text: daimyō

text: Oki

text: Ōmi

text: Tanba

text: Fukuchiyama

text: fudai

text: Edo period

text: polymath

text: rangaku

text: Isaac Titsingh

text: Dejima

text: Shimazu Shigehide

text: Tokugawa Ienari

text: Kuze Hirotami

text: Nagasaki bugyō

text: numismatics

text: British Museum

text: Ashmolean Museum

text: Yonekura Masanaga

text: Tenmei

text: Kansei

text: Bunka

text: Nihon Ōdai Ichiran

text: romanized

text: Screech, Timon

text: RoutledgeCurzon

text: Titsingh, Isaac

text: "Annales des empereurs du Japon"

text: Nihon Ōdai Ichiran

text: OCLC 5850691

text: OCLC 069107485

text: Peter Kornicki

text: Timon Screech

text: Joe Cribb

categories: Daimyo,Kutsuki clan,Numismatists,1802 deaths,1750 births

paragraph: Kutsuki Masatsuna

paragraph: , also known as Kutsuki Oki-no kami Minamoto-no Masatsuna, was a hereditary Japanese "daimyō" of Oki and Ōmi with holdings in Tanba and Fukuchiyama. His warrior clan was amongst the hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa family (the "fudai") in the Edo period. His childhood name was Tomojiro (斧次郎).

paragraph: Masatsuna was a polymath and a keen student of whatever information was available at that time concerning the West. Since most printed material was only available in the Dutch language, such studies were commonly called "Dutch learning" ("rangaku").

paragraph: Dutch Japanologist Isaac Titsingh considered Masatsuna to have been his closest friend while he was in Japan, and their correspondence continued after Titsingh last left Dejima for the last time. The oldest surviving letter from Masatsuna to Titsingh dates from 1789; and this letter mentions mutual friends such as Shimazu Shigehide (the father-in-law of the eleventh shōgun, Tokugawa Ienari) and Kuze Hirotami ("Nagasaki bugyō" or governor of Nagasaki port).

paragraph: Masatsuna and Titsingh shared an interest in numismatics. After Titsingh was reassigned from Japan in 1784, he sent packages of coins from India—Dutch coppers, as well as coins from India, Russia, Turkey, and Africa. Titsingh in turn received Japanese and Chinese coins as gifts.

paragraph: Masatsuna was an author of several treatises on numismatics. He was the first in Japan to circulate a book about non-Japanese coins with impressions taken from actual coins which had been obtained from Western traders.

paragraph: Masatsuna's collection of coins was brought to the UK in the 19th century, and is now in the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum.

paragraph: Section::::Family.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Father: Kutsuki Tsunasada (1713-1788)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Foster Father: Kutsuki Nobutsuna (1731-1787)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Wives:

paragraph: BULLET::::- Ikumanhime, Matsudaira Munenobu’s daughter

paragraph: BULLET::::- Honda Sukemitsu‘s daughter

paragraph: BULLET::::- Ito Nagatoshi’s daughter

paragraph: BULLET::::- Children:

paragraph: BULLET::::- Yuunosuke

paragraph: BULLET::::- Kutsuki Tsunakata (1787-1838), adopted by Tomotsuna

paragraph: BULLET::::- Yonekura Masanaga

paragraph: BULLET::::- Fukuju Taro

paragraph: BULLET::::- Adopted Son: Katsuki Tomotsuna (1767-1803)

paragraph: Section::::Events of the "daimyō"s life.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1781 ("Tenmei 1"): This numismatist scholar's book, "Shinzen zenpu" ("Newly selected manual of numismatics"), was published.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1782 ("Tenmei 2"): This numismatist scholar's analysis of copper currency in China and Japan ""Shinzen zenpu"" was presented to the emperor.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1785 ("Tenmei 5"): This numismatist scholar's book, "Kaisei kōhō zukan" ("Corrected Illustrated mirror of coinage"), was published.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1785 ("Tenmei 5"): Masatsuna inherited his father's position and titles.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1787 ("Tenmei 7"): This rangaku/numismatist scholar's book, "Seiyō senpu" ("Notes on Western Coinage"), with plates showing European and colonial currency, was completed. -- see online image of 2 adjacent pages from library collection of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and Kyoto Junior College of Foreign Languages

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1789 ("Kansei 1"): This rangaku/geographer scholar's book, "Taisei yochi zusetsu" ("Illustrated explanation of Western geography"), was published.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1800 ("Kansei 11"): Masatsuna retires, handing over his position and titles to his son, Mototsuna.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1801 ("Kansei 12"): Mototsuna predeceased his father, and Masatsuna's grandson, Tsunagata becomes "daimyō".

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1802 ("Kansei 13"): Masatsuna dies.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1807 ("Bunka 4"): Isaac Titsingh sends his last letter to Masatsuna from Europe, not knowing that his old friend had died some years earlier. Titsingh's decided to dedicate his translation of Nihon Ōdai Ichiran to Masatsuna.

paragraph: Section::::Selected work.

paragraph: Kutsuki's published writings encompass 8 works in 12 publications in 1 language and 25 library holdings.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1781 --

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1785 -- ; note that only one copy known to exist.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1787 -- , also romanized as "Seiyō senpu"

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1789 -- .

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1790 —

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Lequin, Frank, ed. (1990). "The Private Correspondence of Isaac Titsingh", [Japonica neerlandica, IV] Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Screech, Timon. (2006). "Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822". London: RoutledgeCurzon.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). "Annales des empereurs du Japon" ("Nihon Ōdai Ichiran"). Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. OCLC 5850691

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The private correspondence of Kutsuki Masatsuna and Isaac Titsingh, 1785–1807: compiled in celebration of the friendship between Kutsuki Masatsuna and Isaac Titsingh, Fukuchiyama, November 1992. OCLC 069107485

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Catalogue of the Japanese coin collection (pre-Meiji) at the British Museum, with special reference to Kutsuki Masatsuna", by Shin’ichi Sakuraki, Helen Wang and Peter Kornicki, with Nobuhisa Furuta, Timon Screech and Joe Cribb, British Museum Research Publication 174 (2010), .

description: daimyo

wikidata_label: Kutsuki Masatsuna

wikipedia_title: Kutsuki Masatsuna


text:
Welsh
bishop
martyr
saint
feast day
Demetia
Wales
Anglican
Catholic
Wales
man's name
Wales
Amandus
Builth
Brycheiniog
Ceredig
Cunedda Wledig
Gwynedd
Saint David
patron saint
Wales
Tegid the Bald
Penllyn
Meirionnydd
Ceridwen
Welsh legend
Llanafan
Ceredigion
Llanafan Fawr
Llanafan Fechan
Brecknockshire
Llanbadarn
Ceredigion
Builth
Llanafan Fawr
martyrdom
Gerald of Wales
Anglo-Norman
Philip de Braose
blind
hunting dog
Crusades
Holy Land
Llanafan y Trawsgoed
present church
Llanafan
Trawsgoed Estate
earls of Lisburne
deanery
Builth
Llanafan Fawr
Llanfechan
relic
pilgrimage site
Middle Ages
Lombardic script
Llantrisant
Anglesey
List of Welsh saints
Llanafan Fawr

categories: Welsh folklore,6th-century bishops,Year of birth unknown,Medieval Welsh saints,Year of death unknown

paragraph: Saint Afan

paragraph: Saint Afan of Builth (; ) was an early 6th-century Welsh bishop, martyr, and saint. His feast day is generally placed on 17 November, although the Demetian Calendar formerly used in southern Wales placed it on the 16th; it is no longer observed by either the Anglican or Catholic church in Wales.

paragraph: Section::::Name.

paragraph: Afan as a man's name in Wales is probably a loan from the Latin "Amandus". In Welsh, he is sometimes known as ' ("Bishop Afan") from his title and as ' or "" from his diocese around Builth in Brycheiniog.

paragraph: Section::::Life.

paragraph: Saint Afan was the son of Cedig ap Ceredig, son of Cunedda Wledig, king of Gwynedd. Through this line, he was a cousin of Saint David, patron saint of Wales. Afan's mother is variously given as Dwywai, Degfed ("Tenth"), Tegfedd, or Tegwedd, all said to have been daughters of Tegid the Bald, a lord of Penllyn in Meirionnydd who was the husband of the sorceress Ceridwen in Welsh legend.

paragraph: Afan was the founder of a Llanafan in Ceredigion and two others (Llanafan Fawr and Llanafan Fechan) in Brecknockshire. He is recorded as a bishop, although his diocese remains unknown. He may have been the third bishop of Llanbadarn in Ceredigion, bishop over Builth with his seat at Llanafan Fawr, or held the title without any purview beyond his own parish. His death was credited to martyrdom at the hand of Irish or Danish pirates on the banks of the River Chwefru. He was claimed as an ancestor of the 10th-century bishop Ieuan who was also martyred by Viking marauders.

paragraph: Section::::Miracles.

paragraph: A miracle recounted by Gerald of Wales claimed that the Anglo-Norman lord Philip de Braose was struck blind and saw his hunting dogs go mad when he disrespectfully used church in Brecknockshire as a makeshift hostel one night. He was told that his vision would only return if he resolved to leave his estates and fight in the Crusades. Some say his sight was restored upon his pledge but Gerald records that he traveled to the Holy Land and fought blind, where he was "immediately struck down by a blow from a sword and so ended his life with honour".

paragraph: Section::::Legacy.

paragraph: Saint Afan was said to have founded the parish of Llanafan in Ceredigion (now Llanafan y Trawsgoed), whose present church serves as the chapel for the village of Llanafan and the nearby Trawsgoed Estate. Its grounds house the family crypt of the earls of Lisburne.

paragraph: Two churches were dedicated to him in the deanery of Builth: Llanafan Fawr ("Great Llanafan") and Llanafan Fechan or Fach ("Lesser Llanafan"), which eventually became known as Llanfechan. His relics are claimed by Llanafan Fawr, which served as a pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages. Saint Afan's grave in the churchyard there is inscribed ("Here lies Saint Avan, bishop") in deeply cut, slightly ornamented Lombardic script. The present tomb, however, is not older than the late 13th century.

paragraph: Browne Willis also considered the "Saint Afran" honored at Llantrisant on Anglesey to be a corruption of Afan.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- List of Welsh saints

