Pride

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Gregory VII. actualized this politico-ecclesiastical system more fully than any previous pope, and as far as human energy and prudence would admit. The glory of the Church was the all-controlling passion of his life. He held fast to it in the darkest hours, and he was greatest in adversity. Of earlier popes, Nicolas I. and Leo I. came nearest to him in lofty pretensions. But in him papal absolutism assumed flesh and blood. He was every inch a pope. He anticipated the Vatican system of 1870; in one point he fell short of it, in another point he went beyond it. He did not claim infallibility in theory, though he assumed it in fact; but he did claim and exercise, as far as he could, an absolute authority over the temporal powers of Christendom, which the popes have long since lost, and can never regain. Hildebrand was convinced that, however unworthy personally, he was, in his official character, the successor of Peter, and as such the vicar of Christ in the militant Church.30 He entirely identified himself with Peter as the head of the apostolic college, and the keeper of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; but he forgot that in temporal affairs Peter was an humble subject under a hostile government, and exhorted the Christians to honor the king (1 Pet. 2:17) at a time when a Nero sat on the throne. He constantly appealed to the famous words of Christ, Matt. 16:18, 19, as if they were said to himself. The pope inherits the lofty position of Peter. He is the Rock of the Church. He is the universal bishop, a title against which the first Gregory protested as an anti-Christian presumption. He is intrusted with the care of all Christendom (including the Greek Church, which never acknowledged him). He has absolute and final jurisdiction, and is responsible only to God, and to no earthly tribunal. He alone can depose and reinstate bishops, and his legates take precedence of all bishops. He is the supreme arbiter in questions of right and wrong in the whole Christian world. He is above all earthly sovereigns. He can wear the imperial insignia. He can depose kings and emperors, and absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance to unworthy sovereigns. These and similar claims are formulated in a document of twenty-seven brief propositions preserved among Gregory’s letters, which are of doubtful genuineness, but correctly express his views,31 and in a famous letter to Hermann, bishop of Metz.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  158 Lecture 22: The Court of Justinian and Byzantine Christianity In effect, through his uncle and on his own, Justinian exercised imperial power for 47 years. o He married a much younger woman named Theodora in 525. Procopius claims she was a former prostitute, but given his general hostility toward her, the information must be taken with caution. She proved to be a formidable power at Justinian’s side. o Justinian faced severe difficulties from the start of his reign: the loss of the western empire, the threat of the Persian (Sassanid) Empire at his eastern borders, the revolt of city factions against him in 532, and being personally afflicted with the plague in 540. Yet his great energy and his ambition drove him to significant accomplishment. • Justinian’s ambition was nothing less than to restore the former greatness of the Roman Empire through conquest, organization, and adornment; his ambition was abetted by a willingness to exercise supreme rule and to concentrate all control in himself, as well as the personal traits that accompany political greatness. o On the positive side, Justinian was brilliant, courageous, tireless, tough, and bold. Examples include his marrying and sharing power with Theodora and his brilliant commissioning and efficient construction of the great church Hagia Sophia. o On the negative side, he was ruthless and cruel. Witness the slaughter of his foes in the Nika rebellion or the blinding of General Belisarius in later life out of jealousy. o His religious disposition was sincere and grew stronger as he aged; his commitment to Nicaean Christianity went hand in hand with the willingness to suppress other traditions. The Restoration of Roman Greatness • By concentrating all power in himself yet making use of superb generals and administrators, Justinian went a long way at the political level toward restoring the greatness of Rome.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  158 Lecture 22: The Court of Justinian and Byzantine Christianity In effect, through his uncle and on his own, Justinian exercised imperial power for 47 years. o He married a much younger woman named Theodora in 525. Procopius claims she was a former prostitute, but given his general hostility toward her, the information must be taken with caution. She proved to be a formidable power at Justinian’s side. o Justinian faced severe difficulties from the start of his reign: the loss of the western empire, the threat of the Persian (Sassanid) Empire at his eastern borders, the revolt of city factions against him in 532, and being personally afflicted with the plague in 540. Yet his great energy and his ambition drove him to significant accomplishment. • Justinian’s ambition was nothing less than to restore the former greatness of the Roman Empire through conquest, organization, and adornment; his ambition was abetted by a willingness to exercise supreme rule and to concentrate all control in himself, as well as the personal traits that accompany political greatness. o On the positive side, Justinian was brilliant, courageous, tireless, tough, and bold. Examples include his marrying and sharing power with Theodora and his brilliant commissioning and efficient construction of the great church Hagia Sophia. o On the negative side, he was ruthless and cruel. Witness the slaughter of his foes in the Nika rebellion or the blinding of General Belisarius in later life out of jealousy. o His religious disposition was sincere and grew stronger as he aged; his commitment to Nicaean Christianity went hand in hand with the willingness to suppress other traditions. The Restoration of Roman Greatness • By concentrating all power in himself yet making use of superb generals and administrators, Justinian went a long way at the political level toward restoring the greatness of Rome.