title: Anglo-Saxons

text: In the 10th century, Dunstan brought Athelwold to Glastonbury, where the two of them set up a monastery on Benedictine lines. For many years, this was the only monastery in England that strictly followed the Benedictine Rule and observed complete monastic discipline. What Mechthild Gretsch calls an "Aldhelm Seminar" developed at Glastonbury, and the effects of this seminar on the curriculum of learning and study in Anglo-Saxon England were enormous. Royal power was put behind the reforming impulses of Dunstan and Athelwold, helping them to enforce their reform ideas. This happened first at the Old Minster in Winchester, before the reformers built new foundations and refoundations at Thorney, Peterborough, and Ely, among other places. Benedictine monasticism spread throughout England, and these became centers of learning again, run by people trained in Glastonbury, with one rule, the works of Aldhelm at the center of their curricula but also influenced by the vernacular efforts of Alfred. From this mixture sprung a great flowering of literary production.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Soldiers throughout the country were summoned, for both offensive and defensive war; early armies consisted essentially of household bands, while later on men were recruited on a territorial basis. The mustering of an army, annually at times, occupied an important place in Frankish history, both military and constitutional. The English kingdoms appear to have known no institution similar to this. The earliest reference is Bede's account of the overthrow of the Northumbrian Æthelfrith by Rædwald overlord of the southern English. Rædwald raised a large army, presumably from among the kings who accepted his overlordship, and "not giving him time to summon and assemble his whole army, Rædwald met him with a much greater force and slew him on the Mercian border on the east bank of the river Idle." At the Battle of Edington in 878, when the Danes made a surprise attack on Alfred at Chippenham after Twelfth Night, Alfred retreated to Athelney after Easter and then seven weeks after Easter mustered an army at "Egbert's stone". It is not difficult to imagine that Alfred sent out word to the ealdormen to call his men to arms. This may explain the delay, and it is probably no more than coincidence that the army mustered at the beginning of May, a time when there would have been sufficient grass for the horses. There is also information about the mustering of fleets in the eleventh century. From 992 to 1066 fleets were assembled at London, or returned to the city at the end of their service, on several occasions. Where they took up station depended on the quarter from which a threat was expected: Sandwich if invasion was expected from the north, or the Isle of Wight if it was from Normandy.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Once they left home, these armies and fleets had to be supplied with food and clothing for the men as well as forage for the horses. Yet if armies of the seventh and eighth centuries were accompanied by servants and a supply train of lesser free men, Alfred found these arrangements insufficient to defeat the Vikings. One of his reforms was to divide his military resources into thirds. One part manned the burhs and found the permanent garrisons which would make it impossible for the Danes to overrun Wessex, although they would also take to the field when extra soldiers were needed. The remaining two would take it in turns to serve. They were allocated a fixed term of service and brought the necessary provisions with them. This arrangement did not always function well. On one occasion a division on service went home in the middle of blockading a Danish army on Thorney Island; its provisions were consumed and its term had expired before the king came to relieve them. This method of division and rotation remained in force up to 1066. In 917, when armies from Wessex and Mercia were in the field from early April until November, one division went home and another took over. Again, in 1052 when Edward's fleet was waiting at Sandwich to intercept Godwine's return, the ships returned to London to take on new earls and crews. The importance of supply, vital to military success, was appreciated even if it was taken for granted and features only incidentally in the sources.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Military training and strategy are two important matters on which the sources are typically silent. There are no references in literature or laws to men training, and so it is necessary to fall back on inference. For the noble warrior, his childhood was of first importance in learning both individual military skills and the teamwork essential for success in battle. Perhaps the games the youthful Cuthbert played ('wrestling, jumping, running, and every other exercise') had some military significance. Turning to strategy, of the period before Alfred the evidence gives the impression that Anglo-Saxon armies fought battles frequently. Battle was risky and best avoided unless all the factors were on your side. But if you were in a position so advantageous that you were willing to take the chance, it is likely that your enemy would be in such a weak position that he would avoid battle and pay tribute. Battles put the princes' lives at risk, as is demonstrated by the Northumbrian and Mercian overlordships brought to an end by a defeat in the field. Gillingham has shown how few pitched battles Charlemagne and Richard I chose to fight.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: A defensive strategy becomes more apparent in the later part of Alfred's reign. It was built around the possession of fortified places and the close pursuit of the Danes to harass them and impede their preferred occupation of plundering. Alfred and his lieutenants were able to fight the Danes to a standstill by their repeated ability to pursue and closely besiege them in fortified camps throughout the country. The fortification of sites at Witham, Buckingham, Towcester and Colchester persuaded the Danes of the surrounding regions to submit. The key to this warfare was sieges and the control of fortified places. It is clear that the new fortresses had permanent garrisons, and that they were supported by the inhabitants of the existing burhs when danger threatened. This is brought out most clearly in the description of the campaigns of 917 in the "Chronicle", but throughout the conquest of the Danelaw by Edward and Æthelflæd it is clear that a sophisticated and coordinated strategy was being applied.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: In 973, a single currency was introduced into England in order to bring about political unification, but by concentrating bullion production at many coastal mints, the new rulers of England created an obvious target which attracted a new wave of Viking invasions, which came close to breaking up the kingdom of the English. From 980 onwards, the "Anglo -Saxon Chronicle" records renewed raiding against England. At first, the raids were probing ventures by small numbers of ships' crews, but soon grew in size and effect, until the only way of dealing with the Vikings appeared to be to pay protection money to buy them off: "And in that year [991] it was determined that tribute should first be paid to the Danish men because of the great terror they were causing along the coast. The first payment was 10,000 pounds."


