Branches of Mathematics

Pure mathematics

• Algebra
• Calculus
• Geometry
• Topology
• Trignometry
• Combinatorics
• Logic
• Number theory

Applied mathematics

• Dynamical systems and differential equations
• Mathematical physics
• Computing
• Information theory and signal processing
• Probability and statistics
• Game theory
• Operations research

Related Topics

• Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Linear Equations
• Applied Physics
• Nano Technology
• Engineering Sciences
• Mathematical Medicine
• Fluid dynamics
• Computational Mathematics
• Gamma Ray Optics
• Onfrared Optics
• Relative Velocity
• Iciam
• Intelligent Imaging Neuroscience
• Biomedical Engineering
• Neuroscience Research
• Quantum Cosmology
• Brain Research

• Abomination (Bible)
• Adverse selection
• Albrecht Dürer
• Aquinas
• Arabic language
• Aristotle
• Austrian school
• Bad debt
• Banking
• Bankruptcy
• Blasphemy
• Bond (finance)
• Bond market
• Bureau de change
• Capital (economics)
• Capitalism
• Catholic Church
• Cato the Elder
• Charge-off
• Child labor
• Cicero
• Clergy
• Collection agency
• Commerce clause
• Consumer debt
• Consumer lending
• Contractum trinius
• Corporate bond
• Corporate debt
• Credit reporting
• Crusaders
• Crypto-Judaism
• Dante Alighieri
• Debenture
• Debt
• Debt bondage
• Debt buyer
• Debt collection
• Debt compliance
• Debt consolidation
• Debt evasion
• Debt management plan
• Debt relief
• Debt restructuring
• Debt-snowball method
• Debtors' prison
• Declan Kennedy
• Default (finance)
• Deposit account
• Deuteronomy
• DIP financing
• Dividends
• DjVu
• Economic growth
• Ecumenical council
• Edict of Expulsion
• Edward I of England
• Egyptians
• Excommunication
• Exploitation
• External debt
• Ezra Pound
• Fixed income
• Francis Bacon
• Free market
• Garnishment
• Gautama Buddha
• Gobseck
• Government bond
• Government debt
• Guild
• Hebrew Bible
• Hebrew language
• Helmut Creutz
• Henry of Segusio
• Henry VIII
• Heresy
• History of banking
• Hittites
• Honoré de Balzac
• Ibid.
• Idem
• Inflation
• Insolvency
• Interest
• Interest rate
• Internal debt
• Internet
• Islamic banking
• Italy
• JAK members bank
• Jeremy Bentham
• Jewish Encyclopedia
• John Noonan
• JSTOR
• Kickstarter
• Kiva (organization)
• Laity
• Latin
• Loan
• Loan shark
• Loansharking
• Loc. cit.
• Lombard banking
• Mafiosi
• Magna Carta
• Margrit Kennedy
• Market failure
• Market for lemons
• Marranos
• Medieval Latin
• Mesopotamia
• Micro-lending
• Middle East
• Money changing
• Money market
• Moneylender
• Montes pietatis
• Moses
• Muhammad
• Municipal bond
• Municipal debt
• Narrenschiff
• National Banking Act
• Natural law
• Negative freedom
• New Testament
• New York
• Opportunity Cost
• Patronage
• Pawnbroker
• Payday loan
• Peterborough
• Phantom debt
• Philanthropy
• Philo
• Phoenicians
• Pierre Jean Olivi
• Pilgrim
• Plato
• Pope Clement V
• Pope Sixtus V
• Predatory lending
• Principate
• Profit (economics)
• Qur'an
• Rashi
• Renting
• Riba
• Risk
• Roman Empire
• Roman numerals
• Rome
• Royalties
• Sacrament
• Sebastian Brant
• Securitization
• Seneca the Younger
• Serfdom
• Sharia
• Shylock
• Smiley v. Citibank
• Sodomy
• Spread
• State law
• Statute
• Statute of Jewry
• Statutes of Canada
• Stock market
• Strategic default
• Talk Usury
• Tax
• Template Debt
• Template Refref
• Template talk Debt
• The Cantos
• The Crown
• The Divine Comedy
• Thomas Aquinas
• Thomas Lodge
• Thomism
• Time preference
• Title loan
• Truth in Lending Act
• U.S. state
• U.S. Supreme Court
• U.S.U.R.A.
• United States
• Usury
• Usury Act 1660
• Venture debt
• Vix Pervenit
• Welfare economics
• Wikipedia Footnotes
• Wikipedia Vagueness
• Wikisource
• Wikisource Gobseck
• William Blackstone
• Woodcut
• WP NPOVD
• WP TONE
• 
  

