in that specific era and enabled him to face superior numbers of invaders, and to decisively defeat them again and again.
In 736-737, Muslims knew that the Franks were a real power, and that Charles personally was a force to be reckoned with. They had no intention of allowing Charles to catch them unaware and dictate the time and place of battle, as it was before. Unfortunately, Muslims overestimated the time it would take Charles to developed heavy cavalry equal to that of the Muslims. Caliphate believed it would take a generation, but Charles managed it in 5 years. Charles again championed Christianity and halted Muslim expansion into Europe.
In 739 CE, Pope Gregory III begged Charles for his aid against Liutprand, but Charles was loath to fight his onetime ally and ignored the Papal plea. This begging showed how far Charles had come from the days he was tottering on excommunication, and set the stage for his son and grandson to rearrange Italian political boundaries to suit the Papacy, and protect its interest.
Charles Martel died on October 22, 741 in France. He strengthened the Frankish state by consistently defeating, through superior generalship, the host of hostile foreign nations which beset it on all sides, including the non- Christian Saxons, whom his grandson Charlemagne would fully subdue, and Moors, whom he halted on a path of continental domination. Charles was the absolute ruler of the virtually all of today's continental Western Europe North of the Pyrynees. Only the remaining Saxon realms, which he partly conquered, Lombardy, and the Marca Hispanica North of the Pyrynees were significant additions to the Frankish realms after his death.
He was also the founder of all feudal systems and merit system that marked the Carolingian Empire, and Europe in general during the Middle Ages, though his son and grandson would gain credit for his innovations.
Charles was a brilliant strategic general, who also was tactical commander par excellence, able in the heat of a battle to adapt his plans to his foe's forces and movements, and to defeat them repeatedly, especially when they were far superior in men and weaponry. Charles had the best quality which defines genuine greatness in a military commander: "he foresaw the dangers of his foes, and prepared for them with care; he used ground, time, place, and fierce loyalty of his troops to offset his foe's superior weaponry and tactics, and adapted again and again to the enemy on the battlefield, shifting to compensate for the unforeseen and unforeseeable."
Charles Martel cemented his place in history with his participation in the defense of the Christianity movement in Europe against a Muslim army. The Iberian Saracens (people who lived in the desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia, and who were specifically distinguished as a people from others known as Arabs), had incorporated Berber light-horse cavalry with the heavy Arab cavalry to create a formidable army that had almost never defeated. European forces, meanwhile, lacked the powerful tool of stirrup, a light frame or ring that holds the foot of a rider, attached to the saddle by a strap, greatly increasing the rider's ability to stay in the saddle and control the mount, increasing the animal's usefulness to the rider in warfare or any other areas such as transportation. In his victory, Charles earned the surname "Martel" ("The Hammer"), the paramount prince of his age.
Though he never cared about titles, his son Pippin did, and finally asked the Pope: "Who should be King, he who has the title, or he who has the power?"
The Pope, highly dependent on Frankish armies for his independence from Lombards and Byzantine power, declared to him; "he who had the power" and immediately crowned Pippin.
Decades later, in 800 CE, Pippin's son Charlemagne was crowned emperor by the Pope,further extending the principle by delegitimizing the nominal authority of the Byzantine Emperor in the Italian Peninsula and ancient Roman Gaul, including the Iberian outposts Charlemagne had established in the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees, what today forms Catalonia. The bulk of the Western Roman Empire had come under Carolingian rule.
He divided his realm between his adult sons, without opposition, a year earlier:
- Carlo'Man he gave Austrassia, Alemannia, and Thuringia,
- Pippin the Younger he gave Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and Metz and Trier in the 'Mosel Duchy;' to - Grifo was given several lands throughout the kingdom, just before Charles died.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Metz in France, part of the Holy Roman Empire, was an independent state (prince-bishopric) in the Middle Ages, ruled by the price-bishop who had the ex officio title of 'Count.' It was annexed to France by King Henry II in 1552, and recognized in the 'Peace of West-Phalia of 1648.
