title: Cultural depictions of spiders

text: and UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson "The Spider" Silva who was dubbed "Brazil's Spiderman" by an announcer who thought he looked like a superhero in the ring. Spider mascots are associated with the Cleveland Spiders baseball team and the San Francisco Spiders hockey team, as well as the University of Richmond's athletic teams.


title: Cultural depictions of spiders

text: The widespread urban legend that a person swallows a high number of spiders during sleep in one's life has no basis in reality. A sleeping person causes all kinds of noise and vibrations by breathing, snoring, their heartbeat, etc., all of which warn spiders of danger.


title: Cultural depictions of spiders

text: Huntsman spiders are large and swift, often eliciting arachnophobic reactions from susceptible people, and are the subject of many superstitions, exaggerations and myths. The "banana spider" myth claims that the Huntsman spider lays its eggs in banana flower blossoms, resulting in spiders inside the tip of bananas, waiting to terrorize an unsuspecting consumer. This is supposed to explain why monkeys allegedly peel bananas from the "wrong" end.


title: Cultural depictions of spiders

text: According to another urban legend, daddy long legs "(Pholcidae)" have potent venom, but their fangs are too short to deliver the poison. This myth might have arisen due to its similarity in appearance with the Brown recluse spider. In a 2004 episode of Discovery Channel's "MythBusters", it was shown that host Adam Savage baits and survives a bite from a daddy long legs.


title: Cultural depictions of spiders

text: A modern myth depicts a young woman who discovered that her beehive hairdo was infested with Black widow spiders.


title: Cultural depictions of spiders

text: "The Spider Bite" legend emerged in Europe in the late 1970s. In most versions of this tale, a young vacationing female sunbather is bitten on the cheek by a spider. After seeking medical attention for the resultant swelling, hundreds of tiny spiders are discovered emerging from her lanced wound, which causes the victim to go insane.


title: Cultural depictions of spiders

text: An email hoax describes the attacks by the South American Blush Spider in public toilets. The alleged spider's scientific name is "Arachnius gluteus", where "arachnius" is a made-up word intended to mean "spider" and "gluteus" is a reference to "buttocks" ("cf": gluteus maximus). The hoax spider shares some characteristics with the two-striped telamonia "(Telamonia dimidiata)", and there is an updated version of the hoax using that name for the spider's species, with the rest of the text left unchanged, except for details such as locations. This hoax began in 1999 and has since spread to social media where it continues to circulate.


title: Héloïse

text: Héloïse (; c. 1100–01? – 16 May 1163–64?), variously Héloïse d'Argenteuil or Héloïse du Paraclet, was a French nun, philosopher, writer, scholar, and abbess.


title: Héloïse

text: Héloïse was a renowned "woman of letters" and philosopher of love and friendship, as well as an eventual high-ranking abbess in the Catholic Church. She achieved approximately the level and political power of a bishop in 1147 when she was granted the rank of prelate nullius.


title: Héloïse

text: She is famous in history and popular culture for her love affair and correspondence with the leading medieval logician and theologian Peter Abelard, who became her colleague, collaborator and husband. She is known for exerting critical intellectual influence upon his work and posing many challenging questions to him such as those in the "Problemata Heloissae".


title: Héloïse

text: Her surviving letters are considered a foundation of French and European literature and primary inspiration for the practice of courtly love. Her erudite and sometimes erotically charged correspondence is the Latin basis for the "bildungsroman" genre and serve alongside Abelard's "Historia Calamitatum" as a model of the classical epistolary genre. Her influence extends on later writers such as Chrétien de Troyes, Geoffrey Chaucer, Madame de Lafayette, Thomas Aquinas, Choderlos de Laclos, Voltaire, Rousseau, Simone Weil, and Dominique Aury.


title: Héloïse

text: She is an important figure in the establishment of women's representation in scholarship and is known for her controversial portrayals of gender and marriage which influenced the development of modern feminism.


title: Héloïse

text: Héloïse is variously spelled Helöise, Héloyse, Hélose, Heloisa, Helouisa, Eloise, and Aloysia, among other variations. Her first name is derived from Proto-Germanic "Hailawidis", "holy wood", or possibly a feminization of St. Eloi. Her family origin and original surname are unknown but her last name is often rendered as "D'Argenteuil" based on her childhood home or sometimes "Du Paraclet" based on her mid-life appointment as abbess at the convent of the Paraclete near Troyes, France.


title: Héloïse

text: Early in life, Héloïse was recognized as a leading scholar of Latin, Greek and Hebrew hailing from the convent of Argenteuil just outside Paris, where she was educated by nuns until adolescence. She was already renowned for her knowledge of language and writing when she arrived in Paris as a young woman, and had developed a reputation for intelligence and insight. Abélard writes that she was "nominatissima", "most renowned" for her gift in reading and writing. She wrote poems, plays and hymns, some of which have been lost.


title: Héloïse

text: Her family background is largely unknown. She was the ward of her maternal uncle ("avunculus") Canon Fulbert of Notre Dame and the daughter of a woman named Hersinde, who is sometimes speculated to have been Hersint of Champagne (Lady of Montsoreau and founder of the Fontevraud Abbey) or possibly a lesser known nun called Hersinde at the convent of St. Eloi (from which the name "Heloise" would have been taken).


title: Héloïse

text: In her letters she implies she is of a lower social standing than Peter Abélard, who was originally from the lower nobility, though he had rejected knighthood to be a philosopher. Speculation that her mother was Hersinde of Champagne/Fontrevaud and her father Gilbert Garlande contests with Heloise's depiction of herself as lower class than Abelard. Hersinde of Champagne was of lower nobility, and the Garlandes were from a higher social echelon than Abelard and served as his patrons. The Hersinde of Champagne theory is further complicated by the fact that Hersinde of Champagne died in 1114 between the ages of 54 and 80, implying that she would have had to have given birth to Heloise between the ages of 35 and 50.


title: Héloïse

text: What is known for sure is that her Uncle Fulbert, a canon of Notre Dame collected her to Notre Dame from her childhood home in Argentuil. By her mid teens to early twenties, she was renowned throughout France for her scholarship. While her birth year is disputed, she is traditionally held to be about 15 to 17 when meeting Abelard. By the time she became his student, she was already of high repute herself. As a poetic and highly literate prodigy of female sex familiar with multiple languages, she attracted much attention, including the notice of Peter the Venerable of Cluny, who notes that he became aware of her acclaim when he and she were both young. She soon attracted the romantic interest of celebrity scholar Peter Abelard.


title: Héloïse

text: Heloise is said to have gained knowledge in medicine or folk medicine from either Abelard or his kinswoman Denise and gained reputation as a physician in her role as abbess of Paraclete.


title: Héloïse

text: In his autobiographical piece and public letter "Historia Calamitatum" (c. 1132?), Abélard tells the story of his relationship with Héloïse, whom he met in 1115, when he taught in the Paris schools of Notre Dame. Abelard describes their relationship as beginning with a premeditated seduction, but Heloise contests this perspective adamantly in her replies. (It is sometimes speculated that Abelard may have presented the relationship as fully of his responsibility in order to justify his later punishment and withdrawal to religion and/or in order to spare Heloise's reputation as an abbess and woman of God.) Heloise contrastingly in the early love letters depicts herself as the initiator, having sought Abelard herself among the thousands of men in Notre Dame and chosen him alone as her friend and lover.


title: Héloïse

text: In his letters, Abelard praises Heloise as extremely intelligent and just passably pretty, drawing attention to her academic status rather than framing her as a sex object: "She is not bad in the face, but her copious writings are second to none." He emphasizes that he sought her out specifically due to her literacy and learning, which was unheard of in most un-cloistered women of his era.


title: Héloïse

text: It is unclear how old Héloïse was at the time they became acquainted. During the twelfth century in France, the typical age at which a young person would begin attending university was between the ages of 12 to 15. As a young female, Heloise would have been forbidden from fraternizing with the male students or officially attending university at Notre Dame. With university education offered only to males, and convent education at this age reserved only for nuns, this age would have been a natural time for her uncle Fulbert to arrange for special instruction.


title: Héloïse

text: Heloise is described by Abelard as an "adolescentula "(young girl). Based on this description, she is typically assumed to be between fifteen and seventeen years old upon meeting him and thus born in 1100–01. There is a tradition that she died at the same age as did Abelard (63) in 1163 or 1164. The term adolescent, however, is vague, and no primary source of her year of birth has been located. Recently, as part of a contemporary investigation into Heloise's identity and prominence, Constant Mews has suggested that she may have been so old as her early twenties (and thus born around 1090) when she met Abelard. The main support for his opinion, however, is a debatable interpretation of a letter of Peter the Venerable (born 1092) in which he writes to Héloïse that he remembers that she was famous when he was still a young man. Constant Mews assumes he must have been talking about an older woman given his respect for her, but this is speculation. It is just as likely that a female adolescent prodigy amongst male university students in Paris could have attracted great renown and (especially retrospective) praise. It is at least clear that she had gained this renown and some level of respect before Abelard came onto the scene.


title: Héloïse

text: In lieu of university studies, Canon Fulbert arranged for Heloise's private tutoring with Peter Abelard, who was then a leading philosopher in Western Europe and the most popular secular canon scholar (professor) of Notre Dame. Abelard was coincidentally looking for lodgings at this point. A deal was made—Abelard would teach and discipline Heloise in place of paying rent.


title: Héloïse

text: Abelard tells of their subsequent illicit relationship, which they continued until Héloïse became pregnant. Abelard moved Héloïse away from Fulbert and sent her to his own sister, Denise, in Brittany, where Héloïse gave birth to a boy, whom she called Astrolabe (which is also the name of a navigational device that is used to determine a position on Earth by charting the position of the stars).


