AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Luigi Cherubini wrote a Requiem in C minor for the annual remembering of the execution of Louis XVI. He wrote another Requiem in D minor, which he wrote for himself. It was performed at his own funeral.
Giuseppe Verdi wrote a very exciting "Messa da Requiem" (1874) which sounds very operatic. Verdi rearranged some of the text (words) of the traditional Requiem Mass.
Bruckner, Saint-Saëns and Dvořák all wrote requiems.
Brahms wrote a work which he called "Ein Deutsches Requiem" ("A German Requiem"). It is unusual because, instead of setting the traditional Latin words, he took some words from the German translation of the Bible.
In 1888 Gabriel Fauré wrote a Requiem which uses an orchestra without violins except for a solo violin in the movement called “Sanctus”. In 1900 he made some changes and added an important baritone solo.
In the 20th century many composers continued to write Requiems. The most famous one is Britten’s "War Requiem" (1961). The message of this work is that war is cruel and pointless. Britten uses the Latin words of the Requiem Mass, but also some English poems by Wilfred Owen who was killed in the First World War. The baritone and tenor soloists who sing these English words represent the German and the English soldiers. The work was written for Coventry Cathedral which had been rebuilt after the old cathedral had been totally destroyed in World War II.
For example, Mozart's Requiem follows this. In his requiem, the Lux aeterna (written by someone else) is the same as the Introitus, with different words.
Some musical examples:
This sequence was fixed by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. It was slightly modified in the Second Vatican Council.
Middle C is the name given to the musical note C which is in the middle of the piano keyboard. It is not actually quite the middle note of the keyboard, but very nearly, and of all the Cs on the piano it is the one nearest to the middle.
When writing Middle C in music notation it is just below the stave when using the treble clef and just above the stave when using the bass clef. This is shown in the first and last notes of the musical example below. The Middle C sits on a ledger line (an extension of the stave written just for one note).
On the piano the Middle C key is C4.
When starting to learn the piano, most books make their easiest pieces start on Middle C. This is because the right hand can then play tunes using 5 notes (C to G) using white notes only (no sharps or flats). It is also easy to recognize Middle C in notation. It is also a help to find the correct place to sit at the piano (Middle C is opposite the player's "middle" (tummy)). One problem can be that young children learning the piano may think that all pieces start on Middle C. Pieces can start anywhere on the keyboard.
Middle C is the lowest note of the flute. It is a fairly low note for a child or woman to sing, but a fairly high note for a man to sing.
Middle C vibrates at 262Hz.
Principality
A principality (sometimes also called princedom) is a country which is ruled by a prince or princess. Principalities were common in the Middle Ages. Some principalities that still remain today are Andorra, Monaco and Liechtenstein. Examples of subnational principalities are Asturias (Spain).
Some states claim to be principalities but are not recognised by other countries: Sealand (a Sea Fort off the English coast), Seborga (a small town in Italy), the Principality of Hutt River in Australia and the Principality of Minerva in the Pacific. These states are examples of micronations.
Sometimes the word is also used to mean dependent territories in Africa, Asia and India, pre-Columbian America and Oceania. For these, the word princely states is generally preferred, especially if they came under the authority of a European colonial power.
Vlad III the Impaler
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, is more commonly known as Vlad "Țepeș" (the Impaler) . He was born in Segesvár, Transylvania, - then under the control of the Kingdom of Hungary - in 1431. He was the Prince of Wallachia and ruled there three times, in 1448, 1456–1462 and 1476.
In the English-speaking world, Vlad is best known for the legends of his cruelty. These legends gave Bram Stoker the idea for his main character in the popular "Dracula" novel.
Wallachia was placed between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The Turks were fighting against the Kingdom of Hungary and this made Wallachia a battle ground between Turks and Hungarians. The rulers of Wallachia were chosen by the Romanian aristocrats, called boyars. The ruler was often from a noble house, sometimes an illegitimate prince born outside of marriage. The country rulers were struggling with each other, and this was resulting in instability, family disputes and murders.
Vlad the Impaler was born in 1431. His father was Vlad II Dracul. His mother is unknown. Vlad II was married to princess Cneajna of Moldavia. He had several mistresses. Vlad III was raised by Cneajna with the help of her household. He had two brothers, Mircea born c. 1430 and Radu born 1435. He also had a half-brother, Vlad the Monk born around 1425-1430.
Vlad II went to the court of Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund of Luxemburg as a young man. Sigismund was supporting Vlad II for the throne of Wallachia, and made Vlad II knight 1431 of the Order of the Dragon ("Societas Draconis" in Latin).
The oldest brother, probably named Mircea, was sent by Vlad II to fight the war against the Turks in 1444. This war called the Battle of Varna was lost. Mircea and his father died in 1447.
