Edmund Harvey

Edmund Harvey or Hervey (c.1601–1673) was an English soldier and member of Parliament during the English Civil War, who sat as a commissioner at the Trial of King Charles I and helped to draw up the final charge. Although present on 27 January 1649 when the death warrant was signed he did not add his signature.
Life.
He was born the son of Charles Harvey, a London merchant, and his wife Alice. He followed his father into trade, being apprenticed in 1619 and becoming a silk merchant and freeman of the Drapers' Company in 1627.
When the Civil War broke out he enlisted as a Parliamentarian and was commissioned a Colonel of horse and fought at the siege of Gloucester and in the north. He then refused to obey orders to join up with the rest of the army until he was paid, and was instead discharged. He acquired property in Suffolk, where he was a deputy lieutenant in 1643, receiver-general for the county in 1644, and a keen member of the parliamentary committee from 1643 to 1645. In 1646 he was elected MP for Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire. When the pro-Royalist Presbyterian mobs seized Westminster in the summer of 1647, he did not join the pro-Army Independents in fleeing to asylum with the army. He was one of the very few who actually changed sides and supported the army against the king at Pride's Purge, as most Presbyterians opposed this action as well as the trial of the king. In 1654 he was MP for Middlesex. In 1655 he was placed under arrest for misappropriation of Army funds, fined and stripped of public office.
At the Restoration he was denied amnesty under the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion and was tried as a regicide. In 1661 he was found guilty, but instead of a capital punishment his assets were seized and he was imprisoned in Pendennis Castle in Cornwall. He died there in June 1673 and was buried in Falmouth parish churchyard. He had married twice; firstly Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Gott of London with whom he had at least three sons and secondly Judith, daughter of George Langham of London and widow of Thomas Bales of London, with whom he had at least ten children before her death in September 1668.


Sorin Lavric

Sorin Lavric (born 27 November 1967 in Turnu Severin, Socialist Republic of Romania) is a Romanian writer, philosopher and politician. Having started studying medicine in 1987, Lavric later began studying philosophy as well. Posteriorly, as he did not want to be a physician, he focused entirely on philosophy. Lavric finished his university studies in 1996 and obtained a doctorate in philosophy in 2005. Lavric has written several books.
He has made in the past numerous comments that have been deemed as racist, homophobic and misogynistic that have provoked his expulsion from the Writers' Union of Romania. Despite this, he has affirmed that he is not a misogynist. Lavric eventually became a politician to confront the corruption and political class of Romania. He joined the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), of which he is the President of the Senate. Lavric was also the proposed senator of the AUR for the Neamț County.
Biography.
Sorin Lavric was born in 1967 in Turnu Severin, Romania. He studied medicine at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy between 1987 and 1993. The following year, he did an internship at the Brăila County Hospital, which included 3 months of gynecology. However, in 1990, he also started studying philosophy and joined in 1991 at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Bucharest. According to him, he only studied medicine because at that time (1987), during the communist period of Romania, it was not worth studying philosophy.
After his internship, Lavric realized he disliked medicine and had to choose between becoming a physician and not being able to aspire to be a philosopher or giving up medicine. Lavric chose the latter option and had to be supported by his wife for 2 years. He completed his studies on 1996 and was offered in 1997 a job as an editor at the publishing house Humanitas by the Romanian philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu. In 2005, he obtained a doctorate in philosophy. Liiceanu, who was coordinator in Lavric's thesis for the doctorate, has expressed surprise at his posterior controversial comments, saying that it is as if Lavric had undergone "a personality substitution operation", "as in science fiction movies".
Lavric has written several books, such as "Cartea de Craciun" ("Christmas Book", 1997), "Ontologia lui Noica. O exegeza" ("Noica's ontology. An exegesis", 2005) and "Noica și Mișcarea Legionară" ("Noica and the Legionary Movement", 2007). He has also done several translations.
Ideology and political career.
Lavric has made several comments characterized as racist, homophobic and misogynistic; these have given him a certain notoriety in the past. In his book "Decoct de femeie" ("Decoction of women"), he wrote that "no man seeks in women cleverness, depth, or lucidity". He has also described the Roma people (Gypsies) as a "social plague". In an interview, Lavric denied being a misogynist and explained his thoughts and declarations, stating that "I cannot say that a woman excels in logical thinking, especially in philosophical skills". Furthermore, Lavric has admitted being a misanthrope.
Because of his comments, the Writers' Union of Romania expelled him from the association and from the position of editor in the magazine "România literară". In the same interview, which was posterior to this event, Lavric said he was surprised when he heard about this as it was not directly communicated to him and that he felt "hit" by his own teammates. He added that he did not feel resentful for this.
Lavric joined the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) because, according to him, he was against the corrupt attitudes of the political class and because he coincided with the thoughts of George Simion and Claudiu Târziu, the co-presidents of the AUR. He also stated that he was pro-European and supported NATO, but opposed a European "federal superstate run [...] from Brussels". In an interview with Simion and Târziu, they said that Lavric (and the AUR) did not hate women or support misogynistic ideas. Lavric was the proposed senator of the AUR for the Neamț County in 2020. Currently, he is the President of the Senate of the AUR.


John Backhouse

Sir John Backhouse (KOB) (1584 – 9 October 1649) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1625 to 1629. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.
Backhouse was the son of Samuel Backhouse of Swallowfield Park in Berkshire and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Borlase of Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire. In the early 17th century, he helped found the New River Company to bring a new water supply to the City of London. In 1625, he was elected Member of Parliament for Great Marlow and was re-elected MP for Great Marlow in 1626. He was appointed Knight of the Order of the Bath at the coronation of King Charles I in 1626, the year in which he inherited Swallowfield Park. In 1628 he was re-elected MP for Great Marlow and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.
Backhouse supported the King in the Civil War and as a result he was imprisoned and his estates were sequestrated. He died on 9 October 1649 and a monument was erected to his memory by his widow in Swallowfield Church.
Backhouse married Flower (Flora), daughter of Thomas Henshawe and sister of Benjamin Henshawe of the City of London on 11 July 1615. They had no children.


Greek Operation of the NKVD

The Greek Operation (, translit. Grecheskaya Operatsiya; ) was an organised mass persecution of the Greeks of the Soviet Union that was ordered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Greeks often use the term "pogrom" (πογκρόμ) for this persecution, though this term usually refers to mob violence rather than persecution by police acting under direct orders, as this one was. It began on December 15, 1937, and marked the beginning of the repressions against Greeks that went on for 13 years. Depending on the sources, it is estimated that between 20,000 and 50,000 Greeks died by the end of this campaign.
A wave of Greek emigrants from the Soviet Union in 1937–1939 is often considered a consequence of Stalinist persecution of the Soviet Greek national movement.
History.
The 1926 Soviet census registered 213,765 Greeks in the country and 286,000 in the 1939 census. On 9 August 1937, NKVD order 00485 was adopted to target "subversive activities of Polish intelligence" in the Soviet Union, but was later expanded to also include Latvians, Germans, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Iranians and Chinese.
The prosecution of Greeks in USSR was gradual: at first, the authorities shut down the Greek schools, cultural centres, and publishing houses. Then, the secret police indiscriminately arrested all Greek men 16 years old or older. All Greeks who were wealthy or self-employed professionals were sought for prosecution first.
On many occasions, the central authorities sent telegrams to police forces with orders to arrest a certain number of Greeks, without giving any individual names, and the police officers would arrest at random any persons of Greek origin until they reached the requested total number of arrests until the process was repeated at a later date. In all, some 50,000 Greeks died from this persecution.
Some sources claim that there was no widespread counter-revolutionary activity among the Soviet Greeks, though there were exceptions in Constantine Kromiadi, an anti-communist of Greek origin, who later became second in command in Andrey Vlasov "Abwehr" detachment during the Nazi German occupation of the Soviet Union in World War II and Vladimir Mikhailovich Despotuli.
Axis collaboration.
About one thousand Greeks from Greece and more from the Soviet Union, ostensibly avenging their ethnic persecution from Soviet authorities, joined the Waffen-SS, mostly in Ukrainian divisions. A special case was that of the infamous Ukrainian-Greek Sevastianos Foulidis, a fanatical anti-communist who had been recruited by the Abwehr as early as 1938 and became an official of the Wehrmacht, with extensive action in intelligence and agitation work in the Eastern front.
Remembrance.
In 1938, 20,000 Soviet Greeks arrived in Greece. Between 1965 and 1975, another 15,000 Greeks emigrated from the Soviet Union and went to Greece. A monument to all Greek victims of GULAG was unveiled in Magadan in 2011. Unlike many other 'punished' ethnic groups, the Soviet Greeks were never officially rehabilitated by the Soviet legislation. In the early 1990s, a movement arose advocating the creation of a new Greek autonomy in the Krasnodar region, but it failed to achieve support. One Soviet Greek man, born in 1959, described this outcome with the following words:
Soviet Greeks were officially rehabilitated, among with other ethnic groups by Russian Federation, amended by Decree no. 458 of September 12, 2015.


