I was thinking about what would happen if the leader of the catholic church was diagnosed with dementia, alzeimer's, etc. Obviously these diseases were discovered/diagnosable (relatively)only recently, but what would happen if/when a Pope is diagnosed with a disease of this nature?

I cant read Russian, so it's pretty difficult for me to discern what a lot of it is about.

A book I have on English monarchs says that he was killed by an outlaw named Leofa, but it doesn't go into any more detail. Some light googling has only yielded a little more info. Who was Leofa, and why/how did he kill Edmund?

In my western civ class we are debating the values of having caesar as dictator or sticking with the republic and i am choosing to defend the republic.

I'm reading a couple of books on Gnosticism by a scholar named Nicola Denzey Lewis right now, and in them she seems to frequently emphasize recent attempts by some of her colleagues to question previous definitions of "Gnosticism". She says that she bases a lot of her perspective here on a 2003 book titled "What Is Gnosticism?" by Karen L. King.

She takes particular issue with Hans Jonas' influential work on Gnosticism, especially in the way that the Gnostics are often characterized as treating the cosmos as negative or oppressive. She seems to reject a lot of Jonas' work on Gnosticism based on the fact that he wrote prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, so that he was forced to primarily rely on hostile sources for his understanding of Gnosticism, whereas she feels that our understanding of the subject is better now that we have access to primary source texts.

I almost get the sense that she goes too sometimes far in rejecting many of the things that scholars commonly associate with Gnosticism though, to the extent that I'm left wondering what Gnosticism even is in her view, if anything.

I'm also not sure if what she is putting forward as a more accurate recent re-visioning of Gnosticism is a genuine phenomenon where most scholars are in agreement that previous definitions of the subject are inappropriate now, or if perhaps this is something that only a small group of scholars think, and everyone else is continuing to use the previous definitions because they think that they are still valid.

Is anyone familiar with the controversy I'm referring to, or could you shed any light on this issue as someone who is more familiar with the filed? I'm still very new to it, and I find it a bit confusing.

To put this another way: to mimic the value of U.S. currently in 1909, today we could stop circulating pennies, nickels, and dimes.

It seems like a lot of money was being left on the table during retail transactions.

So I've heard this several times throughout history classes and brief mentions in several reputable history books owed to Britain's economic "dependence" on the raw resources produced in the Confederate States of America (Southern states). Was there any serious consideration of Britain allying themselves with the Confederate States of America beyond economic relief and minimal military support?

On a side note, what is the most accurate term to use when referring to Britain? I've seen England, Britain, Great Britain, and several other terms, many of which have a variety of meanings in contemporary English.

Where would midwives get all of their information from in this situation as well?

Stories that I've been told about Saint Thomas say that he travelled out of Judea to preach, and his last known location was somewhere in India. Is there any evidence that shows how far west he actually travelled before the end of his life? Given the physical and political geography along his most probable route, how far was he likely to have travelled?

Title says it all

Now, i'm talking more prolonged sieges and less about direct castle assaults.

A few questions mainly:

So, how does a siege start?

I'm the lord of a keep, my scouts come rushing back telling me the Evil Lord X is 2 days march down the road. Not enough time to summon friendlies (who don't much like me anyway)

So i've got 2 days to make preparations, what do i do?

Who gets to stay inside the inner curtain wall? Just the people who already lived there? Blacksmishts/merchants/tradesmen etc? What about all the people outisde, would they just hope for mercy from the opposing lord?

Once the enemy arrives would there be a formal declaration of siege? Terms of surrender?

"Hey we'll hold out here for a while and if no one comes to help us out in 3 weeks i'll hand the castle over"

How would life in the attacking camp be? Many days of inaction and just guarding the road? Once every few days the defenders would fire off the occasional volley of arrows just to keep everyone on their toes?

Would there be the occasional exchanging of word/odd wartime comraderie between soldiers on the walls and those outside? Hey mate i'll throw up over a bag of apples if you toss down some fresh bread?

was the 'no one in or out' strictly adhered to or would there still be some forms of traffic?

Were there any suspicions/ideas/myths in olden or ancient times, or did it just spring up in the 20th century? If the latter, is there any correlation between it and earth's first satellites in space and/or men in space?

For a long time I have wondered about this because the Russian Spesnatz Specialize in Guerrilla Warfare

Ukraine has over 8 million ethnic Russians while the rest of the named countries have >100,000 Russians each. Poland has around 10,000 only.

Is their any reason why Poland doesn't have a sizable Russian minority, considering it was once a Soviet satellite state and considering it's close proximity to Russia?