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Llanafan Fawr at Castles of Wales, including photographs of Afan's tomb

alias:
Afan Buellt
Afan of Builth
Saint Afan
St. Afan
St Afan's Church, Llanafan

description: 6th century Welsh saint

wikidata_label: Afan

wikipedia_title: Saint Afan


text: Cuzco

text: Criollo

text: cleric

text: theologian

text: polymath

text: Viceroyalty of Peru

text: Baroque

text: Peru

text: Colonial Spanish America

text: New Spain

text: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

text: Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora

text: Americas

text: Luis de Góngora

text: autos sacramentales

text: Quechua

text: panegyric sermons

text: Latin

text: thomistic

text: scholastic

text: baroque

text: epistemological

text: Demosthenes

text: Tertullian

text: Spanish Imperial

text: South America

text: mestizo

text: indigenous populations

text: ethnicity

text: race

text: Indigenismo

text: Peru

text: Latin

text: Europe

text: Jesuit

text: Rome

text: Saint Ignatius of Loyola

text: Saint Anthony the Abbot

text: Francisco Suárez

text: oral tradition

text: region of Apurímac

text: Peruvian Literary Canon

text: miscegenation

text: Clorinda Matto de Turner

text: Lima

text: Augustinian

text: Saint Augustine

text: Saint Blaise

text: James the Great (or Moorslayer)

text: Proserpine

text: Endymion

text: The Prodigal Son

text: Philip IV

text: Immaculate Conception

text: Juliaca

text: Viceroy

text: Pedro Antonio Fernández de Castro

text: Chincheros

text: Sacred Valley of the Incas

text: Saint Cristopher

text: Dominican

text: seminary

text: Cuzco

text: Spanish

text: Quechua

text: Canaan

text: Israel

text: The Prodigal Son

text: mythological

text: Proserpina

text: Góngora's

text: Lima

text: Apuleius

text: Augustine of Hippo

text: Bible

text: Camoens

text: Cervantes

text: Erasmus

text: Faria

text: Garcilaso

text: Homer

text: Lope de Vega

text: Pedro de Oña

text: Spanish empire

text: Valladolid

text: Saint Thomas Aquinas

text: Rome

text: Juan de Espinosa Medrano

text: Amar su propia muerte

categories: 1629 births,1688 deaths,People from Apurímac Region,Peruvian Dominicans,Peruvian male writers

paragraph: Juan de Espinosa Medrano

paragraph: Juan de Espinosa Medrano (Calcauso?, 1630? – Cuzco, 1688), known in history as "Lunarejo" (or “The Spotty-Faced”), was a Criollo cleric, saced preacher, writer, playwright, theologian and polymath from the Viceroyalty of Peru. He is the most prominent figure of the Literary Baroque of Peru and one of the most important intellectuals from Colonial Spanish America (along with the New Spain writers Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora).

paragraph: Juan de Espinosa Medrano is the author of the most famous literary apologetic discourse in the Americas in the XVII century: the "Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora" (1662). He also wrote "autos sacramentales" in Quechua —"El robo de Proserpina y sueño de Endimión" (c. 1650) and "El hijo pródigo" (c. 1657)—; comedies in Spanish —out of which only the biblical play "Amar su propia muerte" (c. 1650) is preserved—; panegyric sermons —compiled after his death in a volume called "La Novena Maravilla" (1695)—; and a course in Latin of thomistic philosophy —"Philosophia Thomistica" (1688)—.

paragraph: He acquired fame in life for the stylistic distinction and conceptual depth of his oeuvre (which was praised for its first-rate accordance to the scholastic and baroque epistemological parameters of his time). His polymathy, erudition and poetic ingenuity in the composition of sermons and literary works gained him the epithets of "Sublime Doctor" and "Indian Demosthenes", as well as the less frequent ones of "Criollo Phoenix" and "Tertullian of the Americas" (all used to refer to him while alive). Additionally, after the Peruvian independence from Spanish Imperial rule took place, Juan de Espinosa Medrano's memory begun to be used as an exemplary model of the intellectual and moral potential of the peoples from South America (criollo, mestizos and indigenous populations included).

paragraph: The circumstances of Juan de Espinosa Medrano's origin, and the details about his first years of life, are—almost in their entirety—unknown. The absence of significant biographical data put forward in the will written by the own author days before his death has further led to speculation about his ethnicity (or race) and identification. It has also led to manipulation and tendentious interpretations of the data preserved about his existence; such distortive reading has been especially pronounced in the many works of biographers, critics or commentators, akin to the political agenda of Indigenismo in Peru. What is incontrovertible, however, is that Juan de Espinosa Medrano always regarded himself both as Criollo and Spanish (an ideological servant of the Empire); evidences for such self-identification are to be found in his oeuvre, in which Juan de Espinosa Medrano sides constantly with the Spaniards, and often describes Native American populations as 'enemies', 'barbarous' and 'idolatrous' (he does not link himself with Native American peoples' cultures and ethnicity, and it is also unthinkable that an indigenous person could have held the power and clergy positions he did during his lifetime).

paragraph: His vast baroque production, written in Spanish, Latin and Quechua—in an aesthetic register different to the dialects now extant—was published both in America and Europe, however, only at the end of his life in the Old World. It had impact exclusively in the Viceroyalty of Peru, nonetheless, particularly because of a sabotage plan carried out by Jesuit priests in Rome at the end of the XVII century, which succeeded in impeding the circulation of Juan de Espinosa Medrano's philosophic course in Latin across the Old World (the work is the aforementioned "Philosophia Thomistica"). It was in this period that the Jesuit University of Saint Ignatius of Loyola contended with the Seminary of Saint Anthony the Abbot in Cuzco —institution that Juan de Espinosa Medrano represented— for the maintenance of its right in exclusivity to grant the degree of doctor to those instructed in Theology (a situation that forced the Seminary students, of Thomist instruction, to present themselves before a jury of Jesuit theologians —followers of the doctrine of Francisco Suárez— for the evaluation leading to the conferral of their degree).

paragraph: In the present, the mysteries of his biography and the intrinsic quality of his literary production notwithstanding, the study of the works and life of Juan de Espinosa Medrano has extensively fallen to relegation or oblivion. This way, even if a certain part of his biography still survives in the oral tradition of the region of Apurímac—where it has acquired unusual characteristics—, in Cusco as well as in the Peruvian Literary Canon, knowledge of his life and work circumscribes mostly to scholars of literature in Colonial Spanish America.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.:Origin and first years.

paragraph: After a series of studies and archive analysis, the space-time coordinate of Calcauso, 1630, appears to be the most accurate intersection in which to place the origin (the birth) of Juan de Espinosa Medrano. Of his parents, their ethnicity, condition and lineage, nothing is known; such complete lack of information serves, however, as a principle for the deduction of absence of nobility in the author and his family —being most likely that Juan de Espinosa Medrano grew up in a humble, rural environment. This setting is, at the same time, somewhat suggestive of a possible case of miscegenation as explanation of his origin, theory that holds ground especially since it is inconceivable to think of the author as an "indio" or indigenous person (it seems more verisimilar to think of Juan de Espinosa Medrano as a "mestizo": probably conceived by an "india" or "mestiza" mother, in a rural area of Cuzco, after sexual intercourse with a Spaniard, perhaps a cleric who would not have, of course, assumed paternity of the child).

paragraph: Consequently, Agustín Cortés de la Cruz's —disciple and first biographer of the author— assertion about the origin of Espinosa Medrano should be taken as true: "in his first stages, scant favor he received from what the vulgus calls Fortune". Likewise, Clorinda Matto de Turner's novelization of the author's life as: "He who entered the world in humble cradle, set foot on the steps of book and prayer... Then ascended to reach the literary skies of the America of the South, as king of stars there he shined". In an imperial society in which access to intellectual enterprise was circumscribed to the nobles and highborns, Espinosa Medrano achieved prominent instruction, overcoming the difficulties of a rural, unprivileged genesis. This reality does not guarantee, however, that he was an "indio" (as Clorinda Matto and the oral tradition asseverate) for he would not have become a sacred preacher and reached fortune and power in Cuzco had this been the case (such activities and wealth were then inaccessible to the native castes).

paragraph: The enigma of Juan de Espinosa Medrano's origin acts (still) as a recurrent stimulus for the creation of an oral and imaginary biography in which the author is an Indian. The model for such constant imagination in Peru lies on the biographical approximation to the author that Clorinda Matto undertook at the end of the XIX century (Clorinda Matto de Turner made Espinosa Medrano the subject of an “indigenist” legend, imputing indigenous ancestry to him, “but archival research has shown that there is no evidence that Espinosa Medrano was a pitifully poor Indian, but on the contrary, that he was a man of fairly substantial means closer to the figure of a 'baroque gentleman' ”).

paragraph: Section::::Biography.:The early and indigenous biography of Juan de Espinosa Medrano by Clorinda Matto.

paragraph: Clorinda Matto de Turner published her famous biographical study "Don Juan de Espinosa Medrano —that is— the Spotty-Faced Doctor" in 1887 in Lima, the capital of Peru. Three years later, after small corrections, she published the biographical study again in "Pencil Sketches of Acclaimed Americans" (1890), book that includes a chapter on Juan de Espinosa Medrano that Clorinda Matto was able to elaborate after obtaining data from the oral tradition in rural Peru.

paragraph: Clorinda Matto's biographical study is, in substantial sections, barely rigorous for it is troubled by the absence of documentary evidence —a void that she seeks to fill through an exercise of fictionalization of the life of Espinosa Medrano. Such purpose (though still laudable for its exaltation of the author) has led the present academic community to question the legitimacy of her biography up to such a dramatic point that, in the present, her work is no longer considered legitimate or true (on the contrary, her biography is now discarded as a source for fantasy, especially for its lack of historical objectivity). The manifest ideological character that the text also displays —and that Clorinda Matto does not pretend to camouflage— has further led to the dismissal of her biographical attempt as inaccurate. It is, in summary, averse to the aspiration to truth present in biographical works of such nature.

paragraph: Clarification in place, it is nonetheless necessary to briefly refer to the biography of Espinosa Medrano as it was composed in 1887/1890 by Clorinda Matto. For her biography is still the most influential source for Peruvian popular imagination of the author, as well as the most and only known outside of the academic world.

paragraph: According to Clorinda Matto, Juan de Espinosa Medrano was the offspring of an indigenous conjugal union, that of Agustín Espinosa and Paula Medrano, humble parents that raised their little child "in a shack at the joyous town". At seven, Juan started his education at the class for infants taught by the priest of Mollebamba, class where —besides being a remarkable student— Juan de Espinosa Medrano would also receive instruction to act as sacristan of the parish (the parish is, according to Clorinda Matto's biography, the place in which Espinosa Medrano discovered both the religious and literate vocation that would later flourish in him as time went by).

paragraph: After a period of instruction and service in favor of the priest of Mollebamba, Juan de Espinosa Medrano would start a life in the city of Cuzco as an "indio" servant. According to Matto, there he would obtain admission into the Seminary of Saint Anthony the Abbot, precinct where the young Juan de Espinosa Medrano would quickly develop mastery of different musical instruments and skill in seven languages. He would also reach expertise in sciences and grammar, according to this biography, erudition that would cause admiration in his contemporaries.

paragraph: Espinosa Medrano would finally obtain the degree of Doctor, at eighteen years old, in the Jesuit University of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. From that point onwards, he would have to defy the common prejudice that asserted that no Indian could take hold of ecclesiastical charges of significance in Cuzco.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.:Ecclesiastical career and intellectual endeavors.

paragraph: Documentation found indicates that by the year 1645, when he was about fifteen years old, Juan de Espinosa Medrano was a student in the Seminary of Saint Anthony the Abbot. His tutors in this institution were: Francisco de Loyola, Augustinian prior and cofounder, in 1559, of the Monastery of Saint Augustine in Cuzco —Loyola stated that young Juan was "an exceptional prowess, and also very virtuous"—; Juan de Cárdenas y Céspedes, famous dean of the Seminary of Saint Anthony the Abbot in Cuzco (from 1632 to 1702, the year he passed away); and Alonso Bravo de Paredes y Quiñones, sacred preacher and professor of philosophy at the Seminary —Paredes y Quiñones was also a censor of the "Apologético"). Juan de Espinosa Medrano's studies must have extended until 1649 or 1650, years that provide records of him now in charge of the art classes at the Seminary. Between 1655 and 1657, Espinosa Medrano would acquire the degree of Doctor in Theology (after evaluation at the Jesuit University of Saint Ignatius of Loyola), performing as professor of such sacred discipline at the Seminary starting from 1658.

