DANTE’S INFERNO
2-17-98, Notes by Alexa Weber
In a nutshell, Dante’s Divine Comedy is the story of Dante’s journey through Hell (The Inferno), Purgatory (Pugatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso). The journey begins on Good Friday, 1300, when Dante gets lost in a dark woods where his trip is stalled by a leopard (symbol of worldly pleasure), a lion (symbol of ambition), and a she-wolf (symbol of avarice). (Jeremiah 5:6 -- ) Virgil comes to his aid and warns him to take a different route for the she-wolf will devour and kill anyone who tries to pass. Virgil takes him on this trip through Hell and Purgatory and then another guide will take him from there for Virgil (symbol of human reason) is not allowed to enter Heaven.
Dante was an orthodox, medieval Catholic. His world was that of politics, theology, and learning. Hebelieved in concepts such as the “seven deadly sins” in Purgatory and the “seven virtues” in Paradise. The scheme of Paradise is based on Ptolmey’s geocentric solar system.
The Comedy is a poem with 100 cantos and each division (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) has 33 cantos. The first canto of the Inferno is the introduction to the entire Comedy.
The three levels of Dante’s hell are:
Incontinence:
1. Not restrained; uncontrolled: incontinent rage.
2. Lacking normal voluntary control of excretory functions.
3. Lacking sexual restraint; unchaste.
Violence:
1. Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing: crimes of violence.
2. The act or an instance of violent action or behavior.
3. Intensity or severity, as in natural phenomena; untamed force: the violence of a hurricane.
4. Abusive or unjust exercise of power.
5. Abuse or injury to meaning, content, or intent: do violence to a text.
6. Vehemence of feeling or expression; fervor
Fraudulence:
1. Engaging in fraud; deceitful.
2. Characterized by, constituting, or gained by fraud: fraudulent business practices.
(see footnote for reference[1])
Canto 1 explains how Dante came to be on this journey (see above). “Midway in life’s journey” he was distracted and strays from the True Way into the DarkWood of Error (worldliness). He did not know how he came to go off course, for his mind wasn’t clear and he was tired. He sets out to climb the Mount of Joy, lit by the sun (symbol of Divine Illumination) but his jouney is stalled by a leopard (symbol of worldly pleasure), a lion (symbol of ambition), and a she-wolf (symbol of avarice.) Vigil comes to meet him and leads him from error through human reason. In order to get by these beasts he must descend through Hell (The Recognition of Sin) then back up through Purgatory (The Reunciation of Sin) and then he may reach the Light of God on the hill.
Canto 2 is the introduction to the Inferno. Dante feels unworthy of the vision and uneasy about going and he invokes the muses. Instead, Beatrice (symbol of divine love and Dante’s inspiration for the Inferno) comes to him to help and solace him. Virgil explains that Beatrice came to him to ask that he guide Dante through hell, for it takes more than divine love to make it; Dante needed human reason as a guide. Beatrice was sent with prayers of the Virgin Mary (symbol of compassion) and St. Lucia (symbol of divine light). With Heaven’s concern and Virgil’s guidance, Dante is assured that nothing could happen to him. Rachel appears in this chapter and is a symbol of the Contemplative Life.
Canto 3. They pass through the gate of hell where they see the souls of the opportunists, those who were not evil or good but simply lived for themselves. They are not in hell or out of hell, just destined to remain eternally unclassified, forever pusued by wasps and hornets. Dante stresses that Hell is for those who choose it and they also choose their punishment by their lives. Those who choose to live lives of violence are violently punished. In Hell the punishment fits the sin. At the end of this chapter they cross the river Acheron on the ferry of Charon into the first circle of hell.
Canto 4. Dante and Virgil travel through Limbo, the woods where those who led perfect lives, such as Homer, Cicero, Seneca, Socrates and Plato, but were born before the coming of Christ and were not baptized. (The “virtuous pagans.”) Their only sadness comes from not being able to see God. Dante “swoons” when Virgil recounts the good people living in Limbo.
Canto 5 is the real beginning of hell. The second circle, where the ruthless Minos sits as judge and the lustful are punished. Here Dante meets Franchesca and swoons with pity for her and her lover who are forever together tossed by winds in hell, yet are miserable.
[1]The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, February 17, 1998
Thursday, February 5, 1998
Historical Notes on the Hundred Years War
The Hundred Years War Historical Notes
The Hundred Years War was the last great medieval war. It was a war not just between kings, but lesser nobles were also able to pursue their own personal agendas while participating in the larger conflict. Future wars saw far less factionalism, at least on the scale found in medieval conflicts. The Hundred Years War was actually dozens of little wars and hundreds of battles and sieges that went on for over a century (1337-1453), until both sides were exhausted. While neither side won in any real sense, the end result was that while there were two kingdoms at the begining of the war, there were two nations at the end of it.
