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In medieval Europe, crane vessels which could be flexibly deployed in the whole port basin were introduced as early as the 14th century.During the age of sail, the sheer hulk was used extensively as a floating crane for tasks that required heavy lift. At the time, the heaviest single components of ships were the main masts, and sheer hulks were essential for removing and replacing them, but they were also used for other purposes. Some crane vessels had engines for propulsion, others needed to be towed with a tugboat. In 1920, the 1898-built battleship USS Kearsarge was converted to a crane ship when a crane with a capacity of 250 tons was installed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_ship |
Later it was renamed Crane Ship No. 1. It was used, amongst other things, to place guns and other heavy items on other battleships under construction. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_ship |
Another remarkable feat was the raising of the submarine USS Squalus in 1939. In 1942, the crane ships a.k.a. "Heavy Lift Ships" SS Empire Elgar (PQ 16), SS Empire Bard (PQ 15), and SS Empire Purcell (PQ 16) were sent to the Russian Arctic ports of Archangelsk, Murmansk and Molotovsk (since renamed Sererodvinsk). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_ship |
Their role was to enable the unloading of the Arctic convoys where port installations were either destroyed by German bombers or were non existent (as at Bakaritsa quay Archangel).In 1949, J. Ray McDermott had Derrick Barge Four built, a barge that was outfitted with a revolving crane capable of lifting 150 tons. The arrival of this type of vessel changed the direction of the offshore construction industry. Instead of constructing oil platforms in parts, jackets and decks could be built onshore as modules. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_ship |
For use in the shallow part of the Gulf of Mexico, the cradle of the offshore industry, these barges sufficed. In 1963, Heerema converted a Norwegian tanker, Sunnaas, into a crane vessel with a capacity of 300 tons, the first one in the offshore industry that was ship-shaped. It was renamed Global Adventurer. This type of crane vessel was better adapted to the harsh environment of the North Sea. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_ship |
In medieval Europe, earwax and other substances such as urine were used to prepare pigments used by scribes to illustrate illuminated manuscripts. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, wrote that earwax—when applied topically—cured bites from humans, scorpions, and serpents; it was said to work best when taken from the ears of the wounded person itself. Early American lip balms may have been based on earwax. The 1832 edition of the American Frugal Housewife said that "nothing was better than earwax to prevent the painful effects resulting from a wound by a nail skewer"; and also recommended earwax as a remedy for cracked lips. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_wax |
Before waxed thread was commonly available, a seamstress would use her own earwax to stop the cut ends of threads from fraying. Earwax retains concentrations of cortisol over time. As cortisol levels change throughout the day and increase in response to stress, long-term measurements are difficult yet necessary. A 2020 study suggests swabbing earwax as a method of measuring long-term cortisol levels that is noninvasive and does not confound itself. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_wax |
In medieval Europe, homosexuality was considered sodomy and was punishable by death. Persecutions reached their height during the Medieval Inquisitions, when the sects of Cathars and Waldensians were accused of fornication and sodomy, alongside accusations of Satanism. In 1307, accusations of sodomy and homosexuality were major charges leveled during the Trial of the Knights Templar. The theologian Thomas Aquinas was influential in linking condemnation of homosexuality with the idea of natural law, arguing that "special sins are against nature, as, for instance, those that run counter to the intercourse of male and female natural to animals, and so are peculiarly qualified as unnatural vices. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia |
"Although bisexuality was accepted as normal human behavior in Ancient China, homophobia became ingrained in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China due to interactions with the Christian West, and homosexual behavior was outlawed in 1740. During the Cultural Revolution, homosexuality was treated by the government as a "social disgrace or a form of mental illness", and individuals who were homosexual widely faced persecution. Although there were no laws specifically against homosexuality, other laws were used to prosecute homosexual people and they were "charged with hooliganism or disturbing public order. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia |
"The Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin decriminalized homosexuality in 1922, long before many other European countries. The Soviet Communist Party effectively legalized no-fault divorce, abortion and homosexuality, when they abolished all the old Tsarist laws and the initial Soviet criminal code kept these liberal sexual policies in place. Lenin's emancipation was reversed a decade later by Joseph Stalin and homosexuality remained illegal under Article 121 until the Yeltsin era. In Nazi Germany, gay men were persecuted and approximately five to fifteen thousand were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia |
In medieval Europe, knowledge of the sphericity of Earth survived into the medieval corpus of knowledge by direct transmission of the texts of Greek antiquity (Aristotle), and via authors such as Isidore of Seville and the Venerable Bede. It became increasingly traceable with the rise of scholasticism and medieval learning.Revising the figures attributed to Posidonius, another Greek philosopher determined 18,000 miles (29,000 km) as the Earth's circumference. This last figure was promulgated by Ptolemy through his world maps. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geodesy |
The maps of Ptolemy strongly influenced the cartographers of the Middle Ages. It is probable that Christopher Columbus, using such maps, was led to believe that Asia was only 3,000 or 4,000 miles (4,800 or 6,400 km) west of Europe.Ptolemy's view was not universal, however, and chapter 20 of Sir John Mandeville's Travels (c. 1357) supports Eratosthenes' calculation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geodesy |
