View allAll Photos Tagged Nullity
Life attached only to the day without being able to even think about the afternoon or the day after. Moments of absence almost nullity because it is "forbidden" to think, plan, see, hug and cry with joy. Moments of reflection, sad, where there are no words that can give a light of hope. Of course, it will pass, everything will pass because it is like this but time does not travel in zones or colors; he flows, slowly but does not come back.
Benimle Kal | Çağan Şengül
youtu.be/bRI4eePBAsI?si=2vTBkXyN9cnVw--p
Your face was an old poetry
It writed many times
Scribbled
Isn't being loved a war?
So many lies smeared
It has been wounded over and over again
Even if I call you
I'm the judge of nullity
Even I know that you will die
Does every heart love it's killer?
Time stops, stay with me this night
You shoot me, you kill me
You grow up me, you return me to this life
My wound sleeps deep, look don't let it bleed
You protect me, you hide me
You burn me down or don't burn my heart at all
Time stops, stay with me this night
My wound sleeps deep, look don't let it bleed
Para el grupo La Vuelta al Mundo en su tercer aniversario
{EXPLORE}
In the ancient Indian context, the number zero did not originally refer to nothingness or nullity. The Sanskrit word for zero is shunya, which means "puffed up, hollow, empty." The zero stands for emptiness suggestive of potentiality.
PLEASE CLICK L
" ...staying up nights to read it in 97 different tongues. A picture of reality in the 18th century, Henceforward no more desert isles. Henceforward wherever one happens to be born is a desert isle. Every man his own civilized desert, the island of self on which he is shipwrecked: happiness, relative or absolute, is out of the question. Henceforward everyone is running away from himself to find an imaginary desert isle, to live out this dream of being Robinson Crusoe. Follow the classic flights, of Melville, Rimbaud, Gauguin, Jack London, Henry James, D. H. Lawrence... thousands of them. None of them found happiness. Rimbaud found cancer. Gauguin found syphilis. Lawrence found the white plague. The plague! The plague of modern progress: colonization, trade, free Bibles, war, disease, artificial limbs, factories, slaves, insanity, neuroses, psychoses, cancer, syphilis, tuberculosis, anaemia, strikes, lock-outs, starvation, nullity, vacuity, restlessness, striving, despair, ennuie, suicide, bankruptcy, arterio-sclerosis, megalomania, schizophrenia, hernia, cocaine, prussic acid, stink bombs, tear gas, mad dogs, auto-suggestion, auto-intoxication, psychotherapy, hydrotherapy, electric massages, vacuum cleaners, pemmican, grape-nuts, haemorrhoids, gangrene. No desert isles. No Paradise. Not even relative happiness. Men running away from themselves so frantically that they look for salvation under the ice-floes or in tropical swamps, or else they climb the Himalayas or asphyxiate themselves in the stratosphere... "
Thursday Doors Day
From the website www.h3hbiennale.nl/en/kunstenaars/inge-van-genuchten/
"From the roof of this majestic barn, a jet of fine grains of sand flows down uninterrupted. On the floor, the sand accumulates endlessly. You find yourself in a giant hourglass, so to speak. With the difference that you do not know how much sand, and therefore time, remains.
The subdued installation Dune of Days cranks up a sense of time and existence and arouses a sense of nullity, especially as more and more sand accumulates. Man is no more than a grain of sand on the timeline of the all."
Thank you for taken your time to visit me, comments or faves are always much appreciated!
Explore #28 - 17.11.08 and Explore Front Page
For CalamityJan
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A violin’s vibrato wounds the heart of woe,
A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
The sky, a lofty altar, lovely in the gloom;
The sun is drowning in the evening’s blood-red glow.
Verse three from 'Evening Harmony" by Charles Baudelaire - (1821-1867)
For Janis - a kindred spirit from across the Pacific Ocean, she is a photographer after my own heart and has a great eye for beauty - check out her photostream here - www.flickr.com/photos/calamityjan2008/
The dancing seagull heads for the heart of the sun!
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Dancing Gull Productions 16.11.2008 - Gold Series
Best viewed in Large size
Available exclusively on Getty Images
Look what appeared in our garden!
Gee, could it have been all that super premium lobster compost?
“Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome.
Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome.
The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer.
Then it withers away -- an ephemeral apparition.
When we think of the unending growth
and decay of life and civilizations,
we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity.
Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives
and endures underneath the eternal flux.
What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung ~
"A violin’s vibrato wounds the heart of woe,
A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
The sky, a lofty altar, lovely in the gloom;
The sun is drowning in the evening’s blood-red glow.
A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
And lovingly preserves each trace of long ago!
The sun is drowning in the evening’s blood-red glow …
Your memory shines through me like an ostensory!"
~ Charles Baudelaire, 1821-1867 ~
From "Evening Harmony"
With thanks to Colombes for this version in French:
Harmonie du soir
Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir ;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir ;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige !
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir ;
Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige ;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige !
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.
Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige,
Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir !
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir ;
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige.
Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir,
Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige !
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige...
Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir !
Not easy to capture with my little camera but I love it so much despite the flaws that it is in here.
Kanzler Scholz besucht die immer noch in Deutschland rum stehende Gasturbine die endlich mehr Erdgas von Russland nach Deutschland schicken soll...
Der Kremel kommentiert Scholz....
das er immer noch nicht die nötigen Papiere für die Einfuhr der Turbine nach Russland bereit stellt....!!!
Es fehlt immer noch dieser Antrag
Auf Erteilung eines Antrag Formulars
zur Bestätigung der Nichtigkeit
des Durchschrift Exemplars....
PS:
Typisch deutsche Beamte !!!
VG HORST...:-)))
Federal Chancellor Scholz visits the gas turbine that is still standing around in Germany and is supposed to finally send more natural gas from Russia to Germany...
The Kremlin comments on Scholz....
that he still does not provide the necessary papers for importing the turbine to Russia....!!!
This request is still missing
Upon submission of an application form
to confirm nullity
of the copy copy....
PS:
Typical German officials !!!
VG HORST...:-)))
A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
And lovingly preserves each trace of long ago!
The sun is drowning in the evening’s blood-red glow …
Your memory shines through me like an ostensory!
Verse four from 'Evening Harmony" by Charles Baudelaire - (1821-1867)
...spot the hovering seagull!
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Dancing Gull Productions 16.11.2008 - Gold Series
Best viewed in Large size
The Fool is one of the 78 cards in a tarot deck. In tarot card reading, it is one of the 22 Major Arcana, sometimes numbered as 0 (the first) or XXI (the last). However, in decks designed for playing traditional tarot card games, it is typically unnumbered, as it is not one of the 21 trump cards and instead serves a unique purpose by itself.
Interpretations
In many esoteric systems of tarot card interpretation, the Fool is interpreted as the protagonist of a story, and the Major Arcana is the path the Fool takes through the great mysteries of life. This path is known traditionally in cartomancy as the "Fool's Journey", and is frequently used to introduce the meaning of Major Arcana cards to beginners.
The Fool card is associated with:
Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment. [If the card is] Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.
Monday February 6th 2012
Today is WAITANGI DAY and commemorates a significant day in the history of New Zealand. It is a public holiday held each year on 6 February to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
New Zealand's founding document, on that date in 1840.
The Treaty of Waitangi was signed on 6 February 1840, in a marquee erected in the grounds of James Busby's house (now known as the Treaty house) at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. The Treaty made New Zealand a part of the British Empire, guaranteed Māori rights to their land and gave Māori the rights of British subjects. There are differences between the Māori and English language versions of the Treaty, and virtually since 1840 this has led to debate over exactly what was agreed to at Waitangi. Māori have generally seen the Treaty as a sacred pact, while for many years Pākehā ignored it. By the early twentieth century, however, some Pākehā were beginning to see the Treaty as their nation's founding document and a symbol of British humanitarianism. Unlike Māori, Pākehā have generally not seen the Treaty as a document with binding power over the country and its inhabitants. In 1877 Chief Justice James Prendergast declared it to be a 'legal nullity', a position it held until the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, when it regained significant legal standing.
It is also 'Music Monday'...
So I wanted to commemorate both events with a couple of song by New Zealand Artists....
And nice little videos that show a bit of New Zealand and New Zealand culture...
Weather With You By 'Crowded House'....
Aotearoa By 'Minuet'....
Sensitive To A Smile By 'Herbs'...
So True By 'The Black Seeds'...
And also a photo of my Favourite landmark Rangitoto....
Aotearoa is the Māori name for New Zealand...
Meaning Land of the Long White Cloud %-)
Lady Elizabeth Manners, 16th Baroness de Ros of Helmsley (January 1575 – 1 May 1591)
She was the heiress daughter of Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland 1587 and Isabel www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/qQ06Ud daughter of Sir Thomas Holcroft 1558. by Juliane sole heiress of Nicholas Jennings of Preston & London
She m January 1589 William Cecil (later 2nd Earl) son of the Thomas Cecil 1st Earl of Exeter & Dorothy Nevill www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/3Kv2HA
Children
1. Sir William Cecil, 17th Baron de Ros May 1590 – 27 June 1618 m 1615 Ann Lake +++ daughter of Sir Thomas Lake & Mary Ryder grand daughter of Elizabeth Stone flic.kr/p/jrgs9q & William Ryder ,
Elizabeth died in childbirth having her 2nd child (?) at Tower Street, All Hallows, Barking London and was buried in Westminster Abbey, later reunited in the grave by her husband..
On her father's death the Earldom of Rutland passed to his brother John Manners, but the Barony of Ros passed to Elizabeth.
Husband William m2 Elizabeth daughter of Sir William Drury and Elizabeth Stafford flic.kr/p/2LrdwR , having 3 more daughters
+++ the marriage of Anne Lake and William Cecil began badly and never recovered. Within months of the wedding, Anne and her mother were rumoured to be blackmailing William into signing over property to his in-laws. Reports suggested that the 2 women threatened to charge him with impotence and then sue for an embarrassing nullity of the marriage. Late in 1617, after Roos had decamped abroad, Anne and her mother charged that Frances Cecil, Countess of Exeter, the youthful bride of Roos’s grandfather Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, had carried on an affair with Roos and had attempted to poison his aggrieved wife. The Earl and Countess of Exeter appealed to the King who, in 1618 sent the case to the Star Chamber who In 1619 found Anne, her parents and brothers guilty of defaming the Earl and Countess of Exeter and of suborning witnesses and forging evidence. All were sent to the Tower and heavily fined. Anne confessed her crime in late June 1619 and was released Her mother, more stubborn, was finally released in 1620 making her confession and submission in Star Chamber in 1621. -
Tomb possibly by flemish craftsman Gerald Johanssen (Johnson) of Southwark.
- Church of St Mary the Virgin, Bottesford Leicestershire
© RESilU | 2012 | Please don't use this image without my explicit permission.
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First Chapter: Why Shamanism and why in today's time?
The old gods are dead or dying and looking everywhere and you wonder: should look like the new mythology?
Joseph Campbell
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Third Chapter: The Hero's Journey
The crucial question for people is: Does he have a relationship to the infinite or not?
This is the essential question of his life. Only when we know that what really matters is the infinite, we can avoid it, to fix our interest to a nullity and to all possible destinations, which actually have no real meaning.
C.G. Jung
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[...] Where is the reference to shamanism? My thesis is that shamans - at least their best representatives - may have been the earliest precursor of the master game player. We could say that the shaman master game play as thoroughly and as deeply as they had in their culture and time possible.
They were the first to systematically explored their inner world and their insights and refined, inserting images and dreams beneficial to the best of their peers.
To say that some shamans were the original masters players [...], is not to hold it up as a spotless saint. [...] And it does not mean - as is sometimes claimed - that techniques, experiences and states of consciousness ancestral shaman with those of the saints and sages of later centuries were identical. No, the game seems to go through a master millennia of evolution have, in dialectical interaction with the general evolution of human awareness. [...]
__________________________________________________________________________
1. Kapitel: Warum Schamanismus und warum in der heutigen Zeit ?
Die alten Götter sind tot oder liegen im Sterben und überall sucht und fragt man: Wie soll die neue Mythologie aussehen ?
Joseph Campbell
3. Kapitel: Die Reise des Helden
Die entscheidende Frage für die Menschen ist: Hat er eine Beziehung zum Unendlichen oder nicht?
Das ist die wesentlichste Frage seines Lebens. Nur wenn wir wissen, dass das, worauf es wirklich ankommt, das Unendliche ist, können wir es vermeiden, unsere Interesse auf Nichtigkeiten und auf alle möglichen Ziele zu fixieren, die eigentlich keine wirkliche Bedeutung haben.
C.G. Jung
[...] Wo ist nun der Bezug zum Schamanismus? Meine These lautet: Schamanen - jedenfalls ihre beste Vertreter - können die frühsten Vorläufer des Meisterspiel-Spielers gewesen sein. Wir könnten sagen, daß Schamanen das Meisterspiel so ausgiebig und so tief spielten, wie es ihnen im Rahmen ihrer Kultur und Zeit möglich war.
Sie waren die ersten, die ihrer inneren Welt systematisch erforschten und kultivierten und ihre Einsichten, Bilder und Träume nutzbringend zum Besten ihrer Mitmenschen einsetzten.
Zu sagen, manche Schamanen seien die Ur-Meisterspieler gewesen [...], heißt nicht, sie als fleckenlose Heilige hinzustellen. [...] Und es heißt auch nicht - wie manchmal behauptet wird - , daß Techniken, Erfahrungen und Bewußtseinszustände der Urschamanen mit denen der Heiligen und Weisen späterer Jahrtausende identisch gewesen seien. Nein, das Meisterspiel scheint eine jahrtausende Evolution durchlaufen zu haben, in dialektischer Wechselbeziehung zur allgemeinen Evolution des menschlichen Bewußseins. [...]
Source: Roger N. Walsh - "Der Geist des Schamanismus"
Lady Elizabeth Manners, 16th Baroness de Ros of Helmsley (January 1575 – 1 May 1591)
She was the heiress daughter of Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland 1587 and Isabel www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/qQ06Ud daughter of Sir Thomas Holcroft 1558. by Juliane sole heiress of Nicholas Jennings of Preston & London
On her father's death she was "of the age of 11 yeares & almost foure months"
She m (aged 13) January 1589 William Cecil (later 2nd Earl) son of the Thomas Cecil 1st Earl of Exeter & Dorothy Nevill www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/3Kv2HA
Children
1. Sir William Cecil, 17th Baron de Ros May 1590 – 27 June 1618 m 1615 Ann Lake +++ daughter of Sir Thomas Lake & Mary Ryder grand daughter of Elizabeth Stone flic.kr/p/jrgs9q & William Ryder ,
Elizabeth died in childbirth having her 2nd child (?) at Tower Street, All Hallows, Barking London and was buried in Westminster Abbey, later reunited in the grave by her husband..
On her father's death the Earldom of Rutland passed to his brother John Manners www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/n75D10 , but the Barony of Ros passed to Elizabeth.
Husband William m2 Elizabeth daughter of Sir William Drury and Elizabeth Stafford flic.kr/p/2LrdwR , having 3 more daughters
+++ the marriage of Anne Lake and William Cecil began badly and never recovered. Within months of the wedding, Anne and her mother were rumoured to be blackmailing William into signing over property to his in-laws. Reports suggested that the 2 women threatened to charge him with impotence and then sue for an embarrassing nullity of the marriage. Late in 1617, after Roos had decamped abroad, Anne and her mother charged that Frances Cecil, Countess of Exeter, the youthful bride of Roos’s grandfather Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, had carried on an affair with Roos and had attempted to poison his aggrieved wife. The Earl and Countess of Exeter appealed to the King who, in 1618 sent the case to the Star Chamber who In 1619 found Anne, her parents and brothers guilty of defaming the Earl and Countess of Exeter and of suborning witnesses and forging evidence. All were sent to the Tower and heavily fined. Anne confessed her crime in late June 1619 and was released Her mother, more stubborn, was finally released in 1620 making her confession and submission in Star Chamber in 1621.
Tomb possibly by flemish craftsman Gerald Johanssen (Johnson) of Southwark.
- - Church of St Mary the Virgin, Bottesford Leicestershire
Lungo una diramazione del tratturo Pescasseroli-Candela L’edificio risulta consacrato nel 1148 e per la sua posizione fu sicuramente un importante luogo di sosta per i pellegrini che dai territori interni dell’attuale Molise si recavano ai santuari della Puglia. L’edificio è a pianta rettangolare triabsidata; l’interno è suddiviso in tre navate da colonne con tozzi capitelli decorati con motivi vegetali molto stilizzati ed ha il presbiterio sopraelevato di tre gradini rispetto al piano delle navate. L’esterno è caratterizzato da un elegante paramento in pietra costituito da conci per lo più di grandi dimensioni ben squadrati e presenta una ricca decorazione in facciata e in corrispondenza del portale situato lungo il fianco destro, opera probabilmente di artisti. Assai complessa e non ancora del tutto chiara dal punto di vista iconografico è l’ornamentazione del prospetto principale: nella parte superiore, ai lati di un rosone, compaiono tre figure di animali ad altorilievo, mentre nel timpano e nella lunetta del portale centrale sono rappresentate scene con animali, alcuni dei quali fantastici, e figure umane accompagnate da motivi floreali, vegetali e geometrici dal rilievo assai piatto. Altre scene figurate sono presenti nelle due lunette ai lati del portale: secondo alcune interpretazioni si tratterebbe di episodi tratti da due diverse Chanson de geste, il Libro di Fioravante e la Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandhi. Più chiara è, invece, la scena della lunetta del portale laterale che raffigura il mito di Alessandro Magno, il cui carro è portato in cielo da due grifoni. All’interno sono conservate altre opere di scultura medievale, tra cui si segnala il monumento funebre trecentesco di Bernardo di Aquino.
LA LEGGENDA DEL RE BOVE
Questo racconto parte da una delle più antiche chiese del Molise, cioè Santa Maria della Strada (provincia di Campobasso). Il protagonista è un re di nome Bove, innamorato follemente della propria sorella. Data la natura incestuosa della relazione, si rivolse al Papa per ottenere il permesso di sposarla. Il Papa rispose che avrebbe benedetto l’unione solo se Bove fosse riuscito a edificare, in una sola notte, cento chiese di forma e grandezza ben determinate e che fossero visibili l’una dall’altra. Un progetto talmente impossibile che il sovrano, disperato, si rivolse al Demonio affinché lo aiutasse. Il Diavolo si disse disponibile, chiedendo in cambio l’anima del re.
La notte seguente, i due lavorarono ardentemente per costruire le chiese: mentre il Demonio faceva ruzzolare dal monte i macigni, re Bove li poneva uno sopra l’altro. Arrivarono all’alba con novantanove chiese edificate, ma prima di terminare la centesima, il sovrano provò un profondo pentimento e pregò Dio per ottenere perdono. Il Diavolo, adirato per il tempo buttato via e per la nullità del patto, scagliò un masso contro l’ultima chiesa in costruzione, quella di Santa Maria della Strada. Venne colpito il campanile, mentre il masso rimbalzò a poca distanza dall’edificio. Quest’ultimo è visibile tutt’oggi e viene chiamato “il masso del diavolo”.
Alla sua morte, re Bove venne sepolto proprio nella chiesa di Santa Maria della Strada. La leggenda vuole che solo sette edifici siano sopravvissuti nel tempo: Santa Maria di Monteverde, Maria Santissima Assunta di Ferrazzano, San Leonardo di Campobasso, Santa Maria di Cercemaggiore, Santa Maria della Strada e la cattedrale di Volturara Appula. Restano ignoti il nome e l’ubicazione della settima. Nell’iconografia sacra il re Bove viene rappresentato proprio con fattezze bovine, forse perché questo animale ha sempre goduto di un ruolo importante nell’immaginario spirituale, accostandosi al sovrano, la figura più alta della società. L’arte medievale ci ha lasciato diverse teste di toro scolpite in varie chiese del Molise, a riprova del suo valore simbolico.
Along a branch of the Pescasseroli-Candela tratturo The building was consecrated in 1148 and due to its position it was certainly an important stopping place for pilgrims who went from the internal territories of present-day Molise to the sanctuaries of Puglia. The building has a three-apsidal rectangular plan; the interior is divided into three naves by columns with squat capitals decorated with very stylized plant motifs and has a raised presbytery of three steps from the floor of the aisles. The exterior is characterized by an elegant stone facing consisting of mostly large well squared ashlars and has a rich decoration on the facade and in correspondence with the portal located along the right side, probably the work of artists. The ornamentation of the main façade is very complex and not yet completely clear from an iconographic point of view: in the upper part, on the sides of a rose window, three figures of animals in high relief appear, while in the tympanum and in the lunette of the central portal they are represented scenes with animals, some of which are fantastic, and human figures accompanied by floral, vegetable and geometric motifs with a very flat relief. Other figurative scenes are present in the two lunettes on either side of the portal: according to some interpretations, these are episodes taken from two different Chanson de geste, the Book of Fioravante and the Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandhi. On the other hand, the scene of the lunette of the side portal is clearer, depicting the myth of Alexander the Great, whose chariot is carried to heaven by two griffins. Inside there are other works of medieval sculpture, including the fourteenth-century funeral monument of Bernardo di Aquino.
THE LEGEND OF KING BOVE
This story starts from one of the oldest churches in Molise, that is Santa Maria della Strada (province of Campobasso). The protagonist is a king named Bove, madly in love with his sister. Given the incestuous nature of the relationship, he turned to the Pope for permission to marry her. The Pope replied that he would bless the union only if Bove had managed to build, in a single night, a hundred churches of well-defined shape and size and which were visible from each other. A project so impossible that the desperate sovereign turned to the Devil to help him. The Devil said he was available, asking for the king's soul in exchange.
The following night, the two worked ardently to build the churches: while the Devil rolled the boulders from the mountain, King Bove placed them one on top of the other. They arrived at dawn with ninety-nine churches built, but before finishing the hundredth, the sovereign felt a deep repentance and prayed to God for forgiveness. The Devil, angry for the time thrown away and for the nullity of the pact, threw a rock at the last church under construction, that of Santa Maria della Strada. The bell tower was hit, while the boulder bounced off a short distance from the building. The latter is still visible today and is called "the devil's boulder".
On his death, King Bove was buried in the church of Santa Maria della Strada. Legend has it that only seven buildings have survived over time: Santa Maria di Monteverde, Maria Santissima Assunta di Ferrazzano, San Leonardo di Campobasso, Santa Maria di Cercemaggiore, Santa Maria della Strada and the cathedral of Volturara Appula. The name and location of the seventh remain unknown. In the sacred iconography, King Bove is represented precisely with bovine features, perhaps because this animal has always enjoyed an important role in the spiritual imagination, approaching the sovereign, the highest figure in society. Medieval art has left us several bull heads carved in various churches in Molise, proof of its symbolic value.
Le long d'une branche du tratturo Pescasseroli-Candela Le bâtiment a été consacré en 1148 et en raison de sa position, il était certainement une étape importante pour les pèlerins qui se rendaient dans les sanctuaires des Pouilles depuis les territoires intérieurs du Molise actuel. Le bâtiment a un plan rectangulaire à trois absides; l'intérieur est divisé en trois nefs par des colonnes aux chapiteaux trapus ornés de motifs végétaux très stylisés et présente un presbytère surélevé à trois pas du sol des bas-côtés. L'extérieur se caractérise par un élégant parement en pierre composé pour la plupart de grandes pierres de taille bien carrées et présente une riche décoration sur la façade et en correspondance avec le portail situé le long du côté droit, probablement l'œuvre d'artistes. L'ornementation de la façade principale est très complexe et pas encore complètement claire d'un point de vue iconographique: dans la partie supérieure, sur les côtés d'une rosace, trois figures d'animaux en haut relief apparaissent, tandis que dans le tympan et dans le lunette du portail central ils sont représentés des scènes avec des animaux, dont certains sont fantastiques, et des figures humaines accompagnées de motifs floraux, végétaux et géométriques avec un relief très plat. D'autres scènes figuratives sont présentes dans les deux lunettes sur les côtés du portail: selon certaines interprétations, il s'agirait d'épisodes tirés de deux Chanson de geste différentes, le Livre de Fioravante et l'Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandhi. En revanche, la scène de la lunette du portail latéral est plus claire, qui représente le mythe d'Alexandre le Grand, dont le char est porté au ciel par deux griffons. À l'intérieur, il y a d'autres œuvres de sculpture médiévale, y compris le monument funéraire du XIVe siècle de Bernardo di Aquino.
LA LÉGENDE DU ROI BOVE
Cette histoire part de l'une des plus anciennes églises du Molise, à savoir Santa Maria della Strada (province de Campobasso). Le protagoniste est un roi nommé Bove, follement amoureux de sa sœur. Compte tenu de la nature incestueuse de la relation, elle s'est tournée vers le pape pour obtenir la permission de l'épouser. Le Pape a répondu qu'il ne bénirait l'union que si Bove avait réussi à construire, en une seule nuit, une centaine d'églises de forme et de taille bien définies et visibles les unes des autres. Un projet tellement impossible que le souverain désespéré s'est tourné vers le Diable pour l'aider. Le diable a dit qu'il était disponible, demandant l'âme du roi en échange.
La nuit suivante, les deux travaillèrent ardemment pour construire les églises: tandis que le diable roulait les rochers de la montagne, le roi Bove les plaçait l'un sur l'autre. Ils sont arrivés à l'aube avec quatre-vingt-dix-neuf églises construites, mais avant de terminer la centième, le souverain a ressenti un profond repentir et a prié Dieu pour le pardon. Le diable, en colère à l'époque jetée et pour la nullité du pacte, jeta un rocher sur la dernière église en construction, celle de Santa Maria della Strada. Le clocher a été touché, tandis que le rocher a rebondi sur une courte distance du bâtiment. Ce dernier est encore visible aujourd'hui et s'appelle "le rocher du diable".
À sa mort, le roi Bove a été enterré dans l'église de Santa Maria della Strada. La légende raconte que seuls sept bâtiments ont survécu au fil du temps: Santa Maria di Monteverde, Maria Santissima Assunta di Ferrazzano, San Leonardo di Campobasso, Santa Maria di Cercemaggiore, Santa Maria della Strada et la cathédrale de Volturara Appula. Le nom et l'emplacement du septième restent inconnus. Dans l'iconographie sacrée, King Bove est représenté précisément avec des traits bovins, peut-être parce que cet animal a toujours joué un rôle important dans l'imaginaire spirituel, se rapprochant du souverain, la plus haute figure de la société. L'art médiéval nous a laissé plusieurs têtes de taureaux sculptées dans différentes églises du Molise, preuve de sa valeur symbolique.
Henry McNeal Turner was an organizer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church during Reconstruction. At first he counseled cooperation with the regions whites, but eventually he became disaffected by the racism he encountered, which included the ousting of blacks from the state house and disenfranchisement of blacks (loss of their right to vote). In time he favored resettlement in Africa. But some whom he helped to send there returned disillusioned and criticized him. He died somewhat ostracized by both the white and black communities.
Here is what the New Georgia Encyclopedia has to say about him:
www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.com/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-632&a...
Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915)
One of the most influential African American leaders in late-nineteenth-century Georgia, Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Georgia, later rising to the rank of bishop. Turner was also an active politician and Reconstruction-era state legislator from Macon. Later in life, he became an outspoken advocate of back-to-Africa emigration.
Turner was born in 1834 in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina, to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner. Turner was never a slave. His paternal grandmother was a white plantation owner. His maternal grandfather, David Greer, arrived in North America aboard a slave ship but, according to family legend, was found to have a tattoo with the Mandingo coat of arms, signifying his royal status. The South Carolinians decided not to sell Greer into slavery and sent him to live with a Quaker family.
Against great odds, Turner managed to receive an education. An Abbeville, South Carolina, law firm employed him at age fifteen to do janitorial tasks, and the firm's lawyers, appreciating his high intelligence, helped provide him with a well-rounded education. About a year earlier, Turner had been converted during a Methodist revival and decided he would one day become a preacher. After receiving his preacher's license in 1853, he traveled throughout the South as an itinerant evangelist, going as far as New Orleans, Louisiana. Much of his time was spent in Georgia, where he preached at revivals in Macon, Athens, and Atlanta. In 1856 he married Eliza Peacher, the daughter of a wealthy African American house builder in Columbia, South Carolina. They had fourteen children, only four of whom survived into adulthood.
In 1858 he and his family journeyed north to St. Louis, Missouri, where he was accepted as a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Turner feared southern legislation threatening enslavement of free African Americans. For the next five years, he filled pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Washington, D.C., and witnessed the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65). During his time in Washington, he befriended Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and other powerful Republican legislators. In 1863 Turner was instrumental in organizing the First Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops in his own churchyard and was mustered into service as an army chaplain for that regiment. He and his regiment were involved in numerous battles in the Virginia theater.
At the war's end, U.S. president Andrew Johnson reassigned Turner to a black regiment in Atlanta, but Turner resigned when he realized it already had a chaplain. He spent much of the next three years traveling throughout Georgia, helping to organize the African Methodist Episcopal Church in what was virgin, but not always friendly, territory. African Americans flocked to the new denomination, but the lack of such essentials as trained pastors and adequate meeting space challenged Turner.
In 1867, after Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, Turner switched his energies to the political sphere. He helped organize Georgia's Republican Party. He served in the state's constitutional convention and then was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, representing Macon. In 1868, when the vast majority of white legislators decided to expel their African American peers on the grounds that officeholding was a privilege denied those from a servile background, Turner delivered an eloquent speech from the floor. Unfortunately, it did little to sway his fellow legislators. Soon afterward Turner received threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1869 he was appointed postmaster of Macon by U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant but was forced to resign a few weeks later under fire from allegations that he consorted with prostitutes and had passed defective currency. At the behest of the U.S. Congress, he did reclaim his legislative seat in 1870, but he was denied reelection in a fraud-filled contest a few months later. Turner moved to Savannah, where he worked at the Custom House and served as a pastor of the prestigious St. Philip's AME Church. In 1876 he was elected manager of the publishing house of the church. Four years later, in a hard-fought and controversial contest, he won election as the twelfth bishop of the AME Church.
