title: Robert II of France

text: Unlike the last Carolingians, the first Capetians attached a clan of bishops to the north-east of Paris (Amiens, Laon, Soissons, Châlons, etc.) whose support was decisive in the course of events. In one of their diplomas, the two kings appear as intermediaries between the clerics and the people ("mediatores et plebis") and, under the pen of Gerbert of Aurillac, the bishops insisted on this need for "consilium": "...not wanting anything abuse the royal power, we decide all the affairs of the "res publica" by resorting to the advice and sentences of our faithful". Hugh Capet and Robert II needed the support of the Church to further consolidate their legitimacy, and also because the contingents of horsemen who made up the royal army came largely from the bishoprics. Robert II already appeared in the eyes of his contemporaries as a pious sovereign (hence his nickname) and close to the Church for several reasons: he devoted himself to the liberal arts; he was present at the synods of bishops; Abbo of Fleury specially dedicated his canonical collection to him; he easily forgave his enemies; and the abbeys received many royal gifts.


title: Robert II of France

text: Precisely, Hugh Capet and Robert II relied on the contingents sent by the bishoprics since the city of Laon had just been stormed by Charles of Lorraine, the last Carolingian pretender to the throne. The sovereigns besieged the city twice, without result. Concerned about his failure in Laon, Hugh Capet contacted several sovereigns to obtain their help (Pope John XV, Empress Theophanu, mother and Regent on behalf of Emperor Otto III), in vain. After the death of Archbishop Adalbero of Reims (24 January 989), Hugh Capet decided to elect, as new Archbishop, the Carolingian Arnoul, an illegitimate son of King Lothair, rather than Gerbert of Aurillac. It is believed that this was to appease the supporters of the Carolingians, but the situation turned against the Capetians when Arnoul surrendered Reims to his uncle Charles.


title: Robert II of France

text: The situation was unblocked thanks to the betrayal of Ascelin, Bishop of Laon, who seized Charles and Arnoul during their sleep and delivered them to the King (991): the Bishop thus saved the Capetian royalty "in extremis". In the Council of Saint-Basle de Verzy, Arnoul was judged as a traitor by an assembly chaired by Robert II (June 991). Despite the protests of Abbon of Fleury, Arnoul was deposed. A few days later, Gerbert of Aurillac was appointed Archbishop of Reims with the support of his former pupil Robert II. Pope John XV did not accept this procedure and wanted to convene a new council in Aix-la-Chapelle, but the bishops confirmed their decision in Chelles (winter 993–994).


title: Robert II of France

text: When his master Adalbero of Reims died, Gerbert of Aurillac was obliged to follow the intrigues of the new Archbishop Arnoul, determined to deliver Reims to Charles of Lorraine. Although the documentation is very incomplete on this subject, it seems that the scholar subsequently changed his positions to become Charles's supporter:


title: Robert II of France

text: A doubt in legitimacy was thus settled on the reign of both Hugh Capet and Robert II. However Gerbert, seeing the situation change to the detriment of Charles of Lorraine, changed sides during the year 991. Having become Archbishop of Reims by the grace of Robert II, he testified:


title: Robert II of France

text: As for Ascelin, Bishop of Laon, after having served the crown by betraying Charles and Arnoul, he soon turned against the Capetians. In the spring of 993, he allied with Count Odo I of Blois to plan the capture of Hugh Capet and Robert II, in agreement with Emperor Otto III. If they succeeded, Louis (the son of Charles of Lorraine) would become King of the Franks, Odo I Duke of the Franks, and Ascelin Bishop of Reims. However, the plot was denounced and Ascelin was placed under house arrest.


title: Robert II of France

text: Immediately after associating his son with the throne, Hugh Capet wanted Robert II to marry a royal princess, but the prohibition against marriage within the third degree of consanguinity obliged him to seek a bride in the East. He had a letter written by Gerbert of Aurillac asking the Byzantine Emperor Basil II for the hand of one of his nieces for Robert II; however, no Byzantine response is recorded. After this rebuff, and under pressure from his father (who apparently wanted to reward the Flemish for their help when he seized power in 987), Robert II had to marry Rozala, daughter of Berengar II of Ivrea, King of Italy and widow of Arnulf II, Count of Flanders. The wedding, celebrated before 1 April 988, brought Robert II possession of the cities of Montreuil and Ponthieu and a possible guardianship over the County of Flanders, given the young age of Rozala's son Baldwin IV, for whom she had been acting as regent ever since her first husband's death.


title: Robert II of France

text: Upon her marriage, Rozala became junior Queen consort of the Franks and took the name of "Susanna"; however, after about three or four years of marriage (c. 991–992), the young Robert II repudiated her, due to the excessive age difference between them (Rozala was almost 22 years older than him and probably too old to have more children). In fact, the breakup was justified by the absence of a child from their union and, for this reason, Hugh Capet and his advisers did not oppose the annulment proceedings.


title: Robert II of France

text: Separated from her husband, Rozala returned to Flanders at the side of her son Baldwin IV and became one of his principal advisers. Robert II managed to keep the port of Montreuil (part of his former wife's dowry), a strategic point on the Channel. Historians believe that from this period, Robert II wished to challenge his father and finally reign alone.


title: Robert II of France

text: The marriage was formally annulled in late 996, following Hugh Capet's death and Robert II's ascension as sole King of the French.


title: Robert II of France

text: Now Robert II was determined to find a bride who would give him the much hoped-for male offspring. In early 996, probably during the military campaign against Count Odo I of Blois, he met Countess Bertha of Burgundy, wife of the latter. She was a daughter of King Conrad of Burgundy and his wife Matilda (in turn daughter of King Louis IV of France and Gerberga of Saxony, sister of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor), so was from an undisputed royal lineage. Robert II and Bertha quickly became attracted to each other despite the complete resistance of Hugh Capet (the House of Blois was the great enemy of the Capetian dynasty). However, Robert II saw, in addition to his personal feelings, that Bertha would also bring all the Blois territories under Capetian control. The deaths in 996 of Odo I of Blois (12 March) and Hugh Capet (24 October) eliminated the main obstacles for a union between Robert II and Bertha.


title: Robert II of France

text: According to French historian Michel Rouche, this alliance was purely political: to loosen the grip threatening the Capetian dynasty and its stronghold of Île-de-France, and probably according to the will of Robert II's mother, Queen Adelaide of Aquitaine; indeed, the territories of Odo I were Blois, Chartres, Melun and Meaux. In addition, the couple were just waiting for the statutory nine months set by law after Odo I's death. It was, therefore, obvious that another objective was to have legitimate children.


title: Robert II of France

text: However, two important details obstructed this union: firstly, Robert II and Bertha were second cousins (their respective grandmothers, Hedwig and Gerberga, were sisters) and secondly, Robert II was the godfather of Theobald, one of the sons of Bertha. According to canon law, marriage was then impossible. Despite this, the two lovers began a sexual relationship and Robert II put part of the County of Blois under his direct rule. He took over the city of Tours and Langeais from Count Fulk III of Anjou, thus breaking the alliance with the House of Ingelger, faithful support of the late Hugh Capet. At the start of Robert II's reign, the alliance relations were thus changed.


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II and Bertha quickly found a complacent bishop to marry them off, which Archambaud de Sully, Archbishop of Tours, finally did in November/December 996, much to the chagrin of the new Pope Gregory V. To please the Holy See, Robert II annulled the sentence of the Council of Saint-Basle, freed Archbishop Arnoul and restored him to the episcopal see of Reims. Gerbert of Aurillac then had to take refuge with Emperor Otto III in 997. Despite this, the Pope ordered Robert II and Bertha to put an end to their "incestuous union". Finally, the two councils which met first in Pavia (February 997), then in Rome (summer 998), condemned them to do penance for seven years and, in the event of non-separation, they would be struck with excommunication. Moreover, at the end of three years of union, there were no living descendants: Bertha gave birth only to one stillborn son, in 999. That year, the accession of Gerbert of Aurillac to the Papacy under the name of Sylvester II did not change anything. Following a synod, the new Pope accepted the condemnation of the King of the Franks whose "perfidy" he had suffered. Finally, the seven years of penance were completed around 1003.


title: Robert II of France

text: Despite the threat of excommunication, Robert II and Bertha refused to submit until September 1001, when they finally became separated. The inability of Bertha to produce further offspring after her stillbirth was probably the main reason for this. Robert II, in need of male heirs, decided to remarry one more time.


title: Robert II of France

text: After October 1002 and before August 1004, Robert II contracted his third and last marriage (to a distant princess to avoid any close relationship) with the 17 year old Constance, daughter of Count William I of Arles and Provence and his wife Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou. The new Queen's parents were prestigious in their own right: Count William I was nicknamed "the Liberator" ("le Libérateur") thanks to his victories against the Saracens, and Countess Adelaide-Blanche's blood relations with the House of Ingelger allowed Robert II to restored his alliance with them. Six children born from Constance's marriage to Robert II are recorded:


title: Robert II of France

text: Since early in her marriage, Constance often placed herself at the center of many intrigues to preserve a preponderant place in the Frankish court. Rodolfus Glaber rightly emphasized that the Queen was "in control of her husband". For contemporaries, a woman who led her husband implied an abnormal situation. It all started at the beginning of the year 1008, a day when the King and his faithful Count palatine Hugh of Beauvais were hunting in the forest of Orléans. Suddenly, twelve armed men appeared and threw themselves on Hugh before killing him under the eyes of the king. The crime was ordered by Count Fulk III of Anjou, and with all probability supported by the Queen. Robert II, exasperated by his wife after six or seven years of marriage (c. 1009–1010), went personally to Rome accompanied by Angilramme (a monk from Saint-Riquier) and Bertha de Burgundy. His plan was to obtain from Pope Sergius IV an annulment from his marriage with Constance and to remarry Bertha, whom Robert II still loved deeply, under the grounds of Constance's participation in the murder of Hugh of Beauvais. Odorannus, a Benedictine monk from the Abbey of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif in Sens, explains in his writings that during her husband's journey to Rome, Constance withdrew in distress to her dominions at Theil. According to him, Saint Savinian would have appeared to him and secured that the royal marriage would be preserved; three days later, Robert II was back, definitively abandoning Bertha.


