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Cain and Abel

In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God regarded Abel's offering, but not Cain's. Cain killed Abel and God cursed Cain, sentencing him to a life of transience. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.

In the Qur'an, Cain and Abel are known as Qābīl (قابيل) and Hābīl (هابيل), respectively. The events of the story in the Qur'an are virtually the same as the Hebrew Bible narrative. Both brothers were asked to offer individual sacrifices to God; God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's; out of jealousy, Cain slew Abel – the first ever case of murder committed upon the Earth. In Judaism and in Islam, the story of Cain and Abel serves as an admonition against murder, and promotes the sanctity of human life.

Genesis narrative

The story of Cain's murder of Abel and its consequences is told in Genesis 4:1–18:

"Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him.

Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch."

Etymology
Cain and Abel are traditional English renderings of the Hebrew names. It has been proposed that the etymology of their names may be a direct pun on the roles they take in the Genesis narrative. Abel (hbl) is thought to derive from a reconstructed word meaning 'herdsman', with the modern Arabic cognate now specifically referring only to 'camels'. Cain (qyn) is thought to be cognate to the mid-1st millennium BCE South Arabian word, meaning 'metalsmith'. This theory would make the names descriptive of their roles, where Abel works with livestock, and Cain with agriculture—and would parallel the names Adam (אדם) and Eve (חוה).

Context of the story
The story has interpretations. Abel, the first murder victim, is sometimes seen as the first martyr, while Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as an ancestor of evil. Some scholars suggest the pericope may have been based on a Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers. Modern scholars typically view the stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel to be about the development of civilization during the age of agriculture; not the beginnings of man, but when people first learned agriculture, replacing the ways of the hunter-gatherer. It has also been seen as a depiction of nomadic conflict, the struggle for land and resources (and divine favour) between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers.

The academic theologian Joseph Blenkinsopp holds that Cain and Abel are symbolic rather than real. Like almost all of the persons, places and stories in the primeval history (the first eleven chapters of Genesis), they are mentioned nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, a fact that for some scholars suggests that the history is a late composition attached to Genesis to serve as an introduction. The date is also disputed: the history may be as late as the Hellenistic period (first decades of the 4th century BCE) or as early as the 9th-8th centuries BCE, but the high level of Babylonian myth behind its stories has led others to date it to the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE). A prominent Mesopotamian parallel to Cain and Abel is Enlil Chooses the Farmer-God, in which the shepherd-god Emesh and the farmer-god Enten bring their dispute over which of them is better to the chief god Enlil, who rules in favor of Enten (the farmer).

Christian interpretation
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in Hebrews 11:4, makes a brief reference to the Cain and Abel story:

"By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain's. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith he still speaks."

Islamic interpretation

The story of Cain and Abel appears in the Quran 5:27–31:

"[Prophet], tell them the truth about the story of Adam's two sons: each of them offered a sacrifice, and it was accepted from one and not the other. One said, 'I will kill you,' but the other said, 'God only accepts the sacrifice of those who are mindful of Him. If you raise your hand to kill me, I will not raise mine to kill you. I fear God, the Lord of all worlds, and I would rather you were burdened with my sins as well as yours and became an inhabitant of the Fire: such is the evildoers' reward.' But his soul prompted him to kill his brother: he killed him and became one of the losers. God sent a raven to scratch up the ground and show him how to cover his brother's corpse and he said, 'Woe is me! Could I not have been like this raven and covered up my brother's body?' He became remorseful."

The story of Cain and Abel has always been used as a deterrent from murder in Islamic tradition. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud reported that Muhammad said in a hadith:

"No soul is wrongfully killed except that some of the burden falls upon the son of Adam, for he was the first to establish the practice of murder."

Muslim scholars were divided on the motive for Cain's murder of Abel, and why the brothers were obliged to offer sacrifices to God. Some scholars believed that Cain's motives were jealousy and lust. Both Cain and Abel desired to marry their sister, Adam's beautiful daughter, Aclima (Arabic: ). Seeking to end the dispute, Adam suggested that each present an offering to God. The one whose offering God accepted would marry Aclima. Abel, a generous shepherd, offered the fattest of his sheep as an oblation to God. But Cain, a miserly farmer, offered only a bunch of grass and some worthless seeds. God accepted Abel's offering and rejected Cain's—an indication that Abel was more righteous than Cain, and thus worthier of Aclima. As a result, it was decided that Abel would marry Aclima. Cain would marry her less beautiful sister. Blinded by anger and lust for Aclima, Cain sought to get revenge on Abel and escape with Aclima.

According to another tradition, the devil appeared to Cain and instructed him how to exact revenge on Abel. "Hit Abel's head with a stone and kill him," whispered the devil to Cain. After the murder, the devil hurried to Eve shouting: "Eve! Cain has murdered Abel!" Eve did not know what murder was or how death felt. She asked, bewildered and horrified, "Woe to you! What is murder?" "He [Abel] does not eat. He does not drink. He does not move [That is what murder and death are]," answered the Devil. Eve burst into tears and started to wail madly. She ran to Adam and tried to tell him what happened. However, she could not speak because she could not stop wailing. Since then, women wail broken-heartedly when a loved one dies. A different tradition narrates that while Cain was quarreling with Abel, the devil killed an animal with a stone in Cain's sight to show him how to murder Abel.

After burying Abel and escaping from his family, Cain married and had children. They died in Noah's flood among tyrants and unbelievers.

Some Muslim scholars puzzled over the mention of offerings in the narrative of Cain and Abel. Offerings and sacrifices were ordained only after the revelation of to Moses in Islam. This suggested to some scholars, such as Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, that the sons of Adam, as mentioned in the Quran, are actually two Israelites, not Cain and Abel.

Gnostic interpretation
In the Apocryphon of John, a work used in Gnosticism, Cain and Abel are Archons, being the offspring of the lesser god or Demiurge called Yaldabaoth, placed over the elements of fire, wind, water and earth. In this narrative their true names are Yahweh and Elohim, but they are given their earthly names as a form of deception.

Legacy and symbolism

Allusions to Cain and Abel as an archetype of fratricide appear in numerous references and retellings, through medieval art and Shakespearean works up to present day fiction.

The serpent seed explanation for Cain being capable of murder is that he may have been the offspring of a fallen angel or Satan himself, rather than being from Adam.

A treatise on Christian Hermeticism, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, describes the biblical account of Cain and Abel as a myth, in that it expresses, in a form narrated for a particular case, an "eternal" idea. It argues that brothers can become mortal enemies through the very fact that they worship the same God in the same way. According to the author, the source of religious wars is revealed. It is not the difference in dogma or ritual which is the cause, but the "pretention to equality" or "the negation of hierarchy."

There were other, minor traditions concerning Cain and Abel, of both older and newer date. The apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve tells of Eve having a dream in which Cain drank his brother's blood. In an attempt to prevent the prophecy from happening the two young men are separated and given different jobs.

Cultural references
Like other prominent biblical figures, Cain and Abel appear in many works of art, including works by Titian, Peter Paul Rubens and William Blake.

Multiple plays allude to the story. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the characters King Claudius and King Hamlet are parallels of Cain and Abel. Lord Byron also rewrote and dramatized the story in his own play Cain (1821), viewing Cain as symbolic of a sanguine temperament, provoked by Abel's hypocrisy and sanctimony. The 2008 Danish stage play Biblen discusses and reenacts various Biblical stories, including Abel's murder by Cain.

Many novels feature the characters, or are closely based on them. Miguel de Unamuno's 1917 novel Abel Sánchez: A Story of a Passion is a re-telling of the Cain and Abel story. John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden (also an 1955 film) refers in its title to Cain's exile and contains discussions of the Cain and Abel story which then play out in the plot. James Baldwin's 1957 short story, "Sonny's Blues", has been seen as alluding to the Cain and Abel story. Author Daniel Quinn, first in his novel Ishmael (1992) and later in The Story of B (1996), proposes that the story of Cain and Abel is an account of early Semitic herdsmen observing the beginnings of what he calls totalitarian agriculture, with Cain representing the first 'modern' agriculturists and Abel the pastoralists.

They have also featured in television series and, allegorically, in film. In Dallas (1978), Bobby and J.R. Ewing have been described as variations of Cain and Abel. More direct references include the appearance of Cain and Abel as characters in DC Comics since the 1950s. In 1989, Neil Gaiman made the two recurring characters in his graphic novel series The Sandman. In Darren Aronofsky's allegorical film Mother! (2017), the characters "oldest son" and "younger brother" represent Cain and Abel.

