title: Shechita

text: In the Talmudic era (beginning in 200 CE with the Jerusalem Talmud and 300 CE with the Babylonian Talmud and extending through the Middle Ages, rabbis started to debate and define kosher laws. As the laws increased in number and complexity, following ritual slaughter laws became difficult for Jews who were not trained in those laws. This resulted in the need for a "shochet" (someone who has studied "shechita" extensively) to perform the slaughtering in the communities. "Shochtim" studied under rabbis to learn the laws of "shechita". Rabbis acted as the academics who, among themselves, debated how to apply laws from the Torah to the preparation of animals. Rabbis also conducted experiments to determine under which "terefot" animals were no longer kosher. "Shochtim" studied under these rabbis, as rabbis were the officials who first interpret, debate, and determine the laws of "shechita".


title: Shechita

text: "Shochtim" are essential to every Jewish community, so they earn elevated social status. In the Middle Ages, the "shochtim" were treated as second in social status, just underneath rabbis. "Shochtim" were respected for committing their time to studying and for their importance to their communities.


title: Shechita

text: An inspection (Heb. "bedikah") of the animal is required for it to be declared kosher, and a "shochet" has a double title: "Shochet u'bodek" (slaughterer and inspector), for which qualification considerable study as well as practical training is required.


title: Shechita

text: The "shechita" procedure, which must be performed by a "shochet", is described in the Yoreh De'ah section of the "Shulchan Aruch" only as severing the wind pipe and food pipe (trachea and esophagus). Nothing is mentioned about veins or arteries.


title: Shechita

text: However, in practice, as a very long sharp knife is used, in cattle the soft tissues in the neck are sliced through without the knife touching the spinal cord, in the course of which four major blood vessels, two of which transport oxygenated blood to the brain (the carotid arteries) the other two transporting blood back to the heart (jugular veins) are severed. The vagus nerve is also cut in this operation. With fowl, the same procedure is followed, but a smaller knife is used.


title: Shechita

text: A special knife is used, that is very long; and no undue pressure may be applied to the knife, which must be very sharp. The procedure may be performed with the animal either lying on its back (, "shechita munachat") or standing (, "shechita me'umedet").


title: Shechita

text: In the case of fowl (with the exception of large fowl like turkey) the bird is held in the non-dominant hand in such a way that the head is pulled back and the neck exposed, while the cut made with the dominant hand.


title: Shechita

text: The procedure is done with the intention of causing a rapid drop in blood pressure in the brain and loss of consciousness, to render the animal insensitive to pain and to exsanguinate in a prompt and precise action.


title: Shechita

text: It has been suggested that eliminating blood flow through the carotid arteries does not cut blood flow to the brain of a bovine because the brain is also supplied with blood by vertebral arteries, but other authorities note the distinction between severing the carotid versus merely blocking it.


title: Shechita

text: If one did not sever the entirety of both the trachea and esophagus then an animal may still be considered kosher as long as one severed the majority of the trachea and esophagus (windpipe and food pipe) of a mammal, or the majority of either one of these in the case of birds. The cut must be incised with a back-and-forth motion without employing any of the five major prohibited techniques, or various other detailed rules.


title: Shechita

text: Breaching any of these five rules renders the animal "nevelah"; the animal is regarded in Jewish law as if it were carrion.


title: Shechita

text: Temple Grandin has observed that "if the rules (of the five forbidden techniques) are disobeyed, the animal will struggle. If these rules are obeyed, the animal has little reaction."


title: Shechita

text: The knife used for "shechita" is called a "sakin" (), or alternatively a "chalaf" () by Ashkenazi Jews. By biblical law the knife may be made from anything not attached directly or indirectly to the ground and capable of being sharpened and polished to the necessary level of sharpness and smoothness required for "shechita". The tradition nowadays is to use a very sharp metal knife.


title: Shechita

text: The knife must be at least slightly longer than the neck width but preferably at least twice as long as the animal's neck is wide, but not so long that the weight of the knife is deemed excessive. If the knife is too large, it is assumed to cause "derasah", excessive pressing. Kosher knife makers sell knives of differing sizes depending on the animal. Shorter blades may technically be used depending on the number of strokes employed to slaughter the animal, but the normative practice today is that shorter blades are not used. The knife must not have a point. It is feared a point may slip into the wound during slaughter and cause "haladah", covering, of the blade. The blade may also not be serrated, as serrations cause "iqqur," tearing.


title: Shechita

text: The blade cannot have imperfections in it. All blades are assumed by Jewish law to be imperfect, so the knife must be checked before each session. In the past the knife was checked through a variety of means. Today the common practice is for the "shochet" to run their fingernail up and down both sides of the blade and on the cutting edge to determine if they can feel any imperfections. They then use a number of increasingly fine abrasive stones to sharpen and polish the blade until it is perfectly sharp and smooth.


title: Shechita

text: After the slaughter, the "shochet" must check the knife again in the same way to be certain the first inspection was properly done, and to ensure the blade was not damaged during "shechita". If the blade is found to be damaged, the meat may not be eaten by Jews. If the blade falls or is lost before the second check is done, the first inspection is relied on and the meat is permitted.


title: Shechita

text: In previous centuries, the "chalaf " was made of forged steel, which was not reflective and was difficult to make both smooth and sharp. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, fearing that Sabbateans were scratching the knives in a way not detectable by normal people, introduced the Hasidic "hallaf" (). It differs from the previously used knife design because it is made of molten steel and polished to a mirror gloss in which scratches could be seen as well as felt. The new knife was controversial and one of the reasons for the 1772 excommunication of the Hasidim. As of present time, the "Hassidic hallef" is universally accepted and is the only permitted blade allowed in religious communities.


title: Shechita

text: The animal may not be stunned prior to the procedure, as is common practice in non-kosher modern animal slaughter since the early 20th century.


title: Shechita

text: It is forbidden to slaughter an animal and its young on the same day. An animal's "young" is defined as either its own offspring, or another animal that follows it around.


title: Shechita

text: The animal's blood may not be collected in a bowl, a pit, or a body of water, as these resemble ancient forms of idol worship.


title: Shechita

text: If the "shochet" accidentally slaughters with a knife dedicated to idol worship, he must remove an amount of meat equivalent to the value of the knife and destroy it. If he slaughtered with such a knife on purpose, the animal is forbidden as not kosher.


title: Shechita

text: The carcass must be checked to see if the animal had any of a specific list of internal injuries that would have rendered the animal a "treifah" before the slaughter. These injuries were established by the Talmudic rabbis as being likely to cause the animal to die within 12 months time.


title: Shechita

text: Today all mammals are inspected for lung adhesions ( "examination of the lung") and other disqualifying signs of the lungs, and most kosher birds will have their intestines inspected for infections.


title: Shechita

text: Further inspection of other parts of the body may be performed depending on the stringency applied and also depending on whether any signs of sickness were detected before slaughter or during the processing of the animal.


title: Shechita

text: "Glatt" () and "halak" () both mean "smooth". In the context of kosher meat, they refer to the "smoothness" (lack of blemish) in the internal organs of the animal. In the case of an adhesion on cattle's lungs specifically, there is debate between Ashkenazic customs and Sephardic customs. While there are certain areas of the lung where an adhesion is allowed, the debate revolves around adhesions which do not occur in these areas.


title: Shechita

text: Ashkenazic Jews rule that if the adhesion can be removed (there are various methods of removing the adhesion, and not all of them are acceptable even according to the Ashkenazic custom) and the lungs are still airtight (a process that is tested by filling the lungs with air and then submerging them in water and looking for escaping air), then the animal is still kosher but not "glatt".


title: Shechita

text: If, in addition, there were two or fewer adhesions, and they were small and easily removable, then these adhesions are considered a lesser type of adhesion, and the animal is considered "glatt". Ashkenazi custom permits eating non-"glatt kosher" meat, but it is often considered praiseworthy to only eat "glatt kosher" meat.


title: Shechita

text: Sephardic Jews rule that if there is any sort of adhesion on the forbidden areas of the lungs, then the animal is not kosher. This standard is commonly known as "halak Beit Yosef". It is the strictest in terms of which adhesions are allowed.


title: Shechita

text: However, despite this ruling, in practice most Sephardic and Mizrahi communities historically ate non-"halak" meat, except those in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and the Land of Israel.


title: Shechita

text: The Rema (an Ashkenazi authority) had an additional stringency, of checking adhesions on additional parts of the lung which Sephardi practice does not require. Some Ashkenazi Jews keep this stringency.


title: Shechita

text: "Porging" refers to the "halakhic" requirement to remove the carcass's veins, "chelev" (caul fat and suet) and sinews. The Torah prohibits the eating of certain fats, so they must be removed from the animal. These fats are typically known as "chelev". There is also a biblical prohibition against eating the sciatic nerve ("gid hanasheh"), so that, too, is removed.


title: Shechita

text: The removal of the "chelev" and the "gid hanasheh", called "nikkur", is considered complicated and tedious, and hence labor-intensive, and even more specialized training is necessary to perform the act properly.


title: Shechita

text: While the small amounts of "chelev" in the front half of the animal are relatively easy to remove, the back half of the animal is far more complicated, and it is where the sciatic nerve is located.


title: Shechita

text: In countries such as the United States, where there exists a large non-kosher meat market, the hindquarters of the animal (where many of these forbidden meats are located) is often sold to non-Jews, rather than trouble with the process.


title: Shechita

text: This tradition goes back for centuries where local Muslims accept meat slaughtered by Jews as consumable; however, the custom was not universal throughout the Muslim world, and some Muslims (particularly on the Indian subcontinent) did not accept these hindquarters as "halal". In Israel, on the other hand, specially trained men are hired to prepare the hindquarters for sale as kosher.


title: Shechita

text: Because of the biblical prohibition of eating blood, all blood must be promptly removed from the carcass.


title: Shechita

text: All large arteries and veins are removed, as well as any bruised meat or coagulated blood. Then the meat is "kashered", a process of soaking and salting the meat to draw out all the blood. A special large-grained salt, called kosher salt, is used for the kashering process.


