title: Constantine the Great

text: These later accounts were more willing to present Constantine as a genuine convert to Christianity. Norman H. Baynes began a historiographic tradition with "Constantine the Great and the Christian Church" (1929) which presents Constantine as a committed Christian, reinforced by Andreas Alföldi's "The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome" (1948), and Timothy Barnes's "Constantine and Eusebius" (1981) is the culmination of this trend. Barnes' Constantine experienced a radical conversion which drove him on a personal crusade to convert his empire. Charles Matson Odahl's "Constantine and the Christian Empire" (2004) takes much the same tack. In spite of Barnes' work, arguments continue over the strength and depth of Constantine's religious conversion. Certain themes in this school reached new extremes in T.G. Elliott's "The Christianity of Constantine the Great" (1996), which presented Constantine as a committed Christian from early childhood. Paul Veyne's 2007 work "Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien" holds a similar view which does not speculate on the origin of Constantine's Christian motivation, but presents him as a religious revolutionary who fervently believed that he was meant "to play a providential role in the millenary economy of the salvation of humanity".


title: Constantine the Great

text: Latin Rite Catholics considered it inappropriate that Constantine was baptized only on his death bed by an unorthodox bishop, and a legend emerged by the early 4th century that Pope Sylvester I had cured the pagan emperor from leprosy. According to this legend, Constantine was baptized and began the construction of a church in the Lateran Basilica. The Donation of Constantine appeared in the 8th century, most likely during the pontificate of Pope Stephen II, in which the freshly converted Constantine gives "the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts, and cities of Italy and the Western regions" to Sylvester and his successors. In the High Middle Ages, this document was used and accepted as the basis for the pope's temporal power, though it was denounced as a forgery by Emperor Otto III and lamented as the root of papal worldliness by Dante Alighieri. Philologist and Catholic priest Lorenzo Valla proved in 1440 that the document was indeed a forgery.


title: Constantine the Great

text: During the medieval period, Britons regarded Constantine as a king of their own people, particularly associating him with Caernarfon in Gwynedd. While some of this is owed to his fame and his proclamation as emperor in Britain, there was also confusion of his family with Magnus Maximus's supposed wife Elen and her son, another Constantine . In the 12th century Henry of Huntingdon included a passage in his "Historia Anglorum" that the Emperor Constantine's mother was a Briton, making her the daughter of King Cole of Colchester. Geoffrey of Monmouth expanded this story in his highly fictionalized "Historia Regum Britanniae", an account of the supposed Kings of Britain from their Trojan origins to the Anglo-Saxon invasion. According to Geoffrey, Cole was King of the Britons when Constantius, here a senator, came to Britain. Afraid of the Romans, Cole submits to Roman law so long as he retains his kingship. However, he dies only a month later, and Constantius takes the throne himself, marrying Cole's daughter Helena. They have their son Constantine, who succeeds his father as King of Britain before becoming Roman emperor.


title: Constantine the Great

text: Historically, this series of events is extremely improbable. Constantius had already left Helena by the time he left for Britain. Additionally, no earlier source mentions that Helena was born in Britain, let alone that she was a princess. Henry's source for the story is unknown, though it may have been a lost hagiography of Helena.


title: Constantine the Great

text: Emperors are shown with a rounded-corner border with their dates as Augusti, names with a thicker border appear in both sections


title: Tim Robbins

text: Timothy Francis Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for portraying Andy Dufresne in the film "The Shawshank Redemption "(1994), and has won an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards for his roles in the films "The Player" (1992) and "Mystic River" (2003).


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins's other roles include starring as Lt. Samuel "Merlin" Wells in "Top Gun" (1986), Nuke LaLoosh in "Bull Durham" (1988), Erik in "Erik the Viking" (1989), Ed Walters in "I.Q." (1994), Nick Beam in "Nothing to Lose" (1997) and Senator Robert Hammond in "Green Lantern" (2011). He also directed the films "Bob Roberts" (1992) and "Dead Man Walking" (1995), both of which were well received. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for "Dead Man Walking."


title: Tim Robbins

text: On television, Robbins played Secretary of State Walter Larson in the HBO comedy "The Brink" (2015), and in "Here and Now" (2018) portrayed Greg Boatwright.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins was born in West Covina, California, and raised in New York City. His parents were Mary Cecelia ("née" Bledsoe), a musician, and Gilbert Lee Robbins, a singer, actor, and manager of The Gaslight Cafe. Robbins has two sisters, Adele and Gabrielle, and a brother, composer David Robbins. He was raised Catholic.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins moved to Greenwich Village with his family at a young age while his father pursued a career as a member of a folk music group called The Highwaymen. Robbins started performing in theater at age twelve and joined the drama club at Stuyvesant High School (Class of 1976). He spent two years at SUNY Plattsburgh and then returned to California to study at the UCLA Film School, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama in 1981.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins's acting career began at Theater for the New City, where he spent his teenage years in their Annual Summer Street Theater and also played the title role in a musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince". After graduation from college in 1981, Robbins founded the Actors' Gang, an experimental theater group, in Los Angeles with actor friends from his college softball team, as well as John Cusack.


title: Tim Robbins

text: In 1982, he appeared as domestic terrorist Andrew Reinhardt in three episodes of the television program "St. Elsewhere". In 1985, he guest-starred in the second episode of the television series "Moonlighting", "Gunfight at the So-So Corral". He also took parts in films, such as the role of frat animal "Mother" in "Fraternity Vacation" (1985) and Lt Sam "Merlin" Wells in the fighter pilot film "Top Gun" (1986). He appeared on "The Love Boat", as a young version of one of the characters in retrospection about the Second World War. His breakthrough role was as pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh in the baseball film "Bull Durham" (1988), in which he co-starred with Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins's amoral film executive in Robert Altman's film "The Player" (1992) was described by Peter Travers in "Rolling Stone" as "a classic performance, mining every comic and lethal nuance in the role of his career". He won the Best Actor Award at Cannes. He made his directorial and screenwriting debut with "Bob Roberts" (also 1992), a mockumentary about a right-wing senatorial candidate. Todd McCarthy in "Variety" commented that the film is "both a stimulating social satire and, for thinking people, a depressing commentary on the devolution of the American political system". Robbins then starred alongside Morgan Freeman in "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), which was based on Stephen King's novella.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins has written, produced, and directed several films with strong social content, such as the capital punishment saga "Dead Man Walking" (1995), starring Sarandon and Sean Penn. The film earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. According to Roger Ebert in early 1996: "With this film he leaps far beyond" "Bob Roberts" "and has made that rare thing, a film that is an exercise of philosophy. This is the kind of movie that spoils us for other films, because it reveals so starkly how most movies fall into conventional routine, and lull us with the reassurance that they will not look too hard, or probe too deeply, or make us think beyond the boundaries of what is comfortable".


title: Tim Robbins

text: His next directorial effort was Depression-era musical "Cradle Will Rock" (1999). Robbins has also appeared in mainstream Hollywood thrillers, such as "Arlington Road" (also 1999) as a suspected terrorist and "Antitrust" (2001) as a malicious computer tycoon, and in comical films such as "The Hudsucker Proxy" (1994), "Nothing to Lose" (1997), and "High Fidelity" (2000). Robbins has also acted in and directed several Actors' Gang theater productions.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and the SAG Award for his work in "Mystic River" (2003), as a man traumatized from having been molested as a child. He followed his Oscar-win with roles as a temporarily blind man who is nursed to health by a psychologically wounded young woman in "The Secret Life of Words" (2005) and an apartheid torturer in "Catch a Fire" (2006). As of 2006, he was the tallest Academy Award-winning actor at .


title: Tim Robbins

text: In early 2006, Robbins directed an adaptation of George Orwell's novel "1984", written by Michael Gene Sullivan of the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. The production opened at Actors' Gang, at their new location at The Ivy Substation in Culver City, California. In addition to venues around the United States, it has played in Athens, Greece, the Melbourne International Festival in Australia and the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Robbins was soon considering a film adaptation.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins appeared in "The Lucky Ones", with co-star Rachel McAdams as well as "City of Ember" (both 2008). Robbins next film role was as Senator Hammond, the disapproving father of the film's villain Hector Hammond, in the superhero film "Green Lantern" (2011).


