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cglosser c

Protestant Reformation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Protestant_Reformation

shared by cglosser c on 03 May 13 - Cached
  • rotes
  • The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century schism within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants.
  • The largest of the new churches were the Lutherans
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • This, as well as many other factors, such as spread of Renaissance ideas and inventions, such as the invention of the printing press, and the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, contributed to the creation of Protestantism.[1][page needed][2][page needed]
  • It was sparked by the 1517 posting of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses.
  • The Reformation was precipitated by earlier events within Europe, such as the Black Death and the Western Schism, which eroded people's faith in the Catholic Church and the Papacy that governed it.
    • cglosser c
      cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
       
      Martin Luther had followers in the Reformation.
  • The Protestant Reformation was the schism within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other early Protestants
    • cglosser c
      cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
       
      The church faced big problems.
    • cglosser c
      cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
       
      This man's name was Martin Luther. He is an important figure in the Reformation.
  • Religious situation in Europe
    • cglosser c
      cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
       
      Peasants were involved in the Reformation as well.
    • cglosser c
      cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
       
      Martin Luther made a bible of his own.
  • george S on 05 May 13
     
    Informational text on the reformation 
  • cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
     
    This is a wikipedia article explaining the Reformation.
nshore n

An Introduction to the Protestant Reformation | The Protestant Reformation | Khan Academy - 1 views

www.khanacademy.org/...-to-the-protestant-reformation

Reformation Protestant Martin Luther Indulgences Church Purgatory Renaissance

shared by nshore n on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • The sale of indulgences was a practice where the church acknowledged a donation or other charitable work with a piece of paper (an indulgence), that certified that your soul would enter heaven more quickly by reducing your time in purgatory.
  • Luther sparked the Reformation in 1517 by posting, at least according to tradition, his "95 Theses" on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany - these theses were a list of statements that expressed Luther's concerns about certain Church practices - largely the sale of indulgences, but they were based on Luther's deeper concerns with Church doctrine.
  • but none of these efforts successfully challenged Church practice until Martin Luther's actions in the early 1500s.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Pope Leo X had granted indulgences to raise money for the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. These indulgences were being sold by Johann Tetzel not far from Wittenberg, where Luther was Professor of Theology.
  • He concluded that no matter how "good" he tried to be, no matter how he tried to stay away from sin, he still found himself having sinful thoughts. He was fearful that no matter how many good works he did, he could never do enough to earn his place in heaven
  • The Reformation was a very violent period in Europe, even family members were often pitted against one another in the wars of religion. Each side, both Catholics and Protestants, were often absolutely certain that they were in the right and that the other side was doing the devil's work.
  • It is also during this period that the Scientific Revolution gained momentum and observation of the natural world replaced religious doctrine as the source of our understanding of the universe and our place in it.
  • nshore n on 24 Apr 14
     
    Very Good Understanding of the Reformation and Indulgences, without going into too much detail. 
cglosser c

The Reformation - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com - 0 views

www.history.com/...reformation

shared by cglosser c on 05 May 13 - No Cached
    • george S
      george S on 05 May 13
       
      This explains what the reformation was.
  • reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin and Henry VIII challenged papal authority
  • The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Martin Luther (1483-1546) was an Augustinian monk and university lecturer in Wittenberg when he composed his “95 Theses,” which protested the pope’s sale of reprieves from penance, or indulgences
  • Martin Luther Sparks a Revolution The German monk's questioning of Catholic dogma leads to the Protestant Reformation.
  • cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
     
    This is a history.com website about the Reformation.
criseida o

Reformation - 0 views

ap_history_online.tripod.com/apeh3.htm

Middleages

shared by criseida o on 03 May 13 - No Cached
  • The Church was in disarray on the eve of Reformation
  • Ofek H on 03 May 13
     