title: Robert II of France

text: The problems did not end, however. The rivalry between Bertha and Constance only enhanced the hatred between the Houses of Blois and Anjou. In the midst of this dispute, after the military victory of Odo II of Blois over Fulk III of Anjou in Pontlevoy (1016), the Queen sought to strengthen her family's position at court. For this, she and her Angevin relatives pressured the King to associate her eldest son Hugh to the throne, to ensure the regency of Constance over the Kingdom in the event of Robert II's death. Against the opinion of the royal councilors and the territorial princes, Robert II relented and thus, according to Rodulfus Glaber, 10-years-old Hugh was consecrated Junior King on Pentecost Day (9 June) 1017 in the church of the Abbey of Saint-Corneille in Compiègne. Although the association markedly favored the House of Anjou (and could put the sovereign's own life at risk), Robert II considered that this was the best way to consolidate the new Capetian dynasty and prevent another of the noble families from disputing the throne. However, he did not give any royal power to his son and, for this, Hugh was constantly humiliated by his mother. When he came of age, the junior King rebelled against his father, but eventually was restored in the royal favor.


title: Robert II of France

text: The King led a clear policy: to recover the count palatine's function for his own benefit, either by appropriating it or by ceding it to a friendly bishop, as did the Ottonian dynasty, the most powerful rulers in the West at that time. Robert II's most brilliant victory, however, would be the acquisition of the Duchy of Burgundy.


title: Robert II of France

text: Henry I, Duke of Burgundy died on 15 October 1002 without a legitimate heir. According to the "Chronique de Saint-Bénigne", he designated his stepson Otto-William of Ivrea, Count of Burgundy and Count of Mâcon (son of Henry I's first wife Gerberga and her first husband Adalbert of Ivrea, sometime King of Italy) as the heir of his domains; however, and despite counting on the support of many Burgundian lords to his rights, Otto-William cared more about his lands in overseas Saône and towards Italy from which he came. The Duchy of Burgundy, acquired in 943 by Hugh the Great, Henry I's father, was part of the Robertian family possessions. Moreover, Burgundy was a major stake since it abounded in rich cities (Dijon, Auxerre, Langres, Sens). With the death of his uncle, Robert II claimed the succession over the Duchy of Burgundy as his closest male blood relative and also as a complete fief.


title: Robert II of France

text: The rivalry between Hugh of Chalon, Bishop of Auxerre (supporter of Robert II) and Landry, Count of Nevers (son-in-law and ally of Otto-William) over the possession of Auxerre, triggered the armed intervention of the Frankish King who, with the help of troops lent by Richard II, Duke of Normandy, gathered his army in spring 1003 and engaged them in Burgundy, but they failed in front of Auxerre and Saint-Germain d'Auxerre. In 1004, Robert II besieged Beaune. Autun and Beaune were under control of the king, which forced Otto-William to initiate a diplomatic settlement. In 1005, Robert II, his men and the Normans were back in the north of the duchy. They took Avallon after a few days of fighting, then Auxerre. An arrangement had already been made between the King and Otto-William, who was with him during the siege of Avallon. Under the mediation of Bishop Hugh of Chalon, Count Landry was reconciled with the King by renouncing the Counties of Avallon and Auxerre. At the end of the agreements of 1005–1006, Otto-William had renounced the ducal title of Burgundy and all the possessions of his late stepfather, which reverted to the Crown, except the city of Dijon, still in the possession of Brunon of Roucy, the irreducible Bishop of Langres, who did not want Robert II to settle there at any cost.


title: Robert II of France

text: In Sens, a fight arose between Count Fromond II and Archbishop Léotheric for the control of the city. The Archbishop, who was close to the King, was furious at the behavior of the Count, who had built a powerful defense tower. In 1012, Renard II succeeded his father Fromond II and the situation worsened in as much as the Bishop of Langres, Brunon de Roucy, enemy of Robert II, was Renard II's maternal uncle. Léotheric, isolated, appealed to the King. The latter wished to intervene for several reasons: Sens was one of the main archiepiscopal cities of the Kingdom, it was also an obligatory passage to go to Burgundy and, finally, the possession of the County of Sens would allow Robert II to fragment the possessions of Odo II de Blois in two parts. Renard II was excommunicated and underwent the attack of the King, who seized Sens on 22 April 1015. Renard II, in the meantime, had allied himself with Odo II de Blois, and offered Robert II a compromise: he would continue to exercise his rule as Count as vassal and, upon his death, the territory would revert to the Crown. Renard II died 40 years later (1055) and with his death, the County of Sens reverted to the crown.


title: Robert II of France

text: As soon as the fight against the County of Sens ended, Robert II left for Dijon to complete the conquest of the Duchy of Burgundy. According to the "Chronique de Saint-Bénigne", Abbot Odilo of Cluny intervened and the King, moved by his pleas, decided not to attack Dijon. Brunon of Roucy died on 30 January 1016, and a few days later, the royal troops returned to Dijon and Robert II installed Lambert de Vignory as the new Bishop of Langres; in exchange, the new Bishop ceded Dijon and his county to the King. After fifteen years of military and diplomatic campaigns, Robert II finally entered into full possession of the Duchy of Burgundy.


title: Robert II of France

text: The King's second son, Henry, received the ducal title but, given his young age, Robert II kept the government and went there regularly. The death in 1027 of Hugh, the elder brother of Henry, made the latter the heir to the throne; the duchy then passed to the King's third son Robert, whose descendants would rule until the middle of the 14th century. The overseas lands of the old Kingdom of Burgundy, called "Franche-Comté", would follow the destiny of the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Robert II of France

text: When, on 9 January 1007, Bouchard I of Vendôme (the former faithful of Hugh Capet) died, the County of Paris he held was not inherited by his son, Renaud but instead reverted to the crown, and when Renaud died in 1017, the King appropriated his Counties of Melun and Dreux, which also joined the royal demesne. Dagobert, Archbishop of Bourges died in 1012, and Robert II himself appointed his replacement, Gauzlin, former Abbot of Fleury; however, the viscount of the same city, Geoffrey, tried to intervene personally in the choice of Dagobert's successor and prevented the new Archbishop from entering the city, and only through the intercession of Pope Benedict VIII, Odilo of Cluny and Robert II himself could Gauzlin finally take possession of his seat.


title: Robert II of France

text: The year 1000 constituted the "awakening of heresy". Before the High Middle Ages, there was no such persecution. The 11th century inaugurated a series of bonfire heretics in the West: Orléans (1022), Milan (1027), and Cambrai (1078). As for Robert II, the case of the heretics of Orléans was a fundamental part of his reign and, at the time, of an unprecedented impact. The nature of the events is told to us by exclusively ecclesiastical sources: Rodulfus Glaber, Adémar de Chabannes, Andrew of Fleury, Jean de Ripoll and Paul de Chartres. The year 1000 extended the idea of a corrupt century where the wealth of the clergy contrasted terribly with the humility advocated by Jesus Christ. Some clerics questioned this system and wished to purify Christian society. This debate was not new: already in the 9th century, there was controversy among scholars about the Eucharist and the cult of saints, but in 1022, it was of a different nature.


title: Robert II of France

text: Rodulfus Glaber told the story of the peasant Leutard of Vertus from Champagne who, around 994, decided to dismiss his wife, to destroy the crucifix of his local church and to preach to the villagers the refusal to pay tithes with the pretext of reading the Holy Scriptures. The Bishop of his diocese, Gibuin I of Châlons, then summoned him, and debated with him before the people and convinced them of the peasant's heretical madness. Abandoned by all, Leutard committed suicide. This situation was repeated throughout the eleventh century with various people who disagreed with Catholic orthodoxy: they were put to debate with highly educated clergymen in public, so that they and their message were ridiculed and discredited in the eyes of the common people. As for Adémar de Chabannes, he reported, around 1015–1020, the appearance of Manicheans in Aquitaine, especially in the cities of Toulouse and Limoges.


title: Robert II of France

text: The common themes of heretics were the renunciation of carnal copulation, the destruction of images, the uselessness of the Church and the repudiation of the sacraments (especially baptism and marriage). Astonished by this wave of disputes, Rodulfus Glaber evoked in his writings that Satan was freed "after a thousand years" according to the Apocalypse and that he must have inspired all these heretics from Leutard to the Orleanais. Another contemporary of the time is expressed:


title: Robert II of France

text: For the chroniclers, the Orléans heresy came sometimes from a Périgord peasant (Adémar de Chabannes) and sometimes from a woman from Ravennes (Rodulfus Glaber). But above all, the most inadmissible was that the evil affected Orléans, the royal city and seat of the Sainte-Croix Cathedral where Robert II was baptized, which was sacred only a few decades earlier. Some canons of the cathedral, close to the court, were supporters of those doctrines considered heretical: Théodat, Herbert (master of the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre-le-Puellier), Foucher and, especially, Étienne (confessor of Queen Constance) and Lisoie (cantor of Sainte-Croix), among others. The King was warned by Richard II of Normandy, and on Christmas Day 1022, the heretics were arrested and interrogated for long hours. Rodulfus Glaber reported that they recognized belonging to the "sect" for a long time and that their purpose was to convince the royal court of their beliefs (refusal of the sacraments, food prohibitions, on the virginity of the Virgin Mary and on the Trinity). These details are surely true; on the other hand, it is abusively obvious that Rodulfus Glaber and the other chroniclers demonized at will the meetings of the "circle of Orléans": they suspected them of practicing sexual orgies and of worshiping the Devil, among others ritual crimes. These reproaches were those made to the first Christians during Late antiquity.