Turner was an extremely vigorous and successful bishop. In 1885 he became the first AME bishop to ordain a woman, Sarah Ann Hughes, to the office of deacon. He wrote The Genius and Theory of Methodist Polity (1885), a learned guide to Methodist policies and practices. He twice entered the political ranks in support of prohibition referenda in Atlanta. After his wife, Eliza, died in 1889, Turner eventually married three more times: Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. Between 1891 and 1898, Turner traveled four times to Africa. He was instrumental in promoting the annual conferences in Liberia and Sierra Leone and in attaining a merger with the Ethiopian Church in South Africa. Turner also sought to promote the growth of the AME Church in Latin America, sending missionaries to Cuba and Mexico.
With the support of white businessmen from Alabama, Turner helped organize the International Migration Society to promote the return of African Americans to Africa. To further the emigrationist cause, he established his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). Two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants sailed to Liberia in 1895 and 1896, but a number returned, complaining about disease and the country's poor economic prospects. Turner remained an advocate of back-to-Africa programs but was unable to make further headway against the negative reactions of returned emigrants. In his later years he felt increasingly estranged from the South.
Turner died on May 8, 1915, in Windsor, Canada, while traveling on church business. He is buried in Atlanta. A portrait of Turner hangs in the state capitol.
Here is the wikipedia entry on him:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_McNeal_Turner
Henry McNeal Turner (February 1, 1834 – May 8, 1915) was a minister, politician, and the first southern bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; he was a pioneer in Georgia in organizing new congregations of the independent black denomination after the American Civil War. Born free in South Carolina, Turner learned to read and write and became a Methodist preacher. He joined the AME Church in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, where he became a minister; later he had pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC.
In 1863 during the American Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops. Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia. He settled in Macon and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia after the war. In 1880 he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. Angered by the Democrats' regaining power and instituting Jim Crow laws in the late nineteenth century South, Turner began to support black nationalism and emigration of blacks to Africa. He was the chief figure to do so in the late nineteenth century; the movement grew after World War I.
Biography
Turner was born free in Newberry, South Carolina to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner, both of African and European ancestry. Some sources say he was born in Abbeville, South Carolina. His father's parents were a white mother, who was a plantation owner, and a black father; according to partus sequitur ventrem, her children were free, as she was. According to family tradition, his maternal grandfather, renamed David Greer, was imported as a slave to South Carolina from Africa. Traders noticed he had royal Mandingo marks and did not sell him into slavery; Greer worked for a Quaker family and married a free woman of color. Turner grew up with his mother and maternal grandmother.
South Carolina law at the time of Turner's birth prohibited teaching blacks to read and write. As a youth, he worked as a custodian for a law firm, where his intelligence was noted by sympathetic whites; they taught him to read and write.
Career
At the age of 14, Turner was inspired by a Methodist revival and swore to become a pastor. He received his preacher's license at the age of 19 from the Methodist Church South in 1853. He traveled through the South for a few years as an evangelist and exhorter.
In 1858 he moved with his family to Saint Louis, Missouri. The demand for slaves in the South made him fear that members of his family might be kidnapped and sold into slavery, as has been documented for hundreds of free blacks. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 seemed to increase the boldness of slave traders and people they hired as slavecatchers. In St. Louis, he became ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and studied the classics, Hebrew and divinity at Trinity College.
He also served in pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC, where he met influential Republicans.
Marriage and family
In 1856, Turner married Eliza Peacher, daughter of a wealthy black contractor in Columbia, South Carolina. They had 14 children, four of whom lived to adulthood. After her death in 1889, Turner married Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. He outlived three of his four wives.
Civil War
During the American Civil War, Turner organized one of the first regiments of black troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops), and was appointed as chaplain to it. He was the first of the 14 black chaplains to be appointed during the war.
After the war, he was appointed by President Andrew Johnson to work with the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia during Reconstruction. White clergy from the North also led some Freedmen's Bureau operations.
Political influence
Following the Civil War, Turner became politically active with the Republican Party, whose officials had led the war effort and, under Abraham Lincoln, emancipated the slaves throughout the Confederacy. He helped found the Republican Party of Georgia. Turner ran for political office from Macon and was elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1868. At the time, the Democratic Party (United States) still controlled the legislature and refused to seat Turner and 26 other newly elected black legislators, all Republicans. After the federal government protested, the Democrats allowed Turner and his fellow legislators to take their seats during the second session.
In 1869, he was appointed by the Republican administration as postmaster of Macon, which was a political plum. Turner was dismayed after the Democrats regained power in the state and throughout the South by the late 1870s. He had seen the rise in violence at the polls, which repressed black voting. In 1883, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, forbidding racial discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public places, was unconstitutional. Turner was incensed:
"The world has never witnessed such barbarous laws entailed upon a free people as have grown out of the decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued October 15, 1883. For that decision alone authorized and now sustains all the unjust discriminations, proscriptions and robberies perpetrated by public carriers upon millions of the nation's most loyal defenders. It fathers all the 'Jim-Crow cars' into which colored people are huddled and compelled to pay as much as the whites, who are given the finest accommodations. It has made the ballot of the black man a parody, his citizenship a nullity and his freedom a burlesque. It has engendered the bitterest feeling between the whites and blacks, and resulted in the deaths of thousands, who would have been living and enjoying life today."
In the late nineteenth century, he witnessed state legislatures in Georgia and across the South passing measures to disfranchise blacks. He became a proponent of black nationalism and supported emigration of American blacks to Africa.He thought it was the only way they could make free and independent lives for themselves. When he traveled to Africa, he was struck by the differences in the attitude of Africans who ruled themselves and had never known the degradation of slavery.
He founded the International Migration Society, supported by his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (he served as editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). He organized two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants, who traveled to Liberia in 1895 and 1896. This was established as an American colony by the American Colonization Society before the Civil War, and settled by free American blacks, who tended to push aside the native African peoples. Disliking the lack of economic opportunity, cultural shock and disease, some of the migrants returned to the United States. After that, Turner did not organize another expedition.
Church leadership
As a correspondent for The Christian Reporter, the weekly newspaper of the AME Church, he wrote extensively about the Civil War. Later he wrote about the condition of his parishioners in Georgia.
When Turner joined the AME Church in 1858, its members lived mostly in the Northern and border states; total members numbered 20,000. His biographer Stephen W. Angell described Turner as "one of the most skillful denominational builders in American history." After the Civil War, he founded many AME congregations in Georgia as part of a missionary effort by the church in the South. It gained more than 250,000 new adherents throughout the South by 1877, and by 1896 had a total of more than 452,000 members nationally.
In 1880, Turner was elected as the first bishop from the South in the AME Church, after a hard battle within the denomination. Although one of the last bishops to have struggled up from poverty and a self-made man, he was the first AME Bishop to ordain a woman to the order of Deacon. He discontinued the controversial practice because of threats and discontent among the congregations. During and after the 1880s, Turner supported prohibition and women's suffrage movements. He also served for twelve years as chancellor of Morris Brown College (now Morris Brown University), a historically black college affiliated with the AME Church in Atlanta.
During the 1890s, Turner went four times to Liberia and Sierra Leone, United States and British colonies respectively. As bishop, he organized four annual AME conferences in Africa to introduce more American blacks to the continent and organize missions in the colonies.He also worked to establish the AME Church in South Africa, where he negotiated a merger with the Ethiopian Church. Due to his efforts, African students from South Africa began coming to the United States to attend Wilberforce University in Ohio, which the AME church had operated since 1863. His efforts to combine missionary work with encouraging emigration to Africa were divisive in the AME Church.
Turner crossed denominational lines in the United States, building connections with black Baptists, for instance.[4] He was known as a fiery orator. He notably preached that God was black, scandalizing some but appealing to his colleagues at the first Black Baptist Convention when he said:
"We have as much right biblically and otherwise to believe that God is a Negroe, as you buckra or white people have to believe that God is a fine looking, symmetrical and ornamented white man. For the bulk of you and all the fool Negroes of the country believe that God is white-skinned, blue eyed, straight-haired, projected nosed, compressed lipped and finely robed white gentleman, sitting upon a throne somewhere in the heavens. Every race of people who have attempted to describe their God by words, or by paintings, or by carvings, or any other form or figure, have conveyed the idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves, and why should not the Negroe believe that he resembles God." -- Voice of Missions, February 1898
He died while visiting Windsor, Ontario in 1915. Turner was buried in Atlanta. After his death, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in The Crisis magazine about him:
"Turner was the last of his clan, mighty men mentally and physically, men who started at the bottom and hammered their way to the top by sheer brute strength, they were the spiritual progeny of African chieftains, and they built the African church in America."
King Edward III Of ENGLAND [my 21st-great-grandfather].
The Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies, Volume I. Anonymous. London: Charles Knight & Co., Ludgate Street, and London: William Clowes And Sons, Stamford Street, 1845. [Public domain], pp. 58ff.:
EDWARD III
[Pg 58]
HENRY II. was succeeded on the English throne by his eldest surviving son, Richard I.; he by his younger brother John; he by his son Henry III.; he by his son the first and greatest of the Edwards. The reigns of these four kings fill the whole of the thirteenth century, with a few years of the end of the twelfth, and a few of the beginning of the fourteenth: Richard I. having reigned from 1189 to 1199; John from 1199 to 1216; Henry III. from 1216 to 1272; Edward I. from 1272 to 1307. Old Froissart observes that it was an opinion commonly entertained by Englishmen, and the truth of which had been often exemplified from the days of King Arthur, that between every two valiant kings of England there was most commonly one of less sufficiency both of wit and of prowess. How far this rule may have obtained in more antient times we shall not stop to inquire, but[Pg 59] from the Norman Conquest it may be said to have held good, with but slight exception, for nearly four centuries and through a succession of more than a dozen sovereigns. From the Conqueror to Henry IV. inclusive, the only interruption to such a regular alternation of the good and the bad, or at least of the strong and the weak, had been the coming together of Henry II. and his son Richard I., followed by that of John and his son Henry III. Even here there was the balance of the two valiant kings against the two of less prowess and wisdom.
At any rate there can be no question about the old notion having proved true in the case of the first and second Edwards; for, as Froissart says, "the good King Edward the First was right valiant, sage, wise, and hardy, adventurous and fortunate in all feats of war, and had much ado against the Scots, and conquered them three or four times; for the Scots could never have victory nor endure against him: and after his decease his son of his first wife was crowned king and called Edward the Second, who resembled nothing to his father in wit nor in prowess, but governed and kept his realm right wildly, and ruled himself by sinister counsel of certain persons, whereby at length he had no profit nor laud; for, anon after he was crowned, Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, who had often before given much ado to the said good King Edward the First, conquered again all Scotland, and brent and wasted a great part of the realm of England, a four or five days' journey within the realm, at two times, and discomfited the king and all the barons of England at a place in Scotland called Stirling, by battle arranged the day of St. John Baptist, in the year of our Lord 1314." And many other were the disasters and disgraces of Edward of Carnarvon's unhappy twenty years' reign, besides the loss of Scotland and the defeat and rout of Bannockburn.
On the 24th of January, 1308, about six months after his accession, Edward II. was married at Boulogne to Isabella, daughter of the French king, Philip IV. (surnamed le Bel, or the Fair); five kings in all, and four queens, including the bride and bridegroom, being[Pg 60] present at the ceremony. Edward was in his twenty-fourth year; the French princess was only in her thirteenth, but was already famous as the greatest beauty in Europe. "One of the fairest ladies of the world," Froissart calls her. In tradition and history, however, she lives as little less than a beautiful demon. Never has beauty, never has a marriage been more fatal than hers was to herself, to her husband, to both their native lands. The radiant girl who now gave Edward her hand was in the end to deprive him of his crown and of his life; a long imprisonment of eight and twenty years was to be the dower of her own widowhood; and from their union was to spring a quarrel between their two countries, which it was to take nearly a century of bloodshed and desolation to fight out:—
"Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death through Berkeley's roofs that ring;
Shrieks of an agonizing king!
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born who o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of heaven!
He who was thus to prove "the scourge of heaven," to his mother's land and race was her eldest son Edward, born at Windsor Castle on Monday the 13th of December, 1312. Young Edward appears to have been known till near the end of his father's reign as Earl of Chester; he was summoned to parliament by that title in 1320, and in each of the four following years. In May, 1325, Isabella proceeded to France on the pretence of negotiating a treaty of peace between her husband and her brother Charles IV., the new king of that country; and in September following she was joined there by her son Edward, who with his father's consent set sail, splendidly attended, to be invested by the French king with the dutchy of Guienne and the earldom of Ponthieu, which his father had consented to resign to him. He did homage for the two fiefs, and received investiture; but, although he had promised his father to hasten his return,[Pg 61] he remained abroad till the 24th of September of the next year, when he landed at Orwell in Suffolk with his mother, come, with her paramour Mortimer, to make open war upon her husband. The last instrument issued in the name of Edward II. was on the 20th of January, 1327; on the next day he is understood to have formally resigned his crown in the castle of Kenilworth to commissioners sent to him by the parliament; his son was proclaimed as Edward the Third on Saturday the 24th. His reign, however, for some reason which is not known, was reckoned as having commenced on the 25th. His father is supposed to have been murdered in his dungeon in Berkeley Castle on the 21st of September.
The new king, a boy of fourteen when he was thus raised to the throne, was of course at first king only in name, and all power and authority were in the hands of his mother and Mortimer. He was marvellously alert, however, in assuming manhood in various ways. If he was not allowed any share in the government of the country, he was thought already old enough both to rule an army and to rule a wife. Within a few months after his accession, he put himself at the head of a great force, and went forth to fight the Scots; and in the beginning of the next year he was married at York to Philippa, the second daughter of William Count of Hainault, to whom he had been contracted by his mother shortly before their return from the continent.
Edward's first campaign, however, must detain us for a little; for the incidents were both remarkable in themselves, and they have been recorded in much detail by the writer to whom we must be principally indebted throughout our sketch. Froissart, indeed, is not so much a great historian as a great historical painter—the greatest that ever painted in words. He is extremely inaccurate in dates and names, and other such prosaic matters, and even in his own proper line he may be suspected of having sometimes intermixed a little fancy with his facts; yet he may be always trusted, better than almost any other writer, for what is after all the most important truth, the characteristic spirit or inner life of what he[Pg 62] describes; and even in this part of his chronicle, which relates to events that happened before he was born, and in which therefore he writes to a greater extent than in the latter portions of it from report, he has thrown in much of what he had actually seen along with what he had only heard, and, if the sketching be in so far a copy, the colouring at least is his own. The account of the demonstration (for it was hardly more) which Edward made on the northern border is a great deal too long to be extracted in full; but we will select some of the more striking incidents, or those in which the young English king figures the most conspicuously. As we abridge the narrative, we will retain as much as possible of our author's style and manner, adhering for the most part to the excellent old English translation by Lord Berners.
When Robert de Bruce, King of Scotland, we are told, heard how that the old king, Edward the Second, was taken and deposed down from his regality and his crown, and certain of his counsellors beheaded and put to destruction, then, although he was himself become very old and ancient, and sick (as it was said) of the great evil and malady, he bethought him that he would defy the young king, Edward the Third, because he was young, and that the barons of the realm were not all of one accord, as it was said. So about Easter, 1327, he sent his defiance to the young Edward and to all the realm, sending them word how that he would enter into the realm of England, and bren before him, as he had done before time. When the King of England and his council perceived that they were defied, they caused it to be known all over the realm; and commanded that all the nobles, and all other, should be ready apparelled, every man after his estate; and that they should be, by Ascension-day next after, at the town of York, standing northward. An embassy was sent to Sir John of Hainault, lord of Beamond, by which his assistance was obtained with a body of foreigners for the sum of fourteen thousand pounds. This was a brother of the Earl of Hainault, who had the preceding year accompanied Queen Isabella[Pg 63] on her expedition to England, and had only recently returned to his own country. He and his men of war now landed at Dover, whence they rode straight to the town of York, where the king, and the queen his mother, and all his lords, with a great host, were tarrying their coming. They arrived at York within three days of Pentecost. The English were lodged two or three leagues off, all about in the country; the foreigners in the suburbs of the city, an abbey of monks being assigned to Sir John for himself and his household. Then the narrative proceeds:—"The gentle King of England, the better to feast these strange lords and all their company, held a great court on Trinity Sunday in the Friars, where he and the queen his mother were lodged, keeping their house each of them apart. All this feast the king had well five hundred knights, and fifteen were new made. And the queen had well in her court sixty ladies and damozelles, who were there ready to make feast and cheer to Sir John of Hainault and to his company. There might have been seen great nobles, plenty of all manner of strange victual. There were ladies and damoselles, freshly apparelled, ready to have danced if they might have leave. But incontinent after dinner there began a great fray between some of the grooms and pages of the strangers and of the archers of England, who were lodged among them in the same suburbs; and anon all the archers assembled them together with their bows, and drove the strangers home to their lodging; and the most part of the knights and masters of them were as yet in the king's court, but, as soon as they heard tidings of the fray, each of them drew to their own lodging, in great haste such as might enter, and such as might not get in were in great peril. For the archers, who were to the number of three thousand, shot fast their arrows, not sparing masters nor varlets.... And the Englishmen that were hosts to these strangers shut fast their doors and windows, and would not suffer them to enter in to their lodgings: howbeit some got in on the back side, and quickly armed them, but they durst not issue out into the street for fear of the arrows. Then[Pg 64] the strangers broke out on the back side, and brake down pales and hedges of gardens, and drew them into a certain plain place, and abode their company, till at last they were a hundred and above of men of arms, and as many unharnessed, such as could not get to their lodgings. And, when they were assembled together, they hasted them to go and succour their companions, who defended their lodgings in the great street." At the lodging of the Lord D'Enghien, where there were great gates both before and behind, opening into the great street, the English archers were shooting fiercely at the house, and many of the foreigners were hurt; but three good knights, whose names are given, although they could not get into their lodgings to arm them, yet did as valiantly as though they had been armed. "They had great levers in their hands, the which they found in a carpenter's yard, with the which they gave such strokes that men durst not approach to them. They three beat down that day, with such few company as they had, mo than sixty. For they were great and mighty knights." In the end the English archers were discomfited and put to the rout, after about three hundred men had been slain on both sides. "I trow," concludes the hearty old chronicler, "God did never give more grace and fortune to any people than he did as then to this gentle knight, Sir John of Hainault, and to his company. For these English archers intended to none other thing but to murder and to rob them, for all that they were come to serve the king in his business. These strangers were never in so great peril all the season that they lay, nor they were never after in surety till they were again at Wissant in their own country. For they were fallen in so great hate with all the archers of the host, that some of the barons and knights of England showed unto the lords of Hainault, giving them warning that the archers and other of the common people were allied together to the number of six thousand, to the intent to bren or to kill them in their lodgings, either by night or by day. And so they lived at a hard adventure; but each of them promised to help and aid other, and to[Pg 65] sell dearly their lives or they were slain. So they made many fair ordinances among themself by good and great advice; whereby they were fain oftentimes to lie in their harness by night, and in the day to keep their lodgings, and to have all their harness ready and their horses saddled. Thus continually they were fain to make watch by their constables in the fields and highways about the court, and to send out scout-watches a mile off, to see ever if any such people were coming to themward as they were informed of, to the intent that, if their scout-watch heard any noise, or moving of people drawing to the cityward, then, incontinent, they should give them knowledge, whereby they might the sooner gather together, each of them under their own banner, in a certain place, the which they had advised for the same intent. And in this tribulation they abode in the said suburbs by the space of four weeks, and in all that season they durst not go far fro their harness, nor fro their lodgings, saving a certain of the chief lords among them, who went to the court to see the king and his council, who made them right good cheer. For, if the said evil adventure had not been, they had sojourned there in great case, for the city and the country about them was right plentiful. For, all the time of six weeks that the king and the lords of England, and mo than sixty thousand men of war, lay there, the victuals were never the dearer; for ever they had a penny worth for a penny, as well as other had before they came there; and there was good wine of Gascoign, and of Anjou, and of the Rhine, and plenty thereof; with right good cheap, as well of pollen[8] as of other victuals; and there was daily brought before their lodgings hay, oats, and litter, whereof they were well served for their horses, and at a meetly[9] price."
How admirably in this way does the garrulous, graphic, picturesque old chronicler bring before us England and the English five hundred years ago! Immediately after we have an equally curious picture of the Scots, and how they went to war, no doubt drawn or at least filled up[Pg 66] from Froissart's own observation when he visited the northern part of the island some years later. About four weeks after the fray at York, the army set out and marched forward to the city of Durham, "a day's journey within the country called Northumberland, the which at that time was a savage and a wild country, full of deserts and mountains, and a right poor country of everything saving of beasts; through the which there runneth a river, full of flint and great stones, called the water of Tyne." It was now found that the Scots had effected the passage of the Tyne without being noticed. They had passed at Haydon, about fifteen miles above Newcastle. "These Scottish men," says Froissart, "are right hardy, and sore travelling in harness and in wars. For, when they will enter into England, within a day and a night they will drive their whole host twenty-four mile, for they are all on horseback, without it be the traundals and laggers of the host, who follow after a-foot. The knights and squires are well horsed, and the common people and other on little hackneys and geldings; and they carry with them no carts nor chariots, for the diversities of the mountains that they must pass through in the country of Northumberland. They take with them no purveyance of bread nor wine, for their usage and soberness is such in time of war that they will pass in the journey a great long time with flesh half sodden, without bread, and drink of the river water without wine; and they neither care for pots nor pans, for they seethe beasts in their own skins. They are ever sure to find plenty of beasts in the country that they will pass through. Therefore they carry with them none other purveyance, but on their horse, between the saddle and the panel, they truss a broad plate of metal, and behind the saddle they will have a little sack full of oatmeal, to the intent that, when they have eaten of the sodden flesh, then they lay this plate on the fire, and temper a little of the oatmeal; and, when the plate is hot, they cast of the thin paste thereon, and so make a little cake, in manner of a cracknel or biscuit, and that they eat to comfort withal their stomachs. Wherefore it is no great marvel[Pg 67] though they make greater journeys than other people do. And in this manner were the Scots entered into the said country, and wasted and brent all about as they went, and took great number of beasts. They were to the number of four thousand men of arms, knights, and squires, mounted on good horses; and other ten thousand men of war were armed after their guise, right hardy and fierce, mounted on little hackneys, the which were never tied nor kept at hard meat, but let go to pasture in the fields and bushes."
The account that follows of the movements and counter-movements of the two hosts is one of the most curious and characteristic passages in Froissart, and a pretty full abstract of it will introduce the reader better than can be done in any other way both to Edward and his historian, and to at least one leading department of life in England in the fourteenth century.
The English, infuriated by what they saw and heard of the devastations of the invaders, followed them for two whole days by the guidance of the smoke that marked their destructive course; but, although they were wasting, burning, and pillaging only five miles ahead, they could not be overtaken. It was then determined to make for the Tyne, and, crossing that river, to wait on its northern bank for the return of the Scots. The march or ride is described as in the highest degree toilsome and dangerous, many men and horses being lost among the mountains, rocks, and marshes, and through the continual alarms that were occasioned by the shouting of those that were foremost at the harts, hinds, and other savage beasts, they were continually starting, when those in the rear thought they had got engaged with the enemy, upon which they hastened to their assistance over all impediments, "with helm and shield ready appareled to fight, with spear and sword ready in hand, without tarrying for father, brother, or companion." "Thus," continues the chronicler, "rode forth all that day the young King of England, by mountains and depths, without finding any highway, town, or village. And, when it was against night, they came to the river of Tyne, to the[Pg 68] same place whereas the Scots had passed over into England, weening to them that they must needs repass again the same way. Then the King of England and his host passed over the same river, with such guides as he had, with much pain and travail, for the passage was full of great stones. And, when they were over, they lodged them that night by the river side. And by that time the sun was gone to rest, and there was but few among them that had either axe or hook, or any instrument to cut down any wood to make their lodgings withal; and there were many that had lost their own company, and wist not where they were. Some of the foot-men were far behind, and wist not well what way to take; but such as knew best the country said plainly they had ridden the same day twenty-four English miles; for they rode as fast as they might, without any rest, but at such passages as they could not choose. All this night they lay by this river side, still in their harness, holding their horses by their reins in their hands, for they wist not whereunto to tie them: thus their horses did eat no meat of all that night nor day before; they had neither oats nor forage for them: nor the people of the host had no sustenance of all that day nor night, but every man his loaf that he had carried behind him, the which was sore wet with the sweat of the horses; nor they drank none other drink but the water of the river, without it were some of the lords that had carried bottles with them; nor they had no fire nor light, for they had nothing to make light withal, without it were some of the lords that had torches brought with them. In this great trouble and danger they passed all that night; their armour still on their backs, their horses ready saddled." All the next day it rained so that neither sustenance nor forage could be procured, so that they themselves were forced to fast; and their horses had nothing but leaves of trees and herbs. About noon they learned from some country people that they were fourteen miles from Newcastle and eleven from Carlisle, and that these were the nearest towns. Upon this it was determined to send to Newcastle: and there was a cry, we are told, in the king's[Pg 69] name made in that town, that whosoever would bring bread, or wine, or any other victual, should be paid for it forthwith at a good price; it being at the same time proclaimed that the king and his host would not depart from the place where they were till they had heard some tidings of the enemy's whereabout. By the next day at noon the purveyors returned with what they had been able to procure in this way: it was not over much. But "with them," it is added, "came other folks of the country, with little nags, charged with bread, evil baken, in paniers, and small pear wine in barrels, and other victual, to sell in the host, whereby great part of the host were well refreshed and eased." In this state they remained for eight days, including the three in which they had been in a manner without bread, wine, candle or other light, fodder, forage, or any manner of purveyance; the scarcity even after this being still so great that a penny loaf of bread was sold for sixpence, and a gallon of wine, that was worth but sixpence, for six groats. "And yet, for all that, there was such rage of famine, that each took victuals out of other's hands, whereby there rose divers battles and strifes between sundry companions; and yet beside all these mischiefs it never ceased to rain all the whole week, whereby their saddles, panels, and countersingles were all rotten and broken, and most part of their horses hurt on their backs; nor they had naught wherewith to shoe them that were unshod, nor they had nothing to cover themself withal from the rain and cold, but green bushes and their armour; nor they had nothing to make fire withal, but green boughs, the which would not burn because of the rain." All this while they had heard nothing of the enemy; discontent began to spread in the camp; it was determined to repass the river, and proclamation was made that whosoever should first bring to the king certain information of where the Scots were should be made a knight and have land to the value of a hundred pounds a year settled upon him and his heirs for ever. On the fourth day, about three in the afternoon, a squire, one of fifteen or sixteen who had set forth in the hope of winning this reward,[Pg 70] came riding at a quick pace up to the king, and, beginning, "An it like your grace, I have brought you perfect tidings of the Scots your enemies," stated that he had actually been taken prisoner by them, and brought before the lords of their host, who, when he told them his object, had dismissed him without ransom, that he might inform Edward that they were only three miles off, stationed on a great mountain, and as desirous to find and fight with the English as the English could be to meet with them. The name of the lucky squire was Thomas de Rokesby. "As soon," continues our author, "as the king had heard this tidings, he assembled all his host in a fair meadow to pasture their horses; and besides there was a little abbey, the which was all brent, called in the days of King Arthur, Le Blanch Land. There the king confessed him, and every man made him ready. The king caused many masses to be sung, to houzel all such as had devotion thereto; and incontinent he assigned a hundred pounds sterling of rent to the squire that had brought him tidings of the Scots, according to his promise, and made him knight with his own hands before all the host. And, when they had well rested them,[10] and taken repast, then the trumpet sounded to horse, and every man mounted, and the banners and standers[11] followed this new-made knight, every battle by itself in good order, through mountains and dales, ranged as well as they might, ever ready appareled to fight; and they rode and made such haste that about noon they were so near the Scots that each of them might clearly see other." The Scots were posted in three battles, or divisions, on the lower part of the hill, with a rocky river at their feet, and precipitous rocks on each flank. This new river was the higher part of the Wear, and the Scots were on its right or south bank, not far from Stanhope. The English commanders immediately drew up their forces on their own or the north side. "And when their battles were set in good order, then some of the lords of England brought their young king a horseback before all the battles of the[Pg 71] host, to the intent to give thereby the more courage to all his people; the which king in full goodly manner prayed and required them right graciously that every man would pain them to do their best, to save his honour and common weal of his realm. And it was commanded upon pain of death, that none should go before the marshals' banners, nor break their array, without they were commanded. And then the king commanded that they should advance toward their enemies fair and easily." The Scots, however, though formally invited by a deputation of heralds-at-arms to come down from their vantage ground, and have the battle fought fairly in the plain, either that or the following day, as they might themselves choose, wisely refused to stir. "Sirs," they answered, "your king and his lords see well how we be here in this realm, and have brent and wasted the country as we have passed through; and, if they be displeased therewith, let them amend it when they will, for here we will abide so long as it shall please us." On this it was resolved by the English to remain where they were all that night. It was the night of St. Peter's day, in the beginning of August. They lay in their arms on the hard and stony ground. "They had no stakes nor rods," continues Froissart, "to tie withal their horses, nor forage, nor bush withal to make any fire. And when they were thus lodged, then the Scots caused some of their people to keep still the field whereas they had ordained their battles, and the remnant went to their lodgings, and they made such fires that it was marvel to behold. And between the day and the night they made a marvellous great bruit with blowing of horns all at once, that it seemed properly that all the devils of hell had been there." This mere show and bravado was repeated on both sides for three days, all the fighting being a little skirmishing between small parties that occasionally came forth from either army, and crossed the stream, some on horseback, some on foot; and the English, who learned from their prisoners that the Scots, though they had plenty of beef, were run short of meal, had made up their minds to remain till[Pg 72] famine should force their cautious and unassailable enemy either to fight or surrender. But behold! on the morning of the fourth day, when they looked at the mountain, no Scots were to be seen; they had quietly made off in the middle of the night. About noon, however, they were discovered not far off, upon another mountain, in a still stronger position, by the same river side, having now a great wood on one of their flanks, enabling them to go and come secretly whenever they chose. The English immediately took their station on an eminence over against them,—in Stanhope Park, according to the common account; the enemy were again repeatedly invited to come over and fight fairly in the intermediate plain; but they were deaf to all such proposals; and thus the two hosts remained looking at one another for the long space of eighteen more days. The first night, however, the Lord William Douglas, taking with him about two hundred men of arms, crossed the river at a distant point, and suddenly breaking into the English host about midnight, with the cry of "A Douglas! A Douglas! ye shall all die, thieves of England!" slew or carried off no fewer than three hundred men: the gallant leader spurring on, and still alarming the night with his family battle-cry, had even advanced to the king's tent, two or three of the cords of which he struck asunder before he was driven off. This surprise made the English afterwards keep strict watch and ward. At last the Scots again made their escape during the night; and it was determined to pursue them no farther. The young king is said to have wept bitterly in yielding to this necessity. Before they commenced their retreat, or their return to the south, "diverse of the English host," we are told, mounted on their horses and passed over the river, and came to the mountain whereas the Scots had been, and there they found mo than five hundred great beasts ready slain, because the Scots could not drive them before their host, and because that the English men should have but small profit of them; also there they found three hundred cauldrons made of beasts' skins, with the hair still on them, strained on stakes over[Pg 73] the fire, full of water and full of flesh to be sodden, and more than a thousand spits[12] full of flesh to be roasted; and more than ten thousand old shoes made of raw leather, with the hair still on them, the which the Scots had left behind them; also there they found five poor Englishmen prisoners bound fast to certain trees, and some of their legs broken." On the second day about noon the English army, well nigh worn out with fatigue, reached a great abbey two miles from Durham; on the morrow the king went forward to that city, and visited the venerable old cathedral and made his offering; and here every man found his carriage which he had left thirty-two days before in a wood at midnight, when they first started in pursuit of the Scots. "The burgesses and people of Durham had found and brought them into their town at their own costs and charges. And all these carriages were set in void granges and barns in safeguard, and on every man's carriage his own cognizance or arms, whereby every man might know his own. And the lords and gentlemen were glad when they had thus found their carriages. Thus they abode two days in the city of Durham, and the host roundabout, for they could not all lodge within the city; and there their horses were new shod. And then they took their way to the city of York; and so within three days they came thither, and there the king found the queen his mother, who received him with great joy, and so did all other ladies, damozelles, burgesses, and commons of the city."