The Bruce Springsteen song "Adam Raised a Cain" (1978) invokes the symbolism of Cain. It is also the title of a season 2 episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold has a song called Chapter Four (2003) which is based on the story of Cain and Abel. American heavy metal band Danzig has a song named Twist of Cain which lyrically is inspired by the story of Cain and Abel.

title: Cain and Abel


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Peerage of Ireland

The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisions of Peerages in the United Kingdom. The creation of such titles came to an end in the 19th century. The ranks of the Irish peerage are duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron. As of 2016, there were 135 titles in the Peerage of Ireland extant: two dukedoms, ten marquessates, 43 earldoms, 28 viscountcies, and 52 baronies. However, these titles have no official recognition in the Republic of Ireland, with Article 40.2 of the Constitution of Ireland forbidding the state conferring titles of nobility and stating that an Irish citizen may not accept titles of nobility or honour except with the prior approval of the Irish government.

In the following table, each peer is listed only by his highest Irish title, showing higher or equal titles in the other peerages. Those peers who are known by a higher title in one of the other peerages are listed in italics.

History

A modest number of titles in the peerage of Ireland date from the Middle Ages. Before 1801, Irish peers had the right to sit in the Irish House of Lords, on the abolition of which by the Union effective in 1801 by an Act of 1800 they elected a small proportion – twenty-eight Irish representative peers – of their number (and elected replacements as they died) to the House of Lords at Westminster.

Both before and after the Union, Irish peerages were often used as a way of creating peerages which did not grant a seat in the House of Lords of England (before 1707) or Great Britain (after 1707) and so allowed the grantee (such as Clive of India) to sit in the House of Commons in London. As a consequence, many late-made Irish peers had little or no connection to Ireland, and indeed the names of some Irish peerages refer to places in Great Britain (for example, the Earldom of Mexborough refers to a place in England and the Earldom of Ranfurly refers to a village in Scotland).

Irish peerages continued to be created for almost a century after the union, although the treaty of union placed restrictions on their numbers: three needed to become extinct before a new peerage could be granted, until there were only one hundred Irish peers (exclusive of those who held any peerage of Great Britain subsisting at the time of the union, or of the United Kingdom created since the union). There was a spate of creations of Irish peerages from 1797 onward, mostly peerages of higher ranks for existing Irish peers, as part of the negotiation of the Act of Union; this ended in the first week of January 1801, but the restrictions of the Act were not applied to the last few peers. In the following decades, Irish peerages were created at least as often as the Act permitted until at least 1856. But the pace then slowed, with only four more being created in the rest of the 19th century, and none in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The last two grants of Irish peerages were the promotion of the Marquess of Abercorn (a peerage of Great Britain) to be Duke of Abercorn in the Irish Peerage when he became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1868 and the granting of the Curzon of Kedleston barony to George Curzon when he became Viceroy of India in 1898. Peers of Ireland have precedence below peers of England, Scotland, and Great Britain of the same rank, and above peers of the United Kingdom of the same rank; but Irish peers created after 1801 yield to United Kingdom peers of earlier creation. Accordingly, the Duke of Abercorn (the junior duke in the Peerage of Ireland) ranks between the Duke of Sutherland and the Duke of Westminster (both dukes in the Peerage of the United Kingdom).

When one of the Irish representative peers died, the Irish Peerage met to elect his replacement; but the office required to arrange this were abolished as part of the creation of the Irish Free State. The existing representative peers kept their seats in the House of Lords, but they have not been replaced. Since the death of Francis Needham, 4th Earl of Kilmorey in 1961, none remains. The right of the Irish Peerage to elect representatives was abolished by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1971.

Titles in the Peerage of the United Kingdom have also referred to places in Ireland, for example Baron Arklow (created 1801 and 1881) or Baron Killarney (created 1892 and 1920). Since partition, only places in Northern Ireland have been used, although the 1880 title "Baron Mount Temple, of Mount Temple in the County of Sligo", was recreated in 1932 as "Baron Mount Temple, of Lee in the County of Southampton".

Ranks
In the following table of the Peerage of Ireland as it currently stands, each peer's highest titles in each of the other peerages (if any) are also listed.

Irish peers possessed of titles in any of the other peerages (except Scotland, which only got the right to an automatic seat in 1963, with the Peerage Act 1963) had automatic seats in the House of Lords until 1999.

The Earl of Darnley inherited the Baron Clifton in the Peerage of England in 1722–1900 and 1937–1999 as the barony is in writ.

Barons in the Peerage of Ireland
In Ireland, barony may also refer to a semi-obsolete political subdivision of a county. There is no connection between such a barony and the noble title of baron.

Extinct peerages
Two Irish earldoms have become extinct since the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999, both in 2011:
 * Earl of Egmont (1733), Viscount Perceval (1722), Baron Perceval (1715), Baron Lovel and Holland (GB 1762), Baron Arden (1770), Baron Arden (UK 1802)
 * Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl (1822), Viscount Mount-Earl (1816), Viscount Adare (1822), Baron Adare (1800), Baron Kenry (UK 1866)

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

title: Peerage of Ireland


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Talk:Cain and Abel

Is KJV version better in this article?
See. Opinions, editors? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:04, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Also, I meant to write "Thanks for writing a WP:ES" in my edit summary. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:06, 15 Marches i 2020 (UTC)

 * Sounds like a KJOM argument. There may be times when there's a good reason it use it, but those are exceptional and I wouldn't use it. Doug Weller  talk 21:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

 * I checked the source for the passage from Genesis, and it didn't agree with what was in the article, so I changed it for consistency. Does it seem okay? Also, what does KJOM mean?--FeralOink (talk) 21:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @FeralOink It's the belief that a particular English translation of the Bible has divine approval, or at least sound best: King James Only movement. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Video game references (command and conquer)
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Kane https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Cain command and conquer Tiberium storyline has references to this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.80.53.91 (talk) 19:36, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

 * Hello! The threshold for inclusion is that the appearance of (and biblicalness of) C and/or A in this game has been noted in a WP:Reliable source independent of its maker. This excludes usergenerated stuff like wikis (fandom), selfpublished stuff like blogs etc (see WP:USERG and WP:SPS). A decent book, magazine or newssite/paper could be good enough. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

each of his own produce
This information is not precise enough for the lede. Able made a sacrifice of the firstborn of his sheep, which is a meat sacrifice, not produce Tondelleo Schwarzkopf (talk) 21:15, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

 * According to Wiktionary: "Harvested agricultural goods collectively, especially vegetables and fruit, but possibly including eggs, dairy products and meat; the saleable food products of farms." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:56, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

 * I'm sorry, but you are simply mistaken to use Wiktionary to justify the word "produce" here. The import and meaning of Abel's offering cannot be understood unless it's made more clear. Please read this:
 * "Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, 'With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.' Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. (Genesis 4:1-5)" Read more here: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1831/cain--abel/ Tondelleo Schwarzkopf (talk) 14:42, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

 * And the body of the article makes that clear. The lead is meant to summarize, and "produce" helps. I don't mind removing "each of his own produce" though, the lead works without it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:28, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If you are willing to remove "each of his own produce", I ask that you do so. Tondelleo Schwarzkopf (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Done, we'll see if it "sticks". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:43, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Tondelleo Schwarzkopf (talk) 19:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

