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Michael Servetus

Michael Servetus (Miguel Serveto; Michel Servet; also known as Miguel Servet, Miguel de Villanueva, Revés, or Michel de Villeneuve; 29 September 1509 or 1511 – 27 October 1553) was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist. He was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in Christianismi Restitutio (1553). He was a polymath versed in many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology, as well as jurisprudence, translation, poetry, and the scholarly study of the Bible in its original languages.

He is renowned in the history of several of these fields, particularly medicine. His work on the circulation of blood and his observations on pulmonary circulation were particularly important. He participated in the Protestant Reformation, and later rejected the Trinity doctrine and mainstream Catholic Christology.

After being condemned by Catholic authorities in France, he fled to Calvinist Geneva where he was denounced by John Calvin himself and burned at the stake for heresy by order of the city's governing council.

Early life and education

For a long time, it was held that Servetus was probably born in 1511 in Villanueva de Sigena in the Kingdom of Aragon, present-day Spain. The day of 29 September has been conventionally proposed for his birth, due to the fact that 29 September is Saint Michael's day according to the Catholic calendar of saints, but there is no evidence supporting this date. Some sources give an earlier date based on Servetus' own occasional claim of having been born in 1509. However, in 2002 a paper published by Francisco Javier González Echeverría and María Teresa Ancín suggested that he was born in Tudela, Kingdom of Navarre. It has also been held that his true name was De Villanueva according to the letters of his French naturalization (Chamber des Comptes, Royal Chancellorship and Parlement of Grenoble) and the registry at the University of Paris.

The ancestors of his father came from the hamlet of Serveto, in the Aragonese Pyrenees. His father was a notary of Christian ancestors from the lower nobility (infanzón), who worked at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Sigena. It was long believed that Servetus had just two brothers: Juan, who was a Catholic parish priest, and Pedro, who was a notary. But it has been recently documented that Servetus actually had two more brothers (Antón and Francisco) and at least three sisters (Catalina, Jeronima, and Juana). Although Servetus declared during his trial in Geneva that his parents were "Christians of ancient race", and that he never had any communication with Jews, his maternal line actually descended from the Zaportas (or Çaportas), a wealthy and socially relevant family from the Barbastro and Monzón areas in Aragon. This was demonstrated by a notarial protocol published in 1999.

Servetus' family used a nickname, "Revés", according to an old tradition in rural Spain of using alternate names for families across generations. The origin of the Revés nickname may have been that a member of a (probably distinguished) family living in Villanueva with the surname Revés established blood ties with the Servet family, thus uniting both family names for the next generations.

Education
Servetus attended the Grammar Studium in Sariñena, Aragón, near Villanueva de Sijena, under master Domingo Manobel until 1520. From course 1520/1521 to 1522/1523, Michael Servetus was a student of the Liberal Arts in the primitive University of Zaragoza, a Studium Generale of Arts. The Studium was ruled by the Archbishop of Saragossa, the Rector, the High Master ("Maestro Mayor"), and four "Masters of Arts", which resembled Art professors in the Arts Faculties of other primitive universities. Servetus studied under High Master Gaspar Lax, and masters Exerich, Ansias, and Miranda. During those years this education center had been significantly influenced by Erasmus's ideas. Ansias and Miranda died soon, and two new professors were appointed: Juan Lorenzo Carnicer and Villalpando. In 1523 he got his BA and next year his MA. From course 1525/1526 ahead, Servetus became one of the four Masters of Arts in the Studium, and for unknown reasons, he traveled to Salamanca in February 1527. But on 28 March 1527, also for unknown reasons, master Michael Servetus had a brawl with High Master (and uncle) Gaspard Lax, and this probably was the cause of his expulsion from the Studium, and his exile from Spain for the Studium of Toulouse, trying to avoid the strong influence of Gaspar Lax in any Spanish Studium Generale.

Near 1527 Servetus attended the University of Toulouse where he studied law. Servetus could have had access to forbidden religious books, some of them maybe Protestant, while he was studying in this city.

Career
In 1530 Servetus joined the retinue of Emperor Charles V as page or secretary to the emperor's confessor, Juan de Quintana. Servetus travelled through Italy and Germany and attended Charles' coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in Bologna. He was outraged by the pomp and luxury displayed by the Pope and his retinue, and so decided to follow the path of reformation. It is not known when Servetus left the imperial entourage, but in October 1530 he visited Johannes Oecolampadius in Basel, staying there for about ten months, probably supporting himself as a proofreader for a local printer. By this time, he was already spreading his theological beliefs. In May 1531 he met Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Fabricius Capito in Strasbourg.

Two months later, in July 1531, Servetus published De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Errors of the Trinity). The next year he published the work Dialogorum de Trinitate (Dialogues on the Trinity) and the supplementary work De Iustitia Regni Christi (On the Justice of Christ's Reign) in the same volume. After the persecution of the Inquisition, Servetus assumed the name "Michel de Villeneuve" while he was staying in France. He studied at the Collège de Calvi in Paris in 1533. Servetus also published the first French edition of Ptolemy's Geography. He dedicated his first edition of Ptolemy and his edition of the Bible to his patron Hugues de la Porte. While in Lyon, Symphorien Champier, a medical humanist, had been his patron. Servetus wrote a pharmacological treatise in defence of Champier against Leonhart Fuchs In Leonardum Fucsium Apologia (Apology against Leonard Fuchs). Working also as a proofreader, he published several more books, which dealt with medicine and pharmacology (such as his Syruporum universia ratio (Complete Explanation of the Syrups)), for which he gained fame.

After an interval, Servetus returned to Paris to study medicine in 1536. In Paris, his teachers included Jacobus Sylvius, Jean Fernel, and Johann Winter von Andernach, who hailed him with Andrea Vesalius as his most able assistant in dissections. During these years, he wrote his Manuscript of the Complutense, an unpublished compendium of his medical ideas. Servetus taught mathematics and astrology while he studied medicine. He predicted an occultation of Mars by the Moon, which along with his teaching, generated much envy among the medicine teachers. His teaching classes were suspended by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Jean Tagault, and Servetus wrote his Apologetic Discourse of Michel de Villeneuve in Favour of Astrology and against a Certain Physician against him. Tagault later argued for the death penalty in the judgment of the University of Paris against Servetus, who was accused of teaching De Divinatione by Cicero. Finally, the sentence was reduced to the withdrawal of this edition. As a result of the risks and difficulties of studying medicine at Paris, Servetus decided to go to Montpellier to finish his medical studies, maybe thanks to his teacher Sylvius who did exactly the same as a student. There Servetus became a Doctor of Medicine in 1539. After that he lived at Charlieu. A jealous physician ambushed and tried to kill Servetus, but Servetus defended himself and injured one of the attackers in a sword fight. He was in prison for several days because of this incident.

Working at Vienne
After his studies in medicine, Servetus started a medical practice. He became the personal physician to Pierre Palmier, Archbishop of Vienne and was the physician to Guy de Maugiron, the lieutenant governor of Dauphiné. Thanks to the printer Jean Frellon II, acquaintance of John Calvin and friend of Michel, Servetus and Calvin began to correspond. Calvin used the pseudonym "Charles d'Espeville". Servetus also became a French citizen, using his "De Villeneuve" persona, by the Royal Process (1548–1549) of French Naturalization, issued by Henri II of France.

In 1553 Michael Servetus published another religious work with further anti-trinitarian views entitled Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity), a work that sharply rejected the idea of predestination as the idea that God condemned souls to Hell regardless of worth or merit. God, insisted Servetus, condemns no one who does not condemn himself through thought, word, or deed. This work also includes the first published description of the pulmonary circulation in Europe, though it's thought to be based on work by 13th century Syrian polymath ibn al-Nafis.

Servetus had sent an early version of his book to Calvin. To Calvin, who had published his summary of Christian doctrine Institutio Christianae Religionis (Institutes of the Christian Religion) in 1536, Servetus' latest book was an attack on historical Nicene Christian doctrine and a misinterpretation of the biblical canon. Calvin sent a copy of his own book as his reply. Servetus promptly returned it, thoroughly annotated with critical observations. Calvin wrote to Servetus, "I neither hate you nor despise you; nor do I wish to persecute you; but I would be as hard as iron when I behold you insulting sound doctrine with so great audacity". In time, their correspondence grew more heated until Calvin ended it. Servetus sent Calvin several more letters, to which Calvin took offense. Thus, Calvin's frustrations with Servetus seem to have been based mainly on Servetus's criticisms of Calvinist doctrine, but also on his tone, which Calvin considered inappropriate. Calvin revealed these frustrations with Servetus when writing to his friend William Farel on 13 February 1546:

Servetus has just sent me a long volume of his ravings. If I consent he will come here, but I will not give my word; for if he comes here, if my authority is worth anything, I will never permit him to depart alive (Si venerit, modo valeat mea autoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar).

Imprisonment and execution
On 16 February 1553, Michael Servetus while in Vienne, France, was denounced as a heretic by Guillaume de Trie (a rich merchant who had taken refuge in Geneva and who was a good friend of Calvin) in a letter sent to a cousin, Antoine Arneys, who was living in Lyon. On behalf of the French inquisitor Matthieu Ory, Michael Servetus and Balthasard Arnollet, the printer of Christianismi Restitutio, were questioned, but they denied all charges and were released for lack of evidence. Ory asked Arneys to write back to De Trie demanding proof. On 26 March 1553, the letters sent by Michael to Calvin and some manuscript pages of Christianismi Restitutio were forwarded to Lyon by De Trie. On 4 April 1553, Servetus was arrested by Roman Catholic authorities and imprisoned in Vienne. He escaped from prison three days later. On 17 June, he was convicted of heresy, "thanks to the 17 letters sent by John Calvin, preacher in Geneva" and sentenced to be burned with his books. In his absence, he and his books were burned in effigy (blank paper for the books).

