Metz in the context of "University of Lorraine"

Lorraine is a historical area of Eastern France that today falls within the administrative region of Grand Est. It was the medieval kingdom called Lotharingia (855–959 AD), after Emperor Lothair I or King Lothair II, which extended further north and came to be ruled by the Holy Roman Empire as the Duchy of Lorraine, before the Kingdom of France annexed it in 1766.

From 1982 until January 2016, Lorraine was an administrative region of France. In 2016, under a reorganisation, it became part of the new region Grand Est. As a region in modern France, Lorraine consisted of the four departments Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges (from a historical point of view the Haute-Marne department is also located in the region), containing 2,337 communes. Metz is the regional prefecture. The largest metropolitan area of Lorraine is Nancy, which was the seat of the duchy for centuries.

Pottery was produced in enormous quantities in ancient Rome, mostly for utilitarian purposes. It is found all over the former Roman Empire and beyond. Monte Testaccio is a huge waste mound in Rome made almost entirely of broken amphorae used for transporting and storing liquids and other products – in this case probably mostly Spanish olive oil, which was landed nearby, and was the main fuel for lighting, as well as its use in the kitchen and washing in the baths.

It is usual to divide Roman domestic pottery broadly into coarse wares and fine wares, the former being the everyday pottery jars, dishes and bowls that were used for cooking or the storage and transport of foods and other goods, and in some cases also as tableware, and which were often made and bought locally. Fine wares were serving vessels or tableware used for more formal dining, and are usually of more decorative and elegant appearance. Some of the most important of these were made at specialised pottery workshops, and were often traded over substantial distances, not only within, but also between, different provinces of the Roman Empire. For example, dozens of different types of British coarse and fine wares were produced locally, yet many other classes of pottery were also imported from elsewhere in the Empire. The manufacture of fine wares such as terra sigillata took place in large workshop complexes that were organised along industrial lines and produced highly standardised products that lend themselves well to precise and systematic classification.

The Golden Bull of 1356 was a decree issued by the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg and Metz (Diet of Metz, 1356/57) headed by the Emperor Charles IV which fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, important aspects of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire. It was named the Golden Bull for the golden seal it carried.

In June 2013, the Golden Bull was included in the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

Verdun (/vɜːrˈdʌn/ vur-DUN, UK also /ˈvɛərdʌn/ VAIR-dun; US also /vɛərˈdʌn/ vair-DUN; French: [vɛʁdœ̃] ; official name before 1970: Verdun-sur-Meuse) is a city in the Meuse department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department.

In 843, the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms—considered the foundation of Germany and France—was signed there. An episcopal principality of the Holy Roman Empire since the 10th century, Verdun was subjugated by France in 1552, during the "Voyage to Austrasia". Along with the other free cities of the Empire, Metz and Toul, it formed the province of the Three Bishoprics, which was attached to the Kingdom of France in 1648 by the Treaty of Münster.

Paul the Deacon (c. 720s – 13 April 799) was a Lombard monk, historian, and scholar whose works were widely used throughout the early Middle Ages. Best known for the Historia Langobardorum, a narrative of Lombard origins and migrations, he is one of the most significant early medieval historians of Italy. Paul was educated in the Lombard kingdom and later became active within the intellectual circles of Charlemagne’s court, where he contributed to the broader scholarly activity associated with the Carolingian Renaissance.

In addition to his historical writings, Paul produced a continuation of Eutropius’s Breviarium, a collection of homilies for the Frankish church, a history of the bishops of Metz, poems and epitaphs, and an epitome of Festus’s De verborum significatu. His works drew on a wide range of classical, patristic, and early medieval sources and circulated extensively in monastic and ecclesiastical settings. Through both his Lombard identity and his Carolingian patronage, Paul played an important role in shaping the historical and literary culture of the eighth and ninth centuries.

Paul-Marie Verlaine (/vɛərˈlɛn/ vair-LEN; French: [pɔl maʁi vɛʁlɛn]; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet, writer and critic associated with the Symbolist, Parnassianist, and Decadent movements. He is considered one of the paramount exponents of the fin de siècle in French and international poetry.

Born in Metz to a petit-bourgeois family, Verlaine bore a lifelong interest in the arts, whether literary, musical or visual. His début collection, Poèmes saturniens (1866), were released at the age of twenty-two; they were published by Alphonse Lemerre. Verlaine's tempestuous sexual relationship with young poet Arthur Rimbaud (ten years his junior and under eighteen years, and while he himself had a wife and infant son), a member of the Zutistes, aroused great controversy; the couple peregrinated throughout England and Belgium until their split in 1873, which was caused by him wounding Rimbaud with a revolver. Following trial, Verlaine was sentenced to two years in prison for battery and sodomy. During his sentence, Verlaine reverted to practising Catholicism and composed Sagesse (published 1880), Jadis et naguère (published 1884) and Parallèlement (published 1889). As his reputation grew, he became increasingly haunted by guilt and paranoia, lapsing into depression, alcohol and chemical abuse and disease, culminating in his death in Paris from acute pneumonia.

Midnight is the transition time from one day to the next – the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular jurisdiction. By clock time, midnight is the opposite of noon, differing from it by 12 hours.

Solar midnight is the time opposite to solar noon, when the Sun is closest to the nadir, and the night is equidistant from sunset and sunrise. Due to the advent of time zones, which regularize time across a range of meridians, and daylight saving time, solar midnight rarely coincides with 12 midnight on the clock. Solar midnight depends on longitude and time of the year rather than on time zone. In ancient Roman timekeeping, midnight was halfway between dusk and dawn (i.e., solar midnight), varying according to the seasons.