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125-583: Germigny-des-Prés ( French pronunciation: [ʒɛʁmiɲi de pʁe] ) is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France . The oratory at Germigny-des-Prés (Loiret, Orléanais) was built by Bishop Theodulf of Orléans in 806 as part of his palace complex within the Gallo-Roman villa in Germaniacus. Theodulf, who was also abbot of the neighboring monastery of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire ,

250-421: A "realm of 100,000 steeples". Parishes lacked the municipal structures of post-Revolution communes. Usually, one contained only a building committee ( conseil de fabrique ), made up of villagers, which managed the buildings of the parish church, the churchyard, and the other numerous church estates and properties, and sometimes also provided help for the poor, or even administered parish hospitals or schools. Since

375-426: A Christian work. For I am convinced that it is God's will that we should hear and learn what He has done, especially what Christ suffered. But when I hear these things and meditate upon them, I find it impossible not to picture them in my heart. Whether I want to or not, when I hear, of Christ, a human form hanging upon a cross rises up in my heart: just as I see my natural face reflected when I look into water. Now if it

500-520: A booty of 20 million dinars . The attack may have been inspired by the belief that an idol of the goddess Manat had been secretly transferred to the temple. According to the Ghaznavid court-poet Farrukhi Sistani , who claimed to have accompanied Mahmud on his raid, Somnat (as rendered in Persian ) was a garbled version of su-manat referring to the goddess Manat. According to him, as well as

625-445: A category currently being phased out), made up of 33,327 communes (91.1 percent of all the communes of metropolitan France), and 52.86 million inhabitants, i.e., 86.7 percent of the population of metropolitan France. These impressive results however may hide a murkier reality. In rural areas, many communes have entered a community of communes only to benefit from government funds. Often the local syndicate has been turned officially into

750-537: A commune for their administration. This is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions: Furthermore, two regions without permanent habitation have no communes: In metropolitan France , the average area of a commune in 2004 was 14.88 square kilometres (5.75 sq mi). The median area of metropolitan France's communes at

875-537: A community of communes, the new community of communes in fact managing only the services previously managed by the syndicate, contrary to the spirit of the law which has established the new intercommunal structures to carry out a much broader range of activities than that undertaken by the old syndicates. Some say that, should government money transfers be stopped, many of these communities of communes would revert to their former status of syndicate, or simply completely disappear in places where there were no syndicates prior to

1000-584: A complex ritual choreography set in a richly furnished church interior." For Lutherans, "the Reformation renewed rather than removed the religious image." Lutheran scholar Jeremiah Ohl writes: Zwingli and others for the sake of saving the Word rejected all plastic art; Luther, with an equal concern for the Word, but far more conservative, would have all the arts to be the servants of the Gospel. "I am not of

1125-589: A density of communes as France, and even there an extensive merger movement has started in the last 10 years. To better grasp the staggering number of communes in France, two comparisons can be made: First, of the original 15 member states of the European Union there are approximately 75,000 communes; France alone, which comprises 16 percent of the population of the EU-15, had nearly half of its communes. Second,

1250-399: A few of them survive." In Japan during the early modern age, the spread of Catholicism also involved the repulsion of non-Christian religious structures, including Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and figures. At times of conflict with rivals or some time after the conversion of several daimyos , Christian converts would often destroy Buddhist and Shinto religious structures. Many of

1375-459: A hideous triumph in the market-place before all the country, when all the mangled organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had newly been sawn down from the Green-yard pulpit and the service-books and singing books that could be carried to the fire in the public market-place were heaped together. Protestant Christianity was not uniformly hostile to

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1500-519: A later Ghaznavid historian Abu Sa'id Gardezi , the images of the other goddesses were destroyed in Arabia but the one of Manat was secretly sent away to Kathiawar (in modern Gujarat) for safekeeping. Since the idol of Manat was an aniconic image of black stone, it could have been easily confused with a lingam at Somnath. Mahmud is said to have broken the idol and taken away parts of it as loot and placed so that people would walk on it. In his letters to

1625-769: A massive merger of communes, including by such distinguished voices as the president of the Cour des Comptes (the central auditing administrative body in France). In 1971 the Marcellin law offered support and money from the government to entice the communes to merge freely with each other, but the law had only a limited effect (only about 1,300 communes agreed to merge with others). Many rural communes with few residents struggle to maintain and manage basic services such as running water, garbage collection, or properly paved communal roads. Mergers, however, are not easy to achieve. One problem

1750-592: A much larger territory covering 449,964 km (173,732 sq mi) and yet is divided into only 290 municipalities ( kommuner ). Alsace has more than double the total number of municipalities of the Netherlands which, in spite of having a population nine times larger and a land area four times larger than Alsace, is divided into just 390 municipalities ( gemeenten ). Most of the communes in Alsace, along with those in other regions of France, have rejected

1875-635: A prefiguration of the Virgin, who bears Christ, the Holy Bread. The mosaicist, and Théodulf d'Orléans, seem to have held a middle course, balanced between extreme iconoclasm and the partisans of images such as John of Damascus . This moderate position is exactly that which the theologians appointed by Charlemagne in the Council of Frankfurt (794) decided upon. Communes of France The commune ( French pronunciation: [kɔmyn] )

2000-609: A result, individuals attacked statues and images, most famously in the beeldenstorm across the Low Countries in 1566. The belief of iconoclasm caused havoc throughout Europe . In 1523, specifically due to the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli , a vast number of his followers viewed themselves as being involved in a spiritual community that in matters of faith should obey neither the visible Church nor lay authorities. According to Peter George Wallace "Zwingli's attack on images, at