In 1337, most of the English nobility spoke French, although most knew enough English to deal with their subjects. When duke William of Normandy conquered England in 1066, he did so as a French noble. But since duke William had conquered a kingdom, he had become king of England while remaining duke of Normandy (and a subject of the French king). Duke William also replaced nearly all the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy with French nobles. During the next two centuries, the French speaking English kings acquired (mainly through marriage) even more property in France. Finally, in the 13th century, a particularly able French king (Philip the Strong) took most this land away from the English king. But by the early 14th century, two French provinces, Gascony and Guyenne, were still ruled by the English king, and in 1337 the French king Philip VI demanded that these provinces be returned to French control. The English king, Edward III, did not want to violate the feudal bonds that united all of Europe by defying Philip, his feudal overlord for those provinces. So Edward III challenged Philip VI's claim to the French throne, asserting that his own claim (which did in fact exist) was superior. Thus the war began, with Philip VI claiming the right to appoint French nobles as rulers of Gascony and Guyenne, and Edward III claiming that he was the rightful king of France and England.
There were other issues involved. England had major financial interests in the wool industry in Flanders (then a part of France) and France supported the Scots in their wars against England. Moreover, England had better troops, a more efficient government and thousands of English soldiers were more than willing to campaign in France, and get rich in the process.
For the first few years of the war there wasn't much happening except English raids into France and Flanders. Then, in the 1340s, England and France took opposite sides in the long-running civil war over who should be the duke of Britanny. In 1346 this resulted in a French invasion of Gascony and the shattering French defeat at Crecy. The English then rampaged through western France, until a truce was signed in 1354 (brought on by the devastation of the Plague, which hit France heavily in 1347-48)
The truce didn't last. In 1355, the war began again. In 1356 another major battle was fought at Poitiers and the French king was captured. English raids continued until 1360, when another truce was signed.
Between 1368 and 1396, the French won back much of what the English had taken by adopting "pillage and raid" tactics. These operations were led by Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France. At one point, the French even attempted to invade England. Various other campaigns occured in Spain, Italy, and the Rhineland. During all this, Edward III died in 1377, the year after his heir, the Black Prince passed away,
In 1397, Charles VI of France and Richard II of England agreed to a 30 year truce. The English were still in France, the French still wanted them out, and bands of brigands were rampaging all over the countryside. Civil war was brewing in both England and France. Despie the truce, small French forces managed to land in Scotland, England, and Wales to raid and pillage.
The English, with a smaller population, actually had a larger pool of higher quality troops available than the French. England also had a lock on longbowmen (yeomen), who were also excellent infantry and light cavalry. Thus the Enlgish had mobility and quality advantages. Meanwhile, the French had to contend with poor generalship. For most of the war there were a larger number of good commanders who were English rather than French.. As time passed, the French acwuired some good commanders of their own and they fortified most of central France (at horrendous expense), making it more difficult for the English to live off the land (and provide enough pillage to attract large numbers of those still superior English men-at-arms and yeomen). The French wore the English down. Sort of the like Napoleon or the Germans going into Russia, only in slow motion.
In 1413, Henry V (the great-grandson of Edward III) came to power in England. Henry allied himself with the Burgundian faction in the French civil war, defeated the French king Charles VI at Agincourt in 1415 and forced a treaty favorable to the English. In 1421 Henry V was declared the heir to the French throne (Charles VI disinherited his own son, the Dauphin) and Henry married Charles' daughter. The
son of this marriage (Henry VI) would be the king of France and England. It looked as though England had finally won. But the disinherited Dauphin continued to resist. Henry V unexpectedly died in August 1422, followed in October by Charles VI, with the nine month old Henry VI not yet ready to receive the two crowns.
Despite the efforts of Henry V's able brothers to hold things together, Joan of Arc came and went, the Burgundians turned on their English allies, and by 1453, the French, aided by these developments and the increasing professionalism of their army (they were making extensive use of artillery and by now had a more or less standing army) had driven the English from the Continent. This gave the English a few years to get ready for the War of the Roses, while the French took care of some internal problems and got ready for the first of many invasions of Italy.
http://hyw1.erudite.com/Books/History/Hundred_.htm
The Hundred Years War was the last great medieval war. It was a war not just between kings, but lesser nobles were also able to pursue their own personal agendas while participating in the larger conflict. Future wars saw far less factionalism, at least on the scale found in medieval conflicts. The Hundred Years War was actually dozens of little wars and hundreds of battles and sieges that went on for over a century (1337-1453), until both sides were exhausted. While neither side won in any real sense, the end result was that while there were two kingdoms at the begining of the war, there were two nations at the end of it.
