Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Presence Of P____ And W__Th, Riley Wilson

Masters Theses

This body of work examines the involvement of association as it relates to our cultural interpretations of natural phenomena. Flowers and animals, both real and imagined, have been used as symbols for human morality since the beginning of human history. Two sources with which I drew inspiration from are medieval bestiaries and the Victorian practice of flower language. By combining elements from these references, I aim to pair this idea about the human need for classification with my own considerations about my identity. In combination, I also aim to highlight the responsibility that is intrinsic to curiosity. When faced with …

Voicing Narrative Through Transatlanticism And Transformation In Historia De La Monja Alférez By Catalina De Erauso, Morgan Schneider

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes various aspects of Catalina de Erauso’s Historia de la Monja Alférez, escrita por ella misma (1829). The first chapter explores notions of interior and exterior as categories that determine not only the protagonist’s movement in space but also their expression of self-identity over the course of the text, focalized through first-person narration. Additionally, the chapter brings to light how the interior narrative parallels Erauso’s desire to share their transformation from nun in a Spanish convent to a soldier in the Americas with picaresque tendencies. Erauso leverages the power of exterior appearances through the self-fashioning of their public …

I Am Woman: The Complicated Relationship Between Fairy Mistresses, Virgin Martyrs, And The Medieval Patriarchy, Katherine A. Haire

Masters Theses

While modern scholars cannot expect medieval authors to live up to our expectations of feminism, we can still reflect upon the ways in which they both circumvented and upheld the typical patriarchal discursive structure which dominated the Middle Ages. A cross-genre examination of virgin martyred saints and fairy mistresses will illuminate significant overlap in the treatment of magic and divine intervention and the typical female portrayal in these circumstances. Saint’s Lives and Medieval Romances occupy significantly distinct spaces in the popular literary consciousness of the High and Late Middle Ages; however, both genres offer moral instruction for the women who …

Constructing And Experiencing The Medieval Waddenland, Hugh R. Milner

Masters Theses

Part of the intertidal zone along the southeast portion of the North Sea, the Wadden Sea Coast runs from modern Friesland and Groningen in the Netherlands, through Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, and up the west coast of Jutland to just past Ribe. This project seeks to understand medieval responses to an environment in constant contact with the sea via documentary and historical sources. The people of the Wadden Sea Coast defined their landscape and their history in part with earthworks and water infrastructure, negotiating control of both anthropogenic and natural environments.

“Este Diablo De Vieja”: Revealing The Conversa Voice In Celestina, Morgan B. Mccullough

Masters Theses

Due to the extraordinary socio-religious situation of the Inquisition’s aggressive attempt at unification looming over late Medieval Spain, the existence of a converso influence in Fernando de Rojas’ masterpiece, Celestina, is rarely up for debate. However, the way in which this influence manifests itself in Rojas’ only known work remains open for discussion among scholars of the work. Despite critics who struggle to view Celestina as an expression of converso literature, arguments have been made to establish the likelihood of converso status for Pleberio, Calisto, and Melibea, but have yet to look profoundly to Celestina’s own origins. Thanks to …

Boethian Variations: Musical Thought In Sir Orfeo, Troilus And Criseyde, And Robert Henryson’S Orpheus And Eurydice, Joshua T. Parks

Masters Theses

This study approaches three poems from the late medieval British Isles—the Middle English Breton lay Sir Orfeo, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, and Robert Henryson’s Orpheus and Eurydice—through the lens of medieval music theory. The most important authority for medieval music theorists was the late antique philosopher Boethius, who held to a Neoplatonic philosophy of music that valued reason, theory, and contemplation of the music of the spheres. Later medieval theorists cited Boethius extensively while also adapting his thought to suit their own purposes. In particular, the early fourteenth-century French theorist Johannes de Grocheio, influenced by Aristotle, departed …

Reconsidering ‘Soul And Body Ii’: Who Is Culpable For Their Combined Fate?, Sarah Jaran

Masters Theses

Soul and Body II has been considered for many years by scholars to be a less doctrinally complex poem compared to later versions of the topos. Superficially, the poem seems to blame the body fully for the shared doomed fate of the body and soul because the majority of the poem is a speech by the soul claiming that much. I propose in this study, however, that the poet created a dual message for the audience of Soul and Body II. While the easy and more superficial message is that the body is at fault for the damnation of …

"Thou Art The Lorliest Lede That Ever I On Looked": Arthur And Kingship As Represented By The Alliterative Morte Arthure, Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, And The Awntyrs Off Arthur, Samuel Hardin Cox