    Explains the Renaissance and Reformation. A really good site for all topics during that time period.
  • criseida o on 03 May 13
     
    reformation
cglosser c

Protestant Reformation - Theopedia, an encyclopedia of Biblical Christianity - 0 views

www.theopedia.com/Protestant_Reformation

shared by cglosser c on 05 May 13 - Cached
  • "The Protestant Reformation was a major 16th century European movement aimed initially at reforming the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church.
  • "In 1517, in one of the signal events of western history, Martin Luther, a German Augustinian monk, posted 95 theses on a church door in the university town of Wittenberg.
  • george S on 05 May 13
     
    A short explanation of the reformation.
  • cglosser c on 21 Apr 14
     
    This is another website explaining some of what we've been talking about.
Garth Holman

Martin Luther Biography - 0 views

www.uncommon-travel-germany.com/martin-luther-biography.html

Reformation Martinluther 95Thesis

shared by Garth Holman on 21 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • His parents were from peasant stock, but had high ambitions for their intelligent, eldest son
  • Bachelors and Masters degrees in Theology. He was in his first year of Law School in Erfurt when an incident occurred that would change the course of European history.
  • Two weeks later, Luther joined the Augustinian Order in Erfurt; his father was furious.
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • Many Christians of the late Middle Ages had a great fear of demons and devils, and were terrified of ending up in hell. Mortality rates were high and life was very uncertain due to disease, accidents, childbirth and wars. Luther shared those fears and his first years in the monastery he was tormented with the idea that all men were hopeless sinners in the sight of God and unworthy of salvation.
  • reason, he was sent to teach theology at the University of Erfurt, and in 1511, at the University of Wittenberg, where he received his Doctorate in Theology. In Wittenberg he was also the parish priest assigned to minister to the citizens of the town.
  • A major source of church funding during this period was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was a "get out of purgatory card" that could be obtained for oneself or others by paying a certain sum to the church.
  • The Pope was selling offices and indulgences to get money for an ambitious building program which included the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. The Pope's representative, the Dominican Father Tetzel, encouraged people to buy the indulgences with the jingle, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings The soul from Purgatory springs"
  • telling them their loved ones were crying out to be released from suffering.
  • He was shocked by the lack of morality and piety of the local clergy and by the luxurious lifestyle of the Pope Leo X, a member of the Medici family. Pope Leo was known for his expensive tastes and was fond of hunting, gambling and carnivals. The papacy was at a low point in its history and others had been calling out for reform prior to Luther.
  • He came to the conclusion there was no evidence in the Bible for believing the Pope had power to release souls from Purgatory.
  • He wrote out a list of his objections to the practice; he named 95 issues he wished to dispute.
  • On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed his ninety-five theses, or points of discussion, on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The document was in Latin and invited other scholars to debate the statements set out.
  • The 95 Theses were translated into German and widely distributed throughout Germany, courtesy of the printing press.
  • There is no question, however, that Luther wrote the list and sent a copy of it to Prince Albert of Mainz.
  • The reaction of the Church initially was to try and suppress the attack on indulgences by suppressing Martin Luther.
  • The protest against the indulgences set off a conflagration which, step by step, resulted in most of Northern Europe breaking away from the authority of the Catholic Church.
  • It was clear by this time that there could be no coming together on these issues, since the very authority of the Pope was called into question.
  • The Church did act to curb the worst abuses of indulgences, but it was too late.
  • Luther was given safe conduct to attend the meeting and defend his positions. At the Diet of Worms, Luther was shown a table with a pile of his books and other writings. He was offered the opportunity to recant, but refused. Luther's reply was written down as he spoke it: "Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason -- I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other -- my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen." The printed document released after the Diet of Worms also contained the famous words, "Here I stand, I can do no other."
  • but he was now considered an outlaw.
  • declaring Luther a heretic and ordering his death.
  • He spent nearly a year there, writing furiously and fighting depression and numerous physical ailments. It was in a small study in the castle in 1522 that he translated the New Testament from Greek into German and profoundly influenced the form and standardization of the German language.
    • Garth Holman
      Garth Holman on 21 Apr 16
       
