What were the aims of Gregory of Tours 'History of the Franks' Essay

What were the aims of Gregory of Tours 'History of the Franks' - Essay Example As a youth, Gregory lived with his uncles Nicetius and Archdeacon Avitus who later became bishop of Lyons and bishop of Clermont respectively. His education was in church schools and primarily limited to a study of the scripture. In fact, he was educated by his own uncle Gallus, who was the Bishop of Clermont. 1Platts points out that â€Å"Gregory distinguished himself so much by his learning and virtue, that in 573, he was chosen bishop of Tours†. Gregory had already been ordained a deacon by 565. He was chosen to succeed Eufronius, his mother’s cousin as the nineteenth bishop of tours in 573. After being chosen bishop of Tours, Gregory went to Rome where he visited the tombs of various Apostles and cultivated friendship with Gregory the Great. Gregory’s life being a bishop was not easy. Despite being the site of the fourth-century bishop of Tours, it was also a territory accustomed to conflicts between the kings of Frank such as Sigibert and Chilperic. In 585, Gregory was opposed by a coalition formed by a section of the Touraine clergy, the enemies of the Austrasian family and the count of the city. During this time Touraine was being disputed by Merovingian princes. Despite being a person who respected authority, Gregory got involved in these political quarrels as he attempted to defend the rights of Saint Martin. However, he had more quite relations with successors of Chilperic. Although he could not maintain his authority in a province divided among a number of different kingdoms, he did new things in Tours and prolonged Saint Martin’s authority. Gregory died in Tours on November 17 in 593 or 594. By the time of his death, he had made many accomplishments among them being the work of rebuilding Tours cathedral as well as improving its collection of relic materials. There have been various debates in the past on Gregory’s aim for writing the history of the Franks. To begin with, the title ‘history of the Franks†™ gives an impression that his work is primarily based on history. Anyone who reads the title will believe that the principle behind the work is the history of the Merovingian and Frankish kingdoms, their kings and successors. In fact, the topics range from attempts by Clovis to eliminate Frankish kings who were his rivals. He also gives accounts of natural disasters that characterised his times like the cataclysmic floods. However, Gregory’s intention was not to write a political history but rather to intertwine both ecclesiastical and secular history in order to pass his message. The word history is contrary to what Gregory wanted to convey in his work the history of the Franks. But for Gregory and other ancient writers such as Herodotus the word Historiae is used to refer to an account of witnessed events rather than events heard of. In fact, six among the ten books Gregory wrote revolve around his own times. In book one, Gregory goes back to the creation of man, some ev ents in the Old Testament and ends with the death of bishop Martin of Tours. In book two he discusses the disputes that took place between early Frankish kings and ends with Clovis’s death. In book three, he discusses the fortunes of Clovis’s sons and from the fourth book; he discusses his early life, family and events during his times. Gregory wrote the history of the Franks; the lives of the saints among other works. He remains one of the most gifted and creative writers of the middle ages. He is also one of the most prominent early medieval sacred biographers. Through his work, the history of the Franks Gregory reveals the political turmoil’

Strategic Management - Stakeholder analysis Essay

Strategic Management - Stakeholder analysis - Essay Example (Drucker 1973:140). Sony Corporation also had its strategy firmly rooted in the Japanese style of management which was based on long term orientation and planning, collective decision making, accountability and responsibility, bottom up process of decision flow and informal organisational structure. (Koontz 1974. 58). This strategy had also dictated its culture based on informal, familial, traditional relationship between the various stakeholders. However in the new economy this was losing its relevance. In line with the changing business environment Sony Corporation has had to transform its strategy, announced formally in 2005, it identified a few core sectors as electronics, games and entertainment. (http://www.sony.net). Thus the company is no longer only in the, â€Å"business of electronic information†. In line with this approach, the company has also adopted the new organizational model of business groups, abolishing the company system for better horizontal coordination and synergy for specific products. This organizational structure is said to be designed to eliminate, â€Å"corporate silos† and generate better cross functional support for business decisions. (http://www.sony.net). In line with this the culture has grown to a more formal, demanding and result oriented one of accountability. The key stake holders of Sony have been identified as shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, business partners, local communities and other organisations. (http://www.globalreporting.org). Considering the interests and demands of the stake holders, both long and short term, their influence on Sony’ s strategy will determine its overall organizational effectiveness. Sony keeps the interests of all its stakeholders uppermost. The corporate governance policy ensures a uniform approach towards stake holders across the company. (http://www.coursework.info) Considering the stake holders one by one, we find that