2125-497: A result: In rebellion against the old religion and the powerful priests of Amun , Akhenaten ordered the eradication of all of Egypt's traditional gods. He sent royal officials to chisel out and destroy every reference to Amun and the names of other deities on tombs, temple walls, and cartouches to instill in the people that the Aten was the one true god. Public references to Akhenaten were destroyed soon after his death. Comparing

2250-638: A single apse on three sides, and a triple apse to the 'east' (the church is not aligned to the compass points). The triple apse would not appear to have been mirrored to the 'west' where the entrance was and is to be found, subsequent alteration has made it impossible to determine whether there was originally a narthex . The church is also architecturally quite distinct from the Palatine chapel in Aachen, and from S. Vitale in Ravenna – two buildings upon which it

2375-581: A strong tradition of forbidding the depiction of figures, especially religious figures, with Sunni Islam forbidding it more than Shia Islam . In the history of Islam , the act of removing idols from the Ka'ba in Mecca has great symbolic and historic importance for all believers. In general, Muslim societies have avoided the depiction of living beings (both animals and humans) within such sacred spaces as mosques and madrasahs . This ban on figural representation

2500-717: Is 35 km (14 sq mi); and in Germany , the majority of Länder have communes ( Gemeinden ) with a median area above 15 km (5.8 sq mi). Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany were the only places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of France's overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards. They usually group into

2625-604: Is a level of administrative division in the French Republic . French communes are analogous to civil townships and incorporated municipalities in the United States and Canada, Gemeinden in Germany, comuni in Italy, or municipios in Spain. The UK equivalent are civil parishes . Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and are vested with significant powers to manage

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2750-680: Is not based on the Qur'an , instead, it is based on traditions which are described within the Hadith . The prohibition of figuration has not always been extended to the secular sphere, and a robust tradition of figural representation exists within Muslim art . However, Western authors have tended to perceive "a long, culturally determined, and unchanging tradition of violent iconoclastic acts" within Islamic society . The first act of Muslim iconoclasm dates to

2875-587: Is not sinful for me to have Christ's picture in my heart, why should it be sinful to have it before my eyes? The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent , who had pragmatic reasons to support the Dutch Revolt (the rebels, like himself, were fighting against Spain) also completely approved of their act of "destroying idols," which accorded well with Muslim teachings. A bit later in Dutch history, in 1627

3000-541: Is often claimed that SS.Geneviève & Germain is modelled – in that it is square rather than round, has exterior apses and is constructed differently. This is rather a rare survival of a very early form of Western European church, pre-dating and perhaps contributing to the development of the Romanesque which forms the majority of ancient churches in France and, indeed, in Western Europe. The great treasure of

3125-653: Is one of the few remaining artworks from the period of the Iconoclasm which convulsed the Eastern Church during the 8th & 9th centuries, but which also impacted on Western Christendom. Traditionally, the place occupied by this mosaic was reserved for images of the Virgin Mary, enthroned as Queen Of Heaven, with the Christ child on her knee, and with an attendant angel on either side. These angels pointed out

3250-402: Is that mergers reduce the number of available elected positions, and thus are not popular with local politicians. Moreover, citizens from one village may be unwilling to have their local services run by an executive located in another village, whom they may consider unaware of or inattentive to their local needs. In December 2010 the law n° 2010-1563 regarding reform of territorial collectivities

3375-516: Is the only administrative unit below the commune in the French Republic but exists only in these three communes. These municipal arrondissements are not to be confused with the arrondissements that are subdivisions of French départements : French communes are considered legal entities , whereas municipal arrondissements, by contrast, have no official capacity and no budget of their own. The rights and obligations of communes are governed by

3500-722: Is the smallest and oldest administrative division in France . " Commune " in English has a historical association with socialist and collectivist political movements and philosophies. This association arises in part from the rising of the Paris Commune (1871) which could have more felicitously been called, in English, "the rising of the City of Paris". There is nothing intrinsically different between "town" in English and commune in French. The French word commune appeared in

3625-709: The Bronze Age , the most significant episode of iconoclasm occurred in Egypt during the Amarna Period , when Akhenaten , based in his new capital of Akhetaten , instituted a significant shift in Egyptian artistic styles alongside a campaign of intolerance towards the traditional gods and a new emphasis on a state monolatristic tradition focused on the god Aten , the Sun disk—many temples and monuments were destroyed as

3750-610: The Byzantine Empire from 726 to 842 AD. Degrees of iconoclasm vary greatly among religions and their branches, but are strongest in religions which oppose idolatry , including the Abrahamic religions . Outside of the religious context, iconoclasm can refer to movements for widespread destruction in symbols of an ideology or cause, such as the destruction of monarchist symbols during the French Revolution . In

3875-630: The Caliphate , Mahmud exaggerated the size, wealth and religious significance of the Somnath temple, receiving grandiose titles from the Caliph in return. The wooden structure was replaced by Kumarapala (r. 1143–72), who rebuilt the temple out of stone. Historical records which were compiled by the Muslim historian Maulana Hakim Saiyid Abdul Hai attest to the religious violence which occurred during

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4000-552: The Code général des collectivités territoriales (CGCT) which replaced the Code des communes (except for personnel matters) with the passage of the law of 21 February 1996 for legislation and decree number 2000-318 of 7 April 2000 for regulations. From 1794 to 1977 — except for a few months in 1848 and 1870-1871 — Paris had no mayor and was thus directly controlled by the departmental prefect. This meant that Paris had less autonomy than certain towns or villages. Even after Paris regained

