European Languages and Societies Commons^™

The Hidden History Of The Norseman And Celts, Amber Nicole Johnson

Whittier Scholars Program

When people hear the word Celts or Vikings there seems to be a common stigma or romanticization of them. This seems to stem from the early iron age and has shifted over to the 21st century with the production of movies and franchises. They are often depicted as being savage, barbaric, or warrior based (a term used to describe them) when there is a whole other side to these people. In the Spring of 2023, I took an independent study course that allowed me to examine the available archaeological and other evidence to understand the identities of the Germanic and …

A Nation On The Periphery Of History: A Discussion Of Poland-Lithuania During The Reformation, Dillon Piorkowski

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project hopes to establish several key points. One of which is that Poland is unfairly represented in Western historiography. Specifically, this means that in the English-speaking academic world, Poland is discussed disproportionately. Countries like Germany, France, and Britain have thousands of pages written about them discussing their roles during the Reformation. But Poland does not. This is evidenced by the many Western textbooks that misrepresent the nation. In turn, the project will use these various textbooks as evidence. The second point this project aims to cover is why Poland’s underappreciation is unfair. Simply demonstrating how Poland is underrepresented is …

The Gaelic Background Of Old English Poetry Before Bede, Colin A. Ireland

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

Seventh-century Gaelic law-tracts delineate professional poets (filid) who earned high social status through formal training. These poets cooperated with the Church to create an innovative bilingual intellectual culture in Old Gaelic and Latin. Bede described Anglo-Saxon students who availed themselves of free education in Ireland at this culturally dynamic time. Gaelic scholars called sapientes (“wise ones”) produced texts in Old Gaelic and Latin that demonstrate how Anglo-Saxon students were influenced by contact with Gaelic ecclesiastical and secular scholarship. Seventh-century Northumbria was ruled for over 50 years by Gaelic-speaking kings who could access Gaelic traditions. Gaelic literary traditions provide …

Miraculous Monstrosity: Birth And Female Sexuality In The Illuminated Scivias And Cloisters Apocalypse, Jenna M. Mckellips

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This paper compares the illuminations in two medieval apocalypses, the Cloisters Apocalypse and Hildegard von Bingen’s Scivias, to inspect their similar constructions of female sexuality, motherhood, and monstrosity. It first analyzes the monstrosity of female sexual organs found in Hildegard’s portrayal of the Church and the Mother of the Antichrist. The paper then goes on to consider the uncanny slippage between images of birth and death in the Cloisters’s depiction of John and the Woman of Revelation 12. Ultimately, the paper not only explores the monstrosity of female bodies in apocalyptic manuscripts, but also concludes that medieval women’s …

Wild Wales: How Cultural Discrimination Transformed Merlin From Brittonic Legends To French Arthurian Romances, Viveca Calista Lawrie

Senior Projects Spring 2021

The legend of King Arthur and his knights of the round table is one of the best-known stories in the Western world. Generally people tend to associate Arthurian legend with fifteenth-century English writing or French romances, but in reality, Arthurian legend has its origins in Brittonic oral tradition. Merlin, specifically, represents the concepts of Brittonic paganism and wildness more than any other Arthurian character. The changes made in the character and the narrative of Merlin, from Brittonic legend to Latin writing and then to French romances, reflect a political and cultural shift in Britain and France. An examination of Merlin …

Barnacle Geese And Sky Burials: Relativism In The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, Akasha L. Khalsa

Conspectus Borealis

As a medieval travel narrative, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville was immensely popular for everyone from bookworms to world travelers in 14th and 15th century Europe. Given its popularity, and the period in which it was produced, one might expect the fictitious travelogue to display an incredible level of intolerance towards the various peoples and cultures it depicts. However, the Travels frequently surprises modern readers with its message of tolerance towards greater humanity, and its recognition of the universality of human experience as it is mirrored in the lives of people of different ethnic and cultural groups. In order …

Distaff As Weapon In The Margins Of Two Late-Thirteenth-Century Arthurian Romance Manuscripts, Emily Shartrand

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The marginal art of two late-thirteenth-century Arthurian romance manuscripts from French-Flanders are rife with motifs depicting violent battles. One such motif is that of a mounted joust between a knight and a woman. The knight is weaponless, but the woman wields a distaff, a tool used to spin wool or flax, as a lance in order to penetrate the knight. By contextualizing this motif with the text of the Vulgate Arthur, as well as the socio-political moment within which the manuscripts were produced, this article seeks to investigate how its inclusion could direct certain interpretations of the narratives in accompanies.