paragraph: In 1655, Juan de Espinosa Medrano's ecclesiastical career starts. He serves, in the first place, at the Parish of the Sanctum ("Parroquia del Sagrario") where he conducts a series of marriage ceremonies and baptisms —a final one documentally registered in 1659. In 1656, Juan de Espinosa Medrano begins his sacred preaching career. His first sermon "The panegyric prayer to Our Lady of Antiquity" (""La oración panegírica a Nuestra Señora de la Antigua"") is followed by the "First sermon to Saint Anthony the Abbot" (""Sermón Primero de San Antonio Abad""), preached in 1658; the "First Sermon to Saint Blaise, bishop and martyr" (""Sermón de San Blas obispo y mártir""), preached in 1659; and "The panegyric prayer to James the Great (or Moorslayer)" (""Oración panegírica al glorioso Apóstol Santiago"") in 1660, perhaps the most important sermon for the comprehension of Juan de Espinosa Medrano's oeuvre. In 1662, in Lima, the "Apologetic in defense of Luis de Góngora" ("Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora") is published. It is important to highlight, however, that Espinosa Medrano's intellectual activity in the profane had already started in the decade of 1650 —the biblical play "To Love One's Own Death" ("Amar su propia muerte") had been written c. 1650; the "autos sacramentales" "The Seizure of Proserpine and the Dream of Endymion" ("El robo de Proserpina y sueño de Endimión") and "The Prodigal Son" ("El hijo pródigo") had also been written c.1650 and c.1657 respectively.

paragraph: From 1664 to 1680, Juan de Espinosa Medrano continues writing panegyric sermons to be preached in diverse religious precincts of Cuzco. Among the most important are the "Sermon for the Funeral of Philip IV" (""Sermón a las Exequias de Felipe IV"") in 1666 and the "Panegyric Prayer to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady" (""Oración Panegírica a la Concepción de Nuestra Señora"") in 1670. Espinosa Medrano further advanced in his ecclesiastical career by acting as priest of Juliaca from 1660 to 1668. That year a miners uprising takes places in the town of Laicacota, the same that is repressed by the Viceroy Pedro Antonio Fernández de Castro, Count of Lemos. From 1669 to 1676, Espinosa Medrano takes charge of the parish of Chincheros (today part of the Sacred Valley of the Incas). Finally, from 1678 to 1683/1684 he acts as priest of the parish of Saint Cristopher ("San Cristóbal"), one of the most important Indian parishes of Cuzco even today.

paragraph: From this period in the adult life of Juan de Espinosa Medrano it is necessary to highlight two events in which he demonstrated his prowess to peoples in possession of high positions in the Spanish Imperial System.

paragraph: The first event corresponds

paragraph: El primer evento corresponde a la visita al Cuzco del Virrey Conde de Lemos en 1668, paso que permite al Virrey la lectura (o audición) de obras líricas y sagradas de Juan de Espinosa Medrano, las mismas que quizás fueron preparadas para su recepción. El evento es fundamental por demostrar, en la biografía del author, reconocimiento oficial a la distinción de su producción barroca (cuya singularidad los coterráneos alababan). Según el testimonio del ya mencionado primer biógrafo y albacea, Agustín Cortés de la Cruz, "El señor Conde de Lemos luego que oyó en el Cuzco algunas obras y versos [de Espinosa Medrano] con que le celebró el Colegio de San Antonio, los hizo trasladar, sin que quedase papel que no fuese digno de su estimación, por darlos a la estampa en España". Lamentablemente, nada concreto se sabe sobre la veracidad y el paradero de este traslado de su obra a Europa.

paragraph: El segundo evento de importancia para la biografía de Juan de Espinosa Medrano corresponde al envío de una carta a , Rey de España, por parte del obispo del Cuzco, en 1678. Este evento muestra, con mayor claridad, la admiración y alta estima que se tenía hacia al author tanto por parte del ámbito religioso como también por parte del letrado en la ciudad. El nombre de Juan de Espinosa Medrano —se ve aquí— empieza a ser difundido más allá del obispado colonial del Cuzco y el Virreinato del Perú. El obispo recomienda en la carta la asignación de un puesto en la Catedral del Cuzco para Espinosa Medrano y escribe al rey: "es el sujeto más digno que tiene el obispado por sus muchas y relevantes letras y virtud".

paragraph: It is known that he entered the Dominican seminary of San Antonio Abad in Cuzco. There, as a young student, he wrote many of his plays. He wrote plays in both Spanish and Quechua. He wrote in Spanish the drama "Amar su propia muerte" (To Love One's Own Death) (ca. 1645). Characters of this play include Sísara, a general of Canaan; Jabín, king of Canaan; Jael; Barac, a general of the armies of Israel.

paragraph: He wrote in Quechua a religious play, "El hijo pródigo" (also known as "Auto sacramental del hijo pródigo"; "The Prodigal Son"), as well as a mythological piece, "El rapto de Proserpina" ("The Abduction of Proserpina"). The theatrical piece "Ollantay" is also attributed to him.

paragraph: He also wrote a piece defending Góngora's poetry called "Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora, Príncipe de los poetas lyricos de España: contra Manuel de Faria y Sousa, Cavallero portugués" (1662). In the "Apologético", published in Lima in 1662, Espinosa Medrano eruditely displays his knowledge of classical and contemporary literature. To support his arguments, Espinosa Medrano refers to, among others, Apuleius, Augustine of Hippo, the Bible, Camoens, Cervantes, Erasmus, Faria, Garcilaso, Homer, Lope de Vega, and Pedro de Oña. His defense of Góngora has been viewed as "a plea for recognition on behalf of himself and of writers living and working on the periphery of the Spanish empire."

paragraph: Antonio Cortéz de la Cruz, one of his disciples, collected Espinosa Medrano's sermons and published them posthumously in Valladolid, in a book entitled "La novena maravilla" ("The Ninth Wonder") (1695).

paragraph: Espinosa Medrano also wrote "La Lógica" (Logic), the first volume of a tract devoted to the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which was published in Rome in 1688.

paragraph: Section::::Sources.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Atlas departamental del Perú", varios autores, Ediciones Peisa S.A., Lima, Perú, 2003

paragraph: BULLET::::- "El Perú en los tiempos modernos", Julio R. Villanueva Sotomayor, Ediciones e Impressiones Quebecor World Perú S.A., Lima, Perú, 2002.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Historia de la República del Perú", Jorge Basadre Grohmann, Diario "El Comercio", Lima, Perú, 2005. .

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Nuevo Atlas del Perú y el Mundo", Juan Augusto Benavides Estrada, Editorial Escuela Nueva S.A., Lima, Perú, 1991.

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Juan de Espinosa Medrano

paragraph: BULLET::::- Juan de Espinosa Medrano: Apologético en favor de don Luis de Góngora

paragraph: BULLET::::- La Panegírica Declamación de Espinosa Medrano o el discurso peruano de las armas y las letras

paragraph: BULLET::::- Amar su propia muerte (online digitized text)

paragraph: BULLET::::- El Lunarejo: Identidad mestiza y crítica literaria

alias:
Lunarejo
Sublime Doctor
Indian Demosthenes
Juan Chancahuaña
Creole Phoenix
Tertullian of America

description: Baroque writer, creole author

wikidata_label: Juan de Espinosa Medrano

wikipedia_title: Juan de Espinosa Medrano


text:
Kashubian
Duke of Pomerelia-Gdańsk
Samborides
Pomerania
Mestwin I
Pomerelia
Polish
Władysław III Spindleshanks
steward
Leszek I the White
Kraków
Danish
Lands of Schlawe and Stolp
Lubiszewo Tczewskie
Sambor
Racibor
Białogard
Silesia
Henry I the Bearded
Lower Silesia
Piast dukes
Gąsawa
Leszek was killed in an ambush
Hermann Balk
Konrad I of Masovia
Henry the Bearded
Władysław Odonic
Kwidzyn (Marienwerder)
Teutonic Order
Pomesanians
River Sorge
Sławno
Nakło
Bydgoszcz
Kujavia
Greater Poland
Teutonic Knights
Christian
waging a crusade
pagan Prussians
First Prussian Uprising
pope
Roman Catholic Church
papal legate
Vistula
Great Uprising
Mestwin II
Wratislaw II
Odon
Greater Poland
Mieszko III the Old
Henry I of Schwerin
Schwerin
Mestwin II
Świecie
Jaromar II
Rugia
Kevenberg

categories: 12th-century births,Dukes of Pomerania,1266 deaths

paragraph: Swietopelk II, Duke of Pomerania

paragraph: Swietopelk II, also Zwantepolc II or Swantopolk II, (1190/1200 – 11 January 1266), sometimes known as the Great (; Kashubian: "Swiãtopôłk II Wiôldżi"), was ruling Duke of Pomerelia-Gdańsk from 1215 until his death. He was the first member of the Samborides to style himself "dux" from 1227 onwards.

paragraph: Section::::Names.

paragraph: The duke is known under many spellings ("Swantepolk, Swantipolk, Svatopluk, Swietopelk, Swatopolk, Sviatopolk, Światopełek, Świętopełk, Swiãtopôłk"), of which "Domin(us) Zwantepolc(us) D(ux) Danceke" and "Svantopelc Ducis Pomeranie" were used on seals.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Swietopelk was the son of the Pomeranian duke Mestwin I and his wife Swinisława. His father had ruled over Eastern Pomerania (or Pomerelia) since about 1205 by appointment of the Polish high duke Władysław III Spindleshanks. In 1216 or 1217 his son Swietopelk was made a steward over Pomerelia by High Duke Leszek I the White of Kraków. He was responsible for the Gdańsk territory, the largest of the four portions of Pomerelia. In 1218, Swietopelk took advantage of a revolt of local knights against Danish rule to occupy the Lands of Schlawe and Stolp. After his brother Warcislaw died without heirs, Swietopelk took over his Lubiszewo Tczewskie.

paragraph: Upon their father's death, Swietopelk's brothers Sambor and Racibor were still young, so he acted as their guardian. As they came of age, the brothers received their share of inheritance: Sambor received Lubiszewo Tczewskie and Racibor received Białogard.

paragraph: Swietopelk, who had exploited Piast Poland's fragmentation to gain independence, promised Władysław Odonic the throne of Kraków and Silesia in exchange for his support in the ousting of Leszek and Henry I the Bearded of Lower Silesia . On 23 November 1227, on the occasion of an assembly of Piast dukes in Gąsawa, Leszek was killed in an ambush set by Swietopelk II and perhaps Władysław, while Henry was severely wounded.