4125-586: The Eastern Association of counties. This covered some of the wealthiest counties in England , which in turn financed a substantial and significant military force. After Earl of Manchester was appointed the commanding officer of these forces, in turn he appointed Smasher Dowsing as Provost Marshal , with a warrant to demolish religious images which were considered to be superstitious or linked with popism. Bishop Joseph Hall of Norwich described

4250-764: The Hebrew Bible , God instructed the Israelites to "destroy all [the] engraved stones, destroy all [the] molded images, and demolish all [the] high places" of the indigenous Canaanite population as soon as they entered the Promised Land . In Judaism , King Hezekiah purged Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and all figures were also destroyed in the Land of Israel , including the Nehushtan , as recorded in

4375-678: The Mamluk dynasty under Qutb-ud-din Aybak . The first mosque built in Delhi, the " Quwwat al-Islam " was built with demolished parts of 20 Hindu and Jain temples. This pattern of iconoclasm was common during his reign. During the Delhi Sultanate , a Muslim army led by Malik Kafur , a general of Alauddin Khalji , pursued four violent campaigns into south India, between 1309 and 1311, against

4500-565: The National Assembly ( Assemblée Nationale ) passed a law creating the commune, designed to be the lowest level of administrative division in France, thus endorsing these independently created communes, but also creating communes of its own. In this area as in many others, the work of the National Assembly was, properly speaking, revolutionary: not content with transforming all the chartered cities and towns into communes,

4625-482: The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539 by Francis I , the priest in charge of the parish was also required to record baptisms, marriages, and burials. Except for these tasks, villages were left to handle other issues as they pleased. Typically, villagers would gather to decide over a special issue regarding the community, such as agricultural land usage, but there existed no permanent municipal body. In many places,

4750-609: The Patriarch Germanus , written before 726 to two iconoclast bishops, says that "now whole towns and multitudes of people are in considerable agitation over this matter," but there is little written evidence of the debate. Government-led iconoclasm began with Byzantine Emperor Leo III , who issued a series of edicts between 726 and 730 against the veneration of images. The religious conflict created political and economic divisions in Byzantine society; iconoclasm

4875-523: The Second Book of Kings . His reforms were reversed in the reign of his son Manasseh . Scattered expressions of opposition to the use of images have been reported: the Synod of Elvira appeared to endorse iconoclasm; Canon 36 states, "Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration." A possible translation is also: "There shall be no pictures in

5000-631: The United States , with a territory fourteen times larger than that of the French Republic, and nearly five times its population, had 35,937 incorporated municipalities and townships at the 2002 Census of Governments, fewer than that of the French Republic. The number of barangays in the Philippines, villages of Indonesia, and muban in Thailand also have a higher number than the French communes. There have long been calls in France for

5125-584: The ancient Egyptians with the Israelites , Jan Assmann writes: For Egypt, the greatest horror was the destruction or abduction of the cult images. In the eyes of the Israelites, the erection of images meant the destruction of divine presence ; in the eyes of the Egyptians, this same effect was attained by the destruction of images. In Egypt, iconoclasm was the most terrible religious crime; in Israel ,

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5250-444: The mairies . These abrupt changes profoundly alienated devout Catholics, and France soon was plunged into the throes of civil war , with the fervently religious regions of western France at its center. It would take Napoleon I to re-establish peace in France, stabilize the new administrative system, and make it generally accepted by the population. Napoleon also abolished the election of the municipal councils, which now were chosen by

5375-527: The moai of Easter Island were toppled during the 18th century in the iconoclasm of civil wars before any European encounter. Other instances of iconoclasm may have occurred throughout Eastern Polynesia during its conversion to Christianity in the 19th century. After the Second Vatican Council in the late 20th century, some Roman Catholic parish churches discarded much of their traditional imagery, art, and architecture. Islam has

5500-716: The prefect , the local representative of the central government. Today, French communes are still very much the same in their general principles as those that were established at the beginning of the Revolution. The biggest changes occurred in 1831, when the French Parliament re-established the principle of the election of municipal councils, and in 1837 when French communes were given legal "personality", being now considered legal entities with legal capacity. The Jacobin revolutionaries were afraid of independent local powers, which they saw as conservative and opposed to

5625-416: The recent and apparently on-going destruction of historic sites by Saudi Arabian authorities, prompted by the fear they could become the subject of " idolatry ." A recent act of iconoclasm was the 2001 destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamyan by the then- Taliban government of Afghanistan . The act generated worldwide protests and was not supported by other Muslim governments and organizations. It

5750-551: The 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia , for a large gathering of people sharing a common life; from Latin communis , 'things held in common'. As of January 2021, there were 35,083 communes in France , of which 34,836 were in metropolitan France , 129 in the overseas departments , and 83 in the overseas collectivities and New Caledonia . This is a considerably higher total than that of any other European country , because French communes still largely reflect

5875-512: The 1999 census was even smaller, at 10.73 square kilometres (4.14 sq mi). The median area gives a better sense of the size of a typical mainland France commune than the average area since the average includes some very large communes. In Italy , the median area of communes ( comuni ) is 22 km (8.5 sq mi); in Belgium it is 40 km (15 sq mi); in Spain it

6000-401: The 36,683 communes have fewer than 500 inhabitants and, with 4,638,000 inhabitants, these smaller communes constitute just 7.7 percent of the total population. In other words, just 8 percent of the French population live in 57 percent of its communes, whilst 92 percent are concentrated in the remaining 43 percent. Alsace , with an area of 8,280 km (3,200 sq mi), and now part of

