Medieval History Commons^™

Imagery And Objectification: A Study Of Early Modern Queenship, Heather R. Geiter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Queen Anne Boleyn (~1507-1536) failed to meet social norms during her time as Queen Consort to Henry VIII (1491-1548). By tracing concepts of queenship through the works of Chrétien de Troyes, Andreas Capellanus, Thomas Malory, and Juan Luis Vives this thesis demonstrates how Anne united the office of queen and mistress to bring her downfall and introduce a new construct of queenship.

Clad In Steel: The Evolution Of Plate Armor In Medieval Europe And Its Relation To Contemporary Weapons Development, Jason Gill

History Theses

Plate armor developed and evolved in Medieval Europe in response to the effectiveness of weapon designs, which in turn changed to match the strength of contemporary armor.

Sanctuary Burning: The St. Brice's Day Massacre And The Danes In England Under Aethelred The Unready, Erica Thomas

History Theses

An examination of the St. Brice's Day Massacre in conjunction with the chronicles, archaeological evidence, legal implications and ethnic identities related to the English-Danish conflict. This paper argues that examinations of the Massacre have been extremely limited in the past, and the full range of evidence must be consulted in order to uncover the full historical context and significance of this event.

The Influence Of The Ottoman Threat On The Protestant Reformation (Reformers), Daniel Nițulescu

Andrews Research Conference

This paper will highlight the causality between the Ottoman’s menace and the Protestant Reformation in the XVI-th century, regarding the support, the consolidation and the direct determination of the Protestant movement. The question - ,,whom did the Turks support more: the Protestants or the Catholics?" was for a long time a realm of debate for theologians and even for historians.

More than that, the paper proposes to reveal the influence of Ottoman peril on reformer perceptions (visions about Turks). In this regard, one of its goal is to explain the permanent oscillation in Luther’s vision concerning Turk’s incursion and invasion. …

In Search Of Askia Mohammed: The Epic Of Askia Mohammed As Cultural History And Songhay Foundational Myth, Joe Wilson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis offers a detailed historical analysis of The Epic of Askia Mohammed, a foundational myth that ranks among the more well-known global tales of cultural heroes and state formation. The sudden regime change that resulted in the collapse of the Songhay Sunni dynasty and the ascent of the Songhay Askia dynasty in 1492-93 is one of the most important events in West African history. This swift rebellion reversed decades of destructive economic and religious policies. As such, the memory of these dynamic and transformative times was captured by the griots, the oral historians of the Sudan. Nouhou Malio, …

Identité, Genre, Et Proto-Nationalisme Chez Christine De Pizan Et Alain Chartier, Matthew Lee Blair

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Authority Of Images / Images Of Authority: Shaping Political And Cultural Identities In The Pre-Modern World, Karen Fresco

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Focusing on language's political power, these essays discuss how representation, through language norms, plays and court spectacles, manipulations and adaptations of texts and images, both constitutes and reflects a cultural milieu. The volume brings together various disciplinary approaches, offering a complex appreciation of these questions. While a core of the essays focuses on France, the contributions engage a broad range of geographical contexts, from Byzantium to eastern Germany and England from the early centuries of the Common Era to the seventeenth century, revealing the prevalence and persistence of the key interconnected issues of images and authority. Contributors: Carla Bozzolo; Philippe …

Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist In Twelfth-Century Literature, Lindsey Zachary Panxhi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature,” I analyze the appearance of the Eucharist as a sacred motif in secular lais, romances, and chronicles. The Eucharist became one of the most controversial intellectual topics of the High Middle Ages. While medieval historians and religious scholars have long recognized that the twelfth century was a critical period in which many eucharistic doctrines were debated and affirmed, literary scholars have given very little attention to the concurrent emergence of eucharistic themes in twelfth-century literature. This is unfortunate, since the Eucharist emerges as an intriguing motif, appearing in fantastic encounters …

The Economy, Representation, And Revolt: Social Unrest In Florence In The Wake Of The Black Death, Jacob David Brannum

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Constructing Marianismo In Colonial Mexico, Kathryn A. Buchanan

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Charles University: A History Of Revolution, Matous Komers

Young Historians Conference

Although the students of Prague’s Charles University are mostly remembered for starting the Velvet Revolution in the 20th Century, the university’s history of revolution started nearly seven hundred years earlier with a young priest named Jan Hus. Hus started a movement of religious reform called Hussitism, which laid the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation. “Charles University: A History of Revolution” explores the impact and influence that Charles University had on the development and spread of the Hussite Reformation and Hus’ massive theological shift.