title: Shechita

text: If this procedure is not performed promptly, the blood is considered to have "set" in the meat, and the meat is no longer salvageable to eat except when prepared through broiling with appropriate drainage.


title: Shechita

text: The Torah requires a "shochet" to give the foreleg, cheeks and maw to a "kohen" even though he does not own the meat. Thus, it is desirable that the "shochet" refuse to perform the "shechita" unless the animal's owner expresses their agreement to give the gifts. Rabbinical courts have the authority to excommunicate a "shochet" who refuses to perform this commandment.


title: Shechita

text: The "Rishonim" pointed out that the "shochet" cannot claim that, since the animal does not belong to him, he cannot give the gifts without the owner's consent. On the contrary, since the average "shochet" is reputed to be well versed and knowledgeable in the laws of "shechitah" ("Dinnei Shechita"), the rabbinical court relies on him to withhold his "shechita" so long as the owner refuses to give the gifts.


title: Shechita

text: It is a positive commandment incumbent upon the "shochet" to cover the blood of "chayot" (non-domesticated animals) and "ufot" (birds) but not "b'heimot" (domesticated animals).


title: Shechita

text: The "shochet" is required to place dirt on the ground before the slaughter, and then to perform the cut over that dirt, in order to drop some of the blood on to the prepared dirt. When the "shechita" is complete, the "shochet" grabs a handful of dirt, says a blessing and then covers the blood.


title: Shechita

text: The meat is still kosher if the blood does not get covered; covering the blood is a separate mitzvah which does not affect the kosher status of the meat.


title: Shechita

text: "Opposition to the Jewish methods of slaughter has a long history, starting at least as far back as the mid-Victoria era."


title: Shechita

text: When "shechita" came under attack in the 19th century, Jewish communities resorted to expert scientific opinions which were published in pamphlets called " Gutachten". Among these authorities was Joseph Lister, who introduced the concept of sterility in surgery.


title: Shechita

text: The practices of handling, restraining, and unstunned slaughter have been criticized by, among others, animal welfare organizations such as Compassion in World Farming. The UK Farm Animal Welfare Council said that the method by which kosher and "halal" meat is produced causes "significant pain and distress" to animals and should be banned.


title: Shechita

text: According to FAWC it can take up to two minutes after the incision for cattle to become insensible. Compassion in World Farming also supported the recommendation saying "We believe that the law must be changed to require all animals to be stunned before slaughter."


title: Shechita

text: Mr Bradshaw said the Government had maintained its position in not accepting FAWC's recommendation that slaughter without prior stunning should be banned, as they respected the rights of communities in Britain to slaughter animals in accordance with the requirements of their religion.


title: Shechita

text: The Federation of Veterinarians of Europe has issued a position paper on slaughter without prior stunning, calling it "unacceptable."


title: Shechita

text: The American Veterinary Medical Association has no such qualms, as leading US meat scientists support "shechita" as a humane slaughtering method as defined by the Humane Slaughter Act.


title: Shechita

text: A 1978 study at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover indicates that "shechita" gave results which proved "...pain and suffering to the extent as has since long been generally associated in public with this kind of slaughter cannot be registered..." and that "[a complete loss of consciousness] occurred generally within considerably less time than during the slaughter method after captive bolt stunning." However, the lead of the study William Schulze warned in his report that the results may have been due to the captive bolt device they used being defective.


title: Shechita

text: Nick Cohen, writing for the "New Statesman", discusses research papers collected by Compassion in World Farming which indicate that the animal suffers pain during the process. In 2009, Craig Johnson and colleagues showed that calves that have not been stunned feel pain from the cut in their necks, and they may take at least 10–30 seconds to lose consciousness.


title: Shechita

text: Temple Grandin says that the experiment needs to be repeated using a qualified "shochet" and knives of the correct size sharpened in the proper way.


title: Shechita

text: Jewish and Muslim commentators cite studies that show "shechita" is humane and that criticism is at least partially motivated by antisemitism. A Knesset committee announced (January, 2012) that it would call on European parliaments and the European Union to put a stop to attempts to outlaw kosher slaughter.


title: Shechita

text: "The pretext [for this legislation] is preventing cruelty to animals or animal rights—but there is sometimes an element of anti-Semitism and there is a hidden message that Jews are cruel to animals," said Committee Chair MK Danny Danon (Likud).


title: Shechita

text: Studies done in 1994 by Temple Grandin, and another in 1992 by Flemming Bager, showed that when the animals were slaughtered in a comfortable position they appeared to give no resistance and none of the animals attempted to pull away their head. The studies concluded that a shechita cut "probably results in minimal discomfort" because the cattle stand still and do not resist a comfortable head restraint device.


title: Shechita

text: Temple Grandin gives various times for loss of consciousness via kosher ritual slaughter, ranging from 15 to 90 seconds depending on measurement type and individual kosher slaughterhouse. She elaborates on what parts of the process she finds may or may not be cause for concern. In 2018, Grandin stated that kosher slaughter, no matter how well it is done, is not instantaneous, whereas stunning properly with a captive bolt is instantaneous.


title: Shechita

text: Temple Grandin is opposed to shackling and hoisting as a method of handling animals and wrote, on visiting a "shechita" slaughterhouse,


title: Shechita

text: Efforts are made to improve the techniques used in slaughterhouses. Temple Grandin has worked closely with Jewish slaughterers to design handling systems for cattle, and has said: "When the cut is done correctly, the animal appears not to feel it. From an animal-welfare standpoint, the major concern during ritual slaughter are the stressful and cruel methods of restraint (holding) that are used in some plants."


title: Shechita

text: When shackling and hoisting is used, it is recommended that cattle not be hoisted clear of the floor until they have had time to bleed out.


title: Shechita

text: The prohibition of stunning and the treatment of the slaughtered animal expressed in "shechita" law limit the extent to which Jewish slaughterhouses can industrialize their procedures.


title: Shechita

text: The most industrialized attempt at a kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa, became the center of controversy in 2004, after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released a gruesome undercover video of cattle struggling to their feet with their tracheas and esophagi ripped out after "shechita". Some of the cattle actually got up and stood for a minute or so after being dumped from the rotating pen.


title: Shechita

text: The OU's condonation of Agriprocessors as a possibly inhumane, yet appropriately "glatt" kosher company has led to discussion as to whether or not industrialized agriculture has undermined the place of "halakha" (Jewish law) in "shechita" as well as whether or not "halakha" has any place at all in Jewish ritual slaughter.


title: Shechita

text: Jonathan Safran Foer, a Jewish vegetarian, narrated the short documentary film "If This Is Kosher...", which records what he considers abuses within the kosher meat industry.


title: Shechita

text: Forums surrounding the ethical treatment of workers and animals in kosher slaughterhouses have inspired a revival of the small-scale, kosher-certified farms and slaughterhouses, which are gradually appearing throughout the United States.


title: John of Damascus

text: John of Damascus (; , ; ) or John Damascene was a Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and apologist. Born and raised in Damascus c. 675 or 676; the precise date and place of his death is not known, though tradition places it at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem on 4 December 749.


title: John of Damascus

text: A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, he was given the by-name of Chrysorroas (Χρυσορρόας, literally "streaming with gold", i.e. "the golden speaker").


title: John of Damascus

text: He wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still used both liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world as well as in western Lutheranism at Easter.


title: John of Damascus

text: He is one of the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church and is best known for his strong defence of icons. The Catholic Church regards him as a Doctor of the Church, often referred to as the "Doctor of the Assumption" due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary.


title: John of Damascus

text: He was also a prominent exponent of "perichoresis", and employed the concept as a technical term to describe both the interpenetration of the divine and human natures of Christ and the relationship between the hypostases of the Trinity. John is at the end of the Patristic period of dogmatic development, and his contribution less that of theological innovation than that of a summary of the developments of the centuries before him. In Catholic theology, he is therefore known as the "last of the Greek Fathers".


title: John of Damascus

text: The main source of information for the life of John of Damascus is a work attributed to one John of Jerusalem, identified therein as the Patriarch of Jerusalem. This is an excerpted translation into Greek of an earlier Arabic text. The Arabic original contains a prologue not found in most other translations, and was written by an Arab monk, Michael, who explained that he decided to write his biography in 1084 because none was available in his day. However, the main Arabic text seems to have been written by an earlier author sometime between the early 9th and late 10th century.


title: John of Damascus

text: Written from a hagiographical point of view and prone to exaggeration and some legendary details, it is not the best historical source for his life, but is widely reproduced and considered to contain elements of some value. The hagiographic novel "Barlaam and Josaphat", is a work of the 10th century attributed to a monk named John. It was only considerably later that the tradition arose that this was John of Damascus, but most scholars no longer accept this attribution. Instead much evidence points to Euthymius of Athos, a Georgian who died in 1028.


title: John of Damascus

text: His father, Sarjun ibn Mansur, served as an official of the early Umayyad Caliphate. Sarjun (Sergius) was himself the son of a prominent Byzantine official of Damascus, Mansur ibn Sarjun, who had been responsible for the taxes of the region during the reign of Emperor Heraclius.


title: John of Damascus

text: Mansur seems to have played a role in the capitulation of Damascus to the troops of Khalid ibn al-Walid in 635 after securing favorable conditions of surrender. Eutychius, a 10th-century Melkite patriarch, mentions him as one high-ranking official involved in the surrender of the city to the Muslims.


title: John of Damascus

text: The tribal background of Mansur ibn Sarjun, John's grandfather, is unknown, but biographer Daniel Sahas has speculated that the name Mansur could have implied descent from the Arab Christian tribes of Kalb or Taghlib.