6125-430: The 8th century, Bengali troops from the Buddhist Pala Empire looted temples of Vishnu , the state deity of Lalitaditya 's kingdom in Kashmir . In the early 9th century, Indian Hindu kings from Kanchipuram and the Pandyan king Srimara Srivallabha looted Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka . In the early 10th century, the Pratihara king Herambapala looted an image from a temple in the Sahi kingdom of Kangra , which

6250-503: The National Assembly also decided to turn all the village parishes into full-status communes. The Revolutionaries were inspired by Cartesian ideas as well as by the philosophy of the Enlightenment . They wanted to do away with all the peculiarities of the past and establish a perfect society, in which all and everything should be equal and set up according to reason, rather than by tradition or conservatism. Thus, they set out to establish administrative divisions that would be uniform across

6375-448: The Revelation of St. John, in the books of Moses, and in the book of Joshua. We therefore kindly beg these fanatics to permit us also to paint these pictures on the wall that they may be remembered and better understood, inasmuch as they can harm as little on the walls as in books. Would to God that I could persuade those who can afford it to paint the whole Bible on their houses, inside and outside, so that all might see; this would indeed be

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6500-435: The Région Grand Est, used to be the smallest of the regions of metropolitan France , and still has no fewer than 904 communes. This high number is typical of metropolitan France but is atypical when compared with other European countries. It shows the distinctive nature of the French commune as a geo-political or administrative entity. With its 904 communes, Alsace has three times as many municipalities as Sweden , which has

6625-445: The Scriptures was similar in character to artistic renderings of Christ. In contrast to the Lutherans who favoured certain types of sacred art in their churches and homes, the Reformed (Calvinist) leaders, in particular Andreas Karlstadt , Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin , encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven (sculpted) images of God. As

6750-454: The Western abside. The nave was extended to the west in the 19th century, and a bell-tower erected. The church was classified as a monument historique in 1840 and restoration commenced in 1867. The most ancient part of the existing church is the square building which surrounds the altar. Although often referred to as a 'Greek Cross' church, this building does not really fall into this category, as it has no projecting 'arms' or transepts , only

6875-427: The artist Johannes van der Beeck was arrested and tortured, charged with being a religious non-conformist and a blasphemer , heretic , atheist , and Satanist . The 25 January 1628 judgment from five noted advocates of The Hague pronounced him guilty of "blasphemy against God and avowed atheism, at the same time as leading a frightful and pernicious lifestyle. At the court's order his paintings were burned, and only

7000-458: The beginning of Islam, in 630, when the various statues of Arabian deities housed in the Kaaba in Mecca were destroyed. There is a tradition that Muhammad spared a fresco of Mary and Jesus . This act was intended to bring an end to the idolatry which, in the Muslim view, characterized Jahiliyyah . The destruction of the idols of Mecca did not, however, determine the treatment of other religious communities living under Muslim rule after

7125-452: The benefit of poorer suburbs. Moreover, intercommunal structures in many urban areas are still new, and fragile: Tensions exist between communes; the city at the center of the urban area often is suspected of wishing to dominate the suburban communes; communes from opposing political sides also may be suspicious of each other. Two famous examples of this are Toulouse and Paris. In Toulouse, on top of there being six intercommunal structures,

7250-445: The caliphate. Researchers have discovered evidence that the order was followed, particularly in present-day Jordan , where archaeological evidence shows the removal of images from the mosaic floors of some, although not all, of the churches that stood at this time. But Yazīd's iconoclastic policies were not continued by his successors, and Christian communities of the Levant continued to make icons without significant interruption from

7375-423: The central government's calls for mergers and rationalization. By way of contrast, in the German states bordering Alsace, the geo-political and administrative areas have been subject to various re-organizations from the 1960s onward. In the state of Baden-Württemberg , the number of Gemeinden or communities was reduced from 3,378 in 1968 to 1,108 in September 2007. In comparison, the number of communes in Alsace

7500-410: The chartered cities) suddenly became legal entities for the first time in their history. This is still the case today. During the revolution, approximately 41,000 communes were created, on territory corresponding to the limits of modern-day France (the 41,000 figure includes the communes of the departments of Savoie , Haute-Savoie and Alpes-Maritimes which were annexed in 1795, but does not include

7625-408: The church is the mosaic of the Ark of the Covenant, on the ceiling of the apse. This mosaic is the only surviving Byzantine mosaic in France, although traces of mosaics elsewhere on the roof indicate that it was part of a wider decorative scheme. The mosaic owes its preservation to being plastered over at the time of the French Revolution; it was rediscovered in the middle of the 19th century. The mosaic

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7750-399: The church was possibly influenced by the Etchmiadzin Cathedral , the mother church of Armenia. The church was consecrated on 3 January 806, dedicated to SS.Geneviève and Germain. Damaged by fire before 854, it became part of a priory in 1067, and a parish church in the 13th century. The original circular plan was augmented with a nave in the 15-16th century, which involved the demolition of

7875-473: The church, an unusual element in French architecture derived, in this case, from the Visigothic practices of Theodulf's native Spain . The central apse of the east contains a rich and complex mosaic showing two cherubim above the Ark of the Covenant . Below his mosaic, Theodulf placed an inscription that occupies two lines: Odo of Metz , an Armenian architect, built the Germigny des Prés in 806–811. According to Josef Strzygowski and Alexander Sahinian ,

