An abbey is a monastery or religious community of the highest class, governed by an abbot, assisted generally by a prior, sub-prior, and other subordinate functionaries; or, in the case of a female community, superintended by an abbess. An abbey invariably included a church. A priory differed from an abbey only in being scarcely so extensive an establishment, and was governed by a prior. In the English conventual cathedral establishments, as Canterbury, Norwich, Ely, etc, the archbishops or bishops held the abbot's place, the immediate governor of the monastery being called a prior.
Some priories sprang originally from the more important abbeys, and remained under the jurisdiction of the abbots; but subsequently any real distinction between abbeys and priories was lost. The greater abbeys formed most complete and extensive establishments, including not only the church and other buildings devoted to the monastic life and its daily requirements, such as the refectory or eating-room, the dormitories or sleeping-rooms, the room for social intercourse, the school for novices, the scribes' cells, library, and so on; but also workshops, storehouses, mills, cattle and poultry sheds, dwellings for artisans, labourers, and other servants, infirmary, guest-house, etc. Among the most famous abbeys on the continent of Europe were those of Cluny, Clairvaux, and Citeaux in France; St Galle in Switzerland, and Pulda in Germany; the most noteworthy English abbeys were those of Westminster, St Mary's of York, Fountains, Kirkstall, Tintern, Rievaulx, Netley; and of Scotland, Melrose, Paisley, and Arbroath. Research Abbey
The Act of Mediation was the Swiss constitution of February the 19th 1803, which Bonaparte substituted for that of the Helvetic republic, which lasted to the end of 1813. In it, the name 'Switzerland' was first officially used as the name of the Swiss confederation. Research Act of Mediation
A bible Society is a society formed for the distribution of the Bible or portions of it in various languages, either gratuitously or at a low rate. A clergyman of Wales, whom the want of a Welsh Bible led to London, occasioned the establishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society, on March the 7th, 1804.
A great number of similar institutions were soon formed in all parts of Great Britain, and afterwards on the Continent of Europe, in Asia and in America, and connected with the British as a parent or kindred society.
The proceeding's of the British and Foreign Bible Society gave rise to several controversies, one of which related to the neglecting to give the Prayer-book with the Bible. Another controversy related to the circulation of the Apocrypha along with the canonical books.
The Edinburgh Bible Society established in 1809, and up to 1826 connected with the British and Foreig'a Bible Society, seceded on the occasion of the controversy regarding the circulation of the Apocrypha, and up to 1860 existed as a separate society. In 1861 this society was united with the National, the Glasgow, and other Bible societies, into a whole called the National Bible Society of Scotland, having its headquarters in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The Hibernian Bible Society, which has its headquarters in Dublin, was established in 1806, to encourage a wider circulation of the Bible in Ireland. In Germany the principal Bible society was the Prussian, established at Berlin in 1814 and having many auxiliaries. France has two principal Bible Societies, whose headquarters are at Paris, the one instituted in 1818, the other in 1833. Switzerland possesses various Bible societies, chief among which are those of Basel founded in 1804, Bern, Lausanne, and Geneva. In the Netherlands there has existed since 1815 a fraternal union of different sects for the distribution of Bibles. The Swedish Bible Society was instituted in 1808, and the Norwegian Bible Society in 1816. The first Russian Society in St Petersburg printed the Bible in thirty-one languages and dialects spoken in the Russian dominions, and auxiliary societies were formed at Irkutsk, Tobolsk, among the Kirghises, Georgians, and Cossacks of the Don; but they were all suppressed by an imperial ukase in 1826. In 1831 a new Bible Society was instituted at St. Petersburg - namely, the Russian Evangelical Bible Society. In the United States of America the great American Bible Society was formed in 1816. Research Bible Society
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
Capital punishment is punishment by death. Capital punishment is retained in 92 countries and territories, including the 37 states of the USA, China, and Islamic countries. It was abolished in the UK in 1965 for all crimes except treason - in 1998 the death penalty for treason was finally abolished in the United Kingdom. Methods of execution include electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, shooting, lethal injection, garrotting, and decapitation. In Britain, the number of capital offences was reduced from over 200 at the end of the 18th century, until capital punishment was abolished in 1866 for all crimes except murder, treason, piracy, and certain arson attacks. Its use was subject to the royal prerogative of mercy. The punishment was carried out by hanging (in public until 1866).
The improvement in the penal laws of Europe in respect to the reduction of capital punishment may be traced in large part to the publication of Beccaria's treatise on Crimes and Punishments (Dei Delitti e delle Pene) in 1764. At that time in England, as Blackstone a year later pointed out with some amount of feeling, there were 160 capital offences in the statute book. The work of practical reform was initiated in 1770 by Sir William Meredith, who moved for a committee of inquiry into the state of the criminal laws; but the modifications secured by it were few, owing to the opposition of the House of Lords, which continued down to 1832 to oppose systematically all attempts at criminal law reform.
