LEONARDO DA VINCI. 1452-1519

by Judith Cooper

IT IS 500 YEARS SINCE HIS DEATH

Born on April 15^th 1452, near Florence.   He was the illegitimate son of Piero do Vinci and a peasant girl called Katerina.  His father was a legal notary. Leonardo was educated in his Grandfathers house receiving the usual elementary education of reading writing and Arithmetic.

He in 1467 he became an apprentice to Andrea Verrocchio in Florence learning painting, sculpture and acquiring technical and mechanical skills

In 1482 – 1499 he was in the service of the Duke of Milan, and became interested in military machines. He rose to have a position as a great court artist.  During his life he moved around from Florence, Milan, Venice, Rome and France.

The Medicis - the Godfathers of the Renaissance

by Jenny Meader

The House of Medici was an Italian banking family, political dynasty and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside, gradually rising until they were able to fund the Medici Bank. This bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century, and it enabled the Medicis' rise to power in Florence, although they officially remained citizens rather than monarchs until the 16th century.

THE HUGUENOTS

by Margaret Pearce

40 – 50,000 Huguenot from all parts of France fled to England, not all to London some went to Canterbury, Southampton , Plymouth the USA and Ireland. Unlike so many immigrants before and since Huguenots were generally welcomed – earlier in the 16^th century they were mainly in the textile trade – they introduced valuable skills and prosperity into their adopted country.

Dorset and the fear of the French

Lester Cowling

I used to live at West Bexington, on Chesil Beach between Abbotsbury and West Bay. Each time I took the dog for a walk, I’d pass the site of the former village church. It had been destroyed by the French during the Hundred Years’ War - a series of conflicts which actually lasted a bit more than 100 years and ended in fourteen-fifty-three. The raid on the village was one of scores on the south coast. It took place not long after we’d burnt Joan of Arc.

England and France had been intertwined since the Norman conquest. The Hundred Years War wrenched them apart. They developed their own national identities. They became foes.
In the 1500s it was felt necessary to construct Sandsfoot and Portland castles to protect shipping anchored in Portland Roads from French and Spanish raiders.

And for a while the Spanish threat eclipsed the French - the Armada and all that. The Dutch proved a bit of a pain as well.

But in 1696 the French threat was back. They scored a naval victory at the Battle of Beachy Head and fear of invasion spread along the south coast. However they failed to follow it up - except for a raid on Teignmouth. A thousand men rampaged through the port burning houses and churches.

This was the last invasion of England, but people were not to know it.

The scene was set for centuries of hostility.

Marcel Proust 1871 - 1922

by Richard Palframan

Marcel Proust was born in Auteuil, a suburb of Paris 0n 10 July 1871. He was the elder son of Dr Adrien Proust and his wife Jeanne. His mother had a very difficult confinement and Marcel was very frail, and almost died at birth. He later ascribed these problems to the fear and deprivation suffered by his family during the Commune, the anarchic period immediately after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. He had his first attack of asthma at the age of nine, and had poor health throughout his life. He was sometimes considered to be something of a hypochondriac, but he proved his point, in a way, by dying at the age of 51 of a combination of asthma and pneumonia.

French Colonial Empire after 1815

by Jenny Meader

The French colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "first colonial empire," and the “second colonial empire”. In the First Colonial Empire, France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India in the 17th century, but lost them in a series of wars with Britain and others by 1814.  Britain restored most of the Caribbean properties to France at the end of the Napoleonic war.  With the "Second Colonial Empire" France acquired Algeria in 1830 and then other new colonies mostly after 1850, concentrating chiefly in Africa as well as Indochina and the South Pacific. The Second Colonial Empire came to an end after the loss in later wars of Indochina (1954) and Algeria (1962), and relatively peaceful decolonisation elsewhere after 1960.

Napoleon

by Oscar Winsey

EARLY LIFE

Born in Ajaccio Corsica in 1769 from middle class parents, his father was a lawyer and local politician, the family did not speak French.  He moved to France as a young man and enrolled at the military school at Brienne where he was mocked and bullied for his country bumpkin ways and speech.  His father died and left the family penniless, fortunately his fees were paid by French king. After 5 years he was able to enter the military school in Paris where in 1785 he received a commission as a lieutenant in the artillery. When the revolution broke out, he was in Valence.  With the revolution of 1789 confusion ensued and here was an opportunity for someone to rise from obscurity with drive and ambition: that person was, of course, Napoleon.  Not only is he renowned for his military prowess, he introduced conscription and training for his men, set up an academy at St Cyr to train infantry officers and the Ecole Polytechnic to train artillery and Engineers.  It was also possible for all ranks to rise to the top on merit alone.  He was decisive in making decisions and very hard working.  

Louis XIV SEPTEMBER 1638---SEPTEMBER 1715

by Judy Cooper

 LOUIS was born in Sept 1638 at St Germain in Paris. His father Louis X111 married Anne of Austria in 1615 and they took 23 years to have their 1st son Louis X1V, who was looked upon as “a gift from heaven”. Anne was 37 and said it was a miracle.    2 years later Philippe was born and known as “ Monsieur” 2^nd in line to the throne. He was also Philippe Duke of Orleans

Louis X111 died when his son and heir was 4 years old, and Louis X1V reigned as King for 72 years and widely held to be the greatest monarch of his age. In that time he transformed the monarchy, ushered in a golden age of art and Literature, presided over a dazzling royal court at Versailles, and made France a dominant European power

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette

Jeremy Cranmer

Lafayette's lineage was likely one of the oldest and most distinguished in Auvergne (in south central France). and, perhaps, in all of France. Males of the Lafayette family enjoyed a reputation for courage and chivalry and were noted for their contempt for danger.

Lafayette was born on 6 September 1757 in Chavaniac-Lafayette, near Le Puy-en-Velay, in the province of Auvergne.  His father was colonel of grenadiers, but died on the battlefield in 1759.  He was struck by a cannonball while fighting a British-led coalition at the Battle of Minden in Westphalia.  Lafayette became marquis and Lord of Chavaniac, but the estate went to his mother. She went to live in Paris with her father and grandfather, leaving Lafayette to be raised in Chavaniac-Lafayette by his paternal grandmother, Mme de Chavaniac.

Catharism and the Albigensian Crusade

Anne Collins Jan 2019

.Where they lived

Catharism, a heretical Christian sect, flourished in Southern Europe between the 11^th and 14th centuries, possibly spreading along trade routes from the east.  In Europe it sprang up in Cologne and northern Italy and the Languedoc area of southern France. Here the Cathars are sometimes known as the Albigensians because Albi is the place where the heretical religion first took hold in France.  Towns in the area are Toulouse, Beziers, Carcassonne and Albi.

This southern part of what is now France was very much a place of small mini kingdoms with settlements under the control of various counts and nobles.  Some owed allegiance to Peter 11 of Aragon as the Pyrenees are close.   The word oc in Languedoc  means yes, hence Languedoc. In northern parts around Paris, under the king of France the language was the Langue d’Oil which later became oui. 

What they believed and organisation

 The name Cathars comes from the Greek katharoi, meaning the pure ones. Ideas and beliefs may have come from Persia or the Byzantine Empire. They are remembered for their prolonged period of persecution by the Catholic Church which did not recognise their beliefs as being Christian.  This persecution which resulted eventually in their elimination ensured that the Languedoc became pat of the territory of the king of France, who held sway in the area of Paris.

 Cathar beliefs were initially taught by ascetic leaders who set few guidelines and practices differed from place to place.  Very few records have come down and most of what is known of them comes from the Catholic Church records, notably an Inquisitor who treated them abominably.