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lunar-inkclipse · 1 month ago

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Ayyy, Lunarrr, I’m back at it again with murdle falls because @/writingweb1234 had a really good idea with Reader Amethyst being the entity that waltzed through the portal. So much so, I now have stuff to add ✨

Like your DBH AU, Irratino and Amethyst would make perfect opps. They’re similar enough since they both dabble with the morat, but still different in their approach and how they handle it. So I think in this AU, they should both be dream demons and have roughly the same abilities with messing with people’s dreams and entering mindscapes. This makes her such a huge antagonist because this is basically Irratino if he were evil, aka Bill Cipher. But instead of siccing henchmen on the people of Grvaity Falls, I can see her keeping control over everybody since she can manipulate their dreams and play into their biggest fears.

Let's say all dream demons share the same characteristic of having one eye, then the prophecies that warn against the “being with one eye” causing a world-ending event still remain true, it just wasn’t directed at Irratino, but to Amethyst. Unlike Irratino, she would need the portal to cause devastation on Earth because she wouldn’t physically be there. But she still left her mark on Earth enough to spring about prophecies because she’s been summoned there every now and then, similar to Bill.

We can connect her with Indigo by making him somehow stumble upon the chant and ritual needed to summon her to Gravity Falls. He wanted her to help him build this successful company in the middle of nowhere, while she planned to use him to build an interdimensional portal (again, like Bill) for the sake of destruction. Also, mini tidbit: if she tormented Indigo’s dreams, then I can see him having an idea of what was going on when Irratino was messing with him, which is why he knew it was a “dream demon.” That or he just happened to guess the actual name since it’s not that hard to string those two words together lol.

Anyway, before Amethyst was able to get anywhere with building the portal, maybe Irratino caught wind and was able to step in and break her connection to Earth, he’d have leverage over her being physically there after all. And that might be how Amethyst learned of Irratino if they hadn’t known each other before already. She then looks into Irratino’s history, and that’s when she discovers how he was responsible for the destruction of his home dimension and the series of crimes associated with him. Which will only encourage her to set her focus on Earth more.

Despite Irratino and Amethyst being pretty much the same in what they can do, by the time Weirdmageddon happens, their motivations would be very different. Amethyst would be seeking to destroy this dimension just for funsies, while Irratino is hell bent on trying to save it. She’s a chaos lover and at this point, she’s under the impression that Irratino is, too, as much as her because of the information she found on him. So maybe, once she appears on Earth, she begins her havoc, but also begins her search for Irratino, intending to ask him to join her in dimension destroying. To her, he was a perfect candidate since he had done it before (I doubt any records of that would mention how it was an accident, so to her, Irratino is just a ruthless guy).

Cue Irratino coming back in the nick of time from getting his (ex?) bf from getting nerfed, and Amethyst opens with a “look who finally showed up” line. She then mentions her offer of teaming up, but Irratino refuses. Amethyst wouldn’t dwell on the rejection long and accept the challenge of destroying the dimension solo, but uh-oh, Irratino trapped the weirdness in. And Amethyst can’t do anything about it because she can’t force her way into Irratino’s mind to find the information to undo it, because as a fellow dream demon, the only way in is with the permission of a handshake.

After Logico gets turned to stone and the kids are used as leverage against him, Irratino would agree to let Amethyst in, but he destroys her (along with himself basically) by erasing his mind. Now, for that part, I’m leaning towards the route of going with the use of a memory gun. You may be asking, “But Jay, how would he even get one of those?” And my answer to that is that Irratino and co. stumbled upon one when they left Gravity Falls and started dimension-hopping again (or one of the henchmanics had it in their possession, also probably from past dimension-hopping).

Either way, I think that once they found the gun, someone suggested that Irratino use it on himself, to get rid of the painful memories of Earth because he just keeps moping. If you want it extra angstier, you can make it Irratino’s idea. He may not have wanted to take the Mystery Squad's memories from them, but he has nothing to lose by forgetting it himself if he’s never going to see them again anyway. It’ll also keep him from making the “mistake” of returning if he doesn’t remember that there’s something he can return to. But before he’s able to use the machine, he gets that gut feeling to go home, stashing the memory gun, keeping it on him.

And yeah, that’s pretty much it lol. Unfortunately, I can’t pitch ideas without sprinkling in a little bit of angst, so here you go before I think about this too long and come up with more details-

Ayyy, always good to see you in the inbox!! And always happy to give Reader Amethyst some more lore and make her Irratino's number 1 opp fr

First off, Amethyst being a dream demon like Irratino has so much potential: They both manipulate dreams, but while Irratino's goals are to get his family back together, Amethyst mostly wants power and domination and control. She'll use her dream powers to influence and scare people, try and predict the future however she can, and use that power to intimidate and manipulate. And instead of her having henchmaniacs, maybe she influences the TekCo employees or smth? I can also see that maybe, instead of turning everyone into stone for a throne, she forces everyone she can into a state of eternally dreaming and sleepwalking, manipulating their dreams to make people do what she wants. (It's a vibe to me personally ok?) Amethyst having the one eye not only works great with the prophecies of "Beware the beast with just one eye", but also her image being the glasses with the three lenses- I can totally see her having that third lens on her actual eye and the other two are decoration. And she totally could have been summoned on occasion, never fully crossing the realm to being physically in the realm, but always dancing around in the mindscape. (If Irratino ever caught wind of someone summoning a dream demon, he couldn't care less- Look, he's got people to keep out of jail and grief to run from and worlds to hop between. He's not all that power hungry anyways.) Except Amethyst always exerted as much control as she could, using loopholes and twisting words to get her way, hence people prophesying to avoid her. Irratino just so happens to be another purple, one eyed dream demon, so the warnings do sound like they should be avoiding him. When it comes to Indigo, maybe we can weave in a little more of the Northwests' lore? You know how in the canon Gravity Falls, the Northwests A) became considered founders of the town even though they weren't and B) Had a curse placed upon them because they shunned the common folk? Indigo himself probably wouldn't bother with demonic summons or rituals. But maybe an ancestor of his would- A deal for success and power, gained through Amethyst being able to predict things about the future (Using her own means, of course, like how she works as MORIARTY in the canon), in exchange for favors later down the line. Cue her involvement with Indigo as collecting a debt. Though, Indigo's totally fine with doing whatever the weird demon lady wants because business is booming and cash is flowing! As long as she swears Olivia will be protected, too. Amethyst agrees, but hey, her quest for power is her number one goal and whoever gets caught in the crossfire, well, sucks to suck.

But this also gives Indigo enough familiarity to know not only what a Dream Demon is, but that this Irratino guy has weird vibes, but to expose them would expose his entire family, too. So he quietly seethes and tries to dismiss Irratino whenever possible. And this Logico guy that Olivia seems to like hanging out with is too close to Irratino, too, putting them all in danger. (Also, Logico keeps investigating his company and is bogus, lame, and whack)

As for how Irratino managed to learn about Amethyst also wanting a portal! I could see him finding that out after being in Indigo's head. Basically, Olivia complains about Indigo, Irratino starts bothering him in his dreams, and while he's there he realizes there's something weird going on and finds out about the portal and Amethyst that way. He's able to cut her off from Earth somehow, having the advantage of a physical form, plus the rest of the Squad to help with material gathering of things he may not be able to handle, like Unicorn hair or smth. But while he may have staved off Amethyst's reign for a little longer, now Amethyst knows of him and knows there is absolutely a way for dream demons to get to Earth physically. She just has to find it. Or, well, perhaps it will find her. And Irratino would make a really powerful ally and seems to be just fine with committing crimes. Maybe he was just territorial and that's why he cut her connection, she wonders. Whatever.

But she manages to find out about Irratino's portal, aka the portal he built for his friends and quickly shut down only to have it turned on again by a well meaning but disaster causing Mystery Squad, she's eager to take over and remake this world into her image and recruit Irratino to help her out. Hey, he destroyed his home dimension, that's badass! Coldblooded! And the exact type of power she needs to burn down and remake this sorry excuse for a dimension. But when she tries to nerf Logico because he just happens to be in the way, she has no clue why Irratino steps in. Why would Irratino take a blast so injurious for this one guy? Irratino's supposed to be her right hand man, after all. Oh well, it's barely a setback! So she saunters over and asks Irratino to destroy the world with her, to which he prompty replies with "You're insane!!" and Amethyst just replies with "Sure I am, what's your point? Besides, you destroyed your home dimension, didn't you? That's the type of power I need here!" and Irratino just blanches and says "I never meant to! I never wanted to! And I've spent every day wishing I could take it back!" But honestly, Amethyst has better things to do than waste her strength and time trying to convince a guy that doesn't want to join her to come to her side. Until she realizes said guy is the only one who could have possibly isolated her reign to this one backwater town, and she's furious. She can't invade his dreams because he only sleeps when he wants to, she can't invade his mind because they're both equally matched, he won't give her the solution to dissolving the bubble- Her only choice is to trick him or force him.