paragraph: In 1233-34, Swietopelk II, with his brother Sambor, joined a crusading army along with Hermann Balk, Konrad I of Masovia, Henry the Bearded, and Władysław Odonic. They proceeded to Kwidzyn (Marienwerder) and refortified it for the Teutonic Order. After this task was over, the crusaders met the pagan Prussians, the Pomesanians, at the battle of the River Sorge. There, they defeated the pagans, and were able to seize greater control of south Prussia.

paragraph: In 1238 Swietopelk conquered the Duchy of Sławno, whose territories connected Pomerania to Gdańsk, Nakło, and Bydgoszcz. This guaranteed war with Kujavia. The brothers, over whom Swantopolk was supposed to govern for twenty years, refused to support their overlord after twelve years, and the conflict escalated into a civil war. Sambor and Racibor were driven out from their lands and sought refuge and alliance first with Piast relatives in Greater Poland, later with the Teutonic Knights, a Christian military order waging a crusade against pagan Prussians. There were also economic tensions between the Knights and Swantopolk. This resulted in an alliance with the heathen Prussians. Swantopolk played a key role in the First Prussian Uprising, which started in 1242.

paragraph: The alliance between the pagan Prussians and the Christian Swietopelk against a religious order supported by the pope was unexpected. Swietopelk was previously known as a supporter of the Roman Catholic Church and Christian causes. Eventually, the uprising did not succeed and a peace treaty, mediated by a papal legate, was signed on 24 November 1248. Swietopelk had to return lands seized from his brothers, allow Teutonic Knights to pass through his domains, stop charging tolls on ships using the Vistula, and stop any aid to the Prussians. He kept his word and did not assist the Prussians during their Great Uprising (1260–1274).

paragraph: After governing since 1220 for 46 years, Swietopelk died in 1266, with his sons Mestwin II and Wratislaw II inheriting his lands.

paragraph: Section::::Family.

paragraph: Section::::Family.:Marriages.

paragraph: BULLET::::- 1217/1218 Eufrozyna († 1230), daughter of Odon, duke of Greater Poland (she was his sister´s sister in law and half-cousin through Mieszko III the Old )

paragraph: BULLET::::- before 1252 (?) Ermengarda (Ermengardis, † after 1270), daughter of Henry I of Schwerin, Count of Schwerin.

paragraph: Section::::Family.:Children.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Mestwin II (c.1220-1294), duke of Świecie (Schwetz) and later Gdańsk (Danzig)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Wratislaw II (c.1237-1271), duke of Gdańsk

paragraph: BULLET::::- Euphemia (c.1225-1270), married to Jaromar II, prince of Rugia

paragraph: BULLET::::- John (about 1230-1248), died at a young age.

paragraph: BULLET::::- unknown daughter, married to a Count of Kevenberg

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00164520&tree=LEO

description: Duke of Pomerania

wikidata_label: Swietopelk II, Duke of Pomerania

wikipedia_title: Swietopelk II, Duke of Pomerania


text: Kabbalah

text: Zaragoza

text: Spain

text: Comino

text: Maltese

text: Tudela, Navarre

text: Hebrew Bible

text: Talmud

text: Land of Israel

text: Sambation

text: Ten Lost Tribes

text: 'Akko

text: Holy Land

text: Crusades

text: Mongol Empire

text: Mamluk Sultanate

text: Greece

text: Rome

text: Capua

text: The Guide for the Perplexed

text: Maimonides

text: Hillel ben Samuel

text: Verona

text: vision

text: Barcelona

text: messianic

text: Sefer Yetzirah

text: Eleazar of Worms

text: Tetragrammaton

text: prophet

text: Torah

text: Castile

text: Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla

text: Sefer haYashar

text: Patras

text: Trani

text: Rome

text: Pope Nicholas III

text: Judaism

text: Rosh Hashanah

text: stroke

text: Order of Friars Minor

text: Sicily

text: Messina

text: Palermo

text: Palermo

text: Shlomo ben Aderet

text: Barcelona

text: hysteria

text: Comino

text: Malta

text: Sefer Yetzirah

text: Pentateuch

text: apocalyptic

text: redemption

text: Joseph Gikatilla

text: prophecy

text: Ashkenazi

text: divine names

text: revelatory

text: sefirot

text: trinity

text: ideal language

text: Dante Alighieri

text: Greek

text: Latin

text: Italian

text: Arabic

text: Tatar

text: Basque

text: gematria

text: Pico

text: Isaac of Acre

text: epistle

text: Maimonides

text: Yohanan Alemanno

text: Moses Cordovero

text: Chaim Vital

text: Sabbatai Zevi

text: Pinchas Horowitz

text: Shklov

text: M. H. Landauer

text: Zohar

text: Adolf Jellinek

text: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

text: Flavius Mithridates

text: Nathaniel Tarn

text: Umberto Eco

text: Foucault's Pendulum

text: The Guide for the Perplexed

text: Sefer Yetzirah

text: Ashkenazi Hasidim

text: tefillin

text: Isaac ben Samuel of Acre

text: Hayyim ben Joseph Vital

text: Bee Season

text: Spelling Bee

text: Umberto Eco

text: Foucault's Pendulum

text: Richard Zimler

text: Jewish Messiah claimants

text: "Meditations on the Divine Name"

text: "The Renascence of Abraham Abulafia in the Last Generation"

text: "Abraham Abulafia and the Prophetic Kabbalah"

text: "The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia"

text: The Complete Works of Abraham Abulafia (Hebrew)

categories: Sephardi rabbis,13th-century rabbis,Kabbalists,People from Zaragoza,1240 births,1290s deaths,Medieval Aragonese Jews,Jewish Messiah claimants,13th-century Moorish people,Deaths in Malta

paragraph: Abraham Abulafia

paragraph: Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia () was the founder of the school of "Prophetic Kabbalah". He was born in Zaragoza, Spain in 1240 and is assumed to have died sometime after 1291, following a stay on the small and windswept island of Comino, the smallest of the three inhabited islands that make up the Maltese archipelago.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.:Early life and travels.

paragraph: Very early in life he was taken by his parents to Tudela, Navarre, where his aged father Samuel Abulafia instructed him in the Hebrew Bible and Talmud. In 1258, when Abraham was eighteen years old, his father died, and two years later Abraham began a life of ceaseless wandering. His first journey in 1260 was to the Land of Israel, where he intended to begin a search for the legendary river Sambation and the Ten Lost Tribes. He got no further than 'Akko, however, because of the desolation and lawlessness in the Holy Land stemming from the chaos following the last Crusades; the war that year between the Mongol Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate forced his return to Europe, via Greece. He had determined to go to Rome, but stopped short in Capua, where during the early 1260s he devoted himself with passionate zeal to the study of philosophy and of "The Guide for the Perplexed" of Maimonides, under the tutelage of a philosopher and physician named Hillel — probably the well-known Hillel ben Samuel of Verona.

paragraph: Although he always held Maimonides in the highest esteem, and often made use of sentences from his writings, he was as little satisfied with his philosophy as with any other branch of knowledge which he acquired. He was highly articulate, able and eager to teach others. He wrote industriously on Kabbalistic, philosophical, and grammatical subjects, and succeeded in surrounding himself with numerous pupils, to whom he imparted much of his own enthusiasm.

paragraph: On his return to Spain he became subject to visions, and at the age of thirty-one, at Barcelona, began to study a particular kind of Kabbalah whose most important representative was Barukh Togarmi, and received a revelation with messianic overtones. He immersed himself in the study of the "Sefer Yetzirah" ("Book of Creation") and its numerous commentaries, which explain the creation of the world and man as based on Hebrew letter combinations. This book, and particularly the commentary and method of the German Jewish mystic, Eleazar of Worms, exercised a deep influence upon him, and had the effect of greatly increasing his mystical bent. Letters of the alphabet, numerals, vowel-points, all became symbols of existence to him, and their combinations and permutations, supplementing and explaining one another, possessed for him an illumining power most effectively to be disclosed in a deeper study of the divine names, and especially of the consonants of the Tetragrammaton. With such auxiliaries, and with the observance of certain rites and ascetic practises, men, he says, may attain to the highest aim of existence and become prophets; not in order to work miracles and signs, but to reach the highest degree of perception and be able to penetrate intuitively into the inscrutable nature of the Deity, the riddles of creation, the problems of human life, the purpose of the precepts, and the deeper meaning of the Torah.

paragraph: He soon left for Castile, where he disseminated his prophetic Kabbalah among figures like R. Moses of Burgos and his most important disciple, Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla. So Abulafia claimed. However, it bears mention that Abulafia is not mentioned in any of Gikatillas' works.

paragraph: Some time around 1275 he taught "The Guide for the Perplexed" and his Kabbalah in a few cities in Greece. He wrote the first of his prophetic books, "Sefer haYashar" ("Book of the Upright/Righteous"), in Patras in 1279. That same year he made his way through Trani back to Capua, where he taught four young students.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.:Journey to Rome.

paragraph: He went to Rome in 1280 in order to convert Pope Nicholas III to Judaism on the day before Rosh Hashanah. The Pope was in Suriano when he heard of it, and he issued orders to "burn the fanatic" as soon as he reached that place. The stake was erected in preparation close to the inner gate; but Abulafia set out for Suriano all the same and reached there August 22. While passing through the outer gate, he heard that the Pope had died from an apoplectic stroke during the preceding night. He returned to Rome, where he was thrown into prison by the Order of Friars Minor but was liberated after four weeks' detention. He was next heard of in Sicily.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.:Decline and exile to Comino.

paragraph: He remained active in Messina for a decade (1281–91), presenting himself as a "prophet" and "messiah". He had several students there as well as some in Palermo. The local Jewish congregation in Palermo energetically condemned Abulafia's conduct, and around 1285 they addressed the issue to Shlomo ben Aderet of Barcelona, who devoted much of his career to calming the various messianic hysteriae of the day. Shlomo ben Aderet subsequently wrote a letter against Abulafia. This controversy was one of the principal reasons for the exclusion of Abulafia’s Kabbalah from the Spanish schools.

paragraph: Abulafia had to take up the pilgrim's staff anew, and under distressing conditions compiled his "Sefer haOt" "Book of the Sign" on the little island of Comino, near Malta, between 1285 and 1288. In 1291 he wrote his last, and perhaps his most intelligible work, the meditation manual "Imrei Shefer" "Words of Beauty"; after this, all trace of him is lost.

paragraph: Section::::Teachings.

paragraph: Section::::Teachings.:Writings.

paragraph: Abulafia’s literary activity spans the years 1271–91 and consists of several books, treatises on grammar, and poems, but amongst which only thirty survive. He wrote many commentaries: three on the "Guide of the Perplexed" – "Sefer ha-Ge’ulah" (1273), "Sefer Chayei ha-Nefesh", and "Sefer Sitrei Torah" (1280); on "Sefer Yetzirah": – "Otzar Eden Ganuz" (1285/6), "Gan Na'ul", and a third untitled; and a commentary on the "Pentateuch" – "Sefer-Maftechot ha-Torah" (1289).

paragraph: More influential are his handbooks, teaching how to achieve the prophectic experience: "Chayei ha-Olam ha-Ba" (1280), "Or ha-Sekhel", "Sefer ha-Cheshek", and "Imrei Shefer" (1291).

