Author Topic: Offa!  (Read 2497 times)

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Offline Hedge

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Offa!
« on: September 20, 2010, 02:48:57 PM »
Since this is a section for randomness as well as freedom of speech,

I just have to tell you guys that typing in the password gives me the tiniest bit of joy.

I always think, "Offa!" as an exclamation of joy, like the Greek "Opa!"

Just wanted to share.

 :D

Offa!
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Offline Ursus

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BAH! Humbug!
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2010, 03:12:43 PM »
Quote from: "Hedge"
Since this is a section for randomness as well as freedom of speech,

I just have to tell you guys that typing in the password gives me the tiniest bit of joy.

I always think, "Offa!" as an exclamation of joy, like the Greek "Opa!"

Just wanted to share.

:D

Offa!
Personally, I find having to type a @!#%@! PASSWORD, in several forums at this point, to be a royal pain in the ass, but that's just because I'm an insufferable and acidulous prick by nature.  ::evil::
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Offline psy

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2010, 11:55:16 PM »
You have a valid point, Ursus.  The password is a pain in the ass.  There is an alternative: to entirely disable display in active topics, but that would make it impossible for anybody to see the forums in their active topics.  This way has the benefit of letting people "opt in" rather than have the information buried entirely.  Otherwise we make the anarchy land that is Open Free For All a sort of a "second class citizen" in the eyes of many forum members who like the old ways.   I suppose people could switch to just going directly to the individual forum of their choice, but then they might fall out of the TTI discussion entirely...   I suppose it's their choice.  Yes the password is a pain but at the moment it's a necessary evil.

I mean people get sucked up in the drama here.  They just find somebody they hate and just go bonkers...  can't do anything else.  It's like a fucking program sometimes.  I'm opt-in because there is some good stuff but the rest of you...  just stop tearing each other apart all the time.  It's tiresome.  Make up and shut the hell up.

... and I just derailed the thread.  sorry.  Were this not offa, i'd split it.
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Offline Awake

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2010, 10:10:26 PM »
If you do not enter all the passwords does that mean the search functions filter out those areas too?
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Offline Froderik

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2010, 12:43:04 AM »
Quote from: "Awake"
If you do not enter all the passwords does that mean the search functions filter out those areas too?

Good question...
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Offline Che Gookin

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2010, 05:12:51 AM »
Mozilla saves the password for me, I haven't had to enter it in the longest ol' time. Yah damn Luddites, get mozilla.
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Offline Botched Programming

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2010, 08:02:02 AM »
OFFA = Offa the damn chain !!!
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Offline mark babitz

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2010, 08:56:06 AM »
Offa, King of Mercia, died 29 July, 796. He was one of the leading figures of Saxon history, as appears from the real facts stripped of all legend. He obtained the throne of Mercia in 757, after the murder of his cousin, King Æthelbald, by Beornraed. After spending fourteen years in consolidating and ordering his territories he engaged in conquests which made him the most powerful king in England. After a successful campaign against the Hestingi, he defeated the men of Kent at Otford (775); the West Saxons at Bensington in Oxfordshire (779); and finally the Welsh, depriving the last-named of a large part of Powys, including the town of Pengwern. To repress the raids of the Welsh he built Offa's dyke, roughly indicating for the first time what has remained the boundary between England and Wales. Offa was now supreme south of the Humber, with the result that England was divided into three political divisions, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. His next step was to complete the independence of Mercia by inducing the pope to erect a Mercian archbishopric, so as to free Mercia from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Hadrian I sent two legates, George and Theophylactus, to England to arrange for the transfer of five suffragan sees of Canterbury (viz. Worcester, Leicester, Lindsay, Elmham, and Dunwich) to the new Archbishopric of Lichfield, of which Higbert was first archbishop. This was effected at the Synod of Celchyth (787), at which Offa granted the pope a yearly sum equal to one mancus a day for the relief of the poor and for lights to be kept burning before St. Peter's tomb. At the same time he associated his son Ecgferth with him in the kingship. He preserved friendly relations with Charlemagne, who undertook to protect the English pilgrims and merchants who passed through his territories. Many charters granting lands to various monasteries are extant, and, though some are forgeries, enough are genuine documents to show that he was a liberal benefactor to the Church. The laws of Offa are not extant, but were embodied by Alfred in his later code. The chief stain on his character is the execution of Æthelbert, King of the East Angles. In all other respects he showed himself a great Christian king and an able and enlightened ruler.













http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11215c.htm
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Offline mark babitz

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #8 on: September 23, 2010, 08:59:28 AM »
Did King Offa Become a Muslim?