Metz already was a bisphoric by 535 CE and the Basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains, a pre-medieval church building, began its life as a Roman 'Gymnasium' (type of school), for a Roman spa complex, in the 4th CE. In the 7th CE, the structure was converted into a church, becoming the chapel of a Benedictine monastic community. Each monastery, priory or abbey within the Order maintained its own autonomy. A new nave was constructed in the 11th CE with further interior renovations. In the 16th CE, the building became a warehouse, and remained at such until the 1970s when it was restored and opened for concerts and exhibitions.
The 'Graoully' is depicted as a fearsome dragon, vanquished by, according to a legend, the supernatural powers of Clement of Metz, the 1st Bishop of the city. The Graoully quickly became a symbol and can be seen in numerous insignia of the city from the 10th CE on.
According to tradition, constructed much later to lend more antiquity to the diocese, Clement was sent by the Apostle Peter during the 1st century, with 2 disciples: Celestius de Metz and Felix de Metz, and listed as his successors. This legend also states that Clement was the uncle of Pope Clement.
The legend states that the Graoully, along with countless other snakes, inhabited the local Roman Amphitheater. The snakes' breath had so poisoned the area that the inhabitants of the town were trapped in the town. After the collective belief that the local inhabitants were turning themselves to Christianity with the common purpose of getting rid of the dragon, Clement presented himself to the assembly of serpents and made the sign of the cross after the snakes attacked him. They immediately were tamed by this. Clement led the Graoully to the edge of the Seille Lorraine River, North Eastern of France, and ordered him and his assembly of snakes to disappear into a place where there were no men or beasts. Orius, the king, did not convert to Christianity by heart, after Clement tamed the dragon. However, when the king's daughter died, Clement brought her back from the dead, thereby resulting in the king's conversion.
In 1648 CE, Metz was part of the province of the Three Bihoprics of pre-revolutionary France. They consisted of the dioceses of Metz, Verdun, and Toul within the Lorraine region. Lorraine's predecessor, Lotharingia, was an independent Carolingian kingdom under the rule of Lothair II (855-869). Its land had originally been part of Middle France, created in 843 CE by the Treaty of Verdum, when the Carolingian empire was divided between the 3 sons of Louis the Pious.
The Carolingian Empire during the reign of Charlemagne covered most Western Europe, as the Roman Empire once had. He crushed all Germanic resistance and extended his realm to the Elbe, influencing events almost to the Russian Steppes.
Prior to the death of Charlemagne, the Empire was divided among various members of the Carolingian dynasty :
- Charles the Younger, son of Charlemagne, who received Neustria. He died without heirs in 811 CE.
- Louis the Pious, who received Aquitaine, was made co-Emperor with Italy in 1813, and the entire Empire passed to him with Chalemagne's death in the winter of 814 CE. He established three new Carolingian Kingships for his sons from his 1st marriage: Lothar was made King of Italy and co-Emperor, Pepin was made King of Aquitaine, and Louis the German was made King of Bavaria.
His attempts in 823 CE to bring his 4th son, from his 2nd marriage, Charles the Bald into the will was marked by the resistance of his eldest sons, and the last year of his reign was plagued by civil war.
- Pepin, who received Italy. He died with an illegitimate son, Bernard, in 813 CE.
Lothar was stripped of his title in 829 CE and was banished to Italy. The following year his sons attacked Louis' empire and dethroned him in favor of Lothar. The following year Louis attacked Lothar's sons Kingdoms, stripped Lothar of his imperial title and granted the Kingdom of Italy to Charles. Pepin and Louis the German revolted in 832 CE, followed by Lothar in 833 CE, and together they imprisoned Louis the Pious and Charles.
In 835 CE, peace was made within the family, and Louis was restored to the imperial throne. When Pepin died in 838 CE, Louis crowned Charles king of Aquitaine, while the nobility elected Pepin's son Pepin II, a conflict which was not restored until 860 CE with the death of Pepin II.
When Louis the Pious finally died in 840 CE, Lothar claimed the entire empire irrespective of the partitions. Charles and Louis the German went to war against him. After losing the conflict, Lothar fled to his capital at Aachen and raised a new army, which was inferior to that of the younger brothers.