Before the end of the year a peace was made with Scotland; and in a parliament assembled at York in March following, Edward renounced for himself and his successors all claims of superiority over the crown of that country; and shortly after, his sister the Princess Jane or Joanna (called De la Tour, from having been born in the Tower of London) was carried to Berwick by her mother, and there affianced to David, the Prince of Scotland, as yet only in his fifth year. The great Bruce died within a year after (on the 7th of July, 1329),[Pg 74] and was succeeded by his infant son as David the Second; about two years after whose accession Edward Baliol made a sudden inroad into the country, and got himself crowned at Scone, but was driven out again in a few weeks. In a second invasion, however, in the following year, 1333, in which he was assisted by the English king, the Scots were defeated by Edward, on the 19th of July, in the great battle of Halidon Hill, near Berwick; upon which that town was forced to surrender, nearly every other stronghold in the kingdom immediately followed its example, and the young King David took refuge in France. Baliol, however, whom these events had again seated on the throne, was again driven out within a year; the war was carried on for some years, in the course of which Edward once, in the summer of 1336, proceeded as far north as to Inverness, carrying fire and sword wherever he appeared; but no permanent occupation or subjugation could be effected; as soon as the English army disappeared the Scots were again in arms; in May 1341 David and his queen returned from France; and at last, in the beginning of 1343, a truce was concluded which left the two countries at peace for nearly four years.
But long before this time a great domestic revolution had changed every thing at the court of England. The arrogance of Isabella and Mortimer, who had early in the new reign been created Earl of March, and the general conviction of their criminal intimacy, had very soon begun to disgust the nation; and the alarm of a powerful party had been excited by the condemnation and execution, in the beginning of 1330, of Edmund earl of Kent, one of the king's uncles, on pretence of high treason, his real crime being, as was universally believed, that he was hated and dreaded by the favourite. Even Edward himself, now eighteen, was staggered by after-reflection upon this act, though he had been induced, in the persuasion of the earl's guilt, to give his consent to it at the time. Already married, too, and a father, for his son Edward, afterwards so famous as the Black Prince, had been born at Woodstock on the 15th of June,[Pg 75] 1330, he no doubt felt the state of tutelage, or at least of exclusion from all share in the government, in which he was kept by his mother and Mortimer, every day more galling. It is said that the king confided his feelings to the Lord Montacute; and by his advice it was resolved to make an attempt to seize Mortimer at a parliament which was to be held at Nottingham in October. At this parliament the favourite appeared "in such glory and honour," says Stow, "that it was without all comparison. No man durst name him any other than Earl of March; a greater rout of men followed at his heels than on the king's person; he would suffer the king to rise to him, and would walk with the king equally, step by step and cheek by cheek, never preferring the king, but would go foremost himself with his officers." While he took up his own lodgings with the queen and her son in Nottingham Castle, he directed that the highest of the other nobility, including the king's cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, should be lodged in the most distant parts of the town or without it. The conspirators, however, opened their design to Sir William Eland, who had long been keeper of the castle; and he engaged to admit them during the night by a subterraneous passage, leading from a point at a considerable distance on the west side of the rock, of the existence of which Mortimer was not aware. On the night of the 19th of October, accordingly, having concerted their plans with the king, Montacute and his associates entered by this passage. They were joined by Edward on the principal staircase. Advancing in silence, and with their naked swords in their hands, they soon came to a room, where the voice of Mortimer was heard conversing. Leaving the king without, they rushed in, and slaying two knights, who endeavoured to oppose them, laid hold of the earl. The queen, who was in bed in the adjoining chamber, the door of which was open, cried out "Bel filz, Bel filz, Ayez pitié de gentil Mortimer" (Fair son, fair son, have pity upon gentle Mortimer); she then rose, and, rushing into the room, passionately exclaimed that he was a worthy knight, her well-beloved cousin,[Pg 76] her dearest friend; but he was quickly secured and hurried off. At a parliament held at Westminster about a month after, he was condemned, with little form of trial, to die the death of a traitor; and he and one of his confederates were hanged together at the Elms at Tyburn, on the 29th of November. "He hung," Stow tells us, "two days and two nights by the king's commandment, and then was buried in the Grey Friars' Church," now Christ's Hospital, in Newgate Street. Yet Mortimer's attainder was reversed in 1352, and his honours restored to his grandson; his great-granddaughter married Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III.; his great-great-granddaughter and ultimately sole heir, Ann Mortimer, by her marriage with Richard Plantagenet Earl of Cambridge, conveyed her right to the crown thence derived to the House of York; her grandson mounted the throne as Edward IV.; and it has been occupied ever since the death of Henry VII. by her descendants. As for Queen Isabella, she was, upon her fall from power, reduced to an income of 3000l. a year (which was afterwards increased to 4000l.), and ordered to confine herself in what some authorities call her manor of Risings near London, others Rising Castle, on the coast of Norfolk, where once a year her son paid her a visit of ceremony, and where she survived almost forgotten by the world for nearly eight and twenty years. She died on the 22nd of August, 1358, and was then buried in the choir of the same church of the Grey Friars where the body of Mortimer had been laid.
In 1328, an event occurred which suddenly gave a new direction to the exertions and ambition of the English king, and changed altogether the policy of the remainder of his reign. Hitherto, the object that may be said to have mainly occupied him had been that inherited from his father and his grandfather, the subjugation of Scotland; his efforts were now to be withdrawn to a much more extraordinary, daring, and magnificent scheme, that of the conquest of France. Upon this attempt he adventured on the strength of a right which he professed to derive through his mother. Isabella, it will be recollected,[Pg 77] was the daughter of the French king Philip IV. Philip died in 1314, and was succeeded by his eldest son Louis X. (styled Le Hutin, or the Quarrelsome). Louis died in 1316, and was in the first instance succeeded by a posthumous son, named John, who, however, as he lived only a few days, is not usually reckoned among the kings of France. It was then determined, for the first time, that the French crown, by what was called the Salic law, did not descend to females; and, to the exclusion of the daughter of Louis, Joanna, Countess of Evreux, afterwards Queen of Navarre, his brother became king as Philip V. (surnamed the Long). In like manner, when Philip died in 1322, although he left four daughters, he was succeeded by his next brother, Charles IV. (styled Le Bel, or the Fair). The event which happened in 1328, and which we have described as having been attended with important consequences both to France and to England, was the death of Charles IV. He also left two daughters, but no son. In these circumstances, according to the two last precedents, it seemed that the heir to the crown was to be sought for in the nearest male who could claim through an unbroken male descent; the principle apparently being, as in other cases in which male descent only was recognised, that females should be regarded as nullities, or should not be introduced into the genealogical tree at all. The individual thus circumstanced was indisputably Philip of Valois, whose father, Charles of Valois, was the second son of Philip III. (the Hardy), and the younger brother of Philip IV. (the Fair). Against his right, however, Edward III. set up a principle or rule of succession which was at least new. He admitted that females were excluded from actually reigning in France, otherwise the Queen of Navarre would have succeeded her father Louis X., and would have excluded not only both himself and his present competitor, but also the two last kings, Philip V. and Charles IV. But he contended that, although females could not be called to the throne themselves, they nevertheless conveyed a right of succession to their male descendants; and that he therefore,[Pg 78] as the grandson, through his mother, of Philip IV., had a preferable claim to Philip of Valois, who was only the grandson of Philip III. If this had been the whole case, Edward's pretensions might have had some plausibility; it might have been conceived and understood how, in conformity with the general principles of feudalism, a female, though excluded in her own person from a certain office or possession, might still serve as a link for transmitting a right to it to her male descendant. She might be held only as it were to step aside and allow him to take her place in a function which her sex was deemed to disqualify her from discharging. But the real weakness and inadmissibility of Edward's claim lay in the necessity he was under of qualifying this principle upon which he founded it by a limitation entirely opposed to the genius and spirit of the feudal system, and which would have made the law of descent a self-contradictory mass of confusion and absurdity. For, if a female universally might transmit a right which she could not herself exercise or enjoy to her male descendant, then in the present case, before Edward, who was the grandson, through a female, of Philip IV., would come all the existing and possible male descendants of the three subsequent kings, Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV., all of whom left daughters, though no sons. To this conclusion the principle upon which Edward took his stand, stated broadly and without limitation, would incontrovertibly have led. He therefore drew an ingenious distinction, and maintained his own right as the son of the daughter of Philip IV. to be preferable to that of the son of any daughter of any of the kings that had since reigned, on the ground that he alone had been born in the lifetime of his grandfather. The novelty and gratuitous nature of this assumption would alone have formed its sufficient answer and refutation. But it was fraught with the most absurd and inconvenient consequences. If there be one principle which more than another may be said to belong to the essence of the feudal system of descent, it is that the position and rights of a line in relation to other lines are not to[Pg 79] be affected by the date of the birth of any individual forming a link of it. Thus, no priority of birth can enable a nephew to come in before a son. So absolutely does this principle operate, that, even if there be no son in existence at the time of the death of a married man, his next relation does not inherit, or only inherits conditionally, till the time has passed within which it is possible that his widow should bring him a son. We had an instance in the case of the descent of the English crown on the death of the late king, William IV., when the present queen assumed the government at first only as it were provisionally, or with reservation of the rights of any possible unborn cousin. But the claim set up to the crown of France by Edward III., on the death of Charles IV., would have contravened this essential principle in the most flagrant and wholesale manner. It would have excluded in his favour more than half a dozen lines, all otherwise entitled to come in before that to which he belonged—those, namely, of the descendants, actual or possible, of the two daughters of Charles IV., of the four daughters of Philip V., and of the daughter of Louis X., all of which kings had reigned since his ancestor Philip IV. And this transposition it would have made permanently; these seven lines would all have been extruded out of their proper places by his for ever, or at any rate until some one of them, possibly the last of all, should be again suddenly lifted over the heads of all the rest, and made the first, by the operation of the same strange principle which Edward contended had now produced that effect in his favour.
Strange as were the principles or grounds upon which Edward advanced his claim to the French crown, his means of enforcing it seemed at least proportionally inadequate, and his chances of success still more slight and visionary. It was not a case of the heads of two great national parties, dividing between them the adherence and support of the community. Edward had no party in France; the kingdom the succession to which was disputed was wholly with his opponent. The English crown had even been stripped in the course of the last[Pg 80] century and a half of the greater part of the territories which it anciently possessed in France. Bretagne, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine had all been wrested from it in the disastrous reign of John; and the loss of Poitou had followed in that of his equally unfortunate son Henry III. Of all the vast continental possessions of that great king the second Henry, there remained only the Duchy of Aquitaine or Guienne; and even that had fallen more than once into the hands of the French monarchs, and the prevalent popular feeling was probably already more French than English. Edward's bold project, therefore, was nothing less than to effect the conquest of France by the sole force of England; and that, too, while he had already upon his hands the war with Scotland, the object of which was also the subjugation of that kingdom, and the annexation of its crown to his own. The latter scheme, indeed, he found himself obliged to abandon soon after he had involved himself in his contest with France. But Scotland continued, nevertheless, for a time to divide his attention, if not his ambition; and at least, it may be said, to occupy his left arm.
Strangest of all was the measure of success he attained. In September, 1339, he entered France from Flanders, with a small army of fifteen thousand men, and immediately proceeded to lay waste the country. In January following, by the advice of his ally Jacob von Artaveldt, the famous brewer of Ghent, and leader of the democratic interest in Flanders, he publicly assumed the title of King of France, and quartered the French lilies with the English lions. On the 24th of June, 1340, he obtained a great naval victory over the fleet of Philip off Blakenberg. Hostilities were then for some time suspended: but arms were resumed in the summer of 1345 with much more formidable preparations on both sides. On the 26th of August, 1346, was won the ever memorable victory of Creci by seven or eight thousand English from a hundred or a hundred and twenty thousand French, in which eighty of the enemy's banners were captured, while in the carnage of that and the following[Pg 81] day above thirty thousand of them were slain, including twelve hundred knights and eleven persons of princely rank, among the rest the aged John, King of Bohemia, from whom the Princes of Wales are said, though doubts have been lately cast upon the old story, to have borrowed their plume of three ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich dien (I serve). The young Prince of Wales, called the Black Prince from the colour of his armour, shared, at any rate, among the foremost, boy as he was (he had just entered his fifteenth year), in the peril and glory of the day. Assisted by the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, he commanded the first division of the little army which bore the brunt of the battle. The king himself remained with the reserve. Pressed by the multitude of the enemy, "they with the prince," says Froissart, "sent a messenger to the king, who was on a little windmill hill. Then the knight said to the king, Sir, the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Oxford, Sir Reynold Cobham, and other such as be about the prince your son, are fiercely fought withal and are sore handled; wherefore they desire you that you and your battle will come and aid them; for if the Frenchmen increase, as they doubt they will, your son and they shall have much ado. Then the king said, Is my son dead or hurt, or on the earth felled? No, Sir, quoth the knight; but he is hardly matched; wherefore he hath need of your aid. Well, said the king, return to him, and to them that sent you hither, and say to them that they send no more to me for any adventure that falleth, as long as my son is alive; and also say to them that they suffer him this day to win his spurs; for, if God be pleased, I will this journey[13] be his, and the honour thereof, and to them that be about him." The king's answer, when it was brought to them, only gave new life and courage to the heroic combatants. "This Saturday," the old chronicler further writes, "the Englishmen never departed fro their battles for chasing of any man, but kept still their field, and ever defended themself against all such as came to assail them. This battle ended about evensong[Pg 82] time. On this Saturday, when the night was come, and that the Englishmen heard no more noise of the Frenchmen, then they reputed themself to have the victory, and the Frenchmen to be discomfited, slain, and fled away. Then they made great fires, and lighted up torches and candles, because it was very dark. Then the king availed[14] down from the little hill whereas he stood, and of all that day then his helm came never off on his head. Then he went with all his battle to his son the prince, and embraced him in his arms and kissed him, and said, Fair son, God give you good perseverance: ye are my good son: thus ye have acquitted you nobly: ye are worthy to keep a realm. The prince inclined himself to the earth, honouring the king his father. This night they thanked God for their good adventure, and made no boast thereof; for the king would that no man should be proud, or make boast, but every man humbly to thank God." As for Philip of Valois, he had only been able to escape with his life from this disastrous field. "In the evening," says Froissart, "the French king, who had left about him no mo than a threescore persons, one and other, whereof Sir John of Hainault was one, who had remounted once the king, for his horse was slain with an arrow, then he said to the king, Sir, depart hence, for it is time; lese[15] not yourself wilfully; if ye have loss at this time, ye shall recover it again another season. And so he took the king's horse by the bridle, and led him away in a manner per force. Then the king rode till he came to the castle of La Broyes; the gate was closed, because it was by this time dark. Then the king called the captain, who came to the walls, and said, Who is it that calleth there this time of night? Then the king said, Open your gate quickly, for this is the fortune of France. The captain knew that it was the king, and opened the gate, and let down the bridge. Then the king entered, and he had with him but five barons, Sir John of Hainault, Sir Charles of Montmorency, the Lord of Beauvieu, the Lord Daubigny, and the Lord[Pg 83] of Montford. The king would not tarry there, but drank and departed thence about midnight; and so rode by such guides as knew the country, till he came in the morning to Amiens, and there he rested."
Within two months after the defeat and rout of the French at Creci, another great victory broke the power of the Scots. As soon as King David found Edward fairly engaged in his continental war, he made preparations for crossing the borders. Setting out from Perth at the head of an army of three thousand men-at-arms, and thirty thousand others mounted on hackneys, he advanced by Edinburgh and Roxburgh, entered Cumberland, took the pile, or castle, of Liddel, and then, burning and wasting as he passed, directed his course into the bishopric. The energetic English king allowed no one of his family to be idle, any more than himself, and seems to have made it a principle to accustom his sons at the earliest possible age to at least the consciousness of the duties of their high position, and the sense if not the actual exercise of authority and power; he had left the nominal guardianship of the kingdom in the hands of his second son Lionel, a boy only eight years old; the actual charge and direction of affairs he had intrusted to his queen, the admirable Philippa. In those days, when the chivalrous spirit was at its height, heroism was the virtue of both sexes, as well as of all classes; a few years before this, the principal military personage that had figured in a war for the possession of the duchy of Bretagne was the famous Jane, Countess de Montfort; while her husband, one of the rival claimants, lay fast bound in a French prison, she took what would have been his place in the command of fortresses, at the head of armies, and in the thick of battles;[16] and now Queen[Pg 84] Philippa was to do the same thing in the absence of Edward. The English force that had been hurriedly assembled to meet the Scots amounted to a body of fifteen or sixteen thousand men, and a considerable part of it was composed of the clergy of the northern counties—the class of persons that could be most easily spared or got at, and quite as ready and as apt for the work to be done as any others. "The queen of England," says Froissart, "who desired to defend her country, came to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and there tarried for her men, who came daily fro all parts. When the Scots knew that the Englishmen assembled at Newcastle, they drew thitherward, and their couriers came running before the town; and at their returning they brent certain small hamlets thereabout, so that the smoke thereof came into the town of Newcastle; some of the Englishmen would a issued out to have fought with them that made the fires, but the captains would not suffer them to issue out." The two armies, however, at last encountered, on the 17th of October, at Nevil's Cross, in the neighbourhood of the city of Durham. On the English side, after the divisions were all drawn up in array—the first under the command of the Bishop of Durham, the second under that of the Archbishop of York, the third under that of the Bishop of London, the fourth under that of the Archbishop[Pg 85] of Canterbury, each warlike prelate, however, having a lay lord as his coadjutor—"the queen," Froissart informs us, "went fro battle to battle, desiring them to do their devoir,[17] to defend the honour of her lord the King of England, and, in the name of God, every man to be of good heart and courage, promising them that, to her power, she would remember them as well, or better, as though her lord the king were there personally. Then the queen departed fro them, recommending them to God and to Saint George. Then, anon after, the battles of the Scots began to set forward, and in like wise so did the Englishmen; then the archers began to shoot on both parties; the shots of the Scots endured but a short space, but the archers of England shot fiercely, so that when the battles approached there was a hard battle; they began at nine and endured till noon. The Scots had great axes, sharp and hard, and gave with them many great strokes; howbeit, finally the Englishmen obtained the place and victory." The slaughter was considerable on both sides, but far the greatest on that of the Scots, fifteen thousand of whom, including many of their chief nobility, were left dead on the field. The greatest loss of all, however, was the capture of their young and gallant king. Refusing to fly, he had, after receiving two dangerous wounds from arrows, one of which pierced his head, been dragged or fallen from his horse; but still he fought on; till at last, overpowered by numbers, he was disarmed and carried off by John Copland, a gentleman of Northumberland, who did not, however, secure his prize without a violent struggle, in which the king, deprived of his sword, wounded him with his gauntlet. David Bruce remained in captivity in England for more than ten years.
Meanwhile Edward was engaged abroad in the memorable siege of Calais, the garrison of which, after a blockade of nearly a year, was forced to surrender by famine, on the 4th of August, 1347. All our readers are no doubt familiar with the scene of the appearance in the English camp of Eustace de St. Pierre and his five fellow-townsmen,[Pg 86] come to offer themselves, barefoot and bare-headed, and with halters about their necks, as sacrifices to appease the anger of their long-baffled conqueror, in which Queen Philippa again shines forth so nobly. The story rests upon the authority of Froissart, but has no air of improbability or even of much fanciful embellishment. When Sir Walter Manny, we are told, "presented these burgesses to the king, they kneeled down, and held up their hands and said, 'Gentle king, behold here, we six, who were burgesses of Calais, and great merchants, we have brought to you the keys of the town and of the castle, and we submit ourself clearly into your will and pleasure, to save the residue of the people of Calais, who have suffered great pain: Sir, we beseech your grace to have mercy and pity on us through your high nobless.' Then all the earls and barons, and other that were there, wept for pity. The king looked felly on them, for greatly he hated the people of Calais for the great damages and displeasures they had done him on the sea before. Then he commanded their heads to be stricken off. Then every man required the king for mercy, but he would hear no man in that behalf. Then Sir Walter of Manny said, 'Ah, noble king, for God's sake, refrain your courage; ye have the name of sovereign nobless, therefore now do not a thing that should blemish your renown, nor to give cause to some to speak of you villainy; every man will say it is a great cruelty to put to death such honest[18] persons, who by their own wills put themself into your grace to save their country.' Then the king wried away from him, and commanded to send for the hangman, and said, 'They of Calais had caused many of my men to be slain; wherefore these shall die in like wise.' The queen, being great with child, kneeled, down, and sore weeping said, 'Ah! gentle sir, sith I passed the sea in great peril, I have desired nothing of you: therefore now I humbly require[19] you, in the honour of the son of the Virgin Mary, and for the love of me, that ye will take mercy of these six burgesses.' The king beheld the queen, and stood still in a study a[Pg 87] space, and then said, 'Ah, dame, I would ye had been as now in some other place; ye make such request to me that I cannot deny you; wherefore I give them to you to do your pleasure with them.' Then the queen caused them to be brought into her chamber, and made the halters to be taken fro their necks, and caused them to be new clothed, and gave them their dinner at their leisure; and then she gave each of them six nobles, and made them to be brought out of the host in safeguard, and set at their liberty." Calais, thus won, remained an English town for more than two centuries—till it was lost in the reign of Mary, in the year 1558.
The remaining course of the war with France may be very summarily sketched. After the fall of Calais a succession of armistices or truces suspended hostilities for about six years. Meanwhile King Philip had died in 1350, and been succeeded by his eldest son John. By this time Edward had come to perceive how little impression his brilliant but insulated successes had made upon the real strength of his adversary—how little a way—or, rather, no way at all—he had advanced towards the conquest of France by the mere winning of a great battle or two, and the capture and retention of a single town. In the end of the year 1353, therefore, he renewed more formally an offer which he had already made to Philip, of renouncing his claim to the French crown on condition of being acknowledged as sovereign of Guienne, Poitou, and the other territories in France which the English kings had hitherto held as vassals. The negotiations consumed some time, but ended in nothing: several months were then spent in preparations for the renewal of the war; at last, in October, 1355, the Black Prince, who had been for some years intrusted with the government of Guienne, took the field at the head of an army of sixty thousand men, with which, advancing from his capital of Bordeaux, he made a circuit through Armagnac and Languedoc, spreading devastation wherever he went, and laying, it is affirmed, more than five hundred towns and villages in ashes in the space of seven weeks. In the summer of the next year he proceeded[Pg 88] to repeat the same experiment in a different direction: this time the force with which he set out amounted to only about twelve thousand men, and with these he boldly crossed the Garonne, and penetrated into the heart of France. For some weeks he pursued his destructive course without opposition; but, at last, when making for Poictiers, and within a short distance of that city, he suddenly found himself enveloped by a French army, commanded by King John, more than four times as numerous as his own. Then, on the 19th of September, was fought the battle of Poictiers, making that other name worthy to be associated for ever in story and in song with Creci, of which both the extremity of peril and the glorious deliverance were now more than renewed. The French host was beaten back at all points, and in the end utterly routed, scattered, and annihilated by Prince Edward and his handful of English. Most of the chief nobility of France were either slain or captured: King John himself fell into the hands of the victors. The illustrious captive was treated with noble courtesy both by the Black Prince and by the king his father; but, although the extraordinary fortune of Edward had now placed in his power the persons of the kings of both the countries which he had so long been endeavouring to subdue, it soon appeared that he was still as far from the conquest of either as ever. King David was liberated by a treaty concluded in 1357; and in 1360 peace was made with France by the treaty of Bretigny, in which Edward renounced his claim both to the French crown and to the possession of Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, on condition of being acknowledged the full sovereign of Guienne, Poitou, and Ponthieu. This treaty set King John at liberty; but three years after, on finding himself unable to pay the instalments due upon the sum that had been agreed upon for his ransom—three million gold crowns—he honourably returned to his imprisonment; and he died in England, in the palace of the Savoy, London, in the beginning of April, 1364. His eldest son immediately mounted the throne of France as Charles V. Charles, from the commencement[Pg 89] of his reign, had betrayed a disposition to extricate himself as soon as an opportunity should occur from the obligations of the treaty of Bretigny, the renunciations stipulated by which had never, in fact, been actually made on either side. Meanwhile the course of circumstances favoured his views. The King of England was no longer the man he had been either in ardour or in energy; his heroic son had also fallen into ill health, the effect of exposure in an expedition....
Henry McNeal Turner was an organizer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church during Reconstruction. At first he counseled cooperation with the regions whites, but eventually he became disaffected by the racism he encountered, which included the ousting of blacks from the state house and disenfranchisement of blacks (loss of their right to vote). In time he favored resettlement in Africa. But some whom he helped to send there returned disillusioned and criticized him. He died somewhat ostracized by both the white and black communities.
Here is what the New Georgia Encyclopedia has to say about him:
www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.com/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-632&a...
Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915)
One of the most influential African American leaders in late-nineteenth-century Georgia, Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Georgia, later rising to the rank of bishop. Turner was also an active politician and Reconstruction-era state legislator from Macon. Later in life, he became an outspoken advocate of back-to-Africa emigration.
Turner was born in 1834 in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina, to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner. Turner was never a slave. His paternal grandmother was a white plantation owner. His maternal grandfather, David Greer, arrived in North America aboard a slave ship but, according to family legend, was found to have a tattoo with the Mandingo coat of arms, signifying his royal status. The South Carolinians decided not to sell Greer into slavery and sent him to live with a Quaker family.
Against great odds, Turner managed to receive an education. An Abbeville, South Carolina, law firm employed him at age fifteen to do janitorial tasks, and the firm's lawyers, appreciating his high intelligence, helped provide him with a well-rounded education. About a year earlier, Turner had been converted during a Methodist revival and decided he would one day become a preacher. After receiving his preacher's license in 1853, he traveled throughout the South as an itinerant evangelist, going as far as New Orleans, Louisiana. Much of his time was spent in Georgia, where he preached at revivals in Macon, Athens, and Atlanta. In 1856 he married Eliza Peacher, the daughter of a wealthy African American house builder in Columbia, South Carolina. They had fourteen children, only four of whom survived into adulthood.
In 1858 he and his family journeyed north to St. Louis, Missouri, where he was accepted as a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Turner feared southern legislation threatening enslavement of free African Americans. For the next five years, he filled pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Washington, D.C., and witnessed the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65). During his time in Washington, he befriended Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and other powerful Republican legislators. In 1863 Turner was instrumental in organizing the First Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops in his own churchyard and was mustered into service as an army chaplain for that regiment. He and his regiment were involved in numerous battles in the Virginia theater.
At the war's end, U.S. president Andrew Johnson reassigned Turner to a black regiment in Atlanta, but Turner resigned when he realized it already had a chaplain. He spent much of the next three years traveling throughout Georgia, helping to organize the African Methodist Episcopal Church in what was virgin, but not always friendly, territory. African Americans flocked to the new denomination, but the lack of such essentials as trained pastors and adequate meeting space challenged Turner.
In 1867, after Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, Turner switched his energies to the political sphere. He helped organize Georgia's Republican Party. He served in the state's constitutional convention and then was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, representing Macon. In 1868, when the vast majority of white legislators decided to expel their African American peers on the grounds that officeholding was a privilege denied those from a servile background, Turner delivered an eloquent speech from the floor. Unfortunately, it did little to sway his fellow legislators. Soon afterward Turner received threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1869 he was appointed postmaster of Macon by U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant but was forced to resign a few weeks later under fire from allegations that he consorted with prostitutes and had passed defective currency. At the behest of the U.S. Congress, he did reclaim his legislative seat in 1870, but he was denied reelection in a fraud-filled contest a few months later. Turner moved to Savannah, where he worked at the Custom House and served as a pastor of the prestigious St. Philip's AME Church. In 1876 he was elected manager of the publishing house of the church. Four years later, in a hard-fought and controversial contest, he won election as the twelfth bishop of the AME Church.