Hence Amethyst starts her personalized rampage against Irratino. She has all the time in the world to destroy the rest of this town, after all. Logico's the first one she manages to capture, threatening to turn him to stone if Irratino doesn't comply. Logico, of course, tells Irratino he better not give in, and when Irratino just remains frozen and Amethyst says "Well, my dear, say goodbye! You have, mmm, lets say a day before I get one of those kids and ask you again." and Logico just steels himself and just says "I believe in you, Tino." before he's frozen. Now Irratino has to figure out a way to stop Amethyst and return everything to normal before she picks off more of his family.

With the memory gun, I really love the idea of Irratino/the maniacs finding it through their travels and pocketing it just because, and him remembering someone (my money's on Umber or Seashell) suggesting he use it to forget Earth and everything and go back to his normal self. Get rid all his problems! Erase all that bad stuff in his mind! And then he finds it again when bunkering down. His blood turns to ice, as he murmurs "Erase everything in your head...?" Including an intruder, maybe? It's a long shot, but its his only shot. (Even if there is a zodiac, like in canon GF, chances are Logico would have to be a part of that and he's kind of frozen as stone right now. Leaving this as the only option, and there's no time to get a better one.) Irratino wouldn't dare sacrifice the kids, nor could he bear to put them in the position of having to shoot him. But, well, if he can invite Amethyst into his head and erase everything inside it, then maybe he can undo all of this. Maybe. He has to try and save them.

As for who shoots him, I honestly don't know? Maybe Night, as one of Irratino's closest friends? But either way, he storms up to Amethyst, says he'll let her into his head to learn how to undo the bubble keeping everything contained. And just moments after she shakes his hand, she's locked in Irratino's mind and suddenly feeling herself slip away. And hey, if Irratino does punch her like Stan does to Bill, I can absolutely see him going like "Huh, maybe Logico was onto something. That did feel kinda good." before everything starts to slip away for him too. He panics for a moment, of course- He's forgetting everything, everyone, it's all slipping through his fingers again like it always does- But the panic is quick to fade. What's he so worried about, again? Who was onto something about punching when you're mad? Huh. Odd. And then when he comes too, well, cue the Amnesiac Irratino arc.

This ask really got me thinking!!! I always love seeing what everyone's thoughts and ideas are for this AU and I'm always so happy to see y'all share your thoughts and analyses for my indulgent goofy crossovers hehe. Thank you so much for the ask!! ^_^

#murdle falls #lunar's ask #even though its summer we're still taking three thousand hours to answer asks oop #blame lab reports and pre labs and post labs and notebook pages. the grind never stops but neither do i!!!#also now that i think of it. if Amethyst is like Bill Cipher then Irratino is like. Pyramid Steve #<- sentences to explain to a medieval monk

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pompomqt · 7 months ago

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Journey to the West Chapter 62

Minion demon's taking the fall for their boss and having to deal with Sun Wukong:

Welcome back everyone to this week's chapter of Journey to the West with @journeythroughjourneytothewest. With the Bull Demon Family saga now behind us, it's onto new adventures! So let's get into it shall we?

So time passes and our pilgrimage is traveling along until they finally come across a moated city. When Tripitaka asks what kind of place they are in, Monkey says it's probably some kind of royal capital, despite Pigsy trying to argue with him. However despite being able to tell it's a royal capital, he still doesn't know what capital, so they enter the city to get more information.

While most people there look rather distinguished it's not long before they come across some rather destitute looking monks. All wearing cangue's- which is something similar to the french pillory, which is basically that medieval thing where prisoners have their arms and hands locked in a piece of wood so people can throw tomatoes at them or whatever in the town square. Only Cangues weren't nailed down, and didn't have their arms trapped in holes. Still it restricted their movements and even made it so people trapped in Cangues often starved to death because they were unable to feed themselves. Anyways- I had to look up what a cangue was so I figured I would share what I just learned.

So Tripitaka sends Monkey to ask the monks why they are being punished like this. So Monkey asks the Monks why they are being punished like this so they tell him that they are from the Golden Light Monastery and they are being wronged. So the Monks bring the entire pilgrimage to their monastery, which is also rather destitute looking at the moment, enough so to bring Tripitaka to tears. After Tripitaka pays his respects to Buddha to the best of his current ability, the monks ask if they happen to be monks from the Great Tang Empire? Monkey asks how they could possibly know that, and the monks explain that they've been getting dream messages from various gods that a holy monk would come from the land of the east to right the wrongs committed against them.

So Tripitaka asks them for their tragic backstory and it goes like this: This city is called Sacrifice City, and it used to receive tribute from four smaller tribes. The reason they received this tribute was because this monastery used to have a beam of golden light flashing from the building, able to be seen from thousands of miles away. And because of that they were considered a divine capital of heavenly prefecture. However three years ago, it suddenly rained blood. The monks and daoists of the kingdom both tried to pacify heaven, but the damage had been done and the other kingdoms had stopped sending tribute. The King blamed the monks and assumed that they must have stolen the treasure in the Pagoda, and punished them accordingly. The Monks deny stealing the treasure and say they had been sentenced unfairly and ask Tripitaka to help them.

Tripitaka says he would like to have an audience with the ruler of this kingdom, which he has to do anyways to get his travel script certified, but first he has a vow to keep. Back when he first began this journey he vowed that he would sweep a Pagoda when he came across a Pagoda. So he'll do that first, and in the meantime, hopefully find out what caused the blood rain so he'll have something to actually tell the king.

The monks then offer Pigsy a knife and ask he can cut the young monks chained to a pillar free, if he can then they will be able to make them a meal and prepare a bath. Pigsy rather then cutting the chains simply point out their groups locksmith Monkey. And indeed, Monkey is able to use his lockpicking ability and set chained monks free, after which they prepare a meal for the group. After everyone is done eating, some of the monks that are still locked in cangues come back and offer a broom to Tripitaka. After Tripitaka takes his evening bath, he tells the monks to get some rest while he sweeps and investigates the Pagoda. Monkey offers to go with him in case any funny business happens, which Tripitaka gratefully accepts.

After Tripitaka is done praying to Buddha and asking for guidance for the current situation, Monkey and Tripitaka begin sweeping the Pagoda. By the time they reach the seventh tier, Tripitaka has begun to seriously tire, Monkey offers to finish for him, but Tripitaka pushes on for another three tiers, before finally accepting Monkey's offer to sweep the last three tiers for him. So Monkey sweeps the eleventh tier by himself without incident, but on the twelfth tier, he hears voices coming from above him. Considering everyone else should be asleep right now, Monkey assumes it's probably some kind of deviant creature and decides to take a look. So Monkey hops onto his cloud to take a look at the top of the Pagoda and see's two monster spirits, drinking and playing a game. Monkey immediately confronts them and accuses them of being the one to steal the treasure.

Luckily Monkey very recently learned the meaning of restraint and doesn't immediately kills them, instead he captures them for questioning and brings them to Tripitaka. Luckily interrogating them isn't exactly difficult, they don't even need to ask them any questions, the two demons just immediately start spilling their entire life story. These two minion demons are called Busy Bubble and Bubble Busy respectively, and serve the All Saints Dragon King of the Green Wave Lagoon. The Dragon King has a daughter, named Princess All Saints and a powerful son in law called Nine-Heads. Nine Heads and the Dragon King were the ones who sent the blood rain and stole the Pagoda's treasure. Meanwhile the Princess, stole the nine-leaved agaric from heaven itself, and now both treasures are kept at the bottom of the lagoon. Since the Dragon King heard that Sun Wukong would be passing through this area soon, they were sent here to patrol the area to be prepared for his arrival. Apparently this Dragon is also the one who sent the Demon Bull King that dinner invite, which troublemakers attract I guess.