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The payment of Danegeld had to be underwritten by a huge balance of payments surplus; this could only be achieved by stimulating exports and cutting imports, itself accomplished through currency devaluation. This affected everyone in the kingdom.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Helena Hamerow suggests that the prevailing model of working life and settlement, particularly for the early period, was one of shifting settlement and building tribal kinship. The mid-Saxon period saw diversification, the development of enclosures, the beginning of the toft system, closer management of livestock, the gradual spread of the mould-board plough, 'informally regular plots' and a greater permanence, with further settlement consolidation thereafter foreshadowing post-Norman Conquest villages. The later periods saw a proliferation of service features including barns, mills and latrines, most markedly on high-status sites. Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period as Hamerow suggests, "local and extended kin groups remained...the essential unit of production". This is very noticeable in the early period. However, by the tenth and eleventh centuries, the rise of the manor and its significance in terms of both settlement and the management of land, which becomes very evident in the Domesday Book.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The collection of buildings discovered at Yeavering formed part of an Anglo-Saxon royal vill or king's tun. These 'tun' consisted of a series of buildings designed to provide short-term accommodation for the king and his household. It is thought that the king would have travelled throughout his land dispensing justice and authority and collecting rents from his various estates. Such visits would be periodic, and it is likely that he would visit each royal villa only once or twice per year. The Latin term "villa regia" which Bede uses of the site suggests an estate centre as the functional heart of a territory held in the king's demesne. The territory is the land whose surplus production is taken into the centre as food-render to support the king and his retinue on their periodic visits as part of a progress around the kingdom. This territorial model, known as a multiple estate or shire, has been developed in a range of studies. Colm O'Brien, in applying this to Yeavering, proposes a geographical definition of the wider shire of Yeavering and also a geographical definition of the principal estate whose structures Hope-Taylor excavated. One characteristic that the king's tun shared with some other groups of places is that it was a point of public assembly. People came together not only to give the king and his entourage board and lodging; but they attended upon the king in order to have disputes settled, cases appealed, lands granted, gifts given, appointments made, laws promulgated, policy debated, and ambassadors heard. People also assembled for other reasons, such as to hold fairs and to trade.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The first creations of towns are linked to a system of specialism at individual settlements, which is evidenced in studying place-names. Sutterton, "shoe-makers' tun" (in the area of the Danelaw such places are Sutterby) was so named because local circumstances allowed the growth of a craft recognised by the people of surrounding places. Similarly with Sapperton, the "soap-makers' tun". While Boultham, the "meadow with burdock plants", may well have developed a specialism in the production of burrs for wool-carding, since meadows with burdock merely growing in them must have been relatively numerous. From places named for their services or location within a single district, a category of which the most obvious perhaps are the Eastons and Westons, it is possible to move outwards to glimpse component settlements within larger economic units. Names betray some role within a system of seasonal pasture, Winderton in Warwickshire is the winter tun and various Somertons are self-explanatory. Hardwicks are dairy farms and Swinhopes the valleys where pigs were pastured.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Settlement patterns as well as village plans in England fall into two great categories: scattered farms and homesteads in upland and woodland Britain, nucleated villages across a swathe of central England. The chronology of nucleated villages is much debated and not yet clear. Yet there is strong evidence to support the view that nucleation occurred in the tenth century or perhaps the ninth, and was a development parallel to the growth of towns.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Alfred's reference to 'praying men, fighting men and working men' is far from a complete description of his society.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Women in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms appear to have enjoyed considerable independence, whether as abbesses of the great 'double monasteries' of monks and nuns founded during the seventh and eighth centuries, as major land-holders recorded in Domesday Book (1086), or as ordinary members of society. They could act as principals in legal transactions, were entitled to the same weregild as men of the same class, and were considered 'oath-worthy', with the right to defend themselves on oath against false accusations or claims. Sexual and other offences against them were penalised heavily. There is evidence that even married women could own property independently, and some surviving wills are in the joint names of husband and wife.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Marriage comprised a contract between the woman's family and the prospective bridegroom, who was required to pay a 'bride-price' in advance of the wedding and a 'morning gift' following its consummation. The latter became the woman's personal property, but the former may have been paid to her relatives, at least during the early period. Widows were in a particularly favourable position, with inheritance rights, custody of their children and authority over dependents. However, a degree of vulnerability may be reflected in laws stating that they should not be forced into nunneries or second marriages against their will. The system of primogeniture (inheritance by the first-born male) was not introduced to England until after the Norman Conquest, so Anglo-Saxon siblings – girls as well as boys – were more equal in terms of status.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The age of majority was usually either ten or twelve, when a child could legally take charge of inherited property, or be held responsible for a crime. It was common for children to be fostered, either in other households or in monasteries, perhaps as a means of extending the circle of protection beyond the kin group. Laws also make provision for orphaned children and foundlings.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The traditional distinction in society, amongst free men, was expressed as "eorl and ceorl" ('earl and churl') though the term 'Earl' took on a more restricted meaning after the Viking period. The noble rank is designated in early centuries as "gesiþas" ('companions') or "þegnas" ('thegns'), the latter coming to predominate. After the Norman Conquest the title 'thegn' was equated to the Norman 'baron'. A certain amount of social mobility is implied by regulations detailing the conditions under which a ceorl could become a thegn. Again these would have been subject to local variation, but one text refers to the possession of five hides of land (around 600 acres), a bell and a castle-gate, a seat and a special office in the king's hall. In the context of the control of boroughs, Frank Stenton notes that according to an 11th-century source, "a merchant who had carried out three voyages at his own charge [had also been] regarded as of thegnly status." Loss of status could also occur, as with penal slavery, which could be imposed not only on the perpetrator of a crime but on his wife and family.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: A further division in Anglo-Saxon society was between slave and free. Slavery was not as common as in other societies, but appears to have been present throughout the period. Both the freemen and slaves were hierarchically structured, with several classes of freemen and many types of slaves. These varied at different times and in different areas, but the most prominent ranks within free society were the king, the nobleman or thegn, and the ordinary freeman or ceorl. They were differentiated primarily by the value of their weregild or 'man price', which was not only the amount payable in compensation for homicide, but was also used as the basis for other legal formulations such as the value of the oath that they could swear in a court of law. Slaves had no weregild, as offences against them were taken to be offences against their owners, but the earliest laws set out a detailed scale of penalties depending both on the type of slave and the rank of owner. Some slaves may have been members of the native British population conquered by the Anglo-Saxons when they arrived from the continent; others may have been captured in wars between the early kingdoms, or have sold themselves for food in times of famine. However, slavery was not always permanent, and slaves who had gained their freedom would become part of an underclass of freedmen below the rank of ceorl.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Early Anglo-Saxon buildings in Britain were generally simple, not using masonry except in foundations but constructed mainly using timber with thatch roofing. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers, or near natural ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Only ten of the hundreds of settlement sites that have been excavated in England from this period have revealed masonry domestic structures and confined to a few specific contexts. Timber was the natural building medium of the age: the Anglo-Saxon word for "building" is "timbe". Unlike in the Carolingian world, late Anglo-Saxon royal halls continued to be of timber in the manner of Yeavering centuries before, even though the king could clearly have mustered the resources to build in stone. Their preference must have been a conscious choice, perhaps an expression of deeply–embedded Germanic identity on the part of the Anglo-Saxon royalty.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Even the elite had simple buildings, with a central fire and a hole in the roof to let the smoke escape; the largest homes rarely had more than one floor and one room. Buildings varied widely in size, most were square or rectangular, though some round houses have been found. Frequently these buildings have sunken floors, with a shallow pit over which a plank floor was suspended. The pit may have been used for storage, but more likely was filled with straw for insulation. A variation on the sunken floor design has been found in towns, where the "basement" may be as deep as 9 feet, suggesting a storage or work area below a suspended floor. Another common design was simple post framing, with heavy posts set directly into the ground, supporting the roof. The space between the posts was filled in with wattle and daub, or occasionally, planks. The floors were generally packed earth, though planks were sometimes used. Roofing materials varied, with thatch being the most common, though turf and even wooden shingles were also used.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Stone was sometimes used to build churches. Bede makes it clear that the masonry construction of churches, including his own at Jarrow, was undertaken "morem Romanorum", 'in the manner of the Romans,' in explicit contrast to existing traditions of timber construction. Even at Canterbury, Bede believed that St Augustine's first cathedral had been 'repaired' or 'recovered' ("recuperavit") from an existing Roman church, when in fact it had been newly constructed from Roman materials. The belief was "the Christian Church was Roman therefore a masonry church was a Roman building".