Turner was an extremely vigorous and successful bishop. In 1885 he became the first AME bishop to ordain a woman, Sarah Ann Hughes, to the office of deacon. He wrote The Genius and Theory of Methodist Polity (1885), a learned guide to Methodist policies and practices. He twice entered the political ranks in support of prohibition referenda in Atlanta. After his wife, Eliza, died in 1889, Turner eventually married three more times: Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. Between 1891 and 1898, Turner traveled four times to Africa. He was instrumental in promoting the annual conferences in Liberia and Sierra Leone and in attaining a merger with the Ethiopian Church in South Africa. Turner also sought to promote the growth of the AME Church in Latin America, sending missionaries to Cuba and Mexico.
With the support of white businessmen from Alabama, Turner helped organize the International Migration Society to promote the return of African Americans to Africa. To further the emigrationist cause, he established his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). Two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants sailed to Liberia in 1895 and 1896, but a number returned, complaining about disease and the country's poor economic prospects. Turner remained an advocate of back-to-Africa programs but was unable to make further headway against the negative reactions of returned emigrants. In his later years he felt increasingly estranged from the South.
Turner died on May 8, 1915, in Windsor, Canada, while traveling on church business. He is buried in Atlanta. A portrait of Turner hangs in the state capitol.
Here is the wikipedia entry on him:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_McNeal_Turner
Henry McNeal Turner (February 1, 1834 – May 8, 1915) was a minister, politician, and the first southern bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; he was a pioneer in Georgia in organizing new congregations of the independent black denomination after the American Civil War. Born free in South Carolina, Turner learned to read and write and became a Methodist preacher. He joined the AME Church in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, where he became a minister; later he had pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC.
In 1863 during the American Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops. Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia. He settled in Macon and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia after the war. In 1880 he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. Angered by the Democrats' regaining power and instituting Jim Crow laws in the late nineteenth century South, Turner began to support black nationalism and emigration of blacks to Africa. He was the chief figure to do so in the late nineteenth century; the movement grew after World War I.
Biography
Turner was born free in Newberry, South Carolina to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner, both of African and European ancestry. Some sources say he was born in Abbeville, South Carolina. His father's parents were a white mother, who was a plantation owner, and a black father; according to partus sequitur ventrem, her children were free, as she was. According to family tradition, his maternal grandfather, renamed David Greer, was imported as a slave to South Carolina from Africa. Traders noticed he had royal Mandingo marks and did not sell him into slavery; Greer worked for a Quaker family and married a free woman of color. Turner grew up with his mother and maternal grandmother.
South Carolina law at the time of Turner's birth prohibited teaching blacks to read and write. As a youth, he worked as a custodian for a law firm, where his intelligence was noted by sympathetic whites; they taught him to read and write.
Career
At the age of 14, Turner was inspired by a Methodist revival and swore to become a pastor. He received his preacher's license at the age of 19 from the Methodist Church South in 1853. He traveled through the South for a few years as an evangelist and exhorter.
In 1858 he moved with his family to Saint Louis, Missouri. The demand for slaves in the South made him fear that members of his family might be kidnapped and sold into slavery, as has been documented for hundreds of free blacks. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 seemed to increase the boldness of slave traders and people they hired as slavecatchers. In St. Louis, he became ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and studied the classics, Hebrew and divinity at Trinity College.
He also served in pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC, where he met influential Republicans.
Marriage and family
In 1856, Turner married Eliza Peacher, daughter of a wealthy black contractor in Columbia, South Carolina. They had 14 children, four of whom lived to adulthood. After her death in 1889, Turner married Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. He outlived three of his four wives.
Civil War
During the American Civil War, Turner organized one of the first regiments of black troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops), and was appointed as chaplain to it. He was the first of the 14 black chaplains to be appointed during the war.
After the war, he was appointed by President Andrew Johnson to work with the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia during Reconstruction. White clergy from the North also led some Freedmen's Bureau operations.
Political influence
Following the Civil War, Turner became politically active with the Republican Party, whose officials had led the war effort and, under Abraham Lincoln, emancipated the slaves throughout the Confederacy. He helped found the Republican Party of Georgia. Turner ran for political office from Macon and was elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1868. At the time, the Democratic Party (United States) still controlled the legislature and refused to seat Turner and 26 other newly elected black legislators, all Republicans. After the federal government protested, the Democrats allowed Turner and his fellow legislators to take their seats during the second session.
In 1869, he was appointed by the Republican administration as postmaster of Macon, which was a political plum. Turner was dismayed after the Democrats regained power in the state and throughout the South by the late 1870s. He had seen the rise in violence at the polls, which repressed black voting. In 1883, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, forbidding racial discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public places, was unconstitutional. Turner was incensed:
"The world has never witnessed such barbarous laws entailed upon a free people as have grown out of the decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued October 15, 1883. For that decision alone authorized and now sustains all the unjust discriminations, proscriptions and robberies perpetrated by public carriers upon millions of the nation's most loyal defenders. It fathers all the 'Jim-Crow cars' into which colored people are huddled and compelled to pay as much as the whites, who are given the finest accommodations. It has made the ballot of the black man a parody, his citizenship a nullity and his freedom a burlesque. It has engendered the bitterest feeling between the whites and blacks, and resulted in the deaths of thousands, who would have been living and enjoying life today."
In the late nineteenth century, he witnessed state legislatures in Georgia and across the South passing measures to disfranchise blacks. He became a proponent of black nationalism and supported emigration of American blacks to Africa.He thought it was the only way they could make free and independent lives for themselves. When he traveled to Africa, he was struck by the differences in the attitude of Africans who ruled themselves and had never known the degradation of slavery.
He founded the International Migration Society, supported by his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (he served as editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). He organized two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants, who traveled to Liberia in 1895 and 1896. This was established as an American colony by the American Colonization Society before the Civil War, and settled by free American blacks, who tended to push aside the native African peoples. Disliking the lack of economic opportunity, cultural shock and disease, some of the migrants returned to the United States. After that, Turner did not organize another expedition.
Church leadership
As a correspondent for The Christian Reporter, the weekly newspaper of the AME Church, he wrote extensively about the Civil War. Later he wrote about the condition of his parishioners in Georgia.
When Turner joined the AME Church in 1858, its members lived mostly in the Northern and border states; total members numbered 20,000. His biographer Stephen W. Angell described Turner as "one of the most skillful denominational builders in American history." After the Civil War, he founded many AME congregations in Georgia as part of a missionary effort by the church in the South. It gained more than 250,000 new adherents throughout the South by 1877, and by 1896 had a total of more than 452,000 members nationally.
In 1880, Turner was elected as the first bishop from the South in the AME Church, after a hard battle within the denomination. Although one of the last bishops to have struggled up from poverty and a self-made man, he was the first AME Bishop to ordain a woman to the order of Deacon. He discontinued the controversial practice because of threats and discontent among the congregations. During and after the 1880s, Turner supported prohibition and women's suffrage movements. He also served for twelve years as chancellor of Morris Brown College (now Morris Brown University), a historically black college affiliated with the AME Church in Atlanta.
During the 1890s, Turner went four times to Liberia and Sierra Leone, United States and British colonies respectively. As bishop, he organized four annual AME conferences in Africa to introduce more American blacks to the continent and organize missions in the colonies.He also worked to establish the AME Church in South Africa, where he negotiated a merger with the Ethiopian Church. Due to his efforts, African students from South Africa began coming to the United States to attend Wilberforce University in Ohio, which the AME church had operated since 1863. His efforts to combine missionary work with encouraging emigration to Africa were divisive in the AME Church.
Turner crossed denominational lines in the United States, building connections with black Baptists, for instance.[4] He was known as a fiery orator. He notably preached that God was black, scandalizing some but appealing to his colleagues at the first Black Baptist Convention when he said:
"We have as much right biblically and otherwise to believe that God is a Negroe, as you buckra or white people have to believe that God is a fine looking, symmetrical and ornamented white man. For the bulk of you and all the fool Negroes of the country believe that God is white-skinned, blue eyed, straight-haired, projected nosed, compressed lipped and finely robed white gentleman, sitting upon a throne somewhere in the heavens. Every race of people who have attempted to describe their God by words, or by paintings, or by carvings, or any other form or figure, have conveyed the idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves, and why should not the Negroe believe that he resembles God." -- Voice of Missions, February 1898
He died while visiting Windsor, Ontario in 1915. Turner was buried in Atlanta. After his death, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in The Crisis magazine about him:
"Turner was the last of his clan, mighty men mentally and physically, men who started at the bottom and hammered their way to the top by sheer brute strength, they were the spiritual progeny of African chieftains, and they built the African church in America."
Henry McNeal Turner was an organizer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church during Reconstruction. At first he counseled cooperation with the regions whites, but eventually he became disaffected by the racism he encountered, which included the ousting of blacks from the state house and disenfranchisement of blacks (loss of their right to vote). In time he favored resettlement in Africa. But some whom he helped to send there returned disillusioned and criticized him. He died somewhat ostracized by both the white and black communities.
Here is what the New Georgia Encyclopedia has to say about him:
www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.com/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-632&a...
Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915)
One of the most influential African American leaders in late-nineteenth-century Georgia, Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Georgia, later rising to the rank of bishop. Turner was also an active politician and Reconstruction-era state legislator from Macon. Later in life, he became an outspoken advocate of back-to-Africa emigration.
Turner was born in 1834 in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina, to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner. Turner was never a slave. His paternal grandmother was a white plantation owner. His maternal grandfather, David Greer, arrived in North America aboard a slave ship but, according to family legend, was found to have a tattoo with the Mandingo coat of arms, signifying his royal status. The South Carolinians decided not to sell Greer into slavery and sent him to live with a Quaker family.
Against great odds, Turner managed to receive an education. An Abbeville, South Carolina, law firm employed him at age fifteen to do janitorial tasks, and the firm's lawyers, appreciating his high intelligence, helped provide him with a well-rounded education. About a year earlier, Turner had been converted during a Methodist revival and decided he would one day become a preacher. After receiving his preacher's license in 1853, he traveled throughout the South as an itinerant evangelist, going as far as New Orleans, Louisiana. Much of his time was spent in Georgia, where he preached at revivals in Macon, Athens, and Atlanta. In 1856 he married Eliza Peacher, the daughter of a wealthy African American house builder in Columbia, South Carolina. They had fourteen children, only four of whom survived into adulthood.
In 1858 he and his family journeyed north to St. Louis, Missouri, where he was accepted as a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Turner feared southern legislation threatening enslavement of free African Americans. For the next five years, he filled pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Washington, D.C., and witnessed the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65). During his time in Washington, he befriended Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and other powerful Republican legislators. In 1863 Turner was instrumental in organizing the First Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops in his own churchyard and was mustered into service as an army chaplain for that regiment. He and his regiment were involved in numerous battles in the Virginia theater.
At the war's end, U.S. president Andrew Johnson reassigned Turner to a black regiment in Atlanta, but Turner resigned when he realized it already had a chaplain. He spent much of the next three years traveling throughout Georgia, helping to organize the African Methodist Episcopal Church in what was virgin, but not always friendly, territory. African Americans flocked to the new denomination, but the lack of such essentials as trained pastors and adequate meeting space challenged Turner.
In 1867, after Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, Turner switched his energies to the political sphere. He helped organize Georgia's Republican Party. He served in the state's constitutional convention and then was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, representing Macon. In 1868, when the vast majority of white legislators decided to expel their African American peers on the grounds that officeholding was a privilege denied those from a servile background, Turner delivered an eloquent speech from the floor. Unfortunately, it did little to sway his fellow legislators. Soon afterward Turner received threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1869 he was appointed postmaster of Macon by U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant but was forced to resign a few weeks later under fire from allegations that he consorted with prostitutes and had passed defective currency. At the behest of the U.S. Congress, he did reclaim his legislative seat in 1870, but he was denied reelection in a fraud-filled contest a few months later. Turner moved to Savannah, where he worked at the Custom House and served as a pastor of the prestigious St. Philip's AME Church. In 1876 he was elected manager of the publishing house of the church. Four years later, in a hard-fought and controversial contest, he won election as the twelfth bishop of the AME Church.
Turner was an extremely vigorous and successful bishop. In 1885 he became the first AME bishop to ordain a woman, Sarah Ann Hughes, to the office of deacon. He wrote The Genius and Theory of Methodist Polity (1885), a learned guide to Methodist policies and practices. He twice entered the political ranks in support of prohibition referenda in Atlanta. After his wife, Eliza, died in 1889, Turner eventually married three more times: Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. Between 1891 and 1898, Turner traveled four times to Africa. He was instrumental in promoting the annual conferences in Liberia and Sierra Leone and in attaining a merger with the Ethiopian Church in South Africa. Turner also sought to promote the growth of the AME Church in Latin America, sending missionaries to Cuba and Mexico.
With the support of white businessmen from Alabama, Turner helped organize the International Migration Society to promote the return of African Americans to Africa. To further the emigrationist cause, he established his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). Two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants sailed to Liberia in 1895 and 1896, but a number returned, complaining about disease and the country's poor economic prospects. Turner remained an advocate of back-to-Africa programs but was unable to make further headway against the negative reactions of returned emigrants. In his later years he felt increasingly estranged from the South.
Turner died on May 8, 1915, in Windsor, Canada, while traveling on church business. He is buried in Atlanta. A portrait of Turner hangs in the state capitol.
Here is the wikipedia entry on him:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_McNeal_Turner
Henry McNeal Turner (February 1, 1834 – May 8, 1915) was a minister, politician, and the first southern bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; he was a pioneer in Georgia in organizing new congregations of the independent black denomination after the American Civil War. Born free in South Carolina, Turner learned to read and write and became a Methodist preacher. He joined the AME Church in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, where he became a minister; later he had pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC.
In 1863 during the American Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops. Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia. He settled in Macon and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia after the war. In 1880 he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. Angered by the Democrats' regaining power and instituting Jim Crow laws in the late nineteenth century South, Turner began to support black nationalism and emigration of blacks to Africa. He was the chief figure to do so in the late nineteenth century; the movement grew after World War I.
Biography
Turner was born free in Newberry, South Carolina to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner, both of African and European ancestry. Some sources say he was born in Abbeville, South Carolina. His father's parents were a white mother, who was a plantation owner, and a black father; according to partus sequitur ventrem, her children were free, as she was. According to family tradition, his maternal grandfather, renamed David Greer, was imported as a slave to South Carolina from Africa. Traders noticed he had royal Mandingo marks and did not sell him into slavery; Greer worked for a Quaker family and married a free woman of color. Turner grew up with his mother and maternal grandmother.
South Carolina law at the time of Turner's birth prohibited teaching blacks to read and write. As a youth, he worked as a custodian for a law firm, where his intelligence was noted by sympathetic whites; they taught him to read and write.
Career
At the age of 14, Turner was inspired by a Methodist revival and swore to become a pastor. He received his preacher's license at the age of 19 from the Methodist Church South in 1853. He traveled through the South for a few years as an evangelist and exhorter.
In 1858 he moved with his family to Saint Louis, Missouri. The demand for slaves in the South made him fear that members of his family might be kidnapped and sold into slavery, as has been documented for hundreds of free blacks. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 seemed to increase the boldness of slave traders and people they hired as slavecatchers. In St. Louis, he became ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and studied the classics, Hebrew and divinity at Trinity College.
He also served in pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC, where he met influential Republicans.
Marriage and family
In 1856, Turner married Eliza Peacher, daughter of a wealthy black contractor in Columbia, South Carolina. They had 14 children, four of whom lived to adulthood. After her death in 1889, Turner married Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. He outlived three of his four wives.
Civil War
During the American Civil War, Turner organized one of the first regiments of black troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops), and was appointed as chaplain to it. He was the first of the 14 black chaplains to be appointed during the war.
After the war, he was appointed by President Andrew Johnson to work with the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia during Reconstruction. White clergy from the North also led some Freedmen's Bureau operations.
Political influence
Following the Civil War, Turner became politically active with the Republican Party, whose officials had led the war effort and, under Abraham Lincoln, emancipated the slaves throughout the Confederacy. He helped found the Republican Party of Georgia. Turner ran for political office from Macon and was elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1868. At the time, the Democratic Party (United States) still controlled the legislature and refused to seat Turner and 26 other newly elected black legislators, all Republicans. After the federal government protested, the Democrats allowed Turner and his fellow legislators to take their seats during the second session.
In 1869, he was appointed by the Republican administration as postmaster of Macon, which was a political plum. Turner was dismayed after the Democrats regained power in the state and throughout the South by the late 1870s. He had seen the rise in violence at the polls, which repressed black voting. In 1883, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, forbidding racial discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public places, was unconstitutional. Turner was incensed:
"The world has never witnessed such barbarous laws entailed upon a free people as have grown out of the decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued October 15, 1883. For that decision alone authorized and now sustains all the unjust discriminations, proscriptions and robberies perpetrated by public carriers upon millions of the nation's most loyal defenders. It fathers all the 'Jim-Crow cars' into which colored people are huddled and compelled to pay as much as the whites, who are given the finest accommodations. It has made the ballot of the black man a parody, his citizenship a nullity and his freedom a burlesque. It has engendered the bitterest feeling between the whites and blacks, and resulted in the deaths of thousands, who would have been living and enjoying life today."
In the late nineteenth century, he witnessed state legislatures in Georgia and across the South passing measures to disfranchise blacks. He became a proponent of black nationalism and supported emigration of American blacks to Africa.He thought it was the only way they could make free and independent lives for themselves. When he traveled to Africa, he was struck by the differences in the attitude of Africans who ruled themselves and had never known the degradation of slavery.
He founded the International Migration Society, supported by his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (he served as editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). He organized two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants, who traveled to Liberia in 1895 and 1896. This was established as an American colony by the American Colonization Society before the Civil War, and settled by free American blacks, who tended to push aside the native African peoples. Disliking the lack of economic opportunity, cultural shock and disease, some of the migrants returned to the United States. After that, Turner did not organize another expedition.
Church leadership
As a correspondent for The Christian Reporter, the weekly newspaper of the AME Church, he wrote extensively about the Civil War. Later he wrote about the condition of his parishioners in Georgia.
When Turner joined the AME Church in 1858, its members lived mostly in the Northern and border states; total members numbered 20,000. His biographer Stephen W. Angell described Turner as "one of the most skillful denominational builders in American history." After the Civil War, he founded many AME congregations in Georgia as part of a missionary effort by the church in the South. It gained more than 250,000 new adherents throughout the South by 1877, and by 1896 had a total of more than 452,000 members nationally.
In 1880, Turner was elected as the first bishop from the South in the AME Church, after a hard battle within the denomination. Although one of the last bishops to have struggled up from poverty and a self-made man, he was the first AME Bishop to ordain a woman to the order of Deacon. He discontinued the controversial practice because of threats and discontent among the congregations. During and after the 1880s, Turner supported prohibition and women's suffrage movements. He also served for twelve years as chancellor of Morris Brown College (now Morris Brown University), a historically black college affiliated with the AME Church in Atlanta.
During the 1890s, Turner went four times to Liberia and Sierra Leone, United States and British colonies respectively. As bishop, he organized four annual AME conferences in Africa to introduce more American blacks to the continent and organize missions in the colonies.He also worked to establish the AME Church in South Africa, where he negotiated a merger with the Ethiopian Church. Due to his efforts, African students from South Africa began coming to the United States to attend Wilberforce University in Ohio, which the AME church had operated since 1863. His efforts to combine missionary work with encouraging emigration to Africa were divisive in the AME Church.
Turner crossed denominational lines in the United States, building connections with black Baptists, for instance.[4] He was known as a fiery orator. He notably preached that God was black, scandalizing some but appealing to his colleagues at the first Black Baptist Convention when he said:
"We have as much right biblically and otherwise to believe that God is a Negroe, as you buckra or white people have to believe that God is a fine looking, symmetrical and ornamented white man. For the bulk of you and all the fool Negroes of the country believe that God is white-skinned, blue eyed, straight-haired, projected nosed, compressed lipped and finely robed white gentleman, sitting upon a throne somewhere in the heavens. Every race of people who have attempted to describe their God by words, or by paintings, or by carvings, or any other form or figure, have conveyed the idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves, and why should not the Negroe believe that he resembles God." -- Voice of Missions, February 1898
He died while visiting Windsor, Ontario in 1915. Turner was buried in Atlanta. After his death, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in The Crisis magazine about him:
"Turner was the last of his clan, mighty men mentally and physically, men who started at the bottom and hammered their way to the top by sheer brute strength, they were the spiritual progeny of African chieftains, and they built the African church in America."
Henry McNeal Turner was an organizer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church during Reconstruction. At first he counseled cooperation with the regions whites, but eventually he became disaffected by the racism he encountered, which included the ousting of blacks from the state house and disenfranchisement of blacks (loss of their right to vote). In time he favored resettlement in Africa. But some whom he helped to send there returned disillusioned and criticized him. He died somewhat ostracized by both the white and black communities.
Here is what the New Georgia Encyclopedia has to say about him:
www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.com/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-632&a...
Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915)
One of the most influential African American leaders in late-nineteenth-century Georgia, Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Georgia, later rising to the rank of bishop. Turner was also an active politician and Reconstruction-era state legislator from Macon. Later in life, he became an outspoken advocate of back-to-Africa emigration.
Turner was born in 1834 in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina, to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner. Turner was never a slave. His paternal grandmother was a white plantation owner. His maternal grandfather, David Greer, arrived in North America aboard a slave ship but, according to family legend, was found to have a tattoo with the Mandingo coat of arms, signifying his royal status. The South Carolinians decided not to sell Greer into slavery and sent him to live with a Quaker family.
Against great odds, Turner managed to receive an education. An Abbeville, South Carolina, law firm employed him at age fifteen to do janitorial tasks, and the firm's lawyers, appreciating his high intelligence, helped provide him with a well-rounded education. About a year earlier, Turner had been converted during a Methodist revival and decided he would one day become a preacher. After receiving his preacher's license in 1853, he traveled throughout the South as an itinerant evangelist, going as far as New Orleans, Louisiana. Much of his time was spent in Georgia, where he preached at revivals in Macon, Athens, and Atlanta. In 1856 he married Eliza Peacher, the daughter of a wealthy African American house builder in Columbia, South Carolina. They had fourteen children, only four of whom survived into adulthood.
In 1858 he and his family journeyed north to St. Louis, Missouri, where he was accepted as a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Turner feared southern legislation threatening enslavement of free African Americans. For the next five years, he filled pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Washington, D.C., and witnessed the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65). During his time in Washington, he befriended Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and other powerful Republican legislators. In 1863 Turner was instrumental in organizing the First Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops in his own churchyard and was mustered into service as an army chaplain for that regiment. He and his regiment were involved in numerous battles in the Virginia theater.
At the war's end, U.S. president Andrew Johnson reassigned Turner to a black regiment in Atlanta, but Turner resigned when he realized it already had a chaplain. He spent much of the next three years traveling throughout Georgia, helping to organize the African Methodist Episcopal Church in what was virgin, but not always friendly, territory. African Americans flocked to the new denomination, but the lack of such essentials as trained pastors and adequate meeting space challenged Turner.
In 1867, after Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, Turner switched his energies to the political sphere. He helped organize Georgia's Republican Party. He served in the state's constitutional convention and then was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, representing Macon. In 1868, when the vast majority of white legislators decided to expel their African American peers on the grounds that officeholding was a privilege denied those from a servile background, Turner delivered an eloquent speech from the floor. Unfortunately, it did little to sway his fellow legislators. Soon afterward Turner received threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1869 he was appointed postmaster of Macon by U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant but was forced to resign a few weeks later under fire from allegations that he consorted with prostitutes and had passed defective currency. At the behest of the U.S. Congress, he did reclaim his legislative seat in 1870, but he was denied reelection in a fraud-filled contest a few months later. Turner moved to Savannah, where he worked at the Custom House and served as a pastor of the prestigious St. Philip's AME Church. In 1876 he was elected manager of the publishing house of the church. Four years later, in a hard-fought and controversial contest, he won election as the twelfth bishop of the AME Church.
Turner was an extremely vigorous and successful bishop. In 1885 he became the first AME bishop to ordain a woman, Sarah Ann Hughes, to the office of deacon. He wrote The Genius and Theory of Methodist Polity (1885), a learned guide to Methodist policies and practices. He twice entered the political ranks in support of prohibition referenda in Atlanta. After his wife, Eliza, died in 1889, Turner eventually married three more times: Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. Between 1891 and 1898, Turner traveled four times to Africa. He was instrumental in promoting the annual conferences in Liberia and Sierra Leone and in attaining a merger with the Ethiopian Church in South Africa. Turner also sought to promote the growth of the AME Church in Latin America, sending missionaries to Cuba and Mexico.
With the support of white businessmen from Alabama, Turner helped organize the International Migration Society to promote the return of African Americans to Africa. To further the emigrationist cause, he established his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). Two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants sailed to Liberia in 1895 and 1896, but a number returned, complaining about disease and the country's poor economic prospects. Turner remained an advocate of back-to-Africa programs but was unable to make further headway against the negative reactions of returned emigrants. In his later years he felt increasingly estranged from the South.
Turner died on May 8, 1915, in Windsor, Canada, while traveling on church business. He is buried in Atlanta. A portrait of Turner hangs in the state capitol.
Here is the wikipedia entry on him:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_McNeal_Turner
Henry McNeal Turner (February 1, 1834 – May 8, 1915) was a minister, politician, and the first southern bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; he was a pioneer in Georgia in organizing new congregations of the independent black denomination after the American Civil War. Born free in South Carolina, Turner learned to read and write and became a Methodist preacher. He joined the AME Church in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, where he became a minister; later he had pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC.
In 1863 during the American Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops. Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia. He settled in Macon and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia after the war. In 1880 he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. Angered by the Democrats' regaining power and instituting Jim Crow laws in the late nineteenth century South, Turner began to support black nationalism and emigration of blacks to Africa. He was the chief figure to do so in the late nineteenth century; the movement grew after World War I.
Biography
Turner was born free in Newberry, South Carolina to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner, both of African and European ancestry. Some sources say he was born in Abbeville, South Carolina. His father's parents were a white mother, who was a plantation owner, and a black father; according to partus sequitur ventrem, her children were free, as she was. According to family tradition, his maternal grandfather, renamed David Greer, was imported as a slave to South Carolina from Africa. Traders noticed he had royal Mandingo marks and did not sell him into slavery; Greer worked for a Quaker family and married a free woman of color. Turner grew up with his mother and maternal grandmother.
South Carolina law at the time of Turner's birth prohibited teaching blacks to read and write. As a youth, he worked as a custodian for a law firm, where his intelligence was noted by sympathetic whites; they taught him to read and write.
Career
At the age of 14, Turner was inspired by a Methodist revival and swore to become a pastor. He received his preacher's license at the age of 19 from the Methodist Church South in 1853. He traveled through the South for a few years as an evangelist and exhorter.
In 1858 he moved with his family to Saint Louis, Missouri. The demand for slaves in the South made him fear that members of his family might be kidnapped and sold into slavery, as has been documented for hundreds of free blacks. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 seemed to increase the boldness of slave traders and people they hired as slavecatchers. In St. Louis, he became ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and studied the classics, Hebrew and divinity at Trinity College.
He also served in pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC, where he met influential Republicans.
Marriage and family
In 1856, Turner married Eliza Peacher, daughter of a wealthy black contractor in Columbia, South Carolina. They had 14 children, four of whom lived to adulthood. After her death in 1889, Turner married Martha Elizabeth DeWitt in 1893; Harriet A. Wayman in 1900; and Laura Pearl Lemon in 1907. He outlived three of his four wives.
Civil War
During the American Civil War, Turner organized one of the first regiments of black troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops), and was appointed as chaplain to it. He was the first of the 14 black chaplains to be appointed during the war.
After the war, he was appointed by President Andrew Johnson to work with the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia during Reconstruction. White clergy from the North also led some Freedmen's Bureau operations.
Political influence
Following the Civil War, Turner became politically active with the Republican Party, whose officials had led the war effort and, under Abraham Lincoln, emancipated the slaves throughout the Confederacy. He helped found the Republican Party of Georgia. Turner ran for political office from Macon and was elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1868. At the time, the Democratic Party (United States) still controlled the legislature and refused to seat Turner and 26 other newly elected black legislators, all Republicans. After the federal government protested, the Democrats allowed Turner and his fellow legislators to take their seats during the second session.
In 1869, he was appointed by the Republican administration as postmaster of Macon, which was a political plum. Turner was dismayed after the Democrats regained power in the state and throughout the South by the late 1870s. He had seen the rise in violence at the polls, which repressed black voting. In 1883, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, forbidding racial discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public places, was unconstitutional. Turner was incensed:
"The world has never witnessed such barbarous laws entailed upon a free people as have grown out of the decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued October 15, 1883. For that decision alone authorized and now sustains all the unjust discriminations, proscriptions and robberies perpetrated by public carriers upon millions of the nation's most loyal defenders. It fathers all the 'Jim-Crow cars' into which colored people are huddled and compelled to pay as much as the whites, who are given the finest accommodations. It has made the ballot of the black man a parody, his citizenship a nullity and his freedom a burlesque. It has engendered the bitterest feeling between the whites and blacks, and resulted in the deaths of thousands, who would have been living and enjoying life today."
In the late nineteenth century, he witnessed state legislatures in Georgia and across the South passing measures to disfranchise blacks. He became a proponent of black nationalism and supported emigration of American blacks to Africa.He thought it was the only way they could make free and independent lives for themselves. When he traveled to Africa, he was struck by the differences in the attitude of Africans who ruled themselves and had never known the degradation of slavery.
He founded the International Migration Society, supported by his own newspapers: The Voice of Missions (he served as editor, 1893-1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor, 1901-4). He organized two ships with a total of 500 or more emigrants, who traveled to Liberia in 1895 and 1896. This was established as an American colony by the American Colonization Society before the Civil War, and settled by free American blacks, who tended to push aside the native African peoples. Disliking the lack of economic opportunity, cultural shock and disease, some of the migrants returned to the United States. After that, Turner did not organize another expedition.