In 842, in the Oats of Stras'Bourg (mutual pledges), Charles and Louis agreed to declare Lothar unfit for the imperial throne. This marked the East-West division of the Empire between Louis and Charles and was finally settled in 843 CE by and between Louis the Pious's 3 sons in the Treaty of Verdun.
The Oaths of Stras'Bourg is considered a milestone in European history because it symbolize the birth of France and Germany.
The name 'Carolingian' derives from the latin name of Charles Martel, 'Carolus.' The family consolidated its power in the late 8th CE, eventually making the offices of 'major of the palace' and 'Duke and Prince of the Franks' hereditary and becoming the real power behind the throne.
Charles Martel (688-22 Oct.741) was a Frankish statesman and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was 'de facto' ruler of France from 718 until his death. He was the son of Pepin of Herstal and his 2nd wife Alpaida. Pepin worked to establish his family, the Pippinids, as the strongest in France. He united all the Frankish realms by the conquest of Neustria and Burgundy in 687. Also increased the power of the Franks in foreign conflicts, by the subjugation of the Alemanni, the Frisians, and the Franconians. Pepin also began the process of 'evangelization' of Germany. His statesmanship was notable for the further diminution of Mero'Vingian royal authority, and for the acceptance of the undisputed right to rule for his family. Therefore, Pepin was able to name as heir, his grandson, Theudoald. But, this was not accepted by his powerful son Charles Martel, leading to a civil war after his death in which Charles emerged victorious.
Charles was described as 'illegitimate,' but polygamy was a legitimate Frankish practice at the time. The idea of illegitimacy was derived of Pepin's 1st wife. Plectrude, and her desire to see her progeny as heirs to Pepin's power. Prior to Pepin's death in December 714, Plectrude urged him to designate Theudoald, his grandson by his late son Grimoald, his heir in his entire realm. The motion was entirely opposed by the nobles because Theudoald was a child of only 8 years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, she had him imprisoned in Cologne, preventing an uprising in Austrasia, but not in Neustria. Charles escaped from prison and was acclaimed Major by the nobles of the kingdom.
Between 718 and 723, Charles secured his power through a series of victories winning the loyalty of several important bishops and abbots by donating lands and money for the foundation of abbeys, such as the commune with town status of Lechternach in Eastern Luxem'Burg.
Having unified the Frankish under his banner, Charles was determined to punish the Saxons who had invaded Austrasia. He defeated them in the Teuto'Burg Forest, a range of low, forested hills in the today German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-West'Phalia. Although he did not trust the language of the non Christians, Aldegisel, a Frisian king, in the coastal region along the South Eastern corner of the North Sea in what today is mostly a large part of Netherlands, including modern Friesland and smaller part of Germany, accepted Christianity, and Charles sent Willibrord, a North'Umbriam bishop of Utrecht, to convert the people, he was later known as the 'Apostle of the Frisians.' Charles also did much to support, in his own language, Winfrid, later Boniface, the 'Apostle of the Germans.'
In 725 CE, Charles concentrated his attention to the Umayyads Caliphate, virtually for the remainder of his life. With the activity of the Muslims in Acquitane, Charles believed he needed a virtually full-time army -one he could train intensely- as a core of veteran Franks who would be augmented with the usual conscripts called up in time of war. During the Early Middle Ages, troops were only available after the crops had been planted and before harvesting time. To train the kind of infantry that could withstand the Muslim heavy cavalry, Charles needed them year-round, and he needed to pay them so their families could buy the food they would have otherwise grown. To obtain the money he seized church lands and property, and used the funds to pay his soldiers. The same Charles who had secured the support of the Christian Church by donating land, seized some of it back between 724 and 732 CE. Of course, Church officials were enraged, and, for a time, it looked as though Charles might even be punished by excommunication for his actions. But then came a significant invasion.
The Muslims were not aware, at that time, of the true strength of the Franks, or the fact that they were building a disciplined army instead of the typical barbarian hordes that dominated Europe after Rome's fall. The Arab awareness of the Franks as a growing military power came only after the Battle of Tours when the Caliph expressed shock at his army's catastrophic defeat.