title: Héloïse

text: Abelard agreed to marry Héloïse to appease Fulbert, although on the condition that the marriage should be kept secret so as not to damage Abélard's career. Heloise insisted on a secret marriage due to her fears of marriage injuring Abelard's career. Likely, Abelard had recently joined Religious Orders (something on which scholarly opinion is divided), and given that the church was beginning to forbid marriage to priests and the higher orders of clergy (to the point of a papal order re-affirming this idea in 1123), public marriage would have been a potential bar to Abelard's advancement in the church. Héloïse was initially reluctant to agree to any marriage, but was eventually persuaded by Abelard. Héloïse returned from Brittany, and the couple was secretly married in Paris. As part of the bargain, she continued to live in her uncle's house.


title: Héloïse

text: Fulbert immediately went back on his word and began to spread the news of the marriage. Héloïse attempted to deny this, arousing his wrath and abuse. Abelard rescued her by sending her to the convent at Argenteuil, where she had been brought up. Héloïse dressed as a nun and shared the life of the nuns, though she was not veiled. Fulbert, infuriated that Heloise had been taken from his house and possibly believing that Abelard had disposed of her at Argenteuil in order to be rid of her, arranged for a band of men to break into Abelard's room one night and castrate him. In legal retribution for this vigilante attack, members of the band were punished, and Fulbert, scorned by the public, took temporary leave of his canon duties (he does not appear again in the Paris cartularies for several years).


title: Héloïse

text: After castration, filled with shame at his situation, Abélard became a monk in the Abbey of St Denis in Paris. At the convent in Argenteuil, Héloïse took the veil. She quoted dramatically from Cornelia's speech in Lucan's Pharsalia: "Why did I marry you and bring about your fall? Now...see me gladly pay."


title: Héloïse

text: It is commonly portrayed that Abelard forced Heloise into the convent due to jealousy. Yet, as her husband was entering the monastery, she had few other options at the time, beyond perhaps returning to the care of her betrayer Fulbert, leaving Paris again to stay with Abelard's family in rural Brittany outside Nantes, or divorcing and remarrying (most likely to a non-intellectual, as canon scholars were increasingly expected to be celibate). Entering religious orders was a common career shift or retirement option in twelfth century France. Her appointment as a nun, then prioress, and then abbess was her only opportunity for an academic career as a woman in 12th century France, her only hope to maintain cultural influence, and her only opportunity to stay in touch with or benefit Abelard. Examined in a societal context, her decision to follow Abelard into religion upon his direction, despite an initial lack of vocation, is less shocking.


title: Héloïse

text: Shortly after the birth of their child, Astrolabe, Heloise and Abelard were both cloistered. Their son was thus brought up by Abelard's sister ("soror"), Denise, at Abelard's childhood home in Le Pallet. His name derives from the astrolabe, a Persian astronomical instrument said to elegantly model the universe and which was popularized in France by Adelard. He is mentioned in Abelard's poem to his son, the Carmen Astralabium, and by Abelard's protector, Peter the Venerable of Cluny, who wrote to Héloise: "I will gladly do my best to obtain a prebend in one of the great churches for your Astrolabe, who is also ours for your sake".


title: Héloïse

text: 'Petrus Astralabius' is recorded at the Cathedral of Nantes in 1150, and the same name appears again later at the Cistercian abbey at Hauterive in what is now Switzerland. Given the extreme eccentricity of the name, it is almost certain these references refer to the same person. Astrolabe is recorded as dying in the Paraclete necrology on 29 or 30 October, year unknown, appearing as "Petrus Astralabius magistri nostri Petri filius" (Peter Astrolabe, son of our magister [master] Peter).


title: Héloïse

text: Heloise rose in the church, first achieving the level of prioress of Argenteuil. At the disbandment of Argenteuil and seizure by the monks of St Dennis under Abbot Suger, Heloise was transferred to the Paraclete, where Abelard had stationed himself during a period of hermitage. (He had dedicated his chapel to the Paraclete, the holy spirit, because he "had come there as a fugitive and, in the depths of my despair, was granted some comfort by the grace of God".) They now rededicated it as a convent, and Abelard moved on to St. Gildas in Brittany where he became abbot. Heloise became prioress and then abbess of the Paraclete, finally achieving the level of prelate nullius (roughly equivalent to bishop). Her properties and daughter-houses (including the convents of "Sainte-Madeleine-de-Traîne" (c. 1142), "La Pommeray" (c. 1147-51?), "Laval" (ca. 1153), "Noëfort" (before 1157), "Sainte-Flavit" (before 1157), "Boran" / "Sainte-Martin-aux-Nonnettes" (by 1163)) extended across France, and she was known as a formidable businesswoman.


title: Héloïse

text: The primary correspondence existing today consists of seven letters (numbered "Epistolae" 2–8 in Latin volumes, since the "Historia Calamitatum" precedes them as "Epistola" 1). Four of the letters ("Epistolae" 2–5) are known as the 'Personal Letters', and contain personal correspondence. The remaining three ("Epistolae" 6–8) are known as the 'Letters of Direction'. An earlier set of 113 letters discovered much more recently (in the early 1970s) is vouched to also belong to Abelard and Heloise by historian and Abelard scholar Constant Mews.


title: Héloïse

text: Correspondence began between the two former lovers after the events described in the last section. Héloïse responded, both on the behalf of the Paraclete and herself. In letters which followed, Héloïse expressed dismay at problems that Abelard faced, but scolded him for years of silence following the attack, since Abelard was still wed to Héloïse.


title: Héloïse

text: Thus began a correspondence both passionate and erudite. Héloïse encouraged Abelard in his philosophical work, and he dedicated his profession of faith to her. Abelard insisted that his love for her had consisted of lust, and that their relationship was a sin against God. He then recommended her to turn her attention toward Jesus Christ who is the source of true love, and to consecrate herself fully from then on to her religious vocation.


title: Héloïse

text: At this point the tenor of the letters changes. In the 'Letters of Direction', Héloïse writes the fifth letter, declaring that she will no longer write of the hurt that Abelard has caused her. The sixth is a long letter by Abelard in response to Héloïse's first question in the fifth letter about the origin of nuns. In the long final, seventh letter, Abelard provides a rule for the nuns at the Oratory of the Paraclete, again as requested by Héloïse at the outset of the fifth letter.


title: Héloïse

text: The "Problemata Heloissae" ("Héloïse's Problems") is a letter from Héloïse to Abélard containing 42 questions about difficult passages in scripture, interspersed with Abelard's answers to the questions, probably written at the time when she was abbess at the Paraclete.


title: Héloïse

text: Post 1974, Ewald Konsgen suggested and Constant Mews and others have argued that an anonymous series of letters, the "Epistolae Duorum Amantium", were in fact written by Héloïse and Abelard during their initial romance (and, thus, before the later and more broadly known series of letters). These letters represent a significant expansion to the corpus of surviving writing by Héloïse, and thus open several new directions for further scholarship.


title: Héloïse

text: However, because the second set of letters is anonymous, and attribution "is of necessity based on circumstantial rather than on absolute evidence," their authorship is still a subject of debate and discussion. Recently, Rüdiger Schnell has argued that a close reading reveals the letters as parody, ridiculing their supposed authors by characterizing the male writer as boastful and macho, while simultaneously humiliating himself in pursuit of his correspondent, and the female writer, ostensibly an exemplar of ideal love, as a seeker of sexual pleasure under the cover of religious vocabulary.


title: Héloïse

text: Héloïse heavily influenced Abelard's ethics, theology and philosophy of love. A scholar of Cicero following in his tradition, Heloise writes of pure friendship and pure unselfish love. Her letters critically develop an ethical philosophy in which intent is centrally placed as critical for determining the moral correctness or "sin" of an action. She claims: "For it is not the deed itself but the intention of the doer that makes the sin. Equity weighs not what is done, but the spirit in which it is done." This perspective influenced Abelard's intention-centered ethics described in his later work "Etica (Scito Te Ipsum)" (c. 1140), and thus serve as a foundation to the development of the deontological structure of intentionalist ethics in medieval philosophy prior to Aquinas.


title: Héloïse

text: She describes her love as "innocent" yet paradoxically "guilty" of having caused a punishment (Abelard's castration). She refuses to repent of her so-called sins, insisting that God had punished her only after she was married and had already moved away from so-called "sin". Her writings emphasise intent as the key to identifying whether an action is sinful/wrong, while insisting that she has always had good intent.


title: Héloïse

text: Héloïse wrote critically of marriage, comparing it to contractual prostitution, and describing it as different from "pure love" and devotional friendship such as that she shared with Peter Abelard. In her first letter, she writes that she "preferred love to wedlock, freedom to a bond." She also states, "Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection; for it is evident that she goes after his wealth and not the man, and is willing to prostitute herself, if she can, to a richer." Peter Abelard himself reproduces her arguments (citing Heloise) in "Historia Calamitatum". She also writes critically of childbearing and child care and the near impossibility of coexistent scholarship and parenthood. Heloise apparently preferred what she perceived as the honesty of sex work to what she perceived as the hypocrisy of marriage: "If the name of wife seems holier and more impressive, to my ears the name of mistress always sounded sweeter or, if you are not ashamed of it, the name of concubine or whore...God is my witness, if Augustus, who ruled over the whole earth, should have thought me worthy of the honor of marriage and made me ruler of all the world forever, it would have seemed sweeter and more honorable to me to be called your mistress than his empress." (The Latin word she chose now rendered as "whore", "scortum" [from "scrotum"], is curiously in medieval usage a term for male prostitute or "rent boy".)


title: Héloïse

text: In her later letters, Heloise develops with her husband Abelard an approach for women's religious management and female scholarship, insisting that a convent for women be run with rules specifically interpreted for women's needs.


title: Héloïse

text: Heloise is a significant forerunner of contemporary feminist scholars as one of the first feminine scholars, and the first medieval female scholar, to discuss marriage, child-bearing, and sex work in a critical way.


