Week 13 Blog

Sorry about the confusion but my week 13 blog (Charles I) was finished a week earlier, need to scroll down to find it. Thank you.

Wikipedia Article Analysis III

     This article discusses the life and time of Charles I of England. It mentions that Charles I was an advocate of the Divine Right of Kings, which is a belief that asserted that God grants the King absolute power and parliament should hold little power if at all. Consequently, parliament looked at Charles I as a threat and these two completely clashed during his reign. This article does a great job describing his early life and the things that led up to his rise and of course details his rule and the inevitable collapse of Charles I. In addition, it illustrates the economic problems and religious conflicts he had to contend with during his life.

1.  The word length of the article is 7249 words.

2.  The search term is Charles I (England)

3.  The disambiguation link displayed other readings with similar titles and concepts.

4.  The page discussion section explained that the article has numerous discussion postings.  There are approximately 38 various postings on Charles I.

5.  The entire article had a total of 500 changes and the earliest change was October 4 2005, and the most recent change was November 23, 2008.

6.  There are also 29 external links provided that detailed additional information.

7.  There is 47 references and it was listed with a variety of available sources.

8.  There are 19 various books and readings under further reading.

Overall, I would highly recommend looking at this article. Specifically, I felt it did an excellent job detailing important information that help explain why Charles I had made some of his decisions. There is certainly plenty to write about his life.  In essence, it was a man who was at the top at one time and ultimately his life ended in a horrible fashion. I don't believe there area lot of historical figures that experienced life on both spectrums a King and later a prisoner. In addition, this article highlighted multiple links to learn more about his life. Honestly, after the reading it did encourage me to look for further reading on the eventful life of Charles I.

Martin Luther

I know some people will probably disagree but I believe that multiple forms of Christianity and differing ways of worship is a good thing . Luther during his time noticed that many people were being neglected by the Church, and he did something about that and I think it's a good thing. Even today, some people choose to attend Catholic Mass in Latin as opposed to attending a Baptist Church. My point is that people are diverse and because of that Christianity should be diverse as well, and I don't believe one way is the absolute right way but I think its intended by God. Again, we would all walk, talk, and look the same if that's the way it was intended. I certainly think Luther played an integral role to revitalize the Christian faith during his time.

Assignment Correction

On November 16th, I also posted blog for week 13 as well. Sorry about the confusion.

Charles I

I enjoyed the readings on the happenings in England in the 1600's. Admit tingly because a lot of what was going on in England during this time especially with the Puritans eventually affected America. As I read the stories about how religion interfered with Parliament and how religious figures controlled the government, I wondered out loud about our own country. Especially, the idea of separation of the powers between the three branches of government. Were the founding fathers taking a page of England's past during the 1600's? Specifically, the conflicts between Charles I and Parliament. The idea that Charles I would ignore Parliament for over eleven years. Obviously, this system during this time was a contributing factor in England's civil war. Charles sure did lead a adventurous life, after reading his stories definitely made my life feel a little boring. To go from the King of England to being executed, talk about a reversal of fortunes. 

The Bible

One of the parts of the reading that I enjoyed was the background history related to the translation of the Bible. Also, how the Catholic Church did not want people to read and translate the Bible under their own.  The Church felt that that people needed specialists (priests, etc) to correctly translate the verses. Admit tingly, on one hand I found that was an insult to people, however, upon further reading I could see why they were very protective of the Bible. It seems there were many groups out there trying to take advantage and alter the Bible to their own translations. Also, I think its easy to sit back today and judge about the actions of others in previous times. But one thing I thought about is the Catholic Church at this time could not see into the future and possibly fretted about what would happen if the Bible was translated differently to what they were teaching. However, on the other hand were they fretting about souls or lost power in Europe? Definitely, an interesting subject to me.

The Papacy

I definitely learned a lot in this weeks readings about the Pope's during the middle age. Specifically, the tension between different countries in Europe, such as, France, Italy, Germany, England, Portugal etc., and how these tensions framed 

the structure of the catholic church. As I read through the history of the Pope's and the different territories, it reminded me a lot of the Godfather Trilogy. It seemed there were various entities and councils and a lot of different hands involved in choosing the Pope. I was floored when the reading mentioned that at one time there were three Pope's. It also was interesting that how different Kings had a hand and involved themselves to have a Pope that will help serve their own purposes. When I think of our Constitution the founding fathers made sure there was a separation of church and state, this of course was provided to keep the government out of the affairs of the church's as well. Overall, enjoyed the reading and really illustrated governments intervention in religion.