Vlad's half-brother. Vlad the Monk was waiting in Transylvania for a chance to rule Wallachia. Vlad the Monk was a monk until he became prince of Wallachia in 1482.
Radu, known as Radu III the Fair or Radu the Handsome, the youngest brother, was also Vlad’s most important rival as he continuously tried to replace Vlad on the throne.
From his first marriage, Vlad the Impaler (or Vlad III) had a son, later prince of Wallachia, as Mihnea the Evil. His first wife, whose name we do not know, died during the war 1462. Vlad III the Impaler was fighting against the Turks. The legend says that the Turkish army surrounded Vlad's castle, the Poienari Castle, led by his brother Radu the Handsome. Vlad's wife threw herself off the tower into the Argeş River below the castle. According to legend she remarked that she "would rather have her body be eaten by the fish of the Argeş than be captured by the Turks."
Vlad had another two sons with his second wife Ilona Szilágyi a fraternal cousin of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. Some historians strongly believe they may have also had a daughter named Maria Zaleska (Princess Zaleska).
Vlad was very likely born in the city of Sighişoara in Transylvania, then a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the winter of 1431. Sighişoara was a military fortress at that time. He was born as the second son to his father Vlad Dracul. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Handsome. Although his native country was Wallachia, the family lived in exile in Transylvania because his father had been chased away by pro-Ottoman boyars.
Vlad's father was pressured by the (Turkish) Ottoman sultan. He gave a promise to be the vassal of the Sultan and gave up his two younger sons as hostages so that he would keep his promise.
Vlad suffered much at the hands of the Ottomans, and was locked up in an underground prison; however, his younger brother, Radu, caught the eye of the sultan's son. Radu was released and converted to Islam, and he was allowed into the Ottoman royal court.
These years had a great influence on Vlad. They shaped Vlad's character. He was often whipped and beaten by the Turks for being stubborn and rude. He developed a well-known hatred for Radu and for Mehmed, who would later become the sultan.
Vlad's father and Vlad's older brother, Mircea, were dead at this point. The Turks invaded Wallachia and the Sultan put Vlad III on the throne as his puppet ruler. His rule at this time was short; Hunyadi invaded Wallachia and chased him away the same year. Vlad fled to Moldavia and was put under the protection of his uncle, Bogdan II.
Bogdan was assassinated. Vlad took a chance and fled to Hungary. Impressed by Vlad's knowledge of the Ottoman Empire, Hunyadi pardoned him and took him in as an adviser. Later, Hunyadi made him the Kingdom of Hungary's candidate for the throne of Wallachia.
In 1456, Hungary invaded Serbia to chase away the Turks, and at the same time Vlad III invaded Wallachia. Both invasions were successful. Hunyadi suddenly died of the plague. Vlad became prince of Wallachia.
Vlad was spending most of his time at the court of the city of Târgovişte. He made laws, met foreign ambassadors, judged in trials. He reinforced some castles and probably enjoyed hunting with his friends.
The constant state of war since the death of his grandfather, Mircea the Elder, in 1418, led to increased crime levels and less agricultural production. Trade had almost disappeared in Wallachia.
Vlad tried to solve these problems with severe methods. He needed an economically stable country.
Vlad wanted to eliminate all threats to his power, mainly the rival nobility groups, such as the boyars. This was done mainly by killing them and reducing the their economic role. The Wallachian nobility had connections with the Saxon merchants. The Saxons lived in the free towns of Transylvania, making trade flourish. Vlad cut their towns trade privileges with Wallachia, and started war against them.
Vlad gave key positions in the Prince’s Council to people of lower rank who were loyal to him. Vlad preferred to knight men from the free peasants.
Vlad III was always on guard against the Dăneşti clan. Some of his attacks into Transylvania may have been efforts to kill or capture Dăneşti princes. Several members of the Dăneşti clan died at Vlad's hands. Rumors say that thousands of citizens of the free towns that sheltered his rivals were impaled by Vlad. One captured Dăneşti prince was forced to read his own funeral speech while he kneeled at an open grave before his execution.
There was a war between the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom. Following family traditions, Vlad decided to side with the Hungarians. To the end of the 1450s there was once again talk about a war against the Turks, in which the king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus would play the main role. Knowing this, Vlad stopped paying money to the Ottomans in 1459, and at around 1460, he made a new alliance with Corvinus. The Turks did not like this and tried to remove him from power but they failed. In the winter of 1461 Vlad attacked and devastated the area between Serbia and the Black Sea, leaving over 20,000 people dead.
In response to this, the Sultan Mehmed II headed towards Wallachia with an army of 60,000 men in the spring of 1462. With his army of 20,000-30,000 men Vlad was not able to stop the Turks from entering Wallachia. The Turks occupied the capital Târgovişte (June 4, 1462) and chased Vlad away. Vlad was hiding and made small attacks on the Turks. On the night of June 16 Vlad and some of his men entered the main Turkish camp, wearing Turkish clothing, and attempted to kill Mehmed. Later the Turkish army retired and left Vlad’s brother, Radu the Handsome, as the new ruler prince.
