Others explorers

Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475 – around January 12–21, 1519) was a Spanish (Jerez de los Caballeros, Extremadura) explorer, governor and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacífic Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World.

He traveled to the New World in 1500 and, after some exploration, settled on the island of Hispaniola. He founded the settlement of Santa Maria the Antiquity of Darien.

Amerigo Vespucci was born March 9, 1451 in a family FlorenciaDe 1499 to 1502 accommodated made several trips to America that recounted in five letters addressed to various recipients. Embarked in Cadiz in 1499 in the fleet of Alonso de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa. Following the route of the third voyage of Cristóbal Colón, he toured the northern coast of South America and reached Cape candle (Venezuela) returning in June from 1500 to Cadiz. In the year 1501 he traveled to Lisbon, from where it departed again to the new world under the Portuguese flag. After passing through Cape Verde, he came to Brazil at the end of the same year, and along the coast towards the South arrived in Patagonia, near the Strait shortly after Fernando de Magallanes discovered. He realized that the discovered lands were not an extension of the Asian peninsula, but a new continent. Trip relates in a letter addressed to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de Medici, published in Paris in 1502 under the title Mundus Novus.

Ferdinand Magellan in search of fame and fortune, Portuguese explorer (c. 1480-1521) set out from Spain in 1519 with a fleet of five ships to discover a western sea route to the Spice Islands. En route he discovered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan and became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean. The voyage was long and dangerous, and only one ship returned home three years later. Although it was laden with valuable spices from the East, only 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 270 returned with the ship. Magellan himself was killed in battle on the voyage, but his ambitious expedition proved that the globe could be circled by sea and that the world was much larger than had previously been imagined.

Juan Sebastian Elcano (1486-1526) was a Spanish (Basque) sailor, navigator and explorer best remembered for leading the second half of the first round-the-world navigation, having taken over after the death of Ferdinand Magellan. Upon his return to Spain, the King presented him with a coat of arms that contained a globe and the phrase: “You Went Around Me First.”Elcano was given the position of ship’s master on board the Concepción, one of five ships making up the fleet. Magellan believed that the globe was smaller than it actually is, and that a shortcut to the Spice Islands (now known as the Maluku Islands in present-day Indonesia) was possible by going through the New World. Spices such as cinnamon and cloves were immensely valuable in Europe at the time and a shorter route would be worth a fortune to whoever found it. The fleet set sail in September of 1519 and made its way to Brazil, avoiding Portuguese settlements due to hostilities between the Spanish and Portuguese.

THE PRINTING PRESS

The Renaissance spread to Germany, France, England, and Spain in the late fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. In it is migration northward, Renaissance culture adapted itself to conditions unknown in Italy, such as the growth of the monarchical state and the strength of lay piety. In England, France and SPain, Renaissance culture tenden to be court-centered and hence anti-republican. In Germany, no monarchical stated existed but a vital tradition of lay piety was present was present in the Low Countries. The Brethren of the Common Life, for example, was a lay movement emphasizing education and practical piety. Intensely Cristian and at the same time anticlerical, the people in such sharpening their wits against the clergy, not to undermine faith, but restore it is ancient apostolic purity.

Two factors operated to accelerate the spread of Renaissance culture after 1450: growing economic prosperity and the printing press. Prosperity -- the result of peace and the decline of famine and the plague -- led to the founding of school and colleges. In these schools the sons of gentlemen and nobles would receive a humanistic education imported from Italy. The purpose of such an education was to prepare men for a career in the church or civil service.
By the middle of the 15th century several print masters were on the verge of perfecting the techniques of printing with movable metal type. The first man to demonstrate the practicability of movable type was Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398-1468), the son of a noble family of Mainz, Germany. A former stonecutter and goldsmith, Gutenberg devised an alloy of lead, tin and antimony that would melt at low temperature, cast wll in the die, and be durable in the press. It was then possible to use and reuse the separate pieces of type, as long as the metal in wich they were cast did not wear down, simply by arranging them in the desired order. The mirror image of each letter (rather than entire words or phrases), was carved in relief on a small block, Infividual letters, easily movable, were put together to form words; words separated by blank spaces former lines of type; and lines of a type were brought together to make up a page. Since letters could be arranged into any format, an infinite variety of texts be printed by reusing and resettin the type.

By 1452, with the aid of borrowed money, Gutenberg began his famous Bible project. Two hundred copies of the two volume Gutenberg Bible were printed, a small number of which were printed of vellum. The expensive and beautiful Bibles were completed and sold at the 1455 Frankfurt Book Fair, and cost equivalent of three years´pay for the average clerk. 
Roughly fifty of all Gutenberg Bibles survive today.