title: Robert II of France

text: According to legend, Étienne, Constance's confessor, received a blow from her cane which perforated his eye. Robert II had an immense pyre erected outside the city on 28 December 1022, hoping to frighten them, but he was surprised by their reaction:


title: Robert II of France

text: This relentlessness surprised contemporaries and even modern historians. The various chroniclers, although they are horrified by the practices of the heretics, did not comment at any time about this event, and Helgaud of Fleury even ignored the episode. It was believed that the history of the heretics of Orleans would tarnish Robert II's saintly reputation and for this, the event was barely mentioned in the contemporary sources. In any case, the event was causing so much noise in the Kingdom that it would have been perceived as far away as Catalonia, according to a letter from the monk John to his Abbot Oliba of Ripoll: "If you have heard of it, it was quite true", he said. For historians, this episode would refer to a settling of scores. In 1016, Robert II had imposed on the episcopal seat of Orléans one of his subordinates, Thierry II, at the expense of Oudry de Broyes, the candidate of Odo II of Blois. However, the whole affair of the Orléans heresy, in which he was perhaps involved, broke out under his episcopate. To rid himself of all responsibility, the King would have liked to violently liquidate the impostors.


title: Robert II of France

text: In 1007, the Caliph of Baghdad Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah launched a wave of persecution of Christians, which led to the destruction of several places of worship, notably in Jerusalem and Alexandria. Robert II accused the Jews of complicity with Muslims (although they themselves were victims of Muslim persecution). A series of atrocities against the Jews followed, reported by Rodulfus Glaber and Adémar de Chabannes: Spoliations, massacres and forced conversions were the tragic fate of Jewish communities in the Kingdom of France. These abuses are corroborated by an anonymous Jewish chronicler, who further reports that a notable Jew from Rouen, Ya'aqov ben Iéqoutiel, made a trip to Rome to appeal for the help of Pope John XVIII, who was already ill-disposed towards Robert II because of his marital history. He indeed obtained the support of the Pope, then of his successor Pope Sergius IV, who demanded that Robert II bring back the anti-Jewish decrees and put an end to the persecutions.


title: Robert II of France

text: The last great event of the reign of Robert II was the association with the throne of his second son, Henry. After the premature death in 1025 of Hugh, the eldest son and first Junior King, Constance opposed the association of her second son Henry, and wanted the new co-ruler to be her third son Robert. In the royal court, Henry was considered too effeminate, which was contrary to the masculine principle of "virtus". Favorable to the election of the best candidate, the episcopate and many territorial princes showed their refusal; however, the King, supported by a few personalities (Odo II of Blois, Odilo of Cluny, Guglielmo da Volpiano), imposed his will and Henry was finally consecrated as Junior King on 14 May 1027 at Reims Cathedral by Archbishop Ebles I of Roucy. With this event, Robert II definitively endorsed the association established to the throne of the heir by the sovereign in force. The greatest of the Kingdom attended the consecration: Odo II of Blois, William V of Aquitaine, Richard III of Normandy. According to the chronicler Hildegaire of Poitiers, once the ceremony once over, Constance fled on horseback mad with rage.


title: Robert II of France

text: After forty years of Robert II's reign, political turmoil was emerging in the Kingdom of France during 1027–1029: in Normandy, the new Duke Robert the Magnificent expelled his uncle Robert, Archbishop of Rouen. The sovereign had to arbitrate the conflict until everything was in order. The same type of scenario erupted in Flanders where the King's young son-in-law Baldwin (husband of Robert II's second daughter Adela), eager for power and at the instigation of his own wife, rose up against his father, Baldwin IV in vain. For his part, Odo II of Blois enlisted for his benefit the new Junior King Henry in his fight against Fulk III of Anjou. Over 55 years old, an age at which in the tradition of the time one must step aside from power, Robert II was still on his throne. He endured several revolts from his sons, Henry and Robert, who most likely intrigued with their mother, Constance (1030). Robert II and Constance escaped to Burgundy, where they joined forces with their son-in-law, Renauld I of Nevers (husband of their eldest daughter Advisa). Back in their domain, peace was restored between the members of the royal family.


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II finally died on 20 July 1031 at his residence in Melun of an overwhelming fever. Alberic of Trois-Fontaines records the death of ""rex Francorum Robertus"", while Rodulfus Glaber also mentions the death of the King at Melun and his place of burial. The necrology of Chartres Cathedral records the death ""XII Kal Aug"" of ""Rotbertus rex"", and the necrology of the Abbey of Saint-Denis records the death ""XIII Kal Aug"" of ""Rotbertus...Francorum rex"".


title: Robert II of France

text: A few days earlier, on 29 June, according to Helgaud of Fleury, a solar eclipse had come to announce a bad omen:


title: Robert II of France

text: Much appreciated by the monks of Saint-Denis, the deceased King was hastily transported from Melun to the Abbey where his father was already resting, in front of the altar of the Holy Trinity. The benefits that the sovereign offered to the abbey were enormous. When writing their chronicle, the monks claimed that by the time of his death, rivers overflowed (toppling houses and carrying children), a comet passed in the sky and a famine plagued the kingdom for nearly two years. When he finished his biography around 1033, Helgaud of Fleury was surprised that the tomb of the pious Robert II was still only covered with a simple slab and no ornament. Not until the middle of the 13th century did his descendant, Louis IX of France (commonly known as Saint Louis), have new "gisants" carved for all members of the royal family.


title: Robert II of France

text: Anxious to ensure their salvation and to repair their sins (incursions into Church land, murders, incestuous unions), kings, dukes and counts of the year 1000 attracted to them the most efficient monks and endowed them richly, such as the chronicle which Helgaud of Fleury wrote for Robert II.


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II was a devout Catholic, hence his sobriquet "the Pious." He was musically inclined, being a composer, chorister, and poet, and made his palace a place of religious seclusion where he conducted the matins and vespers in his royal robes. Robert II's reputation for piety also resulted from his lack of toleration for heretics, whom he harshly punished. He is said to have advocated forced conversions of local Jewry. He supported riots against the Jews of Orléans who were accused of conspiring to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Furthermore, Robert II reinstated the Roman imperial custom of burning heretics at the stake. In 1030–1031, Robert confirmed the foundation of Noyers Abbey.


title: Robert II of France

text: The reign of Hugh Capet was that of the episcopate; that of Robert II was otherwise. Since the Council of Verzy (991–992), the Capetians had been at the heart of a political-religious crisis which opposed, on the one hand, someone close to power, Bishop Arnoul II of Orléans, and on the other Abbo of Fleury.


title: Robert II of France

text: In these troubled times (10th–11th centuries), there was the revival of monasticism which was characterized by the desire to reform the Church, a return to the Benedictine tradition, and a fleeting revival of the days of Louis the Pious by Benedict of Aniane. Their role was to repair "the sins of the people". The monks quickly met with great success: kings and counts attracted them to them and endowed them richly in land (often confiscated from enemies), in objects of all kinds, and the great abbots were called to purify certain places. Thus Guglielmo da Volpiano was called by Duke Richard II of Normandy to Fécamp (1001). Under the aegis of Cluny, the monasteries were increasingly seeking to free themselves from episcopal supervision, in particular Fleury-sur-Loire. Moreover, abbots went to Rome between 996 and 998 to claim privileges of exemption from the Pope. In the southern regions of the kingdom, Cluny and other establishments, peace movements were disseminated with the help of certain ecclesiastics who hoped for a strengthening of their power: Odilo, supported by his relatives, worked in close collaboration with the bishop of Puy to begin the Truce of God in Auvergne (ca. 1030). Nevertheless, in the northern provinces, Cluny did not have good press. Here the bishops were at the head of powerful counties and the intervention of the Cluniac movement could harm them. Ascelin of Laon and Gerard of Cambrai did not like the monks whom they considered to be impostors. Moreover, on the side of the bishops, there was no lack of criticism against the monks: thus they were accused of having an opulent life, of having unnatural sexual activities and of wearing luxury clothes (the example of the Abbot Mainard of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés is detailed). On the side of the regulars, examples against the bishops abounded: it was said that the prelates were very rich (trafficking in sacred objects, simony) and dominated as true warlords. Abbo of Fleury, the leader of the monastic reform movement, set an example by trying to go and pacify and discipline the monastery of La Réole, where he would be killed in a fight in 1004.


title: Robert II of France

text: The strength of Fleury and Cluny were their respective intellectual centers: the first retained in the 11th century more than 600 manuscripts from all walks of life, and Abbot Abbo himself wrote numerous treatises, the fruit of distant trips, notably to England, upon which he reflected (for example, on the role of the ideal prince); the second, through Rodulphus Glaber, was a place where history was written. Hugh Capet and Robert II, solicited by the two parties (episcopal and monastic), received the complaint from Abbo who denounced the actions of a layman, Lord Arnoul of Yèvres, who would have erected a tower without royal authorization and above all would have submitted by force the peasant communities that belong to the Abbey of Fleury. Bishop Arnoul II of Orléans, the uncle of Arnulf of Yèvres, said meanwhile that his nephew (???), for the King needed support to fight against Count Odo I of Blois. Finally, a negotiation took place under the chairmanship of Robert II and a diploma dated in Paris in 994 temporarily put an end to the quarrel. Abbo was then denounced as a "corrupter" and summoned to a royal assembly. He wrote a letter for the event entitled "Apologetic Book against Bishop Arnoul of Orléans" ("Livre apologétique contre l’évêque Arnoul d’Orléans"), which he addressed to Robert II, reputed to be literate and steeped in religious culture. The Abbot of Fleury seized the opportunity to claim the protection of the sovereign, who responded favorably. The traditional Carolingian episcopate then felt abandoned by royalty and threatened by the monks. This situation would be reinforced with the death of Hugh Capet in the fall of 996. Robert II was now more tempted by monastic culture than by episcopal and pontifical power which still remained largely the servant of the Holy Roman Empire. In parallel with these factional struggles, we also know that bishops and abbots found themselves alongside the counts to ensure that their legal immunities were respected.


title: Robert II of France

text: On the death of Robert II, the canons of Saint-Aignan asked a monk from Fleury who had worked with the sovereign and had access to the library of the Loire Abbey, to compose the biography of the second ruler of the Capetian dynasty.