paragraph: Of special importance for understanding his messianology are his “prophetic books” written between 1279 (in Patras) and 1288 (in Messina), in which revelations including apocalyptic imagery and scenes are interpreted as pointing to spiritual processes of inner redemption. The spiritualized understanding of the concepts of messianism and redemption as an intellectual development represents a major contribution of the messianic ideas in Judaism. As part of his messianic propensity, Abulafia become an intense disseminator of his Kabbalah, orally and in written form, trying to convince both Jews and Christians.

paragraph: In his first treatises, "Get ha-Shemot" and "Maftei’ach ha-Re'ayon", Abulafia describes a linguistic type of Kabbalah similar to the early writings of Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla. In his later writings, the founder of prophetic Kabbalah produces a synthesis between Maimonides’ Neoaristotelian understanding of prophecy as the result of the transformation of the intellectual influx into a linguistic message and techniques to reach such experiences by means of combinations of letters and their pronunciation, breathing exercises, contemplation of parts of the body, movements of the head and hands, and concentration exercises. Some of the elements of those techniques stem from commentaries on "Sefer Yetzirah" of Ashkenazi. He called his Kabbalah “the Kabbalah of names,” that is, of divine names, being a way to reach what he called the prophetic experience, or “prophetic Kabbalah,” as the ultimate aims of his way: unitive and revelatory experiences. In his writings expressions of what is known as the "unio mystica" of the human and the supernal intellects may be discerned. Much less concerned with the theosophy of his contemporary kabbalists, who were interested in theories of ten hypostatic sefirot, some of which he described as worse than the Christian belief in the trinity, Abulafia depicted the supernal realm, especially the cosmic Agent Intellect, in linguistic terms, as speech and letters.

paragraph: In his later books, Abulafia repeatedly elaborated upon a system of seven paths of interpretation, which he used sometimes in his commentary on the "Pentateuch", which starts with the plain sense, includes also allegorical interpretation, and culminates in interpretations of the discrete letters, the latter conceived of as the path to prophecy. Abulafia developed a sophisticated theory of language, which assumes that Hebrew represents not so much the language as written or spoken as the principles of all languages, namely the ideal sounds and the combinations between them. Thus, Hebrew as an ideal language encompasses all the other languages. This theory of language might have influenced Dante Alighieri. In his writings Abulafia uses Greek, Latin, Italian, Arabic, Tatar, and Basque words for purpose of gematria.

paragraph: Abulafia’s Kabbalah inspired a series of writings which can be described as part of his prophetic Kabbalah, namely, as striving to attain extreme forms of mystical experiences. The most important among them are the anonymous "Sefer ha-Tzeruf" (translated into Latin for Pico), "Sefer Ner Elohim", and "Sefer Shaarei Tzedek" by Rabbi Nathan ben Saadiah Harar, who influenced the Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac of Acre. The impact of Abulafia is evident in an anonymous epistle attributed to Maimonides; Rabbi Reuven Tzarfati, a kabbalist active in 14th century Italy; Abraham Shalom, Yohanan Alemanno, Judah Albotini, and Joseph ibn Zagyah; Moses Cordovero and Chaim Vital’s influential "Shaarei Kedushah"; Sabbatai Zevi, Joseph Hamitz, Pinchas Horowitz, and Menahem Mendel of Shklov.

paragraph: Extant in many manuscripts, Abulafia’s writings were not printed by kabbalists, most of whom banned his brand of Kabbalah, and only by chance introduced in their writings a few short and anonymous fragments. Scholarship started with an analysis of his manuscript writings by M. H. Landauer, who attributed the book of the "Zohar" to him. Adolf Jellinek refuted this attribution and compiled the first comprehensive list of Abulafia’s writings, publishing three of Abulafia’s shorter treatises

paragraph: (two epistles, printed in 1853/4, and Sefer ha-Ot in 1887), while Amnon Gross published 13 volumes, which include most of Abulafia’s books and those of his students’ books (Jerusalem, 1999–2004). Major contributions to the analysis of Abulafia’s thought and that of his school have been made by Gershom Scholem, Chaim Wirszubski, Moshe Idel, and Elliot R. Wolfson. Some of Abulafia’s treatises were translated into Latin and Italian in the circle of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, mostly by Flavius Mithridates, and Pico’s vision of Kabbalah was significantly influenced by his views. This is the case also with Francesco Giogio Veneto’s "De Harmonia Mundi".

paragraph: Abulafia’s life inspired a series of literary works such as poems by Ivan Goll, Moses Feinstein (not Rabbi Moshe Feinstein) and Nathaniel Tarn; Umberto Eco’s novel "Foucault's Pendulum"; and a play by George-Elie Bereby; in art, Abraham Pincas’ paintings and Bruriah Finkel’s sculptures; and several musical pieces.

paragraph: Abulafia's writings include:

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Sefer ha-Geulah" (1273), a commentary on "The Guide for the Perplexed"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Sefer Chayei ha-Nefesh", a commentary on "The Guide for the Perplexed"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Sefer ha-Yashar" ("Book of the Upright/Righteous") (1279)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Sefer Sitrei Torah (1280), a commentary on "The Guide for the Perplexed"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Chayei ha-Olam ha-Ba" ("Life of the World to Come") (1280)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Or ha-Sekhel" ("Light of the Intellect")

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Get ha-Shemot"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Maftei’ach ha-Re'ayon"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Gan Na'ul", a commentary on "Sefer Yetzirah"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Otzar Eden Ganuz", another commentary on "Sefer Yetzirah"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Sefer ha-Cheshek"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Sefer ha-Ot" ("Book of the Sign") (1285 x 1288)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Imrei Shefer" ("Words of Beauty") (1291)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Ve-Zot Li-Yehuda" ("And this is for Yehuda")

paragraph: Section::::Teachings.:Abulafia's meditation techniques.

paragraph: In his numerous works Abulafia focuses on complex devices for uniting with the Agent Intellect, or God, through the recitation of divine names, together with breathing techniques and cathartic practices. Some of Abulafia’s mystic ways were adapted by the Ashkenazi Hasidim. Taking as his framework the metaphysical and psychological system of Moses Maimonides (1135/8–1204), Abulafia strove for spiritual experience, which he viewed as a prophetic state similar to or even identical with that of the ancient Jewish prophets.

paragraph: Abulafia suggests a method that is based on a stimulus that continuously changes. His intention is not to relax the consciousness by meditation, but to purify it via a high level of concentration which requires doing many actions at the same time. For this, he uses Hebrew letters.

paragraph: Abulafia’s method includes a number of steps.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The first step, preparation: the initiate purifies himself through fasting, the wearing of tefillin, and donning pure white garments.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The second step: the mystic writes out specific letter groups and their permutations.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The third step, physiological maneuvers: the mystic chants the letters in conjunction with specific respiratory patterns, as well as head positioning.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The fourth step, mental imagery of letters and human forms: the mystic imagines a human form, and himself without a body. Then the mystic ‘draws’ the letters mentally, projects them onto the ‘screen’ of the ‘imaginative faculty’, i.e. he mentally imagines the patterns of letters. He then rotates the letters and turns them, as Abulafia describes in Imrei Shefer: "And they [the letters], with their forms, are called the Clear Mirror, for all the forms having brightness and strong radiance are included in them. And one who gazes at them in their forms will discover their secrets and speak to them, and they will speak to him. And they are like an image in which a man sees all his forms standing in front of him, and then he will be able to see all the general and specific things (Ms. Paris BN 777, fol. 49)."

paragraph: During the final step of mental imagery, the mystic passes a succession of four experiences. The first is an experience of body-photism or illumination, in which light not only surrounds the body but also diffuses into it, giving impression that the body and its organs have become light.

paragraph: As the ecstatic Kabbalist continues to practice, combining letters and performing physiological maneuvers, the result is the second experience: weakening of the body, in an ‘absorptive’ manner. Subsequently, the mystic may feel an enhancement of his thoughts and imaginative capacity. This is the third experience. The fourth experience is characterized mainly by fear and trembling.

paragraph: Abulafia emphasizes that trembling is a basic and necessary step to obtain prophecy (Sitrei Torah, Paris Ms. 774, fol. 158a). In another place he writes: ‘all your body will begin to tremble, and your limbs begin to shake, and you will fear a tremendous fear […] and the body will tremble, like the rider who races the horse, who is glad and joyful, while the horse trembles beneath him’

paragraph: (Otzar Eden Ganuz, Oxford Ms. 1580, fols. 163b-164a; see also Hayei Haolam

paragraph: Haba, Oxford 1582, fol. 12a).

paragraph: For Abulafia the fear is followed by an experience of pleasure and delight. This feeling is a result of sensing another ‘spirit’ within his body, as he describes in Otzar Eden Ganuz: ‘And you shall feel another spirit awakening within yourself and strengthening you and passing over your entire body and giving you pleasure’ (Oxford Ms. 1580 fols. 163b-164a).

paragraph: Only after passing these successive experiences does the mystic reach his goal: the vision of a human form, which is closely linked to his own physical appearance and generally experienced as standing in front of the mystic. The experience is increased when the mystic experiences his autoscopic form (or ‘double’) as speaking: the double begins to talk to the mystic, teaching

paragraph: him the unknown and revealing the future.

paragraph: Abraham Abulafia describes the experience of seeing a human ‘form’ many times in his writings. However, initially it is not clear who this ‘form’ is. As the dialog between the mystic and the ‘form’ proceeds, the reader understands that the ‘form’ is the image of the mystic himself. Addressing his students and followers in "Sefer haKheshek", Abulafia further elaborates the scenario:

paragraph: Apparently, by utilizing the letters of ‘the Name’ with specific breath techniques, a human form should appear. Only in the last sentence Abulafia suggests that this form is ‘yourself’.

paragraph: Yet he explicitly put it, as he has also explained in another book, "Sefer haYei haOlam haBa": "And consider his reply, answering as though you yourself had answered yourself" (Oxford Ms. 1582, fol. 56b). Most of Abulafia’s descriptions are written in a similar fashion. In "Sefer haOt", Abulafia describes a similar episode, but from an explicit self-perspective:"I saw a man coming from the west with a great army, the number of the warriors of his camp being twenty-two thousand men […] And when I saw his face in the sight, I was astonished, and my heart trembled within me, and I left my place and I longed for it to call upon the name of God to help me, but that thing evaded my spirit. And when the man had seen my great fear and my strong awe, he opened his mouth and he spoke, and he opened my mouth to speak, and I answered him according to his words, and in my words I became another man (pp. 81–2)."

paragraph: Section::::Influence.

paragraph: Abulafia's subterranean influence is evident in the large number of manuscripts of his major meditation manuals that flourished down to the present day until all his works were finally published in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem during the 1990s.

paragraph: Abulafia’s prophetic and messianic pretensions prompted a sharp reaction on the part of Shelomoh ben Avraham Adret, a famous legal authority who succeeded in annihilating the influence of Abulafia’s ecstatic Kabbalah in Spain.

paragraph: According to Besserman's "The Shambhala Guide to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism", Abulafia's "prophetic approach to meditation included manipulating the Hebrew letters in a nondenominational context that brought him into conflict with the Jewish establishment and provoked the Inquisition."

paragraph: In Italy, however, his works were translated into Latin and contributed substantially to the formation of Christian Qabbalah (sic).

