If lions didn't live in Europe, then how did the Medieval tribes and their predecessors come to use a lion as a symbol?

I have an essay to write for my introduction to history class in Cegep. I was given an exert from Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, section 5. It addresses the reasons for why "the dispensing of Christ's body belongs to the priests". I chose a focus question revolving around how the importance of priests, in turn the Catholic church, was elevated during the High Middle Ages. An "exercise" that the teacher is making mandatory, before we can write the paper, is to come up with a source to "help us write the paper".

One of these must be an article, so I spent the last three hours searching all over the web, including different sources that I have access to from the school. I could not find anything that seemed useful. I am in desperate need of some help, so I ask if anyone has any articles that might be of use. I would much appreciate it.

I'm new to reddit in general, I hope I'm not breaking any laws and I appreciate any help.

All the best

It seems to me that using crossbows would be more efficient than using a cumbersome, slow to load, inaccurate, musket. Why didn't they use them?

I just finished writing an essay about this topic for an American history class in college (I've already submitted it, so none of your answers are in danger of being stolen!).

While doing my research (based on sources provided by my instructor) I came to my own conclusions, but I'd be very interested in hearing what the general consensus is... and also in determining if my theory was more or less 'correct'.

Thank you!

edit: I meant 'What' not 'Why', of course. Sigh.

I have heard the claim that the south would not accept an end to slavery and that caused the war. I have also heard the claim that Lincoln went to war out of principle regarding not allowing a secession to occur (slavery was not that big a deal for him at the time). In addition, I heard that initially he abolished slavery in the south to give blacks a reason to fight against the confederacy, but he still allowed it in the north. While if all of these were true they would not pose an inconsistency, I doubt that they are all true. What was the actual reason Lincoln did not allow the south to secede? And is it true that the south offered to by the north out of the south?

Whenever I read accounts of the killing of emissaries (such as the Greeks killing the Persian emissaries, or the Khwarezmians, Mamluks, Hungarians, etc, killing Mongol emissaries), I wonder "why did they do that?"

It seems like the cons of killing a foreign power's emissaries are pretty clear -- it gives a belligerent country a causus belli if they didn't have one, and might even provoke a nation inclined toward continued diplomatic talks toward a war.

What were the pros? I suppose that if they thought that the emissary was a spy who was gathering data on their fortifications' weak points, granary supplies, etc, then they might want him not to get back to his masters, and I also suppose that if an emissary is suspected of talking to people other than the sovereign and subverting their loyalty (e.g., offering one of the Hungarian king's prominent discontented vassals some deal if he'll side with the Mongols), that could be a problem. Overall, though, it seems like escorting the emissary and making sure he only talks to the sovereign or his representatives and doesn't acquire intelligence or talk to any potential fifth columnists seems safer than just executing him.

Were there more positives to executing an emissary than I see? Was just really cathartic to kill an arrogant foreign diplomat and yell "THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAA!"? (Or, perhaps, "THIS. IS. KHWAREZM!" or whatever the local equivalent was.)

I have some questions regarding Friendly Fire in WW1:

1. How many people died from friendly fire in WW1 approx.? Were the Germans numbers lower/higher than the Allies? Were the total number in WW1 higher/lower than other wars (Vietnam, WW2, Gulf war, Iraq/afganistan)?

2. How common was it to fire on friendlies (Not necessarily kill them, just get confused by all of the horrors of war)

3. How often was unintentional suicide? Such as the gun synchronization in the Bi-Planes failing and the pilots end up shooting themselves down/Tanks blowing up/Trenches collapsing?

Thank you.

Title pretty much says it. It seems almost every city (at least in the US) has one, were they always so ubiquitous?

I was wondering when did it become common, for people (especially in Europe, but also in Asia for example) to be able to speak english fluently. Was it already common during, for example during world war 1, to be able to speak english in Europe?

For the purposes of disclosure I am writing a paper about the negotiations between the nationalists and the communists following the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Please can someone tell me wether the Jews were put into ghettos before they were shipped off to concentration camps? If so please can you also tell Me some of the anti- Semitic measure put into place, and how this went down with the Dutch? Thanks, its for a book I'm writing.

I've been reading Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn, and there is frequent mention of Churchill's drinking. He also writes about certain military generals being looked down upon and reprimanded by superiors because of alcohol abuse, but (as of yet) there's no mention of others' opinions of Churchill's drinking.

And how come the Gregorian calendar is the standard anyways?

In almost every picture I've seen of WWI machine gun squads, they're using water-cooled machine guns (judging by the huge tanks around the barrels). But in WWII, it seems that there was a switch overall to air-cooled guns, such as the Browning M1919 for the US and Germany's infamous MG42. What were the reasons for this, and am I mistaken in any way? Was one type of machine gun actually predominantly used over another in either war?

It seems that if anyone was going to impart their belief system on the other it'd be the Scandinavians forcing the Norse gods on the rest of Europe, especially considering all the kick-assery, raping and pillaging.