Meaning to flee to Italy, Servetus inexplicably stopped in Geneva, where Calvin and his Reformers had denounced him. On 13 August, he attended a sermon by Calvin at Geneva. He was arrested after the service and again imprisoned, and all his property was confiscated. Servetus claimed during this proceeding that he had been arrested at an inn at Geneva. French inquisitors asked that he be extradited to them for execution, but Calvin wanted to show that he was as firm in defense of Christian orthodoxy as his opponents, and determined "to push the condemnation of Servetus with all the means at his command". Calvin's health was one possible reason why he did not personally appear against Servetus. The laws regulating criminal actions in Geneva required that in certain grave cases the complainant himself should be incarcerated pending the trial. Calvin's health, and his importance in the administration of the state, rendered a prolonged absence from the public life of Geneva impracticable. Therefore Nicholas de la Fontaine had the more active role in Servetus's prosecution and the listing of the points that condemned him. (Nicholas de la Fontaine was a refugee in Geneva and entered the service of Calvin, by whom he was employed as secretary. ) Nevertheless, Calvin is regarded as the author of the prosecution.

At his trial, Servetus was condemned on two counts for spreading and preaching Nontrinitarianism, specifically, Modalistic Monarchianism (or Sabellianism) and anti-paedobaptism (anti-infant baptism). Of paedobaptism Servetus had said, "It is an invention of the devil, an infernal falsity for the destruction of all Christianity." In the case, the procureur général (chief public prosecutor) added some curious-sounding accusations in the form of inquiries – the most odd-sounding perhaps being, "whether he has married, and if he answers that he has not, he shall be asked why, in consideration of his age, he could refrain so long from marriage." To this oblique imputation about his sexuality, Servetus replied that rupture (inguinal hernia) had long since made him incapable of that particular sin. Another question was "whether he did not know that his doctrine was pernicious, considering that he favours Jews and Turks, by making excuses for them, and if he has not studied the Koran in order to disprove and controvert the doctrine and religion that the Christian churches hold, together with other profane books, from which people ought to abstain in matters of religion, according to the doctrine of St. Paul."

Calvin believed that Servetus deserved death because of what Calvin termed "execrable blasphemies". Calvin expressed these sentiments in a letter to Farel, written about a week after Servetus' arrest, in which he also mentioned an exchange with Servetus. Calvin wrote:

"...after he [Servetus] had been recognized, I thought he should be detained. My friend Nicolas summoned him on a capital charge, offering himself as a security according to the lex talionis. On the following day he adduced against him forty written charges. He at first sought to evade them. Accordingly we were summoned. He impudently reviled me, just as if he regarded me as obnoxious to him. I answered him as he deserved... of the man’s effrontery I will say nothing; but such was his madness that he did not hesitate to say that devils possessed divinity; yea, that many gods were in individual devils, inasmuch as a deity had been substantially communicated to those equally with wood and stone. I hope that sentence of death will at least be passed on him; but I desired that the severity of the punishment be mitigated."

As Servetus was not a citizen of Geneva, and legally could at worst be banished, the government in an attempt to find some plausible excuse to disregard this legal reality had consulted the Swiss Reformed cantons of Zürich, Bern, Basel and Schaffhausen. They universally favoured his condemnation and the suppression of his doctrine, but without saying how either should be accomplished. Martin Luther had also condemned his writings in strong terms. Servetus and Philip Melanchthon had strongly hostile views of each other. The party called the "Libertines", who were generally opposed to anything and everything that Calvin supported, were in this case strongly in favour of the execution of Servetus at the stake, while Calvin urged that he be beheaded. In fact, the council that condemned Servetus was presided over by Ami Perrin (a Libertine) who ultimately on 24 October sentenced Servetus to death by burning for denying the Trinity and infant baptism. Calvin and other ministers asked that he be beheaded instead of burned, knowing that burning at the stake was the only legal recourse. This plea was refused, and on 27 October, Servetus was burnt alive atop a pyre of his own books at the Plateau of Champel at the edge of Geneva. Historians record his last words as: "Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have mercy on me."

Legacy
Sebastian Castellio and countless others denounced this execution and became harsh critics of Calvin because of the whole affair.

Some other anti-trinitarian thinkers began to be more cautious in expressing their views: Martin Cellarius, Lelio Sozzini and others either ceased writing or wrote only in private. The fact that Servetus was dead meant that his writings could be distributed more widely, though others such as Giorgio Biandrata developed them in their own names.

The writings of Servetus influenced the beginnings of the Unitarian movement in Poland and Transylvania. Peter Gonesius's advocacy of Servetus' views led to the separation of the Polish brethren from the Calvinist Reformed Church in Poland, and laid the foundations for the Socinian movement which fostered the early Unitarians in England like John Biddle.

Theology
In his first two books (De trinitatis erroribus, and Dialogues on the Trinity plus the supplementary De Iustitia Regni Christi) Servetus rejected the classical conception of the Trinity, stating that it was not based on the Bible. He argued that it arose from teachings of Greek philosophers, and he advocated a return to the simplicity of the Gospels and the teachings of the early Church Fathers that he believed predated the development of Nicene trinitarianism. Servetus hoped that the dismissal of the trinitarian dogma would make Christianity more appealing to believers in Judaism and Islam, which had preserved the unity of God in their teachings. According to Servetus, trinitarians had turned Christianity into a form of "tritheism", or belief in three gods. Servetus affirmed that the divine Logos, the manifestation of God and not a separate divine Person, was incarnated in a human being, Jesus, when God's spirit came into the womb of the Virgin Mary. Only from the moment of conception was the Son actually generated. Therefore, although the Logos from which He was formed was eternal, the Son was not Himself eternal. For this reason, Servetus always rejected calling Christ the "eternal Son of God" but rather called him "the Son of the eternal God."

In describing Servetus' view of the Logos, Andrew Dibb explained: "In 'Genesis' God reveals himself as the creator. In 'John' he reveals that he created by means of the Word, or Logos. Finally, also in 'John', he shows that this Logos became flesh and 'dwelt among us'. Creation took place by the spoken word, for God said "Let there be ..." The spoken word of Genesis, the Logos of John, and the Christ, are all one and the same."

In his "Treatise Concerning the Divine Trinity" Servetus taught that the Logos was the reflection of Christ, and "That reflection of Christ was 'the Word with God" that consisted of God Himself, shining brightly in heaven, "and it was God Himself" and that "the Word was the very essence of God or the manifestation of God's essence, and there was in God no other substance or hypostasis than His Word, in a bright cloud where God then seemed to subsist. And in that very spot the face and personality of Christ shone bright."

Unitarian scholar Earl Morse Wilbur states: "Servetus' Errors of the Trinity is hardly heretical in intent, rather is suffused with passionate earnestness, warm piety, an ardent reverence for Scripture, and a love for Christ so mystical and overpowering that [he] can hardly find words to express it ... Servetus asserted that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were dispositions of God, and not separate and distinct beings." Wilbur promotes the idea that Servetus was a modalist.

Servetus states his view clearly in the preamble to Restoration of Christianity (1553): "There is nothing greater, reader, than to recognize that God has been manifested as substance, and that His divine nature has been truly communicated. We shall clearly apprehend the manifestation of God through the Word and his communication through the Spirit, both of them substantially in Christ alone."

This theology, though original in some respects, has often been compared to Adoptionism, Arianism, and Sabellianism, all of which Trinitarians rejected in favour of the belief that God exists eternally in three distinct persons. Nevertheless, Servetus rejected these theologies in his books: Adoptionism, because it denied Jesus's divinity; Arianism, because it multiplied the hypostases and established a rank; and Sabellianism, because it seemingly confused the Father with the Son, though Servetus himself does appear to have denied or diminished the distinctions between the Persons of the Godhead, rejecting the Trinitarian understanding of One God in Three Persons.

The incomprehensible God is known through Christ, by faith, rather than by philosophical speculations. He manifests God to us, being the expression of His very being, and through him alone, God can be known. The scriptures reveal Him to those who have faith; and thus we come to know the Holy Spirit as the Divine impulse within us.

Under severe pressure from Catholics and Protestants alike, Servetus clarified this explanation in his second book, Dialogues (1532), to show the Logos coterminous with Christ. He was nevertheless accused of heresy because of his insistence on denying the dogma of the Trinity and the distinctions between the three divine Persons in one God.

Theology
Because of his rejection of the Trinity and eventual execution by burning for heresy, Unitarians often regard Servetus as the first (modern) Unitarian martyr—though he was a Unitarian in neither the 17th-century sense of the term nor the modern sense. Sharply critical though he was of the orthodox formulation of the trinity, Servetus is better described as a highly unorthodox trinitarian.

Aspects of his thinking—his critique of existing trinitarian theology, his devaluation of the doctrine of original sin, and his fresh examination of biblical proof-texts—did influence those who later inspired or founded unitarian churches in Poland and Transylvania.

Other non-trinitarian groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostalism, also claim Servetus held similar non-trinitarian views as theirs. Oneness Pentecostalism particularly identifies with Servetus' teaching on the divinity of Jesus Christ and his insistence on the oneness of God, rather than a Trinity of three distinct persons: "And because His Spirit was wholly God He is called God, just as from His flesh He is called man."

Oneness Pentecostal Scholar David K. Bernard has written the following in regard to the theology of Michael Servetus: "... some historians consider him to be a motivating force for the development of Unitarianism. However, he definitely was not Unitarian, for he acknowledged Jesus as God."

Swedenborg wrote a systematic theology that had many similarities to the theology of Servetus.

Freedom of conscience
Widespread aversion to Servetus's death has been taken as signaling the birth in Europe of the idea of religious tolerance, a principle now more important to modern Unitarian Universalists than antitrinitarianism. The Spanish scholar on Servetus' work, Ángel Alcalá, identified the radical search for truth and the right for freedom of conscience as Servetus' main legacies, rather than his theology. The Polish-American scholar, Marian Hillar, has studied the evolution of freedom of conscience, from Servetus and the Polish Socinians, to John Locke and to Thomas Jefferson and the American Declaration of Independence. According to Hillar: "Historically speaking, Servetus died so that freedom of conscience could become a civil right in modern society."

Science
Servetus was the first European to describe the function of pulmonary circulation although his achievement was not widely recognized at the time, for a few reasons. One was that the description appeared in a theological treatise, Christianismi Restitutio, not in a book on medicine. However, the sections in which he refers to anatomy and medicines demonstrate an amazing understanding of the body and treatments. Most copies of the book were burned shortly after its publication in 1553 because of persecution of Servetus by religious authorities. Three copies survived, but these remained hidden for decades. In passage V, Servetus recounts his discovery that the blood of the pulmonary circulation flows from the heart to the lungs (rather than air in the lungs flowing to the heart as had been thought). His discovery was based on the colour of the blood, the size and location of the different ventricles, and the fact that the pulmonary vein was extremely large, which suggested that it performed intensive and transcendent exchange. However, Servetus does not only deal with cardiology. In the same passage, from page 169 to 178, he also refers to the brain, the cerebellum, the meninges, the nerves, the eye, the tympanum, the rete mirabile, etc., demonstrating a great knowledge of anatomy. In some other sections of this work he also talks of medical products.

