Age of Absolutism

    A government that is based on an absolute monarch is what we call Absolutism.  The King James I reading on the Divine Right of Kings states valuable information on absolutism.  According to James I, the scriptures consider kings as gods, they are like a father to a family and like the brain to a body.  According to the reading, kings are the human form of gods since they act like like gods, “In the Scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the divine power.”   The decision of life and death is put in the hands of a king, just like it would be with a god.  Questioning a king is just like questioning a god which is why it is not accepted in King James’ society.  Due to these assumptions about kings, King James informs his Parliament to not do certain things.  He is not to be told how to do his job, he can handle his position of authority by himself and doesn’t need the help of his people.  They are also not allowed to question his right to be king since it is a right he has received from his predecessors.  if it were a good enough right for them than it is a good enough right for himself.  Finally, the Parliament may not ask him for items or deeds that they know can not be given.  these are King James’ priorities that must be followed through in order to have a civilized community.

    Maria Theresa shows a great deal of absolutism.  She was the first woman to rule over the Holy Roman Empire and had great success.  Born in Vienna, Austria Maria showed a great deal of power by ruler kingdoms such as Bohemia, Hungary, Austria and the Holy Roman Empire.  Maria Theresa had a powerful army that fought in battle which is an important feature of absolutism.  She also limited the power of nobility's and church officials by discriminating Jews and making peasants pay taxes.  Another feature of absolutism she showed was her ability to make laws.  Maria attempted to restrict government expenses, regulate taxes and create a new penal code and humanitarian laws to help the poor.  Maria Theresa showed great power and exemplified an absolute monarch.

    In my opinion, Maria Theresa was both a good and bad leader.  She did exemplify an absolute monarch, but only in some ways.  Maria did not show off her wealth a lot and was more caring than courageous.  Though she did show great confidence which made her powerful.  Maria Theresa may have had negative impacts on the society but overall she was a good leader.  Being the first woman to rule is a big part of why I believe this.  The fact that she was able to rule for forty years is a great achievement and should be recognized which is why she was a good leader.

mystery of Roanoke island

         This conversation is between a member of the crew who found the deserted island and a person back in England.  The man who found the empty island tells the man in England that they found nothing and the other man responds in shock.  The two men then hypothesis what could have happened to the people.  They use the evidence that was found such as, there were only books left and no cross was found.  They first come up with the theory that the people had just moved away.  But in conclusion their theory is that the people were captured by natives.  The men then discuss how they regret not visiting the island for the past three years and then the conversation ends.

text conversation:

http://www.classtools.net/SMS/27_MdaeWB  

The Printing Press

 The Printing Press

The printing press had a huge effect on communication in Europe.  Before this device was invented, books had to written out one by one.  Only about 30,000 books were created per year.  They were expensive to produce and had many errors.  Since there was not a large amount of books, not many people were literate.  Once the printing press was created everything changed.  About 12 million books were produced each year which made more people literate.  Books were less expensive and easier to  manufacture.  This effective piece of machinery brought ease to Europe and was the start of new creations.

My name is Catherine of Aragon and I am King Henry VIII’s first wife.  For twenty years I lived a good marriage with my husband but when he wanted a son things turned around.  I am a catholic and it is against my religion to divorce.  My husband wants a son that I can’t give him so he’s decided to end our marriage and marry Anne Boleyn, his lover.  The pope will not allow Henry to have an annulment so he is proceeding to start his own religion.  I thought I had a solid marriage with my husband, but since we only have a daughter he can’t live with me anymore.  Henry is going through all this work to start a new religion just so he can divorce me.  Struggling with worshipping the Catholic church and dealing with my husband is frustrating.  I disagree with my husband’s beliefs and I cannot believe that he is just going to leave me.  I am going to be the good citizen I am and follow my religion.  I don’t know how I’ll end up but I won’t turn away from the Catholic church since it is what we are told to do.  

   

Columbus's True Legecy

       Was Christopher Columbus really who we think he was?  This is the man who discovered America on October 12th, 1492.  He believed that the location he landed on was India the whole time he was alive.  Columbus has the impression of being a kind, amazing man, but in reality he was kind of a jerk.  He had many demands called the Book of Privileges.  These consisted of becoming knighted, being appointed Admiral of the Ocean Sea, becoming governor of the new lands and having 10% of the wealth discovered.  Christopher Columbus had accumulated much wealth but soon he began to fear that he would lose it all.  This was because he was arrested for mistreating the Indies.  When Columbus discovered the new world he didn’t treat the natives very pleasantly.  He would order them around, take their gold, and eventually made the slaves.  Columbus looked at the natives as people who were just living, they weren’t really human to him and he considered them irrational.  Columbus may had made a huge discovery, but should we really be celebrating a day for a man who mistreated innocent people?