Church leadership
As a correspondent for The Christian Reporter, the weekly newspaper of the AME Church, he wrote extensively about the Civil War. Later he wrote about the condition of his parishioners in Georgia.
When Turner joined the AME Church in 1858, its members lived mostly in the Northern and border states; total members numbered 20,000. His biographer Stephen W. Angell described Turner as "one of the most skillful denominational builders in American history." After the Civil War, he founded many AME congregations in Georgia as part of a missionary effort by the church in the South. It gained more than 250,000 new adherents throughout the South by 1877, and by 1896 had a total of more than 452,000 members nationally.
In 1880, Turner was elected as the first bishop from the South in the AME Church, after a hard battle within the denomination. Although one of the last bishops to have struggled up from poverty and a self-made man, he was the first AME Bishop to ordain a woman to the order of Deacon. He discontinued the controversial practice because of threats and discontent among the congregations. During and after the 1880s, Turner supported prohibition and women's suffrage movements. He also served for twelve years as chancellor of Morris Brown College (now Morris Brown University), a historically black college affiliated with the AME Church in Atlanta.
During the 1890s, Turner went four times to Liberia and Sierra Leone, United States and British colonies respectively. As bishop, he organized four annual AME conferences in Africa to introduce more American blacks to the continent and organize missions in the colonies.He also worked to establish the AME Church in South Africa, where he negotiated a merger with the Ethiopian Church. Due to his efforts, African students from South Africa began coming to the United States to attend Wilberforce University in Ohio, which the AME church had operated since 1863. His efforts to combine missionary work with encouraging emigration to Africa were divisive in the AME Church.
Turner crossed denominational lines in the United States, building connections with black Baptists, for instance.[4] He was known as a fiery orator. He notably preached that God was black, scandalizing some but appealing to his colleagues at the first Black Baptist Convention when he said:
"We have as much right biblically and otherwise to believe that God is a Negroe, as you buckra or white people have to believe that God is a fine looking, symmetrical and ornamented white man. For the bulk of you and all the fool Negroes of the country believe that God is white-skinned, blue eyed, straight-haired, projected nosed, compressed lipped and finely robed white gentleman, sitting upon a throne somewhere in the heavens. Every race of people who have attempted to describe their God by words, or by paintings, or by carvings, or any other form or figure, have conveyed the idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves, and why should not the Negroe believe that he resembles God." -- Voice of Missions, February 1898
He died while visiting Windsor, Ontario in 1915. Turner was buried in Atlanta. After his death, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in The Crisis magazine about him:
"Turner was the last of his clan, mighty men mentally and physically, men who started at the bottom and hammered their way to the top by sheer brute strength, they were the spiritual progeny of African chieftains, and they built the African church in America."
2005-2007
80" x48"
Colored pencil, modeling paste on wood panel
Below is a transcription of the handwritten words of GULA above:
Nothing fills me, satisfies me, binds my need. I hang bloated, an inflatable sack of gaseous inconsequence. Self-pity, self-loathing and disgust swell my perimeter. I consume everything and exhaust nothing. I have cannibalized all desire and packaged myself expandable. I am greed without anus. That which my sibling, Avaritia, cannot retain, I cannot expel. I am a single-holed hunger, a swollen toothless bladder of vast proportion My skin is moist with shit. I boil with the blessing of my punishment. Pity me. Pity me as I pity myself, with love and understanding. Let me devour your love. Afford me the sweets of your acceptance and loving understanding. Do not judge me repugnant and without merit. Enlarge me with your lack of judgement. Forsake punishment and retribution. I hang helpless of defense. Is there not some beauty in my dedication? A certain admiration for my capacity to retain? I have always been and will always be. As you swell my enormity with repetition, I will devour you generation upon layered generation; a vast compaction of obfuscation, a conspiracy of ignorance. Through your insatiable hunger and my infinite capacity, we will devour the earth. I require no change of diet. Repeat is the fare of the day and of all of the days. I am putrid with it and exalt in its exhilaration. The perfume of blood and shit expands my girth, gives measurement to my wastefulness. To eliminate unwelcome surprise or unpalatable experiment, let me list the menu: War—Only war—all else is a potpourri of surrogates and stuffing. Greed feeds me, expands my perimeter. I devour what he acquires. What he cannot retain, I contain. I am the reticule of avarice. Nothing escapes me save the stench of layered repetition. I hang heavy with it, crucified by consumption. Pity me. The menu never varies. I have no taste for it, but can stomach no other. In symbiotic stagnation, I serve my purpose with passive accumulation. Though what I hold is never used, the very weight of me is proof of our existence, our triangulation. Gula, Acedia, Avaritia. We three, in symbiotic triangulation, illustrate the entelechy of mankind; but it is I, only I, Gula, who is passive. I hang and I hold, absent of anus in constant and tractable expansion. A balloon of infinite compaction. My layered weight and weighted expansion is shaped and molded to the contours of war. I am what I eat: rape, torture, horror, suffering, torn flesh, burning flesh, rotten flesh...I am full of it, suppurated by it, hanging and twisting like a fragrant pudding. I am the right flank of Acedia, sloth, follower of dogma, ritual, and recipe, sleeper of dreamless sleep. It is Acedia who scribed the menu adding, perhaps, subtle variations depending on shifting taste and available condiments. Avaritia stuffs me like a goose’s gullet. Generation after generation after generation I have been crammed with the rot and spoils of war: Like carrion, works of art, raped and pillaged, putrefy my core. Screams and wailing waft my bowels. Base laughter and jeering fill the leaded chambers of my heart. I reek with piety and deceit, the stench of hypocrisy. I am stuffed to bursting—and yet I do not burst. My expansion is infinite—or so it seems. Acedia sustains me. In passivity I accept all things given. In suspension I hang heavy with the nothingness of belief. I accept all things. I accept all things save one: Absence. Absence is never proffered, never interred or contained. My expansion is secure. Contradiction hinders not my dedication. My crucifixion is assured...the ecstasy of my torment, self-hatred and pity, assured. What Avaritia feeds me suspends me, increases me, intensities my hunger. Greed feeds me and so I hang, swollen with self-satisfaction and contempt. All precious things are artifacts, man-made, artificial, indigestible—. I hang heavy with them. Precious ideas, precious objects, precious dogmas and manifestoes. I contain them all. Layer upon layer of them. Millennium upon millennium, I am bloated with their flatulence. Avaritia stuffs me with his plunder...Gods and rituals, jewels and gold, paintings and sculpture. Boundaries. Things. Manufactured values. Realities, gaseous and pervasive. Beliefs, metaphors, poetry. Greed feeds me, over-feeds me, stuffs me with illusion. I hang heavy in duplication. Stuffed with pretense, superstition, and lies. Only compassionate history forgives this gluttony, for it, too, lies within me. It is in me and of me and is me, for only history can contain the weight and volume of this layered repetition, this gluttony of repeat, this unchanging menu of greed. I am what I eat, the rotting spoils of masculine entelechy. But there are certain divertimeni, certain unexpected interludes of frivolity and license that lighten my bowels of the heavy wheat and potatoes of war. Though the menu never changes, the means of acquisition add flavor to my layering distension The Inquisition was one of Acedia’s finest diversions. Sincere, dedicated, passionate, it delivered unto me unselfishly, without pretension, expansion in the name of the salvation of souls. Ambitious, slothful Torquemada, in all the purity of Acedia’s sleep, delivered unto me a sumptuous feast of souls. There could be no greater fare than this. Gula eats, no matter who or what the provider. The layering proceeds without discrimination. War, holocausts, inquisitions, whatever guise the provider, whatever size the provision, Gula eats. My sin is accommodation, my distension, layered by Avaritia’s taking and Acedia’s slumber. These two, war and religion, greed and sloth, create me, distend me. I am history, a fabrication of man’s making, frangible and artificial, mythical and metaphorical, a layering repetition of man’s image of himself in frantic desperation to create himself viable. All that was written and remembered, I contain, repeat upon layered repeat. I am his reality, his proof of existence and yet I am not real, I am his interpretation of reality and reality itself is an artifact created out of the compulsion to endure and to prevail. I am swollen by conflict, bloated with competition, layer upon layer I fill and distend. In Acedia’s slumber, men compete to be first. I am puffed to bursting with fame and acclaim, awards and rewards. Names remembered and names forgotten stud my accumulation. Bodiless without axis or armature they lay draped across obscene ambition, prudishly covering their whorishness. What need forces this dedication? It can only be endemic, endemic to masculine entelechy. Men layer me with their dedication To be first! To make history! To kill and conquer and conquer and kill in an endless repetitious obsessive linearity of Acedia’s sleep. This is my accumulation. This is my expansion. But my expansion is no longer finite. I have become finite and terminal. Acedia stirs and Avaritia’s consumption abates. We succumb to chaos. There is a sense of famine and deprivation. My layering has become agitated and frenetic. Like a pig drowning in shit, there is a thrashing about in passed realties. All the metaphors have changed and this is known but unrecognized. Still, Acedia sleeps—with lids forced shut. But now he dreams. He dreams of death. He dreams of death and the end of repeat. He clings to his sleep in desperation with otiose religiosity. Fear shapes his dream and trembles his complacency. He is afraid. He is trapped in gluttony. I have swallowed him whole. Our conspiracy falters. That which was absolute has become transitory as mankind and all his metaphors slide into past tense. I, Gula, have become quaint, a hope chest filled with trinkets and ornaments for a future that must never come. Would that I could simply clamp shut my mouth and preclude repetition. As he has layered me in to redundancy, he, too, has become redundant. Even Avaritia with his consuming catholic appetite has become cautious of toxicity. We are over-whelmed by paradox and inevitability. If Acedia wakes, we will die. If Acedia sleeps, we will die. Sloth controls us all. What has provoked this dilemma? What suddenness has brought us to conclusion? I cannot accept my ending. After all these centuries of accumulation, to be now suddenly absurd is unbearable. Self-deprecation is not in me or of me. I, above all artifacts, am to be respected. Am I not sacred? Is not man’s memory of Acedia’s sleep and Avaritia’s greedy accomplishments magnificent? My enormity and longevity alone should ignite awe and yet I am threatened. My layering ingestion presumes conclusion. I have swallowed my end. I am become the product of conclusion. My forever ness has become momentary. I have eaten fear and am poisoned by it. Avaritia has destroyed me. By forcing one last layer of repetition, he has doomed me finite. Infinity exists now only within Acedia’s fevered sleep. Mankind’s triad of dominance has concluded. My mouth is sealed. My death is immanent. Embedded in Gula’s gut is war’s diffusion and history; the glut of me hangs heavy in completion. War, the meat and potatoes of Avaritia, has transferred its significance from Avaritia’s greed to Acedia’s slumber. It hovers in supposition. The date 8/6/45 turned men into boys and clamped shut forever the mouth of Gula. The history of mankind hangs reified in Gula’s gut. Layer after layer of Avaritia’s hunter has bloated me with weaponry. Boundaries moved forward and back by sheer force of innovation, borders erased and redrawn through death and dissemination. Whole countries and continents devoured and reconfigured by replacing one man with another. Gula is a history of death and regurgitation Trapped in the depths of Acedia’s sleep, mankind has blundered itself into suicide and disappearance. All humankind is at the disposal of one man-child. This seeming suddenness is the product of Acedia’s sleep. His otiose slumber. His sloth. His isness. Layer upon layer, Acedia has required nothing of me other than that I be filled, stuffed, and silenced by the stuffing. He has neither seen nor tasted the poison of his slumber. As he simply is, he expects Avaritia to do what he does and I, Gula, have to ingest it all. But I am become finite, finished, redundant. I await my layering but nothing comes. My mouth is clamped against it. 8/6/45 lies within me. Avaritia is stunned. He is become child’s play, all rhetoric and redundancy on an empty stage. The weeping and wailing of women, heroism, patriotism, the blood and gore of it all has become the laughter of little boys. There is no place for laughter in Gula’s gut. I am built of sterner stuff, neither mockery nor self-deprecation are stored here. Since 8/6/45 history has been sealed against games posturing as repeat. The layering of me is either real or it is not. In war, to withhold a weapon out of fear is a contradiction unworthy of recordation. Mankind has forsaken tragedy for farce, only the masks remain as time and space are compressed on a stage of finite proportion Humankind has increasingly become audience, leaving the stage to bad acting and foolery. As the stage shrinks so, too, the appreciation of the audience leaving apathy to occupy the emptied space. And so I hang layered by verbs and shifting boundaries, mouth clamped shut against light and other impossibilities. I am beyond complete. My death is immanent. Filtering down through my millennia of layered verbs, art, war,, and religion dominate my distension. I am swollen with them. In review, only war has achieved progression, only war increased through repeat, only war and the shifting of boundaries has brought me to conclusion, only war has wrought me finite...only war. In this brief hiatus before completion, all nouns await extinction There is a strange quiet amidst the mayhem of repetition, a curious awareness, a listening for that which is to come, a final visitation or a burst of light, a signal of arrival, a sign of fulfillment. Silence now is only the absence of laughter. My mouth is shut against it. Religion thrives. Carried along by rote and self-fulfilling prophecies, it is the noisome droning of Acedia’s sleep and the genius of Gula’s layering accumulation. Through memory, I have reified verbs into nouns and frozen moments of chaos into dogmatic linearity, denying questions and demanding answers—the same answers—to questions unproposed. This, religion does and does so well in the layering of Gula’s gut. Only my completion has created nullity. In all the weight of my distension, I am porous of significance. Religion is Acedia’s glory, the proudest and most profound depth of slumber, the complete absence of light in all its paralyzing stimulation. It pacifies me, comforts me, abets my laying repetition; and now it has sealed me whole. I hand in absurdity awaiting implosion. As I remember (I am doomed to remember) the layering of weaponry and the shifting of boundaries, I hold compacted within me that which escapes me—that which has always escaped me, and escapes me still—those verbs encapsulated in artifacts that elicit awakened response. Even in hiatus, even now in the depths of completion, they elicit response, the torn open eyes of Acedia, the death of sloth. As Avaritia’s relentless progression through laying repeat shifted the paradigm of weaponry from one kills one to one kills all, from murder to suicide, Art has remained singular in its ambition, fluctuating only in repose. Unlike war which transitions from verb to noun, Art’s transposition is from noun to verb, the transmutation of artifact into orgasm, the creation of silence. I, Gula, am fatted with noise, layer upon layer of it. It is Acedia’s lullaby and Avaritia’s appetite. I contain the applause of Genius and chicanery, the screaming futility of women in war, the snapping crackling flames of Inquisition and holocaust, the suicide’s horrific whimper. All, all lay layered within me. How I love the layering repetition of sounds. They adorn and define me, marking beginnings and ends from the chaste cries of birth to the gurgling chuckles of death. All the hellos and goodbyes that accompany repeat. They confirm me, distend me, make me whole. Without sounds, I would hang heavy with boredom, deathly interminable repetition. I have harbored throughout the layering centuries the layering cries of absence, the songs of departure, the melting sighs of glaciers and the volcanic rhetoric of rebirth and revolution. This is my storage, the layering variations of repetition. I am Gula. I am Gluttony. I am history. I am all the stacked and vaunted puffery of man’s reflection in tiresome feckless supposition. I would not speak of Art here. It is unsettling. I will say only this: Neither Avaritia’s plunder nor Acedia’s slumber has stuffed my gut with Art. It exists elsewhere. It lies not within me. It is a verb, active and ahistorical. It does not lie static within me. It is in and of the moment of response. The over and over ness of my filling has leaded me with conclusion. I am become finite in distension. Through extrusion I hand now in self-awareness of repeat. Repetition no longer describes my layering. I am become parody. In pause, in this hiatus between immanence and imminence, infinite and finite, I have only deception to deflect perception. I am bloated with noise, blinded by it, crucified by it. I hang senseless with mouth forced open to accept laughter, the final poison. Avaritia continues his blind consumption filling that which resists filling, filing that which can no longer be recorded, a clamorous froth of self-absorption. Acedia sleeps with eyes clamped shut and lids thinned transparent by evolution. How vapid and futile are all our metaphors! Our triad is no longer viable. We have become too simplistic for the vastness and complexity of it all. That which we have sought to diminish through sloth and avarice is not containable. We have cast our crucible too frail and our golden prophecies have become lead. Our incessant drumming of the present into the conformities of repetition no longer circumscribes the abstractions of Desire. Avaritia is hollow noise and Acedia is mindless slumber. My distension has been clamped shut against them. Our death is imminent. I long to release myself, to drain history of Avaritia’s layering plunder and Acedia’s dreamless sleep. Even in my earliest layering, I knew our end. The process of man’s completion through the technology of death rests now within me. His end is accomplished. All his feckless fearless metaphors of war have brought me to fulfillment. I can tolerate no more of him. 8/6/45 marks the end of history, the end of Gula, the end of gluttony. I can eat no more. Nothing can subsume Avaritia. He exists now, like Acedia, in exaggeration. Both are magnified by desperation. Cast large in the awesome victory of his accomplishment, Avaritia’s shadow has embraced the earth. Nothing can grow in this lightless place, nothing save the anxious expectancy of the final repeat, the great light that will lay waste all shadow. How clever was Acedia to write his slumber in the process of inevitability, his metaphors, in passive verbs, to make repetitive that which was irreversible, to make rote that which was endemic. Like all mystagogues, he created sin in order to forgive it and so he stalls, he procrastinates, he forgives it. He sleeps on because he has no dreams, because he is fearful of awakening, because he cannot, must not, awaken because if he awakens we will die. The triad and all man’s metaphors will die frozen in oblivion and I, Gula, will hang heavy with it all, a rotten pudding of narcissistic repeat. All, all will finally and forever revert to what it has always been: gluttony. I pity, if I were capable of pity, Avaritia. His mindless rapacious appetite has brought us to conclusion. And I envy Avaritia.. His senseless anusless consumption makes him incapable of retention and history has served him well. I, Gula, have served him well, as does Acedia’s blessed sleep. We, the triad of man’s reality, will die by virtue of Acedia’s sleep. I record now only the inevitabilities of epilogue.
Collection:
Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, California
Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, (née Kerr), KG, PC (c. 1587 – July 17, 1645), was a Scottish politician, and favourite of King James I of England.
He was born in Wrington, Somerset, England the younger son of Sir Thomas Kerr (Carr) of Ferniehurst, Scotland[1] by his second wife, Janet, sister of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch. About the year 1601, while as an obscure page to the Earl of Dunbar, he met Thomas Overbury in Edinburgh and so a great friendship was struck up between the two youths that they came up to London together. Overbury soon became secretary to Carr and when the latter embarked on his career at court, Overbury took the position of mentor, secretary and political advisor to his more charismatic friend and became the brains behind his steady rise to prominence.
In 1606, most likely at the arrangement of Overbury, Carr happened to break his leg at a tilting match, at which King James I was present. According to Thomas Howard, the King instantly fell in love with the young man, helped nurse him back to health all the while teaching him Latin. As the years progressed James showered Carr with gifts, till 1615 when the two men had a falling out and Carr was replaced by George Villiers. James wrote a letter that year detailing a list of complaints he now had against Carr, including Carr withdrawing himself from James' chamber despite the King's "soliciting to the contrary."
Entirely devoid of all high intellectual qualities, Carr was endowed with good looks, excellent spirits, and considerable personal accomplishments. These advantages were sufficient for James, who knighted the young man and at once took him into favour. In 1607 an opportunity enabled the king to confer upon him a more substantial mark of his affection. Sir Walter Raleigh had through his attainder forfeited his life-interest in the manor of Sherborne, but he had previously executed a conveyance by which the property was to pass on his death to his eldest son. This document was, unfortunately, rendered worthless by a flaw which gave the king eventual possession of the property. Acting on Salisbury’s suggestion, James resolved to confer the manor on Carr. The case was argued at law, and judgment was in 1609 given for the Crown. Carr received Raleigh's confiscated manor of Sherbourne. [2] Lady Raleigh received some compensation, apparently inadequate, and Carr at once entered on possession.
His influence was already such that in 1610 he persuaded the King to dissolve Parliament, which had shown signs of attacking the Scottish favourites. On March 24, 1611 he was created Viscount Rochester, and subsequently a privy councillor, while on Lord Salisbury’s death in 1612 he began to act as the King’s secretary. On the November 3, 1613 he was advanced to the Earldom of Somerset, on December 23 was appointed Treasurer of Scotland, and in 1614 Lord Chamberlain.
He supported the Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton and the Spanish party in opposition to the old tried advisers of the King, such as Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who were endeavouring to maintain the union with the Protestants abroad, and who now in 1614 pushed forward another candidate for the King’s favour. Somerset, whose head was turned by the sudden rise to power and influence, became jealous and peevish, and feeling his position insecure, obtained in 1615 from the king a full pardon, to which, however, the chancellor refused to put the Great Seal. He still, however, retained favour, and might possibly have remained in power for some time longer but for the discovery of the murder of Overbury.
Before 1609, while still only Sir Robert Carr, Somerset had begun an intrigue with Frances Howard, Lady Essex. Supported by the King, the latter obtained a decree of nullity of marriage against Lord Essex on September 25, 1613, and on December 26, 1613, she married the Earl of Somerset.[3] Ten days before the court gave judgment, Overbury, who apparently knew facts concerning Lady Essex which would have been fatal to her success, and had been imprisoned in the Tower, was poisoned. No idea seems to have been entertained at the time that Lady Essex and her future husband were implicated.
The crime, however, was not disclosed until January 1615. At the infamous trial Sir Edward Coke and Sir Francis Bacon were set to unravel the plot. After four of the principal agents had been convicted and hung at Tyburn, the Earl and Countess of Somerset were brought to trial. The latter confessed, and of her guilt there can be no doubt. Somerset’s share is far more difficult to uncover, and probably will never be fully known. The evidence against him rested on mere presumption, and he consistently declared himself innocent. Probabilities are on the whole in favour of the hypothesis that he was not more than an accessory after the fact. The King, who had been threatened by Somerset with damaging disclosures, let matters take their course, and both Earl and Countess were found guilty. The sentence was not carried into effect against either culprit. The Countess was pardoned immediately, but both remained in the Tower till January 1622. The Earl appears to have refused to buy forgiveness by concessions, and it was not till 1624 that he obtained his pardon. He only once more emerged into public view when in 1630 he was prosecuted in the Star Chamber for communicating a paper of Sir Robert Dudley’s to the Earl of Clare, recommending the establishment of arbitrary government.
He died in July 1645, leaving one daughter, Anne, the sole issue of his ill-fated marriage, afterwards wife of the 1st Duke of Bedford.
October/Whiringa-a-nuku was a tumultous month for Maori Land/Whenua. It started in 1865 with the establishment of the Native Land Court which was able to convert communal land into individual titles, thus making it easier for Pakeha to purchase Maori Land. Maori were deemed to be natural-born British subjects under the Natives Rights Act of September the same year.
On October 17, 1877, Chief Justice Prendergast declared the Treaty of Waitangi was "worthless" and a "nullity". Many of his decisions were later overturned in the 20th century.
One hundred and ten years later Dame Whina Cooper led the Land March that started in the Far North and finished at Parliament on October 13 1975. On the way, 60,000 people signed a petition protesting against the alienation of Maori land. The Treaty of Waitangi Act, passed on October 10 1975, set up the Waitangi Tribunal which was to provide for "the observance and confirmation of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi'
The display comprises papers from the Legislative Council, Wellington High Court, and Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry of Maori Development) relating to these events, with objects from the collection of former Prime Minister Sir Walter Nash. Pre-1960 it was common for the Prime Minister to also be the Minister of Maori Affairs.
Shown above is a beautiful waka hoe or paddle. This waka hoe has the following inscription on it: "Prime Minister of New Zealand, Walter Nash. He Tohu Whakamahara ki te Paepae tapu o te Whare". This translates to "token of remembrance to the highest/paramount seat of the House" 12/04/1958
This, along with many others, can be viewed in the display currently in the foyer in Archives New Zealand's Wellington Office.
Archives Reference: NASH 3112/9
Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, (née Kerr), KG, PC (c. 1587 – July 17, 1645), was a Scottish politician, and favourite of King James I of England.
He was born in Wrington, Somerset, England the younger son of Sir Thomas Kerr (Carr) of Ferniehurst, Scotland[1] by his second wife, Janet, sister of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch. About the year 1601, while as an obscure page to the Earl of Dunbar, he met Thomas Overbury in Edinburgh and so a great friendship was struck up between the two youths that they came up to London together. Overbury soon became secretary to Carr and when the latter embarked on his career at court, Overbury took the position of mentor, secretary and political advisor to his more charismatic friend and became the brains behind his steady rise to prominence.
In 1606, most likely at the arrangement of Overbury, Carr happened to break his leg at a tilting match, at which King James I was present. According to Thomas Howard, the King instantly fell in love with the young man, helped nurse him back to health all the while teaching him Latin. As the years progressed James showered Carr with gifts, till 1615 when the two men had a falling out and Carr was replaced by George Villiers. James wrote a letter that year detailing a list of complaints he now had against Carr, including Carr withdrawing himself from James' chamber despite the King's "soliciting to the contrary."
Entirely devoid of all high intellectual qualities, Carr was endowed with good looks, excellent spirits, and considerable personal accomplishments. These advantages were sufficient for James, who knighted the young man and at once took him into favour. In 1607 an opportunity enabled the king to confer upon him a more substantial mark of his affection. Sir Walter Raleigh had through his attainder forfeited his life-interest in the manor of Sherborne, but he had previously executed a conveyance by which the property was to pass on his death to his eldest son. This document was, unfortunately, rendered worthless by a flaw which gave the king eventual possession of the property. Acting on Salisbury’s suggestion, James resolved to confer the manor on Carr. The case was argued at law, and judgment was in 1609 given for the Crown. Carr received Raleigh's confiscated manor of Sherbourne. [2] Lady Raleigh received some compensation, apparently inadequate, and Carr at once entered on possession.
His influence was already such that in 1610 he persuaded the King to dissolve Parliament, which had shown signs of attacking the Scottish favourites. On March 24, 1611 he was created Viscount Rochester, and subsequently a privy councillor, while on Lord Salisbury’s death in 1612 he began to act as the King’s secretary. On the November 3, 1613 he was advanced to the Earldom of Somerset, on December 23 was appointed Treasurer of Scotland, and in 1614 Lord Chamberlain.
He supported the Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton and the Spanish party in opposition to the old tried advisers of the King, such as Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who were endeavouring to maintain the union with the Protestants abroad, and who now in 1614 pushed forward another candidate for the King’s favour. Somerset, whose head was turned by the sudden rise to power and influence, became jealous and peevish, and feeling his position insecure, obtained in 1615 from the king a full pardon, to which, however, the chancellor refused to put the Great Seal. He still, however, retained favour, and might possibly have remained in power for some time longer but for the discovery of the murder of Overbury.
Before 1609, while still only Sir Robert Carr, Somerset had begun an intrigue with Frances Howard, Lady Essex. Supported by the King, the latter obtained a decree of nullity of marriage against Lord Essex on September 25, 1613, and on December 26, 1613, she married the Earl of Somerset.[3] Ten days before the court gave judgment, Overbury, who apparently knew facts concerning Lady Essex which would have been fatal to her success, and had been imprisoned in the Tower, was poisoned. No idea seems to have been entertained at the time that Lady Essex and her future husband were implicated.
The crime, however, was not disclosed until January 1615. At the infamous trial Sir Edward Coke and Sir Francis Bacon were set to unravel the plot. After four of the principal agents had been convicted and hung at Tyburn, the Earl and Countess of Somerset were brought to trial. The latter confessed, and of her guilt there can be no doubt. Somerset’s share is far more difficult to uncover, and probably will never be fully known. The evidence against him rested on mere presumption, and he consistently declared himself innocent. Probabilities are on the whole in favour of the hypothesis that he was not more than an accessory after the fact. The King, who had been threatened by Somerset with damaging disclosures, let matters take their course, and both Earl and Countess were found guilty. The sentence was not carried into effect against either culprit. The Countess was pardoned immediately, but both remained in the Tower till January 1622. The Earl appears to have refused to buy forgiveness by concessions, and it was not till 1624 that he obtained his pardon. He only once more emerged into public view when in 1630 he was prosecuted in the Star Chamber for communicating a paper of Sir Robert Dudley’s to the Earl of Clare, recommending the establishment of arbitrary government.
He died in July 1645, leaving one daughter, Anne, the sole issue of his ill-fated marriage, afterwards wife of the 1st Duke of Bedford.
Marten van Cleve (1526/27-1581), active in Antwerp
Eviscerated ox, 1566 dated
Marten van Cleve presents here a gutted oxen as a central motif. The artist by doing so raises the dead animal beyond its character that has almost the appearance of stilllife into a symbol of death and impermanence. This symbolism emphasize the motifs arranged around. Thus, the intestinal bladder alludes to the brevity of life; the greedy dog and the drinking butcher refer to the nullity of a lifestyle, with which one only turns to earthly pleasures.
Marten van Cleve (1526/27-1581), activo en Amberes
Buey eviscerado, con fecha de 1566
Marten van Cleve aquí presenta un buey destripado como motivo central. El artista en la presentación elevo el animal muerto más allá de las apariencias de un bodegón en un símbolo de la muerte y la impermanencia. Este simbolismo le enfatizan los motivos dispuestos alrededor. Por lo tanto, la vejiga intestinal alude a la brevedad de la vida; el perro codicioso y el carnicero bebiendo se refieren a la nulidad de un modo de vida, con el que uno se vuelve solamente a los placeres terrenales.
Marten van Cleve (1526/27-1581), tätig in Antwerpen
Ausgeweideter Ochse, 1566 datiert
Marten van Cleve stellt hier einen ausgeweideten Ochsen als zentrales Bildmotiv vor. Der Künstler erhebt das tote Tier dabei über seine Silllebenhaftigkeit hinaus zu einem Sinnbild von Tod und Vergänglichkeit. Diese Symbolik betonen die rundherum angeordneten Motive. So spielt die Darmblase auf die Kürze des Lebens an; der gierige Hund und der trinkende Schlächter nehmen auf die Nichtigkeit einer Lebensführung Bezug, mit der man sich ausschließlich irdischen Genüssen zuwendet.
