Diversity in Church Architecture in Medieval England

Medieval English churches differed in size and layout. Their original and evolving role(s), financial and material resources, and architectural fashions helped determine variability. However, their look ultimately grew from a constant symbiosis between being a place for worship and practical matters. During the 10th-15th centuries, stone construction became firmly established, and that witnessed a golden era of church building.

Purpose & Resources

Immediate, mundane reasons for diversity were just as for any other buildings – houses, castles, offices – it depended on the purpose for which they were originally built and the financial and material resources available to the initial builders and to later owners who wanted to extend and/or beautify it.

Impoverished communities created basic churches employing the means and materials members of the settlement possessed or could source nearby using their own sweat and skills. Rich sponsors had the wherewithal to envisage and execute the most lavish projects money and authority could buy, transporting materials from far and wide, engaging the leading designers, technology, masons, metalworkers, carpenters, painters, and glaziers of the day.

Basic buildings might be erected as outposts of mother churches/minsters or by individual villages or minor landowners wanting a place, however humble, to express their faith, as a centre for the daily, weekly, and yearly cycles of devotion that dominated and led peoples' lives. They were simple rectangular structures, large enough for maybe 15 to 20 worshippers. The grandest undertakings were sponsored by major royal, aristocratic, or religious order benefactors to produce leading centres of ecclesiastical, administrative, and scholarly influence. Many of the great cathedrals, abbeys, and minsters, like Durham, Lincoln, and Old St Paul's London were wonders of the world at the time they were built, well over 100 meters long, 100 meters high, or more, and tens of meters wide.

Of course, the majority of churches fell in between these extremes. Some might not initially have been conceived on a grand scale, yet over the centuries they grew as patrons and communities responded to changing population sizes and advances in building technology that fed the desire to always have the bigger, better, more beautiful, the latest architectural fashion. In the economic climate of the later Middle Ages, fresh sponsors of church building and extension entered the scene. Newly rich guilds and merchants in many towns employed their wealth to craft ornate chapels or enhance an existing church with which they were associated. From unpretentious origins, many modest buildings thus grew into impressive houses of God – witness Leicestershire's grandest church in Melton Mowbray backed by wool traders' money, and the great wool churches of Norfolk and Suffolk.

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James Armistead Lafayette

James Armistead Lafayette (l. c. 1748-1832) was an African American Patriot who served the Continental Army as a spy during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). During the Siege of Yorktown, he infiltrated the British camp to bring crucial intelligence to the Americans. After the war, he was freed from slavery with the help of the Marquis de Lafayette, whose name he adopted.

Early Life

James Armistead Lafayette was born into slavery around the year 1748 in New Kent County, Virginia (some sources give his birth year as 1760). He was born on the property of Colonel John Armistead, and became the colonel's slave; although later writers and historians would refer to him as James 'Armistead', he never adopted his master's surname during his lifetime and was instead simply referred to as 'James'. James was raised alongside Colonel Armistead's son, William, with the intention that James would eventually serve as William's personal manservant. For this purpose, James was given a basic education and was taught how to read and write, skills unusual for enslaved persons in Colonial America, but which James needed to know to be an effective servant. When William Armistead came of age, the colonel gifted him James as his manservant, with William inheriting the rest of his father's slaves and lands when the colonel died in 1779.

James likely would have remained a manservant for the rest of his life, fading into historical obscurity in much the same way that most of the other 450,000 enslaved individuals living in the Thirteen Colonies at the time did. However, in 1779, the same year that Colonel Armistead died, something happened that would change the course of James' life forever: the American War of Independence came to the south. By this point, the war was well into its fourth year; the United States of America had declared its independence, the decisive Battles of Saratoga had been fought in New York, the Continental Army had reorganized itself at Valley Forge, and the Kingdom of France had entered the war on the American side. But up until now, most of the fighting had taken place in the north, particularly in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania; the British had been focused on seizing key American cities like Philadelphia and New York City, while simultaneously isolating New England, believed to be the heart of the American rebellion.

But after the failure of several northern campaigns, the British turned their focus to the southern states, which were rumored to be replete with Loyalists eagerly awaiting the return of royal authority. The British implemented their southern strategy, capturing Savannah, Georgia, in December 1778 and laying siege to Charleston, South Carolina, in early 1780. With the arrival of the redcoats on their shores, southern colonists were forced to choose where their loyalties lie; this included the tens of thousands of African Americans, such as James, who had to decide whether the Patriots or the Tories (Loyalists) offered the better chance at freedom.

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Maya Religion & Culture

Maya religion and culture is among the most advanced and sophisticated of the Pre-Colombian Americas as evidenced by the ruins of their great cities and what remains of their writings after most were burned by the Spanish in 1562. The Maya continue to live in the same regions today as in the ancient past.

This collection presents a brief survey of some of the most significant aspects of the ancient Maya Civilization.

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Dogs and Their Collars in Ancient Mesoamerica

Dogs were an integral aspect of the lives of the people of Mesoamerica regardless of their location or culture and, throughout the region, were recognized as liminal beings belonging not only to the natural world and that of humans but to this world and the next.

Dogs were believed by the Aztec, Maya, and Tarascan to travel between worlds, assist the souls of the dead, warn of dangers to the living and, at the same time, were regarded as a food source, companion, and guardian in daily life. The dogs of the indigenous people are frequently depicted without collars because it seems to have been thought that these would restrict the dog’s movement between worlds.

Even so, collars did exist – fashioned for humans to wear – and it is thought that these developed from dog collars. This model changed with the arrival of Christopher Columbus (l. 1451-1506) in the West Indies in 1492. Columbus’ dogs all wore collars and were much larger than the animals the natives were used to. The European dogs had also been trained for war and so were far more savage than any dog a Taino, for example, had ever known.