"Hevel" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hevel&redirect=no Hevel] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  J947  † edits 03:48, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Why did God prefer Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s SeekingMindinMud (talk) 02:50, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Creating jealousy between two siblings by having a preference seems odd. Shouldn’t God like both sacrifices since they are his children (as we are all)? Does he not love them equally? I’m very curious to find out how God may have been the first motive for the first murder! Peace and love! 🙏🏾❤ SeekingMindinMud (talk) 02:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:Undue content for the lede.
The recently inserted paragraph primarily consists of speculative interpretations from few scholars and thus not suitable for the lede. The content as it is in the Origins section is ample and satisfactory. StarkReport (talk) 16:09, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are correct! There has been repeated disruptive editing by User:IncandescentBliss yesterday (inserting content that is not appropriate for lead, see version diffs) which Gråbergs Gråa Sång had to revert, multiple times! I had to revert again just now. The paragraph about puns and possible etymology is not necessary to "identify the topic" nor to "establish context, explain why the topic is notable" and is NOT part of the most important points or controversies. It belongs in the Etymology section, if anywhere at all.--FeralOink (talk) 11:40, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * On this, I think it's fairly clear that the pun bit doesn't have to be in the WP-lead. On the rest, I can sort of understand the "real-world" aspect being mentioned, but my view is that since the article is about a piece of biblical whatever, that is not necessary to include in the lead either. Ping @Apaugasma if you wish to comment. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:49, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I made changes accordingly. A major oversight is that the article doesn't even mention the important part about God putting a mark on Cain's forehead ("the mark of Cain")! And there's no Christian or Jewish interpretation sections, so any emphasis on puns and real-worldness seems WP:UNDUE at this point in the article's development. By the way, you are very patient and tolerant!--FeralOink (talk) 12:21, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Since there are also separate Cain and Abel articles, it may be debatable what content should go where. Haven't read them. I liked it when there was one article, but that ship has probably sailed. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:36, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Responding to ping. The current lead is actually too short. I am by no means an expert but even I have heard of interpretations of the story as a symbolic representation of conflict between nomadic and settled lifestyles, and my vague impression is that this does belong somehow, somewhere in the lead. About the speculative etymology (the 'pun') I have no idea; it depends on how speculative it really is among scholars. Of course there are other things too that should be in the lead, like a summary of the legacy and symbolism section.In general though, the fact that necessary and due sections are missing from an article body should not stop editors from adding something short to the lead. An overwhelming majority of readers only ever look at the lead, and there's nothing wrong with focusing on getting that section reasonably complete first. Establishing what is due or not becomes so much easier when at least one editor has looked at a wide range of sources and has written articles sections article sections of according length. When no one has done that, however, I think it's not a good idea to be too picky.As an aside, I strongly agree that ideally, Cain and Abel should not exist and we should just have one article Cain and Abel. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 21:10, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree on the lead-first thinking. Lead follows body, and should summarize content there, not just repeat it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It appears that IncandescentBliss has added the same stuff to the lead section of the standalone Cain article I'm inclined to remove it, but curious as to what others think. StarkReport (talk) 03:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I have the same opinion on the pun-thing, and there is for example no mention in the body of that article of "especially the Sumerian myth of the Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzid." Or the pun-thing. I'm not saying the text is wrong, but it fails WP:LEAD as the article is currently written. And even if these things are added to the body, they shouldn't necessarily go in the WP:LEAD. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Apaugasma, yes, you're right: "the fact that necessary and due sections are missing from an article body should not stop editors from adding something short to the lead." I struck that out above. Tell me, why do you think the article lead is now too short please? If you would prefer to resolve the merging issue first, that's okay. Also, I'm unsure what you're saying here: "...one editor has looked at a wide range of sources and has written articles sections of according length. When no one has done that, however, I think it's not a good idea to be too picky." Articles plural? I can't tell if you're suggesting a competence concern, or if a few typos are confusing me. Same for not understanding about not being too picky?--FeralOink (talk) 19:47, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Hey FeralOink, it was a typo (now struck). What I mean is that when someone has looked at a wide range of sources when writing an article, the importance given by these sources to various aspects of the subject is normally reflected in the very length of the subsections devoted to these aspects, because one can only wp-write as much as the sources are saying. In this ideal situation, it's very easy to see what is wp:due to include in the lead and what is not. What I'm saying is that in my opinion, when we are not in that ideal situation (and we aren't with regard to this article), it's better to err on the side of including too much in the lead than to err on the side of including too little.That the lead should only summarize the article body is in itself a good editorial principle, but in my view it only applies in ideal situations where the article body has been fleshed out enough for a summary of the article to also be a reasonable complete summary of the subject. While not ideal, there's also nothing necessarily wrong, again in my view, with adding something to the lead that gets little or no attention in the article, as long as there is a reasonable indication that it is wp:due for inclusion, and the lead is not already too long. But these are just my general opinions; I'm not writing this article, and it's those who write the article who should be the ones to decide what to do with it. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 23:46, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Noting that IncandescentBliss is sock-blocked. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:19, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for mentioning that!--FeralOink (talk) 19:50, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Should Cain and Abel be merged into this article?
There used to be one Cain and Abel article, separate articles were made at some point. Is it WP-better to treat this as one topic? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, if there is someone with an interest to do this. There is almost nothing to be said about Cain that does not directly involve Abel, and vice versa; having three articles therefore is superfluous and inefficient. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 13:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes. Especially about Abel there is not much to say beyond what is included in Cain and Abel. That article is only about 700 words. About Cain there might be more to say, but not so much that a separate article is needed (it has 2300 words, and the main article has 1700 words, with a lot of duplication between the two). Cain also has some structural issues: the central section "Genesis narrative" is nothing but a hatnote link to the Cain and Abel. I take that as an indication that it is difficult to write article about Cain without making it a fork of Cain and Abel. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 13:47, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't see why we have a separate on Abel, who has little significance outside his interaction with his brother. With Cain, we have his status as a city founder, the Curse of Cain, several descendants of Cain depicted in the Book of Genesis, the murder of Cain orchestrated by his descendant Tubal-cain, and several centuries of cultural depictions. I think there is plenty of material for a separate article. Dimadick (talk) 14:58, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Tend to agree with Dimadick. I think we need Cain and Abel, Cain is justifiable, but Abel should perhaps be merged here, although unlike Cain, he has a considerable religious afterlife, so could be kept. I wonder how carefully the first 2 above have actually looked at all 3 articles - their content lower down is considerably different. Johnbod (talk) 15:11, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Cain and Abel


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Shōwa

Shōwa most commonly refers to:

 * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa
 * Shōwa era (昭和), the era of Hirohito from 1926 to 1989
 * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufacturer, affiliated with the Honda keiretsu

Shōwa may also refer to:

Japanese eras

 * Jōwa (Heian period) (承和), alternatively read as Shōwa, from 834 to 848
 * Shōwa (Kamakura period) (正和), from 1312 to 1317

Japanese places

 * Shōwa, Akita, a former town in Akita Prefecture
 * Shōwa, Yamanashi, a town in Yamanashi Prefecture
 * Shōwa, a former town in Tokyo, now part of Akishima, Tokyo
 * Shōwa-ku, a ward of Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture
 * Shōwa, Fukushima, a village in Fukushima Prefecture
 * Shōwa, Gunma, a village in Gunma Prefecture
 * Shōwa, Saitama, a dissolved town in Saitama Prefecture
 * Showa Station (Antarctica), a Japanese research station located in Antarctica
 * Shōwa Station (Kanagawa), a Japanese railway station in Kanagawa Prefecture

Japanese educational institutions

 * Showa University, in Tokyo
 * Showa Women's University, in Tokyo
 * Showa Pharmaceutical University (昭和薬科大学 Shōwa Yakka Daigaku), in Tokyo
 * Showa Academia Musicae (昭和音楽大学 Shōwa Ongaku Daigaku), in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture
 * Showa Museum of Art (昭和美術館 Shōwa Bijitsukan), in Nagoya

Japanese companies

 * Showa Aircraft Industry, a Japanese aircraft company
 * Showa Denko, a Japanese chemical company
 * Showa Shell Sekiyu, former Japanese subsidiary of the Shell petroleum company
 * Showa Steel Works, former Japanese steel mill

Other uses

 * Showa (fish), a variety of ornamental koi (carp)
 * Showa: A History of Japan, a manga by Shigeru Mizuki
 * Shōwa Modan, an art style
 * Showa/Nakajima L2D, a model of Japanese aircraft
 * Shewa, also spelled Showa, a region of Ethiopia
 * Showa Era, the series of Godzilla movies ranging from 1954 to 1975.
 * Shōwa, an album by The Gerogerigegege
 * Shōwa, an album by Haruko Momoi

title: Shōwa


text:
Lord-lieutenant

A lord-lieutenant is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility over the local militia was removed. However, it was not until 1921 that they formally lost the right to call upon able-bodied men to fight when needed.

Lord-lieutenant is now an honorary titular position usually awarded to a retired notable person in the county, and despite the name, may be either male or female.

England and Wales
Lieutenants were first appointed to a number of English counties by King Henry VIII in the 1540s, when the military functions of the sheriffs were handed over to them. Each lieutenant raised and was responsible for the efficiency of the local militia units of his county, and afterwards of the yeomanry and volunteers. He was commander of these forces, whose officers he appointed. These commissions were originally of temporary duration, and only when the situation required the local militia to be specially supervised and well prepared; often when invasion by Scotland or France might be expected.

Lieutenancies soon became more organised, probably in the reign of Henry's successor King Edward VI, their establishment being approved by the English parliament in 1550. However, it was not until the threat of invasion by the forces of Spain in 1585 that lieutenants were appointed to all counties and counties corporate and became in effect permanent. Although some counties were left without lieutenants during the 1590s, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the office continued to exist, and was retained by King James I even after the end of the Anglo-Spanish War.

The office of lieutenant was abolished under the Commonwealth, but was re-established following the Restoration under the City of London Militia Act 1662, which declared that:

"[T]he King's most Excellent Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, shall and may from Time to Time, as Occasion shall require, issue forth several Commissions of Lieutenancy to such Persons as his Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, shall think fit to be his Majesty's Lieutenants for the several and respective Counties, Cities and Places of England and Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick upon Tweed."

