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Tower House
A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points with reduced forces. At the same time, they were also used as an aristocrat's residence, around which a castle town was often constructed. Europe After their initial appearance in Ireland, Scotland, the Frisian lands, Northern Spain and England during the High Middle Ages, tower houses were also built in other parts of western Europe, especially in parts of France and Italy. In Italian medieval communes, urban ''palazzi'' with a very tall tower were increasingly built by the local highly competitive patrician families as power centres during times of internal strife. Most north Italian cities had a number of these by the end of the Middle Ages, but few now remain, notably two towers in Bologna, twenty towers in Pavia and fourtee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuscany
Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its influence on high culture. It is regarded as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and of the foundations of the Italian language. The prestige established by the Tuscan dialect's use in literature by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini led to its subsequent elaboration as the language of culture throughout Italy. It has been home to many figures influential in the history of art and science, and contains well-known museums such as the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti. Tuscany is also known for its wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano, Brunello di Montalcino and white Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Having a strong linguistic and cultural identity, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantabria
Cantabria (, ; ) is an autonomous community and Provinces of Spain, province in northern Spain with Santander, Cantabria, Santander as its capital city. It is called a , a Nationalities and regions of Spain, historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque autonomous community (Biscay, province of Biscay), on the south by Castile and León (Province of León, provinces of León, Palencia (province), Palencia and Province of Burgos, Burgos), on the west by the Asturias, Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea, which forms part of the Bay of Biscay. Cantabria belongs to ''Green Spain'', the name given to the strip of land between the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Mountains, so called because of its particularly lush vegetation, due to the wet and temperate oceanic climate. The climate is strongly influenced by Atlantic Ocean winds trapped by the mountains; the averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Ignatius Of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola ( ; ; ; ; born Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola; – 31 July 1556), venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Basques, Basque Spaniard Priesthood in the Catholic Church, Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and became its first Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Superior General, in Paris in 1541. Ignatius envisioned the purpose of the Society of Jesus to be Missionary, missionary work and Education, teaching. In addition to the vows of chastity, obedience and poverty of other religious orders in the church, Loyola instituted a fourth vow for Jesuits of obedience to the Pope, to engage in projects ordained by the pontiff. Jesuits were instrumental in leading the Counter-Reformation. As a former soldier, Ignatius paid particular attention to the spiritual formation of his recruits and recorded his method in the ''Spiritual Exercises'' (1548). In time, the method has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Of The Bands
The War of the Bands (, ) was a civil war, really an extended series of blood feuds, in the western Basque Country (historical territory), Basque Country, Cantabria, Duchy of Gascony, Gascony, and Kingdom of Navarre, Navarre in the Late Middle Ages. The main primary source for the War is ''Las Bienandanças e fortunas'' by Lope García de Salazar, written ''c''.1471. The war is named after the aristocratic networks of familial alliances and their armed followings, known as ''bandos'' (bands), that carried out constant wars for power and honour across three kingdoms. The wars ceased only with the imposition of royal authority under Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, Isabella of Castile, the Catholic Monarchs. The wars resulted partly from the destabilising effect of the Castilian Civil War and the ensuing political weakness of the House of Trastámara. That the Seniory of Biscay effectively ceased to exist after 1370 and was subsumed in 1379 into Castile only exace ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Castile
The Kingdom of Castile (; : ) was a polity in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. It traces its origins to the 9th-century County of Castile (, ), as an eastern frontier lordship of the Kingdom of León. During the 10th century, the Castilian counts increased their autonomy, but it was not until 1065 that it was separated from the Kingdom of León and became a kingdom in its own right. Between 1072 and 1157, it was again united with León, and after 1230, the union became permanent. Throughout that period, the Castilian kings made extensive conquests in southern Iberia at the expense of the Islamic principalities. The Kingdoms of Castile and of León, with their southern acquisitions, came to be known collectively as the Crown of Castile, a term that also came to encompass overseas expansion. History 9th to 11th centuries: beginnings According to the chronicles of Alfonso III of Asturias, the first reference to the name "Castile" (Castilla) can be found in a documen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Aragon
The Kingdom of Aragon (; ; ; ) was a medieval and early modern Monarchy, kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain. It became a part of the larger Crown of Aragon, which also included other territories—the Principality of Catalonia (which included the former Catalan Counties), the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, and other possessions that are now part of France, Italy, and Greece—that were also under the rule of the King of Aragon, but were administered separately from the Kingdom of Aragon. In 1479, upon John II of Aragon and Navarre, John II of Aragon's death, the crowns of Aragon and Castile were united to form the nucleus of modern Spain. The Aragonese lands retained autonomous parliamentary and administrative institutions, such as the Aragonese Corts, Corts. The arrangement remained until the Nueva Planta decrees, promulgated between 1707 and 1715 by Philip V o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basque Country (autonomous Community)
The Basque Country or Basque Autonomous Community (), also officially called Euskadi (), is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Araba, Biscay, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa. It surrounds two enclaves called Treviño enclave, Treviño (Province of Burgos, Burgos) and Valle de Villaverde (Cantabria). The Basque Country was granted the status of ''Nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'', attributed by the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The autonomous community is based on the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country, a foundational legal document providing the framework for the development of the Basque people on Southern Basque Country. Parallelly, Navarre, which narrowly rejected a joint statute of autonomy in 1932, was granted a separate chartered statute in 1982. Currently there is no official capital in the autonomous community, but the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the province of Álava, is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Navarre
Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. The capital city is Pamplona (). The present-day province makes up the majority of the territory of the medieval Kingdom of Navarre, a long-standing Pyrenean kingdom that occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, with its northernmost part, Lower Navarre, located in the southwest corner of France. Navarre is in the transition zone between the green Cantabrian Coast and semi-arid interior areas and thus its landscapes vary widely across the region. Being in a transition zone also produces a highly variable climate, with summers that are a mix of cooler spells and heat waves, and winters that are mild for the latitude. Navarre is one of the historic Basque provinces: its Basque features are conspicuous in the north, but vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peel Tower
Peel towers (also spelt pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the England, English and Scotland, Scottish Border country, borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and about 1600. They were free-standing with defence being a prime consideration in their design, although "confirmation of status and prestige" also played a role. Additionally, they functioned as watch tower, watch-towers, where garrisoned personnel could light beacon, signal fires to warn of approaching danger. The MIDAS Heritage, FISH Vocabulary ''Monument Types Thesaurus'' lists "pele" alongside "bastle house, bastle", "fortified manor house" and "tower house" under the broader term "fortified house". Pevsner Architectural Guides, Pevsner defines a peel as simply a stone tower. Outside of this, "peel" or "pele" can also be used in related contexts, for example a "pele" or "barmkin" (in Ireland a bawn) was an enclosure where livestock were h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Marches
Scottish Marches was the term used for the Anglo-Scottish border during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern era, characterised by violence and cross-border raids. The Scottish Marches era came to an end during the first decade of the 17th century following the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland. History Origins The Marches were first conceived in a treaty between Henry III of England and Alexander III of Scotland in 1249 as an attempt to control the Anglo-Scottish border by providing a buffer zone. On each side of the Anglo-Scottish border there was the West March, the Middle March and the East March. These regions nearly mirrored each other but there was some overlap between the Scottish and English regions. In the late 13th century Edward I of England appointed the first Lord Warden of the Marches, who was tasked with overseeing these regions and keeping their monarch's domain secure; when it was in their interests, they would encourage cross-border raid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