Spread of this knowledge beyond the immediate sphere of Greco-Roman scholarship was necessarily gradual, associated with the pace of Christianisation of Europe. For example, the first evidence of knowledge of the spherical shape of Earth in Scandinavia is a 12th-century Old Icelandic translation of Elucidarius. A list of more than a hundred Latin and vernacular writers from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages who were aware that Earth was spherical has been compiled by Reinhard Krüger, professor for Romance literature at the University of Stuttgart.It was not until the 16th century that his concept of the Earth's size was revised. During that period the Flemish cartographer, Mercator, made successive reductions in the size of the Mediterranean Sea and all of Europe which had the effect of increasing the size of the earth. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geodesy |
In medieval Europe, marriage was governed by canon law, which recognized as valid only those marriages where the parties stated they took one another as husband and wife, regardless of the presence or absence of witnesses. It was not necessary, however, to be married by any official or cleric. This institution was canceled in England with the enactment of "Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act" of 1753, which required that, in order to be valid and registered, all marriages were to be performed in an official ceremony in a religious setting recognized by the state, i.e. Church of England, the Quakers, or in a Jewish ceremony. Any other form of marriage was abolished. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_marriage |
Children born into unions that were not valid under the Act would not automatically inherit the property or titles of their parents. For historical reasons, the Act did not apply in Scotland. Consequently, until 1940, it continued to be enough in Scotland for a man and a woman to pledge their commitment to each other in front of witnesses to legalize their marriage. This led to an industry of "fast marriages" in Scottish towns on the border with England; the town of Gretna Green was particularly well known for this. In 1836, the requirement that the ceremony takes place in a religious forum was removed, and registrars have given the authority to register marriages not conducted by a religious official. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_marriage |
In medieval Europe, medicinal herbs and plants were cultivated in monastery and nunnery gardens beginning about the 8th century. Charlemagne gave orders for the collection of medicinal plants to be grown systematically in his royal garden. This royal garden was an important precedent for botanical gardens and physic gardens that were established in the 16th century. It was also the beginning of the study of botany as a separate discipline. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materia_Medica |
In about the 12th century, medicine and pharmacy began to be taught in universities.Shabbethai Ben Abraham, better known as Shabbethai Donnolo, (913–c.982) was a 10th-century Italian Jew and the author of an early Hebrew text, Antidotarium. It consisted of detailed drug descriptions, medicinal remedies, practical methods for preparing medicine from roots. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materia_Medica |
It was a veritable glossary of herbs and drugs used during the medieval period. Donnollo was widely travelled and collected information from Arabic, Greek and Roman sources.In the Early and High Middle Ages Nestorian Christians were banished for their heretical views that they carried to Asia Minor. The Greek text was translated into Syriac when pagan Greek scholars fled east after Constantine’s conquest of Byzantium, Stephanos (son of Basilios, a Christian living in Baghdad under the Khalif Motawakki) made an Arabic translation of De Materia Medica from the Greek in 854. In 948 the Byzantine Emperor Romanus II, son and co-regent of Constantine Porphyrogenitos, sent a beautifully illustrated Greek manuscript of De materia medica to the Spanish Khalif, Abd-Arrahman III. In 1250, Syriac scholar Bar Hebraeus prepared an illustrated Syriac version, which was translated into Arabic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materia_Medica |
In medieval Europe, pearl powder was widely perceived to have therapeutic qualities. It was used in an attempt to treat the insanity of Charles VI of France (1368–1422), and the fever of which Lorenzo de Medici died in 1492. Seventeenth-century German and English works claimed its effectiveness in a wide range of physical and mental conditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_powder |
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) recommended it as a means of prolonging life. Pearl powder was also used as a skin whitener by women in Europe during the nineteenth century; one work, however, deprecated it as imparting a "pale, sickly hue", as well as being injurious to the skin and general health. == References == | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_powder |
In medieval Europe, purple, violet, murrey and similar colors were produced by dyeing wool with woad or indigo in the fleece and then piece-dyeing the woven cloth with red dyes, either the common madder or the luxury dyes kermes and cochineal. Madder could also produce purples when used with alum. Brazilwood also gave purple shades with vitriol (sulfuric acid) or potash. In China, purple root/gromwell (Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum) has been used to produce a purple dye. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_dyes |
Choctaw artists traditionally used maple (Acer sp.) to create lavender and purple dyes. Purples can also be derived from lichens, and from the berries of White Bryony from the northern Rocky Mountain states and mulberry (morus nigra) (with an acid mordant). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_dyes |
In medieval Europe, quadrature meant the calculation of area by any method. Most often the method of indivisibles was used; it was less rigorous than the geometric constructions of the Greeks, but it was simpler and more powerful. With its help, Galileo Galilei and Gilles de Roberval found the area of a cycloid arch, Grégoire de Saint-Vincent investigated the area under a hyperbola (Opus Geometricum, 1647),: 491 and Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa, de Saint-Vincent's pupil and commentator, noted the relation of this area to logarithms. : 492 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_(mathematics) |
In medieval Europe, rose water was used to wash hands at a meal table during feasts. Rose water is a usual component of perfume. Rose water ointment is occasionally used as an emollient, and rose water is sometimes used in cosmetics such as cold creams, toners and face wash.Some people use rose water as a spray applied directly to the face as a perfume and moisturiser, especially during the winter. It is also often sprinkled in Indian weddings to welcome guests. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_water |