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The building of churches in Anglo-Saxon England essentially began with Augustine of Canterbury in Kent following 597; for this he probably imported workmen from Frankish Gaul. The cathedral and abbey in Canterbury, together with churches in Kent at Minster in Sheppey () and Reculver (669), and in Essex at the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall at Bradwell-on-Sea, define the earliest type in southeast England. A simple nave without aisles provided the setting for the main altar; east of this a chancel arch separated the apse for use by the clergy. Flanking the apse and east end of the nave were side chambers serving as sacristies; further porticus might continue along the nave to provide for burials and other purposes. In Northumbria the early development of Christianity was influenced by the Irish mission, important churches being built in timber. Masonry churches became prominent from the late 7th century with the foundations of Wilfrid at Ripon and Hexham, and of Benedict Biscop at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow. These buildings had long naves and small rectangular chancels; porticus sometimes surrounded the naves. Elaborate crypts are a feature of Wilfrid's buildings. The best preserved early Northumbrian church is Escomb Church.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: From the mid-8th century to the mid-10th century, several important buildings survive. One group comprises the first known churches utilizing aisles: Brixworth, the most ambitious Anglo-Saxon church to survive largely intact; Wareham St Mary's; Cirencester; and the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral. These buildings may be compared with churches in the Carolingian Empire. Other lesser churches may be dated to the late eighth and early ninth centuries on the basis of their elaborate sculptured decoration and have simple naves with side porticus. The tower of Barnack hearkens to the West Saxon reconquest in the early 10th century, when decorative features that were to be characteristic of Late Anglo-Saxon architecture were already developed, such as narrow raised bands of stone (pilaster strips) to surround archways and to articulate wall surfaces, as at Barton-upon-Humber and Earls Barton. In plan, however, the churches remained essentially conservative.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: From the monastic revival of the second half of the tenth century, only a few documented buildings survive or have been excavated. Examples include the abbeys of Glastonbury; Old Minster, Winchester; Romsey; Cholsey; and Peterborough Cathedral. The majority of churches that have been described as Anglo-Saxon fall into the period between the late 10th century and the early 12th century. During this period, many settlements were first provided with stone churches, but timber also continued to be used; the best wood-framed church to survive is Greensted Church in Essex, no earlier than the 9th century, and no doubt typical of many parish churches. On the continent during the eleventh century, a group of interrelated Romanesque styles developed, associated with the rebuilding of many churches on a grand scale, made possible by a general advance in architectural technology and mason-craft.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The first fully Romanesque church in England was Edward the Confessor's rebuilding of Westminster Abbey (–60, now entirely lost to later construction), while the main development of the style only followed the Norman Conquest. However, at Stow Minster the crossing piers of the early 1050s are clearly proto-Romanesque. A more decorative interpretation of Romanesque in lesser churches can be dated only somewhere between the mid and late 11th century, e.g. Hadstock (Essex), Clayton and Sompting (Sussex); this style continued towards the end of the century as at Milborne Port (Somerset). At St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury (–61) Abbot Wulfric aimed to retain the earlier churches while linking them with an octagonal rotunda, but the concept was still essentially Pre-Romanesque. Anglo-Saxon churches of all periods would have been embellished with a range of arts, including wall-paintings, some stained glass, metalwork and statues.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Early Anglo-Saxon art is seen mostly in decorated jewellery, like brooches, buckles, beads and wrist-clasps, some of outstanding quality. Characteristic of the 5th century is the quoit brooch with motifs based on crouching animals, as seen on the silver quoit brooch from Sarre, Kent. While the origins of this style are disputed, it is either an offshoot of provincial Roman, Frankish, or Jutish art. One style flourished from the late 5th century and continued throughout the 6th and is on many square-headed brooches, it is characterised by chip-carved patterns based on animals and masks. A different style, which gradually superseded it, is dominated by serpentine beasts with interlacing bodies.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: By the later 6th century, the best works from the south-east are distinguished by greater use of expensive materials, above all gold and garnets, reflecting the growing prosperity of a more organised society which had greater access to imported precious materials, as seen in the buckle from the Taplow burial and the jewellery from Sutton Hoo, c.600 and c.625 respectively. The possible symbolism of the decorative elements like interlace and beast forms that were used in these early works remains unclear. These objects were the products of a society that invested its modest surpluses in personal display, who fostered craftsmen and jewellers of a high standard, and in which the possession of a fine brooch or buckle was a valuable status symbol.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork . Discovered in a field near the village of Hammerwich, it consists of over 3,500 items that are nearly all martial in character and contains no objects specific to female uses. It demonstrates that considerable quantities of high-grade goldsmiths' work were in circulation among the elite during the 7th century. It also shows that the value of such items as currency and their potential roles as tribute or the spoils of war could, in a warrior society, outweigh appreciation of their integrity and artistry.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The Christianization of the society revolutionised the visual arts, as well as other aspects of society. Art had to fulfil new functions, and whereas pagan art was abstract, Christianity required images clearly representing subjects. The transition between the Christian and pagan traditions is occasionally apparent in 7th century works; examples include the Crundale buckle and the Canterbury pendant. In addition to fostering metalworking skills, Christianity stimulated stone sculpture and manuscript illumination. In these Germanic motifs, such as interlace and animal ornament along with Celtic spiral patterns, are juxtaposed with Christian imagery and Mediterranean decoration, notably vine-scroll. The Ruthwell Cross, Bewcastle Cross and Easby Cross are leading Northumbrian examples of the Anglo-Saxon version of the Celtic high cross, generally with a slimmer shaft.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The jamb of the doorway at Monkwearmouth, carved with a pair of lacertine beasts, probably dates from the 680s; the golden, garnet-adorned pectoral cross of St Cuthbert was presumably made before 687; while his wooden inner coffin (incised with Christ and the Evangelists' symbols, the Virgin and Child, archangels and apostles), the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Codex Amiatinus all date from c. 700. The fact that these works are all from Northumbria might be held to reflect the particular strength of the church in that kingdom. Works from the south were more restrained in their ornamentation than are those from Northumbria.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Lindisfarne was an important centre of book production, along with Ripon and Monkwearmouth-Jarrow. The Lindisfarne Gospels might be the single most beautiful book produced in the Middle Ages, and the Echternach Gospels and (probably) the Book of Durrow are other products of Lindisfarne. A Latin gospel book, the Lindisfarne Gospels are richly illuminated and decorated in an Insular style that blends Irish and Western Mediterranean elements and incorporates imagery from the Eastern Mediterranean, including Coptic Christianity. The Codex Amiatinus was produced in the north of England at the same time and has been called the finest book in the world. It is certainly one of the largest, weighing 34 kilograms. It is a pandect, which was rare in the Middle Ages, and included all the books of the Bible in one volume. The Codex Amiatinus was produced at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in 692 under the direction of Abbot Ceolfrith. Bede probably had something to do with it. The production of the Codex shows the riches of the north of England at this time. We have records of the monastery needing a new grant of land to raise 2,000 more cattle to get the calf skins to make the vellum for the manuscript. The Codex Amiatinus was meant to be a gift to the pope, and Ceolfrith was taking it to Rome when he died on the way. The copy ended up in Florence, where it still is today – a ninth-century copy of this book is in the possession of the pope.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: In the 8th century, Anglo-Saxon Christian art flourished with grand decorated manuscripts and sculptures, along with secular works which bear comparable ornament, like the Witham pins and the Coppergate helmet. The flourishing of sculpture in Mercia occurred slightly later than in Northumbria and is dated to the second half of the 8th century. The Book of Cerne is an early 9th century Insular or Anglo-Saxon Latin personal prayer book with Old English components. This manuscript was decorated and embellished with four painted full-page miniatures, major and minor letters, and continuing panels. Further decorated motifs used in these manuscripts, such as hunched, triangular beasts, also appear on objects from the Trewhiddle hoard (buried in the 870s) and on the rings which bear the names of King Æthelwulf and Queen Æthelswith, which are the centre of a small corpus of fine ninth-century metalwork.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: There was demonstrable continuity in the south, even though the Danish settlement represented a watershed in England's artistic tradition. Wars and pillaging removed or destroyed much Anglo-Saxon art, while the settlement introduced new Scandinavian craftsmen and patrons. The result was to accentuate the pre-existing distinction between the art of the north and that of the south. In the 10th and 11th centuries, the Viking dominated areas were characterised by stone sculpture in which the Anglo-Saxon tradition of cross shafts took on new forms, and a distinctive Anglo-Scandinavian monument, the 'hogback' tomb, was produced. The decorative motifs used on these northern carvings (as on items of personal adornment or everyday use) echo Scandinavian styles. The Wessexan hegemony and the monastic reform movement appear to have been the catalysts for the rebirth of art in southern England from the end of the 9th century. Here artists responded primarily to continental art; foliage supplanting interlace as the preferred decorative motif. Key early works are the Alfred Jewel, which has fleshy leaves engraved on the back plate; and the stole and maniples of Bishop Frithestan of Winchester, which are ornamented with acanthus leaves, alongside figures that bear the stamp of Byzantine art. The surviving evidence points to Winchester and Canterbury as the leading centres of manuscript art in the second half of the 10th century: they developed colourful paintings with lavish foliate borders, and coloured line drawings.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: By the early 11th century, these two traditions had fused and had spread to other centres. Although manuscripts dominate the corpus, sufficient architectural sculpture, ivory carving and metalwork survives to show that the same styles were current in secular art and became widespread in the south at parochial level. The wealth of England in the later tenth and eleventh century is clearly reflected in the lavish use of gold in manuscript art as well as for vessels, textiles and statues (now known only from descriptions). Widely admired, southern English art was highly influential in Normandy, France and Flanders from c. 1000. Indeed, keen to possess it or recover its materials, the Normans appropriated it in large quantities in the wake of the Conquest. The Bayeux Tapestry, probably designed by a Canterbury artist for Bishop Odo of Bayeux, is arguably the apex of Anglo-Saxon art. Surveying nearly 600 years of continuous change, three common strands stand out: lavish colour and rich materials; an interplay between abstract ornament and representational subject matter; and a fusion of art styles reflecting English links to other parts of Europe.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Old English ("Ænglisċ, Anglisċ, Englisċ") is the earliest form of the English language. It was brought to Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers, and was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland until the mid-12th century, by which time it had evolved into Middle English. Old English was a West Germanic language, closely related to Old Frisian and Old Saxon (Old Low German). The language was fully inflected, with five grammatical cases, three grammatical numbers and three grammatical genders. Over time, Old English developed into four major dialects: Northumbrian, spoken north of the Humber; Mercian, spoken in the Midlands; Kentish, spoken in Kent; and West Saxon, spoken across the south and southwest. All of these dialects have direct descendants in modern England. Standard English developed from the Mercian dialect, as it was predominant in London.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: It is generally held that Old English received little influence from the Common Brittonic and British Latin spoken in southern Britain prior to the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, as it took in very few loan words from these languages. Though some scholars have claimed that Brittonic could have exerted an influence on English syntax and grammar, these ideas have not become consensus views, and have been criticized by other historical linguists. Richard Coates has concluded that the strongest candidates for substratal Brittonic features in English are grammatical elements occurring in regional dialects in the north and west of England, such as the Northern Subject Rule.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Old English was more clearly influenced by Old Norse. Scandinavian loan words in English include place names, items of basic vocabulary such as "sky", "leg" and "they", and words concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land under Viking control, including the East Midlands and Northumbria south of the Tees). Old Norse was related to Old English, as both originated from Proto-Germanic, and many linguists believe that the loss of inflectional endings in Old English was accelerated by contact with Norse.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Local and extended kin groups were a key aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture. Kinship fueled societal advantages, freedom and the relationships to an elite, that allowed the Anglo-Saxons' culture and language to flourish. The ties of loyalty to a lord were to the person of a lord and not to his station; there was no real concept of patriotism or loyalty to a cause. This explains why dynasties waxed and waned so quickly, since a kingdom was only as strong as its leader-king. There was no underlying administration or bureaucracy to maintain any gains beyond the lifetime of a leader. An example of this was the leadership of Rædwald of East Anglia and how the East Anglian primacy did not survive his death. Kings could not make new laws barring exceptional circumstances. Their role instead was to uphold and clarify previous custom and to assure his subjects that he would uphold their ancient privileges, laws, and customs. Although the person of the king as a leader could be exalted, the office of kingship was not in any sense as powerful or as invested with authority as it was to become. One of the tools kings used was to tie themselves closely to the new Christian church, through the practice of having a church leader anoint and crown the king; God and king were then joined in peoples' minds.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The ties of kinship meant that the relatives of a murdered person were obliged to exact vengeance for his or her death. This led to bloody and extensive feuds. As a way out of this deadly and futile custom the system of weregilds was instituted. The weregild set a monetary value on each person's life according to their wealth and social status. This value could also be used to set the fine payable if a person was injured or offended against. Robbing a thane called for a higher penalty than robbing a ceorl. On the other hand, a thane who thieved could pay a higher fine than a ceorl who did likewise. Men were willing to die for the lord and to support their "comitatus" (their warrior band). Evidence of this behavior (though it may be more a literary ideal than an actual social practice) can be observed in the story, made famous in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" entry for 755, of Cynewulf and Cyneheard, in which the followers of a defeated king decided to fight to the death rather than be reconciled after the death of their lord.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: This emphasis on social standing affected all parts of the Anglo-Saxon world. The courts, for example, did not attempt to discover the facts in a case; instead, in any dispute it was up to each party to get as many people as possible to swear to the rightness of their case, which became known as oath-swearing. The word of a thane counted for that of six ceorls. It was assumed that any person of good character would be able to find enough people to swear to his innocence that his case would prosper.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Anglo-Saxon society was also decidedly patriarchal, but women were in some ways better off than they would be in later times. A woman could own property in her own right. She could and did rule a kingdom if her husband died. She could not be married without her consent, and any personal goods, including lands, that she brought into a marriage remained her own property. If she were injured or abused in her marriage, her relatives were expected to look after her interests.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The most noticeable feature of the Anglo-Saxon legal system is the apparent prevalence of legislation in the form of law codes. The early Anglo-Saxons were organised in various small kingdoms often corresponding to later shires or counties. The kings of these small kingdoms issued written laws, one of the earliest of which is attributed to Ethelbert, king of Kent, ca.560–616. The Anglo-Saxon law codes follow a pattern found in mainland Europe where other groups of the former Roman Empire encountered government dependent upon written sources of law and hastened to display the claims of their own native traditions by reducing them to writing. These legal systems should not be thought of as operating like modern legislation, rather they are educational and political tools designed to demonstrate standards of good conduct rather than act as criteria for subsequent legal judgment.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Although not themselves sources of law, Anglo-Saxon charters are a most valuable historical source for tracing the actual legal practices of the various Anglo-Saxon communities. A charter was a written document from a king or other authority confirming a grant either of land or some other valuable right. Their prevalence in the Anglo-Saxon state is a sign of sophistication. They were frequently appealed to and relied upon in litigation. Making grants and confirming those made by others was a major way in which Anglo-Saxon kings demonstrated their authority.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The royal council or witan played a central but limited role in the Anglo-Saxon period. The main feature of the system was its high degree of decentralisation. The interference by the king through his granting of charters and the activity of his witan in litigation are exceptions rather than the rule in Anglo-Saxon times. The most important court in the later Anglo-Saxon period was the shire court. Many shires (such as Kent and Sussex) were in the early days of the Anglo-Saxon settlement the centre of small independent kingdoms. As the kings first of Mercia and then of Wessex slowly extended their authority over the whole of England, they left the shire courts with overall responsibility for the administration of law. The shire met in one or more traditional places, earlier in the open air and then later in a moot or meeting hall. The meeting of the shire court was presided over by an officer, the shire reeve or sheriff, whose appointment came in later Anglo-Saxon times into the hands of the king but had in earlier times been elective. The sheriff was not the judge of the court, merely its president. The judges of the court were all those who had the right and duty of attending the court, the suitors. These were originally all free male inhabitants of the neighbourhood, but over time suit of court became an obligation attached to particular holdings of land. The sessions of a shire court resembled more closely those of a modern local administrative body than a modern court. It could and did act judicially, but this was not its prime function. In the shire court, charters and writs would be read out for all to hear.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Below the level of the shire, each county was divided into areas known as hundreds (or wapentakes in the north of England). These were originally groups of families rather than geographical areas. The hundred court was a smaller version of the shire court, presided over by the hundred bailiff, formerly a sheriff's appointment, but over the years many hundreds fell into the private hands of a local large landowner. Little is known about hundred court business, which was likely a mix of the administrative and judicial, but they remained in some areas an important forum for the settlement of local disputes well into the post-Conquest period.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The Anglo-Saxon system put an emphasis upon compromise and arbitration: litigating parties were enjoined to settle their differences if possible. If they persisted in bringing a case for decision before a shire court, then it could be determined there. The suitors of the court would pronounce a judgment which fixed how the case would be decided: legal problems were considered to be too complex and difficult for mere human decision, and so proof or demonstration of the right would depend upon some irrational, non-human criterion. The normal methods of proof were oath-helping or the ordeal. Oath-helping involved the party undergoing proof swearing to the truth of his claim or denial and having that oath reinforced by five or more others, chosen either by the party or by the court. The number of helpers required and the form of their oath differed from place to place and upon the nature of the dispute. If either the party or any of the helpers failed in the oath, either refusing to take it or sometimes even making an error in the required formula, the proof failed and the case was adjudged to the other side. As "wager of law," it remained a way of determining cases in the common law until its abolition in the 19th century.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The ordeal offered an alternative for those unable or unwilling to swear an oath. The two most common methods were the ordeal by hot iron and by cold water. The former consisted in carrying a red-hot iron for five paces: the wound was immediately bound up, and if on unbinding, it was found to be festering, the case was lost. In the ordeal by water, the victim, usually an accused person, was cast bound into water: if he sunk he was innocent, if he floated he was guilty. Although for perhaps understandable reasons, the ordeals became associated with trials in criminal matters. They were in essence tests of the truth of a claim or denial of a party and appropriate for trying any