Servetus also contributed enormously to medicine with other published works specifically related to the field, such as his Complete Explanation of Syrups and his study on syphilis in his Apology against Leonhart Fuchs, among others.

References in literature

 * Austrian author Stefan Zweig features Servetus in The Right to Heresy: Castellio against Calvin, 1936 (original title Castellio gegen Calvin oder Ein Gewissen gegen die Gewalt)
 * Canadian dramatist Robert Lalonde wrote Vesalius and Servetus, a 2008 play on Servetus.
 * Roland Herbert Bainton: Michael Servet. 1511–1553. Mohn, Gütersloh 1960
 * Rosemarie Schuder: Serveto vor Pilatus. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1982
 * Antonio Orejudo: Feuertäufer. Knaus, München 2005, ISBN 3-8135-0266-X (Roman, Spanish original title: Reconstrucción.)
 * Vincent Schmidt: Michel Servet. Du bûcher à la liberté de conscience, Les Éditions de Paris, Collection Protestante, Paris 2009 ISBN 978-2-84621-118-5
 * Albert J. Welti: Servet in Genf. Genf, 1931
 * Wilhelm Knappich: Geschichte der Astrologie. Veröffentlicht von Vittorio Klostermann, 1998, ISBN 3-465-02984-4, ISBN 978-3-465-02984-7
 * Friedrich Trechsel: Michael Servet und seine Vorgänger. Nach Quellen und Urkunden geschichtlich Dargestellt. Universitätsbuchhandlung Karl Winter, Heidelberg 1839 (Reprint durch: Nabu Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-142-32980-8)
 * Hans-Jürgen Goertz: Religiöse Bewegungen in der Frühen Neuzeit Oldenbourg, München 1992, ISBN 3-486-55759-9
 * Henri Tollin: Die Entdeckung des Blutkreislaufs durch Michael Servet, 1511–1553, Nabu Public Domain Reprints
 * Henri Tollin: Charakterbild Michael Servet´s, Nabu Public Domain Reprints
 * Henri Tollin: Das Lehrsystem Michael Servet´s Volume 1, Nabu Public Domain Reprints
 * Henri Tollin: Das Lehrsystem Michael Servet´s Volume 2, Nabu Public Domain Reprints
 * Henri Tollin: Michaelis Villanovani (Serveti) in quendam medicum apologetica disceptatio pro astrologia: Nach dem einzig vorhandenen echten Pariser Exemplare, mit einer Einleitung und Anmerkungen. Mecklenburg −1880
 * Carlos Gilly: Miguel Servet in Basel; Alfonsus Lyncurius und Pseudo-Servet. In: Ders.: Spanien und der Basler Buchdruck bis 1600. Helbing & Lichtenhahhn, Basel und Frankfurt a.M. 1985, pp. 277–298; 298–326. (PDF; 64,1 MiB )
 * M. Hillar: "Poland's Contribution to the Reformation: Socinians/Polish Brethren and Their Ideas on the Religious Freedom," The Polish Review, Vol. XXXVIII, No.4, pp. 447–468, 1993.
 * M. Hillar, "From the Polish Socinians to the American Constitution," in A Journal from the Radical Reformation. A Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 22–57, 1994.
 * José Luis Corral: El médico hereje, Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, S.A., 2013 ISBN 978-84-08-11990-6. A novel (in Spanish) narrating the publication of Christianismi Restitutio, Servetus' trial by the Inquisition of Vienne, his escape to Geneva, and his disputes with John Calvin and subsequent burning at the stake by the Calvinists.

Geneva

In Geneva, remembering Servetus was still a controversial issue 350 years after his execution. In 1903, supporters of Servetus formed a committee to erect a monument in his honour. The group was led by a French Senator, Auguste Dide, the author of a book on heretics and revolutionaries which was published in 1887. The committee commissioned a local sculptor, Clotilde Roch, to execute a statue showing a suffering Servetus. The work was three years in the making and was finished in 1907. However, by then, supporters of Calvin in Geneva, having heard about the project, had already erected a simple stele in memory of Servetus in 1903, the main text of which served more as an apologetic for Calvin: "Duteous and grateful followers of Calvin our great Reformer, yet condemning an error which was that of his age, and strongly attached to liberty of conscience according to the true principles of his Reformation and gospel, we have erected this expiatory monument. Oct. 27, 1903" About the same time, a short street close by the stele was named after him. The city council then rejected the request of the committee to erect the completed statue, on the grounds that there was already a monument to Servetus. The committee then offered the statue to the neighbouring French town of Annemasse, which in 1908 placed it in front of the city hall, with the following inscriptions: "'The arrest of Servetus in Geneva, where he did neither publish nor dogmatize, hence he was not subject to its laws, has to be considered as a barbaric act and an insult to the Right of Nations'. Voltaire" "I beg you, shorten please these deliberations. It is clear that Calvin for his pleasure wishes to make me rot in this prison. The lice eat me alive. My clothes are torn and I have nothing for a change, nor shirt, only a worn out vest". Servetus, 1553 In 1942, the Vichy Government took down the statue, as it was a celebration of freedom of conscience, and melted it. In 1960, having found the original molds, Annemasse had it recast and returned the statue to its previous place.

Finally, on 3 October 2011, Geneva erected a copy of the statue which it had rejected over 100 years before. It was cast in Aragon from the molds of Clotilde Roch's original statue. Rémy Pagani, former mayor of Geneva, inaugurated the statue. He previously had described Servetus as "the dissident of dissidence." Representatives from the Roman Catholic Church in Geneva and the Director of Geneva's International Museum of the Reformation attended the ceremony. A Geneva newspaper noted the absence of officials from the National Protestant Church of Geneva, the church of John Calvin.

Aragon
In 1984, the Zaragoza public hospital changed its name from José Antonio to Miguel Servet. Since 1999, this hospital has been known as the Hospital Universitario Miguel Servet, in recognition of its association with Servetus' own University of Zaragoza

Works
Only the dates of the first editions are included.

 * 1531 On the Errors of the Trinity. De Trinitatis Erroribus. Haguenau printed by Hans Setzer. Without imprint mark or mark of printer, nor the city in which it was printed. Signed as Michael Servete alias Revés, from Aragon, Spanish. Written in Latin, it also includes words in Greek and in Hebrew in the body of the text whenever he wanted to stress the original meaning of a word from Scripture.
 * 1532 Dialogues on the Trinity. Dialogorum de Trinitate. Haguenau, printed by Hans Setzer. Without imprint mark or mark of printer, nor the city where it was printed. Signed as Michael Serveto alias Revés, from Aragon, Spanish.
 * 1535 Geography of Claudius Ptolemy. Claudii Ptolemaeii Alexandrinii Geographicae. Lyon, Trechsel. Signed as Michel de Villeneuve. Servetus dedicated this work to Hugues de la Porte. The second edition was dedicated to Pierre Palmier. Michel de Villeneuve states that the basis of his edition comes from the work of Bilibald Pirkheimer, who translated this work from Greek to Latin, but Michel also affirms that he also compared it to the primitive Greek texts. The 19th-century expert in Servetus, Henri Tollin (1833–1902), considered him to be "the father of comparative geography" due to the extension of his notes and commentaries.
 * 1536 The Apology against Leonard Fuchs. In Leonardum Fucsium Apologia. Lyon, printed by Gilles Hugetan, with Parisian prologue. Signed as Michel de Villeneuve. The physician Leonhart Fuchs and a friend of Michael Servetus, Symphorien Champier, got involved in an argument via written works, on their different Lutheran and Catholic beliefs. Servetus defends his friend in the first parts of the work. In the second part he talks of a medical plant and its properties. In the last part he writes on different topics, such as the defense of a pupil attacked by a teacher, and the origin of syphilis.
 * 1537 Complete Explanation of the Syrups. Syruporum universia ratio. Paris, printed by Simon de Colines. Signed as Michael de Villeneuve. This work consists of a prologue "The Use of Syrups", and 5 chapters: I "What the concoction is and why it is unique and not multiple", II "What the things that must be known are", III "That the concoction is always..", IV "Exposition of the aphorisms of Hippocrates" and V "On the composition of syrups". Michel de Villeneuve refers to experiences of using the treatments, and to pharmaceutical treatises and terms more deeply described in his later pharmacopeia Enquiridion or Dispensarium.  Michel mentions two of his teachers, Sylvius and Andernach, but above all, Galen. This work had a strong impact in those times.
 * 1538 Apologetic discourse of Michel de Villeneuve in favour of Astrology and against a certain physician. Michaelis Villanovani in quedam medicum apologetica disceptatio pro Astrologia. Paris, unknown printer. Servetus denounces Jean Tagault, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, for attacking astrology, while many great thinkers and physicians praised it. He lists reasonings of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen, how the stars are related to some aspects of a patient's health, and how a good physician can predict effects by them: the effect of the moon and sun on the sea, the winds and rains, the period of women, the speed of the decomposition of the corpses of beasts, etc.
 * 1542 Holy Bible according to the translation of Santes Pagnino. Biblia sacra ex Santes Pagnini tralation, hebraist. Lyon, edited by Delaporte and printed by Trechsel. The name Michel de Villeneuve appears in the prologue, the last time this name would appear in any of his works.
 * 1542 Biblia sacra ex postremis doctorum (octavo).   Vienne in Dauphiné, edited by Delaporte and printed by Trechsel. Anonymous.
 * 1545 Holy Bible with commentaries. Biblia Sacra cum Glossis. Lyon, printed by Trechsel and Vincent. Called "Ghost Bible" by scholars who denied its existence. There is an anonymous work from this year that was edited in accordance with the contract that Miguel de Villeneuve made with the Company of Booksellers in 1540. The work consists of 7 volumes (6 volumes and an index) illustrated by Hans Holbein. This research was carried out by the scholar Julien Baudrier in the sixties. Recently scholar González Echeverría has graphically proved the existence of this work, and demonstrating that contrary to what experts Barón and Hillard thought, this work is also anonymous.
 * "Manuscript of Paris" (c. 1546). This document is      a draft of the Christianismi Restitutio. Written in Latin, it includes a few quotes in Greek and Hebrew. This work has paleographically the same handwriting as the "Manuscript of the Complutense".
 * 1553 The Restoration of Christianity. Cristianismi Restitutio. Vienne, printed by Baltasar Arnoullet. Without imprint mark or mark of printer, nor the city in which it was printed. Signed as M.S.V. at the colophon though "Servetus" name is mentioned inside, in a fictional dialog. Servetus uses Biblical quotes in Greek and in Hebrew on its cover and in the body of the text whenever he wanted to stress the original meaning of a word from Scripture.