Charles ability to coordinate infantry and cavalry veterans was unequaled in that specific era and enabled him to face superior numbers of invaders, and to decisively defeat them again and again.
In 736-737, Muslims knew that the Franks were a real power, and that Charles personally was a force to be reckoned with. They had no intention of allowing Charles to catch them unaware and dictate the time and place of battle, as it was before. Unfortunately, Muslims overestimated the time it would take Charles to developed heavy cavalry equal to that of the Muslims. Caliphate believed it would take a generation, but Charles managed it in 5 years. Charles again championed Christianity and halted Muslim expansion into Europe.
In 739 CE, Pope Gregory III begged Charles for his aid against Liutprand, but Charles was loath to fight his onetime ally and ignored the Papal plea. This begging showed how far Charles had come from the days he was tottering on excommunication, and set the stage for his son and grandson to rearrange Italian political boundaries to suit the Papacy, and protect its interest.
Charles Martel died on October 22, 741 in France. He strengthened the Frankish state by consistently defeating, through superior generalship, the host of hostile foreign nations which beset it on all sides, including the non- Christian Saxons, whom his grandson Charlemagne would fully subdue, and Moors, whom he halted on a path of continental domination. Charles was the absolute ruler of the virtually all of today's continental Western Europe North of the Pyrynees. Only the remaining Saxon realms, which he partly conquered, Lombardy, and the Marca Hispanica North of the Pyrynees were significant additions to the Frankish realms after his death.
He was also the founder of all feudal systems and merit system that marked the Carolingian Empire, and Europe in general during the Middle Ages, though his son and grandson would gain credit for his innovations.
Charles was a brilliant strategic general, who also was tactical commander par excellence, able in the heat of a battle to adapt his plans to his foe's forces and movements, and to defeat them repeatedly, especially when they were far superior in men and weaponry. Charles had the best quality which defines genuine greatness in a military commander: "he foresaw the dangers of his foes, and prepared for them with care; he used ground, time, place, and fierce loyalty of his troops to offset his foe's superior weaponry and tactics, and adapted again and again to the enemy on the battlefield, shifting to compensate for the unforeseen and unforeseeable."
Charles Martel cemented his place in history with his participation in the defense of the Christianity movement in Europe against a Muslim army. The Iberian Saracens (people who lived in the desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia, and who were specifically distinguished as a people from others known as Arabs), had incorporated Berber light-horse cavalry with the heavy Arab cavalry to create a formidable army that had almost never defeated. European forces, meanwhile, lacked the powerful tool of stirrup, a light frame or ring that holds the foot of a rider, attached to the saddle by a strap, greatly increasing the rider's ability to stay in the saddle and control the mount, increasing the animal's usefulness to the rider in warfare or any other areas such as transportation. In his victory, Charles earned the surname "Martel" ("The Hammer"), the paramount prince of his age.
Though he never cared about titles, his son Pippin did, and finally asked the Pope: "Who should be King, he who has the title, or he who has the power?"
The Pope, highly dependent on Frankish armies for his independence from Lombards and Byzantine power, declared to him; "he who had the power" and immediately crowned Pippin.
Decades later, in 800 CE, Pippin's son Charlemagne was crowned emperor by the Pope,further extending the principle by delegitimizing the nominal authority of the Byzantine Emperor in the Italian Peninsula and ancient Roman Gaul, including the Iberian outposts Charlemagne had established in the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees, what today forms Catalonia. The bulk of the Western Roman Empire had come under Carolingian rule.
He divided his realm between his adult sons, without opposition, a year earlier:
- Carlo'Man he gave Austrassia, Alemannia, and Thuringia,
- Pippin the Younger he gave Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and Metz and Trier in the 'Mosel Duchy;' to - Grifo was given several lands throughout the kingdom, just before Charles died.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Metz in France, part of the Holy Roman Empire, was an independent state (prince-bishopric) in the Middle Ages, ruled by the price-bishop who had the ex officio title of 'Count.' It was annexed to France by King Henry II in 1552, and recognized in the 'Peace of West-Phalia of 1648.