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Since he had a shrewd head on his shoulders, Canigiano quickly saw what was to be done, and explained his plan to Salabaetto, who, thinking it an excellent idea, set about putting it into effect. He still had a little money of his own, and supplementing this with a loan from Canigiano, he ordered a number of bales of merchandise to be packed and tightly corded up, and having purchased and filled about a score of oil-casks, he loaded the entire consignment aboard a ship and returned to Palermo. There he presented the invoice for the bales to the officers of the dogana, to whom he also declared the value of the casks, and having made sure that they had registered everything under his own name, he placed the goods in store, saying that he wished to leave them there until the arrival of a further consignment of merchandise he was expecting. On learning of his return and hearing that the goods he had brought were worth two thousand gold florins at the very least, without counting the goods still to come, which were valued at more than three thousand, Madonna Jancofiore, thinking she had set her sights too low, decided to repay him the five hundred florins so that she could get her claws on the greater portion of the five thousand, and sent word that she would like to see him. When Salabaetto called upon her, she pretended to know nothing of the merchandise he had brought and gave him the warmest of welcomes, saying: ‘Listen, my love; in case you were angry with me for not paying you back that money of yours punctually–’ But Salabaetto, having profited from his earlier mistakes, laughed and said: ‘To tell the truth, my lady, I was very little displeased, for I would pluck the very heart from my body and give it to you, if I thought it would make you happy. But I should like you to judge for yourself how angry I am with you. So great and so particular is the love I bear you, that I have sold the greater part of my possessions, and now I have brought with me to Palermo a consignment of goods worth over two thousand florins. Moreover, I am expecting a further consignment from the West worth more than three thousand, and I intend to start a business in Palermo and settle here for good, for I consider myself more fortunate in loving you than any other lover in the world.’

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  It was a Friday night and there was a line of people outside waiting to get in. The bouncers were very picky about who they let in on weekends, and would send your ass home if they thought you weren’t dressed the right way. I gave a bouncer named Freddy dap and proceeded through the glass door. Though I was technically properly dressed, the normal rules didn’t apply to me. I was a regular at Mochas. Everyone knew Chocolate. It was just after one in the morning so the spot was in full swing. There were beautiful women, single and in groups, scattered around the lounge, and thirsty men trying to pump them full of alcohol. I paused by the bar and scanned the crowd for my partners. It didn’t take long for me to spot them; sitting on a love seat near the DJ booth, trying to charm a group of young ladies out of their panties. These niggaz thought they had game, but they knew who the real Don was. As I made my way across the room all eyes were on me. I nodded to a few of the guys I knew and flashed smiles at some of the bitches I had fucked. A time or two I caught sight of some nameless female that I’d probably slept with but hardly remembered, trying to get my attention, but I acted like I didn’t see them. I didn’t feel like the headache. All I wanted to do was have some drinks with my boys and chill. I had almost made it over to where my friends were sitting when my path was suddenly blocked. The brazen young thing had yellow skin, and wore her hair in a straight weave. I knew her angelic face, but for the life of me couldn’t remember her name. Her ass was plump, but not large. Just enough to where it looked good. She stared at me with her bright green eyes and waited for me to say something. Since I knew that’s what she wanted, I remained silent. “You can’t speak, Chocolate?” Ms. Green Eyes asked. The sound of her sweet voice reminded me of a string quartet. “What’s happening, baby?” I grinned, but was careful not to give her a full smile. Though I would’ve liked nothing more than to take her in the bathroom and slam her pussy, I couldn’t seem too thirsty. I was Chocolate, and like the rest, this bitch would recognize. “Oh, you on it like that? You can fuck me in a park, and then act like you don’t know a bitch?” My groin tingled as my mental Rolodex finally placed her.