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins released the album "Tim Robbins & The Rogues Gallery Band" (2010), a collection of songs written over the course of 25 years that he ultimately took on a world tour. He was originally offered the chance to record an album in 1992 after the success of his film "Bob Roberts", but he declined because he had "too much respect for the process", having seen his father work so hard as a musician, and because he felt he had nothing to say at the time.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins directed two episodes of the HBO series "Treme". The series follows the interconnected lives of a group of New Orleanians in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He helmed the episodes "Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky" in Season 2 (2011) and "Promised Land" in Season 3 (2012). Robbins became interested in the show while staying in New Orleans during the filming of "Green Lantern. ""I had the unique experience of watching "Treme" with locals. It resonated for me immediately, and it resonated for them as well, because they have seen their town get misinterpreted and represented in ridiculous ways," he told The Times-Picayune in 2011. "Something about this show was different for them. I appreciated that. I loved the writing and the actors. I loved the environment it's set in. I watched the whole first season in New Orleans, and got in touch with David Simon and said, 'If you guys need a director next year, I'd be happy to do an episode.'"


title: Tim Robbins

text: In 1988, Robbins began a relationship with actress Susan Sarandon, whom he met on the set of "Bull Durham". They have two sons: John "Jack" Henry (born May 15, 1989) and Miles Robbins (born May 4, 1992). Sarandon, like Robbins, is a lapsed Catholic, and they share liberal political views. Robbins' relationship with Sarandon ended in December 2009.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins married Gratiela Brancusi on February 1, 2017. Robbins is 31 years older than Brancusi. They split on July 1, 2020. News of the marriage was kept private until Robbins filed for divorce in January 2021.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins supported Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential campaign and appeared on stage in character as Bob Roberts during the "Nader Rocks the Garden" rally at Madison Square Garden. In December 2007, Robbins campaigned for Senator John Edwards in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. He made critical statements against Hillary Clinton and the DLC while introducing Bernie Sanders at a 2016 campaign stop.


title: Tim Robbins

text: Robbins opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2003, a 15th anniversary celebration of "Bull Durham" at the National Baseball Hall of Fame was canceled by Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey. Petroskey told Robbins that his stance helped to "undermine the U.S. position, which could put our troops in even more danger." "Durham" co-star Kevin Costner defended Robbins and Sarandon: "I think Tim and Susan's courage is the type of courage that makes our democracy work. Pulling back this invite is against the whole principle about what we fight for and profess to be about."


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Pinocchio is a 2022 American musical fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Zemeckis and Chris Weitz. Produced by Walt Disney Pictures, Depth of Field and ImageMovers, the film is a live-action remake of Walt Disney's 1940 animated film of the same name, which is itself based on the 1883 Italian book "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi. It stars Tom Hanks, Cynthia Erivo, Giuseppe Battiston and Luke Evans with Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Keegan-Michael Key, and Lorraine Bracco in voice roles. The story follows a wooden puppet named Pinocchio (Evan Ainsworth), who is brought to life by a blue fairy (Erivo) after being crafted by an old Italian woodcarver named Geppetto (Hanks). While the role of Pinocchio's conscience Jiminy Cricket (Gordon-Levitt) attempts to guide Pinocchio in matters of right and wrong, Pinocchio encounters a host of unsavory characters in his efforts to become a real boy.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Peter Hedges was reported to be writing the film's script in April 2015, before being replaced with Weitz in May 2017, who also went on to produce. Sam Mendes and Paul King were originally considered for directing, and Zemeckis was confirmed as director in January 2020. By November 2018, it was reported that Hanks was in early talks to play Geppetto; he passed on the project after King's departure but rejoined in August 2020. The main cast was announced in January and March 2021. Principal photography began in March 2021 before finishing the following month.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: "Pinocchio" was released on September 8, 2022, on the Disney+ streaming service, as part of Disney+ Day. It was met with generally negative reviews from critics for the lack of improvement over previous adaptations and lacking the charm of the 1940 film, although the visuals and some of the actors' performances received some praise.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: In a small Italian village in 1895, a vagrant cricket named Jiminy Cricket enters the home of a widowed elderly woodcarver named Geppetto, who lives with his pet kitten Figaro and goldfish Cleo. Geppetto has completed work on a marionette based on his young deceased son, which he names Pinocchio. Before falling asleep, Geppetto makes a wish on a star.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Later that night, the star magically brings Pinocchio to life and he is soon visited by the Blue Fairy who tells him that if he acts brave, truthful and selfless, he can be a real boy. The Blue Fairy also appoints Jiminy the responsibility of being Pinocchio's conscience to teach him right from wrong. When Geppetto awakens and finds Pinocchio alive, he is at first shocked, but becomes overjoyed.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: After a few days, Geppetto sends Pinocchio to school. However, Pinocchio is soon approached by con-artist fox "Honest" John and his cat partner Gideon. Honest John convinces Pinocchio that he should live a life of fame to truly be a real boy when he really plans to sell him to the puppet master Stromboli. With the help of a seagull named Sofia, Jiminy convinces Pinocchio to continue going to school, but Pinocchio is thrown out by the headmaster because he's a puppet. Pinocchio decides to go to Stromboli's after all while Honest John places a glass jar over Jiminy. Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo go out to look for Pinocchio when he fails to come home for dinner.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: At Stromboli's theater, Pinocchio befriends one of Stromboli's employees, Fabiana and her puppet Sabina. Pinocchio puts on a good show for the crowd, but Stromboli locks him in a bird cage to prevent him from ever leaving. Stromboli's coach ends up freeing Jiminy from the jar and Pinocchio has him reach the keys for the cage's lock by telling lies to make his nose grow longer.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Soon, Pinocchio is swiped up by a coach full of children driven by a charismatic Coachman, who is taking all the boys and girls to Pleasure Island, where misbehavior is encouraged. Once there, Pinocchio gets slightly disturbed by some of the brutality the kids display, which amuses an irresponsible boy named Lampwick, who he befriends; but manages to enjoy the rest of the island's more appeasing attractions. Later on, Jiminy finds that all of the children have turned into donkeys and that the Coachman sells them to the salt mines with help from his Vapor Monster henchmen. Pinocchio witnesses Lampwick's transformation at a billiard hall as Pinocchio gains a donkey's ears and tail. Pinocchio and Jiminy escape the island before the Coachman and his goons can get them.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Pinocchio and Jiminy make it back to Geppetto's, but find that Sofia gave him a flyer of Pleasure Island to let him know where Pinocchio was and that he sold all of his clocks to buy a boat to go there. Pinocchio reunites with Fabiana and Sabina who tell him that Stromboli has been arrested by the Carabinieri last night and they have taken over his puppet show. They offer Pinocchio to join them, but Pinocchio declines, wanting to save his father, which makes his donkey parts disappear.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Sofia pulls a rope for Pinocchio to hold out to the sea, where they soon find Geppetto in his boat. Just as they reunite, they are swallowed by a giant sea monster named Monstro. They take refuge in a giant boat in Monstro's stomach and Pinocchio gets the idea to make him sneeze by starting a fire within him. The plan works, and Monstro sneezes them out, but he gives chase that ends with the group crashing on dry land and seemingly killing Geppetto.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Believing his father has died, Pinocchio mourns over him and a magical tear falls from his eye on Geppetto, reviving him. Geppetto tells Pinocchio that despite being a puppet, he has proven himself to be a true boy at heart. Jiminy narrates that stories have been told of Pinocchio becoming a real boy, but doesn't confirm them, stressing that Pinocchio has a brave, honest and selfless heart, and that he's fully real to his proud and loving father. Pinocchio and Geppetto depart for home as Pinocchio's limbs appear to turn human.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: In 1985, Jim Henson and director Steve Barron approached Walt Disney Pictures with the idea of a live-action version of "Pinocchio", but Disney turned down the project. Barron still managed to make "The Adventures of Pinocchio" (1996), distributed by New Line Cinema. On April 8, 2015, it was announced that Walt Disney Pictures was developing a live-action adaptation of the 1940 animated film "Pinocchio". Peter Hedges was reported to be writing the film's script. On May 22, 2017, it was announced that Chris Weitz will replace Hedges as a screenwriter, as well as serve as a producer, while Sam Mendes was in talks to direct the project. On November 13, 2017, Mendes stepped down as the director.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: On February 20, 2018, it was announced that Paul King was set to direct the film, while Andrew Milano was announced to be co-producing the film alongside Weitz, and production was expected to begin in late 2018. Though Jack Thorne was announced to be re-writing Weitz's script, Weitz revealed on August 21, 2018, that the script was still being developed, as well as that production was set to take place in England and Italy during 2019. In November 2018, Simon Farnaby was reported to have worked on a new draft for the film. However, on January 13, 2019, it was reported that King left the film due to "family reasons", while Disney was announced to be searching for a new director for the project.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: On October 18, 2019, it was reported that Robert Zemeckis was in talks to direct the film, while the film's latest version of the screenplay was reported to have been written by Weitz, King, and Farnaby, with Weitz and Milano still being attached to the project as producers. On January 24, 2020, it was reported that Jack Rapke and Jackie Levine will serve as executive producers.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: On November 29, 2018, it was reported that Tom Hanks was in early talks to play Geppetto in the film, but passed on the project after King's departure. In August 2020, Hanks rejoined the project. Hanks reportedly reached out to director Robert Zemeckis for the role after reading the script; the two have previously worked together in the films "Forrest Gump" (1994), "Cast Away" (2000), and "The Polar Express" (2004). In January 2021, Luke Evans joined the cast as the Coachman and Oakes Fegley entered early negotiations to play Lampwick. Lewin Lloyd was eventually cast in the role. In March, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth was cast in the titular role, with Cynthia Erivo, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Keegan-Michael Key and Lorraine Bracco also added. Erivo will portray The Blue Fairy, while Gordon-Levitt, Key and Bracco will voice Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and a new character, Sofia the Seagull, respectively.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Principal photography began on March 17, 2021, in Cardington Film Studios, England, under the working title "Mahogany". Filming was completed in April 2021 according to Benjamin Evan Ainswoth.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Moving Picture Company provided full animation and visual effects for the film. DNEG contributed a part of the virtual production.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Alan Silvestri, a recurring collaborator of Zemeckis', composed the score for the film. The song, "When You Wish Upon a Star", was performed by Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy. On August 31, 2022, it was revealed that "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life for Me)" and "I've Got No Strings" would also be featured, along with the titles of the four new songs: "When He Was Here with Me" and "Pinocchio, Pinocchio" performed by Tom Hanks as Geppetto, "I Will Always Dance" performed by Kyanne Lamaya as Fabiana, and "The Coachman to Pleasure Island" performed by Luke Evans as the Coachman. Only four songs from the original film, "Little Wooden Head", "Give a Little Whistle," and the reprises of "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee" and "When You Wish Upon a Star" did not make the cut. In addition to the songs from the original film, Silvestri and Glen Ballard wrote new songs for the project. The soundtrack album was released on September 8, 2022, the same day as the film.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: On March 9, 2022, the first look at the upcoming adaptation was released, revealing that the film would be released in September of that year. The teaser trailer and poster for "Pinocchio" debuted on May 31, 2022, announcing the premiere date of September 8 on Disney+, coinciding with Disney+ Day. The trailer features part of Erivo's rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" as well as footage of Hanks as Geppetto. On August 22, a teaser used to promote Disney+ Day showed the first look of Pinocchio's CGI appearance, near-identical to the 1940 animated version. On August 24, 2022, the official trailer and the first-look photos for the live-action adaptation were released. On August 29, Disney+ released a behind-the-scenes featurette that included interviews with some members of the film's cast. On September 8, Disney+ released a second featurette which details the impact the 1940 animated version had on the film's cast and crew as well as the satisfaction it gives them to bring the story to a new generation. On September 15, Disney+ released a third featurette which featured new interviews with composer Alan Silvestri, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (voice of Pinocchio), Luke Evans and lyricist Glen Ballard sharing insights on their respective contributions to the film.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: On October 29, 2019, it was reported that Disney was considering releasing the film on its streaming service Disney+ due to the box office failure of its 2019 remake of "Dumbo", though "a theatrical release seems more likely" after the hiring of Robert Zemeckis as director. On December 9, 2020, the film was officially announced to be moving back to Disney+ instead of a theatrical release in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: According to Nielsen, "Pinocchio" was the 6th most watched program across all platforms, during the week of September 11, 2022. According to streaming aggregator Reelgood, "Pinocchio" was the 5th most watched program across all platforms, during the week of September 17, 2022. According to Whip Media, "Pinocchio" was the 8th most watched film across all platforms in the United States, during the week of September 23, 2022.