Agnes, Countess of Dunbar

Agnes Randolph, Countess of Dunbar and March ("c." 1312–1369), known as Black Agnes for her dark complexion, was the wife of Patrick, 9th Earl of Dunbar and March. She is buried in the vault near Mordington House.
She was the daughter of Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, nephew and companion-in-arms of Robert the Bruce, and Moray's wife, Isabel Stewart, herself a daughter of John Stewart of Bonkyll. Agnes became renowned for her heroic defence of Dunbar Castle in East Lothian against an English siege led by William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury, which began on 13 January 1338 and ended on 10 June the same year during the Second War of Scottish Independence from 1331 to 1341.
Siege of Dunbar.
On 13 January 1338, when Patrick Dunbar was away, the English laid siege to Dunbar Castle, where Lady Dunbar was in residence with her servants and a few guards. However, she was determined not to surrender the fortress even though the English were a vastly superior force of 20,000 men, and is said to have declared:
Women were known to take charge of castle or manor business while their husbands were away in the Middle Ages and defend it if need be, but the stand of Lady Agnes is one of the best remembered instances. Salisbury's first attempt at taking the castle centered on catapulting huge rocks and lead shot against the ramparts, but this was met with disdain by Lady Agnes, who had one of her ladies-in-waiting dust off the ramparts with her kerchief.
The English were employing an enormous siege tower called a "sow" in an attempt to storm the castle, but the countess simply advised Salisbury that he should "take good care of his sow, for she would soon cast her pigs [meaning his men] within the fortress." She then ordered that a boulder, which had been heaved on them earlier, be thrown down from the battlements and crushed Salisbury's sow to pieces.
When one of the Scottish archers struck an English soldier standing next to Salisbury, the earl cried out, "There comes one of my lady's tire pins; Agnes's love shafts go straight to the heart."
Unable to make progress through arms, Salisbury turned to craft. He bribed the Scotsman who guarded the principal entrance, advising him to leave the gate unlocked or to leave it in such a manner that the English could easily break in. However, the Scotsman, though he took the Englishman's money, reported the stratagem to Agnes, so she was ready for the English when they made entry. Although Salisbury was in the lead, one of his men pushed past him just at the moment when Agnes's men lowered the portcullis, separating him from the others. Agnes, of course, had meant to trap Salisbury, but she moved from stratagem to taunt, hollering at the earl, " Farewell, Montague, I intended that you should have supped with us, and assist us in defending the Castle against the English."
At one point, having captured Agnes's brother, John Randolph, 3rd Earl of Moray, the English threw a rope around his neck and threatened to hang him if Agnes did not surrender the castle. However, she merely responded that his death would only benefit her, as she would inherit his earldom. She was not actually in line for the earldom, so either she was taking a serious gamble with her brother's life or the story is a later embellishment.
As his last resort, Salisbury decided to isolate the castle from the roads and any communication with the outside world in an effort to starve the Countess and her garrison, but Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, who had earned a reputation for being a constant thorn in the English king's side, got wind of what the English were trying and moved from Edinburgh to the coast with forty men. Appropriating some boats, Ramsay and his company approached the castle by sea and entered the postern next to the sea. Charging out of the castle, the Scotsmen surprised Salisbury's advance guard and pushed them all the way back to their camp.
Five months had passed since the English had come to Dunbar. Salisbury admitted defeat and lifted the siege on 10 June 1338 but the triumph of a Scotswoman over an English army lives on in a ballad, which puts these words in Salisbury's mouth:
The failed siege of Dunbar had cost the English crown nearly 6,000 English pounds and the English had gained nothing from it.
For centuries afterwards, Agnes's defense of Dunbar Castle caught the attention of contemporary chroniclers and Scottish historians due to her bravery and might.
Family.
Some accounts describe her as Countess of Moray, on the assumption that she inherited the earldom when her brother John was killed at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346. However, the earldom actually reverted to the crown. However, in 1371/2, Agnes's nephew, John Dunbar, was created Earl of Moray by Robert II, his father-in-law.
Agnes's family was active in Scottish resistance against the English attempts to conquer Scotland in the fourteenth century.
Her father, Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray was appointed regent from 1329 to 1332. Agnes's brother became joint regent in 1335, but was captured by the English shortly afterwards. In 1324 Agnes married Patrick, ninth earl of Dunbar and March, governor of Berwick. When Berwick became occupied by English forces in 1333, Patrick decided to join the English, and Edward III granted Agnes and Patrick English lands. Patrick was given permission from Edward to refortify Dunbar Castle. Patrick switched back to the Scottish side. Agnes was deeply angry with her husband for his switching loyalties, but Patrick was also suspicious of her.
It seems that there were no surviving children of the marriage between Agnes and the Earl. Their estates were left to children of the marriage between the Earl's cousin John de Dunbar of Derchester and Birkynside and his wife, Isobel Randolph, Agnes's younger sister.
The three nephews were:
She also had a ward, Agnes Dunbar, who became mistress of King David II.


Hannover Club

The Hannover Club or Hanover Club was a political society in the Kingdom of Great Britain active during the early 18th century. They were committed to the succession of King George of Hanover to the British throne, rather than the rival claimant James III known as the 'Old Pretender'. It was made up of supporters of the Whig faction.
Less well known than the more celebrated Kit Kat Club, with whom they shared many beliefs and members, the group was arguably more important and powerful in pushing for the Hanoverian Succession and proved invaluable to George following the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and the year of turmoil that followed.
Future Whig Prime Minister the Duke of Newcastle was a member of the club.


Second Battle of Heligoland Bight

The Second Battle of Heligoland Bight, also the Action in the Helgoland Bight and the , was an inconclusive naval engagement fought between British and German squadrons on 17 November 1917 during the First World War.
Background.
British minelaying.
The British used sea mining defensively to protect sea lanes and trade routes and offensively to impede the transit of German submarines and surface ships in the North Sea, the danger of which was illustrated on 17 October 1917 by the sortie of the German "Brummer"-class cruisers and (the action off Lerwick) against the Scandinavian Convoy. (During 1917, six U-boats were sunk by British mines and in two years, the German minesweeping counter-effort suffered the loss about 28 destroyers and 70 minesweepers and other ships.)
The Germans had been forced into minesweeping up to into the Heligoland Bight and in the southern Baltic Sea, covered by light cruisers and destroyers, with occasional distant support by battleships. After the action off Lerwick, several proposals for attacks on the German minesweepers and escorts were canvassed at the Admiralty. On 31 October, the British sent a large force of cruisers and destroyers into the Kattegat, which sank , an armed merchant ship and nine trawlers.
German test trips.
The prolific British laying of mines and net barrages outside the main German mine belts between Horns Reef and Terschelling, close to the bases of the High Seas Fleet () forced the into surveying the British minefields, to find routes through them for transit into and back from the North Sea. Test trips were carried out, being substantial operations with ships to find the mines, minesweepers, torpedo boats (usually a continental term for destroyers), U-boats, barrier breakers and light cruisers, with air reconnaissance by Zeppelins and seaplanes. The Test trips were also protected by battleships on routes known to be free of mines.
Prelude.
North Sea operations.
On 20 October, the British code breakers of Room 40, part of the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty, decrypted orders to the submarine SM UB-61 to scout to the north of Bergen to find the new route of the Scandinavian Convoy. Agent reports from Copenhagen disclosed an imminent German attack by seven light cruisers and 36 destroyers. During the week ending 11 November, British light cruisers, destroyers and a battlecruiser escort, conducted an abortive sweep along the fringe of the Heligoland Bight minefields. By mid-November the Admiralty had obtained enough intelligence to intercept one of the big German minesweeping operations, provided that the ships based at Rosyth, in Scotland, could sail in time. The Admiralty decided that an offensive operation should begin on 17 November.
Test trip, 17 November.
The Germans planned a Test trip for 17 November 1917, comprising the 2nd and 6th Auxiliary Mine Sweeper Half-Flotillas, the 12th and 14th Torpedo Boat Half-Flotillas, Barrier Breaking Division IV and light cruisers of Scouting Group Division II, commanded by Rear-Admiral () Ludwig von Reuter from the 6th Mine Sweeper Half-Flotilla. The "Kaiser"-class battleships, and from Squadron IV, each with ten guns, led by Captain () Kurt Graßhoff in "Kaiserin", were to act as covering force for the group. The battleships were to reach a point west of Heligoland by while the Test trip group rendezvoused in the Heligoland Bight about half-way between Horns Reef and Terschelling. With poor weather grounding Zeppelins and making it impossible for light cruisers embark seaplanes, after they had alighted on the sea, the Test trip relied on reconnaissance patrols by two land-based seaplanes from Borkum on the German coast, just east of the Netherlands, for reconnoitring ahead of the group.
British plan.
The German Test trip had been revealed by the code breakers of Room 40, allowing the British to plan an ambush. On 16 November, orders for an attack on the Test trip were sent to Admiral Sir David Beatty, Commander-in-Chief of the British Grand Fleet. On 17 November 1917 a force of cruisers under Vice Admiral Trevylyan Napier was sent to attack the German minesweepers as they were mineweeping.
Battle.
The action began at roughly west of Sylt, when sighted German ships. She opened fire at Admiral Reuter, the German commander, with four light cruisers and eight destroyers, advanced towards the British ships, to cover the withdrawal of the minesweepers, all of which escaped except for the trawler which was sunk. The battle developed into a stern chase as the German forces, making skilful use of smoke-screens, withdrew south-east at their best speed, under fire from the 1st Cruiser Squadron, the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron and the 6th Light Cruiser Squadron. was detached from the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron and came up at high speed to join the battle. Both sides were hampered in their manoeuvres by the presence of naval minefields.
At about the same time, the light cruisers came under fire from two German "Kaiser"-class battleships, and which had come up in support of Reuter's ships; was struck by a shell, which did little damage; shortly afterwards, the British ships gave up the chase as they reached the edge of more minefields. A shell went through the upper conning tower of the light cruiser , killing the conning tower crew and mortally wounding the Captain, Herbert Edwards, on the bridge and knocking unconscious the navigator, Lieutenant-Commander M. F. F. Wilson. All personnel on the lower bridge were killed and the gunner officer, Lieutenant H. C. C. Clarke took command, which was made more difficult because the shell also cut all electrical communications and reduced the rate of fire. The battle cruiser "Repulse" briefly engaged the German ships at about achieving a hit on the light cruiser that started a serious fire.
Aftermath.
Analysis.
In 1984, Patrick Beesly wrote that the British operation was daring but that Napier was unjustly blamed for its failure to pursue the German ships with sufficient vigour. Room 40 was well informed about the positions of German minefields and the British fields which the Germans were trying to clear. The information had been added to Room 40's naval charts but the information was denied to Napier who made decisions based on the charts he did have. Admiralty reluctance to disclose that their information was derived from the decoding of wireless intercepts had led to the naval commander being ill-informed. The Admiralty did at least supply operational intelligence to the Naval commanders, after Beatty had made an emergency request when he was at sea. Napier was informed in ninety minutes, by the Admiralty that German capital ships had sailed at and the location of German cruisers, leading to "Königsberg" receiving severe damage. At the least, Room 40 had prevented the British operation degenerating from fiasco to disaster.
Casualties.
In 1920, Admiral Reinhard Scheer wrote that the Germans suffered casualties of killed, ten seriously wounded and thirty men slightly wounded. An Admiralty communiqué listed British casualties as one officer and killed, four officers and wounded; were taken.
Victoria Cross.
Able Seaman John Carless of Walsall in was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his bravery in continuing to man a gun despite mortal wounds from shell-splinters.
Orders of battle.
British forces.
1st Cruiser Squadron: Vice Admiral Trevylyan Napier CB, MVO
6th Light Cruiser Squadron: Rear Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair CB MVO
1st Light Cruiser Squadron: Commodore Walter Cowan CB, MVO, DSO
1st Battle Cruiser Squadron (detachment: Rear Admiral Richard Phillimore CB, MVO)
Other forces at sea in support (none of which engaged)
German forces.
2nd Scouting Group: Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter
7th Torpedo-Boat Flotilla: KKpt Hermann Cordes
Minesweepers
4th Battle Squadron (detachment): KptzS Kurt Graßhoff
Other forces at sea in support (none of which were engaged)