Around this time Pigsy and some of the Monks have woken up and gone to find Tripitaka to see what was taking him so long and why he hasn't gone to bed yet himself. Monkey explains the situation to Pigsy, is Pigsy is all for executing the minion demons on the spot- but Monkey says they'll still be useful for proving to the king that the monks are innocent. So Monkey has the monks lock up the minion demons and keep watch while he and the others finally get some sleep for the night.

Once morning comes, Tripitaka prepares to speak to the king with Wukong, while Sandy and Pigsy stays behind until they are summoned along with the minion demons. Monkey and Tripitaka reach the palace gates and has a guard announce their presence to the king. So Monkey and Tripitaka are led inside, everyone is as usual terrified of Monkey, which is probably why nobody says anything when Monkey doesn't go through the proper greetings like Tripitaka does. So the King reads his travel script and says the Tang Empire is lucky to have such a good monk, since all the monks here are good for is stealing and bringing ruin.

Tripitaka asks him what he means by that, and the King tells us the same story we heard earlier. Tripitaka uses this opportunity to clear the monks name by telling the King they actually know who's really responsible, and have captured the fiends responsible. So the King orders some guards to go fetch the fiends from the monastery to bring here to interrogate them, and Tripitaka suggests they take Monkey with them, just in case, which the king agrees to.

Monkey gets to arrive at the Monastery in style, having traveled in a large carriage. When Pigsy see's this he jokes that Wukong is finally living up to his title of 'Monkey King'. Monkey then unties the two fiends to take with them, Sandy offers to go with him, but Monkey just tells him that he and Pigsy should stay to watch the horse and luggage. Which you would think the horse would be capable of guarding the luggage since they are secretly a dragon- but instead the very normal human monks volunteer to watch the stuff so that Pigsy and Sandy can go with Monkey. So Pigsy and Sandy both grab a fiend and pile into the carriage after Monkey and the entire entourage travels back to the palace.

So they drag the fiends before the king so that they can explain that the dragon king and his son in law are actually the ones responsible for stealing from the Pagoda. The king is willing to accept their testimony and after hearing their story, he has the two of them imprisoned and issues a decree to have the monks freed. He also decides to throw a banquet to thank the pilgrims for capturing the fiends. However he isn't just throwing this banquet out of the goodness of his heart, he also wants to ask them to arrest the ones who actually performed the theft.

During the banquet Tripitaka takes the time to properly introduce himself and his disciples to the king. And after Pigsy is done cleaning them out, it's time to discus the matter at hand- after another banquet I guess, because the first was to thank them for capturing the two fiends earlier, but I guess they need another one to pre-thank them for capturing the Dragon King. Anyways, the King asks which of them will go to subdue the Dragon King, and Tripitaka volunteers Monkey for the mission. The King offers to send some men and horses to help them- but Pigsy is for once full enough to be happy to go and do some work for once. They then tell the King they don't need any of his weapons either when he offers, but they would like to take the two fiends with them as informants. So with that finally settled, Pigsy and Monkey take off with the two fiends leaving Tripitaka in the care of Sandy once again.

Current Sun Wukong Stats: Names/Titles: Monkey, The Stone Monkey, The Handsome Monkey King, Sun Wukong (Monkey awakened to the void), Bimawen (Banhorseplague), The Great Sage Equal To Heaven and Pilgrim Sun. Immortality: 5 + 94,000 years Weapon: The Compliant Golden Hooped Rod Abilities: 72 Transformations, Cloud-Somersault, Ability to transform his individual hairs, super strength, Ability to Summon Wind, Water restriction charm, and the ability to change into a huge war form, ability to duplicate his staff, ability to immobilize others, the ability to put others to sleep, and the Fiery eyes and Diamond Pupils, intimidating horses, churning large bodies of water, sleeplessness, seizing the wind, enhanced smell, discerning good and evil within a thousand miles, Spirit Summoning, lock picking, object transformation, distance reduction, vanishing in a flash of light, super healing, transforming others, Invisibility, and Wind Immunity Demon Kill Count: 10 + Unknown Number of Minions Human Kill Count: 1039 God's Defeated: 23 + Unknown number Defeats: 7 Crime List: Robbery, Murder, Mass Murder, Arson, Theft, Coercion, Threatening a Government Official, Resisting Arrest, Assault, Forgery, Employee Theft, False Imprisonment, Impersonating a Government Official, Treason, attempted murder, failure to control or report a dangerous fire, desecrating a corpse, breaking and entering, trespassing, violating Tree Law, looting corpses, trading counterfeit goods, criminal threat, animal abuse, Assisting or Instigating Escape, Damage to Religious Property, contaminating a substance for human consumption, Identity Fraud, Disorderly Conduct and Joyriding Cry Count: 9 + 3 fake cries Mountains Trapped Under: 4

Current Tang Sanzang stats: Names/Titles: River Float, Xuanzang, Tang Sanzang, Tripitaka and the Tang Monk Abilities: Curing Blindness, making branches point a certain direction (allegedly), reciting sutras, pretty privilege, memorization, Heart Sutra, Meditation, and Being Heaven's Specialist Little Guy Cry Count: 32 Tight Fillet Spell Uses: 63 Paralyzed by fear: 6 Bandit Problems: 3 Kidnapped by demons: 9 Falling Off Horses: 10

Current Bai Long Ma Stats: Names/Titles: Bai Long Ma (White Dragon Horse), Prince of the Western Ocean, and third prince jade dragon of the dragon king Aorun Abilities: Transforming into a human, a water snake, and a horse, eating a horse in one bite, flight, Magic of Water Restriction, Singing, and Sword Dancing. Cry Count: 1 Crime List: Arson, and Grave Disobedience. Contributions to the plot: 3 Kidnapped by demons: 1

Current Zhu Wuneng Stats: Names/Titles: The Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds, Zhu Wuneng (Pig who is aware of ability), Zhu Ganglie, Pigsy, Idiot and Eight Rules. Weapon: Rake Abilities: 36 Transformations, parting water, fighting underwater, cloud soaring, size enhancement and CPR Demon Kill Count/Kill steals: 6 + Unknown number of minions Kidnapped by Demons: 4 Human Kill Count: 1 Failed Flirtation/romances Attempts: 4 Cry Count: 2 Crime List: Sexual Harassment, Murder, Kidnapping, arson, defamation, Damage to Religious Property, contaminating a substance for human consumption, Identity Fraud, Theft and Forcible entry

Current Sha Wujing Stats: Names/Titles: The Curtain-Raising General, Sha Wujing (Sand Aware of Purity), Sandy and Sha Monk Weapon: Monster Taming Staff Abilities: Fighting underwater, Cloud soaring, and fetching water from a well. Demon Kill Count: 1 + Unknown number of minions. Kidnapped by Demons: 3 Human Kill Count: 1 Cry Count: 1 Crime List: Breaking a Crystal Cup, murder, desecration of a human corpse, Damage to Religious Property and contaminating a substance for human consumption

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#journeythroughjourneytothewest #journey to the west #jttw read through #jttw #sun wukong #tang sanzang #zhu wuneng #sha wujing #I actually really liked that Monkey and Tripitaka got to just... hang out together this chapter #them sweeping the pagoda together was really cute

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scotianostra · 1 year ago

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On April 6th 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was drawn up by the monks of Arbroath Abbey.

The Declaration of Arbroath is without doubt the most famous document in Scottish history. Like the American Declaration of Independence, which is partially based on it, it is seen by many as the founding document of the Scottish nation.

It was most likely drafted in the scriptorium of Arbroath Abbey by Abbot Bernard on behalf of the nobles and barons of Scotland. It was one of three letters sent to the Pope in Avignon, the other two being from King Robert Bruce himself and from four Scottish bishops, attempting to abate papal hostility. The document received the seals of several Scottish barons and it then was taken to the papal court at Avignon in France by Sir Adam Gordon.

There is considerable debate over the Declaration’s significance. For some it is simply a diplomatic document; while others see it as a radical movement in western constitutional thought.

It could be viewed as a cunning diplomatic ploy by the Scottish barons to explain and justify why they were still fighting their neighbours when all Christian princes were supposed to be united in crusade against the Muslims. All this, just at the point when they were about to retake Berwick: Scotland’s most prosperous medieval town. As an explanation, it failed to convince the pope to lift his sentence of excommunication on Scotland.

