Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Medieval studies'

Många butiker har idag problem med att fördela sina marknadsföringsmedel. Ofta sänder de ut stora mängder reklam men har svårt att veta om deras marknadskommunikation får något genomslag eller inte. Denna uppsats behandlar de delar av marknadsföringen som butiker kan ta hjälp utav för att bättre veta hur de kan fördela sina marknadsföringsmedel. Syftet med detta arbete var att beskriva hur butiker med hjälp av utformning av mediebudget och medieschemaplanering bättre kan fördela sina reklampengar och vidare försäkra sig om att dessa investeringar i sin marknadskommunikation uppmärksammas av målgruppen och i slutändan resulterar i en ökad försäljning. Vi hade även som syfte att upprätta en egen mediebudget och ett eget medieschema. Slutligen ämnade även kunna ge butiker rekommendationer om hur de kan gå tillväga i framtiden. Makromålkedjan ligger till grund för denna uppsats med de fem viktiga delmål som måste uppfyllas för att uppnå det slutliga och önskade målet – vinst. För att få ett verkligt exempel har vi tillämpat oss av en fallstudie med hjälp av en verklig butik. Genom att intervjua butikschefen skaffade vi oss en inblick i hur arbetet med marknadskommunikationen kan fungera i en butik. Från detta utgick vi sedan i vår undersökning. Vi intervjuade även representanter från två reklambyråer samt en konsult som utför målgruppsanalyser, detta för att få tips och råd till vår undersökning. Vår undersökning utgörs av två kundundersökningar i form av kortare intervjuer. Detta för att ha en grund när vi senare genomförde beräkning av effektiv frekvens, samt upprättade en mediebudget och ett medieschema. Med detta ville vi påvisa den stora vikten för butiker att ha kontroll över sina marknadsföringsmedel och att se till att dessa fördelas på rätt sätt. Dessa redovisas senare i uppsatsens resultat. Vid utformandet av medieschemat har vi haft de tre dimensionerna frekvens, kontinuitet och räckvidd i åtanke. I samband med detta har vi även tittat närmare på medieval och valt ut de media som vi ansåg lämpligast för vår fallstudie.

This dissertation explores the close literary, thematic and linguistic relationships between The Hebrew Chronicles of the First Crusade and the later pietistic text Sefer Hasidim. Despite a long-standing tendency to view the Jewish martyrdom of 1096 and the development of German pietism (Hasidut Ashkenaz) as unrelated. upon closer scrutiny, we find strong ties between the two texts. Sefer Hasidim, the most well-known pietistic text, contains dozens of martyrological stories and references that share similar language, themes and contexts as the crusade chronicles. Indeed, rather than standing alone, and unrelated to the first crusade literature, we find tales of martyrdom that closely resemble those in the first crusade narratives. Sefer Hasidim also contains numerous statements that indicate the primacy of martyrdom within the hierarchy of the pietistic belief system, while other martyrological references function as prooftext for the traditional pietistic themes distilled by Ivan Marcus and Haym Soloveitchik. The extent to which martyrological themes are integrated into the belief system articulated in Sefer Hasidim indicates that the martyrdom of the First Crusade should be viewed as formative to the development of Hasidut Ashkenaz. A close reading of Sefer Hasidim conclusively demonstrates this premise. Moreover, a similar analysis of the crusade chronicles reveals a wide range of martyrological tales described in quintessential pietistic terms; expressions of the will of God, the fear of God. and the pietistic preference for life in the hereafter, are found throughout the martyrological text.

When reading these two diverse texts side by side, we find substantive elements of a common world view spanning the period of the first crusade through the appearance of Sefer Hasidim. This allows us to understand each text through a new lens; the crusade chronicles now appear to be an early articulation of pietistic thought, while the later pietistic text now reads in part as a martyrological document of great significance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore medieval gender roles through the discourse and conduct of warfare. Some modern historians such as John Keegan have maintained that medieval warfare was a masculine activity that precluded female participation in all but the most exceptional cases. Megan McLaughlin asserted that the change from a domestic to public model of warfare resulted in a disenfranchisement of women after the eleventh century. This paper shows that medieval warfare was not male exclusive, and women's active participation throughout the period was often integral to a combat's outcome. By analyzing both the military activities of female combatants and changes in academic dialogues over war in the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, an ongoing disparity unfolds between the ideological gendering of warfare and its actual practice.