Radu the Handsome gathered support from the nobility and Vlad fled to Hungary.
In August 1462 Radu made a deal with the Hungarian Crown.
Vlad was living in exile because he was afraid of the boyars of Wallachia. Vlad escaped to Hungary but he was put in prison there. The exact time of Vlad's captivity is not known for sure. Apparently his imprisonment was not too dangerous. He was able to gradually win his way back into the favor of King Matthias. He was able to meet and marry a member of the royal family (the cousin of King Matthias). However, some do not believe that it was likely to happen that a prisoner was permitted to marry into the royal family.
He had two sons with his new wife. Vlad also became a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Diplomatic letters and writings from Buda during this time show that Vlad's actual period of imprisonment was short.
The openly pro-Turkish policy of Vlad's brother, Radu was probably a cause in Vlad's good treatment while in prison. It is interesting to note that the Russian texts, normally very favorable to Vlad Ţepeş, tells that even in captivity he could not give up his favorite games; he often captured birds and mice which he tortured and mutilated, and some were impaled on tiny spears.
The years before his final release in 1474 (when he began making plans for the reconquest of Wallachia), Vlad lived with his new wife in a house in the Hungarian capital. His sons were about ten years old when he reconquered Wallachia in 1476.
Around 1475 Vlad and Stefan Báthory of Transylvania invaded Wallachia with a mixed force of Transylvanians, some dissatisfied Wallachian boyars, and Moldavians sent by Prince Stephen III of Moldavia, Vlad's cousin. Vlad's brother, Radu the Handsome, died a couple of years earlier and had been replaced on the Wallachian throne by another Turkish candidate, Prince Basarab the Elder, a member of the Dăneşti clan. When Vlad's army arrived, Prince Basarabs army fled, some to the Turks, others in the mountains. After placing Vlad Ţepeş on the throne, Stephen Báthory and his forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad in a very weak position. Vlad had little time to get support before a large Turkish army entered Wallachia to put back Prince Basarab on the throne. Vlad's cruelties over the years made the boyars to believe that they had a better chance to survive under Prince Basarab. Even the peasants, tired of the cruelty of Vlad, abandoned him. Vlad had to meet the Turks with the small forces at his disposal, which were made up of less than four thousand men.
There are several variants of Vlad III the Impaler's death. Some sources say he was killed in battle against the Turks near Bucharest in December of 1476. Others say he was killed by disloyal Wallachian boyars in the war against the Turks, or during a hunt. Others believe Vlad was killed in the war, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal Moldavian bodyguards. Still other reports claim that Vlad was accidentally killed by one of his own men. Vlad's body was decapitated by the Turks and his head was sent to Istanbul preserved in honey. The sultan had it displayed on a stake as proof that "Kazıklı Bey" was dead. The exact place of his grave is unknown.
Tales and legends about Vlad stayed a part of folklore among the Romanian peasants. By constant retelling they have become confused and created an ideal picture of a big national hero. Among the Romanian peasants, Vlad Ţepeş was sometimes remembered as a prince who defended his country.
But sometimes he is remembered as a very cruel and often capricious ruler. There are several events that are common to all tales.
One tale is about foreign ambassadors whom Vlad Ţepeş was meeting at Târgovişte. All versions agree that Vlad, in response to some real or imagined insult, (perhaps because they refused to remove the hats in Vlad's presence), had their hats nailed to their heads.
A good description of Vlad Dracula survives, courtesy of Nicholas of Modrussa, who wrote:
"He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cruel and terrible appearance, a long straight nose, distended nostrils, a thin and reddish face in which the large wide-open green eyes were enframed by bushy black eyebrows, which made them appear threatening. His face and chin were shaven but for a moustache. The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head. A bull's neck supported the head, from which black curly locks were falling to his wide-shouldered person."
His famous portrait was rediscovered in the late 1800s, in the gallery of horrors at Innsbruck's Ambras Castle.
Vlad III Ţepeş has been described as very cruel. The old Romanian word for dragon is Dracul, which in modern Romanian means "devil". In Old Romanian, it means "dragon". Dracul was the name given to his father, Vlad II, by other members of the Order of the Dragon. Impalement was Ţepeş's preferred method of torture and execution. His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs while sharpened stake was forced into the body. Vlad often had the stakes arranged in patterns. The most common pattern was a ring outside of a city that was his target. The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The corpses were often left there for months.
