Western Civ 2018

Well today we actually were a democracy for a little bit. We voted on if we should have the test or not. No test won. A lot of people were happy about that but a few, not so much. After that whole hoopla we then answered questions in our notebooks like we did earlier, say last week. That was basically all we did but let's add some more things. The questions were on the Renaissance. Also this was the last day of May which was also a Thursday and you know what that means.  It's Thursday song!!!!!!  We still have this class tomorrow and on Monday, but we will probably just review for the exam. Hopefully everyone does good on the exam and doesn't bomb it. Hopefully it's not just this one we do good on but all of them.Well folks that is about it so have a good Thursday, do well on the exams, have a great summer, and God bless ya!

So today we talked about the Reformation and how Lutherans and Protestants started. Lutherans started from a man named Martin Luther. He was a priest during the old days. He became a priest because on his way home during a thunderstorm he was struck by lightning and vowed to be a monk. The first college he went to was the University of Erurt, and he hated it. He thought that it was a place for partying not a place for partying not learning. He also went to law school per his father's instructions. He was very angry with the ways the church did things through indulgences and he had a list of complaints and problems with the church called the "95 Theses." One of the theses on the paper said that the church is so rich but they take money from random people to rebuild churches. So he started the Reformation, a bunch of reforms, and eventually had to leave town with the name Junker Jorg. After one year he came back and people followed his teachings. They were Lutherans. People

So based of the title of this one you can tell that we are talking about the Renaissance again. Friday we talked about how the Renaissance began and how it was bringing back classical Greek and Roman art and ways of living. Renaissance actually means rebirth ad this was basically a rebirth of the classical Greek and Roman era. We also mentioned the different artists like the ones mentioned in the previous post of mine, and we also talked about patrons, and Renaissance men and women. The ultimate Renaissance man is a well-known artist and the leader of the Ninja Turtles was named after him. You guessed it, Leonardo da Vinci. One of the important patrons of this era was Isabella D'Este. If it weren't for her, we may have never heard about Leonardo da Vinci. Well hopefully this will help prepare you for the test so you don't have to get frustrated about it.

So today we took a test on the Middle Ages and all that good stuff. I thought it was easy but a lot of my classmates were complaining saying that it was hard. All I have to say about that is you should've studied. Well we will see what we all got. After we finished the test we went on to read about the Renaissance and the four major artists as well. Once I was finished and a lot of others as well, they went onto their laptops instead of doing the work on the side board. Only me and one other person I think did our work. Sorry about that tangent, now back to the artists.  Each of these artists had different styles of art. Some did sculptures while others did paintings. Leonardo is probably the most famous out of these four, probably because of the Mona Lisa and Last Supper paintings. Well everyone, no more tests in this class (hopefully), just gotta hold out a little longer. I know all of you can do it.

Today we talked about the Crusades and who was fighting in them. It was Christians vs. Muslims. The Christians and Muslims were fighting over control of Jerusalem. Right now the Christians, Muslims, and Jews have a massive object of their religion in the city. Christians have the Holy Church of Sepuchlre. Muslims had the Dome of the Rock. The Jews had the Western Wall. The oddest thing is that these are all in walking distance of each other. The Crusades were 200 years long and what happened at each time isn't going to be on the test. After that we started to talk about the questions on the test. To sum things up, Jerusalem was important to many religious groups and Pope Urban II started the Crusades. He said that if you die fighting this war, than you are going to Heaven.

So today we were talking about the Germanic Kingdoms and Gaul in particular. Gaul was the name for the territory that we call France back in the Middle Ages. France got its name from the people who lived there known as the Franks. Clovis was the ruler of the Franks and in charge of Gaul. Clovis even had a battlefield conversion like Constantine. He converted in the year 496 with his 3000 soldiers. Not sure if they also put crosses on their shields, but at least they converted. By the year 511 the Franks were united into one kingdom and at this time Clovis and the Church were partners. We also learned about some guy named Benedict who made rules for monks and his sister, Scholastica, did a similar thing but for nuns. First, monks took a vow of poverty. Second, they were not allowed to have romantic relationships. Third, they swore obedience to Church superiors. Clovis had a descendant named Charles Martel who had a son named Pepin the Short who had a son named Charlemagne. Well that is