[The Knightly Hub] A Very Brief Overview of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre

 The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre

    The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was originally constructed circa 336, and is considered the holiest place on Earth even today. This church's liberation was the primary reason the Crusades began in the first place, as the Muslims were preventing Christians from entering. Legends commonly date the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre back to the time of Godfrey de Bouillon (circa 1099, the capture of Jerusalem from the Muslims after the First Crusade) due to his desire to be called a defender of the church. However, the EOHSJ was never much of a knightly order at all.  In fact, it was more or less restricted to an independent brotherhood. 

    The order still wound up adopting knighthood in order to defend the church, a position often heavily sought after. In fact, all those who were dubbed a knight and fought in the church's honor could be dubbed a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. Sergeants were often selected from large troops of crusaders on account of their commitment and strength, falling under the command of the current King of Jerusalem. Like many other knights of the era, they accepted vows of poverty and obedience.

    The already limited military aspect of this order began to crumble after Saladin reclaimed Jerusalem, ceasing completely by 1291 after the fall of Acre. Despite everything, the first documented note of this order's existence as the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre arose from 1336 with significant papal interest as a candidate for the Holy See. The Church then proceeded to reorganize and adjust it multiple times under various popes. When Pope Clement allowed the Franciscans to be the official caretakers of the Holy Land in 1342, all members of the EOHSJ were required to be a member of this group. 

    While I have been referring to it as if it were a proper order thus far, in a technical sense, it should not be considered as such since it lacked a monastic rule and any regular possessions or organization. What belonged to the Holy Sepulchre actually belonged to the Canons, not the Knights. This was, however, the most inclusive of groups. When one was asked about their financial origin they were not obligated to answer and even the commander was meant to dress as an ordinary knight - with a white cloak adorned with the cross of Jerusalem in red. The order still exists with papal recognition today, largely to promote faith in Christianity, defend the Catholic Church in Jerusalem, and provide for the needy, like so many other modern knights.

Further Reading:

Anonymous. “History.” Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem - Northern Lieutenancy. © 2020 The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. All Rights Reserved. Publication Unknown. Accessed 17 November 2020. <https://www.eohsjnorthern.com/history.html>.

Moeller, Charles. “Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight. 1910. Accessed 3 November 2020. <https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07427c.htm>.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. 28 May 2020. Accessed 17 November 2020. <https://www.britannica.com/place/Holy-Sepulchre>.

Other Sites:

http://www.oessh.va/content/ordineequestresantosepolcro/en.html

https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/oessh/index_en.htm

https://eohsjeastern.org/

https://www.diocesealex.org/our-faith/lay-organizations/equestrian-order-of-the-holy-sepulchre/

FIFA

     

Feds Investigating Fraudulent Anarchy (FIFA)





All jokes aside, FIFA, which really stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association or, for all you Americans out there, the International Federation of Association Football is an incredibly powerful and influential organization. FIFA is the highest governing body of Association Football, or soccer, worldwide. The mega organization was erected in 1904 by a handful of European countries, those being Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, with the task of overseeing international competition among these founding countries. FIFA’s membership has now grown to include 211 national football associations. Each association is a member of one of six regional confederations which include: Africa, Asia, Europe, North & Central America and the Caribbean, Oceania, and South America.

FIFA Global Conference Map


FIFA has publicly outlined a number of goals, the most prominent of those being: to aid in growing football internationally, to provide efforts to ensure football is accessible to everyone, and to advocate for integrity and fair play. FIFA is non-profit organization and is responsible for the organization and oversight of the world's largest single sport sporting event, the World Cup. To put into perspective just how big a deal the World Cup really is, the 2015 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle SeaHawks, which was the most heavily viewed Super Bowl in NFL history, garnered the attention of just shy of 150 million viewers worldwide. In comparison, over one billion people tuned in to watch the France v. Croatia final in the 2018 World Cup. Keep in mind, that was just 1 of 64 games. The 2018 World Cup generated revenues of over 4.6 billion dollars, and the 2015-2018 World Cup cycle ended with a net profit of 1.2 billion dollars.