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 38 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Adrian Horton of "The Guardian" gave the film three out of five stars, saying, "A live-action take on the classic animation has effective visual moments and an impactful turn from Tom Hanks but never quite justifies its existence." Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three stars out of four, writing, "Every frame of "Pinocchio" is filled with rich and lush detail — at times this almost looks like a 3-D film — and the performances, whether live action or voiced, are universally excellent." Danny Leigh of the "Financial Times" thought that "The animation is now so hyper-advanced, the landscape of the movie so eerily both this and that, it is easy to get confused about where reality stops and ones and zeros take over." Jennifer Green of "Common Sense Media" gave the film three out of five stars and felt it "boasts an impressive mix of CGI animation and live actors and settings, but the final product feels a little jumbled".


title: Pinocchio (2022 live-action film)

text: Amy Nicholson of "The New York Times" was critical of the script: "Geppetto [sings] about his freshly concocted dead son. Someone wished to burden the old whittler with more motivation, and tacked on a dead wife to boot." Christy Lemire of "RogerEbert.com" called Key's performance "by far the film's highlight", but felt other updates to the story "too often feel empty and add no insight". Alex Godfrey of "Empire Magazine" gave the film two stars out of five, saying, "It's hard to invest much in Geppetto and Pinocchio's relationship when they spend barely any time together. Ultimately, it's all a bit flat, and feels like an exercise. It exists because it can." In a "C" review, Christian Zilko of "IndieWire" wrote, "While the original story remains undeniably excellent, "Pinocchio" fails at re-telling it because it ignores its own advice. ... If Disney truly believed that timeless virtue and character were more important than having a shiny new exterior, this remake would never have been made." Patrick Cremona of the "Radio Times" thought it "never does enough to justify its own existence, failing to improve on the tremendous 1940 animation in any meaningful way." Andrew Barker of "Variety" was similarly negative, saying, "There may be no strings on this "Pinocchio", but there isn't much of a heart in him either."


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman I (; ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his realm, was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566. Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman succeeded his father, Selim I, as sultan on 30 September 1520 and began his reign with campaigns against the Christian powers in central Europe and the Mediterranean. Belgrade fell to him in 1521 and the island of Rhodes in 1522–23. At Mohács, in August 1526, Suleiman broke the military strength of Hungary.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies in conquering the Christian strongholds of Belgrade and Rhodes as well as most of Hungary before his conquests were checked at the siege of Vienna in 1529. He annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large areas of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: At the helm of an expanding empire, Suleiman personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in conjunction with the empire's chief judicial official Ebussuud Efendi, harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia). He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing the "Golden" age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Breaking with Ottoman tradition, Suleiman married Hürrem Sultan, a woman from his harem, an Orthodox Christian of Ruthenian origin who converted to Islam, and who became famous in the West by the name Roxelana, due to her red hair. Their son, Selim II, succeeded Suleiman following his death in 1566 after 46 years of rule. Suleiman's other potential heirs, Mehmed and Mustafa, had died; Mehmed had died in 1543 from smallpox, and Mustafa had been strangled to death in 1553 at the sultan's order. His other son Bayezid was executed in 1561 on Suleiman's orders, along with Bayezid's four sons, after a rebellion. Although scholars typically regarded the period after his death to be one of crisis and adaptation rather than simple decline, the end of Suleiman's reign was a watershed in Ottoman history. In the decades after Suleiman, the empire began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes, a phenomenon often referred to as the Transformation of the Ottoman Empire.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman the Magnificent ( "Muḥteşem Süleymān"), as he was known in the West, was also called Suleiman the First ( "Sulṭān Süleymān-ı Evvel"), and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( "Ḳānūnī Sulṭān Süleymān") for his reform of the Ottoman legal system.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: It is unclear when exactly the term "Kanunî" (the Lawgiver) first came to be used as an epithet for Suleiman. It is entirely absent from sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ottoman sources and may date from the early 18th century.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: There is a tradition of western origin, according to which Suleiman the Magnificent was "Suleiman II", but that tradition has been based on an erroneous assumption that Süleyman Çelebi was to be recognised as a legitimate sultan.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman was born in Trabzon on the southern coast of the Black Sea to Şehzade Selim (later Selim I), probably on 6 November 1494, although this date is not known with absolute certainty or evidence. His mother was Hafsa Sultan, a convert to Islam of unknown origins, who died in 1534. At the age of seven, Suleiman began studies of science, history, literature, theology and military tactics in the schools of the imperial Topkapı Palace in Constantinople. As a young man, he befriended Pargalı Ibrahim, a Greek slave who later became one of his most trusted advisers (but who was later executed on Suleiman's orders). At age seventeen, he was appointed as the governor of first Kaffa (Theodosia), then Manisa, with a brief tenure at Edirne.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Upon the death of his father, Selim I (r. 1512–1520), Suleiman entered Constantinople and ascended to the throne as the tenth Ottoman Sultan. An early description of Suleiman, a few weeks following his accession, was provided by the Venetian envoy Bartolomeo Contarini:


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Upon succeeding his father, Suleiman began a series of military conquests, eventually leading to a revolt led by the Ottoman-appointed governor of Damascus in 1521. Suleiman soon made preparations for the conquest of Belgrade from the Kingdom of Hungary—something his great-grandfather Mehmed II had failed to achieve because of John Hunyadi's strong defense in the region. Its capture was vital in removing the Hungarians and Croats who, following the defeats of the Albanians, Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Byzantines and the Serbs, remained the only formidable force who could block further Ottoman gains in Europe. Suleiman encircled Belgrade and began a series of heavy bombardments from an island in the Danube. Belgrade, with a garrison of only 700 men, and receiving no aid from Hungary, fell in August 1521.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: The road to Hungary and Austria lay open, but Suleiman turned his attention instead to the Eastern Mediterranean island of Rhodes, the home base of the Knights Hospitaller. Suleiman built a large fortification, Marmaris Castle, that served as a base for the Ottoman Navy. Following the five-month Siege of Rhodes (1522), Rhodes capitulated and Suleiman allowed the Knights of Rhodes to depart. The conquest of the island cost the Ottomans 50,000 to 60,000 dead from battle and sickness (Christian claims went as high as 64,000 Ottoman battle deaths and 50,000 disease deaths).


