Tuesday, January 31, 2012

LIKE SOMETHING THAT SPREADS.

So we know the Protestant Reformation was not a very fun time. People did not only find bad shtuff with the Church, but they also didn’t like each other. By now it had spread through Germany and into Switzerland.
And Switzerland was kinda chaotic.
They were fighting for their independence, but soon they were “free”. They had city-state-thingy-ma-bobs kinda like Greece did. And the city-state-thingy-ma-bob-Cantons (that’s what they were called) were not very united.
SO THERE WAS THIS GUY.
His name was Ulrich Zwingli. We’ll name him Z, because that’s cool. And when he was 14, he was in college. He was into Greek and Hebrew and Latin, just like everybody else. He did it mostly to read the Bible, but you know. He was growing into the usual reformation guy. Doesn’t like the Church, wants to change it.
However, he was a priest for the Church. And he was about to get a promotion. So he took the job there, but instead of leading Mass like he usually did, he tought straight from the scripture.
AND OGURL.
Starting with the book of Matthew, he started to go over EVERY SINGLE WORD. Seriously. He went over the words. And explained them. And everyone was impressed. It took him 6 years to go through the entire New Testament, verse by verse. Except for Revelation. I dunno.
AND SUDDENLY PLAGUE~!
A lot of people moved out of the country for hopefully obvious reasons. But not Z. He stayed. He both battled the plague with himself, and he tended to other people. Which means he was a plague doctor. Plague Doctors are awesome. Plague Doctors are my favorite medieval Renaissance thing in the whole Renaissance. Plague Doctors are win.
BUT THIS MADE Z STRONGER IN HIS RELIGION.
So he decided a bunch of things with the church weren’t very good. He translated the Bible (OH NOBODY’S DONE THAT BEFORE) into the common language, and he started some smallgroup study~!
People started leaving monasteries. People started having sermons instead of Mass. People started getting married. OH MY GOSH IT’S INSANEE.
So Switzerland pretty much went through the same thing as Germany. Except easier. Because Z didn’t have to mess around with Mr. P-to-da-ope and all that. Because the Swiss could deal with their own Chruchy buzznuzz.
But, of course, he was STILL accused of heresy. DIDN’T SEE THAT ONE DID YYEWW.
But Mr. P-to-da-ope just asked Z to stop preaching. Which did not happen, because Z sent them a 67 point thesis thing. And everyone agreed with them.


Which is good!
...
Right?
...
Well, kinda. No. Sorta. They ENFORCED STRONGLY everything Z said. And Z became, unofficially, a political and spiritual leader. He ruled his little city state kinda like Rola and Florence. And that’s pretty good.
...
Right?
...
Well, kiiinda. His spiritual laws were HEAVILY ENFORCED by the government, as usual. Which was not good at all. This led to years and years of bloodshed and all that wonderful shtuff. Yayy~!
The first problem Z came to was with the Anabaptists. Pretty much because they though different. And they believed the Bible taught full separation of Church and State. Which means they did NOT like Z.
They also thought Baptism should only be given to those old enough to understand scripture. Which I can only guess is something Z liked.
And here is where Z slips up. He decided it’d be a good idea to try to stop the Anabaptists from spreading their sect of Christianity. How? With his political power!
Yeah.
Under Z’s power, people were arrested, tortured, executed, etc. Lovely.
AND HERE THINGS GET INTERESTING.
Z had another messy encounter. WITH MARTIN LUTHER.
You see, they disagreed on the subject of communion.
Luther believed like the Catholics. Z thought that the wine and bread was only a representation of Christ’s body and blood.
And so this trolland guy came in and was liek HAI GUIZ I’LL FIX THIS~~~!!!!1! And so he kidnapped Martin and Z and locked them in a room together until they agreed with each other.
....
Well, not really.
(Pretty much because they never agreed with each other.)
Luther called Z a heretic and went come crying to his mother.
Herpderp.
So Z and Martin had a facebook war via pamphlets to hand out to their followers because they refused to speak with each other, and the two sects of religion cannot agree with each other. Still.
E-E-E-EPICFAIL.
And Z’s final mistake would BE. HIS. LAST.
You know how Switzerland had city-state-things? Well 5 of them were still Roman Catholic.
And the mess was kicked off when one of Z’s preachers was burned in one of the Catholic Cantons.
AND OGURL.
So there was pretty much a big giant civil war. Z was fatally wounded because they TORE HIS LIMBS OFF AND PROCEEDED TO BURN HIM INTO ASHES.
Well I’d THINK he was fatally wounded.
But!
There’s now a statue in Zurich, Switzerland. See the picture~!