In medieval Europe, the Church was specifically opposed to "Latin Averroists" (see Averroës), such as the prominent Averroist Siger of Brabant. It sought to halt the spread of certain of Aristotle's doctrines — those that dealt with physical science (see Aristotelian physics, Condemnations of 1210-1277), which the reconquest of Spain and, accordingly, access to the libraries of the Moors had re-introduced into the Latin literate world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_truth |
In medieval Europe, the end of the judicial process, often an execution, was often its most public, and sometimes the only public, aspect. French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote in Discipline and Punish, his influential history of the evolution of criminal justice over the course of the Enlightenment: In France, as in most European countries, with the notable exception of England, the entire criminal procedure, right up to the sentence, remained secret: that is to say, opaque, not only to the public but also the accused himself. It took place without him, or at least without his having any knowledge either of the charges or of the evidence. At that point, "t was the task of the guilty man to bear openly his condemnation and the truth of the crime he had committed." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perp_walk |
Convicts wore placards summing up their offense, and on the way to the gallows were stopped at churches to make an amende honorable, a ceremonial plea for forgiveness. The executions themselves were long, almost theatrical spectacles, such as the 1757 drawing and quartering of Robert-François Damiens for his attempted assassination of King Louis XV. A detailed account of that procedure, the last execution by that method in French history, opens Foucault's book.In medieval England as well, those convicted of high treason were paraded through the streets in an open wagon to their executions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perp_walk |
Originally they had been dragged by horses, but some arrived almost dead from that treatment, unable to live through the hanging, castration, disemboweling and drawing and quartering that followed. While being transported, they were often pelted with objects thrown at them by onlookers. "This was a symbolic process that led the criminal to oblivion," observed Charles Spencer in Killers of the King, his 2014 account of the regicides of Charles I, many of whom were executed this way. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perp_walk |
"The drawing through the streets provided a final, degrading journey from the living world. "In the 19th century, as penal-reform efforts began to succeed, imprisonment began to replace execution as the preferred punishment for egregious crimes, since it offered the possibility of the convict's eventual repentance. The spectacles surrounding execution became more restrained, even when those were held in public. By the middle of the century larger cities were establishing police departments, professionalizing the prevention and investigation of crime. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perp_walk |
In medieval Europe, the pelican was thought to be particularly attentive to her young, to the point of providing her own blood by wounding her own breast when no other food was available. As a result, the pelican became a symbol of the Passion of Jesus and of the Eucharist from about the 12th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_symbols |
In medieval Europe, universities were mainly institutions of the Catholic Church. As they mainly trained clergy, most of these universities did not have any need to exact fees from the students with one notable exception: during the 12th century, while under the supervision of Pierre le Mangeur, the University of Paris began collecting two sous weekly in tuition. Later, the main duty of universities in most Protestant countries was the training of future civil servants. Again, it was not in the interest of the state to charge tuition fees, as this would have decreased the quality of civil servants. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_fees |
On the other hand, the number of students from the lower classes was usually kept in check by the expenses of living during the years of study, although as early as the mid-19th century there were calls for limiting the university entrance by middle-class persons. A typical family, however, could not afford educating a child or young adult, even if the education itself was free. A similar situation exists today in many Third World countries, where the expenses of "free" schooling (food, books, school uniform, etc.) prevent some children from attending any school. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_fees |
After World War II the tuition systems of all of today's advanced democracies still were highly similar: Education institutions in all countries charged no or only very low tuition fees. It was not before the 1950s that the countries' education systems developed in different directions. Some countries, especially the Anglo-Saxon countries (for example the United States) but also Asian countries such as Japan, introduced considerable tuition payments already in the early post-war period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_fees |
Other countries, particularly in Scandinavia and continental Europe, in contrast remained tuition-free. These developments were unrelated to the massive educational expansion that took place at the same time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_fees |
Since the early 1970s, the average cost of tuition has steadily outpaced the growth of the average American household. This trend continued particularly under President Reagan's higher education policies in the 1980s. Likewise, there has been a steady decrease in federal funding for grants and a rise in the interest rates of most major student loans, leaving many students struggling to pay debt for years after graduation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_fees |
In medieval Europe, where the only coin in circulation was the silver penny (denier), the solidus was used as a unit of account equal to 12 deniers. Variations on the word solidus in the local language gave rise to a number of currency units: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidus_coin |
In medieval European manuscripts, a single vertical bar was a common variant of the virgula ⟨/⟩ used as a period, scratch comma, and caesura mark.In Sanskrit and other Indian languages, a single vertical mark, a danda, has a similar function as a period (full stop). Two bars || (a 'double danda') is the equivalent of a pilcrow in marking the end of a stanza, paragraph or section. The danda has its own Unicode code point, U+0964. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_vertical_bar |
