Dissertations / Theses: 'Military history, Medieval, in literature'

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Maxson, Brian. "The Crusades and the Lost Literature of the Italian Renaissance." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2012. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/6225.

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Gilmer, James. "The Song Remains the Same: Reconciling Nikephoros Bryennios’ Materials for a History." Wright State University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1567338149373255.

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Byrne, Aisling Nora. "The otherworlds of medieval insular literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610076.

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Blustein, Rebecca Danielle. "Kingship, history and mythmaking in medieval Irish literature." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1432770931&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

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Smith, Greta Lynn. "Imagining Aesop: The Medieval Fable and the History of the Book." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1469455774.

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Yolles, Julian Jay Theodore. "Latin Literature and Frankish Culture in the Crusader States (1098–1187)." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467480.

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The so-called Crusader States established by European settlers in the Levant at the end of the eleventh century gave rise to a variety of Latin literary works, including historiography, sermons, pilgrim guides, monastic literature, and poetry. The first part of this study (Chapter 1) critically reevaluates the Latin literary texts and combines the evidence, including unpublished materials, to chart the development of genres over the course of the twelfth century. The second half of the study (Chapters 2–4) subjects this evidence to a cultural-rhetorical analysis, and asks how Latin literary works, as products by and for a cultural elite, appropriated preexisting materials and developed strategies of their own to construct a Frankish cultural identity of the Levant. Proceeding on three thematically different, but closely interrelated, lines of inquiry, it is argued that authors in the Latin East made cultural claims by drawing on the classical tradition, on the Bible, and on ideas of a Carolingian golden age. Chapter 2 demonstrates that Latin historians drew upon classical traditions to fit the Latin East within established frameworks of history and geography, in which the figures Vespasian and Titus are particularly prevalent. Chapter 3 traces the development of the conception of the Franks in the East as a “People of God” and the use of biblical texts to support this claim, especially the Books of the Maccabees. Chapter 4 explores the extent to which authors drew on the legend of Charlemagne as a bridge between East and West. Although the appearance of similar motifs signals a degree of cultural unity among the authors writing in the Latin East, there is an abundant variety in the way they are utilized, inasmuch as they are dynamic rhetorical strategies open to adaptation to differing exigencies. New monastic and ecclesiastical institutions produced Latin writings that demonstrate an urge to establish political and religious authority. While these struggles for power resemble to some extent those between secular and ecclesiastical authorities and institutions in Western Europe, the literary topoi the authors draw upon are specific to their new locale, and represent the creation of a new cultural-literary tradition.
Classics

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Dutton, Anne Marie. "Women's use of religious literature in late medieval England." Thesis, Online version, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.296557.

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Binkhorst, Caitlin E. "A Game of Love and Chess: A Study of Chess Players on Gothic Ivory Mirror Cases." Kent State University Honors College / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1367695601.

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O'Driscoll, Joshua. "Image and Inscription in the Painterly Manuscripts From Ottonian Cologne." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467286.

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Focusing on a small number of richly illuminated manuscripts produced in Cologne around the year 1000—and known to scholars since the early twentieth century as the so-called "painterly" group of manuscripts—this dissertation takes the close study of a well-defined group of objects as the starting point for an examination of issues central to broader histories of medieval art. A diptych-like pairing of miniatures with inscriptions, each of which is given a full page, constitutes a characteristic feature of these manuscripts. Because these inscriptions were written specifically to accompany the facing images, the manuscripts from Cologne afford us a rare glimpse of a discourse on art and image making in the tenth and eleventh centuries, as well as providing insights into how such miniatures were meant to be viewed. The first chapter establishes a theoretical framework for the project, which examines both the historical and the scholarly origins of the Cologne School. Moreover, the concept of a "painterly" style is scrutinized and its use is traced back to significant developments in German art-historical writing of the late nineteenth century. The second chapter—devoted to a remarkable, yet relatively unknown tenth-century gospel book in Milan—demonstrates how the manuscript's carefully-crafted pictorial program draws upon an impressive tradition of Carolingian poetry and epigraphy in order to instill a pointed moralizing lesson on its recipient. A closely related sister-manuscript, preserved today in Paris, forms the subject of the third chapter, which demonstrates how the designer of its program employed philosophical and dialectical terms—taken from the school texts of the day—in order to devise an ambitiously complex set of miniatures and inscriptions, centered on a contemplative engagement with the paintings. The dissertation concludes with a chapter on the more famous Hitda Codex, illuminated at the behest of a powerful abbess in the early eleventh century. Through an analysis of the manuscript's narrative program, the chapter details how both image and inscription coordinate the active engagement of the viewer—prompting a consideration of the ways in which the pairings function as allegories of introspection. Throughout the dissertation I aim to reconcile the innovative formal qualities of the miniatures with the unusual complexity of their accompanying inscriptions. As a consequence of this study, it can be demonstrated that in the painterly manuscripts from Cologne, the close intertwining of image and inscription results in sophisticated programs of illumination, which elucidate an unprecedented contemporary reflection on the nature of painting in age otherwise known for its scarcity of written sources on art.
History of Art and Architecture

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Thomson, David (David Ker). "The language of loss : reading medieval mystical literature." Thesis, McGill University, 1990. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=59912.

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One of the unfortunate corollaries of poststructuralist theorizing about literary texts has been the equation of a skepticism concerning language with a skepticism concerning meaning. The menace of unrestrained relativism has tended to polarize the critical community into proponents of a 'logo-diffuse' onto-epistemology and proponents of a 'logo-centric' one, and critical practice has followed this lead. The critic who attempts to situate literature within the parameters of such a debate is likely to fail unless he or she appeals to a much more extensive discourse, one which antedates the provincial contours of the current discussion. Medieval mysticism is a significant entry in the lineage of influence which comprises the western tradition. This thesis looks at the apophatic or negative strategies of mystical texts in order to locate meaning in the interplay of negation and affirmation with which they are concerned.

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Turner, Kerry Lynn. "Pagan Nostalgia and Anti-Clerical Hostility in Medieval Irish Literature." Youngstown State University / OhioLINK, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu1008344167.