Context planing article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Context planing article - Essay Example The new developments require collaborative efforts of both media professionals and media agencies in order to ensure effective communication. Hatcher points out a few instances where media agencies deployed their context planners effectively to unravel customer insights and ‘generated non-traditional media solutions’. According to Klues (2004), context planners â€Å"provide the essential link between the consumer’s experience with the advertisers’ brand and the various ways the consumer chooses to receive commercial messages about them† (as cited in Hatcher, 2005). Admittedly, the sustainability of media agencies depends on their creativity in context planning. Although change is visible in every sphere of social life and business activities more than ever before, media agencies are to struggle a lot to keep pace with the new developments happening in every industry. The most important thing about context planning is that business has become something more than a buying and selling process. It involves collective stakeholder participation that ensures convenient service, sustainable profit, effective communication, and many other aspects. Today, media agencies work as a third party to link in this process to ensure this solidity. The emergence of countless organisations in the same industry increases market tension and thereby the responsibility of media agencies or context planning professionals to ensure consumer contact. Obviously, context planning thus has become popular and integral part of modern business. The old method of business will no longer work in the present scenario. As a response to the necessity of context planning, media agencies like Starcom Media Vest, Universal McCann successfully implemented the context planning (Hatcher). Today customer relationship marketing is entitled with media agencies to some extents. Organisations today explore the most cost effective and potential way to connect with the consumers. In

Religion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 9

Religion - Essay Example According the Durkheim, the Orthodox Church is more likely to stress on the importance of conserving old traditions, while the teachings of the Protestant used to emphasize freedom and autonomy as the greater priority. The Protestant Church separated from the Roman Catholics on Reformation, and tends to view change and an occasional deviation from traditions as a positive change (Huismans, & Schwartz, 1995). There are a few distinctive differences in the teachings of Roman Catholics, Orthodox and the Protestant Church, but they revolve mostly around the different values and belief that each of these sects prioritize (Huismans, & Schwartz, 1995). For example, as the Protestants view development and success over stagnancy. While Roman Catholics and Orthodox Church both give more importance to not letting go of the old traditions, through which humankind initially learned about and sustained Christianity. These facts may point out the blatant differences, which can be found for each, bu t meanwhile also show that each has its own value-based teachings, none of which can be objectively proved more correct than any other. The understanding that Orthodox Church, as the name suggests, promotes the adherence to traditional ceremonies and worship, while the Protestant Church encourages change, is correct. While these two sects operate on polar beliefs as far as the importance of conservatism is concerned, it is important to note that religious leaders preach the importance of some values while perhaps shunning the value of other beliefs. This shunning is not, perhaps done voluntarily, but does result in the matter of the teachings of Christianity turning from objective to subjective, as each sect is taught to emphasize a difference belief by their leaders. As Weber pointed out, â€Å"Calvinist Protestantism promoted and supported industrialization in western Europe by influencing believers to emphasize wealth, success, ambition, and

Discussion 7 international relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Discussion 7 international relations - Essay Example 47). Kant’s article thus has promoted a unique cosmopolitan approach to developing an international law that all individuals possess equal rights regardless of the country they belong to. His work put forward specific three articles about perpetual peace among nations, they are, a) republican-character of every states’ civil constitution, b) law of nations as being federation of free states, and c) world citizenship as conditions of universal (Russett, Starr and Kinsella, 2009). First section of Immanuel Kant’s writings emphasized that no peace-treaty will be valid if it is made with a secret reservation for material for a future war, an independently existing land shall not be acquired by another state for inheritance, standing armies shall gradually be abolished, a state’s debts shall not be contracted in connection with the external affairs of the state etc. The other sections from his writings suggested that each nation can demand of the others that th ey should enter along with them in to a constitution, similar to the civil one for the sake of security reasons. His perpetual peace theory denoted idea of international right which in turn presupposes the separate existence of many independent states (Kant, p. 368- 374).