Others analyse what the Declaration of Arbroath actually says. The Scots clergy had produced not only one of the most eloquent expressions of nationhood, but the first expression of the idea of a contractual monarchy. Here is the critical passage in question:

‘Yet if he (Bruce) should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.’

The threat to drive Bruce out if he ever sold Scotland to English rule was a fantastic bluff. There was nobody else to take his place. The point is that the nobles and clergy are not basing their argument to the pope on the traditional notion of the Divine Rights of Kings. Bruce is King first and foremost because the nation chose him, not God, and the nation would just as easily choose another if they were betrayed by the King. The explanation also neatly covers the fact that Bruce had usurped John Balliol’s rightful kingship in the first place.

In spite of all possible motivations for its creation, the Declaration of Arbroath, under the extraordinary circumstances of the Wars of Independence, was a prototype of contractual kingship in Europe.

The pics are the document itself, a re-enactment of the signing from 1957, the statue in Arbroath, a mural at Arbroath train station and a pic I collated of the seals on the document.

#scotland #scottish #history #propoganda #robert the bruce

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mal-studyblr · 4 years ago

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top 1 sentences to explain to a medieval monk

#shitpost #knife gang #the more desperate i am the more active i become on tumblr #as you can see im not doing well

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baeddel · 5 years ago

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hey so I came across a post of yours that brought up "waependwifstre" and the like, and I'm just wondering if you know anywhere I can look into that a bit deeper, books or anything. I looked on google and only got a result for the post mentioning it, so I figured you might have more sources?

Hey, did you know this is the single most effective way to nerdsnipe me? Thanks for the interesting question ^^

In terms of weapenwifestre, I mispell this word all the time and even spelling it correctly wont give you much of anything on google because it ordinarily has a bunch of accents & letters we dont have in modern English. It’s latinized as waepenwifstere in the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (1990) by historian Wayne R. Dynes (under Anglo-Saxons), which he translates as “male wife”. My descripton of it in that post is based on the etymology given in this old post (2014), which comes from a book called An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology (2008), which I haven’t personally read. Per the screenshot Coral posted:

It’s significant that the dictionary cautions that these terms are not equivalet to ‘hermaphrodite’ etc. (individuals who Anglo-Saxon England had specific legal provisions for). This is perhaps why Dynes takes them to mean gay man & regards the feminine codes associated with the words to work similarly to eg. pansy today, so he writes “evidently, these words reflect an Anglo-Saxon stereotype of the homosexual as an unwarlike, womanish type.” Along these lines there was a gay lib zine called Gay is Baed several decades ago which made a playful reappropriation of baeddel & baedling, similar to our own.

But we argued that these terms didn’t, or didn’t always, refer to gay men as is usually interpreted, because of the way they’re used in the Canons of Theodore, an Anglo-Saxon book of religious law. In the Canons, baedlings appear in a list of penances to be performed by people who have committed sexual misconduct. Whats significant is that baedlings are listed separately from men (for whom the word wæpnedman, ‘male creature with a penis’, is used), as in the sentence:

He who has sex with a bædling, or with another wæpnedman, or with an animal, should fast 10 years.

Theodore later gives the penance for a baedling who sleeps with another baedling, and to explain why offers the famous phrase: “for she is soft like an adulturess” (or “like a harlot”). Because of this, we argued that baedling & the synonyms attached to it (waepenwifestre) referred to a kind of CAMAB gender deviancy similar to our own. As the medievalist Christopher Monk writes, in a nice post on the Manchester Medieval Society’s blogspot page: “I believe the bædling was probably understood as a person of problematic gender, one who didn’t fit into the Anglo-Saxon ideal of manhood but was not exactly a woman either.” (2014) (He made a similar post on his own blog earlier that month.) [I’m using his translations of the relevant text as it appears on this page; I don’t believe the Canons have been translated into modern english.]

I’m not aware of any other sources on these words. Dynes writes, in the Encyclopedia, “at the present stage of research further data about homosexual behaviour in Anglo-Saxon times remains elusive.” I don’t think thats true anymore because medievalism has come a long way since then, especially on cultural questions like gender & sexuality. For example Christine A. McCann (2010) wrote a very long explication of ‘sexual deviance’ in the medieval Penitential Handbooks, like the Canons, which I’m excited to read, although from a cursory search it doesn’t seem to use the terms baeddel, baedling or weapenwifestre. But at medievalism’s pace this discussion remains on the bleeding edge & as far as I know this analysis has never received an expression within academia. If anyone’s doing an Anglo-Saxon philology degree and is looking for an easy thesis topic, you heard it here first!

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teethburger · 3 years ago

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Sentences to explain to a medieval monk

blorbo from my shows this. scrimblo from my games that. what about ocs, aka glunkus from my brains

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ricmlm · 3 years ago

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Indeed, declared Gouveia Monteiro, the monks, in their monasteries, performed an exercise called biblical exegesis: “they tried to find allegorical meanings in the passages of the Holy Scriptures. Remove not only the literal meaning of the sentences, but also the moral value, the meaning that would be behind the writings, hidden between the lines”. This Sacra Página tradition “animated life” in the offices of copies of old books of medieval monasteries, as portrayed, recalled the director of BG/UC, in the film O Nome da Rosa - directed in 1986 by Jean-Jacques Annaud, with Sean Connery and Christian Slater in the main roles - based on the homonymous historical novel by the writer Umberto Eco, published a few years earlier and which “has this reconstitution of that environment of medieval monasteries”. “Bibles were the subject of copying and this absorbed much of the effort and talent of these copyist monks, who were often people who, even for physical reasons, could not dedicate themselves to other types of manual work, in agriculture or handicrafts. But they had culture, erudition, enough knowledge and some talent, too, to make these copies,” he explained. “Copies were very time consuming. Copying an entire bible from beginning to end on parchment was a cyclopean task, it was the manual photocopying of the time”, illustrated Gouveia Monteiro. https://www.instagram.com/p/Ceb2ymJDWBb/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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pets-beaty · 6 years ago

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via How Webs

at sign @ History to Generation Next

Read about at sign or symbol as a noun

The at sign or at symbol (@) for the word (at), used for mostly example in email addresses to separate the profile username from the domain name and in internet social networking platforms before a username to send a message or comment to that user.

at sign @

At sign @

The at sign @ is also commonly called the at sign, ampersat, apetail or commercial in English - and less often a wide range of other terms. The fact is that there is no any word in English for the symbol has led some writers to use the French arobase or the Spanish and Portuguese arroba - or to come up with new words such as asperand, ampersat - but none of them has great value achieved.

Originally it is an accounting and trade invoice abbreviation, meaning "at the speed of", and it was not included on the keyboard of the first commercially successful typewriters, but was on at least one 1889 model and the highly successful Underwood models of the "Underwood No. 5 "from 1900. It is now universally recorded on computer keyboards. In recent years, its significance has grown to the sense of "being on", "and" or "focused on", especially in email addresses and social media, especially Twitter. The brand is coded on U + 0040 @ commercial on.

at sign definition

The at sign (@), which stands for the word 'at', has become known worldwide for its use on internet e-mail addresses and Twitter names. Officially called it fixly an "asparagus", the at sign separates in the recipient's name from the domain name in email; for example [email protected]. A Twitter symbol The at sign is a prefix of the name of a member on Twitter; @Trump, for example, is the Twitter name of President Trump.

That little "a" with a circle around it that is found in e-mail addresses is usually called the "at" symbol. Surprisingly, however, there is no official, universal name for this sign. There are many dozens of strange terms to describe the @ at sign or (at) symbol. The at-sign is used on Facebook to "tag" someone in a message, When you "tag" someone in your Facebook message, their name is linked to your message and the message is displayed on both your Facebook page and yours.

AT Sign @ can refer to the following:

1.Abbreviation for advanced technology, AT is an IBM computer that was first introduced in 1984. The basic AT computer model included an 80286 processor, 256 k RAM and a 1.2 MB floppy disk drive. The AT was also available with 512 k RAM and a 20 Mbyte disk. Today, an AT-class system is any computer with a 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit system. Previous computers (8-bit) were known as PC / XT class systems. All new computers used today are considered AT-class computers and you are unlikely to encounter any previous computers. A PC / XT class computer can be identified if it uses the older 8-bit ISA expansion slot.