title: Robert II of France

text: In his biography, Helgaud strives to demonstrate the holiness of this king since he does not intend to relate the facts relating to warlike functions. This work seems to have been inspired by the life of Gerald of Aurillac, another lay saint told by Odilo of Cluny. The life of Robert II is a series of "exempla", intended to show that the behavior of the king was that of a humble prince who possessed all the qualities: gentleness, charity, accessible to all, forgiving everything. This hagiography is different from the traditional royal ideology, since the king seems to follow in the footsteps of Christ. Sin allows kings to recognize themselves as mere mortals and thus lay a solid foundation for the new dynasty.


title: Robert II of France

text: The Abbey of Fleury, since the reign of Hugh Capet, has taken care of deeply legitimizing the Capetian monarchy by creating a new royal ideology. According to Helgaud, Robert II is since his coronation, "particeps Dei regni" (participant in the Kingship of God). Indeed, the young sovereign received in 987 the anointing of oil at the same time temporal and spiritual, "desiring to fulfill his power and his will with the gift of the holy blessing". All the clerics for whom we have the works, submit to the royal person: for Helgaud, Robert holds the place of God on earth ("princeps Dei"), Fulbert of Chartres calls him "holy father" or " your Holiness", for Adémar de Chabannes it is the "Father of the poor" and finally according to Ascelin of Laon, he received from God the true wisdom giving him access to the knowledge of "the celestial and unchanging universe". Another great scholar of his time, Rodulfus Glaber, relates the meeting between Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor and Robert II in the city of Ivois in August 1023. They endeavored to define together the principles of a peace common to all Christendom. According to the theorists of the 11th century, Robert II was at the level of the Emperor by his mother since she has Roman ancestry, the "Francorum imperator".


title: Robert II of France

text: Secret of their success with the church hierarchy, the first Capetians (and in the first place Robert II) are famous for having carried out many religious foundations. Hugh the Great and Hugh Capet in their time had founded the monastery of Saint-Magloire on the right bank in Paris. Queen Adelaide, mother of Robert II, reputed to be very pious, ordered the construction of the monastery of Saint-Frambourg in Senlis and especially the one dedicated to Saint Marie in Argenteuil. According to Helgaud of Fleury:


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II is in the forefront in the defense of the saints who, according to him, guarantee the effectiveness of divine grace and "thus contribute to the purification of society by blocking the forces of evil". Several crypts were built or renovated for the occasion: Saint-Cassien in Autun, Sainte-Marie in Melun, Saint-Rieul de Senlis in Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. The sovereign goes further by offering pieces of relics to certain monks (a fragment of the chasuble of Saint Denis to Helgaud of Fleury). We also know that around 1015–1018, at the request of his wife Constance, Robert II ordered the making of a reliquary for Saint Savinien for the altar of the relics of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif near Sens. According to legend, Saint Savinian would have protected the integrity of the royal marriage when Robert II had gone to Rome with his former wife Bertha before leaving her definitively. The order is made from one of the best monk-silversmiths in the kingdom, Odorannus. In total, the sacred object is composed of 900 grams of gold and 5 kilograms of silver. In total, the inventory is impressive: during his reign Robert II offers a quantity of copes, priestly vestments, tablecloths, vases, chalices, crosses and censers. One of the gifts that most marks the contemporaries is probably the "Évangéliaire dits de Gaignières", produced by Nivardus, a Lombard artist, on behalf of the Abbey of Fleury (beginning of the 11th century).


title: Robert II of France

text: The definition of royalty in the time of Robert II is difficult to appreciate nowadays. The king only has precedence over the princes of the Frankish kingdom. Some like Odo II of Blois (in 1023), although respect is in order, make it clear to him that they wish to govern as they please without his consent. A prince respects the sovereign but he does not feel his subordinate. At the same time, however, the king tends to impose himself as "Primus inter pares", the first of the princes. Moreover, the texts dating from the first part of the 11th century largely evoke loyalty to the king from the princes.


title: Robert II of France

text: One day in 1027, a "rain of blood" fell on the Duchy of Aquitaine. The phenomenon worried enough contemporaries for William V of Aquitaine to explain it as a divine sign. The Duke then decides to send messengers to meet Robert II so that the latter asks the best scholars of his court for an explanation and advice. Gauzlin, Abbot of Fleury and Archbishop of Bourges, and Fulbert of Chartres take the matter in hand. Gauzlin answers that "the blood always announces a misfortune which will befall the Church and the population, but that after will come divine mercy". As for Fulbert, better documented, he analyzes the old "historiæ" (the works which relate the past facts):


title: Robert II of France

text: Fulbert concludes from Gregory of Tours ("Histoire des Francs", VII), that only the ungodly and fornicators "will die for eternity in their blood, if they have not amended themselves beforehand". Friend of Bishop Fulbert, William V of Aquitaine could have addressed him directly. Now, aware that Robert II is the Lord's chosen one, it is from him, responsible for the entire kingdom, that we must seek advice. He is in the best position to know the mysteries of the world and the will of God. In the 11th century, even the most powerful men respect the order established by God, that is to say to pray to his sovereign.


title: Robert II of France

text: The history of royal magical powers was dealt with by Marc Bloch in his work "The Thaumaturge Kings" (1924). During the early Middle Ages, the power to work miracles was strictly reserved for God, saints and relics. In the Merovingian times, was the mention of pious Guntram, mentioned by Gregory of Tours (6th century) and considered the first Frankish king healer. During the reign of Henry I, in the middle of the 11th century, we begin to tell Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire that Robert II had the gift of healing the wounds of certain diseases affecting them. Helgaud of Fleury writes in his "Epitoma vitæ regis Roberti pii":


title: Robert II of France

text: Indeed, Robert II is the first sovereign of his line to be credited with thaumaturgical talent. Perhaps this was a propaganda with the purpose of a symbolic compensation for the weakness of royal power; not being able to impose itself by force (for example in the episode with Odo II of Blois in 1023), the monarchy had to find an alternative to impose its primacy. Nevertheless, this first thaumaturgy is recognized as "generalist", that is to say that the king was not specialized in such or such disease as will be the case for his successors with the scrofula. Not much is known about Robert II's magical actions except that he would have cured lepers in the South during his journey from 1018 to 1020. The King of the Franks is not the only one to use this kind of practice, his contemporary Edward the Confessor does the same in England. According to popular tradition, the king's blood conveys a capacity to work miracles, a gift which is reinforced by the royal coronation. Finally, according to Jacques Le Goff, no document proves that the French sovereigns regularly practiced touching scrofula before Saint Louis. In 1031 Robert II also came on pilgrimage to the Abbey of Saint-Géraud d'Aurillac to visit the relics of Saint Gerald and the cradle of Gerbert, of which he had been a disciple.


title: Robert II of France

text: If the 9th century looting have significantly slowed the economy, it is sustained expansion from the 10th century. Indeed, with the establishment of a decentralized defense, the Banal Lordship brought a response well adapted to the rapid Saracen or Viking raids. It becomes more profitable for thieves to settle in an area, get a tribute against the tranquility of the population and trade, rather than wage war, and this from the 10th century. The Vikings thus participate fully in the process of feudalisation and in the economic expansion which accompanies it. They must dispose of their booty, and they mint coins from the precious metals that were hoarded in looted religious goods. This cash, which is reinjected into the economy, is a leading catalyst for the ongoing economic transformation. The global money supply increases as much as with the weakening of the central power more and more bishops and princes coin money. However, the growing monetization of the economy is a powerful catalyst: farmers can take advantage of their agricultural surpluses and are motivated to increase their production capacity through the use of new techniques and the increase in cultivable areas through land clearing. The establishment of common law contributes to this development because the producer must generate enough profits to be able to pay the taxes. The lords also reinject this cash into the economy because one of the main criteria for belonging to the nobility in full structuring is to have a broad and expensive behavior towards its counterparts (this behavior being moreover necessary for ensure the loyalty of its "militias").


title: Robert II of France

text: In fact, in certain regions, the mottes play a pioneering role in the agrarian conquest of the "saltus". During this time, were also developed more constantly the "Thiérache", it is "to the clearing of land returned to the forest that the first castral movement is linked". In Cinglais, a region south of Caen, the primitive castles had settled on the borders of forest complexes. In all cases, the castral establishment on the outskirts of the village is very common. This phenomenon is part of a very anchored and ancient linear population which is juxtaposed with an early clearing that was certainly Carolingian well prior to the castral phenomenon. Nonetheless, the charters of northern France confirmed an intensive clearing activity still present until the middle of the 12th century and even beyond.


title: Robert II of France

text: On the other hand, the lords as well as the clergy saw the interest in stimulating and benefiting from this economic expansion: they favored the clearing and the construction of new villages, and they invested in equipment increasing production capacities (mills, presses, ovens, plows, etc.) and transport (bridges, roads, etc.). Especially since these infrastructures can increase the income banal, levy tolls and "tonlieu"s. In fact, increased trade leads to the proliferation of roads and markets (the network that is set up is immensely denser and ramified than what could have existed in Antiquity). These bridges, villages and markets are therefore built under the protection of a lord which is materialized by a castle mound. The power squire filter exchanges of any kind that amplify from the 11th century. We see many "castras" located on important roads, sources of a considerable financial contribution for the lord of the place. For Picardy, Robert Fossier noticed that nearly 35% of the sites that can be located in village lands are located on or near Roman roads, and that 55% of road and river nodes had fortified points.


title: Robert II of France

text: The silver denarius is, as we have seen, one of the main engines of economic growth since the 9th century. The weakness of royal power led to the minting of coins by many bishops, lords and abbeys. While Charles the Bald had 26 coinage workshops, Hugh Capet and Robert II only have that of Laon. The reign of Hugh Capet marks the apogee of the feudalization of money. The result is a decrease in the uniformity of the denarius and the appearance of the practice of remapping money on the markets (we rely on the weight of the coin to determine its value). On the other hand, we are in a period where the increase in trade is supported by the increase in the volume of metal available. Indeed, the expansion towards the east of the Holy Roman Empire allows the Ottonian dynasty to be able to exploit new deposits of silver. Robert II has little room for maneuver. However, the practice of trimming or mutations, leads to devaluations that are quite harmful. However upholding the Peace of God, Robert II supports the fight against these abuses. The Order of Cluny who, like other abbeys mint their currency, have every interest in limiting these practices. Therefore, during the 10th century in the South, users must commit to not cut or falsifying currencies and issuers undertake not to take pretext of war to pursue a monetary transfer.