After Columbus, who sailed for Spain, more Spanish invaders arrived and made their way north through South America to Mesoamerica, bringing Christianity with them. Christianity began to replace indigenous beliefs and, as the Catholic Church claimed dogs had no souls, belief in the supernatural power of the dog declined. Although there were no doubt many indigenous peoples who still believed in the dog as a psychopomp, there is no widespread evidence of this belief after the arrival of the Spanish as compared with pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The descendants of the ancient people of the region have only begun restoring their ancient cultures in the past 100 years and so, in time, the dog has slowly regained the status it once held.

Olmecs & Their Dogs

The Olmecs of Mesoamerica lived in the lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico c. 1400-400 BCE and bred dogs as food. The Olmecs are the oldest civilization in the western hemisphere, inventing the first written language of Mesoamerica as well as distinctive art and architecture which would influence the later civilizations of the Aztecs, Maya, and Tarascan, among others. The sacred animal of the Olmecs was the jaguar which was thought to be spiritually related to the dog. The dog was therefore associated with the divine while, at the same time, serving as a food source. There seems to have been no contradiction in this as dogs, servants and messengers of the gods, also served humanity by graciously offering themselves as food.

A tomb of the Zoque peoples, a Mesoamerican population thought to be descended from the Olmec, was discovered in 2010 in Chiapa de Corzo containing jade collars. These were ornamental collars for human wear but could have developed from the dog collar. The tomb dates to between 700-500 BCE and is the oldest pyramid tomb yet found in the region.

The indigenous people of modern-day Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and neighboring regions, built pyramids as temples, not as tombs, and this find is thought to reflect an earlier Olmec practice of keeping precious objects in temples – one that was observed by later cultures. The jade collars, though clearly for human use, could have linked an officiant with the spirit of a liminal dog who would bring messages from the gods.

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Legions of Noricum, Raetia & Dacia

The provinces Noricum, Raetia, and Dacia served as a buffer protecting Roman Empire against any possible outside threat. However, the region posed several internal problems for Rome: Pannonia and its ally Dalmatia rebelled against Roman occupancy, causing a three-year war, and Moesia was invaded by the Dacians during the reigns of both Domitian (r. 81-96 CE) and Trajan (r. 98-117 CE).

Lastly, during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, the region was repeatedly invaded by the Goths, Alemanni, and Marcomanni. While Noricum, Raetia, and Dacia provided a buffer between Rome and the Germanic tribes to the north, in time, they succumbed to the invaders they were supposed to keep out.

The Province of Noricum

Located in the eastern Alps between Raetia and Pannonia, its ideal location south of the Danube and rich deposits of iron ore and gold made Noricum a valuable asset to the coffers of the Roman Empire. The discovery of gold in the 2nd century BCE had drawn Roman settlers into the region only to be quickly expelled by the native Taurisci. However, Roman merchants continued to conduct business through small trading settlements. Always viewed as an ally, the region was finally conquered in 16 BCE during the reign of Roman emperor Augustus (r. 27 BCE to 14 CE). However, unlike other provinces, it did not receive a legion of its own – Legio Italica II – until the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE). The province was later divided into two – Noricum Ripensis and Noricum Mediterranean – by Diocletian (284-305 CE). It was invaded by northern Germanic tribes and abandoned in the 5th century CE.

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Battle of Cowpens

The Battle of Cowpens (17 January 1781) was a decisive battle in the southern theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). It saw a detachment of Continental soldiers and Patriot militia under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeat a British force under Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton. The battle helped lead to the end of British domination in the American South.

Background

On 2 December 1780, Major General Nathanael Greene rode into the American military camp at Charlotte, North Carolina. A 38-year-old Quaker from Rhode Island, Greene had been entrusted by General George Washington to take charge of the remnants of the Southern Department of the Continental Army after its disastrous defeat at the Battle of Camden (16 August 1780). What Greene found at Charlotte was less an army than a rugged gathering of 1,400 disheartened men. The troops were undersupplied, underfed, and lacked clothing. Several men sat huddled around the campfires practically naked, with only rags or blankets to protect them from the elements. Many of the soldiers stirred themselves only to plunder the surrounding countryside for food, and the officers had grown jaded enough not to care. It was a ghastly display of dejection that must have reminded Greene of the state of the main army at Valley Forge three winters before.

It was not hard to see why the army was in such a depressed state. The Americans had suffered nothing but defeat since the British had first invaded the American South in late 1778. Having grown frustrated with their unsatisfactory military campaigns in the North, the British had shifted their focus to the South, which was rumored to be replete with Loyalists as well as the source of much of the United States' commercial wealth. The capture of the South, it was believed, would not only cut the United States in two but also cripple its ability to keep fighting. The British implemented their so-called 'southern strategy' in December 1778 by seizing Savannah, Georgia; the following year, a Franco-American attempt to retake the city failed, and Georgia became the first state to fall back under British control. In May 1780, the British won the Siege of Charleston, taking the largest and most important city in the entire South. Under the command of Lord Charles Cornwallis, the British then set about pacifying the rest of South Carolina. This sparked a bloody regional civil war, as the state's Patriot and Loyalist militias brutalized one another in the South Carolina backcountry. The southern Continental Army, under General Horatio Gates, had tried to retake the state but had been decisively defeated at Camden.