Although not explicitly stated, from that date lieutenants were appointed to "counties at large", with their jurisdiction including the counties corporate within the parent county. For example, lieutenants of Devon in the 17th and 18th centuries appointed deputy lieutenants to the City of Exeter, and were sometimes described as the "Lieutenant of Devon and Exeter". The one exception was Haverfordwest, to which a lieutenant continued to be appointed until 1974. The origin of this anomaly may have lain in the former palatine status of Pembrokeshire.

The official title of the office at this time was His or Her Majesty's "Lieutenant for the county of x", but, as almost all office-holders were peers of the realm, they were referred to as "Lord-Lieutenant".

The City of London was uniquely given a commission of lieutenancy, and was exempt from the authority of the lieutenant of Middlesex. The Constable of the Tower of London and the Warden of the Cinque Ports were ex officio lieutenants for the Tower Hamlets and the Cinque Ports respectively, which were treated as counties in legislation regarding lieutenancy and militia affairs.

Ireland
In the counties of Ireland, the officer in charge of the county militia was styled "Lieutenant" until James II and "Governor" thereafter. There could be up to three Governors in one county. Responsibility for recommending County magistrates lay with the Custos Rotulorum. The Custos Rotulorum (Ireland) Act 1831 cancelled the commissions of the Governors, transferred the militia and county magistrate functions to the (re)established office of Lieutenant (appointed by letters patent and styled "Lord Lieutenant"), and empowered the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to appoint Deputy Lieutenants.

In the Republic of Ireland no Lord Lieutenants have been appointed since the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, and all relevant statutes have been repealed.

Northern Ireland
In 1921, with the establishment of Northern Ireland, lord lieutenants continued to be appointed through the Governor of Northern Ireland to the six counties and the two county boroughs of Derry and Belfast. Whereas in 1973 the counties and county boroughs were abolished as local government units, lord-lieutenants are now appointed directly by the King to "counties and county boroughs ... as defined for local government purposes immediately before 1 October 1973".

Scotland
Although Colin, Earl of Balcarres was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Fife in 1688, and lieutenants were appointed to a few counties from about 1715, it was not until 1794 that permanent lieutenancies were established by royal warrant. By the Militia Act 1797, the lieutenants appointed "for the Counties, Stewartries, Cities, and Places" were given powers to raise and command county militia units.

The Lord Provosts of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee are, by virtue of office, also the lord-lieutenants of their respective city.

While in their lieutenancies, lord-lieutenants are among the few individuals in Scotland officially permitted to fly the banner of the Royal Arms of Scotland, or "The Lion Rampant" as it is more commonly known.

19th century
The Militia Act 1802 (42 Geo. 3. c. 90) provided for the appointment of lieutenants to "Lieutenants for the Counties, Ridings, and Places" in England and Wales, and gave them command of the county militia. In the case of towns or cities which were counties of themselves, the "chief magistrate" (meaning the mayor, chief bailiff or other head of the corporation) had the authority to appoint deputy lieutenants in the absence of an appointment of a lieutenant by the crown. The Regulation of the Forces Act 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 86) removed the lieutenant as head of the county militia, as the jurisdiction, duties and command exercised by the lieutenant were revested in the crown, but the power of recommending for first appointments was reserved to the lieutenant.

The Militia Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 49) revested the jurisdiction of the lieutenants in the crown.

The lieutenancies were reestablished on a new basis by section 29 of the Militia Act 1882 which stated that "Her Majesty shall from time to time appoint Lieutenants for the several counties in the United Kingdom". Counties for lieutenancy purposes were also redefined as "a county at large, with the exception that each riding of the county of York shall be a separate county". The text of the letters patent appointing lieutenants under the act stated they were to be:

"...Our Lieutenant of and in the County of X and of all cities boroughs liberties places incorporated and privileged and other places whatsoever within the said county and the limits and precincts of the same."

This was a formal recognition of the situation that had existed since 1662 that the lieutenancies for the majority of counties corporate in England were held jointly with their associated county—for example a lieutenant was now appointed for "the County of Gloucester, and the City and County of Gloucester, and the City and County of City of Bristol".

Haverfordwest was permitted to retain a lieutenant while the Tower Hamlets and Cinque Ports were to continue to be regarded as counties for lieutenancy purposes.

From 1889 lieutenancy counties in England and Wales were to correspond to groupings of administrative counties and county boroughs established by the Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41). The creation of a new County of London absorbed the former Tower Hamlets lieutenancy. The act also extinguished the lieutenancy of the Cinque Ports.

Section 69 of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 37) realigned the lieutenancy counties with the new administrative counties created by the act. The one exception was County Tipperary, which although administered by two county councils, was to remain united for lieutenancy. In contrast to legislation in England and Wales, each county borough was to have its own lieutenant, and those counties corporate not made county boroughs were abolished. The effect of this was to create a lieutenant for the county boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry, and to abolish those for the city of Kilkenny, borough of Drogheda and town of Galway.

The office of lieutenant was honorary and held during the royal pleasure, but often for life. Appointment to the office is by letters patent under the great seal. Usually, though not necessarily, the person appointed lieutenant was also appointed custos rotulorum or keeper of the rolls. Appointments to the county's bench of magistrates were usually made on the recommendation of the lieutenant.

20th century

The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 (7 Edw. 7. c. 9) established county territorial force associations, of which the lieutenant was to be head, styled president of the county association. It restated the combination of counties and counties corporate as lieutenancy counties.

In 1921, with the establishment of Northern Ireland, lieutenants continued to be appointed through the Governor of Northern Ireland to the six counties and two county boroughs. The creation of the Irish Free State in the following year saw the remaining county lieutenancies in Ireland abolished. In 1973 the counties and county boroughs were abolished as local government units in Northern Ireland, and lord-lieutenants are now appointed directly by the sovereign to "counties and county boroughs... as defined for local government purposes immediately before 1 October 1973". In 1975 the term lord-lieutenant officially replaced that of lieutenant.

Local government reform in England in 1965 led to the appointment of lieutenants to Greater London and Huntingdon and Peterborough, and the abolition of those of the counties of London, Middlesex and Huntingdon.

A more fundamental reform of local government throughout England and Wales (outside Greater London) created a new structure of metropolitan, non-metropolitan and Welsh counties in 1974. Section 218 of the Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) that established the new system stated: "Her Majesty shall appoint a lord-lieutenant for each county in England and Wales and for Greater London..." The act appears to be the first statutory use of the term "lord-lieutenant" for lieutenants to counties.

Existing lord lieutenants were assigned to one of the corresponding new counties wherever possible. Where this could not be done, the existing office-holder became a lieutenant of a county, junior to the lord-lieutenant. For example, the Lord Lieutenant of Montgomeryshire was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Powys, with those of Breconshire and Radnorshire each being designated as simply "Lieutenant of Powys". This measure was temporary, and no lieutenants have been appointed in this way since 1974, although the power still exists.

In 1975 counties ceased to be used for local government purposes in Scotland. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c. 65) replaced the counties with regions, and each region was to have one or more lord-lieutenants appointed. The areas to which they were appointed approximated to the counties and were based and were defined in terms of the new local government districts.

Present day

In 1996 Scottish regions and districts were abolished on further local government reorganisation, and since that date Lord-Lieutenants have been appointed to "lieutenancy areas", in most places roughly equivalent to the historic Scottish counties.

Partial reform of local government in England since 1995 has led to the creation of so-called "ceremonial counties" to which Lord-Lieutenants are now appointed. The Lieutenancies Act 1997 (c. 23) is the most recent piece of primary legislation dealing with lieutenancies in England and includes the definitive list of the current areas used. Ceremonial counties may comprise combinations of county council areas and unitary authority areas, or even parts of them.

Since the local government re-organisation of 1996 in Wales, Lord-Lieutenants are now appointed to "preserved counties", i.e. the counties used for administrative purposes from 1974 to 1996.

The City of London was unaffected by changes introduced since 1882. It has a Commission of Lieutenancy rather than a Lord-Lieutenant, headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London.

Duties
Lord-Lieutenants are the monarch's representatives in their respective lieutenancies. It is their foremost duty to uphold the dignity of the Crown, and in so doing they seek to promote a spirit of co-operation and good atmosphere through the time they give to voluntary and benevolent organisations and through the interest they take in the business and social life of their counties.