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  Both were created through the eighth and ninth centuries against a wider background of steadily more bitter tensions between Western and Eastern Christianity (see Chapter 10); that gulf remained when the issues moved on. [51] The Emperor was fascinated by the Roman imperial heritage he had annexed. He filched columns from imperial Ravenna to decorate his stately new Palace chapel at Aachen (from which its French name, Aix-la-Chapelle, is derived); he bathed nude in the hot springs of Aachen as a good Roman gentleman would have done, and in his last years he issued a most remarkable coinage, meticulously imitating Roman coins from more than half a millennium earlier, bearing a portrait bust of himself depicted in a thoroughly un-Frankish manner, laurel-wreathed and clean-shaven. [52] Yet this was a Christian Roman Empire; among Charlemagne’s favourite books (read aloud to him for relaxation) were Augustine’s great meditation on the divine shaping of world history, The City of God , and the writings of Bede on history, angels and much more. The Emperor’s energetic programme of codifying law for his empire compared him with God’s ancient ministers Moses and King Josiah of Judah. This enterprise of rediscovering the Graeco-Roman world and interpreting it for a new age is just as worthy of being termed a ‘Renaissance’ as later convulsions of cultural excitement in the twelfth century and in fourteenth-century Italy; it was the recovery of a culture and a language that were in severe decay through most of Europe. [53] Annexing the Classical and Christian past like this demanded that the Empire should conserve what remained of its literature, and then expand on it with new explorations. A vital part of the multiform programme that Charlemagne launched was the copying of manuscripts, so alarmingly neglected since the mid-sixth century. He even sponsored a new Latin script to produce easily readable texts reproduced with relative speed; it is now known as ‘Carolingian minuscule’, a direct ancestor of the typeface employed in modern printed books such as this. [54] This mammoth task, which saved the collective memory of the Latin West from further loss, would absorb the time of countless professional scribes, and the most readily available source of such specialist labour was the monastery, or indeed the nunnery. Anglo-Saxon monastic life as created by 700 was at the height of its self-confidence and creativity and provided a model for the new monastic culture in mainland Europe. It is remarkable that such a latecomer to Latinity as the Anglo-Saxon Church should become one of the chief energies behind the recovery of idiomatic high-level Latin for speaking and writing, and one of the most honoured scholars of the Carolingian court was a late product of that energy, Alcuin of York ( c .735–804), who is likely to have been the source of the Emperor’s interest in Bede.

• From The Girls (2016)

  It had happened, after all, and I kept up a vivid catalog of happy data: the fact that I was sitting beside Suzanne, our friendly silence. My perverse pride that I’d been with Russell. I took pleasure in replaying the facts of the act, even the messy and boring parts. The odd lulls while Russell made himself hard. There was some power in the bluntness of human functions. Like Russell had explained to me: your body could hurtle you past your hang-ups, if you let it. Suzanne smoked steadily as she drove, occasionally offering her cigarette to me with serene ritual. The quiet between us wasn’t slack or uncomfortable. Outside the car, olive trees flashed by, the scorched summer earth. Far-off waterways, sloughing to the sea. Suzanne kept changing the radio station until she abruptly snapped it off. “We need gas,” she announced. We, I echoed silently, we need gas. Suzanne pulled into the Texaco, empty except for a teal-and-white pickup towing a boat trailer. “Hand me a card,” Suzanne said. Nodding at the glove box. I scrambled to open it, loosing a jumble of credit cards. All with different names. “The blue one,” she said. She seemed impatient. When I handed her the card, she saw my confusion. “People give them to us,” she said. “Or we take them.” She fingered the blue card. “Like this one is Donna’s. She lifted it from her mom.” “Her mom’s gas card?” “Saved our ass—we would’ve starved,” Suzanne said. She gave me a look. “Like you hustling that toilet paper, right?” I flushed at the mention. Maybe she’d known I had lied, but I couldn’t tell from her shuttered face—maybe not. “Besides,” she continued, “it’s better than what they’d do with it—more crap, more stuff, more me, me, me. Russell’s trying to help people. He’s not judgmental, that’s not his trip. He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor.” It made a kind of sense, what Suzanne was saying. They were just trying to equalize the forces in the world. “It’s ego,” she went on, leaning against the car but keeping a sharp eye on the gas gauge: none of them ever filled up a tank more than a quarter full. “Money is ego, and people won’t give it up. Just want to protect themselves, hold on to it like a blanket. They don’t realize it keeps them slaves. It’s sick.” She laughed. “What’s funny is that as soon as you give everything away, as soon as you say, Here, take it—that’s when you really have everything.” One of the group had been detained for dumpster diving on a garbage run, and Suzanne was incensed, recounting the story as she pulled the car back onto the road. “More and more stores get wise to it. Bullshit,” she said. “They throw something away and they still want it. That’s America.” “That is bullshit.” The tone of the word was strange in my mouth. “We’ll figure something out. Soon.” She glanced in the rearview.