Slutsk affair

The Slutsk affair refers to the massacre of thousands of Jews and others that occurred in Slutsk, Belarus in the Soviet Union, in October 1941, near the city of Minsk while under German occupation during World War II. The perpetrators were a combination of Gestapo special forces and Lithuanian allies of the Third Reich. Nearly 4,000 Jews were murdered over a two-day period along with thousands of non-Jews.
The city of Slutsk had a large concentration of Jews as well as large numbers of Belarusians. Although the German government had previously signed a non-aggression pact (the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) with the Soviet Union, the Nazis, emboldened by success in western Europe, planned and executed Operation Barbarossa, and invaded their former ally on June 22, 1941. Along the way, the Nazis picked up a number of allies in satellite nations.
On October 27, 1941, four companies of military police stationed in Kaunas entered the city with the assignment of liquidating the city's Jewish population within two days. This "special security operation" was led by the "Einsatzgruppen" (death squads) of the SS, and acted without authorization from the local German civil administration and Security SS authorities that had marshaled various specialized workers from the population.
The Jews were surrounded, removed from their houses and killed "en masse", in such a frenzy that not just Jews, but also other people in the area were massacred. The German civil administration in Belarus was outraged, after having made great efforts to gain the favor of the local population in accordance with the instructions of the Führer.
Commissioner General of Belarus Wilhelm Kube wrote in protest to his superior and to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler:
The letter concluded:
Adolf Hitler, by all accounts, was never notified of the incident and thereafter mistakenly believed that Nazi partisans among the Belarusian population would support the Germans in the continuing invasion.


Edward Herle

Edward Herle (c. 1617 – 20 April 1695) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1640 and 1689. He fought in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War.
Herle was the son of Thomas Herle of Prideaux, Cornwall, and his wife Lowday Glyn, daughter of Nicholas Glyn of Glyn, Cornwall and brother of Thomas Herle, M.P.
In April 1640, Herle was elected Member of Parliament for Bossiney in the Short Parliament.
Herle raised a Troop of Horse, at his own expense at the start of the Civil War and commanded them throughout. He was appointed High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1646 and in 1647 was appointed Vice-Admiral of the Coast for North Cornwall.
In 1659 Herle was elected MP for Fowey in the Third Protectorate Parliament. In April 1660 he was elected MP for Callington and Fowey in the Convention Parliament and chose to sit for Fowey. He was elected MP for
Grampound in 1689.
He died in 1695 and was buried at Luxulyan, Cornwall. He married twice; firstly Mary, daughter and coheiress of Nicholas Trefusis of Lezant, with whom he had seven sons and three daughters and secondly Susanna, the widow of John Owen, a London fishmonger.