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: As relations between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire deteriorated, Suleiman resumed his campaign in Central Europe, and on 29 August 1526 he defeated Louis II of Hungary (1506–1526) at the Battle of Mohács. Upon encountering the lifeless body of King Louis, Suleiman is said to have lamented: "I came indeed in arms against him; but it was not my wish that he should be thus cut off before he scarcely tasted the sweets of life and royalty." While Suleiman was campaigning in Hungary, Turkmen tribes in central Anatolia (in Cilicia) revolted under the leadership of Kalender Çelebi.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Some Hungarian nobles proposed that Ferdinand, who was the ruler of neighboring Austria and tied to Louis II's family by marriage, be King of Hungary, citing previous agreements that the Habsburgs would take the Hungarian throne if Louis died without heirs. However, other nobles turned to the nobleman John Zápolya, who was being supported by Suleiman. Under Charles V and his brother Ferdinand I, the Habsburgs reoccupied Buda and took possession of Hungary. Reacting in 1529, Suleiman marched through the valley of the Danube and regained control of Buda; in the following autumn, his forces laid siege to Vienna. This was to be the Ottoman Empire's most ambitious expedition and the apogee of its drive to the West. With a reinforced garrison of 16,000 men, the Austrians inflicted the first defeat on Suleiman, sowing the seeds of a bitter Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry that lasted until the 20th century. His second attempt to conquer Vienna failed in 1532, as Ottoman forces were delayed by the siege of Güns and failed to reach Vienna. In both cases, the Ottoman army was plagued by bad weather, forcing them to leave behind essential siege equipment, and was hobbled by overstretched supply lines. In 1533 the Treaty of Constantinople was signed by Ferdinand I, in which he acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty and recognised Suleiman as his “father and suzerain”, he also agreed to pay an annual tribute and accepted the Ottoman grand vizier as his brother and equal in rank.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: By the 1540s, a renewal of the conflict in Hungary presented Suleiman with the opportunity to avenge the defeat suffered at Vienna. In 1541, the Habsburgs attempted to lay siege to Buda but were repulsed, and more Habsburg fortresses were captured by the Ottomans in two consecutive campaigns in 1541 and 1544 as a result, Ferdinand and Charles were forced to conclude a humiliating five-year treaty with Suleiman. Ferdinand renounced his claim to the Kingdom of Hungary and was forced to pay a fixed yearly sum to the Sultan for the Hungarian lands he continued to control. Of more symbolic importance, the treaty referred to Charles V not as 'Emperor' but as the 'King of Spain', leading Suleiman to identify as the true 'Caesar'.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: In 1552, Suleiman's forces laid siege of Eger, located in the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, but the defenders led by István Dobó repelled the attacks and defended the Eger Castle.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman's father had made war with Persia a high priority. At first, Suleiman shifted attention to Europe and was content to contain Persia, which was preoccupied by its own enemies to its east. After Suleiman stabilized his European frontiers, he now turned his attention to Persia, the base for the rival Islamic faction of Shi'a. The Safavid dynasty became the main enemy after two episodes. First, Shah Tahmasp killed the Baghdad governor loyal to Suleiman, and put his own man in. Second, the governor of Bitlis had defected and sworn allegiance to the Safavids. As a result, in 1533, Suleiman ordered his Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha to lead an army into eastern Asia Minor where he retook Bitlis and occupied Tabriz without resistance. Suleiman joined Ibrahim in 1534. They made a push towards Persia, only to find the Shah sacrificing territory instead of facing a pitched battle, resorting to harassment of the Ottoman army as it proceeded along the harsh interior. In 1535 Suleiman made a grand entrance into Baghdad. He enhanced his local support by restoring the tomb of Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic law to which the Ottomans adhered.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Attempting to defeat the Shah once and for all, Suleiman embarked upon a second campaign in 1548–1549. As in the previous attempt, Tahmasp avoided confrontation with the Ottoman army and instead chose to retreat, using scorched earth tactics in the process and exposing the Ottoman army to the harsh winter of the Caucasus. Suleiman abandoned the campaign with temporary Ottoman gains in Tabriz and the Urmia region, a lasting presence in the province of Van, control of the western half of Azerbaijan and some forts in Georgia.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: In 1553 Suleiman began his third and final campaign against the Shah. Having initially lost territories in Erzurum to the Shah's son, Suleiman retaliated by recapturing Erzurum, crossing the Upper Euphrates and laying waste to parts of Persia. The Shah's army continued its strategy of avoiding the Ottomans, leading to a stalemate from which neither army made any significant gain. In 1555, a settlement known as the Peace of Amasya was signed, which defined the borders of the two empires. By this treaty, Armenia and Georgia were divided equally between the two, with Western Armenia, western Kurdistan, and western Georgia (incl. western Samtskhe) falling in Ottoman hands while Eastern Armenia, eastern Kurdistan, and eastern Georgia (incl. eastern Samtskhe) stayed in Safavid hands. The Ottoman Empire obtained most of Iraq, including Baghdad, which gave them access to the Persian Gulf, while the Persians retained their former capital Tabriz and all their other northwestern territories in the Caucasus and as they were prior to the wars, such as Dagestan and all of what is now Azerbaijan.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Ottoman ships had been sailing in the Indian Ocean since the year 1518. Ottoman admirals such as Hadim Suleiman Pasha, Seydi Ali Reis and Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis are known to have voyaged to the Mughal imperial ports of Thatta, Surat and Janjira. The Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great himself is known to have exchanged six documents with Suleiman the Magnificent.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman led several naval campaigns against the Portuguese in an attempt to remove them and reestablish trade with the Mughal Empire. Aden in Yemen was captured by the Ottomans in 1538, in order to provide an Ottoman base for raids against Portuguese possessions on the western coast of the Mughal Empire. Sailing on, the Ottomans failed against the Portuguese at the siege of Diu in September 1538, but then returned to Aden, where they fortified the city with 100 pieces of artillery. From this base, Sulayman Pasha managed to take control of the whole country of Yemen, also taking Sana'a.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: With its strong control of the Red Sea, Suleiman successfully managed to dispute control of the trade routes to the Portuguese and maintained a significant level of trade with the Mughal Empire throughout the 16th century.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: From 1526 until 1543, Suleiman stationed over 900 Turkish soldiers to fight alongside the Somali Adal Sultanate led by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi during the Conquest of Abyssinia. After the first Ajuran-Portuguese war, the Ottoman Empire would in 1559 absorb the weakened Adal Sultanate into its domain. This expansion furthered Ottoman rule in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. This also increased its influence in the Indian Ocean to compete with the Portuguese Empire with its close ally, the Ajuran Empire.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: In 1564, Suleiman received an embassy from Aceh (a sultanate on Sumatra, in modern Indonesia), requesting Ottoman support against the Portuguese. As a result, an Ottoman expedition to Aceh was launched, which was able to provide extensive military support to the Acehnese.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Ocean throughout the 16th century. The Ajuran Sultanate allied with the Ottomans defied the Portuguese economic monopoly in the Indian Ocean by employing a new coinage which followed the Ottoman pattern, thus proclaiming an attitude of economic independence in regard to the Portuguese.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Having consolidated his conquests on land, Suleiman was greeted with the news that the fortress of Koroni in Morea (the modern Peloponnese, peninsular Greece) had been lost to Charles V's admiral, Andrea Doria. The presence of the Spanish in the Eastern Mediterranean concerned Suleiman, who saw it as an early indication of Charles V's intention to rival Ottoman dominance in the region. Recognizing the need to reassert naval preeminence in the Mediterranean, Suleiman appointed an exceptional naval commander in the form of Khair ad Din, known to Europeans as Barbarossa. Once appointed admiral-in-chief, Barbarossa was charged with rebuilding the Ottoman fleet.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: In 1535, Charles V led a Holy League of 26,700 soldiers (10,000 Spaniards, 8,000 Italians, 8,000 Germans, and 700 Knights of St. John) to victory against the Ottomans at Tunis, which together with the war against Venice the following year, led Suleiman to accept proposals from Francis I of France to form an alliance against Charles. Huge Muslim territories in North Africa were annexed. The piracy carried on thereafter by the Barbary pirates of North Africa can be seen in the context of the wars against Spain.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: In 1541, the Spaniards led an unsuccessful expedition to Algiers. In 1542, facing a common Habsburg enemy during the Italian Wars, Francis I sought to renew the Franco-Ottoman alliance. In early 1542, Polin successfully negotiated the details of the alliance, with the Ottoman Empire promising to send 60,000 troops against the territories of the German king Ferdinand, as well as 150 galleys against Charles, while France promised to attack Flanders, harass the coasts of Spain with a naval force, and send 40 galleys to assist the Turks for operations in the Levant.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: In August 1551, Ottoman naval commander Turgut Reis attacked and captured Tripoli which had been a possession of the Knights of Malta since 1530. In 1553, Turgut Reis was nominated commander of Tripoli by Suleiman, making the city an important center for piratical raids in the Mediterranean and the capital of the Ottoman province of Tripolitania. In 1560, a powerful naval force was sent to recapture Tripoli, but that force was defeated in the Battle of Djerba.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, when the Knights Hospitallers were re-established as the Knights of Malta in 1530, their actions against Muslim navies quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans, who assembled another massive army in order to dislodge the Knights from Malta. The Ottomans invaded Malta in 1565, undertaking the Great Siege of Malta, which began on 18 May and lasted until 8 September, and is portrayed vividly in the frescoes of Matteo Perez d'Aleccio in the Hall of St. Michael and St. George. At first, it seemed that this would be a repeat of the battle on Rhodes, with most of Malta's cities destroyed and half the Knights killed in battle; but a relief force from Spain entered the battle, resulting in the loss of 10,000 Ottoman troops and the victory of the local Maltese citizenry.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: While Sultan Suleiman was known as "the Magnificent" in the West, he was always "Kanuni" Suleiman or "The Lawgiver" () to his Ottoman subjects. The overriding law of the empire was the Shari'ah, or Sacred Law, which as the divine law of Islam was outside of the Sultan's powers to change. Yet an area of distinct law known as the "Kanuns" (, canonical legislation) was dependent on Suleiman's will alone, covering areas such as criminal law, land tenure and taxation. He collected all the judgments that had been issued by the nine Ottoman Sultans who preceded him. After eliminating duplications and choosing between contradictory statements, he issued a single legal code, all the while being careful not to violate the basic laws of Islam. It was within this framework that Suleiman, supported by his Grand Mufti Ebussuud, sought to reform the legislation to adapt to a rapidly changing empire. When the Kanun laws attained their final form, the code of laws became known as the "kanun‐i Osmani" (), or the "Ottoman laws". Suleiman's legal code was to last more than three hundred years.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: The Sultan also played a role in protecting the Jewish subjects of his empire for centuries to come. In late 1553 or 1554, on the suggestion of his favorite doctor and dentist, the Spanish Jew Moses Hamon, the Sultan issued a "firman" () formally denouncing blood libels against the Jews. Furthermore, Suleiman enacted new criminal and police legislation, prescribing a set of fines for specific offenses, as well as reducing the instances requiring death or mutilation. In the area of taxation, taxes were levied on various goods and produce, including animals, mines, profits of trade, and import-export duties.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Higher "medreses" provided education of university status, whose graduates became "imams" () or teachers. Educational centers were often one of many buildings surrounding the courtyards of mosques, others included libraries, baths, soup kitchens, residences and hospitals for the benefit of the public.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Under Suleiman's patronage, the Ottoman Empire entered the golden age of its cultural development. Hundreds of imperial artistic societies (called the "Ehl-i Hiref", "Community of the Craftsmen") were administered at the Imperial seat, the Topkapı Palace. After an apprenticeship, artists and craftsmen could advance in rank within their field and were paid commensurate wages in quarterly annual installments. Payroll registers that survive testify to the breadth of Suleiman's patronage of the arts, the earliest of the documents dating from 1526 list 40 societies with over 600 members. The "Ehl-i Hiref" attracted the empire's most talented artisans to the Sultan's court, both from the Islamic world and from the recently conquered territories in Europe, resulting in a blend of Arabic, Turkish and European cultures. Artisans in service of the court included painters, book binders, furriers, jewellers and goldsmiths. Whereas previous rulers had been influenced by Persian culture (Suleiman's father, Selim I, wrote poetry in Persian), Suleiman's patronage of the arts saw the Ottoman Empire assert its own artistic legacy.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman himself was an accomplished poet, writing in Persian and Turkish under the takhallus (nom de plume) "Muhibbi" (, "Lover"). Some of Suleiman's verses have become Turkish proverbs, such as the well-known "Everyone aims at the same meaning, but many are the versions of the story". When his young son Mehmed died in 1543, he composed a moving chronogram to commemorate the year: "Peerless among princes, my Sultan Mehmed". In Turkish the chronogram reads ("Şehzadeler güzidesi Sultan Muhammed'üm"), in which the Arabic Abjad numerals total 955, the equivalent in the Islamic calendar of 1543 AD. In addition to Suleiman's own work, many great talents enlivened the literary world during Suleiman's rule, including Fuzûlî and Bâkî. The literary historian Elias John Wilkinson Gibb observed that "at no time, even in Turkey, was greater encouragement given to poetry than during the reign of this Sultan". Suleiman's most famous verse is:


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman also became renowned for sponsoring a series of monumental architectural developments within his empire. The Sultan sought to turn Constantinople into the center of Islamic civilization by a series of projects, including bridges, mosques, palaces and various charitable and social establishments. The greatest of these were built by the Sultan's chief architect, Mimar Sinan, under whom Ottoman architecture reached its zenith. Sinan became responsible for over three hundred monuments throughout the empire, including his two masterpieces, the Süleymaniye and Selimiye mosques—the latter built in Adrianople (now Edirne) in the reign of Suleiman's son Selim II. Suleiman also restored the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Walls of Jerusalem (which are the current walls of the Old City of Jerusalem), renovated the Kaaba in Mecca, and constructed a complex in Damascus.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman loved gardens and his shaykh grew a white tulip in one of the gardens. Some of the nobles in the court had seen the tulip and they also began growing their own. Soon images of the tulip were woven into rugs and fired into ceramics. Suleiman is credited with large-scale cultivation of the tulip and it is thought that the tulips spread throughout Europe because of Suleiman. It is thought that diplomats who visited him were gifted the flowers while visiting his court.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman had two known consorts, though in total there were 17 women in his harem when he was a Şehzade. The mothers of Mahmud, Murad and Raziye are unknown.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman was infatuated with Hurrem Sultan, a harem girl from Ruthenia, then part of Poland. Western diplomats, taking notice of the palace gossip about her, called her "Russelazie" or "Roxelana", referring to her Ruthenian origins. The daughter of an Orthodox priest, she was captured by Tatars from Crimea, sold as a slave in Constantinople, and eventually rose through the ranks of the Harem to become Suleiman's favorite. Hurrem, a former concubine, became the legal wife of the Sultan, much to the astonishment of the observers in the palace and the city. He also allowed Hurrem Sultan to remain with him at court for the rest of her life, breaking another tradition—that when imperial heirs came of age, they would be sent along with the imperial concubine who bore them to govern remote provinces of the Empire, never to return unless their progeny succeeded to the throne.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Before his downfall, Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha was an inseparable friend and lover of Suleiman. In fact, he is referred to by his chroniclers as 'the favourite' (Maḳbūl) along with 'the executed' (Maḳtūl). Historians state that Suleiman I is remembered for 'his passion for two of his slaves: for his beloved Ibrahim when the sultan was a hot-blooded youth, and for his beloved Hurrem when he was mature.'


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Ibrahim was originally a Christian from Parga (in Epirus), who was captured in a raid during the 1499–1503 Ottoman–Venetian War, and was given as a slave to Suleiman most likely in 1514. Ibrahim converted to Islam and Suleiman made him the royal falconer, then promoted him to first officer of the Royal Bedchamber. It was reported that they slept together in the same bed. The sultan also built Ibrahim a lavish palace on the ancient Hippodrome, Istanbul's main forum outside the Hagia Sophia and Topkapı Palace. Despite his following marriage and his new sumptuous residence, Ibrahim sometimes spent the night with Suleiman I at Topkapı Palace. In turn, the sultan occasionally slept at Ibrahim's lodgings. Ibrahim Pasha rose to Grand Vizier in 1523 and commander-in-chief of all the armies. Suleiman also conferred upon Ibrahim Pasha the honor of "beylerbey" of Rumelia (first-ranking military governor-general), granting Ibrahim authority over all Ottoman territories in Europe, as well as command of troops residing within them in times of war. At the time, Ibrahim was only about thirty years old and lacked any actual military expertise; it is said that 'tongues wagged' at this unprecedented promotion straight from palace service to the two highest offices of the empire.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: During his thirteen years as Grand Vizier, his rapid rise to power and vast accumulation of wealth had made Ibrahim many enemies at the Sultan's court. Suleiman's suspicion of Ibrahim was worsened by a quarrel between the latter and the finance secretary ("defterdar") İskender Çelebi. The dispute ended in the disgrace of Çelebi on charges of intrigue, with Ibrahim convincing Suleiman to sentence the "defterdar" to death. Ibrahim also supported Şehzade Mustafa as the successor of Suleiman. This caused disputes between him and Hürrem Sultan, who wanted her sons to succeed to the throne. Ibrahim eventually fell from grace with the Sultan and his wife. Suleiman consulted his Qadi, who suggested that Ibrahim be put to death. The Sultan recruited assassins and ordered them to strangle Ibrahim in his sleep.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Sultan Suleiman's two known consorts (Hürrem and Mahidevran) had borne him six sons, four of whom survived past the 1550s. They were Mustafa, Selim, Bayezid, and Cihangir. Of these, the eldest was not Hürrem's son, but rather Mahidevran's. Hürrem is usually held at least partly responsible for the intrigues in nominating a successor, though there is no evidence to support this. Although she was Suleiman's wife, she exercised no official public role. This did not, however, prevent Hürrem from wielding powerful political influence. Since the Empire lacked, until the reign of Ahmed I, any formal means of nominating a successor, successions usually involved the death of competing princes in order to avert civil unrest and rebellions.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: By 1552, when the campaign against Persia had begun with Rüstem appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition, intrigues against Mustafa began. Rüstem sent one of Suleiman's most trusted men to report that since Suleiman was not at the head of the army, the soldiers thought the time had come to put a younger prince on the throne; at the same time, he spread rumours that Mustafa had proved receptive to the idea. Angered by what he came to believe were Mustafa's plans to claim the throne, the following summer upon return from his campaign in Persia, Suleiman summoned him to his tent in the Ereğli valley. When Mustafa entered his father's tent to meet with him, Suleiman's eunuchs attacked Mustafa, and after a long struggle the mutes killed him using a bow-string.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Cihangir is said to have died of grief a few months after the news of his half-brother's murder. The two surviving brothers, Selim and Bayezid, were given command in different parts of the empire. Within a few years, however, civil war broke out between the brothers, each supported by his loyal forces. With the aid of his father's army, Selim defeated Bayezid in Konya in 1559, leading the latter to seek refuge with the Safavids along with his four sons. Following diplomatic exchanges, the Sultan demanded from the Safavid Shah that Bayezid be either extradited or executed. In return for large amounts of gold, the Shah allowed a Turkish executioner to strangle Bayezid and his four sons in 1561, clearing the path for Selim's succession to the throne five years later.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: On 6 September 1566, Suleiman, who had set out from Constantinople to command an expedition to Hungary, died before an Ottoman victory at the Siege of Szigetvár in Hungary at the age of 71 and his Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha kept his death secret during the retreat for the enthronement of Selim II. The sultan's body was taken back to Istanbul to be buried, while his heart, liver, and some other organs were buried in Turbék, outside Szigetvár. A mausoleum constructed above the burial site came to be regarded as a holy place and pilgrimage site. Within a decade a mosque and Sufi hospice were built near it, and the site was protected by a salaried garrison of several dozen men.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: The formation of Suleiman's legacy began even before his death. Throughout his reign literary works were commissioned praising Suleiman and constructing an image of him as an ideal ruler, most significantly by Celalzade Mustafa, chancellor of the empire from 1534 to 1557. Later Ottoman writers applied this idealised image of Suleiman to the Near Eastern literary genre of advice literature named "naṣīḥatnāme", urging sultans to conform to his model of rulership and to maintain the empire's institutions in their sixteenth-century form. Such writers were pushing back against the political and institutional transformation of the empire after the middle of the sixteenth century, and portrayed deviation from the norm as it had existed under Suleiman as evidence of the decline of the empire. Western historians, failing to recognise that these 'decline writers' were working within an established literary genre and often had deeply personal reasons for criticizing the empire, long took their claims at face value and consequently adopted the idea that the empire entered a period of decline after the death of Suleiman. Since the 1980s this view has been thoroughly reexamined, and modern scholars have come to overwhelmingly reject the idea of decline, labelling it an "untrue myth".