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Murgatroyd, Philip Scott. "Medieval warfare on the grid." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3797/.

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Although historical studies are frequently perceived as clear narratives defined by a series of fixed events; in reality, even where critical historical events may be identified, historic documentation frequently lacks corroborative detail to support verifiable interpretation. Consequently, interpretation rarely rises above the level of unproven assertion and is rarely tested against a range of evidence. Agent-based simulation can provide an opportunity to break these cycles of academic claim and counter-claim. This thesis discusses the development of an agent-based simulation designed to investigate medieval military logistics so that new evidence may be generated to supplement existing historical analysis. It uses as a case-study the Byzantine army’s march to the battle of Manzikert (AD 1071), a key event in medieval history. It describes the design and implementation of a series of agent-based models and presents the results of these models. The analysis of these results shows that agent-based modelling is a powerful tool in investigating the practical limitations faced by medieval armies on campaign.

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Priddy, Jeremy Daniel-John. "As Tufa to Sapphire| Gendering the Roles of Medieval Women in Combat." Thesis, The George Washington University, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1558108.

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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.

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Douglas, Sarah K. "The Price of Pestilence: England’s response to the Black Death in the face of the Hundred Years War." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1436982201.

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Atlee, Carl W. "Poetry and politics: A literary biography of GomezManrique (c.1415-1490)." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/280139.

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Relatively little is known of Gomez Manrique (c. 1415-1490), warrior, statesman and author of a significant corpus of cancionero poetry. His poetic and dramatic works were first published by Antonio Paz y Melia, Cancionero de Gomez Manrique (1885-6) in an edition that is at variance with current established norms and includes only a brief, thirty-two-page biography. In the 116 years since Paz y Melia's study, a significant amount of new historical material has been published on fifteenth-century Spain, much of which bears directly on the life and times of Gomez Manrique. Despite Manfque's close alliance with Isabel I and Fernando V and his extensive involvement in the political events of the day, we do not find him mentioned as frequently as we might expect. This dissertation analyzes the historical evidence that exists in order to construct Gomez Manrique's biography and incorporates Manrique's poetry as testimony to the influence that he had on many of the eminent poets and politicians of his day. Manrique's verse dedicated to many of the statesmen and troubadours of the fifteenth century links him to the historical context in which he functioned as author, statesman and soldier. Part One details the formative years of Manrique. The many events and issues that occurred during this turbulent period of Castilian history are presented to show how they affected Manrique's development as a poet and knight. Part Two portrays Gomez Manrique's adulthood and development from an obscure soldier to a chief defender of the Catholic Monarchs. His poetry and his actions as documented in the chronicles reveal his important contributions to Isabel's and Fernando's successful accession to the throne of Castile. Part Three offers a profile of the knights, prelates, family members and royalty to whom Manrique dedicated poetry, many of whom are significant historical figures despite their relative obscurity. Finally, the Appendix offers an annotated selection of Gomez Manrique's poetry, newly transcribed to conform to current norms.

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Rogers, Janine. "Gender and the literature culture of late medieval England." Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=35053.

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This dissertation explores the impact of gender ideologies held by medieval readerships on the production of books and circulation of texts in late medieval England. The first chapter explores how the professional book trade of late medieval London circulated booklets of Chauceriana which constructed masculinity and femininity in strict adherence to the courtly love literary tradition. In the second chapter, I demonstrate that such a standardized representation of courtly gender could be adapted by a readership removed from the professional book trade, in this case the rural gentry producers of the Findern manuscript, who present a revised vision of femininity and courtliness in their anthology. This revised femininity includes several texts which privilege the female speaking voice. The third chapter goes on to investigate the use of the female voice in one particular genre, the love lyric, and asks if the female lyric speaker can be associated with manuscripts in which women participated as producers or readers. Finally, the fourth chapter turns to masculinity, examining how the commonplace book of an early 16th century grocer, Richard Hill, contains selections from didactic and recreational literature which reinforce the ideals of masculine conduct in the merchant community of late medieval London. The dissertation concludes that manuscript contexts must be taken into account when reading gender in medieval English literature.

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Becker, Katherine A. "THE SWISS WAY OF WAR: A STUDY ON THE TRANSMISSION AND CONTINUITY OF CLASSICAL AND MILITARY IDEAS AND PRACTICE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE." The Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1244264028.

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Damon, John Edward 1951. "Soldier saints and holy warriors: Warfare and sanctity in Anglo-Saxon England." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282648.

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It is common but too simplistic to say that Old English literature shows the unconscious blending of the traditional Germanic heroic ethos and the early Christian aversion to war. The matter is more complex. Throughout the Latin West, Christian perceptions of a tension between sanctity and warfare changed over the period from the arrival of Roman Christianity in England (AD 597) to the period following the Norman Conquest of 1066. Christian disdain for and rejection of warfare (at times no more than nominal) gave way eventually to active participation in wars considered "just" or "holy." Anglo-Saxon literature, in both Latin and Old English, documented this changing ethos and also played a significant role in its development. The earliest extant Anglo-Saxon hagiographic texts featured a new type of holy man, the martyred warrior king, whose role in spreading Christianity in England culminated in a dramatic death in battle fighting enemies portrayed by hagiographers as bloodthirsty pagans. During the same period, other Anglo-Saxon writers depicted warriors who transformed themselves into soldiers of Christ, armed only with the weapons of faith. These and later Anglo-Saxon literary works explored the intersection of violence and the sacred in often conflicting ways, in some instances helping to lead Christian spirituality toward the more martial spirit that would eventually culminate in Pope Urban II's preaching of the First Crusade in 1095, but in other cases preserving intact many early Christians' radical opposition to war. Aspects of crusading ideology existed alongside Christian opposition to war throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. This study examines hagiographers' changing literary tropes as subtle but important reflections of medieval Christianity's evolution from rejecting the sword to tolerating and even wielding it. Hagiographers used various narrative topoi to recount the lives of warrior saints, and, as the ambient Christian ethos changed, so did their employment of these themes. The tension between forbearance and militancy, even in the earliest English lives of saints, is more profound and more culturally complex than what is generally understood as merely the Germanic heroic trappings of Anglo-Saxon Christian literature.