In 1337, most of the English nobility spoke French, although most knew enough English to deal with their subjects. When duke William of Normandy conquered England in 1066, he did so as a French noble. But since duke William had conquered a kingdom, he had become king of England while remaining duke of Normandy (and a subject of the French king). Duke William also replaced nearly all the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy with French nobles. During the next two centuries, the French speaking English kings acquired (mainly through marriage) even more property in France. Finally, in the 13th century, a particularly able French king (Philip the Strong) took most this land away from the English king. But by the early 14th century, two French provinces, Gascony and Guyenne, were still ruled by the English king, and in 1337 the French king Philip VI demanded that these provinces be returned to French control. The English king, Edward III, did not want to violate the feudal bonds that united all of Europe by defying Philip, his feudal overlord for those provinces. So Edward III challenged Philip VI's claim to the French throne, asserting that his own claim (which did in fact exist) was superior. Thus the war began, with Philip VI claiming the right to appoint French nobles as rulers of Gascony and Guyenne, and Edward III claiming that he was the rightful king of France and England.
There were other issues involved. England had major financial interests in the wool industry in Flanders (then a part of France) and France supported the Scots in their wars against England. Moreover, England had better troops, a more efficient government and thousands of English soldiers were more than willing to campaign in France, and get rich in the process.
For the first few years of the war there wasn't much happening except English raids into France and Flanders. Then, in the 1340s, England and France took opposite sides in the long-running civil war over who should be the duke of Britanny. In 1346 this resulted in a French invasion of Gascony and the shattering French defeat at Crecy. The English then rampaged through western France, until a truce was signed in 1354 (brought on by the devastation of the Plague, which hit France heavily in 1347-48)
The truce didn't last. In 1355, the war began again. In 1356 another major battle was fought at Poitiers and the French king was captured. English raids continued until 1360, when another truce was signed.
Between 1368 and 1396, the French won back much of what the English had taken by adopting "pillage and raid" tactics. These operations were led by Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France. At one point, the French even attempted to invade England. Various other campaigns occured in Spain, Italy, and the Rhineland. During all this, Edward III died in 1377, the year after his heir, the Black Prince passed away,
In 1397, Charles VI of France and Richard II of England agreed to a 30 year truce. The English were still in France, the French still wanted them out, and bands of brigands were rampaging all over the countryside. Civil war was brewing in both England and France. Despie the truce, small French forces managed to land in Scotland, England, and Wales to raid and pillage.
The English, with a smaller population, actually had a larger pool of higher quality troops available than the French. England also had a lock on longbowmen (yeomen), who were also excellent infantry and light cavalry. Thus the Enlgish had mobility and quality advantages. Meanwhile, the French had to contend with poor generalship. For most of the war there were a larger number of good commanders who were English rather than French.. As time passed, the French acwuired some good commanders of their own and they fortified most of central France (at horrendous expense), making it more difficult for the English to live off the land (and provide enough pillage to attract large numbers of those still superior English men-at-arms and yeomen). The French wore the English down. Sort of the like Napoleon or the Germans going into Russia, only in slow motion.
In 1413, Henry V (the great-grandson of Edward III) came to power in England. Henry allied himself with the Burgundian faction in the French civil war, defeated the French king Charles VI at Agincourt in 1415 and forced a treaty favorable to the English. In 1421 Henry V was declared the heir to the French throne (Charles VI disinherited his own son, the Dauphin) and Henry married Charles' daughter. The
son of this marriage (Henry VI) would be the king of France and England. It looked as though England had finally won. But the disinherited Dauphin continued to resist. Henry V unexpectedly died in August 1422, followed in October by Charles VI, with the nine month old Henry VI not yet ready to receive the two crowns.
Despite the efforts of Henry V's able brothers to hold things together, Joan of Arc came and went, the Burgundians turned on their English allies, and by 1453, the French, aided by these developments and the increasing professionalism of their army (they were making extensive use of artillery and by now had a more or less standing army) had driven the English from the Continent. This gave the English a few years to get ready for the War of the Roses, while the French took care of some internal problems and got ready for the first of many invasions of Italy.
http://hyw1.erudite.com/Books/History/Hundred_.htm
Sunday, February 1, 1998
Journal Entry re St. Francis of Assisi, Feb 1998
Alexa’s History Journal, February 11, 1998
St. Francis of Assisi
and the Francisian order
During Medieval times there were several reform movements in the church. The first movement, the Cistercian order, begun in 1098, was led by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Later there were the Dominicans, led by Dominic in 1170. Another reform was led by St. Francis of Assissi, the Francisians.
