Baroque Culture Part II

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Lead: One of the great influences of the seventeenth century “Baroque” style was the ecumenical council held by the Roman Catholic Church between 1545-1563 – known as the Council of Trent.

 Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

 Content: The Baroque era with its rich style, elaborate ornamentation and dramatic design ran from 1600 about to 1750. It began in Italy, spread throughout Europe and across the Atlantic to the Americas. One of the historical events which influenced the artisans of the period was the Counter-Reformation - that is the reaction and the reforms within the Roman Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation. To counter Protestant success, Pope Paul III convoked an ecumenical council in 1545 in the northern Italian town of Trent hard against the Austrian border.  

 

 

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Baroque Culture I

PermalinkToday's AMIT
Lead:  Some of the west’s greatest artists emerged from the Baroque Era – Caravaggio, Vermeer, and Rubens, Bernini, and the composers – Vivaldi, Pachelbel, Bach and Handel.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: “Baroque” refers to a style in the arts as well as to the period when the style was most valued, about 1600 to 1750. As in other historical periods, the descriptive term, baroque, period or style, was not used until much later when scholars chose the name from the Spanish or Portuguese word for an irregularly shaped pearl. That makes perfect sense because the Baroque style in painting, sculpture and architecture, like that odd shaped pearl, was exquisitely beautiful but features bold and curving forms and over-the-top ornamentation. Later the term was also used to refer to literature and music of the same period which followed closely after the Renaissance.

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Agincourt II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: Trapped by a huge French Army, the common soldiers of English King Henry V surprised even themselves with a stunning victory at Agincourt.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Essayist John Keegan writes that it is often not the great strategy of generals that decides the outcome of battle, but rather the actions of ordinary soldiers and the accidents of circumstance. This was certainly proven at Agincourt in October 1415. The English were in northern France pursuing their young King Henry V’s claim to the French throne, and they were blocked just short of the English-held port of Calais by as many as 25,000 French armored knights and infantry. Instead of surrendering, Henry turned to fight at the tiny village of Agincourt.

 

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Agincourt I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: In the summer of 1415, against hopeless odds, the tiny army of King Henry V of England annihilated a much larger French Army near the village of Agincourt.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: For nearly a century after 1338, the English had been trying to take control of the French throne. The so-called Hundred Years War was at base a bloody dynastic dispute between the royal houses of two of Europe’s great powers. If England won, its King would rule both countries. If France won, the English would no longer hold territory on the Continent.

 

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The Knights Templar II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: Beginning in 1307, jealousy, envy, desire to appropriate its vast assets and the waning purpose for its existence, brought arrest, torture, trial and eventual dissolution to the Knights Templar.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

 Content: Born of crisis in the years following the First Crusade, the Knights Templar was also known as the Temple. It was an order of warrior monks assigned to defend the Holy Land from Muslim forces. To finance its military and charitable mission, the Temple took donations of cash and real estate from all over Catholic Europe and the Mediterranean. The Templars even developed a rudimentary form of banking which permitted east-bound pilgrims to deposit funds in, say, Spain and to carry a letter of credit which they could cash when they reached the Holy Land. All this was making the Templars very very rich.

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The Knights Templar I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: In October 1307, King Philip IV rounded up members of the Knights Templar in France. Of those captured, many were examined under torture, tried, convicted and executed. The Order was then disbanded.     

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.            

Content: The French King was in heavy debt to the Templars so his actions and similar strikes elsewhere in Europe were an attempt to crush and appropriate the assets of one of the most successful medieval Catholic holy military orders. Philip wanted the order’s financial stake, but he was also attacking an institution that was at once secret, rich, powerful, and perceived as a threat to powers of church and state.

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America’s Revolution: George Washington Strikes the Spark II

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Lead: In the 1700s the United States broke from England. No colony in history had done that. This series examines America’s Revolution.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Content: Sent by the Governor of Virginia to build and defend a fort on the Ohio River at present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in spring 1754, young militia Lt. Colonel George Washington helped kick off the first true world war. As he approached the site of what he would name Fort Necessity, he discovered the presence of a French scouting party. Fearing treachery, on May 28th Washington and his Indian allies ambushed and captured the French led by Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. Washington, who spoke no French, was struggling to interrogate Jumonville who spoke no English. While they thrashed about the interview, in one of history’s murkiest events, apparently Washington’s Indian confederate Tanaghrisson murdered Jumonville.

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America’s Revolution: George Washington Strikes the Spark I

PermalinkToday's AMIT
 

Lead: In the 1700s the United States broke from England. No colony in history had ever done that. This series examines America’s Revolution.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Content: When King George III of Britain and his advisors heard the news that George Washington had been appointed commander of what would become the victorious Continental Army in 1775, they were quite familiar with the name and reputation of the Virginian. Washington had been a major international player for over two decades since a little known event on the frontier of Pennsylvania in May 1754 gave the 22-year old Lieutenant Colonel of the Virginia Militia the beginning of an outsized status. His exploits that spring became the catalyst of the first real world war, known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War and in America as the French and Indian War.

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