Digital Commons Network^™

Edward's New Welsh: The Foundations Of English Colonialism, 1282-1343, Joshua Lembke

University Honors Theses

This thesis, Edward’s New Welsh: The Foundations of English Colonialism, 1282-1343, examines the tumultuous period following the English conquest of the last independent Welsh kingdom, focusing on the English Crown's efforts under King Edward I to integrate Wales administratively and culturally. By reevaluating the appropriation of the Prince of Wales title, the study highlights the creation of a 'New Welsh' identity aligned with English interests. Key legal acts, such as the Statute of Rhuddlan and the establishment of English-style boroughs and castles, are analyzed to reveal the Crown's strategic embedding of English governance and suppression of native Welsh resistance. …

The Third Horseman: Preventability Versus Apocalypse In The Great Famine Of 1315 And The Irish Potato Famine, Luke Ziegler

Honors Theses

Famine is a huge problem for societies, even in the modern world. Throughout history, famine has reared its ugly head and brought about demographic and societal collapse. The Great Famine of 1315 Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, despite their differences, had similar underlying factors of land management and overpopulation paired with an environmental catalyst, and also show that governmental response has the potential to both cause and prevent a famine, but only if the scale of the problem is limited. They both examine the question of national identity and create a multitude of debates in later historiography. Although these …

Silver, Ships And Soil: Gift-Giving In Medieval Icelandic Sagas, Emma Eubank

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Through applying anthropological theory to gift exchange in medieval Icelandic sagas, we can uncover a wealth of information about the construction and reinforcement of gender, power, and value. This study incorporates Mauss, Sahlins, and Graeber alongside other theorists to analyze how the narrators of Egil's Saga, The Saga of Grettir the Strong, and Gisli Sursson's Saga perceived a past Iceland.

The Reformist Exemplum Of The Monastic Bishop In Bede's Ecclesiastical History Of The English People, Christopher Kelm

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Throughout his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Bede displays a recurring interest in and admiration for the lives of bishops who also live as monks. The reason for this is better understood in the context of Bede’s Letter to Egbert, written a few years after the completion of the Historia, and a few months before Bede’s death. In the Letter, Bede complains of contemporary Northumbrian bishops who lack any personal discipline and who fail to adequately provide pastoral care for their oversized dioceses, while they yet demand excessive tributes from the laity; he also laments the presence of “false monasteries,” which …

The Magic Of Love: Love Magic In Medieval Romance, Dalicia Raymond

English Language and Literature ETDs

This project examines authorial representations of the morality of three functions of love magic: to induce, to disrupt, and to facilitate love in twelfth- through fifteenth-century Middle High German, Old French, and Middle English romances. Using a cultural studies approach with close textual analysis and informed by gender studies, it investigates medieval romance authors’ discomfort with love inducing magic and asserts that this discomfort is a response to the magic’s violation of free will, a central tenet of medieval theology. I find that authors condemn love inducing magic but mark specific instances acceptable through explicit clarification of divine approval. Love …

After Faith, Hope, And Love: The Unique Divergence Of Asceticism By Gregory The Great And Maximus The Confessor, Caleb N. Zuiderveen

Theses and Dissertations

In the late sixth and early seventh centuries, asceticism continued as a frequent expression of Christian devotion. Despite communications between the Eastern and Western Churches and a common patristic foundation, theology in the East and West during this time diverged on the results of asceticism. This paper explores this divergence by examining two theologians, Gregory the Great and Maximus the Confessor. Current scholarship has examined Gregory the Great and Maximus the Confessor on their own, yet the dialogue between each tradition and its implications remains understudied. Thus, this study contextualizes Gregory the Great’s On the Song of Songs and Maximus …

Gender Reflections: A Reconsideration Of Pictish Mirror And Comb Symbols, Traci N. Billings

Theses and Dissertations

The interpretation of prehistoric iconography is complicated by the tendency to project

contemporary male/female gender dichotomies into the past. Pictish monumental stone sculpture

in Scotland has been studied over the last 100 years. Traditionally, mirror and comb symbols

found on some stones produced in Scotland between AD 400 and AD 900 have been interpreted

as being associated exclusively with women and/or the female gender. This thesis re-examines

this assumption in light of more recent work to offer a new interpretation of Pictish mirror and

comb symbols and to suggest a larger context for their possible meaning. Utilizing the Canmore

database, …

Seeking Holiness: The Contribution Of Nine Vernacular Narrative Texts From The Twelfth To The Fourteenth Centuries, Stephanie Grace Petinos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Spirituality has been increasingly studied to determine the laity’s role within Church history in the Middle Ages. However, secular literature is often overlooked as a source of understanding lay spirituality, even though it is a crucial aspect of cultural and social history. I fill this gap by analyzing nine important vernacular texts to uncover several distinctive definitions of holiness, all of which blend the religious and the secular. Close reading of these texts reveals various paths to holiness, which undermine the Church’s attempts at sole control over spirituality. This study demonstrates that secular authors were concerned with exploring spiritual matters; …

The Tri-River Region : The Geographic Key To Lasting Change In Ireland, Eugene Ryan Fitzpatrick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research aims to identify the geographic area between the Nore, Barrow, and Suir rivers as the primary gateway for significant permanent changes to the Irish cultural landscape between the fourth and sixteenth centuries. This has been done by examining the successive waves of invasion which have swept over the island, and noting the high frequency with which many pivotal events have occurred in the region. Christianity, the Vikings, continental Church reforms, the Norman invasion, and many subsequent repercussions by English administrators, entered into Ireland through this area first. Upon examination, it becomes clear that Ireland possess a geographic corridor …

The Norman Conquest In English Historical Thought, Ann Gutting Mercer

History Theses & Dissertations

Each chapter in British historiography has produced a diversity of opinion concerning the impact of the Norman Conquest (twelfth century contemporary, Tudor, Stuart, nineteenth century, twentieth century). The closer one comes to modern times the broader and more heated the controversies become. This paper discusses the appropriate works of the prominent historians from each major period. The question is asked: Was the Norman succession merely one event in the constitutional development of England or did it transform the English way of life?