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  The Maccabean rebels suffered terribly in fighting him, but they succeeded in returning Judaea to a native dynasty descended from heroes in the liberation struggle; known from an earlier ancestor as the Hasmoneans, they ruled as high priests for the Jerusalem Temple. Though the Hasmonean monarchy proved to be the last Judaean experience of prolonged independence in the ancient world, it was an extraordinary achievement against a great power: a victory to cherish, reinforcing the sense of a unique Judaic destiny and distinctiveness in God’s purpose. The Hasmoneans remained a significant regional force in the eastern Mediterranean for a century until conquered by a new imperial power arriving from far to the west of Judaea’s previous overlords. When the Hasmoneans first encountered the Roman Republic in the second century BCE , Rome was still a far-away city, a potential ally against their threatening neighbours. By 63 BCE , the Roman army’s invasion of Judaea was part of its mopping-up operations around Rome’s real prizes, the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires. Roman conquest led to a further Jewish Diaspora into the western Mediterranean: the Jewish community in Rome was one of the first to be affected by Christian activism in the first century CE . In 37 BCE , looking for a compliant local ruler for Judaea but finding no convincing Hasmonean candidate, the Romans displaced the last Hasmonean and replaced him with a relative by marriage, who reigned for more than three decades. Their choice, an outsider from the land of Edom (which the Romans called Idumea) south of Judaea, was Herod I, ‘the Great’. Herod rebuilt the Second Temple as one of the largest sacred complexes in the ancient world; its remnants still impress by their monumentality. Yet his subjects gave him little thanks, and self-conscious Judaean upholders of purity in God’s Covenant were angered by Herod’s Greek-style innovations such as public sporting contests (male nudity always a possibility), gladiatorial combats or horse-racing in newly built arenas. [4] After Herod’s death in 4 BCE , his sons divided the extensive territories that the first Roman emperor Augustus had allowed the puppet king to build up. For more than a century thereafter, and during the life of Jesus, Rome experimented with a mixture of indirect rule through various members of the Herodian family and, for parts of Judaea, direct imperial control through a Roman official.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  Intervening in a long-standing debate in the Church about how often laypeople should receive the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine when attending Mass, he recommended as frequent reception as possible. In 1907 he further decreed that the minimum age for a first communion should be lowered from twelve or fourteen years to seven. Now this ‘First Communion’ became a new piece of charming theatre for young children dressed in appropriately innocent finery, with their putatively adoring parents looking on. This innovation in Catholic folk-culture liturgically affirmed family life in the local parish church: it is a fixture now, though so comparatively recent in origin. [37] The Roman Catholic Church as it had evolved by the beginning of the twentieth century might be considered the unwanted but spectacularly successful child of the French Revolution. For all its rhetoric of tradition and its campaign against Modernism, it was a new creation, rebuilt out of the trauma and lack of leadership of 1800. It followed newly constricted doctrinal paths backed by the restored prestige and authority of its celibate clergy, against the backdrop of vigorous numerical growth across the world aided by all the possibilities of communication that technological advance offered. Memories of both the Enlightenment and Revolution combined with the Papacy’s new self-confidence in its teaching role to determine how it would face a host of fresh challenges to Christian life and belief. Not all have concerned sex, but many do. During the same period the rival heirs of medieval Western Christianity, Protestants of all varieties, produced their own solutions to these same questions, equally played out on a global stage.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  122 Lecture 17: The Emergence of Patriarchal Centers o Each of these cities had its own claims to importance within Christian history, and each was eager to emphasize that importance. The practice of competition among Greek and Roman cities was common, as attested by the orations of Dio Chrysostom to the cities of Asia Minor, which fought to be “number one” in their region. The Primacy of Rome • After the loss of the symbolic first city of Jerusalem—the place where the Christian movement started—the primacy of Rome (and the bishop of Rome) was broadly recognized in the early centuries, though this primacy did not at first bear the sense of administrative authority. Jerusalem itself was recognized as one of the patriarchates, but its position was strictly honorary, and it was not a player in subsequent rivalries. • An important dimension of Rome’s primacy was the position ascribed to Peter in the New Testament compositions and Peter’s connection to Rome. o In the Gospels, Peter is the chief spokesman among the disciples, the one who recognized something of Jesus’s identity before the others. The “confession of Peter” is found in all the Gospels in one form or another and is most elaborated by Matthew, which has Jesus respond with the declaration that he will build his church on the rock who is Peter. Although he betrayed Jesus before his death—also reported by all the Gospels—Peter is the primary witness of the Resurrection, both in the Gospel narratives and as listed by Paul. The “confession of Peter” (“You are the messiah”) is found in all the Gospels; in the Gospel of matthew, Jesus responds by declaring that Peter is the rock on which he will build his church. © iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  59 • Although supposedly directed to outsiders, such apologetic literature played an important role in shaping Jewish identity, by portraying the tradition in terms understandable to the wider world. • In the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles has many of the elements of apologetic literature: “The way” is portrayed as benevolent and nonthreatening to the social order. Luke tries to show that the Christian movement is continuous with Israel and is philanthropic in character. • The Christian literature termed “apologetic” in the 2 nd and 3 rd centuries shared certain features. o The device of addressing the emperor was probably fictional, though it is possible that a reading by authorities might occur. o A consistent feature—one not likely to endear the movement to Gentiles—was an attack on idolatry, that is, the religious practices of the larger world. o Positively, a case would be made for the legal innocence of Christians and the injustice of persecuting them. The Emergence of Intellectual Self-Consciousness • By casting convictions in language intelligible to the wider world, apologetic literature contributed to the development of a sense within Christianity of having a place in that wider world and created a reasoned case for the religious movement. • An anonymous composition from the 2 nd or early 3rd century called the Letter to Diognetus emphasizes the idea that Christians are like their neighbors in every respect but bring benefit by being the “soul of the world.” • Before his martyrdom in 165, Justin wrote a first apology addressed to Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, a second apology addressed to the Roman Senate, and a Dialogue with Trypho, defending Christian claims to a Jewish interlocutor. Justin 60 Lecture 8: Forms of Witness—martyrdom and apologetic portrayed Christianity as the best of philosophies, summing up the best desires of Gentile and Jewish wisdom. • The brilliant Carthaginian convert Tertullian was trained in law, and his Apology of 197, written in Latin, appeals for the legal toleration of Christianity. Tertullian argues that Christians are highly moral and benefactors to society, even as he attacked the religious mores of Gentiles. • The lengthiest and most intellectually sophisticated apology was written by Origen of Alexandria at the beginning of the 3 rd century. In the eight books of Against Celsus, he responds vigorously to the attacks made on Christianity by the Greek philosopher. In his extensive argument against Celsus, Origen demonstrated an intellectual capacity and learning equal to his interlocutor. • With the apologists of the 2 nd and 3 rd centuries, Christianity took the first steps toward intellectual self-consciousness and toward claiming a place within Greco-Roman culture—on its own terms. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century. Moss, The Other Christs.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Up onstage, Monique ignored the noise from the crowd as she did her nasty thang like she’d been born with a golden pole wedged between her legs. She slipped her hips and popped her spine the way she had practiced a thousand times before in the mirror, and it was that kind of dedication to her grind that had made her the Spot’s top moneymaker for the last two years. Monique didn’t mind the fact that all kinds of niggahs wanted to fuck her. She was proud to be the kind of freak that men just couldn’t resist. And yeah, her body was simply fuckin’ stunning. Damn right they was feenin’ for her, because what good was having the best shit on the shelf if you couldn’t make a niggah cry for it? Tonight Monique was doing one of her new ill na-na routines. She had about thirty dance acts she worked, switching the moves up every other night, and every last one of her routines kept niggahs digging deep in their pocket stash, producing guaranteed cash results each time. Some long-legged hustler sitting right up front screeched like a bitch as Monique squeezed her firm cantaloupe-sized breasts in her hands and let her red-polished fingernails flick her inch-long nipples seductively. He screamed again as she lowered her head and licked that stiff little nipple that sat smack in the middle of her upper chest, the one protruding from her tiny third breast that was round and perfect, but sat up closer to her neck than her normal breasts did, and was much, much smaller, like a twelve-year-old’s. Yeah, she thought as niggahs started whistling and wildin’ at the sight of her tongue swirling around that little tiny titty. Everybody loved a freak. And of all the things Monique could claim to be, she was a true freak-a-leek above all else. She turned her back on the crowd and popped her hips, letting her chips dip and her backbone slip. Ya’ll niggahs take a good fuckin’ look at all this chocolate birthday cake, Monique thought, clapping her thick booty cheeks and showing them flashing bits of her pink pussy and her sweet asshole. ’Cause a bitch is gonna be off this stage and paid in a minute. Straight fuckin’ paid. Niggahs moaned out loud and nutted in their drawers, but Monique couldn’t care less about their sexual satisfaction. She had thoughts of retirement on her mind, and if shit went down the way she and Pluto planned, she was about to give up the poles and become the number-one bitch at her very own strip club down in B-More.