Servetus's anonymous editions
In 1553, Lyonese printer Jean Frellon confessed to the French Inquisition that Michael Servetus had been working at his print shop, and had translated for him, among other works, several Latin grammar treatises to Spanish, and a "somme espagnole". New studies reveal Servetus as the author of an additional set of anonymous editions of grammatical, medical and Biblical works – exactly like his Biblia cum glossis from 1545 – which came from that print shop. These works were not completely original, but enriched and commented editions of previous works by other authors, much like what Servetus had done with his Geography of Ptolemy (1535). These works were anonymous due to four reasons: (the main one) the strong penalty Servetus got from the University of Paris, through its Medicine, Law and Theology Faculties; the fact that these works had references to authors who were forbidden in the Spanish Empire, and opposed by the Sorbonne Faculty of Theology, such as Erasmus and Robert Estienne; the fact that some other authors mentioned by these works, such as Mathurin Cordier and Robert Estienne, were at the same time very close to John Calvin; the prohibition of any Biblical translation into any common language, pushed by the Spanish Empire. The main works which Servetus edited at Jean Frellon’s print shop were:

 * 1543 Disticha de moribus nomine Catonis, Lyon, printed by Jean and François Frellon. One of the several Latin grammar treatises to Spanish, originally authored by Erasmus and Mathurin Cordier.
 * 1543 Retratos o tablas de las Historias del Testamento Viejo, Lyon, printed by Jean and François Frellon. The Spanish "sommes" or summaries of specific chapters from the Old Testament. Originally printed in 1538 at Lyon by Melchior & Gaspard Trechsel, with woodcuts by Hans Holbein (Icones). There had been also a French edition in 1539. In this Spanish edition Servetus included a poem for each of the 92 woodcuts.
 * 1543 Dioscorides, Lyon, printed by Jean and François Frellon. This work was a De Materia Medica, originally authored by Pedanius Dioscorides, and edited by the eminent Dr. Jean Ruel from Paris. Servetus added 20 long commentaries and 277 marginalia.  There is also a different edition (or "homage edition") of this Dioscorides which was published in 1554, a year after Servetus’s execution. In this 1554 edition printers B. Arnoullet, Frellon, Vincent and G. Rouillé included some of Servetus' comments from the 1543 Dioscorides, and added signed comments by Andrea Mattioli. In addition, there seems to be an extensive manuscript by Servetus related to this Dioscorides of 1543: a copy of a 1537 Dioscorides published by Dionisus Corronius, which Servetus used as a workbook for developing his medical ideas while he was a medical student in Paris and Montpelier. The copy is kept at the Complutesian University, in Madrid.
 * 1543 Enchiridion. Dispensarium vulgo vocant, Lyon, printed by Jean and François Frellon. A pharmacological formulas handbook. Its previous edition had been completed by Thibault Lespleigney & François Chappuis. Servetus added 224 new formulas, credited 21 of them to his teacher prof. Sylvius, and also revealed some personal anecdotes regarding this professor. This is the twin work of 1543 Dioscorides, which formed a set for simples & compounds handbook.
 * 1549 De octo orationis partium constructione, Lyon, printed by Jean Frellon. One of the Latin grammar treatises to Spanish, previously edited by Colet, Lily, Erasmus, and Junien Ranvier – Robert Estienne’s print corrector.
 * 1548–1550 A Giuntina edition of Galen’s Opera Omnia, Lyon, printed by Jean Frellon. A massive philological revision of Galen's works, in 6 volumes. Its first edition had been published by printer Giunta in Venice.
 * 1551 Biblia Sacrosancta veteris et Novi Testamenti, Lyon, printed by Jean Frellon. In this Bible edition, Servetus included an expanded version of his own commentaries from the 1542 Holy Bible according to the translation of Santes Pagnino.

Historiography

 * Hughes, Peter. "The Present State of Servetus Studies, Eighty Years Later." Journal of Unitarian Universalist History (2010/2011), Vol. 34, pp 47–70.

title: Michael Servetus


text:
Fonzy

Fonzy is a 2013 French comedy film about a fish deliveryman in Paris becomes involved in a legal battle with his sperm donation children. The film is a remake of the Quebecois film Starbuck (2011).

Plot
Twenty years ago, Diego Costa, under the pseudonym "Fonzy", repeatedly donated sperm to the sperm bank. Today, at 42, he is a deliveryman in a family-owned fishmonger and leads a teenage irresponsible and blundering life. While his wife Elsa learns that she is pregnant, his past resurfaces. Diego discovers he is the father of 533 children, 142 of them want to know who is Fonzy.

Cast

 * José Garcia as Diego
 * Audrey Fleurot as Elsa
 * Lucien Jean-Baptiste as Quentin
 * Gérard Hernandez as Ramon
 * Arnaud Tsamere as Maître Chasseigne
 * Alice Belaïdi as Sybille
 * François Civil as Hugo
 * Alison Wheeler as Alix
 * Pablo Pauly as Pablo

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Fonzy


text:
Para table tennis

Para table tennis is a parasports which follows the rules set by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). The usual table tennis rules are in effect with slight modifications for wheelchair athletes. Athletes from disability groups can take part. Athletes receive classifications between 1 and 11. Classes 1–5 are for those in wheelchairs and classes 6–10 for those who have disabilities that allow them to play standing. Within those groups, the higher classification means the more function the athlete has. Class 11 is defined for players with an intellectual disability.

Classification
The roles of classification are to determine eligibility to compete for athletes with disability and to group athletes equitably for competition purposes. Athletes are grouped by reference to functional ability, resulting from their impairment.

Sitting classes
No sitting balance with severe reduction of function in the playing arm. No sitting balance with reduction of function in the playing arm. No sitting balance, although the upper part of the trunk may show activity. Normal arms, although some slight motor losses can be found in the playing hand without significant effect on table tennis skills. The non-playing arm keeps the trunk in position. Existing sitting balance although not optimal because of non-existing anchorage (stabilisation) of the pelvis. Normal function of trunk muscles.
 * Class 1:
 * Class 2:
 * Class 3:
 * Class 4:
 * Class 5:

Standing classes
Severe impairments of legs and arms. Very severe impairments of legs (poor static and dynamic balance), or severe to moderate impairments of playing arm, or combination of arms and legs impairments less severe than in class 6. Moderate impairments of the legs, or moderate impairments of playing arm (considering that elbow and shoulder control is very important), or moderate cerebral palsy, hemiplegia or diplegia with good playing arm. Mild impairments of the leg(s), or mild impairments of playing arm, or severe impairments of non-playing arm, or mild cerebral palsy with hemiparesis or monoplegia. Very mild impairments in legs, or very mild impairment of playing arm, or severe to moderate impairment of non-playing arm, or moderate impairment of the trunk. For players with an intellectual disability.
 * Class 6:
 * Class 7:
 * Class 8:
 * Class 9:
 * Class 10:
 * Class 11:

Laws of table tennis in wheelchair
There are no exceptions to the laws of table tennis for standing players with a disability. All players play according to the laws and regulations of the ITTF. The umpire may relax the requirements for a correct service if the compliance is prevented by physical disability.

Service
If the receiver is in wheelchair, the service shall be a let under the following circumstances:
 * 1) After touching the receiver's court, the ball returns in the direction of the net.
 * 2) The ball comes to rest on the receiver's court.
 * 3) In singles, the ball leaves the receiver's court after touching it by either of its sidelines.

If the receiver strikes the ball before it crosses a sideline or takes a second bounce on his or her side of the playing surface, the service is considered good and no let is called.

Doubles
When two players who are in wheelchairs are a pair playing doubles, the server shall first make a service, the receiver shall then make a return but thereafter either player of the disabled pair may make returns. However, no part of a player's wheelchair shall protrude beyond the imaginary extension of the center line of the table. If it does, the umpire shall award the point to the opposing pair.

Limb positions
If both players or pairs are in a wheelchair, the player or the pair score a point if:
 * 1) the opponent does not maintain a minimum contact with the seat or cushion(s), with the back of the thigh, when the ball is struck.
 * 2) the opponent touches the table with either hand before striking the ball.
 * 3) the opponent's footrest or foot touches the floor during play.

Wheelchairs
Wheelchairs must have at least two large wheels and one small wheel. If the wheels on the player's wheelchair become dislodged and the wheelchair has no more than two wheels, then the rally must be stopped immediately and a point awarded to their opponent.

The height of one or maximum two cushions is limited to 15 cm in playing conditions with no other addition to the wheelchair. In team and class events, no part of the body above the knees may be attached to the chair as this could improve balance.

Equipment and playing conditions
A player may not normally wear any part of a tracksuit during play. A player with a physical disability, either in a wheelchair or standing, may wear the trousers portion of a tracksuit during play, but jeans are not permitted.

Table legs shall be at least 40 cm from the end line of the table for wheelchair players. In international competitions, the playing space is not less than 14m long, 7m wide and the flooring shall not be concrete. The space for wheelchair events may be reduced to 8m long and 6m wide. The flooring may be of concrete for wheelchair events, which is prohibited on other occasions.

Competitions
5 levels of international competitions are sanctioned. Factor of the tournament is counted in the tournament credit system used for qualification purpose of some tournaments. Players participate in regional championships (Fa50) earn 50 credit points. The tournament credit for the 2012 Summer Paralympics is 80 credit points must be met during a period starting on 4 November 2010 until 31 December 2011. It's also required a minimum tournament credit for the qualification of World Para Table Tennis Championships.