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: legal issue. The allocation of a mode of proof and who should bear it was the substance of the shire court's judgment.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Old English literary works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both popular interest and specialist research. The manuscripts use a modified Roman alphabet, but Anglo-Saxon runes or "futhorc" are used in under 200 inscriptions on objects, sometimes mixed with Roman letters.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: This literature is remarkable for being in the vernacular (Old English) in the early medieval period: almost all other written literature in Western Europe was in Latin at this time, but because of Alfred's programme of vernacular literacy, the oral traditions of Anglo-Saxon England ended up being converted into writing and preserved. Much of this preservation can be attributed to the monks of the tenth century, who made – at the very least – the copies of most of the literary manuscripts that still exist. Manuscripts were not common items. They were expensive and hard to make. First, cows or sheep had to be slaughtered and their skins tanned. The leather was then scraped, stretched, and cut into sheets, which were sewn into books. Then inks had to be made from oak galls and other ingredients, and the books had to be hand written by monks using quill pens. Every manuscript is slightly different from another, even if they are copies of each other, because every scribe had different handwriting and made different errors. Individual scribes can sometimes be identified from their handwriting, and different styles of hand were used in specific scriptoria (centres of manuscript production), so the location of the manuscript production can often be identified.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: There are four great poetic codices of Old English poetry (a codex is a book in modern format, as opposed to a scroll): the Junius Manuscript, the Vercelli Book, the Exeter Book, and the Nowell Codex or "Beowulf" Manuscript; most of the well-known lyric poems such as "The Wanderer", "The Seafarer", "Deor" and "The Ruin" are found in the Exeter Book, while the Vercelli Book has the "Dream of the Rood", some of which is also carved on the Ruthwell Cross. The Franks Casket also has carved riddles, a popular form with the Anglo-Saxons. Old English secular poetry is mostly characterized by a somewhat gloomy and introspective cast of mind, and the grim determination found in "The Battle of Maldon", recounting an action against the Vikings in 991. This is from a book that was lost in the Cotton Library fire of 1731, but it had been transcribed previously.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Rather than being organized around rhyme, the poetic line in Anglo-Saxon is organised around alliteration, the repetition of stressed sounds; any repeated stressed sound, vowel or consonant, could be used. Anglo-Saxon lines are made up of two half-lines (in old-fashioned scholarship, these are called hemistiches) divided by a breath-pause or caesura. There must be at least one of the alliterating sounds on each side of the caesura.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The line above illustrates the principle: note that there is a natural pause after 'hondum' and that the first stressed syllable after that pause begins with the same sound as a stressed line from the first half-line (the first halfline is called the a-verse and the second is the b-verse).