title: John of Damascus

text: The name was common among Syrian Christians of Arab origins, and Eutychius noted that the governor of Damascus, who was likely Mansur ibn Sarjun, was an Arab. However, Sahas also asserts that the name does not necessarily imply an Arab background and could have been used by non-Arab, Semitic Syrians. While Sahas and biographers F. H. Chase and Andrew Louth assert that "Mansūr" was an Arabic name, Raymond le Coz asserts that the "family was without doubt of Syrian origin"; indeed, according to historian Daniel J. Janosik, "Both aspects could be true, for if his family ancestry were indeed Syrian, his grandfather [Mansur] could have been given an Arabic name when the Arabs took over the government."


title: John of Damascus

text: When Syria was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in the 630s, the court at Damascus retained its large complement of Christian civil servants, John's grandfather among them. John's father, Sarjun (Sergius), went on to serve the Umayyad caliphs. According to John of Jerusalem and some later versions of his life, after his father's death, John also served as an official to the caliphal court before leaving to become a monk. This claim, that John actually served in a Muslim court, has been questioned since he is never mentioned in Muslim sources, which however do refer to his father Sarjun (Sergius) as a secretary in the caliphal administration. In addition, John's own writings never refer to any experience in a Muslim court. It is believed that John became a monk at Mar Saba, and that he was ordained as a priest in 735.


title: John of Damascus

text: John was raised in Damascus, and Arab Christian folklore holds that during his adolescence, John associated with the future Umayyad caliph Yazid I and the Taghlibi Christian court poet al-Akhtal.


title: John of Damascus

text: One of the "vitae" describes his father's desire for him to "learn not only the books of the Muslims, but those of the Greeks as well." From this it has been suggested that John may have grown up bilingual. John does indeed show some knowledge of the Quran, which he criticizes harshly. (See Christianity and Islam.)


title: John of Damascus

text: Other sources describe his education in Damascus as having been conducted in accordance with the principles of Hellenic education, termed "secular" by one source and "classical Christian" by another. One account identifies his tutor as a monk by the name of Cosmas, who had been kidnapped by Arabs from his home in Sicily, and for whom John's father paid a great price.


title: John of Damascus

text: Under the instruction of Cosmas, who also taught John's orphan friend, Cosmas of Maiuma, John is said to have made great advances in music, astronomy and theology, soon rivalling Pythagoras in arithmetic and Euclid in geometry.


title: John of Damascus

text: One source suggests John left Damascus to become a monk around 706, when al-Walid I increased the Islamicisation of the Caliphate's administration.


title: John of Damascus

text: This is uncertain, as Muslim sources only mention that his father Sarjun (Sergius) left the administration around this time, and fail to name John at all.


title: John of Damascus

text: During the next two decades, culminating in the Siege of Constantinople (717-718), the Umayyad Caliphate progressively occupied the borderlands of the Byzantine Empire. An editor of John's works, Father Le Quien, has shown that John was already a monk at Mar Saba before the dispute over iconoclasm, explained below.


title: John of Damascus

text: In the early 8th century, iconoclasm, a movement opposed to the veneration of icons, gained acceptance in the Byzantine court. In 726, despite the protests of Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Emperor Leo III (who had forced his predecessor, Theodosius III, to abdicate and himself assumed the throne in 717 immediately before the great siege) issued his first edict against the veneration of images and their exhibition in public places.


title: John of Damascus

text: All agree that John of Damascus undertook a spirited defence of holy images in three separate publications. The earliest of these works, his "Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images", secured his reputation. He not only attacked the Byzantine emperor, but adopted a simplified style that allowed the controversy to be followed by the common people, stirring rebellion among the iconoclasts. Decades after his death, John's writings would play an important role during the Second Council of Nicaea (787), which convened to settle the icon dispute.


title: John of Damascus

text: John's biography recounts at least one episode deemed improbable or legendary. Leo III reportedly sent forged documents to the caliph which implicated John in a plot to attack Damascus. The caliph then ordered John's right hand be cut off and hung up in public view. Some days afterwards, John asked for the restitution of his hand, and prayed fervently to the "Theotokos" before her icon: thereupon, his hand is said to have been miraculously restored. In gratitude for this miraculous healing, he attached a silver hand to the icon, which thereafter became known as the "Three-handed", or "Tricheirousa". That icon is now located in the Hilandar monastery of the Holy Mountain.


title: John of Damascus

text: When the name of John of Damascus was inserted in the General Roman Calendar in 1890, it was assigned to 27 March. The feast day was moved in 1969 to the day of John's death, 4 December, the day on which his feast day is celebrated also in the Byzantine Rite calendar, Lutheran Commemorations, and the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church.


title: John of Damascus

text: Besides his purely textual works, many of which are listed below, John of Damascus also composed hymns, perfecting the canon, a structured hymn form used in Byzantine Rite liturgies.


title: John of Damascus

text: As stated above, in the final chapter of "Concerning Heresy," John mentions Islam as "the Heresy of the Ishmaelites". He is one of the first known Christian critics of Islam. John claims that Muslims were once worshipers of Aphrodite who followed after Mohammad because of his "seeming show of piety," and that Mohammad himself read the Bible and, "likewise, it seems," spoke to an Arian monk that taught him Arianism instead of Christianity. John also claims to have read the Quran, or at least parts of it, as he criticizes the Quran for saying that the Virgin Mary was the sister of Moses and Aaron and that Jesus was not crucified but brought alive into heaven. John further claims to have spoken to Muslims about Mohammad. He uses the plural "we", whether in reference to himself, or to a group of Christians that he belonged to who spoke to the Muslims, or in reference to Christians in general.


title: John of Damascus

text: Regardless, John claims that he asked the Muslims what witnesses can testify that Mohammad received the Quran from God – since, John says, Moses received the Torah from God in the presence of the Israelites, and since Islamic law mandates that a Muslim can only marry and do trade in the presence of witnesses – and what biblical prophets and verses foretold Mohammad's coming – since, John says, Jesus was foretold by the prophets and whole Old Testament. John claims that the Muslims answered that Mohammad received the Quran in his sleep. John claims that he jokingly answered, "You're spinning my dreams."


title: John of Damascus

text: Some of the Muslims, John says, claimed that the Old Testament that Christians believe foretells Jesus' coming is misinterpreted, while other Muslims claimed that the Jews edited the Old Testament so as to deceive Christians (possibly into believing Jesus is God, but John does not say).


title: John of Damascus

text: While recounting his alleged dialogue with Muslims, John claims that they have accused him of idol worship for venerating the Cross and worshipping Jesus. John claims that he told the Muslims that the black stone in Mecca was the head of a statue of Aphrodite. Moreover, he claims, the Muslims were wrong not to associate Jesus with God if Jesus is the Word of God. John claims that, if Jesus is the Word of God, and the Word of God has always existed with God, then the Word must be a part of God, and therefore be God himself, whereby, John says, it would be wrong for Muslims to call Jesus the Word of God but not God himself.


title: John of Damascus

text: John ends the chapter quickly by claiming that Islam permits polygamy, that Mohammad committed adultery with a companion's wife before outlawing adultery, and that the Quran is filled with ridiculous stories, such as the She-Camel of God and God giving Jesus an "incorruptible table."


title: John of Damascus

text: It is believed that the homily on the Annunciation was the first work to be translated into Arabic. Much of this text is found in Manuscript 4226 of the Library of Strasbourg (France), dating to 885 AD.


title: John of Damascus

text: Later in the 10th century, Antony, superior of the monastery of St. Simon (near Antioch) translated a corpus of John Damascene. In his introduction to John's work, Sylvestre patriarch of Antioch (1724–1766) said that Antony was monk at Saint Saba. This could be a misunderstanding of the title Superior of Saint Simon probably because Saint Simon's monastery was in ruins in the 18th century.


title: John of Damascus

text: Most manuscripts give the text of the letter to Cosmas, the philosophical chapters, the theological chapters and five other small works.


title: John of Damascus

text: In 1085, Mikhael, a monk from Antioch, wrote the Arabic life of the Chrysorrhoas. This work was first edited by Bacha in 1912 and then translated into many languages (German, Russian and English).


title: John of Damascus

text: Two translations exist of the 10th-century hagiographic novel "Barlaam and Josaphat", traditionally attributed to John:


title: Music hall

text: Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Britain between bold and scandalous "Music Hall" and subsequent, more respectable "Variety" differ. Music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts, and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place. In North America vaudeville was in some ways analogous to British music hall, featuring rousing songs and comic acts.


title: Music hall

text: Originating in saloon bars within public houses during the 1830s, music hall entertainment became increasingly popular with audiences. So much so, that during the 1850s some public houses were demolished, and specialised music hall theatres developed in their place. These theatres were designed chiefly so that people could consume food and alcohol and smoke tobacco in the auditorium while the entertainment took place, with the cheapest seats located in the gallery. This differed from the conventional type of theatre, which seats the audience in stalls with a separate bar-room. Major music halls were based around London. Early examples included: the Canterbury Music Hall in Lambeth, Wilton's Music Hall in Tower Hamlets, and The Middlesex in Drury Lane, otherwise known as the Old Mo.


title: Music hall

text: By the mid-19th century, the halls cried out for many new and catchy songs. As a result, professional songwriters were enlisted to provide the music for a plethora of star performers, such as Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno, Little Tich, and George Leybourne. All manner of other entertainment was performed: male and female impersonators, lions comiques, mime artists and impressionists, trampoline acts, and comic pianists (such as John Orlando Parry and George Grossmith) were just a few of the many types of entertainments the audiences could expect to find over the next forty years.


title: Music hall

text: The Music Hall Strike of 1907 was an important industrial conflict. It was a dispute between artists and stage hands on one hand, and theatre managers on the other. The halls had recovered by the start of the First World War and were used to stage charity events in aid of the war effort. Music hall entertainment continued after the war, but became less popular due to upcoming jazz, swing, and big-band dance music acts. Licensing restrictions had also changed, and drinking was banned from the auditorium. A new type of music hall entertainment had arrived, in the form of variety, and many music hall performers failed to make the transition. They were deemed old-fashioned, and with the closure of many halls, music hall entertainment ceased and modern-day variety began.