       No, Cristopher Columbus does not deserve to have a holiday celebrated for him since he wasn’t a good man.  Columbus did make history, which is very important.  Although he also treated people with disrespect and was boastful.  He demanded many privileges and didn’t think of people before he thought of himself.  Besides, does anybody really celebrate this holiday?  We do get the day of and get to sleep in, but there is no ritual performed on this day.  It’s just like having a day off from work, the majority of people probably don’t even think about Columbus on this day.  If this holiday had a major significance then yes it’d be reasonable to celebrate.  Just because America was discovered on this day doesn’t mean it should be celebrated.     

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Scietific Revolution

     During the scientific revolution how did people change the way they thought about nature?  Why are these changes difficult for the Roman Catholic Church and other traditional scholars to except?  Throughout this time. Many different things were discovered to improve the way science went about. These things included the scientific method which is a method that categorizes science. The order to this method is to first state the problem, then gather information, next form a hypothesis, then experiment, record and analyze your data, state your conclusion and finally repeat all the steps.  Robert Boyle was one of the first to use the scientific method, he used this method by making observations.  Scientist such as Copernicus and Galileo used astronomy in their discoveries. They studied the sky to figure out how our solar system works.  Galileo created the telescope to observe the sky.  The theories that he made were different from what the Roman Catholic Church told people. Since he was disagreeing with the church he was found guilty of heresy and was punished.  The church acted in such a strict way because they felt threatened. They had to make an example of him so others wouldn’t try to challenge church like he did. They need people to believe that the church had all power and other people can't take control over what the society should believe.  The church also disliked Leonardo Da Vinci because of the way he worked.  Leonardo dissected human corpses to study the anatomy of bodies. The church didn’t find it right that he dissected these bodies.They were very controlling and strict and did not approve of most actions.  Robert Boyle was one of the men who wasn’t hated by the church.  Along with using the scientific method he also founded modern chemistry. He was even the first to bottle gases which was a huge discovery.  Even though most of these discoveries were not approved, they were still accepted by other citizens in Europe.

     Hello, I am a devoted Catholic and I'm just hearing about the discoveries of Da Vinci, Salluce, and Harvey. In my opinion dissecting bodies is a good idea. It's the only way to really know what goes on in the human body. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't have the right to deny the ways that scientist go about their discoveries. They sometimes get a little too strict in my opinion. Even though I am devoted to their religion and I am a Catholic, I still disagree with the way the Church handles the scientist in Europe.  Dissecting bodies is helping the scientific community.  The church is getting too powerful these days, I know I should not be saying stuff like this but it is my true opinion. Scientist should have the right to experiment the way that they need to.

          The essential question of this activity is, how did wealth in Flournce lead to new art and ideas during the Renaissance?  Our class did many activities to find the answer to this question.  We read and analyzed articles that included information about the Medici Family.  This family was very rich because they had a bank and was involved with Pope.  Cosomo de'Medici was considered the "ruler" of Flourence.  He controlled the city and provided people with loans.  He was a patronage towards Filippo Brunelleschi while he created the dome.  Some articles also talked about why Machiavelli wrote The Prince.  The answer to this is question is because he needed people to know how to be a proper ruler.  This writing was basically a guide line to being a good ruler.  We also played a game that showed us what would happen to a person in different senarios.  This helped us understand what life was like being a painter.  We also defined vocabulary words such as patronage, which is a person who supports someone, or something, by giving money to them.  All of these activities helped us find the answer to the given question.

        It is very important for a prince to spend all of his time studying the art of war.  This is because the Prince's duties are to only focus on the art.  If they do not then society will fall apart.  A prince must be fully focused on his duties in order for the society to run smoothly.  A prince could gain a higher rank by knowing the art so well.  If he were to become lazy about understanding the art his rank could become less important.  He would have to fend for himself if his rank were to become lower.  These consequences are dangerous which is why a Prince's full attention has to be on the art of war.

         I do agree with Machiavelli.  When a person is given specific duties to follw, those should be his only priorities.  In order for the task to be completed, the persons full attention must be dedicated towards it.  This way the commitment will be completed correctly.  If one were to slack off, th results of the task would not be the best that they could have been.  Leaders do not use this philosophy today.  I think this because there never seems to be a person who is only comited to a certain responsibility.  They may be very dedicated but they still focus on different subjects ewhen they should be focusing on the most important one.  For example, The president doesn't have just one task to complete.  He has multiple which means that he can't dedicate all his time to just one.  Yes, it isn't possible to do that but so problems should be enforced more than others,which is not happening.  The world would be more organized if certain people focused on one thing at a time and made that thing the best that it could be.