Now, as Greene took over command of the depleted army from Gates, he realized the monumental task that rested upon his shoulders. Should he fail, there would be nothing to prevent Cornwallis from conquering North Carolina and Virginia, completing the British 'southern strategy'. Greene was a cautious commander who pursued a 'Fabian strategy'. That is, he tried to avoid fighting any pitched battle that he was not sure he could win, instead wearing the enemy down through attrition and guerilla fighting, striking only when he spotted vulnerability. The Patriot militias already operating in South Carolina could serve this purpose well; Greene hoped that they could keep the British distracted long enough for him to whip his army into shape and maybe find new recruits. However, he would need someone he could rely on to go down into South Carolina and keep the militias supplied and organized. As it happened, Greene already had just the man in mind.

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The Monastic Movement: Origins & Purposes

In 313 CE, Constantine the Great (272 – 337 CE) ended the sporadic-yet-terrifying Christian persecutions under the Roman Empire with his “Edict of Milan,” and brought the Christian church under imperial protection. Not surprisingly, public social activities and normative culture changed, quite dramatically and favorably, for the early Christians. Previously, early Christians faced dangers from outside of the faith and often had to “worship underground,” in order to avoid both physical dangers and social oppression from various Pagan and Jewish factions in the first three centuries of the faith. However, after Constantine's imperial endorsement and favoritism for Christian leaders and the laity, a new cultural permissiveness and secularism arose within the faith; and pious believers began to worry more about inner church immorality, abuse, and vice.

Beginning of the MOnastic Movement

Gonzalez writes, “The new privileges, prestige and power now granted to church leaders soon led to acts of arrogance and even to corruption” (143). As such, many in the primative Jesus movement sought a different, less secular, more purist environment in which to pursue their spirituality. MacCulloch states, “It was hardly surprising that the sudden sequence of great power and great disappointment for the imperial Church in the West inspired Western Christians to imitate the monastic life of the Eastern Church” (312). Thus began the official monastic movement in the West.

This Christian monastic lifestyle was simple at first, but, as is common to all societies, its routine became more and more convoluted and variegated with each passing century. One could find monks and nuns in caves, in the swamp, in a cemetery, even 12 metres (40 feet) up on stylite - all proclaiming God's calling and affirmation of their personal lifestyles. Eventually, specific rules and over-arching regulations were developed by the church institution to align all the numerous, specific groups into healthier, more consistant expressions of Christianity in the monastic movement.

The origin of the monastic movement begins in the 3rd and 4th centuries, CE, in the deserts surrounding Israel. As Nystrom notes,

Scholars have searched widely for the antecedents of Christian monasticism, hoping to find its pre-Christian roots in such possible points of origin as the Jewish Essene community at Qumran near the Dead Sea and among the recluses associated with the temples of the Egyptian god Sarapis. Thus far, no clear links have ben established to these or any other groups (74).

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Shogun

The shoguns of medieval Japan were military dictators who ruled the country via a feudal system where a vassal's military service and loyalty was given in return for a lord's patronage. Established as an institution by the first shogun proper, Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1192 CE, the shoguns would rule for seven centuries until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 CE. The position of shogun was held by members of certain families which gave their names to two of the three successive shogunate governments (bakufu): the Ashikaga Shogunate (r. 1338-1573 CE) and Tokugawa Shogunate (r. 1603-1868 CE). In the case of the first shogunate, the capital gave its name to the government: the Kamakura Shogunate (r. 1192-1333 CE). The other shogunates may also be referred to by their capitals: Muromachi (Ashikaga Shogunate), an area of Heiankyo/Kyoto, and Edo (Tokugawa Shogunate), the original name of Tokyo.

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Xipe Totec

Xipe Totec (pron. Xi-pe To-tec) or 'Flayed One' in Nahuatl, was a major god in ancient Mesoamerican culture and particularly important for the Toltecs and Aztecs. He was considered the god of spring, the patron god of seeds and planting and the patron of metal workers (especially goldsmiths) and gemstone workers. He is equivalent to the Red Tezcatlipoca, patron of Cuauhtli (eagle), the unfavourable 15th Aztec day-name and he was represented by the date 1 Océlotl.

Early Origins

Xipe Totec perhaps originated with the Olmec culture and developed from their ancient God VI. Another possible origin is from the Yope civilization in the southern highlands of Guerrero. The first representations of the god in art, however, date to the Post-classical period (9th to 12th century CE) in the Mazapan culture at Texcoco. The god was a major Aztec deity and was also worshipped by the Tlaxcaltecans, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Tarascan and Huastecs. The late Post-classical Maya also adopted Xipe Totec and representations of the god survive at Oxkintok, Chichen Itza and Mayapan.

In Mesoamerican mythology Xipe Totec was the son of the primordial androgynous god Ometeotl and, specifically in Aztec mythology, he was the brother of those other three major gods Tezcatlipoca, Huizilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl. Sometimes credited with being a creator god along with his brothers, Xipe Totec was also closely associated with death, which resulted in him being considered the source of diseases amongst mankind. However, the god also received many offerings from worshippers calling for him to cure illnesses, especially eye ailments.

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From the artwork to its theft and role in popular culture, the critically-acclaimed book The Thefts of the Mona Lisa provides the complete story of this work of art, as written by a bestselling, Pulitzer finalist author Noah Charney. Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait, called the Mona Lisa, is without doubt the world’s most famous painting. It achieved its fame not only because it is a remarkable example of Renaissance portraiture, created by an acclaimed artistic and scientific genius, but because of its criminal history. The Mona Lisa (also called La Gioconda or La Joconde) was stolen on 21 August 1911 by an Italian, Vincenzo Peruggia. Peruggia was under the mistaken impression that the Mona Lisa had been stolen from Italy during the Napoleonic era, and he wished to take back for Italy one of his country’s greatest treasures. His successful theft of the painting from the Louvre, the farcical manhunt that followed, and Peruggia’s subsequent trial in Florence were highly publicized, sparking the attention of the international media, and catapulting an already admired painting into stratospheric heights of fame. This book reveals the art and criminal history of the Mona Lisa. Charney examines the criminal biography of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, with a focus on separating fact from fiction in the story of what is not only the most famous art heist in history, but which is the single most famous theft of all time. In the process he delves into Leonardo’s creation of the Mona Lisa, discusses why it is so famous, and investigates two other events in its history of theft and renown. First, it examines the so-called “affaire des statuettes,” in which Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire were arrested under suspicion of involvement in the theft of the Mona Lisa. Second, there has long been a question as to whether the Nazis stole the Mona Lisa during the Second World War LEARN MORE --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH1wmyAnWCA