On paper then, FIFA is a great organization. It is a non-profit that has a defined set of positive goals and brings money to countries and joy to billions of viewers. If only FIFA were in reality what it seems to be on paper. FIFA is not merely a soccer related body. Due to its position, it has been unavoidable for the organization to escape entanglement in international relations and human rights issues. FIFA is, in fact, a member of the UN. Apart from that, as a country, becoming a member of FIFA is one of the clearest signals that a nation has been recognized by the international community. To cite an example, when Nigeria joined the league, it was widely reported as a major breakthrough for international unity.



Nigerias Men's National Team




Due to the popularity and subsequent buying power of the World Cup, FIFA exerts an influence over most of the world. Countries wage bidding wars, over the right to host the World Cup. Unfortunately, it seems that high-ranking FIFA employees are not immune to private, internal bidding. Mohammad bin Hammam, who was in the running for President of FIFA, left the organization after major allegations that he had bribed several FIFA officials in order to secure Qatar’s bid, reportedly offering 40,000 dollars to members of the Carribean Football Union. Hammam, predictably, denied allegations of bribery. Despite his resignation, the 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar. Qatar being picked as the host country isn’t only questionable because of the selection process. In the summer Qatar’s field can reach temperatures of 122 degrees, for this reason FIFA has decided that the World Cup will be held in winter, with the final game being scheduled for the night before Christmas Eve. This bizarre change of schedule puts the World Cup in direct competition with other sporting events. Furthermore, Qatar does not yet have the infrastructure to support the event, so it will have to build everything from scratch, a not uncommon practice for small host countries. Still, Qatar is forging ahead at impressive speed to be ready to host the Winter World Cup in 2022. Its efforts are being guided by FIFA, which inot necessarily a good thing.



Sepp Blatter announcing the location of the 2022 World Cup


Qatar is a poor country, depending on cheap Nepalian immigrant labor to complete the construction necessary for this endeavour. Qatar is by no means the only country that has used questionable labor practices in a World Cup building effort, but the continued deaths of the Nepalese working on the site is the freshest example of such abuses. South Africa saw strikes over allegations that workers were working more than 18 hour days for the equivalent pay of 23 dollars. The over-scheduled expansion processes of the Sao Paolo airport in Brazil to accommodate anticipated traffic increases lead to an investigation by the BBC which found migrant workers living in inadequate conditions near the worksite and receiving little pay. Now, the International Trade Union estimates that no fewer than 4,000 Nepalese will have died by the completion of the Qatar World Cup construction effort. The poor Nepalean immigrants that work on these sites sign contracts that are mostly written in Arabic or English. They tend to ask few to no questions out of fear of losing the work opportunity. Perhaps the saddest part of this story is that the people working and dieing on these construction sites came to Qatar in hopes of finding a better life. FIFA claims to be talking with Qatar, here have been no signs that Qatar is changing its practices.



FIFA is the undisputed international face of football and controls the media rights and placement of the World Cup. Because of this, it holds enormous power and the placement of billions of dollars are under its control. Enlightened from the recently publicized human rights abuses, some have alleged that FIFA is self-serving and power hungry. These allegations are amplified by FIFA’s long history of questionable financial practices. The Qatar bribery debacle is only the most recent in a long streak of corruption controversies and financial mismanagement allegations directed at FIFA. Sepp Blatter, the 1998-2015 president of FIFA, features heavily in allegations of corruption. He was repeatedly accused of taking over the organization in an illegal manner and then manipulating it for the benefit of third party organizations. Four other prominent FIFA board members have been brought up in allegations of bribery over the past few years, one of which, Paraguay’s Nicolás Leoz, is said to have offered his vote in exchange for a British knighthood.

There are a slew of other complaints directed towards FIFA, most of which appear to have merit. Sep Blatter has been accused of sexist and homophobic behavor. He has publically stated that he does not think that gay or trans people should be allowed to play soccer at all and that women’s soccer would be more popular if the athlete’s shorts were made shorter and tighter, thus insulting a huge portion of his audience. Also, FIFA moved too slowly to accept technology and refused to allow cameras to be placed on the goal-lines. The organization held out on this issue for many years, until a goal, left uncounted in an England-Uekrainian game outraged the two countries. The organization is also renowned for hiring refs who make questionable calls. Instead of addressing the issue appropriately, FIFA instead decided to ban instant replays in its games, hoping no one would notice bad calls. Finally FIFA, since 2010 has annually presented the league players who exhibit the best overall performance throughout a year with a Ballon d’Or award. So far, this award has only been achieved by two players, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the faces of Adidas and Nike respectively.