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: There is very strong evidence that Anglo-Saxon poetry has deep roots in oral tradition, but keeping with the cultural practices seen elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon culture, there was a blending between tradition and new learning. Thus while all Old English poetry has common features, three strands can be identified: religious poetry, which includes poems about specifically Christian topics, such as the cross and the saints; Heroic or epic poetry, such as "Beowulf", which is about heroes, warfare, monsters, and the Germanic past; and poetry about "smaller" topics, including introspective poems (the so-called elegies), "wisdom" poems (which communicate both traditional and Christian wisdom), and riddles. For a long time all Anglo-Saxon poetry was divided into three groups: Cædmonian (the biblical paraphrase poems), heroic, and "Cynewulfian," named after Cynewulf, one of the only named poets in Anglo-Saxon. The most famous works from this period include the epic poem "Beowulf", which has achieved national epic status in Britain.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: There are about 30,000 surviving lines of Old English poetry and about ten times that much prose, and the majority of both is religious. The prose was influential and obviously very important to the Anglo-Saxons and more important than the poetry to those who came after the Anglo-Saxons. Homilies are sermons, lessons to be given on moral and doctrinal matters, and the two most prolific and respected writers of Anglo-Saxon prose, Ælfric and Wulfstan, were both homilists. Almost all surviving poetry is found in only one manuscript copy, but there are several versions of some prose works, especially the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which was apparently promulgated to monasteries by the royal court. Anglo-Saxon clergy also continued to write in Latin, the language of Bede's works, monastic chronicles, and theological writing, although Bede's biographer records that he was familiar with Old English poetry and gives a five line lyric which he either wrote or liked to quote – the sense is unclear.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Symbolism was an essential element in Anglo-Saxon culture. Julian D. Richards suggests that in societies with strong oral traditions, material culture is used to store and pass on information and stand instead of literature in those cultures. This symbolism is less logical than literature and more difficult to read. Anglo-Saxons used symbolism to communicate as well as to aid their thinking about the world. Anglo-Saxons used symbols to differentiate between groups and people, status and role in society.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The visual riddles and ambiguities of early Anglo-Saxon animal art, for example, has been seen as emphasising the protective roles of animals on dress accessories, weapons, armour and horse equipment, and its evocation of pre-Christian mythological themes. However Howard Williams and Ruth Nugent have suggested that the number of artefact categories that have animals or eyes—from pots to combs, buckets to weaponry—was to make artefacts 'see' by impressing and punching circular and lentoid shapes onto them. This symbolism of making the object seems to be more than decoration.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Conventional interpretations of the symbolism of grave goods revolved around religion (equipment for the hereafter), legal concepts (inalienable possessions) and social structure (status display, ostentatious destruction of wealth). There was multiplicity of messages and variability of meanings characterised the deposition of objects in Anglo-Saxon graves. In Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, 47% of male adults and 9% of all juveniles were buried with weapons. The proportion of adult weapon burials is much too high to suggest that they all represent a social elite. The usual assumption is that these are 'warrior burials', and this term is used throughout the archaeological and historical literature. However, a systematic comparison of burials with and without weapons, using archaeological and skeletal data, suggests that this assumption is much too simplistic and even misleading. Anglo-Saxon weapon burial rite involved a complex ritual symbolism: it was multi-dimensional, displaying ethnic affiliation, descent, wealth, élite status, and age groups. This symbol continued until c.700 when it ceased to have the symbolic power that it had before. Heinrich Härke suggests this change was the result of the changing structure of society and especially in ethnicity and assimilation, implying the lowering of ethnic boundaries in the Anglo-Saxon settlement areas of England towards a common culture.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The word "bead" comes from the Anglo-Saxon words "bidden" (to pray) and "bede" (prayer). The vast majority of early Anglo-Saxon female graves contain beads, which are often found in large numbers in the area of the neck and chest. Beads are sometimes found in male burials, with large beads often associated with prestigious weapons. A variety of materials other than glass were available for Anglo-Saxon beads, including amber, rock crystal, amethyst, bone, shells, coral and even metal. These beads are usually considered to have a social or ritual function. Anglo-Saxon glass beads show a wide variety of bead manufacturing techniques, sizes, shapes, colours and decorations. Various studies have been carried out investigating the distribution and chronological change of bead types. The crystal beads which appear on bead strings in the pagan Anglo-Saxon period seems to have gone through various changes in meaning in the Christian period, which Gale Owen-Crocker suggests was linked to symbolism of the Virgin Mary, and hence to intercession. John Hines has suggested that the over 2,000 different types of beads found at Lakenheath show that the beads symbolise identity, roles, status and micro cultures within the tribal landscape of the early Anglo-Saxon world.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Symbolism continued to have a hold on the minds of Anglo-Saxon people into the Christian eras. The interiors of churches would have glowed with colour, and the walls of the halls were painted with decorative scenes from the imagination telling stories of monsters and heroes like those in the poem "Beowulf". Although nothing much is left of the wall paintings, evidence of their pictorial art is found in Bibles and Psalters, in illuminated manuscripts. The poem "The Dream of the Rood" is an example how symbolism of trees was fused into Christian symbolism.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Richard North suggests that the sacrifice of the tree was in accordance with pagan virtues and "the image of Christ's death was constructed in this poem with reference to an Anglian ideology of the world tree". North suggests that the author of "The Dream of the Rood" "uses the language of the myth of Ingui in order to present the Passion to his newly Christianized countrymen as a story from their native tradition". Furthermore, the tree's triumph over death is celebrated by adorning the cross with gold and jewels.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The most distinctive feature of coinage of the first half of the 8th century is its portrayal of animals, to an extent found in no other European coinage of the Early Middle Ages. Some animals, such as lions or peacocks, would have been known in England only through descriptions in texts or through images in manuscripts or on portable objects. The animals were not merely illustrated out of an interest in the natural world. Each was imbued with meanings and acted as a symbol which would have been understood at the time.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The food eaten by Anglo-Saxons was long presumed to differ between elites and commoners. However, a 2022 study by the University of Cambridge found that Anglo-Saxon elites and royalty both ate a primarily vegetarian diet based on cereal grains as did peasants. The discovery came after bioarchaeologist Sam Leggett analysed chemical dietary signatures from the bones of 2,023 people buried in England between the 5th to 11th Centuries and cross referenced the analysis with markers of social status. Rather than elites eating regular banquets with huge quantities of meat, the researchers concluded these were occasional grand feasts hosted by the peasants for their rulers rather than regular occurrences.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: "Anglo-Saxon" is still used as a term for the original Old English-derived vocabulary within the modern English language, in contrast to vocabulary derived from Old Norse and French.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Throughout the history of Anglo-Saxon studies, different narratives of the people have been used to justify contemporary ideologies. In the early Middle Ages, the views of Geoffrey of Monmouth produced a personally inspired (and largely fictitious) history that was not challenged for some 500 years. In the Reformation, Christians looking to establish an independent English church reinterpreted Anglo-Saxon Christianity. In the 19th century, the term "Anglo-Saxon" was broadly used in philology, and is sometimes so used at present, though the term 'Old English' is more commonly used. During the Victorian era, writers such as Robert Knox, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley and Edward A. Freeman used the term "Anglo-Saxon" to justify colonialistic imperialism, claiming that Anglo-Saxon heritage was superior to those held by colonised peoples, which justified efforts to "civilise" them. Similar racist ideas were advocated in 19th-century United States by Samuel George Morton and George Fitzhugh to justify the policy of Manifest destiny. The historian Catherine Hills contends that these views have influenced how versions of early English history are embedded in the sub-conscious of certain people and are "re-emerging in school textbooks and television programmes and still very congenial to some strands of political thinking."


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The term "Anglo-Saxon" is sometimes used to refer to peoples descended or associated in some way with the English ethnic group, but there is no universal definition for the term. In contemporary Anglophone cultures outside Britain, "Anglo-Saxon" may be contrasted with "Celtic" as a socioeconomic identifier, invoking or reinforcing historical prejudices against non-English British and Irish immigrants. "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" (WASP) is a term especially popular in the United States that refers chiefly to long-established wealthy families with mostly English ancestors. As such, WASP is not a historical label or a precise ethnological term but rather a reference to contemporary family-based political, financial and cultural power, e.g. The Boston Brahmin.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: The term Anglo-Saxon is becoming increasingly controversial among some scholars, especially those in America, for its modern politicised nature and adoption by the far-right. In 2019, the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists changed their name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, in recognition of this controversy.


title: Anglo-Saxons

text: Outside Anglophone countries, the term "Anglo-Saxon" and its direct translations are used to refer to the Anglophone peoples and societies of Britain, the United States, and other countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand – areas which are sometimes referred to as the Anglosphere. The term "Anglo-Saxon" can be used in a variety of contexts, often to identify the English-speaking world's distinctive language, culture, technology, wealth, markets, economy, and legal systems. Variations include the German "Angelsachsen", French "Anglo-Saxon", Spanish "anglosajón", Portuguese "Anglo-saxão", Russian "англосаксы", Polish "anglosaksoński", Italian "anglosassone", Catalan "anglosaxó" and Japanese "Angurosakuson".


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Keegan-Michael Key (born March 22, 1971) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He co-created and co-starred alongside Jordan Peele in Comedy Central's sketch series "Key & Peele" (2012–2015) and co-starred in USA Network's "Playing House" (2014–2017). He spent six seasons as a cast member on "Mad TV" (2004–2009) and has made guest appearances on the U.S. version of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" on The CW. He also appeared alongside Peele in the first season of the FX series "Fargo" in 2014, and had a recurring role on "Parks and Recreation" from 2013 to 2015. He hosted the U.S. version of "The Planet's Funniest Animals" on Animal Planet (2005–2008), and hosted "Game On!" on CBS in 2020.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key has had supporting roles in several films, including "Horrible Bosses 2" in (2014), "Pitch Perfect 2" (2015), "Don't Think Twice" (2016) and "Dolemite Is My Name" (2019). He has provided voice-work for "The Lego Movie" (2014), the subsequent films of the "Hotel Transylvania" franchise (2015–2022), "Storks", "The Angry Birds Movie" (both 2016), "The Star" (2017), "The Lion King" remake and "Toy Story 4" (both 2019), and "Pinocchio" remake (2022). Also in 2015, he appeared at the White House Correspondents' Dinner as the "Key & Peele" character Luther, President Barack Obama's anger translator. Key and Peele produced and starred in the 2016 action-comedy film "Keanu". In 2017, Key made his Broadway debut in Steve Martin's comic play "Meteor Shower". Key appeared in the musical film "The Prom" (2020) directed by Ryan Murphy on Netflix, and the musical comedy series "Schmigadoon!" (2021) on Apple TV+.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key was born in Southfield, Michigan, on March 22, 1971, the son of an African-American father, Leroy McDuffie, and Carrie Herr, a woman of Polish and Flemish descent. He was adopted at a young age by a couple from Detroit, Michael Key and Patricia Walsh, who were both social workers. Like his birth parents, his adoptive parents were also a black man and a white woman. Through his biological father, Key had two half-brothers, one of whom was comic book writer Dwayne McDuffie. Key discovered the existence of his half-siblings only after they had both died.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Raised Catholic, Key attended the University of Detroit Mercy as an undergraduate, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theater in 1993, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in theater at Pennsylvania State University in 1996. While at the University of Detroit Mercy, he was a brother of Phi Kappa Theta.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: In 2004, Key joined the cast of "Mad TV" midway into the ninth season. He and Jordan Peele were cast against each other, but both ended up being picked after demonstrating great comedic chemistry. Key played many characters on the show. One of his most famous characters is "Coach Hines", a high school sports coach who frequently disrupts and threatens students and faculty members. On the penultimate episode of "Mad TV", Hines revealed that he is the long-lost heir to the Heinz Ketchup company and only became a Catholic school coach to help delinquent teenagers like Yamanashi (Bobby Lee). During seasons 9 and 10, Key appeared as "Dr. Funkenstein" in blaxploitation parodies, with Peele playing the monster. Key also portrayed various guests on "Real **********ing Talk" like the strong African Rollo Johnson and blind victim Stevie Wonder Washington. He often went "backstage" as Eugene Struthers, an ecstatic water-or-flower delivery man who accosts celebrities. There was also "Jovan Muskatelle", a shirtless man with a jheri curl and a shower cap who interrupts live news broadcasts by a reporter (always played by Ike Barinholtz), annoying him with rapid-fire accounts of events that have happened frequently exclaiming "It was crazy as hell!" Celebrities that Key impersonated on the show include Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Roscoe Orman (as his character Gordon from "Sesame Street"), Matthew Lillard, Bill Cosby, Al Roker, Terrell Owens, Tyler Perry, Keith Richards, Eddie Murphy (as his character James "Thunder" Early from the movie "Dreamgirls"), Sherman Hemsley (as his character George Jefferson on "The Jeffersons"), Charles Barkley, Sendhil Ramamurthy (as Mohinder Suresh), Tyson Beckford, Seal (originally played by Peele until Peele left the show at the end of season 13), Sidney Poitier, Lionel Richie, Barack Obama, Kobe Bryant and Jack Haley (as the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz"). He also played female celebrities, including Phylicia Rashād, Robin Antin, and Eva Longoria (as Gabrielle Solis on a "Desperate Housewives" parody).