Notable players

 * Ibrahim Hamadtou, an Egyptian Class 6 Champion, is one of the most well-known Paralympic table tennis players, since his YouTube video went viral. Hamadtou has won many awards, including silver medals in African Para table tennis Championships held in 2013 and 2011. He holds his racket with his mouth.
 * Natalia Partyka, a Four-time Olympian, participates in Class 10 events at the para table tennis tournaments, representing Poland. Born without a right hand and forearm, she participates in competitions for able-bodied athletes as well as in competitions for athletes with disabilities. Partyka reached the last 32 of the London 2012 Olympic women's table tennis.

title: Para table tennis


text:
HMS Monmouth

Seven ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Monmouth. Monmouth was the name of a castle and is now the name of a town in Wales; the name also recognises James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, the "Black Duke".

 * HMS Monmouth (1666) was an 8-gun yacht launched in 1666 and sold in 1698.
 * HMS Monmouth (1667) was a 66-gun third rate launched in 1667. She was rebuilt in 1700 and 1742, and was broken up in 1767.
 * HMS Monmouth (1772) was a 64-gun third rate launched in 1772. She became a prison ship and named HMS Captivity in 1796, and was broken up in 1818.
 * HMS Monmouth (1796) was a 64-gun third rate, originally the Indiaman Belmont. She was purchased on the stocks and launched in 1796. She became a sheer hulk in 1815 and was broken up in 1834.
 * HMS Monmouth was a 46-gun fifth rate launched in 1828 as HMS Hotspur (1828). She became a chapel hulk in 1859, was renamed HMS Monmouth in 1868, and sold in 1902.
 * HMS Monmouth (1901) was a Monmouth-class cruiser armoured cruiser launched in 1901 and sunk at the Battle of Coronel in 1914.
 * HMS Monmouth (F235) is a Type 23 frigate launched in 1991 and decommissioned in 2021.

Battle honours
Ships named Monmouth have earned the following battle honours:

 * Sole Bay 1672
 * Texel 1673
 * Barfleur 1692
 * Vigo 1702
 * Gibraltar 1704
 * Velez Malaga 1704
 * Marbella 1705
 * Finisterre 1747
 * Ushant 1747
 * Foudroyant 1758
 * Belle Isle 1761
 * Sadras 1782
 * Providien 1782
 * Negapatam 1782
 * Trincomalee 1782
 * Camperdown 1797
 * Egypt 1801

title: HMS Monmouth


text:
Multiple dispatch

Multiple dispatch or multimethods is a feature of some programming languages in which a function or method can be dynamically dispatched based on the run-time (dynamic) type or, in the more general case, some other attribute of more than one of its arguments. This is a generalization of single-dispatch polymorphism where a function or method call is dynamically dispatched based on the derived type of the object on which the method has been called. Multiple dispatch routes the dynamic dispatch to the implementing function or method using the combined characteristics of one or more arguments.

Understanding dispatch
Developers of computer software typically organize source code into named blocks variously called subroutines, procedures, subprograms, functions, or methods. The code in the function is executed by calling it – executing a piece of code that references its name. This transfers control temporarily to the called function; when the function's execution has completed, control is typically transferred back to the instruction in the caller that follows the reference.

Function names are usually selected so as to be descriptive of the function's purpose. It is sometimes desirable to give several functions the same name, often because they perform conceptually similar tasks, but operate on different types of input data. In such cases, the name reference at the function call site is not sufficient for identifying the block of code to be executed. Instead, the number and type of the arguments to the function call are also used to select among several function implementations.

In more conventional, i.e., single-dispatch object-oriented programming languages, when invoking a method (sending a message in Smalltalk, calling a member function in C++), one of its arguments is treated specially and used to determine which of the (potentially many) classes of methods of that name is to be applied. In many languages, the special argument is indicated syntactically; for example, a number of programming languages put the special argument before a dot in making a method call:, so that   would produce a roar, whereas   would produce a chirp.

In contrast, in languages with multiple dispatch, the selected method is simply the one whose arguments match the number and type of the function call. There is no special argument that owns the function/method carried out in a particular call.

The Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is an early and well-known example of multiple dispatch. Another notable example of the use of multiple dispatch is the Julia programming language.

Multiple dispatch should be distinguished from function overloading, in which static typing information, such as a term's declared or inferred type (or base type in a language with subtyping) is used to determine which of several possibilities will be used at a given call site, and that determination is made at compile or link time (or some other time before program execution starts) and is thereafter invariant for a given deployment or run of the program. Many languages such as C++ offer robust function overloading but do not offer dynamic multiple dispatch (C++ only permits dynamic single dispatch through use of virtual functions).

Data types
When working with languages that can discriminate data types at compile time, selecting among the alternatives can occur then. The act of creating such alternative functions for compile time selection is usually referred to as overloading a function.

In programming languages that defer data type identification until run time (i.e., late binding), selection among alternative functions must occur then, based on the dynamically determined types of function arguments. Functions whose alternative implementations are selected in this manner are referred to most generally as multimethods.

There is some run-time cost associated with dynamically dispatching function calls. In some languages, the distinction between overloading and multimethods can be blurred, with the compiler determining whether compile time selection can be applied to a given function call, or whether slower run time dispatch is needed.

Issues
There are several known issues with dynamic-dispatch, both single and multiple. While many of these issues are solved for single-dispatch, which has been a standard feature in object-oriented programming languages for decades, these issues become more complicated in the multiple-dispatch case.

Expressiveness and modularity
In most popular programming languages, source code is delivered and deployed in granules of functionality which we will here call packages; actual terminology for this concept varies between language. Each package may contain multiple type, value, and function definitions, packages are often compiled separately in languages with a compilation step, and a non-cyclical dependency relationship may exist. A complete program is a set of packages, with a main package which may depend on several other packages, and the whole program consisting of the transitive closure of the dependency relationship.

The so-called expression problem relates to the ability for code in a depending package to extend behaviors (functions or datatypes) defined in a base package from within an including package, without modifying the source to the base package. Traditional single-dispatch OO languages make it trivial to add new datatypes but not new functions; traditional functional languages tend to have the opposite effect, and multiple dispatch, if implemented correctly, allows both. It is desirable for an implementation of multiple dispatch to have the following properties:

 * It is possible to define different "cases" of a multi-method from within different packages without modifying the source of a base package.
 * Inclusion of another package in the program should not change the behavior of a given multi-method call, when the call does not use any datatypes defined in the package.
 * Conversely, if a datatype is defined in a given package, and a multi-method extension using that type is also defined in the same package, and a value of that type is passed (through a base type reference or into a generic function) into another package with no dependency on that package, and then the multi-method is invoked with that value as an argument, the multi-method case defined in the package which includes the type should be employed. To put it another way—within a given program, the same multi-method invoked with the same set of arguments should resolve to the same implementation, regardless of the location of the call site, and whether or not a given definition is "in scope" or "visible" at the point of the method call.

Ambiguity
It is generally desirable that for any given invocation of a multi-method, there be at most one "best" candidate among implementation cases of the multi-method, and/or that if there is not, that this be resolved in a predictable and deterministic fashion, including failure. Non-deterministic behavior is undesirable. Assuming a set of types with a non-circular subtyping relationship, one can define that one implementation of a multi-method is "better" (more specific) if all dynamically-dispatched arguments in the first are subtypes of all dynamically-dispatched arguments specified in the second, and at least one is a strict subtype. With single dispatch and in the absence of multiple inheritance, this condition is trivially satisfied, but with multiple dispatch, it is possible for two or more candidates to satisfy a given actual argument list, but neither is more specific than the other (one dynamic argument being the subtype in one case, another being the subtype in the other case). This particularly can happen if two different packages, neither depending on the other, both extend some multi-method with implementations concerning each package's types, and then a third package that includes both (possibly indirectly) then invokes the multi-method using arguments from both packages.

Possible resolutions include:

 * Treating any ambiguous calls as an error. This might be caught at compile time (or otherwise before deployment), but might not be detected until runtime and produce a runtime error.
 * Ordering the arguments, so e.g. the case with the most specific first argument is selected, and subsequent arguments are not considered for ambiguity resolution unless the first argument is insufficient to resolve the issue.
 * Construction of other rules for resolving an ambiguity in one direction or another. Sometimes, such rules might be arbitrary and surprising.  In the rules for static overload resolution in C++, for instance, a type which matches exactly is understandably considered a better match than a type which matches through a base type reference or a generic (template) parameter.  However, if the only possible matches are either through a base type or a generic parameter, the generic parameter is preferred over the base type, a rule that sometimes produces surprising behavior.

Efficiency
Efficient implementation of single-dispatch, including in programming languages that are separately compiled to object code and linked with a low-level (not-language-aware) linker, including dynamically at program load/start time or even under the direction of the application code, are well known. The "vtable" method developed in C++ and other early OO languages (where each class has an array of function pointers corresponding to that class's virtual functions) is nearly as fast as a static method call, requiring O(1) overhead and only one additional memory lookup even in the un-optimized case. However, the vtable method uses the function name and not the argument type as its lookup key, and does not scale to the multiple dispatch case. (It also depends on the object-oriented paradigm of methods being features of classes, not standalone entities independent of any particular datatype).

Efficient implementation of multiple-dispatch remains an ongoing research problem.

Use in practice
To estimate how often multiple dispatch is used in practice, Muschevici et al. studied programs that use dynamic dispatch. They analyzed nine applications, mostly compilers, written in six different languages: Common Lisp Object System, Dylan, Cecil, MultiJava, Diesel, and Nice. Their results show that 13–32% of generic functions use the dynamic type of one argument, while 2.7–6.5% of them use the dynamic type of multiple arguments. The remaining 65–93% of generic functions have one concrete method (overrider), and thus are not considered to use the dynamic types of their arguments. Further, the study reports that 2–20% of generic functions had two and 3–6% had three concrete function implementations. The numbers decrease rapidly for functions with more concrete overriders.

Multiple dispatch is used much more heavily in Julia, where multiple dispatch was a central design concept from the origin of the language: collecting the same statistics as Muschevici on the average number of methods per generic function, it was found that the Julia standard library uses more than double the amount of overloading than in the other languages analyzed by Muschevici, and more than 10 times in the case of binary operators.

The data from these papers is summarized in the following table, where the dispatch ratio  is the average number of methods per generic function; the choice ratio   is the mean of the square of the number of methods (to better measure the frequency of functions with a large number of methods); and the degree of specialization   is the average number of type-specialized arguments per method (i.e., the number of arguments that are dispatched on):

Theory
The theory of multiple dispatching languages was first developed by Castagna et al., by defining a model for overloaded functions with late binding. It yielded the first formalization of the problem of covariance and contravariance of object-oriented languages and a solution to the problem of binary methods.