title: Héloïse

text: Héloïse is accorded an important place in French literary history and in the development of feminist representation. While few of her letters survive, those that do have been considered a foundational "monument" of French literature from the late thirteenth century onwards. Her correspondence, more erudite than it is erotic, is the Latin basis for the Bildungsroman and a model of the classical epistolary genre, and which influenced writers as diverse as Chretien de Troyes, Madame de Lafayette, Choderlos de Laclos, Rousseau and Dominique Aury.


title: Héloïse

text: The authorship of the writings connected with Héloïse has been a subject of scholarly disagreement for much of their history.


title: Héloïse

text: The most well-established documents, and correspondingly those whose authenticity has been disputed the longest, are the series of letters that begin with Abelard's "Historia Calamitatum" (counted as letter 1) and encompass four "personal letters" (numbered 2–5) and "letters of direction" (numbers 6–8) and which include the notable "Problemata Heloissae". Most scholars today accept these works as having been written by Héloïse and Abelard themselves. John Benton is the most prominent modern skeptic of these documents. Etienne Gilson, Peter Dronke, and Constant Mews maintain the mainstream view that the letters are genuine, arguing that the skeptical viewpoint is fueled in large part by its advocates' pre-conceived notions.


title: Héloïse

text: The great majority of academic scholars and popular writers have interpreted the story of Héloïse's relationship with Abelard as a consensual and tragic romance. However, much controversy has been generated by a quote from Abelard in the fifth letter in which he implies that sexual relations with Heloise were, at least at some points, not consensual. While attempting to dissuade Heloise from her romantic memories and encourage her to fully embrace religion, he writes: "When you objected to [sex] yourself and resisted with all your might, and tried to dissuade me from it, I frequently forced your consent (for after all you were the weaker) by threats and blows." Importantly, this passage runs in stark contrast to Heloise's depiction of their relationship, in which she speaks of "desiring" and "choosing" him, enjoying their sexual encounters, and going so far as to describe herself as having chosen herself to pursue him amongst the "thousands" of men in Notre Dame. Nevertheless, working solely from the sentence in Abelard's fifth letter, Mary Ellen Waithe argued in 1989 that Héloïse was strongly opposed to a sexual relationship, thus presenting her as a victim and depicting an Abelard who sexually harassed, abused, and raped his student.


title: Héloïse

text: Most scholars differ in their interpretation of Abelard's self-depiction. According to William Levitan, fellow of the American academy in Rome, "Readers may be struck by the unattractive figure [the otherwise self praising Abelard] cuts in his own pages...Here the motive [in blaming himself for a cold seduction] is part protective...for Abelard to take all the moral burden on himself and shield, to the extent he can, the now widely respected abbess of the Paraclete—and also in part justificatory—to magnify the crime to the proportions of its punishment." David Wulstan writes, "Much of what Abelard says in the Historia Calamitatum does not ring true: his arrogation of blame for the cold seduction of his pupil is hardly fortified by the letters of Heloise; this and various supposed violations seem contrived to build a farrago of supposed guilt which he must expiate by his retreat into monasticism and by distancing himself from his former lover."


title: Héloïse

text: Heloise is thus motivated in her responses to Abelard's letters to set the record straight, that if anything she had initiated their relationship. Héloïse's writings express a much more positive attitude toward their past relationship than does Abelard. She does not renounce her encounters as sinful and she does not "accept that [Abelard's] love for her could die, even by the horrible act of...castration."


title: Héloïse

text: It is important in investigating these allegations of abuse or harassment on Abelard's part to consider the crude sexual ethics of the time (in which a prior relationship was generally taken as establishing consent), Heloise's letters which depict her as complicit if not the initiator of sexual interaction, and Abelard's position as an abbot relative to Heloise, an abbess, towards whom he owed a debt of responsibility and guardianship. By depicting himself—a castrated and now repentant monk—as to blame for their liaison, he denied Heloise her own sexual scandal and maintained the purity of her reputation. An allegation of sexual impropriety on the part of Heloise would furthermore endanger the sanctity of Abelard's property, the Paraclete, which could be claimed by more powerful figures in government or the Catholic Church. Heloise's prior convent at Argenteuil and another convent at St. Eloi had already been shut down by the Catholic hierarchy due to accusations of sexual impropriety by nuns. Monasteries run by male monks were generally in no such danger, so Abelard sealing his reputation as a repentant scoundrel would not harm him.


title: Héloïse

text: Waithe indicated in a 2009 interview with Karen Warren that she has "softened the position [she] took earlier" in light of Mews' subsequent attribution of the "Epistolae Duorum Amantium" to Abelard and Héloïse (which Waithe accepts), though she continues to find the passage troubling.


title: Héloïse

text: Héloïse's place of burial is uncertain. Abelard's bones were moved to the Oratory of the Paraclete after his death, and after Héloïse's death in 1163/64 her bones were placed alongside his. The bones of the pair were moved more than once afterwards, but they were preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now are presumed to lie in the well-known tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in eastern Paris. The transfer of their remains there in 1817 is considered to have considerably contributed to the popularity of that cemetery, at the time still far outside the built-up area of Paris. By tradition, lovers or lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt, in tribute to the couple or in hope of finding true love.


title: Héloïse

text: This remains, however, disputed. The Oratory of the Paraclete claims Abélard and Héloïse are buried there and that what exists in Père Lachaise is merely a monument, or cenotaph. Others believe that while Abelard is buried in the tomb at Père Lachaise, Heloise's remains are elsewhere.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: The Bronze is a 2015 American sports comedy-drama film directed by Bryan Buckley and written by Melissa Rauch and Winston Rauch. It was produced by Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass through their Duplass Brothers Productions banner. The film stars Rauch, Gary Cole, Thomas Middleditch, Sebastian Stan, Cecily Strong, Haley Lu Richardson and Dale Raoul. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2015, and was theatrically released on March 18, 2016, by Sony Pictures Classics.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: Former gymnastics Bronze Medalist Hope Ann Greggory has been living off her celebrity status in her hometown of Amherst, Ohio, though she is reduced to going through her postal worker father's mail deliveries for spending money. When her former coach Pavleck suddenly commits suicide, a letter arrives addressed to Hope stating that if she can guide Pavleck's best student, a young gymnastics star named Maggie Townsend to the Olympics in Toronto, she will receive a $500,000 inheritance.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: Unwilling to be overshadowed by Maggie's success, Hope instead plans to take the money by sabotaging Maggie's training so she can stay on top, initially feeding her junk food and a shake laced with marijuana. Maggie performs so poorly that arrogant Olympic Gold Medalist Lance Tucker, the team coordinator who resents Hope's celebrity on account of her inferior bronze medal (which she won despite a career-ending injury), threatens to take over as Maggie's coach. When Hope learns she will forfeit the inheritance money if she does not continue training Maggie, Hope grudgingly devotes herself to Maggie's training in earnest. Along the way, she enters a romance with her assistant coach Ben Lawfort, nicknamed "Twitchy" due to his involuntary facial spasm.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: Hope's efforts eventually pay off when Maggie qualifies for the Olympic Games. However, she is shocked to discover that Pavleck's gym is in danger of closing because Pavleck had no money to her name when she died. Upon hearing the news, Hope's father confesses that he was the one who wrote the letter, hoping to motivate Hope to do something meaningful with her life. After a heated exchange, Hope gets drunk and ends up having sex with Lance, leading a heartbroken Ben, who witnessed the act, to break off their relationship.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: Maggie wins the gold medal and is celebrated as a local hero in Amherst, but announces her intention to begin training with Lance in Los Angeles instead of staying with Hope. When Maggie fails to show up for an autograph signing at a mall, Hope addresses the disappointed crowd and declares that she will always be Amherst's hero. She comes up with a plan to finance Pavleck's gym on her own by selling uniforms and gymnastics lessons to local girls. She then apologizes to Ben and retains him as her assistant coach.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: In the epilogue, a caption reveals that Maggie was forced to abandon her gymnastics career after becoming pregnant with Lance's child. Hope continues to coach gymnastics, though none of her pupils have gone on to any distinction in the sport.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: On July 9, 2014, it was reported Melissa Rauch, Gary Cole, Thomas Middleditch, Sebastian Stan, Cecily Strong and Haley Lu Richardson had all been cast in the film, as well as that Stephanie Langhoff would produce the film under the Duplass Brothers Productions banner.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on July 4, 2014, in Amherst, Ohio. Production on the film concluded on July 26, 2014. In an interview after Sundance, Rauch stated that she and Buckley trimmed scenes and restored some original story ideas for a new theatrical version.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: In July 2014, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired international distribution rights to the film. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2015. Shortly after, Relativity Media acquired distribution rights to the film. The film was originally scheduled for release in July 2015, and then October 2015. In September 2015, it was pulled from the schedule. The same month, Sony Pictures Classics acquired U.S distribution rights instead, and it was announced that Stage 6 Films would distribute the film internationally. The film was to be released in a limited release on March 11, 2016, but was delayed a week to March 18, 2016, in favor of a wide release.


title: The Bronze (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 36%, based on 99 reviews, with an average rating of 5.13/10. The site's consensus reads, "Enthusiastically unpleasant and mostly unfunny, "The Bronze" fails to stick the landing – or much else along the way." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 44 out of 100, based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Bronze (film)

text: Peter Debruge of "Variety" wrote: "Though no one would accuse "The Bronze" of not being funny, it somehow manages not to be funny often enough."


title: The Bronze (film)

text: Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" called it "one of those comedies that could have been a brilliant short film on 'Funny or Die' or "'Saturday Night Live"', but wears out its welcome as a feature-length film."