      Maybe one of the most important ideas.  He gave the people the bible in the local language, so more people could read what the bible said...not have someone tell them.  See this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible#Surviving_copies  
  • in Luther's absence numerous leaders had sprung up, each with his own interpretation of doctrine, and most having far more radical views than Luther.
  • Priests wore ordinary clothing and grew their hair, services were performed in German, monks and nuns were leaving the cloisters and getting married. Some groups were smashing images and statues in the churches and dragging priests away from the altars.
  • He convinced a couple of the more radical preachers to stop preaching or leave town.
  • twelve who had been smuggled out in herring barrels.
  • However, he impulsively announced he was marrying Katharina von Bora, to the great surprise of his friends.
  • Many were inspired by Martin Luther's challenge to the authority of the Church to challenge the secular powers as well.
  • Martin Luther wrote an appeal to the aristocrats to restore order by force.
  • Both sides were angry with Luther: the nobles blamed him for stirring up the people and the peasants blamed him for encouraging the nobles to use violence against them.
  • Luther wrote to and met with other leaders of the Reformation, such as Zwingli, to try and produce a unified statement of belief for the reformed church, but nothing came out of it because they were not able to agree on many of the doctrinal issues.
Aman B

History: Reformation for Kids - 2 views

www.ducksters.com/...renaissance_reformation.php

history reformation renaissance

shared by Aman B on 03 May 13 - No Cached
  • Renaissance Reformation History >> Renaissance for Kids The Reformation occurred during Renaissance times. It was a split in the Catholic Church where a new type of Christianity called Protestantism was born. More People Reading the Bible During the Middle Ages, few people other than monks and priests knew how to read and write. However, with the Renaissance, more and more people became educated and learned how to read. At the same time, the printing press was invented allowing for new ideas, as well as scriptures of the Bible, to be easily printed and distributed. People were able to read the Bible for themselves for the first time. Martin Luther
  • Renaissance
  • Aman B on 03 May 13
     
    A easy to understand site.
Aubree D

Negotiations on labour reforms continue | Athens News - 0 views

www.athensnews.gr/58683

athens news Greece middle life

shared by Aubree D on 17 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Aubree D on 17 Oct 12
     
    Negotiations on labour reforms continue
dcs-armstrong

Magna Carta and Tax Reform | Tax Foundation - 1 views

taxfoundation.org/...magna-carta-and-tax-reform

quest9

shared by dcs-armstrong on 25 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The Declaration of Independence asserts that governments “deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed,” distilling concepts invoked by Locke and earlier English political reformers. For the English-speaking world, however, the germ of that concept can be found in Magna Carta. At the time, feudal barons could be required to provide what was known as “scutage,” essentially a fee in lieu of personal service typically used to hire mercenaries to fight the king’s wars. Other aid levies were also common. King John, however, was perceived as abusing the system, imposing unusually high levies and doing so even in the absence of war. Magna Carta introduced a revolutionary innovation: the idea that the power to tax was in some way limited by general consent. Still, it being the year 1215, there were some loopholes: No scutage not aid shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel [alt. "general consent"] of our kingdom, except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a reasonable aid…
Garth Holman

This dissident poet says elections and the nuclear pact give him hope for Iran | Public... - 0 views