Urartu Religion

The religion of the Urartu civilization, which flourished principally in ancient Armenia from the 9th to 6th century BCE, was a unique mix of indigenous, Hurrian and Mesopotamian gods and symbolism. The pantheon was headed by the trinity of Haldi, Teisheba, and Shivini, who were the principal beneficiaries of sacrifices and temples built in their honour. Inscriptions, dedications and representations in art are all a testimony to the importance of religion in Urartu culture and especially to warfare.

The Urartu Pantheon

The gods of the Urartu religion were many, but they are handily listed in a 9th-century BCE inscription discovered in a niche in the mountains near the capital Tushpa (Van). The list, inscribed in duplicate, mentions 79 gods and the various sacrifices which should be made to each. The large number of deities may be explained by the fact that the Urartu religion adopted gods and practices from the Hurrians and other Mesopotamian cultures, which were mixed with indigenous Urartian gods. In addition, a feature of Urartu territorial expansion was the assimilation of local gods into the official pantheon of the conquerors. Many of these local gods were totems and represented such important elements or prominent natural features as water, earth, the sun, mountains, caves and trees. Still other deities were related to ancient animalistic beliefs.

The three most important Urartu gods were Haldi (Khaldi), god of war and the supreme deity, Teisheba, the god of storms and thunder who was likely based on the Hurrian god Teshub, and Shivini, the Sun god, who was often represented as a kneeling man holding a winged solar disk, and therefore likely inspired by the Egyptian god of the same association, Ra. Haldi's consort was Arubani (or Bagmashtu in the eastern part of Urartu, notably at Musasir/Ardini), the most important female goddess; Teisheba's consort was Huba (aka Khuba), and Shivini's was Tushpuea (aka Tushpues). The close cultural relations between Urartu and Assyria are again illustrated by the Urartian application of the Assyrian ideograms for the gods Adad and Shamsh to their own gods Teisheba and Shivani respectively.

Other important gods include Sielardi, the moon goddess, Epaninaue, the land goddess, Dsvininaue, a sea or water goddess, Babaninaue, the goddess of mountains, and Sardi, the star goddess. Most towns were given their own local god or goddess who was often named after the settlement, e.g. “the god of the town of Kumanu”. The most famous examples of such naming conventions were the capital Tushpa named after Tushpuea and the important city of Teishebaini, founded and named after Teisheba by king Rusa II (r. c. 685-645 BCE).

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Claude Monet

Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a French impressionist painter who transformed modern art with his emphasis on light brushstrokes, bright colours, and uncluttered nature. Famed for his landscapes and series of paintings that captured the same view in different momentary atmospheric conditions, Monet is heralded as one of the greatest and most influential artists of all time.

Early Life

Oscar-Claude Monet was born in Paris on 14 November 1840. The job of Monet's father, Claude-Adolphe, is not known except that it was a humble one and that the family often struggled financially. In 1845, the Monets moved to Le Havre on the northern coast of France where Claude-Adolphe worked in his brother-in-law's thriving wholesale grocery business. Oscar-Claude's favourite subject at school was art, and, fascinated by the boats in the busy harbour, he often sketched them. From 15, he made money by selling caricatures, some of which were displayed in a local shop window each Sunday, which became a minor local attraction. Monet's aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre, was an amateur painter and she encouraged Oscar-Claude, introducing him to the artist Amand Gautier (1825-1894).

Another artistic influence was the landscape painter Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) and the pair went painting together en plein air (outdoors), as opposed to the traditional method of painting in the studio. Still only 17, Monet produced his first outdoor painting, View from Rouelles, in 1858. Monet later described the experience:

Boudin put up his easel and set to work…for me it was like the rending of a veil; I understood; I grasped what painting could be…my destiny as a painter opened up before me. If I have indeed become a painter; I owe it to Eugène Boudin…Gradually my eyes were opened and I understood nature.

(Hodge, 15)

In April 1859, Monet gathered together his savings from his caricatures sales and went to study art in Paris. He enrolled in the unconventional Académie Suisse and started to make friends with artists like Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and Paul Cézanne (1839-1906). More caricatures helped eke out his savings.

In June 1861, Monet's studies were rudely interrupted by conscription into the French army. Joining the African Light Cavalry, he was shipped off to Algeria. The bright colours of North Africa left a lasting impression on the young artist, who continued to sketch when he could. Then, after contracting typhoid in 1862, Monet was invalided back home. Six months later, Aunt Marie-Jeanne bought her nephew out of the army. Now 22, he dropped the Oscar from his name and began to paint again. It was at Le Havre that Monet met the Dutch artist Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891), whose work he already admired for its broad and bold brushstrokes and which captured effects of the weather on seascapes. As Monet noted, Jongkind "became from this moment, my true master; and it is to him that I owe the final development of my painter's eye" (Hodge, 19).

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Charles A. Eastman on Sitting Bull

In his Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916), Sioux author and physician Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939), includes a brief biography of the Sioux chief Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890). While some of Eastman's claims are unsupported elsewhere, his work is viewed as a valuable source on the life of the great Native American leader.

