Augustus II or Frederick-Augustus I was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. He was born in 1670 at Dresden and died in 1733. He was the second son of John George III, elector of Saxony. He succeeded his brother in the electorate in 1694, and the Polish throne having become vacant, in 1696, by the death of John Sobieski, Augustus presented himself as a candidate for it and was successful. He joined with Peter the Great in the war against Charles XII of Sweden, invaded Livonia, but was defeated by Charles near Riga, and at Clissow, between Warsaw and Cracow. In 1704 he was deposed, and two years later formally resigned the crown to Stanislaus I, now devoting himself to his Saxon dominions. In 1709, after the defeat of Charles at Pultowa, the Poles recalled Augustus, who united himself anew with Peter. The two monarchs, in alliance with Denmark, sent troops into Pomerania, but the Swedish general Steinbock defeated the allies at Gadebusch, on December the 20th, 1712. The death of Charles XII put an end to the war, and Augustus concluded a peace with Sweden. A confederation was now formed in Poland against the Saxon troops, but through the mediation of Peter an arrangement was concluded by which the Saxon troops were removed from the kingdom. Augustus now gave himself wholly up to voluptuousness and a life of pleasure. His court was one of the most splendid and polished in Europe. The Poles yielded but too readily to the example of their king, and the last years of his reign were characterized by boundless luxury and corruption of manners. His wife left him one son. The Countess of Konigsmark bore him the celebrated commander Marshal Saxe (Maurice of Saxony). Research Augustus II
Augustus III or Frederick-Augustus II was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. He was born in 1696 at Dresden and died in 1763. He was the son of Augustus II and succeeded his father as elector in 1733, and was chosen King of Poland through the influence of Austria and Russia. He closely followed the example of his father, distinguishing himself by the splendour of his feasts and the extravagance of his court. He preferred Dresden to Warsaw, and through his long absence from Poland the government sank into entire inactivity. During the first Silesian war he formed a secret alliance with Austria. The consequence was that during the second Silesian war Frederick the Great of Prussia pushed on into Saxony, and occupied the capital, from which Augustus fled. By the peace of Dresden, on December the 25th 1745, he was reinstated in the possession of Saxony. In 1756 he was involved anew in a war against Prussia. When Frederick declined his proposal of neutrality he left Dresden, and entered the camp at Pirna, where 17,000 Saxon troops were assembled. Frederick surrounded the Saxons, who were obliged to surrender, and Augustus fled to Poland. On the threat of invasion by Russia he returned to Dresden, where he died in 1763. His son, Frederick Christian, succeeded him as Elector of Saxony, and Stanislaus Poniatowski as King of Poland. Research Augustus III
A calendar (named from the Latin calendarium, from calendce, the first day of the month), is a record or marking out of time as systematically divided into years, months, weeks, and days.
The periodical occurrence of certain natural phenomena gave rise to the first division of time, the division into weeks being the only purely arbitrary partition. The year of the ancient Egyptians was based on the changes of the seasons alone, without reference to the lunar month, and contained 365 days divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with five supplementary days at the end of the year.
The Jewish year consisted of lunar months of which they reckoned twelve in the year, intercalating a thirteenth when necessary to maintain the correspondence of the particular months with the regular recurrence of the seasons.
The Greeks in the earliest period also reckoned by lunar and intercalary months, but after one or two changes adopted the plan of Meton and Euctemon, who took account of the fact that in a period of nineteen years, the new moons return upon the same days of the year as before. This period of nineteen years was found, however, to be about six hours too long, and subsequent calculators still failed to make the beginning of the seasons return on the same fixed day of the year. Each month was divided into three decads.