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman's conquests had brought under the control of the Empire major Muslim cities (such as Baghdad), many Balkan provinces (reaching present day Croatia and Hungary), and most of North Africa. His expansion into Europe had given the Ottoman Turks a powerful presence in the European balance of power. Indeed, such was the perceived threat of the Ottoman Empire under the reign of Suleiman that Austria's ambassador Busbecq warned of Europe's imminent conquest: "On [the Turks'] side are the resources of a mighty empire, strength unimpaired, habituation to victory, endurance of toil, unity, discipline, frugality and watchfulness ... Can we doubt what the result will be? ... When the Turks have settled with Persia, they will fly at our throats supported by the might of the whole East; how unprepared we are I dare not say." Suleiman's legacy was not, however, merely in the military field. The French traveler Jean de Thévenot bears witness a century later to the "strong agricultural base of the country, the well being of the peasantry, the abundance of staple foods and the pre-eminence of organization in Suleiman's government".


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Even thirty years after his death, "Sultan Solyman" was quoted by the English playwright William Shakespeare as a military prodigy in "The Merchant of Venice", where the Prince of Morocco boasts about his prowess by saying that he defeated Suleiman in three battles (Act 2, Scene 1).


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Through the distribution of court patronage, Suleiman also presided over a Golden Age in Ottoman arts, witnessing immense achievement in the realms of architecture, literature, art, theology and philosophy. Today the skyline of the Bosphorus and of many cities in modern Turkey and the former Ottoman provinces, are still adorned with the architectural works of Mimar Sinan. One of these, the Süleymaniye Mosque, is the final resting place of Suleiman: he is buried in a domed mausoleum attached to the mosque.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Nevertheless, assessments of Suleiman's reign have frequently fallen into the trap of the Great Man theory of history. The administrative, cultural, and military achievements of the age were a product not of Suleiman alone, but also of the many talented figures who served him, such as grand viziers Ibrahim Pasha and Rüstem Pasha, the Grand Mufti Ebussuud Efendi, who played a major role in legal reform, and chancellor and chronicler Celalzade Mustafa, who played a major role in bureaucratic expansion and in constructing Suleiman's legacy.


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: In an inscription dating from 1537 on the citadel of Bender, Moldova, Suleiman the Magnificent gave expression to his power:


title: Suleiman the Magnificent

text: Suleiman is present on one of the 23 relief portraits over the gallery doors of the House Chamber of the United States Capitol that depicts historical figures noted for their work in establishing the principles that underlie American law.


title: Christmas

text: Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast and initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many countries, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, and forms an integral part of the holiday season organized around it.


title: Christmas

text: The traditional Christmas narrative recounted in the New Testament, known as the Nativity of Jesus, says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in accordance with messianic prophecies. When Joseph and Mary arrived in the city, the inn had no room and so they were offered a stable where the Christ Child was soon born, with angels proclaiming this news to shepherds who then spread the word.


title: Christmas

text: There are different hypotheses regarding the date of Jesus' birth and in the early fourth century, the church fixed the date as December 25. This corresponds to the traditional date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar. It is exactly nine months after Annunciation on March 25, also the date of the spring equinox. Most Christians celebrate on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar, which has been adopted almost universally in the civil calendars used in countries throughout the world. However, part of the Eastern Christian Churches celebrate Christmas on December 25 of the older Julian calendar, which currently corresponds to January 7 in the Gregorian calendar. For Christians, believing that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity, rather than knowing Jesus' exact birth date, is considered to be the primary purpose in celebrating Christmas.


title: Christmas

text: The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, and secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift giving; completing an Advent calendar or Advent wreath; Christmas music and caroling; viewing a Nativity play; an exchange of Christmas cards; church services; a special meal; and the display of various Christmas decorations, including Christmas trees, Christmas lights, nativity scenes, garlands, wreaths, mistletoe, and holly. In addition, several closely related and often interchangeable figures, known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and Christkind, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and have their own body of traditions and lore. Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. Over the past few centuries, Christmas has had a steadily growing economic effect in many regions of the world.


title: Christmas

text: The English word "Christmas" is a shortened form of "Christ's Mass". The word is recorded as "Crīstesmæsse" in 1038 and "Cristes-messe" in 1131. "Crīst" (genitive "Crīstes") is from Greek "Khrīstos" (Χριστός), a translation of Hebrew "Māšîaḥ" (מָשִׁיחַ), "Messiah", meaning "anointed"; and "mæsse" is from Latin "missa", the celebration of the Eucharist.


title: Christmas

text: The form "Christenmas" was also used during some periods, but is now considered archaic and dialectal. The term derives from Middle English "Cristenmasse", meaning "Christian mass". "Xmas" is an abbreviation of "Christmas" found particularly in print, based on the initial letter chi (Χ) in Greek "Khrīstos" (Χριστός) ("Christ"), although some style guides discourage its use. This abbreviation has precedent in Middle English "Χρ̄es masse" (where "Χρ̄" is an abbreviation for Χριστός).


title: Christmas

text: In addition to "Christmas", the holiday has had various other English names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as "midwinter", or, more rarely, as "Nātiuiteð" (from Latin "nātīvitās" below). "Nativity", meaning "birth", is from Latin "nātīvitās". In Old English, "Gēola" ("Yule") referred to the period corresponding to December and January, which was eventually equated with Christian Christmas. "Noel" (also "Nowel" or "Nowell", as in "The First Nowell") entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French "noël" or "naël", itself ultimately from the Latin "nātālis (diēs)" meaning "birth (day)".


title: Christmas

text: The gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem to the Virgin Mary. In the gospel of Luke, Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, and Jesus was born there and placed in a manger. Angels proclaimed him a savior for all people, and shepherds came to adore him. The gospel of Matthew adds that the magi followed a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, born the king of the Jews. King Herod ordered the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family fled to Egypt and later returned to Nazareth.


title: Christmas

text: The nativity sequences included in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke prompted early Christian writers to suggest various dates for the anniversary.


title: Christmas

text: At the time of the 2nd century, the "earliest church records" indicate that "Christians were remembering and celebrating the birth of the Lord", an "observance [that] sprang up organically from the authentic devotion of ordinary believers." Though Christmas did not appear on the lists of festivals given by the early Christian writers Irenaeus and Tertullian, the Chronograph of 354 records that a Christmas celebration took place in Rome eight days before the calends of January. This section was written in AD 336, during the brief pontificate of Pope Mark.


title: Christmas

text: In the East, the birth of Jesus was celebrated in connection with the Epiphany on January 6. This holiday was not primarily about the nativity, but rather the baptism of Jesus. Christmas was promoted in the East as part of the revival of Orthodox Christianity that followed the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced in Constantinople in 379, in Antioch by John Chrysostom towards the end of the fourth century, probably in 388, and in Alexandria in the following century.