Medieval Institution in Spain

Political organization and institutions:

·         The kingdom of Castile

In the western part of the peninsula appeared three major political centers: the kingdoms of Portugal, León and Castile. Portugal followed a distinct history and León and Castile lived a complex process in which both crowns were united and disunited along the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Finally Ferdinand III of Castile took place the definitive union in 1230.

The territorial organization of the kingdom was very complex. Within the kingdom of Castile was the kingdom of Galicia, the lordship of Biscay and Álava and Guipúzcoa. So the king had the titles of King of Castile, Leon, lord of Biscay ...

The political history of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was really complex and was full of crisis. The strengthening of royal power by Alfonso XI got the approval of the Ordinance of Alcala in 1348, was followed by a brutal civil war crisis between Pedro I the Cruel and Henry II of Castile. The victory of the latter brought a new dynasty, the Trastámara, power and strengthening nobiliar power.

Castilla failed to annexation of Portugal in the battle of Aljubarrota (1385).

·         Institutions

The king looked assisted in his action by various central government institutions: the Royal Council , the Court , in charge of the administration of justice , and the Royal Treasury , responsible for taxes.

In these centuries were built two institutions for the real power : a permanent Royal Army and increasingly complex bureaucracy , consisting of lawyers , experts trained in universities.

In the twelfth century ( 1188 ) were born Courts , estates assembly composed of representatives of the nobility , clergy and towns. The agency had no legislative power but decided on extraordinary taxes and had the ability to petition the king.

The local administration was based on the institution of councils. Councils or city hall under the control of urban oligarchies (nobility , clergy, bourgeoisie) .

In the fifteenth century, the reigns of John II and Henry IV saw major internal conflicts in which the nobility reinforced their positions. A Henry IV was succeeded by his sister Isabella of Castile, the future Isabella.

·         The Crown of Aragon

The kingdom of Aragon rather than a unified kingdom was a confederation of kingdoms, Aragon, Valencia and Mallorca, and the Principality of Catalonia had different institutions and laws.

Often the Aragonese monarchy as a "pactista monarchy", in which the monarch's power was weak and the king had to agree with the privileged classes and respect the laws of each kingdom when a decision is characterized.

In front of each kingdom was a lieutenant of the King who acted as his deputy. Other institutions were the Royal Council and the Court.

In the thirteenth century were born Courts in the kingdoms of Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia. They were bodies in each kingdom and were gaining increasing power.

Courts were estates assemblies where representatives of the two privileged classes and the urban patriciate (Gentry cities) are met. Dominated by the nobility and clergy, controlled the power of the monarch and mourned by feudal interests of the clergy and nobility limiting the power of the monarch.

The Catalan Cortes created an institution, the General Council or Generalitat of Catalonia, which became in fact a kind of government of the Principality. In Valencia and Aragon were subsequently created Councils of the Kingdom, similar to the Catalan institutions.

Existed the institution of Justice of Aragon, cargo assigned to a member of the nobility who watched over maintaining class privileges against the power of the king in Aragon.

The territorial administration was organized in merindades or veguerías. The organ of power in cities was the town in the late Middle Ages came under the control of local oligarchies (Concell de Cent of Barcelona)

THE WAR OF THE HUNDRED YEARS

 THE WAR OF THE HUNDRED YEARS

Of the hundred years war was an armed conflict that lasted 116 years (1 January of 1337 - October 17, 1453) between the kingdoms of France and England. This war was feudal root, since its purpose was none other that resolve who would control the huge possessions of the English monarchs in French territories from 1154, due to the rise of Enrique II Plantagenet, count of Anjou, to the English throne. It had international implications, and finally, after many vicissitudes, ended with the English set-aside francesasLa rivalry between France and England came from the times of the battle of Hanstings (1066), when Duke Guillermo de Normandía victory allowed him to take over England. Now the Normans were Kings of a great nation and they would require the French King to be treated as such, but the point of view of France was not the same: the Duchy of Normandy had always been vassal, and the fact that the Normans had ascended to the throne of England did not have to change the traditional submission of the Duchy to the Crown of Paris.la war of the hundred years (1415-1453) was the third phase of the war of the One hundred years between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France. It lasted from 1415, when Enrique V of England invaded Normandy, to 1429 when English successes with the arrival of Juana de Arco was invested. 