History of Jews in Norway

The history of Jews in Norway dates back to the 1400s. Although there were very likely Jewish merchants, sailors and others who entered Norway during the Middle Ages, no efforts were made to establish a Jewish community. Through the early modern period, Norway, still devastated by the Black Death, was ruled by Denmark from 1536 to 1814 and then by Sweden until 1905. In 1687, Christian V rescinded all Jewish privileges, specifically banning Jews from Norway, except with a special dispensation. Jews found in the kingdom were jailed and expelled, and this ban persisted until 1851.
In 1814, when Norway gained independence from Denmark, the general ban against Jews entering the country was "continued" in the new Norwegian Constitution. Sephardim were exempt from the ban, but it appears that few applied for a letter of free passage. After tireless efforts by the poet Henrik Wergeland, politician Peder Jensen Fauchald, school principal Hans Holmboe and others, in 1851 the Norwegian parliament (the Stortinget) lifted the ban against Jews and they were awarded religious rights on a par with Christian dissenters.
The first Jewish community in Norway was established in Oslo in 1892. The community grew slowly until World War II. It was bolstered by refugees in the late 1930s and peaked at about 2,100. The population was devastated during the Holocaust, in which a significant portion of the Norwegian Jewish community was murdered by Nazi Germany. Jews remain one of Norway's smallest ethnic and religious minorities.
Middle Ages.
The first mention of Jews in Norse literature is found in Postola sögur in Iceland in the 13th century, where they are mentioned along with the more general pagans. The literature of this time referred to Jews as "gyðingar," "juði," or in the Latin form "judeus." Jews were also mentioned in unfavorable terms in subsequent literary Icelandic sagas, such as Gyðinga saga (Saga of the Jews).
However, there are sources that dispute anti-Semitism in Norway in the Middle Ages for the simple reason that there was no evidence of the presence of Jews in the country. A comprehensive study of contemporaneous documents, for instance, such as testaments, contracts, and legal cases among other primary data did not mention Jews or a Jewish community in Norway. Scholars cited that those mentioned in Church documents can be considered "virtual Jews" in the sense that the citations were indirect and that these mentions were probably symbols of non-Christian behavior.
Reformation and Enlightenment.
In 1436 and again in 1438, Archbishop Aslak Bolt prohibited celebrating a day of rest on Saturday, lest Christians replicate the "way of Jews," and this prohibition was reinforced through several subsequent ordinances, including those in Diplomatarium Norvegicum.
The first known settlement of Jews on Norway territory was based on a royal dispensation. The first known mention of Jews in public documents relates to the admissibility of Sephardim, Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. Some of these were given special dispensation to enter Norway.
While Norway was part of the Danish kingdom from 1536 to 1814, Denmark introduced a number of religious restrictions both to uphold the Protestant Reformation in general and against Jews in particular. In 1569, Fredrik II ordered that all foreigners in Denmark had to affirm their commitment to 25 articles of faith central to Lutheranism, on pain of deportation, forfeiture of all property, and death.
The earliest recorded direct mention of Jews occurred in documents published in the 17th century when a group of Portuguese Jews were allowed to settle in Norway. Restrictions were lifted for Sephardic Jews already established as merchants in Altona when Christian IV took over the town. Christian also issued the first letter of safe passage to a Jew (Albert Dionis) in 1619, and on June 19, 1630, general amnesty was granted to all Jews permanently in residence in Glückstadt, including the right to travel freely throughout the kingdom.
In this condition, the existence of anti-Semitism can be considered negligible because the traditional Jewish prejudice often stemmed from the perception that the Jews controlled the economic, political and social spheres of a specific European society.
Public policy toward Jews varied over the next several hundred years. The kings generally tolerated Jewish merchants, investors, and bankers whose contributions of benefit to the economy of Denmark-Norway on the one hand, while seeking to restrict their movements, residence, and presence in public life. Several Jews, particularly in the Sephardic Teixera family, but also some of Ashkenazi origins, were given letters of passage to visit places in Denmark and Norway; but there were also several incidents of Jews who were arrested, imprisoned, fined, and deported for violating the general ban against their presence, even when they claimed the exemption granted to Sephardim. Christian IV of Denmark-Norway gave Jews limited rights to travel within the kingdom and, in 1641, Ashkenazi Jews were given equivalent rights. Christian V rescinded these privileges in 1687, specifically banning Jews from Norway, unless they were given a special dispensation. Jews found in the kingdom were jailed and expelled, and this ban persisted until 1851.
The European Enlightenment led to moderate easing of restrictions for Jews in Denmark-Norway, especially in Denmark's southern areas and cities. Some Jewish families that had converted to Christianity settled in Norway. Writers of the time increased their interest in the Jewish people, including Ludvig Holberg, who figured Jews as comical figures in most of his plays and in 1742 wrote "The Jewish History From the Beginning of the World, Continued till Present Day", presenting Jews to some extent in conventional, unfavorable stereotypes, but also raising the question about mistreatment of Jews in Europe.
Consequently, as stereotypes against Jews started entering the awareness of the general public during the Enlightenment, there were also those who rose in opposition to some, if not all, of the underlying hostility. Lutheran minister Niels Hertzberg was one of those who wrote against Norwegian prejudice, ultimately influencing the later votes on the constitutional amendment to allow Jews to settle in Norway.
Constitutional ban.
There was a blanket ban on Jewish presence in Norway since 1687, except with a special dispensation, and Jews found in the kingdom were jailed and expelled. The ban persisted until 1851. Based on short-lived hopes that Denmark's concessions at the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 would allow for Norwegian independence, a constituent assembly was convened in Eidsvoll in the spring of 1814. Although Denmark had only a few months earlier completely lifted all restrictions on Jews, the Norwegian assembly, after some debate, went the other way, and Jews were to "continue" to be excluded from the realm, as part of the clause that made Lutheranism the official state religion, though with free exercise of religion as the general rule. The ban was against Jews and Jesuits entering the country. Sephardim were exempt from the ban, but it appears that few applied for a letter of free passage. On 4 November 1844, the Norwegian Ministry of Justice declared: "…it is assumed that the so-called Portuguese Jews are, regardless of the Constitution's §2, entitled to dwell in this country, which is also, to [our] knowledge, what has hitherto been assumed."
Several of the framers had formulated views on Jews before the convention had started, among them Lauritz Weidemann, who wrote that "The Jewish nation's history proves, that this people always has been rebellious and deceitful, and their religious teachings, the hope of again arising as a nation, so often they have acquired some remarkable fortune, led them to intrigues and to create a state within a state. It is of vital importance to the security of the state that an absolute exception be made about them."
Those who supported the continued ban did so for several reasons, among them theological prejudice. Nicolai Wergeland and Georg Sverdrup felt that it would be incompatible with Judaism to deal honestly with Christians, writing that "no person of the Jewish faith may come within Norway's borders, far less reside there." Peter Motzfeld also supported the ban, but on the slightly different basis that the Jewish identity was too strong to allow for full citizenship. Other prominent framers, such as Hans Christian Ulrik Midelfart spoke "beautifully" in defense of the Jews, and also Johan Caspar Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg expressed in more muted terms the backwardness of the proposition.
Those who opposed admission of Jews prevailed decisively when the matter was put to a vote, and the second paragraph of constitution read:
This effectively maintained the legal status quo from about 1813 but put Norway sharply at odds with trends in both Denmark and Sweden, where laws and decrees in the early 19th century were granting Jews greater, not more limited liberties.
Meanwhile, a small number of Jewish converts to Christianity had settled in Norway, some of them rising to prominence. Among them were Ludvig Mariboe, Edvard Isak Hambro, and Heinrich Glogau. In 1817, Glogau had challenged Christian Magnus Falsen, one of the proponents of the ban against Jews at the constitutional assembly about the meaning of the prohibition, asking whether he should be embarrassed by his ancestors or his homeland when relating his legacy to his children. Falsen responded by asserting that Judaism "carries nothing but ridicule and contempt toward the person that does not profess to it...making it a duty for each Jew to destroy [all nations that accept him]."
Indeed, a number of Jews who found themselves in Norway were fined and deported. A ship bound for England floundered off the west coast of Norway in 1817, and one of those who washed ashore was Michael Jonas, a Polish Jew. He was escorted out of the country under heavy guard. This heavy-handed approach caused consternation, and the chief of police in Bergen was ordered to personally pay for the costs of the deportation. There were also deportation proceedings against suspected Jews who could not produce a baptismal certificate, among them the singer Carl Fredrich Coppello (alias Meyer Marcus Koppel), opticians Martin Blumenbach and Henri Leia, Moritz Lichtenheim, and others.
Repeal and initial immigration.
The deportation of Jews who had either come to Norway by accident or in good faith caused some embarrassment among Norwegians. The first who advocated for a repeal was the poet Andreas Munch in 1836. But it was Henrik Wergeland who became the leading champion for the Jews in Norway.
10th parliamentary session, 1842.
Henrik Wergeland was the son of Nikolai Wergeland, one of the members at the constitutional assembly who had most strongly objected to admitting Jews to the country. The younger Wergeland had long harbored prejudice against Jews, but travels in Europe had changed his mind. He published the pamphlet "Indlæg i Jødesagen" on August 26, 1841, arguing passionately for a repeal of the clause. On February 19, 1842, his efforts to put the matter to a vote in the Norwegian parliament was successful, when the proposition was referred to the Constitution Committee. On September 9, 1842, the motion to repeal won a simple majority: 51 to 43, but, falling short of a supermajority (2/3) it failed.
On October 26, 1842, Wergeland published his book "Jødesagen i det norske Storthing" ("The Jewish issue in the Norwegian parliament"), which in addition to arguing for the cause also provides interesting insights into the workings of the parliament at the time.
Parliamentary sessions in 1845, 1848, and 1851.
Wergeland had submitted a new proposal to parliament later on the same day that the first repeal had failed. He died on July 12, 1845. The constitution committee referred their recommendation to repeal exactly a month after his death, on August 12. Several versions were put to vote, but the most popular version won 52 votes to repeal, only 47 to keep; worse than the last vote.
In 1848, the motion to repeal earned 59 to 43 votes, still falling short of the 2/3 required. In 1851, finally, the clause was repealed with 93 votes to 10. On September 10, all remaining legislation related to the ban was repealed by the passage of "Lov om Ophævelse af det hidtil bestaaende Forbud mot at Jøder indfinde sig i Riget m.v." ("Law regarding the repeal of the hitherto permanent prohibition against Jews in the realm, etc.")
Early 20th century media, public opinion and policy.
In spite of fears that Norway would be overwhelmed by Jewish immigration following the repeal, only about 25 Jews immigrated to Norway before 1870. Because of pogroms in Czarist Russia, however, the immigration accelerated somewhat in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1910, there were about 1,000 Jews in Norway.
Though the minority was small and widely dispersed, several stereotypes of Jews gained currency in the Norwegian press and popular literature in the early 20th century. In books by the widely read authors Rudolf Muus and Øvre Richter Frich, Jews are described as sadistic and obsessed with money. The attorney Eivind Saxlund published a pamphlet "Jøder og Gojim" ("Jews and Goyim") in 1910, which was characterized in 1922 as "antisemitic smut literature' by a writer in "Dagbladet". Saxlund sued for libel and lost, but earned the admiration of the newspaper "Nationen", who praised Saxlund for fighting "our race war." In 1920, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was published in Norway under the title "Den nye verdenskeiser" ("The New World Emperor").
In 1916 Norwegian writer Mikal Sylten published an antisemitic periodical called Nationalt Tidsskrift. In 1917 he started using the Swastika as its symbol, several years before Adolf Hitler. The periodical was of a racist nature and published Antisemitic conspiracy theories. The periodical declared itself as the "only Norwegian journal that studies in depth Jewish true ties to events in the world and here at home" . An attache called "Who's Who in the Jewish World" was printed four editions starting 1925. This pamphlet contained a list of Jews and presumed Jews in Norway, sorted by occupation. Housewives and children were listed under "Different Occupations". Sylten was tried for his collaboration with the Nazis during the German occupation in the legal purge in Norway after World War II.
Shechita controversy.
Prejudice against Jews became a focal point in the controversy about the legality of "shechita", the Jewish practice of ritual slaughter. The issue had originally been raised in the 1890s, but a municipal ban on the practice in 1913 in Oslo brought the matter to national attention.
Efforts to ban "shechita" put well-intended humane society activists in league with antisemitic individuals. In particular, Jonas Søhr, a senior police official, took a particular interest and eventually rose to the leadership of The Norwegian Federation for Animal Protection. The animal rights cause was used as a means to attack not just the method of slaughter, but also the community itself. Those opposing the ban included Fridtjof Nansen, but the division on the issue crossed party lines in all mainstream parties, except the Agrarian Party (today, the Centre Party), which was principled in its opposition to "schechita". Protests were raised in the Norwegian press, during the 1890s, against the practice of "shechita", on the grounds that it was cruel to animals. The Jewish community responded to these objections by stating that the method was humane.
A committee commissioned on 11 February 1927 consulted numerous experts and visited a slaughterhouse in Copenhagen. Its majority favored a ban and found support in the Department of Agriculture and the parliamentary agriculture committee. Those who opposed a ban spoke of religious tolerance, and also found that "schechita" was no more inhumane than other slaughter methods. Ingvar Svanberg writes that many of the arguments against "shechita" were based "on the distrust of 'foreign' habits" and "often contained anti-Semitic elements". C. J. Hambro was one of those most appalled by the antisemitic invective, noting that "where animal rights are protected to an exaggerated extent, it usually is done with the help of human sacrifice".
The controversy continued until 1929, when the Norwegian parliament banned the practice of slaughtering animals which have not been first stunned or paralyzed. The ban remains in force today.
The former chief rabbi of Norway, Michael Melchior, argued that antisemitism is one motive for the bans: "I won't say this is the only motivation, but it's certainly no coincidence that one of the first things Nazi Germany forbade was kosher slaughter. I also know that during the original debate on this issue in Norway, where "shechitah" has been banned since 1930, one of the parliamentarians said straight out, 'If they don't like it, let them go live somewhere else.'"
No forms of religious slaughter are named as being banned in the Norwegian legislation. Norwegian law requires that animals be stunned before being slaughtered, without exception for religious practices, which is incompatible with "shechita". (The Norwegian Islamic Council, on the other hand, has found that sedation is compatible with "halal" rules, provided that the animal's heart is still beating at the time of slaughter.) Representatives of both Muslim and Jewish communities, citing scientific studies, dispute the assertion that traditional "halal" and kosher slaughtering methods lead to unnecessary animal suffering. Norway's acceptance of hunting, whaling and sealing were also raised as proof of the alleged hypocrisy of the Norwegian position. Minister of Agriculture, Lars Peder Brekk of the Centre Party (which has always rejected "shechita", see above), rejected the comparison.
Proponents of the continued ban, including officials from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority claimed that animals slaughtered according to "shechita" were conscious for "several minutes" after they were slaughtered, and writer and farmer Tore Stubberud claimed that animals in Judaism had "no moral status... pure objects for ... archaic, religious needs", and wondered whether the EU, in allowing for such slaughter had become "purely a bank, without values".
To get around the ban, kosher meat has had to be imported into the country. In June 2019, it was proposed to extend the ban to imports of kosher meat. The proposal has also been described as antisemitic.
Holocaust.
Niels Christian Ditleff was a Norwegian diplomat who in the late 1930s was posted to Warsaw, Poland. In the spring of 1939, Ditleff set up a transit station in Warsaw for Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia that had been sent there through the sponsorship of Nansenhjelpen. Ditleff arranged for the refugees to receive food, clothing, and transportation to Gdynia, Poland, where they boarded ships bound for Norway. Nansenhjelpen was a Norwegian humanitarian organization founded by Odd Nansen in 1936 to provide safe haven and assistance in Norway for Jewish refugees from areas in Europe under Nazi control. The sanctuary in Norway was only shortlived.
Germany occupied Norway on 9 April 1940, and a number of Norwegians were immediately arrested, and two months later the occupying force established the first prisoners' camp at Ulven, outside Bergen. Many Jews who could, fled the country. "Nearly two-thirds of the Jews in Norway fled from Norway". Of these, around 900 Jews were smuggled out of the country by the Norwegian resistance movement, mostly to Sweden but some also to the United Kingdom. In 1942, before deportations started, there were at least 2,173 Jews in Norway. Of these, 1,643 were Norwegian citizens, 240 were foreign citizens, and 290 were stateless. At least 765 Jews died in German hands; more than half of the Norwegians who died. Only between 28 and 34 of those deported survived their continued imprisonment in camps (following their deportation)—and around 25 (of these) returned to Norway after the war.
During the War, the civilian Norwegian police ("politiet") in many cases helped the German occupiers to arrest those Jews who failed to escape in time. In the middle of the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, there were at least 2,173 Jews in Norway. Records show that during the Holocaust, 758 Norwegian Jews were murdered by the Nazis — mostly in Auschwitz. In addition, at least 775 Jews were arrested, detained, and/or deported. Most of the Jews who survived did so by fleeing the country, mostly to Sweden, but some also to the United Kingdom. The Jews fleeing to Sweden were in many cases assisted by the Norwegian resistance, but sometimes had to pay guides. A few also survived in camps in Norway or in hospitals, or in hiding. All Jews in Norway were either deported and murdered, were imprisoned, had fled to Sweden, or were in hiding by 27 November 1942. Many of the Jews who fled during the War did not return and, in 1946, there were only 559 Jews left in Norway. Between 1947 and 1949, the Norwegian government gave permission for 500 displaced persons to live in the country, although many later left for Israel, Canada, or the United States. About 800 Norwegian Jews who had fled to Sweden returned. By the mid-1950s, about 1,000 Jews resided in Norway, of whom 700 lived in Oslo and 150 in Trondheim.
Forty-one Norwegians have been recognized by Yad Vashem as being Righteous Among the Nations, as well as the Norwegian resistance movement collectively.
1990s: World War II restitution.
In March 1996, the Norwegian government appointed a Committee "to establish what happened to Jewish property during World War II … and to determine to what extent seized assets/property was restored after the War."
In June 1997, the Committee delivered a divided report, split into a majority and a minority:
On 15 May 1998, the Prime Minister of Norway, Kjell Magne Bondevik, proposed 450 million kr, covering both a 'collective' and an 'individual' restitution. On 11 March 1999, the Stortinget voted to accept the proposition for 450 million kr. The collective part, totaling 250 million kr, was divided into three:
The individual part was estimated to total not more than 200 million kr, as compensation to individuals and their survivors, with a maximum of 200,000 kr each. By 31 November 1999, the last date for individuals to apply for compensation, 980 people had received 200,000 kr (≈US$26,000) each, totaling 196 million kr (≈US$25 million).
However, Norwegian estate law imposes estate tax on inheritance passing from the deceased to his/her heirs depending on the relationship between the two. This tax was compounded at each step of inheritance. As no death certificates had been issued for Jews murdered in German concentration camps, the deceased were listed as missing. Their estates were held in probate pending a declaration of death and charged for administrative expenses. So, by the time all these factors had their effect on the valuation of the confiscated assets, very little was left. In total, 7.8 million kr was awarded to principals and heirs of Jewish property confiscated by the Nazis. This was less than the administrative fees charged by governmental agencies for probate. It did not include assets seized by the government that belonged to non-Norwegian citizens, and that of citizens that left no legal heirs. This last category was formidable, as 230 entire Jewish households were killed during the course of the Holocaust.
Contemporary situation.
, there were about 1,500 Jewish people living in the country as a whole. The number of registered members in religious Jewish communities has been declining in recent years, and was 747 in 2015. Most of these were based in Oslo.
There are two synagogues in Norway, one in Oslo and one in Trondheim. The Oslo Synagogue runs a full cradle-to-grave range of facilities, including a kindergarten and cheder. They both also have an outreach program to gather still functioning groups in Bergen and Stavanger. In June 2004, Chabad-Lubavitch established a permanent presence in Oslo, also organising activities in other parts of Norway. Oslo also has a Jewish renewal rabbi who organises services and activities. There was a Society for Progressive Judaism in Oslo, which no longer exists. The Jewish community in Norway is represented by Det Mosaiske Trossamfund (The Mosaic Community), which is affiliated with the World Jewish Congress. Other Jewish organizations in Norway include B'nai B'rith, WIZO, B’nei Akiva, Keren Kayemet, Help the Jews Home (Hjelp Jødene Hjem), a Kosher Meals on Wheels, Jewish study circles, and a home for the elderly. There is also a Jewish community center in Trondheim.
Norwegian Jews are well integrated into Norwegian society, and prominent among them were Jo Benkow, a former president of the Stortinget; Leo Eitinger and Berthold Grünfeld, both notable psychiatrists; Robert Levin, the pianist; writer, actress and theater critic and Bente Kahan, an actress and singer. Of these, only the last two are still living.
Antisemitism in contemporary Norway.
The mainstream Norwegian political environment has strongly adopted a platform that rejects antisemitism. However, individuals often privately hold antisemitic views.
There have been episodes of desecration of the Oslo Synagogue. In July 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War, the congregation issued an advisory warning Jews not to wear kippot or other identifying items in public for fear of harassment or assault.
On 17 September 2006, the Oslo Synagogue was attacked with an automatic weapon, only days after it was made public that the building had been the planned target for the Algerian terror group GSPC that had been plotting a bombing campaign in the Norwegian capital. On 2 June 2008, Arfan Qadeer Bhatti was convicted for the shooting attack and given an eight-year preventive custody sentence for serious vandalism. The Oslo city court judge could not find sufficient evidence that the shots fired at the synagogue amounted to a terrorist act. The synagogue in Oslo is now under continuous surveillance and protected by barriers.
In August 2006, the writer Jostein Gaarder published an op-ed in Aftenposten, titled "God's Chosen People". It was highly critical of Israel, as well as Judaism as a religion. Allegations of antisemitism and an intense public debate resulted in the Jostein Gaarder controversy.
In December 2008, Imre Hercz filed a complaint to the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission against Otto Jespersen, a comedian who mocked the Holocaust, but fellow comics and his TV station backed the performer. Jespersen joked on national television in his weekly routine that "I would like to take the opportunity to remember all the billions of fleas and lice that lost their lives in German gas chambers, without having done anything wrong other than settling on persons of Jewish background." Jespersen also presented a satirical monologue on antisemitism that ended with, "Finally, I would like to wish all Norwegian Jews a Merry Christmas — no, what am I saying! You don't celebrate Christmas, do you!? It was you who crucified Jesus," on 4 December. Jespersen has received criticism for several of his attacks on social and ethnic groups as well as royalty, politicians and celebrities, and in defence of the monologue TV 2 noted that Jespersen attacks in all directions, and that "if you should take [the monologue] seriously, there are more than just the Jews that should feel offended".
In 2010, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation reported that antisemitism was common among Norwegian Muslims. Teachers at schools with large shares of Muslims reported that Muslim students often "praise or admire Adolf Hitler for his killing of Jews", that "Jew-hate is legitimate within vast groups of Muslim students" and that "Muslims laugh or command [teachers] to stop when trying to educate about the Holocaust". One Jewish father also told how his child had been taken after school by a Muslim mob, "to be taken out to the forest and hanged because he was a Jew". (The child escaped.) In February 2015, however, a group of young Muslims organised 1,500 people to form two 'rings of peace' around the synagogues in Oslo and Begen in response to recent terror attacks against Jewish centers in Europe.
Unconnected with Norwegian Muslims, antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on a school and sports facility in Skien in August 2014. Later that year, a swastika was carved into the glass doors of the Trøndelag Theater, the day after the premiere of a Jewish puppet theater performance. In October 2014, a Jewish cemetery was vandalized in Trondheim, with sprayed marks and the word 'Führer' scribbled on the chapel.
An article published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs stated that antisemitism in Norway comes mainly from the leadership — politicians, organization leaders, church leaders, and senior journalists. Despite dissenting opinions, it claims that antisemitism in Europe originated in Muslim immigration, this essay blames the European-Christian leadership for antisemitism that began around 1000 CE, centuries before Jews came to Norway. Another issue arising from the article is the publishing of antisemitic caricatures. Since the 1970s, many pro-Palestinian caricatures have been published in the Norwegian media. But a comparison of those depictions with antisemitic caricatures from the Nazi-era show some similarities. Common motifs such as 'Jews are evil and inhuman', 'Jews rule and exploit the world' and 'Jews hate peace and propagate wars' are repeated in more recently published drawings, as well as in antisemitic sketches from the beginning of the twentieth century.
According to an ADL telephone survey of 501 people, 15% (+/-4.4%) of the adult population in Norway harbor antisemitic attitudes and 40% of the population agree with the statement, "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Norway", and 31% think that, "Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust." However, this survey has been criticized for being unreasonably simplistic in its classification of "harboring antisemitic attitudes".