title: Robert II of France

text: Is known that since around 992, Robert II has exercised the royal power transmitted by his aging father Hugh Capet. Historians thus show that the first Capetians begin to give up power around the age of 50, by tradition but also because the life expectancy of a sovereign at that time is around 55–60 years. Robert II followed this tradition in 1027, his son Henry I in 1059 and his grandson Philip I in 1100. In the image of his father and in the Carolingian tradition of Hincmar of Reims, Robert II takes advice from the ecclesiastics, something that was no longer done, to the great regret of the clerics, since the last Carolingians. This policy is taken up and theorized by Abbo of Fleury. From the time he was still associated with Hugh Capet, Robert II could write from Gerbert of Aurillac's pen:


title: Robert II of France

text: The term that comes up most often in royal charters is that of "common good" ("res publica"), a concept taken from Roman Antiquity. The king is thus the guarantor, from the height of his supreme magistracy, of the well-being of all his subjects.


title: Robert II of France

text: The royal administration is known to us through the archives and in particular through the content of the royal diplomas. As for his father, Robert II record both a continuity with the previous era and a break. Historiography has truly changed his perspective on administration in Robert II's day over the past fifteen years. Since the thesis of Jean-François Lemarignier was thought that the space in which the diplomas were shipped had tended to shrink during the 11th century: "the decline is observed between 1025–1028 and 1031 to the various points of view of qualification categories". But the historian affirmed that, starting from Hugh Capet and even more under Robert II, the charters included more and more foreign subscriptions (signatures) than the traditional royal chancellery: thus the châtelains and even simple knights mingled with the counts and bishops until then predominant and outnumbered them at the end of the reign. The king would no longer have been sufficient to guarantee his own acts.


title: Robert II of France

text: More recently, Olivier Guyotjeannin has brought to light a whole different perspective on the administration of Robert II. The introduction and multiplication of subscriptions and witness lists at the bottom of the acts sign, according to him, rather a new deal in the systems of evidence. The royal acts by addressees and by a chancellery reduced to a few people still consist for half of them, of a Carolingian-type diplomatic (monogram, Carolingian forms) until around 1010. The preambles change slightly under the chancellor Baudouin from 1018 but there is still "political Augustinism and the idea of the king as protector of the Church". Above all, underlines the historian, the royal acts drawn up by Robert II's chancellery do not open until very late and very partially to signatures foreign to those of the king and the chancellor. On the other hand, in the second part of the reign, one notes some acts with multiple subscriptions: for example in the act delivered at the Flavigny Abbey (1018), was notes the "signum" of six bishops, of Prince Henry, of Count Odo II of Blois, of Count Otto of Vermandois and some later additions. It seems nevertheless that the knights and the small counts present in the charters are not the rebellious squires of the traditional historiography but rather the members of a local network woven around the abbeys and the bishoprics held by the king. Clearly, the changes in royal acts from the end of Robert II's reign do not reflect a decline in kingship.


title: Robert II of France

text: Since the end of the 10th century, the formulation of royal ideology is the work of monastic world, especially in the highly dynamic Fleury Abbey, located in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire. In the theory of Abbo of Fleury (ca. 993–994), the concern of the sovereign of the year 1000 is to make equity and justice reign, to guarantee peace and harmony in the Kingdom. Its purpose is to safeguard Capetian memory for centuries. For their part, the territorial princes of the 11th century know what founds and legitimizes their power even in their royal aspects. The presence of a royal authority in the Kingdom of the Franks remains essential for contemporaries. However, Abbo also emphasizes in his writings the need of a local ruler who could exercise his office for the common good, deciding matters with the consent of the advisers (bishops and princes). However, Robert II did not always follow, to his great fault, this theory, in particular in the case of the succession of the Counties of Meaux and Troyes (1021–1024).


title: Robert II of France

text: Since the beginning of the reign of Robert II, the Counties of Meaux and Troyes were in the hands of a powerful figure, his second cousin once removed Count Stephen I of Troyes. In 1019, Stephen I appealed to the Robert II's generosity, asking him to confirmed the restitution of property to the Abbey of Lagny. The king accepted, but Stephen I died ca. 1021–1023; a rare occurrence at the time, he had no clearly named successor or heir. Robert II is responsible for managing the succession, which he cedes without difficulty to Count Odo II of Blois, a lord already well-established in the region (he hold the cities of Épernay, Reims, Vaucouleurs and Commercy) and moreover was a second cousin of Stephen I. However, a few months later a crisis breaks out. Ebles I of Roucy, Archbishop of Reims informs the king of the bad actions of Odo II who monopolizes all powers in Reims to the detriment of the prelate. Robert II, as a defender of the Church, decides, without the consent of anyone, to withdraw the comital title of Reims from Odo II. The latter, furious, imposes himself in Reims by force. In addition, the king is not supported, his justice is undermined: even his faithfuls Fulbert of Chartres and Duke Richard II of Normandy support Odo II by arguing that Robert II should not behave like a "tyrant". Summoned by the king in 1023, Odo II courteously informs that he will not move and Robert II has neither the means to oblige him nor the right to seize his patrimony, because these lands weren't granted by the king but inherited from his ancestors by the will of the Lord.


title: Robert II of France

text: After this event (which weakened his already unstable authority), Robert II does not repeat the same mistake. In 1024, after a meeting of the greats of the Kingdom in Compiègne who suggested appeasement to him with Odo II of Blois, the King had to confirm the Count's possessions. A few years later, in May 1027, Dudon, Abbot of Montier-en-Der, publicly complains of the violent usurpation exercised by Stephen of Vaux, Lord of Joinville. The latter seized seven churches to the detriment of the monastery of which he is however the "advocatus". Robert II once again takes charge of the affair, and taking advantage of the coronation of his second son Henry at Pentecost of 1027 in Reims, he summons the Lord of Joinville to his court. The latter does not travel for the event. The present assembly, composed among others by Ebles I of Roucy, Odilo of Cluny, Dudon of Montier-en-Der, William V of Aquitaine and Odo II, unanimously decides to launch the anathema on the Lord of Joinville. In short, Robert II is not the weak king that historiography has always presented. Of course, his decisions in matters of justice must take into account the advice of ecclesiastics and territorial princes, but he remains as the "Primer inter pares", that is to say the first among his peers.


title: VHDL

text: The VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) is a hardware description language (HDL) that can model the behavior and structure of digital systems at multiple levels of abstraction, ranging from the system level down to that of logic gates, for design entry, documentation, and verification purposes. Since 1987, VHDL has been standardized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as IEEE Std 1076; the latest version of which is IEEE Std 1076-2019. To model analog and mixed-signal systems, an IEEE-standardized HDL based on VHDL called VHDL-AMS (officially IEEE 1076.1) has been developed.


title: VHDL

text: VHDL is named after the United States Department of Defense program that created it, the Very High-Speed Integrated Circuits Program (VHSIC). In the early 1980s, the VHSIC Program sought a new HDL for use in the design of the integrated circuits it aimed to develop. The product of this effort was VHDL Version 7.2, released in 1985. The effort to standardize it as an IEEE standard began in the following year.


title: VHDL

text: In 1983, VHDL was originally developed at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense in order to document the behavior of the ASICs that supplier companies were including in equipment. The standard MIL-STD-454N in Requirement 64 in section 4.5.1 "ASIC documentation in VHDL" explicitly requires documentation of "Microelectronic Devices" in VHDL.


title: VHDL

text: The idea of being able to simulate the ASICs from the information in this documentation was so obviously attractive that logic simulators were developed that could read the VHDL files. The next step was the development of logic synthesis tools that read the VHDL and output a definition of the physical implementation of the circuit.


title: VHDL

text: Due to the Department of Defense requiring as much of the syntax as possible to be based on Ada, in order to avoid re-inventing concepts that had already been thoroughly tested in the development of Ada, VHDL borrows heavily from the Ada programming language in both concept and syntax.


title: VHDL

text: The initial version of VHDL, designed to IEEE standard IEEE 1076-1987, included a wide range of data types, including numerical (integer and real), logical (bit and boolean), character and time, plus arrays of codice_1 called codice_2 and of codice_3 called string.


title: VHDL

text: A problem not solved by this edition, however, was "multi-valued logic", where a signal's drive strength (none, weak or strong) and unknown values are also considered. This required IEEE standard 1164, which defined the 9-value logic types: scalar codice_4 and its vector version codice_5. Being a resolved subtype of its codice_6 parent type, codice_4-typed signals allow multiple driving for modeling bus structures, whereby the connected resolution function handles conflicting assignments adequately.


title: VHDL

text: The updated IEEE 1076, in 1993, made the syntax more consistent, allowed more flexibility in naming, extended the codice_3 type to allow ISO-8859-1 printable characters, added the codice_9 operator, etc.


title: VHDL

text: Minor changes in the standard (2000 and 2002) added the idea of protected types (similar to the concept of class in C++) and removed some restrictions from port mapping rules.


title: VHDL

text: In addition to IEEE standard 1164, several child standards were introduced to extend functionality of the language. IEEE standard 1076.2 added better handling of real and complex data types. IEEE standard 1076.3 introduced signed and unsigned types to facilitate arithmetical operations on vectors. IEEE standard 1076.1 (known as VHDL-AMS) provided analog and mixed-signal circuit design extensions.


title: VHDL

text: Some other standards support wider use of VHDL, notably VITAL (VHDL Initiative Towards ASIC Libraries) and microwave circuit design extensions.


title: VHDL

text: In June 2006, the VHDL Technical Committee of Accellera (delegated by IEEE to work on the next update of the standard) approved so-called Draft 3.0 of VHDL-2006. While maintaining full compatibility with older versions, this proposed standard provides numerous extensions that make writing and managing VHDL code easier. Key changes include incorporation of child standards (1164, 1076.2, 1076.3) into the main 1076 standard, an extended set of operators, more flexible syntax of "case" and "generate" statements, incorporation of VHPI (VHDL Procedural Interface) (interface to C/C++ languages) and a subset of PSL (Property Specification Language). These changes should improve quality of synthesizable VHDL code, make testbenches more flexible, and allow wider use of VHDL for system-level descriptions.