2.Ampersat, asperand, arobase, bee, at sign or at symbol is the name of the "@" symbol above 2 on an American keyboard. When describing an email address, this can be described as "support - at - computerhope - dot - com", which is the same as [email protected].

3. IBM includes support for this code page in the 5150 hardware, known as "IBM-PC", considered the first personal computer.

4. The operating system of this model, the "MS-DOS", also used this extended ASCII code.

5. Almost all computer systems nowadays use the ASCII code to display characters and texts. (275).

6. Before the @ Keyboard Standard

The origin of the symbol itself, one of the most graceful characters on the keyboard, is something mysterious. One theory is that medieval monks, looking for shortcuts while copying manuscripts, convert the Latin word for "direction" --ad - into "a" with the rear part of the "d" as the tail. Or it came from the French word for "at" —à — and scribes, striving for efficiency, swung the tip of the pen along the top and side. Whether the symbol originated from an abbreviation of "each bee" - the "a" is encapsulated by an "e". In history the first documented used in 1536, in a physical letter from Francesco Lapi, a Florentine trader, who used at-sign @ to designate units of wine called amphoras, which were shipped in large clay jars.

Brief history of ASCII code:

@ History tells us that the @ symbol came from the tired hands of the medieval monks. During the Middle Ages before the invention of printing presses, each letter of a word had to be transcribed by hand for each copy of a published book. The monks who performed these long, tedious copy jobs were looking for ways to reduce the number of individual strokes per word for common words. Although the word "om" is quite short at first, it was a generally enough word in texts and documents that medieval monks thought it would be faster and easier to shorten the word "om" even more. As a result, the monks placed the "t" around the "a" and created it in a circle that eliminated two strokes of the pen.

In US Standard Code for Information Interchange, or ASCII code @, was created in 1963 by the "American Standards Association" committee or "ASA", the agency changed its name in 1969 by "US National Standards Institute" or "ANSI" as it has been known since.

at sign @ This code stems from the reordering and expansion of the series of symbols and characters that were already used by the Bell company in telegraphy at that time.

Initially it only contained uppercase letters and numbers, but in 1967 the lowercase letters and some checkmarks were added, which is called US-ASCII, ie the characters 0 to 127.

So with this set of just 128 characters, standard was published in 1967, with everything you need to write in English.

Before the at-sign became a standard key on physical typewriter keyboards in the 1880s and a standard on QWERTY keyboards in the 1940s, the @ at sign had a long, somewhat about history of use around the world. Some claim that the symbol dates from the 6th or 7th century when Latin scribes adapted the symbol of the Latin word ad, meaning to, to, or in the direction of. The scribes, in an effort to simplify the number of pen strokes they used, created the ligature (combination of two or more letters) by exaggerating the ascending stroke of the letter "d" and bending to the left over the "a".

At Sign or At Symbol

The @ symbol tells the command processor to be less extensive; to show only the output of the command without executing it or instructions associated with the execution. When used, it is added to the beginning of the command, there is no need to leave a space between the "@" and the command.

When "echo" is set to "off", it is not necessary to use "@", since setting "echo" to "off" causes this behavior to become automatic. Echo is always set to "turn on" by default when the script execution starts. This is why "@echo turn off" is often used to disable echo without performing the disable operation.

echo extended

@ echo less extensive

Pause

When you enter @ filename.ext, SQL * Plus searches for a file with that filename and extension in the current default folder. If SQL * Plus does not find the file in the current folder, it searches for a system-dependent path to find it. Some operating systems may not support path search. Consult the originally platform-specific Oracle documentation for operating system for throughout specific information regarding operating system environment.

Another story tells that the @ symbol was used as an abbreviation for the word amphora. Amphora was the unit of measurement that determined the amount that was preserved by the large terracotta pots that were used to ship grain, spices, and wine. Giorgio Stabile was an Italian scholar and he discovered the @ at sign or at symbol in a letter written in 1536 by a Florentine trader named Francesco Lapi. It seems likely that an industrious trader has seen the @ symbol in a book that has been transcribed by monks using the symbol and has appropriated it for use as the abbreviation of the amphora. This also explain why it became in which purpose and common to use the symbol in relation to quantities of something.

How to make the @ symbol

Create the @ symbol on an American keyboard

To create the at symbol with an American PC keyboard, hold down the Shift key and press number 2 at the top of the keyboard.

To create the at symbol with an Apple keyboard, hold down the option key and press number 2 at the top of the keyboard.

Create the at-sign @ or at-symbol on a smartphone or tablet

To create the at symbol on a smartphone or tablet, open the keyboard, go to the section with numbers or symbols (sym), and press the @ symbol with your finger.

Create the @ symbol on keyboards outside the US

Generally Computer users in other parts of the world, as country such as Italy, can find the at-sign @ symbol on a different key. In the figure below, a keyboard key with the @ symbol is on the same key as the Ç and Ò keys. To use this key in keyboard, hold down the Alt-key and press the key with the at-sign or at-symbol on it.

Conclusion

The at-sign has become so widespread as a way to tag someone on social media that people started using it as a verb, with or someone, or "mention someone directly in a post." The verb is especially common in the sentence Don't @ me. This sentence nods to the function of the at signto tag users in messages. When a social media user says "don't @ me," he shares a potentially unpopular opinion and humorously asks those who disagree with them to refrain from responding, especially by putting them in an answer tagging. Someone who posts 'don't @ me' acknowledges that they have shared a controversial opinion and that they are likely to debate. This does not make me a signal of playful controversy instead of a serious request not to be @'d or atted (with a fairly general verb on Twitter).

Outside the internet, people use the at sign as an abbreviation for the word at in daily writing, usually with reference to times, dates and places of planned events (see you soon @ the restaurant @ 7 p.m.!).

Thanks for reading about at sign @. Please share it to others for spreading information and knowledge about writing.

https://ift.tt/2YFaACW August 02, 2019 at 11:28AM https://ift.tt/2IPp48y https://ift.tt/31ejtAT

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hahnscratch-blog · 8 years ago

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Monastic Cellblocks

This was written in October 2009 while living in a minimum security fire camp in Southern California.

My grandfather passed away a few weeks ago and I recently received a copy of his obituary in the mail. Among those survived by him was, “Matt Hahn of Santa Clarita, CA”. Of course, Santa Clarita is the city in which the facility I live is located. It just struck me as strange because it means that my family, who collectively wrote the obituary, thinks of me as actually living here, as in calling this place my home.

Contrast this with three years ago, when my step-sister died: the obituary read that she was survived by “Matt Hahn of Los Gatos, CA,” which was not where the cell I was living in was located. Rather, Los Gatos was the last city I’d lived in while on the streets. This subtle yet significant change shows me that, after nearly five years of of being locked up, my family has come to see prison as where I call home. Right or wrong, like it or not, this is my home.

I used to get into debates about this very issue with my buddy, Richard, on the yard. He was disturbed by the fact that I referred to my cell as my “house” and Folsom as my “home”. He said it showed a degree of comfort with living in prison that he never wanted to have. Richard hated Folsom and said that he would never dare call it is home. We agreed to disagree, my stance being that home is wherever one chooses to make it. Seeing that I didn’t have much choice in the matter, I thought it worthwhile to make the best of things as they were.

I knew that Richard wouldn’t understand my take on this because he hated Folsom and I didn’t. For a number of seemingly inexplicable reasons, Folsom was and is dear to me. Of the dozen or so places I’ve lived in the past decade, I’ve spent the most time at Folsom and I think of it most fondly.

This probably strikes most of you in the unprison world as odd, maybe even pathological. Perhaps you think that I am institutionalized, that I am like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption and cannot live without the constant care of the penitentiary. Perhaps you are right, but let me explain myself and then you can judge.

How can I think fondly of a place like Folsom? Didn’t all sorts of awful things happen there? Yes. I was witness to and affected by a whole lot of terrible events that took place in my years there, from suicides to stabbings to riots to murders to you-name-it. It all happened. An environment like that, I’ll admit, would make most any normal person grow to hate it. I definitely see why Richard thought of it as he did, especially after the day he was unfortunate enough to be standing right next to a man who was quite literally hacked to death. Still, as in all aspects of life, a lot of it depends upon what one chooses to focus. 99% of the men who go to and come from prison focus on the mayhem. But it’s not all mayhem.