• 
  Italy
  Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
  Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
  
  wn.com/Italy
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  New York
  New York (/njuː ˈjɔrk/; locally IPA: [nɪu ˈjɔək] or [nuː ˈjɔɹk] ( listen)) is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. New York is the 27th most extensive, the 3rd most populous, and the 7th most densely populated of the 50 United States. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the west and north, and Quebec to the north. The state of New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City.
  New York City, with a population of over 8.1 million, is the most populous city in the United States. Alone, it makes up over 40 percent of the population of New York state. It is known for its status as a center for finance and culture and for its status as the largest gateway for immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, New York City is also a destination of choice for many foreign visitors. Both the state and city were named for the 17th century Duke of York, James Stuart, future James II and VII of England and Scotland.
  
  wn.com/New_York
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  Peterborough
  Peterborough ( /ˈpiːtərbrə/ or ⁱ/ˈpiːtərbərə/) is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of 173,400 in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated 75 miles (121 km) north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea approximately 30 miles (48 km) to the north-east. The railway station is an important stop on the East Coast Main Line.
  The local topography is flat and low-lying, and in some places lies below sea level. The area known as the Fens is to the east of Peterborough. The City of Peterborough includes the outlying military installation of RAF Wittering, and as a unitary authority it borders Northamptonshire and Rutland to the west, Lincolnshire to the north, and Cambridgeshire to the south and east.
  Human settlement in the area dates back to before the Bronze Age, as can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the current city centre. This site also shows evidence of Roman occupation. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the establishment of a monastery, then known as Medeshamstede, which later became Peterborough Cathedral. The population grew rapidly following the arrival of the railways in the 19th century, and Peterborough became an industrial centre, particularly noted for its brick manufacture.
  
  wn.com/Peterborough
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  Rome
  Rome (/ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma pronounced [ˈroːma] ( listen); Latin: Rōma) is a city and special comune ("Roma Capitale") in Italy. Rome is the capital of Italy and the capital of Lazio (Latin: Latium). With 2.8 million residents in 1,285.3 km² (496.3 sq mi), it is also the country's largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. Between 3.2 and 3.7 million people live in the Rome metropolitan area. The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.
  Rome's history spans two and a half thousand years. It was the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, which was the dominant power in Western Europe and the lands bordering the Mediterranean for over seven hundred years from the 1st century BC until the 7th century AD and the city is regarded as one of the birthplaces of western civilization. Since the 1st century AD Rome has been the seat of the Papacy and, after the end of Byzantine domination, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.
  
  wn.com/Rome
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  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States

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  Albrecht Dürer
  Albrecht Dürer (German pronunciation: [ˈalbʁɛçt ˈdyːʁɐ]; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528) was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. His woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known works include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium.
  Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
  
  wn.com/Albrecht_Dürer
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  Aristotle
  Aristotle (Ancient Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.
  Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.
  
  wn.com/Aristotle
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  Cato the Elder
  Marcus Porcius Cato (234 BC, Tusculum – 149 BC) was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient), or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.
  He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some military service but not for the discharge of the higher civil offices. He was bred, after the manner of his Latin forefathers, to agriculture, to which he devoted himself when not engaged in military service. But, having attracted the notice of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, he was brought to Rome, and successively held the offices of Cursus Honorum: Military tribune (214 BC), Quaestor (204 BC), Aedile (199 BC), Praetor (198 BC), Consul (195 BC) together with his old patron, and finally Censor (184 BC).
  Cato the Elder was also an ancestor of Nero, who was one of the most notorious Roman Emperors.
  Cato the Elder was born in Tusculum, a municipal town of Latium, to which his ancestors had belonged for some generations. His father had earned the reputation of a brave soldier, and his great-grandfather had received a reward from the state for five horses killed under him in battle. However the Tusculan Porcii had never obtained the privileges of the Roman magistracy. Cato the Elder, their famous descendant, at the beginning of his career in Rome, was regarded as a novus homo (new man), and the feeling of his unsatisfactory position, working along with the belief of his inherent superiority, contributed to aggravate and drive his ambition. Early in life, he so far exceeded the previous deeds of his predecessors that he is frequently spoken of, not only as the leader, but as the founder, of the Porcia Gens.
  