Eastman drew on stories he had heard in his youth for his work and, as he says, on interviews with Sitting Bull's family, those who had known him, and even on an 1884 meeting with the man himself. Still, he makes some claims, such as how Sitting Bull approved the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and then traveled to Washington, D.C., which have no outside support and seem untenable. Eastman's piece runs to over 4,000 words and so has been edited below for space considerations, but the complete online work will be found in the External Links section following this article.

In the full piece, Eastman also claims that Sitting Bull was given his name when, as a youth, he pushed a large buffalo calf, who had attacked him, to a sitting position – "and from this incident was derived his familiar name" (107). Actually, Sitting Bull was given his name by his father – who was known as Sitting Bull – and gave the youth his own name when the boy attained manhood – then taking the name Jumping Bull; his son would then go on to make the name Sitting Bull famous.

Text

Aside from these two questionable claims, Eastman's account is recognized as a more or less accurate depiction of the great Hunkpapa Sioux holy man, warrior, leader, and cultural hero. The following is taken from Eastman's Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 1939 edition, republished in 2016:

It is not easy to characterize Sitting Bull, of all Sioux chiefs most generally known to the American people. There are few to whom his name is not familiar, and still fewer who have learned to connect it with anything more than the conventional notion of a bloodthirsty savage. The man was an enigma at best. He was not impulsive, nor was he phlegmatic. He was most serious when he seemed to be jocose. He was gifted with the power of sarcasm, and few have used it more artfully than he…

It is a mistake to suppose that Sitting Bull, or any other Indian warrior, was of a murderous disposition. It is true that savage warfare had grown more and more harsh and cruel since the coming of white traders among them, bringing guns, knives, and whisky...The common impression that the Indian is naturally cruel and revengeful is entirely opposed to his philosophy and training. The revengeful tendency of the Indian was aroused by the white man…

Remember that there were councils which gave their decisions in accordance with the highest ideal of human justice before there were any cities on this continent; before there were bridges to span the Mississippi; before this network of railroads was dreamed of! There were primitive communities upon the very spot where Chicago or New York City now stands, where men were as children, innocent of all the crimes now committed there daily and nightly. True morality is more easily maintained in connection with the simple life. You must accept the truth that you demoralize any race whom you have subjugated.

From this point of view, we shall consider Sitting Bull's career. We say he is an untutored man: that is true so far as learning of a literary type is concerned; but he was not an untutored man when you view him from the standpoint of his nation. To be sure, he did not learn his lessons from books. This is second-hand information at best. All that he learned he verified for himself and put into daily practice. In personal appearance he was rather commonplace and made no immediate impression, but as he talked, he seemed to take hold of his hearers more and more. He was bull-headed; quick to grasp a situation, and not readily induced to change his mind. He was not suspicious until he was forced to be so. All his meaner traits were inevitably developed by the events of his later career.

Sitting Bull's history has been written many times by newspaper men and army officers, but I find no account of him which is entirely correct. I met him personally in 1884, and since his death I have gone thoroughly into the details of his life with his relatives and contemporaries. It has often been said that he was a physical coward and not a warrior. Judge of this for yourselves from the deed which first gave him fame in his own tribe, when he was about twenty-eight years old.

In an attack upon a band of Crow Indians, one of the enemy took his stand, after the rest had fled, in a deep ditch from which it seemed impossible to dislodge him. The situation had already cost the lives of several warriors, but they could not let him go to repeat such a boast over the Sioux!

"Follow me!" said Sitting Bull, and charged. He raced his horse to the brim of the ditch and struck at the enemy with his coup-staff, thus compelling him to expose himself to the fire of the others while shooting his assailant. But the Crow merely poked his empty gun into his face and dodged back under cover. Then Sitting Bull stopped; he saw that no one had followed him, and he also perceived that the enemy had no more ammunition left. He rode deliberately up to the barrier and threw his loaded gun over it; then he went back to his party and told them what he thought of them.

"Now," said he, "I have armed him, for I will not see a brave man killed unarmed. I will strike him again with my coup-staff to count the first feather; who will count the second?"

Again, he led the charge, and this time they all followed him. Sitting Bull was severely wounded by his own gun in the hands of the enemy, who was killed by those that came after him. This is a record that so far as I know was never made by any other warrior…

When Sitting Bull was a boy, there was no thought of trouble with the whites. He was acquainted with many of the early traders…All the early records show this friendly attitude of the Sioux, and the great fur companies for a century and a half depended upon them for the bulk of their trade. It was not until the middle of the last century that they woke up all of a sudden to the danger threatening their very existence…They utterly refused to cede their lands; alone as long as he did not interfere with their life and customs, which was not long…

Sitting Bull joined in the attack on Fort Phil Kearny and in the subsequent hostilities; but he accepted in good faith the treaty of 1868, and soon after it was signed, he visited Washington with Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, on which occasion the three distinguished chiefs attracted much attention and were entertained at dinner by President Grant and other notables. He considered that the life of the white man as he saw it was no life for his people but hoped by close adherence to the terms of this treaty to preserve the Big Horn and Black Hills country for a permanent hunting ground. When gold was discovered and the irrepressible gold seekers made their historic dash across the plains into this forbidden paradise, then his faith in the white man's honor was gone forever, and he took his final and most persistent stand in defense of his nation and home. His bitter and, at the same time, well-grounded and philosophical dislike of the conquering race is well expressed in a speech made before the purely Indian council before referred to, upon the Powder River. I will give it in brief as it has been several times repeated to me by men who were present.

"Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! Every seed is awakened, and all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.

"Yet hear me, friends! we have now to deal with another people, small and feeble when our forefathers first met with them, but now great and overbearing. Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes of the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse. They compel her to produce out of season, and when sterile she is made to take medicine in order to produce again. All this is sacrilege.