paragraph: In the Middle East, ecstatic Kabbalah was accepted without reservation. Clear traces of Abulafian doctrine are evident in the works of Isaac ben Samuel of Acre, Yehudah Albotini and Hayyim ben Joseph Vital. In Israel, Abulafia’s ideas were combined with Sufi elements, apparently stemming from the school of Ibn Arabi; thus Sufi views were introduced into European Kabbalah.

paragraph: After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Spanish theurgical Kabbalah, which had developed without any significant impact from ecstatic Kabbalah, was integrated with the latter; this combination became, through the book Pardes Rimmonim by Mosheh Cordovero, part of mainstream Kabbalah. Hayyim Vital brought Abulafian views into the fourth unpublished part of his Shaarei Kedushah, and the eighteenth-century qabbalists of the Beit El Academy in Jerusalem perused Abulafia’s mystical manuals. Later on, mystical and psychological conceptions of Kabbalah found their way directly and indirectly to the Polish Hasidic masters. The influence of ecstatic Kabbalah is to be seen in isolated groups today, and traces of it can be found in modern literature (e.g., the poetry of Yvan Goll), mainly since the publication of Gershom Scholem’s researches.

paragraph: Section::::In popular culture.

paragraph: In Myla Goldberg's novel "Bee Season", eleven-year-old Eliza Naumann, after a surprising success in her Spelling Bee, is introduced to the writings and techniques of Abraham Abulafia by her rabbi father, in an effort to help her 'see' the spellings.

paragraph: A central plot device in Umberto Eco's novel "Foucault's Pendulum" is a personal computer named Abulafia.

paragraph: In Richard Zimler's international bestseller, "The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon", the narrator and his spiritual mentor (his uncle) make it clear that they follow the practices of Abraham Abulafia.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Jewish Messiah claimants

paragraph: Section::::Publications.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Abulafia, Abraham "Meditations on the Divine Name"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Abulafia, Abraham "The Heart of Jewish Meditation: Abraham Abulafia’s Path of the Divine Names"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Abulafia, Abraham "English translation of Abraham Abulafia's Kabbalah meditation handbook 'Light of the Intellect'"

paragraph: Section::::Bibliography.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Hames, Harvey J. "Like Angels on Jacob's Ladder: Abraham Abulafia, the Franciscans, and Joachimism"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Idel, Moshe "The Renascence of Abraham Abulafia in the Last Generation"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Idel, Moshe "Abraham Abulafia and the Prophetic Kabbalah"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Idel, Moshe "The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Scholem, Gershom "Abraham Abulafia and the Doctrine of Prophetic Kabbalism, ch. 4, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism"

paragraph: BULLET::::- Wolfson, Elliot R. "Abraham Abulafia-Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy and Theurgy"

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The Complete Works of Abraham Abulafia (Hebrew)

paragraph: BULLET::::- The Heart of Jewish Meditation: Abraham Abulafia’s Path of the Divine Names

description: Philosopher, writer

wikidata_label: Abraham Abulafia

wikipedia_title: Abraham Abulafia


text:
Princess of Antioch
Bohemond II of Antioch
Alice of Jerusalem
Roger II of Sicily
Baldwin II of Jerusalem
Fulk of Anjou
Raymond of Poitiers
Baldwin III of Jerusalem
Byzantine Emperor
Manuel I Komnenus
Raynald of Châtillon
Bohemond III
Bohemond II of Antioch
Alice
Baldwin II of Jerusalem
Constance of France
Ceyhan River
Roger II of Sicily
House of Hauteville
William of Tyre
Imad ad-Din Zengi
Atabeg
Aleppo
Joscelin I, Count of Edessa
Fulk of Anjou
Joscelin II, Count of Edessa
Pons, Count of Tripoli
County of Tripoli
St. Symeon
Rainald I Masoir
Constable of Antioch
Raymond of Poitiers
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine
Melisende
Byzantine Empire
Manuel
Byzantine Emperor
John II Komnenos
Ralph of Domfront
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
Lattakieh
Louis VII of France
Second Crusade
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Aleppo
Nur ad-Din
Battle of Inab
Nur ad-Din Zangi
Orontes River
Aimery of Limoges
Baldwin III of Jerusalem
Yves, Count of Soissons
Walter of Saint Omer
Ralph of Merle
Melisende
Hodierna
John Rogerios Dalassenos
John Kinnamos
Raynald of Châtillon
Bohemond III
Alexios Bryennios Komnenos
John Kamateros
Maria
Constantine Kalamanos
Thoros II of Cilician Armenia
Lattakieh
Jebail
Raymond of Poitiers
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine
Philippa of Toulouse
Bohemond
Maria
Byzantine Emperor
Manuel I Komnenos
Philippa of Antioch
Humphrey II of Toron
Battle of Myriokephalon
Agnes
Béla III of Hungary
Azzo VI of Este

categories: 12th-century Princes of Antioch,Roman Catholic monarchs,Women of the Crusader states,Princesses of Antioch,1163 deaths,12th-century women rulers,1128 births

paragraph: Constance of Antioch

paragraph: Constance of Hauteville (1128–1163) was the ruling Princess of Antioch from 1130 to 1163. She was the only child of Bohemond II of Antioch by his wife, Alice of Jerusalem. Constance succeeded her father at the age of two, after he fell in battle, although his cousin, Roger II of Sicily, laid claim to Antioch. Her mother assumed the regency, but the Antiochene noblemen replaced her with her father (Constance's grandfather), Baldwin II of Jerusalem. After he died in 1131, Alice again tried to take control of the government, but the Antiochene barons acknowledged the right of her brother-in-law, Fulk of Anjou, to rule as regent for Constance.

paragraph: Constance was given in marriage to Raymond of Poitiers in 1136. During the subsequent years, Raymond ruled Antioch while Constance gave birth to four children. After Raymond was murdered after a battle in 1149, Fulk of Anjou's son, Baldwin III of Jerusalem, assumed the regency. He tried to persuade Constance to remarry, but she did not accept his candidates. She also refused to marry a middle-aged relative of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenus. Finally, she found a love interest and was married to Raynald of Châtillon, a knight from France, in 1153.

paragraph: After her second husband fell into captivity around 11601161, Constance wanted to rule Antioch alone, but BaldwinIII of Jerusalem declared her fifteen-year-old son, Bohemond III, the lawful prince. Constance disregarded this declaration and took control of the administration of the principality with the assistance of Emperor Manuel. Constance was dethroned in favor of her son shortly before her death.

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: Born in 1128, Constance was the only child of Prince Bohemond II of Antioch and Alice, the second daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Constance of France. Bohemond was killed in a battle at the Ceyhan River in February 1130. After his death, Alice assumed the regency for Constance. According to rumors spreading in Antioch, Alice was planning to send Constance to a monastery or to marry her off to a commoner. Bohemond's cousin, Roger II of Sicily, regarded himself as Bohemond's lawful successor because he was the senior member of the House of Hauteville.

paragraph: The Antiochene noblemen sent envoys to Baldwin II, urging him to come to the principality, but Alice decided to resist her father. The 12th-century historian, William of Tyre, also accused her of seeking assistance from Imad ad-Din Zengi, Atabeg of Aleppo. According to William of Tyre's account, her envoys were captured by BaldwinII's soldiers, who had meanwhile reached Antioch. Before long, Alice was forced to beg for mercy from her father. He removed Alice from the regency, ordering her to leave Antioch.

paragraph: Section::::Reign.

paragraph: Section::::Reign.:Childhood.

paragraph: The Antiochene noblemen acknowledged Baldwin II as regent, swearing fealty to him and Constance. He made Joscelin I, Count of Edessa, her guardian to rule the principality until her marriage. BaldwinII died on August21, 1131, and JoscelinI died a week later.

paragraph: Alice again laid claim to the regency. However, most Antiochene lords remained hostile to the idea of a female ruler and sent envoys to BaldwinII's successor, Fulk of Anjou, who was Alice's brother-in-law. Alice made an alliance with Joscelin II, Count of Edessa, and Pons, Count of Tripoli, in early 1132. Fulk had to travel to Antioch by sea, because Pons did not allow him to march through the County of Tripoli. Fulk landed at St. Symeon where the Antiochene barons acknowledged him as regent. He appointed Rainald I Masoir, Constable of Antioch, to administer the principality.

paragraph: Fulk returned to Antioch when Zengi dispatched Sawar, governor of Aleppo, to invade the principality in 1132 or 1133. After defeating the invaders, Fulk entered Antioch. Since the principality needed a firm government, the Antiochene noblemen approached Fulk to select a husband for Constance. He chose Raymond of Poitiers, the younger son of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine. He did not announce his decision in public because he wanted to prevent Alice and RogerII of Sicily from intervening.

paragraph: Alice's sister, Melisende, Fulk's wife, persuaded Fulk to allow Alice to return to Antioch in 1135. Alice wanted to tighten the relationship of the principality and the Byzantine Empire; therefore, she offered Constance's hand to Manuel, a son of the Byzantine Emperor, John II Komnenos. To prevent the Byzantine marriage, Fulk sent his envoy to France to Raymond of Poitiers to urge him to come to Antioch, which he did, traveling in disguise, because RogerII of Sicily wanted to capture him in southern Italy.

paragraph: Section::::Reign.:First marriage.

paragraph: Raymond of Poitiers arrived at Antioch in April 1136. Ralph of Domfront, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, made Alice believe that Raymond came to Antioch to marry her instead of her nine-year-old daughter. However, Constance was kidnapped from the palace, and Ralph of Domfront blessed her marriage to Raymond in the cathedral. With the marriage, Raymond became the ruler of the principality, and Alice retired to Lattakieh.

paragraph: In early 1147 Roger II of Sicily extended an offer to Louis VII of France to transport the French crusaders to the Holy Land during the Second Crusade. Fearing that Roger only wanted to assert his claim to Antioch, LouisVII and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (niece of Raymond of Poitiers) declined. Louis and his crusaders came to the principality in March 1148. Before long, rumors spread among the crusaders about a love affair between Raymond and Eleanor. The crusaders tried to convince her husband to launch a campaign against Aleppo, the capital of Nur ad-Din, but LouisVII decided to leave Antioch to Jerusalem, forcing Eleanor to accompany him.

paragraph: Section::::Reign.:Widowhood.

paragraph: Raymond was killed in the Battle of Inab during an expedition against Nur ad-Din Zangi on June29, 1149. Since Raymond and Constance's four children were still underage, there was no one to "perform the duties of a prince and raise the people from despair", according to William of Tyre. Nur ad-Din invaded the principality and seized all Antiochene territories to the east of the Orontes River. Aimery of Limoges, Latin Patriarch of Antioch, directed the defense, but most noblemen preferred a secular ruler. After learning of Raymond's fate, Constance's cousin, Baldwin III of Jerusalem, hurried to Antioch and assumed the regency. He also concluded a truce with Nur ad-Din.