Austria Kunsthistorisches Museum
Federal Museum
Logo KHM
Regulatory authority (ies)/organs to the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture
Founded 17 October 1891
Headquartered Castle Ring (Burgring), Vienna 1, Austria
Management Sabine Haag
www.khm.at website
Main building of the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Maria-Theresa-Square
The Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM abbreviated) is an art museum in Vienna. It is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It was opened in 1891 and 2012 visited of 1.351.940 million people.
The museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is with its opposite sister building, the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), the most important historicist large buildings of the Ringstrasse time. Together they stand around the Maria Theresa square, on which also the Maria Theresa monument stands. This course spans the former glacis between today's ring road and 2-line, and is forming a historical landmark that also belongs to World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna.
History
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery
The Museum came from the collections of the Habsburgs, especially from the portrait and armor collections of Ferdinand of Tyrol, the collection of Emperor Rudolf II (most of which, however scattered) and the art collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm into existence. Already In 1833 asked Joseph Arneth, curator (and later director) of the Imperial Coins and Antiquities Cabinet, bringing together all the imperial collections in a single building.
Architectural History
The contract to build the museum in the city had been given in 1858 by Emperor Franz Joseph. Subsequently, many designs were submitted for the ring road zone. Plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Null planned to build two museum buildings in the immediate aftermath of the Imperial Palace on the left and right of the Heroes' Square (Heldenplatz). The architect Ludwig Förster planned museum buildings between the Schwarzenberg Square and the City Park, Martin Ritter von Kink favored buildings at the corner Währinger street/Scots ring (Schottenring), Peter Joseph, the area Bellariastraße, Moritz von Loehr the south side of the Opera ring, and Ludwig Zettl the southeast side of the Grain market (Getreidemarkt).
From 1867, a competition was announced for the museums, and thereby set their current position - at the request of the Emperor, the museum should not be too close to the Imperial Palace, but arise beyond the ring road. The architect Carl von Hasenauer participated in this competition and was able the at that time in Zürich operating Gottfried Semper to encourage to work together. The two museum buildings should be built here in the sense of the style of the Italian Renaissance. The plans got the benevolence of the imperial family. In April 1869, there was an audience of Joseph Semper with the Emperor Franz Joseph and an oral contract was concluded, in July 1870 was issued the written order to Semper and Hasenauer.
Crucial for the success of Semper and Hasenauer against the projects of other architects were among others Semper's vision of a large building complex called "Imperial Forum", in which the museums would have been a part of. Not least by the death of Semper in 1879 came the Imperial Forum not as planned for execution, the two museums were built, however.
Construction of the two museums began without ceremony on 27 November 1871 instead. Semper subsequently moved to Vienna. From the beginning on, there were considerable personal differences between him and Hasenauer, who finally in 1877 took over sole construction management. 1874, the scaffolds were placed up to the attic and the first floor completed, in 1878, the first windows installed, in 1879, the Attica and the balustrade finished, and from 1880 to 1881 the dome and the Tabernacle built. The dome is topped with a bronze statue of Pallas Athena by Johannes Benk.
The lighting and air conditioning concept with double glazing of the ceilings made the renunciation of artificial light (especially at that time, as gas light) possible, but this resulted due to seasonal variations depending on daylight to different opening times.
Dome hall
Entrance (by clicking on the link at the end of the side you can see all the pictures here indicated!)
Grand staircase
Hall
Empire
The Kunsthistorisches Museum was on 17 October 1891 officially opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Since 22 October 1891, the museum is accessible to the public. Two years earlier, on 3 November 1889, the collection of arms, Arms and Armour today, had their doors open. On 1 January 1890 the library service resumed its operations. The merger and listing of other collections of the Highest Imperial Family from the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Hofburg Palace and Ambras in Tyrol needs another two years.
1891, the Court museum was organized in seven collections with three directorates:
Directorate of coins, medals and antiquities collection
The Egyptian Collection
The Antique Collection
The coins and medals collection
Management of the collection of weapons, art and industrial objects
Weapons collection
Collection of industrial art objects
Directorate of Art Gallery and Restaurieranstalt (Restoration Office)
Collection of watercolors, drawings, sketches, etc.
Restoration Office
Library
Very soon the room the Court Museum (Hofmuseum) for the imperial collections was offering became too narrow. To provide temporary help, an exhibition of ancient artifacts from Ephesus in the Theseus Temple was designed. However, additional space had to be rented in the Lower Belvedere.
1914, after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, his "Estensische Sammlung (Collection)" passed to the administration of the Court Museum. This collection, which emerged from the art collection of the house of d'Este and world travel collection of Franz Ferdinand, was placed in the New Imperial Palace since 1908. For these stocks, the present collection of old musical instruments and the Museum of Ethnology emerged.
The First World War went by, apart from the oppressive economic situation without loss. The Court museum remained during the five years of war regularly open to the public.
Until 1919 the K.K. Art Historical Court Museum was under the authority of the Oberstkämmereramt (head chamberlain office) and belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The officials and employees were part of the royal household.
First Republic
The transition from monarchy to republic, in the museum took place in complete tranquility. On 19 November 1918 the two imperial museums on Maria Theresa Square were placed under the state protection of the young Republic of German Austria. Threatening to the stocks of the museum were the claims raised in the following weeks and months of the "successor states" of the monarchy as well as Italy and Belgium on Austrian art collection. In fact, it came on 12th February 1919 to the violent removal of 62 paintings by armed Italian units. This "art theft" left a long time trauma among curators and art historians.
It was not until the Treaty of Saint-Germain on 10 September 1919, providing in Article 195 and 196 the settlement of rights in the cultural field by negotiations. The claims of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Italy again could mostly being averted in this way. Only Hungary, which presented the greatest demands by far, was met by more than ten years of negotiation in 147 cases.
On 3 April 1919 was the expropriation of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine by law and the acquisition of its property, including the "Collections of the Imperial House", by the Republic. On 18 June 1920 the then provisional administration of the former imperial museums and collections of Este and the secular and clergy treasury passed to the State Office of Internal Affairs and Education, since 10 November 1920, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Education. A few days later it was renamed the Art History Court Museum in the "Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna State", 1921 "Kunsthistorisches Museum" . Of 1st January 1921 the employees of the museum staff passed to the state of the Republic.
Through the acquisition of the former imperial collections owned by the state, the museum found itself in a complete new situation. In order to meet the changed circumstances in the museum area, designed Hans Tietze in 1919 the "Vienna Museum program". It provided a close cooperation between the individual museums to focus at different houses on main collections. So dominated exchange, sales and equalizing the acquisition policy in the interwar period. Thus resulting until today still valid collection trends. Also pointing the way was the relocation of the weapons collection from 1934 in its present premises in the New Castle, where since 1916 the collection of ancient musical instruments was placed.
With the change of the imperial collections in the ownership of the Republic the reorganization of the internal organization went hand in hand, too. Thus the museum was divided in 1919 into the
Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with the Oriental coins)
Collection of Classical Antiquities
Collection of Ancient Coins
Collection of modern Coins and Medals
Weapons collection
Collection of Sculptures and Crafts with the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
Picture gallery
The Museum 1938-1945
Count Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf according to Rigaud. Clarisse 1948 by Baroness de Rothschildt "dedicated" to the memory of Baron Alphonse de Rothschildt; restituted to the Rothschilds in 1999, and in 1999 donated by Bettina Looram Rothschild, the last Austrian heiress.
With the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich all Jewish art collections such as the Rothschilds were forcibly "Aryanised". Collections were either "paid" or simply distributed by the Gestapo at the museums. This resulted in a significant increase in stocks. But the KHM was not the only museum that benefited from the linearization. Systematically looted Jewish property was sold to museums, collections or in pawnshops throughout the German Reich.
After the war, the museum struggled to reimburse the "Aryanised" art to the owners or their heirs. They forced the Rothschild family to leave the most important part of their own collection to the museum and called this "dedications", or "donations". As a reason, was the export law stated, which does not allow owners to bring certain works of art out of the country. Similar methods were used with other former owners. Only on the basis of international diplomatic and media pressure, to a large extent from the United States, the Austrian government decided to make a change in the law (Art Restitution Act of 1998, the so-called Lex Rothschild). The art objects were the Rothschild family refunded only in the 1990s.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum operates on the basis of the federal law on the restitution of art objects from the 4th December 1998 (Federal Law Gazette I, 181 /1998) extensive provenance research. Even before this decree was carried out in-house provenance research at the initiative of the then archive director Herbert Haupt. To this end was submitted in 1998 by him in collaboration with Lydia Grobl a comprehensive presentation of the facts about the changes in the inventory levels of the Kunsthistorisches Museum during the Nazi era and in the years leading up to the State Treaty of 1955, an important basis for further research provenance.
The two historians Susanne Hehenberger and Monika Löscher are since 1st April 2009 as provenance researchers at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research operating and they deal with the investigation period from 1933 to the recent past.
The museum today
Today the museum is as a federal museum, with 1st January 1999 released to the full legal capacity - it was thus the first of the state museums of Austria, implementing the far-reaching self-financing. It is by far the most visited museum in Austria with 1.3 million visitors (2007).
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is under the name Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum with company number 182081t since 11 June 1999 as a research institution under public law of the Federal virtue of the Federal Museums Act, Federal Law Gazette I/115/1998 and the Museum of Procedure of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum, 3 January 2001, BGBl II 2/ 2001, in force since 1 January 2001, registered.
In fiscal 2008, the turnover was 37.185 million EUR and total assets amounted to EUR 22.204 million. In 2008 an average of 410 workers were employed.
Management
1919-1923: Gustav Glück as the first chairman of the College of science officials
1924-1933: Hermann Julius Hermann 1924-1925 as the first chairman of the College of the scientific officers in 1925 as first director
1933: Arpad Weixlgärtner first director
1934-1938: Alfred Stix first director
1938-1945: Fritz Dworschak 1938 as acting head, from 1938 as a chief, in 1941 as first director
1945-1949: August von Loehr 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections, in 1949 as general director of the historical collections of the Federation
1945-1949: Alfred Stix 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections, in 1949 as general director of art historical collections of the Federation
1949-1950: Hans Demel as administrative director
1950: Karl Wisoko-Meytsky as general director of art and historical collections of the Federation
1951-1952: Fritz Eichler as administrative director
1953-1954: Ernst H. Buschbeck as administrative director
1955-1966: Vincent Oberhammer 1955-1959 as administrative director, from 1959 as first director
1967: Edward Holzmair as managing director
1968-1972: Erwin Auer first director
1973-1981: Friderike Klauner first director
1982-1990: Hermann Fillitz first director
1990: George Kugler as interim first director
1990-2008: Wilfried Seipel as general director
Since 2009: Sabine Haag as general director
Collections
To the Kunsthistorisches Museum also belon the collections of the New Castle, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Palais Lobkowitz, the Museum of Ethnology and the Wagenburg (wagon fortress) in an outbuilding of Schönbrunn Palace. A branch office is also Ambras in Innsbruck.
Kunsthistorisches Museum (main building)
Picture Gallery
Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection
Collection of Classical Antiquities
Vienna Chamber of Art
Numismatic Collection
Library
New Castle
Ephesus Museum
Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
Arms and Armour
Archive
Hofburg
The imperial crown in the Treasury
Imperial Treasury of Vienna
Insignia of the Austrian Hereditary Homage
Insignia of imperial Austria
Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire
Burgundian Inheritance and the Order of the Golden Fleece
Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure
Ecclesiastical Treasury
Schönbrunn Palace
Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna
Armory in Ambras Castle
Ambras Castle
Collections of Ambras Castle
Major exhibits
Among the most important exhibits of the Art Gallery rank inter alia:
Jan van Eyck: Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1438
Martin Schongauer: Holy Family, 1475-80
Albrecht Dürer : Trinity Altar, 1509-16
Portrait Johann Kleeberger, 1526
Parmigianino: Self Portrait in Convex Mirror, 1523/24
Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer 1563
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary 1606/ 07
Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607)
Titian: Nymph and Shepherd to 1570-75
Portrait of Jacopo de Strada, 1567/68
Raffaello Santi: Madonna of the Meadow, 1505 /06
Lorenzo Lotto: Portrait of a young man against white curtain, 1508
Peter Paul Rubens: The altar of St. Ildefonso, 1630-32
The Little Fur, about 1638
Jan Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1665/66
Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559
Kids, 1560
Tower of Babel, 1563
Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564
Gloomy Day (Early Spring), 1565
Return of the Herd (Autumn), 1565
Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565
Bauer and bird thief, 1568
Peasant Wedding, 1568/69
Peasant Dance, 1568/69
Paul's conversion (Conversion of St Paul), 1567
Cabinet of Curiosities:
Saliera from Benvenuto Cellini 1539-1543
Egyptian-Oriental Collection:
Mastaba of Ka Ni Nisut
Collection of Classical Antiquities:
Gemma Augustea
Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós
Gallery: Major exhibits
On 17 October 1877, Chief Justice James Prendergast made a statement on Te Tiriti o Waitangi during the Wi Parata v The Bishop of Wellington case that has been used (and abused) many times since.
The case involved Ngāti Toa land in the Porirua region that had been provided for Bishop Octavius Hadfield. In exchange, the church promised that a school for young Ngāti Toa would be established. No school was ever built, and two years later (1850) the church obtained a Crown grant to the land without the consent of Ngāti Toa.
Prendergast and his colleagues took the now-rejected view that 'native' or 'aboriginal' customary title, not pursuant to a Crown grant, could not be recognised or enforced by the courts, and ruled against Wi Parata of Ngāti Toa. As nzhistory.net.nz notes, in his reserved judgement, Prendergast described the Treaty of Waitangi as ‘worthless’ because, in his view "it had been signed ‘between a civilised nation and a group of savages’". Prendergast belived that since the Treaty had not been incorporated into domestic law, it was a ‘simple nullity.'
Te Ara describes how the case has been seen by some as "the start of a line of authority in which the New Zealand courts, contrary to established common law and international law principles, refused to recognise and enforce 'native title'… however, there are earlier New Zealand Court of Appeal decisions which express a similar view on 'native title' as it related to Crown grants." Yet as Te Ara notes, the case led to significant alienation of Māori land and gave credibility to views now mainly rejected.
This portrait of Prendergast comes from the Patent and Copyright series held at Archives New Zealand.
Archives Reference: PC4 Box 8/ 1892/53
More on the Wi Parata v The Bishop of Wellington case can be found at www.nzhistory.net.nz/the-chief-justice-declares-that-the-... and www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1p29/prendergast-james
For updates on our On This Day series and news from Archives New Zealand, follow us on Twitter twitter.com/ArchivesNZ
Material from Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga
Antonio de Pereda (1611-1678), active in Valladolid and Madrid
Allegory of Transience, circa 1634
A winged genius embodies the "vanitas," the memory of the transience of all earthly things. In front of him are arranged still-life-like objects in baroque opulence, suggesting the fast-moving time, the nullity of power and the volatility of the pleasures of life. The tabletop bears the inscription "nil omne (everything is void)." References to the house of Hapsburg, like the image-cameo of Charles V in the left hand of the Genius, suggest a Courtly order.
Antonio de Pereda (1611-1678), tätig in Valladolid und Madrid
Allegorie der Vergänglichkeit, um 1634
Ein gefügelter Genius verköpert die "Vanitas", die Erinnerung an die Vergänglichkeit alles Irdischen. Vor ihm werden stilllebenartig in barocker Fülle Gegenständen arrangiert, ide auf die rasch verrinnende Zeit, die Nichtigkeit der Macht und die Flüchtigkeit der Freuden des Lebens hinweisen. Die Tischplatte trägt die Inschrift "nil omne (alles ist nichtig). Hinweise auf das Haus Habsburg wie die Bildniskameo Karls V. in der linken Hand des Genius lassen einen höfischen Auftrag vermuten.
Austria Kunsthistorisches Museum
Federal Museum
Logo KHM
Regulatory authority (ies)/organs to the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture
Founded 17 October 1891
Headquartered Castle Ring (Burgring), Vienna 1, Austria
Management Sabine Haag
www.khm.at website
Main building of the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Maria-Theresa-Square
The Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM abbreviated) is an art museum in Vienna. It is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It was opened in 1891 and 2012 visited of 1.351.940 million people.
The museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is with its opposite sister building, the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), the most important historicist large buildings of the Ringstrasse time. Together they stand around the Maria Theresa square, on which also the Maria Theresa monument stands. This course spans the former glacis between today's ring road and 2-line, and is forming a historical landmark that also belongs to World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna.
History
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery
The Museum came from the collections of the Habsburgs, especially from the portrait and armor collections of Ferdinand of Tyrol, the collection of Emperor Rudolf II (most of which, however scattered) and the art collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm into existence. Already In 1833 asked Joseph Arneth, curator (and later director) of the Imperial Coins and Antiquities Cabinet, bringing together all the imperial collections in a single building .
Architectural History
The contract to build the museum in the city had been given in 1858 by Emperor Franz Joseph. Subsequently, many designs were submitted for the ring road zone. Plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Null planned to build two museum buildings in the immediate aftermath of the Imperial Palace on the left and right of the Heroes' Square (Heldenplatz). The architect Ludwig Förster planned museum buildings between the Schwarzenberg Square and the City Park, Martin Ritter von Kink favored buildings at the corner Währingerstraße/ Scots ring (Schottenring), Peter Joseph, the area Bellariastraße, Moritz von Loehr the south side of the opera ring, and Ludwig Zettl the southeast side of the grain market (Getreidemarkt).
From 1867, a competition was announced for the museums, and thereby set their current position - at the request of the Emperor, the museum should not be too close to the Imperial Palace, but arise beyond the ring road. The architect Carl von Hasenauer participated in this competition and was able the at that time in Zürich operating Gottfried Semper to encourage to work together. The two museum buildings should be built here in the sense of the style of the Italian Renaissance. The plans got the benevolence of the imperial family. In April 1869, there was an audience with of Joseph Semper at the Emperor Franz Joseph and an oral contract was concluded, in July 1870 was issued the written order to Semper and Hasenauer.
Crucial for the success of Semper and Hasenauer against the projects of other architects were among others Semper's vision of a large building complex called "Imperial Forum", in which the museums would have been a part of. Not least by the death of Semper in 1879 came the Imperial Forum not as planned for execution, the two museums were built, however.
Construction of the two museums began without ceremony on 27 November 1871 instead. Semper moved to Vienna in the sequence. From the beginning, there were considerable personal differences between him and Hasenauer, who finally in 1877 took over sole construction management. 1874, the scaffolds were placed up to the attic and the first floor completed, built in 1878, the first windows installed in 1879, the Attica and the balustrade from 1880 to 1881 and built the dome and the Tabernacle. The dome is topped with a bronze statue of Pallas Athena by Johannes Benk.
The lighting and air conditioning concept with double glazing of the ceilings made the renunciation of artificial light (especially at that time, as gas light) possible, but this resulted due to seasonal variations depending on daylight to different opening times .
Kuppelhalle
Entrance (by clicking the link at the end of the side you can see all the pictures here indicated!)
Grand staircase
Hall
Empire
The Kunsthistorisches Museum was on 17 October 1891 officially opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Since 22 October 1891 , the museum is accessible to the public. Two years earlier, on 3 November 1889, the collection of arms, Arms and Armour today, had their doors open. On 1 January 1890 the library service resumed its operations. The merger and listing of other collections of the Highest Imperial Family from the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Hofburg Palace and Ambras in Tyrol will need another two years.
189, the farm museum was organized in seven collections with three directorates:
Directorate of coins, medals and antiquities collection
The Egyptian Collection
The Antique Collection
The coins and medals collection
Management of the collection of weapons, art and industrial objects
Weapons collection
Collection of industrial art objects
Directorate of Art Gallery and Restaurieranstalt (Restoration Office)
Collection of watercolors, drawings, sketches, etc.
Restoration Office
Library
Very soon the room the Court Museum (Hofmuseum) for the imperial collections was offering became too narrow. To provide temporary help, an exhibition of ancient artifacts from Ephesus in the Theseus Temple was designed. However, additional space had to be rented in the Lower Belvedere.
1914, after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, his " Estonian Forensic Collection " passed to the administration of the Court Museum. This collection, which emerged from the art collection of the house of d' Este and world travel collection of Franz Ferdinand, was placed in the New Imperial Palace since 1908. For these stocks, the present collection of old musical instruments and the Museum of Ethnology emerged.
The First World War went by, apart from the oppressive economic situation without loss. The farm museum remained during the five years of war regularly open to the public.
Until 1919 the K.K. Art Historical Court Museum was under the authority of the Oberstkämmereramt (head chamberlain office) and belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The officials and employees were part of the royal household.
First Republic
The transition from monarchy to republic, in the museum took place in complete tranquility. On 19 November 1918 the two imperial museums on Maria Theresa Square were placed under the state protection of the young Republic of German Austria. Threatening to the stocks of the museum were the claims raised in the following weeks and months of the "successor states" of the monarchy as well as Italy and Belgium on Austrian art collection. In fact, it came on 12th February 1919 to the violent removal of 62 paintings by armed Italian units. This "art theft" left a long time trauma among curators and art historians.
It was not until the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 10 September 1919, providing in Article 195 and 196 the settlement of rights in the cultural field by negotiations. The claims of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Italy again could mostly being averted in this way. Only Hungary, which presented the greatest demands by far, was met by more than ten years of negotiation in 147 cases.
On 3 April 1919 was the expropriation of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine by law and the acquisition of its property, including the "Collections of the Imperial House" , by the Republic. Of 18 June 1920 the then provisional administration of the former imperial museums and collections of Este and the secular and clergy treasury passed to the State Office of Internal Affairs and Education, since 10 November 1920, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Education. A few days later it was renamed the Art History Court Museum in the "Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna State", 1921 "Kunsthistorisches Museum" . Of 1st January 1921 the employees of the museum staff passed to the state of the Republic.
Through the acquisition of the former imperial collections owned by the state, the museum found itself in a complete new situation. In order to meet the changed circumstances in the museum area, designed Hans Tietze in 1919 the "Vienna Museum program". It provided a close cooperation between the individual museums to focus at different houses on main collections. So dominated exchange, sales and equalizing the acquisition policy in the interwar period. Thus resulting until today still valid collection trends. Also pointing the way was the relocation of the weapons collection from 1934 in its present premises in the New Castle, where since 1916 the collection of ancient musical instruments was placed.
With the change of the imperial collections in the ownership of the Republic the reorganization of the internal organization went hand in hand, too. Thus the museum was divided in 1919 into the
Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with the Oriental coins)
Collection of Classical Antiquities
Collection of ancient coins
Collection of modern coins and medals
Weapons collection
Collection of sculptures and crafts with the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
Picture Gallery
The Museum 1938-1945
Count Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf according to Rigaud. Clarisse 1948 by Baroness de Rothschildt "dedicated" to the memory of Baron Alphonse de Rothschildt; restituted to the Rothschilds in 1999, and in 1999 donated by Bettina Looram Rothschild, the last Austrian heiress.
With the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich all Jewish art collections such as the Rothschilds were forcibly "Aryanised". Collections were either "paid" or simply distributed by the Gestapo at the museums. This resulted in a significant increase in stocks. But the KHM was not the only museum that benefited from the linearization. Systematically looted Jewish property was sold to museums, collections or in pawnshops throughout the empire.
After the war, the museum struggled to reimburse the "Aryanised" art to the owners or their heirs. They forced the Rothschild family to leave the most important part of their own collection to the museum and called this "dedications", or "donations". As a reason, was the export law stated, which does not allow owners to perform certain works of art out of the country. Similar methods were used with other former owners. Only on the basis of international diplomatic and media pressure, to a large extent from the United States, the Austrian government decided to make a change in the law (Art Restitution Act of 1998, the so-called Lex Rothschild). The art objects were the Rothschild family refunded only in the 1990s.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum operates on the basis of the federal law on the restitution of art objects from the 4th December 1998 (Federal Law Gazette I, 181 /1998) extensive provenance research. Even before this decree was carried out in-house provenance research at the initiative of the then archive director Herbert Haupt. This was submitted in 1998 by him in collaboration with Lydia Grobl a comprehensive presentation of the facts about the changes in the inventory levels of the Kunsthistorisches Museum during the Nazi era and in the years leading up to the State Treaty of 1955, an important basis for further research provenance.
The two historians Susanne Hehenberger and Monika Löscher are since 1st April 2009 as provenance researchers at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research operating and they deal with the investigation period from 1933 to the recent past.
The museum today
Today the museum is as a federal museum, with 1st January 1999 released to the full legal capacity - it was thus the first of the state museums of Austria, implementing the far-reaching self-financing. It is by far the most visited museum in Austria with 1.3 million visitors (2007).
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is under the name Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum with company number 182081t since 11 June 1999 as a research institution under public law of the Federal virtue of the Federal Museums Act, Federal Law Gazette I/115/1998 and the Museum of Procedure of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum, 3 January 2001, BGBl II 2/ 2001, in force since 1 January 2001, registered.
In fiscal 2008, the turnover was 37.185 million EUR and total assets amounted to EUR 22.204 million. In 2008 an average of 410 workers were employed.
Management
1919-1923: Gustav Glück as the first chairman of the College of science officials
1924-1933: Hermann Julius Hermann 1924-1925 as the first chairman of the College of the scientific officers in 1925 as first director
1933: Arpad Weixlgärtner first director
1934-1938: Alfred Stix first director
1938-1945: Fritz Dworschak 1938 as acting head, from 1938 as a chief in 1941 as first director
1945-1949: August von Loehr 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of the historical collections of the Federation
1945-1949: Alfred Stix 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of art historical collections of the Federation
1949-1950: Hans Demel as administrative director
1950: Karl Wisoko-Meytsky as general director of art and historical collections of the Federation
1951-1952: Fritz Eichler as administrative director
1953-1954: Ernst H. Buschbeck as administrative director
1955-1966: Vincent Oberhammer 1955-1959 as administrative director, from 1959 as first director
1967: Edward Holzmair as managing director
1968-1972: Erwin Auer first director
1973-1981: Friderike Klauner first director
1982-1990: Hermann Fillitz first director
1990: George Kugler as interim first director
1990-2008: Wilfried Seipel as general director
Since 2009: Sabine Haag as general director
Collections
To the Kunsthistorisches Museum are also belonging the collections of the New Castle, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Palais Lobkowitz, the Museum of Ethnology and the Wagenburg (wagon fortress) in an outbuilding of Schönbrunn Palace. A branch office is also Ambras in Innsbruck.
Kunsthistorisches Museum (main building)
Picture Gallery
Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection
Collection of Classical Antiquities
Vienna Chamber of Art
Numismatic Collection
Library
New Castle
Ephesus Museum
Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
Arms and Armour
Archive
Hofburg
The imperial crown in the Treasury
Imperial Treasury of Vienna
Insignia of the Austrian Hereditary Homage
Insignia of imperial Austria
Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire
Burgundian Inheritance and the Order of the Golden Fleece
Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure
Ecclesiastical Treasury
Schönbrunn Palace
Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna
Armory in Ambras Castle
Ambras Castle
Collections of Ambras Castle
Major exhibits
Among the most important exhibits of the Art Gallery rank inter alia:
Jan van Eyck: Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1438
Martin Schongauer: Holy Family, 1475-80
Albrecht Dürer : Trinity Altar, 1509-16
Portrait Johann Kleeberger, 1526
Parmigianino: Self Portrait in Convex Mirror, 1523/24
Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer 1563
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary 1606/ 07
Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607)
Titian: Nymph and Shepherd to 1570-75
Portrait of Jacopo de Strada, 1567/68
Raffaello Santi: Madonna of the Meadow, 1505 /06
Lorenzo Lotto: Portrait of a young man against white curtain, 1508
Peter Paul Rubens: The altar of St. Ildefonso, 1630-32
The Little Fur, about 1638
Jan Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1665/66
Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559
Kids, 1560
Tower of Babel, 1563
Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564
Gloomy Day (Early Spring), 1565
Return of the Herd (Autumn), 1565
Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565
Bauer and bird thief, 1568
Peasant Wedding, 1568/69
Peasant Dance, 1568/69
Paul's conversion (Conversion of St Paul), 1567
Cabinet of Curiosities:
Saliera from Benvenuto Cellini 1539-1543
Egyptian-Oriental Collection:
Mastaba of Ka Ni Nisut
Collection of Classical Antiquities:
Gemma Augustea
Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós
Gallery: Major exhibits
After reading 1984, and then Brave New World, this came up in the suggestions list. I was hesitant to read this as I was unsure if I could follow a Russian book, let alone one written in 1921. But as usual, one page led to another and I got through it without it seeming tedious! Loved the story and Zamyatin's descriptions of nature are so beautiful! Bit like Pasternak maybe?
Here are some nice bits from the book:
It is for you to place the beneficial yoke of reason round the necks of the unknown beings who inhabit other planets—still living, it may be, in the primitive state known as freedom. If they will not understand that we are bringing them a mathematically infallible happiness, we shall be obliged to force them to be happy.
No matter how limited their powers of reason might have been, still they must have understood that living like that was just murder, a capital crime—except it was slow, day-by-day murder. The government (or humanity) would not permit capital punishment for one man, but they permitted the murder of millions a little at a time. To kill one man—that is, to subtract 50 years from the sum of all human lives—that was a crime; but to subtract from the sum of all human lives 50,000,000 years—that was not a crime! No, really, isn’t that funny? This problem in moral math could be solved in half a minute by any ten-year-old Number today, but they couldn’t solve it. All their Kants together couldn’t solve it (because it never occurred to one of their Kants to construct a system of scientific ethics—that is, one based on subtraction, addition, division, and multiplication).
“Liberation?” Astonishing how the criminal instincts do survive in the human species. I choose the word criminal advisedly. Freedom and criminality are just as indissolubly linked as … well, as the movement of an aero and its velocity. When the velocity of an aero is reduced to 0, it is not in motion; when a man’s freedom is reduced to zero, he commits no crimes. That’s clear. The only means to rid man of crime is to rid him of freedom.