Yupyup. He and a sword and a Bible. You seee~?
So because Z was kind of immobilized due to the fact that his ashes were beaten into the ground, someone picked up where he left off. And his name was...
HEINRICH BULLINGER.
...
herpderp. He was a pastor and all that good stuff. He guided the Reformation right along, and apparently did not have any big problems. And if he did, that doesn’t really count because I do not know about them.
So the end~!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Can't Tell if Mary Sue or Just Name.

So this guy. Suleiman. His name is hard to spell. He is now named Sue, because his name is pronounced Sue-Lee-Man. Sueleeman. And he was a Sunni. No pun there.
And while the Renaissance and the reformation, Sue decided he’d take over the world. Or at least the Ottoman Empire. So you guys remember Istanbul was Constantinople? Yeah. It was the capital of the Ottoman Empire. And Sue was having a pretty nice time ruling the world, because his daddy left him a whole lotta everything. But like a good ruler, he was a greedy jerkface. That means he wanted more.
Now he had Greece. He had a little bit of Russia, and the Black Sea area, and the Bibley bits, and Turkey, and Egypt etc. etc. So like he had Oriental Avenue, St. James Place, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Boardwalk.
And suddenly Diet of Wyrms. All those people were all OHNOREFORMATIONS! So all of their cities were Sue’s for the takin’. So he took ‘em.
Sue was paying attention to the Mediterranean Sea. Whoever had the Ducky Sea (because it looks like a duck.) had control of the trade between Europe, Africa, and Asia. Sue decided he’d go after Rhodes, which was an island in the Ducky Sea. And Rhodes was the last Christian stronghold in the sea.
This doesn’t mean Sue wanted to kill all Christians. This means he wanted Rhodes because it was an amazing location. And the Knights living on the island were being pirates, and were just annoying.
So after Sue beat them in a long battle, he felt kinda bad. The Knights surrendered, and he allowed them to go with safety. He also showered the Grand Master with gifts and stuff. So he seems like a pretty good guy.
LOLNOPE.
Sue kept on pushing. Why? Because France was all “PLZATTACKSOUTHEUROPEPLZ.” And Francis, the King of France, was an enemy of Holy Roman Empire, because Spain was given the crown to Holy Roman Empire, and France sat back and pouted like a little boy. So he and HRE (it’s cumbersome to type Holy Roman Empire.) fought a lot.
Now Francis got in a bit of trouble with HRE. He called on Sue, and was like “PLZHELPMEPLZ.” and Sue was like “I’MONMYWAYPLZ.”
So he was on his way. He was planning on attacking Hungary anyways, so he just plowed on through her and went on. She probably could have not been thrown down, but everyone was fussin’ with each other and they weren’t very united.
And in comes Sue with a battle that lasted only an hour and a half. HE TOOK OVER NEARLY THE WHOLE COUNTRY IN AN HOUR AND A HALF. I COULD LEAVE MY HOUSE, WATCH A MOVIE, AND HUNGARY WOULD BE CAPTURED WHEN I GOT BACK.
So after this, Sue got a bit cocky. Because he took over Hungary in an hour and a half. And he decided to attack Vienna, the CAPITAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. So with 200,000 men, he marched on in. This freaked Europe out. Rumours started to spread that Sue was going to make everyone convert to Islam. Which wasn’t true. Why? Well, go look at Rhodes. He wasn’t all “OK KNIGHTS NOW BOW BEFORE THE MIGHTY SUE AND CONVERT MUHAHAHAHA MANIACAL LAUGH.” He didn’t really care. He was indifferent.
But they failed at taking Vienna. Twice. And then the third time, Sue went all out. He marched from Istanbul to Vienna in a parade, with a bunch of camels and horses and boys and stuff. So Prince Asue was in Vienna. But his parade was not welcome, because Vienna does not have streets and it just has rivers. Look.