title: Music hall

text: Music-halls had their origins in 18th century London. It grew with the entertainment provided in the new style saloon bars of public houses during the 1830s. These venues replaced earlier semi-rural amusements provided by fairs and suburban pleasure gardens such as Vauxhall Gardens and the Cremorne Gardens. These latter became subject to urban development and became fewer and less popular.


title: Music hall

text: The saloon was a room where for an admission fee or a greater price at the bar, singing, dancing, drama or comedy was performed. The most famous London saloon of the early days was the Grecian Saloon, established in 1825, at The Eagle (a former tea-garden), 2 Shepherdess Walk, off the City Road in east London. According to John Hollingshead, proprietor of the Gaiety Theatre, London (originally the Strand Music Hall), this establishment was "the father and mother, the dry and wet nurse of the Music Hall". Later known as the Grecian Theatre, it was here that Marie Lloyd made her début at the age of 14 in 1884. It is still famous because of an English nursery rhyme, with the somewhat mysterious lyrics:


title: Music hall

text: Another famous "song and supper" room of this period was Evans Music-and-Supper Rooms, 43 King Street, Covent Garden, established in the 1840s by W.H. Evans. This venue was also known as 'Evans Late Joys' – Joy being the name of the previous owner. Other song and supper rooms included the Coal Hole in The Strand, the Cyder Cellars in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden and the Mogul Saloon in Drury Lane.


title: Music hall

text: The music hall as we know it developed from such establishments during the 1850s and were built in and on the grounds of public houses. Such establishments were distinguished from theatres by the fact that in a music hall you would be seated at a table in the auditorium and could drink alcohol and smoke tobacco whilst watching the show. In a theatre, by contrast, the audience was seated in stalls and there was a separate bar-room. An exception to this rule was the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton (1841) which somehow managed to evade this regulation and served drinks to its customers. Though a theatre rather than a music hall, this establishment later hosted music hall variety acts.


title: Music hall

text: The establishment often regarded as the first true music hall was the Canterbury, 143 Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth built by Charles Morton, afterwards dubbed "the Father of the Halls", on the site of a skittle alley next to his pub, the Canterbury Tavern. It opened on 17 May 1852 and was described by the musician and author Benny Green as being "the most significant date in all the history of music hall". The hall looked like most contemporary pub concert rooms, but its replacement in 1854 was of then unprecedented size. It was further extended in 1859, later rebuilt as a variety theatre and finally destroyed by German bombing in 1942.


title: Music hall

text: Another early music hall was The Middlesex, Drury Lane (1851). Popularly known as the 'Old Mo', it was built on the site of the Mogul Saloon. Later converted into a theatre it was demolished in 1965. The New London Theatre stands on its site.


title: Music hall

text: Several large music halls were built in the East End. These included the London Music Hall, otherwise known as The Shoreditch Empire, 95–99 Shoreditch High Street, (1856–1935). This theatre was rebuilt during 1894 by Frank Matcham, the architect of the Hackney Empire. Another in this area was the Royal Cambridge Music Hall, 136 Commercial Street (1864–1936). Designed by William Finch Hill (the designer of the Britannia theatre in nearby Hoxton), it was rebuilt after a fire in 1898.


title: Music hall

text: The construction of Weston's Music Hall, High Holborn (1857), built up on the site of the Six Cans and Punch Bowl Tavern by the licensed victualler of the premises, Henry Weston, signalled that the West End was fruitful territory for the music hall. During 1906 it was rebuilt as a variety theatre and renamed as the Holborn Empire. It was closed as a result of German action in the Blitz on the night of 11–12 May 1941 and the building was pulled down in 1960. Significant West End music halls include:


title: Music hall

text: A noted music hall entrepreneur of this time was Carlo Gatti who built a music hall, known as Gatti's, at Hungerford Market in 1857. He sold the music hall to South Eastern Railway in 1862, and the site became Charing Cross railway station. With the proceeds from selling his first music hall, Gatti acquired a restaurant in Westminster Bridge Road, opposite The Canterbury music hall. He converted the restaurant into a second Gatti's music hall, known as "Gatti's-in-the-Road", in 1865. It later became a cinema. The building was badly damaged in the Second World War, and was demolished in 1950. In 1867, he acquired a public house in Villiers Street named "The Arches", under the arches of the elevated railway line leading to Charing Cross station. He opened it as another music hall, known as "Gatti's-in-The-Arches". After his death his family continued to operate the music hall, known for a period as the Hungerford or Gatti's Hungerford Palace of Varieties.


title: Music hall

text: By 1865, there were 32 music halls in London seating between 500 and 5,000 people plus an unknown, but large, number of smaller venues.


title: Music hall

text: In 1878, numbers peaked, with 78 large music halls in the metropolis and 300 smaller venues. Thereafter numbers declined due to stricter licensing restrictions imposed by the Metropolitan Board of Works and London County Council, and because of commercial competition between popular large suburban halls and the smaller venues, which put the latter out of business.


title: Music hall

text: A few of the UK's music halls have survived and have retained many of their original features. Amongst the best examples in the United Kingdom are:


title: Music hall

text: A new era of variety theatre was developed by the rebuilding of the London Pavilion in 1885. Contemporary accounts noted:


title: Music hall

text: One of the most famous of these new palaces of pleasure in the West End was the Empire, Leicester Square, built as a theatre in 1884 but acquiring a music hall licence in 1887. Like the nearby Alhambra this theatre appealed to the men of leisure by featuring alluring ballet dancers and had a notorious promenade which was the resort of courtesans. Another spectacular example of the new variety theatre was the Tivoli in the Strand built 1888–90 in an eclectic neo-Romanesque style with Baroque and Moorish-Indian embellishments. "The Tivoli" became a brand name for music-halls all over the British Empire. During 1892, the Royal English Opera House, which had been a financial failure in Shaftesbury Avenue, applied for a music hall licence and was converted by Walter Emden into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed by Charles Morton. Denied by the newly created LCC permission to construct the promenade, which was such a popular feature of the Empire and Alhambra, the Palace compensated in the way of adult entertainment by featuring apparently nude women in tableaux vivants, though the concerned LCC hastened to reassure patrons that the girls who featured in these displays were actually wearing flesh-toned body stockings and were not naked at all.


title: Music hall

text: One of the grandest of these new halls was the Coliseum Theatre built by Oswald Stoll in 1904 at the bottom of St Martin's Lane. This was followed by the London Palladium (1910) in Little Argyll Street.


title: Music hall

text: Both were designed by the prolific Frank Matcham. As music hall grew in popularity and respectability, and as the licensing authorities exercised ever firmer regulation, the original arrangement of a large hall with tables at which drink was served, changed to that of a drink-free auditorium. The acceptance of music hall as a legitimate cultural form was established by the first Royal Variety Performance before King George V during 1912 at the Palace Theatre. However, consistent with this new respectability the best-known music hall entertainer of the time, Marie Lloyd, was not invited, being deemed too "saucy" for presentation to the monarchy.


title: Music hall

text: The development of syndicates controlling a number of theatres, such as the Stoll circuit, increased tensions between employees and employers. On 22 January 1907, a dispute between artists, stage hands and managers of the Holborn Empire worsened. Strikes in other London and suburban halls followed, organised by the Variety Artistes' Federation. The strike lasted for almost two weeks and was known as the "Music Hall War". It became extremely well known, and was advocated enthusiastically by the main spokesmen of the trade union and Labour movement – Ben Tillett and Keir Hardie for example. Picket lines were organized outside the theatres by the artistes, while in the provinces theatre management attempted to oblige artistes to sign a document promising never to join a trade union.


title: Music hall

text: The strike ended in arbitration, which satisfied most of the main demands, including a minimum wage and maximum working week for musicians.


title: Music hall

text: Several music hall entertainers such as Marie Dainton, Marie Lloyd, Arthur Roberts, Joe Elvin and Gus Elen were strong advocates of the strike, though they themselves earned enough not to be concerned personally in a material sense. Lloyd explained her advocacy:


title: Music hall

text: World War I may have been the high-water mark of music hall popularity. The artists and composers threw themselves into rallying public support and enthusiasm for the war effort. Patriotic music hall compositions such as "Keep the Home Fires Burning" (1914), "Pack up Your Troubles" (1915), "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (1914) and "We Don't Want to Lose You (But We Think You Ought To Go)" (1914), were sung by music hall audiences, and sometimes by soldiers in the trenches.


title: Music hall

text: Many songs promoted recruitment ("All the boys in khaki get the nice girls", 1915); others satirised particular elements of the war experience. "What did you do in the Great war, Daddy" (1919) criticised profiteers and slackers; Vesta Tilley's "I've got a bit of a blighty one" (1916) showed a soldier delighted to have a wound just serious enough to be sent home. The rhymes give a sense of grim humour ("When they wipe my face with sponges / and they feed me on blancmanges / I'm glad I've got a bit of a blighty one").


title: Music hall

text: Tilley became more popular than ever during this time, when she and her husband, Walter de Frece, managed a military recruitment drive. In the guise of characters like 'Tommy in the Trench' and 'Jack Tar Home from Sea', Tilley performed songs such as "The army of today's all right" and "Jolly Good Luck to the Girl who Loves a Soldier". This is how she got the nickname "Britain's best recruiting sergeant" – young men were sometimes asked to join the army on stage during her show. She also performed in hospitals and sold war bonds. Her husband was knighted in 1919 for his own services to the war effort, and Tilley became Lady de Frece.


title: Music hall

text: Once the reality of war began to sink home, the recruiting songs all but disappeared – the Greatest Hits collection for 1915 published by top music publisher Francis and Day contains no recruitment songs. After conscription was brought in 1916, songs dealing with the war spoke mostly of the desire to return home. Many also expressed anxiety about the new roles women were taking in society.


title: Music hall

text: Possibly the most notorious of music hall songs from the First World War was "Oh! It's a lovely war" (1917), popularised by male impersonator Ella Shields.