One tale says 10,000 were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu (where Vlad the Impaler had once lived) in 1460. Another tale says that on Saint Bartholomew's Day (in August), Vlad the Impaler had 30,000 people of the free Transylvanian city of Braşov impaled. One of the most famous woodcuts of the period shows Vlad the Impaler feasting amongst a forest of stakes outside Braşov, while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims. Impalement was not his only method of torture. Other methods include nails in heads, cutting off limbs, strangulation, burning, cutting off noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to animals, and boiling alive.
His victims included women, children, peasants, great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers and merchants. However, the vast majority of his European victims came from the merchants and boyars of Transylvania and Wallachia. Most of the merchants there were German-speaking Saxons who were seen as bad people because they were not Romanian. He saw the boyars as people who were not loyal (Vlad's own father and older brother were murdered by boyars).
Almost as soon as he came to power, he gave a party for his boyars and their families to celebrate Easter. These nobles were part of the conspiracy around his father's death. Vlad, to avenge his father's death, had all the assembled nobles arrested. The older boyars were impaled on the spot. The younger nobles and their families were marched north from Târgovişte to the ruins of the Poienari Castle in the mountains above the Argeş River. The boyars and their families were forced to work for months rebuilding the old castle. According to the reports, they worked until the clothes fell off their bodies, and then were forced to continue working naked. Very few survived the building of Vlad's castle.
Vlad Ţepeş is also believed to have tortured and impaled some of the Turkish forces. It was reported that an invading Ottoman army turned back when they saw thousands of rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the river Danube. In 1462, Mehmed II returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20,000 impaled corpses outside of Vlad's capital of Târgovişte. Many of the victims were Turkish prisoners of war.
Much of the information we have about Vlad III Ţepeş comes from texts published in the Holy Roman Empire in German texts from 1488 and books written in Russian. These were entertainment in a society where the printing press was new. The texts were reprinted over the thirty years following Vlad's death. The German texts said Vlad Ţepeş was a person who terrorized the land and killed innocents. The Russian texts said his actions were justified, because Vlad helped them. The texts agree on some details.
According to the texts, he was particularly cruel against women and wanted his people to work hard. Merchants who cheated their customers were likely to be killed because of that.
The fictional vampire in the novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker was inspired by the legends of this Wallachian prince. The cruel person of the Impaler was a suitable character for Stoker's purposes possibly combined with Oscar Wilde, a poet whom dated Stoker's wife and was outed as homosexual near the making of Stoker's famous novel. The events of Vlad's life happened in a region of the world that was still medieval in Stoker's time.
Although there were vampire tales originating elsewhere, the vampire, as he became known in Europe, largely originated in Southern Slavic and Greek folklore. The vampire tale is virtually absent in Romanian culture. Vampirism became part of the popular culture in Europe beginning in the late 17th century. Philosophers in the West began to study the phenomenon. It was during this period that Dom Augustine Calmet wrote a famous text on vampirism in Hungary. It was also during this period that authors and playwrights first began to explore the vampire legend. Stoker's novel was a work in a long series of works that were inspired by the reports coming from the Balkans.
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent is a historical region in the Middle East that includes the Levant, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. These countries on a map together have a shape that is similar to a crescent, so archaeologist James Henry Breasted spoke of the "Fertile Crescent" because he wanted to show the similarities of the cultures of this region in ancient times.
All these lands are watered by important rivers: Nile, Jordan, Euphrates and Tigris. Together they cover some 400-500,000 square kilometers, and the region extends from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea around the north of the Syrian Desert and through the Jazirah and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. These areas are in present-day Egypt, Israel, West Bank, Gaza strip, and Lebanon and parts of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, south-eastern Turkey and south-western Iran. The population of the Nile River basin is about 70 million, the Jordan River basin about 20 million, and the Tigris and Euphrates basins about 30 million, giving the present-day Fertile Crescent a total population of around 120 million, or at least a quarter of the population of the Middle East.
The Fertile Crescent has a very long record of past human activity.
In art and symbolism, a crescent is generally the shape produced when a circular disk has a segment of another circle removed from its edge, so that what remains is a shape enclosed by two circular arcs of different diameters which intersect at two points (usually in such a manner that the enclosed shape does not include the center of the original circle).
The crescent was long used as the symbol of Byzantium. Now it is the main symbol for the religion Islam.
Crescent (disambiguation)
Crescent is a shape, form or symbol.
Crescent may also refer to:
The Levant
The Levant is a term in geography that refers to an area in the Middle East. It includes the historic areas of Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Syria, and the modern state of Israel.
The Levant is bounded by the Taurus Mountains to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the northern Arabian Desert to the south and Upper Mesopotamia to the east.
The word "Levant" entered the English language in the 16th century, together with the first English merchant adventurers in the region. English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s and the English merchant company signed its agreement ("capitulations") with the Grand Turk in 1579 (Braudel).