Jane Howard, Countess of Westmorland

Jane Neville ("née" Howard), Countess of Westmorland (1533/37 – buried 30 June 1593), was an English noblewoman.
Family.
Jane Howard, born between 1533 and 1537, was the daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and Frances de Vere. Her grandparents on her father's side were Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, and Elizabeth Stafford. Her maternal grandparents were John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, and Elizabeth Trussell.
Jane Howard had two brothers, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, and two sisters, Katherine Howard, who married Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley, and Margaret Howard, who married Henry Scrope, 9th Baron Scrope of Bolton. Jane Howard's youngest sister, Margaret, was born after their father's execution.
Life.
Jane Howard's father, the Earl of Surrey, was tried and convicted of treason at the Guildhall on 13 January 1547, and beheaded on Tower Hill on 19 January 1547. In 1548 his children were placed in the care of their aunt, Mary FitzRoy, who appointed the martyrologist, John Foxe, as their tutor.
About 1563/4 Jane Howard married Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, who had succeeded to the earldom after his father's death on 10 February 1564. In November 1569 Westmorland joined the Earl of Northumberland in the Northern Rebellion. After initial successes, Westmorland and Northumberland were forced to flee to the Scottish border when Queen Elizabeth sent forces north under the Earl of Sussex. Sussex proclaimed Westmorland and Northumberland rebels at York on 19 November. Shortly thereafter Northumberland was handed over to the Scottish Regent, the Earl of Moray. However Westmorland was given refuge by Lord Kerr at Ferniehirst Castle in Roxburghshire, and eventually escaped by sea in 1570 to the Spanish Netherlands, where he remained an exile until his death. In 1571 he was attainted, and all his honours forfeited. After her husband's attainder, the Queen granted Jane a pension of £200 for life.
In the events which preceded the Northern Rebellion in 1569, the Countess had more to do with raising the troops than her husband did. She was well educated but perhaps not the cleverest of women when it came to understanding political machinations. She was first to urge the rebels to rise up against Elizabeth I of England, and yet she expected Elizabeth to pardon her when they failed.
The Countess hoped to arrange the marriage of her brother, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, to Mary, Queen of Scots, and put them both on England's throne. He was executed for treason in 1572 and she lived under house arrest for the rest of her life.
The Countess was buried 30 June 1593 at Kenninghall, Norfolk.
Westmorland continued to be involved for many years in plots to invade England and replace Queen Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1599 he considered marrying again. His prospective bride was the daughter of President Richardot. Westmorland died 16 November 1601 at Nieuwpoort, Flanders. On 25 June 1604 two of his daughters, Katherine and Anne, were granted pensions of 200 marks a year by King James. Westmorland's cousin, Edmund Neville, the only son of Richard Neville (d. 27 May 1590) by Barbara Arden, the daughter of William Arden of Park Hall, Warwickshire, unsuccessfully claimed the earldom.
Marriage and issue.
On 28 August 1564 Jane Howard married Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, the second but only surviving son of Henry Neville, 5th Earl of Westmorland, by his first wife, Anne Manners, the second daughter of Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland, by Eleanor Paston, daughter of Sir William Paston (died c. 20 September 1554), by whom she had one son and four daughters:


Independentist Front Lombardy

The Independentist Front Lombardy ("Fronte Indipendentista Lombardia", FIL) was a padanist and separatist political party active in Lombardy.
Founded in 2006 by Max Ferrari and other splinters from Lega Lombarda–Lega Nord, FIL joined Lombardia Autonoma in 2008, but soon regained its autonomy as a markedly-separatist party. Ferrari chose to stay in Lombardia Autonoma, which had its name changed into "Lega Padana Lombardia", and finally returned in the League in 2010.
The party eventually re-emerged under the leadership of Piergiorgio Seveso in 2011, when it ran a candidate in the Varese municipal election, but gained a dismal 0.2% of the vote. Since 2012 the website is no more active.