In medieval France the use of Biblical names appears to have been more extended, judging by the elaborate lists at the end of Gross's Gallia Judaica. True surnames occurred, especially in the south, like Farissol, Bonet, Barron, Lafitte; but as a rule local designations were popular, such as "Samson of Sens", etc. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_surnames |
In medieval Hungary the system of gyepű and gyepűelve, effective until the mid-13th century, can be considered as marches even though in its organisation it shows major differences from Western European feudal marches. For one thing, the gyepű was not controlled by a Marquess. The Gyepű was a strip of land that was specially fortified or made impassable, while gyepűelve was the mostly uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land beyond it. The gyepűelve is much more comparable to modern buffer zones than traditional European marches. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_(territory) |
Portions of the gyepű were usually guarded by tribes who had joined the Hungarian nation and were granted special rights for their services at the borders, such as the Székelys, Pechenegs and Cumans. A ban on settlement north of Niš by the Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century helped to establish uninhabited marchland between the empire's territory and Hungary.The Hungarian gyepű originates from the Turkish yapi meaning palisade. During the 17th and 18th centuries these borderlands were called Markland in the area of Transylvania that bordered with the Kingdom of Hungary and was controlled by a Count or Countess. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_(territory) |
In medieval India, this bean was used in a technique to facilitate making crucibles impermeable. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urad_bean |
In medieval Islamic astronomy, precession was known based on Ptolemy's Almagest, and by observations that refined the value. Al-Battani, in his Zij Al-Sabi', after mentioning Hipparchus calculating precession, and Ptolemy's value of 1 degree per 100 solar years, says that he measured precession and found it to be one degree per 66 solar years.Subsequently, Al-Sufi mentions the same values in his Book of Fixed Stars, that Ptolemy's value for precession is 1 degree per 100 solar years. He then quotes a different value from Zij Al Mumtahan, which was done during Al-Ma'mun's reign, as 1 degree for every 66 solar years. He also quotes the aforementioned Al-Battani's Zij Al-Sabi' as adjusting coordinates for stars by 11 degrees and 10 minutes of arc to account for the difference between Al-Battani's time and Ptolemy's.Later, the Zij-i Ilkhani compiled at the Maragheh observatory sets the precession of the equinoxes at 51 arc seconds per annum, which is very close to the modern value of 50.2 arc seconds.In the Middle Ages, Islamic and Latin Christian astronomers treated "trepidation" as a motion of the fixed stars to be added to precession. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession |
This theory is commonly attributed to the Arab astronomer Thabit ibn Qurra, but the attribution has been contested in modern times. Nicolaus Copernicus published a different account of trepidation in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543). This work makes the first definite reference to precession as the result of a motion of the Earth's axis. Copernicus characterized precession as the third motion of the Earth. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession |
In medieval Islamic psychology, certain hadiths indicate that dreams consist of three parts, and early Muslim scholars recognized three kinds of dreams: false, pathogenic, and true. Ibn Sirin (654–728) was renowned for his Ta'bir al-Ru'ya and Muntakhab al-Kalam fi Tabir al-Ahlam, a book on dreams. The work is divided into 25 sections on dream interpretation, from the etiquette of interpreting dreams to the interpretation of reciting certain Surahs of the Qur'an in one's dream. He writes that it is important for a layperson to seek assistance from an alim (Muslim scholar) who could guide in the interpretation of dreams with a proper understanding of the cultural context and other such causes and interpretations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_interpretation |
Al-Kindi (Alkindus) (801–873) also wrote a treatise on dream interpretation: On Sleep and Dreams. In consciousness studies, Al-Farabi (872–951) wrote the On the Cause of Dreams, which appeared as chapter 24 of his Book of Opinions of the people of the Ideal City. It was a treatise on dreams, in which he was the first to distinguish between dream interpretation and the nature and causes of dreams. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_interpretation |
In The Canon of Medicine, Avicenna extended the theory of temperaments to encompass "emotional aspects, mental capacity, moral attitudes, self-awareness, movements and dreams." Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (1377) states that "confused dreams" are "pictures of the imagination that are stored inside by perception and to which the ability to think is applied, after (man) has retired from sense perception. "Ibn Shaheen states: "Interpretations change their foundations according to the different conditions of the seer (of the vision), so seeing handcuffs during sleep is disliked but if a righteous person sees them it can mean stopping the hands from evil". Ibn Sirin said about a man who saw himself giving a sermon from the mimbar: "He will achieve authority and if he is not from the people who have any kind of authority it means that he will be crucified". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_interpretation |
In medieval Italy, a business organization known as the commenda appeared in the 10th century that was generally used for financing maritime trade. In a commenda, the traveling trader of the ship had limited liability, and was not held responsible if money was lost as long as the trader had not violated the rules of the contract. In contrast, his investment partners on land had unlimited liability and were exposed to risk. A commenda was not a common form for a long-term business venture as most long-term businesses were still expected to be secured against the assets of their individual proprietors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_Partnership |