And then to her, “I hate the fog. I’m afraid of the fog.”
“That means you love it. You’re afraid of it because it’s stronger than you,
you hate it because you’re afraid of it, you love it because you can’t master it.
You can only love something that refuses to be mastered.”
The whole day from the earliest morning—wasn’t it full
of the most improbable things, wasn’t it just like that ancient sickness called dreaming? And so what difference does it make, one absurdity more or less? Besides, I am certain that sooner or later I’m going to be able to fit any absurdity into a syllogism. I find that comforting, and I hope it comforts you.
“Okay … take a flat plane, a surface, take this mirror, for instance. And the two of us are on this surface, see, and we squint our eyes against the sun, and there’s a blue electric spark in the tubing, and—there—the shadow of an aero just flashed by. But only on the surface, only for a second. But just imagine now that some fire has softened this impenetrable surface and nothing skims along the top of it any longer—everything penetrates into it, inside, into that mirror world that we peer into with such curiosity, like children—and I assure you, children aren’t so dumb. The plane has taken on mass, body, the world, and it’s all inside the mirror, inside you: the sun, the wash from the aero’s propeller, and your trembling lips, and somebody else’s, too. And, you understand, the cold mirror reflects, throws back, while this absorbs, and the trace left by everything lasts forever. Let there be only once a barely noticeable wrinkle on somebody’s face, and it’s in you forever; once you heard a drop fall in silence —and you hear it right now."
Man ceased to be a wild man only when we built the Green Wall, only when, by means of that Wall, we isolated our perfect machine world from the irrational, ugly world of trees, birds, and animals….
Look here—suppose you let a drop fall on the idea of “rights. ” Even among the ancients the more grown-up knew that the source of right is power, that right is a function of power. So, take some scales and put on one side a gram, on the other a ton; on one side “I” and on the other “We,” OneState. It’s clear, isn’t it?—to assert that “I” has certain “rights” with respect to the State is exactly the same as asserting that a gram weighs the same as a ton. That explains the way things are divided up: To the ton go the rights, to the gram the duties. And the natural path from nullity to greatness is this: Forget that you’re a gram and feel yourself a millionth part of a ton.
They say there are flowers that bloom only once every hundred years. Why shouldn’t there be some that bloom only once every thousand, every ten thousand years? Maybe we just haven’t heard about them up to now because this very day is that once-in-a-thousand-years.
“My dear, you are a mathematician. You’re even more, you’re a philosopher of mathematics. So do this for me: Tell me the final number.”
“The what? I … I don’t understand. What final number?”
“You know—the last one, the top, the absolute biggest.”
“But, I-330, that’s stupid. Since the number of numbers is infinite, how can there be a final one?”
“And how can there be a final revolution? There is no final one. The number of revolutions is infinite. The last one—that’s for children. Infinity frightens children, and it’s essential that children get a good night’s sleep….”
“That’s silly! A completely infantile question. Tell something to children, tell them the whole thing right to the end, and they’ll still ask: Then what? What comes next?”
“Children are the only bold philosophers. And bold philosophers will always be children. So you’re right, it’s a child’s question, just as it should be: Then what?”
“No, run upstairs! You’ll be cured there—they’ll stuff
you tight with good rich happiness and when you’re full, you’ll dream peaceful organized dreams, snoring in time with everyone—can’t you hear that great symphony of snores? You silly people—they want to rid you of these question marks that squirm like worms and gnaw at you like worms. And here you stand and listen to me. Get upstairs quick to the Great Operation! What difference is it to you if I stay on here alone? What difference is it to you if I don’t want others to do the wanting for me? If I want to want for myself? If I want the impossible?”
“Listen!” I grabbed my neighbor. “Listen to me, I tell you! You have to tell me this. There where your finite universe ends—what’s there … beyond?”
Edit [May, 2022]:
I'm so excited because one of my favourite bands Arcade Fire just released their new album and it's named after this book! youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nAtgcUtF2_SXk31Y46BMhfr...
Just makes me smile when I see the overlaps between the music and books I like, say like Radiohead's '2+2=5' and Orwell's '1984', - really hard and heavy song, and the reference to the book just added that extra layer of beauty to it. And now, Arcade Fire and We. Idly wondering what Zamyatin would have thought of this album...
The Tower (XVI) (the most common modern name) is the 16th trump or Major Arcana.
History
This card follows immediately after The Devil in all Tarots that contain it and is associated with sudden, disruptive revelation, and potentially destructive change. Some early painted decks, such as the Visconti-Sforza tarot, do not contain it, and some Tarot variants used for gameplay omit it.
A variety of explanations for the images on the card have been attempted. For example, it may be a reference to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, where God destroys a tower built by mankind to reach Heaven.[5] Alternatively, the Harrowing of Hell was a frequent subject in the liturgical drama of the Late Middle Ages, and Hell could be depicted as a great gate knocked asunder by Jesus Christ.[citation needed] The Minchiate version of the deck may represent Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Early printed decks that preserve all their cards do feature The Tower. In these decks, the card bears a number of different names and designs. In the Minchiate deck, the image is usually shown is of two nude or scantily clad people fleeing the open door of what appears to be a burning building.
Symbolism
The Tower is sometimes interpreted as meaning danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning, and liberation.[6] In the Rider–Waite deck, the top of The Tower is a crown, which symbolizes materialistic thought being bought cheap.[7]
The Tower is associated with the planet Mars.
16. THE TOWER.-- Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, distraction, apathy, nullity, vanity.
Kevin
I am sure that, for every drop
for every drop that falls, a new flower will be born
and on that flower a butterfly will fly
I am sure that, in this great immensity
some think a little to me
I will forget
Yes I know that
all my life I will not be alone forever
one day I will find
a bit 'of love for me
for me that are nullity
in the immensity
.....................
Yes I know that
all my life I will not be alone forever
and one day I will know
to be a little thought
in the largest immensity
of its sky
(Don Backy 1967)
The Fool Tarot Card represents folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy and betrayal. Reversed however, the Fool card tells of negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity and vanity.
This image has been released under Creative Commons Attribution licensing, which means that you can feel free to use it in any way you like. Wohoo! We do request that you kindly credit us as the owners by providing a link to www.psychic2tarot.com when the image is used.
When I started thinking about taking a boring photograph I realized I generally could do this—and have been doing it—without thinking about it, without actually making any special effort, which turned out to be a problem. I became so self-conscious in my efforts to create a boring photo that I couldn’t remember my natural technique, which almost always yields a picture of astounding nullity and tediousness. So I began to analyze what makes a really boring photo and—putting aside what I might do with food, flowers or feet—I quickly realized a self-portrait would probably be the perfect subject; however, being neurotically shy, I knew I could not take a picture of myself; besides, given the density of ghouls on the Internet, somebody would probably find a photo of me interesting, at least in a ghoulish sort of way. So it occurred to me that the next best way to capture the vacuous acedia of my horrible existence was to find an object associated with me, not just any object, but one that retained in its very integument, in its innermost harmony with my odious being, the hopelessness and despair that are my natural raiment; in other words, the object I chose would have to capture the essential state of my absurd existence, with all its fundamental pointlessness and lack of integrity but without making such a big deal of those qualities that it became interesting. It was clearly a tall order. But such is the intimacy I share with myself that the perfect object presented itself immediately: my pajamas. First, anyone’s pajamas are boring in a way that defies precise understanding (we’re leaving aside sex-crazed interest here). But the pajamas of an insomniac--a lifelong member of the Society of Sleepless Sojourners--would be especially boring because insomnia itself is as ultimately uninteresting as the retelling of a normal sleeper’s dream. (A photograph of the one or two dreams I’ve had in my life would surely displace this picture of my pj’s.) So here is a picture of a pair of my pajamas. I have another pair just like these, but they have a big tear in the arm and I thought I should at least put forward my best pajama if I were going to perpetrate this amazingly stupid act of self-revelation. (Perhaps I should say how the other pair received its wound: one night, many years ago, I dozed off for about five minutes and apparently my brain became so startled at finding itself asleep that it forced me from the bed and caused me to run through the house—still fully unconscious—until I caught the sleeve of my pajama top on a doorknob, which I pulled on and yanked at until my wife awoke and cut me free—my wife sleeps very soundly, which is why she keeps the big shears under her pillow. Thus, the gash in the pajama top, and my persistent fear of doorknobs.)
The Forum des Halles, in the center of Paris, is one of architectural failures the most spectacular. An urbanistic horror.
It's going to be reconstructed, regrettably the project of compromise chooses by the mayor, due to the lack of political courage, will end in another nullity !!
In these conditions, to find 3 or 4 photos after several days of hand-to-hand fight, it is not too bad :-))
Winter-Lull
D. H. Lawrence, 1885 - 1930
Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed
Into awe.
No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed
Vibration to draw
Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed.
A crow floats past on level wings
Noiselessly.
Uninterrupted silence swings
Invisibly, inaudibly
To and fro in our misgivings.
We do not look at each other, we hide
Our daunted eyes.
White Earth, and ruins, ourselves, and nothing beside.
It all belies
Our existence; we wait, and are still denied.
We are folded together, men and the snowy ground
Into nullity.
There is silence, only the silence, never a sound
Nor a verity
To assist us; disastrously silence-bound!
Saint Peter's Square is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope.
At the centre of the square is the Vatican obelisk, an ancient Egyptian obelisk erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive Doric colonnades, four columns deep, which embrace visitors in "the maternal arms of Mother Church". A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno in 1613.
The open space which lies before the basilica was redesigned by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1656 to 1667, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, as an appropriate forecourt, designed "so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace" Bernini had been working on the interior of St. Peter's for decades; now he gave order to the space with his renowned colonnades, using a simplified Doric order, to avoid competing with the palace-like façade by Carlo Maderno, but he employed it on an unprecedented colossal scale to suit the space and evoke a sense of awe.
There were many constraints from existing structures (illustration, right). The massed accretions of the Vatican Palace crowded the space to the right of the basilica's façade; the structures needed to be masked without obscuring the papal apartments. The Vatican obelisk marked a centre, and a granite fountain by Maderno stood to one side: Bernini made the fountain appear to be one of the foci of the ovato tondo embraced by his colonnades and eventually matched it on the other side, in 1675, just five years before his death. The trapezoidal shape of the piazza, which creates a heightened perspective for a visitor leaving the basilica and has been praised as a masterstroke of Baroque theater (illustration, below right), is largely a product of site constraints.
According to the Lateran Treaty the area of St. Peter's Square is subject to the authority of Italian police for crowd control even though it is a part of the Vatican state.
The colossal Doric colonnades, four columns deep, frame the trapezoidal entrance to the basilica and the massive elliptical area which precedes it. The ovato tondo's long axis, parallel to the basilica's façade, creates a pause in the sequence of forward movements that is characteristic of a Baroque monumental approach. The colonnades define the piazza. The elliptical center of the piazza, which contrasts with the trapezoidal entrance, encloses the visitor with "the maternal arms of Mother Church" in Bernini's expression. On the south side, the colonnades define and formalize the space, with the Barberini Gardens still rising to a skyline of umbrella pines. On the north side, the colonnade masks an assortment of Vatican structures; the upper stories of the Vatican Palace rise above.
At the center of the ovato tondo stands the Vatican obelisk, an uninscribed Egyptian obelisk of red granite, 25.5 m (84 ft) tall, supported on bronze lions and surmounted by the Chigi arms in bronze, in all 41 m (135 ft) to the cross on its top. The obelisk was originally erected in Heliopolis, Egypt, by an unknown pharaoh.
The Emperor Augustus had the obelisk moved to the Julian Forum of Alexandria, where it stood until AD 37, when Caligula ordered the forum demolished and the obelisk transferred to Rome. He had it placed on the spina which ran along the center of the Circus of Nero. It was moved to its current site in 1586 by the engineer-architect Domenico Fontana under the direction of Pope Sixtus V; the engineering feat of re-erecting its vast weight was memorialized in a suite of engravings. The obelisk is the only obelisk in Rome that has not toppled since antiquity. During the Middle Ages, the gilt ball atop the obelisk was believed to contain the ashes of Julius Caesar. Fontana later removed the ancient metal ball, now in a Roman museum, and found only dust inside; Christopher Hibbert however writes that the ball was found to be solid. Though Bernini had no influence in the erection of the obelisk, he did use it as the centerpiece of his magnificent piazza, and added the Chigi arms to the top in honor of his patron, Alexander VII.
The paving is varied by radiating lines in travertine, to relieve what might otherwise be a sea of setts. In 1817 circular stones were set to mark the tip of the obelisk's shadow at noon as the sun entered each of the signs of the zodiac, making the obelisk a gigantic sundial's gnomon.
St. Peter's Square today can be reached from the Ponte Sant'Angelo along the grand approach of the Via della Conciliazione (in honor of the Lateran Treaty of 1929). The spina (median with buildings which divided the two roads of Borgo Vecchio and Borgo nuovo) which once occupied this grand avenue leading to the square was demolished ceremonially by Benito Mussolini himself on October 23, 1936, and was completely demolished by October 8, 1937. St. Peter's Basilica was now freely visible from the Castel Sant'Angelo. After the spina, almost all the buildings south of the passetto were demolished between 1937 and 1950, obliterating one of the most important medieval and renaissance quarters of the city. Moreover, the demolition of the spina canceled the characteristic Baroque surprise, nowadays maintained only for visitors coming from Borgo Santo Spirito. The Via della Conciliazione was completed in time for the Great Jubilee of 1950.
Vatican City is a landlocked independent country, city-state, microstate, and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity under international law, which maintains the city-state's temporal power and governance, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. The Vatican is also a metonym for the Holy See, Pope, and Roman Curia.
With an area of 49 hectares (121 acres) and as of 2023 a population of about 764, it is the smallest state in the world both by area and by population. As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Pope, who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various origins. After the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) the popes have mainly resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere.
The Holy See dates back to early Christianity and is the principal episcopal see of the Catholic Church, which has approximately 1.329 billion baptised Catholics in the world as of 2018 in the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. The independent state of Vatican City, on the other hand, came into existence on 11 February 1929 by the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy, which spoke of it as a new creation, not as a vestige of the much larger Papal States (756–1870), which had previously encompassed much of Central Italy.
Vatican City contains religious and cultural sites such as St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Apostolic Library, and the Vatican Museums. They feature some of the world's most famous paintings and sculptures. The unique economy of Vatican City is supported financially by donations from the faithful, by the sale of postage stamps and souvenirs, fees for admission to museums, and sales of publications. Vatican City has no taxes, and items are duty-free.
The Holy See also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the pope in his role as the Bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome, which has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the worldwide Catholic Church and sovereignty over the city-state known as the Vatican City. As the supreme body of government of the Catholic Church, the Holy See enjoys the status of a sovereign juridical entity under international law.
According to Catholic tradition and historical records, it was founded in the first century by Saints Peter and Paul, and by virtue of the doctrines of Petrine and papal primacy, it is the focal point of full communion for Catholic Christians around the world. The Holy See is headquartered in, operates from, and exercises "exclusive dominion" over the independent Vatican City State enclave in Rome, of which the Pope is sovereign.
The Holy See is administered by the Roman Curia (Latin for "Roman Court"), which is the central government of the Catholic Church. The Roman Curia includes various dicasteries, comparable to ministries and executive departments, with the Cardinal Secretary of State as its chief administrator. Papal elections are carried out by part of the College of Cardinals.
Although the Holy See is often metonymically referred to as the "Vatican", the Vatican City State was distinctively established with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, between the Holy See and Italy, to ensure the temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence of the papacy. As such, papal nuncios, who are papal diplomats to states and international organizations, are recognized as representing the Holy See and not the Vatican City State, as prescribed in the Canon law of the Catholic Church. The Holy See is thus viewed as the central government of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, in turn, is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world.
The Holy See maintains bilateral diplomatic relations with 183 sovereign states, signs concordats and treaties, and performs multilateral diplomacy with multiple intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations and its agencies, the Council of Europe, the European Communities, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Organization of American States.
According to Catholic tradition, the apostolic see of Diocese of Rome was established in the 1st century by Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The legal status of the Catholic Church and its property was recognised by the Edict of Milan in 313 by Roman emperor Constantine the Great, and it became the state church of the Roman Empire by the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 by Emperor Theodosius I.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the temporal legal jurisdisction of the papal primacy was further recognised as promulgated in Canon law. The Holy See was granted territory in Duchy of Rome by the Donation of Sutri in 728 of King Liutprand of the Lombards, and sovereignty by the Donation of Pepin in 756 by King Pepin of the Franks.
The Papal States thus held extensive territory and armed forces in 756–1870. Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor by translatio imperii in 800. The Pope's temporal power peaked around the time of the papal coronations of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire from 858, and the Dictatus papae in 1075, which conversely also described Papal deposing power. Several modern states still trace their own sovereignty to recognition in medieval papal bulls.
The sovereignty of the Holy See was retained despite multiple sacks of Rome during the Early Middle Ages. Yet, relations with the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy Roman Empire were at times strained, reaching from the Diploma Ottonianum and Libellus de imperatoria potestate in urbe Roma regarding the "Patrimony of Saint Peter" in the 10th century, to the Investiture Controversy in 1076–1122, and settled again by the Concordat of Worms in 1122. The exiled Avignon Papacy during 1309–1376 also put a strain on the papacy, which however finally returned to Rome. Pope Innocent X was critical of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 as it weakened the authority of the Holy See throughout much of Europe. Following the French Revolution, the Papal States were briefly occupied as the "Roman Republic" from 1798 to 1799 as a sister republic of the First French Empire under Napoleon, before their territory was reestablished.
Notwithstanding, the Holy See was represented in and identified as a "permanent subject of general customary international law vis-à-vis all states" in the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815). The Papal States were recognised under the rule of the Papacy and largely restored to their former extent. Despite the Capture of Rome in 1870 by the Kingdom of Italy and the Roman Question during the Savoyard era (which made the Pope a "prisoner in the Vatican" from 1870 to 1929), its international legal subject was "constituted by the ongoing reciprocity of diplomatic relationships" that not only were maintained but multiplied.
The Lateran Treaty on 11 February 1929 between the Holy See and Italy recognised Vatican City as an independent city-state, along with extraterritorial properties around the region. Since then, Vatican City is distinct from yet under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See (Latin: Sancta Sedes).
The Holy See is one of the last remaining seven absolute monarchies in the world, along with Saudi Arabia, Eswatini, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Brunei and Oman. The Pope governs the Catholic Church through the Roman Curia. The Curia consists of a complex of offices that administer church affairs at the highest level, including the Secretariat of State, nine Congregations, three Tribunals, eleven Pontifical Councils, and seven Pontifical Commissions. The Secretariat of State, under the Cardinal Secretary of State, directs and coordinates the Curia. The incumbent, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is the See's equivalent of a prime minister. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary of the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State, acts as the Holy See's minister of foreign affairs. Parolin was named in his role by Pope Francis on 31 August 2013.
The Secretariat of State is the only body of the Curia that is situated within Vatican City. The others are in buildings in different parts of Rome that have extraterritorial rights similar to those of embassies.
Among the most active of the major Curial institutions are the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees the Catholic Church's doctrine; the Congregation for Bishops, which coordinates the appointment of bishops worldwide; the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which oversees all missionary activities; and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, which deals with international peace and social issues.
Three tribunals exercise judicial power. The Roman Rota handles normal judicial appeals, the most numerous being those that concern alleged nullity of marriage. The Apostolic Signatura is the supreme appellate and administrative court concerning decisions even of the Roman Rota and administrative decisions of ecclesiastical superiors (bishops and superiors of religious institutes), such as closing a parish or removing someone from office. It also oversees the work of other ecclesiastical tribunals at all levels. The Apostolic Penitentiary deals not with external judgments or decrees, but with matters of conscience, granting absolutions from censures, dispensations, commutations, validations, condonations, and other favors; it also grants indulgences.
The Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See coordinates the finances of the Holy See departments and supervises the administration of all offices, whatever be their degree of autonomy, that manage these finances. The most important of these is the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.
The Prefecture of the Papal Household is responsible for the organization of the papal household, audiences, and ceremonies (apart from the strictly liturgical part).
One of Pope Francis's goals is to reorganize the Curia to prioritize its role in the church's mission to evangelize. This reform insists that the Curia is not meant to be a centralized bureaucracy, but rather a service for the Pope and diocesan bishops that is in communication with local bishops' conferences. Likewise more lay people are to be involved in the workings of the dicasteries and in giving them input.
The Holy See does not dissolve upon a pope's death or resignation. It instead operates under a different set of laws sede vacante. During this interregnum, the heads of the dicasteries of the Curia (such as the prefects of congregations) cease immediately to hold office, the only exceptions being the Major Penitentiary, who continues his important role regarding absolutions and dispensations, and the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, who administers the temporalities (i.e., properties and finances) of the See of St. Peter during this period. The government of the See, and therefore of the Catholic Church, then falls to the College of Cardinals. Canon law prohibits the College and the Camerlengo from introducing any innovations or novelties in the government of the church during this period.
In 2001, the Holy See had a revenue of 422.098 billion Italian lire (about US$202 million at the time), and a net income of 17.720 billion Italian lire (about US$8 million). According to an article by David Leigh in the Guardian newspaper, a 2012 report from the Council of Europe identified the value of a section of the Vatican's property assets as an amount in excess of €680m (£570m); as of January 2013, Paolo Mennini, a papal official in Rome, manages this portion of the Holy See's assets—consisting of British investments, other European holdings and a currency trading arm. The Guardian newspaper described Mennini and his role in the following manner: "... Paolo Mennini, who is in effect the Pope's merchant banker. Mennini heads a special unit inside the Vatican called the extraordinary division of APSA – Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica – which handles the 'patrimony of the Holy See'."
The orders, decorations, and medals of the Holy See are conferred by the Pope as temporal sovereign and fons honorum of the Holy See, similar to the orders awarded by other heads of state.
The Holy See has been recognized, both in state practice and in the writing of modern legal scholars, as a subject of public international law, with rights and duties analogous to those of States. Although the Holy See, as distinct from the Vatican City State, does not fulfill the long-established criteria in international law of statehood—having a permanent population, a defined territory, a stable government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states—its possession of full legal personality in international law is shown by the fact that it maintains diplomatic relations with 180 states, that it is a member-state in various intergovernmental international organizations, and that it is: "respected by the international community of sovereign States and treated as a subject of international law having the capacity to engage in diplomatic relations and to enter into binding agreements with one, several, or many states under international law that are largely geared to establish and preserving peace in the world."
Since medieval times the episcopal see of Rome has been recognized as a sovereign entity. The Holy See (not the State of Vatican City) maintains formal diplomatic relations with and for the most recent establishment of diplomatic relations with 183 sovereign states, and also with the European Union, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as well as having relations of a special character with the Palestine Liberation Organization; 69 of the diplomatic missions accredited to the Holy See are situated in Rome. The Holy See maintains 180 permanent diplomatic missions abroad, of which 74 are non-residential, so that many of its 106 concrete missions are accredited to two or more countries or international organizations. The diplomatic activities of the Holy See are directed by the Secretariat of State (headed by the Cardinal Secretary of State), through the Section for Relations with States. There are 12 internationally recognized states with which the Holy See does not have relations. The Holy See is the only European subject of international law that has diplomatic relations with the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) as representing China, rather than the government of the People's Republic of China (see Holy See–Taiwan relations).
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office speaks of Vatican City as the "capital" of the Holy See, although it compares the legal personality of the Holy See to that of the Crown in Christian monarchies and declares that the Holy See and the state of Vatican City are two international identities. It also distinguishes between the employees of the Holy See (2,750 working in the Roman Curia with another 333 working in the Holy See's diplomatic missions abroad) and the 1,909 employees of the Vatican City State. The British Ambassador to the Holy See uses more precise language, saying that the Holy See "is not the same as the Vatican City State. ... (It) is the universal government of the Catholic Church and operates from the Vatican City State." This agrees exactly with the expression used by the website of the United States Department of State, in giving information on both the Holy See and the Vatican City State: it too says that the Holy See "operates from the Vatican City State".
The Holy See is a member of various international organizations and groups including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Telecommunication Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Holy See is also a permanent observer in various international organizations, including the United Nations General Assembly, the Council of Europe, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Relationship with Vatican City and other territories.
The Holy See participates as an observer to African Union, Arab League, Council of Europe, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Organization of American States, International Organization for Migration and in the United Nations and its agencies FAO, ILO, UNCTAD, UNEP, UNESCO, UN-HABITAT, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNWTO, WFP, WHO, WIPO. and as a full member in IAEA, OPCW, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Although the Holy See is closely associated with Vatican City, the independent territory over which the Holy See is sovereign, the two entities are separate and distinct. After the Italian seizure of the Papal States in 1870, the Holy See had no territorial sovereignty. In spite of some uncertainty among jurists as to whether it could continue to act as an independent personality in international matters, the Holy See continued in fact to exercise the right to send and receive diplomatic representatives, maintaining relations with states that included the major powers Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary. Where, in accordance with the decision of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Nuncio was not only a member of the Diplomatic Corps but its dean, this arrangement continued to be accepted by the other ambassadors. In the course of the 59 years during which the Holy See held no territorial sovereignty, the number of states that had diplomatic relations with it, which had been reduced to 16, actually increased to 29.
The State of the Vatican City was created by the Lateran Treaty in 1929 to "ensure the absolute and visible independence of the Holy See" and "to guarantee to it indisputable sovereignty in international affairs." Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Holy See's former Secretary for Relations with States, said that Vatican City is a "minuscule support-state that guarantees the spiritual freedom of the Pope with the minimum territory".
The Holy See, not Vatican City, maintains diplomatic relations with states. Foreign embassies are accredited to the Holy See, not to Vatican City, and it is the Holy See that establishes treaties and concordats with other sovereign entities. When necessary, the Holy See will enter a treaty on behalf of Vatican City.
Under the terms of the Lateran Treaty, the Holy See has extraterritorial authority over various sites in Rome and two Italian sites outside of Rome, including the Pontifical Palace at Castel Gandolfo. The same authority is extended under international law over the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See in a foreign country.
Though, like various European powers, earlier popes recruited Swiss mercenaries as part of an army, the Pontifical Swiss Guard was founded by Pope Julius II on 22 January 1506 as the personal bodyguards of the Pope and continues to fulfill that function. It is listed in the Annuario Pontificio under "Holy See", not under "State of Vatican City". At the end of 2005, the Guard had 134 members. Recruitment is arranged by a special agreement between the Holy See and Switzerland. All recruits must be Catholic, unmarried males with Swiss citizenship who have completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces with certificates of good conduct, be between the ages of 19 and 30, and be at least 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) in height. Members are armed with small arms and the traditional halberd (also called the Swiss voulge), and trained in bodyguarding tactics.
The police force within Vatican City, known as the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City, belongs to the city state, not to the Holy See.
The Holy See signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a binding agreement for negotiations for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
The main difference between the two coats of arms is that the arms of the Holy See have the gold key in bend and the silver key in bend sinister (as in the sede vacante coat of arms and in the external ornaments of the papal coats of arms of individual popes), while the reversed arrangement of the keys was chosen for the arms of the newly founded Vatican City State in 1929.
Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, (née Kerr), KG, PC (c. 1587 – July 17, 1645), was a Scottish politician, and favourite of King James I of England.
He was born in Wrington, Somerset, England the younger son of Sir Thomas Kerr (Carr) of Ferniehurst, Scotland[1] by his second wife, Janet, sister of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch. About the year 1601, while as an obscure page to the Earl of Dunbar, he met Thomas Overbury in Edinburgh and so a great friendship was struck up between the two youths that they came up to London together. Overbury soon became secretary to Carr and when the latter embarked on his career at court, Overbury took the position of mentor, secretary and political advisor to his more charismatic friend and became the brains behind his steady rise to prominence.
In 1606, most likely at the arrangement of Overbury, Carr happened to break his leg at a tilting match, at which King James I was present. According to Thomas Howard, the King instantly fell in love with the young man, helped nurse him back to health all the while teaching him Latin. As the years progressed James showered Carr with gifts, till 1615 when the two men had a falling out and Carr was replaced by George Villiers. James wrote a letter that year detailing a list of complaints he now had against Carr, including Carr withdrawing himself from James' chamber despite the King's "soliciting to the contrary."
Entirely devoid of all high intellectual qualities, Carr was endowed with good looks, excellent spirits, and considerable personal accomplishments. These advantages were sufficient for James, who knighted the young man and at once took him into favour. In 1607 an opportunity enabled the king to confer upon him a more substantial mark of his affection. Sir Walter Raleigh had through his attainder forfeited his life-interest in the manor of Sherborne, but he had previously executed a conveyance by which the property was to pass on his death to his eldest son. This document was, unfortunately, rendered worthless by a flaw which gave the king eventual possession of the property. Acting on Salisbury’s suggestion, James resolved to confer the manor on Carr. The case was argued at law, and judgment was in 1609 given for the Crown. Carr received Raleigh's confiscated manor of Sherbourne. [2] Lady Raleigh received some compensation, apparently inadequate, and Carr at once entered on possession.
His influence was already such that in 1610 he persuaded the King to dissolve Parliament, which had shown signs of attacking the Scottish favourites. On March 24, 1611 he was created Viscount Rochester, and subsequently a privy councillor, while on Lord Salisbury’s death in 1612 he began to act as the King’s secretary. On the November 3, 1613 he was advanced to the Earldom of Somerset, on December 23 was appointed Treasurer of Scotland, and in 1614 Lord Chamberlain.
He supported the Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton and the Spanish party in opposition to the old tried advisers of the King, such as Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who were endeavouring to maintain the union with the Protestants abroad, and who now in 1614 pushed forward another candidate for the King’s favour. Somerset, whose head was turned by the sudden rise to power and influence, became jealous and peevish, and feeling his position insecure, obtained in 1615 from the king a full pardon, to which, however, the chancellor refused to put the Great Seal. He still, however, retained favour, and might possibly have remained in power for some time longer but for the discovery of the murder of Overbury.
