Word: fief
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Italy's city-states were being ravaged by imperialist-republican quarrels, and the papacy went into exile in Avignon, part of a papal fief on the borders of France. Not unjustly, the exile of the papacy was called the "Babylonian captivity": the avarice and corruption of the papal court was unequaled even in the days of the Medicis and Borgias. Seven French Popes resided at Avignon before Gregory XI (1370-78) finally returned the papal seat to Rome...
...ranks as leader of the relatively small western Cape, still the historically sacred region of Afrikaner origins. He is not the patient negotiator that Vorster was. But he has proved to be a shrewd organizer. After becoming Defense Minister in 1966, he characteristically turned the ministry into a personal fief. At the same time he systematically built up an awesome military machine...
...seemed an ordinary mountain town, each family clustered around a house that gave it not only shelter but identity. There was little class distinction and considerable sharing of resources. The villagers were united in fierce anticlericalism, and with reason. The regional ruler, the Count de Foix, had defended his fief from exorbitant church taxes. But when the aristocrat died, the bishops of Pamiers imposed ever more onerous tithes. The new church exactions doubtless influenced many villagers to consider the teachings of the Cathar parfaits (perfect ones, the heresy's elect...
...degree. Not only had Charles taken time out for state visits abroad and his elaborate investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, but he had also spent a term at University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, taking a cram course in Welsh to cool nationalist resentment in his titular fief. Even so, a large part of Charles' education at Cambridge was extracurricular. His happiest hours at Trinity were apparently spent performing in a series of comic revues, in which Charles showed a talent for daffy comedy and self-deprecating good humor...
...fact, it was Lal's Sanjay connection that most intrigued observers of India's gathering political storm. Mrs. Gandhi's son treated the Congress Party's youth movement, whose funds Lal is accused of stealing, as his personal fief. Both have been granted anticipatory bail against possible charges relating to other investigations. Most of the probes are unrelated, but in at least one the two men could be implicated jointly. At issue: whether Lal arranged the sale of state land to Sanjay at below market prices for the construction of a controversial automobile plant, and whether...