Metz already was a bisphoric by 535 CE and the Basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains, a pre-medieval church building, began its life as a Roman 'Gymnasium' (type of school), for a Roman spa complex, in the 4th CE. In the 7th CE, the structure was converted into a church, becoming the chapel of a Benedictine monastic community. Each monastery, priory or abbey within the Order maintained its own autonomy. A new nave was constructed in the 11th CE with further interior renovations. In the 16th CE, the building became a warehouse, and remained at such until the 1970s when it was restored and opened for concerts and exhibitions.
The 'Graoully' is depicted as a fearsome dragon, vanquished by, according to a legend, the supernatural powers of Clement of Metz, the 1st Bishop of the city. The Graoully quickly became a symbol and can be seen in numerous insignia of the city from the 10th CE on.
According to tradition, constructed much later to lend more antiquity to the diocese, Clement was sent by the Apostle Peter during the 1st century, with 2 disciples: Celestius de Metz and Felix de Metz, and listed as his successors. This legend also states that Clement was the uncle of Pope Clement.
The legend states that the Graoully, along with countless other snakes, inhabited the local Roman Amphitheater. The snakes' breath had so poisoned the area that the inhabitants of the town were trapped in the town. After the collective belief that the local inhabitants were turning themselves to Christianity with the common purpose of getting rid of the dragon, Clement presented himself to the assembly of serpents and made the sign of the cross after the snakes attacked him. They immediately were tamed by this. Clement led the Graoully to the edge of the Seille Lorraine River, North Eastern of France, and ordered him and his assembly of snakes to disappear into a place where there were no men or beasts. Orius, the king, did not convert to Christianity by heart, after Clement tamed the dragon. However, when the king's daughter died, Clement brought her back from the dead, thereby resulting in the king's conversion.
In 1648 CE, Metz was part of the province of the Three Bihoprics of pre-revolutionary France. They consisted of the dioceses of Metz, Verdun, and Toul within the Lorraine region. Lorraine's predecessor, Lotharingia, was an independent Carolingian kingdom under the rule of Lothair II (855-869). Its land had originally been part of Middle France, created in 843 CE by the Treaty of Verdum, when the Carolingian empire was divided between the 3 sons of Louis the Pious.
The Carolingian Empire during the reign of Charlemagne covered most Western Europe, as the Roman Empire once had. He crushed all Germanic resistance and extended his realm to the Elbe, influencing events almost to the Russian Steppes.
Prior to the death of Charlemagne, the Empire was divided among various members of the Carolingian dynasty :
- Charles the Younger, son of Charlemagne, who received Neustria. He died without heirs in 811 CE.
- Louis the Pious, who received Aquitaine, was made co-Emperor with Italy in 1813, and the entire Empire passed to him with Chalemagne's death in the winter of 814 CE. He established three new Carolingian Kingships for his sons from his 1st marriage: Lothar was made King of Italy and co-Emperor, Pepin was made King of Aquitaine, and Louis the German was made King of Bavaria.
His attempts in 823 CE to bring his 4th son, from his 2nd marriage, Charles the Bald into the will was marked by the resistance of his eldest sons, and the last year of his reign was plagued by civil war.
- Pepin, who received Italy. He died with an illegitimate son, Bernard, in 813 CE.
Lothar was stripped of his title in 829 CE and was banished to Italy. The following year his sons attacked Louis' empire and dethroned him in favor of Lothar. The following year Louis attacked Lothar's sons Kingdoms, stripped Lothar of his imperial title and granted the Kingdom of Italy to Charles. Pepin and Louis the German revolted in 832 CE, followed by Lothar in 833 CE, and together they imprisoned Louis the Pious and Charles.
In 835 CE, peace was made within the family, and Louis was restored to the imperial throne. When Pepin died in 838 CE, Louis crowned Charles king of Aquitaine, while the nobility elected Pepin's son Pepin II, a conflict which was not restored until 860 CE with the death of Pepin II.
When Louis the Pious finally died in 840 CE, Lothar claimed the entire empire irrespective of the partitions. Charles and Louis the German went to war against him. After losing the conflict, Lothar fled to his capital at Aachen and raised a new army, which was inferior to that of the younger brothers.