Examples
Distinguishing multiple and single dispatch may be made clearer by an example. Imagine a game that has, among its (user-visible) objects, spaceships and asteroids. When two objects collide, the program may need to do different things according to what has just hit what.

C#
C# introduced support for dynamic multimethods in version 4 (April 2010) using the 'dynamic' keyword. The following example demonstrates multimethods. Like many other statically-typed languages, C# also supports static method overloading. Microsoft expects that developers will choose static typing over dynamic typing in most scenarios. The 'dynamic' keyword supports interoperability with COM objects and dynamically-typed .NET languages.

The example below uses features introduced in C# 9 and C# 10.

Output:

Groovy
Groovy is a general purpose Java compatible/interusable JVM language, which, contrary to Java, uses late binding / multiple dispatch.

Common Lisp
In a language with multiple dispatch, such as Common Lisp, it might look more like this (Common Lisp example shown):

and similarly for the other methods. Explicit testing and "dynamic casting" are not used.

In the presence of multiple dispatch, the traditional idea of methods as being defined in classes and contained in objects becomes less appealing—each collide-with method above is attached to two different classes, not one. Hence, the special syntax for method invocation generally disappears, so that method invocation looks exactly like ordinary function invocation, and methods are grouped not in classes but in generic functions.

Julia
Julia has built-in multiple dispatch, and it is central to the language design. The Julia version of the example above might look like:

Output:

Raku
Raku, like Perl, uses proven ideas from other languages, and type systems have shown themselves to offer compelling advantages in compiler-side code analysis and powerful user-side semantics via multiple dispatch.

It has both multimethods, and multisubs. Since most operators are subroutines, it also has multiple dispatched operators.

Along with the usual type constraints, it also has where constraints that allow making very specialized subroutines.

JavaScript
In languages that do not support multiple dispatch at the language definition or syntactic level, it is often possible to add multiple dispatch using a library extension. JavaScript and TypeScript do not support multimethods at the syntax level, but it is possible to add multiple dispatch via a library. For example, the multimethod package provides an implementation of multiple dispatch, generic functions.

Dynamically-typed version in JavaScript:

Statically-typed version in TypeScript:

Python
Multiple dispatch can be added to Python using a library extension. For example, using the module multimethod.py and also with the module multimethods.py which provides CLOS-style multimethods for Python without changing the underlying syntax or keywords of the language.

Functionally, this is very similar to the CLOS example, but the syntax is conventional Python.

Using Python 2.4 decorators, Guido van Rossum produced a sample implementation of multimethods with a simplified syntax:

and then it goes on to define the multimethod decorator.

The PEAK-Rules package provides multiple dispatch with a syntax similar to the above example. It was later replaced by PyProtocols.

The Reg library also supports multiple and predicate dispatch.

With the introduction of type hints, multiple dispatch is possible with even simpler syntax. For example, using plum-dispatch,

C
C does not have dynamic dispatch, so it must be implemented manually in some form. Often an enum is used to identify the subtype of an object. Dynamic dispatch can be done by looking up this value in a function pointer branch table. Here is a simple example in C:

With the C Object System library, C does support dynamic dispatch similar to CLOS. It is fully extensible and does not need any manual handling of the methods. Dynamic message (methods) are dispatched by the dispatcher of COS, which is faster than Objective-C. Here is an example in COS:

C++
, C++ natively supports only single dispatch, though adding multi-methods (multiple dispatch) was proposed by Bjarne Stroustrup (and collaborators) in 2007. The methods of working around this limit are analogous: use either the visitor pattern, dynamic cast or a library:

or pointer-to-method lookup table:

The YOMM2 library provides a fast, orthogonal implementation of open multimethods.

The syntax for declaring open methods is inspired by a proposal for a native C++ implementation. The library requires that the user registers all the classes used as virtual arguments (and their sub-classes), but does not require any modifications to existing code. Methods are implemented as ordinary inline C++ functions; they can be overloaded and they can be passed by pointer. There is no limit on the number of virtual arguments, and they can be arbitrarily mixed with non-virtual arguments.

The library uses a combination of techniques (compressed dispatch tables, collision free integer hash table) to implement method calls in constant time, while mitigating memory usage. Dispatching a call to an open method with a single virtual argument takes only 15–30% more time than calling an ordinary virtual member function, when a modern optimizing compiler is used.

The Asteroids example can be implemented as follows:

Stroustrup mentions in The Design and Evolution of C++ that he liked the concept of multimethods and considered implementing it in C++ but claims to have been unable to find an efficient sample implementation (comparable to virtual functions) and resolve some possible type ambiguity problems. He then states that although the feature would still be nice to have, that it can be approximately implemented using double dispatch or a type based lookup table as outlined in the C/C++ example above so is a low priority feature for future language revisions.

D
, as do many other object-oriented programming languages, D natively supports only single dispatch. However, it is possible to emulate open multimethods as a library function in D. The openmethods library is an example.

Java
In a language with only single dispatch, such as Java, multiple dispatch can be emulated with multiple levels of single dispatch:

Run time  checks at one or both levels can also be used.

Primary paradigm

 * Julia

Supporting general multimethods

 * C# 4.0
 * Cecil
 * Clojure
 * Common Lisp (via the Common Lisp Object System)
 * Dylan
 * Emacs Lisp (via cl-defmethod)
 * Fortress
 * Groovy
 * Lasso
 * Nim, up to v0.19.x (from v0.20.0 it is necessary to pass a compiler flag)
 * Raku
 * R
 * Seed7
 * TADS
 * VB.Net via late binding, also via .Net DLR
 * Wolfram Language via symbolic pattern matching
 * Xtend

Via extensions

 * Any .NET language (via the library MultiMethods.NET)
 * C (via the library C Object System)
 * C# (via the library multimethod-sharp)
 * C++ (via the library yomm2, multimethods and omm)
 * D (via the library openmethods)
 * Factor (via the standard multimethods vocabulary)
 * Java (using the extension MultiJava)
 * JavaScript (via package @arrows/multimethod)
 * Perl (via the module Class::Multimethods)
 * Python (via PEAK-Rules, RuleDispatch, gnosis.magic.multimethods, PyMultimethods, multipledispatch, or plum-dispatch)
 * Racket (via multimethod-lib)
 * Ruby (via the library The Multiple Dispatch Library and Multimethod Package and Vlx-Multimethods Package)
 * Scheme (via e.g. TinyCLOS)
 * TypeScript (via package @arrows/multimethod)

title: Multiple dispatch


text:
Common Lisp Object System

The Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is the facility for object-oriented programming in ANSI Common Lisp. CLOS is a powerful dynamic object system which differs radically from the OOP facilities found in more static languages such as C++ or Java. CLOS was inspired by earlier Lisp object systems such as MIT Flavors and CommonLoops, although it is more general than either. Originally proposed as an add-on, CLOS was adopted as part of the ANSI standard for Common Lisp and has been adapted into other Lisp dialects such as EuLisp or Emacs Lisp.

Features
The basic building blocks of CLOS are methods, classes, instances of those classes, and generic functions. CLOS provides macros to define those:,  , and. Instances are created with the method.

Classes can have multiple superclasses, a list of slots (member variables in C++/Java parlance) and a special metaclass. Slots can be allocated by class (all instances of a class share the slot) or by instance. Each slot has a name and the value of a slot can be accessed by that name using the function. Additionally special generic functions can be defined to write or read values of slots. Each slot in a CLOS class must have a unique name.

CLOS is a multiple dispatch system. This means that methods can be specialized upon any or all of their required arguments. Most OO languages are single-dispatch, meaning that methods are only specialized on the first argument. Another unusual feature is that methods do not "belong" to classes; classes do not provide a namespace for generic functions or methods. Methods are defined separately from classes, and they have no special access (e.g. "this", "self", or "protected") to class slots.

Methods in CLOS are grouped into generic functions. A generic function is an object which is callable like a function and which associates a collection of methods with a shared name and argument structure, each specialized for different arguments. Since Common Lisp provides non-CLOS classes for structures and built-in data types (numbers, strings, characters, symbols, ...), CLOS dispatch works also with these non-CLOS classes. CLOS also supports dispatch over individual objects (eql specializers). CLOS does not by default support dispatch over all Common Lisp data types (for example dispatch does not work for fully specialized array types or for types introduced by ). However, most Common Lisp implementations provide a metaobject protocol which allows generic functions to provide application specific specialization and dispatch rules.

Dispatch in CLOS is also different from most OO languages:

 * 1) Given a list of arguments, a list of applicable methods is determined.
 * 2) This list is sorted according to the specificity of their parameter specializers.
 * 3) Selected methods from this list are then combined into an effective method using the method combination used by the generic function.
 * 4) The effective method is then called with the original arguments.

This dispatch mechanism works at runtime. Adding or removing methods thus may lead to changed effective methods (even when the generic function is called with the same arguments) at runtime. Changing the method combination also may lead to different effective methods.

For example,

Like the OO systems in most dynamic languages, CLOS does not enforce encapsulation. Any slot can be accessed using the  function or via (optionally auto-generated) accessor methods. To access it via  you have to know the name of the slot. CL programmers use the language's package facility to declare which functions or data structures are intended for export.

Apart from normal ("primary") methods, there also are,  , and   "auxiliary" methods. The former two are invoked prior to, or after the primary method, in a particular order based on the class hierarchy. An  method can control whether the primary method is executed at all. Additionally, the programmer can specify whether all possible primary methods along the class hierarchy should be called or just the one providing the closest match.

The Standard Method-Combination provides the primary, before, after and around methods explained above. There are other Method-Combinations with other method types. New (both simple and complex) Method-Combinations and method types can be defined.

CLOS allows multiple inheritance. When the default order in which methods are executed in multiple inheritance is not correct, the programmer may resolve the diamond inheritance problems by specifying the order of method combinations.

CLOS is dynamic, meaning that not only the contents, but also the structure of its objects can be modified at runtime. CLOS supports changing class definitions on-the-fly (even when instances of the class in question already exist) as well as changing the class membership of a given instance through the  operator. CLOS also allows one to add, redefine and remove methods at runtime. The Circle-Ellipse Problem is readily solved in CLOS, and most OOP design patterns either disappear or are qualitatively simpler.