Today, the word "Levant" is usually used by archaeologists and historians who are talking about the prehistory and the ancient and medieval history of the region, as when discussing the Crusades. The term is also used sometimes to refer to modern or contemporary events, peoples, states, or parts of states in the same region, such as Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.
Levant (disambiguation)
Levant may be:
Jordan River
The Jordan River ( ', ') is a river in Southwest Asia that flows through the Great Rift Valley into the Dead Sea. Many people think it is one of the world's most sacred rivers.
It is long. Its tributaries are:
The four rivers join to form the Jordan in northern Israel, near kibbutz Sede Nehemya. The Jordan drops quickly in a 75 kilometer run to Lake Hula, which is a little below sea level in the Galilee sea. Then it drops much more in about 25 kilometers to the Sea of Galilee. The last section has less gradient, and the river begins to twist before it enters the Dead Sea, which is about 400 meters below sea level and has no outlet. Two major tributaries enter this last section from the east: the Yarmouk River and Jabbok River.
In 1964, Israel began operating a dam that takes water from the Sea of Galilee, a major Jordan River water provider, to the national water carrier. Also in 1964 Jordan built a channel that takes water from the Yarmouk River, a main tributary of the Jordan River. This caused great damage to the ecosystem. Syria has also built reservoirs that catch the Yarmouk's waters.
In modern times, 70% to 90% of the waters is used for human purposes and the flow is much smaller. Because of this, and the high evaporation rate of the Dead Sea, the sea is shrinking. All the shallow waters of the southern end of the sea have been drained in modern times, and are now salt flats.
The water from the Jordan is a very important resource to the dry lands of the area. It is a source of conflict between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
In the Hebrew Bible, the Jordan is referred to as the source of fertility to a large plain ("Kikkar ha-Yarden"), called "the garden of God" (Genesis 13:10). There is no regular description of the Jordan in the Bible.
The New Testament states that John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan (Matt. 3:13).
The Jordan is a frequent symbol in folk, gospel, and spiritual music, or in poetic or literary works.
Because the Israelites made a difficult journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in "The Promised Land", the Jordan can be a symbol of freedom. The actual crossing is the final step of the journey, which is then complete. Also, the Jordan can mean death itself, with the crossing from life into Paradise or Heaven.
Jordan River (disambiguation)
Jordan River could mean:
Asia:
England:
New Zealand:
United States:
History of Islam
Muslim history began in Arabia when Muhammad recited the Quran in the 7th century. The historical development of Islam has affected political, economic, and military trends both inside and outside the Islamic world.
As with Christianity, the concept of an "Islamic world" is useful when one looks at different periods of human history.
After Muhammad died, the Muslim leadership was assumed by Abu Bakr. He was followed by Umar, Uthman ibn Affan and then Ali. These four are called the "Rashidun caliphs" which means The Righteous Caliphs. The word caliph means religious and spiritual leader. Under these caliphs Islam became one of the most important religions of the middle East. Administrative offices of the Muslim nation were established. Under Umar more than two thirds of the Eastern Roman Empire was conquered by the Muslims. Umar also started the Muslim calendar.
The first civil war in Islam, also known as the "First Fitna" broke out in Islam during the rule of the fourth caliph Ali and lasted throughout his caliphate. The third caliph Uthman ibn Affan had been murdered by rebel Muslim groups who had political motives. After Ali took over, the most important problem he faced was that of punishing those responsible for murder. However many people felt that before accepting the position of the caliph, Ali should have focused his attention on finding and punishing the murderers. A group of people led by Muhammad's wife Aisha, her brothers in law Talhah and Zubair ibn al-Awam refused to recognize Ali's caliphate. They instead raised an army which met Ali's army at Basra in Iraq, originally for the purposes of negotiations. In the night, some fighting broke out, probably out of confusion or due to rebel groups who were involved in the infamous murder. This led to the "Battle of Bassorah" (also known as "Battle of the Camel") in which Ali's party emerged victorious. Aisha was escorted back to Medina honorably after the battle by Ali.
This battle however did not entirely finish the tension in the Muslim empire. Ali was soon challenged by Muawiyah, the governor of the Muslim provinces of Syria. He too raised the issue of punishing Uthman's murderers and refused to acknowledge Ali as caliph until the issue had been solved. Muawiyah was a kinsman of Uthman and his army pledged to bring to justice the murderers and those who sheltered them. This reference to people who are sheltering the murderers was towards Ali and his followers. Accordingly, the two groups met and fought a battle, called the "Battle of Siffin". This battle ended in a draw and so both groups decided on arbitration which also did not lead to any concrete decision. Another group of Muslims, "The Kharijites" who had previously been with Ali, meanwhile rejected him because they felt that he was not following true Islam and conducting business over the caliphate as if it were his own property.