8000-470: The church, lest what is worshipped and adored should be depicted on the walls." The date of this canon is disputed. Proscription ceased after the destruction of pagan temples. However, widespread use of Christian iconography only began as Christianity increasingly spread among Gentiles after the legalization of Christianity by Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 312 AD). During the process of Christianisation under Constantine, Christian groups destroyed

8125-467: The city of Toulouse chartered by the counts of Toulouse). These cities were made up of several parishes (up to c. 50 parishes in the case of Paris), and they were usually enclosed by a defensive wall . They had been emancipated from the power of feudal lords in the 12th and 13th centuries, had municipal bodies which administered the city, and bore some resemblance with the communes that the French Revolution would establish except for two key points: In

8250-410: The country, conquering Debal , Sehwan , Nerun , Brahmanadabad, Alor and Multan one after the other in quick succession, and in less than a year and a half, the far-flung Hindu kingdom was crushed ... There was a fearful outbreak of religious bigotry in several places and temples were wantonly desecrated. At Debal, the Nairun and Aror temples were demolished and converted into mosques. Perhaps

8375-544: The country: the whole of France would be divided into départements , themselves divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons, themselves divided into communes, no exceptions. All of these communes would have equal status, they would all have a mayor at their head and a municipal council elected by the inhabitants of the commune. This was a real revolution for the thousands of villages that never had experienced organized municipal life before. A communal house had to be built in each of these villages, which would house

8500-413: The departments of modern-day Belgium and Germany west of the Rhine , which were part of France between 1795 and 1815). This was fewer than the 60,000 parishes that existed before the revolution (in cities and towns, parishes were merged into one single commune; in the countryside, some very small parishes were merged with bigger ones), but 41,000 was still a considerable number, without any comparison in

8625-430: The destruction of the images of a specific ruler after his or her death or overthrow, a practice better known as damnatio memoriae . While iconoclasm may be carried out by adherents of a different religion , it is more commonly the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. The term originates from the Byzantine Iconoclasm , the struggles between proponents and opponents of religious icons in

8750-412: The difference residing in the lack of administrative powers. Except for the municipal arrondissements of its largest cities, the communes are the lowest level of administrative division in France and are governed by elected officials including a mayor ( maire ) and a municipal council ( conseil municipal ). They have extensive autonomous powers to implement national policy. A commune

8875-407: The divine status of the figures between them. The artist working at Germigny (who was obviously au fait with Byzantine practice, if not actually Greek himself) has replaced the portrait of the Virgin, Mother of Christ, with an equivalent but symbolic representation. The Ark of the Covenant contains ‘manna’, the miraculous bread given from Heaven to the Israelites in the desert; this was interpreted as

9000-532: The division of France into villages or parishes at the time of the French Revolution . (1) Within the current limits of metropolitan France, which existed between 1860 and 1871 and from 1919 to today. (2) Within the current extent of overseas France, which has remained unchanged since the independence of the New Hebrides in 1980. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes; even uninhabited mountains or rain forests are dependent on

9125-543: The end of the afternoon, following the storming of the Bastille , the provost of the merchants of Paris, Jacques de Flesselles was shot by the crowd on the steps of Paris City Hall. Although in the Middle Ages the provosts of the merchants symbolized the independence of Paris and even had openly rebelled against King Charles V , their office had been suppressed by the king, then reinstated but with strict control from

9250-444: The events of 1643 when troops and citizens, encouraged by a Parliamentary ordinance against superstition and idolatry , behaved thus: Lord what work was here! What clattering of glasses! What beating down of walls! What tearing up of monuments! What pulling down of seats! What wresting out of irons and brass from the windows! What defacing of arms! What demolishing of curious stonework! What tooting and piping upon organ pipes! And what

9375-453: The expansion of the caliphate . Most Christians under Muslim rule, for example, continued to produce icons and to decorate their churches as they wished. A major exception to this pattern of tolerance in early Islamic history was the "Edict of Yazīd", issued by the Umayyad caliph Yazīd II in 722–723. This edict ordered the destruction of crosses and Christian images within the territory of

9500-480: The fact that there are pronounced differences in size between French communes. As mentioned in the introduction, a commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants such as Paris, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, or just a hamlet of 10 inhabitants. What the median population tells us is that the vast majority of the French communes only have a few hundred inhabitants, but there are also a small number of communes with much higher populations. In metropolitan France 57 percent of

9625-757: The first debate, triggered iconoclastic incidents in Zürich and the villages under civic jurisdiction that the reformer was unwilling to condone." Due to this action of protest against authority, "Zwingli responded with a carefully reasoned treatise that men could not live in society without laws and constraint". Significant iconoclastic riots took place in Basel (in 1529), Zürich (1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537), Scotland (1559), Rouen (1560), and Saintes and La Rochelle (1562). Calvinist iconoclasm in Europe "provoked reactive riots by Lutheran mobs" in Germany and "antagonized

9750-558: The form of a law on 22 March 1890, which provided for the establishment of single-purpose intercommunal associations. French lawmakers having long been aware of the inadequacy of the communal structure inherited from the French Revolution for dealing with a number of practical matters, the so-called Chevènement law of 12 July 1999 is the most recent and most thoroughgoing measure aimed at strengthening and simplifying this principle. In recent years it has become increasingly common for communes to band together in intercommunal consortia for

9875-539: The form of a rough square with single apses in the middle of the north, south, and west sides, and three apses on the east side. Internally, the space took the form of a Greek cross : a high central tower filled the central bay, barrel vaults extended off in the north, south, east, and west bays, while in the corner bays there were low domes carried on squinches . This plan type was later to become standard in Byzantine architecture . Horseshoe arches are used throughout