John Boys (Royalist)

Sir John Boys (1607 – 8 October 1664) is best known as the Royalist Governor of Donnington Castle in Berkshire during the English Civil War.
Early life.
Boys was born in at Bonnington, near to Goodnestone, in Kent, the eldest son and heir of Edward Boys of Bonnington, by Jane, a daughter of Edward Sanders (of Northborne). He was baptized at Chillenden, on 5 April 1607.
In 1641, John Boys was promoted from captain to lieutenant colonel when he came to serve the King in John Savage, Earl Rivers's Regiment in Ireland. He was colonel in all but name, however, as Earl Rivers never took command of the Regiment in the field.
Defence of Donnington Castle.
Donnington Castle is located north of the town of Newbury. It was garrisoned in 1643 for King Charles I and commanded the road from Oxford to Southampton and the road from London to Bath. It was, from 1643, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Boys, who spent £1,000 on earthworks to strengthen the defences. Boys commanded a division of the Earl Rivers's Royalist Regiment consisting of 200 foot, 25 horse, and 4 guns, which remained throughout the siege.
On 31 July 1644, Donnington Castle was attacked by a division of the New Model Army of 3000 horses and dragoons, under the command of Lieutenant-General John Middleton, but without any artillery support. Middleton attempted to compel a surrender from Boys, but the Parliamentary army was repulsed with the loss of at least 300 men.
About a month later, on 29 September, Colonel Jeremy Horton began a 12-day blockade laying siege to Donnington, having raised a battery at the foot of the hill, near Newbury he was able to shatter the southern towers of the castles medieval defenses and reduce a part of the wall to rubble. It has been estimated that at least 1000 missiles were fired against the fortress during this engagement. Even though Colonel Horton had been reinforced, Governor John Boys refused to concede and even invited Horton to surrender his forces.
A parliamentarian army soon after returned on 4 October led by the Earl of Manchester. An attempt to storm the castle failed, but the bombardment continued for several days without avail. Frustrated, the whole army dispersed as Charles I, at the head of the Royal army, moved towards Donnington. For his great services in defense of the castle Governor John Boys was knighted on 21 October 1644. The king also promoted him to full colonel in Earl Rivers's Regiment.
On 27 October, the second battle of Newbury was fought, and Colonel Sir John Boys secured the King's artillery under the walls of Donnington castle. The famous Parliamentarian soldier Sir William Waller surrounded the castle with his army and again Boys refused to surrender.
After the battle of Newbury, when the King had gone to Oxford, the Earl of Essex besieged Donnington Castle, but abandoned the attempt before Charles returned in the first week of November 1644 to relieve Donnington. The King took his "treasure and guns," leaving some of the heavier pieces for use by the garrison.
Some time after 14 November 1645, Oliver Cromwell himself turned his attention to the problem of the Royalist stronghold of Donnington castle, and in the following spring a furious bombardment with cannon and mortars was ordered. By 30 March a truce was concluded, and Charles had no option other than to instruct Boys to obtain the best possible surrender. On 1 April 1646, the surrender was completed, wherein garrison was permitted to march to the Royalist garrison at Wallingford with their colours flying and drums beating. Surprisingly, Boys himself went to London rather than continue further military resistance while others of the Regiment went on to serve at Wallingford Castle.
Later history.
He was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1646. During August 1648, he made a futile attempt to raise the Siege of Walmer Castle in Deal, one of the Cinque Ports, and customary home of the Lord Warden. Sir Algernon Sydney replaced him as Warden in 1648.
In 1659, Boys was held as a prisoner in Dover Castle for "petitioning for a free Parliament", but was released on 23 February 1660. He was then, reputedly, granted the office of Receiver of Customs at Dover from Charles II.
A few years later, on 8 October 1664, Sir John Boys died at his house at Bonnington and was buried in the parish church of Goodnestone-next-Wingham (near Canterbury) in Kent.
Personal life.
He was married three times, and had five daughters by his first wife Lucy.
His second marriage was to Ann Brockman, daughter of Sir William Brockman of Newington-next-Hythe in 1650. She died in 1651.
His third marriage was to the Lady Elizabeth Finch, widow of Sir Nathaniel Finch, and a daughter of Sir John Fotherby of Barham (Kent).


Salon of Berta Zuckerkandl

The Salon of Berta Zuckerkandl-Szeps existed in Vienna from the end of the 19th century until 1938. It was located in her Viennese residence in the Palais Lieben-Auspitz on the Ringstraße.
The first salon of Berta Zuckerkandl was held in a mansion in the Nusswaldgasse in Döbling. Later it was held in the Palais Lieben-Auspitz at the Oppolzergasse 6 at the Ringstraße. The salon was formed in the tradition of Fanny von Arnstein's literary salons in the days of the Congress of Vienna.
Bertha Zuckerkandl's salon claimed such famous participants as Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler, Max Reinhardt and Arthur Schnitzler. She also supported such artists as Anton Kolig and from the so-called .
Her sister Sofie was married to Paul Clemenceau, the brother of the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, giving the salon connections to Parisian circles.


Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia (; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic.
Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of (chronologically) Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of the Habsburg Monarchy from 1526. In 1742 the greater part of Upper Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, and in 1871 it became part of the German Empire. After the First World War the region was divided between Poland (East Upper Silesia) and Germany (West Upper Silesia). After the Second World War, West Upper Silesia also became Polish as the result of the Potsdam Conference.
Geography.
Upper Silesia is situated on the upper Oder River, north of the Eastern Sudetes mountain range and the Moravian Gate, which form the southern border with the historic Moravia region. Within the adjacent Silesian Beskids to the east, the Vistula River rises and turns eastwards, the Biała and Przemsza tributaries mark the eastern border with Lesser Poland. In the north, Upper Silesia borders on Greater Poland, and in the west on the Lower Silesian lands (the adjacent region around Wrocław also referred to as Middle Silesia).
It is currently split into a larger Polish and the smaller Czech Silesian part, which is located within the Czech regions of Moravia-Silesia and Olomouc. The Polish Upper Silesian territory covers most of the Opole Voivodeship, except for the Lower Silesian counties of Brzeg and Namysłów, and the western half of the Silesian Voivodeship (except for the Lesser Polish counties of Będzin, Bielsko-Biała, Częstochowa with the city of Częstochowa, Kłobuck, Myszków, Zawiercie and Żywiec, as well as the cities of Dąbrowa Górnicza, Jaworzno and Sosnowiec).
Divided Cieszyn Silesia as well as former Austrian Silesia are historical parts of Upper Silesia.
History.
According to the 9th century Bavarian Geographer, the West Slavic Opolanie tribe had settled on the upper Oder River since the days of the Migration Period, centered on the gord of Opole. At the time of Prince Svatopluk I (871–894), all Silesia was a part of his Great Moravian realm. Upon its dissolution after 906, the region fell under the influence of the Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia, Duke Spytihněv I (894–915) and his brother Vratislaus I (915–921), possibly the founder and name giver of the Silesian capital Wrocław ().
Polish rule.
By 990 the newly installed Piast duke Mieszko I of the Polans had conquered large parts of Silesia. From the Middle Silesia fortress of Niemcza, his son and successor Bolesław I Chrobry (992–1025), having established the Diocese of Wrocław, subdued the Upper Silesian lands of the pagan Opolanie, which for several hundred years were part of Poland, though contested by Bohemian dukes like Bretislaus I, who from 1025 invaded Silesia several times. Finally, in 1137, the Polish prince Bolesław III Wrymouth (1107–1138) came to terms with Duke Soběslav I of Bohemia, when a peace was made confirming the border along the Sudetes.
However, this arrangement fell apart when upon the death of Bolesław III and his testament the fragmentation of Poland began, which decisively enfeebled its central authority. The newly established Duchy of Silesia became the ancestral homeland of the Silesian Piasts, descendants of Bolesław's eldest son Władysław II the Exile, who nevertheless saw themselves barred from the succession to the Polish throne and only were able to regain their Silesian home territory with the aid of the Holy Roman Emperor.
The failure of the Agnatic seniority principle of inheritance also led to the split-up of the Silesian province itself: in 1172 Władysław's second son Mieszko IV Tanglefoot claimed his rights and received the Upper Silesian Duchy of Racibórz as an allodium from the hands of his elder brother Duke Bolesław I the Tall of Silesia. In the struggle around the Polish throne, Mieszko additionally received the former Lesser Polish lands of Bytom, Oświęcim, Zator, Siewierz and Pszczyna from the new Polish High Duke Casimir II the Just in 1177. When in 1202 Mieszko Tanglefoot had annexed the Duchy of Opole of his deceased nephew Jarosław, he ruled over all Upper Silesia as Duke of Opole and Racibórz.
In the early 13th century the ties of the Silesian Piasts with the neighbouring Holy Roman Empire grew stronger as several dukes married scions of German nobility. Promoted by the Lower Silesian Duke Henry I the Bearded, from 1230 also regent over Upper Silesia for the minor sons of his late cousin Duke Casimir I of Opole, large parts of the Silesian lands were settled with German immigrants in the course of the "Ostsiedlung", establishing numerous cities according to German town law. The plans to re-unify Silesia shattered upon the Mongol invasion of Poland and the death of Duke Henry II the Pious at the 1241 Battle of Legnica. Upper Silesia further fragmented upon the death of Duke Władysław Opolski in 1281 into the duchies of Bytom, Opole, Racibórz and Cieszyn. About 1269 the Duchy of Opava was established on adjacent Moravian territory, ruled by the Přemyslid duke Nicholas I, whose descendants inherited the Duchy of Racibórz in 1336. As they ruled both duchies in personal union, Opava grew into the Upper Silesian territory.
Bohemia, Austria and Prussia.
In 1327 the Upper Silesian dukes, like most of their Lower Silesian cousins, had sworn allegiance to King John of Bohemia, thereby becoming vassals of the Bohemian kingdom. During the re-establishment of Poland under King Casimir III the Great, all Silesia was specifically excluded as non-Polish land by the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin becoming a land of the Bohemian Crown and — indirectly — of the Holy Roman Empire. By the mid-14th century, the influx of German settlers into Upper Silesia was stopped by the Black Death pandemic. Unlike in Lower Silesia, the Germanization process was halted; still a majority of the population spoke Polish and Silesian as their native language, often together with German (Silesian German) as a second language. In the southernmost areas, also Lach dialects were spoken. While Latin, Czech and German language were used as official languages in towns and cities, only in the 1550s (during the Protestant Reformation) did records with Polish names start to appear.
Upper Silesia was hit by the Hussite Wars and in 1469 was conquered by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, while the Duchies of Oświęcim and Zator fell back to the Polish Crown. Upon the death of the Jagiellonian king Louis II in 1526, the Bohemian crown lands were inherited by the Austrian House of Habsburg. In the 16th century, large parts of Silesia had turned Protestant, promoted by reformers like Caspar Schwenckfeld. After the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, the Catholic Emperors of the Habsburg dynasty forcibly re-introduced Catholicism, led by the Jesuits.
Lower Silesia and most of Upper Silesia were occupied by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1742 during the First Silesian War and annexed by the terms of the Treaty of Breslau. A small part south of the Opava River remained within the Habsburg-ruled Bohemian Crown as the "Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia", colloquially called Austrian Silesia. Incorporated into the Prussian Silesia Province from 1815, Upper Silesia became an industrial area taking advantage of its plentiful coal and iron ore. Prussian Upper Silesia became a part of the German Empire in 1871.
Ethnolinguistic structure before the plebiscite.
The earliest exact census figures on ethnolinguistic or national structure (Nationalverschiedenheit) of the Prussian part of Upper Silesia, come from year 1819. The last pre-WW1 general census figures available, are from 1910 (if not including the 1911 census of school children - Sprachzählung unter den Schulkindern - which revealed a higher percent of Polish-speakers among school children than the 1910 census among the general populace). Figures (Table 1.) show that large demographic changes took place between 1819 and 1910, with the region's total population quadrupling, the percent of German-speakers increasing significantly, and that of Polish-speakers declining considerably. Also, the total land area in which Polish language was spoken, as well as the land area in which it was spoken by the majority, declined between 1790 and 1890. Polish authors before 1918 estimated the number of Poles in Prussian Upper Silesia as slightly higher than according to official German censuses.
United States Immigration Commission in 1911 classified Polish-speaking Silesians as Poles.
Plebiscite and partition.
In 1919, after World War I, the eastern part of Prussian Upper Silesia (with a majority of ethnic Poles) came under Polish rule as the Silesian Voivodeship, while the mostly German-speaking western part remained part of the Weimar Republic as the newly established Upper Silesia Province. In early 1919, the Polish–Czechoslovak War broke out around Cieszyn Silesia, whereafter Czechoslovakia gained the Zaolzie strip in addition to the Hlučín Region.
From 1919-1921 three Silesian Uprisings occurred among the Polish-speaking populace of Upper Silesia; the Battle of Annaberg was fought in the region in 1921. In the Upper Silesia plebiscite of March 1921, a majority of 59.4% voted against merging with Poland and a minority of 40.6% voted for, with clear lines dividing Polish and German communities. The plan to divide the region was suggested by the Inter-Allied Commission on Upper Silesia, headed by the French general Henri Le Rond. The plan was decided by an ambassadors conference in Paris on 20 October 1921. The exact border, the maintenance of cross-border railway traffic and other necessary co-operations, as well as equal rights for all inhabitants in both parts of Upper Silesia, were all fixed by the German-Polish Accord on East Silesia, signed in Geneva on May 15, 1922. On June 20, 1922, the Weimar Republic ceded, "de facto", the East Upper Silesia region, becoming part of Silesian Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic.
After the 1939 German invasion of Poland, Polish Silesia was annexed to the Nazi German Reich as part of the "Gau" of Silesia. In 1941 Upper and Lower Silesia were split into separate "Gauer".
After 1945, almost all of Upper Silesia that was not ceded to Poland in 1922 was placed under the administration of the Republic of Poland. German civilians, as well as Nazi criminals, were interned in labor camps such as the Zgoda labour camp. The majority of the German-speaking population that had not fled was expelled, an activity that was euphemized as "transfers [to] be effected in an orderly and humane manner" in accordance with the decision of the victorious Allied powers at their 1945 meeting at Potsdam. This expulsion program also included German-speaking inhabitants of Lower Silesia, eastern Brandenburg, eastern Pomerania, Gdańsk (Danzig), and East Prussia. The German expellees were transported to the present-day Germany (including the former East Germany), and Polish migrants, a sizeable part of whom were themselves expelleés from former Polish provinces taken over by the USSR in the east. A good many German-speaking Upper Silesians were relocated in Bavaria. A small part of Upper Silesia stayed as part of Czechoslovakia as Czech Silesia.
The expulsions of German-speakers did not totally eliminate the presence of a population that considered itself German. In contrast to the situation in Lower Silesia, where almost the totality of the pre-war population that was expelled was exclusively German-speaking, the pre-war population of Upper Silesia was in considerable number Roman Catholic mixed bilingual that spoke both German and Polish dialects, and their Polish linguistic skills were considered solid enough for them to be kept in the area.
The area formally became part of the Republic of Poland by virtue of the German-Polish border treaty of November 14, 1990. With the fall of communism and Poland's joining the European Union, there were enough of these remaining in Upper Silesia to allow for the recognition of the German minority in Poland by the Polish government.
Major cities and towns.
The historical capital of Upper Silesia is Opole, nevertheless the largest towns of the region, including Katowice, are located in the Upper Silesian Industrial Region, the total population of which is about 3,000,000.
Population figures as of 1995 (all in Poland unless otherwise indicated)
Culture.
Silesian cuisine.
Upper Silesian cuisine belongs to Central European cuisines and is therefore characterized by high calorific value of dishes. For centuries, Polish, Czech and German cuisine was mixed here. Typical Upper Silesian dishes are consumed here, as well as dishes that are also present in Lesser Poland and Greater Poland at the same time. In the second half of the twentieth century, dishes from the Polish borderland cuisine (potato pancakes, dumplings with cheese, red borscht, bigos) gained popularity in Upper Silesia.
Clothes.
Silesian women's clothes vary depending on the region and even the individual towns and villages they come from. The ways of dressing intertwined with the movement of people in the 19th and 20th century. The inhabitants of Silesia also started to adapt their outfits to the urban fashion, which changed the appearance of the outfit even more.
The men's outfit consists of a shacket, a shirt (vest), a white shirt, a silk shirt (silk scarf) or a dressing gown (ribbons), galot (trousers) or bizoków (trousers ironed to the edge) and szczewików (shoes). The man's costume is now called an "ancug", this name is mainly associated with a suit.
Crafts.
In Upper Silesia, metallurgy, mining and other heavy industry branches are developed.
Agriculture plays a secondary role, developed mainly in Opole Silesia.
Media.
On the territory of Upper Silesia, TVP Info broadcasts the regional channels TVP Opole and TVP Katowice of the public Polish Television. In addition, the private television station TVS is aimed at viewers in the Silesian Voivodeship. Another channel is TVT.
Regionally oriented radio stations are Polskie Radio Opole and Polskie Radio Katowice of the state radio station. A private Upper Silesian station is Radio Piekary.
Radio Mittendrin is a German-Polish Internet radio station of the German minority.
Local politics.
The autonomy movement is relatively young and was only founded in 1990 by Rudolf Kolodziejczyk in Rybnik. It is supposed to continue the traditions of the German period, but also of Silesia under the Second Polish Republic. The current head of the movement is Jerzy Gorzelik. Its main aim is to improve the self-government of the Upper Silesian provinces of Opolskie and Slaskie.
In 2010, RAS (Ruch Autonomii Śląska) had 8.49% of the votes in the Silesian Regional Assembly, i.e. 122,781 votes and three mandates. In 2018 they failed to get any mandates with 3.10%.


Spanish real

The real (English: /ɹeɪˈɑl/ Spanish: /reˈal/) (meaning: "royal", plural: "reales") was a unit of currency in Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century. It underwent several changes in value relative to other units throughout its lifetime until it was replaced by the "peseta" in 1868. The most common denomination for the currency was the silver eight-"real" Spanish dollar ("Real de a 8") or peso which was used throughout Europe, America and Asia during the height of the Spanish Empire.
History.
In Spain and Spanish America.
The first real was introduced by King Pedro I of Castile in the mid 14th century, with 66 minted from a "Castilian mark" of silver (230.0465 grams), fineness or 0.9306, and valued of 3 "maravedíes". It co-circulated with various other silver coins until a 1497 ordinance eliminated all other coins and retained the real (now minted 67 to a mark of silver, 0.9306 fine, fine silver 3.195 grams) subdivided into 34 maravedíes.
The silver real was minted in -, 1-, 2-, 4- and 8-real denominations. After the discovery of silver in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia in the 16th century, the 8-real coin (referred to since then as a dollar, a peso or a piece of eight) became an internationally recognized trade coin in Europe, Asia and North America. These reales were supplemented by the gold "escudo", minted 68 to a mark of fine gold (3.101 g fine gold), and valued at 15–16 silver reales or approximately two dollars.
This real worth dollar was retained in Latin America until the 19th century but was altered considerably in peninsular Spain starting in the 17th century. This Spanish colonial real was subsequently referred to as "moneda nacional" (national money) and underwent two more alterations, namely:
In Spain – 17th and 18th centuries.
The various financial crises under King Philip II gave rise starting in 1600 to the real de vellón (made of billon, or less than half silver). The relative autonomy of Spain's constituent kingdoms resulted in reales of varying silver content and worth considerably less the "real nacional" worth of a dollar. The monetary confusion would not be resolved until the real de vellón was fixed at 20 reales to the dollar in 1737.
The first ordinance officially devaluing the Spanish non-colonial real came out in 1642, with the real provincial debased from 67 to to a mark of silver (hence, 10 reales to the dollar). Actual coins worth , 1, 2, 4 and 8 reales provincial (the latter worth of a dollar and called "peso maria") were minted in 1686 and were poorly received by the public.
The same 1686 recoinage came with edicts in 1686–1687 fixing the real de vellón at one dollar = reales or 512 maravedíes (or 1 dollar = 8 "reales nacionales" worth 64 maravedíes). The ineffectiveness of these edicts meant that existing reales de vellón were worth even less than of a dollar (0.0664 dollars).
The confusion to the monetary situation would not be resolved until 1737 in various stages, namely:
Subsequent changes until the end of the 18th century were minor and involved reducing the fineness of the silver dollar to = 0.9028 fine and the gold escudo (now worth 2 dollars or 40 reales de vellón) from 0.917 to 0.875 fine. Starting 1810 silver coin denominations were revised to their more common-sense values in reales de vellón: 20, 10, 4, 2 and 1 real with 1 real = dollar.
In Spain – 19th century.
The loss of American possessions in the first third of the 19th century cut off the inflow of precious metals into Spain and resulted in the gradual use of French coinage in local circulation. These subsequent changes to the Spanish currency system were never carried out in full:
The real was only retired completely with the introduction in 1868 of the Spanish peseta, at par with the French franc, and at the rate of 1 dollar = 20 reales = 5 pesetas. Consequently, the term real lived on, meaning a quarter of a dollar (25 céntimos de peseta).
Coins.
Coins were minted in both Spain and Latin America from the 16th to 19th centuries in silver , 1, 2, 4 and 8 "reales nacional" and in gold , 1, 2, 4 and 8 "escudos". The silver 8-real coin was known as the "Spanish dollar" (as the coin was minted to the specifications of the "thaler" of the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg monarchy), "peso", or the famous "piece of eight". Spanish dollars minted between 1732 and 1773 are also often referred to as "columnarios". The portrait variety from 1772 and later are typically referred to as Spanish dollars or pillar dollars.
Coins were minted in Spain in copper 1, 2, 4 and 8 maravedíes, in silver coins equivalent to 1, 2, 4, 10 and 20 reales de vellón since 1737, and in gold coins equivalent to , 1, 2, 4 and 8 escudos. New coins introduced after the 1850 decimalization include copper 5, 10 and 25 céntimos de real was well as a new gold 100-real (5-dollar) coin.