The modern responsibilities of Lord-Lieutenants include:
 * Arranging visits of members of the royal family and escorting royal visitors;
 * Presenting medals and awards on behalf of the sovereign, and advising on honours nominations;
 * Participating in civic, voluntary and social activities within the lieutenancy;
 * Acting as liaison with local units of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army, Royal Air Force and their associated cadet forces;
 * Leading the local magistracy as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace; and
 * Chairing the local Advisory Committee for the Appointment of the General Commissioners of Income Tax, a tribunal which hears appeals against decisions made by the HM Revenue and Customs on a variety of different tax-related matters.

As the Sovereign's representative in each county, a Lord-Lieutenant remains non-political and may not hold office in any political party. They are appointed for life, although the customary age of retirement is 75 and the Sovereign may remove them.

Deputies
Each Lord-Lieutenant is supported by a Vice-Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenants that he or she appoints. The Vice-Lieutenant takes over when the Lord-Lieutenant is abroad, ill, or otherwise incapacitated. The Lord-Lieutenant appoints between thirty and forty Deputy Lieutenants depending on the county's population.

Remuneration
They are unpaid, but receive minimal allowances for secretarial help, mileage allowance and a driver. Lord-Lieutenants receive an allowance for the ceremonial uniform, worn when receiving members of the Royal Family and on other formal occasions.

Uniform
Since at least the 18th century, a military-style uniform has been worn by lord-lieutenants (appropriate to the military origins of the post). Since 1831 this has been analogous to the uniform worn by a general staff officer, but with silver lace in place of the gold worn by regular officers. Over time, the design of the uniform changed in line with changes made to army uniform.

At present, it is a dark blue uniform in the style of a General Officer's Army No. 1 dress (but with buttons, epaulettes, sash, etc. in silver rather than gold). A cap is worn, as well as a sword with a steel scabbard. The badge used on the uniform varies depending on where the lieutenant's county is situated – a rose is worn in England, shamrocks in Northern Ireland, a thistle in Scotland and Prince-of-Wales feathers in Wales. On the whole, the lord-lieutenant's insignia resemble a Lieutenant-General of the British Army.

The uniform for a vice lord-lieutenant and for deputy lieutenants is of a similar style, but with features to distinguish it from that of a lord-lieutenant – on shoulder boards, no crown above the national symbol (rose, shamrocks, or thistle); blue cord instead of silver on the red collar patches (deputy lieutenants have a simple grey stripe); and only a single row of gold braid around the peak of the cap (deputy lieutenants have no oak leaf but simple gold tape). In addition, deputy lieutenants wear narrower shoulder boards than their superiors, and the red cap band is horizontally divided by a small grey stripe. The vice lord-lieutenant's dress resembles that of a former Brigadier-General of the British Army, while a deputy lieutenant's dress resembles that of a field officer.

The uniform is optional for female lord-lieutenants, vice lord-lieutenants, and deputy lieutenants. If not in uniform, female appointees wear a Badge of Office featuring their national symbol (rose, shamrocks, or thistle) on a bow of white and magenta – the Lieutenancy colours.

Badge
In 1975 a badge was provided for female lord-lieutenants to wear as an optional alternative to the uniform. It consists of an enamel version of the uniform cap badge topped by a jewelled crown, suspended from a ribbon of the same colour as the uniform sash.

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the head of the British administration in Ireland until the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

Forms of address for lord-lieutenants

 * Written: '(Title and name), His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant'
 * Salutation: 'Dear Lord-Lieutenant'
 * In a speech: 'My Lord-Lieutenant'
 * In conversation: '(Title and name)' or 'Lord-Lieutenant'.
 * Plural: 'Lord-lieutenants', although the form of 'Lords-Lieutenant' frequently appears.

Colonial equivalents
In the English colonies, and subsequently the British Empire, the duties of a Lord-Lieutenant were generally performed by the Commander-in-Chief or the Governor. Both offices may have been occupied by the same person.

By way of an example, this is still the case in Britain's second, and oldest remaining, colony, Bermuda, where the Royal Navy's headquarters, main base, and dockyard for the North America and West Indies Station was established following independence of the United States of America. The colony had raised militia and volunteer forces since official settlement in 1612 (with a troop-of-horse added later), and a small force of regular infantry from 1701 to 1783. Bermuda became an Imperial fortress (along with Halifax in Nova Scotia, Gibraltar, and Malta), a large regular army garrison was built up after 1794, and the reserve forces faded away following the conclusion of the American War of 1812 as the local government lost interest in paying for their upkeep. From this point until the 1960s, governors were almost exclusively senior British Army officers (particularly from the Royal Artillery or Royal Engineers) who were also military Commanders-in-Chief (and initially also Vice-Admirals) of the regular military forces stationed in the colony and not simply the reserves. Attempts to rekindle the militia without a Militia Act or funds from the colonial government were made throughout the century under the authorisation of the Governor and Commander-in-Chief, but none proved lasting. The colonial government was finally compelled to raise militia and volunteer forces (the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps) by Act in the 1890s (the Bermuda Cadet Corps, Bermuda Volunteer Engineers, and Bermuda Militia Infantry were added at later dates), and these fell under the Governor and Commander-in-Chief, as well as under operational control of his junior, the brigadier in charge of the Bermuda Command (or Bermuda Garrison), which included the regular as well as the part-time military (as opposed to naval) forces in the colony. Although the Royal Naval and the regular army establishments have been withdrawn from Bermuda, the Governor of Bermuda remains the Commander-in-Chief (though most recent office holders have not been career army officers) of the Royal Bermuda Regiment (a 1965 amalgam of the BMA and BVRC, which had both been reorganised in line with the Territorial Army after the First World War).

Approximate equivalents in other countries
In France and Italy, the role of Prefect (préfet in French, prefetto in Italian) is different from that of lord-lieutenant, as the regional and departmental prefects of France are responsible for delivering as well as controlling functions of public services. Similarly to a lord-lieutenant, in Portugal, a representative of the Republic (representante da República in Portuguese) is the personal representative of the Head of State in each of the two autonomous regions of the country, having a limited political role, besides the ceremonial one. In Sweden (as landshövding) and Norway (as fylkesmann), the regional governor is responsible for administrative control functions of services delivered and decisions made by local and county municipalities, as well as representing the king in the region. In the Netherlands, King's commissioners (Commissaris van de Koning in Dutch) are appointed by the monarch, but unlike a lord-lieutenant, belong to a political party. The Lord-lieutenant (UK) and Governor (Indian states) are ceremonial representatives appointed by central authorities. They engage in community initiatives and act as intermediaries between higher authorities and local/state governments.

title: Lord-lieutenant


text:
1974 in politics

1974 in politics covers information on political events occurred worldwide.

Events

 * January 2 - Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.
 * January 4 - U.S. President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
 * February 22 - Pakistan recognizes Bangladesh.
 * February 28 - After seven years, the United States and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations.
 * February 28 - General election in the U.K. results in no majority for any party; Labour will form a minority government until October despite having received fewer votes nationally than the Conservatives. See February 1974 United Kingdom general election.
 * March 4 - Harold Wilson replaces Edward Heath as Prime Minister of the UK.
 * March 1 - Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.
 * April 25 - Portuguese democratic revolution.
 * May 18 - "Smiling Buddha" nuclear weapon test by India.
 * June 29 - Isabel Perón replaces Juan Perón as President of Argentina.
 * July 20 - Turkey invades the country of Cyprus and occupies the northern third of the island (later declared the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus).
 * August 9 - President Richard Nixon of the USA resigns, and is replaced with Gerald Ford.
 * September 1 - Acting Hugh Watt replaces deceased Norman Kirk as Prime Minister of New Zealand.
 * September 6 - Bill Rowling replaces acting Hugh Watt as Prime Minister of New Zealand.
 * September 12 - Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie ousted in a coup by the Derg.
 * October 10 - General election in the UK is won narrowly by Labour. See October 1974 United Kingdom general election.

title: 1974 in politics


text:
Talk:Edmund FitzAlan-Howard, 1st Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent

Untitled
Including title as in standard layout JtdIrL 22:06 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:52, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Lord Fitzalan.jpg


text:
Dolly

Dolly may refer to:

Tools

 * Dolly (tool), a portable anvil
 * Dolly pot, also known as a dolly, a portable tool used for crushing small quantities of ore-bearing rock, by hand, in a process known as dollying
 * A posser, also known as a dolly, used for laundering
 * A variety of wheeled tools, including:
 * Dolly (trailer), for towing behind a vehicle
 * Boat dolly or launching dolly, a device for launching small boats into the water
 * Camera dolly, platform that enables a movie or video camera to move during shots
 * Hand truck, sometimes called a dolly
 * Flatbed trolley, sometimes called a dolly

