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Fuente Ovejuna
''Fuenteovejuna'' () is a play by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. First published in Madrid in 1619, as part of ''Docena Parte de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio'' (''Volume 12 of the Collected plays of Lope de Vega Carpio''),Edwards, Gwynne, ed. and trans. ''Lope de Vega, Three Major Plays'' (with ''The Knight of Olmedo'' and ''Punishment without Revenge''). Oxford University Press, 1999, p. xii. the play is believed to have been written between 1612 and 1614. The play is based upon a historical incident that took place in the village of Fuenteovejuna in Castile, in 1476. While under the command of the Order of Calatrava, a commander, Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, mistreated the villagers, who banded together and killed him. When a magistrate sent by King Ferdinand II of Aragon arrived at the village to investigate, the villagers, even under the pain of torture, responded only by saying "Fuenteovejuna did it." Background Rapid change took place in Spain in the years betw ...
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Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, in which the Christian kingdoms expanded through war and conquered al-Andalus; the territories of Iberia ruled by Muslims. The beginning of the ''Reconquista'' is traditionally marked with the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722), the first known victory by Christian military forces in Hispania since the 711 military invasion which was undertaken by combined Arab- Berber forces. The rebels who were led by Pelagius defeated a Muslim army in the mountains of northern Hispania and established the independent Christian Kingdom of Asturias. In the late 10th century, the Umayyad vizier Almanzor waged military campaigns for 30 years to subjugate the northern Christian kingdoms. His armies ravaged the north, even s ...
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Rack (torture)
The rack is a torture device consisting of a rectangular, usually wooden frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one or both ends. The victim's ankles are fastened to one roller and the wrists are chained to the other. As the interrogation progresses, a handle and ratchet mechanism attached to the top roller are used to very gradually retract the chains, slowly increasing the strain on the prisoner's shoulders, hips, knees, and elbows and causing excruciating pain. By means of pulleys and levers, this roller could be rotated on its own axis, thus straining the ropes until the sufferer's joints were dislocated and eventually separated. Additionally, if muscle fibres are stretched excessively, they lose their ability to contract, rendering them ineffective. One gruesome aspect of being stretched too far on the rack is the loud popping noises made by snapping cartilage, ligaments or bones. Another method for putting pressure upon prisoners was to force them to watc ...
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Droit Du Seigneur
('right of the lord'), also known as ('right of the first night'), was a supposed legal right in medieval Europe, allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with subordinate women, in particular, on the wedding nights of the women. A majority of historians have concluded that the idea is a myth and that all references to it are from later periods. Over the centuries, it became commonly portrayed in European literature as a practice that had occurred in earlier times or other places. In practice, it may have been the feudal lords using their power and influence over serfs to sexually exploit the women free of consequences, as opposed to a legitimate legal right. Terminology The French expression translates as "right of the lord", but modern French usage prefers (, from , 'leg') or (, from , 'thigh'). The term is often used synonymously with , Latin for "right of the first night". Ancient times In the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', Gilgamesh is described as having practic ...
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Whip
A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally either a firm stick designed for direct contact, or a flexible line requiring a specialized swing. The former is easier and more precise, the latter offers longer reach and greater force. A hunting whip combines a firm stick (the stock or handle) with a flexible line (the lash or thong). Whips such as the " cat o' nine tails" and knout are specifically developed for flagellation as a means of inflicting corporal punishment or torture on human targets. Certain religious practices and BDSM activities involve the self-use of whips or the use of whips between consenting partners. Misuse on non-humans may be considered animal cruelty, and misuse on humans may be viewed as assault. Use Whips are generally used on animals to provide directional ...
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Crossbow
A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an elastic launching device consisting of a bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar fashion to the stock of a long firearm. Crossbows shoot arrow-like projectiles called '' bolts'' or ''quarrels''. A person who shoots crossbow is called a ''crossbowman'' or an '' arbalist'' (after the arbalest, a European crossbow variant used during the 12th century). Although crossbows and bows use the same launch principle, the difference is that an archer must maintain a bow's draw manually by pitching the bowstring with fingers, pulling it back with arm and back muscles and then holding that same form in order to aim (which distresses the body and demands significant physical strength and stamina); while a crossbow utilizes a locking mechanism to maintain the draw, limiting the shooter's exertion to only pulling the string into lock and then releasing the shot ...
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Almagro, Ciudad Real
Almagro () is a town and municipality situated in Ciudad Real province, in the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha, Spain. A tourist destination, Almagro is designated a ''Conjunto histórico'', a type of conservation area. Almagro lies within small Paleozoic mountain ranges, with some reserves of shallow creeks, including the Pellejero and de Cuetos. It also lies within a volcanic zone (''Cerrro de la Yezosa''), which lies upon a quartzite massif. It makes the zone particularly unique, together with that of the zones of Olot and Cabo de Gata, in the sense that it is one of the few important zones of volcanic origin in the Iberian Peninsula. An International Festival of Classical Theater has also been celebrated here annually since 1978. History Prehistory and Roman era It is uncertain when humans first settled in the area of Almagro. There may have been a Bronze Age settlement; a theory supported by archaeological findings in the Casas Maestrales (complex of houses a ...