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key and his "Mad TV" castmate Jordan Peele starred in their own Comedy Central sketch series "Key & Peele", which began airing on January 31, 2012 and ran for five seasons until September 9, 2015.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key was introduced by President Barack Obama at the 2015 White House Correspondents' Dinner as Luther, Obama's Anger Translator, one of Key's characters from "Key & Peele".


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key played the most prominent male character, Ethan Turner, on the Netflix ensemble comedy "Friends from College", about a group of Harvard University graduates and friends now in their late 30s living in New York City. He plays an award-winning fiction writer who is being encouraged to start writing for young adult fiction audiences.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key was one of the founders of Hamtramck, Michigan,'s Planet Ant Theatre, and was a member of the Second City Detroit's mainstage cast before joining the Second City e.t.c. theater in Chicago. Key co-founded the Detroit Creativity Project along with Beth Hagenlocker, Marc Evan Jackson, Margaret Edwartowski, and Larry Joe Campbell. The Detroit Creativity Project teaches students in Detroit improvisation as a way to improve their communication skills. Key performed with The 313, an improv group formed with other members of Second City Hollywood that appears around the country. The 313 is made up primarily of former Detroit residents and is named for Detroit's area code.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: He made a cameo in "Weird Al" Yankovic's video "White & Nerdy" with Peele. Key also hosted Animal Planet's "The Planet's Funniest Animals". In 2009, Key hosted GSN's "Big Saturday Night", and has co-starred in "Gary Unmarried" on CBS. Key was a panelist on the NPR comedy quiz show "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me..." on March 27 and July 24, 2010. Key has been in several episodes of "Reno 911!" as the "Hypothetical Criminal".


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key and Peele were featured on the cover and in a series of full-page comic photos illustrating "The New York Times Magazine" article "Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?" on March 31, 2013. A live-action video version was also featured on the "Times"' website. Key co-stars in the horror-comedy "Hell Baby". Key is one of the rotating "fourth chair" performers in the 2013 revival of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?".


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: In addition to "Key & Peele", he also co-starred in the USA Network comedy series "Playing House", which began airing in April 2014.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key and Peele starred in an episode of "Epic Rap Battles of History", with Key playing Mahatma Gandhi and Peele playing Martin Luther King Jr. The pair returned to "Epic Rap Battles of History" with the "Muhammad Ali versus Michael Jordan" battle, with Key portraying Jordan.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key was involved in audio episodes for the marketing campaign, "Hunt the Truth" on the website for the video game "", voicing a fictional journalist and war photographer named Benjamin Giraud, who investigates the Master Chief's background.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key has had roles in numerous films, including 2014's "Horrible Bosses 2", "Let's Be Cops" and the animated "The Lego Movie", as well as "Pitch Perfect 2" and "Tomorrowland" in 2015. Key and Peele are currently working with Judd Apatow on a feature-length film for Universal Pictures.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key is one of several hosts of the podcast "Historically Black" by American Public Media and "The Washington Post".


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key voices the character Murray in "Hotel Transylvania 2", "" and "". The character was originally voiced by rapper CeeLo Green in the first movie.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: In the summer of 2017 Key returned to the theatre after what he characterized as a "19-year detour into sketch comedy" for a production of "Hamlet" at New York's Public Theater, playing Horatio opposite Oscar Isaac in the title role. Key, who is a Shakespearean-trained actor, fulfilled his lifelong dream to play Horatio and received rave reviews for his performance. The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney noted that Key's comedic skills were on full display, "...but his ease with the verse and stirring sensitivity [was] a revelation."


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key voice acted in "The Star", the animated film based on the Nativity of Jesus. He later went on to voice Ducky in "Toy Story 4" and Kamari in "The Lion King". Key voiced "Honest John" Worthington Foulfellow in the live-action film adaptation of Disney's "Pinocchio" and Toad in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" from Illumination.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: In 2017, Key made his Broadway debut in Steve Martin's comedy "Meteor Shower". His hosting stint on "Saturday Night Live" on May 15, 2021 marked the first time a "MADtv" cast member has hosted "SNL".


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key currently hosts popular science show "Brain Games" on National Geographic, which was renewed for a ninth season, his second, on January 17, 2020.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: On May 14, 2020, he hosted an online event by the Jazz Foundation of America to support its emergency fund for COVID-19.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key was married to actress and dialect coach Cynthia Blaise from 1998 until 2017. They were legally separated in November 2015, with Key filing for divorce the following month. He married producer and director Elisa Pugliese in New York City on June 8, 2018.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key is a Christian and has practiced Buddhism, Catholicism, and Evangelicalism in the past. Being biracial has been a source of comedic material for Key, who told Terry Gross in an interview for NPR, "I think the reason Jordan and I became actors is because we did a fair amount of code-switching growing up and still do." Key is a keen soccer fan and an avid supporter of Liverpool F.C.


title: Keegan-Michael Key

text: Key has worked with the Young Storytellers Foundation as an actor for their annual fundraiser alongside Max Greenfield, Jack Black and Judy Greer.


title: Wendigo

text: Wendigo () is a mythological creature or evil spirit originating from the folklore of Plains and as well as some First Nations. It is based in and around the East Coast forests of Canada, the Great Plains region of the United States, and the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, grouped in modern ethnology as speakers of Algonquian-family languages. The wendigo is often said to be a malevolent spirit, sometimes depicted as a creature with human-like characteristics, which possesses human beings. The wendigo is said to invoke feelings of insatiable greed/hunger, the desire to cannibalize other humans, and the propensity to commit murder in those that fall under its influence.


title: Wendigo

text: In some representations the wendigo is described as a giant humanoid with a heart of ice; a foul stench or sudden, unseasonable chill might precede its approach. Possibly because of longtime identification by Europeans with their own myths about werewolves, for example as mentioned in "The Jesuit Relations" below, Hollywood film representations often label human/beast hybrids featuring antlers or horns with the "wendigo" name, but such animal features do not appear in the original indigenous stories.


title: Wendigo

text: In modern psychiatry the wendigo lends its name to a form of psychosis known as "Wendigo psychosis", which is characterized by symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and an intense fear of becoming a cannibal. Wendigo psychosis is described as a culture-bound syndrome. In some First Nations communities other symptoms such as insatiable greed and destruction of the environment are also thought to be symptoms of Wendigo psychosis.


title: Wendigo

text: The word appears in many Native American languages, and has many alternative translations. The source of the English word is the Ojibwe word . In the Cree language it is , also transliterated . Other transliterations include , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .


title: Wendigo

text: The Wechuge is a similar being that appears in the legends of the Athabaskan people of the Northwest Pacific Coast. It too is cannibalistic; however, it is characterized as enlightened with ancestral insights.


title: Wendigo

text: The wendigo is part of the traditional belief system of a number of Algonquin-speaking peoples, including the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi, and the Innu. Although descriptions can vary somewhat, common to all these cultures is the view that the wendigo is a malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural being. They were strongly associated with winter, the north, coldness, famine, and starvation.


title: Wendigo

text: In Ojibwe, Eastern Cree, Westmain Swampy Cree, Naskapi, and Innu lore, wendigos are often described as giants that are many times larger than human beings, a characteristic absent from myths in other Algonquian cultures. Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full. Therefore, wendigos are portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and extremely thin due to starvation.


title: Wendigo

text: The wendigo is seen as the embodiment of gluttony, greed, and excess: never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they are constantly searching for new victims.


title: Wendigo

text: A wendigo need not lose the human's powers of cognition or speech and in some depictions may clearly communicate with its prospective victims or even threaten or taunt them. A specimen of folk story collected in the early 20th century by Lottie Chicogquaw Marsden, an ethnographer of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, in which a wendigo also exhibits tool use, an ability to survive partial dismemberment, and autocannibalism, reads:


title: Wendigo

text: In some traditions, humans overpowered by greed could turn into wendigos; the myth thus served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation. Other sources say wendigos were created when a human resorted to cannibalism to survive. Humans could also turn into wendigos by being in contact with them for too long.


title: Wendigo

text: Among the Assiniboine, the Cree, and the Ojibwe, a satirical ceremonial dance is sometimes performed during times of famine to reinforce the seriousness of the wendigo taboo. The ceremony, known as "wiindigookaanzhimowin", was performed during times of famine, and involved wearing masks and dancing backward around a drum. The last known wendigo ceremony conducted in the United States was at Lake Windigo of Star Island of Cass Lake, within the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.


title: Wendigo

text: In historical accounts of retroactively diagnosed Wendigo psychosis, it has been reported that humans became possessed by the wendigo spirit, after being in a situation of needing food and having no other choice besides cannibalism. In 1661, "The Jesuit Relations" reported:


title: Wendigo

text: Although in many recorded cases of Wendigo psychosis the individual has been killed to prevent cannibalism from resulting, some Cree folklore recommends treatment by ingestion of fatty animal meats or drinking animal grease; those treated may sometimes vomit ice as part of the curing process.