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Price, Brian R. "The Martial Arts of Medieval Europe." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2011. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc103377/.

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During the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, fighting books—Fechtbücher—were produced in northern Italy, among the German states, in Burgundy, and on the Iberian peninsula. Long dismissed by fencing historians as “rough and untutored,” and largely unknown to military historians, these enigmatic treatises offer important insights into the cultural realities for all three orders in medieval society: those who fought, those who prayed, and those who labored. The intent of this dissertation is to demonstrate, contrary to the view of fencing historians, that the medieval works were systematic and logical approaches to personal defense rooted in optimizing available technology and regulating the appropriate use of the skills and technology through the lens of chivalric conduct. I argue further that these approaches were principle-based, that they built on Aristotelian conceptions of arte, and that by both contemporary and modern usage, they were martial arts. Finally, I argue that the existence of these martial arts lends important insights into the world-view across the spectrum of Medieval and early Renaissance society, but particularly with the tactical understanding held by professional combatants, the knights and men-at-arms. Three treatises are analyzed in detail. These include the anonymous RA I.33 Latin manuscript in the Royal Armouries at Leeds; the early German treatise attributed to Hanko Döbringer that glosses the great Johannes Liechtenauer; and the collection of surviving treatises by the Friulian master, Fiore dei Liberi. Each is compared in order to highlight common elements of usage that form the principles of the combat arts.

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Oberer, Karen. "The arc of character: medieval stock types in Shakespeare's English history plays." Thesis, McGill University, 2012. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=106396.

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This dissertation focuses on practices of stock characterisation as they are represented in literature and drama of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries in England, with particular emphasis on the transformations of social types from medieval literature to early modern drama, specifically Shakespeare's English history plays. Its wider focus is on the social context in which medieval authors created their characters, and on the conventional construction of medieval characters from what Elizabeth Fowler defines as "social persons." I argue that stock characters allow for permeability between past history and present performance. Attendant on their deployment in literature and drama is their recollection of past literary and cultural traditions. This is why Shakespeare employs them to such great effect in his English history plays: stock characters have an overt purchase on the past that makes history more socially immediate to early modern audiences. Shakespeare's stock characters recall medieval privileging of family and community, and thus are particularly suitable to the English histories' narratives of a country subsumed by family tragedy. The dissertation focuses on four social persons which Shakespeare uses to construct stock characters: the Garcio, the Alewife, the Corrupt Clergyman and the Romance Heroine. He employs these social persons in four characters: the Bastard Faulconbridge in King John, Mistress Quickly in the second "tetralogy," Cardinal Beaufort in the first "tetralogy" and Queen Isabel in Richard II. This dissertation is intended to provoke reconsideration of the stock characters as "flat" stereotypes, and to elaborate upon their complex roles in literary and dramatic history.
Cette thèse examine la représentation des personnages types dans la littérature et le drame en Angleterre du quatorzième au seizième siècle en mettant particulièrement l'accent sur les transformations des types sociaux entre la littérature médiévale et le drame de la Renaissance, surtout dans les pièces historiques britanniques de Shakespeare. Au plus large, la thèse porte sur le contexte social dans lequel les auteurs médiévaux ont façonné leurs personnages et sur la fabrication conventionnelle des personnages médiévaux à partir des « personnes sociales » telles que définies par Elizabeth Fowler. Les personnages types, je soutiens, créent un espace de perméabilité entre l'histoire du passé et la performance au moment présent. L'emploi de ces personnages dans la littérature et dans le drame est associé à leurs souvenirs des traditions littéraires et culturelles du passé. C'est pourquoi Shakespeare s'en sert si bien dans ses pièces historiques : les personnages types ont une prise sur le passé qui rend l'histoire plus immédiate sur le plan social pour les spectateurs de la Renaissance. Les personnages types de Shakespeare rapellent l'emphase sur la famille et la communauté pendant l'époque médiévale, ce qui les rend particulièrement appropriés aux récits des pièces historiques d'un pays subsumé par la tragédie familiale.Cette thèse porte sur quatre personnes sociales à partir desquelles Shakespeare fabrique des personnages types, soit le « garcio », la femme du tavernier, le curé corrompu, et l'héroïne des histoires romanesques. Il a recours à ces personnes sociales dans quatre personnages, soit le bâtard Faulconbridge dans La vie et la mort du roi Jean, Madame Quickly dans la deuxième tétralogie, Cardinal Beaufort dans la première tétralogie, et la Reine Isabel dans Richard II. Le but de cette thèse est de provoquer une reconsidération des personnages types comme des stéréotypes « plats » et d'élaborer sur leurs rôles complexes dans l'histoire littéraire et dramatique.

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Taylor, Scott Lynn. "Mary between God and the devil: Jurisprudence, theology and satire in Bartolo of Sassoferrato's "Processus Sathane"." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282895.

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This dissertation analyzes the manuscripts and incunabula of the Processus Sathane, a fourteenth-century text frequently attributed to the famed Italian jurist, Bartolo of Sassoferrato, which portrays Mary as humanity's advocate before the court of Christ, defending humankind against Satan's lawsuit to recover possession of the human species. It concludes that the Urtext is not the version most popular in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but an older version, which dates to the first half of the fourteenth century and was itself translated into low-Norman verse in the mid-fourteenth century; and that the text usually attributed to Bartolo is a fifteenth-century redaction. This work then examines why the original Processus Sathane may have been revised, examining both precursors and progeny of the text to demonstrate how its imagery is part of a larger tendency for metaphor to reify, by charting the transposition of this trope from theological type to legal exemplar to popular exempla. In particular, this dissertation reviews the theological background pertinent to the use of Satan's suit as a vehicle for discussing divine justice and mercy in the redemption, and discusses two direct predecessors of the Processus Sathane. It then provides an extended precis of the Processus Sathane itself, analyzing how the image of Satan's suit, reappropriated by the legal profession, serves the classroom as a sample of courtroom technique; but concludes that the Processus, to make legal sense, necessarily presupposes that humanity is sui juris and the possession neither of Satan nor Christ. It proceeds to locate the text in the history of European drama and comic literature, advancing reasons for the popularity outside theological and legal circles of the text and Mary's breast-baring forensic antics. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of why the Processus and its progeny ultimately lost popularity or were suppressed; and why the vivid imagery was discarded, though like metaphor generally, it survived through reappropriation in new guises.