As of 2020, Lionel Messi has won the award a record six times while playing for Barcelona, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, who has won five times.


The business of FIFA’s international soccer can never be just about the game. It is about human rights, international relations, and the accountability of international organizations. As of 2016 Sepp Blatter was impeached and replaced by the Swiss-Italian Gianni Infantino. Infantino, elected by the FIFA Congress worked as the Secretary General of the International Center for Sports Studies (CIES) at the University of Neuchâtel. Infantino seems to be leading FIFA in a better direction, but a lot of work needs to be done in order to redeem this simultaneously loved and despised organization.



Recommended Readings for this Post



Jennings, Andrew. Foul!: the Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals. HarperSport, 2011. https://www.abebooks.com/Foul-Secret-World-FIFA-Bribes-Vote/30342919519/bd

Andrew Jennining is an award winning investigative reporter who spent four years investigating FIFA. His work resulted in the most extensively researched publication of the organization to date. It is worth going into this book with eyes open to the fact that Jenning went into his investigation with the predisposition that FIFA is corrupt.



28, Shady March, et al. “The Dark Side of FIFA: Selected Controversies and the Future of Accountability in the Organization.” Soccer Politics / The Politics of Football, 4 Mar. 2015, https://sites.duke.edu/wcwp/tournament-guides/world-cup-2014/fifa-institutional-politics/the-dark-side-of-fifa-controversies-and-the-future/

This is the best short article you can read to become aware of FIFA’s current issues. All of the information is accurate, concise, and most importantly all in one place. This article is full of great links as well.

Introduction to the Senchus Mor

      In my previous post, I introduce the Brehon texts and talk about their historical context. In this post, I will introduce the specific context of the Senchus Mor, describe what it covers, and analyze excerpts that can help determine its role in history and Law in general. I will also briefly talk about the important early scholars of this text, and what role it plays in Ireland nowadays. 

     Marx Engels says that "the Senchus Mor has until now been our main source of information about conditions in Ireland." It is indeed true that the Senchus Mor is one of the most influential and detailed document in the study of Brehon Law.

     The text starts with its own introduction, talking about why it was written, who wrote it, and when it was written. It is clearly a postscribed addendum, potentially from someone who wished to alter the interpretation of the text. The first two pages provide a lot of information:

    Evidently, the Senchus Mor was created by the order of King Laeghaire (Loegaire mac Neill, the High King from 428-458AD, supposedly converted to Christianity by Saint Patrick) that wanted to collect all "old laws." This means that he wanted to collect all oral laws and transcribe them to keep them from changing much, and allowing them to spread more easily across Ireland. The nine people mentioned are those who transcribed, compiled, and possibly modified, the laws that ended up in the Senchus Mor. The Patrick that is mentioned in the list is indeed Saint Patrick. 

    The text of the Senchus Mor was actually written in the 8th Century, long after the death of Saint Patrick and King Laeghaire. This means that some of the information given in this introduction is completely false and added to give the text more credibility and legitimacy, which is always helpful with legal texts. It is unknown exactly who wrote this introduction, which would be the best way to find out exactly why this made up information was added; however, it is reasonable to assume it is a Christian monk.

    It is said that all laws that clashed with Christianity were modified or removed to suit Christian Canon. In the next post we will examine how far they went in modifying these laws by looking at the text itself for clues, such as laws that still clash with Christianity, or blatant signs of  modification, such as insertions of prose in the middle of verse text.