CLOS is not a prototype language: classes must be defined before objects can be instantiated as members of that class.

Metaobject Protocol
Outside of the ANSI Common Lisp standard, there is a widely implemented extension to CLOS called the Metaobject Protocol (MOP). The MOP defines a standard interface to the underpinnings of the CLOS implementation, treating classes, slot-descriptions, generic-functions and methods themselves as instances of metaclasses, and allows the definition of new metaclasses and the modification of all CLOS behavior. The flexibility of the CLOS MOP prefigures aspect-oriented programming, which was later developed by some of the same engineers, such as Gregor Kiczales. The MOP defines the behavior of the whole object system by a set of protocols. These are defined in terms of CLOS. Thus it is possible to create new object-systems by extending or changing the provided CLOS functionality. The book The Art of the Metaobject Protocol describes the use and implementation of the CLOS MOP.

The various Common Lisp implementations have slightly different support for the Meta-Object Protocol. The Closer project aims to provide the missing features.

Influences from older Lisp-based object systems
Flavors (and its successor New Flavors) was the object system on the MIT Lisp Machine. Large parts of the Lisp Machine operating systems and many applications for it use Flavors or New Flavors. Flavors introduced multiple inheritance and mixins, among other features. Flavors is mostly obsolete, though implementations for Common Lisp do exist. Flavors was using the message passing paradigm. New Flavors introduced generic functions.

CommonLoops was the successor of LOOPS (from Xerox Interlisp-D). CommonLoops was implemented for Common Lisp. A portable implementation called Portable CommonLoops (PCL) was the first implementation of CLOS. PCL is widely ported and still provides the base for the CLOS implementation of several Common Lisp implementations. PCL is implemented mostly in portable Common Lisp with only a few system dependent parts.

CLOS in other programming languages
Because of the power and expressivity of CLOS, as well as the historical availability of Tiny CLOS (a simplified portable CLOS implementation written by Gregor Kiczales for use with Scheme), CLOS-like MOP-based object systems have become the de facto norm in most Lisp dialect implementations, as well as finding their way into some other languages' OOP facilities:

 * COS, the C Object System
 * Dylan
 * Dynace, a (largely) CLOS implementation in C
 * EIEIO for Emacs Lisp
 * Gauche, Scheme with CLOS
 * GOOPS in GNU Guile
 * ILOS in ISLISP
 * Meroon, an Object System in Scheme
 * Sagittarius, a Scheme with CLOS
 * ScmObj, for Scheme
 * SOS for MIT Scheme
 * STklos, a Scheme with CLOS
 * Swindle in Racket
 * COOPS in Chicken Scheme
 * VCLOS for Skill
 * Tiny CLOS
 * S4 classes in S and R programming languages

Literature

 * Sonya Keene, Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS, 1988, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-17589-4
 * Gregor Kiczales, Jim des Rivieres, and Daniel G. Bobrow, The Art of the Metaobject Protocol, 1991, MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-61074-4
 * Jo A. Lawless and Molly M. Miller, Understanding CLOS: the Common Lisp Object System, 1991, Digital Press, ISBN 1-55558-064-5
 * Andreas Paepcke, Object-Oriented Programming: the CLOS Perspective, 1993, The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-16136-2
 * The Common Lisp Object System: An Overview by Richard P. Gabriel and Linda DeMichiel provides a good introduction to the motivation for defining classes by means of generic functions.
 * Fundamentals of CLOS by Nick Levine provides a step-by-step exposure to the implementation of OO concepts in CLOS, and how to utilize them. It is intended for anybody with a basic knowledge of Lisp or Scheme.
 * Common Lisp HyperSpec, Chapter 7: Objects

title: Common Lisp Object System


text:
Kuno Fischer

Ernst Kuno Berthold Fischer (23 July 1824 – 5 July 1907) was a German philosopher, a historian of philosophy and a critic.

Biography
After studying philosophy at Leipzig and Halle, became a privatdocent at Heidelberg in 1850. The Baden government in 1853 laid an embargo on his teaching owing to his liberal ideas, but the effect of this was to rouse considerable sympathy for his views, and in 1856 he obtained a professorship at Jena, where he soon acquired great influence by the dignity of his personal character. In 1872, on Eduard Zeller's move to Berlin, Fischer succeeded him as professor of philosophy and the history of modern German literature at Heidelberg.

He was a brilliant lecturer and possessed a remarkable gift for clear exposition. His fame rests primarily on his work as a historian and commentator of philosophy. As far as his philosophical views were concerned, he was, generally speaking, a follower of the Hegelian school. His writings in this direction, especially his interpretation of Kant, involved him in a quarrel with F. A. Trendelenburg, professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin, and his followers. In 1860, Fischer's Kants Leben und die Grundlagen seiner Lehre (Kant's life and the foundations of his doctrine) lent the first real impulse to the so-called “return to Kant.”

In honor of his 80th birthday, celebrated in 1904, Otto Liebmann, Wilhelm Wundt, Theodor Lipps and others published ''Die Philosophie im Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Festschrift für Kuno Fischer'' (Heidelberg, 1907).

Philosophy
One of Fischer's most significant and lasting contributions to philosophy was the use of the empiricism/rationalism distinction in categorising philosophers, particularly those of the 17th and 18th centuries. These include John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume in the empiricist category and René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz in the rationalist category. Empiricism, it is said, claims that human knowledge is derived from sensation, i.e. experience, while rationalism claims that certain knowledge can be acquired before experience through pure principles. Although influential, in more recent times this distinction has been questioned as anachronistic in its failure to represent precisely the exact claims and methodologies of the philosophers it categorises.

Reception
Kuno Fischer's History of Modern Philosophy had a strong impact on Friedrich Nietzsche and his view on modern philosophy, particularly regarding Spinoza. Frege and W. Somerset Maugham were amongst his students.

Hermann Weyl, writing about pre-WWII academic life in Germany, told the following anecdote about Fischer:

 * A little anecdote of German university life in the nineties may illustrate the point. Kuno Fischer, a second-rate philosopher at Heidelberg, was one day disturbed by the noise of workers who were putting in new cobblestones in the street before his house.  He had at that time been offered a professorship in Berlin.  So he opened his window and shouted to the workmen, "If you don't stop that noise at once, I'll accept the call to Berlin".  Whereupon the foreman ran to the mayor, he summoned the Stadtbaumeister and they decided to postpone repair of the street until after the beginning of the academic vacation.

Works

 * De Parmenide Platonico. Stuttgart (thesis, 1847, online).
 * Diotima. Die Idee des Schönen (Diotima, the idea of the beautiful; Pforzheim, 1849) (online)
 * System der Logik und Metaphysik oder Wissenschaftslehre (System of logic and metaphysics, or doctrine of knowledge; 1852) (online)
 * Das Interdict meiner Vorlesungen (The prohibition of my lectures; Mannheim, 1854)
 * 1854: Die Apologie meiner Lehre nebst Replik auf die „Abfertigung“ des Herrn Schenkel (online)
 * Geschichte der neuern Philosophie (History of modern philosophy; 6 vols., Stuttgart-Mannheim-Heidelberg, 1854–77; new edition, Heidelberg, 1897–1901) This is considered by some to be his greatest work. It is written in the form of monographs on Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and other great philosophers down to Schopenhauer:
 * erster Band: Descartes und seine Schule (1. Teil online, 2. Teil online)
 * zweiter Band: Leibniz und seine Schule (online)
 * dritter Band: Immanuel Kant und seine Lehre (online)
 * vierter Band: Kant's System der reinen Vernunft (online: 2. Aufl. 1869, 3. neu bearb. Aufl. 1882, 4. ed. 1899)
 * fünfter Band: Fichte und seine Vorgänger (online)
 * achter Band: Hegels Leben, Werke und Lehre (online: part 1 (1901), part 2 (1901))
 * neunter Band: Schopenhauers Leben, Werke und Lehre (online (Jubiläumsausgabe 1898))
 * Franz Baco von Verona (Leipzig, 1856 (2nd edition 1875); translated into English by J. Oxenford, London, 1857)
 * Schiller als Philosoph (Frankfurt am Main, 1858; 2nd ed. 1891-92)
 * Kants Leben und die Grundlagen seiner Lehre (Mannheim, 1860)
 * Akademische Reden: J. G. Fichte; Die beiden Kantischen Schulen in Jena (The two schools of Kant in Jena; Stuttgart, 1862)
 * Lessings “Nathan der Weise” (Stuttgart, 1864; translated into English by Ellen Frothingham, New York, 1868)
 * Baruch Spinozas Leben und Charakter (Heidelberg, 1865; translated into English by F. Schmidt, Edinburgh, 1882)
 * System der reinen Vernunft auf Grund der Vernunftkritik (1866)
 * Shakespeares Charakterentwickelung Richards III (Character development of Shakespeare's Richard III; Heidelberg, 1868)
 * Über die Entstehung und die Entwickelungsformen des Witzes (The origins and modes of development of wit; Heidelberg, 1871)
 * Schellings Leben, Werke und Lehre (Heidelberg, [1872] - taken from the Fourth Edition, issued in monographic series, Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie von Kudo Fischer, published in Heidelberg, 1923 - on the work of German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling)
 * Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie (Munich, 1883; translated into English by W. S. Hough, London 1888)
 * Goethe-Schriften (8 vols., Heidelberg, 1888–96)
 * Kleine Schriften (Heidelberg, 1888–98)
 * Schiller-Schriften (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1891)
 * Philosophische Schriften (3 parts, Heidelberg, 1891–92)
 * Hegels Leben und Werke (Heidelberg, 1911)

Other translations of his works are:
 * A Commentary of Kant's "Critic of Pure Reason" (trans. by J. P. Mahaffy, London-Dublin, 1866; online)
 * Descartes and his School (trans. by John P. Gordy, New York, 1887)

title: Kuno Fischer


text:
Talk:Index of religion-related articles

A topic of ....
Religious politics needs to be created based on the following http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=religious+politics&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_allsubj=all&hl=en --222.64.26.62 (talk) 02:45, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Expert needed
I have requested an expert to look at this article. It contains several links to disambiguation pages that should be solved. An expert should know far quicker where to link to (or when to add additional links) then I do. Your effort will be much appreciated. Night of the Big Wind talk  16:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Member of WikiProject Disambiguation
 * Um, no. The tag you put on that page is a dispute/warning tag that indicates that the content is thought to be so bad, and written by people with no idea what they are talking about, such that the entire page's trustworthiness is at issue. And it doesn't take an expert to figure out whether something on a disambiguation page is religion-related or not; any bored editor can do that by looking at the items on the DAB page and reading the articles they go to for a while if necessary. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 11:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Why have this list?
I'm trying to think of a reason why the category system isn't better than this list. Xaxafrad (talk) 09:29, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, somebody above mentioned the list of math topics, which goes to Outline of mathematics...isn't that what the portal page with a dozen infoboxes is for? Xaxafrad (talk) 09:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Index of religion-related articles


text:
User:Gem~enwiki

Hello there. I love reading wikipedia and occasionally contribute to it. You dont see me round here very often, as I'm a busy soul.