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  184 eripmE namoR yloH ot eripmE namoR morF :52 erutceL • “Popes and Franks” may sound like ballpark food, but the phrase sums up precisely the two power sources that worked to create the catholic world of the Middle Ages. Political Context: 9th to 15th Centuries • The second stage in the medieval political context begins with Charles the Great (Charlemagne, 742–814), the son of Pepin III, who is one of the most significant figures in the political and religious history of the West. • Charles was anointed as king of the Franks by Pope Stephen III in 754 and became sole heir of the kingdom in 771. He immediately engaged in a path of conquest and consolidation under his authority. o Between 771 and 799, he Charlemagne’s military triumphs conquered Lombardy, the established his authority firmly over the West; he was crowned Saxons, Bavaria, the Avars, emperor in the year 800 by Pope Pannonia, and Italy. Leo III in Rome. In 778, he crossed the Pyrenees to conquer Spain, which was o in the hands of the Muslims, and was defeated at the Battle of Roncevalles. Thirteen years later, in 801, he conquered Barcelona and made it the center of the Spanish March (a buffer zone separating the Muslim and Frankish kingdoms). • In view of these triumphs, Pope Leo III, on Christmas Day, 800, in the city of Rome, crowned Charlemagne as emperor. It was an extraordinary act, and its implication (that the Franks were the approved continuation of the Roman heritage) was not appreciated by the Byzantines. Eventually, the emperor of the West would claim the formal title of Holy Roman Emperor. .kcotsknihT/aremeH ©

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  184 Lecture 25: From Roman Empire to Holy Roman Empire • “Popes and Franks” may sound like ballpark food, but the phrase sums up precisely the two power sources that worked to create the catholic world of the Middle Ages. Political Context: 9 th to 15th Centuries • The second stage in the medieval political context begins with Charles the Great (Charlemagne, 742–814), the son of Pepin III, who is one of the most significant figures in the political and religious history of the West. • Charles was anointed as king of the Franks by Pope Stephen III in 754 and became sole heir of the kingdom in 771. He immediately engaged in a path of conquest and consolidation under his authority. o Between 771 and 799, he conquered Lombardy, the Saxons, Bavaria, the Avars, Pannonia, and Italy. o In 778, he crossed the Pyrenees to conquer Spain, which was in the hands of the Muslims, and was defeated at the Battle of Roncevalles. Thirteen years later, in 801, he conquered Barcelona and made it the center of the Spanish March (a buffer zone separating the Muslim and Frankish kingdoms). • In view of these triumphs, Pope Leo III, on Christmas Day, 800, in the city of Rome, crowned Charlemagne as emperor. It was an extraordinary act, and its implication (that the Franks were the approved continuation of the Roman heritage) was not appreciated by the Byzantines. Eventually, the emperor of the West would claim the formal title of Holy Roman Emperor. Charlemagne’s military triumphs established his authority firmly over the West; he was crowned emperor in the year 800 by Pope Leo III in Rome. © Hemera/Thinkstock.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  The Crusades Lecture 31 It can be argued that the 11th through 13th centuries represent the high water mark of the European civilization called Christendom, shaped by specifically Christian values and institutions. As much as in the monasteries with their schools and the cathedrals with their chapters, and as much as in the universities that we will talk about in the next lecture, the vibrancy and vision of this Christian society is expressed by the series of military expeditions against the Muslim occupiers of the Holy Land. The Crusades—part popular movement, part political calculation, part religious fervor—began in 1095 and extended, both literally and symbolically, for centuries. Backdrop to the Crusades • Like the building projects described in the previous lecture, the expeditions known as the Crusades expressed a new sense of power and self-confidence in “Christendom”—that is, European Christianity. In the 8th century, Europe as a whole had barely escaped o coming under Muslim rule during the great expansion of Islam that had swallowed all of the East (except Byzantium), North Africa, and Spain. Charles Martel had stopped the advance of Muslim armies at o the Battle of Tours in 732. His victory was the foundation, as we have seen, of the Frankish kingdom, the prominence of the papacy, and the feudal system that structured medieval society. • In the 11th century, the time seemed right for payback—to reverse the conquests of Islam and take back at least the places that Christians regarded as especially holy and worthy of pilgrimage. • As for an armed expedition, Christianity had long since grown comfortable with the notion of “holy war”; recall that Charlemagne, 223

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Up onstage, Monique ignored the noise from the crowd as she did her nasty thang like she’d been born with a golden pole wedged between her legs. She slipped her hips and popped her spine the way she had practiced a thousand times before in the mirror, and it was that kind of dedication to her grind that had made her the Spot’s top moneymaker for the last two years. Monique didn’t mind the fact that all kinds of niggahs wanted to fuck her. She was proud to be the kind of freak that men just couldn’t resist. And yeah, her body was simply fuckin’ stunning. Damn right they was feenin’ for her, because what good was having the best shit on the shelf if you couldn’t make a niggah cry for it? Tonight Monique was doing one of her new ill na-na routines. She had about thirty dance acts she worked, switching the moves up every other night, and every last one of her routines kept niggahs digging deep in their pocket