This third phase was followed by a long period of peace from 1389 at the end of the war of the hundred years (1369-1389).It had its origins in the plans of Enrique IV of England, the first of the House of Lancaster to sit on the French throne. Although his plans did not come to fruition in his reign, his warlike son renovated and brought to the Kingdom of England the most of its power in the entire war against France, with an English king crowned in Paris. The French reaction came with Juana de Arco, who managed to liberate Orleans, where the bulk of the remainder of the English army was concentrated. Then Carlos VII of France managed to expel the English from almost all France.

The warriors nobles

                                                                  THE WARRIORS NOBLES

                                  

The knight was a warrior on horseback of the Latin Christendom that was serving to the king or to another feudal owners like compensation for the tenancy of a territorial domain or for money. The participation of the knight in the Crusades caused the creation, in Holy Land, of the so called military orders; and later, in Europe, of the so called knighthood orders.

The vital trajectory of a knight  was, in general, that of a man noble who, having served in it is first youth like page and squire, was then promoted by its Superiors to the Knight status, during a ceremony the applicant usually took an oath of being brave, loyal and polite, as well as protecting the defenceless ones; what was named the knighthood code.

The knights were born of the need to defend the feudal domains against all kinds of enemies, including the lootings and pillages and the road bandits. The knights were defendings the interests on the owners who were maintaining them; what between other things supposed guaranteeing the cashing of the charges imposed on the peasants.

Inside this feudal structure, the knights were maintaining a fief that a owner had granted to them, in exchange for producing homage and giving him service with the weapon. In turn this owner could be a vassal of another more powerful owner, or the riding being served by other knight of low status. In the course of time they were great them serve, sometimes of humble origin socially, that wanted to turn into Knight, by what there was imposed a selective test, which finished with taking the form of an initiation ceremony, blessed for the Church, called recognition or clapping. As it´s name indicates, the rite was consisting of the solemn blow started to the beginner for its godfather or knight who him had instructed and was introducing him in the Knighthood. The prestige that acquired the said ceremony and the sacred character that awarded him the Church, provoked that many birth noblemen were making arm themselves knight. With the time, about the XIII century, nobility and knighthood ended up by making a mistake, although in general the noblemen were the persons in charge of maintaining the peace due to it´s assumption of real authority, and sometimes to a special charisma based on it´s descent of heroes or saints, while the knight were it´s assistants, without a distinguished lineage and with little or no ground. Nevertheless, it is necessary to highlight that the knight´s title is not a part of the feudal roster in itself, but it can to assume to masters of very different status. Examples of it are Ricardo III of England, which, before being a king, was a duke of Gloucester and Knight was armed, or Eduardo the Black prince, who was the Prince of Wales and duke and knight was armed after the Creçy battle.

The chivalrous ideals were: Value, defence, faith, humility, justice, generosity, restraint, allegiance and nobility

The weapon of the medieval knight was answering to the proper heavy knighthood of an epoch previous to the firearms.

The team of protection, which initially was limiting itself to a helmet or helmet, a shield, and in it´s case a mesh level was complicated by the time, adding a cuirass to the one that more and more numerous pieces were articulating, up to composing armour that could weigh easily more than 25 kg,

The sword was the personal weapon and "of hand" more common for the singular combat, in which a Knight was facing to other The mace and the axe they were completing the team of personal weapon "of hand", useful to attack the armour. The mace was a studded heavy ball associated straight with a handle

The spear was the second favourite weapon of a Knight. The honesty of its flagstaff was symbolizing the truth, and its head of iron, the force.