title: Christmas

text: The first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome on December 25, AD 336. In the 3rd century, the date of the nativity was the subject of great interest. Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria wrote:


title: Christmas

text: The early Church Fathers John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, and Jerome attested to 25 December as the date of Christmas. The primitive Church connected Jesus to the Sun through the use of such phrases as "Sun of righteousness." The early Christian writer Lactantius wrote "the east is attached to God because he is the source of light and the illuminator of the world and he makes us rise toward eternal life." It is for this reason that the early Christians established the direction of prayer as being eastward, towards the rising sun. In the Roman Empire, in which many Christians resided, the winter solstice was marked on December 25.


title: Christmas

text: In 567, the Council of Tours put in place the season of Christmastide, proclaiming "the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany as a sacred and festive season, and established the duty of Advent fasting in preparation for the feast." This was done in order to solve the "administrative problem for the Roman Empire as it tried to coordinate the solar Julian calendar with the lunar calendars of its provinces in the east."


title: Christmas

text: Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century. After this controversy ran its course, the prominence of the holiday declined for a few centuries. The feast regained prominence after 800 when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day.


title: Christmas

text: In Puritan England, Christmas was banned, with Puritans considering it a Catholic invention and also associating the day with drunkenness and other misbehaviour. It was restored as a legal holiday in England in 1660 when Puritan legislation was declared null and void, but it remained disreputable in the minds of some. In the early 19th century, Christmas festivities and services became widespread with the rise of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England that emphasized the centrality of Christmas in Christianity and charity to the poor, along with Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and other authors emphasizing family, children, kind-heartedness, gift-giving, and Santa Claus (for Irving), or Father Christmas (for Dickens).


title: Christmas

text: Various theories have been offered with respect to the establishment of the dates on which the Christian Churches came to celebrate Christmas:


title: Christmas

text: The calculation hypothesis suggests that an earlier holiday, the Annunciation (which celebrated the conception of Jesus), held on March 25 became associated with the Incarnation. Christmas was then calculated as nine months later. The calculation hypothesis was proposed by French writer Louis Duchesne in 1889. The Bible in records the annunciation to Mary to be at the time when Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, was in her sixth month of pregnancy (cf. "Nativity of Saint John the Baptist"). Thus, the ecclesiastical holiday to commemorate the Annunciation of the Lord was created in the seventh century and was assigned to be celebrated on March 25; this date is nine months before Christmas, in addition to being the traditional date of the equinox. It is unrelated to the Quartodeciman, which had been forgotten by this time.


title: Christmas

text: Early Christians celebrated the life of Jesus on a date considered equivalent to 14 Nisan (Passover) on the local calendar. Because Passover was held on the 14th of the month, this feast is referred to as the Quartodeciman. All the major events of Christ's life, especially the passion, were celebrated on this date. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions Passover, presumably celebrated according to the local calendar in Corinth. Tertullian (d. 220), who lived in Latin-speaking North Africa, gives the date of passion celebration as March 25. The date of the passion was moved to Good Friday in 165. According to the calculation hypothesis, the celebration of the Quartodeciman continued in some areas and the feast became associated with Incarnation.


title: Christmas

text: The calculation hypothesis is considered academically to be "a thoroughly viable hypothesis", though not certain. It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men were born and died on the same day, so lived a whole number of years, without fractions: Jesus was therefore considered to have been conceived on March 25, as he died on March 25, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan. A passage in "Commentary on the Prophet Daniel" (204) by Hippolytus of Rome identifies December 25 as the date of the nativity. This passage is generally considered a late interpolation. But the manuscript includes another passage, one that is more likely to be authentic, that gives the passion as March 25.


title: Christmas

text: In 221, Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160 – c. 240) gave March 25 as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus in his universal history. This conclusion was based on solar symbolism, with March 25 the date of the equinox. As this implies a birth in December, it is sometimes claimed to be the earliest identification of December 25 as the nativity. However, Africanus was not such an influential writer that it is likely he determined the date of Christmas.


title: Christmas

text: The treatise "De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae," pseudepigraphically attributed to John Chrysostom and dating to the early fourth century, also argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as March 25. This anonymous tract also states: "But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December ... the eight before the calends of January [25 December] ..., But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord...? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice."


title: Christmas

text: December 25 was considered the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar, though actually it occurred on the 23rd or 24th at that time. A late fourth-century sermon by Saint Augustine explains why this was a fitting day to celebrate Christ's nativity: "Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase."


title: Christmas

text: Linking Jesus to the Sun was supported by various Biblical passages. Jesus was considered to be the "Sun of righteousness" prophesied by Malachi: "Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise, and healing is in his wings."


title: Christmas

text: Such solar symbolism could support more than one date of birth. An anonymous work known as "De Pascha Computus" (243) linked the idea that creation began at the spring equinox, on March 25, with the conception or birth (the word "nascor" can mean either) of Jesus on March 28, the day of the creation of the sun in the Genesis account. One translation reads: "O the splendid and divine providence of the Lord, that on that day, the very day, on which the sun was made, March 28, a Wednesday, Christ should be born".


title: Christmas

text: In the 17th century, Isaac Newton, who, coincidentally, was born on December 25, argued that the date of Christmas may have been selected to correspond with the solstice.


title: Christmas

text: Conversely, according to Steven Hijmans of the University of Alberta, "It is cosmic symbolism ... which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the southern solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ, and the northern solstice as that of John the Baptist, supplemented by the equinoxes as their respective dates of conception."


title: Christmas

text: The rival "History of Religions" hypothesis suggests that the Church selected December 25 date to appropriate festivities held by the Romans in honor of the Sun god Sol Invictus. This cult was established by Aurelian in 274. An explicit expression of this theory appears in an annotation of uncertain date added to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi. The scribe who added it wrote:


title: Christmas

text: In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti" and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church. However, it has been also argued that, on the contrary, the Emperor Aurelian, who in 274 instituted the holiday of the "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti", did so partly as an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already important for Christians in Rome.


title: Christmas

text: Hermann Usener and others proposed that the Christians chose this day because it was the Roman feast celebrating the birthday of Sol Invictus. Modern scholar S. E. Hijmans, however, states that "While they were aware that pagans called this day the 'birthday' of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas." Moreover, Thomas J. Talley holds that the Roman Emperor Aurelian placed a festival of Sol Invictus on December 25 in order to compete with the growing rate of the Christian Church, which had already been celebrating Christmas on that date first. In the judgement of the Church of England Liturgical Commission, the History of Religions hypothesis has been challenged by a view based on an old tradition, according to which the date of Christmas was fixed at nine months after March 25, the date of the vernal equinox, on which the Annunciation was celebrated. Adam C. English, Professor of Religion at Campbell University, writes:


title: Christmas

text: With regard to a December religious feast of the deified Sun (Sol), as distinct from a solstice feast of the birth (or rebirth) of the astronomical sun, Hijmans has commented that "while the winter solstice on or around December 25 was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas". "Thomas Talley has shown that, although the Emperor Aurelian's dedication of a temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius (C.E. 274) probably took place on the 'Birthday of the Invincible Sun' on December 25, the cult of the sun in pagan Rome ironically did not celebrate the winter solstice nor any of the other quarter-tense days, as one might expect." The "Oxford Companion to Christian Thought" remarks on the uncertainty about the order of precedence between the religious celebrations of the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun and of the birthday of Jesus, stating that the hypothesis that December 25 was chosen for celebrating the birth of Jesus on the basis of the belief that his conception occurred on March 25 "potentially establishes 25 December as a Christian festival before Aurelian's decree, which, when promulgated, might have provided for the Christian feast both opportunity and challenge".


title: Christmas

text: Many popular customs associated with Christmas developed independently of the commemoration of Jesus' birth, with some claiming that certain elements are Christianized and have origins in pre-Christian festivals that were celebrated by pagan populations who were later converted to Christianity; other scholars reject these claims and affirm that Christmas customs largely developed in a Christian context. The prevailing atmosphere of Christmas has also continually evolved since the holiday's inception, ranging from a sometimes raucous, drunken, carnival-like state in the Middle Ages, to a tamer family-oriented and children-centered theme introduced in a 19th-century transformation. The celebration of Christmas was banned on more than one occasion within certain groups, such as the Puritans and Jehovah's Witnesses (who do not celebrate birthdays in general), due to concerns that it was too unbiblical.


title: Christmas

text: Prior to and through the early Christian centuries, winter festivals were the most popular of the year in many European pagan cultures. Reasons included the fact that less agricultural work needed to be done during the winter, as well as an expectation of better weather as spring approached. Celtic winter herbs such as mistletoe and ivy, and the custom of kissing under a mistletoe, are common in modern Christmas celebrations in the English-speaking countries.


title: Christmas

text: The pre-Christian Germanic peoples—including the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse—celebrated a winter festival called Yule, held in the late December to early January period, yielding modern English "yule", today used as a synonym for "Christmas". In Germanic language-speaking areas, numerous elements of modern Christmas folk custom and iconography may have originated from Yule, including the Yule log, Yule boar, and the Yule goat. Often leading a ghostly procession through the sky (the Wild Hunt), the long-bearded god Odin is referred to as "the Yule one" and "Yule father" in Old Norse texts, while other gods are referred to as "Yule beings". On the other hand, as there are no reliable existing references to a Christmas log prior to the 16th century, the burning of the Christmas block may have been an early modern invention by Christians unrelated to the pagan practice.