"This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side. Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also. My brothers, shall we submit? or shall we say to them: ‘First kill me, before you can take possession of my fatherland!'"

…He has been called a "medicine man" and a "dreamer." Strictly speaking, he was neither of these, and the white historians are prone to confuse the two. A medicine man is a doctor or healer; a dreamer is an active war prophet who leads his war party according to his dream or prophecy. What is called by whites "making medicine" in war time is again a wrong conception. Every warrior carries a bag of sacred or lucky charms, supposed to protect the wearer alone, but it has nothing to do with the success or safety of the party as a whole. No one can make any "medicine" to affect the result of a battle, although it has been said that Sitting Bull did this at the battle of the Little Big Horn.

When Custer and Reno attacked the camp at both ends, the chief was caught napping. The village was in danger of surprise, and the women and children must be placed in safety. Like other men of his age, Sitting Bull got his family together for flight, and then joined the warriors on the Reno side of the attack. Thus, he was not in the famous charge against Custer; nevertheless, his voice was heard exhorting the warriors throughout that day.

During the autumn of 1876, after the fall of Custer, Sitting Bull was hunted all through the Yellowstone region by the military…The army report says: "Sitting Bull wanted peace in his own way." The truth was that he wanted nothing more than had been guaranteed to them by the treaty of 1868—the exclusive possession of their last hunting ground. This the government was not now prepared to grant, as it had been decided to place all the Indians under military control upon the various reservations.

Since it was impossible to reconcile two such conflicting demands, the hostiles were driven about from pillar to post for several more years, and finally took refuge across the line in Canada, where Sitting Bull had placed his last hope of justice and freedom for his race… Sitting Bull was not moved by fair words; but when he found that if they had liberty on that side, they had little else, that the Canadian government would give them protection but no food, that the buffalo had been all but exterminated and his starving people were already beginning to desert him, he was compelled at last, in 1881, to report at Fort Buford, North Dakota, with his band of hungry, homeless, and discouraged refugees. It was, after all, to hunger and not to the strong arm of the military that he surrendered in the end.

In spite of the invitation that had been extended to him in the name of the "Great Father" at Washington, he was immediately thrown into a military prison, and afterward handed over to Colonel Cody ("Buffalo Bill") as an advertisement for his "Wild West Show." After traveling about for several years with the famous showman, thus increasing his knowledge of the weaknesses as well as the strength of the white man, the deposed and humiliated chief settled down quietly with his people upon the Standing Rock Agency in North Dakota, where his immediate band occupied the Grand River district and set to raising cattle and horses…

When the Commissions of 1888 and 1889 came to treat with the Sioux for a further cession of land and a reduction of their reservations, nearly all were opposed to consent on any terms. Nevertheless, by hook or by crook, enough signatures were finally obtained to carry the measure through, although it is said that many were those of women and the so-called "squaw-men", who had no rights in the land. At the same time, rations were cut down, and there was general hardship and dissatisfaction. Crazy Horse was long since dead; Spotted Tail had fallen at the hands of one of his own tribe; Red Cloud had become a feeble old man, and the disaffected among the Sioux began once more to look to Sitting Bull for leadership.

At this crisis a strange thing happened. A half-breed Indian in Nevada promulgated the news that the Messiah had appeared to him upon a peak in the Rockies, dressed in rabbit skins, and bringing a message to the red race. The message was to the effect that since his first coming had been in vain, since the white people had doubted and reviled him, had nailed him to the cross, and trampled upon his doctrines, he had come again in pity to save the Indian. He declared that he would cause the earth to shake and to overthrow the cities of the whites and destroy them, that the buffalo would return, and the land belong to the red race forever! These events were to come to pass within two years; and meanwhile they were to prepare for his coming by the ceremonies and dances which he commanded.

This curious story spread like wildfire and met with eager acceptance among the suffering and discontented people. The teachings of Christian missionaries had prepared them to believe in a Messiah, and the prescribed ceremonial was much more in accord with their traditions than the conventional worship of the churches. Chiefs of many tribes sent delegations to the Indian prophet; Short Bull, Kicking Bear, and others went from among the Sioux, and on their return, all inaugurated the dances at once. There was an attempt at first to keep the matter secret, but it soon became generally known and seriously disconcerted the Indian agents and others, who were quick to suspect a hostile conspiracy under all this religious enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, there was no thought of an uprising; the dancing was innocent enough, and pathetic enough, their despairing hope in a pitiful Savior who should overwhelm their oppressors and bring back their golden age.

When the Indians refused to give up the "Ghost Dance" at the bidding of the authorities, the growing suspicion and alarm focused upon Sitting Bull, who in spirit had never been any too submissive, and it was determined to order his arrest. At the special request of Major McLaughlin, agent at Standing Rock, forty of his Indian police were sent out to Sitting Bull's home on Grand River to secure his person (followed at some little distance by a body of United States troops for reinforcement, in case of trouble)…They entered the cabin at daybreak, aroused the chief from a sound slumber, helped him to dress, and led him unresisting from the house; but when he came out in the gray dawn of that December morning in 1890, to find his cabin surrounded by armed men and himself led away to he knew not what fate, he cried out loudly:

"They have taken me: what say you to it?"