As an institution, the commenda is very similar to the qirad but whether the qirad transformed into the commenda, or the two institutions evolved independently cannot be stated with certainty. In the Mongol Empire, the contractual features of a Mongol-ortoq partnership closely resembled that of qirad and commenda arrangements, however, Mongol investors were not constrained using uncoined precious metals and tradable goods for partnership investments and executed money-lending. Moreover, Mongol elites formed trade partnerships with merchants from Italian cities, including Marco Polo's family.Colbert's Ordinance (1673) and the Napoleonic Code (1807) reinforced the limited partnership concept under European law. In the United States, limited partnerships became widely available in the early 19th century, although a number of legal restrictions at the time made them unpopular for business ventures. Britain enacted its first limited partnership statute in 1907. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_Partnership |
In medieval Japan, Heian period men were not very interested in a woman's physical beauty and rarely had an opportunity to see it. The only physical attribute of interest was a woman's hair, which had to be thick and longer than she was tall. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_hair |
In medieval Latin, a place for the isolation and care of lepers was known as a leprosaria, leprosarium, or leprosorium, names which are sometimes used in English as well. The Latin domus leprosaria was calqued in English as leper house, with leper colony becoming by far the most common English term in the 1880s as the growing number of leprosy cases were discussed within the context of European colonialism. Less common synonyms include leper asylum, leper lodge, and leper hospital. Other names derive from the figure of Lazarus in one of Jesus's parables, treated by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages as a historical figure and as the patron saint of both lepers and the Crusader Order of Saint Lazarus, who administered the leper colony in Jerusalem before spreading to other locations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leper_colonies |
This caused leper colonies to also be known as lazar houses and, after the leper colony and quarantine center on Venice's Sta. Maria di Nazareth, as lazarets, lazarettes, lazarettos, and lazarettas. The name leper or leprosy village is sometimes used for colonies in China, a calque of the Mandarin name máfēngcūn (t 麻風村, s 麻风村). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leper_colonies |
In medieval Muslim astronomy, Orion was known as al-jabbar, "the giant". Orion's sixth brightest star, Saiph, is named from the Arabic, saif al-jabbar, meaning "sword of the giant". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_constellation |
In medieval Persia, Avicenna (980-1037 CE), the 'Prince of Doctors', wrote about clay therapy in his numerous treatises. Ibn al-Baitar (1197–1248), a Muslim scholar born at Malaga, Spain, and author of a famous work on pharmacology, discusses eight kinds of medicinal earth. The eight kinds are: the terra sigillata, Egyptian earth, Samian earth, earth of Chios, Cimolean earth or pure clay (cimolite), soft earth, called al-hurr, green in color like verdigris, is smoked together with almond bark to serve as food when it will turn red and assume a good flavor; it is but rarely eaten without being smoked—also called 'Argentiera', earth of vines called ampelitis (Pliny XXXV, 56) or pharmakitis from Seleucia in Syria, Armenian earth (also known as the Armenian bole), salutary in cases of bubonic plague, being administered both externally and internally, earth of Nishapur. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicinal_clay |
In medieval Russia, the rituals and games of the day were considered demonic and were banned by church authorities. Thus, the message of the hegumen Pamphil of the Yelizarov Convent (1505) to the Pskov governor and authorities condemned the "pagan" games of Pskov residents on the night of the Nativity of John the Baptist: Stoglav (a collection of decisions of the Stoglav Synod of 1551) also condemns the revelry during the Kupala Night, which originated in "Hellenistic" paganism Contemporary representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church continue to oppose some of the customs associated with this holiday. At the same time, responding to a question about the "intermingling" of Christian and pagan holidays, hieromonk Iov expressed an opinion: In 2013, at the request of the ROC, the celebrations of Kupala Night and Neptune's Day were banned in the Rossoshansky District of the Voronezh Oblast. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kupala_Night |
In medieval Spain (both Al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms), a host of synagogues were built, and it was usual to commission them from Moorish and later Mudéjar architects. Very few of these medieval synagogues, built with Moorish techniques and style, are conserved. The two best known Spanish synagogues are in Toledo, one known as El Tránsito, the other as Santa María la Blanca, and are now preserved as national monuments. The former is a small building containing very rich decorations; the latter is especially noteworthy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue_architecture |
It is based upon Almohad style and contains long rows of octagonal columns with curiously carved capitals, from which spring Moorish arches supporting the roof. Another significant Mudéjar synagogue is the one at Córdoba built in 1315. As in El Tránsito, the vegetal and geometrical stucco decorations are purely Moorish, but unlike the former, the epigraphic texts are in Hebrew. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue_architecture |
After the expulsion from Spain there was a general feeling among wealthy Sephardim that Moorish architecture was appropriate in synagogues. By the mid-19th century, the style was adopted by the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe, who associated Moorish and Mudéjar architectural forms with the golden age of Jewry in Al-Andalus. As a consequence, Moorish Revival spread around the globe as a preferred style of synagogue architecture, although Moorish architecture is by no means Jewish, either in fact or in feeling. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue_architecture |
The Alhambra has furnished inspiration for innumerable synagogues, but seldom have its graceful proportions or its delicate modeling and elaborate ornamentation been successfully copied. Moorish style, when adapted by the Ashkenazi was believed to have been a reference to the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry, it was not the primary intention of the Jews and architects who chose to build in the Moorish style. Rather, the choice to use the Moorish style was reflective of pride in their Semitic or oriental heritage. This pride in their heritage and understanding of Jews as "semitic" or "oriental" led architects like Gottfried Semper (Semper Synagogue Dresden, Germany) and Ludwig Förster (Tempelgasse or Leopoldstädter Tempel, Vienna, Austria and Dohány Street Synagogue, Budapest, Hungary) to build their synagogues in the Moorish style. Moorish Style remained a popular choice for synagogues throughout the rest of the 19th and early 20th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue_architecture |