title: Music hall

text: Music hall continued during the interwar period, no longer the single dominant form of popular entertainment in Britain. The improvement of cinema, the development of radio, and the cheapening of the gramophone damaged its popularity greatly. It now had to compete with jazz, swing and big band dance music. Licensing restrictions also changed its character.


title: Music hall

text: In 1914, the London County Council (LCC) enacted that drinking be banished from the auditorium into a separate bar and, during 1923, the separate bar was abolished by parliamentary decree. The exemption of the theatres from this latter act prompted some critics to denounce this legislation as an attempt to deprive the working classes of their pleasures, as a form of social control, whilst sparing the supposedly more responsible upper classes who patronised the theatres (though this could be due to the licensing restrictions brought about due to the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, which also applied to public houses). Even so, the music hall gave rise to such major stars as George Formby, Gracie Fields, Max Miller, Will Hay, and Flanagan and Allen during this period.


title: Music hall

text: In the mid-1950s, rock and roll, whose performers initially topped music hall bills, attracted a young audience who had little interest in the music hall acts, while driving the older audience away. The final demise was competition from television, which grew popular after the Queen's coronation was televised. Some music halls tried to retain an audience by putting on striptease acts. In 1957, the playwright John Osborne delivered this elegy:


title: Music hall

text: Moss Empires, the largest British music hall chain, closed the majority of its theatres in 1960, closely followed by the death of music hall stalwart Max Miller in 1963, prompting one contemporary to write that: "Music-halls ... died this afternoon when they buried Max Miller". Miller himself had sometimes said that the genre would die with him. Many music hall performers, unable to find work, fell into poverty; some did not even have a home, having spent their working lives living in digs between performances.


title: Music hall

text: Stage and film musicals, however, continued to be influenced by the music hall idiom, including "Oliver!", "Dr Dolittle" and "My Fair Lady". The BBC series "The Good Old Days", which ran for thirty years, recreated the music hall for the modern audience, and the "Paul Daniels Magic Show" allowed several speciality acts a television presence from 1979 to 1994. Aimed at a younger audience, but still owing a lot to the music hall heritage, was the late-1970s’ television series, "The Muppet Show".


title: Music hall

text: The music hall was first imported into France in its British form in 1862, but under the French law protecting the state theatres, performers could not wear costumes or recite dialogue, something only allowed in theaters. When the law changed in 1867, the Paris music hall flourished, and a half-dozen new halls opened, offering acrobats, singers, dancers, magicians, and trained animals. The first Paris music call built specially for that purpose was the Folies-Bergere (1869); it was followed by the Moulin Rouge (1889), the Alhambra (1866), the first to be called a music hall, and the Olympia (1893). The "Printania" (1903) was a music-garden, open only in summer, with a theater, restaurant, circus, and horse-racing. Older theaters also transformed themselves into music halls, including the Bobino (1873), the Bataclan (1864), and the Alcazar (1858). At the beginning, music halls offered dance reviews, theater and songs, but gradually songs and singers became the main attraction.


title: Music hall

text: Paris music halls all faced stiff competition in the interwar period from the most popular new form of entertainment, the cinema. They responded by offering more complex and lavish shows. In 1911, the Olympia had introduced the giant stairway as a set for its productions, an idea copied by other music halls. Gaby Deslys rose in popularity and created, with her dance partner Harry Pilcer, her most famous dance "The Gaby Glide". The singer Mistinguett made her debut the Casino de Paris in 1895, and continued to appear regularly in the 1920s and 1930s at the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge and Eldorado. Her risqué routines captivated Paris, and she became one of the most highly-paid and popular French entertainers of her time.


title: Music hall

text: One of the most popular entertainers in Paris during the period was the American singer Josephine Baker. Baker sailed to Paris, France. She first arrived in Paris in 1925 to perform in a show called "La Revue Nègre" at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She became an immediate success for her erotic dancing, and for appearing practically nude on stage. After a successful tour of Europe, she returned to France to star at the Folies Bergère. Baker performed the 'Danse sauvage,' wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas.


title: Music hall

text: The music-halls suffered growing hardships in the 1930s. The Olympia was converted into a movie theater, and others closed. Others however continued to thrive. In 1937 and 1930, the Casino de Paris presented shows with Maurice Chevalier, who had already achieved success as an actor and singer in Hollywood.


title: Music hall

text: In 1935, a twenty-year old singer named Édith Piaf was discovered in the Pigalle by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, whose club, Le Gerny, off the Champs-Élysées, was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike. He persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Leplée taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress, which became her trademark apparel. Leplée ran an intense publicity campaign leading up to her opening night, attracting the presence of many celebrities, including Maurice Chevalier. Her nightclub appearance led to her first two records produced that same year, and the beginning of her career.


title: Music hall

text: Competition from movies and television largely brought an end to the Paris music hall. However, a few still flourish, with tourists as their primary audience. Major music halls include the Folies-Bergere, Crazy Horse Saloon, Casino de Paris, Olympia, and Moulin Rouge.


title: Music hall

text: The musical forms most associated with music hall evolved in part from traditional folk song and songs written for popular drama, becoming by the 1850s a distinct musical style. Subject matter became more contemporary and humorous, and accompaniment was provided by larger house-orchestras, as increasing affluence gave the lower classes more access to commercial entertainment, and to a wider range of musical instruments, including the piano. The consequent change in musical taste from traditional to more professional forms of entertainment, arose in response to the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of previously rural populations during the Industrial Revolution. The newly created urban communities, cut off from their cultural roots, required new and readily accessible forms of entertainment.


title: Music hall

text: Music halls were originally tavern rooms which provided entertainment, in the form of music and speciality acts, for their patrons. By the middle years of the nineteenth century, the first purpose-built music halls were being built in London. The halls created a demand for new and catchy popular songs, that could no longer be met from the traditional folk song repertoire. Professional songwriters were enlisted to fill the gap.


title: Music hall

text: The emergence of a distinct music hall style can be credited to a fusion of musical influences. Music hall songs needed to gain and hold the attention of an often jaded and unruly urban audience. In America, from the 1840s, Stephen Foster had reinvigorated folk song with the admixture of Negro spiritual to produce a new type of popular song. Songs like "Old Folks at Home" (1851) and "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" (James Bland, 1879]) spread round the globe, taking with them the idiom and appurtenances of the minstrel song. Other influences on the rapidly developing music hall idiom were Irish and European music, particularly the jig, polka, and waltz.


title: Music hall

text: Typically, a music hall song consists of a series of verses sung by the performer alone, and a repeated chorus which carries the principal melody, and in which the audience is encouraged to join.


title: Music hall

text: In Britain, the first music hall songs often promoted the alcoholic wares of the owners of the halls in which they were performed. Songs like "Glorious Beer", and the first major music hall success, "Champagne Charlie" (1867) had a major influence in establishing the new art form. The tune of "Champagne Charlie" became used for The Salvation Army hymn "Bless His Name, He Sets Me Free" (1881). When asked why the tune should be used like this, William Booth is said to have replied "Why should the devil have all the good tunes?" According to The Salvation Army, "The adoption of such music was soon put to full use. On Saturday afternoon, May 13, 1882, the congregation at the opening of the Clapton Congress Hall joined heartily in the chorus of Gipsy Smith's solo, 'O the Blood of Jesus cleanses white as snow' to the music of 'I traced her little footsteps in the snow'. There were no qualms of conscience. Many people gathered there knew none of the hymn tunes or gospel melodies used in the churches; the music hall had been their melody school."


title: Music hall

text: By the 1870s, the songs were free of their folk music origins, and particular songs also started to become associated with particular singers, often with exclusive contracts with the songwriter, just as many pop songs are today. Towards the end of the genre's heyday, the music became influenced by ragtime and jazz, before being overtaken by them.


title: Music hall

text: Music hall songs were often composed with their working class audiences in mind. Songs like "My Old Man (Said Follow the Van)", "Wot Cher! Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road", and "Waiting at the Church", expressed in melodic form situations with which the urban poor were familiar. Music hall songs could be romantic, patriotic, humorous or sentimental, as the need arose. The most popular music hall songs became the basis for the pub songs of the typical Cockney "knees up".


title: Music hall

text: Although a number of songs show a sharply ironic and knowing view of working class life, there were, too, those which were repetitive, derivative, written quickly and sung to make a living rather than a work of art.


title: Music hall

text: The typical music hall comedian was a man or woman, usually dressed in character to suit the subject of the song, or sometimes attired in absurd and eccentric style. Until well into the twentieth century, the acts were essentially vocal, with songs telling a story, accompanied by a minimum of patter. They included a variety of genres, including:


title: Music hall

text: The vocal content of the music hall bills, was, from the beginning, accompanied by many other kinds of act, some of them quite weird and wonderful. These were known collectively as "speciality acts" (abbreviated to "spesh"), which, over time, have included:


title: Music hall

text: London was the centre of music hall with hundreds of venues, often in the entertainment rooms of public houses. With the decline in popularity of music hall, many were abandoned, or converted to other uses such as cinemas, and their interiors lost. There are a number of purpose-built survivors, including the Hackney Empire, an outstanding example of the late music hall period (Frank Matcham 1901). This has been restored to its Moorish splendour and now provides an eclectic programme of events from opera to "Black Variety Nights". A mile to the south is Hoxton Hall, an 1863 example of the saloon style. It is unrestored but maintained in its original layout, and currently used as a community centre and theatre. In the neighbouring borough, Collins Music Hall (built about 1860) still stands on the north side of Islington Green. The hall closed in the 1960s and currently forms part of a bookshop.


title: Music hall

text: In Clapham, The Grand, originally the Grand Palace of Varieties (1900), has been restored, but its interior reflects its modern use as a music venue and nightclub. The Greenwich Theatre was originally the Rose and Crown Music Hall (1855), and later became Crowder's Music Hall and Temple of Varieties. The building has been extensively modernised and little of the original layout remains.