title: Lazarus taxon

text: In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon (plural "taxa") is a taxon that disappears for one or more periods from the fossil record, only to appear again later. Likewise in conservation biology and ecology, it can refer to species or populations that were thought to be extinct, and are rediscovered. The term Lazarus taxon was coined by Karl W. Flessa & David Jablonski in 1983 and was then expanded by Jablonski in 1986. Paul Wignall and Michael Benton defined Lazarus taxa as, "At times of biotic crisis many taxa go extinct, but others only temporarily disappeared from the fossil record, often for intervals measured in millions of years, before reappearing unchanged". Earlier work also supports the concept though without using the name Lazarus taxon, like work by Christopher R. C. Paul.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: The term refers to the story in the Christian biblical Gospel of John, in which Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the dead.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: Lazarus taxa are observational artifacts that appear to occur either because of (local) extinction, later resupplied, or as a sampling artifact. The fossil record is inherently sporadic (only a very small fraction of organisms become fossilized, and an even smaller fraction are discovered before destruction) and contains gaps not necessarily caused by extinction, particularly when the number of individuals in a taxon is very low.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: After mass extinctions, such as the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the Lazarus effect occurred for many taxa. However, there appears to be no link with the abundance of fossiliferous sites and the proportion of Lazarus taxa, and no missing taxa have been found in potential refuges. Therefore, reappearance of Lazarus taxa probably reflects the rebound after a period of extreme rarity during the aftermath of such extinctions.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: A zombie taxon is a taxon that contains specimens that have been collected from strata younger than the extinction of the taxon. Later such fossils turn out to be freed from the original seam and refossilized in a younger sediment. For example, a trilobite that gets eroded out of its Cambrian-aged limestone matrix, and reworked into Miocene-aged siltstone.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: A living fossil is an extant taxon that appears to have changed so little compared with fossil remains, that it is considered identical. Living fossils may occur regularly in the fossil record, such as the lampshell "Lingula", though the living species in this genus are not identical to fossil brachiopods.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: Other living fossils however are also Lazarus taxa if these have been missing from the fossil record for substantial periods of time, such as applies for coelacanths.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: Finally, the term "Lazarus species" is applied to organisms that have been rediscovered as being still alive after having been widely considered extinct for years, without ever having appeared in the fossil record. In this last case, the term Lazarus taxon is applied in neontology.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: Because its definition is ambiguous, some, like R. B. Rickards and A. J. Wright, reject the very concept of the Lazarus taxon. Rickards and Wright have questioned the usefulness of the concept, writing in "Lazarus taxa, refugia and relict faunas: evidence from graptolites" that anyone could argue that any gap in the fossil record could potentially be considered a Lazarus effect because the duration required for the Lazarus effect is not defined. They have argued that accurate plotting of biodiversity changes and species abundance through time, coupled with an appraisal of their palaeobiogeography, is more important than using this title to categorize species.


title: Lazarus taxon

text: The lack of public engagement around environmental issues has led conservationists to attempt newer communication strategies. One of them is the focus on positive messages, of which Lazarus species are an important part. One conservation outreach project that has focused exclusively on species rediscoveries is the Lost & Found project which aims to tell the stories of species once thought extinct but that were subsequently rediscovered.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: The 2021–22 Serie C was the eighth season of the unified Serie C division, the third tier of the Italian football league system.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: The league is composed by 60 teams, divided into three different groups. On 31 May 2021, the league committee decreed the three groups would be split horizontally in geographical terms, from north to south. The group composition was decided and formalized by the committee on 9 August.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: On 6 July 2021, the Lega Pro football league announced Serie D Group A winners Gozzano had renounced on their promotion right, thus automatically creating a vacancy in the league.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: On 9 July 2021, the Co.Vi.So.C. rejected league application of Carpi, Casertana, Novara, Paganese and Sambenedettese. All these clubs successively requested being admitted on appeal; in case that is denied, they would still have the opportunity for a further appeal at the Italian National Olympic Committee level.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: On 9 April 2022, Catania was excluded from the league with immediate effect due to financial issues, with only four games left for them to play till the end of the regular season; all of the club's results were subsequently expunged.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: 10 teams from Lombardy, 3 teams from Veneto, 2 teams from Emilia-Romagna, 2 teams from Piedmont, 2 teams from Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and 1 team from Friuli Venezia Giulia.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: 7 teams from Tuscany, 4 teams from Emilia-Romagna, 3 teams from Marche, 2 teams from Abruzzo, 1 team from Lazio, 1 team from Liguria, 1 team from Sardinia and 1 team from Umbria.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: 6 teams from Apulia, 4 teams from Campania, 3 teams from Sicily, 2 teams from Basilicata, 2 teams from Calabria, 2 teams from Lazio and 1 team from Molise.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: As Padova and Südtirol, respectively winners and runners-up of the 2021–22 Coppa Italia Serie C, concluded the season in the first two spots from Group A, an additional spot in the national phase of the playoffs will be handed to the fourth-placed team from Group A itself.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: Due to the exclusion of Catania, points for teams from Group C will be multiplied by a fixed coefficient of 1.05555556 in order to determine the best-placed team among different groups in the playoff rounds.


title: 2021–22 Serie C

text: The semi-finals legs were played on 25 and 29 May 2022 and the final legs were played on 5 and 12 June 2022.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: The transfer of sovereignty of Macau (; ) from Portugal to the People's Republic of China (PRC) occurred on 20 December 1999.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: Macau was settled by Portuguese merchants in 1557, during the Ming dynasty and was subsequently under various degrees of Portuguese rule until 1999. Portugal's involvement in the region was formally recognised by the Qing dynasty in 1749. The Portuguese governor João Maria Ferreira do Amaral, emboldened by the First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking, attempted to annex the territory, expelling Qing authorities in 1846, but was assassinated. After the Second Opium War, the Portuguese government, along with a British representative, signed the 1887 Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking that gave Portugal perpetual colonial rights to Macau on the condition that Portugal would cooperate in efforts to end the smuggling of opium.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and the transfer of China's seat to the PRC at the United Nations in 1971, then Foreign Minister Huang Hua appealed to the UN Special Committee on Decolonization to remove Macau (and Hong Kong) from its list of colonies, preferring bilateral negotiations ending in a return of the territory, rather than the independence of the territory as was implied by its inclusion on the list.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: On 25 April 1974, a group of left-wing Portuguese officers organized a coup d'état, overthrowing the right-wing dictatorship that had been in power for 48 years. The new government began to transition Portugal to a democratic system and was committed to decolonization. The government carried out decolonization policies, and proposed Macau's handover to China in 1978. The Chinese government rejected this proposal, believing that an early transfer of Macau would impact relations with Hong Kong.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: On 31 December 1975, the Portuguese government withdrew its remaining troops from Macau. On 8 February 1979, the Portuguese government decided to break off diplomatic relations with the Republic of China, and established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China the next day. Both Portugal and the People's Republic of China recognized Macau as Chinese territory. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until 20 December 1999, when it was transferred to China and became the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. This marked the end of nearly 600 years of the European colonial era.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: On 20 May 1986, the People's Republic of China, along with Portugal, officially announced that talks on Macanese affairs would take place in Beijing on 30 June 1986. The Portuguese delegation arrived in Beijing in June, and was welcomed by the Chinese delegation led by Zhou Nan.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: During the negotiations, Portuguese representatives offered to return Macau in 1985, but Chinese representatives rejected that year (as well rejecting previous requests for 1967, 1975, and 1977). China requested 1997, the same year as Hong Kong, but Portugal refused. 2004 was suggested by Portugal, as well as 2007 as that year would mark the 450th anniversary of Portugal renting Macau. However, China insisted for a year before 2000 as the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group in Hong Kong would be dissolved in 2000 as envisioned in 1986 (the Joint Liaison Group would be dissolved in 1999). Eventually the year 1999 was agreed upon.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: On 13 April 1987, the Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau by the governments of the People's Republic of China and the Portuguese Republic was formally signed by the Prime Ministers of both governments in Beijing.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: The twelve years between the signing of the "Sino-Portuguese Declaration" on 13 April 1987 and the transfer of sovereignty on 20 December 1999 were known as "the transition".


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: On 15 January 1988, the Chinese Foreign Affairs Department announced the Chinese members of the groups that would begin the talk on the issues of Macau during the transition. On 13 April, the "Draft of the Basic Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region Committee" was established during the seventh National People's Congress, and on 25 October, the committee convened the first conference, in which they passed the general outline of the draft and the steps, and decided to organise the "Draft of the Basic Law of Macau Special Administrative Region Information Committee". On 31 March 1993, the National People's Congress passed the resolution on the Basic Law of Macau, which marked the beginning of the latter part of the transition.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: In the afternoon of 19 December 1999, the 127th Portuguese Governor of Macau Vasco Joaquim Rocha Vieira lowered the flags in Macau, which was the prelude of the ceremony for the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region. The official transfer of sovereignty was held at midnight on that day at the Cultural Centre of Macau Garden. The ceremony began in the evening and ended at dawn of 20 December.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: The evening of 19 December began with dragon and lion dances. These were followed by a slideshow of historical events and features of Macau, which included a mixture of the religions and races of the East and the West, and the unique society of native Portuguese born in Macau. In the final performance, 442 children who represented the 442 years of Portuguese history in Macau were presented along with several international stars to perform the song "Praise for Peace".