  wn.com/Cato_the_Elder
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  Cicero
  Marcus Tullius Cicero ( /ˈsɪsɨroʊ/; Classical Latin: [ˈkɪkɛroː]; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC; sometimes anglicized as Tully), was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, Roman consul and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
  He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary (with neologisms such as humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia) distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher.
  Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. According to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, "Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity." The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.
  
  wn.com/Cicero
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  Dante Alighieri
  Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante (UK  /ˈdænti/, US /ˈdɑːnteɪ/; Italian: [ˈdante]; c1265–1321), was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem Commedia, later named La divina commedia (Divine Comedy), considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
  In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il Poeta. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language".
  Dante was born in Florence, Italy. The exact date of Dante's birth is unknown, although it is generally believed to be around 1265. This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in La Divina Commedia, "the Inferno" (Halfway through the journey we are living, implying that Dante was around 35 years old, as the average lifespan according to the Bible (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate) is 70 years; and as the imaginary travel took place in 1300, Dante must have been born around 1265). Some verses of the Paradiso section of the Divine Comedy also provide a possible clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini: "As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious" (XXII 151-154). In 1265 the Sun was in Gemini approximately during the period of May 11 to June 11.
  
  wn.com/Dante_Alighieri
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  Edward I of England
  Edward I (17 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (from Latin: Malleus Scottorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons. In 1259, he briefly sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciliation with his father, however, he remained loyal throughout the subsequent armed conflict, known as the Second Barons' War. After the Battle of Lewes, Edward was hostage to the rebellious barons, but escaped after a few months and joined the fight against Simon de Montfort. Montfort was defeated at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and within two years the rebellion was extinguished. With England pacified, Edward left on a crusade to the Holy Land. The crusade accomplished little, and Edward was on his way home in 1272 when he was informed that his father had died. Making a slow return, he reached England in 1274 and he was crowned king at Westminster on 19 August.
  
  wn.com/Edward_I_of_England
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  Egyptians
  Egyptians (Egyptian Arabic: مَصريين  IPA: [mɑsˤɾejˈjiːn]; Arabic: مِصريّون‎ miṣriyūn) are the inhabitants and citizens of Egypt sharing a common culture and a dialect of Arabic.
  Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean and enclosed by desert both to the east and to the west. This unique geography has been the basis of the development of Egyptian society since antiquity. If regarded as a single ethnic group, the Egyptian people constitute one of the world's largest.
  The daily language of the Egyptians is the local variety of Arabic, known as Egyptian Arabic or Masri, Also a sizable minority of Egyptian speak Sa'idi Arabic in Upper Egypt. Egyptians are predominantly adherents of Sunni Islam with a Shia minority and a significant proportion who follow native Sufi orders. A sizable minority of Egyptians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose liturgical language, Coptic, is the last stage of the indigenous Egyptian language.
  
  wn.com/Egyptians
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  Excommunication
  Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community. Some groups use the term disfellowship instead. The word excommunication means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group. Excommunication may involve banishment, shunning, and shaming, depending on the religion, the offense that caused excommunication, or the rules or norms of the religious community.
  Matthew 18:15-17 is seen as a biblical basis for excommunication in Christianity. There Jesus tells an offended church member to draw the offender's fault to his attention privately; then, failing repentance, to speak to him again with the support of one or two others so that the charge is established by two or three witnesses; and, if even this measure is unsuccessful, to bring the matter before the church as a whole, after which, if the offender refuses to accept the church's verdict, he is to be treated as "a Gentile and a tax collector."
  