title: VHDL

text: In February 2008, Accellera approved VHDL 4.0, also informally known as VHDL 2008, which addressed more than 90 issues discovered during the trial period for version 3.0 and includes enhanced generic types. In 2008, Accellera released VHDL 4.0 to the IEEE for balloting for inclusion in IEEE 1076-2008. The VHDL standard IEEE 1076-2008 was published in January 2009.


title: VHDL

text: The IEEE Standard 1076 defines the VHSIC Hardware Description Language, or VHDL. It was originally developed under contract F33615-83-C-1003 from the United States Air Force awarded in 1983 to a team of Intermetrics, Inc. as language experts and prime contractor, Texas Instruments as chip design experts and IBM as computer-system design experts. The language has undergone numerous revisions and has a variety of sub-standards associated with it that augment or extend it in important ways.


title: VHDL

text: VHDL is generally used to write text models that describe a logic circuit. Such a model is processed by a synthesis program, only if it is part of the logic design. A simulation program is used to test the logic design using simulation models to represent the logic circuits that interface to the design. This collection of simulation models is commonly called a "testbench".


title: VHDL

text: A VHDL simulator is typically an event-driven simulator. This means that each transaction is added to an event queue for a specific scheduled time. E.g. if a signal assignment should occur after 1 nanosecond, the event is added to the queue for time +1ns. Zero delay is also allowed, but still needs to be scheduled: for these cases delta delay is used, which represent an infinitely small time step. The simulation alters between two modes: statement execution, where triggered statements are evaluated, and event processing, where events in the queue are processed.


title: VHDL

text: VHDL has constructs to handle the parallelism inherent in hardware designs, but these constructs ("processes") differ in syntax from the parallel constructs in Ada ("tasks"). Like Ada, VHDL is strongly typed and is not case sensitive. In order to directly represent operations which are common in hardware, there are many features of VHDL which are not found in Ada, such as an extended set of Boolean operators including nand and nor.


title: VHDL

text: VHDL has file input and output capabilities, and can be used as a general-purpose language for text processing, but files are more commonly used by a simulation testbench for stimulus or verification data. There are some VHDL compilers which build executable binaries. In this case, it might be possible to use VHDL to write a "testbench" to verify the functionality of the design using files on the host computer to define stimuli, to interact with the user, and to compare results with those expected. However, most designers leave this job to the simulator.


title: VHDL

text: It is relatively easy for an inexperienced developer to produce code that simulates successfully but that cannot be synthesized into a real device, or is too large to be practical. One particular pitfall is the accidental production of transparent latches rather than D-type flip-flops as storage elements.


title: VHDL

text: One can design hardware in a VHDL IDE (for FPGA implementation such as Xilinx ISE, Altera Quartus, Synopsys Synplify or Mentor Graphics HDL Designer) to produce the RTL schematic of the desired circuit. After that, the generated schematic can be verified using simulation software which shows the waveforms of inputs and outputs of the circuit after generating the appropriate testbench. To generate an appropriate testbench for a particular circuit or VHDL code, the inputs have to be defined correctly. For example, for clock input, a loop process or an iterative statement is required.


title: VHDL

text: A final point is that when a VHDL model is translated into the "gates and wires" that are mapped onto a programmable logic device such as a CPLD or FPGA, then it is the actual hardware being configured, rather than the VHDL code being "executed" as if on some form of a processor chip.


title: VHDL

text: The key advantage of VHDL, when used for systems design, is that it allows the behavior of the required system to be described (modeled) and verified (simulated) before synthesis tools translate the design into real hardware (gates and wires).


title: VHDL

text: Another benefit is that VHDL allows the description of a concurrent system. VHDL is a dataflow language in which every statement is considered for execution simultaneously, unlike procedural computing languages such as BASIC, C, and assembly code, where a sequence of statements is run sequentially one instruction at a time.


title: VHDL

text: A VHDL project is multipurpose. Being created once, a calculation block can be used in many other projects. However, many formational and functional block parameters can be tuned (capacity parameters, memory size, element base, block composition and interconnection structure).


title: VHDL

text: A VHDL project is portable. Being created for one element base, a computing device project can be ported on another element base, for example VLSI with various technologies.


title: VHDL

text: A big advantage of VHDL compared to original Verilog is that VHDL has a full type system. Designers can use the type system to write much more structured code (especially by declaring record types).


title: VHDL

text: In VHDL, a design consists at a minimum of an "entity" which describes the interface and an "architecture" which contains the actual implementation. In addition, most designs import library modules. Some designs also contain multiple architectures and "configurations".


title: VHDL

text: (Notice that codice_10 stands for "Register transfer level" design.) While the example above may seem verbose to HDL beginners, many parts are either optional or need to be written only once. Generally simple functions like this are part of a larger behavioral module, instead of having a separate module for something so simple. In addition, use of elements such as the codice_4 type might at first seem to be an overkill. One could easily use the built-in codice_1 type and avoid the library import in the beginning. However, using a form of many-valued logic, specifically 9-valued logic (codice_13,codice_14,codice_15,codice_16,codice_17,codice_18,codice_19,codice_20,codice_21), instead of simple bits (0,1) offers a very powerful simulation and debugging tool to the designer which currently does not exist in any other HDL.


title: VHDL

text: In the examples that follow, you will see that VHDL code can be written in a very compact form. However, more experienced designers usually avoid these compact forms and use a more verbose coding style for the sake of readability and maintainability.


title: VHDL

text: VHDL is frequently used for two different goals: simulation of electronic designs and synthesis of such designs. Synthesis is a process where a VHDL is compiled and mapped into an implementation technology such as an FPGA or an ASIC.


title: VHDL

text: Not all constructs in VHDL are suitable for synthesis. For example, most constructs that explicitly deal with timing such as codice_22 are not synthesizable despite being valid for simulation. While different synthesis tools have different capabilities, there exists a common "synthesizable subset" of VHDL that defines what language constructs and idioms map into common hardware for many synthesis tools. IEEE 1076.6 defines a subset of the language that is considered the official synthesis subset. It is generally considered a "best practice" to write very idiomatic code for synthesis as results can be incorrect or suboptimal for non-standard constructs.


title: VHDL

text: The multiplexer, or 'MUX' as it is usually called, is a simple construct very common in hardware design. The example below demonstrates a simple two to one MUX, with inputs codice_23 and codice_24, selector codice_25 and output codice_14. Note that there are many other ways to express the same MUX in VHDL.


title: VHDL

text: A transparent latch is basically one bit of memory which is updated when an enable signal is raised. Again, there are many other ways this can be expressed in VHDL.


title: VHDL

text: The D-type flip-flop samples an incoming signal at the rising (or falling) edge of a clock. This example has an asynchronous, active-high reset, and samples at the rising clock edge.


title: VHDL

text: Another common way to write edge-triggered behavior in VHDL is with the 'event' signal attribute. A single apostrophe has to be written between the signal name and the name of the attribute.


title: VHDL

text: The following example is an up-counter with asynchronous reset, parallel load and configurable width. It demonstrates the use of the 'unsigned' type, type conversions between 'unsigned' and 'std_logic_vector' and VHDL "generics". The generics are very close to arguments or templates in other traditional programming languages like C++.


title: VHDL

text: More complex counters may add if/then/else statements within the codice_27 to add other functions, such as count enables, stopping or rolling over at some count value, generating output signals like terminal count signals, etc. Care must be taken with the ordering and nesting of such controls if used together, in order to produce the desired priorities and minimize the number of logic levels needed.


title: VHDL

text: A large subset of VHDL cannot be translated into hardware. This subset is known as the non-synthesizable or the simulation-only subset of VHDL and can only be used for prototyping, simulation and debugging. For example, the following code will generate a clock with a frequency of 50 MHz. It can, for example, be used to drive a clock input in a design during simulation. It is, however, a simulation-only construct and cannot be implemented in hardware. In actual hardware, the clock is generated externally; it can be scaled down internally by user logic or dedicated hardware.