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Ferdinand Of Aragon, Isabella Of Castile
Ferdinand is a Germanic name composed of the elements "protection", "peace" (PIE "to love, to make peace") or alternatively "journey, travel", Proto-Germanic , abstract noun from root "to fare, travel" (PIE , "to lead, pass over"), and "courage" or "ready, prepared" related to Old High German "to risk, venture." The name was adopted in Romance languages from its use in the Visigothic Kingdom. It is reconstructed as either Gothic or . It became popular in German-speaking Europe only from the 16th century, with Habsburg rule over Spain. Variants of the name include , , , and in Spanish, in Catalan, and and in Portuguese. The French forms are , '' Fernand'', and , and it is '' Ferdinando'' and in Italian. In Hungarian both and are used equally. The Dutch forms are and ''Ferry''. There are numerous short forms in many languages, such as the Finnish . There is a feminine Spanish, Portuguese and Italian form, . Royalty Aragón/León/Castile/Spain *Ferdina ...
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Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real (, ; en, "Royal City") is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region. History It was founded with the name ''Villa Real'' ("Royal Town") under the auspice of Alfonso X, who granted it a charter that followed the model of Cuenca's. Located within the dominion of the Military Order of Calatrava, the repopulation struggled initially. Weary of the influence of Villa Real, an independent town directly dependent on the crown embedded within the territory dominated the Order of Calatrava, the masters of the Order established a rival market in nearby Miguelturra seeking to disrupt the town's economic activity. During the Middle Ages, four kilometres of walls and one hundred and thirty towers protected a population made up of Christians, Muslims and Jews. Villa Real hosted the Cortes of Castile in 1346. Juan II of Castile granted '' ...
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Battle Of Toro
The Battle of Toro was part of the War of the Castilian Succession, fought on 1 March 1476, near the city of Toro, between the Castilian-Aragonese troops of the Catholic Monarchs and the Portuguese-Castilian forces of Afonso V and Prince John of Portugal. The battle was militarily inconclusive, Desormeaux p. 25: "...The result of the battle was very uncertain; Ferdinand defeated the enemy's right wing led by Alfonso, but the Prince had the same advantage over the Castilians". Marlés: "...the infant rince Johnand the duke f Alba, the main Castilian commanderremained masters, each on his side, of the battlefield. The latter withdrew during the night...", p. 190.Schaeffer p. 554-555: "The two Kings had left the battlefield before the action was decided... In the end, the prince stood alone on the field as a winner after the defeat of the main ortuguesebody. Until that defeat, rinceJohn chased the six divisions beaten by him..."McMurdo, p. 515: "...the battle of Toro in which ...
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Joanna La Beltraneja
Joanna ''la Beltraneja'' (21 February 1462 – 12 April 1530) was a claimant to the throne of Castile, and Queen of Portugal as the wife of King Afonso V, her uncle. Birth and parentage King Henry IV of Castile married Joan of Portugal, daughter of King Edward of Portugal and the youngest sister of King Afonso V of Portugal, on May 21, 1455.Hunt, Jocelyn. ''Spain 1474–1598''. Routledge, 2013, p. 5/ref> Seven years later, Joanna was born at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid. Henry IV had previously been married to Blanche II of Navarre. After thirteen years, that marriage was annulled on the grounds that it had never been consummated. This was attributed to a curse, which only affected Henry's relationship with Blanche; a number of prostitutes from Segovia testified that they had noticed no impairment. Henry had no other children and was rumoured to be impotent. Whether true or not, this rumour was widely circulated by Henry's opponents, who further insinuated that the little i ...
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Alfonso V Of Portugal
Afonso V () (15 January 1432 – 28 August 1481), known by the sobriquet the African (), was King of Portugal from 1438 until his death in 1481, with a brief interruption in 1477. His sobriquet refers to his military conquests in Northern Africa. As of 1471, Afonso V was the first king of Portugal to claim dominion over a plural "Kingdom of the Algarves", instead of the singular " Kingdom of the Algarve". Territories added to the Portuguese crown lands in North Africa during the 15th century came to be referred to as possessions of the Kingdom of the Algarve (now a region of southern Portugal), not the Kingdom of Portugal. The "Algarves" then were considered to be the southern Portuguese territories on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. Early life Afonso was born in Sintra, the second son of King Edward of Portugal by his wife Eleanor of Aragon. Following the death of his older brother, Infante João (1429–1433), Afonso acceded to the position of heir apparent and was mad ...
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