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: After the transfer of the sovereignty of Macau to China, the Macau Special Administrative Region, the Legislative Assembly and the Judiciary were all put into practice accordingly under the regulation of the Basic Law.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: The introduction of the Individual Visit Scheme policy made it easier for Chinese mainland residents to travel back and forth. In 2005 alone, there were more than 10 million tourists from mainland China, which made up 60% of the total number of tourists in Macau. The income from the gambling houses in Macau reached almost US$5.6 billion. On 15 July 2005, the Historic Centre of Macau was listed as a World Cultural Heritage site. The increasing development of tourism became a major factor in the rapid development of the economy of Macau.


title: Transfer of sovereignty over Macau

text: For Portugal, the transfer of the sovereignty of Macau to China marked the end of the Portuguese Empire and its decolonisation process and also the end of European imperialism in China and Asia.


title: Piramal Group

text: The Piramal Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate that has presence across various sectors such as healthcare, life sciences, drug discovery, financial services, alternative investment and real estate.


title: Piramal Group

text: In the early 1980s, Ajay Piramal took over the reins of Piramal Group. In 1984, the group acquired Gujarat Glass Limited, a manufacturer of glass packaging for pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, followed by Ceylon Glass in 1999.


title: Piramal Group

text: In 1988, the group bought Nicholas Laboratories, which later flourished and by 2010 reached the highest valuation in the pharmaceutical industry. Over the decade, the company acquired many business units to strengthen their presence.


title: Piramal Group

text: In 2006, the company bought Pfizer’s UK manufacturing facility in Morpeth. The company also formed the Piramal Foundation, a philanthropic arm of the group.


title: Piramal Group

text: In 2010, Piramal Healthcare sold its domestic formulations business to Abbott for $3.72 billion (about 18,000 crore). It was considered to the "most expensive pharma deal ever" by Forbes India. Piramal Healthcare then sold its diagnostics chain Piramal Diagnostic Services to SRL for 600 crore. In the same year, the group formed its own real estate entity, Piramal Realty.


title: Piramal Group

text: 2011 saw Fortune 500 ranking Piramal Healthcare in the top-50 largest corporations across India. UN Conference on Trade and Development’s World Investment Report 2011 ranked Piramal Healthcare as No. 5 in the top 10 pharmaceutical contract manufacturers worldwide. In 2011–12, Piramal bought 11% in Vodafone Essar. In 2014, it sold its 11% Stake in Vodafone India to Prime Metals, an indirect subsidiary of Vodafone Group. In 2012, Piramal Healthcare was renamed to Piramal Enterprises Ltd.


title: Piramal Group

text: BST-CarGel, Piramal's innovative bio-orthopaedic product for cartilage repair, received European CE mark approval.


title: Piramal Group

text: Piramal Enterprises acquired the brand Caladryl in India. Caladryl is an anti-pruritic solution known for dermatosis application for minor skin irritations and itching. This acquisition enabled Piramal Enterprises to widen its consumer products portfolio in the skin care segment.


title: Piramal Group

text: Piramal Imaging entered into a Strategic Partnership and Exclusive Licensing Agreement with Ci-Co Healthcare for Commercialization of florbetaben F18.


title: Piramal Group

text: European Union’s CHMP recommends EU approval of Piramal Imaging’s radiopharmaceutical NeuraCeq (florbetaben 18F).


title: Piramal Group

text: The Piramal Group comprises 3 key companies: Piramal Enterprises Ltd, Piramal Pharma Ltd and Piramal Realty. Piramal Enterprises and Piramal Pharma are listed at both Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange.


title: Piramal Group

text: Piramal Enterprises Limited is the flagship company of Piramal Group, and active in financial services. Piramal Enterprises is involved in retail lending, housing finance and vehicle financing. It has two main subsidiaries viz., Piramal Capital & Housing Finance (PCHFL) and PHL Fininvest. It also holds minority stakes in Shriram Group companies.


title: Piramal Group

text: In 2021, Piramal acquired the bankrupt Dewan Housing Finance Corporation and merged it with PCHFL. PCHFL's retail finance division provides microlending and buy now, pay later services on behalf of partner fintech companies like ZestMoney, MoneyView, EarlySalary, Navi Group and KreditBee, and is also engaged in vehicle financing for partner companies like CARS24, CarDekho and Spinny. Apart from retail finance, it is also involved in corporate lending and real estate finance.


title: Piramal Group

text: Since 2016, Piramal Enterprises and Bain Capital Credit have been operating a partnership called India Resurgence Fund (IndiaRF), an investment fund for financially distressed Indian companies. Piramal Capital Fund (PCF), a partnership between Piramal Enterprises and CDPQ that was started in 2020, provides corporate financing services. Both IndiaRF and PCF are managed by Piramal Alternatives, an asset management company set up by Piramal Enterprises in 2021.


title: Piramal Group

text: Piramal Pharma Limited is active in business verticals including pharmaceuticals, healthcare and life sciences. Its business divisions include Piramal Pharma Solutions, a contract development and manufacturing organization; Piramal Critical Care, a manufacturer of inhalational anesthetics and other hospital generics; and Piramal Consumer Products Division, an over-the-counter consumer healthcare products business. Piramal Pharma Limited was demerged from Piramal Enterprises in 2022.


title: Piramal Group

text: Piramal Pharma's subsidiaries include Hemmo Pharmaceuticals and Convergence Chemicals. It also has a joint venture with Allergan in the ophthalmology products segment.


title: Piramal Group

text: Piramal Realty is a fully owned real estate venture of Piramal Group. The company is planning to develop about 30 million square feet through land acquisitions from its own sources. The group developed a mall in, Cross Roads, at South Mumbai.


title: Piramal Group

text: The Piramal Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation established in 2006. Piramal Foundation has undertaken projects like Piramal Swasthya (a health information help line service called Arogya Vani in the state of Karnataka), Sarvajal (provides clean water in India through solar powered water ATMs), source for change (rural BPO for rural youth in Bagar, Rajasthan), Pratham (delivers education to under privileged children), Piramal foundation for education leadership (Piramal Fellowship and Principal Leadership Development program (PLDP) are the two programs undertaken) and Piramal Prize (recognizes emerging ventures and established organizations).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The Gilbert Islands (; formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill Islands) are a chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands in the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. They constitute the main part of the nation of Kiribati (the name of which is a rendering of “Gilberts” in the phonology of the indigenous Gilbertese).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The atolls and islands of the Gilbert Islands are arranged in an approximate north-to-south line. The northernmost island in the group, Makin, it is approximately from southernmost, Arorae, as the crow flies. Geographically, the equator is the dividing line between the northern and southern Gilbert Islands. However, the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) considers the entire Gilbert islands group to be in the South Pacific Ocean.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Another way to group the Gilbert Islands is according to their former administrative districts, which were known as the Northern, Central, and Southern Gilberts. (Tarawa was once a separate district as well).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: At one time, a subset of the northern Gilbert islands was known as Scarborough Islands and a subset of the southern Gilberts as the Kingsmill Group; in some 19th century texts, this last name of Kingsmills was applied to the entire Gilberts group.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Geologically, the Gilberts and the Ratak chain of the Marshall Islands to their north together form a continuous chain of seamounts.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In official north–south order (grouped by former administrative district), the islands and atolls are:


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The Northern Gilberts ("meang" or "mweang") geographically and traditionally encompass Butaritari, Makin, Marakei, Abaiang (literally "northland") and Tarawa. They have unique tonal accents with differences particularly noted amongst Butaritari and Makin inhabitants. Traditionally, Butaritari and Makin were ruled by a chief who lived on Butaritari (called Makin or Great Makin). This chief had all the powers and authority to make and impose decisions on the Islanders, a system very different from the Southern Gilbert Islands where power was wielded collectively by the "unimwane" or old men of the island.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The northern Gilberts have a greater mean rainfall in comparison to the southern and central Gilberts allowing cultivation of a wider crop range. Butaritari and Makin supply most of the bananas sold in Kiribati. The cultivation of taro or "babai" ("Cyrtosperma merkusii") has been historically easier in the northern Gilberts due to a higher water table and regular rainfall.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The Central Gilberts or "nuka" have traditionally included Maiana, Abemama, Kuria and Aranuka. However, the latter three are considered the main islands that have unique historical and cultural characteristics which distinguish the Central Gilberts from the north and south.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The Southern Gilberts include the atolls of Nonouti, South and North Tabiteuea, Beru, Nikunau, Onotoa, Tamana and the most southerly island of Arorae.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The islands had been inhabited by Oceanians for several millennia (at least 2,000 years, probably 3,000).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In 1606, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós sighted Butaritari and Makin, which he named the Buen Viaje Islands.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The British explorer Vice-Admiral John Byron passed through the islands in 1765 during his circumnavigation of the globe as captain of .


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In 1788 Captain Thomas Gilbert on and Captain John Marshall on crossed through Kuria, Aranuka, Tarawa, Abaiang, Butaritari, and Makin without attempting to land on the atolls.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In 1820, the islands were named the Gilbert Islands or "îles Gilbert" (in French) by Adam Johann von Krusenstern, a Baltic German Admiral of the Russian Czar after the British Captain Thomas Gilbert, who crossed the archipelago in 1788. French captain Louis Duperrey was the first to map the whole Gilbert Islands archipelago. He commanded "La Coquille" on its circumnavigation of the earth (1822–1825).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Many whaling ships called at the islands in the 19th century. The first recorded visit was by the "Ann and Hope", which called at Nikunau in December 1799.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Two ships of the United States Exploring Expedition (1838–1842), and , under the command of Captain William L. Hudson, visited many of the Gilbert Islands (then called the Kingsmill Islands or Kingsmill Group in English). While in the Gilberts, they devoted considerable time to mapping and charting reefs and anchorages.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In 1886, an Anglo-German agreement partitioned the “unclaimed” central Pacific, leaving Nauru in the German sphere of influence, while Ocean Island and the future GEIC wound up in the British sphere of influence. A British protectorate was first proclaimed over the Gilberts by Captain Edward H.M. Davis of on 27 May 1892. British official Arthur Mahaffy visited the Islands in 1909. He noted that the "villages are kept in admirable order and the roads are scrupulously clean." A hospital was on each island, as well. The conduct of William Telfer Campbell, the second resident commissioner of the Gilberts, was criticised as to his legislative, judicial and administrative management (including allegations of forced labour exacted from islanders) and became the subject of the 1909 report by Arthur Mahaffy. In 1913 an anonymous correspondent to "The New Age" journal described the mis-administration of W. Telfer Campbell and questioned the partiality of Arthur Mahaffy as he was a former colonial official in the Gilberts.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In 1915, starting from 1916, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands were proclaimed a colony of the British Empire.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The natives of the Gilbert Islands are Austronesian peoples, similar in many respects to the natives of the Marshalls or the Carolines.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In Mahaffy's 1909 report to the British Government he described the missionaries or Protectorate staff then resident in the Gilbert Islands.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: At the outbreak of World War II, about 78% of the native population were said to be Christians. This group was divided mainly into two denominations: Congregationalists (43%) and Roman Catholics (35%), Catholics becoming quickly the majority at the end of the Colony. The rest of the population were then largely semi-pagan agnostics; they did not adhere to the Christian faith, nor did they retain much of their beliefs in their own ancient gods.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Native diet during this time consisted mainly of fish, coconuts, pandanus fruit, "babai" (swamp taro), chicken, and some pork. Housing for Europeans employed in the island was simple: constructed of European and native materials and generally of the bungalow type. Mahaffy described the native clothing as being of "shocking shape" and "atrocious color," and that the style was changing into "kilt(s) of leaves or fine woven mats."