stash, producing guaranteed cash results each time. Some long-legged hustler sitting right up front screeched like a bitch as Monique squeezed her firm cantaloupe-sized breasts in her hands and let her red-polished fingernails flick her inch-long nipples seductively. He screamed again as she lowered her head and licked that stiff little nipple that sat smack in the middle of her upper chest, the one protruding from her tiny third breast that was round and perfect, but sat up closer to her neck than her normal breasts did, and was much, much smaller, like a twelve-year-old’s. Yeah, she thought as niggahs started whistling and wildin’ at the sight of her tongue swirling around that little tiny titty. Everybody loved a freak. And of all the things Monique could claim to be, she was a true freak-a-leek above all else. She turned her back on the crowd and popped her hips, letting her chips dip and her backbone slip. Ya’ll niggahs take a good fuckin’ look at all this chocolate birthday cake, Monique thought, clapping her thick booty cheeks and showing them flashing bits of her pink pussy and her sweet asshole. ’Cause a bitch is gonna be off this stage and paid in a minute. Straight fuckin’ paid. Niggahs moaned out loud and nutted in their drawers, but Monique couldn’t care less about their sexual satisfaction. She had thoughts of retirement on her mind, and if shit went down the way she and Pluto planned, she was about to give up the poles and become the number-one bitch at her very own strip club down in B-More.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  It is possible that the office of rector goes back as far as 1200, when an official was called "the head of the Paris scholars."1292 As early as 1245 the title appears distinctly and the rector is distinguished from the proctors.1293 At a later time it was the proper custom, in communicating with the university, to address the "rector and the masters." The question of precedence as between the rector and other high dignitaries, such as the bishop and chancellor of Paris, was one which led to much dispute and elbowing. Du Boulay, himself an ex-rector, takes pride in giving instances of the rector’s outranking archbishops, cardinals, papal nuncios, peers of France, and other lesser noteworthies at public functions.1294 The faculties came to be presided over by deans, the nations by proctors. In the management of the general affairs of the university, the vote was taken by faculties. The liberties, which the university enjoyed in its earlier history, were greatly curtailed by Louis XI. and by his successors in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The university was treated to sharp rebukes for attempting to interfere with matters that did not belong to it. The right of cessation was withdrawn and the free election of the rectors denied.1295 The police of the city were invested with larger jurisdiction, and the sovereign’s will was made a controlling element. The fame of the University of Paris came from its schools of arts and theology. The college of the Sorbonne, originally a bursary for poor students of theology, afterwards gave its name to the theological department. It was founded by Robert of Sorbon, the chaplain of St. Louis, the king himself giving part of the site for its building. In the course of time, its halls came to be used for disputations, and the decisions of the faculty obtained a European reputation. Theological students of twenty-five years of age, who had studied six years, and passed an examination, were eligible for licensure as bachelors. For the first three years they read on the Bible and then on the Sentences of the Lombard. These readers were distinguished as Biblici and Sententiarii. The age limit for the doctorate was thirty-five. One of the most interesting chapters in the history of the university is the struggle over the admission of the mendicant friars in the middle of the thirteenth century. The papacy secured victory for the friars. And the unwilling university was obliged to recognize them as a part of its teaching force.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Mr. Patterson’s thick fingers strummed against his desk. Pretty picked up the pattern and bobbed his head every time he heard the thud. He wasn’t going to answer automatically. He felt the transition of power. He had something Mr. Patterson wanted. The knowledge of Mr. Patterson’s self. Mr. Patterson thought everyone loved him. He thought no one ever said anything bad about him. Sure he ran this ship like a slave one, but he gave out great Christmas gifts. He gave rewards like Scooby snacks when people met quotas. He pampered on his own time. Pretty held on to the information like an informant did to get a better deal. What was it worth to Mr. Patterson? He watched Mr. Patterson glance at him through his bluest eye. Mr. Patterson’s voice was huge. “Well?” “Tell me your proposition first.” Pretty wasn’t going to let Mr. Patterson string this proposition out for hours. He wanted to know what was going on. He needed to know the particulars. “Enough of the bullshit, Jarvis. This proposition benefits you more than it would me.” He spoke slowly, and with conviction. “What do they call me?” Pretty laughed. “Mr. Fatterson!” He fell back into his seat and awaited his response. He figured Mr. Patterson would want to know who it was. He thought Mr. Patterson would be angry and disturbed that someone would actually call him such names. Instead, Mr. Patterson chuckled loudly. “They’ve always called me that. They couldn’t think of anything new? I’ve heard that all of my life.” He patted his stomach. “Well, since I’ve grown this. A stomach doesn’t make a man, Jarvis.” Pretty laughed with