Germny Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Germny - Essay Example e can be, it will never be truly accurate, and will never be accurate on an individual level – for instance, just because most Americans believe in god does not mean that you can assume anything at all about a particular American if you meet them on the street. So when trying to describe the characteristics and stereotypes of the German people, and of Germany in general, it is essential to keep in mind everything stated above, that these characteristics have a wide degree of accuracy and that they cannot be applied to an individual German person even if they are true of the population generally. There are several characteristics of the German people that are popular as stereotypes, some positive, some negative, though most have both positive and negative connotations to them. Generally the positive characteristics are the ones that tend to be more accurate and the negative ones tend to be less so, as a general rule. One of the most popular positive characteristics of the Germa n people is a love of accuracy and precision, and this stereotype has a good deal of evidence to back it up and is probably true, while Germany still has many negative stereotypes that are associated with World War II, including being somewhat war-mongering and racist, and these characteristics tend to be untrue. The first characteristic people often think of when they think of the German people is a love of efficiency and order. People believe that the German people are better than many others at producing things that require a great deal of accuracy and design, and believe that Germans are better than many other people in small-details accuracy. This belief finds its best representation through people’s perception of German engineering and design being of a higher quality than almost anyone else’s. This belief is fueled in part by the fact that many German companies tend to brand themselves this way. Car companies like BMW and Volkswagon, which are both German, tend to play

Contemporary Issues in Business (Individual Report) Essay

Contemporary Issues in Business (Individual Report) - Essay Example Over long periods of geological time, the earth’s climate has been constantly changing in response to the tilt and shape of the earth’s orbit as it moves around the sun, the strength and intensity of the sun coupled with the composition of the earth’s atmosphere, the basic shape and position of the continents. There has been strong evidence that some human activities such as the use of fossil fuels are responsible for the constant emission of harmful greenhouse gases that are now causing an increase in the earths temperate in addition to other changes in climate (Richter 2010). Greenhouse emissions are currently projected to increase significantly within the next few decades which will cause an increase in global temperatures and subsequently put to great risk the human society and natural environment worldwide (Pedersen and Nordic Council of Ministers 2000). Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect The temperature on the surface of the earth is largely determine d by the balance between the energy that is constantly re-radiated to space from the earth mostly in the form of infra-red radiation and the energy that comes from the sun which is seen to be in the form of visible radiation (sunlight). When the sunlight passes through the earth’s atmosphere, it has relatively very little warming effect but when it finally manages to come into contact with the earth’s surface, it warms it and the earth in turn warms the atmosphere by both convection and via emission of infra-red radiation which are absorbed by the greenhouse gases (R.I.C. Publications 2007). The greenhouse gases eventually return some of the infra-red radiation back to the earth’s surface which ends up further warming the earth’s surface. An analogy of this chain of events is often made with reference to greenhouses which generally allow sunshine to pass through their clear plastic or glass which in turns stop the heat that is inside the green house from escaping into the atmosphere and hence the use of the term â€Å"greenhouse effect† (R.I.C. Publications 2007). Fossil Fuels and the change in Climate System Fossil fuels are formed when the bodies of living organisms die and remain compressed and heated over extremely long periods of time to form natural gases, oil and coal. When burned, fossil fuels are seen to produce significant amounts of energy a factor which causes them to be considered as an extremely valuable energy source. However, the burning of these fossil fuels produces the emission of carbon dioxide, resulting in the introduction into the carbon cycle of carbon that would have otherwise still remained trapped in the earth’s geosphere (Downie, Brash and Vaughan 2009). It is currently estimated that the burning of fossil fuels is responsible for adding to the atmosphere an estimated 3.2 billion metric tons of carbon. Because the earth’s carbon cycle is unable to absorb all of this excess carbon bein g released into the atmospher