In 842, in the Oats of Stras'Bourg (mutual pledges), Charles and Louis agreed to declare Lothar unfit for the imperial throne. This marked the East-West division of the Empire between Louis and Charles and was finally settled in 843 CE by and between Louis the Pious's 3 sons in the Treaty of Verdun.
The Oaths of Stras'Bourg is considered a milestone in European history because it symbolize the birth of France and Germany.
Saturday, September 3, 2016
THE SOCIAL CLASS OF THE LANDED GENTRY.
The Landed Gentry is a largely British social class consisting of land owners who could live entirely from rental income. They often worked as administrators of their own lands. The decline of this privileged class largely stemmed from the 1870s agricultural depression caused by the dramatic fall in grain prices following the opening up of the American prairies for cultivation and the advent of cheap transportation with the rise of steamboats.
Britain's dependence on imported grain during the 1830s was 2%; during the 1860s it was 24%; during the 1880s it was 45%, for corn it was 65%. By 1914 Britain depended on imports for 4/5th of her wheat and 40% of her meat.
Between 1809 and 1879, eighty eight per cent (88%) of British millionaires had been landowners; between 1880 and 1914 this figure dropped to 33% and fell further after the First World War.
During the first 3/4 of the 19th century, the British landed aristocracy were the wealthiest class in the world's richest country, but the vast increase in the carrying power of ships, the facilities of intercourse with foreign countries, and the further cheapening of cereals and meat meant that economically the old landed class were no longer 'lords of the earth.'
Many estates were sold or broken up. So devastating was this for the ranks formerly identified as being of the Landed Gentry that 'Burke's Land Gentry began, in the 20th century, to include families historically in this category who had ceased to own their ancestral lands. The focus of those who remained in this class shifted from the lands or estates themselves, to the stately home or 'family seat,' the principal residence, which was in many cases retained without the surrounding lands. Many of these buildings were purchased for the nation and preserved as monuments to the lifestyle of their former owners, partly because of the widespread destruction of country houses in the 20th century by owners who could no longer afford to maintain them.
The new born wealthy elite were no longer British aristocrats but American businessmen such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew W. Mellon, who made their wealth from industry rather than land.
The Landed Gentry was distinct from, and socially 'below', the aristocracy or peer-age, that were able to become public, political and armed forces figures, although some of the Landed Gentry were as wealthy as some peers.
The designation 'Landed Gentry' originally referred exclusively to members of the upper class who were landlords and also commoners in the British sense, that is, did not hold hereditary titles (peer-age), but usage became more fluid over the time. By the late 19th century, the term was also applied to peers such as the Duke of West-Minster who lived on landed states.
The term 'Landed Gentry,' came to be used on lesser nobility in England around 1540, in the sense that the definition began to fill the parts of what the other high definition of nobility lacked.
The term 'Gentry' included 4 separate groups:
- Baronets: a hereditary title, created in the 14th century and revived by King James in 1611, giving the holder the right to be addressed as 'Sir.'
- Knights: originally a military rank, this status was increasingly awarded to civilians as a reward for service to the Crown. Holders have the right to be addressed as 'Sir' as are baronets, but the title is not hereditary.
- Esquires: originally men aspiring to knighthood, were the principal attendants on a knight. A squire was the shield or armor bearer that at times acted as a knight's errant runner. After the Middle Ages the title became an honor that could be conferred by the Crown, and by custom the holders of certain offices (barristers, lord mayor/mayor, justices of peace, and higher officer ranks in the armed services) were deemed to be Esquires.
- Gentlemen: possessors of a social status recognized as a separate title by the Statute of Additions of 1413. Generally men of high birth or rank, good social standing, and wealth, who did not need to work for a living, were considered gentlemen.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the names and families of those with titles (specifically peers and baronets, less often including the non-hereditary title of knight) were often listed in books or manuals known as 'Peer-ages,' 'Baronet-ages,' or combinations of these categories. As well as listing genealogical information, these books often also included details of the right of a given family to a coat of arms (shield, supporters, crest, and motto). The ancient Romans used similar insignia on their shields, but these identified military units rather than individuals. Despite no widespread regulation, heraldry has remained consistent across Europe, where tradition alone has governed the design and use of arms.