title: VHDL

text: The simulation-only constructs can be used to build complex waveforms in very short time. Such waveform can be used, for example, as test vectors for a complex design or as a prototype of some synthesizer logic that will be implemented in the future.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Diner is a 1982 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Barry Levinson. It is Levinson's screen-directing debut, and the first of his "Baltimore Films" tetralogy, set in his hometown during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s; the other three films are "Tin Men" (1987), "Avalon" (1990), and "Liberty Heights" (1999). It stars Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Paul Reiser, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly and Ellen Barkin and was released on March 5, 1982. The film follows a close-knit circle of friends who reunite at a Baltimore diner when one of them prepares to get married.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: In 1959 Baltimore, friends Modell, Eddie, Shrevie, Boogie, and Fenwick attend a Christmas dance before driving to their usual late-night haunt, Fell’s Point Diner. On the way, Fenwick stages a fake car accident, to his friends' annoyance. Boogie, a hairdresser and law student, has laid a $2,000 bet on a basketball game, and declines his family friend Bagel’s offer to call off the bet. Modell accepts a ride home from Eddie while the others pick up another friend, Billy, in town to serve as Eddie’s best man for his New Year’s Eve wedding.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: The next morning, Billy reunites with Eddie at his mother’s house, and they visit their old pool hall. Shrevie, married to Beth and working as an appliance store salesman, learns from Fenwick that Boogie is taking a date to the movies. At a screening of "A Summer Place", with his friends watching, Boogie tricks his date, Carol, into groping him through the popcorn box on his lap. She runs from the theater, but the smooth-talking Boogie convinces her it was an accident and their date continues; afterward, Billy punches an old high school enemy.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Billy visits Barbara, a friend working at the local TV station. At the diner, Shrevie discusses married life with Eddie, who is preparing a test of football knowledge for his fiancée Elyse, to determine if they will marry. Having lost his basketball bet, Boogie wagers with his friends that he can have sex with Carol. The group parts ways in the morning, and Boogie and Fenwick encounter an equestrienne named Jane. Meeting Barbara at church, Billy learns she is pregnant, the result of an unexpected night they spent together; she tries to dissuade him from feeling obligated to marry her.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Watching "College Bowl", Fenwick is surprisingly knowledgeable and offers to help pay Boogie’s debt. Shrevie loses his temper at Beth for disturbing his record collection, and storms out. Boogie consoles her, and Fenwick goes to ask his brother for money, but he refuses. Shrevie pulls Eddie and Billy from a screening of "The Seventh Seal" to corral Fenwick, who has drunkenly occupied the church’s Nativity scene in his underwear, leading to their arrest.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: In the holding cells, Eddie reveals that Elyse is taking his test the following night, and Billy faces down a belligerent drunk. Eddie, Shrevie, and Billy are bailed out by their fathers, but Fenwick’s leaves him overnight. They meet Boogie at the diner, and he deduces Eddie is still a virgin, while Billy and Barbara discuss their predicament at the TV station. A lonely Beth visits Boogie at the hair salon, and he is threatened by his bookie, Tank. Learning Carol has the flu, which jeopardizes his bet, Boogie reminisces with Beth about their own past relationship, and they make plans for a tryst while everyone is busy with Elyse’s test.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Shrevie, Fenwick, Billy, and Modell, along with Eddie’s and Elyse’s parents, await the results of the football test: Elyse fails by two points, and Eddie calls off the wedding. Boogie brings Beth a wig, secretly planning to disguise her as Carol to win the bet, and drives her to Fenwick’s apartment. There, Fenwick and Shrevie hide in the closet to verify the encounter, but Boogie tells Beth the truth, urging her to work things out with Shrevie. Eddie and Billy visit a strip club, and Boogie arrives at the diner, where Shrevie and Fenwick warn him Tank is waiting. Boogie is ready to accept the consequences, but Tank reveals that Bagel has paid off the debt.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Billy commandeers a piano to lead the entire strip club in a rousing number, to Eddie’s delight. There, Eddie decides to marry Elyse after all, and Billy assures Barbara he genuinely loves her. The wedding proceeds, themed around Eddie’s beloved Baltimore Colts: Shrevie and Beth reconcile; Boogie, Billy, and Fenwick bring Jane, Barbara, and Diane; and Modell delivers a heartfelt speech. The movie ends as Elyse—whose face is never seen throughout the movie—tosses the bouquet, which lands on the friends' table.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: The semi-autobiographical film explores the changing relationships among these friends as they become adults through what is mostly a series of vignettes rather than a traditional narrative. Levinson encouraged improvisation among his cast to capture realistic camaraderie.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: During postproduction, an executive, David Chasman, wanted to cut the scene about an unfinished roast-beef sandwich because it didn’t advance the story, but Levinson explained the roast beef was the story, telling audiences all they need to know about their friendship, their competitiveness and their fears.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Reaction to test screenings of the film was poor and MGM was not sure whether to release the film. Executive producer Mark Johnson's mother knew Pauline Kael and Johnson obtained a print without MGM’s knowledge and screened it privately for Kael and fellow critic James Wolcott. Kael called MGM executives and made it clear she was going to write a rave review even if MGM did not release the film, and that other critics planned to do the same.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: The film inspired a 1983 television pilot written and directed by Levinson. Mike Binder starred as Eddie, Paul Reiser returned as Modell, Michael Madsen took over as Boogie and James Spader was Fenwick.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: A stage musical, with the book by Levinson and music by Sheryl Crow originally opened in Autumn 2013. Kathleen Marshall was the director and choreographer. A “creative workshop” reading was held in December 2011, directed by Kathleen Marshall. The musical opened at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia in December 2014 through January 2015, with direction and choreography by Kathleen Marshall. Crow said: “And to think we are going to premiere it so close to Baltimore, where the story took place, at Signature Theatre, which has birthed so many new musicals, well, I couldn’t be happier.” The cast for the Signature premiere included Matthew James Thomas as Fenwick and Derek Klena as Boogie. The musical was presented at the Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington, Delaware from December 2, 2015 (previews) through December 27, with Matthew James Thomas as Fenwick, Derek Klena as Boogie, Noah Weisberg as Shrevie and Brynn O’Malley as Barbara.


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on reviews from 45 critics. The website's critics consensus states: ""Diner" transports audiences back to the 1950s with a refreshing lack of sentimentality, evoking the thrill of everyday life with its ensemble's potent chemistry and an authentic sense of spontaneity." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 82 based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Pauline Kael of "The New Yorker" called it "A wonderful movie…It isn't remarkable visually, but features some of the best young actors in the country."


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, writing: ""Diner" is often a very funny movie, although I laughed most freely not at the sexual pranks but at the movie's accurate ear, as it reproduced dialogue with great comic accuracy."


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: "Variety" wrote: "Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Paul Reiser and Timothy Daly are terrific as the friends as are Ellen Barkin and Kathryn Dowling as the two females involved with different group members."


title: Diner (1982 film)

text: Author Nick Hornby called the film "a work of great genius." John Wells, executive producer for the TV series "E.R.", estimated he saw the film thirty times in 1982 alone, and he makes a point to watch the film every year.


title: Android Nougat

text: Android Nougat (codenamed Android N during development) is the seventh major version and 14th original version of the Android operating system. First released as an alpha test version on March 9, 2016, it was officially released on August 22, 2016, with Nexus devices being the first to receive the update. The LG V20 was the first smartphone released with Nougat.


title: Android Nougat

text: Nougat introduces notable changes to the operating system and its development platform, including the ability to display multiple apps on-screen at once in a split-screen view, support for inline replies to notifications, and an expanded Doze power-saving mode that restricts device functionality once the screen has been off for a period of time. Additionally, the platform switched to an OpenJDK-based Java environment and received support for the Vulkan graphics rendering API, and seamless system updates on supported devices.


title: Android Nougat

text: Nougat received positive reviews. The new app notification format received particular praise; while the multitasking interface was seen as a positive change, reviewers experienced that several apps were incompatible with the feature. Critics had mixed experiences with the Doze power-saving mode, but faster app installs and tweaks to the user interface were also reviewed positively.


title: Android Nougat

text: , 4.02% of devices ran Android Nougat, with 1.6% on 7.1.x and 2.42% on 7.0. Android Nougat went unsupported with no more security updates after October 2019.


title: Android Nougat

text: The release was internally codenamed "New York Cheesecake". On March 9, 2016, ahead of the Google I/O developer conference, Google released the first alpha version of Android "N" as part of a new "Android Beta Program" intended for testing by developers and enthusiasts before official its release "this summer". The developer preview builds were compatible with only current Google Nexus devices; the 5X, 6P, 6, 9, Pixel C, and Nexus Player. The "Android Beta Program" that was introduced allowed testers to opt-in for over-the-air updates to new beta versions as they were released.


title: Android Nougat

text: On April 13, 2016, Android N Beta Preview 2 was released. Google further discussed Android "N" during the I/O keynote on May 18, 2016, and unveiled its new virtual reality platform, Daydream. Beta Preview 3, the first preview release deemed suitable for wider public beta testing, was released at this time. Google also announced that it would hold a contest to determine the official release name of the operating system.


title: Android Nougat

text: Beta Preview 4 was released on June 15, 2016. On June 30, 2016, Google announced that N's release name would be "Nougat"; it was also confirmed that Nougat would be version 7.0 of Android.


title: Android Nougat

text: Android 7.0 was officially released on August 22, 2016, with the Nexus 6, 5X, 6P, 9, Nexus Player, Pixel C, and as the first devices to receive the update. Dave Burke, Android's Vice President of Engineering, stated in August 2016 that updates to Nougat would be released quarterly as maintenance releases focusing on "continued refinements and polish". On September 6, 2016, LG announced the V20, the first smartphone to ship with Nougat pre-installed. Google unveiled the first-party Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones during a hardware-focused event on October 4, 2016, with the Pixel phones replacing the Nexus series.


title: Android Nougat

text: Updates to existing devices vary by manufacturer and carrier, and driver support for the version by the manufacturer of a device's respective system-on-chip. Major manufacturers, including HTC, Sony, and Motorola announced intents to update a range of their recent devices to Nougat. Qualcomm stated that it would not support Nougat on devices using its Snapdragon 800 and 801 system-on-chips for undisclosed reasons. Although developer preview builds of Nougat were released for the device, Sony stated that it would not upgrade the Xperia Z3 (which uses the Snapdragon 801) to the final version due to "unforeseen platform limitations". It was reported that the Google Compatibility Test Suite (whose tests must be passed in order to receive official certification) specified that all devices running Nougat must support either Vulkan or OpenGL ES 3.1 graphics APIs—neither of which are supported by the device's Adreno 330 graphics core. The Fairphone 2 is purported to be the only device with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset to provide official support for Android 7.1.2, delivering on their effort towards increased longevity for a more sustainable device.


title: Android Nougat

text: A post-release update known as Android 7.1 was pre-loaded onto Google's Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones released in October 2016; the new version added support for the Google Daydream VR platform, image keyboards, expanded emoji support (including male and female versions), support for actions to be displayed in menus on home screen app shortcuts, and other new features. A preview of 7.1 for existing Nexus devices was released via Android Beta Program later in the month, and officially released as Android 7.1.1 on December 5, 2016. As of 7.1.1, the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 were considered end-of-life, and did not receive any further updates.


title: Android Nougat

text: Android 7.1.2 was released in April 2017, providing various improvements and minor functionality improvements to Nexus and Pixel-branded devices.


title: Android Nougat

text: Nougat redesigns the notification shade, which now features a smaller row of icons for settings, replacing notification cards with a new "sheet" design, and allowing inline replies for notifications. Multiple notifications from a single app can also be "bundled", and there is greater per-app control over notifications.


title: Android Nougat

text: A split-screen display mode was introduced for phones, in which two apps can be snapped to occupy halves of the screen. An experimental multi-window mode is also available as a hidden feature, where multiple apps can appear simultaneously on the screen in overlapping windows.