paragraph: Baldwin III returned to Antioch in summer 1150. He wanted to persuade Constance to remarry, proposing three candidates (Yves, Count of Soissons, Walter of Saint Omer, and Ralph of Merle), but she declined. Urged by BaldwinIII, Constance went to Tripoli in early 1152 to meet him and her two aunts, Melisende and Hodierna. The two ladies tried to persuade Constance to choose among the three candidates, but she returned to Antioch without making a promise to remarry. According to William of Tyre, Patriarch Aimery convinced Constance to resist, because he wanted to control the government of the principality. The Byzantine Emperor ManuelI Komnenos sent his widowed brother-in-law, the middle-aged John Rogerios Dalassenos, to Antioch to marry Constance. However, because of his age, she "regarded him with displeasure", according to the contemporaneous John Kinnamos, and refused to marry him.

paragraph: Historian Steven Runciman says that Constance may have refused the candidates proposed by BaldwinIII and ManuelI because she had met Raynald of Châtillon, a knight from France. Even though William of Tyre described Raynald as a "knight of common sort", Constance decided to marry Raynald. Their betrothal was kept secret because Constance wanted to obtain BaldwinIII's permission for the marriage.

paragraph: Section::::Reign.:Second marriage.

paragraph: After Baldwin sanctioned the marriage, Constance and Raynald married in early 1153. Raynald took charge of the administration of the principality. However, he was unpopular because his subjects regarded him as an upstart. His frequent attempts to raise funds brought him into conflict with Patriarch Aimery and Emperor ManuelI during the subsequent years. The emperor forced Raynald to pay homage to him in the spring of 1159. Raynald was captured and imprisoned by Majd al-Din, governor of Aleppo, during a plundering raid in November 1160 or 1161.

paragraph: After her husband fell into captivity, Constance announced her intention to administer the principality, but most Antiochene noblemen preferred a male ruler. BaldwinIII of Jerusalem hurried to Antioch and declared Constance's fifteen-year-old son, Bohemond III, the lawful prince, charging Patriarch Aimery with the administration of the principality. Constance did not accept Baldwin's decision and protested against it to Emperor Manuel.

paragraph: Manuel dispatched his nephew, Alexios Bryennios Komnenos, and John Kamateros to Antioch to begin negotiations about his marriage to Constance's daughter, Maria. The marriage contract was signed and the emperor's delegates confirmed Constance's position as the ruler of the principality. BaldwinIII, who came to Antioch to meet the imperial envoys, did not protest.

paragraph: Constance's son, Bohemond, reached the age of majority in 1163. To strengthen her position against her son, Constance sought assistance from Constantine Kalamanos, Byzantine governor of Cilicia. However, the Antiochene barons made an alliance with Thoros II of Cilician Armenia and forced her to leave Antioch. After Constance's removal, BohemondIII took control of the principality. Before long, Constance died, probably in Lattakieh or Jebail, according to Steven Runciman.

paragraph: Section::::Family.

paragraph: Constance's first husband, Raymond of Poitiers, was the second son of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and his second wife, Philippa of Toulouse. He was born in 1114. According to William of Tyre, Constance was left with "two sons and as many daughters still underage" when her husband died in 1149. Their elder son, Bohemond, was five at the time of Raymond's death. He seized Antioch from his mother in 1163. Constance and Raymond's eldest daughter, Maria, who was born in the late 1140s, was famed for her beauty. She married the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos in 1161. Her younger sister, Philippa of Antioch, was given in marriage to Humphrey II of Toron in the late 1160s.

paragraph: Whether the father of Constance's second son, Baldwin, was Raymond of Poitiers or Raynald of Châtillon cannot be determined with certainty. Baldwin died fighting at the head of a Byzantine cavalry regiment in the Battle of Myriokephalon on September17, 1176. It is certain that Raynald fathered Agnes, who became the wife of Béla III of Hungary. Raynald and Constance's second daughter, Alice, became the third wife of Azzo VI of Este in 1204.

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

description: Princess of Antioch

wikidata_label: Constance of Antioch

wikipedia_title: Constance of Antioch


text: Mexican

text: environmentalist

text: Mexico City

text: Viveros de Coyoacán

text: Mexico City

text: Mexico's forests

text: Guadalajara, Jalisco

text: Secretary of Agriculture

text: Porfirio Díaz

text: Río Blanco

text: Orizaba

text: Veracruz

text: Lázaro Cárdenas

text: campesinos

text: subway station

text: Metro Miguel Ángel de Quevedo

text: Coyoacán

text: Bio from kokone.com.mx

text: Mini-bio from Metro web site

text: Bio from a Tapatio history site

text: Instituto Nacional de Ecología article

text: Viveros de Coyoacan

categories: Mexican engineers,1946 deaths,1862 births,People from Guadalajara, Jalisco,Mexican architects,Mexican environmentalists

paragraph: Miguel Ángel de Quevedo

paragraph: Miguel Ángel de Quevedo (September 27, 1862 – July 15, 1946) was a Mexican architect, engineer, and environmentalist who founded Mexico City's Viveros de Coyoacán arboretum, as well as numerous other construction projects in Mexico City, and throughout the country, and promoted the conservation of Mexico's forests. He is called "el apóstol del árbol" ("the apostle of the tree") for his dedication to the defense of Mexico's forests.

paragraph: Don Miguel Ángel de Quevedo was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1862, to wealthy parents who died when Quevedo was young. He spent much of his childhood in France. In 1887, he completed studies in France at the École Polytechnique in hydrological engineering and then returned to Mexico. He worked for the Secretary of Agriculture for a period under president Porfirio Díaz. Quevedo founded the Sociedad Forestal Mexicana (Mexican Forestry Society), Viveros de Coyoacán, and promoted the creation of small wooded areas near train stations. As an engineer, he constructed the Banco de Londres y México building and pioneered the use of hydro-electric power with a plant on the Río Blanco in Orizaba, Veracruz. Quevedo worked on the long-term, large-scale project to drain the lake system in the Valley of Mexico, begun in the colonial era and completed during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz. He resigned from that project following a workplace accident, but he went on to other government service.

paragraph: Lázaro Cárdenas recruited Quevedo to his presidential administration to work on forestry issues. Quevedo became involved with the newly established Institute of Forest Research starting in 1936. The institute's staff began compiling data on Mexico's geography and forests with an inventory of tree species. The institute also undertook an assessment of the qualities of commercially valuable trees in order to assess how climate and soil affected their growth. The aim of these initiatives was to create a baseline of scientific data Mexico's forests in order to manage them as a national resource. Some of Quevedo's vigorous efforts to defend Mexico's forests were met with violent resistance from campesinos and agricultural officials who accused him of imposing draconian measures.

paragraph: Quevedo died in Mexico City on July 15, 1946.

paragraph: Today, an important thoroughfare in Mexico City, Avenida Miguel Ángel de Quevedo, as well as a subway station (Metro Miguel Ángel de Quevedo), both in the southern Mexico City borough of Coyoacán, are named in his honor.

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Christopher R. Boyer, "Political Landscapes: Forests, Conservation, and Community in Mexico". Durham: Duke University Press 2015.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Miguel Ángel de Quevedo. "Relato de mi Vida". n.p. 1942.

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Bio from kokone.com.mx

paragraph: BULLET::::- Mini-bio from Metro web site

paragraph: BULLET::::- Bio from a Tapatio history site

paragraph: BULLET::::- Instituto Nacional de Ecología article

paragraph: BULLET::::- Calendar listing from Mazatlan gov. site

paragraph: BULLET::::- Details of death from Mexican Sec. of Education

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Viveros de Coyoacan

description: Mexican architect

wikidata_label: Miguel Ángel de Quevedo

wikipedia_title: Miguel Ángel de Quevedo


text: Persian

text: Khwaja

text: Kashgaria

text: Xinjiang

text: China

text: Uyghur Latin alphabet

text: Modern Uyghur script

text: Naqshbandi

text: Sufi

text: Kumul

text: Muhammad Yusuf Khoja

text: Begum

text: bek

text: Yarkent Khanate

text: Khoja Kalan

text: sayyid

text: Muhammad

text: Chagatai

text: Sharia

text: Yassa

text: Chagatai Khan

text: Genghis Khan

text: Ismail Khan

text: Ishaki Khoja

text: Ishaki khoja

text: 5th Dalai Lama

text: Dzungar Khanate

text: Dzungars

text: Galdan Boshugtu Khan

text: Dzungar conquest of Altishahr

text: Turpan

text: Kurultai

text: Chengiz Khan

text: Kargalik

text: Tarim Basin

text: Khotan

text: Yarkand

text: Korla

text: Kucha

text: Aksu

text: Kashgar

text: Ishaki khoja

text: Galdan Boshughtu Khan

text: Turpan

text: Chalish

text: India

text: Tsewang Rabtan

text: Gansu

text: Qinghai

text: Xining

text: Qinghai

text: Lintao

text: Linxia

text: Hui

text: Salars

text: Hui

text: Qadiriyya

text: Xining

text: Qi Jingyi

text: Ma Laichi

text: Ma Mingxin

text: menhuan

text: Khufiyya

text: Jahriyya

text: khoja

text: Aq Tagh

text: Tian Shan

text: Dzungar

text: Galdan Khan

text: Tsewang Rabtan

text: Ili region

text: Ishaqi khoja

text: Burhān al-Dīn

text: Khwāja-i Jahān

text: Qianlong Emperor

text: Manchu

text: Qing Empire

text: Zhaohui

text: smallpox

text: temple

text: Ghulja

text: Ili River

text: Galdan Boshugtu Khan

text: Tarim Basin

text: Kashgaria

text: Badakhshan

text: Sultān Shāh

text: Iparhan

text: Uzbek

text: Khanate of Kokand

text: Russia

text: Great Britain

text: Jihangir

text: Rebellion

text: Kashgaria

text: Yaqub Beg

text: Ottoman

text: Khojijan

text: Sinkiang

text: Sheng Shicai

text: Muslim

text: Xinjiang

text: Kashgar

text: generation

text: Afāqi

text: Gladney, Dru

categories: History of Xinjiang,1694 deaths,Chinese Sufis,Year of birth unknown,Uyghur people,1626 births

paragraph: Afaq Khoja

paragraph: Afaq Khoja (; born Hidayat Allah (هدایت‌الله); 1626 – 1694) A.K.A. Apaq Xoja or more properly Āfāq Khwāja (Persian: آفاق خواجه), was a religious and political leader with the title of Khwaja in Kashgaria (in present-day southern Xinjiang, China). He was also known as Khwāja Hidāyat Allāh (خواجه هدایت‌الله).

paragraph: Section::::Spelling variants.

paragraph: In Chinese, Afaq Khoja is known as . His name is also written as ("Āpàkè Huòjiā") or ("Āpàkè Hézhuō") and occasionally just ("Āpà Huòjiā"); "Khoja" may also appear as (Hézhuō). In the Uyghur Latin alphabet, it is written as "Apaq Xoja" and in Modern Uyghur script as .