  wn.com/Excommunication
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  Ezra Pound
  Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an American expatriate poet, critic and a major figure of the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his promotion of Imagism, a movement that derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language. His best-known works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos (1917–1969).
  Working in London in the early 20th century as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, Pound helped to discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway. He was responsible for the publication in 1915 of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and for the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote of him in 1925: "He defends [his friends] when they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. ... He writes articles about them. He introduces them to wealthy women. He gets publishers to take their books. He sits up all night with them when they claim to be dying ... he advances them hospital expenses and dissuades them from suicide."
  
  wn.com/Ezra_Pound
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  Francis Bacon
  Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban(s),KC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.
  Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism. His works established and popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.
  Bacon was knighted in 1603, and created both the Baron Verulam in 1618, and the Viscount St Alban in 1621; as he died without heirs both peerages became extinct upon his death. He famously died by contracting pneumonia while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.
  
  wn.com/Francis_Bacon
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  Gautama Buddha
  Gautama Buddha or Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम बुद्ध; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. The word Buddha is a title for the first awakened being in an era. In most Buddhist traditions, Siddhartha Gautama is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (P. sammāsambuddha, S. samyaksaṃbuddha) of our age, "Buddha" meaning "awakened one" or "the enlightened one." Gautama Buddha may also be referred to as Śākyamuni (Sanskrit: शाक्यमुनि "Sage of the Śākyas"). The Buddha found a Middle Way that ameliorated the extreme asceticism found in the Sramana religions.
  The time of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE. UNESCO lists Lumbini, Nepal, as a world heritage site and birthplace of Gautama Buddha. There are also claims about birth place of Gautama Buddha to be Kapileswara, Orissa or Kapilavastu at Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kośala.
  
  wn.com/Gautama_Buddha
• Henry of Segusio
  Henry of Segusio, usually called Hostiensis, (c. 1200 – November 6 or 7, 1271)¹ was an Italian canonist of the thirteenth century, born at Susa (Segusio), in the ancient Diocese of Turin. He died at Lyon.
  He gave himself up to the study of Roman law and canon law at Bologna, where he seems to have taught, and to have taken his degree utriusque juris. He taught canon law at Paris, and spent some time in England, whence King Henry III sent him on a mission to Innocent IV.
  Later he became Provost of Antibes, and chaplain to the pope and was soon promoted to the See of Sisteron (1244), afterwards to the Archdiocese of Embrun (1250). He became Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Velletri on May 22, 1262, whence his name Hostiensis. His health forced him to leave the conclave which, after the Holy See had been vacant for three years, elected Gregory X.
  As a canonist Hostiensis had a great reputation. His works are:
  A work on feudal law has also been attributed to him, but without foundation.
  For Hostiensis the law as well as all political authority were derived from God.² Because of this all princes “exercised authority by divine mandate.”³ Civil law was divine because the emperors who created that law were placed in authority by God.⁴ Despite this, however, civil law was inferior to canon law.⁵
  
  wn.com/Henry_of_Segusio
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  Hittites
  The Hittites were a Bronze Age Indo-European speaking people of Anatolia. They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c. the 14th century BC, encompassing a large part of Anatolia, north-western Syria about as far south as the mouth of the Litani River (in present-day Lebanon), and eastward into upper Mesopotamia. The Hittite military made successful use of chariots. By the mid-14th century BC (under king Suppiluliuma I), they had carved out an empire that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After c. 1180 BC, the empire disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some surviving until the 8th century BC.
  Their Hittite language was a member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Natively, they referred to their land as Hatti, and to their language as Nesili (the language of Nesa). The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite the use of "Hatti", the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, and spoke a non-Indo-European language known as Hattic.
  
  wn.com/Hittites
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  Honoré de Balzac
  Honoré de Balzac (French pronunciation: [ɔnɔʁe də balzak]; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon.
  Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. His writing influenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics.
  
  wn.com/Honoré_de_Balzac
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  Jeremy Bentham
  Jeremy Bentham ( /ˈbɛnθəm/; 15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832) was an English author, jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He is best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism and animal rights, and the idea of the panopticon.
  His position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, usury, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts. He argued for the abolition of slavery and the death penalty and for the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children. Although strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights, calling them "nonsense upon stilts."
  He has come to be considered the founding figure of modern utilitarianism, through his own work and that of his students. These included his secretary and collaborator on the utilitarian school of philosophy, James Mill; James Mill's son John Stuart Mill; John Austin, legal philosopher; and several political leaders, including Robert Owen, a founder of modern socialism. He has been described as the "spiritual founder" of University College London (UCL), though he played little direct part in its foundation.
  