In the following years Ali's governors could not prevent his losing provinces to Muawiyah who increased his strength by further expanding his army. Ali had shifted the capital of the caliphate from Medina to Kufa in 656. He was killed by a Kharijite assassin in Kufa in 661.
'YB Better" The history of the Christian religion and the Christian church began with Jesus and his apostles. Christianity is the religion that is based on the birth, life, death, resurrection and teaching of Jesus Christ.
Christianity began in the 1st century AD after Jesus died and was claimed to be resurrected, as a small group of Jewish people in Judea, but quickly spread throughout the Roman empire. Despite early persecution of Christians, it later became the state religion. In the Middle Ages it spread into Northern Europe and Russia. During the Age of Exploration, Christianity expanded throughout the world; it is currently the largest religion of the world.
The religion had schisms and theological disputes that had as result four main branches: the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, Oriental Orthodoxy and Protestant churches.
Most of the first Christians were ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes. An early difficulty came from non-Jewish converts. There was the question if they had to "become Jewish" before becoming Christian. The decision of St. Peter, was that they did not, and the matter was further addressed with the Council of Jerusalem.
The doctrines of the apostles brought the Early Church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities, and this eventually led to the martyrdom of SS. Stephen and James the Great and expulsion from the synagogues. Thus, Christianity got an identity distinct from Judaism. The name "Christian" (Greek ) was first used for the disciples in Antioch, as recorded in (Acts 11:26).
Sources for the beliefs of the apostolic community include the Gospels and New Testament Epistles. The very earliest reports are in these texts: early Christian creeds and hymns and reports about the Passion, the empty tomb, and appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection. There are reasons to suppose that they were written within a few years of the crucifixion of Jesus and came from the Jerusalem Church.
Christianity kept many practices from Jewish tradition. Christianity thought the Jewish scriptures to be sacred and used mostly the Septuagint translation of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament), the Hebrew Prophets and Writings (the rest of the Old Testament books), and added other texts as the New Testament. Christians professed Jesus to be the God of Israel, having taken human form, and considered Jesus to be the Messiah (Christ) who had been prophesied about in the Old Testament and so was expected by the people of Israel.
Christianity continued many Judaic practices: liturgical worship, including the use of incense, an altar, a set of scriptural readings adapted from synagogue practice, use of sacred music in hymns and prayer, and a religious calendar, as well as other typical features: an exclusively male priesthood, and ascetic practices (fasting etc.).
The time when most of the apostles had died and their jobs as leaders of the Christian communities in the cities had been taken over by bishops, is called post-apostolic period. It includes the time of persecutions until Christian worship was legalized under Constantine the Great. The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek ) is from this period. The term was used by Ignatius of Antioch "c." 107.
Early Christians were subject to various persecutions. This meant even death. Early martyrs included Stephen () and James, son of Zebedee (). Persecutions in larger scale by the authorities of the Roman Empire began with the year 64, when the Emperor Nero blamed them for the great Fire of Rome as the Roman historian Tacitus reported.
According to Church tradition, it was under Nero's persecution that the saints Peter and Paul became martyrs in Rome. Several of the New Testament writings mention persecutions and very difficult times. For 250 years there were times when Christians suffered from persecutions, because they refused to worship the Roman emperor. That was seen as treason and punished by execution. But the Christian religion continued to spread throughout the Mediterranean region. In the late fourth century they became the dominant religious force of the Roman Empire.
The first to legalize Christianity was the Armenian king Trdat the Third, who announced it the official religion in Armenia in the year 301. Galerius issued an edict permitting the practice of the Christian religion in April of 311. In 313 Constantine I and Licinius announced toleration of Christianity in the Edict of Milan. Constantine became the first Christian emperor; he had learnt about Christianity from his mother, Helena.
By 391, under the reign of Theodosius I, Christianity had become the state religion of Rome.
When Christianity was legalized the Church used the same provinces for administration as the imperial government and called them dioceses. The Bishop of Rome claimed to be the highest amongst all others and chose the title pope.
During this era, there were several Ecumenical Councils. These were mostly concerned with Christological disputes. The First Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism and produced the Nicene Creed to define the faith. The Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism and affirmed the Blessed Virgin Mary to be Theotokos ("God-bearer" or "Mother of God"). Perhaps the most important was the Council of Chalcedon that affirmed that Christ had two natures, fully God and fully man, at the same time. That meant that Monophysitism was condemned.
The Church in the Early Middle Ages saw a "transformation of the Roman world" rather than a "fall of the Roman Empire". With the Muslim invasions of the seventh century, the Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) areas of Christianity began to take on distinctive shapes, and the Bishops of Rome were more interested in barbarian kings than in the Byzantine Emperors. This led to the coronation of Charlemagne as "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, 800.