title: Music hall

text: In the nondescript Grace's Alley, off Cable Street, Stepney, stands Wilton's Music Hall. This 1858 example of the "giant pub hall" survived use as a church, fire, flood and war intact, but was virtually derelict, after its use as a rag warehouse, in the 1960s. The Wilton's Music Hall Trust has embarked on a fund-raising campaign to restore the building. In June 2007, the World Monuments Fund added the building to its list of the world's "100 most endangered sites". The building was for many years on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register, but following its successful restoration was removed from list in 2016 and after 20 years on the register it was named as one of the successful rescues.


title: Music hall

text: The music video of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood single "Relax" was shot here. Many of these buildings can be seen as part of the annual London Open House event.


title: Music hall

text: There are also surviving music halls outside London, a notable example being the Leeds City Varieties (1865) with a preserved interior. This was used for many years as the setting for the BBC television variety show "The Good Old Days", based on the music-hall genre. The Alhambra Theatre, Bradford was built in 1914 for theatre impresario Francis Laidler, and later owned by the Stoll-Moss Empire. It was restored in 1986, and is a fine example of the late Edwardian style. It is now a "receiving theatre" for touring productions and opera.


title: Music hall

text: In Nottingham, the Malt Cross music hall retains its restored cast-iron interior. It is run as a cafe bar by a Christian charitable trust promoting responsible drinking, also as the location of a safe space late at night and for operating a street pastor service. It is true to its original purpose of providing a venue for up-and-coming musical acts.


title: Music hall

text: In Northern Ireland, the Grand Opera House, Belfast, Frank Matcham 1895, was preserved and restored in the 1980s. The Gaiety Theatre, Isle of Man is another Matcham design from 1900 that remains in use after an extensive restoration programme in the 1970s. In Glasgow, the Britannia Music Hall (1857), by architects Thomas Gildard and H.M. McFarlane, remains standing, with much of the theatre intact but in a poor state, having closed in 1938. There is a preservation trust attempting to rescue the theatre.


title: Music hall

text: One of the few fully functional music hall entertainments is at the Brick Lane Music Hall in a former church in North Woolwich. The Players' Theatre Club is another group performing a Victorian-style music hall show at a variety of venues, and The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America stage music hall-style entertainments.


title: Pepper-box

text: The pepper-box revolver or simply pepperbox (also "pepper-pot", from its resemblance to the household pepper shakers) is a multiple-barrel firearm, mostly in the form of a handgun, that has three or more gun barrels in a coaxially revolving mechanism. Each barrel holds a single shot, and the shooter can manually rotate the whole barrel assembly to sequentially index each barrel into alignment with the lock or hammer, similar to rotation of a revolver's cylinder.


title: Pepper-box

text: Pepperbox guns have existed for all types of firelock firearms and metal cased ammunition systems used in breechloading firearms: matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, snaplock, caplock, pinfire, rimfire and centerfire. While they are usually sidearms, a few long guns were also made. For example, Samuel Colt owned a three-barrel pepperbox matchlock musket from British India, and an eight-barrel pepperbox shotgun was designed in 1967 but never went into production.


title: Pepper-box

text: This type of firearm was popular in North America from 1830 until the American Civil War, but the concept was introduced much earlier. In the 15th century, several single shot barrels were attached to a stock, being fired individually by means of a match.


title: Pepper-box

text: Around 1790, pepperboxes were built on the basis of flintlock systems, notably by Nock in England and "Segallas" in Belgium. These weapons building on the success of the earlier two barrel turnover pistols, were fitted with three, four or seven barrels. These early pepperboxes were hand rotated.


title: Pepper-box

text: The invention of the percussion cap building on the percussion powder innovations of the Rev. Alexander Forsyth's patent of 1807 (which ran until 1821), and the industrial revolution allowed pepperbox revolvers to be mass-produced, making them more affordable than the early handmade guns previously only seen in the hands of the rich.


title: Pepper-box

text: Examples of these early weapons are the American three barrel Manhattan pistol, the English Budding (probably the first English percussion pepperbox) and the Swedish Engholm. Most percussion pepperboxes have a circular flange around the rear of the cylinder to prevent the capped nipples being accidentally fired if the gun were to be knocked while in a pocket, or dropped and to protect the eyes from cap fragments.


title: Pepper-box

text: The pepperbox, or at least the firearm that is mostly associated with this term, was invented in the 1830s and was intended for civilian use, but military officers often made private purchases for their own use. The design spread rapidly in the United States, the United Kingdom and some parts of continental Europe. It was similar to the later revolver in that it contained bullets in separate chambers in a rotating cylinder. Unlike the revolver, however, each chamber had its own barrel, making a complex indexing system unnecessary (though pepperboxes with such a system do exist). Originally these pistols were muzzle loaders, but in 1837 the Belgian gunsmith Mariette invented a hammerless pepperbox with a ring trigger and turn off barrels that could be unscrewed.


title: Pepper-box

text: A few percussion pepperboxes were still hand rotated but most have a mechanism that rotates the barrel group as the hammer is cocked for each shot. Single-action versions were made, notably by Darling of Massachusetts, but the vast majority use the self-cocking system whereby pressing the trigger rotates the barrel block, cocks the hammer and finally fires the weapon. The main producer of self-cocking top hammer pepperboxes (mostly referred to as "bar-hammer pepperbox") in the United States was Ethan Allen, but this type of weapon was also produced in large quantities in England.


title: Pepper-box

text: Some pepperboxes fired the lower barrel instead of the upper, such as the American Blunt & Syms, the English Cooper or the Belgian Mariette (with configurations between three and twenty-four barrels). Usually these employed an "underhammer" action, with the hammer mounted under the frame, behind the barrels, forward of the trigger (often a ring-trigger). Several other types of firing mechanisms exist, such as rotating internal firing pins (Rigby, Robbins and Lawrence, Comblain), rotating firing pins on a hammer (Sharps, Grunbaum) or multiple firing pins (Martin). During the early 1830s English gunsmith Joseph Manton offered a variant with a retractable knife blade, and pistols with up to 18 barrels. The Robbins & Lawrence pepperboxes of 1851–1854 had rifled barrels, a break action breechloading mechanism and an early safety catch, meaning that it was not necessary to disassemble the gun to reload it.


title: Pepper-box

text: The flaw with the pepperbox design is that it becomes more front heavy if the length and number of barrels is increased, making accurate aiming difficult. With most types in particular those with rotating barrel clusters, it is almost impossible to aim beyond close range because the hammer is in the line of sight (some pepperboxes have a slot in the hammer through which one is supposed to aim), there is no place to put a frontsight (putting one for each barrel would only increase the weight of the front end and likely make drawing the weapon awkward), and the gun is too front heavy to permit quick and steady aiming. However, the primary market was for civilian self-defense, so its most common use was at close range. Common practice at the time, indeed, was not to aim pistols, but instead to "shoot from the hip", holding the gun low and simply pointing at the target's center of mass. Gunfights often happened at a very close range. With this use in mind, many pepperboxes, in fact, have smooth-bored barrels, even though rifling had been commonly used for decades by the time of their manufacture. In the Old West, large pepperboxes were favored by the gold prospectors of 1849, for protection against robbers, rival claimants and hostile native Americans. Both American and British made pepperboxes were also popular among gold miners in Australia as a cheaper alternative to the Colt Navy revolver, and several were used at the Eureka Stockade.


title: Pepper-box

text: Multi shot percussion firearms were often considered dangerous because firing one powder charge could ignite the others (a "chainfire"), all at the same time, when proper care was not taken. This problem was largely eliminated by the introduction of nipple partitions, evident on later percussion revolvers, which largely shielded the percussion caps on neighbouring chambers from the flash struck by the weapon's hammer during firing. However this feature is rarely seen on pepperboxes, although some had the nipples placed in recesses or at right angles to each other to reduce the chance of a chainfire. A chainfire in a pepperbox would be far less dangerous than in a single barreled revolver because with a pepperbox, each of its bullets could freely exit its own dedicated barrel (essentially turning it into an impromptu volley gun). Similarly if a chamber was not in exactly the right position when the hammer hit the cap it would fire normally and safely, as opposed to a single barrelled revolver where a cylinder misaligned with the barrel when fired could cause a potentially explosive malfunction. This simplicity and safety helped the pepperbox survive after more modern revolvers came along, as well as keeping production costs a lot lower than revolvers with their more complex mechanisms.


title: Pepper-box

text: A development from the pepperbox are the so called "transitional" revolvers. These weapons have a cut-down pepperbox "cylinder" firing through a single barrel. A transitional revolver is defined as a revolver (with barrel and cylinder) that does not have a cylinder stop, an early example being the Collier flintlock revolver of 1819.


title: Pepper-box

text: It retained the pepperbox's caplock action but still had many deficiencies. The lack of an effective cylinder stop allowed a charge to be fired when the cylinder was not aligned with the barrel, resulting in an erratic shot possibly damaging the gun and even injuring the firer. While the shortened cylinder made loading easier the barrel was attached to the cylinder pin, over time this weakened the gun, decreasing its accuracy. In addition it lacked partitions between its nipples, risking similar chain-fires to the earlier pepperbox. This was exacerbated by the fact that the bar-hammers common on pepperboxes and transitional revolvers usually provided a weak blow, which meant that extra sensitive percussion caps were needed to ensure that the gun would fire, further increasing the risk of a chain-fire. Although later models were fitted with a shield to protect the user from cap fragments there was still a risk of being killed or maimed as a multiple discharge could cause the gun to explode.


title: Pepper-box

text: Since the bullets didn't have to be rammed down from the muzzle but were loaded into the cylinder behind the barrel, they could be slightly larger than the bore, which facilitated the use of rifled barrels. Whereas most pepperboxes are smooth-bore, most transitionals are rifled.