Francis was born in 1182 in Italy. Francis was not exactly the kind of person who you’d think would go on to become one of the most famous saints in history! Until is conversion he lived in self-indulgance and a life of parties and selfishness. When he almost died of sickness, however, his life changed. He completely changed his ways to serve his Master. He chose to put away worldly things and give everything to the poor, starving himself except for what others gave him and dressing in rags. His father was not pleased and ended up locking Francis in their cellar to keep him from giving all their money to the poor and to protect his family from becoming the laughing-stock of the town. Finally the Bishop interceeded in support of Francis and convinced him to give up his inheritence to appease his father. Francis believed that in order to really follow Christ, he had to to model his life after him by giving all and throwing away distractions, and continued to practice what he believed.
He went on to live “as free as the birds.” Francis believed that the birds lived the perfect life, always singing and happy even though they don’t build homes or store food. People respected and followed Francis and by 1210 he went to Rome where Pope Innocent III reluctantly approved the new movement and the Francisian order grew rapidly. They called themselves the “Lesser Bretheren” and lived by the simple rule of giving and sharing with the poor. He also founded a “Second Order” for women, spiritual sisters and nuns. Soon, however, a more complex rule was established and the original simplicity was being destroyed. Francis saw this and in 1220 resigned from being the head of the sucessful movement. Four years later he died knowing that the simple rule he’d established wouldn’t survive.
The Francisians gave common people an opportunity to contribute without being bound by restrictions -- they could be married or single, fulltime or parttime -- the only requirement was a serious commitment to God. St. Francis loved nature and to him creation sang of God’s love. Historians credit a rise in science in the west to Francis’ movement because he always encouraged his followers to learn and look closely at nature. Roger Bacon (1291) was one of the Francisian scholars. They worked with the Muslims as missionaries, some laying down their lives. In 1275, Raymond of Lull set up a missionary school to help missionaries learn the language of the Muslims so that they would be more effective by presenting the gospel in the language of the Muslims. Later they became like the Dominicans, becoming teachers at the new universities. Francis’ followers rejected his fear of higher learning, believing that they could be much more effective if they knew about the other religions they were missionaries to. In the end of the thirteenth century, many of the great scholars were from the Francisian order.
Francis life of simplicity and the effectiveness of the movement he begun had a huge impact on the world and he went down in history as St. Francis.
St. Francis of Assisi
and the Francisian order
During Medieval times there were several reform movements in the church. The first movement, the Cistercian order, begun in 1098, was led by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Later there were the Dominicans, led by Dominic in 1170. Another reform was led by St. Francis of Assissi, the Francisians.
Francis was born in 1182 in Italy. Francis was not exactly the kind of person who you’d think would go on to become one of the most famous saints in history! Until is conversion he lived in self-indulgance and a life of parties and selfishness. When he almost died of sickness, however, his life changed. He completely changed his ways to serve his Master. He chose to put away worldly things and give everything to the poor, starving himself except for what others gave him and dressing in rags. His father was not pleased and ended up locking Francis in their cellar to keep him from giving all their money to the poor and to protect his family from becoming the laughing-stock of the town. Finally the Bishop interceeded in support of Francis and convinced him to give up his inheritence to appease his father. Francis believed that in order to really follow Christ, he had to to model his life after him by giving all and throwing away distractions, and continued to practice what he believed.
He went on to live “as free as the birds.” Francis believed that the birds lived the perfect life, always singing and happy even though they don’t build homes or store food. People respected and followed Francis and by 1210 he went to Rome where Pope Innocent III reluctantly approved the new movement and the Francisian order grew rapidly. They called themselves the “Lesser Bretheren” and lived by the simple rule of giving and sharing with the poor. He also founded a “Second Order” for women, spiritual sisters and nuns. Soon, however, a more complex rule was established and the original simplicity was being destroyed. Francis saw this and in 1220 resigned from being the head of the sucessful movement. Four years later he died knowing that the simple rule he’d established wouldn’t survive.
The Francisians gave common people an opportunity to contribute without being bound by restrictions -- they could be married or single, fulltime or parttime -- the only requirement was a serious commitment to God. St. Francis loved nature and to him creation sang of God’s love. Historians credit a rise in science in the west to Francis’ movement because he always encouraged his followers to learn and look closely at nature. Roger Bacon (1291) was one of the Francisian scholars. They worked with the Muslims as missionaries, some laying down their lives. In 1275, Raymond of Lull set up a missionary school to help missionaries learn the language of the Muslims so that they would be more effective by presenting the gospel in the language of the Muslims. Later they became like the Dominicans, becoming teachers at the new universities. Francis’ followers rejected his fear of higher learning, believing that they could be much more effective if they knew about the other religions they were missionaries to. In the end of the thirteenth century, many of the great scholars were from the Francisian order.
Francis life of simplicity and the effectiveness of the movement he begun had a huge impact on the world and he went down in history as St. Francis.
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