It has recently been suggested by some Muslim sources[1] that Offa, a well-known Anglo-Saxon king, was a convert to Islam. This claim is obviously an attractive one for Muslims, as it would certainly be a great achievement to have a "Christian" king publically acknowledge Islam as the truth, especially so soon after the birth of Islam as we know it. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the basis for this claim and to consider what is known about Offa and his religious beliefs.

Firstly, a little background information which is not in contention. Offa (AD 757-796) was the king of Mercia, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. He was one of the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kings and controlled the territory south of the River Humber, taking in most of England. It was he who ordered the building of the well-known earthwork known as "Offa's Dyke", which runs very roughly along what is now the Welsh border, as a boundary marker in his battles with the Welsh.

Why Do Some Say that Offa Converted?

The only evidence presented in support of Offa's supposed conversion is a coin which is now on display in the British Museum[2]. It is a copy of a gold dinar by the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur, the original of which is dated to 157 AH (AD 774). Along with the Islamic Arabic inscriptions, there is on one side the Latin inscription "Offa Rex", (Offa reigns). It has been suggested by Dr A Zahoor[3] that this is proof that Offa wanted to declare publically his Islam by making coins with the Muslim creed on them. He postulates that Offa may have learnt about Islam by visting Spain.

What Does Offa's Coin Really Tell Us?

Unfortunately, the coin in question provides no evidence of Offa's supposed conversion. Perhaps the most obvious thing to point out is that the Latin inscription is upside-down with relation to the Arabic text. This can clearly be seen on the helpful images of the coins provided by Dr Zahoor[4]. Further to this, although the Arabic text is generally a good reproduction, the word for "year" has been bungled, something that an Arabic speaker would never do. It is clear, then, that neither Offa, his coin-makers nor his officials could read Arabic. Seeing as the first Latin or English translations of the Qur'an were made after Offa's time, it seems certain that he did not understand what he was printing. If his coins had been in order to declare his faith in Allah to the people of his realm, he would surely have written the Muslim creed in a language which his subjects could have understood.

If Offa's purpose was not to declare Islam, what was it? Copying the coins of other kingdoms is a well-known practice and was done for several reasons, not necessarily forgery. For purposes of international trade, it was necessary for coins to be accepted in the country to which they were going. Copying the established currency of that country would be a logical way to ensure that coins were accepted in trade.

Even the very fact that the coin is gold has bearing on the issue. The vast majority of the Arab coins found in England are silver and thought to have been brought over by the Vikings.[5] This is because silver was the currency of the Baltic lands; Arab fur traders would pay for their goods in silver, the accepted currency of the Baltics. There was no gold coinage in England before Offa, nor in Western Europe before Charlemagne.[6] It is therefore quite expected that Offa would make his first gold coinage in order to be accepted by Arabs, in the style of their own dinars. J. Allan states that Offa, desiring to have a gold coinage and `following the universal practice in such cases, copied the coinage that had suggested the idea to him as closely as possible; it would have been quite contrary to all numismatic laws for him to have instituted at once a gold coinage of the same style as his silver coins; to him the essential features of a gold coin were those of the only gold coins he knew.'[7]

Therefore, we see that, far from necessitating any embracing of Islam by Offa, his copying of the dinar was simply in accordance with standard practice for making new coinage. In the British Museum, in the same room as Offa's coin[8], are coins by Umayyad Caliphs, copying the style of `Christian' Byzantine coinage. To be fair, it should be noted that the makers of these coins have altered the design sufficiently to remove the Christian symbolism of the originals. This, however, is to be expected, as these symbols would be meaningful and distasteful to the Caliphs. It is likely that Offa had very little, if any, knowledge of Islam; therefore, he would have no reason to feel threatened by what were to him the unintelligible squiggles of the Muslim creed.