Men poured out of the neighboring houses, and in a few minutes the police were themselves surrounded with an excited and rapidly increasing throng. They harangued the crowd in vain; Sitting Bull's blood was up, and he again appealed to his men. His adopted brother, the Assiniboine captive whose life he had saved so many years before, was the first to fire. His shot killed Lieutenant Bull Head, who held Sitting Bull by the arm. Then there was a short but sharp conflict, in which Sitting Bull and six of his defenders and six of the Indian police were slain, with many more wounded. The chief's young son, Crow Foot, and his devoted "brother" died with him…

Thus ended the life of a natural strategist of no mean courage and ability. The great chief was buried without honors outside the cemetery at the post, and for some years the grave was marked by a mere board at its head. Recently some women have built a cairn of rocks there in token of respect and remembrance.

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Ten Women of the Protestant Reformation

Women played a vital role in the Protestant Reformation (1517-1648) not only by supporting the major reformers as wives but also through their own literary and political influence. Their contributions were largely marginalized in the past, but modern-day scholarship has highlighted women's roles and established their importance in spreading the reformed vision of Christianity.

Prior to the Reformation, the lives of women were ordered by the Catholic Church, the patriarchal nobility, and their husbands or sons. Women in the Middle Ages held jobs and some even assumed control of the family business after their husbands' death, but their opportunities were still limited, with rare exceptions, to becoming a wife and mother or a nun. After the Reformation began, women found new freedoms – as well as uncertain futures – as monasteries and nunneries were closed, eliminating the option of monastic life, while also allowing women who had been forced to become nuns to now choose their own path.

The Reformation affected women's lives throughout Europe and beyond and, as it was not a cohesive movement, different Protestant sects regarded women in different ways. The followers of Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) believed that a woman's place was in the home, caring for the children, and those who supported the views of Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531) felt likewise, while the Anabaptists, who had emerged as their own sect from Zwingli's reforms, elevated women's status to positions of authority as ministers and prophets.

Even within more restrictive Protestant sects, however, women still found they had more of a voice and greater opportunities than before. Luther's wife, Katharina von Bora, was a former nun who married, raised children, brewed her own beer, and ran a farm, while Katharina Schutz, wife of reformer Michael Zell (d. 1548), became far more famous than her husband for her written works. The Protestant Reformation encouraged literacy because, no matter the sect, the new teaching emphasized the importance of reading the Bible for oneself, and so girls were now allowed an education whereas, previously, educating women was considered a waste of time.

Ten Women of the Reformation

The ten women on this list are only a very small sampling of the many who contributed to the Reformation and are mainly drawn from the Lutheran and Reformed sects as their lives are among the best documented:

Katharina von Bora (l. 1499-1552)

Argula von Grumbach (l. 1490 to c. 1564)

Anna Reinhart (l. c. 1484-1538)

Katharina Schutz (l. 1497-1562)

Marguerite de Navarre (l. 1492-1549)

Marie Dentiere (l. c. 1495-1561)

Katharina von Zimmern (l. 1478-1547)

Jeanne d'Albret (Joan III of Navarre, l. 1528-1572)

Anna Adischwyler (l. c. 1504-1564)

Olympia Fulvia Morata (l. 1526-1555)

These women did not suffer as greatly as many others who took a stand for their religious convictions but often endured hardships for their faith, refusing to compromise, even when doing so would have made their lives easier.

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Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution

Children were widely used as labour in factories, mines, and agriculture during the British Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). Very often working the same 12-hour shifts that adults did, children as young as five years old were paid a pittance to climb under dangerous weaving machines, move coal through narrow mine shafts, and work in agricultural gangs.

It was very often the case that children's jobs were well-defined and specific to them, in other words, child labour was not merely an extra help for the adult workforce. The education of many children was replaced by a working day, a choice often made by parents to supplement a meagre family income. It was not until the 1820s that governments began to pass laws that restricted working hours and business owners were compelled to provide safer working conditions for everyone, men, women, and children. Even then a lack of inspectors meant many abuses still went on, a situation noted and publicised by charities, philanthropists, and authors with a social conscience like Charles Dickens (1812-1870).

A Lack of Education

As sending a child to school involved paying a fee – even the cheapest asked for a penny a day – most parents did not bother. Villages often had a small school, where each pupil's parents paid the teacher, but attendance was sometimes erratic and more often than not the education rudimentary in hopelessly overcrowded classes. There were some free schools run by charities, and churches often offered Sunday school. Not until 1844 were there more free schools available, such as the Ragged schools established by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885). These schools concentrated on the basics, what became known as the 3 Rs of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Compulsory education for 5 to 12-year-olds, and the institutions necessary to provide it, would not come along until the 1870s. Consequently, "at least half of nominally school-age children worked full-time during the industrial revolution" (Horn, 57).

Some factory owners were more generous than others to the children in their employ. An example is the Quarry Bank Mill in Styal in the county of Cheshire. Here the owner provided schooling after the long working day was over for 100 of its child workers in a dedicated building, the Apprentice House.

An indicator of better education, despite all the difficulties, is literacy rates, rather imperfectly measured by historians by recording the ability of a person to sign one's name on official documents such as marriage certificates. There was a great improvement in literacy, but by 1800, still only half of the adult population could sign their name to such documents.

For those children who could find work in the Industrial Revolution, and there were employers queueing up to offer it, there were no trade unions to protect them. For the vast majority of children, working life started at an early age – on average at 8 years old – but as nobody really cared about age, this could vary wildly. Working involved at best tedium and at worst an endless round of threats, fines, corporal punishment, and instant dismissal at any protest to such treatment. In one survey taken in 1833, it was found that the tactics used with child labourers were 95% negative. Instant dismissal accounted for 58%. In only 4% of cases was a reward given for good work, and a mere 1% of the strategies used involved a promotion or pay rise.

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Sitting Bull

Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotanka, l. c. 1837-1890) was a Hunkpapa Sioux holy man, warrior, leader, and symbol of traditional Sioux values and resistance to the United States' expansionist policies. He is among the best-known Native American chiefs of the 19th century and remains as famous today as he was when he led his people.