title: Christmas

text: In eastern Europe also, old pagan traditions were incorporated into Christmas celebrations, an example being the Koleda, which was incorporated into the Christmas carol.


title: Christmas

text: In the Early Middle Ages, Christmas Day was overshadowed by Epiphany, which in western Christianity focused on the visit of the magi. But the medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays. The forty days before Christmas became the "forty days of St. Martin" (which began on November 11, the feast of St. Martin of Tours), now known as Advent. In Italy, former Saturnalian traditions were attached to Advent. Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 – January 5); a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide or Twelve Holy Days.


title: Christmas

text: The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day in 800. King Edmund the Martyr was anointed on Christmas in 855 and King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.


title: Christmas

text: By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where various magnates celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which 28 oxen and 300 sheep were eaten. The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally performed by a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form. "Misrule"—drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling—was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day, and there was special Christmas ale.


title: Christmas

text: Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival that incorporated ivy, holly, and other evergreens. Christmas gift-giving during the Middle Ages was usually between people with legal relationships, such as tenant and landlord. The annual indulgence in eating, dancing, singing, sporting, and card playing escalated in England, and by the 17th century the Christmas season featured lavish dinners, elaborate masques, and pageants. In 1607, King James I insisted that a play be acted on Christmas night and that the court indulge in games. It was during the Reformation in 16th–17th-century Europe that many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or "Christkindl", and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.


title: Christmas

text: Following the Protestant Reformation, many of the new denominations, including the Anglican Church and Lutheran Church, continued to celebrate Christmas. In 1629, the Anglican poet John Milton penned "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity", a poem that has since been read by many during Christmastide. Donald Heinz, a professor at California State University, states that Martin Luther "inaugurated a period in which Germany would produce a unique culture of Christmas, much copied in North America." Among the congregations of the Dutch Reformed Church, Christmas was celebrated as one of the principal evangelical feasts.


title: Christmas

text: However, in 17th century England, some groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast". In contrast, the established Anglican Church "pressed for a more elaborate observance of feasts, penitential seasons, and saints' days. The calendar reform became a major point of tension between the Anglican party and the Puritan party." The Catholic Church also responded, promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old-style Christmas generosity. Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647.


title: Christmas

text: Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. The book, "The Vindication of Christmas" (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing. During the ban, semi-clandestine religious services marking Christ's birth continued to be held, and people sang carols in secret.


title: Christmas

text: The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban, and Christmas was again freely celebrated in England. Many Calvinist clergymen disapproved of Christmas celebration. As such, in Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland discouraged the observance of Christmas, and though James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, attendance at church was scant. The Parliament of Scotland officially abolished the observance of Christmas in 1640, claiming that the church had been "purged of all superstitious observation of days". Whereas in England, Wales and Ireland Christmas Day is a common law holiday, having been a customary holiday since time immemorial, it was not until 1871 that it was designated a bank holiday in Scotland.


title: Christmas

text: Following the Restoration of Charles II, "Poor Robin's Almanack" contained the lines: "Now thanks to God for Charles return, / Whose absence made old Christmas mourn. / For then we scarcely did it know, / Whether it Christmas were or no." The diary of James Woodforde, from the latter half of the 18th century, details the observance of Christmas and celebrations associated with the season over a number of years.


title: Christmas

text: As in England, Puritans in Colonial America staunchly opposed the observation of Christmas. The Pilgrims of New England pointedly spent their first December 25 in the New World working normally. Puritans such as Cotton Mather condemned Christmas both because scripture did not mention its observance and because Christmas celebrations of the day often involved boisterous behavior. Many non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England. Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659. The ban on Christmas observance was revoked in 1681 by English governor Edmund Andros, but it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.


title: Christmas

text: At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Pennsylvania Dutch settlers, predominantly Moravian settlers of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas trees in America as well as the first Nativity Scenes. Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.


title: Christmas

text: George Washington attacked Hessian (German) mercenaries on the day after Christmas during the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, Christmas being much more popular in Germany than in America at this time.


title: Christmas

text: With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power during the era of Revolutionary France, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was renamed the "equality cake" under anticlerical government policies.


title: Christmas

text: In the early-19th century, writers imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the novel "A Christmas Carol", which helped revive the "spirit" of Christmas and seasonal merriment. Its instant popularity played a major role in portraying Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion.


title: Christmas

text: Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, linking "worship and feasting, within a context of social reconciliation." Superimposing his humanitarian vision of the holiday, in what has been termed "Carol Philosophy", Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit. A prominent phrase from the tale, "Merry Christmas", was popularized following the appearance of the story. This coincided with the appearance of the Oxford Movement and the growth of Anglo-Catholicism, which led a revival in traditional rituals and religious observances.


title: Christmas

text: The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, with "Bah! Humbug!" dismissive of the festive spirit. In 1843, the first commercial Christmas card was produced by Sir Henry Cole. The revival of the Christmas Carol began with William Sandys's "Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern" (1833), with the first appearance in print of "The First Noel", "I Saw Three Ships", "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", popularized in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".


title: Christmas

text: In Britain, the Christmas tree was introduced in the early 19th century by the German-born Queen Charlotte. In 1832, the future Queen Victoria wrote about her delight at having a Christmas tree, hung with lights, ornaments, and presents placed round it. After her marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became more widespread throughout Britain.


title: Christmas

text: An image of the British royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle created a sensation when it was published in the "Illustrated London News" in 1848. A modified version of this image was published in "Godey's Lady's Book", Philadelphia in 1850. By the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become common in America.


title: Christmas

text: In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving which appear in his "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." and "Old Christmas". Irving's stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted English Christmas festivities he experienced while staying in Aston Hall, Birmingham, England, that had largely been abandoned, and he used the tract "Vindication of Christmas" (1652) of Old English Christmas traditions, that he had transcribed into his journal as a format for his stories.


title: Christmas

text: In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (popularly known by its first line: "Twas the Night Before Christmas").


title: Christmas

text: The poem helped popularize the tradition of exchanging gifts, and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance.


title: Christmas

text: This also started the cultural conflict between the holiday's spiritual significance and its associated commercialism that some see as corrupting the holiday. In her 1850 book "The First Christmas in New England", Harriet Beecher Stowe includes a character who complains that the true meaning of Christmas was lost in a shopping spree.


title: Christmas

text: While the celebration of Christmas was not yet customary in some regions in the U.S., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow detected "a transition state about Christmas here in New England" in 1856. "The old puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so."


title: Christmas

text: In Reading, Pennsylvania, a newspaper remarked in 1861, "Even our presbyterian friends who have hitherto steadfastly ignored Christmas—threw open their church doors and assembled in force to celebrate the anniversary of the Savior's birth."


title: Christmas

text: The First Congregational Church of Rockford, Illinois, "although of genuine Puritan stock", was 'preparing for a grand Christmas jubilee', a news correspondent reported in 1864. By 1860, fourteen states including several from New England had adopted Christmas as a legal holiday. In 1875, Louis Prang introduced the Christmas card to Americans. He has been called the "father of the American Christmas card". On June 28, 1870, Christmas was formally declared a United States federal holiday.


title: Christmas

text: During the First World War and particularly (but not exclusively) in 1914, a series of informal truces took place for Christmas between opposing armies. The truces, which were organised spontaneously by fighting men, ranged from promises not to shoot shouted at a distance in order to ease the pressure of war for the day to friendly socializing, gift giving and even sport between enemies. These incidents became a well known and semi-mythologised part of popular memory. They have been described as a symbol of common humanity even in the darkest of situations and used to demonstrate to children the ideals of Christmas.


title: Christmas

text: Up to the 1950s in the UK, many Christmas customs were restricted to the upper classes and better-off families. The mass of the population had not adopted many of the Christmas rituals that later became general. The Christmas tree was rare. Christmas dinner might be beef or goose – certainly not turkey. In their stockings children might get an apple, orange, and sweets. Full celebration of a family Christmas with all the trimmings only became widespread with increased prosperity from the 1950s. National papers were published on Christmas Day until 1912. Post was still delivered on Christmas Day until 1961. League football matches continued in Scotland until the 1970s while in England they ceased at the end of the 1950s.


title: Christmas

text: Under the state atheism of the Soviet Union, after its foundation in 1917, Christmas celebrations—along with other Christian holidays—were prohibited in public. During the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, the League of Militant Atheists encouraged school pupils to campaign against Christmas traditions, such as the Christmas tree, as well as other Christian holidays, including Easter; the League established an antireligious holiday to be the 31st of each month as a replacement. At the height of this persecution, in 1929, on Christmas Day, children in Moscow were encouraged to spit on crucifixes as a protest against the holiday. Instead, the importance of the holiday and all its trappings, such as the Christmas tree and gift-giving, was transferred to the New Year. It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the persecution ended and Orthodox Christmas became a state holiday again for the first time in Russia after seven decades.