The city of Rome was affected very much by warfare in Italy during the Early Middle Ages. Emperor Justinian I conquered the Italian kingdom of the Ostrogoths. He made Ravenna, Italy a territory with its own governor, but imperial influence was often limited. After the invasion of the Lombards, Rome had to take care of itself. Thus the popes, out of necessity, found themselves feeding the city with grain from papal estates, negotiating treaties, paying protection money to Lombard warlords, and, failing that, hiring soldiers to defend the city. Eventually, the failure of the Empire to send aid resulted in the popes turning for support from other sources, most especially the Franks.
The High Middle Ages is the period from the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 to the close of the fifteenth century, which saw the fall of Constantinople (1453), the end of the Hundred Years' War (1453), the discovery of the New World (1492), and thereafter the Protestant Reformation (1515).
The "Investiture Controversy", also known as the "lay investiture controversy", was the most important conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe. It began as a dispute in the 11th century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. The question was who would control appointments of bishops (investiture). The end of lay investiture meant an important loss of royal power, and a loss for ambitious noblemen, for the benefit of Church reform as the pope intended.
Bishops collected revenues from estates attached to their bishopric. Noblemen who held lands (fiefdoms) hereditarily passed those lands on within their family. However, a king had more control of lands under the domain of his bishops. Kings would give bishoprics to powerful friends. If a king left a bishopric vacant, he got the money until a bishop was appointed, when he was supposed to repay the earnings. This seldom happened. The Church wanted to end this lay investiture because of the vacant sees simony and other problems. Thus, the Investiture Contest was part of the Church's attempt to reform the episcopate and get better bishops.
Pope Gregory VII issued the "Dictatus Papae", which said only the pope may make, break, or move bishops to other sees. The Emperor rejected this. With excommunication and a revolt by his dukes, Henry apologized and was forgiven, though the conflict continued. A similar controversy happened in England between King Henry I and St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. The English dispute was resolved by a deal in 1107, where the king gave up making bishops but did require an oath of fealty. The later Concordat of Worms ("Pactum Calixtinum") resolved the Imperial investiture controversy with a similar compromise.
The Crusades were a military conflicts conducted by Christian knights for the defense of Christians and for the expansion of Christian domains. Generally, the crusades refer to the campaigns in the Holy Land against Muslim forces sponsored by the Papacy. There were other crusades against Islamic forces in southern Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily, as well as the campaigns of Teutonic knights against pagan strongholds in Eastern Europe, and (to a much lesser extent) crusades against Catharism or other Christian heresies.
The Holy Land had been part of the Roman Empire, and thus Byzantine Empire, until the Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Thereafter, Christians had generally been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071, when the Seljuk Turks closed Christian pilgrimages and assailed the Byzantines, defeating them at the Battle of Manzikert. Emperor Alexius I asked for aid from Pope Urban II (1088-1099) for help against Islamic aggression. Instead of sending money, Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom in a speech made at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, combining the idea of pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels.
The East-West Schism, or Great Schism, separated the Church into Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) branches, i.e. Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. It was the first major division since certain groups in the East rejected the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (see Oriental Orthodoxy), and was far more significant. Though normally dated to 1054, the East-West Schism was the result of an long time of disagreement between Latin and Greek Christendom over papal primacy and certain doctrinal matters like the "filioque". Bad feelings were intensified by cultural and linguistic differences.
The schism became "official" in 1054 when the Pope's legates notified Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople that he had been excommunicated. A few days later, he excommunicated the legates. Attempts at reconciliation were made in 1274 in Lyon and in 1439 in Basel, but in each case the eastern hierarchs who agreed to the unions were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole. However, reconciliation was achieved between the West and what are now called the "Eastern Rite Catholic Churches". More recently, in 1965 the mutual excommunications were rescinded by the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, though schism remains.
Both groups are descended from the Early Church, both acknowledge the apostolic succession of each other's bishops, and the validity of each other's sacraments. Though both acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy understands this as a primacy of honor with limited or no ecclesiastical authority in other dioceses.
The Western Schism, or Papal Schism, was a prolonged period of crisis in Latin Christendom from 1378 to 1416, when there were two or more claimants to the See of Rome and thus it was difficult to discern who the true Pope was. The conflict was political, rather than doctrinal, in nature.
The Renaissance was a period of great cultural change and achievement, marked in Italy by a classical orientation and an increase of wealth through mercantile trade. The City of Rome, the Papacy, and the Papal States were all affected by the Renaissance. On the one hand, it was a time of great artistic patronage and architectural magnificence, where the Church patroned such artists as Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Bramante, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Donatello, and da Vinci. On the other hand, wealthy Italian families often secured episcopal offices, including the papacy, for their own members, some of whom were known for immorality, such as Alexander VI and Sixtus IV.