  wn.com/Jeremy_Bentham
• Laity
  In religious organizations, the laity consists of all people who are not a part of or independent of the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who has not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order (for example a nun or lay brother).
  In the past in Christian cultures, the term lay priest was sometimes used to refer to a secular priest, a diocesan priest who is not a member of a religious order. Terms such as lay priest, lay clergy and lay nun were once used in Buddhist cultures to indicate ordained persons who continued to live in the wider community instead of retiring to a monastery. In recent centuries, the term is often used more generally, in the context of any specialized profession, to refer to those who are not members of that profession.
  The word lay derives from the Anglo-French lai (from Late Latin laicus, from the Greek λαϊκός, laikos, of the people, from λαός, laos, the people at large).
  
  wn.com/Laity
• Margrit Kennedy
  Margrit Kennedy (born November 21, 1939, in Chemnitz) is a German architect, professor, environmentalist, author and world authority on and advocate of complementary currencies and an interest- and inflation-free economy. In 2011, she initiated the movement Occupy Money.
  Kennedy is an architect with a Masters Degree in Urban and Regional Planning and a Ph.D. in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She has worked as an Urban Planner in Germany, Nigeria, Scotland and the United States. In 1991, she was appointed Professor of Ecological Building Technologies at the Department of Architecture, University of Hanover.
  She has stated that her work on ecological architecture in 1982 led her to the discovery that it is "virtually impossible to carry out sound ecological concepts on the scale required today, without fundamentally altering the present money system or creating new complementary currencies".
  Her most famous book—Interest and Inflation Free Money, Creating an Exchange Medium that Works for Everybody and Protects the Earth (1987)—has been revised several times and translated into 22 languages.
  
  wn.com/Margrit_Kennedy
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  Moses
  Moses (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה‎, Modern Moshe Tiberian Mōšéh ISO 259-3 Moše; Greek: Mωϋσῆς Mōüsēs; Arabic: موسىٰ Mūsa) was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew (מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, Lit. "Moses our Teacher/Rabbi"), he is the most important prophet in Judaism, and is also considered an important prophet in Christianity and Islam, as well as a number of other faiths.
  The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story is disputed amongst archaeologists and Egyptologists, with experts in the field of biblical criticism citing logical inconsistencies, new archaeological evidence, historical evidence, and related origin myths in Canaanite culture. Other historians maintain that the biographical details, and Egyptian background, attributed to Moses imply the existence of a historical political and religious leader who was involved in the consolidation of the Hebrew tribes in Canaan towards the end of the Bronze Age.
  
  wn.com/Moses
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  Muhammad
  Muhammad (c. 26 April 570 – 8 June 632; also transliterated as Mohammad, Mohammed, or Muhammed; Arabic: محمد‎), full name: Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib (Arabic: محمد بن عبدالله بن عبد المطلب ‎) was a leader from Mecca who unified the tribes of Arabia into a single religious polity under Islam. He is believed by Muslims and Bahá'ís to be a messenger and prophet of God. Muslims believe that Islam was not his own invention but was revealed by God, and most consider him to be the last prophet of God Muslims thus consider him the restorer of an uncorrupted original monotheistic faith (islām) of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other prophets.
  Born in 570 CE in the Arabian city of Mecca, he was orphaned at an early age and brought up under the care of his uncle Abu Talib. He later worked mostly as a merchant, as well as a shepherd, and was first married by age 25. Being in the habit of periodically retreating to a cave in the surrounding mountains for several nights of meditation and prayer, he later reported that it was there, at age 40, that he received his first revelation from God. Three years after this event Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "surrender" to Him (lit. islām) is the only way (dīn) acceptable to God, and that he himself was a prophet and messenger of God, in the same vein as other Islamic prophets.
  