This disparity informed an accepted norm in which women were seen as inherently weak and unfit for combat, requiring a "masculinization" of women who successfully engaged in battle. This in turn led to the establishment of the virago image of female warriors; paradoxically, women who therefore defied the normative expectation of feminine behavior could be held in high regard for their masculine virtues. At the same time, the contributions of individual women to warfare are often left with minimal mention or treated as anomalous by some later chroniclers.

The paper is divided into seven sections. Part I explores the eleventh century military career of Matilda of Canossa, and subsequent treatment of her activities by apologists and canonical reformers. Part II discusses the means by which women had access to military activity in a changing climate of gendered social roles, through marriage, inheritance, and the influence of the Pax Dei movement. Part III discusses the military activity of women during the Crusades, and the differences in how that activity was noted in Western versus Islamic sources.

Parts IV - VI discuss the thirteenth century academic dialogues over women's participation in combat in the wake of the Crusades, through the work of Giles of Rome and Ptolemy of Lucca. As well, it analyzes the enfolding of knighthood as a construct of feudal vassalage into the noble class, and the changing access to military orders granted to women as armies became professionalized. Part VII looks at the formation of a new kind of war rhetoric and an attempt to resolve the disparity between the theory and practice of warfare in regards to women through the fifteenth century work of Christine de Pizan.

The conclusions of this work are that war may be understood to be a masculine activity, yet is not male exclusive. Writers and war chroniclers were forced to complicate gendered social norms in order to justify or refute women engaging in combat. This only resulted in a continued re-evaluation of the proper ideological place of women in war, and was not necessarily reflective of a change in the actual circumstances or frequency with which women took part.

Chaucer bases the marriage in the Shipman’s Tale on the ethical and social systems of the medieval merchant class, yet criticism of the marriage and the wife’s extra-marital transaction especially, often falls squarely in the realm of ecclesiastical, moral ideology. A moral reading of the mercantile-based Shipman’s Tale presupposes that an accommodation can be negotiated between the mercantile and the ecclesiastical. I argue that Chaucer’s construction of marriage in the Shipman’s Tale allows for no accommodation. Chaucer creates a purely mercantile marriage that relies upon the ethical standards of business to determine its strength. This thesis examines the intersecting ecclesiastical and mercantile terms within the Shipman’s Tale. Chapter one examines the assertion that money perverts the marriage of the wife and the merchant. To refute these claims I examine the medieval church’s views on marriage, the Pauline “marriage debt,” adultery, and the conflicts within this ideal as they relate to and inform the marriage of the wife and merchant. The marriage between the merchant husband and his wife in the Shipman’s Tale is strengthened by its adherence to mercantile ethics, and stands as a legitimate partnership, not as a perversion. In Chapter two I focus on the determination that the wife in the Shipman’s Tale is “unfaithful, aggressively self-centered, and mercenary.” The particular assertion of “mercenary” interests me, since it is based on attempts to calculate a financial exchange rate in order to accuse the wife of over-selling herself to the monk. If the wife over-sells her body then she reaps a usurious profit, a practice condemned by both ecclesiastical and secular fourteenth-century courts. I analyze terms and financial transactions specific to usury and find that the wife conducts an ethical trade based on fourteenth-century mercantile law. She trades her body for the amount of currency the market will bear, therefore she is free from the charges of mercenary over-selling and moves out of the shadow of her merchant husband and into the role of independent merchant. In Chapter three I confront the “redemptive innocence” extended to the merchant husband and the refusal to extend such redemption to the wife. I investigate the specific mercantile terms related to the bill of exchange model used by both the husband and wife in the Shipman’s Tale, in order to show that the wife in the Shipman’s Tale is an ethical merchant in her own right and therefore worthy of the same “redemptive innocence” offered to her husband. I conclude that the merchant’s marriage typifies the medieval mercantile business model, that ecclesiastical marriage ideology is incongruent to this business model, and that the wife’s movements must be evaluated under the terms of mercantile ethics. I find the wife in the Shipman’s Tale to be an ethical merchant and an exemplary participant in the mercantile marriage provided by the text.