title: Pepper-box

text: Daniel Leavitt was the subject of a famous lawsuit after producing a transitional revolver in 1851 with an identical loading lever to the Colt Dragoon revolver. Guns of this type saw use in the Mexican War as an alternative to the Colt Dragoon revolver and the Colt Walker revolver, most notably by General Winfield Scott. A late example the Butterfield revolver of 1855 used a Maynard tape primer rather than percussion caps. 640 were issued to the US Army during the American Civil War, but the government canceled any further purchases when the pistols were found to be inferior to the cheaper Colt Navy revolver. Transitional revolvers and pepperboxes started disappearing gradually in the 1850s with the manufacture of true revolvers by Colt, Smith & Wesson, Webley, Adams, Rupertus and others.


title: Pepper-box

text: The pepperbox experienced a kind of "revival" in the late 19th century as a short, easily concealable pocket pistol that used pinfire cartridges. The five barrel Feilitzenre pistol was almost accepted as the standard officer sidearm for the Swedish Army.


title: Pepper-box

text: A special variation of this kind of sidearm, in which the shortness of the barrel cluster was fully used, is the Belgian Dolne M1869 Apache revolver. This weapon, allegedly popular among the Paris street gangs after whom it was named, was fitted with a folding blade and knuckle-duster. The pepperboxes from this period disappeared with the demise of the pinfire cartridge.


title: Pepper-box

text: One of the more interesting pepperbox revolvers is the .22 Short, six barrel Remington Zig-Zag Derringer. Unlike the older single action designs, it had a double action ring trigger and could fire six shots as fast as one could pull the trigger. Guns of this type were prized by gamblers, in addition to the four barrel Christian Sharps derringer, because they could be easily concealed in a vest pocket and easily used for self-defense.


title: Pepper-box

text: The pepperbox design was used for a small number of weapon designs in the 20th century, most notably a six barrelled derringer in .22 caliber from Cobray.


title: Pepper-box

text: During the 1960s an eight barrelled pepperbox shotgun, the Colt Defender Mark I, was designed by Robert Hillberg; but never went into production.


title: Pepper-box

text: In the 1970s Heckler & Koch produced the five barrelled P11 pistol designed as a covert underwater firearm firing 7.62 X 36mm darts electrically.


title: Pepper-box

text: The Osa is a Russian four barrelled pistol designed to fire a range of non-lethal and flare rounds from electrically-fired 18×45 mm cartridges.


title: Pepper-box

text: The Reprringer is a design for a five barrelled 3D printed pepperbox sidearm in .22 LR, which received widespread media coverage.


title: Pepper-box

text: 3D printed pistols resembling the pepperbox have been allegedly downloaded and manufactured by drug dealers in the UK. A student from London named Tendai Muswere was the first person convicted in 2019 of printing a multi barreled derringer of this type, known as the Hexen.


title: Pepper-box

text: In the first season of Critical Role, and its animated adaptation The Legend of Vox Machina, the character Percival de Rolo III, played by Taliesin Jaffe, invented and wielded a pepperbox revolver.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Jean de Florette () is a 1986 period drama film directed by Claude Berri, based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol. It is followed by "Manon des Sources". The story takes place in rural Provence, where two local farmers plot to trick a newcomer out of his newly inherited property. The film starred three of France's most prominent actors – Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, who won a BAFTA award for his performance, and Yves Montand in one of his last roles.


title: Jean de Florette

text: The film was shot back to back with "Manon des Sources", over a period of seven months. At the time the most expensive French film ever made, it was a great commercial and critical success, both domestically and internationally, and was nominated for eight César awards, and 10 BAFTAs. The success of the two films helped promote Provence as a tourist destination.


title: Jean de Florette

text: The story takes place outside a village in Provence, in the south of France, shortly after the First World War. Ugolin Soubeyran returns from his military service and throws himself into a project to grow carnations on his property in the mountains. His uncle César, referred to as Le Papet, meaning grandfather in the local dialect of French, is at first skeptical, but is convinced when the flowers get a good price at the market. They decide the project is worthy of expansion, and together they go to see the neighboring farmer, Pique-Bouffigue, to buy his land. The land in question is apparently dry, but Papet knows of a spring that could solve that problem.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Pique-Bouffigue does not want to sell, and an altercation breaks out. In the fight, Pique-Bouffigue is killed. After the funeral, Papet and Ugolin plug the spring that could water the land and cover it with cement and earth. Unknown to them, they are seen blocking the spring by a poacher.


title: Jean de Florette

text: The property is inherited by Pique-Bouffigue's sister, Florette, who left the area long ago, but she dies very soon afterward and the inheritance goes to her son, Jean Cadoret, who is a tax collector and a hunchback. Ugolin, according to local custom, refers to him as Jean de Florette - Florette's Jean. To discourage Jean from taking up residence, Ugolin damages the roof of the house.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Jean arrives with his wife, Aimée, and young daughter, Manon. He makes it clear that he has no intention of selling. He intends to make the farm profitable within two years, breeding rabbits and growing their feed himself. Jean does not know about the nearby blocked spring, only of one that is more distant, 2 kilometres away, though still on the property. He is relying on rainfall to fill a cistern to supply the livestock and irrigate the crops. Ugolin and Papet keep secret from Jean the fact that the area where Jean's farm lies rarely gets any rain. Meanwhile, they work to turn the local community against Jean, because the deceased Pique-Bouffigue has cousins in the village who know about the blocked spring and would tell Jean about it if they became friendly with him.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Jean initially makes progress and earns a small profit from his rabbit farm. In the long run, however, getting water proves a problem. Dragging it all the way from the distant spring is a backbreaking task. Jean asks to borrow Ugolin's mule, but Ugolin gives vague excuses. When the rain does come, it falls on the surrounding area but not where it is needed. The dusty winds of the sirocco then arrive, bringing the farm near catastrophe. Jean decides to dig a well.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Ugolin tells Jean that his project is hopeless and that he might be better off selling. Jean asks how much he could expect to receive for the farm, and Ugolin gives an estimate of around 8,000 francs. However, it turns out that Jean has no intention of selling, but wants to use the value of the property to take out a mortgage. Papet decides that he will himself grant the mortgage, because that way he will either earn the interest or drive Jean away for good.


title: Jean de Florette

text: From the mortgage money Jean buys dynamite to finish the well, but in his first blast is hit by a flying rock, falls into the cavity, and subsequently dies of his injuries. Ugolin returns with the news to Papet, who asks him why he's crying. "It is not me who's crying," he responds, "it's my eyes."


title: Jean de Florette

text: Aimée and Manon cannot remain on the farm, and Papet buys them out. As mother and daughter are packing their belongings, Papet and Ugolin go to where they blocked the spring and remove the plug. Manon follows them, and when she sees what they are doing, she understands and screams. The men hear it, but dismiss the sound as that of a buzzard. Papet performs a mock baptism of his nephew in the water of the spring.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Marcel Pagnol's 1952 film "Manon des Sources" was four hours long, and subsequently cut by its distributor. The end result left Pagnol dissatisfied, and led him to retell the story as a novel. The first part of the novel, titled "Jean de Florette", was an exploration of the background for the film; a prequel of sorts. Together the two volumes made up the work Pagnol called "L'Eau des collines" (The Water of the Hills). Berri came across Pagnol's book by chance in a hotel room, and was captivated by it. He decided that in order to do the story justice it had to be made in two parts.


title: Jean de Florette

text: "Jean de Florette" was filmed in and around the Vaucluse department of Provence, where a number of different places have been mentioned as filming locations. La Treille, east of Marseille, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, was the village where Pagnol had shot the original film. The village is now within the city limits of Marseille and has undergone extensive development since the 1950s, so Berri had to find alternatives. For the village of the story he settled on Mirabeau (65 km to the north), while Jean de Florette's house is located in Vaugines, where the church from the film can also be found. The market scenes were filmed in Sommières in the Gard, and the story's Les Romarins was in reality Riboux in the Var.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Extensive work was put into creating a genuine and historically correct atmosphere for the film. The facades of the houses of Mirabeau had to be replaced with painted polystyrene, to make them look older, and all electric wires were put underground. Meanwhile, in Vaugines, Berri planted a dozen olive trees twelve months before filming started, and watered them throughout the waiting period, and for the second installment planted 10,000 carnations on the farm.


title: Jean de Florette

text: "Jean de Florette" and "Manon des Sources" were filmed together, over a period of thirty weeks, from May to December 1985. This allowed Berri to show the dramatic seasonal changes of the Provençal landscape. At 120 million French Franc ($17 million), it was at the time the most expensive film project in French history. The long filming period and the constantly increasing cost put a great burden on the actors, many of whom frequently had to return to Paris for television or theatre work. Once completed, the release of the film was a great national event. A special promotional screening before the film's official release 27 August 1986, was attended by then Minister of Culture Jack Lang. The musical score is based around the aria Invano Alvaro from Giuseppe Verdi's 1862 opera "La forza del destino".


title: Jean de Florette

text: The film was a great success in its native France, where it was seen by over seven million people. It also performed very well internationally; in the United States it grossed nearly $5 million, placing it among the 100 most commercially successful foreign-language films shown there.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Rita Kempley, writing for "The Washington Post", compared the story to the fiction of William Faulkner. Allowing that it could indeed be "a definitive French masterwork", she reserved judgement until after the premiere of the second part, as "Jean de Florette" was only a "half-movie", "a long, methodic buildup, a pedantically paced tease".


title: Jean de Florette

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" commented on Berri's exploration of human character, "the relentlessness of human greed, the feeling that the land is so important the human spirit can be sacrificed to it". Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars.


title: Jean de Florette

text: The staff reviewer for the entertainment magazine "Variety" highlighted – as other reviewers did as well – the cinematography of Bruno Nuytten (an effort that won Nuytten a BAFTA award and a "César" nomination). The reviewer commended Berri particularly for the work done with the small cast, and for his decision to stay true to Pagnol's original story. Richard Bernstein, reviewing the film for "The New York Times", wrote it was "like no other film you've seen in recent years". He called it an updated, faster-paced version of Pagnol, where the original was still recognisable. The newspaper lists the film among the "Best 1000 Movies Ever Made".