  wn.com/Muhammad
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  Philo
  Philo (20 BCE – 50 CE), known also as Philo of Alexandria (Greek: Φίλων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς), Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria.
  Philo used philosophical allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish philosophy. His method followed the practices of both Jewish exegesis and Stoic philosophy. His allegorical exegesis was important for several Christian Church Fathers, but he has barely any reception history within Judaism. "The sophists of literalness," as he calls the literalist Jews, "opened their eyes superciliously" when he explained to them the marvels of his exegesis. He believed that literal interpretations of the Hebrew Bible would stifle mankind's view and perception of a God too complex and marvelous to be understood in literal human terms.
  Some scholars hold that his concept of the Logos as God's creative principle influenced early Christology. Other scholars, however, deny direct influence but say both Philo and Early Christianity borrow from a common source. For Philo, the Logos was God's "blueprint for the world", a governing plan.
  
  wn.com/Philo
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  Phoenicians
  Phoenicia (UK  /fɨˈnɪʃə/, US /fəˈniːʃə/; from the Greek: Φοινίκη: Phoiníkē), was an ancient Semitic Canaanite civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. The major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme. They were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the Murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for their spread of the alphabet (or abjad), upon which all major modern phonetic alphabets are derived.
  In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites), although these letters predate the invasion of the Sea Peoples by over a century. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix". Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon" as early as the third millennium BC.
  
  wn.com/Phoenicians
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  Pilgrim
  A pilgrim (from the Latin peregrinus) is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system. In the spiritual literature of Christianity, the concept of pilgrim and pilgrimage may refer to the experience of life in the world (considered as a period of exile) or to the inner path of the spiritual aspirant from a state of wretchedness to a state of beatitude.
  Pilgrims and the making of pilgrimages are common in many religions, including the faiths in ancient Egypt, Persia in the Mithraic period, India, China, and Japan. The Greek and Roman customs of consulting the gods at local oracles, such as those at Dodona or Delphi, both in Greece, are widely known. In Greece, pilgrimages could either be personal or state-sponsored.
  In the early period of Hebrew history, pilgrims traveled to Shiloh, Dan, Bethel, and eventually Jerusalem, see also Three Pilgrimage Festivals, a practice followed by other Abrahamic religions. While many religious pilgrims travel toward a specific destination, a physical location is not a necessity. One group of pilgrims in early Celtic Christianity were the Peregrinari Pro Christ, (Pilgrims for Christ), or "white martyrs". They left their homes to wander in the world. This sort of pilgrimage was an ascetic religious practice, as the pilgrim left the security of home and the clan for an unknown destination, in complete trust of Divine Providence. These travels often resulted in the founding of new abbeys and spreading Christianity among the pagan population in Britain as well as in continental Europe.
  
  wn.com/Pilgrim
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  Plato
  Plato ( /ˈpleɪtoʊ/; Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "broad"; 424/423 BC – 348/347 BC) was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. In the words of A. N. Whitehead:
  The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.
  Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his Socratic dialogues; thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to him. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts. Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, and mathematics.
  
  wn.com/Plato
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  Pope Clement V
  Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got (also occasionally spelled de Guoth and de Goth) (c. 1264 – 20 April 1314) was Pope from 1305 to his death. He is memorable in history for suppressing the order of the Knights Templar and executing some of its members, and as the Pope who moved the Curia from Rome to Avignon, ushering in the period known as the Avignon Papacy.
  Born in Villandraut, Aquitaine, Bertrand was canon and sacristan of the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux, then vicar-general to his brother, the Archbishop of Lyon, who in 1294 was created Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. He was then made Bishop of St-Bertrand-de-Comminges, the cathedral church of which he was responsible for greatly enlarging and embellishing, and chaplain to Pope Boniface VIII, who made him Archbishop of Bordeaux in 1297.
  Following the death of Benedict XI in 1304, there was a year's interregnum occasioned by disputes between the French and Italian cardinals, who were nearly equally balanced in the conclave, which had to be held at Perugia. Bertrand was elected Pope Clement V in June 1305 and consecrated on 14 November. Bertrand was neither Italian nor a cardinal, and his election might have been considered a gesture towards neutrality. The contemporary chronicler Giovanni Villani reports gossip that he had bound himself to King Philip IV of France by a formal agreement before his elevation, made at St. Jean d'Angély in Saintonge. Whether this was true or not, it is likely that the future pope had conditions laid down for him by the conclave of cardinals. At Bordeaux, Bertrand was formally notified of his election and urged to come to Italy, but he selected Lyon for his coronation on 14 November 1305, which was celebrated with magnificence and attended by Philip IV. Among his first acts was the creation of nine French cardinals.
  