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Afaq Khoja was a great-grandson of the noted Naqshbandi Sufi teacher, (احمد کاسانی) (1461–1542) (also known as "Makhdūm-i`Azam", مخدومِ اعظم, "the Great Master"), and was revered as a Sufi teacher in his own right. Afaq was born in 1626 in Kumul, where his father Muhammad Yusuf Khoja preached. His mother Zuleiha Begum was the daughter of Mir Sayyid Jalil Kashgari, a rich "bek" from the village of Bashkerim in the Kashgar Region, who settled in Kumul after fleeing from Kashgar several years previously. In 1638, at the age of 12, he came with his father to Kashgar and settled there. Yarkent Khanate ruler Abdullah Khan (1638–1669) granted his father Bashkerim village and many inhabitants of Kashgar Region became disciples of the Ishkiyya Sufi order, a branch of the Nakshbandi Khojas founded by Muhammad Yusuf Khoja's father Khoja Kalan and whose followers were known as Ak Taghliks or .

paragraph: Among some Uyghur Muslims, Khoja Appak was considered a sayyid or descendant of Muhammad. As a highly respected religious figure, he was in a clash with ruling elite of the Chagatai (Moghul) dynasty and this conflict had both a religious and secular nature. For the religious part he was an advocator of implementing Islamic Sharia law against Mongol Yassa law which was in force at that time while for the secular part he heavily criticized the luxurious lifestyle which the ruling elites enjoyed. This clash proved serious due to the fact that Chagatai Khan (c. 1185–1241 or 1242) had been appointed by Genghis Khan to see if the Yassa was observed so it eventually resulted in expelling of Afaq Khoja by Ismail Khan (1669, 1670–1678), the later ruler of the Yarkent Khanate. Since the Ishaki Khojas were another offshoot of the Naqshbandi Sufis, Ismail Khan purposefully approached the Ishaki khojas (also known as the Kara Taghliks, i.e. ) to balance Afaq Khoja influences and prevent dangerous propaganda against him by followers of Afaq Khoja. This clash between religious sects worked to Ismail Khan's advantage. However, the exiled Afaq Khoja had accomplished a diplomatic mission that had led to the collapse of Chagatai (Moghul) dynasty in 1678. In this diplomatic mission Tibet Muslims played a crucial role by convincing the 5th Dalai Lama to write a letter of introduction to the Dzungar Khanate. Using this recommendation letter Afaq Khoja allied with the Dzungars and formed a strong coalition force which included some Chagatai (Moghul) royal family members such as Abdirishit Khan II, Muhammad Imin Khan and Muhammad Momin Akbash, who were against Ismail Khan. Moreover, there were a significant numbers of followers of Afaq Khoja inside the Khanate so that the profile of the Afaq Khoja increased considerably. The Dzungar leader Galdan Boshugtu Khan then launched the Dzungar conquest of Altishahr, conquered the Yarkent Khanate and then installed Afaqi Khoja as one of their puppet rulers.

paragraph: In 1691 a temporary alliance between Muhammad Imin Khan, son of Sultan Said Baba Khan, who was previously recalled from Turpan and elected as a Khan of the Yarkent Khanate on Kurultai of Kashgar and Yarkent "Beks" and who was a strong enemy of the Dzungars, and Afak Khoja came to an end. Muhammad Imin Khan expelled Khoja from Yarkent and prohibited all inhabitants of Yarkand Khanate to keep any relations with Khoja. In response, Khoja swore to "exterminate all descendants of Chengiz Khan", called his son Yahiya Khoja from Kashgar with troops, and attacked Yarkand. Muhammad Imin Khan retreated to Kargalik and from here to the place named Kulagan where a decisive battle took place in 1692 between armies of Khoja and Muhammad Imin Khan. During the battle many supporters of Muhammad Imin Khan deserted him and came to Khoja, that resulted in Khan's defeat. Muhammad Imin Khan fled to the Mountains where he was captured and killed.

paragraph: After this victory Afak Khoja declared his son Yahiya Khoja a Khan with the title "Khan Khoja" and made himself a powerful ruler controlling several cities around the Tarim Basin, including Khotan, Yarkand, Korla, Kucha and Aksu as well as Kashgar. According to sources from Ishaki khojas Afaq Khoja initially paid 100,000 "tangas" (silver coins) to the Dzungars for their military assistance and accepted the mandate of the Dzungars, led by Galdan Boshughtu Khan (1670–1697). Later the Dzungars demanded they pay them 100,000 "tangas" every year as tribute and this request was accepted by Afak Khoja.

paragraph: Afak Khoja died in 1694 and left his son Yahiya Khoja as actual ruler of the Yarkand Khanate (r. 1694–1695). After Yahiya Khoja's death (he was killed by Apak Khoja's wife Khanam Padshah, who was a daughter of Sultan Said Baba Khan, ruler of Turpan and Chalish), Muhammad Mumin Sultan (Akbash Khan, r. 1695–1706) restored the Chagatay (Moghul) dynasty of Yarkand, attempting to get rid of the Dzungar mandate, but finally he fled to India. Kashgaria was soon reconquered by Dzungar Khan Tsewang Rabtan in 1713.

paragraph: Section::::Influence on Islam in China.

paragraph: Afaq Khoja's influence spread far outside of Xinjiang. From 1671-72, he was preaching in Gansu (which then included parts of modern Qinghai province), where his father Muhammad Yusuf had preached before. On that tour, he visited Xining (today's Qinghai province), Lintao, and Hezhou (now Linxia), and was said to convert some Hui and many Salars there to Naqshbandi Sufism.

paragraph: According to the Chinese (Hui) followers of the Qadiriyya Sufi school, when Afāq Khoja was in Xining in 1672, he gave his blessing to 16-year-old Qi Jingyi (later also known as Hilal al-Din, or Qi Daozu (1656–1719)), who was then to introduce Qadiriyya into China proper. His two other spiritual descendants, Ma Laichi and Ma Mingxin, went to study in Central Asia and Arabia, and upon return to China founded two other Naqshbandi "menhuans" (brotherhoods) there: the Khufiyya and the Jahriyya, respectively.

paragraph: Section::::The Afaqis.

paragraph: Khoja Afaq's descendants, known as the Āfāqi khojas, or the "Aq Taghliqs", i.e. 'White Mountaineers', played an important part in the local politics south of the Tian Shan range for almost two centuries after Afāq's death. They first ruled Kashgaria as Dzungars' vassals, but after the death of Dzungars' Galdan Khan managed to gain independence for a while.

paragraph: The next strong Dzungar ruler, Tsewang Rabtan (1697–1727), subjugated Kashgaria again; to stay on the safe side, Dzungars this time were now to keep the Afaqi Khojas as hostages in the Ili region, and rule Kashgarian cities through Afaqis' rivals, the Ishaqi khojas -"Karataghliks", i.e. 'Black Mountaineers'.

paragraph: In the 1750s, two Afaqi Khoja descendants, the brothers Burhān al-Dīn (خواجہ برہان الدین) and Khwāja-i Jahān (خواجہ جهان ), had been held by Dzungars as hostages in Ili. They aided the Qianlong Emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Empire in annihilating the Dzungars: From spring 1755 till summer 1757, around 300,000 Dzungars, regardless of gender and age, were massacred by the invading 300,000-strong Qing army, which executed an official order given to General Zhaohui in spring 1756 by the Qianlong Emperor to liquidate the whole Dzungar nation till the last baby. Those who survived were killed by a smallpox epidemic. The total loss of the population in Dzungaria reached 1,000,000, transforming it eventually into the "land without people". At the same time, Khoja Jahan, executing Khoja Burhan ad-Din's order, razed to ground in 1755 both Dzungar temples, "Golden" and "Silver", in Ghulja and Kainuk cities of Ili River Valley, that were built by Galdan Boshugtu Khan and represented the sacred symbols of Dzungar Power and establishing Qing hegemony over Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin in which they waged in 1755-1756 a bloody war against their old rivals, the "Karataghliks", who previously took total control of Kashgaria since 1752, having terminated annual tribute payments to Dzungars. However, as the two eventually victorious khojas began to seek more independence for themselves, they soon (in autumn 1757) came into conflict with the Qing Empire. Having lost Yarkand and Kashgar to the Qing armies in 1759, they fled to Badakhshan, where they were promptly killed by the local ruler, Sultān Shāh, who sent their heads to the Qianlong Emperor.

paragraph: According to a legend, Iparhan, granddaughter of Apak Khoja was given to the Qianlong Emperor as a concubine. Under Qing auspice, Khojijan rulers of city states often fell out of favor of the hegemonic power and had to flee to Uzbek protection in the Khanate of Kokand.

paragraph: By the 19th century, prominent Afaqi Khojas ("Khojijans") in exile in Kokand sought to influence their former domains through preaching or allying with new imperialist powers of Russia and Great Britain. It was during the 1800s that two major attempts were launched from Kokand to claim the "Six City State of Tarim Basin" ( "Altı Shahr" ) from Qing domination. These were the British-supported Jihangir Rebellion (1826–1828) and the usurpation of Kashgaria by Kokand retainer Yaqub Beg (1864–1877) who recognized Ottoman suzerainty.

paragraph: Well into 20th century, there were still local princely families of Khojijan descent. The Chinese warlord and Military Governor (Duban) of Sinkiang general Sheng Shicai (April 12, 1933- August 29, 1944) restored the status of several of these local rulers to facilitate his rule.

paragraph: The Qarataghlik (Black Mountains) propagated anti-Afaq Khoja literature. For his action of inviting Dzungar invasion and rule, Afaq Khoja is viewed as a perfidious betrayer collaborator by some Uyghur nationalists while he and his grave was still honored and revered as a saint by other Uyghurs. The power of miracles and the equivalent status of Jesus (Isa) in Islam have been according by some Uyghurs to Appak Khoja.

paragraph: Section::::Afāq Khoja Mausoleum.

paragraph: ""This was the famous shrine, and we were invited to step inside, where we saw a crowded mass of bluetiled tombs, that of the Saint-King being draped with red and white cloths. There were numbers of flags and banners before the tombs, and on one side was a palanquin in which a great-grandson of Apak had travelled to and from Peking. While there he had married his daughter to a Chinaman, and at the date of our visit a Celestial had arrived in Kashgar accompanied by a band of relatives, to demand his share of the great wealth of the shrine. His credentials were unexceptionable, and during a century and a half his ancestors had been given pensions by the Chinese Government; but owing to the revolution these subsidies had been stopped. Hence his appearance, which was causing much perturbation among the managers of the shrine funds."" - Sir Percy Sykes and Ella Sykes. Sykes, Ella and Percy Sykes. pages 69-70 "Through deserts and oases of Central Asia." London. Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1920.

paragraph: Afāq Khoja's mausoleum is considered the holiest Muslim site in Xinjiang. It is located at in Haohan Village (), a northeastern suburb some 5 km from the city centre of Kashgar. First built ca. 1640, initially as Muhammad Yusuf tomb, the beautiful tiled mausoleum contains the tombs of five generations of the Afāqi family, providing resting places for its 72 members, both men and women.

paragraph: Section::::Literature.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Kim Hodong, "Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877". Stanford University Press (March 2004). . (Searchable text available on Amazon.com)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Gladney, Dru (1999). "The Salafiyya Movement in Northwest China: Islamic Fundamentalism among the Muslim Chinese?" Originally published in "Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts". Leif Manger, Ed. Surrey: Curzon Press. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, No 26. Pp. 102–149

paragraph: BULLET::::- Rian Thum, "Beyond resistance and nationalism: local history and the case of Afaq Khoja". Central Asian Survey, 31:3, 293-310 (October 2012).

description: Religious and political leader

wikidata_label: Afaq Khoja

wikipedia_title: Afaq Khoja