title: Android Nougat

text: The "Doze" power saving mechanism introduced in Android Marshmallow was expanded to include a state activated when the device is running and the screen has been off for a period of time but is not stationary. In this state, network activity is restricted, and apps are granted "maintenance windows" in which they can access the network and perform background tasks. As in Marshmallow, the full Doze state is activated if the device is stationary with its screen off for a period of time. A new "Data Saver" mode restricts background mobile data usage, and can trigger internal functions in apps that are designed to reduce bandwidth usage, such as capping the quality of streaming media.


title: Android Nougat

text: In December 2015, Google announced that Android Nougat would switch its Java Runtime Environment from the defunct Apache Harmony to OpenJDK—the official open source implementation of the Java platform maintained by Oracle Corporation and the Java community. The Android Runtime (ART) now incorporates a profile-guided compilation system, utilizing a JIT compiler and profiling alongside its current ahead-of-time compiler to further optimize apps for a device's hardware and other conditions in the background.


title: Android Nougat

text: Nougat introduces a system for enabling "seamless", automatic system updates, based upon and sharing some code with the implementation of similar functionality on ChromeOS. The system uses a pair of partitions. During the pre-release phase of development, SquashFS had been considered as the filesystem, to help offset the extra storage overhead of maintaining two copies of these partitions. However, for performance reasons, in the public release of Nougat, designers ultimately chose to continue using Android's traditional ext4 filesystem. The Android system executes from an "online" partition, while updates are applied in the background to a redundant "offline" partition. On the next boot following the installation of an update, the redundant partition is designated as active to boot into the updated OS. This system removes the requirement for the device to reboot into the system recovery environment to apply the update (which prevents the device from being used until the update is complete), and also provides a backup of the existing OS in case of failure. Google chose to enable seamless updates only for devices shipped with Nougat (or later), rather than enabling earlier devices to support the feature after repartitioning. Additionally, due to the ART changes on Nougat, apps no longer need to be re-compiled upon the first boot after a system update.


title: Android Nougat

text: Developer Preview 2 added platform support for Vulkan, a new low-level 3D-rendering API alternative to OpenGL ES with higher graphics performance.


title: Android Nougat

text: Nougat is the first version featuring Unicode 9.0 support, and comes with updated emoji, plus support for emoji skin tones.


title: Android Nougat

text: Android 7.1 adds native API support for implementing image keyboards; multi-endpoint telephones; shortcut menus and rounded icon assets for apps on launchers; and support for the Google Daydream virtual reality platform. The Daydream environment includes a "sustained performance mode" to assist developers in optimizing apps to a device's thermal profile, a new head tracking algorithm which combines the input from various device sensors, and integration of system notifications into the VR user interface.


title: Android Nougat

text: In response to the Stagefright family of bugs disclosed and fixed in 2015, several changes were made to harden the media stack against future vulnerabilities. Runtime integer overflow detection was implemented, preventing the majority of Stagefright-like programming bugs from becoming vulnerabilities, in addition to helping fix and prevent such bugs. Android's monolithic "MediaServer" process was redesigned to better adhere to the principle of least privilege. "MediaServer" is now split into several separate processes, each running in its own unprivileged sandbox, and granted only the permissions required for its task. For example, only the "AudioServer" can access Bluetooth, and "libstagefright" now runs within the "MediaCodecService" sandbox, which is only granted GPU access. Further constraints were placed on the media stack through seccomp.


title: Android Nougat

text: Various mechanisms were enabled to reduce the possibility of malicious code being injected and/or executed inside the Linux kernel, including dividing kernel memory into logical segments for code and data, with page access permissions of read-only and no-execute as appropriate. The kernel was also restricted from directly accessing user space memory, and stronger stack protection was enabled in the GCC compiler to reduce stack smashing. To limit exposure of the kernel to potentially malicious code, perf was disabled by default, ioctl commands were restricted by SELinux, and seccomp-bpf was enabled to grant processes the ability to restrict system calls.


title: Android Nougat

text: On devices shipping with Android Nougat, the "Verified Boot" policy (introduced partially on KitKat, and displaying notifications on startup on Marshmallow) must be strictly enforced. If system files are corrupted or otherwise modified, the operating system will only allow operation in a limited-use mode or will refuse to boot at all.


title: Android Nougat

text: Android Nougat supports an alternative drive encryption scheme known as "file-based encryption". As opposed to full disk encryption, it allows less-sensitive contents of the storage—such as operating system files—to be encrypted using only a hardware key rather than requiring credentials. Sensitive user data remains encrypted using credentials. File-based encryption removes the requirement for pre-boot authentication: instead, Android boots normally without additional intervention, but access to credential-protected data is restricted until the user unlocks the device for the first time ("Direct boot"). In the meantime, background services can access data they store in the device-encrypted context (such as alarms or messaging notifications, particularly after automatic reboots due to updates or crashes) to maintain limited functionality until the user unlocks the credential-encrypted storage.


title: Android Nougat

text: Dieter Bohn of "The Verge" praised the new multitasking interface in Android Nougat, calling it "long overdue" for Android tablets. Although he initially found the implementation "confusing", he wrote that it worked well once he understood it properly, though he noted that "some apps don’t fully support split screen, while others work fine but pop up a warning anyway". Bohn also liked the new way to reply to any message notification, stating "Android has long had an advantage in useful and consistent notifications" versus iOS, and added "now that quick replies are standard on it I don't see that lead diminishing". He also noted "tweaks" throughout the OS as welcome changes, including quick toggles in the notification drawer, a Settings menu with more visual information, and a Camera app that has been "cleaned up a bit". Bohn stated that he didn't notice any significant battery improvements despite the Doze power-saving feature in Nougat. He also wrote extensively about the fact that, even though Nougat is "great", "it’s a shame it will take so long for anybody to see it", writing about the lack of updates to most Android devices, and that "unless you have a Nexus, it could be a few months, it could be a , before it becomes available on your phone".


title: Android Nougat

text: Chris Velazco of "Engadget" also praised the new, bundled app notifications, writing that prior Android versions' notifications "just sort of sit there" until interaction, but Nougat "does a much better job of bundling them by app and letting you get things done". He highlighted the ability to expand a bundled Gmail notification to see subjects and senders of individual messages. Velazco stated that split-screen multitasking was a "big deal", but he also encountered non-compatible apps. Visual elements in the Settings app, quick toggles in the notification dropdown, and new language and emoji support were also positive highlights in the review. Velazco did note a battery improvement from the Doze power-saving feature, stating his "Nexus 6P seemed to gain about an hour or two of standby battery life". He also wrote that installing and launching apps might be "a little faster than usual" thanks to Nougat's new app compiler, and he hoped game developers would utilize the new Vulkan API for some "seriously good-looking mobile gaming".


title: Jack (playing card)

text: A Jack or Knave, in some games referred to as a bower, is a playing card which, in traditional French and English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic or courtier dress, generally associated with Europe of the 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack is between the ten and the queen. As the lowest face (or "court") card, the jack often represents a minimum standard — for example, many poker games require a minimum hand of a pair of jacks ("jacks or better") in order to open wagering.


title: Jack (playing card)

text: The earliest predecessor of the knave was the (second or under-deputy) in the Mamluk card deck. This was the lowest of the three court cards and like all court cards was depicted through abstract art or calligraphy. When brought over to Italy and Spain, the was made into an infantry soldier or page ranking below the knight card. In France, where the card was called the valet, the queen was inserted between the king and knight. The knight was subsequently dropped out of non-Tarot decks leaving the valet directly under the queen. The king-queen-valet format then made its way into England.


title: Jack (playing card)

text: As early as the mid-16th century the card was known in England as the knave which originally meant 'boy or young man', as its German equivalent, Knabe, still does. In the context of a royal household it meant a male servant without a specific role or skill; not a cook, gardener, coachman, etc. The French word valet means the same thing. Knave became a derogatory word because royal households had so many of these young men who went swaggering around the streets picking fights, molesting girls and generally making nuisances of themselves. It evolved to mean 'young manservant or henchman'.


title: Jack (playing card)

text: The word 'Jack' was in common usage in the 16th and 17th centuries to mean any generic man or fellow, as in Jack-of-all-trades (one who is good at many things), Jack-in-the-box (a child's toy), or Jack-in-the-Pulpit (a plant).


title: Jack (playing card)

text: The term became more entrenched in card play when, in 1864, American cardmaker Samuel Hart published a deck using "J" instead of "Kn" to designate the lowest-ranking court card. The knave card had been called a jack as part of the terminology of the game All Fours since the 17th century, but this usage was considered common or low class. However, because the card abbreviation for knave was so close to that of the king ("Kn" versus "K"), the two were easily confused. This confusion was even more pronounced after the markings indicating suits and rankings were moved to the corners of the card, a move which enabled players to "fan" a hand of cards without obscuring the individual suits and ranks. The earliest deck known of this type is from 1693, but such positioning did not become widespread until reintroduced by Hart in 1864, together with the knave-to-jack change. Books of card games published in the third quarter of the 19th century still referred to the "knave". Note the exclamation by Estella in Charles Dickens's novel "Great Expectations": "He calls the knaves, jacks, this boy!" Nevertheless, in a few European countries, the equivalent of name 'knave' for this card continues to the present. For example, in Denmark, it is the "Knægt", symbol B (for "Bonde"); in Sweden, the "knekt", symbol Kn.


title: Jack (playing card)

text: The German nickname of "Bauer" ("farmer" or "peasant") often used for the Jacks, appears in English as the loanword, Bower, used for the top trumps (usually Jacks) in games of the euchre family as well as some games of German origin where the Jacks play a significant role e.g. Reunion.


title: Jack (playing card)

text: In the English pattern, the jack and the other face cards represent no one in particular, in contrast to the historical French practice, in which each court card is said to represent a particular historical or mythological personage. The valets in the Paris pattern have traditionally been associated with such figures as Ogier the Dane (a knight of Charlemagne and legendary hero of the chansons de geste) for the jack of spades; La Hire (French warrior) for the Jack of Hearts; Hector (mythological hero of the Iliad) for the jack of diamonds; and Lancelot or Judas Maccabeus for the jack of clubs.