Masters Theses

King Arthur is one of the most well known mythical figures in the English language, and throughout his 1500-year literary tradition, poets have built an intricate and multifaceted mythos around this legendary character. Integral to Arthur’s various depictions is how each poet chooses to illustrate his kingship. These characteristics often overlap across poems, poets, and time periods. Yet, upon closer examination, subtle differences between those kingly depictions produce telling insights into the period in which the story was written. For this study, I have examined three separate Arthurian romances: The Alliterative Morte Arthure, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight …

Royal Advice And Religious Authority In Smaragdus Of St. Mihiel's Via Regia:An Analysis And Critical Edition, Roland Black

Masters Theses

Around 813 CE, the Carolingian monk Smaragdus of St. Mihiel produced the first medieval moral guidebook for a king, entitled the Via regia. The text was most likely intended for Charlemagne’s sole surviving heir, Louis the Pious. Smaragdus incorporated passages from both the Old and New Testaments and provided exegesis meant to guide the king in correct moral behavior. The text asserted the critical importance of the king’s correct moral behavior, and offered a window into the Carolingian court as well as political and religious life at the turn of the ninth century. Presented here for the first time …

Proto-Féminisme Dans L'Epistre Othéa De Christine De Pizan: Appropriation Et Réinterprétation De Deux Figures Mythologiques, Minerve Et Médée., Nathalie D. Lacarriere

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on Christine de Pizan’s mythological allegoric work entitled Epistre Othéa, written around 1400. True to the beliefs she portrays in many of her later seminal works, such as The Book of the City of Ladies, or The Treasure of the City of Ladies, Christine displays in this piece a strong didactic vision. The crucial pairing of text and image in the two manuscripts that I chose to focus on prove the power she exerted as a woman and as an artist but also mark her intention to strengthen her moral and political message through …

“Hagene, Der Vil Ungetriuwe Man”? Courtly Rivalry, Loyalty Conflict, And The Figure Of Hagen In The Nibelungenlied, Katherine Devane Brown

Masters Theses

The variety of scholarly approaches to the Middle High German poem Das Nibelungenlied has generated a wide range of conflicting analyses of the character of Hagen, a figure who plays a key role in both the plot and the interpretation of the work. This thesis proposes that viewing Hagen’s relationship with Siegfried in relation to the poem’s central theme of loyalty (triuwe) allows for an analysis that integrates both the positive and negative aspects of Hagen’s character. By examining the depiction of courtly rivalry in four contemporary Middle High German works (Herzog Ernst B, Wolfdietrich A, …

The Social And Cultural Meanings Of Names In Late Antique Italy, 313-604, Eric Ware

Masters Theses

This thesis examines many uses of names in Italian culture and society between the years 313 and 604. Through an anthroponymic study of names in Late Antique Italy, I explore the relationships between names and religion, social groups, gender, and language. I analyze the name patterns statistically and through micro-historical studies. This thesis argues that, contrary to studies emphasizing the late antique decline of the Roman trinominal system, Italian names demonstrated continuity with classical onomastic practices. The correlations between saint’s cults and local names and the decline of pagan names suggests that saints’ names replaced pagan ones as apotropaic names …

Recovering The Saumurois: Lay Patronage To Saint-Florent Of Saumur, Ca. 950-1150, Adam C. Matthews

Masters Theses

In the mid-tenth century, the lay powers of the Loire valley established the abbey of Saint-Florent at Saumur with the local aristocracy welcoming the monks and forming spiritual and economic relationships through acts of patronage. The brothers remembered gifts of property, grants of rights, and exemptions in charters which were ultimately collected into the abbey's first cartulary, the Livre Noir. Despite this wealth of sources, historians have paid only cursory attention to Saint-Florent in recent scholarship. The present study incorporates the abbey's charter sources into broader debates concerning society in eleventh-century France. The use of case studies provides insight …

The Hearts Of Ovid's Heroines In Trojumanna Saga, Luke J. Chambers

Masters Theses

In western civilization no story has been retold more times than the Trojan War. Homer's works were known only by repute in western Europe after the fall of Rome. As such, the Middle Ages saw the blossoming of a new Troy tradition based on Dares Phrygius's De Excidio Troiae Historia (The History of the Destruction of Troy). Most countries of medieval Europe used this laconic work to retell the Troy story in each country's particular idiom.