The question then arises: why would Offa want to make gold coins at all? The balance of trade between East and West at the time was against the West, as the Arabs wanted little from the West, but the West had a keen demand for Oriental luxuries.[9] It would be necessary to have a supply of gold coinage to pay for these. There is also the possibility that the coin, found in Rome, formed part of a regular gold shipment from Offa to the Pope, known as `Peter's Pence'. This, however, is not definite, as the form of the shipment is uncertain and, in any case, Rome was the centre of the medieval world; it is therefore not surprising that coins of all countries were found there.

Whatever Offa's real purpose in making the coins, it is quite clear that there is absolutely no reason to conclude that he converted to Islam. Anyone who wishes to maintain this position must find much stronger evidence in order to be even vaguely credible.

What does History say about Offa?

Offa ascended the throne of Mercia in AD 757. He defeated a Welsh invasion in 760 and by 777 ruled the whole of England south of the River Humber. He defeated South Wales in 778 and again in 784, erecting Offa's Dyke, an earthwork to serve as a boundary between his own land and that of the Welsh.

Offa was greatly respected by Pope Adrian I, who formally addressed him as `Rex Anglorum' (king of England). Charlemagne, the Emperor of France, dealt with him as an equal and almost married his eldest son to one of Offa's daughters. Their friendship is evidenced by the fact that Charlemagne sent some of the booty from one of his victories to Offa with his greetings in 780.

Offa was a zealous builder and benefactor of monasteries, including that of St. Albans. He seemed to resent his own bishops paying allegiance to the Archbishop of Canterbury in Kent who, whilst under Offa's control, was not of his own kingdom of Mercia. Offa therefore created his own archbishopric in Lichfield, who presided over all the bishops from the Humber to the Thames. All this began in 786, with the consent of Pope Adrian. The Pope’s official representatives were received warmly by Offa and were present at the Council of Chelsea (787), often called `the contentious synod', where it was proposed that the Archbishopric of Canterbury be restricted in order to make way for Offa's new archbishop. It was vehemently opposed, but Offa and the papal representatives defeated Archbishop Jaenbert, installing Higbert as the new Archbishop of Lichfield. Pope Adrian sent Higbert his ceremonial garment, obviously denoting his support for this move. In gratitude, Offa promised to send an annual shipment of gold to the pope for alms and supplying the lights in St. Peter's church in Rome.

The Archbishopric of Lichfield only lasted for 16 years, ending soon after Offa's death, when it was restored to Archbishop Aethelheard of Canterbury. Offa died in July 796, still at the height of his power. His only son Ecgferth survived him by a mere 141 days, so ending the line of Offa.[10]

The burial place of Offa is not known, although legend has it that he was buried in a chapel on the river Ouse near Bedford.[11]

Thus it can be seen from a brief reading of fairly standard history books that, far from being a proclaimer of Islam, Offa was on very good terms with the Pope and a strong supporter of Christian monasteries. The great trouble that he went through to establish his own Archbishop (with the Pope's approval) only shows that Islam could not have been further from his mind
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Offline none-ya

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #9 on: September 23, 2010, 09:24:07 AM »
Now we know!
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Offline Froderik

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offal
« Reply #10 on: September 23, 2010, 09:32:31 AM »
of·fal (ôfl, fl)
n.
1. Waste parts, especially of a butchered animal.
2. Refuse; rubbish.
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Offline none-ya

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #11 on: September 23, 2010, 09:36:09 AM »
Granpa said offa was short for offa christ's sake.
But then again he also said that when you hear thunder, that's god beating his wife,
offa
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Offline Ursus

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #12 on: September 23, 2010, 12:05:50 PM »
Odoriferous
Farts
For
Aspiration
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Offline none-ya

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #13 on: September 23, 2010, 12:15:48 PM »
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Offline none-ya

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Re: Offa!
« Reply #14 on: September 23, 2010, 12:19:13 PM »
OR
Hey hey , you you , get OFFA my cloud
I'm sorry this might go on for a while
I'll try to stop
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