Medieval

The Kingdom of Aragon (Aragonese: Reino d'Aragón; Catalan: Regne d'Aragó; Latin: Regnum Aragoniae; Spanish: Reino de Aragón) was a medieval and early modern kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain. It became a part of the larger Crown of Aragon, which also included other territories—the Principality of Catalonia (which included the former Catalan Counties), the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, and other possessions that are now part of France, Italy, and Greece—that were also under the rule of the King of Aragon, but were administered separately from the Kingdom of Aragon.

In 1479, upon John II of Aragon's death, the crowns of Aragon and Castile were united to form the nucleus of modern Spain. The Aragonese lands retained autonomous parliamentary and administrative institutions, such as the Corts. The arrangement remained until the Nueva Planta decrees, promulgated between 1707 and 1715 by Philip V of Spain in the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, centralised power in Spain. However, the title "King of Aragon" would continue to be used by the centralised Spanish crown.

Polemic (/pəˈlɛmɪk/ pə-LEHM-ick, US also /-ˈlimɪk/ -⁠LEEM-ick) is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics, which are seen in arguments on controversial topics. A person who writes polemics, or speaks polemically, is called a polemicist. The word derives from Ancient Greek πολεμικός (polemikos) 'warlike, hostile', from πόλεμος (polemos) 'war'.

Polemics often concern questions in religion or politics. A polemical style of writing was common in Ancient Greece, as in the writings of the historian Polybius. Polemic again became common in medieval and early modern times. Since then, famous polemicists have included satirist Jonathan Swift, Italian physicist and mathematician Galileo, French theologian Jean Calvin, French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire, Russian author Leo Tolstoy, socialist philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, novelist George Orwell, playwright George Bernard Shaw, communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, linguist Noam Chomsky, social critics H. L. Mencken, Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens, and existential philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Thane (/ˈθeɪn/; Scottish Gaelic: taidhn) was the title given to a local royal official in medieval eastern Scotland, equivalent in rank to the son of an earl, who was at the head of an administrative and socio-economic unit known as a thanedom or thanage.

The gastraphetes (Koine Greek: γαστραφέτης, lit. 'belly-releaser'), also called belly bow or belly shooter, was a hand-held crossbow used by the Ancient Greeks. It was described in the 1st century by the Greek author Heron of Alexandria in his work Belopoeica, which draws on an earlier account of the famous Greek engineer Ctesibius (fl. 285–222 BC). Heron identifies the gastraphetes as the forerunner of the later catapult, which places its invention some unknown time before c. 420 BC.

Unlike later Roman and medieval crossbows, spanning the weapon was not done by pulling up the string but by pushing down a slider mechanism.

Hieronymus Wolf (13 August 1516 – 8 October 1580) was a sixteenth-century German historian and humanist, most famous for introducing a system of Roman historiography that eventually became the standard in works of medieval Byzantine history.

The Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Georgia (Georgian: საქართველოს სამოციქულო ავტოკეფალური მართლმადიდებელი ეკლესია, romanized: sakartvelos samotsikulo avt'ok'epaluri martlmadidebeli ek'lesia), commonly known as the Georgian Orthodox Church or the Orthodox Church of Georgia, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with the other churches of Eastern Orthodoxy. It is Georgia's dominant religious institution, and a majority of Georgian people are members. The Orthodox Church of Georgia is one of the oldest churches in the world. It asserts apostolic foundation, and that its historical roots can be traced to the early and late Christianization of Iberia and Colchis by Andrew the Apostle in the 1st century AD and by Saint Nino in the 4th century AD, respectively. As in similar autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, the church's highest governing body is the holy synod of bishops. The church is headed by the Patriarch of All Georgia, Ilia II, who was elected in 1977.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity was the state religion throughout most of Georgia's history until 1921, when the country, having declared independence from Russia in 1918, was occupied by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Georgia, becoming part of the Soviet Union. The current Constitution of Georgia recognizes the special role of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the country's history, but also stipulates the independence of the church from the state. Government relations are further defined and regulated by the Concordat of 2002.

Edmund Blair Leighton ROI (21 September 1852 – 1 September 1922) was an English painter of historical genre scenes, specialising in Regency and medieval subjects. His art is associated with the pre-Raphaelite movement of the mid-to-late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though his artwork is less stylised and much more naturalistic.

In Greek mythology, Python (Greek: Πύθων; gen. Πύθωνος) was the serpent, sometimes represented as a medieval-style dragon, living at the center of the Earth, believed by the ancient Greeks to be at Delphi.

The medieval renaissances were periods of cultural renewal across medieval Western Europe. These are effectively seen as occurring in three phases - the Carolingian Renaissance (8th and 9th centuries), Ottonian Renaissance (10th century) and the Renaissance of the 12th century.

The term was first used by medievalists in the 19th century, by analogy with the historiographical concept of the 15th and 16th century Italian Renaissance. This was notable since it marked a break with the dominant historiography of the time, which saw the Middle Ages as a Dark Age. The term has always been a subject of debate and criticism, particularly on how widespread such renewal movements were and on the validity of comparing them with the Renaissance of the Post-Medieval Early modern period.