From Sin To Sensation: The Progression Of Dance Music From The Medieval Period Through The Renaissance, Jillissa A. Brummel

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

This research paper explores how dance music has been part of the foundation for musical art in world history and the key to unlocking information concerning societal atmospheres throughout history. With each age and progression of music came new genres, instruments and social beliefs that were woven through religious and secular culture, each of which impacted the production of dance throughout the centuries. As dance music infiltrated the social and religious scenes of the medieval period, the sacred value of dancing was questioned which are presented through historical sources on pagan culture in the medieval period. Further research on improvements …

Powerful Women And Misogynistic Subplots: Some Comments On The Necessity Of Checking The Primary Sources, Tracy Adams

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Many women formerly regarded as harridans, vixens, or worse by historians throughout the ages have been rehabilitated in recent years. It is therefore discouraging to find old narratives of female promiscuity, intriguing, incompetence, frivolity, cupidity, obesity) continuing to circulate, in the form of what we might think of as female "subplots" in larger histories. When the woman in question is not the star of the study she is often subject to outdated stereotypes gleaned from old studies. This essay, focusing on a number of very recent subplots that recycle verifiably incorrect assumptions about Isabeau of Bavaria (1371-1435), queen of mad …

Archives From Houses Of Cistercian Nuns And Their Evidence For Powerful Thirteenth-Century Secular Women, Constance H. Berman

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This essay examines documents from abbeys of Cistercian nuns in northern France. The documents reveal the presence of numerous women of power and authority as founders and patrons of those women's houses. Where some women were acting as widows or regents, others had access to sufficient funds for acts of patronage and foundation because they were heiresses. Here those named Matilda from the ecclesiastical province of Sens in northern France are underlined, showing the diversity of female wealth and power.

Front Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.51 No.2 2016

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Beyond Women And Power: Looking Backward And Moving Forward, Kathy M. Krause

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Recalculating The Equation: Powerful Woman = Extraordinary, Amy Livingstone

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Woman And Power: Thoughts Arising Out Of The Roundtable "Debating Women And Power In The Middle Ages," International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 2014, Penelope Nash

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Questions are asked about how we study medieval women in positions of power, with particular reference to elite Italian and German women in the earlier Middle Ages. The essay calls for scholars to search for nuances in former understandings of women’s opportunities to exercise power while re-examining locality, time period, life cycles, and female and male power. The essay includes an appeal to scholars to become better acquainted with the work of their peers who write in other languages.

Mistrusting The Historiography Of Royal Mothers: Louis Of Savoy And Catherine De Medici, Kathleen Wellman

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I, and Catherine de Medici, mother of the last three reigning Valois kings—Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III—were two sixteenth-century women whose maternity gave them access to power and provided the foundation for their claims to exercise it legitimately. While their contemporaries either accepted or contested those claims, some nineteenth-century critics vehemently rejected female rule, particularly by mothers. Modern scholars have left those nineteenth-century repudiations largely unquestioned.

Mistresses And Merveilleuses: The Historiographical Record On Female Political Players Of The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Christine Adams

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Modern historians have found it difficult to disrupt the narrative inherited from past scholars, who argued that even prominent women lacked any genuine political role in the early modern world. However, in many ways, the personal influence that women exercised in court and salon society was highly political, as was that of men. An examination of the power of highly visible women, for example, famous mistresses such as Madame de Montespan and Madame Tallien, suggests that historians should broaden their understanding of the “political” and more carefully interrogate the activities of female historical figures, rejecting the moralistic accounts that have …