title: Jean de Florette

text: Later reviews show that the film has stood up to the passage of time. Tasha Robinson, reviewing the DVD release of the two films for "The A.V. Club" in 2007, called the landscape, as portrayed by Berri and Nuytten, "almost unbearably beautiful". Grading the films 'A', she called them "surprisingly tight and limber" for a four-hour film cycle.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Nominated for a total of eight "César" awards in 1987 – including 'Best Film', 'Best Director' and 'Best Cinematography' – "Jean de Florette" won only one, 'Best Actor' for Daniel Auteuil.


title: Jean de Florette

text: At the BAFTA awards the next year it fared better, winning awards for 'Best Actor in a Supporting Role' (Auteuil), 'Best Cinematography', 'Best Film' and 'Best Adapted Screenplay'. The film also earned six more nominations, including both Depardieu and Montand in the 'Best Actor'-category, as well as 'Best Direction' and 'Best Foreign Language Film'.


title: Jean de Florette

text: Amongst other honours for the film were a U.S. National Board of Review award for 'Best Foreign Language Film', and a 'Best Foreign Language Film' nomination at the 1988 Golden Globes. It was also nominated for the Golden Prize at the 15th Moscow International Film Festival.


title: Jean de Florette

text: "Jean de Florette" and "Manon des Sources" have been interpreted as part of a wider trend in the 1980s of so-called 'heritage cinema': period pieces and costume dramas that celebrated the history, culture and landscape of France. It was the official policy of President François Mitterrand, elected in 1981, and particularly his Minister of Culture Jack Lang, to promote these kinds of films through increased funding of the ailing French film industry. Berri's pair of films stand as the most prominent example of this effort. It has also been suggested that the treatment given the outsider Jean de Florette by the locals was symbolic of the growing popularity of the anti-immigration movement, led by politicians like Jean-Marie Le Pen.


title: Jean de Florette

text: The two films are often seen, in conjunction with Peter Mayle's book "A Year in Provence", as causing increased interest in, and tourism to, the region of Provence, particularly among the British. The films inspired a vision of the area as a place of rural authenticity, and were followed by an increase in British home ownership in southern France. As late as 2005, the owners of the house belonging to Jean de Florette in the movie were still troubled by tourists trespassing on their property.


title: Jean de Florette

text: "Jean de Florette" served as an inspiration for the 1998 Malayalam–language Indian film "Oru Maravathoor Kanavu".


Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (; 4 January 1785 – 17 February 1831) inherited the title of Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck as Frederick William IV in 1816. He subsequently changed his title to Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg in 1825 and founded a line that includes the Royal Houses of Denmark, Greece, Norway, and the Commonwealth realms.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg

text: Friedrich Wilhelm was born in Lindenau, near Königsberg, East Prussia, to Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck (20 August 1757 – 24 April 1816) and Countess Friederike of Schlieben (28 February 1757 – 17 December 1827). He was the third and youngest child of the couple, and the only son. In 1804, he was sent to Denmark, where he was an officer of the Danish army during the Napoleonic Wars.


text: On 26 January 1810, Friedrich Wilhelm married his relative Princess Louise Caroline of Hesse-Kassel (28 September 1789 – 13 March 1867), a granddaughter of Frederik V of Denmark through her mother, Princess Louise of Denmark. Friedrich Wilhelm and Louise Caroline had ten children:


text: On 25 March 1816, Friedrich Wilhelm succeeded his father as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck. On 6 July 1825, he became Duke of Glücksburg and changed his title to Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, after the elder Glücksburg line became extinct in 1779. Friedrich Wilhelm died on 17 February 1831 at Gottorp.


text: His grandchildren include among others Frederick VIII of Denmark, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, George I of Greece, Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, Crown Princess Thyra of Hanover, Duchess of Cumberland and Teviotdale, and Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: Dracula is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is based on the vampire Count Dracula from the novel of the same name by author Bram Stoker. After the initial run of the series "The Tomb of Dracula", the character has been depicted primarily as an antagonist to superheroes in the Marvel Universe.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: The character appeared in the film "" (2004), primarily portrayed by Dominic Purcell in his normal form and Brian Steele in his "Beast" form.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: The Marvel Comics version of Dracula was created by Gerry Conway and Gene Colan in "The Tomb of Dracula" #1 (April 1972), co-written by Marv Wolfman. A different version of Dracula had previously appeared in the Atlas Comics publication, "Suspense" #7 (Mar. 1951). Traditionally, the Comics Code Authority prevented Marvel from publishing vampire comics. This was revised in early 1971, when comics were allowed to publish characters and beings from established literary works. Later that year, Morbius the Living Vampire appeared in "The Amazing Spider-Man" for the first time, and Dracula followed in his own title some months later. The character starred in the comic, which ended with issue #70 in 1979. This version of Dracula also starred in "Dracula Lives!", a black-and-white horror comic magazine series published by Marvel from 1973 to 1975. Running concurrently with "The Tomb of Dracula", the continuities of the two titles occasionally overlapped, with storylines weaving between the two.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: "The Tomb of Dracula" initially kept its distance from the rest of the company's properties. Marv Wolfman said, "To me, the horror books were outside the Marvel Universe. It was a hard enough problem creating mood, tension, and suspense in a comic book, which is all still pictures. But to then have to worry about superheroes or supervillains at the same time — I didn't feel that would work." But the potential for a sales-boosting crossover eventually became too tempting, and Dracula appeared in the first issue of "Giant-Size Spider-Man" (July 1974).


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: Although Dracula (and all other vampires) were eventually destroyed by the mystical "Montesi Formula" in the pages of "Doctor Strange", the vampire lord was revived. Marvel published a four-issue "Tomb of Dracula" miniseries, reuniting Wolfman and Colan, under its Epic Comics imprint in 1991, and revived Dracula and his foes in the short-lived "Nightstalkers" and "Blade" series in the 1990s. Most recently, Dracula took the title role in the miniseries "Dracula: Lord of the Undead".


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: He was the main subject of the 2010 X-Men storyline "Curse of the Mutants", written by Victor Gischler. By this time, Dracula no longer adopts the dress and mannerisms of a Victorian era nobleman, rather his appearance is more reminiscent of a medieval warlord. He wears a form of body armor and a cape with ragged ends. He has long blonde hair maintained in a ponytail and inhuman features such as red eyes, elongated canines, and retractable claws at the tips of his fingers and pointed ears.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: Born Vlad Dracula in 1430 in Schassburg, Transylvania (now Sighişoara, Romania), he was the second son of a Transylvanian nobleman. He was named prince of Transylvania and voivode (prince) of Wallachia and became ruler while still a child. Over the next several years, he struggled against the Ottoman Turks, losing and regaining his throne. Through an arranged marriage to a Hungarian noblewoman, Zofia, he sired his daughter, Lilith. He sent his wife and daughter away and later married a woman named Maria, with whom he had a son named Vlad Tepelus. He had a son with his third wife Domini, who was named Janus.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: In 1459, Dracula was mortally wounded by the Turkish warlord Turac, who brought Dracula to a gypsy named Lianda to be healed. However, Lianda was a vampire, and in revenge for his persecution of the gypsies, transformed Dracula into a vampire as well. Turac raped and killed Dracula's wife Maria, and in revenge Dracula slew Turac, making him a vampire as well. Dracula gave his son Vlad Tepelus to gypsies to raise.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: Dracula defeated the vampire Nimrod the First in battle, and thus succeeded him as ruler of Earth's vampires. Soon afterwards, he enhanced his own blood with that of Varnae, giving him greater powers than any other vampire. In 1471, Dracula abdicated his princehood.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: In the 19th century, he faced opposition from Abraham van Helsing and Jonathan Harker in England, the exploits of which were recorded in the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker, "Dracula". When the humans destroyed Dracula, his remains were placed in his coffin, concealed within a cave blocked by an enormous boulder. Frankenstein's Monster was later tricked into unsealing the cave and opening the coffin, thus freeing Dracula. In later years, he also came in conflict with Cagliostro and Solomon Kane. Just before World War I, he was responsible for transforming Lord John Falsworth into Baron Blood.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: In the later half of the 20th century, Dracula was once more returned from death by Clifton Graves, and subsequently came into conflict with Quincy Harker and Rachel van Helsing,


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: After bringing the Cult of the Darkhold under his control, Dracula began to seek the power of the dark book to remove his vampiric weaknesses and make himself truly immortal. However, in his quest he was repeatedly foiled by the X-Men, the now-vampiric Rachel van Helsing and Lilith, Thor, Doctor Strange, Hannibal King and the Avengers.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: Dracula had one apparent post-mortem appearance when the Grandmaster summoned him and a number of other deceased heroes and villains to challenge the Avengers.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: Dracula eventually returned when the effect of the Montesi Formula was negated and HYDRA created a clone from Dracula's DNA to serve as their vampiric superweapon, only for the vampire to escape their control.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: In the 21st century, Dracula assembled an army of vampires in a sanctuary on the Moon and planned to conquer the United Kingdom, with other supernatural villains Lilith (a different entity from his daughter), Captain Fate, and Baron Blood. He first contacted Doctor Doom to agree to a non-aggression pact with him, and by association the Cabal, in order to be unopposed in his conquest. Once he'd secured this, he launched a pre-emptive strike on MI-13's superheroes, launching specially-bred vampires at the Earth like missiles.


title: Dracula (Marvel Comics)

text: It was also shown he still possessed contempt and bigotry towards Muslims, and intended to exterminate them once he had secured Great Britain; as part of his attack, he went to the parents of Faiza Hussain, attacking her mother and taking her father (along with Killpower, an MI-13 agent sent to protect the family) hostage. British vampire hero Spitfire, meanwhile, was abducted and forcibly turned into a minion. MI-13 were manipulated into exposing the whereabouts of Quincy Harker's remains, magically treated to prevent vampires from entering the U.K. without invitation, so Dracula could destroy them. Once that was done, with the help of Fate, he launched a series of warships towards Earth.