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Edmisten, Charles E. III. ""The Dent of Myne Honde": The Practice and Presentation of War in "King Horn"." Kent State University Honors College / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1367879057.

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Powers, Ashley. "The Commerce Of Time: The Influence Of Thirteenth Century Commercial Society On The Conception And Expression Of Time In Parisian Poet Rutebeuf’s Corpus." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469089012.

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Packard, Barbara. "Remembering the First Crusade : Latin narrative histories 1099-c.1300." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2011. http://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/30bc10ac-ba25-0f0e-cef0-76af48433206/9/.

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The success of the First Crusade by the Christian armies caught the interest and arrested the imagination of contemporaries, stimulating the production of a large number of historical narratives. Four eyewitness accounts, as well as letters written by the crusaders to the West, were taken up by later authors, re-worked and re-fashioned into new narratives; a process which continued throughout the twelfth century and beyond. This thesis sets out to explore why contemporaries continued to write about the First Crusade in light of medieval attitudes towards the past, how authors constructed their narratives and how the crusade and the crusaders were remembered throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It will analyse the development in the way the First Crusade was recorded and investigate the social, religious, intellectual and political influences dictating change: How, why and under what circumstances was the story re- told? What changed in the re-telling? What ideas and concepts were the authors trying to communicate and what was their meaning for contemporaries? The thesis will also aim to place these texts not only in their historical but also in their literary contexts, analyse the literary traditions from which authors were writing, and consider the impact the crusade had on medieval literature. The focus will be on Latin histories of the First Crusade, especially those written in England and France, which produced the greatest number of narratives. Those written in the Levant, the subject of these histories, will also be discussed, as well as texts written in the Empire and in Italy.

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Galoob, Robert Paul. "Post hoc propter hoc| The impact of martyrdom on the development of Hasidut Ashkenaz." Thesis, Graduate Theological Union, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10646811.

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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.

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Brooks, Kathryn L. "Anticlerical Sentiment in Castilian and Galician-Portuguese Medieval Literature." PDXScholar, 1996. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/5084.

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Clerical sexual incontinence was a prevalent satirical theme during the Middle Ages manifested by anticlerical sentiment towards reprobate clergymen and the laws that they disobeyed. This satirical genre of literature targeted not only the cleric of a small town, but bishops and cardinals who were also abusers of canon law. The anticlerical theme originated in Western Europe in the time of Constantine when early Christianity was competing with many religions for dominance. In the fourth century, Constantine, through the Edict of Milan, granted religious tolerance to all, thus allowing Christianity to become a major religion. Clerical celibacy originated from the writings of early church fathers such as Augustine of Hippo, Origen, and Tertullian, who determined that celibacy provided greater spiritual access to God. Early patristic church fathers supported the ideal of sexual celibacy for Christians in order to spiritually overcome the other religions. In the fourth century A.D., the church demanded that the clerics remain celibate even though they were married. By the twelfth century, canonical laws demanded that clerics not marry and remain celibate. These laws initiated an extreme sexual repression of clerics who began to sexually seek women, refusing them absolution for their sins if they refused the clerics' sexual advances. The purpose of this thesis is to establish that the corrupt clerics victimized the laity, who, although fearing for their salvation, produced satirical poetry expressing their anticlerical sentiment. This thesis also will present literature that discusses the pros and cons of clerical concubinage. There are three different forms of articulation in this thesis. The first is didactic and teaches the reader by demonstrating literature that encouraged clerical celibacy. The second illustration is satirical poems with the seven deadly sins as a recurrent theme. These poems are divided into two groups: the first is the poems written by the nobility, and the second is the popular anonymous poems, sung to music for peasant entertainment. The third articulation is the proponents of clerical concubinage. This poetry reflects the human side of companionship and need during a tumultuous time when people banded together in order to survive.

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Bilow, Catherine A. "O Praesul Illustris: Images of the Bishop Patron in Poems of Late Medieval Latin Offices." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1334801887.

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Griffy, Henry. "Proving Genre: Robin Hood in the Literary History of Medieval English Romance through 1600." The Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1365687253.

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Richmond, Andrew Murray. "Reading Landscapes in Medieval British Romance." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1428671857.

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Gordon, Sara Rhianydd. "Reading and imagining family life in later medieval western Europe." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:601245df-1c95-4bfe-8a08-b99a334278fa.

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This thesis discusses the ideals of behaviour which sought to govern family life and which were common currency in England and northern Europe, how they were constructed, and how the late medieval gentry and nobility interacted with them. Hagiography, sermons, and courtesy literature all explicitly sought to influence the views and behaviour of their audiences, whilst the letter collections of the Pastons, Plumptons, Stonors, Celys, and Armburghs offer an insight into the self-perceptions of the recipients of this didactic material. Much of this material has been studied, but it did not exist in a vacuum. Images in books, often marking key moments in a typical life-cycle, supported, extended, even contradicted the notions inculcated by these texts, were increasingly relevant to later medieval daily lives, and both influenced their audience and were used by their audience as a form of self-fashioning. The five chapters of this thesis each explore a different aspect of the medieval lifecycle. Chapters One and Two take the foundation of the household, marriage, as their starting point, discussing courtship and the ideal marriage ceremony, as well as the attributes and behaviour of the ideal spouse. Chapter Three turns to how this household operated on a wider scale, demonstrating how lords were caught between Christ's example and the pressures of lavish lay display when building networks of friendship. Chapter Four considers the genesis of a new generation: how images and texts conveyed sometimes different notions of the ideal mother and father, the location of the household as a place of learning, and the importance of models when shaping the development of the ideal child. Lastly, Chapter Five investigates the end of the lifecycle, death, and how images and texts worked together to propound the central medieval idea of a 'good death'. Consideration is given throughout this thesis to how the norms of behaviour communicated by texts and images may be studied.