But all the Europe rallied together and defeated Sue. He went home and cried himself to sleep that night.
Btu he got over it, because France still liked him. Well, of course France likes him, because France likes everyone. France loves everyone.
SUE LOOKED TO THE EAST.
And saw the Safavid Empire. He saw Persia. So he went in and jacked the Persia. Well, most of it, at least. He had Baghdad and a few pieces of other stuff. Persia and Sue kept on fighting, back and forth and back and forth. Hungary got involved again and asked Persia if they could politely beat Sue into the dust. Er, sand. I guess it’s sand over there. But you knowww~
But Sue could hold himself up from the west and the east, and it wasn’t really a problem. He moved on past Egypt, and he captured the city of Tunis. Two knees. This was a very nice move, because he now had the East side of the Ducky Sea. This was mostly due to a Pirate named Barbarossa, who was well known as a big fat bloodthirsty Greek bully. But whatever.
Sue and the Turks were a world powers through the Reformation. When he wasn’t expanding his kingdom, he was fancying it up.
Now Sue did some stuff which wasn’t very nice. He made a law that made it legal to KILL YOUR BROTHER IF YOU ARE NEXT IN LINE TO THE THRONE.
Now this happened anyways, but it was behind closed doors. The Ottoman Empire just made it legal.
So Sue wasn’t really a horrible evil I WILL KILL YOU ALL Muslim, but he had his faults. He wasn’t much different from his European counterparts, even though they saw him differently. The Enddd~!

(I don’t like ending on sweet notes like that. But hey. Whatever.)

Monday, January 16, 2012

THIS IS REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT YEW GUIZ.

So a town was called Whitenburg.
Hurpderpp.
AND IT WAS HALLOWEEN.
But people were going about their buzznuzz, But there was /extra/ excitement in the air.
BECAUSE IT WAS HALLOWEEN.
So the next day, November 1st, was All Saints Day. Which was about all saints.
O RLY.
So on this All Saints Day, there was going to be sumthin speeshull. A bunch of Holy Relics were going to be on display for the public to see. So as townspeople come up together, nobody really noticed ol’ Martin Luther go and stick a document up on the door of the church.
So what was on it?
95 THESIS POINTS.
Which means it had a buncha words.
And it has been remembered as the 95 Theses. I don’t know why it’s spelled different. But it is.
BUT WHAT WERE THESE WORDS ABOUT?
They were inviting the big fishies of the church to a debate. But it was written in Latin so the common peeps could not read it and it could only been read by the big fishies.
But this isn’t as weird as it is today. Doors were kinda like community bulletin boards.
I WANT MY DOOR TO BE A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD 3:
So what was the debate about?
INDULGENCES.


So they all went and shared their cake recipies and-
No.
THESE INDULGENCES.


So these little pieces of paper. Muhmember them? OF COURSE YOU DO. If you don’t go google it or go find the post where I talk about them.
These had been given out for well over 300 years at the time of MARTIN LUTHER.
So Mr. P-to-da-ope Leo X was in the position. WE’LL CALL HIM X.
Because people with one letter names are cool.
Right now I can only come up with M, K, and L, but you know. Nobody knows who those people are. (except for maybe L and if you know who he is you get a big giant cookie.)
SO X WAS WORKING ON BUILDING ST. PETER’S CATHEDRAL AT ROME.
So yeah.
During this time, he kinda slaked off on his popey duties.
...
His Papal Business. (That’s better.)
SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING SPECTACULAR?
You hire people!
SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HIRE PEOPLE?
You pay them!
SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PAY THEM?
You run out of money!
YAAYY-wait.
So X was pretty much out of money.
SO HE STARTED REALLY SELLING THOSE INDULGENCESSS!
YAAYY-wait.
So this guy named Johann Tetzel was hired. To offer indulgences, and future indulgences! Which means you can pay now and sin later! Awesome, right? No. Yeah. But Still, he offered those. Meaning, he went around and up to people saying, “I CAN HELP YEWW.” Like those annoying mall people. You don’t go up and look at their little carts, they’re like “MAH HURR SHTUFF YAH YU BUY HURR SHTUFF YOU PRETTY HURR LET ME DO HURR SHO JOO CHAN BYY HURR SHTUFF. IN THE SALT SEA FROM SNAKES AND SALT DEAD STUFF SEA SHTUUFFF BUY PLEEESHHHEEE?”
Except he waz lyke
“MAH INDULGUNCHHH. I CHAN HEELP JOO. INDULGUNCHHH SHAVEE JOO. YAH YU BYY INDULGUNCHHHH PLEEESHHEEE?”
Or like a timeshare place thing. But I’ve never done or been to or whatever a timeshare thingy, so whatever. BUT APPARENTLY IT WAS JUST LIKE THAT :|
Sort of.
So he had this big giant ceremony with this big elaborate speech. He put the little indulgence on a velvet pillow. He had a little jingle. He had a big speech and he tried to convince everyone to buy an indulgence.
And a LOT of people did.
So what’d he do with the money from his indulgences?
TWO THINGS.
Uno: He helped build up St. Peter’s Cathedral.
And numbah two: He payed the depts of another Bishop.
herpderp.
He pretty much abused the system. Really bad. He conned common peeps into getting indulgences because they had no clue what they were. He pretty much coned everyone into getting them, actually.
And yes, people do agree that tinsel boy over here was a con artist and a jerk.
So What does Martin have to do with this?
He was a part of the system that was being abused, and apart of the system that was abusing.
Now he was not the first to go “waitwut.” Plenty of people before him were flippin’ out about the Church selling eternal life on a velvet pillow. Literally.
But Martin was pretty much the first person to get around to doing anything about it.
So in 1517 (OH LOOK IT’S A DATE.) he wasn’t really trying to start a revolt/riot/Occupy Wall Street.
SO WHAT WAS HE EVEN DOING?
I’ll tell you after this big history we’re gonna go in!