The settlers of Iceland developed a sophisticated literary culture in the thirteenth century. No other people wrote narrative prose works on such a …

Weaver Of Allegory: John Bunyan's Use Of The Medieval Theme Of Vice And Virtue As Devotional Writer And Social Critic In The Holy War, David Madsen

Masters Theses

The literary artistry of Bunyan's The Holy War is overshadowed by the longstanding popularity of his greatest-known work The Pilgrim's Progress. However, The Holy War displays an impressive intricately-woven story with several complex strands of allegorical meaning. One such strand is its emphasis on the theme of virtue and vice in literature of the Middle Ages. In The Holy War, Bunyan applies this thematic thread from the Medieval Psychomachia and morality plays to his allegory in seventeenth-century Restoration England. The present research begins with an exploration of allegory as story with emphasis on Bunyan's role as storyteller in general and …

"His Head Rolled Forth Onto The Floor:" Women, The Abject, And The Male Gaze In Old English Poetry, Jaime Michelle Myers

Masters Theses

Old English poetry features several female characters who challenge androcentric authority by violently killing men. I argue in this thesis that three of these women—Modthryth, Grendel’s mother, and Judith—are linked together by their rejection or reversal of the male gaze. In their forceful refusal to be visually objectified, each character is portrayed as abject—outside of normal and outcast from community. They cause disorder, illustrate the fragility of androcentric control, and force a confrontation with death. In so doing, they create ambiguity and, at times, reverse the subject/object and masculine/feminine gender binaries.

"Sing To The Lord A New Song": Memory, Music, Epistemology, And The Emergence Of Gregorian Chant As Corporate Knowledge, Jordan Timothy Ray Baker

Masters Theses

Following the Christianization of the crumbling Roman Empire, a wide array of disparate Christian traditions arose. A confusion of liturgical rites and musical styles expressed the diversity of this nascent Christendom; however, it also exemplified a sometimes threatening disunity. Into this frame, the Carolingian Empire made a decisive choice. Charlemagne, with a desire to consolidate power, forged stronger bonds withRome by transporting the liturgy ofRome to the Frankish North. The outcome of this transmission was the birth of a composite form of music exhibiting the liturgical properties ofRome but also shaped by the musical sensibilities of the Franks—Gregorian chant.

This …

Don't Take Orpheus Without The Lyre: The Intricacies Of Using Pagan Myths For Christian Purposes In The Divine Comedy And Paradise Lost, Rebekah J. Waltmann

Masters Theses

Because of their universal and artistic nature, the classical myths lend themselves well to use in literature, especially poetry. When used properly, as by Dante and Milton, the myths have the ability to enhance the work; when used poorly, they become gaudy ornamentation. It was, and is, this ability to enhance both the artistry and function of literature that pulled so many poets to the myths, despite the difficulties that could arise when the pagan myths did not quite match the Christian setting. My purpose in this thesis is not to explicate every use of myth within The Divine Comedy …

The Altercatio Ecclesiae Et Synagogae As A Late Antique Anti-Jewish Polemic, Michael J. Brinks

Masters Theses

The Catholic Church's newfound influence in late antiquity led to the political marginalization of the empire's Jewish community, a marginalization that is evident in Christian polemic against Judaism written after the Empire's religious transformation had largely been consolidated. This thesis is an analysis of the Altercatio Ecclesiae et Synagogae, written anonymously in the fifth century. Its primary intention is to discover what earlier writers influenced its author, what can be known about him, when the text was written, and what kind of arguments against Judaism he used.

The thesis begins by comparing and contrasting the anti-Jewish writing of Cyprian …

Beowulf, Anthony Alvarado

Masters Theses

My composition is a tone poem based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf Specifically, this piece depicts Beowulf s three battles with three diverse monsters. The first Grendel, second Grendel's mother, and last a dragon. In this composition, the music does not follow any specific or traditional forms. Instead, each episode is presented as a picture of each event.

The choice to depict the story of Beowulf was an interesting choice. While historically the story is significant, it is not a very popular one. The poem is the oldest surviving manuscript written in Old English. However, more recent (relatively) …

"Opene Þefore Þe I3e Of Þin Intellecte": Holy Tears In The Book Of Margerykempe And The Orcherd Of Syon, James Ryan Gregory

Masters Theses

St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) discusses in her greatest work, Il Dialogo, the various stages by which the human soul can ascend the spiritual path to God and salvation. She specifically treats the matter of "holy tears" and outlines a complete taxonomy of holy weeping, a six-tiered scale through which the soul can ascend in pursuit of union with the divine. The activities of Catherine's insular near-contemporary, Margery Kempe, a woman famed for her persistent wailing in remembrance of ail things holy, are recorded in a text whose construction of its eponymous heroine parallels in many ways the hierarchy …

‘Þæt Is Yrre': The Construction And Use Of Anger In Anglo-Saxon Literature, Hilary E. Fox

Masters Theses

An examination of the linguistic background and literary conceptions of anger in Old English. The first point of analysis will be the vocabulary of used to discuss anger and its manifestations in Old English prose didactic texts, particularly homilies and translations from Latin materials. Subsequent chapters will discuss anger as a literary phenomenon, first with respect to its use in the Old English hagiographic poem The Passion of St. Juliana and then Beowulf. The goal of these two chapters collectively is to outline the social use ( or misuse) of anger, and Christian understandings of how anger must be …