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Ewoldt, Amanda M. "Conversion and Crusade| The Image of the Saracen in Middle English Romance." Thesis, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2019. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10813454.

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Abstract This dissertation is a project that examines the way Middle English romances explore and build a sense of national English/Christian identity, both in opposition to and in incorporation of the Saracen Other. The major primary texts used in this project are Richard Coer de Lion, Firumbras, Bevis of Hampton, The King of Tars, and Thomas Malory?s Morte Darthur. I examine the way crusade romances grapple with the threat of the Middle East and the contention over the Holy Land and treat these romances, in part, as medieval meditations on how the Holy Land (lost during a string of failed or stalemated Crusades) could be won permanently, through war, consumption, or conversion. The literary cannibalism of Saracens in Richard Coer de Lion, the singular or wholesale religious conversions facilitated by female characters, and the figure of Malory?s Palomides all shed light on the medieval English politics of identity: specifically, what it means to be a good Englishman, a good knight, and a good Christian. Drawing on the works of Homi Bhabha, Geraldine Heng, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, and Siobhain Bly Calkin, this project fits into the overall conversation that contemplates medieval texts through the lens of postcolonial theory to locate early ideas of empire.

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Brown, Christopher E. "Writing Time: Dante, Petrarch, and Temporality." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845461.

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Trecento Italy, the century of Dante and Petrarch as well as the mechanical clock, represented a pivotal moment of innovation to formal measures of time. These creative expressions reflected transforming notions of ingenuity, and of man’s ability to shape the world and time in which he lived. While the mythic awakening of the self-conscious individual in Renaissance Italy has been largely demystified, criticism has tended to overlook the concurrent shifts to the Trecento temporal imagination, born of parallel practices that sought to recover cosmogonic secrets, and thus power over time. An intriguing conceptual connection lies in the multifaceted ingegno (and its Latin ancestor, ingenium), not merely a faculty or talent but a touch of the divine within, the dynamic enactment of which impels movement in, and beyond, time. Privileging the exceptional ingegno of Trecento to Quattrocento Italy, my dissertation engages in a three-part investigation of its manifestations, which evoke temporal tensions in the dialectic between particular and universal, finite ontology and pure existential being. Part one re-examines the mechanical clock, both a symbol and instrument, and its complex relation to bells in Trecento Florence. Informed by these symbols, part two, turning to poetic ingegno, conducts close readings of Dante’s Commedia and Petrarch’s Canzoniere — granting particular attention to the orologio of Paradiso 10, and the circularity of sestina 30, “Giovene donna sotto un verde lauro,” each emblematic of the manner in which the poets reconstitute time. Finally, part three considers the centrality of the human “maker” in the time matrix of Quattrocento Florence, juxtaposing the strategies of Lorenzo de’ Medici and Girolamo Savonarola to maximize, and transcend, finite time. This multidimensional approach not only excavates a more complete image of time in Renaissance Italy, but also reimagines the progression from Dante to Petrarch, and Petrarch to Italian poetry thereafter. The examination, I suggest, illuminates a paradoxical legacy: on one hand, in the glorification of man’s creativity; and on the other, in the existential anxiety of the time-conscious individual, endemic to modern chronophobia. The increasingly abstracted and self-referential time bespeaks a conspicuous absence of the sacred center, anticipating the transience that has plagued modernity.
Romance Languages and Literatures

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Rajsic, Jaclyn. "Britain and Albion in the mythical histories of medieval England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bc55a2b2-6156-4401-958b-0a6f454f9c6d.

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This dissertation examines the ideological role and adaptation of the mythical British past (derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae) in chronicles of England written in Anglo-Norman, Latin, and English from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, in terms of the shaping of English history during this time. I argue that the past is an important lens through which we can read the imagined geographies (Albion, Britain and England) and ‘imagined communities’ (the British and English), to use Benedict Anderson’s term, constructed by historical texts. I consider how British history was carefully re-shaped and combined with chronologically conflicting accounts of early English history (derived from Bede) to create a continuous view of the English past, one in which the British kings are made English or ‘of England’. Specifically, I examine the connections between geography and genealogy, which I argue become inextricably linked in relation to mythical British history from the thirteenth century onwards. From that point on, British kings are increasingly shown to be the founders and builders of England, rather than Britain, and are integrated into genealogies of England’s contemporary kings. I argue that short chronicles written in Latin and Anglo-Norman during the thirteenth century evidence a confidence that the ancient Britons were perceived as English, and equally a strong sense of Englishness. These texts, I contend, anticipate the combination of British and English histories that scholars find in the lengthier and better-known Brut histories written in the early fourteenth century. For the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, my study takes account of the Albina myth, the story of the mothers of Albion’s giants (their arrival in Albion before Brutus’s legendary conquest of the land). There has been a surge of scholarship about the Albina myth in recent years. My analysis of hitherto unknown accounts of the tale, which appear in some fifteenth-century genealogical rolls, leads me to challenge current interpretations of the story as a myth of foundation and as apparently problematic for British and English history. My discussion culminates with an analysis of some copies of the prose Brut chronicle (c. 1300) – the most popular secular, vernacular text in later medieval England, but it is seldom studied – and of some fifteenth-century genealogies of England’s kings. In both cases, I am concerned with presentations of the passage of dominion from British to English rulership in the texts and manuscripts in question. My preliminary investigation of the genealogies aims to draw attention to this very under-explored genre. In all, my study shows that the mythical British past was a site of adaptation and change in historical and genealogical texts written in England throughout the high and later Middle Ages. It also reveals short chronicles, prose Brut texts and manuscripts, and royal genealogies to have great potential future research.

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Bennett, Matthew. "The ethos and practice of warfare in the High Middle Ages c.1050-c.1250 : a military, social and literary study." Thesis, University of Northampton, 2010. http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/3589/.

