This idea of our great knowledge opened the way to us for sowing the seed of religion in their minds.

All of these sects observe a wonderful silence about the creation of the world and of souls. They all speak of abodes of the virtuous and of the wicked; but not one gives any explanation of the nature of the place assigned to the good, nor by whose power it is that the souls of the wicked are cast down to hell.

And they say women are as badly off if they neglect the five precepts. For they say that each woman, on account of her monthly courses, is covered with more sins than all men put together, and that thus so foul a creature can hardly be saved. They go on to say that there is some hope even for women of escaping from the prison of hell, if they give a great deal more than the men to the bonzes.

They prize and honour all that has to do with war, and all such things, and there is nothing of which they are so proud as of weapons adorned with gold and silver.

Many of these rules are rejections of “evangelical” (Protestant) theological positions as well as the recent moral failings of the medieval Church.

For Ignatius, the battle between God and the Devil is an interior struggle for the soul of the believer.

Luther maintains that when people die, they are released from all earthly penalties as embodied in canon law. The penalty of purgatory is imposed not by earthly law but by the person’s own fear, even despair, brought about by

According to this view, salvation in heaven is an unconditional gift of God’s love and grace. A person receives it through faith alone and acceptance of Jesus Christ as the source of salvation; it cannot be “earned” through the performance of good works, for that would imply that a well-behaved, charitable atheist could be admitted to heaven.

Religious wars erupted that were not to cease until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

The Dutch created the first modern commercial bank (the Bank of Amsterdam) in 1609 and the first modern securities market (the Amsterdam Stock Exchange) in 1602.

And the rest of the people for the most part cure themselves with herbs and sticks and other ancient methods, so that they live putting all their faith in these herbs and ceremonies, and die believing that they are saved; and this serves God poorly.

And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, since every day the mentioned merchants are taking our people, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them so as to have the things and wares of this kingdom that they crave; they grab them and bring them to be sold.

And that, sir, arises from the great negligence of your highness’s officials toward us and toward shipping us those things. …

During the last ten days of the month, he performs worship in the mosque, and although, on account of several obstacles, he is unable to proceed on a pilgrimage to Mecca, yet the care which he takes to promote facilities for pilgrims to that holy place may be considered equivalent to the pilgrimage.

He keeps the appointed fasts on Fridays and other sacred days, and he reads the Friday prayers in the Jámi’ masjid with the common people of the Muhammadan faith.

Much of the failure of the Mughal Empire is attributed to Aurangzeb’s leadership, which according to his critics, was intolerant, one-dimensionally fundamentalist (in the sense of his devotion to Islam), and uncompromising.

Each ending of a cycle meant great tensions and possible changes in the universe and could mean the end of the Aztec people as a nation — or even the end of humanity.

Although the Mexica, as the Aztecs originally called themselves,

This is the Hymn which they sang every eight years when they fasted on bread and water.

In many cases gods are interchanged with their human representatives, who function on earth.

In order to appease the gods, the Aztecs built monumental temples, where they committed sacrifices; like most Mesoamerican gods, the Aztec gods fed on human blood.

11. He ordered that all religions were to be respected and that no preference was to be shown to any of them. All this he commanded in order that it might be agreeable to God.

At its height, the Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous kingdom in history, stretching from the Sea of Japan to the Carpathian Mountains in central and eastern Europe.

Unlike Hammurabi, the Babylonian ruler who is often credited with devising the first codified law (in the eighteenth century BCE), Genghis Khan did not have his laws carved onto stelae (inscribed stones erected throughout the empire) but rather kept them on scrolls that were viewed only by the Mongol nobility.

The founder of Mali, the Mandinka leader Sundiata (ca. 1217 — ca. 1255), overthrew the empire of Ghana using cavalry techniques adapted to West African conditions.

The fourteenth century saw Europe develop into a series of monarchical states — the forerunners of modern Europe.

Most of us get our first formal exposure to history from secondary sources, such as school textbooks or historical monographs, or even from tertiary sources, such as encyclopedias, online reference sites, or commercial study guides like CliffsNotes or SparkNotes.