People

 * Dolly (name), a list of people with the given name or nickname
 * Dolly Buster, stage name of Czech-German former porn actress, filmmaker and author Nora Baumberger (born 1969)
 * Dolly Dawn, American singer Theresa Maria Stabile (1916–2002)
 * Dolly Parton, American singer (born 1946)

Fictional characters

 * One of Bonnie's toys in the film Toy Story 3
 * Dolly Gopher, in the television film Re-Animated
 * Dolly Gallagher Levi, in the movie Hello Dolly
 * Dolly for Sue, from the 1964 film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
 * Dolly (character), from The Story of Tracy Beaker
 * In the film Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, short for Dolichorhynchops
 * One of the characters from 101 Dalmatian Street
 * Dolly Mishra, a character played by Kareena Kapoor in the 2006 Indian film Omkara
 * Dolly, a self-titled character played by Dolly Ahluwalia in the 2012 Indian film Vicky Donor

Film and television

 * Dolly shot, a type of film sequence
 * Dolly (film), a 1929 French silent film directed by Pierre Colombier
 * Dolly (1976 TV series), a television show starring Dolly Parton
 * Dolly (1987 TV series), a television show starring Dolly Parton

Music

 * Dolly (French band)
 * Dolly (Japanese band)
 * Dolly (Fauré), a collection of duet pieces for piano by Gabriel Fauré
 * Dolly (album), a 1975 album by Dolly Parton
 * Dolly (song), a song by rapper Lil Tecca feat. Lil Uzi Vert

Print

 * Dolly (magazine), an Australian publication
 * "Dolly" (story), a 2011 short story by Elizabeth Bear

Other uses

 * Tropical Storm Dolly, various storms
 * Dolly (sheep), the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell
 * Dolly (company), a Brazilian company and soft drink brand
 * Dolly's Cay, or Dolly's Rock, Bahamas
 * Mephedrone, drug referred to in slang as "dolly" or "dollies"
 * Dolly, fanclub of the Korean musical group F-ve Dolls

title: Dolly


text:
El Escorial

El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio de El Escorial, is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 2.06 km up the valley (4.1 km road distance) from the town of El Escorial and about 45 km northwest of the Spanish capital Madrid. Built between 1563 and 1584 by order of King Philip II (who reigned 1556–1598), El Escorial is the largest Renaissance building in the world. It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university, school, and hospital.

El Escorial consists of two architectural complexes of great historical and cultural significance: the royal monastery itself and La Granjilla de La Fresneda, a royal hunting lodge and monastic retreat about 5 km away. These sites have a dual nature: during the 16th and 17th centuries, they were places in which the power of the Spanish monarchy and the ecclesiastical predominance of the Roman Catholic religion in Spain found a common architectural manifestation. El Escorial was both a Spanish royal palace and a monastery, although Philip II is the only monarch who ever lived in the main building. Established with a community of Hieronymite monks, it has become a monastery of the Order of Saint Augustine. It was also a boarding school: the Real Colegio de Alfonso XII.

Philip II engaged the Spanish architect Juan Bautista de Toledo to be his collaborator in the building of the complex at El Escorial. Toledo had spent the greater part of his career in Rome, where he had worked on St. Peter's Basilica, and in Naples serving the king's viceroy, whose recommendation brought him to the king's attention. Philip appointed him architect-royal in 1559, and, together, they designed El Escorial as a monument to Spain's role as a center of the Christian world.

On 2 November 1984, UNESCO declared The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo of El Escorial a World Heritage Site. It is a popular tourist attraction, often visited by daytrippers from Madrid—more than 500,000 visitors come to El Escorial every year.

Conception and design
El Escorial is situated at the foot of Mount Abantos in the Sierra de Guadarrama. This austere location, hardly an obvious choice for the site of a royal palace, was chosen by King Philip II of Spain, and it was he who ordained the building of a grand edifice here to commemorate the 1557 Spanish victory at the Battle of St. Quentin in Picardy against Henry II, king of France. Philip also intended the complex to serve as a necropolis for the interment of the remains of his parents, Charles I and Isabella of Portugal, himself, and his descendants. In addition, Philip envisioned El Escorial as a center for studies in aid of the Counter-Reformation cause.

The building's cornerstone was laid on 23 April 1563. The design and construction were overseen by Juan Bautista de Toledo, who did not live to see the completion of the project. With Toledo's death in 1567, direction passed to his apprentice, Juan de Herrera, under whom the building was completed in 1584, in slightly less than 21 years. To this day, la obra de El Escorial ("the work of El Escorial") is a proverbial expression for a thing that takes a long time to finish.

Since then, El Escorial has been the burial site for most of the Spanish kings of the last five centuries, Bourbons as well as Habsburgs. The Royal Pantheon contains the tombs of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (who ruled Spain as King Charles I), Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV, Charles II, Louis I, Charles III, Charles IV, Ferdinand VII, Isabella II, Alfonso XII, and Alfonso XIII. Two Bourbon kings, Philip V (who reigned from 1700 to 1724 and again from 1724 to 1746) and Ferdinand VI (1746–1759), as well as King Amadeus (1870–1873), are not buried in the monastery.

The floor plan of the building is in the form of a gridiron. The traditional belief is that this design was chosen in honor of St. Lawrence, who, in the third century AD, was martyred by being roasted to death on a grill. St. Lawrence's feast day is 10 August, the same date as the 1557 Battle of St. Quentin.

However, the origin of the building's layout is quite controversial. The grill-like shape, which did not fully emerge until Herrera eliminated from the original conception the six interior towers of the facade, was, by no means, unique to El Escorial. Other buildings had been constructed with churches or chapels fronting on interior courtyards: King's College, Cambridge, dating from 1441, is one such example; the old Ospedale Maggiore, Milan's first hospital, begun in 1456 by Antonio Filarete, is another grid-like building with interior courtyards. In fact, palaces of this approximate design were commonplace in the Byzantine and Arab world. Strikingly similar to El Escorial is the layout of the Alcázar of Seville and the design of the Alhambra at Granada, where, as at El Escorial, two courtyards in succession separate the main portal of the complex from a fully enclosed place of worship.The most persuasive theory for the origin of the floor plan is that it is based on descriptions of the Temple of Solomon by the Judeo-Roman historian Flavius Josephus: a portico followed by a courtyard open to the sky, followed by a second portico and a second courtyard, all flanked by arcades and enclosed passageways, leading to the "holy of holies". Statues of David and Solomon on either side of the entrance to the basilica of El Escorial lend further weight to the theory that this is the true origin of the design. A more personal connection can be drawn between the David-warrior figure, representing Charles V, and his son, the stolid and solomonically prudent Philip II. Echoing the same theme, a fresco in the center of El Escorial's library, a reminder of Solomon's legendary wisdom, affirms Philip's preoccupation with the great Jewish king, his thoughtful and logical character, and his extraordinary, monumental temple.

The Temple of Solomon design, if indeed it was the basis for El Escorial, was extensively modified to accommodate the additional functions Philip II intended the building to serve. Besides being a monastery, El Escorial is also a pantheon, a basilica, a convent, a school, a library, and a royal palace. All these functional demands resulted in a doubling of the building's size from the time of its original conception.

Built primarily from locally quarried gray granite, square and sparsely ornamented, El Escorial is austere, even forbidding, in its outward appearance, seemingly more like a fortress than a monastery or palace. It takes the form of a gigantic quadrangle, approximately 224 by 153 m, which encloses a series of intersecting passageways and courtyards. At each of the four corners is a square tower surmounted by a spire, and, near the center of the complex (and taller than the rest), rise the pointed belfries and round dome of the basilica. Philip's instructions to Toledo were simple and clear, directing that the architects should produce "simplicity in the construction, severity in the whole, nobility without arrogance, majesty without ostentation."

Aside from its explicit purposes, the complex is also an enormous storehouse of art. In it are displayed masterworks by Titian, Tintoretto, Benvenuto Cellini, El Greco, Velázquez, Rogier van der Weyden, Paolo Veronese, Bernini, Alonso Cano, José de Ribera, Claudio Coello, and others. Giambattista Castello designed the magnificent main staircase. The library contains thousands of priceless manuscripts: for example, the collection of the sultan Zidan Abu Maali, who ruled Morocco from 1603 to 1627, is housed here.