So he was raised in a strict family. He was gonna be a lawyer, but THERE WAS A THUNDERSTORM. And there was a tornado and his house got picked up and he was whisked away to Oz and met some munchkins and got some red sparkly slippers and then something else happened and I forgot but he woke up and it was all a dream or WHATEVER it’s been forever since that movie. And he started praying to St. Ann and that if his life was spared he’d be a monk So his life was spared and he be a monk. Yayyy. He spent a long time in prayer, and in fasting, and in sitting in the emo corner.
SO HE WAS AN EMONK.
Quiet. Didn’t eat. Emo corner.
HE WAS TOTALLY AN EMONK.
So he was all sad panda.
AND HE RAN AWAY.
Wellnotreally.
But he went to Rome and pilgramaged.
BUT HE WAS STILL SAD PANDA EMONK.
Other monks suggested Martin READ THE BIBLE A LITTLE MORE CAREFULLY. So he did. He went into conversion mode.
So yay!
He gave lectures on theology, and he was a cool person.
So this is why he was all “Waitwutindulgences.”
SO HE DID SOMETHING ABOUT THESE GOSH INDULGENCES.
Debateherpderps.
And it shturred up a big ol’ pot’uh stank.
It opened a big ol’ can’uh whorms.
It... It...
IT WAS BAD.
C-C-C-CLIFF HANGHURR.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

~Raphael~

You know those cool people that only have first names? Beyonce, Shakira, Eminem, Madonna, Sting, Zendaya, Fabio.
All of those?
Cool people.
Well, except for Eminem, but you know.
Or Fabio...
Or Zendaya...
SO ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS ANOTHER RENAISSANCIAN ARTIST. NEVER SAW THAT COMIN, DID YA?
Ok.
But.
His name was....
~Raphael.~
So, to our surprise, ~Raphael~ was not born in Florence!
Oooh.
A mysterious hipster artist with one name.
The name....
~Raphael.~
BUT.
He was born in Urbino.
He’s in Ur bino, artsin ur Rennai$$anz.
BUT.
Then his papa died. So he went to Florence.
YAYY.
So a lot of people confused his work with that of his master’s. He was that good.
SO HE WENT TO LEARN FROM THE MASTER OF THE MASTERS.
Michelangelo and Leonardo.
From Leo he learned gracefulness from Leonardo. And from Michelangelo, he learned.... Anatomy.
...
..
.
BUT.
He gained a nickname. ~The Divine Raphael.~
Unlike Mich and Leo, he finished his work in a decent amount of time.
In fact, he’s really famous.
You just don’t know it.
So he painted a big picture. A really big picture. Two little angelbabies are on the bottom of the really big picture. AND THE LITTLE ANGELBABIES ARE EVERYWHERE.
Cards. Pillows. Blankets. Mugs. The Internet. Shirts. ALL OVER.
These little angelbabies.