title: Gilbert Islands

text: In the early to mid 20th century the principal source of income for Gilbert islanders was from working on the production of phosphate from the deposits on Banaba (Ocean Island), an island to the west of the Gilbert Islands. In addition, coconut palms were cultivated on some of the islands. All labor was supervised by the British and every effort was made to see that the wages and living conditions were fair and adequate. Sanitary inspections by the British did much to improve the general living conditions on most of the islands.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Mahaffy noted in 1909 that "extreme poverty is virtually unknown," and that most people on the island owned their own land. Residents paid taxes, with the majority of taxes going back into the community, and a small portion going to the Protectorate.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Judged to be about 84% literate, the Gilbertese responded readily to the colony's educational efforts. All education in the islands came under the supervision of the Colonial Education Department whose aims were to educate native boys for employment in government and commercial work, and to standardize the level of education throughout the colony. The bulk of the education was provided by the missions, which maintained all the village schools and trained the native school teachers.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: With the availability of European-style medical care life improved. The Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme sought to provide an outlet through the development of three uninhabited atolls in the Phoenix Islands and was the last attempt at human colonization within the British Empire.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Hiram Bingham II (1831–1908) was the first to translate the Bible into Gilbertese, and also wrote hymns for the Gilbertese language. Joanna Gordon-Clark writes of their religious belief:


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The Gilbert (and Ellice) Islanders had a strong set of beliefs of their own, pre the Christian missionaries; they had a strong foundation myth, involving trees and the two genders. Their ancestors, they said, had been white skinned and red haired and came from elsewhere, perhaps the West (possibly coinciding with the outward spread of Homo sapiens from Africa and elsewhere). As might be expected, they gave power to the natural forces and gave them names and godly characteristics (sun, moon, "etc".) but believed in one spirit god, a bit similar to the god of Genesis, in that he/she seemed to have power over dark and light and so on, and was pretty much invisible. They had a strong belief in behaving properly to their ancestors, and especially their parents, and had well-developed community rules for courtesy to others. Read "A Pattern of Islands", by Arthur Grimble, who worked in these islands and on Banaba, for the Colonial Administration, from just before the First World War to the mid thirties, or thereabouts. It is a remarkable, informative, funny and warm-hearted account of these people and their religion. Other religions on the islands figure slightly, and there are remarkable stories of adventures, bravery, political machinations, "etc". Probably out of print, but second hand copies are available I think, I have two, and the illustrations are delightful.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: On the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Gilbert Islands, occupying 3 of them by 9 December 1941.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: On 17 August 1942, 221 U.S. Marines of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion raided Makin from two submarines. The raid was intended by the Americans to confuse the Japanese about US intentions in the Pacific, a feint to draw Japanese attention away from the planned invasion route through the Solomons. It is instead believed to have alerted the Japanese to the strategic importance of the Gilbert Islands and led to their reinforcement and fortification. Marines captured during this operation were subsequently summarily executed by the Japanese, in gross violation of the laws of war.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The 19 Marines who died were left behind for the villagers to bury. In 1999, a Marine Honor guard was sent to recover the bodies and found them after a villager showed them where to dig. All were exhumed and were taken to the United States.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Tarawa and Abemama were occupied in force by the Japanese in September 1942 and during the next year garrisons were built up on Betio (Tarawa Atoll), and Butaritari (Makin Atoll). Only nominal forces were placed on other islands in the Gilberts.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: On 20 November 1943, the U.S. Army and U.S. 2nd Marine Division landed on Makin and Tarawa, initiating the battles of Makin and Tarawa, in which the Japanese were defeated. The Gilbert Islands were then used to support the invasion of the Marshall Islands in February 1944. The US built bases on Islands.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: The Gilbert and Ellice Islands became autonomous in 1971. From 1975 to 1978, the Ellice Islands were separated, and the Gilberts became the Gilbert Islands colony, which issued stamps under that name. In 1979, the Gilberts opted for independence, becoming the independent nation of Kiribati. The Ellice Islands became the independent nation of Tuvalu.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Asian Development Bank. (2009b). Kiribati's political economy and capacity development [Online]. Available: http://www.adb.org/documents/reports/KIR-Political-Economy-Capacity-Development/KIR-Economic-Development.pdf (accessed 6 February 2012).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Bedford, R., Macdonald, B., & Munro, D. (1980). Population estimates for Kiribati and Tuvalu, 1850–1900: Review and speculation. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 89, 199–246.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Borovnik, M. (2006). Working overseas: Seafarers' remittances and their distribution in Kiribati. Asian Pacific Viewpoint, 47, 151–161.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Burnett, G. (2005). Language games and schooling: Discourses of colonialism in Kiribati education. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 25(1), 93–106.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Cochrane, G. (1970). The Administration of Wagina Resettlement Scheme. Human Organization, 29(2), 123–132.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Correspondent. (1913, 5 June). Modern buccaneers in the West Pacific. New Age, pp. 136–140 (Online). Available: http://dl.lib.brown.edu/pdfs/1140814207532014.pdf (accessed 6 February 2012).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Couper, AD. The island trade: an analysis of the environment and operation of seaborne trade among three islands in the Pacific. Canberra: Australian National University, Department of Geography; 1967.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Couper, AD. Protest movements and proto-cooperatives in the Pacific Islands. Journal of the Polynesian Society 1968; 77: 263–74.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Davis, E.H.M., Captain RN. (1892). Proceedings of H.M.S. Royalist [Online]. Available: http://www.janeresture.com/davisdiaries/captaindavis.html and http://www.janeresture.com/nikunau/index.htm (accessed 6 February 2012).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Di Piazza, A. (1999). Te Bakoa site. Two old earth ovens from Nikunau Island (Republic of Kiribati). Archaeology in Oceania, 34(1), 40–42.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Di Piazza, A. (2001). Terre d’abondance ou terre de misère: Représentation de la sécheresse à Nikunau (République de Kiribati, Pacifique central) (Land of abundance or land of scarcity? Ideas about drought on Nikunau (Republic of Kiribati, Central Pacific)). L’Homme, 157, 35–58.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Geddes, W. H. (1977). Social individualisation on Tabiteuea Atoll. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 86, 371–393.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Geddes, W. H., Chambers, A., Sewell, B., Lawrence, R., & Watters, R. (1982), Islands on the Line, team report. Atoll economy: Social change in Kiribati and Tuvalu, No. 1, Canberra: Australian National University, Development Studies Centre.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Goodall, N. (1954). A history of the London Missionary Society 1895–1945. London: Oxford University Press.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Goodenough, W. H. (1955). A problem in Malayo-Polynesian social organization. American Anthropologist, 57, 71–83.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Grimble, A. (1921). From birth to death in the Gilbert Islands. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 51, 25–54.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Grimble, A. F. (1989). Tungaru traditions: Writings on the atoll culture of the Gilberts, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Grimble, A. F., & Clarke, S. G. (1929). Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony: Instructions and Hints to District Officers, Deputy Commissioners and Sub-accountants, His Britannic Majesty's High Commission for the Western Pacific, Suva, Fiji.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Tabai, I. (1993). The first twelve years, in: H. Van Trease, (Ed) Atoll Politics: The Republic of Kiribati, pp. 309–320 (Christchurch: University of Canterbury, Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Kazama, K. (2001). Reorganized meeting house system: The focus of social life in a contemporary village in Tabiteuea South, Kiribati. People and Culture in Oceania, 17, 83-113.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Kiribati National Statistics Office. (2009). Keystats workbook (Online). Available: http://www.spc.int/prism/Country/KI/Stats/Economic/GFS/Revenue-Current.htm (accessed 11 September 2011).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Kiribati National Statistics Office. (2009). Statistics (Online). Available: http://www.spc.int/prism/Country/KI/Stats/index.htm (accessed 14 November 2009).


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Koch, G. E. (translated by G. Slatter), (1986). The Material Culture of Kiribati, Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Land (Copra) Tax Register 1910–1916. Available in Kiribati National Archives, Tarawa, GEIC 4(11)/II 18.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Latouche, J.-P. (1983). Mythistoire Tungaru: Cosmologies et genealogies aux Iles Gilbert. Paris: Societe d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Lawrence, R. (1992). Kiribati: change and context in an atoll world”, in Robillard, A. B. (Ed.), Social Change in the Pacific Islands, Kegan Paul International, London, pp. 264–99.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Lundsgaarde, H. P. (1966). Cultural Adaptation in the Southern Gilbert Islands, University of Oregon, Oregon.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Lundsgaarde, H. P. (1974). The evolution of tenure principles on Tamana Island, Gilbert Islands. In H. P. Lundsgaarde (Ed), Land tenure in Oceania (pp. 179–214). Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Lundsgaarde, H. P. (1978). Post-contact changes in Gilbertese maneaba organization. In N. Gunson (Ed.) The Changing Pacific: Essays in Honour of H. E. Maude (pp. 67–79). Melbourne: Oxford University Press