Rowland Dawkins

Rowland Dawkins (died 1691) was a Welsh military colonel and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1654 and 1656. He was a zealous supporter of the Commonwealth.
Dawkins was the son of George Dawkins of Clivrough and his wife Elizabeth Glyn, daughter of William Glyn of Glynonvawr, Carmarthenshire. He became a colonel in the Commonwealth army and was governor of Carmarthen and Tenby in 1650. In 1651 he suppressed a rising at Llanbadarn. He was appointed to the High Court of Justice on 25 June 1651 and became a Military Commissioner for South Wales on 14 March 1654.
In 1654, Dawkins was elected Member of Parliament for Carmarthenshire in the First Protectorate Parliament. In 1654 and subsequent years he petitioned for the abatement of the assessment for Cardiganshire. He became an alderman of Swansea in 1655. On 27 November 1655 he was ordered with Jenkin Lloyd, Arthur Owen, Sampson Lort, James Philipps and others to examine the petition of the well-affected of Haverfordwest regarding the election of a malignant to office. He was re-elected MP for Carmarthenshire in 1656 for the Second Protectorate Parliament. He commanded the Militia Troops in Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire until 13 July 1659. In 1659 he was elected MP for Carmarthen and Cardigan for the Third Protectorate Parliament but was unseated for Carmarthen and sat for Cardigan. He was in command of troops at Tenby in 1679.
Dawkins died in 1691 and was buried in the chancel of Penmark church.
Dawkins married Mary Bowen, daughter of George Bowen of Lovegrove, Cardiganshire.
References.


Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd

 ("Gwenllian, daughter of Gruffydd"; 1100 – 1136) was Princess consort of Deheubarth in Wales, and married to Gruffydd ap Rhys, Prince of Deheubarth. Gwenllian was the daughter of Gruffudd ap Cynan (1055–1137), Prince of Gwynedd and Angharad ferch Owain, and a member of the princely Aberffraw family of Gwynedd. Gwenllian's "patriotic revolt" and subsequent death in battle at Kidwelly Castle contributed to the .
There are several notable artistic depictions of Gwenllian, often depicting her with a sword in hand, or riding a chariot into battle in the style of Boudicca. She is sometimes confused with Gwenllian ferch Llywelyn, who lived two centuries later.
Early life.
Gwenllian was the youngest daughter of Gruffudd ap Cynan, Prince of Gwynedd, and his wife, Angharad. She was born on Ynys Môn at the family seat at Aberffraw, and was the youngest of eight children; four older sisters: Mared, Rhiannell, Susanna, and Annest, and three older brothers: Cadwallon, Owain and Cadwaladr. She was the great-great-great-granddaughter of Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig, High King of Ireland.
Gwenllian grew to be strikingly beautiful. After Gruffydd ap Rhys, the Prince of Deheubarth, ventured to Gwynedd around 1113 to meet her father, Gwenllian and Deheubarth's prince became romantically involved and eloped. She married Gruffydd ap Rhys shortly after 1116.
Gwenllian and Gruffydd had the following children:
Gwenllian joined her husband at his family seat of Dinefwr in Deheubarth. Deheubarth was struggling against the Norman invasion in South Wales, with Norman, English, and Flemish colonists in footholds throughout the country. While the conflict between the Normans and the Welsh continued, the princely family were often displaced, with Gwenllian joining her husband in mountainous and forested strongholds. From here, she and Gruffydd ap Rhys led retaliatory strikes, aka "lightning raids" against Norman-held positions in Deheubarth.
Great Revolt 1136.
By 1136 an opportunity arose for the Welsh to recover lands lost to the Marcher Lords when Stephen de Blois displaced his cousin, Empress Matilda, from succeeding her father to the English throne the year prior, sparking the Anarchy in England. The usurpation and conflict it caused eroded central authority in England. The revolt began in South Wales, as Hywel ap Maredudd, Lord of Brycheiniog ("Brecknockshire"), gathered his men and marched to Gower, defeating the Norman and English colonists there at the Battle of Llwchwr. Inspired by Hywel of Brycheiniog's success, Gruffydd ap Rhys hastened to meet with Gruffudd ap Cynan of Gwynedd, his father-in-law, to enlist his aid in the revolt.
While her husband was in Gwynedd seeking an alliance with her father against the Normans, Maurice de Londres and other Normans led raids against Deheubarth's Welsh and Gwenllian was compelled to raise an army for their defence. In a battle fought near Kidwelly Castle, Gwenllian's army was routed, she was captured in battle and beheaded by the Normans. In the battle her son Morgan was also slain and another son, Maelgwyn captured and executed.
Though defeated, her patriotic revolt inspired others in South Wales to rise. The Welsh of Gwent, led by Iowerth ab Owain (grandson of Caradog ap Gruffydd, Gwent's Welsh ruler displaced by the Norman invasions), ambushed and slew Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, the Norman lord who controlled Ceredigion.
When word reached Gwynedd of Gwenllian's death and the revolt in Gwent, Gwenllian's brothers Owain and Cadwaladr invaded Norman controlled Ceredigion, taking Llanfihangel, Aberystwyth, and Llanbadarn.
Legacy.
Gwenllian's actions have been compared with those of another Celtic leader: Boadicea (Buddug). Gwenllian is also the only woman of the medieval period who is known to have led a Welsh army into battle. The field where the battle is believed to have taken place, close to Kidwelly Castle and north of the town, is known as "Maes Gwenllian" (). A spring in the field is also named after her, supposedly welling up on the spot where she died.
For centuries after her death, Welshmen cried-out "Revenge for Gwenllian" when engaging in battle. Gwenllian and her husband also harassed Norman, English, and Flemish colonists in Deheubarth, taking goods and money and redistributed them among the Deheubarth Welsh who were themselves dispossessed by those colonizers, like a pair of "Robin Hoods of Wales", as historian and author Philip Warner writes.
Gwenllian's youngest son went on to become a notable leader of Deheubarth, The Lord Rhys.
Authorship of the Mabinogi.
Dr Andrew Breeze has argued that Gwenllian could have been the author of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.


Varnava, Serbian Patriarch

Varnava Rosić () was the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church from 1930 to 1937. He was born Petar Rosić in Pljevlja, belonging at that time to the Ottoman Empire, on August 29, 1880.
Life.
Since Metropolitan Parthenios of Debar and Veles (1907-1913) was frequently absent from his eparchy serving as a member of Holy Synod in Constantinople, it was decided that an auxiliary bishop should be appointed for administration of the eparchy. By that time, Varnava Rosić was serving as a Serbian Orthodox priest in Constantinople and he was chosen and consecrated as bishop on 10 April 1910 in the Patriarchal Church of Saint George. As an auxiliary bishop serving in the Eparchy of Debar and Veles, he welcomed the liberation of that region from Turkish rule in 1912 and annexation to the Kingdom of Serbia. Metropolitan Parthenios was finally transferred to another eparchy in 1913, and bishop Varnava was left in charge not only in the Eparchy of Debar and Veles, since administration of other ecclesiastical territories annexed to Kingdom of Serbia was also entrusted to him.
During First World War, upon the Bulgarian occupation of southern parts of Kingdom of Serbia in 1915, he had to leave his eparchy, returning after liberation in 1918. In 1920, he was elected Metropolitan of Skopje, and served in that eparchy until 1930, when he became new Serbian Patriarch.
During the office of Varnava, the dioceses of Zagreb and Mukacheve were formed. Between 1931 and 1937, the Serbian Church consisted of 27 dioceses and a vicarate in Skadar, Albania. Church life was on the move in all regions. Many monasteries, churches and church buildings were erected, some of these being the present Patriarchate building in Belgrade, Vavedenje Monastery, etc. The construction of the edifice of the great Temple of Saint Sava was initiated in Belgrade (one of the largest churches in the world).
Varnava firmly resisted the introduction of legislation giving greater privileges to the Roman Catholic Church not in Yugoslavia in general, but in Serbia in particular (hence "The Concordat Crisis"). He maintained that these would certainly undermine positions of both the Serbian Orthodox church and those of other faiths in the country. He died unexpectedly during the night between July 23–24, 1937 when the Concordat legislation was carried into Parliament. The Holy Synod was also against government pro-Concordat policy, and the government was soon forced to withdraw this new legislation.
It is believed that Patriarch Varnava was poisoned because of his struggle against Concordat, and his death is still unresolved.
He was the great-uncle of performance artist Marina Abramović.
Patriarch Varnava was awarded Order of the White Eagle and a number of other decorations.