First of all, Folsom didn’t look like most prisons. Or, perhaps, it is exactly what one expects a prison to look like, depending on how one looks at it. Most prisons in California are of the modern variety with prefabricated cellblocks, electronic door vaults, miles of electrified fence studded with the occasional corrugated steel gun tower. There is nothing modern about Folsom. Built in the late 1800’s, it looks more like a medieval castle than it does a prison, with its thirty foot high granite walls and iron portcullis as a gate. Within the prison there is none of the cold efficiency of a modern lock-up; all of the cell doors are keyed by hand and windows are opened with rusty handcranks. Folsom’s look and history give its inhabitants a certain sort of pride in living (or working) there. Its mystique is such that even visitors are attracted to the Folsom Prison gift shop and museum where they can purchase a “my son went to Cal State Folsom” coffee mug or tee-shirt (yes, my parents have both). But that’s not all.

When it comes to level three (low maximum security) prison yards, Folsom is relatively mellow. Thus, it is a popular destination for the thousands of lifers throughout the state who want to do their time in “peace”. The yard is packed with lifers, most of them men who have been down ten, twenty, thirty years or more. These men have a seen a lot in their decades in prison and a lot of them have grown because of it. Instead of becoming bitter, they became better. Some of them have spent decades reading voraciously in their cells, other have spent the decades meditating, some have learned every trade imaginable, and many have done all of the above. And there is nothing more humbling that being a man with a release date standing next to a man who has accepted the fact that he may never have one at all. Granted, he may have murdered someone to warrant his sentence but that didn’t change the fact that he and I were in the same place at the same time, doing time together.

I found the role models and camaraderie that I previously would’ve never thought imaginable in a place such as Folsom. I made friends that I will probably never see again, no matter how hard I try. I took part in meditation groups and contemplative fellowships and shared ideas on spiritual growth with other men in the same predicament. Imagine sitting in zazen between two convicted murderers and being okay with it! All of the experiences and more contributed to a transformation within myself, a growing up of sorts, a finding of who I am, a glimpse into the future of what I have the potential to be.

I spent many days in my cell studying, reading, writing, and thinking. I sat in half-lotus for hours, gazing out my bars at a world that I was part of of, imagining myself as part of something even greater. When terrible things happened, as they often did, they served as a focus for contemplation, as an opportunity to put things in perspective and be grateful for what life I still had. I didn’t welcome the misery of Folsom, but I welcomed the opportunity to learn from it.

I don’t know when it was that I figured out what it was that a lot of the lifers had figured out before me, but I just started to get it. At some point I thought about the fact that, even though I was in prison, this was still my life and there was no need to waste it any further than I already had. Resenting where I found myself at the moment could only contribute to the process of killing time, and that is not what I wanted to do. Killing time is akin to killing oneself.

Two nights before I was transferred out of Folsom, I went to my usual Monday night meeting of the Contemplative Fellowship. A cold December night outside, Greystone Chapel issued forth a warm and welcoming light, begging the weary to come within its walls. Over thirty men sat in the circle that night, some of them on zafus and zabutans, some on regular chairs, for the twenty minutes of silence we enjoyed before each meeting.

Knowing it was my last night there, I gazed around at the men in the circle just to take it all in. I loved these men and I loved where I was at. Despite the fact that I was going to a lower security prison, I knew that I was going to miss Old Folsom. It dawned on me that evening that I truly knew what was meant by the word “holy”. What we had there at Folsom, what I took part in, the process I went through, was sacred.

Men and women have done it before and they will do it for all time to come, this trial by fire, this forcible dark night of the soul. For the willing, prison can serve as the perfect mechanism by which to transform oneself, or at least get a start on it. It is no coincidence that a monastery, like a penitentiary, has cells. And I suppose it is no coincidence, then, that prison has made monks out of convicts. It is only proper.

Dear Old Folsom! I never want to see you again, but in my heart you shall forever stay.

#folsom #prison #transformation #meditation #spirituality

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travelworldnetwork · 7 years ago

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Despite the far-reaching consequences of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, much about the man remains a mystery, buried deep beneath layers of Mainz history.

By Madhvi Ramani

8 May 2018

The German city of Mainz lies on the banks of the River Rhine. It is most notable for its wine, its cathedral and for being the home of Johannes Gutenberg, who introduced the printing press to Europe. Although these things may seem unconnected at first, here they overlap, merging and influencing one another.

The three elements converge on market days, when local producers and winemakers sell their goods in the main square surrounding the sprawling St Martin's Cathedral. Diagonally opposite is the Gutenberg Museum, named after the city’s most famous inhabitant, who was born in Mainz around 1399 and died here 550 years ago in 1468.

The printing press marks the turning point from medieval times to modernity in the Western world

It was Gutenberg who invented Europe’s first movable metal type printing press, which started the printing revolution and marks the turning point from medieval times to modernity in the Western world. Although the Chinese were using woodblock printing many centuries earlier, with a complete printed book, made in 868, found in a cave in north-west China, movable type printing never became very popular in the East due to the importance of calligraphy, the complexity of hand-written Chinese and the large number of characters. Gutenberg’s press, however, was well suited to the European writing system, and its development was heavily influenced by the area from which it came.

View image of Mainz, Germany, is the home of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the movable metal type printing press (Credit: Credit: Madhvi Ramani)

In the Middle Ages, Mainz was one of the most important cathedral cities in the Holy Roman Empire, in which the Church and the archbishop of Mainz were the centre of influence and political power. Gutenberg, as an educated and entrepreneurial patrician, would have recognised the Church’s need to update the method of replicating manuscripts, which were hand-copied by monks. This was an incredibly slow and laborious process; one that could not keep up with the growing demand for books at the time. In his book, Revolutions in Communication: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age, Dr Bill Kovarik, professor of communication at Radford University in the US state of Virginia, describes this capacity in terms of ‘monk power’, where ‘one monk’ equals a day’s work – about one page – for a manuscript copier. Gutenberg’s press amplified the power of a monk by 200 times.

At the Gutenberg Museum, I watched a demonstration of a page being printed on a replica of the press. First, a metal alloy was heated and poured into a matrix (a mould used to cast a letter). Once the alloy cooled, the small metal letters were arranged into words and sentences in a form and inked. Finally, paper was placed on top of the form and a heavy plate was pressed upon it, similar to how a wine press works. This is no coincidence: Gutenberg’s printing press is thought to be a modification of the wine press. Since the Romans introduced winemaking to the region, the area around Mainz has been one of Germany’s main wine-producing areas, with famous grape varieties such as riesling, dornfelder and silvaner.

The page that is always printed at the Gutenberg Museum replicates the original style and font (Gothic Textura) of the 42-line Gutenberg Bible, the first major book ever to be printed using movable type in the Western world. It is the first page of St John’s Gospel, in the Bible, which begins: “In the beginning was the word…”

View image of Gutenberg’s printing press made it easier for the Church to replicate religious manuscripts (Credit: Credit: Madhvi Ramani)

Writing is often considered the first communication revolution, while Gutenberg’s printing press brought with it the revolution of mass communication. After about 15 years of development – and huge capital investment – Gutenberg printed his first Bible in 1455.

“Gutenberg's Bible is an extraordinary work of craftsmanship,” said Dr Kovarik, who suggests we can read a strong religious motivation into the perfection of his work. “This wasn’t unusual at the time – for example, a stonemason would try to achieve a perfect sculpture in a remote corner of one of the great cathedrals, not really for the people who would be worshipping there, but rather as an expression of personal faith.”

Gutenberg’s printing press brought with it the revolution of mass communication

Of his original print run of about 150 to 180 Bibles, only 48 remain in the world today. The Gutenberg Museum has two on display. Both are slightly different, because after printing, the pages would be taken to a rubricator (specialised scriber) who would paint in certain letters according to the tastes of their customers. Gutenberg’s Bibles turned out to be bestsellers.

At first, the Church welcomed the new availability of printed bibles and other religious texts. Printing enabled the Church to spread the Christian message and raise cash in the form of ‘indulgences’ – printed documents that forgave people’s sins. However, the disruptive power of the printed word soon became apparent. With the rapid spread of printing technology – by the 1470s, every European city had printing companies, and by the 1500s, an estimated four million books had been printed and sold — came the spread of new and often contradictory ideas, such as Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, in which he criticised the Church’s sale of indulgences. Luther is said to have nailed his text to a Wittenberg church door on 31 October 1517. Within a few years 300,000 copies of it had been printed and circulated, leading to the Reformation and a permanent split in the Church.