The Social Roles Of The Early Irish Monastery Of Kildare And Its Paruchia Within The Kingdom Of Leinster, Bridgette K. Slavin

Masters Theses

Monastic settlements in early medieval Ireland were active: politically, socially, economically, and spiritually. While an ascetic life was ideal, these communities were in fact often lively participants in the secular affairs around them. Yet, detailed studies of ecclesiastical social structure and its economic and political influence on early Irish society have been, for the most part, not attempted while disagreements concerning organization continue to haunt scholars of the early Irish church. Moreover, as Colman Etchingham aptly points out in his recent publication, Church Organisation in Ireland, AD 650 to 1000, detailed studies of individual religious communities will bring to …

The Impact Of The Norman Conquest On Christ Church Cathedral Priory And Worcester Cathedral Priory: A Survey Based On Library Holdings, Toruko Ishihara

Masters Theses

Book collections reflect the intellectual climate of the period. This study examines the important area of intellectual life in the English church between 700 and 1130. It will show how the Norman Conquest affected the intellectual life of the Anglo-Saxons. I chose the libraries of Christ Church, Canterbury and Worcester Cathedral Priory for their large collections of surviving manuscripts.

The thesis first analyzes and compares the pre-Conquest and post-Conquest collections as a whole. This comparison shows slight, but important differences in the tastes of collecting between the two libraries. It also demonstrates the changes in the library holdings caused by …

Saxo Grammaticus: History And The Rise Of National Identity In Medieval Denmark, Christopher L. Bailey

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Strange Races On The Hereford Mappa Mundi: An Investigation Of Sources, John H. Chandler

Masters Theses

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, a thirteenth-century world map, includes mention of fifty-four strange races. Many of the races can be found in three earlier sources: Pliny's Naturalis historia, Solinus's Collectanea rerum memorabilium, and Isidore's Etymologiae. By comparison to these three sources, the works used by the author of the map will be made clear.

This study provides an edition of all the inscriptions relating to these races, and compares them to excerpts relating to the races from the three above sources, as well as St. Augustine's De civitate Dei and Pomponius Mela's De chorographia. Translations …

“The Kingis Quair”: A Critical Edition, Michael D. Livingston

Masters Theses

Introduction

General Introduction

The Kingis Quair is a poem of clear Chaucerian descent, written in the same seven-line stanzas as Troilus and Criseyde, that marks the beginning of a Chaucerian movement in the literature of Scotland. The poem exists in only one manuscript, MS Arch. Selden B. 24 of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, where it is twice attributed to King James I of Scotland (1424-1437). Indeed, it is due to the connection with James that the particular seven-line stanza format in which the poem is written is now known as "rhyme royal."

Social And Political Violence In The Medieval Rhineland, Matthew Bryan Gillis

Masters Theses

This study is concerned with violence, attitudes toward violence, and how they affected society and politics in the Rhineland during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. It maintains that, through the careful analysis of narrative sources, such as the Dialogus Miraculorum of Caesarius of Heisterbach, and legal sources known as Landfrieden, the attitudes of medieval people toward different forms of violence can be reconstructed, enabling one to understand and to categorize violence from a medieval perspective.

The results of the examination reveal that certain kinds of violence, including feuds, were legally acceptable, while acts of violence outside of …

Delight, Subversion And Truth In The Canterbury Tales: Chaucer's Talking Birds, Terri Benson Blair

Masters Theses

Geoffrey Chaucer mentions birds over 240 times throughout The Canterbury Tales (Tatlock and Kennedy). This frequent allusion to birds is significant, especially since three of his twenty-four tales are actually about birds. What makes these three tales particularly fascinating is that their bird protagonists have the gift of speech. This study examines Chaucer's use of bird imagery in The Canterbury Tales, in particular, his use of talking birds in "The Squire's Tale," "The Nun's Priest's Tale" and "The Manciple's Tale." My theory is that Chaucer uses bird imagery and talking birds to question the sovereign power of the fourteenth-century …

As Different As Night And Day: Palamon And Arcite Reconsidered, William Hamilton

Masters Theses

Through an analysis of characterization and the sub-text of infernal allusions to the myths of Orpheus and the ravishment of Proserpina, my thesis demonstrates that the Theban cousins Palamon and Arcite are not only distinct but diametrically opposed characters who are more central to The Knight' s Tale than the present critical consensus allows. Chapter I analyzes Charles Muscarine, who so convincingly put an end to the once lively debate over the characterization of the cousins that the proposition that they are indistinguishable remains an a priori assumption in the criticism of the poem to this day. Chapter II analyzes …