  wn.com/Pope_Clement_V
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  Pope Sixtus V
  Pope Sixtus V (13 December 1520 – 27 August 1590), born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590. OFM (Ordo Fratrum Minorum).
  Felice Peretti was born in December 1520 at Grottammare, in the Papal States, to Piergentile, nicknamed "Peretto", and Marianna da Frontillo. His father came from Montalto, a nearby village. Rumors about a Croatian origin of the Peretti family are late and false: the Peretti family came from Piceno, today Marche, in Italy Felice later adopted "Peretti" as his family name in 1551, but was more generally known as "di Montalto". He was reared in poverty. Born in a shanty allegedly so ill-thatched that the sun shone through the roof, he later jested that he was "nato di casa illustre" — born of an illustrious (i.e. "illuminated") house.
  At an early age he entered a Franciscan friary at Montalto and was known as Felice di Montalto. He soon gave evidence of rare ability as a preacher and a dialectician. A legend has it that while a friar he was approached by the ageing Nostradamus who knelt, kissed the friar's robe and then exclaimed he was kissing the robe of the future pope^{[citation needed]}.
  
  wn.com/Pope_Sixtus_V
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  Rashi
  Shlomo Yitzhaki (Hebrew: רבי שלמה יצחקי‎), or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi (Hebrew: רש"י‎, RAbbi SHlomo Itzhaki; February 22, 1040 – July 13, 1105), was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). He is considered the "father" of all commentaries that followed on the Talmud (i.e., the Baalei Tosafot) and the Tanakh (i.e., Ramban, Ibn Ezra, Ohr HaChaim, et al.).
  Acclaimed for his ability to present the basic meaning of the text in a concise, lucid fashion, Rashi appeals to both learned scholars and beginning students, and his works remain a centerpiece of contemporary Jewish study. His commentary on the Talmud, which covers nearly all of the Babylonian Talmud (a total of 30 tractates), has been included in every edition of the Talmud since its first printing by Daniel Bomberg in the 1520s. His commentary on Tanakh — especially his commentary on the Chumash ("Five Books of Moses") — is an indispensable aid to students of all levels. The latter commentary alone serves as the basis for more than 300 "supercommentaries" which analyze Rashi's choice of language and citations, penned by some of the greatest names in rabbinic literature.
  
  wn.com/Rashi
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  Sebastian Brant
  Sebastian Brant (also Brandt) (1457 – 10 May 1521) was a German humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools).
  He was born in Strasbourg. He studied at Basel, took the degree of doctor of law in 1489, and for some time held a professorship of jurisprudence there. Returning to Strasbourg, he was made syndic of the town, remaining there for the rest of his life.
  In 1485 he married Elisabeth Bürgis from Basel, the daughter of a cutler. Elisabeth bore him seven children. Keen for his eldest son Onophrius to become a humanist, he taught him Latin in the cradle and enrolled him in university at the age of seven.
  He first attracted attention in humanistic circles by his Latin poetry, and edited many ecclesiastical and legal works; but he is now only known by his famous satire, Das Narrenschiff, published by Bergmann in 1494, the popularity and influence of which were not limited to Germany. Under the form of an allegory, a ship laden with fools and steered by fools goes to the fools' paradise of Narragonia. Brant here lashes with unsparing vigour the weaknesses and vices of his time. Here he conceives Saint Grobian, whom he imagines to be the patron saint of vulgar and coarse people.
  