I was born and grew up in Birmingham in the UK, I have also lived in Redditch, London and Stratford-upon-Avon, but am now based in Wellesbourne in Warwickshire.

title: User:Gem~enwiki


text:
HMS Glasgow

Nine ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Glasgow after the Scottish city of Glasgow:

 * The first HMS Glasgow (1707) was a 20-gun sixth rate, previously the Scottish ship Royal Mary. She was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1707 and was sold in 1719.
 * The second HMS Glasgow (1745) was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1745 and sold in 1756.
 * The third HMS Glasgow (1757) was a 20-gun sixth rate launched in 1757 and accidentally burnt in 1779.
 * The fourth HMS Glasgow (1814) was a 40-gun fifth-rate Endymion-class frigate launched in 1814 and broken up by 1829.
 * The fifth HMS Glasgow (1861) was a wooden screw frigate launched in 1861 and sold in 1884.
 * The sixth HMS Glasgow (1909) was a Town-class cruiser light cruiser launched in 1909 and sold in 1927.
 * The seventh HMS Glasgow (C21) was a Town-class cruiser light cruiser launched in 1936 and scrapped in 1958.
 * The eighth HMS Glasgow (D88) was a Type 42 destroyer launched in 1976. She was decommissioned in 2005 and scrapped in 2009.
 * The ninth HMS Glasgow (F88) is lead ship of the Royal Navy's Type 26 frigates, to be operational in 2026.

Battle honours

 * Lagos 1759
 * Havana 1762
 * Algiers 1816
 * Navarino 1827
 * Falkland Islands 1914
 * Norway 1940
 * Arctic 1943
 * Biscay 1943
 * Normandy 1944
 * Falkland Islands 1982

title: HMS Glasgow


text:
Talk:Lists of law topics

This page suffers a lack of stylistic consistency in regard to the question of which words should be capitalized. Of course, lawyers more frequently than most people like to put capital letters at the beginnings of some words either for subliminal effect or because the style conventions prevailing in that field differ from those of what is usually considered good English. But perhaps some deliberately chosen style convention ought to prevail here. Michael Hardy 21:46 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that the article titled public domain, could benefit from the attention of copyright lawyers, if any are among Wikipedians. 131.183.81.100 22:59 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't this list include all pages that deal with any kind of law, including religious law, since there is a criminal justice topics and public international law topics page they should be the only exceptions, no? Alex756 23:58 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

Should all the legal topics be on this page including criminal justice topics as they are already listed on the criminal justice topic page? Alex756

I don't think this list should include many items from List of basic criminal justice topics. --Ellmist Saturday, May 17th, 02003

I prefer using the Wikipedia-style capitalisation already used in article names.

I favour making this list inclusive for now, as, hopefully, all topics will be contained eventually in sub-lists (e.g. List of electoral law topics) and retaining a larger list allows easier use of Recent changes. We already have the start of Law basic topics which is part of the series of Basic topics index articles.

As this article grows (and it recently gone above 32KB), we could progressively: move certain groups of topics from the alpabetical list (already done for lists, Acts and people, could also do this for specific declarations, edicts, constitutions and conventions, and for legal texts and for organisations, courts and tribunals), move the lists section to Lists of legal topics, break up the alphabet into more separate pages, then/or give up and delete it.

 * -- Zigger 00:57, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

Do we need a List of illegal topics as well? — J I P | Talk 11:38, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Peer
I was doing disambiaguation for Peer and came upon this page. I am not sure to what meaning of the word "peer" this should refer. Could someone with more expertise in this field please check this and do the disambiguation? JoaoRicardo 01:48, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Good question. I'm not sure it belongs here.  There's a separate listing for Jury of one's peers, though still a red link.  The listing for "Peer" might be replaced by a piped link to that nonexistent article.  The other obvious possibility is that peerage in the sense of nobility was deemed to be a legal topic.  I'm not knowledgeable in peerage issues but that seems dubious to me.  Laws would determine who inherited a particular title, but that doesn't mean that anything people could litigate about belongs on the list of legal topics.  Do editors knowledgeable about the nobility think that meaning belongs here?  If so, should the link be to peerage or to nobility?  If there's no reason to list it at all, I'll link "Peer" on this list to Jury of one's peers, and throw together a stub just so no one thinks "Peer" is a red link. JamesMLane 07:02, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Coding
The coding of this list used to be line by line:

 * topic 1 --
 * topic 2 --
 * topic 3 --
 * topic 4 --

Now it looks like spaghetti to me:

 * topic 1 -- topic 2 -- topic 3 -- topic 4 -- ...

Can we restore the original format? -- Toytoy 07:07, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

I agree - having one entry per line is far more readable. Since the page will then inevitably get too long, split it up alphabetically. Enochlau 16:19, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Formatting
I've always found masses of text on the screen hard to read and especially so for lengthy pages with masses of text. I was wondering about what others think about formatting it in a way similar to List of physics topics, that is, divided into alphabetical sections in a vertical format. Enochlau 14:21, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

disambiguation
I'm correcting contractor disambiguation at the moment. the entry in this list simply moves to the disambiguation page, which unhelpfully also contains a definition. For the moment I will change the list to point to "contract" (see my notes on the talk page there too). It does not strike me as being too much of an intellectual leap to make that a "contractor" would be "one who contracts". Feel free to revert if you think I've confused the issue. LeeG 14:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

And another one. element links to the disambiguation page too - I have no idea what the legal term "element" means! Can someone correct it to the right page, or delete the linkif it is just aiming for a definition. LeeG 10:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know what it is either, but I linked to a page yet to be made element (law), so some one who knows can write about it or delete it. GB 21:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

 * I'd guess that it refers to the specific requirements that need to be demonstrated to show that a tort or crime has been committed. For example, the elements of the tort of negligence, as traditionally expressed are: 1) a duty of care by the defendant; 2) the defendant breached that duty; 3) harm suffered by the plaintiff; and 4) the harm suffered was proximately caused by the breach.

 * A criminal example: the crime of burglary, at common law, consisted of breaking and entering into a dwelling at night with the intent to commit a felony therein; so it consists of the following elements: 1) breaking and entering; 2) a dwelling; 3) at night; 4) with intent to commit a theft or felony therein. So if a prosecutor showed that someone broke into a house during the day to steal stuff, that's not a burglary (it would be another crime of theft).  Or if the prosecutor showed that someone broke into a store at night to steal stuff, that would also not be a burglary.  (Note: don't go doing any of these based on this entry; that's the description of burglary under ye olde common law, but most modern jurisdictions have dropped both the "at night" and "dwelling" elements.

 * I don't see this "elements" as really being worth a wikipedia entry.Terry Carroll 00:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedic?
I'm new here, and I've got to say: great page BUT: SELF REFERENTIAL. Can't the intro be made more encyclopedic? AndyJones 22:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Soft Redirect to Wiktionary
I ran across the term Drawee on the page Articles requested for more than two years research lead to a finding the page had been built and deleted for cause Talk:Drawee. Some research on What_Wikipedia_is_not lead to solving the problem with a Soft redirect. So I would suggest that if you going write a dictionary entry, write it (or find it) on (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page) then do a Soft redirect. To do a soft redirect open the window to edit a new article (from a red link) type and click "save page", your done. Jeepday 04:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Religious topics
Why are there so many religious topics on this page? In secular western societies, religious law & practice are considered separate from public law. --Eastlaw 07:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know how this all started. I'm a newbie to Wikipedia.  But I'll take some educated guess, based on history and my experience as an attorney and law professor.  There is some historical overlap.  Canon law is a predecessor of Criminal law.  The etymology of the word Bar, as in passing the bar, refers to passing the Sanctuary bar used in churches and synangogues, especially those on the Basilica plan.  Trials took place in churches, which were then multi-purpose community centers; much as an Oratory may still be used.  Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. has been quoted as saying, "Law is history, not logic."  Just because we've had separation of church and state in the 20th Century, does not erase the artifacts of 1,700 years of history, when such strict separation did not exist.  Lawyers change habits slowly.  Bearian 14:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The Bar association article has an incomplete etymology on bar. I'll have to do more searching.  Bearian 16:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation of course
Which, if any, definition of Course led to its inclusion on this list? Please correct the link or remove it, or add the legal definition to the list on the Course disambiguation page. Thanks! — Catherine\talk 20:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Agreed. "Course" is used in legal, ahem, discourse, but only in conjunction with some other noun, i.e. course of dealing, course of business, course of employment, etc.  "Course" alone is not a legal term.  Removed.Terry Carroll 00:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Namespace?
This article strikes me as being a combination of an index of wikipedia's legal topics and a guide for editors. Perhaps it would be appropriate to move it to the Wikipedia: namespace? --Tim4christ17 talk 18:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Chronic disambiguation
This page has 367 links to disambiguation pages! Consider using a tool to find and fix these. Rich257 21:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure there's a good reason for this page to exist. It isn't really a list of legal topics, despite its name.  It's a list of legal terms; in some cases, ordinary or not-so-ordinary words or phrases that are sometimes used in law.  I mean, come on, "uxor"?  This is one of the words pointing to a disambiguation page, because it's not worth making a page for "uxor," which isn't really a topic.

 * As an alternative to deleting the article, this article could be radically improved by deleting every entry that isn't really a legal topic. As a rule of thumb, I'd suggest that if it's not worth making an article for an entry here, it probably isn't a "topic" and shouldn't be on the list Terry Carroll 22:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:Lists of law topics