In the 21st century, the term 'Landed Gentry' is still used, and the landowning class still exists, but it is increasingly refers more to historic than to current wealth or property in a family. Moreover, the deference which was once automatically given to members of this class by most British people has almost completely dissipated as its wealth, political power, and social influence has declined, and other social figures such as celebrities have grown to take their place in the public's interest.
Britain's dependence on imported grain during the 1830s was 2%; during the 1860s it was 24%; during the 1880s it was 45%, for corn it was 65%. By 1914 Britain depended on imports for 4/5th of her wheat and 40% of her meat.
Between 1809 and 1879, eighty eight per cent (88%) of British millionaires had been landowners; between 1880 and 1914 this figure dropped to 33% and fell further after the First World War.
During the first 3/4 of the 19th century, the British landed aristocracy were the wealthiest class in the world's richest country, but the vast increase in the carrying power of ships, the facilities of intercourse with foreign countries, and the further cheapening of cereals and meat meant that economically the old landed class were no longer 'lords of the earth.'
Many estates were sold or broken up. So devastating was this for the ranks formerly identified as being of the Landed Gentry that 'Burke's Land Gentry began, in the 20th century, to include families historically in this category who had ceased to own their ancestral lands. The focus of those who remained in this class shifted from the lands or estates themselves, to the stately home or 'family seat,' the principal residence, which was in many cases retained without the surrounding lands. Many of these buildings were purchased for the nation and preserved as monuments to the lifestyle of their former owners, partly because of the widespread destruction of country houses in the 20th century by owners who could no longer afford to maintain them.
The new born wealthy elite were no longer British aristocrats but American businessmen such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew W. Mellon, who made their wealth from industry rather than land.
The Landed Gentry was distinct from, and socially 'below', the aristocracy or peer-age, that were able to become public, political and armed forces figures, although some of the Landed Gentry were as wealthy as some peers.
The designation 'Landed Gentry' originally referred exclusively to members of the upper class who were landlords and also commoners in the British sense, that is, did not hold hereditary titles (peer-age), but usage became more fluid over the time. By the late 19th century, the term was also applied to peers such as the Duke of West-Minster who lived on landed states.
The term 'Landed Gentry,' came to be used on lesser nobility in England around 1540, in the sense that the definition began to fill the parts of what the other high definition of nobility lacked.
The term 'Gentry' included 4 separate groups:
- Baronets: a hereditary title, created in the 14th century and revived by King James in 1611, giving the holder the right to be addressed as 'Sir.'
- Knights: originally a military rank, this status was increasingly awarded to civilians as a reward for service to the Crown. Holders have the right to be addressed as 'Sir' as are baronets, but the title is not hereditary.
- Esquires: originally men aspiring to knighthood, were the principal attendants on a knight. A squire was the shield or armor bearer that at times acted as a knight's errant runner. After the Middle Ages the title became an honor that could be conferred by the Crown, and by custom the holders of certain offices (barristers, lord mayor/mayor, justices of peace, and higher officer ranks in the armed services) were deemed to be Esquires.
- Gentlemen: possessors of a social status recognized as a separate title by the Statute of Additions of 1413. Generally men of high birth or rank, good social standing, and wealth, who did not need to work for a living, were considered gentlemen.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the names and families of those with titles (specifically peers and baronets, less often including the non-hereditary title of knight) were often listed in books or manuals known as 'Peer-ages,' 'Baronet-ages,' or combinations of these categories. As well as listing genealogical information, these books often also included details of the right of a given family to a coat of arms (shield, supporters, crest, and motto). The ancient Romans used similar insignia on their shields, but these identified military units rather than individuals. Despite no widespread regulation, heraldry has remained consistent across Europe, where tradition alone has governed the design and use of arms.
In the 21st century, the term 'Landed Gentry' is still used, and the landowning class still exists, but it is increasingly refers more to historic than to current wealth or property in a family. Moreover, the deference which was once automatically given to members of this class by most British people has almost completely dissipated as its wealth, political power, and social influence has declined, and other social figures such as celebrities have grown to take their place in the public's interest.
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