In the early 16th century, movements were begun by two theologians, Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli, that aimed to reform the Church. Unlike earlier reformers they considered the root of corruptions to be doctrinal (rather than simply a matter of moral weakness or lack of ecclesiastical discipline) and thus they aimed to change contemporary doctrines to fit their idea of the "true gospel". The Protestant Reformation is so called because the movement's leaders "protested" against the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the pope, essentially electing to institute their reforms separately from it. The term "Protestant", however, was not originally used by these leaders; instead, they called themselves "evangelical", emphasizing the "return to the true gospel (Greek: "euangelion")".
The beginning of the Protestant Reformation is generally identified with Martin Luther and the posting of the 95 Theses in 1517 in Wittenburg, Germany. Early protest was against corruptions such as simony, episcopal vacancies, and the sale of indulgences. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura and sola fide. The three most important traditions to emerge directly from the Protestant Reformation were the Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist, Presbyterian, etc.), and Anglican traditions, though the latter group identifies as both "Reformed" and "Catholic", and some subgroups reject the classification as "Protestant".
The Protestant Reformation may be divided into two distinct but basically simultaneous movements, the Magisterial Reformation and the Radical Reformation. The Magisterial Reformation involved the alliance of certain theological teachers (Latin: "magistri") such as Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Cranmer, etc. with secular magistrates who cooperated in the reformation of Christendom. Radical Reformers, besides forming communities outside state sanction, often employed more extreme doctrinal change, such as the rejection of tenants of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon. Often the division between magisterial and radical reformers was as or more violent than the general Catholic and Protestant hostilities.
The Protestant Reformation spread almost entirely within the confines of Northern Europe, but did not take hold in certain northern areas such as Ireland and parts of Germany. By far the magisterial reformers were more successful and their changes more widespread than the radical reformers. The Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation is known as the Counter Reformation, or Catholic Reformation, which resulted in a reassertion of traditional doctrines and the emergence of new religious orders aimed at both moral reform and new missionary activity. The Counter Reformation reconverted approximately 33% of Northern Europe to Catholicism and initiated missions in South and Central America, Africa, Asia, and even China and Japan. Protestant expansion outside of Europe occurred on a smaller scale through colonization of North America and areas of Africa.
Martin Luther was an Augustinian friar and professor at the University of Wittenberg. In 1517, he published a list of 95 Theses, or points to be debated, concerning the illicitness of selling indulgences. Luther had a particular disdain for Aristotelian philosophy, and as he began developing his own theology, he increasingly came into conflict with other scholars. Soon, Luther began to develop his theology of justification, or process by which one is "made right" (righteous) in the eyes of God.
In Catholic theology, one is made righteous by a progressive infusion of grace accepted through faith and cooperated with through good works. Luther's doctrine of justification was different. He said justification meant "the declaring of one to be righteous", where God imputes the merits of Christ upon one who remains without inherent merit. In this process, good works are more of an unessential byproduct that contribute nothing to one's own state of righteousness. Conflict between Luther and leading theologians lead to his gradual rejection of authority of the Church hierarchy. In 1520, he was condemned for heresy by the papal bull "Exsurge Domine", which he burned at Wittenburg along with books of canon law.
John Calvin was a French cleric and doctor of law turned Protestant reformer in the second generation of the Reformation. He was well known for publishing the "Institutes of the Christian Religion", in 1536 (later revised), and became a leader of the Reformed church in Geneva, which became an "unofficial capital" of Reformed Christianity in the second half of the sixteenth century. He had great authority in the city and over the city council, such that he has (rather ignominiously) been called a "Protestant pope".
Calvin established an eldership together with a "consistory", where pastors and the elders established matters of religious discipline for the Genevan population. Calvin's theology is best known for his doctrine of (double) predestination, which held that God had, from all eternity, providentially foreordained who would be saved (the elect) and likewise who would be damned (the reprobate). Predestination was not the dominant idea in Calvin's works, but it would seemingly become so for many of his Reformed successors.
Unlike other reform movements, the English Reformation began by royal influence. Henry VIII considered himself a thoroughly Catholic King, and in 1521 he defended the papacy against Luther in a book he commissioned entitled, "The Defense of the Seven Sacraments", for which Pope Leo X awarded him the title "Fidei Defensor" (Defender of the Faith). However, the king came into conflict with the papacy when he wished to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, for which he needed papal sanction. Catherine, among many other noble relations, was the aunt of Emperor Charles V, the papacy's most significant secular supporter. The ensuing dispute eventually lead to a break from Rome and the declaration of the King of England as head of the English (Anglican) Church. England then experienced a period of frenetic and eclectic reforms, some more radical and others more traditional, under monarchs such as Edward VI and Elizabeth I, and Archbishops of Canterbury such as Thomas Cranmer and William Laud. What emerged was a state church that considered itself both "Reformed" and "Catholic" but not "Roman" (and hesitated from the title "Protestant"), and other "unofficial" more radical movements such as the Puritans.