www.pri.org/...and-nuclear-give-him-hope-iran

Inquisition spanish trials iran elections

shared by Garth Holman on 05 May 16 - No Cached
  • The 44-year-old journalist and poet might have ended up dead, like some of his writer friends back home in Iran. Several of them were murdered in a series of political assassinations that began in the late 1990s.
  • freedom of expression, the Islamic Republic of Iran is among the worst of the worst. The country is ranked 169th, out of a total of 180 countries, on the 2016 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.
  • Rafizadeh looks every bit the intellectual — glasses, leather jacket, cigarette. As a child, he would wake up early and recite Persian poetry out loud, annoying his father and his siblings. 
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “The [Iranian] government intrudes into your personal life no matter who you are. That’s why, after the murders started happening, I decided to write political poems,” he says. 
  • “Other intellectuals were killed, too,” he says. “The Iranian regime was murdering innocent people just because they dared to call for political change and reform.” 
  • afizadeh managed to shine a light on the killings with his writings in the pages of pro-reformist newspapers. But only for a time. Eventually, Rafizadeh was arrested.“I spent 86 days in a cell that was 1.5 meters by 2 meters,” Rafizadeh says. “And I was tortured.” 
  • Even after he was released, pending trial, he says authorities threatened to harm his children if he didn’t make public statements saying he was treated well in prison and that his past writings were false.
  • Rafizadeh says he did what he was being pressured to do. But he adds that, “the Iranian public knew who was lying and who was telling the truth.” “Other journalists besides me wrote about the human rights situation in Iran and we did have an impact,” Rafizadeh says. Nonetheless, he felt he had to leave the country after the courts sentenced him to 20 lashes and nine months in prison. He escaped into Turkey in 2005. Two years later, he got asylum in Canada. 
  • “But, as it happened, there is in Iran what you might call a ‘deep state.’” 
  • None of these political actors are entirely answerable to Iran’s elected government. That enabled the hardliners to launch a brutal crackdown against the pro-reform camp of then-president Mohammad Khatami and his supporters. The crackdown began in in the late '90s and continued into the early 2000s.
  • “You can fight for rights and freedoms in the political space all you like, but if there is not judicial protection of them, that is a fundamental problem,” she says. 
  • Garth Holman on 05 May 16
     
    Dissident and actions in the modern world. 
Ben D

Greek finance minister confident of returning to growth: FT | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...e-reform-idUSKCN0RR11H20150927

greek

shared by Ben D on 29 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Euclid Tsakalotos
  • said he "didn't see any reason" why growth wouldn't return
  • will need anything from 10 billion euros to 25 billion euros,
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • It is important for the government to begin reforms by October, as this would unlock a bailout funds tranche of 3 billion euros ($3.36 billion) agreed upon in August
  • ($1 = 0.8937 euro)
  • Greece and its international lenders reached an 85 billion euro bailout
  • relief
John Woodbridge

Medieval Knight's Tomb Found Beneath Parking Lot - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/ath-parking-lot-221641582.html

Quest2

shared by John Woodbridge on 15 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Archaeologists who were on hand during the construction of a new building in Edinburgh uncovered a carved sandstone slab, decorated with markers of nobility — a Calvary cross and a sword
  • Scientists plan to analyze the bones and teeth to learn more about this possible knight or nobleman
  • archaeologists have already dated the gravestone to the thirteenth century
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Builders at the site expected they would find historic objects during construction. Before it became a parking lot (coincidentally, once used by the University of Edinburgh's archaeology department), the site housed the 17th-century Royal High School, the 16th-century Old High School, and the 13th-century Blackfriars Monastery, researchers said. Archaeologists also apparently uncovered some medieval remains of the monastery, which had been destroyed and somewhat lost since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.
  • John Woodbridge on 15 Mar 13
     
    Story about an archeological find in Scotland
Garth Holman

The 95 Theses: A Summary - 0 views

www.uncommon-travel-germany.com/95-theses.html

95Thesis martin Luther Martinluther Reformation

shared by Garth Holman on 19 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • fleeced
    • Garth Holman
      Garth Holman on 19 Apr 16
       
      What does this mean?  Look it up. 
tabitha p

Slavery in China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 1 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Slavery_in_China

shared by tabitha p on 03 Nov 11 - No Cached
    • Aden S
      Aden S on 03 Nov 11
       
      What was the total population of the Shang Dinasty
    • sarah l
      sarah l on 16 Nov 11
       
      i never thought that slavery could be so different all around the world
  • Slavery in China has taken various forms throughout history. Never as absolute as its Muslim or European models, Chinese slavery still often viewed its objects as "half-man, half-thing" (半人, 半物).[1] Slavery was repeatedly abolished as a legally-recognized institution, including in a 1909 law[2][1] fully enacted in 1910,[3] although the practice continued until at least 1949.[4]
  • Men punished with castration during the Han dynasty were also used as slave labor.[9
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Slavery was established in China by at least the Shang dynasty, at which point it has been estimated that about 5 percent of the population was enslaved.[5]
  • Deriving from earlier Legalist laws, the Han dynasty set in place rules that the property of and families of criminals doing three years of hard labor or sentenced to castration were to have their families seized and kept as property by the government.
  • As part of his land reform laws, Wang Mang either abolished all slavery[1] or trade in slaves.[citation needed] The swift collapse of his dynasty led to the restoration of both.
  • Aden S on 03 Nov 11
     