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The purpose of this thesis is to explore the nature of military behaviour during the High Middle Ages, in what is normally called the Age of Chivalry. I am not entirely comfortable with this appellation, which is why I have chosen to discuss the ethos and practice of warfare. My focus is essentially on the societies of north-western Europe which displayed certain characteristics in warfare, which they exported into the Mediterranean region and further east. It is somewhat of a simplification to describe this military culture as that of 'knight and castle'; but it is a convenient starting point. In what follows I have drawn together fourteen of my published articles over the period 1982-2005, in order to present my interpretation of the main strands that can be identified in warfare between 1050 and 1250. Although I continue to be research active and have published, or I am still in the process of publishing, half-a-dozen articles over the last five years, I felt that I could best present a coherent thesis from the pieces which I have selected.

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Gornall, Alastair Malcolm. "Buddhism and grammar : the scholarly cultivation of Pāli in Medieval Laṅkā." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.608160.

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Wand, Benjamin Joseph. "Thietmar of Merseburg's Views on Clerical Warfare." PDXScholar, 2018. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4540.

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The tenth-century German bishop was more than just a spiritual leader, he was also a territorial lord with secular power. These bishops also lived in an environment where violence was sometimes a way of life. His culture contained a social dynamic that saw violence as a tool for defending and maintaining honor and as a mechanism for dispute resolution. Therefore, some bishops behaved violently, either to defend their diocese from threats or to serve their own political intrigues. In some instances bishops were said to be more skilled in warfare than secular lords. However, while some clergy participated in warfare and violence, others sought to limit it through application of canon law and peacemaking. With some clergy participating in violence and others decreeing that it be banned, there were mixed messages regarding clerical violence in this era. The bishop's role in warfare and violence, especially in Germany, has only been partially addressed by modern scholars. This deficit is part of an overall shortage of medieval German military scholarship. Furthermore, the historiography on bishops in the central Middle Ages (c. 900-1200) has generally covered two narratives: the bishop as a territorial lord or his role as a church reformer. This leaves a gap in scholarship that describes how an individual bishop justified or rationalized clerical participation in violence and warfare, including his own. This paper addresses that need by reporting how one German bishop, Thietmar of Merseburg (b. 975, 1009-18), reflected on and portrayed clerical violence and warfare in his Chronicon. Thietmar's attitudes towards violence were as complex as the times in which he lived, and were influenced by his secularism and religiosity. When it came to his justifications for clerical violence and warfare, Thietmar was more concerned about the clergyman's ability to perform as a military leader, and whether or not the violent actions were justified on their own merits. While he sometimes conveyed unease with some acts of clerical violence, and at times was careful to note distinctions between secular and spiritual realms, nevertheless he did not criticize a member of the clergy for violence on the basis of his religious station nor spiritual beliefs. Indeed, Thietmar was a torn individual, struggling with his religious convictions while living in a world where violence was habitual, and where he saw it as his duty to protect his flock. In this regard Thietmar should be considered a realist.

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Gerrard, Daniel. "The military activities of bishops, abbots and other clergy in England c.900-1200." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2011. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2671/.

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This thesis examines the evidence for the involvement in warfare of clerks and religious in England between the beginning of the tenth century and the end of the twelfth. It focuses on bishops and abbots, whose military activities were recorded more frequently than lesser clergy, though these too are considered where appropriate. From the era of Christian conversion until long after the close of the middle ages, clergy were involved in the prosecution of warfare. In this period, they built fortresses and organised communities of warriors in time of peace and war. Some were slain in battle, while others were given promotion or lands for their martial exploits. A series of canonical pronouncements aimed to forbid or restrict the involvement of Christian clergy in organised bloodshed, and some writers branded militant clergy as corrupted by the lure of earthly power or even as having surrendered their sacerdotal status. This study therefore approaches the military practices of clergy alongside the legal and narrative treatments, and treats the latter as reactions to, not the background of, the former. This requires consideration of a wide range of narrative, diplomatic and legal source material. A broad approach shows that clerics’ military activities cannot be separated from their spiritual powers, that canonical treatment was more fragmented and less influential than has been assumed, and that the condemnations of some authors existed alongside others’ praise for clerics’ valour, loyalty, or commitment to defending their flocks. In consequence, the extended study of clerical participation in warfare is shown to have significant consequences for our conception of the bounds of military history, the construction of the licit and the illicit, and the nature of clerical identity itself.

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Avis, Robert John Roy. "The social mythology of medieval Icelandic literature." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2837907c-57c8-4438-8380-d5c8ba574efd.

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This thesis argues that the corpus of Old Norse-Icelandic literature which pertains to Iceland contains an intertextual narrative of the formation of Icelandic identity. An analysis of this narrative provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between literature and identity, as well as the potency of the artistic use of the idea of the past. The thesis identifies three salient narratives of communal action which inform the development of a discrete Icelandic identity, and which are examined in turn in the first three chapters of the thesis. The first is the landnám, the process of settlement itself; the second, the origin and evolution of the law; and the third, the assimilation and adaptation of Christianity. Although the roots of these narratives are doubtless historical, the thesis argues that their primary roles in the literature are as social myths, narratives whose literal truth- value is immaterial, but whose cultural symbolism is of overriding importance. The fourth chapter examines the depiction of the Icelander abroad, and uses the idiom of the relationship between þáttr (‘tale’) and surrounding text in the compilation of sagas of Norwegian kings Morkinskinna to consider the wider implications of the relationship between Icelandic and Norwegian identities. Finally, the thesis concludes with an analysis of the role of Sturlunga saga within this intertextual narrative, and its function as a set of narratives mediating between an identity grounded in social autonomy and one grounded in literature. The Íslendingasögur or ‘family sagas’ constitute the core of the thesis’s primary sources, for their subject-matter is focussed on the literary depiction of the Icelandic society under scrutiny. In order to demonstrate a continuity of engagement with ideas of identity across genres, a sample of other Icelandic texts are examined which depict Iceland or Icelanders, especially when in interaction with non-Icelandic characters or polities.

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Raye, Lee. "The forgotten beasts in medieval Britain : a study of extinct fauna in medieval sources." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2016. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/93165/.