He is widely known for his part in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876 and his later celebrity as a performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, but, for the Sioux, Sitting Bull is celebrated as the embodiment of the four cardinal virtues of his people: courage, fortitude, generosity, and wisdom. He is also recognized for his refusal to abandon the traditions of his people and his efforts to preserve their culture. Although famous as a holy man, prophet, war chief, and hunter, Sitting Bull was also a poet and composer, as well-known among his people for his rapport with wild animals and herbal knowledge as for his leadership.

He was killed while resisting arrest at the Standing Rock Agency Reservation in South Dakota on 15 December 1890 and was buried at Fort Yates in North Dakota. His remains were exhumed by family members in the 1950s and interred at Mobridge, South Dakota, near where he was thought to have been born. Debate continues over whether these remains are those of Sitting Bull, and historians also offer differing views on his legacy. His reputation as a great leader of his people, however, is unchallenged as he continues to be recognized as a symbol of Native American pride, honor, and traditional values, as well as for his stand against injustice.

Youth & Name

Little is known of Sitting Bull's life before the age of 14. His date of birth, given as 1831, 1832, 1834, or 1837, is debated, as was his birthplace until fairly recently. He is now understood to have been born on the Yellowstone River (known to the Sioux as Elk River) in modern-day Montana and was named Jumping Badger (Hoka Psice). He quickly earned the nickname Slow (Hunkesni), owing, according to scholar Robert. M. Utley, to "his willful and deliberate ways" (6). His father was Chief Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Sioux, and his mother was Her-Holy-Door from a respectable Hunkpapa family. He had two sisters and a half-brother but would later adopt others as his brothers, and these are sometimes mistakenly referenced as biological siblings.

Chief Sitting Bull taught his son to ride, hunt, and shoot expertly before the boy was ten years old. Young Slow was an excellent shot with bow and arrow and became so closely associated with horses that his peers joked how he even walked as though he were on horseback. When he was 14, he joined a war party against the Crow and "counted coup" against a Crow warrior, knocking him from his horse where he was then killed by another of the party. For this act of courage – defeating an enemy without killing him – Chief Sitting Bull gave his name to his son and assumed the name Jumping Bull. "Sitting Bull" – Tatanka Iyotanka (literally "Buffalo Who Sits Down") – fit the youth's personality as, "according to fellow tribesmen, suggested an animal possessed of great endurance, his build much admired by the people, and when brought to bay, planted immovably on his haunches to fight on to the death" (Utley, 15).

Later acquaintances and writers would claim the name was given him due to his stubbornness or, according to Sioux writer and physician Charles A. Eastman, that he was given the name after forcing a buffalo calf to sit down. The name was actually given in accordance with the tradition whereby a father passed his own name to his son when the boy was recognized as attaining manhood.

Between the ages of 14 and 20, Sitting Bull led his own war parties, and his name became famous among his enemies as a formidable warrior. Utley describes him at around the age of 20:

A heavy, muscular frame, a big chest, and a large head, he impressed people as short and stocky, although he stood only two inches under six feet. His dark hair, often braided on one side with otter fur and allowed to hang loose on the other, reached his shoulders. A severe part over the center of the scalp glistened with a heavy streak of crimson paint. A low forehead surmounted piercing eyes, a flat nose, and thin lips. Although dexterous afoot and superbly agile mounted, he appeared to some as awkward and even clumsy. (19-20)

Around 1857, in a clash with an Assiniboine band, Sitting Bull spared a 13-year-old boy whom he later adopted as a younger brother. When Sitting Bull's father was killed in battle with the Crow in 1859, the boy took the name Jumping Bull and would remain by Sitting Bull's side for the rest of his life.

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Isabella I of Castile

Isabella I of Castile (1451-1504), was Queen of Castile (r. 1474-1504) and of Aragon (r. 1479-1504) alongside her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452-1516). Her reign included the unification of Spain, the reconquest of Granada, sponsoring Christopher Columbus in his voyage to explore the Caribbean, and the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition.

Early Life

Isabella was born 22 April 1451 in the town of Madrigal de las Altas Torres in Castile (which is now modern Spain) to John II of Castile (r. 1406-1454) and Isabella of Portugal (1447-1454). Despite having two brothers and spending much time with her mother in Arévalo where she participated in more ladylike activities, Isabella was soon drawn in and involved with the Castilian political world. While there were no laws against women being on the throne, Isabella was third in line because her brothers were higher up the succession line. The iron-willed and determined young woman was brought to the Court of Castile when she was in her early teenage years so that her father could keep an eye on her. Isabella was well-versed in Latin, and she studied history and theology, which furthered her religious convictions, which would be extremely influential in her actions as queen in the future.

Isabella's brother Enrique IV became king as Henry IV of Castile (r. 1454-1474), but discontent with his rule soon became vocalized as the kingdom was dissatisfied with his ineffective rule. Henry struggled with producing a legitimate heir, as his first marriage bore no children, and his only daughter, Juana (1462-1530), was believed to be an illegitimate child. He was unable to win back Granada, which had been under Muslim control since the mid-1200s, and had Jewish and Muslim advisors in place, damaging the image of Castile being a Christian kingdom.

To placate the nobles, Henry named his brother Alfonso (1453-1468) heir, but Alfonso had to marry his daughter so they could both rule. When Henry ultimately reneged on this deal and supported his daughter's claim, the nobles began their campaign to place Alfonso on the throne. When Alfonso died in 1468, of suspected poisoning, the nobles approached Isabella as she was also a legitimate candidate. She refused to take the crown and wished to wait for her brother to leave. Seeing this, Henry negotiated with the nobles and made Isabella his heir.

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