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Lundsgaarde, H. P., & Silverman, M. G. (1972). Category and group in Gilbertese kinship: An updating of Goodenough's analysis. Ethnology, 11, 95–110.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Macdonald, B. (1971). Local government in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands 1892–1969 – part 1. Journal of Administration Overseas, 10, 280–293.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Macdonald, B. (1972). Local government in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands 1892–1969 – part 2. Journal of Administration Overseas, 11, 11–27.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Macdonald, B. K. (1982). Cinderellas of the Empire: Towards a History of Kiribati and Tuvalu, Australian National University Press, Canberra.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Macdonald, B. (1996a). Governance and Political Process in Kiribati (Economics Division Working Papers 96/2), Canberra: Australian National University, National Centre for Development Studies.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Macdonald, B. (1996b). ‘Now an island is too big’ limits and limitations of Pacific Islands history. Journal of Pacific Studies, 20, 23–44.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Macdonald, B. (1998). Pacific Islands stakeholder participation in development: Kiribati. (Pacific Islands Discussion Paper Series No. 5). Washington, DC: World Bank, East Asia and Pacific Region, Papua New Guinea and Pacific Islands Country Management Unit.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Mason, L. (Ed.). (1985). Kiribati: A Changing Atoll Culture, University of the South Pacific, Institute of Pacific Studies, Suva, Fiji.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.C., & Maude, H.E. (Eds.). (1994). An anthology of Gilbertese oral tradition. Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E. (1949). The Co-operative Movement in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (Technical Paper No. 1), South Pacific Commission, Sydney.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E. (1952). The Colonisation of the Phoenix Islands, Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 61 Nos. 1–2, pp. 62–89.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E. (1963). The Evolution of the Gilbertese Boti: An Ethnohistorical Interpretation, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 72 (Supplement), pp. 1–68.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E. (1977a). Foreword, in Sabatier, E. (translated by U. Nixon), Astride the Equator: An Account of the Gilbert Islands, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp. v-viii.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E. (1977b). Notes, in Sabatier, E. (translated by U. Nixon), Astride the Equator: An Account of the Gilbert Islands, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp. 353–373.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E. (ed.). (1991). The story of Karongoa. Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E., & Doran, E., Jr. (1966). The precedence of Tarawa Atoll. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 56, 269–289.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Maude, H.E., & Leeson, I. (1965). The Coconut Oil Trade of the Gilbert Island, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 74, pp. 396–437.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: McCreery, D., & Munro, D. (1993). The cargo of the Montserrat: Gilbertese labor in Guatemalan coffee, 1890–1908 . The Americas 49, 271–295.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Munro, D, Firth, S. Towards colonial protectorates: the case of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Australian Journal of Politics and History 1986; 32: 63–71.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Munro, D, Firth, S. From company rule to consular control: Gilbert Island labourers on German plantations in Samoa. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 1987; 16: 24–43.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Officer on Board the Said Ship. (1767). A voyage round the world in His Majesty's Ship the ‘Dolphin’, commanded by the honourable commodore Byron. London: J. Newbery and F. Newbery.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Sabatier, E. (translated by U. Nixon), (1977). Astride the Equator: An account of the Gilbert Islands, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Ward, J. M. (1946). British policy in the South Pacific (1786–1893). Sydney: Australasian Publishing.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Weeramantry, C. Nauru: environmental damage under international trusteeship. Melbourne: Oxford University Press; 1992


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Williams, M., & Macdonald, B. K. (1985). The phosphateers: A history of the British Phosphate Commissioners and the Christmas Island Phosphate Commission. Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic.


title: Gilbert Islands

text: Willmott, B. (2007). The Chinese communities in the smaller countries of the South Pacific: Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and the Cook Islands (Macmillan Brown Working Paper Series) [Online]. Available: http://www.pacs.canterbury.ac.nz/documents/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Willmott_WP17.pdf (accessed 6 February 2012).


title: Carthusians

text: The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians (), are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own rule, called the "Statutes", and their life combines both eremitical and cenobitic monasticism. The motto of the Carthusians is , Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world turns." The Carthusians retain a unique form of liturgy known as the Carthusian Rite.


title: Carthusians

text: The name "Carthusian" is derived from the Chartreuse Mountains in the French Prealps: Bruno built his first hermitage in a valley of these mountains. These names were adapted to the English "charterhouse", meaning a Carthusian monastery. Today, there are 23 charterhouses, 18 for monks and 5 for nuns. The alcoholic cordial Chartreuse has been produced by the monks of Grande Chartreuse since 1737, which gave rise to the name of the color, though the liqueur is in fact produced not only as "green chartreuse", but also as "yellow chartreuse".


title: Carthusians

text: In 1084 Bishop Hugh of Grenoble offered Bruno, the former Chancellor of the Diocese of Reims, a solitary site in the mountains of his diocese, in the valley of Chartreuse. There Bruno and six companions built a hermitage, consisting of a few wooden cabins opening towards a gallery that allowed them access to the communal areas, the church, refectory, and chapter room without having to suffer too much from inclement conditions.


title: Carthusians

text: Six years later, Bruno's former pupil, Pope Urban II, requested his services. Bruno would only live in Rome for a few short months however, before leaving to establish a new hermitage in Serra San Bruno, in Calabria, a region of southern Italy. He died there on 6 October 1101.


title: Carthusians

text: In 1132, an avalanche destroyed the first hermitage, killing 7 monks under the snow. The fifth prior of Chartreuse, Guiges, rebuilt the hermitage.


title: Carthusians

text: There were ten Carthusian monasteries in Britain before the Reformation, with one in Scotland and nine in England. The first was founded by Henry II of England in 1181 at Witham Friary, Somerset as penance for the murder of Thomas Becket. Hugh of Lincoln was its first prior. The third Charterhouse built in Britain was Beauvale Priory, remains of which can still be seen in Beauvale, Greasley, Nottinghamshire.


title: Carthusians

text: The Carthusians, as with all Catholic religious orders, were variously persecuted and banned during the Reformation. The abolition of their priories, which were sources of charity in England, particularly reduced their numbers. This was followed by the French Revolution which had a similar effect in France.


title: Carthusians

text: A few fragments remain of the Charterhouse in Coventry, mostly dating from the 15th century, and consisting of a sandstone building that was probably the prior's house. The area, about a mile from the centre of the city, is a conservation area, but the buildings are in use as part of a local college. Inside the building is a medieval wall painting, alongside many carvings and wooden beams. Nearby is the river Sherbourne that runs underneath the centre of the city.


title: Carthusians

text: The best preserved remains of a medieval Charterhouse in the UK are at Mount Grace Priory near Osmotherley, North Yorkshire. One of the cells has been reconstructed to illustrate how different the lay-out is from monasteries of most other Christian orders, which are normally designed with communal living in mind.


title: Carthusians

text: The London Charterhouse gave its name to Charterhouse Square and several streets in the City of London, as well as to the Charterhouse School which used part of its site before moving out to Godalming, Surrey.


title: Carthusians

text: Nothing remains at Hull or Sheen, although Hull Charterhouse is an alms house which shared the site of the monastery. Axholme, Hinton, and Witham have slight remains.


title: Carthusians

text: Perth Charterhouse, the single Carthusian Priory founded in Scotland during the Middle Ages, was located in Perth. It stood just west of the medieval town and was founded by James I (1406–1437) in the early 15th century. James I and Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots (died 1445) were both buried in the priory church, as was Queen Margaret Tudor (died 1541), widow of James IV of Scotland. The Priory, said to have been a building of 'wondrous cost and greatness' was sacked during the Scottish Reformation in 1559, and swiftly fell into decay. No remains survive above ground, though a Victorian monument marks the site. The Perth names Charterhouse Lane and Pomarium Flats (built on the site of the Priory's orchard) recall its existence.


title: Carthusians

text: There is an active Carthusian house in England, St Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminster, West Sussex. This has cells around a square cloister approximately 400 m (one quarter mile) on a side, making it the largest cloister in Europe. It was built in the 19th century to accommodate two communities which were expelled from the continent.


title: Carthusians

text: The monastery is generally a small community of hermits based on the model of the 4th century Lauras of Palestine. A Carthusian monastery consists of a number of individual cells built around a cloister. The individual cells are organised so that the door of each cell comes off a large corridor.


title: Carthusians

text: The focus of Carthusian life is contemplation. To this end there is an emphasis on solitude and silence. Carthusians do not have abbots—instead, each charterhouse is headed by a prior and is populated by two types of monks: the choir monks, referred to as hermits, and the lay brothers. This reflects a division of labor in providing for the material needs of the monastery and the monks. For the most part, the number of brothers in the Order has remained the same for centuries, as it is now: seven or eight brothers for every ten fathers. Humility is a characteristic of Carthusian spirituality. The Carthusian identity is one of shared solitude.


title: Carthusians

text: Similar to the tradition of the Byzantine Rite, Carthusians eschew the use of musical instruments in worship.


title: Carthusians

text: Each hermit, a monk who is or who will be a priest, has his own living space, called a cell, usually consisting of a small dwelling. Traditionally there is a one-room lower floor for the storage of wood for a stove and a workshop as all monks engage in some manual labour. A second floor consists of a small entryway with an image of the Virgin Mary as a place of prayer and a larger room containing a bed, a table for eating meals, a desk for study, a choir stall, and a kneeler for prayer. Each cell has a high walled garden wherein the monk may meditate as well as grow flowers for himself and/or vegetables for the common good of the community, as a form of physical exercise.


title: Carthusians

text: Next to the door is a small revolving compartment, called a "turn", so that meals and other items may be passed in and out of the cell without the hermit having to meet the bearer. Most meals are provided in this manner, which the hermit then eats in the solitude of his cell. There are two meals provided for much of the year: lunch and supper. During seasons or days of fasting, just one meal is provided. The hermit makes his needs known to the lay brother by means of a note, requesting items such as a fresh loaf of bread, which will be kept in the cell for eating with several meals. Carthusians observe a perpetual abstinence from meat.


title: Carthusians

text: The hermit spends most of his day in the cell: he meditates, prays the minor hours of the Liturgy of the Hours on his own, eats, studies and writes, and works in his garden or at some manual trade. Unless required by other duties, the Carthusian hermit leaves his cell daily only for three prayer services in the monastery chapel, including the community Mass, and occasionally for conferences with his superior. Additionally, once a week, the community members take a long walk in the countryside during which they may speak. On Sundays and solemn feast days a community meal is taken in silence. Twice a year there is a day-long community recreation, and the monk may receive an annual visit from immediate family members.