Courtyard of the Kings
The main entrance of the El Escorial is the west façade, which has three doors: the middle one leads to the Courtyard of the Kings (Patio de los Reyes) and the side ones lead to a school and to a monastery. Above the center door is a niche where the image of Saint Lawrence has been placed. The Courtyard of the Kings owes its name to the statues of the Kings of Judah that adorn the façade of the Basílica, located at the east end of the courtyard. Steps of red marble lead to the large, public chapel, past the narthex, which is one of the highlights of the basilica. The basilica has a floor in the shape of a Greek cross and an enormous dome, inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, above the crossing. The naves are covered over by barrel vaults decorated with frescoes by Luca Giordano. The main altarpiece is 30 m high and divided into compartments of different sizes where are found bronze sculptures, and canvases painted by Tibaldi, Zuccari, and Leoni. In the sacristy, paintings such as Joseph's Coat by Velázquez, The Last Supper by Titian, and The Adoration of the Sacred Host by Charles II by Claudio Coello are on exhibit.

Under the royal chapel of the Basilica is the Royal Pantheon crypt. This is the place of burial for the kings of Spain. It is an octagonal Baroque mausoleum made of marble where all of the Spanish monarchs since Charles I have been buried, with the exception of Philip V, Ferdinand VI, and Amadeus of Savoy. The remains of the Count of Barcelona, the father of King Juan Carlos I of Spain, also rest in this pantheon despite the fact that the Count never became king himself. The enclosure is presided over by an altar of veined marble, and the sarcophagi are bronze and marble. There is also the Pantheon of the Princes, where the bodies of the queens who did not have a crowned succession and the princes and princesses were laid to rest. This part was built in the nineteenth century.

Next to the basilica, to the south, is the Courtyard of the Evangelists. This is a gardened patio in whose center rises a magnificent pavilion, by Juan de Herrera, in which one can find sculptures of the Evangelists. Around the courtyard are the galleries of the main cloister, decorated with frescoes by Pellegrino Tibaldi and his workshop, in which scenes from the history of the Redemption are represented. In the East gallery, one finds the splendid main staircase with a fresco-decorated vaulted ceiling depicting The glory of the Spanish monarchy, painted by Luca Giordano in 1692.

The Palace of the Austrians (Palacio de los Austrias), also known as the House of the King (Casa del Rey), is found behind the presbytery of the basilica. The outbuildings of this palace, of Italian style, are distributed around the Courtyard of the Fountainheads (Patio de los Mascarones). Inside the House of the King are the Sala de las Batallas (Hall of Battles), which contains frescoes of the battles of San Quintín and Higueruela, among others. The next building contains the rooms of Philip II and of the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia. Another outbuilding is that of Alcoba del Rey, housing the bed in which Philip II died.

Basilica

The basilica of San Lorenzo el Real, the central building in the El Escorial complex, was originally designed, like most of the late Gothic cathedrals of Western Europe, to take the form of a Latin cross. As such, it has a long nave on the east–west axis intersected by a shorter transept, about three-quarters of the way between the west entrance and the high altar. This plan was modified by Juan de Herrera to that of a Greek cross, a form with all four arms of equal length. Coincident with this shift in approach, the bell towers at the western end of the church were somewhat reduced in size and the small half-dome intended to stand over the altar was replaced with a full circular dome over the center of the church, where the four arms of the Greek cross meet.

Clearly Juan Bautista de Toledo's experience with the dome of St. Peter's basilica in Rome influenced the design of El Escorial's basilica. However, the Roman dome is supported by ranks of tapered Corinthian columns, with their extravagant capitals of acanthus leaves and their elaborately fluted shafts, while the dome at El Escorial, soaring nearly 100 m into the air, is supported by four heavy granite piers connected by simple Romanesque arches and decorated by simple Doric pilasters, plain, solid, and largely unprepossessing. It would not be a flight of fancy to interpret St. Peter's as the quintessential expression of Baroque sensuality and the basilica at El Escorial as a statement of the stark rigidity and grim purposefulness of the Inquisition, the two sides of the Counter-Reformation.

The most richly decorated part of the church is the area surrounding the high altar. Behind the altar is a three-tiered reredos, or altar screen, made of red granite and jasper, nearly 28 m tall, adorned with gilded bronze statuary by Leone Leoni, and three sets of religious paintings commissioned by Philip II. To either side are gilded life-size bronzes of the kneeling family groups of Charles and Philip, also by Leoni, with help from his son Pompeo. In a shallow niche at the center of the lowest level is the tabernacle, a repository for the physical elements of the communion ceremony, a so-called "House of the Sacrament", designed by Juan de Herrera in jasper and bronze. It was built between 1579 and 1586 by Jacopo da Trezzo.

To decorate the reredos, the king's preferences had been Michelangelo or Titian, but both of these giants were already more than eighty years old and in frail health. Consequently, Philip consulted his foreign ambassadors for recommendations, and the result was a lengthy parade of the lesser European artists of that time, all swanning through the construction site at El Escorial seeking the king's favor.

One chapel exhibits the famous Crucifix carved in white marble by Benvenuto Cellini. This statue of Christ is unusual because it was represented fully nude; although for modesty it wears one cloth covering the genitals.

Palace of Philip II
Situated next to the main altar of the Basilica, the residence of King Philip II consists of a series of austerely decorated rooms. It features a window from which the king could observe mass from his bed when incapacitated by the gout that afflicted him.

Hall of Battles
The gallery was originally called the King's Gallery (Galería del Rey) but came to be known as the Hall of Battles (Sala de Batallas) for its fresco paintings depicting the most important Spanish military victories. These include a medieval victory over the Moors, as well as several of Philip's campaigns against the French.

Pantheon of the Kings
This chamber consists of twenty-six marble sepulchres containing the remains of the kings and queens regnant (the only queen regnant since Philip II being Isabella II) of the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties, from Charles I to the present, except for Philip V and Ferdinand VI.

The sepulchres also contain the remains of royal consorts who were parents of monarchs. The only king consort is Francis of Asis de Bourbon, husband of Queen Isabella II and father of Alfonso XII.

The most recent monarch interred in the pantheon is King Alfonso XIII, removed there from the Church of Santa Maria in Monserrato, Rome in 1980. The remains of Alfonso XIII's wife, Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg were interred in the pantheon in 2011.The remains of Alfonso XIII's third son Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, and daughter-in-law Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (the father and mother of King Juan Carlos I), lie at a prepared place called a pudridero, or decaying chamber, awaiting interment in the Pantheon of the Kings. With the interment of these remains, all the sepulchres in the pantheon will be filled. No decision has yet been announced as to the final resting place of now-abdicated Juan Carlos, Queen Sofía, Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, and any future monarchs and consorts.

There are two pudrideros at El Escorial, one for the Pantheon of the Kings and the other for the Pantheon of the Princes. These can only be visited by monks from the Monastery. In these rooms, the remains of the deceased are placed in a small leaden urn, which in turn will be placed in the marble sepulchres of the appropriate pantheon after the passage of fifty years, the estimated time necessary for the complete decomposition of the bodies.

The interment of the remains of Queen Victoria Eugenie and the Count and Countess of Barcelona in the Royal Pantheon will each constitute an exception to tradition. First, Victoria Eugenie, although the wife of a king, was never the mother of a king in the strict sense. Secondly, the Count of Barcelona never reigned as king, although he was head of the Spanish royal family between the renunciation of his father's rights on 14 January 1941 and his renunciation of his own rights in favour of his son Juan Carlos I on 14 May 1977. Thirdly, the Countess of Barcelona was the mother of a king but not the wife of a king. However, some consider the Count of Barcelona to have been de jure King of Spain from 1941 to 1977, which in turn would make him, his mother, Queen Victoria Eugenie, and his wife, the Countess of Barcelona, eligible for interment in the Pantheon of Kings.

There has already been one exception to tradition: Elisabeth of Bourbon is for the moment the only queen in the pantheon who has not been mother to a king. That is because her only son, the presumed heir to the throne, died after her but before he could become king. But she is the great-grandmother of Philip V (by her daughter Maria Theresa of Spain) and she is an ancestor of the King of Spain.

The walls of polished Toledo marble are ornamented in gold-plated bronze.

All of the wood used in El Escorial comes from the ancient forests of Sagua La Grande, on the so-called Golden Coast of Cuba.

Pantheon of the Princes

The pantheon's name in Spanish is Panteón de Infantes. Completed in 1888, this group of nine burial chapels is the final resting place of princes, princesses, and consorts other than the parents of monarchs. With floors and ceiling of white marble, the tomb of Prince John of Austria is especially notable.

Among the more recent interments is that of Infante Alfonso in October 1992. The younger brother of King Juan Carlos I, he was buried originally in Portugal, after being killed in a still-mysterious 1956 shooting at the family home in Estoril.

In 1994, King Juan Carlos I signed a decree raising his cousin and close personal friend Carlos, Duke of Calabria to the status of a Spanish infante, making him eligible for interment in the Pantheon of the Princes. Upon his death in October 2015, his funeral was held at El Escorial and his body placed in the pudridero, awaiting future interment in the pantheon.