    Ancient Slavery in China
  • Brian K. on 03 Nov 11
     
    Slavery of China
  • colby w on 16 Nov 11
     
    Ancient chinese slavery information. I hilighted the first paragraph and its on wiki!
Kalina P

Cold War - History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts - 0 views

www.history.com/cold-war

cold war history

shared by Kalina P on 20 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • “containment.”
  • President Harry Truman (1884-1972) agreed. “It must be the policy of the United States,” he declared before Congress in 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.”
  • deadly "arms race
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President Truman announced
  • that the United States would build an even more destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or "superbomb." Stalin followed suit.
  • the nuclear age could be. It created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed poisonous radioactive waste into the atmosphere.
  • ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had a great impact on American domestic life as well. People built bomb shelters in their backyards
  • attack drills in schools and other public places
  • Cold War was a constant presence in Americans’ everyday lives.
  • first man-made object to be placed into the Earth's orbit.
  • Sputnik
  • 1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army
  • Space Race was underwa
  • creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration, as well as several programs seeking to exploit the military potential of space. Still, the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.
  • U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set food on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the Americans.
  • hearings designed to show that communist subversion in the United States was alive and well.
  • forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these "blacklisted" writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade
  • include anyone who worked in the federal government. Thousands of federal employees were investigated, fired and even prosecuted. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues and "loyalty oaths" became commonplace.
  • military action of the Cold War began when the Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south
  • but the war dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.
  • . The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis the following year seemed to prove that the real communist threat now lay in the unstable, postcolonial "Third World" Nowhere was this more apparent than in Vietnam, where the collapse of the French colonial regime had led to a struggle between the American-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Since the 1950s, the United States had been committed to the survival of an anticommunist government in the re
  • new approach to international relations.
  • Cold War heated up again under President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened freedom everywher
  • nstead of viewing the world as a hostile, "bi-polar" place, he suggested, why not use diplomacy instead of military action to create more poles? To that end, he encouraged the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing. At the same time, he adopted a policy of "détente"–"relaxation"–toward the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the manufacture of nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old threat of nuclear war.
  • , he worked to provide financial and military aid to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the worl
  • redefined Russia's relationship to the rest of the world: "glasnost," or political openness, and "perestroika," or economic reform
  • the Berlin Wall–the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War–was finally destroyed, just over two years after Reagan had challenged the Soviet premier in a speech at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." By 1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over.
sbabbush s

Martin Luther and the 95 Theses - 0 views

www.history.com/...artin-luther-and-the-95-theses

shared by sbabbush s on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Born in Eisleben, Germany, in 1483, Martin Luther went on to become one of Western history’s most significant figures.
  • His “95 Theses,” which propounded two central beliefs—that the Bible is the central religious authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds—was to spark the Protestant Reformation.
Garth Holman

Coronation Oath, 2nd June 1953 - 0 views

www.royal.gov.uk/...CoronationOath2June1953.aspx

coronation oath middle ages

shared by Garth Holman on 26 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Madam, is your Majesty willing to take the Oath?And the Queen answering,I am willing.
  • Archbishop. Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom
  • and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • I solemnly promise so to do.Archbishop. Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?Queen. I will.
  • Archbishop. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?
  • Queen. All this I promise to do.
  • The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.
Paige W

BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: The Democratic Experiment - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...greekdemocracy_01.shtml

greece ancientgreece 7thgradehistory democracy athens

shared by Paige W on 29 Sep 15 - Cached
  • Take politics for example: apart from the word itself (from polis, meaning city-state or community) many of the other basic political terms in our everyday vocabulary are borrowed from the ancient Greeks: monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy and - of course - democracy.
  • demokratia
  • It meant literally 'people-power'
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • The Greek word demos could mean either
  • Was it all the people
  • Or only some of the people
  • There's a theory that the word demokratia was coined by democracy's enemies, members of the rich and aristocratic elite who did not like being outvoted by the common herd, their social and economic inferiors.
  • By the time of Aristotle (fourth century BC) there were hundreds of Greek democracies. Greece in those times was not a single political entity but rather a collection of some 1,500 separate poleis or 'cities' scattered round the Mediterranean and Black Sea shores 'like frogs around a pond', as Plato once charmingly put it.
  • cities that were not democracies
  • power was in the hands of the few richest citizens
  • monarchies, called 'tyrannies' in cases where the sole ruler had usurped power by force rather than inheritanc
  • most stable,
  • most long-lived,
  • most radical, was Athens.
  • origin of the Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries can be traced back to Solon,
  • flourished
  • 600 BC.
  • was a poet and a wise statesman
  • but not - contrary to later myth - a democrat.
  • Solon's constitutional reform package that laid the basis on which democracy could be pioneered
  • Cleisthenes was the son of an Athenian, but the grandson and namesake of a foreign Greek tyrant
  • also the brother-in-law of the Athenian tyrant, Peisistratus,
  • eized power three times
  • before finally establishing a stable and apparently benevolent dictatorship.
    • Paige W
      Paige W on 29 Sep 15
       
      Interesting insight on the beginning of democracy.
  • nder this political system that Athens successfully resisted the Persian onslaughts of 490 and 480/79
  • victory in turn encouraged the poorest Athenians to demand a greater say in the running of their city
  • Ephialtes and Pericles presided over a radicalisation of power that shifted the balance decisively to the poorest sections of society
  • he democratic Athens that won and lost an empire,
  • built the Parthenon,
  • eschylus, Sophocles,
  • Euripides and Aristophanes
  • laid the foundations of western rational and critical thought
  • was not, of course, without internal critics
  • when Athens had been weakened by the catastrophic Peloponnesian War (431-404) these critics got their chance
  • n 411 and again in 404 Athenian oligarchs led counter-revolutions that replaced democracy with extreme oligarchy
  • oligarchs were supported by Athens's old enemy, Sparta
  • mpossible to maintain themselves in power
  • democracy was restored
  • 'blips' such as the trial of Socrates - the restored Athenian democracy flourished stably and effectively for another 80 years
  • There were no proper population censuses in ancient Athens,
  • total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those
  • 250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens -
  • adult males of Athenian birth and full status
  • second key difference is the level of participation.
  • representative
  • we choose politicians to rule for us
  • Athenian
  • democracy
  • was direct
  • and in-your-face.
  • most officials and all jurymen were selected by lot.
  • This was thought to be the democratic way, since election favoured the rich, famous and powerful over the ordinary citizen.
  • mid fifth century, office holders, jurymen, members of the city's main administrative Council of 500, and even Assembly attenders were paid a small sum from public funds to compensate them for time spent on political service away from field or workshop.
  • eligibility
  • adult male citizens need apply for the privileges and duties of democratic government, and a birth criterion of double descent - from an Athenian mother as well as father -
  • Athenian democracy did not happen only in the Assembly and Council. The courts were also essentially political spaces, located symbolically right at the centre of the city.
  • defined the democratic citizen as the man 'who has a share in (legal) judgment and office'.
  • Athenian drama,
  • was a fundamentally political activity as well,
  • One distinctively Athenian democratic practice that aroused the special ire of the system's critics was the practice of ostracism -
  • potsherd
  • rom the Greek word for
  • decide which leading politician should be exiled for ten years
  • on a piece of broken pottery.
  • voters scratched or painted the name of their preferred candidate
  • 6,000 citizens had to 'vote' for an ostracism to be valid,
  • biggest
  • political
  • risked being fried
  • For almost 100 years ostracism fulfilled its function of aborting serious civil unrest or even civil war
  • Power to the people, all the people, especially the poor majority, remained the guiding principle of Athenian democracy.
  • Paige W on 29 Sep 15
     
    About of Greek Democracy
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