title: Wendigo

text: One of the more famous cases of Wendigo psychosis reported involved a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta, named Swift Runner. During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. Twenty-five miles away from emergency food supplies at a Hudson's Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children. Given that he resorted to cannibalism so near to food supplies, and that he killed and consumed the remains of all those present, it was revealed that Swift Runner's was not a case of pure cannibalism as a last resort to avoid starvation, but rather of a man with Wendigo psychosis. He eventually confessed and was executed by authorities at Fort Saskatchewan.


title: Wendigo

text: Another well-known case involving Wendigo psychosis was that of Jack Fiddler, an Oji-Cree chief and medicine man known for his powers at defeating wendigos. In some cases, this entailed killing people with Wendigo psychosis. As a result, in 1907, Fiddler and his brother Joseph were arrested by the Canadian authorities for homicide. Jack committed suicide, but Joseph was tried and sentenced to life in prison. He ultimately was granted a pardon but died three days later in jail before receiving the news of this pardon.


title: Wendigo

text: Fascination with Wendigo psychosis among Western ethnographers, psychologists, and anthropologists led to a hotly debated controversy in the 1980s over the historicity of this phenomenon. Some researchers argued that, essentially, Wendigo psychosis was a fabrication, the result of naïve anthropologists taking stories related to them at face value without observation. Others have pointed to a number of credible eyewitness accounts, both by Algonquians and others, as evidence that Wendigo psychosis was a factual historical phenomenon.


title: Wendigo

text: The frequency of Wendigo psychosis cases decreased sharply in the 20th century as Boreal Algonquian people came into greater and greater contact with European ideologies and more sedentary, less rural, lifestyles.


title: Wendigo

text: In his 2004 treatise "Revenge of the Windigo" on disorders and treatments of the behavioral health industry in the United States and Canada that are peculiar to indigenous people, James B. Waldram wrote,


title: Wendigo

text: The 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) classifies "Windigo" as a culture-specific disorder, describing it as "Rare, historic accounts of cannibalistic obsession... Symptoms included depression, homicidal or suicidal thoughts, and a delusional, compulsive wish to eat human flesh... Some controversial new studies question the syndrome's legitimacy, claiming cases were actually a product of hostile accusations invented to justify the victim's ostracism or execution."


title: Wendigo

text: In addition to denoting a cannibalistic monster from certain traditional folklore, some Native Americans also understand the wendigo conceptually. As a concept, the wendigo can apply to any person, idea, or movement infected by a corrosive drive toward self-aggrandizing greed and excessive consumption, traits that sow disharmony and destruction if left unchecked. Ojibwe scholar Brady DeSanti asserts that the wendigo "can be understood as a marker indicating... a person... imbalanced both internally and toward the larger community of human and spiritual beings around them." Out of equilibrium and estranged by their communities, individuals thought to be afflicted by the wendigo spirit unravel and destroy the ecological balance around them. Chippewa author Louise Erdrich's novel "The Round House", winner of the National Book Award, depicts a situation where an individual person becomes a wendigo. The novel describes its primary antagonist, a rapist whose violent crimes desecrate a sacred site, as a wendigo who must be killed because he threatens the reservation's safety.


title: Wendigo

text: In addition to characterizing individual people who exhibit destructive tendencies, the wendigo can also describe movements and events with similarly negative effects. According to Professor Chris Schedler, the figure of the wendigo represents "consuming forms of exclusion and assimilation" through which groups dominate other groups." This application allows Native Americans to describe colonialism and its agents as wendigos since the process of colonialism ejected natives from their land and threw the natural world out of balance. DeSanti points to the 1999 horror film "Ravenous" as an illustration of this argument equating "the cannibal monster" to "American colonialism and manifest destiny". This movie features a character who articulates that expansion brings displacement and destruction as side effects, explaining that "manifest destiny" and "western expansion" will bring "thousands of gold-hungry Americans... over the mountains in search of new lives... This country is seeking to be whole... Stretching out its arms... and consuming all it can. And we merely follow".


title: Wendigo

text: As a concept, wendigo can apply to situations other than some Native American-European relations. It can serve as a metaphor explaining any pattern of domination by which groups subjugate and dominate or violently destroy and displace. Joe Lockhard, English professor at Arizona State University, argues that wendigos are agents of "social cannibalism" who know "no provincial or national borders; all human cultures have been visited by shape-shifting wendigos. Their visitations speak to the inseparability of human experience... National identity is irrelevant to this borderless horror." Lockhard's ideas explain that wendigos are an expression of a dark aspect of human nature: the drive toward greed, consumption, and disregard for other life in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement.


title: Wendigo

text: Romantic scholar and documentarian , also a professor at Arizona State University, observes that two commonalities among the indigenous cultures of Algonquian language family speakers are that they are situated in climes where harsh winters are frequent and may be accompanied by starvation. She states that the wendigo symbolically represents three major concepts: it is the incarnation of winter, the embodiment of hunger, and the personification of selfishness.


title: Wendigo

text: Although distinct from how it appears in the traditional lore, one of the first appearances of a character inspired by, or named after, a wendigo in non-Indigenous literature is Algernon Blackwood's 1910 novella "The Wendigo". wrote that Blackwood's "subtly-demonizing rhetoric transforms the Wendigo from a native myth into a descriptive template for the Indian savage."


title: Wendigo

text: Blackwood's work has influenced many of the subsequent portrayals in mainstream horror fiction, such as August Derleth's "The Thing that Walked on the Wind" and "Ithaqua" (1933 and 1941), which in turn inspired the character in Stephen King's novel "Pet Sematary", where it is a personification of evil, an ugly grinning creature with yellow-grey eyes, ears replaced by ram's horns, white vapor coming from its nostrils, and a pointed, decaying yellow tongue. These works set the template for later portrayals in popular culture, at times even replacing the Native American lore. In an early short story by Thomas Pynchon, "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" (first published in 1959), the plot centers around a character developing Wendigo syndrome and going on a killing spree.


title: Wendigo

text: A character inspired by the wendigo appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by the writer Steve Englehart and artist Herb Trimpe, the monster is the result of a curse that afflicts those who commit acts of cannibalism. It first appeared in "The Incredible Hulk" #162 (April 1973), and again in the October 1974 issue.


title: Wendigo

text: Without explicitly using the term, the 1995 novel by Chickasaw author and poet Linda K. Hogan both explored the mythology of the wendigo and used the creatures as a device to interrogate issues of independence, spirituality, and politics, an individual's relationship to the family, and as a metaphor for corporate voracity, exploitation, and power viewed as a form of cannibalism.


title: Wendigo

text: Other creatures based on the legend, or named for it, appear in various films and television shows, including "Dark Was the Night" and "Ravenous". Television series include "Teen Wolf", "Supernatural", "Blood Ties", "Charmed", "Grimm", and "Hannibal", where an FBI profiler has recurring dreams or visions of a wendigo that symbolizes the titular cannibalistic serial killer. A wendigo appears in "" "Hearth's Warming Eve" under the pun title of "Windigo", and in the "DuckTales" Christmas special, "Last Christmas!", in which the creatures are described as "poor souls turned into monsters by obsession and desperation." A wendigo also appears in the 2020 horror film "The Retreat".


title: Wendigo

text: The 2015 horror survival video game "Until Dawn" by Supermassive Games features wendigos as the main antagonists. "Wrist", the 2016 debut novel by Canadian horror fiction writer Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler, was based on the story of the wendigo.


title: Wendigo

text: In the 2018 role-playing game "Fallout 76" by Bethesda Game Studios, wendigos are featured as one of the cryptid enemies found in the area of Appalachia; mutated from people who consumed human flesh in isolation.


title: Wendigo

text: In the 2018 first-person shooter video game "Dusk", wendigos are featured as strong enemies that remain invisible to the player until they receive damage. Several of these creatures also appear in the game's cover art.


title: Wendigo

text: In the 2021 film "Antlers" by Scott Cooper, Frank, Luca's father, transforms into a wendigo, which is portrayed as a deer-like creature with a glowing heart that moves from person to person with a never ending hunger. Guillermo del Toro, producer of the film, developed the wendigo on the basis that the more the creature eats, the more it gets hungry and the more it gets hungry, the weaker it becomes.