title: Carthusians

text: There have always been lay brothers in the charterhouse. When Bruno retired to the Chartreuse, two of his companions were secular ones: Andrew and Guerin. They also live a life of solitary prayer and join in the communal prayer and mass in the chapel. However, the lay brothers are monks under a slightly different type of vows and spend less time in contemplative prayer and more time in manual labour. The lay brothers provide material assistance to the choir monks: cooking meals, doing laundry, undertaking physical repairs, providing the choir monks with books from the library and managing supplies. The life of the brothers complements that of the choir monks, and makes the fathers' lives of seclusion possible.


title: Carthusians

text: During the brothers' seven-year formation period, some time is given each day to the study of the Bible, theology, liturgy, and spirituality. They can continue their studies throughout their lives. All of the monks live lives of silence.


title: Carthusians

text: The Carthusians do not engage in work of a pastoral or missionary nature. Unlike most monasteries, they do not have retreatants, and those who visit for a prolonged period are people who are contemplating entering the monastery. As far as possible, the monks have no contact with the outside world.


title: Carthusians

text: Carthusian nuns live a life similar to the monks, but with some differences. Choir nuns tend to lead somewhat less eremitical lives, while still maintaining a strong commitment to solitude and silence.


title: Carthusians

text: Today, the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse is still the Motherhouse of the order. There is a museum illustrating the history of the Carthusian order next to Grande Chartreuse; the monks of that monastery are also involved in producing Chartreuse liqueur. Visits are not possible into the Grande Chartreuse itself, but the 2005 documentary "Into Great Silence" gave unprecedented views of life within the hermitage.


title: Carthusians

text: Today, Carthusians live very much as they originally did, without any relaxing of their rules. Generally, those wishing to enter must be between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five. Nowadays, medical examinations are considered necessary before the Novitiate and Profession. The Carthusian novice is introduced to the "Lectio divina" (spiritual reading).


title: Carthusians

text: In the 21st century, the Sélignac Charterhouse was converted into a house in which lay people could come and experience Carthusian retreats, living the Carthusian life for shorter periods (an eight-day retreat being fixed as the minimum, in order to enter at least somewhat into the silent rhythm of the charterhouse).


title: Carthusians

text: Before the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the Catholic Church in Western Europe had a wide variety of rituals for the celebration of Mass. Although the essentials were the same, there were variations in prayers and practices from region to region or among the various religious orders.


title: Carthusians

text: When Pope Pius V made the Roman Missal mandatory for all Catholics of the Latin Church, he permitted the continuance of other forms of celebrating Mass that had an antiquity of at least two centuries. The rite used by the Carthusians was one of these, and still continues in use in a version revised in 1981. Apart from the new elements in this revision, it is substantially the rite of Grenoble in the 12th century, with some admixture from other sources. According to current Catholic legislation, priests can celebrate the traditional rites of their order without further authorization.


title: Carthusians

text: A feature unique to Carthusian liturgical practice is that the bishop bestows on Carthusian nuns, in the ceremony of their profession, a stole and a maniple. The nun, who may receive the consecration of virgins is then also invested with a crown and a ring. The nun wears these ornaments again only on the day of her monastic jubilee and on her bier after her death. At Matins, if no priest or deacon is present, a nun assumes the stole and reads the Gospel; and although in the time of the Tridentine Mass the chanting of the Epistle was reserved to an ordained subdeacon, a consecrated virgin sang the Epistle at the conventual Mass, though without wearing the maniple. For centuries Carthusian nuns retained this rite, administered by the diocesan bishop four years after the nun took her vows.


title: Carthusians

text: The formation of a Carthusian begins with 6 to 12 months of postulancy. This is followed by 2 years of novitiate, where the novice wears a black cloak over the white Carthusian habit. Subsequently, the novice takes simple vows and becomes a junior professed for 3 years, during which the professed wears the full Carthusian habit. The simple vows may be renewed for another 2 years. Finally, the Carthusian makes the solemn profession.


title: Carthusians

text: , there are 23 extant charterhouses, 18 for monks and 5 for nuns, on three continents: Argentina (1), Brazil (1), France (6), Germany (1), Italy (3), Korea (2), Portugal (1), Slovenia (1), Spain (4), Switzerland (1), the United Kingdom (1) and the United States (1).


title: Karen McDougal

text: Karen McDougal (born March 23, 1971) is an American model and actress. She is known for her appearances in "Playboy" magazine as Playmate of the Month for December 1997 and Playmate of the Year of 1998. In 2001, the readers of "Playboy" voted McDougal the runner-up of "The sexiest Playmate of the 1990s".


title: Karen McDougal

text: McDougal taught pre-kindergarten before winning a swimwear competition that launched her career as a glamour, promotional, and swimsuit model. Since her appearances in "Playboy", she has extended her career into a wide variety of appearances in mainstream media, including other magazine modeling, television commercials, and minor acting, with mixed success. She has been a successful fitness model, with multiple magazine appearances including being the first woman to appear on the cover of "Men's Fitness" magazine. She starred in "The Arena", a direct-to-video film, and inspired the creation of a fantasy art statuette and a doll.


title: Karen McDougal

text: McDougal is a fitness enthusiast, since having, in her childhood, engaged in ballet study and high school sports. She is an avid motorcycle and car collector. Since her Playmate days, she has maintained a largely private social life. The revelation of an affair with Donald Trump from 2006 to 2007 and its subsequent coverup have put her into national headlines before and after the 2016 United States presidential election.


title: Karen McDougal

text: McDougal was born in Merrillville, Indiana, near Gary. She is of Cherokee, Scottish and Irish descent. She is the eldest daughter in the family, with three older brothers, Bob, Dave and Jeff, and a younger sister, Tina. Her mother, Carol, remarried when McDougal was nine years old and the family moved to Sawyer, Michigan where she remained until college.


title: Karen McDougal

text: McDougal studied tap dance and ballet as a child. Her childhood dream, prior to teaching and modeling, was to become a ballerina. She attended River Valley High School and became a cheerleader, a marching band member, a color guard member and a volleyball and softball player, as well as Michigan state champion clarinet player four years in a row in high school. Her high school nickname was "Barbie" due to her wholesome sweetness. After graduating from high school in 1989,


title: Karen McDougal

text: After two years of college, McDougal moved to a Detroit suburb where she taught pre-kindergarten, before being persuaded to try out for a swimsuit competition. One of her professional goals has always been to open a learning center for children, but she put those plans on hold to focus on pursuing roles in acting and modeling.


title: Karen McDougal

text: McDougal's first modeling assignment was as a promotional model at a Harley-Davidson bike show in Detroit.


title: Karen McDougal

text: In 1997, McDougal tried out and won a local swimsuit competition promoted by Venus Swimwear in Michigan, earning her place at the international final in Florida. Her victory caught the eye of "Playboy" photographer David Mecey. Soon after that she was approached by "Playboy", offering a test shoot at Playboy Studio West, which she accepted. Upon completing her test shoot, she was promptly selected to return for a complete photo and video shoot and chosen as Miss December 1997. Her pictorial, which was shot by photographers Richard Fegley and Stephen Wayda, has a winter theme and its outdoor portion was shot in snowy fields near Park City, Utah. Her video, the "Playmate Profile", was featured on Playboy TV soon after her magazine debut.


title: Karen McDougal

text: In May 1998, it was announced that she had been chosen by Hugh Hefner and fans as Playmate of the Year (PMOY) of 1998 at a luncheon at the Playboy Mansion.


title: Karen McDougal

text: As part of being named PMOY, she was awarded $100,000 and a special edition silver Shelby Series 1 convertible with a customized Michigan license plate "PMOY 98". McDougal's PMOY pictorial was featured in the July 1998 issue of "Playboy" where she also appeared on its cover. In contrast to her Playmate pictorial, her PMOY pictorial has a tropical theme and its outdoor portion was shot in Saint Lucia. According to her interview in her Playmate of the Year "Video Centerfold" which was released soon after her PMOY issue debuted, she believes her physical imperfections are her "funny" smile, her crooked pinkies which she inherited from her grandfather and her "ugly feet" which she wishes others would not look at. Because of the popularity of the VH1 television series "Pop-up Video" at the time, one of the segments in her PMOY video was done as a Pop-up Video parody filled with factoids about her and "Playboy". During her appearance on "The Magic Hour" to promote her PMOY issue, McDougal demonstrated her signature pose, straddle split on TV in front of a live studio audience.


title: Karen McDougal

text: In an online chat in 2002, McDougal expressed interest in posing nude for "Playboy" again if offered.


title: Karen McDougal

text: In March 1999, McDougal became the first woman to appear on the cover of "Men's Fitness" magazine. Since then she expanded her career into fitness modeling by appearing in fitness and bodybuilding magazines such as "Muscle & Fitness" (January 2000), "Physical" (June 2004) and "Iron Man" (October 2005, January 2006, June 2007 and November 2009). She appeared in a 10-page pictorial in the January 2006 issue of "Iron Man" as "Hardbody" of the month, and on the cover of its October 2005 and June 2007 issues. McDougal returned as "Hardbody" of the month in the November 2009 issue in a pictorial together with fellow Playmate Katie Lohmann. In interviews, she stated that her transition to fitness modeling was unintentional.


title: Karen McDougal

text: "Playboy" released a Playboy Collectors' Figure Series limited edition doll in 2002 based on the likeness of McDougal and emphasized that it was an accurate model of her statuesque physique. Her collectors' figure was originally slated to be the first in the series to be released, however it was delayed due to redesigns. McDougal collaborated with fantasy sculptor Bill Toma in creating a limited edition bronze statuette titled "Warrior Princess" in 2003. McDougal posed for Toma in the creative process and the pedestal of each statuette bears her signature.