10000-524: The images and sculptures expressive of the Roman Empire 's polytheist state religion. Among early church theologians, iconoclastic tendencies were supported by theologians such as Tertullian , Clement of Alexandria , Origen , Lactantius , Justin Martyr , Eusebius and Epiphanius . The period after the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527–565) evidently saw a huge increase in

10125-548: The king, and so they had ended up being viewed by the people as yet another representative of the king, no longer the embodiment of a free municipality. Following that event, a "commune" of Paris was immediately set up to replace the old medieval chartered city of Paris, and a municipal guard was established to protect Paris against any attempt made by King Louis XVI to quell the ongoing revolution. Several other cities of France quickly followed suit, and communes arose everywhere, each with their municipal guard. On 14 December 1789,

10250-437: The kingdom. A parish was essentially a church, the houses around it (known as the village), and the cultivated land around the village. France was the most populous country in Europe at this time, with a population of approximately 25 million inhabitants in the late 18th century ( England in contrast had only 6 million inhabitants), which accounts for the large number of parishes. French kings often prided themselves on ruling over

10375-653: The law. In urban areas, the new intercommunal structures are much more a reality, being created by local decision-makers out of genuine belief in the worth of working together. However, in many places, local feuds have arisen, and it was not possible to set up an intercommunal structure for the whole of the urban area: some communes refusing to take part in it, or even creating their own structure. In some urban areas like Marseille there exist four distinct intercommunal structures! In many areas, rich communes have joined with other rich communes and have refused to let in poorer communes, for fear that their citizens would be overtaxed to

10500-552: The least money per inhabitant, whereas urban communities are given the most money per inhabitant, thus pushing communes to form more integrated communities where they have fewer powers, which they might otherwise have been loath to do if it were not for government money. The Chevènement law has been extremely successful in the sense that a majority of French communes now have joined the new intercommunal structures. On 1 January 2007, there were 2,573 such communities in metropolitan France (including five syndicats d'agglomération nouvelle ,

10625-414: The local feudal lord ( seigneur ) still had a major influence in the village's affairs, collecting taxes from tenant-villagers and ordering them to work the corvée , controlling which fields were to be used and when, and how much of the harvest should be given to him. Additionally, some cities had obtained charters during the Middle Ages, either from the king himself or from local counts or dukes (such as

10750-575: The lowest communes' median population of all the European countries (communes in Switzerland or Rhineland-Palatinate may cover a smaller area, as mentioned above, but they are more populated). This small median population of French communes can be compared with Italy, where the median population of communes in 2001 was 2,343 inhabitants, Belgium (11,265 inhabitants), or even Spain (564 inhabitants). The median population given here should not hide

10875-480: The main community of Toulouse and its suburbs is only a community of agglomeration, although Toulouse is large enough to create an Urban Community according to the law. This is because the suburban communes refused an urban community for fear of losing too much power, and opted for a community of agglomeration, despite the fact that a community of agglomeration receives less government funds than an urban community. As for Paris, no intercommunal structure has emerged there,

11000-466: The maximum allowable pay of the mayor and deputy mayors, and municipal campaign finance limits (among other features) all depend on the population echelon into which a particular commune falls. Since the PLM Law of 1982, three French communes also have a special status in that they are further divided into municipal arrondissements : these are Paris, Marseille , and Lyon . The municipal arrondissement

11125-486: The mayors. Civil marriages were established and started to be performed in the mairie with a ceremony not unlike the traditional one, with the mayor replacing the priest, and the name of the law replacing the name of God (" Au nom de la loi, je vous déclare unis par les liens du mariage. " – "In the name of the law, I declare you united by the bonds of marriage."). Priests were forced to surrender their centuries-old baptism, marriage, and burial books, which were deposited in

11250-425: The meetings of the municipal council as well as the administration of the commune. Some in the National Assembly were opposed to such a fragmentation of France into thousands of communes, but eventually Mirabeau and his ideas of one commune for each parish prevailed. On 20 September 1792, the recording of births, marriages, and deaths also was withdrawn as a responsibility of the priests of the parishes and handed to

11375-645: The most notorious episode of iconoclasm in India was Mahmud of Ghazni 's attack on the Somnath Temple from across the Thar Desert . The temple was first raided in 725, when Junayad, the governor of Sind , sent his armies to destroy it. In 1024, during the reign of Bhima I , the prominent Turkic-Muslim ruler Mahmud of Ghazni raided Gujarat, plundering the Somnath Temple and breaking its jyotirlinga despite pleas by Brahmins not to break it. He took away

11500-509: The most terrible religious crime was idolatry . In this respect Osarseph alias Akhenaten, the iconoclast, and the Golden Calf , the paragon of idolatry, correspond to each other inversely, and it is strange that Aaron could so easily avoid the role of the religious criminal. It is more than probable that these traditions evolved under mutual influence. In this respect, Moses and Akhenaten became, after all, closely related. According to

11625-547: The motives for the destruction. During the Tuareg rebellion of 2012 , the radical Islamist militia Ansar Dine destroyed various Sufi shrines from the 15th and 16th centuries in the city of Timbuktu , Mali . In 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi , a former member of Ansar Dine, to nine years in prison for this destruction of cultural world heritage. This

11750-652: The neighbouring Eastern Orthodox " in the Baltic region. The Seventeen Provinces (now the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Northern France) were disrupted by widespread Calvinist iconoclasm in the summer of 1566. During the Reformation in England , which started during the reign of Anglican monarch Henry VIII , and was urged on by reformers such as Hugh Latimer and Thomas Cranmer , limited official action