The publication of Madan's Thoughts on Executive Justice, in 1784, urging the stricter administration of the law as it then stood, brought out the opposition of Sir Samuel Romilly, who replied to it in 1785, and introduced at short intervals a series of bills for the abolition of the extreme sentence for minor offences. The influence of Paley and LordEllenborough, and the reaction from the revolutionary principles, which prior to the French Revolution had inaugurated great penal changes in France, told strongly against his efforts; and even his Shoplifting Act, to abolish the sentence of death in cases of theft to the value of five shillings, was resolutely rejected, though passed by the Commons in 1810, 1811, 1813, and 1816. Romilly's work was taken up by Sir James Mackintosh in 1820, and under Peel's ministry with greater success. At his death, however, in the year of the passage of the Reform Bill (1832) forty kinds of forgery with many less serious offences were still capital, though from that time the amelioration was rapid. In the five years following the Reform Act, the capital offences were reduced to 37, and subsequent changes left in 1861 only four capital charges - setting fire to H.M. dockyards or arsenals, piracy with violence, treason, and murder. By 1906 only treason and murder were capital offences in England, andScotland also, though robbery, rape, incest, and wilful fire-raising were still capital crimes in Scottish common law.
Prior to 1868 executions were conducted in public in England, but then in 1868 the law changed that all executions were to be conducted in private within the prison walls. Capital punishment for murder was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1965 but still exists for treason, and during the 1980's it was revealed that the police had a shoot-to-kill and summary execution policy for those suspected of being terrorists. In 2005 a 27 year old Brazilian man was executed by being shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder after being tackled to the ground by plain clothed police officers who mistakenly believed him to be a suicide bomber.
In 1990, Ireland abolished the death penalty for all offences. In Saudi Arabia execution is by beheading in public. Countries that have abolished the death penalty fall into three categories: those that have abolished it for all crimes (44 countries); those that retain it only for exceptional crimes such as war crimes (17 countries); and those that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes but have not executed anyone since 1980 (25 countries and territories).
The first country in Europe to abolish the death penalty was Romania in 1864, followed by Portugal in 1867, Holland in 1870, and by Switzerland in 1874. In the USA, the Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972, as a cruel and unusual punishment, but decided in 1976 that this was not so in all circumstances. It was therefore reintroduced in some states. Many countries use capital punishment for crimes other than murder, such as drug offences (in Malaysia and elsewhere). In 1977 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ruled out imposition of the death penalty on those under the age of 18. The covenant was signed by President Carter on behalf of the USA, but in 1989 the US Supreme Court decided that it could be imposed from the age of 16 for murder, and that the mentally retarded could also face the death penalty. Research Capital Punishment
The census is a questionnaire issued every ten years in Britain which gathers detailed figures concerning the population, classified according to sex, age, occupation, size of families and geographical distribution.
The Roman census was a registered statement of the particulars of a person's property for taxation purposes; an enumeration and register of the Roman citizens and their property. The Roman census was introduced by King Servius Tullius in 577 BC.
The first census of Great Britain was taken in 1801, and a census has been taken every ten years since that date. The first census that was attempted in Ireland was that of 1811, but the census of that country taken in 1831 is regarded as the first on which reliance can be placed. The first census of the entire British empire was not taken until 1871. The first authentic census in France appears to have been that of 1700; since 1822 it has been taken every five years. The first census in Russia was taken by order of Peter the Great in 1723, and it was decreed that it should be repeated every twenty years. It now takes place more frequently. In Prussia the practice of taking a census of the population dates from the time of Frederick the Great. The first census of the new German Empire was taken in 1871, since when there has been a census every five years. In the United States of America, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and Portugal, a census is taken every ten years. The facts brought out by the census differ in different countries. Research Census
The chinook is the warm dry wind at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, and presents the same features as the fohn winds of Switzerland. The chinook winds descend from the Rockies, and while they are chiefly found in Montana and Wyoming, they also extend from the southern part of Colorado up into Canada as far as the Arctic circle. The high temperatures are confined to the valleys, and occur in streaks or pockets so that a traveller frequently passes suddenly from a very warm to a very cold atmosphere. Research Chinook
A constitution is the fundamental law of a state, whether it be a written instrument of a certain date, as that of the United States of America, or an aggregate of laws and usages which have been formed in the course of ages, like the English constitution. The ideal constitution is that established by a free sovereign people for their own regulation, though the expediency of other forms at various stages of national development cannot but be recognized. The chief of these are: 1. Constitutions granted by the plenary power of absolute monarchs, or constitutions octroyees; such as Louis XVIII's Charte. 2. Those formed by contract between a ruler and his people, the contract being mutually binding - a class under which, in a great degree, the British constitution must be placed. 3. Those formed by a compact between different sovereign powers, such as the constitutions of the German Empire, of the United Provinces of Holland, and of the Swiss Confederation.
In regard to political principles, constitutions are; 1. Democratic, when the fundamental law guarantees to every citizen equal rights, protection, and participation, direct or indirect, in the government, such as the constitutions of the United States and of some cantons of Switzerland. 2. Aristocratic, when the constitution recognizes privileged classes, as the nobility and clergy, and intrusts the government entirely to them, or allows them a very disproportionate share in it. Such a constitution was that of Venice, and such at one time those of some Swiss cantons, for instance, Bern. 3. Of a mixed character. To this, latter division belong some monarchical constitutions, which recognize the existence of a king whose power is modified by other branches of government of a more or less popular cast. The British constitution belongs to this division. Research Constitution
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.
Abbreviations
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