View image of Of the 150 to 180 Bibles Gutenberg originally printed, only 48 remain in the world today (Credit: Credit: Ann Johansson/Getty Images)

But despite the far-reaching consequences of Gutenburg’s press, much about the man remains a mystery, buried deep beneath layers of Mainz history. A plaque marks the place where he was born on corner of Christofsstraße, but the original house is long gone. Today, a modern building stands there, occupied by a pharmacy.

Another plaque outside the nearby St Christoph’s Church marks the place where he was likely baptised. The church was bombed during World War II and remains in ruins as a war memorial, although the original baptismal font from Gutenberg’s time is still intact.

The graveyard where Gutenberg was buried has been paved over, and even though there are statues of him are everywhere in the city, we don’t know what he looked like. He is commonly depicted with a beard, but it is unlikely that he had one. Gutenberg was a patrician and during his time, according to my tour guide Johanna Hein, only pilgrims and Jews wore beards. In fact, the man we all know as Johannes Gutenberg was actually born Johannes Gensfleisch (which translates to ‘goose meat’). If it weren’t for the 14th-Century trend of people renaming themselves after their houses, we would perhaps be referring to his invention as the Gensfleisch Press today.

View image of Despite the far-reaching consequences of his printing press, little is known about Gutenberg today (Credit: Credit: Madhvi Ramani)

But although the traces of the man have all but disappeared from the city, his influence can still be seen everywhere: a poster advertising cosmetics; a woman reading a newspaper in a cafe; the menu on a restaurant table. Furthermore, our current communications revolution, made possible by the internet, digital technology and social media, is a progression of what started with Gutenberg.

“Every time the cost of media declines rapidly, you enable more people to speak out, and you have a greater diversity of voices,” said Dr Kovarik, explaining that this impacts the distribution of power in society, and sparks social change.

View image of Although the traces of Gutenberg have all but disappeared from the city, his influence can still be seen everywhere (Credit: Credit: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library/Alamy)

Paradoxically, however, our digital revolution can also be seen as a return to the pre-print era, according to a theory called The Gutenberg Parenthesis by Dr Thomas Pettitt, affiliate research professor at the University of Southern Denmark, who argues that there are parallels between the pre-print age and our own internet age.

In the absence of print, news has lost its authenticity, and, as in the Middle Ages, is synonymous with rumour

“Print conferred stability on discourse; works in books were authorities; news in print was true. In the absence of print, news has lost its authenticity, and, as in the Middle Ages, is synonymous with rumour. We are now in a post-news phase, where purveyors of fake news can accuse the legitimate press of purveying fake news and get away with it,” Dr Pettitt said.

Whatever the impact of the 21st-Century digital revolution, just like the printing revolution before it, the effects will reverberate for hundreds of years to come.

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from bbc.com/travel/columns/adventure-experience

The post The Silicon Valley of the Middle Ages appeared first on Travel World Network.

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scotianostra · 8 years ago

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On April 6th 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was drawn up by the monks of Arbroath Abbey.

Fifty-one Scottish magnates and nobles issued a declaration of Scottish independence in the form of a letter to Pope John XXII. This effort was designed to establish Scotland as an independent kingdom no longer under English rule. The Declaration of Arbroath is without doubt the most famous document in Scottish history. Like the American Declaration of Independence, which is partially based on it, it is seen by many as the founding document of the Scottish nation.

There is considerable debate over the Declaration’s significance. For some it is simply a diplomatic document; while others see it as a radical movement in western constitutional thought.

#History

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christinaepilzauthor-blog · 8 years ago

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Ælfgyva: The Mysterious Woman of the Bayeux Tapestry - Part II

By Paula Lofting Welcome to the second part of the post concerning Ælfgyva, the woman, who over the years has caused many a historian to scratch their heads in wonder. For centuries people must have pondered over this scene, in the Bayeux Tapestry, where a slim figure, clad in what would appear to be the clothing of a well-bred woman, stands in a doorway, her hands are palm upwards as if she could be explaining something to a monk, apparently behind a doorway. He is reaching out to touch the side of her face whilst his other hand rests on his hip in a stance of dominance and he looks as if he might be touching her face in a fatherly way, perhaps admonishing her for some misdeed, or perhaps he is slapping her? On the other hand he could be caressing her face.

The text sewn into the tapestry merely states 'where a priest and Aelfgyva…' and the onlooker is left with no more than this to dwell on. So just what is the author alluding to? Why did he/she not finish the sentence? In this piece of work we will examine one of the possibilities as to who this woman could possibly be and what was her role at the time of the conquest. There are a number of theories, all of which have been thoroughly discounted by others, myself included. I would like to examine here one particular source that alludes to her representing Emma, who, as I stated in the first of this series, had taken on the English name Ælfgifu upon marriage to King Aethelred. Eric Freeman in his Annales de Normandie explains through a story that was circulating in the fourteenth century that Emma had been involved in an unorthodox relationship with a bishop of Winchester and had proven her innocence through trial by ordeal. She was said to have achieved this by walking barefoot across nine red-hot ploughshares. What followed is even more absurd: her son King Edward, who had instigated the trial and had always shown harsh resentment toward his mother, begged her forgiveness and was duly beaten by both his mother and the accused Bishop Ælfwine. So, could this ridiculous tale be the scandal that we think the Bayeux tapestry is referring to? Bearing in mind that it is only an assumption of a scandal, however, the lewd depictions that accompany the image would indeed strongly suggest a scandal. My research of this strange anecdote has turned up no other contemporary source. Quite how it shaped its way into the fourteenth century, we will never know, but what it does show is how the medieval mind-set could so effectively create the believable in the unbelievable. If we were to take this story as having some basis in truth, it would be a credible subject, if not for the trial by ordeal which would have been impossible to survive. So, if we put that aside and concentrate on the rest of it, what do we have? Emma/Ælfgifu, depicted as a bishop-loving adulteress whose scandal has somehow enmeshed itself into the threads of the Bayeux Tapestry.

photo credit: Caroline Williams

Now here comes the why, the how and what for. If we consider the scene and its place in the tapestry, the images before it show Harold standing before William having some sort of discussion. Incidentally, Harold appears to be touching the hand of one of William's guards, but that is another story we will go into in part three. Our gaze next rests upon Ælfgyva and our priest, who is definitely not a bishop, otherwise the tapestry would have read, Unus Episcopus, rather than, Unus Clericus. If we can imagine that the two men are deep in conversation about some important topic, could the image of Ælfgyva have been inserted to allude to something that may have been better known at the time? If it was meant to be a representation of William's great aunt Emma, she may well have been referred to by the English artist by her English name and this would be plausible. Yet the insertion of a bishop touching her face and the lewd creature underneath them in the border is a strange way to portray so great and noble a lady such as the former twice Queen of England. Not only is she William's great aunt, but also partly the basis for his claim to the English crown. Through her, he was a first cousin once removed to the reigning monarch, Edward the Confessor. It was because of this kinship that William sought acceptance as heir to Edward's throne. Emma, in her time was often criticised but despite this, she was respected by her English subjects. It is not likely that she would have been denigrated in this way unless she was involved in something pertinent to the story of the conquest. And I think considering the lack of a contemporary insertion in the sources for this story, we can safely assume that there is no credence to this legend. It would seem that there is no other connection with Emma and the tapestry and the absence of a bishop and the presence of a priest, although perhaps an error but this is unlikely, means that this cannot be the Ælfgyva story the artist is referring to. In my next post on the subject, I will be exploring with you, another Ælfgyva. We must give credit to the intriguing artistry of the creator who at every turn and twist manages to confuse us all. ~~~~~~~~~~

Paula Lofting is an author and a member of the re-enactment society Regia Anglorum, where she regularly takes part in the Battle of Hastings. Her first novel, Sons of the Wolf, is set in eleventh-century England and tells the story of Wulfhere, a man torn between family and duty. The sequel, The Wolf Banner is available now. Paula is currently working on the third book in the series, Wolf's Bane Find Paula on her Blog on her Amazon Author Page

Hat Tip To: English Historical Fiction Authors

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aliadamson5-blog · 8 years ago

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Art & Christianity..