    The Senchus Mor is mostly in verse, apart from the aforementioned prose splicing, which seems odd for a legal text, since it is much harder to make verse as specific and concise as prose, as well as keep interpretation relatively simple and less variable. However, all of these laws were memorized in order to have been passed down orally, and verse is considerably easier to memorize than prose, especially for legalese text. Apart from spliced-in prose, there are a few sections that are in prose, mostly within Volume 1. There are supposedly 6 volumes of the Senchus Mor, 3 of which remain in entirety. The first volume covers the law of distress (Archive volume 1), the second covers the law of hostages (Marx Engels), the third covers customary law (Archive volume 3), the fourth covers the law of the family (Marx Engels). All manuscripts we have remaining have annotations, notes, and commentary/translation for some terms, most likely added by copyists.

    Kevin Flanagan of Brehon Law Academy provides an interesting bibliophilical side-note - that the original Gaelic text is read starting in the middle of the paragraph, and then reading outwards, alternating lines above and below, which "gives the impression that the line or principle being discussed is literally being expanded upon." (Brehon Law Academy). However, considering that the original text is no longer available, this may have been the creation of a copyist many years later. 

References:

Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland, volume 1 through 6, except volume 2, from Archive.org. Volumes 1-3 cover the Senchus Mor. https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Ireland.+Commissioners+for+Publishing+the+Ancient+Laws+and+Institutes+of+Ireland%22

Flanagan, Kevin. (2014, June 5). Irish Manuscripts: The Senchus Mor. Brehon Law Academy. https://www.brehonlawacademy.ie/single-post/2014/06/05/Irish-Manuscripts-The-Senchus-M%C3%B3r 

[This is a brief piece from Frederick Engels' work on a book he intended to publish, but never finished, known as "History of Ireland." Marxists.org gives the following description of it: History of Ireland is a fragment of a voluminous work Engels intended to write and on which he worked at the end of 1869 and during the first half of 1870. Engels studied a vast selection of literary and historical sources: the works of antique and medieval writers, annals, collections of ancient law codes, legislative acts and legal treatises, folklore, travellers’ notes, numerous works on archaeology, history, economics, geography, geology, etc. Engels’s bibliography, embracing over 150 titles, is selective and includes but a fraction of the sources he studied. It is from marxists.org because Karl Marx did indeed collaborate to some degree with Frederick Engels, as he was a scholar of Irish History, because early Irish society greatly intrigued him.] Frederick Engels. (1870). Marx Engels on Ireland. marxists.org. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/history-ireland/senchus-mor.htm

Joyce, P. W..(1906). A Smaller Social History of Ireland. libraryireland.com. https://www.libraryireland.com/SocialHistoryAncientIreland/I-IV-2.php

Writers and editors of Stair na hEirann. (n.d.). Brehon Law: the Senchus Mor. stairnaheirann.net. https://stairnaheireann.net/2017/09/15/brehon-law-the-senchus-mor-2/

Wikipedia:

'Loegaire Mac Neill'

[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Used)

    My parents bought a Harry Potter book box set for my older sister when we were in second grade, and since then each of those books has been read front to back at least a cumulative 10 times by my family. The first three books had around 200-300 pages, which wasn’t unreasonable for me at the time I read it, though the fourth, the Goblet of Fire, was a daunting 636. It took me the longest to read out of all the books, but I loved it the most, and you can certainly tell from our copy’s battered state. First of all, the frayed cardboard cover of the book is visible through the corners, and the cloth spine is pilled, stretched and caked in dust. The pages themselves have held up only half decently: there aren’t a lot of tears, though the first 30 or so pages have some water damage, and most every page has been dogeared, had their bottom corners bent upwards, and have a crease near the spine where my sisters or I would fold them into place. Yet the most noticeable wear and tear is that a few sections of the book have fallen out completely, and the footband of the book has come unstuck from the spine, revealing more flimsy cardboard and brittle chunks of dry glue, the first 250-something pages of the book only hanging on by the front cover.

    Our copy is somewhat inhibiting to read, and it has to be handled gently to keep the pages from falling out, making it impossible to quickly hide it under the covers when reading with a flashlight past your bedtime. I can’t remember when exactly the book got to be in this sorry state, though it would be somewhere between 6 and 8 years ago. I’ve reread the entire series around 5 or 6 times, and each time I briefly consider purchasing another copy when I reach book 4, until the thought is dispelled by nostalgia. Plus, on recent rereads of The Goblet of Fire, when I reached page 245, I could just put the severed chunk I was reading from in my bag rather than toting around a heavy book. Convenient!

