Category: Other Page 144 of 177

They were chiefly clerics who served at or had studied at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England, who protested the growing contradictions within the church through song, poetry and performance. Disaffected and not called to the religious life, they often presented such protests within a structured setting associated with carnival, such as the Feast of Fools, or church liturgy.[1] […]

The goliardic class is believed to have arisen from the need of younger sons to develop means of support. The medieval social convention of primogeniture meant that the eldest son inherited title and estate.[5] This practice of bestowing the rights of inheritance upon the eldest son left younger sons to seek other means by which to support themselves. Often, these younger sons went, or were sent, to the universities and monasteries of the day, where theology and preparation for clergy careers were a major focus.[5] Many felt no particular affinity for religious office,[5] and often could not secure an office even if they desired one because of an overabundance of those educated in theology.[6] Consequently, over-educated, under-motivated clerics often adopted not the life of an ordered monk, but one mainly intent on the pursuit of carnal pleasures.

[…] Expressing their lusty lifestyle, the goliards wrote about the physicality of love, in contrast to the chivalric focus of the troubadours.[10] They wrote drinking songs, and reveled in riotous living.[4] Their satirical poems directed at the church were inspired by their daily worlds, including mounting corruption in monasteries and escalating tensions among religious leaders.[11] As a result of their rebellious writings against the church, the goliards were eventually denied the privileges of the clergy.[4]  […]

The University of Paris complained:

‘Priests and clerks.. dance in the choir dressed as women… they sing wanton songs. They eat black pudding at the altar itself, while the celebrant is saying Mass. They play dice on the altar. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They run and leap throughout the church, without a blush of their own shame. Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby carriages and carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in infamous performances, with indecent gestures and with scurrilous and unchaste words.[14]’

Source: Goliard – Wikipedia

The sipapu symbolizes the portal through which their ancient ancestors first emerged to enter the present world.[1] Hopi mythology (and similar traditions in other Pueblo cultures such as the Zuni and Acoma) states that this is the hole from which the first peoples of this world entered.

Source: Sipapu – Wikipedia

In Hopi mythology, “Spider Grandmother” (Hopi Kokyangwuti)[2][3] also called “Gogyeng Sowuhti” among many other names can take the shape of an old, or timeless woman or the shape of a common spider in many Hopi stories. When she is in her spider shape, she lives underground in a hole that is like a Kiva. When she is called upon, she will help people in many ways, such as giving advice or providing medicinal cures. “Spider Grandmother” is seen as a leader, a wise individual who represents good things.[4]

Source: Spider Grandmother – Wikipedia

The history and geography of a fictional universe are well defined, and maps and timelines are often included in works set within them. Even new languages may be constructed. When subsequent works are written within the same universe, care is usually taken to ensure that established facts of the canon are not violated. Even if the fictional universe involves concepts such as elements of magic that don’t exist in the real world, these must adhere to a set of rules established by the author. […]

A fictional universe may even concern itself with more than one interconnected universe through fictional devices such as dreams, “time travel” or “parallel worlds”. Such a series of interconnected universes is often called a multiverse. Such multiverses have been featured prominently in science fiction since at least the mid-20th century.

Source: Fictional universe – Wikipedia

“Wayfinder,” Machef said. “Find the silver thread.” “The silver thread?” Benda repeated to himself. “The blue way leads not through here. Whatever it was the Lagoms fought near this place, the Zalthyrmians lingered and linger not still in this spot either.” […]

Benda continued to pull on this invisible thread, in his parallel world of awareness. And as he did so, he began to feel almost as though he were again a simple fisherman, pulling on a very long line, and knowing that on the other end, he must have caught something very, very big.

Source: The Silver Thread – Quatrian Folkways – Medium

Gondal is an imaginary world or paracosm created by Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë that is found in their juvenilia. Gondal is an island in the North Pacific, just north of the island Gaaldine. It included at least four kingdoms: Gondal, Angora, Exina and Alcona. The earliest surviving reference comes from a diary entry in 1834. None of the prose fiction now survives but poetry still exists, mostly in the form of a manuscript donated to the British Museum in 1933; as do diary entries and scraps of lists. The poems are characterised by war, romance and intrigue. The Gondal setting, along with the similar Angria setting created by the other Brontë siblings, has been described as an early form of speculative fiction.

Source: Gondal (fictional country) – Wikipedia

Tolkien’s legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien’s mythopoeic writing that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings, a high fantasy novel which is widely considered to be his magnum opus. Tolkien worked and re-worked the components of his legendarium throughout his adult life, a period of more than 50 years; the earliest drafts, published in The Book of Lost Tales (1983), date to 1916, with poems, paintings and nomenclature related to it going back to 1914. […]

Unlike “fictional universes” constructed for the purpose of writing and publishing popular fiction, Tolkien’s legendarium for a long period was a private project, concerned with questions of philology, cosmology, theology and mythology. It has been considered a “pure mythopoeia”.[…]

He called his collection of nascent stories The Book of Lost Tales.[15] This became the name for the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth, which include these early texts. The stories employ the narrative device of a mariner named Eriol (in later versions, an Anglo-Saxon named Ælfwine) who finds the island of Tol Eressëa, where the Elves live; and the Elves tell him their history.[16]

Source: Tolkien’s legendarium – Wikipedia

A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world. Paracosms are thought generally to originate in childhood and to have one or numerous creators. The creator of a paracosm has a complex and deeply felt relationship with this subjective universe, which may incorporate real-world or imaginary characters and conventions. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time, months or even years, as a sophisticated reality that can last into adulthood.[1]

Source: Paracosm – Wikipedia

Boxen is a fictional world that C. S. Lewis (“Jack”) and his brother W. H. Lewis (“Warren”) created as children. The world of Boxen was created when Jack’s stories about Animal-Land and Warnie’s stories about India were brought together. In Surprised by Joy, Jack explains that the union of Animal-Land and India took place “sometime in the late eighteenth century (their eighteenth century, not ours)”.[1]

Source: Boxen (C. S. Lewis) – Wikipedia

In each of the three previous worlds, humanity was destroyed by destructive practices and wars. In the most common version of the story the Spider Grandmother (Kookyangso’wuuti) caused a reed to grow into the sky, and it emerged in the Fourth World at the sipapu, a small tunnel or inter-dimensional passage. As the end of one world draws near the sipapu appears to lead the Hopi into the next phase of the world.[10]

Source: Fifth World (Native American mythology) – Wikipedia