In medieval Spain, Santas Hermandades, or 'holy brotherhoods', peacekeeping associations of armed individuals, were a characteristic of municipal life, especially in Castile. As medieval Spanish kings often could not offer adequate protection, protective municipal leagues began to emerge in the twelfth century against banditry and other rural criminals, and against the lawless nobility or to support one or another claimant to a crown. These organizations were intended to be temporary, but became a long-standing fixture of Spain. The first recorded case of the formation of an hermandad occurred when the towns and the peasantry of the north united to police the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, and protect the pilgrims against robber knights. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
Throughout the Middle Ages such alliances were frequently formed by combinations of towns to protect the roads connecting them, and were occasionally extended to political purposes. Among the most powerful was the league of North Castilian and Basque ports, the Hermandad de las marismas: Toledo, Talavera, and Villarreal. As one of their first acts after end of the War of the Castilian Succession in 1479, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile established the centrally-organized and efficient Holy Brotherhood as a national police force. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
They adapted an existing brotherhood to the purpose of a general police acting under officials appointed by themselves, and endowed with great powers of summary jurisdiction even in capital cases. The original brotherhoods continued to serve as modest local police-units until their final suppression in 1835. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
The Vehmic courts of Germany provided some policing in the absence of strong state institutions. Such courts had a chairman who presided over a session and lay judges who passed judgement and carried out law enforcement tasks. Among the responsibilities that lay judges had were giving formal warnings to known troublemakers, issuing warrants, and carrying out executions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
In the medieval Islamic Caliphates, police were known as Shurta. Bodies termed Shurta existed perhaps as early as the Caliphate of Uthman. The Shurta is known to have existed in the Abbasid and Umayyad Caliphates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
Their primary roles were to act as police and internal security forces but they could also be used for other duties such as customs and tax enforcement, rubbish collection, and acting as bodyguards for governors. From the 10th century, the importance of the Shurta declined as the army assumed internal security tasks while cities became more autonomous and handled their own policing needs locally, such as by hiring watchmen. In addition, officials called muhtasibs were responsible for supervising bazaars and economic activity in general in the medieval Islamic world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
In France during the Middle Ages, there were two Great Officers of the Crown of France with police responsibilities: The Marshal of France and the Grand Constable of France. The military policing responsibilities of the Marshal of France were delegated to the Marshal's provost, whose force was known as the Marshalcy because its authority ultimately derived from the Marshal. The marshalcy dates back to the Hundred Years' War, and some historians trace it back to the early 12th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
Another organisation, the Constabulary (Old French: Connétablie), was under the command of the Constable of France. The constabulary was regularised as a military body in 1337. Under Francis I (reigned 1515–1547), the Maréchaussée was merged with the constabulary. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
The resulting force was also known as the Maréchaussée, or, formally, the Constabulary and Marshalcy of France. In late medieval Italian cities, police forces were known as berovierri. Individually, their members were known as birri. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
Subordinate to the city's podestà, the berovierri were responsible for guarding the cities and their suburbs, patrolling, and the pursuit and arrest of criminals. They were typically hired on short-term contracts, usually six months. Detailed records from medieval Bologna show that birri had a chain of command, with constables and sergeants managing lower-ranking birri, that they wore uniforms, that they were housed together with other employees of the podestà together with a number of servants including cooks and stable-keepers, that their parentage and places of origin were meticulously recorded, and that most were not native to Bologna, with many coming from outside Italy.The English system of maintaining public order since the Norman conquest was a private system of tithings known as the mutual pledge system. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
This system was introduced under Alfred the Great. Communities were divided into groups of ten families called tithings, each of which was overseen by a chief tithingman. Every household head was responsible for the good behavior of his own family and the good behavior of other members of his tithing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
Every male aged 12 and over was required to participate in a tithing. Members of tithings were responsible for raising "hue and cry" upon witnessing or learning of a crime, and the men of his tithing were responsible for capturing the criminal. The person the tithing captured would then be brought before the chief tithingman, who would determine guilt or innocence and punishment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
All members of the criminal's tithing would be responsible for paying the fine. A group of ten tithings was known as a "hundred" and every hundred was overseen by an official known as a reeve. Hundreds ensured that if a criminal escaped to a neighboring village, he could be captured and returned to his village. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