CRISPR Applications {Vision Possibilities}

 Editas Medicine and Allergan have teamed up in order to find a treatment for Leber Congenital Amaurosis 10(LCA10). LCA 10 is an inherited degenerative eye disorder. LCA10 symptoms become apparent within the first year of birth, LCA10 will continue to worsen throughout the individuals life time, often leaving them severely visually impaired and or blind. LCA10 is considered to be relatively rare affecting 1-2 out of 100,000 births. LCA10 specifically is the worsening of the ocular photoreceptor cells. Editas Medicine and Allergan have announced their clinical trial "The Brilliance Phase 1/2 Trial of AGN-151587(edit 101) for Treatment of LCA10. Their exact description "The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of a single escalating doses of AGN-151587 (EDIT-101) administered via sub retinal injection in participants with LCA10 caused by a homozygous or compound heterozygous mutation involving c.2991+1655A>G in intron 26 of the CEP290 gene ("LCA10-IVS26")".  LCR is a promising candidate for CRISPR because the disease is monogenic meaning the involvement or control by a singular gene, making the targeting much easier and quicker. 

Picture below describes the 'protocol' of AGN-151587.

Bibliography 

“Research and Pipeline.” Editas Medicine, 5 Nov. 2020, www.editasmedicine.com/gene-editing-pipeline/.

Park, Alice. “CRISPR Gene Editing Is Being Tested in Human Patients.” Time, Time, 6 Aug. 2019, time.com/5642755/crispr-gene-editing-humans/.

“Allergan and Editas Medicine Initiate the Brilliance Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial of AGN-151587 (EDIT-101) for the Treatment of LCA10.” Editas Medicine, ir.editasmedicine.com/news-releases/news-release-details/allergan-and-editas-medicine-initiate-brilliance-phase-12.

“Single Ascending Dose Study in Participants With LCA10 - Full Text View.” Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov, www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03872479?cond=LCA10.

“Leber Congenital Amaurosis: MedlinePlus Genetics.” MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Aug. 2020, medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/leber-congenital-amaurosis/.

 

[Status - Brehon] Macbeth

Middle School Macbeth Copy

    I read Macbeth in school in 6th grade as part of my English class. In Theater class you guys get printed and stapled packets for your plays, but this was in actual codex form since we were just reading it and not performing and memorizing. The school gave the copies out to all 30 of us, so it was kind of like a textbook for us. It was the basic text of Macbeth with a lot of extra historical information, images, pictures from actual performance of Macbeth, and explanations for some lines of the play. My copy has a lot of highlighting and underlining throughout it that is probably very similar to all 30 of my classmate's copies. What is unique about mine is the drawings and doodles sacrilegiously spread throughout the margins. These drawings are all terrible and mostly done in highlighter - some by me and others by my friends sitting next to me at the time. 

    Looking at the book's cover and flipping through it definitely reminds me of that class - my classmates and my great teacher, Mr. Bauer - but these memories are neither fond nor unpleasant. Looking at the book reminds me mostly of the content of Macbeth despite the personal significance of the actual codex. This is mostly due to the simple fact that nothing incredibly memorable happened in that class in the time-frame we were reading Macbeth or as a result a of reading the play. 

[The Knightly Hub - But Not] Spooky Old Tree

 Regard the image below for a moment.

There is nothing particularly valuable nor unique about this 2002 Bright and Early Books copy of The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. I would be lying outright if I told you that when I held up Stan and Jan Berenstain’s book I saw the eyes of God discreetly printed on the pages. In fact, this particular cover is the second result on Google images. However, the value of this book is drawn from its imperfections. From the dents in the cover to the fading and misprints in the images, it’s something special. Each page is creased ever so slightly by thumbprints from countless readings in my very early years. In fact, despite my illiteracy, I managed to memorize the entire book simply because I heard my parents read it so many times. Despite all of this, the US $8.99 price tag remains almost perfectly intact on the back of the book. The price seems to have stayed pretty consistent over the years. Nowadays, I believe my fascination was drawn from the images rather than the story.

“Do they dare go up that twisty old stair?” 

“Yes. They dare.”