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This thesis identifies and discusses historical and literary sources describing four species in the process of reintroduction: lynx (Lynx lynx), large whale (esp. Eubalena glacialis), beaver (Castor fiber) and crane (Grus grus). The scope includes medieval and early modern texts in English, Latin, and Welsh written in Britain before the species went extinct. The aims for each species are: (i) to reconstruct the medieval cultural memory; (ii) to contribute a cohesive extinction narrative; and (iii) to catalogue and provide an eco-sensitive reading of the main historical and literary references. Each chapter focuses on a different species: 1. The chapter on lynxes examines some new early references to the lynx and argues that the species became extinct in south Britain c.900 AD. Some hard-to-reconcile seventeenth century Scottish accounts are also explored. 2. The chapter on whales attributes the beginning of whale hunting to the ninth century in Britain, corresponding with the fish event horizon; but suggests a professional whaling industry only existed from the late medieval period. 3. The chapter on beavers identifies extinction dates based on the increasingly confused literary references to the beaver after c.1300 in south Britain and after c.1600 in Scotland, and the increase in fur importation. 4. The chapter on cranes emphasises the mixed perception of the crane throughout the medieval and early modern period. Cranes were simultaneously depicted as courtly falconers’ birds, greedy gluttons, and vigilant soldiers. More generally, the thesis considers the levels of reliability between eyewitness accounts and animal metaphors. It examines the process of ‘redelimitation’ which is triggered by population decline, whereby nomenclature and concepts attached to one species become transferred to another. Finally, it emphasises geographical determinism: species generally become extinct in south Britain centuries before Scotland.

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Lucey-Roper, Michelle M. "The Visio Baronti in its early medieval context." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:955edffb-dab7-4cb7-8810-6e719b02231f.

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The focus of this thesis is the Visio Baronti (VB), an account of a seventh-century monk's journey to the other world. This text serves as a metaphoric fulcrum to support a more extensive study of early medieval conceptions of the other world and the historical context in which visionary accounts were produced. Chapter 1 contains an introduction to ideas of the other world, a survey of types of visionary experiences, their uses, imitations and historiographical responses to them. Chapter 2 focuses on medieval and modern responses to visions. This chapter includes a survey of the terminology for dreams and visions found in theoretical writings, compares dream theory with otherworld visions and identifies medieval methods of determining the validity of a visionary experience. Chapter 3 investigates the manuscript tradition of the VB, in order to illuminate medieval receptions and treatments of this text. Because the text appears unusual for the seventh century, chapter 4 provides an analysis of the grounds for dating the VB to the seventh century, while chapter 5 treats the VB in its seventh-century monastic context and assesses what influences shaped this text. Chapter 6 compares Barontus's vision with ninth-century visions and other Carolingian writings to consider Carolingian interest in the VB in light of their contributions to the genre. Chapter 7 examines the artistic response to this text through an examination of the illustrations which accompany the text in the ninth-century St Petersburg manuscript. A brief conclusion to this study follows.

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Hempen, Daniela. "The negotiation of gender and power in medieval German writings." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0005/NQ34531.pdf.

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Taylor, Laura Anne. "The representation of land and landownership in medieval Icelandic texts." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2006. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9057797d-81bd-4d28-a438-4e4d5ee000c0.

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This thesis investigates the representation of land and landownership in medieval Icelandic texts. I shall demonstrate that there is scant homogeneity in this representation; the variation between different narratives is startling and unusual. I seek to categorise this variability by identifying the lack of a secure tradition surrounding land and landownership, and exploring the possibilities open to the saga author to use land practices and myths as literary devices or to glorify the past. I also examine variability caused by the differences in the realm of 'actual' experience. I shall explore a range of narratives, from stories of the initial settlement of Iceland, to issues of inheritance, to conveyance and to dispute over territory. The last chapter takes a flip-side view of landownership to consider the representation of the landless of family saga narrative. The texts which I shall examine are the Íslendingasögur, Landnádmabók and Íslendingabók. Throughout the thesis I also make reference to Grágás for illumination and comparison. In the first and second chapters I also include archaeological evidence for discussion.

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Lowrey, Brian. "The Forging of a Nation: Cultural and Political Scottish Unity in the Time of Robert the Bruce." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2020. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1707260/.

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While Scotland was politically unified before the First Scottish War of Independence (1296-1328), it was only nominally so. Scotland shared a rich cultural unity amongst the clans, and it was only through the invasion from England, and the war that followed, that Scotland found a true political unity under King Robert the Bruce. This thesis argues that Scotland had a shared cultural identity, including the way it waged war, and how it came to be united under one king who brought a sense of nationalism to Scotland.

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Sheppard, Philippa. "Tongues of war : studies in the military rhetoric of Shakespeare's English history plays." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.240387.

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Hardaway, Reid F. "Ovid's Wand: the brush of history and the mirror of ekphrasis." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492857067229058.

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Phillips, Dianne Tisdale. "The Illustration of the Meditations on the Life of Christ| A Study of an Illuminated Fourteenth-Century Italian Manuscript at the University of Notre Dame (Snite Museum of Art, Acc. No. 85.25)." Thesis, Yale University, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10160872.

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For more than fifty years, the Meditationes Vitae Christi (MVC) and the most famous of its illustrated manuscripts (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms. ital. 115) have been employed by scholars to exemplify late medieval female spirituality. The mid-fourteenth century ilhuminated manuscript of the Meditationes in the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame that is the subject of this dissertation provides valuable evidence of the popularity of the famous text originally written for a woman religious and its appropriation by urban laity. As an example of the shorter text, in Italian, with 43 chapters plus prologue, its 48 large colored miniatures and the decorated initials that begin each chapter, point to a wealthy patron quite unlike the Poor Clare to whom the MVC text was initially directed. The style of the miniatures indicates that the manuscript was illuminated ca. 1350 in Bologna, site of the pre-eminent European university for the study of law.

The dissertation explores how the Meditationes Vitae Christi was adapted for an educated and prosperous husband and wife. While written in the vernacular, the Snite MVC illuminations bear a strong resemblance to the illustrations in fourteenth-century Bolognese legal manuscripts. Despite the vivid and often unconventional imagery of the text that is designed to stimulate the reader's affective response to its re-telling of the story of the life of Christ, the miniatures tend to preserve traditional iconographies. The superficially conventional Snite miniatures, which often seem indifferent to the visual specifics of the text, serve to align it with orthodox doctrine and underscore the veracity of its contents.