The Romans at first divided the year into ten months, but they early adopted the Greek method of lunar and intercalary months, making the lunar year consist of 354, and afterwards of 355 days, leaving ten or eleven days and a fraction to be supplied by the intercalary division. This arrangement continued until the time of Julius Caesar. The first day of the month was called the calends. In March, May, July, and October the 15th, in other months the 13th, was called the ides. The ninth day before the ides (reckoning inclusive) was called the nones, being therefore either the 7th or the 5th of the month. From the inaccuracy of the Roman method of reckoning the calendar came to represent the vernalequinox nearly two months after the event, and at the request of Julius Caesar, the Greek astronomer Sosigenes with the assistance of Marcus Fabius, contrived the so-called Julian calendar. The chief improvement consisted in restoring the equinox to its proper place by inserting two months between November and December, so that the year 707 (46 BC), called the year of confusion, contained fourteen months.
In the number of days the Greek computation was adopted, which made it 365.25. To dispose of the quarter of a day it was determined to intercalate a day every fourth year between the 23rd and 24th of February. This calendar continued in use among the Romans until the fall of the empire, and throughout Christendom until 1582.
By this time, owing to the cumulative error of eleven minutes, the vernalequinox really took place ten days earlier than its date in the calendar, and accordingly PopeGregory XIII issued a brief abolishing the Julian calendar in all Catholic countries, and introducing in its stead the one now in use, the Gregorian or reformed calendar. In this way began the new style, as opposed to the other or old style. Ten days were to be dropped; every hundredth year, which by the old style was to have been a leap year, was now to be a common year, the fourth excepted; and the length of the solar year was taken to be 365 days, five hours, forty-nine minutes, and twelve seconds, the difference between which and subsequent observations is immaterial. The new calendar was adopted in Spain, Portugal, and France in 1582; in Catholic Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands in 1583; in Poland in 1586; in Hungary in 1587; in ProtestantGermany, Holland, and Denmark in 1700; in Switzerland in 1701; in England in 1752; and in Sweden, 1753.
In the English calendar of 1752, also, the 1st of January was now adopted as the beginning of the legal year, and it was customary for some time to give two dates for the period intervening between 1st January and 25th March, that of the old and that of the new year, as January 1752/3. Russia alone retained the old style, which by 1906 differed twelve days from the new.
In France, during the revolution, a new calendar was introduced by a decree of the rational Convention, on November the 24th, 1793. The time from which the new reckoning was to commence was the autumnal equinox of 1792, which fell upon the 22nd of September, when the first decree of the new republic had been promulgated. The year was made to consist of twelve months of three decades each, and, to complete the full number, five fete days, or sansculotides (in leap years six) were added to the end of the year. The seasons and months were as follows: Autumn; 22nd September to 22nd December Vendimiaire, vintage month; Brumaire, foggy month; Frimaire, sleet month. Winter; 22nd December to 22nd March: Nivose, snowy month; Plumose, rainy month; Ventose, windy month. Spring; 22nd March to 22nd June: Germinal, budmonth; Floreal, flowermonth; Prairial, meadowmonth. Summer; 22nd June to 22nd Sept.: Messidor, harvest month; Thermidor, hot month; Fructidor, fruit month. The common Christian or Gregorian calendar was re-established in France on the 1st of January, 1806, by Napoleon. Research Calendar
The ISO (International Standards Organisation) assigns a two character code to each country name. These codes are used by Internet 'whois' databases (these two character abbreviations are the whois country codes) and also other applications.
A fraternity is an association of people who unite to promote their common interest, business or pleasure. In this wide sense it includes all secret and benevolent societies, the monastic and sacerdotal congregations, the orders of knighthood, and also guilds, trades-unions, and the like. In a limited sense it is applied to religious societies for pious practices and benevolent objects.