La Península Ibérica en la Edad Media: Al-Ándalus

La historia de Al-Ándalus puede ser dividida en 5 períodos: -Emirato dependiente.(711-756) -Emirato independiente.(756-929) -Califato de Córdoba.(929-1031) -Reino de Taifas.(1031-SIGLO XIII) -Reino de Granada.(1237-1492) Gráficamente: Evolución política - Emirato Dependiente (711-756) Tan pronto como vieron la posibilidad de mantener el control en la Península, los árabe organizaron este territorio políticamente, como una parte más del gran califato. Aunque en un principio el interés por la Península Ibérica se había limitado a conseguir botín, cambiaron de opinión tras la derrota sufrida en Poitiers. En efecto, los invasores no tenían idea de crear una colonia de poblamiento, sino de explotación, pero al ser vencidos por los francos en Poitiers en el año 732, comprendieron que se les acababan las posibilidades de conseguir más botines y se plantearon el asentamiento definitivo en la Península. Al-Ándalus fue una provincia del Califato omeya con capital en Damasco, hasta el año 750, cuando los Abbasies acabaron con los omeyas. Como provincia tenía un emir o gobernador. El primero fue designado por el califa, y los siguientes fueron nombrados por la autoridad cercana que tuviera más fuerza, que no era siempre el califa. La inestabilidad de los nombramientos se hace patente si se tiene en cuenta que en los cuarenta y cinco años del emirato dependiente se sucedieron 21 gobernadores. La tarea de los emires dependientes fue la de controlar el territorio para organizar el nuevo estado. Se trataba de implantar la nueva forma política, religiosa y económica de la administración califal. Necesitaban promover la convivencia con los autóctonos hispano-godos, por ser los invasores una minoría (¿30.000?) frente a una mayoría autóctona (¿4.000.000?). Los problemas fueron mayores entre los propios invasores, al ser de procedencia muy diversa: árabes (la aristocracia del ejército), bereberes (el grueso del ejército) y sirios (soldados de refuerzo). Una vez terminada la etapa de toma de botín, los soldados bereberes se rebelaron, y hubo que llamar a los sirios para sofocar la revuelta, pero éstos, a su vez, se mostraron exigentes en sus peticiones. La convivencia y adaptación entre las comunidades invadida e invasora se vio favorecida por una contracción demográfica y una abundancia de tierras libres. Los antiguos campesinos dependientes de los latifundistas godos se vieron libres, y fue este grupo social de los pobres campesinos el que sufrió una transformación más profunda. De hombres dependientes pasaron a ser libres, de hablar en latín pasaron a hablar en árabe, y de ser cristianos pasaron a ser musulmanes. El proceso de islamización de Al-Ándalus se vio favorecido por tres circunstancias:  La inmigración de musulmanes. Los matrimonios mixtos de hombres musulmanes con mujeres cristianas que educaban a sus hijos en el Islam. La conversión al Islam de la población hispano-goda. Probablemente la formación cristiana de los grupos más bajos de la escala social era tan débil que no tenían inconveniente en cambiar de religión.

1) The Testimony of Faith:
The testimony of faith is saying with conviction, “La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadur rasoolu Allah.” This saying means “There is no true god (deity) but God (Allah),and Muhammad is the Messenger (Prophet) of God.” The first part, “There is no true god but God,” means that none has the right to be worshipped but God alone, and that God has neither partner nor son. This testimony of faith is called the Shahada, a simple formula which should be said with conviction in order to convert to Islam. The testimony of faith is the most important pillar of Islam.
2) Prayer:
Muslims perform five prayers a day. Each prayer does not take more than a few minutes to perform. Prayer in Islam is a direct link between the worshipper and God. There are no intermediaries between God and the worshipper.
In prayer, a person feels inner happiness, peace, and comfort, and that God is pleased with him or her. The Prophet Muhammad
said: {Bilal, call (the people) to prayer, let us be comforted by it.} Bilal was one of Muhammad’s
companions who was charged to call the people to prayers.
Prayers are performed at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night. A Muslim may pray almost anywhere, such as in fields, offices, factories, or universities.
3) Giving Zakat (Support of the Needy):
All things belong to God, and wealth is therefore held by human beings in trust. The original meaning of the word zakat is both ‘purification’ and ‘growth.’ Giving zakatmeans ‘giving a specified percentage on certain properties to certain classes of needy people.’ The percentage which is due on gold, silver, and cash funds that have reached the amount of about 85 grams of gold and held in possession for one lunar year is two and a half percent. Our possessions are purified by setting aside a small portion for those in need, and, like the pruning of plants, this cutting back balances and encourages new growth.
A person may also give as much as he or she pleases as voluntary alms or charity.
4) Fasting the Month of Ramadan:
Every year in the month of Ramadan, all Muslims fast from dawn until sundown, abstaining from food, drink, and sexual relations.
Although the fast is beneficial to health, it is regarded principally as a method of spiritual self-purification. By cutting oneself off from worldly comforts, even for a short time, a fasting person gains true sympathy with those who go hungry, as well as growth in his or her spiritual life.
5) The Pilgrimage to Makkah:
The annual pilgrimage (Hajj) to Makkah is an obligation once in a lifetime for those who are physically and financially able to perform it. About two million people go to Makkah each year from every corner of the globe. Although Makkah is always filled with visitors, the annualHajj is performed in the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar. Male pilgrims wear special simple clothes which strip away distinctions of class and culture so that all stand equal before God.
What Are the Five Pillars of Islam?
The Five Pillars of Islam are the framework of the Muslim life. They are the testimony of faith, prayer, givingzakat (support of the needy), fasting during the month of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Makkah once in a lifetime for those who are able.