An analysis of the illuminations of the Snite MVC reveals a particular attentiveness by the illuminator to the representation of male exemplars that would appeal to an elite educated patron, who might have been a judge or lawyer, or law professor. The Infancy miniatures in particular depict St. Joseph in a prominent role and dressed as a late medieval professional man The dignified representation of St. Joseph is consistent with his scriptural appellation as a "just man " By attending to the themes of justice and wisdom in both the MVC text and in its scriptural sources, the Snite miniatures prove to be much richer in meaning than first glance would suggest, and their affinity with legal manuscript illumination hardly accidental.

The iconographic analysis of the Snite miniatures is complemented by the study of the social and intellectual context in which the manuscript was produced. Despite the seeming simplicity of the miniatures, the illuminator and his advisor prove to be theologically sophisticated and scripturally literate. By means of the illuminations, the MVC is made compatible with the religious and professional concerns of the elite laity, providing access for men wielding worldly authority into the life of Christ in which powerful and learned men play largely negative roles. The Snite manuscript responds to the lay patron's desire to see in the example of Christ and the events of his life confirmation of late medieval social, juridical, and political structures. In its miniatures, it provides saintly models for the educated laity desirous of reconciling their Christian commitments with the demands of an active, urban, professional life.

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Mayrhofer, Sonja Nicole. "The body (un)balanced : humoral theory and late medieval literature." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6203.

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My dissertation examines late medieval literature through the lens of medical history, especially humoral psychology. Although the humors are still of interest to the history of medicine, they are often overlooked in current literary criticism. My project examines how the humors influenced representations of bodies in medieval literary texts (St. Erkenwald, Chaucer's Franklin's Tale, Richard Coer de Lyon, and Marie de France's Yonec). In chapters exploring the connection between the humors and religious devotion, marriage, cannibalism, and shape-shifting, I show that humoral psychology was not just a medical theory known to medieval medical practitioners, but also a deeply influential cosmology for the literary representation of bodies and emotions. I approach this project from two angles, using a methodology that relies on textual analysis and cultural contextualization. My work also aligns itself with scholars who have explored early modern works through the lens of historical phenomenology (Smith, Paster, Floyd-Wilson, Rowe). The project moreover encourages and contributes to the dialogue between the humanities and sciences in general and literature and medicine more specifically, as it makes connections to medical theories post-Descartes (Damasio) and to current scholarship regarding non-Western medical practices (Horden; Hsu) that discuss debates about balancing emotions and locating those emotions within the physical body. My project thus provides an analytical approach for interpreting medieval literature via medical models while also showing what the medieval period can contribute to the ongoing work of assessing the role of emotions in the past and its continued resonance in current medical debates.

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Wang, Laura Li Ching. "Natural Law and the Law of Nature in Early British Beast Literature." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11234.

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In the tumultuous political environment of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Britain, animal literature saw rapid development and innovation. Beast fable and epic, which already had a long tradition in Latin and French, gained new vigor and popularity in English and Scots renditions. Simultaneously, a new strain of political theory appeared in the vernacular. This dissertation makes a tripartite argument about the relationship between these two discourses. First, writers of literature and political theory alike struggled to reconcile an optimistic view of human society, inherent in the prevailing philosophical tradition of natural law, with the widespread corruption they witnessed in ecclesiastical and royal courts. The fruits of this struggle were darkly humorous works of beast epic and fable in the former case, and pragmatic political theory in the latter. Second, because of its literary character, beast literature actually proved more adventurous than political theory in demonstrating how one might use dissimulation to dominate the predatory world of politics, and in showing the moral and linguistic exhaustion that could result from such manipulation of others. Third, as political writers adapted their theories to reflect politics as it was actually practiced, they explicitly turned to beast literature for images and exempla, so that the animal characters of Aesopian fable and Reynardian epic stealthily crept into works of serious political inquiry.

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Goyette, Stefanie Anne. "Indiscriminate Bodies: The Old French Fabliaux in Relation to Thirteenth-Century Medical and Religious Cultures." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10646.

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This dissertation examines representations of the body in the Old French fabliaux in order to elucidate these stories’ philosophy (or philosophies) of language and their relationship to religious, medical, and dietetic cultures. An exploration of contemporary discourses referenced in the fabliaux – moral discourses around sex and food, medical and dietetic theories concerning food and animals, and rituals and rites surrounding the living and dying body – demonstrates how these elements shape narrative structure, characters, key objects, and décor. The fabliaux exhibit bodies founded by and coextensive with language, which, particularly in the form of speech, is simultaneously a function of the body. This dissertation shows the fabliaux to be profoundly anchored in the material world, but also aware that the physical and material are affected by language, and subject to transformation by the greater context of twelfth-, thirteenth-, and early fourteenth-century literature in its vernacular and Latin, secular and religious forms. The first chapter provides a critical history of the major questions in fabliaux scholarship through the 1980s, when the field began to undergo a number of important changes. The first part of Chapter 2 pursues the physical body in the fabliaux through pleasures, particularly the sexual and alimentary, while arguing that the stories respond to outside discourses about physical behavior, and that sensual or carnal pleasures and those of language coexist. The second section traces the relationship of spaces – social and domestic, permitted and forbidden – to morality. Analysis of the localization of the body in space indicates that space is essential to the construction of bodies, and may even determine (the perception of) guilt or innocence. The third chapter demonstrates that the humor of many fabliaux depends on anxieties concerning the spatial incursions of death, which mirror the visitations of outside texts. Miracles and superstitions constitute the focus of the fourth chapter, which examines the exploitation of supernatural events by the fabliaux’ human actors. The final chapter shows the importance of dysphemism and polysemy, of audience interpretation, and of the potential dangers of misinterpretation when texts become bodies and bodies become texts.
Romance Languages and Literatures

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Gillespie, Alexandra. "Chaucer and Lydgate in print : the Medieval author and the history of the book, 1476-1579." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.367445.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Military history, Medieval, in literature'

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