Fraternities were often formed during the middle ages, from a desire of imitating the holy orders. Many of these societies, which did not obtain or did not seek the acknowledgment of the church, had the appearance of separatists, which subjected them to the charge of heresy. The pious fraternities which were formed under the direction of the church, or were acknowledged by it, were either required by their rules to afford assistance to travellers, to the unfortunate, the distressed, the sick, and the deserted, on account of the inefficiency of the police, and the want of institutions for the poor, or to perform certain acts of penitence and devotion. Of this description were the Fratres Pontifices, a brotherhood that originated in Tuscany in the 12th century, where they maintained establishments on the banks of the Arno, to enable travellers to cross the river, and to succour them in case of distress. A similar society was afterwards formed in France, where they built bridges and hospitals, maintained ferries, kept the roads in repair, and provided for the security of the highways. Similar to these were the Knights and Companions of the Santa Hermandad (or Holy Brotherhood) in Spain; the Familiars and Cross-bearers in the service of the Spanish Inquisition; the Calendar Brothers in Germany; the Alexiaus in Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands, etc.
The professed object of the Alexians, so called from Alexius, their patron saint, was to visit the sick and imprisoned; to collect alms for distribution; to console criminals, and accompany them to the place of execution; to bury the dead, and to cause masses to be said for those who had been executed, or for persons found dead. There were also Gray Penitents (an old fraternity of an order existing as early as 1264 in Rome, and introduced into France under Henry III), the black fraternities of Mercy and of Death; the Red, the Blue, the Green, and the Violet Penitents, so called from the colour of their cowl; the divisions of each were known by the colours of the girdle or mantle. The fraternity of the Holy Trinity was founded at Rome in 1548 by Philip de' Neri for the relief of pilgrims and the cured dismissed from the hospitals. The Brothers of Charity were another fraternity whose hospitals were found in all the principal cities of Catholic Christendom. Research Fraternity
Hospodar was a title of dignity formerly borne by the vassal princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, and in earlier times by the princes of Lithuania and the kings of Poland. Research Hospodar
The Teutonic Order was an order of knighthood established in 1198. The order originated in the charity of some German merchants who established a hospital during the Siege of Acre in 1990. The order was formally constituted in 1198 at Jerusalem. Membership was confined to Germans, and it was in Germany that the order carried out most of its work, including the conquest and conversion of Prussia.
Acquiring political importance, the order ruled large areas on the borders of Poland and Russia, owing allegiance to no power except the pope. The headquarters of the order were moved from Acre to Marienburg in 1308. The order was finally defeated by the Poles under Ladislas at Tannenberg in 1410.
Following the defeat of the order, its subjects revolted and in 1440 The PrussianLeague was formed and in 1466 it helped Poland to take west Prussia from the Teutonic Order by the treaty of Thorn. This treaty gave the knights of the Teutonic Order control of East Prussia as vassal of Poland, and half the knights were to be Polish. The Teutonic Order remained in this state for sixty years until in 1526 its grand master Albert of Brandenburg became a protestant and made the territories an hereditary grand duchy. The Teutonic Order continued to exist with its headquarters at Mergentheim until 1809. It was revived as an Austrian order of knighthood in 1834. Research Teutonic Order
The Treaty of Tilsit was a peace agreement signed between France and the allies of Russia and Prussia after the defeat of the Russians at Friedland. The treaty was signed upon a raft in the middle of the River Memel at Tilsit on June the 25th 1807. The treaty left Russia a free hand in Sweden and Turkey, provided Russia maintain the continental system. Prussia lost her possessions west of the Elbe and the part of Poland she had obtained in the partition of 1793 - 1795. Prussia also had a heavy indemnity imposed upon her and her standing army reduced to 42000 men. Research Treaty of Tilsit
Uniats are Oriental churches which have been brought into communion with the Church of Rome, but retain their ancient rites, liturgies, and customs. Their clergy are allowed to be married; they communicate in both kinds, and they use leavened bread in the Eucharist. They originated in Poland in 1596, when part of the LithuanianChurch submitted to the pope, but in the 18th and 19th centuries, under Russian pressure, many of their congregations rejoined the Greek Church. This Ruthenian Church, as it is called, is still by far the largest of the Uniat Churches chiefly in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Romanian Uniat Church, chiefly in Transylvania is next in size. Research Uniats
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Augustus II