Before 1609, while still only Sir Robert Carr, Somerset had begun an intrigue with Frances Howard, Lady Essex. Supported by the King, the latter obtained a decree of nullity of marriage against Lord Essex on September 25, 1613, and on December 26, 1613, she married the Earl of Somerset.[3] Ten days before the court gave judgment, Overbury, who apparently knew facts concerning Lady Essex which would have been fatal to her success, and had been imprisoned in the Tower, was poisoned. No idea seems to have been entertained at the time that Lady Essex and her future husband were implicated.
The crime, however, was not disclosed until January 1615. At the infamous trial Sir Edward Coke and Sir Francis Bacon were set to unravel the plot. After four of the principal agents had been convicted and hung at Tyburn, the Earl and Countess of Somerset were brought to trial. The latter confessed, and of her guilt there can be no doubt. Somerset’s share is far more difficult to uncover, and probably will never be fully known. The evidence against him rested on mere presumption, and he consistently declared himself innocent. Probabilities are on the whole in favour of the hypothesis that he was not more than an accessory after the fact. The King, who had been threatened by Somerset with damaging disclosures, let matters take their course, and both Earl and Countess were found guilty. The sentence was not carried into effect against either culprit. The Countess was pardoned immediately, but both remained in the Tower till January 1622. The Earl appears to have refused to buy forgiveness by concessions, and it was not till 1624 that he obtained his pardon. He only once more emerged into public view when in 1630 he was prosecuted in the Star Chamber for communicating a paper of Sir Robert Dudley’s to the Earl of Clare, recommending the establishment of arbitrary government.
He died in July 1645, leaving one daughter, Anne, the sole issue of his ill-fated marriage, afterwards wife of the 1st Duke of Bedford.
This morning on my way into work, I’d had a thought on my mind. How do you say ten below zero, without actually saying anything at all? The idea came to me shortly after I’d reached the wash, and gone to work getting the bays ready for business.
Friday, February 13th. 2009
Detail from the right panel of the Triptych, CHAOS, of MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN, the Feminine Entelechy. Below is a transcription of the handwritten text above:
[Desire]
I am the vision of Being….Radiating from the center of Chaos through the grid of chance I seek what I see…I see what I seek….I see chaos and seek its meaning. I seek meaning and see myself. Without me, there is nothing…I am the creator of all I seek….I have created Being to encompass me. As I create, am I created….I am Desire, a force radiating and penetrating…Pushing out the walls of Being to be shaped and shorn through the gridding fields of chaos….I encounter chance at intersections of direction forming angled mirrors of reflection…illuminating Being with the force of becoming….As I generate, I am regenerated forcing myself through the motes of chaos toward the receding edges of nullity….Chance warps me…weaves me…twists and deflects me. Still, I persist…illuminating the colliding motes with the duality of choice…reflecting fields of possibility….without the control of Being, I am derelict…without reflection I do not exist. Being portrays my isness on the staining walls of process through a tapestry of containment…a warping, weaving, shuttling manufacture of whole cloth to scrim and filter the nullity of chaos…lidded, in hiatus, I recreate my journey through the void in dreams of accommodation…running ’round and ’round like a rat in a wheel sparking glimpses of semblance on the walls of becoming….Held, contained, I run through the myths and manufacture of containment until the tapestry enfolds the inner space with suffocating absence….Being, in an act of survival, forces the lid and I am freed to once again occur the grids of chaos…turned outward toward the beginning of light, I am recorded through mimic and manifest on the evolving walls of Being…an etch of convenience….In symbiotic collusion, I sleep and wake through the necessities of becoming….Internalized, I engage the sphere of volition…imitator of chaos….I am measured on the scale of comprehension: impulse, instinct, intuition, longing, belief, passion, ecstasy…all words of survival…I am employed in constant generation…from macros to micros, survival is the object of desire. I seek it…and I seek no other…turned outward or inward, I range the infinities in search of furtherance….I am of simple compose…direct and complete….I am light in search of light…I am shadow in search of shadow. Amoral, I am the raw energy of becoming….Through lenses that enhance me, I search chaos for the beginning…and the end. Born of the middle, I am in constant re-creation…in constant search…in constant search….Chance preceded me, and I acknowledge the precedence of chance…but no other. I have created Being and I will re-create Being from the dualities of perception…from the light of beginnings and the shadows of endings it is Desire who shapes the masses, defines the edges, and informs the details of becoming…It is through what I see…and what I seek to see which forms the contours and concepts of Being…I seek no repose….It is Being who lids my eye for dreaming…and…in dream I etch her walls with light…I etch the walls of Being with transfigured light…with remembered light. Being has invented time to contain me…I, who am the mother of Being, am controlled by Being…It is the blinking eye of Desire that marks the pace and cadence of becoming…and it is Being who lids and unlids the eye….I am the vision of Being and am directed by Being…out unto the grids of chaos or in unto the chambers of becoming…lover, servant, savior, creator…I search the infinities for survival…
"MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN examines the First Holocaust. Based on the blue triangle that descends the back panel of PROCRUSTES IN SITU, the third section of the Trilogy concerns itself with the destruction of the cities Admah, Gomorrah, Sodom, and Zeboiim which the Old Testament attributes to the wrath of God. It examines the procrustean constrictions of patriarchy and the liberating challenge of feminine entelechy through the songs of Procrustes and the opposing chants of Chance, Being, and Desire. Masculine gestalt versus feminine insurrection." Robert Cremean
Collection:
Fresno Art Museum
Fresno, California
Detail from MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN, the Masculine Gestalt: Admah, the Testimony of the Seer.
[Admah]
Testimony of the Seer
It was a day much like any other in Admah.…Were there portents? Was the sky bluer or the rustle of leaves more distinct? I think not. It was a day much like any other.…
From my window I viewed the plain.…A yellow mist was surfacing the sand and grasses. The drenching odor of sulphur intensifying.…Jumping bits of flame flickered the haze like a quickening of locusts chewing black the earth.…Carried by sudden posts and pillars of ash and brimstone, my death hurled toward me in a seamless wall of pain.…Admah’s sand melted into rivers of glass veining our memory into the fated plain. Was there no warning? Where were the signs? Portents, omens, premonitions, the future will invent these…perhaps giving voice to what I did not see. Will we be remembered? We will not be forgotten.…How will we be remembered? The meaninglessness of this devastation will be given meaning. The cities of the plain will be reborn in myth and superstition. Human fragility must be excused…protected…explained. Disguised to cover its impermanence in armored rationale…Who we were and what we were will be determined by the fears and ambitions of those who follow. A holocaust of such proportion will not go unrequited. Our memory…the memory of the people of the plain will live in compassion or infamy.…We will not be forgotten.…Man cannot live within the solitary confinement of the universe. He will find means to alleviate his loneliness, his uniqueness…his inconsequentiality. He invents gods to give import to his nullity and writes history to prove his existence. Whatever threatens his significance must be qualified. Women, children, the unborn and the aged, an entire populace decimated and burned off the face of the earth. Our death must be remembered with compassion and lament.
"MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN examines the First Holocaust. Based on the blue triangle that descends the back panel of PROCRUSTES IN SITU, the third section of the Trilogy concerns itself with the destruction of the cities Admah, Gomorrah, Sodom, and Zeboiim which the Old Testament attributes to the wrath of God. It examines the procrustean constrictions of patriarchy and the liberating challenge of feminine entelechy through the songs of Procrustes and the opposing chants of Chance, Being, and Desire. Masculine gestalt versus feminine insurrection." Robert Cremean
Collection:
Fresno Art Museum
Fresno, California
== Español
Tengo la mente en blanco... no es que no piense en nada, solo tengo un momento de relax mental. (y sí... esta es una mirada de desaprobación cuando me interrumpen en mis momentos de -nulidad-)
== English
My mind is blank... is not that I don't think in something, I just have a moment of mental relaxation. (And yes ... this is a look of disapproval when I am interrupted in my "nullity" moments)
Wanted to accentuate the different colors of the vase, while also keeping the background black, hence my use of a flash bounced off the wall to my left. Also used a reflector on the lower right to illuminate the stem of the vase to give it a more distinct form.
JAMES ARCHBOLD
WHO DIED JANUARY 2ND 1849 AGED 68 YEARS
AN ARDENT LOVER OF HIS COUNTRY, DEEPLY ATTACHED TO THE PLACE OF HIS NATIVITY. HE RECEIVED DURING HIS USEFUL LIFE, THOSE CIVIC DISTINCTIONS MERITED BY HIS INTEGRITY OF CHARACTER. SHERIFF OF NEWCASTLE 1840. MAYOR 1846. SEVERAL YEARS ALDERMAN AND MAGISTRATE. HIS VARIOUS DUTIES WERE FAITHFULLY DISCHARGED, DESERVING AND OBTAINING THE RESPECT AND CONFIDENCE OF HIS FELLOW TOWNSMEN. SINCERE PUBLIC REGRET FOR HIS DEATH, TESTIFIED THE UNSULLIED REPUTATION OF HIS LIFE.
Thomas Fordyce reported the death of James Archbold in his Local Records , 3rd January 1848. (It appears that Archbold died on the 2nd January as that is the date shown on his monument in St Nicholas' Cathedral).
Died, in Newcastle, aged 68, James Archbold, Esq., an Alderman and Magistrate of that town.
Mr. Archbold served the office of Mayor in 1846-7.
He left a large fortune; and, amongst other legacies to charitable objects, he devised £4,500 to the Corporation to found an hospital for twelve poor widows, but the Statute of Mortmain rendered that portion of his will a nullity.
A very elegant mural monument to the memory of Mr. Archbold has been erected in St. Nicholas' Church, Newcastle.
Angels Unawares is a bronze sculpture by Timothy Schmalz installed in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican since September 29, 2019, the 105th World Migrant and Refugee Day.
This statue was inaugurated by Pope Francis in 2019 for the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees. At its inauguration Pope Francis said he wanted the sculpture "to remind everyone of the evangelical challenge of hospitality".
The six-meter-long sculpture depicts a group of migrants and refugees on a boat wearing clothes that show they originate from diverse cultures and historical moments. For example, there are a Jew fleeing Nazi Germany, a Syrian departing the Syrian civil war, and a Pole escaping the communist regime. The sculptor of the work said that he "wanted to show the different moods and emotions involved in a migrant's journey". Previously, the artist had already made sculptures of a similar theme as Homeless Jesus. The work includes angel wings, through which the author suggests that a migrant is secretly an angel in our midst. The artist's inspiration was Hebrews 13:2: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares".
It was the first time in 400 years, i.e. since Bernini, that a new sculpture was installed in St Peter's Square.
The idea for the sculpture originated with Cardinal Michael Czerny, a fellow Canadian and undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section, who commissioned it in 2016. Among the people represented on the ship are the Cardinal's parents, who immigrated to Canada from Czechoslovakia. The sculpture was funded by a family of migrants from northern Italy, the Rudolph P. Bratty Family. On September 29, 2019, Pope Francis and four refugees from various parts of the world inaugurated the sculpture. A smaller reproduction, about a meter and a half high, will be permanently installed in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
A replica of the sculpture has been displayed in Boston College, United States since 15 November 2020. A life-size replica was shown in Miami in February 2021 until 8 April 2021. Archbishop of Miami Thomas Wenski stated about the statue: "This is a representation of the human family and the story of migration and certainly, that’s the story of Miami. Miami is the Ellis Island of the South, and this, I think, represents that very well." He then blessed the replica, commenting: "May all who gaze upon it be filled with compassion for the stranger among us and eager to extend a hand of friendship."
In April 2021, a replica was put in front of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. After a national tour, this sculpture will be installed on the campus of the Catholic University in Washington, DC in fall of 2021.
On November 3, 2022, a replica was unveiled at Saint Joseph's Oratory—located in the multicultural borough of Cote-des-Neiges also known as the Neighbourhood of Nations, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada—in the presence of the artist Timothy Schmalz and Oratory rector Father Michael DeLaney, CSC. “Hosting the sculpture is a continuation of the mission of the founder of Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, Saint Brother André, CSC. An international crossroads, the Oratory is a significant place of welcome for many people upon their arrival in this country.”
Saint Peter's Square is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope.
At the centre of the square is the Vatican obelisk, an ancient Egyptian obelisk erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive Doric colonnades, four columns deep, which embrace visitors in "the maternal arms of Mother Church". A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno in 1613.
The open space which lies before the basilica was redesigned by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1656 to 1667, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, as an appropriate forecourt, designed "so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace" Bernini had been working on the interior of St. Peter's for decades; now he gave order to the space with his renowned colonnades, using a simplified Doric order, to avoid competing with the palace-like façade by Carlo Maderno, but he employed it on an unprecedented colossal scale to suit the space and evoke a sense of awe.
There were many constraints from existing structures (illustration, right). The massed accretions of the Vatican Palace crowded the space to the right of the basilica's façade; the structures needed to be masked without obscuring the papal apartments. The Vatican obelisk marked a centre, and a granite fountain by Maderno stood to one side: Bernini made the fountain appear to be one of the foci of the ovato tondo embraced by his colonnades and eventually matched it on the other side, in 1675, just five years before his death. The trapezoidal shape of the piazza, which creates a heightened perspective for a visitor leaving the basilica and has been praised as a masterstroke of Baroque theater (illustration, below right), is largely a product of site constraints.
According to the Lateran Treaty the area of St. Peter's Square is subject to the authority of Italian police for crowd control even though it is a part of the Vatican state.
The colossal Doric colonnades, four columns deep, frame the trapezoidal entrance to the basilica and the massive elliptical area which precedes it. The ovato tondo's long axis, parallel to the basilica's façade, creates a pause in the sequence of forward movements that is characteristic of a Baroque monumental approach. The colonnades define the piazza. The elliptical center of the piazza, which contrasts with the trapezoidal entrance, encloses the visitor with "the maternal arms of Mother Church" in Bernini's expression. On the south side, the colonnades define and formalize the space, with the Barberini Gardens still rising to a skyline of umbrella pines. On the north side, the colonnade masks an assortment of Vatican structures; the upper stories of the Vatican Palace rise above.
At the center of the ovato tondo stands the Vatican obelisk, an uninscribed Egyptian obelisk of red granite, 25.5 m (84 ft) tall, supported on bronze lions and surmounted by the Chigi arms in bronze, in all 41 m (135 ft) to the cross on its top. The obelisk was originally erected in Heliopolis, Egypt, by an unknown pharaoh.
The Emperor Augustus had the obelisk moved to the Julian Forum of Alexandria, where it stood until AD 37, when Caligula ordered the forum demolished and the obelisk transferred to Rome. He had it placed on the spina which ran along the center of the Circus of Nero. It was moved to its current site in 1586 by the engineer-architect Domenico Fontana under the direction of Pope Sixtus V; the engineering feat of re-erecting its vast weight was memorialized in a suite of engravings. The obelisk is the only obelisk in Rome that has not toppled since antiquity. During the Middle Ages, the gilt ball atop the obelisk was believed to contain the ashes of Julius Caesar. Fontana later removed the ancient metal ball, now in a Roman museum, and found only dust inside; Christopher Hibbert however writes that the ball was found to be solid. Though Bernini had no influence in the erection of the obelisk, he did use it as the centerpiece of his magnificent piazza, and added the Chigi arms to the top in honor of his patron, Alexander VII.
The paving is varied by radiating lines in travertine, to relieve what might otherwise be a sea of setts. In 1817 circular stones were set to mark the tip of the obelisk's shadow at noon as the sun entered each of the signs of the zodiac, making the obelisk a gigantic sundial's gnomon.
St. Peter's Square today can be reached from the Ponte Sant'Angelo along the grand approach of the Via della Conciliazione (in honor of the Lateran Treaty of 1929). The spina (median with buildings which divided the two roads of Borgo Vecchio and Borgo nuovo) which once occupied this grand avenue leading to the square was demolished ceremonially by Benito Mussolini himself on October 23, 1936, and was completely demolished by October 8, 1937. St. Peter's Basilica was now freely visible from the Castel Sant'Angelo. After the spina, almost all the buildings south of the passetto were demolished between 1937 and 1950, obliterating one of the most important medieval and renaissance quarters of the city. Moreover, the demolition of the spina canceled the characteristic Baroque surprise, nowadays maintained only for visitors coming from Borgo Santo Spirito. The Via della Conciliazione was completed in time for the Great Jubilee of 1950.
Vatican City is a landlocked independent country, city-state, microstate, and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity under international law, which maintains the city-state's temporal power and governance, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. The Vatican is also a metonym for the Holy See, Pope, and Roman Curia.
With an area of 49 hectares (121 acres) and as of 2023 a population of about 764, it is the smallest state in the world both by area and by population. As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Pope, who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various origins. After the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) the popes have mainly resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere.
The Holy See dates back to early Christianity and is the principal episcopal see of the Catholic Church, which has approximately 1.329 billion baptised Catholics in the world as of 2018 in the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. The independent state of Vatican City, on the other hand, came into existence on 11 February 1929 by the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy, which spoke of it as a new creation, not as a vestige of the much larger Papal States (756–1870), which had previously encompassed much of Central Italy.
Vatican City contains religious and cultural sites such as St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Apostolic Library, and the Vatican Museums. They feature some of the world's most famous paintings and sculptures. The unique economy of Vatican City is supported financially by donations from the faithful, by the sale of postage stamps and souvenirs, fees for admission to museums, and sales of publications. Vatican City has no taxes, and items are duty-free.
The Holy See also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the pope in his role as the Bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome, which has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the worldwide Catholic Church and sovereignty over the city-state known as the Vatican City. As the supreme body of government of the Catholic Church, the Holy See enjoys the status of a sovereign juridical entity under international law.
According to Catholic tradition and historical records, it was founded in the first century by Saints Peter and Paul, and by virtue of the doctrines of Petrine and papal primacy, it is the focal point of full communion for Catholic Christians around the world. The Holy See is headquartered in, operates from, and exercises "exclusive dominion" over the independent Vatican City State enclave in Rome, of which the Pope is sovereign.
The Holy See is administered by the Roman Curia (Latin for "Roman Court"), which is the central government of the Catholic Church. The Roman Curia includes various dicasteries, comparable to ministries and executive departments, with the Cardinal Secretary of State as its chief administrator. Papal elections are carried out by part of the College of Cardinals.
Although the Holy See is often metonymically referred to as the "Vatican", the Vatican City State was distinctively established with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, between the Holy See and Italy, to ensure the temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence of the papacy. As such, papal nuncios, who are papal diplomats to states and international organizations, are recognized as representing the Holy See and not the Vatican City State, as prescribed in the Canon law of the Catholic Church. The Holy See is thus viewed as the central government of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, in turn, is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world.
The Holy See maintains bilateral diplomatic relations with 183 sovereign states, signs concordats and treaties, and performs multilateral diplomacy with multiple intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations and its agencies, the Council of Europe, the European Communities, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Organization of American States.
According to Catholic tradition, the apostolic see of Diocese of Rome was established in the 1st century by Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The legal status of the Catholic Church and its property was recognised by the Edict of Milan in 313 by Roman emperor Constantine the Great, and it became the state church of the Roman Empire by the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 by Emperor Theodosius I.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the temporal legal jurisdisction of the papal primacy was further recognised as promulgated in Canon law. The Holy See was granted territory in Duchy of Rome by the Donation of Sutri in 728 of King Liutprand of the Lombards, and sovereignty by the Donation of Pepin in 756 by King Pepin of the Franks.
The Papal States thus held extensive territory and armed forces in 756–1870. Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor by translatio imperii in 800. The Pope's temporal power peaked around the time of the papal coronations of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire from 858, and the Dictatus papae in 1075, which conversely also described Papal deposing power. Several modern states still trace their own sovereignty to recognition in medieval papal bulls.
The sovereignty of the Holy See was retained despite multiple sacks of Rome during the Early Middle Ages. Yet, relations with the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy Roman Empire were at times strained, reaching from the Diploma Ottonianum and Libellus de imperatoria potestate in urbe Roma regarding the "Patrimony of Saint Peter" in the 10th century, to the Investiture Controversy in 1076–1122, and settled again by the Concordat of Worms in 1122. The exiled Avignon Papacy during 1309–1376 also put a strain on the papacy, which however finally returned to Rome. Pope Innocent X was critical of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 as it weakened the authority of the Holy See throughout much of Europe. Following the French Revolution, the Papal States were briefly occupied as the "Roman Republic" from 1798 to 1799 as a sister republic of the First French Empire under Napoleon, before their territory was reestablished.
Notwithstanding, the Holy See was represented in and identified as a "permanent subject of general customary international law vis-à-vis all states" in the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815). The Papal States were recognised under the rule of the Papacy and largely restored to their former extent. Despite the Capture of Rome in 1870 by the Kingdom of Italy and the Roman Question during the Savoyard era (which made the Pope a "prisoner in the Vatican" from 1870 to 1929), its international legal subject was "constituted by the ongoing reciprocity of diplomatic relationships" that not only were maintained but multiplied.
The Lateran Treaty on 11 February 1929 between the Holy See and Italy recognised Vatican City as an independent city-state, along with extraterritorial properties around the region. Since then, Vatican City is distinct from yet under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See (Latin: Sancta Sedes).
The Holy See is one of the last remaining seven absolute monarchies in the world, along with Saudi Arabia, Eswatini, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Brunei and Oman. The Pope governs the Catholic Church through the Roman Curia. The Curia consists of a complex of offices that administer church affairs at the highest level, including the Secretariat of State, nine Congregations, three Tribunals, eleven Pontifical Councils, and seven Pontifical Commissions. The Secretariat of State, under the Cardinal Secretary of State, directs and coordinates the Curia. The incumbent, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is the See's equivalent of a prime minister. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary of the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State, acts as the Holy See's minister of foreign affairs. Parolin was named in his role by Pope Francis on 31 August 2013.
The Secretariat of State is the only body of the Curia that is situated within Vatican City. The others are in buildings in different parts of Rome that have extraterritorial rights similar to those of embassies.
Among the most active of the major Curial institutions are the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees the Catholic Church's doctrine; the Congregation for Bishops, which coordinates the appointment of bishops worldwide; the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which oversees all missionary activities; and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, which deals with international peace and social issues.
Three tribunals exercise judicial power. The Roman Rota handles normal judicial appeals, the most numerous being those that concern alleged nullity of marriage. The Apostolic Signatura is the supreme appellate and administrative court concerning decisions even of the Roman Rota and administrative decisions of ecclesiastical superiors (bishops and superiors of religious institutes), such as closing a parish or removing someone from office. It also oversees the work of other ecclesiastical tribunals at all levels. The Apostolic Penitentiary deals not with external judgments or decrees, but with matters of conscience, granting absolutions from censures, dispensations, commutations, validations, condonations, and other favors; it also grants indulgences.
The Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See coordinates the finances of the Holy See departments and supervises the administration of all offices, whatever be their degree of autonomy, that manage these finances. The most important of these is the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.
The Prefecture of the Papal Household is responsible for the organization of the papal household, audiences, and ceremonies (apart from the strictly liturgical part).
One of Pope Francis's goals is to reorganize the Curia to prioritize its role in the church's mission to evangelize. This reform insists that the Curia is not meant to be a centralized bureaucracy, but rather a service for the Pope and diocesan bishops that is in communication with local bishops' conferences. Likewise more lay people are to be involved in the workings of the dicasteries and in giving them input.
The Holy See does not dissolve upon a pope's death or resignation. It instead operates under a different set of laws sede vacante. During this interregnum, the heads of the dicasteries of the Curia (such as the prefects of congregations) cease immediately to hold office, the only exceptions being the Major Penitentiary, who continues his important role regarding absolutions and dispensations, and the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, who administers the temporalities (i.e., properties and finances) of the See of St. Peter during this period. The government of the See, and therefore of the Catholic Church, then falls to the College of Cardinals. Canon law prohibits the College and the Camerlengo from introducing any innovations or novelties in the government of the church during this period.
In 2001, the Holy See had a revenue of 422.098 billion Italian lire (about US$202 million at the time), and a net income of 17.720 billion Italian lire (about US$8 million). According to an article by David Leigh in the Guardian newspaper, a 2012 report from the Council of Europe identified the value of a section of the Vatican's property assets as an amount in excess of €680m (£570m); as of January 2013, Paolo Mennini, a papal official in Rome, manages this portion of the Holy See's assets—consisting of British investments, other European holdings and a currency trading arm. The Guardian newspaper described Mennini and his role in the following manner: "... Paolo Mennini, who is in effect the Pope's merchant banker. Mennini heads a special unit inside the Vatican called the extraordinary division of APSA – Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica – which handles the 'patrimony of the Holy See'."
The orders, decorations, and medals of the Holy See are conferred by the Pope as temporal sovereign and fons honorum of the Holy See, similar to the orders awarded by other heads of state.
The Holy See has been recognized, both in state practice and in the writing of modern legal scholars, as a subject of public international law, with rights and duties analogous to those of States. Although the Holy See, as distinct from the Vatican City State, does not fulfill the long-established criteria in international law of statehood—having a permanent population, a defined territory, a stable government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states—its possession of full legal personality in international law is shown by the fact that it maintains diplomatic relations with 180 states, that it is a member-state in various intergovernmental international organizations, and that it is: "respected by the international community of sovereign States and treated as a subject of international law having the capacity to engage in diplomatic relations and to enter into binding agreements with one, several, or many states under international law that are largely geared to establish and preserving peace in the world."
Since medieval times the episcopal see of Rome has been recognized as a sovereign entity. The Holy See (not the State of Vatican City) maintains formal diplomatic relations with and for the most recent establishment of diplomatic relations with 183 sovereign states, and also with the European Union, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as well as having relations of a special character with the Palestine Liberation Organization; 69 of the diplomatic missions accredited to the Holy See are situated in Rome. The Holy See maintains 180 permanent diplomatic missions abroad, of which 74 are non-residential, so that many of its 106 concrete missions are accredited to two or more countries or international organizations. The diplomatic activities of the Holy See are directed by the Secretariat of State (headed by the Cardinal Secretary of State), through the Section for Relations with States. There are 12 internationally recognized states with which the Holy See does not have relations. The Holy See is the only European subject of international law that has diplomatic relations with the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) as representing China, rather than the government of the People's Republic of China (see Holy See–Taiwan relations).
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office speaks of Vatican City as the "capital" of the Holy See, although it compares the legal personality of the Holy See to that of the Crown in Christian monarchies and declares that the Holy See and the state of Vatican City are two international identities. It also distinguishes between the employees of the Holy See (2,750 working in the Roman Curia with another 333 working in the Holy See's diplomatic missions abroad) and the 1,909 employees of the Vatican City State. The British Ambassador to the Holy See uses more precise language, saying that the Holy See "is not the same as the Vatican City State. ... (It) is the universal government of the Catholic Church and operates from the Vatican City State." This agrees exactly with the expression used by the website of the United States Department of State, in giving information on both the Holy See and the Vatican City State: it too says that the Holy See "operates from the Vatican City State".
The Holy See is a member of various international organizations and groups including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Telecommunication Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Holy See is also a permanent observer in various international organizations, including the United Nations General Assembly, the Council of Europe, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Relationship with Vatican City and other territories.
The Holy See participates as an observer to African Union, Arab League, Council of Europe, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Organization of American States, International Organization for Migration and in the United Nations and its agencies FAO, ILO, UNCTAD, UNEP, UNESCO, UN-HABITAT, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNWTO, WFP, WHO, WIPO. and as a full member in IAEA, OPCW, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Although the Holy See is closely associated with Vatican City, the independent territory over which the Holy See is sovereign, the two entities are separate and distinct. After the Italian seizure of the Papal States in 1870, the Holy See had no territorial sovereignty. In spite of some uncertainty among jurists as to whether it could continue to act as an independent personality in international matters, the Holy See continued in fact to exercise the right to send and receive diplomatic representatives, maintaining relations with states that included the major powers Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary. Where, in accordance with the decision of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Nuncio was not only a member of the Diplomatic Corps but its dean, this arrangement continued to be accepted by the other ambassadors. In the course of the 59 years during which the Holy See held no territorial sovereignty, the number of states that had diplomatic relations with it, which had been reduced to 16, actually increased to 29.
The State of the Vatican City was created by the Lateran Treaty in 1929 to "ensure the absolute and visible independence of the Holy See" and "to guarantee to it indisputable sovereignty in international affairs." Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Holy See's former Secretary for Relations with States, said that Vatican City is a "minuscule support-state that guarantees the spiritual freedom of the Pope with the minimum territory".
The Holy See, not Vatican City, maintains diplomatic relations with states. Foreign embassies are accredited to the Holy See, not to Vatican City, and it is the Holy See that establishes treaties and concordats with other sovereign entities. When necessary, the Holy See will enter a treaty on behalf of Vatican City.
Under the terms of the Lateran Treaty, the Holy See has extraterritorial authority over various sites in Rome and two Italian sites outside of Rome, including the Pontifical Palace at Castel Gandolfo. The same authority is extended under international law over the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See in a foreign country.
Though, like various European powers, earlier popes recruited Swiss mercenaries as part of an army, the Pontifical Swiss Guard was founded by Pope Julius II on 22 January 1506 as the personal bodyguards of the Pope and continues to fulfill that function. It is listed in the Annuario Pontificio under "Holy See", not under "State of Vatican City". At the end of 2005, the Guard had 134 members. Recruitment is arranged by a special agreement between the Holy See and Switzerland. All recruits must be Catholic, unmarried males with Swiss citizenship who have completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces with certificates of good conduct, be between the ages of 19 and 30, and be at least 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) in height. Members are armed with small arms and the traditional halberd (also called the Swiss voulge), and trained in bodyguarding tactics.
The police force within Vatican City, known as the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City, belongs to the city state, not to the Holy See.
The Holy See signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a binding agreement for negotiations for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
The main difference between the two coats of arms is that the arms of the Holy See have the gold key in bend and the silver key in bend sinister (as in the sede vacante coat of arms and in the external ornaments of the papal coats of arms of individual popes), while the reversed arrangement of the keys was chosen for the arms of the newly founded Vatican City State in 1929.