title: Wendigo

text: In the 2022 Thai film "Faces of Anne" by the director and the co-writer Kongdej Jaturanrasamee, is about a young woman named Anne who constantly changes her face every night. She suddenly wakes up in an enclosed place like hospital. She finds that it's not only herself that her name is Anne, but the other young woman in the other rooms is Anne as well. Every night a deer-headed demon named Vedigo comes out to kill them. It was adapted from Wendigo. The deer symbolizes both good and evil.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke Jr. (; born September 16, 1952) is an American actor and former boxer who has appeared primarily as a leading man in drama, action, and thriller films.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: During the star of the 1980s, Rourke played supporting roles in films like "Body Heat" (1981) and "Diner" (1982), before portraying leading roles in films like The Motorcycle Boy in "Rumble Fish" (1983), Charlie Moran in "The Pope of Greenwich Village" (1984), Captain Stanley White in "Year of the Dragon" and John Gray in "9½ Weeks" (1986). He received critical praise for his work in the Charles Bukowski biopic "Barfly" and the horror mystery "Angel Heart" (both 1987). In 1991, following a string of critical and commercial failures, Rourke—who trained as a boxer in his early years—left acting and became a professional boxer for a time.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: After retiring from boxing in 1994, Rourke returned to acting and had supporting roles in several films such as "The Rainmaker" (1997), "Buffalo '66" (1998), "Animal Factory", "Get Carter" (both 2000), "The Pledge" (2001), "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" (2003), "Man on Fire" (2004) and "Domino" (2005). In 2005, Rourke made a comeback in mainstream Hollywood circles with a lead role in the neo-noir action thriller "Sin City", for which he won awards from the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Irish Film and Television Awards, and the Online Film Critics Society.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: This comeback cumulated in his portraying aging wrestler Randy 'The Ram' Robinson in the sports drama film "The Wrestler" (2008). For the role, Rourke won the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor . After this, Rourke appeared in several commercially successful films; "Iron Man 2", "The Expendables" (both 2010) and "Immortals" (2011), before primarily going on to work in independent and direct-to-video productions.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: Philip Andre Rourke Jr. was born on September 16, 1952, in Schenectady, New York, to Annette ("née" Cameron) and Philip Andre Rourke (1924–1982). His father was of Irish descent and his mother had Scottish ancestry. He was raised Catholic and still practices his faith. His father left the family when Mickey was young. After his parents divorced, his mother married Eugene Addis, a Miami Beach police officer with five sons, and moved Rourke, his younger brother (Joey), and their sister (Patricia) to South Florida. There, he graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School in 1971.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: During his teenage years, Rourke focused his attention mainly on sports. He took up self-defense training at the Boys Club of Miami. It was there that he learned boxing skills and decided on an amateur career.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: At age 12, Rourke won his first boxing match as a flyweight, fighting some of his early matches under the name Phil Rourke. He continued his boxing training at the famed 5th Street Gym, in Miami Beach, Florida. In 1969, Rourke, then weighing 140 pounds (63.5 kg), sparred with former World Welterweight Champion Luis Rodríguez. Rodríguez was the number one–rated middleweight boxer in the world and was training for his match with world champion Nino Benvenuti. Rourke says he received a concussion from his sparring match with Rodríguez.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: At the 1971 Florida Golden Gloves, Rourke suffered another concussion in a boxing match. After being told by doctors to take a year off and rest, Rourke temporarily retired from the ring. From 1964 to 1973, Rourke compiled an amateur boxing record of 27 wins (including 12 straight knockouts) and 3 defeats, which included a first-round knockout win over John Carver and decision victories over Ronnie Carter and Javier Villanueva.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: In 1971, as a senior at Miami Beach Senior High School, Rourke had a small acting role in the Jay W. Jensen–directed school play "The Serpent". However, Rourke's interests were geared to boxing, and he never appeared in any other school productions. Soon after he temporarily gave up boxing, a friend at the University of Miami told Rourke about a play he was directing, "Deathwatch", and how the man playing the role of Green Eyes had quit. Rourke got the part and immediately became enamored with acting. Borrowing $400 from his sister, he moved to New York, working an assortment of odd jobs while studying with Actors Studio alumni Walter Lott and Sandra Seacat. It was under the latter's tutelage, Rourke later recalled, that "everything started to click."


title: Mickey Rourke

text: Seacat motivated Rourke to find his father, from whom he was separated for more than twenty years. During his appearance on "Inside the Actors Studio", after the release of "The Wrestler", host James Lipton disclosed that Rourke had been selected to the Actors Studio in his first audition, which Elia Kazan is reported to have said was the "best audition in thirty years".


title: Mickey Rourke

text: Appearing primarily in television films during the late 1970s, Rourke made his feature film debut with a small role in Steven Spielberg's "1941". He played Ritchie, Dennis Christopher's bullying and ill-fated co-worker in the 1980 slasher film "Fade to Black". However, it was in 1981, with his portrayal of an arsonist in "Body Heat", that Rourke first received significant attention, despite his modest time on screen. The following year, he drew further critical accolades for his portrayal as the suave compulsive gambler "Boogie" Sheftell in Barry Levinson's "Diner", in which Rourke co-starred, alongside Paul Reiser, Daniel Stern, Steve Guttenberg, Tim Daly and Kevin Bacon; the National Society of Film Critics named him Best Supporting Actor that year. Soon thereafter, Rourke starred in "Rumble Fish", Francis Ford Coppola's follow-up to "The Outsiders".


title: Mickey Rourke

text: Rourke's performance in the film "The Pope of Greenwich Village" alongside Daryl Hannah and Eric Roberts also caught the attention of critics, although the film was not financially successful. In the mid-1980s, Rourke earned himself additional leading roles. His role alongside Kim Basinger in the erotic drama "9½ Weeks" helped him gain sex symbol status. He received critical praise for his work in "Barfly" as the alcoholic writer Henry Chinaski (the literary alter ego of Charles Bukowski) and in "Year of the Dragon".


title: Mickey Rourke

text: In 1987, Rourke appeared in "Angel Heart". The film was nominated for several awards. It was seen as controversial by some, owing to a sex scene involving "Cosby Show" cast member Lisa Bonet, who won an award for her part in the film. Although some of Rourke's work was viewed as controversial in the US, he was well received by European, and especially French audiences, who loved the "rumpled, slightly dirty, sordid ... rebel persona" that he projected in "Year of the Dragon", "9½ Weeks", "Angel Heart", and "Desperate Hours". Director Adrian Lyne said that had Rourke died after the release of "Angel Heart", he would have become a bigger phenomenon than James Dean.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: In the late 1980s, Rourke performed with David Bowie on the "Never Let Me Down" album. Around the same time he also wrote his first screenplay, "Homeboy", a boxing tale in which he starred. In 1989 Rourke starred in the docudrama "Francesco", portraying St. Francis of Assisi. This was followed by "Wild Orchid", another critically panned film, which gained him a nomination for a Razzie award (also for "Desperate Hours"). In 1991 he starred in the box office bomb "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" as Harley Davidson, a biker whose best friend, Marlboro, was played by Don Johnson. In his last role before departing for the boxing ring, Rourke played an arms dealer chased by Willem Dafoe and Samuel L. Jackson in "White Sands", a film noir that reviewers found stylish but incoherent.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: Rourke's acting career eventually became overshadowed by his personal life and career decisions. Directors such as Alan Parker found it difficult to work with him. Parker stated that "working with Mickey is a nightmare. He is very dangerous on the set because you never know what he is going to do." In a documentary on the special edition DVD of "Tombstone", actor Michael Biehn, who plays the part of Johnny Ringo, mentions that his role was first offered to Rourke. Rourke has allegedly turned down several roles in high-profile films, including "48 Hrs.", "Platoon", "Top Gun", "Beverly Hills Cop", "Rain Man", "The Silence of the Lambs", and "Pulp Fiction".


title: Mickey Rourke

text: In 1991, Rourke decided that he "had to go back to boxing" because he felt that he "was self-destructing ... [and] had no respect for [himself as] an actor". Rourke was undefeated in eight fights, with six wins (four by knockout) and two draws. He fought internationally in countries including Spain, Japan, and Germany. During his boxing career, Rourke suffered a number of injuries, including a broken nose, toe, and ribs, a split tongue, and a compressed cheekbone. He also suffered from short-term memory loss.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: His trainer during most of his boxing career was Hells Angels member, actor, and celebrity bodyguard Chuck Zito. Freddie Roach also trained Rourke for seven fights. Rourke's entrance song into the ring was often Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" (to which reference is made in his film "The Wrestler", in which Rourke's character enters his final match of the film to the song playing over the loudspeakers). Boxing promoters said that Rourke was too old to succeed against top-level fighters. Indeed, Rourke himself admits that entering the ring was a sort of personal test: "[I] just wanted to give it a shot, test myself that way physically, while I still had time." Rourke's boxing career resulted in a notable physical change in the 1990s, as his face needed reconstructive surgery to mend his injuries. His face was later called "appallingly disfigured".


title: Mickey Rourke

text: On November 28, 2014, Rourke briefly returned to the boxing ring and fought 29-year-old Elliot Seymour in Moscow, Russia. It was Rourke's first boxing match in over 20 years. Talks of him being involved in four more matches were released by Rourke himself after the match. He won the exhibition fight in the second round by TKO. The fight is not counted in his professional record since it was an exhibition match. The opponent later stated that he threw the fight, having been promised payment to take a dive in the second round.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: In the early 1990s, Rourke was offered and declined the role of Butch Coolidge, which later became Bruce Willis's role in "Pulp Fiction". After his retirement from boxing, Rourke did accept supporting roles in several 1990s films, including Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of John Grisham's "The Rainmaker", Vincent Gallo's "Buffalo '66", Steve Buscemi's "Animal Factory", Sean Penn's "The Pledge", and Sylvester Stallone's remake of "Get Carter". Rourke also has written several films under the name Sir Eddie Cook, including "Bullet", in which he co-starred with Tupac Shakur.


title: Mickey Rourke

text: While Rourke was also selected for a significant role in Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line", his part ended up on the cutting room floor. Rourke also played a small part in the film "Thursday", in which he plays a crooked cop. He also had a lead role in 1997's "Double Team", which co-starred martial arts actor Jean-Claude Van Damme and former NBA player Dennis Rodman. It was Rourke's first over-the-top action film role, in which he played the lead villain. During that same year, he filmed "Another 9½ Weeks", a sequel to "9½ Weeks", which received only limited distribution. He ended the 1990s with the direct-to-video films "Out in Fifty", "Shades" and television film "Shergar", about the kidnapping of Epsom Derby-winning thoroughbred racehorse Shergar. Rourke has expressed his bitterness over that period of his career, stating that he came to consider himself a "has-been" and lived for a time in "a state of shame".