You’ve seen them before.
These little angelbabies.
BUT HE HAS MORE THAN LITTLE ANGELBABIES.
He has a picture of Mary.
And it was painted beautifully.
BUT THERE WAS A SCANDAL.
Apparently, ~Raphael~ had lots of girfrands.
Lots of girlfrands.
He claimed they were all his inspiration.
UNFORTUNALY, HIS LOVE OF WOMEN WOULD BE...
HIS DOWNFALL.
(bumbumbum)
But that’s for later.
Eventually, ~Raphael’s~ genius was recognized by Mr. P-to-da-ope Julius. The second.
And he was the Mr. P-to-da-ope-to-da-jerkface. The one that made Mich paint the Sistine Chapel.
Yeah.
That guy.
So he needed some of the best Artists and stuff for some project he was gettin’ on.
And ~Raphael~ was one of them.
He was hired to paint Mr. P-to-da-ope’s private chambers.
*giggle*
*gigglegiggle*
So he went to Rome to paint up that place. Which included his Library, the room where he signed shtuuuuf, and I guess also his bedroom.
So in his Library is where ~Raphael~ got really really famous.
On one wall, there was a shelf with books on Philosophy. On ther other was a shelf with Theology. So on wall Theology, ~Raphael~ painted a scene called “The Dispute of the Sacrament.” It was pretty much the Bible shoved into a picture. It also had a bunch of people like Rola, Jerome, Augustine, Aquinias, etc. etc. fighting and arguing while Jesus is up here with his jazz hands.


You see?
Jazz hands.
And there are move angelbabies up on the ceiling.
BUT.
It has the background and stuff that Leo had, and all the buzznuzz and weird stuff Mich had.
SO THE OTHER WALL PROVED TO BE HIS BEST.
The Philosophy wall.
The wall of Philosophy.
THE PHILOWALL.
THE WALLSOPHY.
THE PHILOWALLSOPHY.
And it was called “School of Athens”
SO Y?
Before ~Raphael~ moved to Rome from Florence, he went to a little church this one time called the Sistine Chapel. Now the ceiling was not finished, but thurr was some preachin goin onz anywayz. So the preacher preachin preached about Mr. P-to-da-ope Julius about him bringing some good learnin to Rome.
And although Julius was a Pope, he was a lot like Cosimo. An’ he likah tha Greeka an’ the Roma an’ alla tha shtuff.
So that’s why he put “School of Athens”. It has a bunch of cool peeps liek Plato, Aristotle, Some of Socrate’s students, Socrates, Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Euclid, Heraclitus (who was a grumpy old philosopher. Michelangelo was the model. Because he was a grumpy old artist.), and a tonz maor people.
So yuh.
~Raphael~ Pretty much got along with everyone.
Well, except for Michelangelo, but nobody liked him and he didn’t like anyone.
BUT.
~Raphael~ had a possy. A big possy.
A BIG POSSY.
LIKE, 50 POSSY.
So ~Raphael~ pretty much went everywhurr with the band of peeps he wuz wiff.
He even got along with Mr. P-to-da-ope-to-da-jerkface Julius.
He even painted him a picture~!
As in, the most realistic picture of a Mr. P-to-da-ope evarr.
HOWEVER, ~Raphael~ HAD...
SECRETS.
Once upon a time there was a Cardinal. Said cardinal preuttty much forced ~Raphael~ to get engaged with his niece. So ~Raphael~ agreed to it, but he kept putting off the marriage.
SO WHAI?
I dunno.
Maybe he was engaged to the baker’s daughter. Maybe he didn’t want to be tied down. Maybe he just didn’t want to get married.
BUT I DUNNO.
But the real mystery lies in one of ~Raphael’s~ picthurrz.
You see, he painted a.... special picture of the baker’s daughter.
So hundreds of years after this /special painting/ was painted, some x-rays were performed.
AND VAT DID ZEY FIND?
On the hand of whats-her-face, a big ruby ring was found.
BUMBUMBUMM.
Was this an engagement ring? A wedding ring? Or what?
Well it certuhnlee wasn’t a wedding ring.
WHY?
Because he died young.
IF I DIE YOUNG, BURY ME IN SATIN, LAY ME DOOOWN ON AAAH, BED OF ROOOSES~
oksorry. I’ve been like addicted to that song :x
BUT.
So he died at 37.
On his death bed, you know what he did?
He wrote his will, he repented of his sins, distributed all his wealth and shtuff, and died.
The end~ :D