If a criminal was not apprehended, then the entire hundred could be fined. The hundreds were governed by administrative divisions known as shires, the rough equivalent of a modern county, which were overseen by an official known as a shire-reeve, from which the term sheriff evolved. The shire-reeve had the power of posse comitatus, meaning he could gather the men of his shire to pursue a criminal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the tithing system was tightened with the frankpledge system. By the end of the 13th century, the office of constable developed. Constables had the same responsibilities as chief tithingmen and additionally as royal officers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
The constable was elected by his parish every year. Eventually, constables became the first 'police' official to be tax-supported. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
In urban areas, watchmen were tasked with keeping order and enforcing nighttime curfew. Watchmen guarded the town gates at night, patrolled the streets, arrested those on the streets at night without good reason, and also acted as firefighters. Eventually the office of justice of the peace was established, with a justice of the peace overseeing constables. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
There was also a system of investigative "juries". The Assize of Arms of 1252, which required the appointment of constables to summon men to arms, quell breaches of the peace, and to deliver offenders to the sheriff or reeve, is cited as one of the earliest antecedents of the English police. The Statute of Winchester of 1285 is also cited as the primary legislation regulating the policing of the country between the Norman Conquest and the Metropolitan Police Act 1829.From about 1500, private watchmen were funded by private individuals and organisations to carry out police functions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
They were later nicknamed 'Charlies', probably after the reigning monarch King Charles II. Thief-takers were also rewarded for catching thieves and returning the stolen property. They were private individuals usually hired by crime victims. The earliest English use of the word police seems to have been the term Polles mentioned in the book The Second Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England published in 1642. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcer |
In medieval and Renaissance Europe the term "property" essentially referred to land. After much rethinking, land has come to be regarded as only a special case of the property genus. This rethinking was inspired by at least three broad features of early modern Europe: the surge of commerce, the breakdown of efforts to prohibit interest (then called "usury"), and the development of centralized national monarchies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property |
In medieval and early modern Europe, before the development of modern prison systems, the death penalty was also used as a generalised form of punishment for even minor offences.In early modern Europe, a mass panic regarding witchcraft swept across Europe and later the European colonies in North America. During this period, there were widespread claims that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organised threat to Christendom. As a result, tens of thousands of women were prosecuted for witchcraft and executed through the witch trials of the early modern period (between the 15th and 18th centuries). The death penalty also targeted sexual offences such as sodomy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment |
In the early history of Islam (7th–11th centuries), there is a number of "purported (but mutually inconsistent) reports" (athar) regarding the punishments of sodomy ordered by some of the early caliphs. Abu Bakr, the first caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, apparently recommended toppling a wall on the culprit, or else burning him alive, while Ali ibn Abi Talib is said to have ordered death by stoning for one sodomite and had another thrown head-first from the top of the highest building in the town; according to Ibn Abbas, the latter punishment must be followed by stoning. Other medieval Muslim leaders, such as the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad (most notably al-Mu'tadid), were often cruel in their punishments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment |
In early modern England, the Buggery Act 1533 stipulated hanging as punishment for "buggery". James Pratt and John Smith were the last two Englishmen to be executed for sodomy in 1835. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment |
In 1636 the laws of Puritan governed Plymouth Colony included a sentence of death for sodomy and buggery. The Massachusetts Bay Colony followed in 1641. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment |
Throughout the 19th century, U.S. states repealed death sentences from their sodomy laws, with South Carolina being the last to do so in 1873.Historians recognise that during the Early Middle Ages, the Christian populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries suffered religious discrimination, religious persecution, religious violence, and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers. As People of the Book, Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to dhimmi status (along with Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians), which was inferior to the status of Muslims. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment |
Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination and religious persecution in that they were banned from proselytising (for Christians, it was forbidden to evangelise or spread Christianity) in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslims on pain of death, they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs. Under sharia, Non-Muslims were obligated to pay jizya and kharaj taxes, together with periodic heavy ransom levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and these financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam. Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the Muslim rulers as payment who would sell them as slaves to Muslim households where they were forced to convert to Islam. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment |
Many Christian martyrs were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.Despite the wide use of the death penalty, calls for reform were not unknown. The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar Moses Maimonides wrote: "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death." He argued that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice". Maimonides's concern was maintaining popular respect for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more threatening than errors of omission. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment |
In medieval and early modern Germany, the Münzmeister ("mint master", the Latin term is monetarius) was the head or manager of a mint, a moneyer with responsibility for the minting of coins, or specie. His duties were defined differently at different times and places. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Münzmeister |
In medieval and renaissance Europe, a number of visual signs consist of three elements interlaced together in the same way that the Borromean rings are shown interlaced (in their conventional two-dimensional depiction), but with individual elements that are not closed loops. Examples of such symbols are the Snoldelev stone horns and the Diana of Poitiers crescents.Some knot-theoretic links contain multiple Borromean rings configurations; one five-loop link of this type is used as a symbol in Discordianism, based on a depiction in the Principia Discordia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borromean_ring |
In medieval astrology, certain aspects and planets were considered to be either favorable (benefic) or unfavorable (malefic). Modern usage places less emphasis on these fatalistic distinctions. The more modern approach to astrological aspects is exemplified by research on astrological harmonics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect |
In 1619, Johannes Kepler advocates this in his book Harmonice Mundi. Thereafter, John Addey was a major proponent. However, even in modern times, aspects are considered to be either easy (60° Sextile or 120° Trine) or hard (90° Square or 180° Opposition). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect |
Depending on the involved planets, a Conjunction (0°, which is a discounting orb) may be in either category. Easy aspects may be positive, because they enhance opportunity for talent to grow. Hard aspects may be negative, because they enhance a challenge where an adjustment must be made to reach balance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect |
Typically, manifestation may occur with a Conjunction, Square or Opposition. Planets may be considered. Mars and Uranus tend to ignite while Saturn and Neptune inhibit. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect |
Whether a planet is direct or retrograde is of great significance. An eclipse of the Sun or Moon is even more significant. The South Node of the Moon denotes innate wisdom from past experience while the North Node denotes karma and evolution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect |
Astrological Signs may be considered. For example, the fire signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius are more compatible with the air signs of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. The Earth signs of Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn are more compatible with the water signs of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect |
The mutable signs of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces may be flexible. The cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn may change their mind. The fixed signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius may be difficult. Astrological Houses may be considered. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect |
In medieval castles, the area surrounded by a curtain wall, with or without towers, is known as the bailey. The outermost walls with their integrated bastions and wall towers together make up the enceinte or main defensive line enclosing the site. In medieval designs of castle and town, the curtain walls were often built to a considerable height and were fronted by a ditch or moat to make assault difficult. Walls were topped with battlements which consisted of a parapet, which was generally crenellated with merlons to protect the defenders and lower crenels or embrasures which allowed them to shoot from behind cover; merlons were sometimes pierced by loopholes or arrowslits for better protection. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtain_wall_(fortification) |
Behind the parapet was a wall walk from which the defenders could fight or move from one part of the castle to another. Larger curtain walls were provided with mural passages or galleries built into the thickness of the walls and provided with arrowslits. If an enemy reached the foot of the wall, they became difficult to see or shoot at directly, so some walls were fitted with a projecting wooden platform called a hoarding or brattice. Stone machicolations performed a similar function. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtain_wall_(fortification) |
In medieval central Europe, annual cattle drives brought Hungarian Grey cattle across the Danube River to the beef markets of Western Europe. In the 16th century the Swiss operated cattle drives over the St. Gotthard Pass to the markets in Bellinzona and Lugano and into Lombardy in northern Italy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_drive |
The drives had ended by 1700 when sedentary dairy farming proved more profitable. In the eighteenth century up to 80,000 cattle were driven South from Scotland each year. From 1850 cattle trains were established from Aberdeen to London. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_drive |
In medieval churches the altar, no longer standing between priest and people, grew considerably in size. The bishop's seat was moved to one side and the elaborate altar was placed against, or at least close to, the wall of the apse. The Roman Missal of Pope Pius V, whose use was made generally obligatory throughout the Latin Church in 1570 laid down that, for Mass, a cross should be placed in the middle of the altar, flanked by at least two candlesticks with lit candles, and that the central altar card should be placed at the foot of the cross. It stated also that "nothing whatever unrelated to the sacrifice of the Mass and the adornment of the altar itself is to be placed on it".Although the Roman Missal thus spoke of the cross and the candlesticks as on the altar, it became customary to add to the edge of altars one or more steps, slightly higher than the altar itself, on which to place the crucifix, candlesticks, flowers, reliquaries, and other ornaments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_(Catholic_Church) |
These adjuncts became common when, in the sixteenth century, church tabernacles were added to altars, requiring that most of the altars concerned be provided with these superstructures, which are known as altar ledges, degrees, gradini or superstructural steps. The front of these steps was sometimes painted and decorated. Thus the gradini of Brunelleschi's church of Santo Spirito, Florence displayed scenes from the Passion of Christ.21st-century altars are generally freestanding and have no superstructures. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_(Catholic_Church) |
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