Art & Christianity

Within this essay I will be looking into the religion of art where I have chosen to focus on Christianity. Christianity in my opinion is the most important idea of why it’s changed the art world today compared to others. In this century, today religion has shaped the world the way people may think and act, with the way people believe in different things and that’s their way of living and some will rely on this to keep them going and to look out for them.

Christianity is the most dominant religion of the western tradition and is used in art more than any other religion. This Religion is the largest religion faith where it is believed that it is built upon the foundation that Jesus Christ was the son of deity. This being said is why I would like to focus more on it because it’s a wider area. It is believed that Jesus was a first century fisherman and preacher. The Old testament and Hebrew bible contains a story of Moses explaining the 10 commandments which is there to demand and not to create any ‘idolatrous’ image. It quotes: ‘Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image’ which is a commandment that Christianity has failed to keep and has used this in the way of shaping the art world today.

Christianity became the main religion of the roman empire and also went on to survive the roman empire and still remain. Jesus Christ was used in many pieces of artwork such as paintings, and sculptures which defies the commandment but has worked wonders. There are early images that adopt the aesthetic traditions of classical roman painting where its also known as ‘fresco’ where you paint on to direct plaster. In many painting Jesus Christ is presented as clean-shaven in a contemporary roman attire showing him at his best where people would aspire to be and look like him. Jesus Christ was also known as ‘the good shepherd’ which is based upon the Greco/roman figure of Orpheus, a lyre player/poet. This is where Orpheus is believed to has visited the underworld and rescue his wife as long as he walked up to the upper world and didn’t look back to meet her eyes. However, because he was concerned he looked back and she dissolved before he could even get a look of her, and lost completely.

After Christianity became the official religion of the roman empire, Constantine then divided into two; the east and the west. The Roman empire of the East then continued for over a 1000 year’s which then developed its own traditions of art work such as mosaics ( made of glass, tiles, stone) and frescos became common, where the image of Jesus Christ was the iconic image where now it retains a quasi-abstract decorative quality. During the 12th century, Gothic art was formed pushing out Romanesque traditions in the northern Europe. Gothic art was shown in different ways such as Sculpture, architecture, fresco, paintings, illuminated manuscripts. Gothic art was shaped around Christian thoughts such as the architecture of cathedrals soared towards the ‘heavens’ where the light would come through immensely hinting at both natural and the divine. The images offer the story of Christ especially with the light shining through. This is because in the medieval period it has no system of aesthetics and were driven by beauty, light, proportion and the Christian thoughts as said. The name ‘gothic’ was only said much later on after the barbarian tribes of northern Europe who laid waste to Rome. However, this made the gothic style to continue and grow and become increasingly extravagant. St Augustine developed medieval aesthetics in part of his teachings, where he offered a hierarchy of beauty. Whereas there is St Thomas Aquinas who offered the theory of beauty, which had a major impact on art and Christian thought where he speaks about proportion and harmony, radiance and luminosity. He also believes that when an artist makes work they are there ‘most’ beautiful when doing so.

In the 13th century Duccio a siennese painter who works in gothic however he began to betray the first signs of change in the gothic period. In the 14th century this is when the Renaissance emerged in Italy which refers to the discovery of Greco-Roman culture. It is said that is the medieval period was built upon an understanding of Christianity, the Renaissance adopted a humanist philosophy which imagined men as the equal of all. Fra Angelico, a Florentine monk was an artist who worked in this period where his paintings showed the figure in a more naturalistic space. Giotto is another painter in this period who introduced expression and drama into his paintings where he explores these in a more theatrical approach. Just from these 2 painters alone you can see the difference in how they work and how they can learn from each other. Michelangelo who did ‘The creation of Adam’ was commissioned by the pope to decorate the Sistine chapel in Rome after the Renaissance was beginning to peak in the southern Europe of Rome. This went on to be one of the greatest achievements of western culture where the aesthetic draws much more from classical culture creating a story. Leonardo da Vinci was the most famous artist of his era, where his image of ‘ The last supper’ which was only created for a dining room in Milan. Leonardo wanted to get across that Christ would be sitting amongst you whilst having dinner. By the 19th century Edouard Manet was re-inventing painting and his image of Christ offers a real man instead of just a heroic figure which had been shown over many years and was then showed as the real him. When it became to the 20th century Christianity became a major impact on the art world especially on its painting. Artists were more influenced and involved this in their work either trying to make it better or relevant to an original. However, within Christianity Jesus Christ was sentenced to death and executed by crucifixion which was a standard roman penalty, but with this happening it became a world-wide symbol of Christ on the cross used today.

To conclude my essay, I have explored ways of how Christianity has shaped the art world, with artists, the bible, objects and how this has shaped our world today.

#art&ideas

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allwicca · 8 years ago

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The little known witch trials of New Mexico

The little community of Abiquiu, New Mexico, sits silently beside the Rio Chama (river) in the Land of Enchantment. And yet enchantment led to one of America’s lesser-known witch trials in the place artists Georgia O’Keeffe called home.

The small town sits just 8 miles from where I live, and I have visited it frequently. Today, it is even smaller than it was at the time of the witch hysteria that took place there. Tourists come to see the art galleries and the Georgia O’Keeffe house and museum. They visit the old general store and drive through the unpaved resident section. Almost none of them know they are in a place almost as dark as Salem when it comes to pagan persecution.

The witchcraft trials took place between 1756 and 1766. Just like the Salem witch trials, the Abiquiu ones brought up out of a complex “climate of fear induced by warfare with the Plains Indians.”

The Spanish began to settle the area in the early 1730s, but it was inhabited by local Indians long before that; there are at least ten prehistoric Pueblo sites in the areas surrounding the town. As with many efforts of colonization, the Spanish had plenty of problems keeping tranquility in the area. They were caught between the Pueblo Indians’ resistance to Christianization and raids by wayfaring “indio barbaros” tribes (unconquered, autonomous Indians) such as the Comanches that endangered the existence of the colony.

In an attempt to bring peace to a very polarized area, Governor Vélez Cachupín awarded the genízaro Indians,” Hispanisized” Plains Indians and Navajos who were captured and sold to the Spaniards as slaves, the Abiquiú Genízaro land grant. This seemed like a good idea because Abiquiú had previously been abandoned by the Spanish who settled there because the raids were so constant.

The genízaro Indians dwelled on the land grant and practiced a mixed form of Catholicism and their native religion. This combined form was a result of pacification and Christianization that took an intriguing form in this region because of the crossover of Catholic traditions and the natives’ rites. Practices such as confession and the idea of penance already existed in the native religion, which at first encouraged Catholics to accept and share their religion with the natives. Some of the natives in Abiquiu even became monks and religious leaders.

The blending of the religions worked for a while until the Spanish discovered that their new converts were still practicing their native religion and had just added Catholic ideas and practices. In an attempt to preserve parts of their original culture, the genízaros were still taking part in practices like human sacrifice, which, when discovered, freaked the Spanish out a little. This discovery coupled with the atmosphere of fear produced by Comanche raids, lead Catholic priests to believe that the Abiquiu was “in the Devil’s snare.”

Local priests, products of the late medieval Christian worldview who believed in a stark difference between good and evil, easily saw all indigenous beliefs as Devil worship. Once they began equating the native religious beliefs with the Devil, it became very easy to explain the raids and the native’s resistance to Catholicism as a direct result of Devil worship.

It’s important to note that native religions didn’t believe in good vs. evil. They had no concept of the Devil; they believed in the interconnectedness of all things. And thus, when natives were accused and put on trial, their denial of “evil” or the “devil’ would prove them guilty of witchcraft.

What followed was “accusations (that) included stories of love magic; sorcerers turning into cats, dogs, and owls; and one who tried to fly to the Cerro Pedernal in the shape of a woodpecker … There were so many other charges of witchcraft that the investigation soon turned into a witch hunt, reminiscent of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, as a series of charges and countercharges through the criminal justice system of New Mexico spun out of control”.

You know how it goes from here: people are wrongly sentenced to death. By being blunt and short in this description, I am in no way trying to minimize their deaths; I’m just aware that no words I could use would give them justice. And thus we are left with plain words and statistics about those who died because of some other culture’s religious fears and beliefs. It’s not too dissimilar to the time we live in today.

from The little known witch trials of New Mexico

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