him. This was the first thing they’d ever shared. And it happened to come at Mr. Patterson’s expense. “Come back to my office at exactly one-thirty if you want to hear the proposition,” he said plainly. He offered Pretty the door. He knew that he’d put enough in Pretty’s head to stimulate it. He never said what it was, and he knew that would get Pretty interested. He couldn’t run a ship so tight without being smart. • • • At one-thirty Pretty knocked twice. “Come in, Jarvis.” Pretty walked in and found Mr. Patterson standing by a makeshift bar, with a drink in hand. The shabby silver cart housed two big bottles of liquor, a long slender bottle of red wine, and three glasses: one shot glass, a wineglass, and a wide glass people used when they swirled around expensive scotch. Mr. Patterson held his glass in the air. “Scotch, Jarvis?” Pretty stopped in his tracks. He looked up toward the ceiling and searched for hidden cameras. “No, thank you. I’m good.” Mr. Patterson noticed the apprehension and walked near. “Who runs this establishment, Jarvis?” He took great pleasure in saying the name “Jarvis.” He knew he wanted to be called Pretty, but it wouldn’t be by him. Every chance he got, he would let Pretty’s government name put him in his place.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  246 Lecture 34: The Great Plague bishops, although they still relied on secular authorities to carry out their decisions. o Even more extreme, Innocent IV’s Ad extirpanda in 1252 authorized the use of torture by the inquisition, although there is no evidence of its use in the 13 th century. Those found to be heretics who repented received the same sorts of penances (fasting, pilgrimages) that other sinners would receive after confession. Serious offenders could be confined in the inquisition’s prisons and burned at the stake by secular authority; perhaps three people a year, on average, were thus executed. o The inquisition was turned against the Knights Templar by Philip IV of France in 1307 and was even used by Pope John XXII against Franciscan “spirituals” in 1318. o In the late 15 th century, Spanish rulers received permission from Sixtus IV to organize the inquisition against “Christianized Jews.” After an auto-de-fé (“act of faith”) confessing their crime, those convicted were executed. • The hostility toward, and persecution of, Jewish communities that began with the First Crusade and was expressed in the controlling laws of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215)— and the burning of the Talmud in Paris (1242)—exploded in unparalleled violence in response to the great plague: Jews became a handy scapegoat for the sudden and unexplained deaths. o Fear and hysteria were fomented by rumors of Jews’ poisoning wells or causing the plague by sacrificing Christian children. o In 1349, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne were wiped out; in the same year, 2,000 Jews were murdered in Strasbourg. In all, some 60 major Jewish centers and 150 smaller settlements were destroyed during these irrational and violent outbursts. 247 The Rise of Mysticism • Perhaps not surprising in an age of such external turmoil, the 14 th

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  I made it to the changing room and quickly got dressed. I heard one of the girls in the room say, “That bitch is wilding. I don’t know why Tears picked her for.” It was hate talking, but I ignored her jealous ass and threw on my shit and met up with Tears outside the club. I had counted up twelve hundred dollars, and most if it had come from him. Tears stood outside in front of the club, leaning against his gleaming black Escalade that was parallel parked next to a few cars out front. I smiled and strutted up to him in my short denim skirt and heels and gave him a hug like I’d known him forever. “You ready?” he asked. “Yeah.” I jumped into his truck and he drove off. It was like we connected. We went and got something to eat, and I ended up fuckin’ him in the backseat of his truck. We were parked by a grassy area and I straddled him in the backseat with my skirt pulled up to my waist and feeling his dick steadily moving in and out of me. A month later, unexpectedly, he asked me to move in with him and I accepted. But before we hooked up like that he said to me, “Yo, when we do this . . . you my wifey forever, you feel me? I’m gonna take care of you, Ayeesha . . . you know what I’m sayin’? But if you ever cheat on me, I’ll fuckin’ kill you. I mean it. Ain’t gonna be no conversation neither. I’m just gonna pull out my gat and your life will be over.” He was so serious! But I knew I loved him, and cheating on my boo was far from my mind at the time. Tears promised to take care of me, and he did, without missing a beat. Because of him, I finished paying for school and got my degree. A year later I was driving a brand-new Lexus. We might have been living in the projects but our apartment had everything money could buy. From a flat-screen TV, Gucci, and Donna Karan, to imported furniture and a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. • • • I stood in the shower thinking over my two years with Tears, some good and some bad. Surprisingly for me, I had never cheated on him. I really loved him and I was trying to make things exciting for us. But lately Tears had been making that impossible. He was too caught up in the streets, grinding, hustling, and forever across state lines moving weight. When we first got married Tears used to dick me down every fuckin’ night. Now I’ll be lucky if I get it once a week. “Ayeesha, I’m out,” Tears shouted, knocking on the bathroom door. “Ayyite, baby . . . be safe,” I shouted back. But I was still frustrated and still fuckin’ horny.