11875-521: The north, cities tended to be administered by échevins (from an old Germanic word meaning judge), while in the south, cities tended to be administered by consuls (in a clear reference to Roman antiquity), but Bordeaux was administered by jurats (etymologically meaning "sworn men") and Toulouse by capitouls ("men of the chapter"). Usually, there was no mayor in the modern sense; all the échevins or consuls were on equal footing, and rendered decisions collegially. However, for certain purposes, there

12000-591: The number of communes in the process – the Gemeinden of West Germany were decreased from 24,400 to 8,400 in the space of a few years – France only carried out mergers at the margin, and those were mostly carried out during the 19th century. From 41,000 communes at the time of the French Revolution, the number decreased to 37,963 in 1921, to 36,569 in 2008 (in metropolitan France). Thus, in Europe, only Switzerland has as high

12125-461: The number of municipalities compared to the large and populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia (396 Gemeinden in September 2007). Despite differences in population, each of the communes of the French Republic possesses a mayor ( maire ) and a municipal council ( conseil municipal ), which jointly manage the commune from the municipal hall ( mairie ), with exactly the same powers no matter

12250-631: The only partially successful statute enacted in 1966 and enabling urban communes to form urban communities or the more marked failure of the Marcellin law of 1971, the Chevènement law met with a large measure of success, so that a majority of French communes are now involved in intercommunal structures. There are two types of these structures: In exchange for the creation of a community, the government allocates money to them based on their population, thus providing an incentive for communes to team up and form communities. Communities of communes are given

12375-424: The opinion" said [Luther], "that through the Gospel all the arts should be banished and driven away, as some zealots want to make us believe; but I wish to see them all, especially music, in the service of Him Who gave and created them." Again he says: "I have myself heard those who oppose pictures, read from my German Bible.... But this contains many pictures of God, of the angels, of men, and of animals, especially in

12500-403: The place of the former communes, which are represented by a delegated mayor and a delegated council. Between 2012 and 2021, about 820 communes nouvelles have been established, replacing about 2,550 old communes. The expression "intercommunality" ( intercommunalité ) denotes several forms of cooperation between communes. Such cooperation first made its appearance at the end of the 19th century in

12625-541: The populations and land of the geographic area covered. The communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. Communes vary widely in size and area, from large sprawling cities with millions of inhabitants like Paris , to small hamlets with only a handful of inhabitants. Communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes ( "lieu dit" or "bourg" ),

12750-495: The provision of such services as refuse collection and water supply. Suburban communes often team up with the city at the core of their urban area to form a community charged with managing public transport or even administering the collection of local taxes. The Chevènement law tidied up all these practices, abolishing some structures and creating new ones. In addition, it offered central government finance aimed at encouraging further communes to join in intercommunal structures. Unlike

12875-489: The revolution, and so they favored a powerful central state. Therefore, when they created the communes, they deprived them of any legal "personality" (as they did with the départements ), with only the central state having legal "personality." By 1837 that situation was judged impractical, as mayors and municipal councils could not be parties in courts. The consequence of the change, however, was that tens of thousands of villages which had never had legal "personality" (contrary to

13000-469: The right to elect its own mayor in 1977, the central government retained control of the Paris police. In all other French communes, the municipal police are under the mayor's supervision. French communes were created at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789–1790. Before the revolution, France's lowest level of administrative division was the parish ( paroisse ), and there were up to 60,000 of them in

13125-406: The same as those designed at the time of the French Revolution more than 200 years ago, with the same limits. Countless rural communes that had hundreds of inhabitants at the time of the French Revolution now have only a hundred inhabitants or fewer. On the other hand, cities and towns have grown so much that their urbanized area is now extending far beyond the limits of their commune which were set at

13250-403: The same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them. In Réunion, demographic expansion and sprawling urbanization have resulted in the administrative splitting of some communes . The median population of metropolitan France's communes at the 1999 census was 380 inhabitants. Again this is a very small number, and here France stands absolutely apart in Europe, with

13375-521: The sixth century to the ninth. Al-Maqrīzī , writing in the 15th century, attributes the missing nose on the Great Sphinx of Giza to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr , a Sufi Muslim in the mid-1300s. He was reportedly outraged by local Muslims making offerings to the Great Sphinx in the hope of controlling the flood cycle, and he was later executed for vandalism. However, whether this

13500-414: The size of the commune. This uniformity of status is a legacy of the French Revolution, which wanted to do away with the local idiosyncrasies and tremendous differences in status that existed in the kingdom of France. French law makes allowances for the vast differences in commune size in a number of areas of administrative law. The size of the municipal council, the method of electing the municipal council,

13625-471: The suburbs of Paris fearing the concept of a "Greater Paris", and so disunity still is the rule in the metropolitan area, with the suburbs of Paris creating many different intercommunal structures all without the city. Iconoclasm Conversely, one who reveres or venerates religious images is called (by iconoclasts) an iconolater ; in a Byzantine context, such a person is called an iconodule or iconophile. Iconoclasm does not generally encompass

13750-609: The time of the revolution. The most extreme example of this is Paris, where the urbanized area sprawls over 396 communes. Paris in fact was one of the very few communes of France whose limits were extended to take into account the expansion of the urbanized area. The new, larger, commune of Paris was set up under the oversight of Emperor Napoléon III in 1859, but after 1859 the limits of Paris rigidified. Unlike most other European countries, which stringently merged their communes to better reflect modern-day densities of population (such as Germany and Italy around 1970), dramatically decreasing

