The Prince

Machiavelli's The Prince as always been a favorite of mine. When i first read this as required reading for a class i felt as if it was the most thought provoking piece i had read that semester. Machiavelli used this piece of literature to prove his proficiency of the state. His understanding on how important protecting, acquiring and maintaining the state was. Hw was a believer of war and backed up his reasons for it. As a person of power he knew that the sole art of war belongs to him who rules.

I think my favorite portion of The Prince is the love and fear part. Is it greater to be loved or feared and Machiavelli answers this question very intelligently. He states that there is greater security in being feared that being in love. One is to inspire fear and win love. Love and fear are difficult to unite in just one person. He understood that as a ruler he knew that friendship could be obtained by payments.

Wikipedia Article

1) This article consisted if 1,468 words.
2) I searched with the words The Flagellants. The wikipedia article i was searched was under the title Flagellant.
3)There was no disambiguation.
4) The discussion board was made up of only one post and at the begginning of the post there was a note that it was an article included in a christian group wiki page. The article was titled "Flagellant Anti Semitism.
5) There were approximately 150 chnges made to this page. From June 23rd 2003, to September 18 2008.
6) There was only one external likn given.
7)Two references were present on the page.
8) There were 8 enteries under further reading, one including my favorite, but maybe not that resourceful, Monty Python and the Holy Grail!

Summary: As you can see i i have already made a post about the Flagellants, but thats only becuase i find them so interesting. As i read through the article some things that really stuck out to me was that this was not banned until January of 1261 by the pope, also history tells a story tht in Germany flagellants claimed to resurrect a past emporer. I also learned about other forms of flagellants, such aas the White Pentitents, who sang hymns to the save themselves.

There were rulers like Catharine de Mendici and Henry III of france who supported the Flagellants. Something that stunned me is that there are modern day flaggelants still practicng today. The article stated that most were living in Mediterranean Catholic countries. The flagellants were also present in other religions, but the article didn't state them specifically.

Flagellants

The acts of the Flagellants were self destrctive and believed to "cure" the bad things that were happening. They believed they were suffereing for a reason and for that they would hurt themselves. In the beginning it wa a form of penenace for the church, but obviously turned into something much more extreme. The movement did not have any clear leaders. The flaggelants took self-mortification into the cities as to display a demostration of piety. The peak of this movement was during the black plague. These people wore white robes and lived in camps usually lying just outside city borders. They held these horrendous acts twice a day.

I also read that in the beginning the catholic church tolerated the flaggelants, but as they grew much more extreme, by the 14th century approximately, they became much less tolerant. I found it very interesting that these people could be so deranged as to believe that they acts were going to put them in gods good graces.

First Blood, Vikings

We have all seen different versions, hollywood, versions of what a viking looks like and how terribly violent they were. But after comprehending the reading on the Vikings forms of Bloodshed i can honestly say i have never seen a "butterfly cut" in a major motion picture. The horror of seeing some obe sliced open through their back and their lungs and guts flood out. Hollywood could never perform that!

I also never realized that viking viking ships sailed on rivers, i guess i only thought of them saling on the open ocean. The vikings were known for being extremely violent, but having only begun these raids on weak and non-threatening villages, makes them even more merciless.

Throughout the reading on vikings i wondered how one becomes an ex-viking. How one would go back into leading a normal, well kind of normal, life. Can they just stop the bloodshed cold turkey? Can they transorm themself into one of the "locals", forgetting their past of vengeance and hate?

Arianism

When the reading talked about Arian Christians i had no idea what that meant. Arianis was the difference between medieval and ancient religions. It was a major difference between the two times, period. Arianism focused on the human christ. They looked at the happenings of the man and not the spirit. They put all their attention on this human figure. The teachings of Arius conflicted with trinitarium. Trinitarium views were held by the church and we all know that in that time, the church was full of power and control. Arianism died completely by the end of the 6th century.

These days new religions and new beliefs come and go, but i have always wondered about the scrutiny that new religions in the Late Antiquity had to face. Where do these ideas and beliefs originate from with such pressure from the church beating down on them?