Thirty-seven of the sixty available niches are filled.

Art gallery
Consists of works of the German, Flemish, Venetian, Lombard, Ligurian and more Italian and Spanish schools from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

Architectural museum
Its eleven rooms showcase the tools, cranes and other materials used in the construction of the edifice, as well as reproductions of blueprints and documents related to the project.

Gardens of the Friars

Constructed at the order of Philip II, a great lover of nature, these constitute an ideal place for repose and meditation. Manuel Azaña, the Socialist who served as the last president of the Second Spanish Republic, studied in the monastery's Augustinian-run school and mentions them in his Memorias (Memoirs) and his play El jardín de los frailes (The Garden of the Friars). Students at the school still use it today to study and pass the time.

Library
The Escorial has three libraries. One is located behind the Chorus of the basilica. Another, within the monastery itself, used to be distributed to the different cells and rooms of the monks and that the Augustine monks have gradually managed to make their own. Finally, the Royal Library, which is public and exists under a special papal bull of protection.

From the beginning, the Royal Library was meant to be a monumental work of art, and its execution was commissioned to prominent architects of the moment: Juan de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, who shared the king's neoplatonic views and who also designed the library's shelves. It constituted, along with the basilica, the heart of the entire project, and the project was redrafted several times to accommodate changes in the organization of the library itself. As was usual for Juan de Herrera's work, it was the most advanced of its kind in Europe. It was the first library on the continent that broke with medieval design. Domenico Fontana was inspired by Herrera's design, after a visit, for his design of the Vatican Library. Philip was involved in every part of the design process of the library.

The Royal Library, like everything else in El Escorial, forms part of a larger symbolic structure and has symbolic meaning. It links the monastery and the seminary across the principal axis of the building, symbolizing the union of the spiritual and physical world. The books on the profane subjects—such as history, geography, and botany—are located in the part closest to the entrance. The library corridors branch out into different sections just to re-converge in the end, and as they advance towards the basilica, the subjects are the more abstract forms—such as poetry, grammar, and mathematics. The subjects closest to the basilica are those the king conceived as being the most abstract distillations of the others, and the closest to the origin, which was God in the Basilica: theology, geometry, and mathematics. The visitor must leave the noisy world behind and walk through the halls of knowledge in a specific, comprehensible order from concreteness to abstraction before being able to reach God and understand His message, a notion quite in line with both Charles I and Philip II's hermeticist view of religion.

During Philip II's reign, the library introduced a novel way of arranging the library's bookcases or "book presses". Until then most book presses were combined with desks and stood at right angles to the library's walls. This system was known as the "stall system" and allowed light from the library's windows to illuminate the shelves. Phillip's library began using a "wall system", placing the bookcases along the walls.

Currently the library has more than 40,000 volumes, located in a great hall 54 m in length, 9 m wide, and 10 m tall, with marble floors and beautifully carved wood shelves. De Herrera and Italian construction engineer Giussep Flecha y Gamboa were careful to consider the security of the library's holdings in armarios (large bookcases), as well as their display, safeguards against fire hazards, and use of available natural lighting. This library was a Renaissance statement of power, majesty, prowess, and intellectual world leadership, designed for both the preservation of the old (binding multiple cultural histories into a single Catholic Spanish culture) and discovery of the new (imprinted by that culture).

The vault of the library's ceiling is decorated with frescoes, painted by Pellegrino Tibaldi, depicting the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. This arrangement of parallel book cases was initiated by Philip II and was called the "wall system".

The fire of 1671, which engulfed the library, destroyed about 5,280 handwritten codices, but the printed collections were saved. The printed collection of the library is made up of more than 600 incunabules, 10,608 books from the 16th century, 2,179 books from the 17th century, and an increasing number of books from the 18th century. The manuscript collection is made up of a few thousands of medieval codices.

Collecting process
Philip II donated his personal collection of documents to the building, and also undertook the acquisition of the finest libraries and works of Western European Humanism. During Phillip's reign, there was an entire room dedicated to ancient manuscripts, most of them in Latin, many in Greek, but also some in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Italian, French, and Spanish. There were approximately 1,800 Arabic titles. The first of those books were acquired in 1571 through Juan Paez de Castro. After that many books were obtained as a "peace price" during the many battles of the Spanish Empire with the Ottoman Empire. As part of his active efforts, in 1571 Philip II bought a large portion of the collection of Gonzalo Pérez, one of his advisors. This meant 57 original Greek, from Sicily, manuscripts, and 112 Latin ones, from Calabria. He also bought 315 original volumes, in Greek and Arabic, from Juan Páez de Castro's personal library. The king charged specific ambassadors with traveling through his Empire and neighboring kingdoms searching and buying the best for El Escorial's library. These ambassadors were coordinated by the head librarian, who had total authority to direct their movements, and who stayed in contact with them through all their travels. Diego Guzmán de Silva was one such ambassador and made one of the most important purchases for the library during his time in Venice: an ancient collection of Greek manuscripts and Latin codices (1569–1577).

An inventory prepared in 1576 counted 4,546 volumes, over 2,000 manuscripts, and 2,500 printed books. That same year the library of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the most valuable in Spain at the time, was bought. It included 850 codices and over 1,000 printed volumes. At this point, the size of the library was such that Benito Arias Montano had to be specially hired to organize the books and classify them by language, in addition to subject. In the 1580s the Library acquired some of its most unique pieces. Jorge Beteta donated a manuscript of the Concilios visigóticos (the Visigothic Councils) from the ninth century. Philip acquired several books from the Library of Granada, that belonged to Isabela of Castile, including her Libro the Horas of astonishing visual beauty. Other valuable libraries acquired by Philip were the library of Pedro Fajardo, and of Antonio Agustín, one of the largest in Spain at the time. Not all of those books are still in El Escorial, since many ended up in the Vatican; but around a thousand of them can still be found there. The king actively purchased rare books—often on esoteric, scientific, or theological subjects—from the East. He also collected and preserved over four hundred books prohibited by the Inquisition, which he agreed should not be available for those likely to "misunderstand" them but only to experts. By 1602, the library had a large cartographic collection and over 150 mathematical instruments.

Before his death, Philip II left in his last will a pension for the Escorial Library, to ensure that it would still be able to acquire new volumes.

Philip III continued his father's policy of protection and enrichment of the library, even though he was not theologically inclined. In addition to continuing the search for, and purchase of, especially valuable and old books, he promulgated a new decree, according to which the library of El Escorial ought to receive a copy of every book published inside the Empire. Of course, the orders of continuing to search for books for the library were still in place. Arias Montano donated a large number of original Hebrew manuscripts, and Admiral Luis Fajardo brought back the complete Zaydani library captured during his wars with the Sultan Muley Zidán.

The library reached its peak under Philip IV. In 1671 a great fire destroyed 5280 codices; the main hall, in which the printed books were kept, was saved. Among the most important losses were the Concilios visigóticos and the Historia natural de las Indias (Natural History of the Indies), a 19-volume encyclopedia on biology and botany by Francisco Hernández de Toledo. After the fire, the priest Antonio de San José spent over 25 years reclassifying and taking inventories of the surviving copies. His list of surviving books counted 45,000. Shortly after, as the Habsburg dynasty came to its end and the Bourbons took the throne after the War of the Spanish Succession, a further loss took place, as the Bourbon kings reversed the trend of acquiring books for the library and instead proceeded to take books to send to France or to their own libraries.

Currently, the library has over 40,000 volumes. The library includes many important illuminated manuscripts, such as the Ottonian Golden Gospels of Henry III (1045–46). The only known copy of the Kitab al-I'tibar, a 12th-century Syrian autobiography, was discovered there in the 19th century.

The reliquaries
Following a rule approved by the Council of Trent dealing with the veneration of saints, Philip II donated to the monastery one of the largest reliquaries in all of Catholic Christendom. The collection consists of some 7,500 relics, which are stored in 570 sculpted reliquaries designed by Juan de Herrera, with most being constructed by the artisan Juan de Arfe Villafañe. These reliquaries are found in highly varied forms (heads, arms, pyramidal cases, coffers, etc.) and are distributed throughout the monastery, with the most important being concentrated in the basilica.

In the basilica, the relics are kept within two altarpieces, with the door panels painted by Federico Zuccaro. Within the altarpiece depicting the "Annunciation") are relics of female saints; its companion includes the relics of male saints.

Adjacent buildings
Juan de Herrera also designed the Casas de Oficios (Official Buildings) opposite the monastery's north façade; and his successor, Francisco de Mora, designed the Casa de la Compaña (Company Quarters).

title: El Escorial