13875-482: The use of images, both in volume and quality, and a gathering aniconic reaction. One notable change within the Byzantine Empire came in 695, when Justinian II 's government added a full-face image of Christ on the obverse of imperial gold coins. The change caused the Caliph Abd al-Malik to stop his earlier adoption of Byzantine coin types. He started a purely Islamic coinage with lettering only. A letter by

14000-550: The use of religious images. Martin Luther taught the "importance of images as tools for instruction and aids to devotion," stating: "If it is not a sin but good to have the image of Christ in my heart, why should it be a sin to have it in my eyes?" Lutheran churches retained ornate church interiors with a prominent crucifix , reflecting their high view of the real presence of Christ in Eucharist . As such, "Lutheran worship became

14125-580: The world at the time, except in the empire of China (but there, only county level and above had any permanent administration). Since then, tremendous changes have affected France, as they have the rest of Europe: the Industrial Revolution , two world wars , and the rural exodus have all depopulated the countryside and increased the size of cities. French administrative divisions, however, have remained extremely rigid and unchanged. Today about 90 percent of communes and departments are exactly

14250-525: Was a Spaniard and one of the most celebrated men of letters in the Carolingian Empire court of Charlemagne . The Carolingian architecture of his palace complex at Germigny-des-Prés was in a general sense modelled on Charlemagne's Palace of Aachen . All except the oratory was destroyed by the Vikings within a century of construction. As reconstructed by Theodulf in 806, the oratory took

14375-467: Was actually the cause of the missing nose has been debated by historians. Mark Lehner , having performed an archaeological study, concluded that it was broken with instruments at an earlier unknown time between the 3rd and 10th centuries. Certain conquering Muslim armies have used local temples or houses of worship as mosques. An example is Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople ), which

14500-428: Was adopted, which created the legal framework for the communes nouvelles (lit. "new communes"). A commune nouvelle can be created by merger of a number of communes at the request of the municipal councils of all the communes or at the initiative of the state representative in the department (the prefect ). The municipal council of the new commune can decide to create communes déléguées (lit. "delegated communes") in

14625-610: Was converted into a mosque in 1453. Most icons were desecrated and the rest were covered with plaster. In 1934 the government of Turkey decided to convert the Hagia Sophia into a museum and the restoration of the mosaics was undertaken by the American Byzantine Institute beginning in 1932. Certain Muslim denominations continue to pursue iconoclastic agendas. There has been much controversy within Islam over

14750-638: Was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer, non-Greek peoples of the Empire who had to frequently deal with raids from the new Muslim Empire. On the other hand, the wealthier Greeks of Constantinople and the peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces strongly opposed iconoclasm. Peter of Bruys opposed the usage of religious images, the Strigolniki were also possibly iconoclastic. Claudius of Turin

14875-602: Was later looted by the Pratihara king Yashovarman. Records from the campaign recorded in the Chach Nama record the destruction of temples during the early 8th century when the Umayyad governor of Damascus , al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf , mobilized an expedition of 6000 cavalry under Muhammad bin Qasim in 712. Historian Upendra Thakur records the persecution of Hindus and Buddhists : Muhammad triumphantly marched into

15000-1053: Was one échevin or consul ranking above the others, a sort of mayor, although not with the same authority and executive powers as a modern mayor. This "mayor" was called provost of the merchants ( prévôt des marchands ) in Paris and Lyon; maire in Marseille, Bordeaux, Rouen , Orléans , Bayonne and many other cities and towns; mayeur in Lille ; premier capitoul in Toulouse; viguier in Montpellier ; premier consul in many towns of southern France; prêteur royal in Strasbourg ; maître échevin in Metz ; maire royal in Nancy ; or prévôt in Valenciennes . On 14 July 1789, at

15125-555: Was only reduced from 946 in 1971 (just before the Marcellin law aimed at encouraging French communes to merge with each other was passed, see Current debate section below) to 904 in January 2007. Consequently, the Alsace region—despite having a land area only one-fifth the size and a total population only one-sixth of that of its neighbor Baden-Württemberg—has almost as many municipalities. The small Alsace region has more than double

15250-558: Was taken against religious images in churches in the late 1530s. Henry's young son, Edward VI , came to the throne in 1547 and, under Cranmer's guidance, issued injunctions for Religious Reforms in the same year and in 1550, an Act of Parliament "for the abolition and putting away of divers books and images." During the English Civil War , the Parliamentarians reorganised the administration of East Anglia into

15375-472: Was the bishop of Turin from 817 until his death. He is most noted for teaching iconoclasm. The first iconoclastic wave happened in Wittenberg in the early 1520s under reformers Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt , in the absence of Martin Luther , who then, concealed under the pen-name of 'Junker Jörg', intervened to calm things down. Luther argued that the mental picturing of Christ when reading

15500-881: Was the first time that the ICC convicted a person for such a crime. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant carried out iconoclastic attacks such as the destruction of Shia mosques and shrines. Notable incidents include blowing up the Mosque of the Prophet Yunus ( Jonah ) and destroying the Shrine to Seth in Mosul . In early Medieval India , there were numerous recorded instances of temple desecration mostly by Indian Muslim kings against rival Indian Hindu kingdoms , which involved conflicts between Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. In

15625-687: Was widely perceived in the Western media as a result of the Muslim prohibition against figural decoration. Such an account overlooks "the coexistence between the Buddhas and the Muslim population that marveled at them for over a millennium" before their destruction. According to art historian F. B. Flood, analysis of the Taliban's statements regarding the Buddhas suggest that their destruction was motivated more by political than by theological concerns. Taliban spokesmen have given many different explanations of

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