  wn.com/Sebastian_Brant
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  Seneca the Younger
  Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca; ca. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. While he was later forced to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors, he may have been innocent. His father was Seneca the Elder and his elder brother was Gallio.
  Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in Cordoba, in the Baetica, the southern highly romanized province of Spain. One of his revisionist modern biographers, however, Miriam Griffin says in her biography of Seneca that "the evidence for Seneca's life before his exile in 41 is so slight, and the potential interest of these years, for social history as well as for biography, is so great that few writers on Seneca have resisted the temptation to eke out knowledge with imagination." Griffin also states, apparently inferring from ancient sources, that Seneca was born in either 8, 4, or 1 BC. She thinks he was born between 4 and 1 BC and was a resident in Rome by AD 5. Seneca says that he was carried to Rome in the arms of his mother's stepsister. Griffin says that, allowing for rhetorical exaggeration, means "it is fair to conclude that Seneca was in Rome as a very small boy." Be that as it may, it is clear that he was in Rome at a relatively early stage in his life.
  
  wn.com/Seneca_the_Younger
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  Shylock
  Shylock is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and is also a term used to describe "someone who lends money at excessive rates of interest"
  In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who agrees to lend money to Bassanio on the credit of Antonio, Shylock's Christian rival. Shylock, suspicious of Antonio, sets the security as a pound of Antonio's flesh. When Antonio's merchant ventures fail and he cannot come up with the money to pay off Bassanio's loan, Shylock demands the pound of flesh, which will surely kill Antonio. Shylock insists that his debt be paid; he wants revenge on Antonio because not only does Antonio lend money without interest (thus making Shylock lose business), he also spits on Shylock, verbally and physically abuses him, and turns his friends against him and inflames his enemies towards him. Shylock also becomes obsessed with collecting his debt because of his grief: His only daughter, Jessica, has fled his house, taking his money and jewels, to elope with Antonio's friend Lorenzo and convert to Christianity.
  
  wn.com/Shylock
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  Thomas Aquinas
  Thomas Aquinas, O.P. ( /əˈkwaɪnəs/ ə-KWY-nəs; 1225 – 7 March 1274), also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus ([the] Angelic Doctor), Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis. "Aquinas" is not a surname, but is a Latin demonym for a resident of Aquino, his place of birth. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived as a reaction against, or as an agreement with, his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.
  Thomas is held in the Catholic Church to be the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood. The works for which he is best-known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles. As one of the 33 Doctors of the Church, he is considered the Church's greatest theologian and philosopher. Pope Benedict XV declared: "This (Dominican) Order ... acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools."
  
  wn.com/Thomas_Aquinas
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  Thomas Lodge
  Thomas Lodge (c. 1558 – September 1625) was an English dramatist and writer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
  He was born about 1558 at West Ham, the second son of Sir Thomas Lodge, who was Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1562–1563. His mother's stepfather was Sir William Laxton, another Lord Mayor of the City of London. Thomas' brother, William, married Mary, the daughter of the Master of the Revels, Thomas Blagrave. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Trinity College, Oxford; taking his BA in 1577 and MA in 1581.
  In 1578 he entered Lincoln's Inn, where, as in the other Inns of Court, a love of letters and a crop of debts were common. Lodge, disregarding the wishes of his family, took up literature. When the penitent Stephen Gosson had (in 1579) published his Schoole of Abuse, Lodge responded with Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays (1579 or 1580), which shows a certain restraint, though both forceful and learned. The pamphlet was banned, but appears to have been circulated privately. It was answered by Gosson in his Playes Confuted in Five Actions; and Lodge retorted with his Alarum Against Usurers (1585)—a tract for the times which may have resulted from personal experience. In the same year he produced the first tale written by him on his own account in prose and verse, The Delectable History of Forbonius and Prisceria, both published and reprinted with the Alarum.
  
  wn.com/Thomas_Lodge
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  William Blackstone
  Sir William Blackstone KC SL (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1738. After switching to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, he was made a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford on 2 November 1743, admitted to Middle Temple, and called to the Bar there in 1746. Following a slow start to his career as a barrister, Blackstone became heavily involved in university administration, becoming accountant, treasurer and bursar on 28 November 1746 and Senior Bursar in 1750. Blackstone is considered responsible for completing the Codrington Library and Warton Building, and simplifying the complex accounting system used by the college. On 3 July 1753 he formally gave up his practise as a barrister and instead embarked on a series of lectures on English law, the first of their kind. These were massively successful, earning him a total of £56,000 in 2012 terms, and led to the publication of An Analysis of the Laws of England in 1756, which repeatedly sold out and was used to preface his later works.
  
  wn.com/William_Blackstone

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