Rational Creatures: Examining The Cat-Dog Divide In The Medieval World, Emily Price

Capstone Showcase

The spiritual chasm of status that exists between man and beast is daily put to the test by the very beasts kept in our homes. Human beings have a long history of keeping animals for one reason or another, but it has only been recently that the concept of animals purely maintained for companionship has taken center stage. The Middle Ages in particular served as a transformative moment in the history of the “pet,” where not only was the role of the animal within man’s existence re-examined, but so, too, were the specific animals preferred by different cultures more solidly …

Rational Creatures: Examining The Cat-Dog Divide In The Medieval World, Emily Price

Capstone Showcase

The spiritual chasm of status that exists between man and beast is daily put to the test by the very beasts kept in our homes. Human beings have a long history of keeping animals for one reason or another, but it has only been recently that the concept of animals purely maintained for companionship has taken center stage. The Middle Ages in particular served as a transformative moment in the history of the “pet,” where not only was the role of the animal within man’s existence re-examined, but so, too, were the specific animals preferred by different cultures more solidly …

Imperatrix, Domina, Rex: Conceptualizing The Female King In Twelfth-Century England, Coral Lumbley

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article draws on methods from transgender theory, historicist literary studies, and visual analysis of medieval sealing practices to show that Empress Matilda of England was controversially styled as a female king during her career in the early to mid twelfth century. While the chronicle Gesta Stephani castigates Matilda’s failure to engage in sanctioned gendered behaviors as she waged civil war to claim her inherited throne, Matilda’s seal harnesses both masculine and feminine signifiers in order to proclaim herself both king and queen. While Matilda’s transgressive gender position was targeted by her detractors during her lifetime, the obstinately transgender object …

Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the lives of impaired individuals catalogued in the Íslendingasögur as a narrative framework, this study examines medieval Scandinavian social views regarding impairment from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Beginning with the myths and legends of the eddic poetry and prose of Iceland, it investigates impairment in Norse pre-Christian belief; demonstrating how myth and memory informed medieval conceptualizations of the body. This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference, in the Norse world, was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that …

Literary Culture In Early Christian Ireland: Hiberno-Latin Saints’ Lives As A Source For Seventh-Century Irish History, John Higgins

Doctoral Dissertations

The writers of seventh-century Irish saints’ Lives created the Irish past. Their accounts of the fifth-and-sixth century saints framed the narrative of early Irish Christianity for their contemporary and later audience. Cogitosus’s Life of Brigit, Muirchú’s and Tírechán’s accounts of Saint Patrick, and Adomnán’s Life of Columba have guided the understanding of early Irish history from then until now. Unlike other early texts these Lives are securely dated. Composed as tools in the discourse regarding authority in seventh-century Irish ecclesiastical and secular politics, they provide historical insights not available from other sources. In the seventh century Armagh and Kildare …

Passion Through Slander: Saintliness, Deviance, And Suffering By Speech In The Book Of Margery Kempe, Connor Yeck

The Hilltop Review

A late medieval mystic prone to violent bouts of sobbing, Margery Kempe suffers a range of verbal abuse in her titular text, ranging from simple rumors, to outright accusations of heresy and possession. While we might accept such accusatory speech as indicative of the era and Margery’s controversial role as a public “holy woman,” further investigation reveals a narrative strongly driven by the notion of “suffering by slander,” and the weight attributed to the spoken word. The Book of Margery Kempe shows us an oral culture filled with “deviant speech,” and within its own rhetorical construction as a text, elevates …

The Impact Of Latin Culture On Medieval And Early Modern Scottish Writing, Alessandra F. Petrina, Ian M. Johnson

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

In the late medieval and early modern periods, native tongues and traditions, including those of Scotland, cohabited and competed with latinitas in fascinating and inventive ways. Scottish latinity had its distinctive stamp, most intriguingly so in its effects upon the literary vernacular and on themes of national identity. The present book shows how, when viewed through the prism of its latinity, Scottish textuality was distinctive and fecund. The flowering of Scottish writing owed itself to a subtle combination of literary praxis, the ideal of eloquentia, and ideological deftness. This combination enabled writers to service a burgeoning national literary tradition, and …

The English Language: How The French Normans Changed Its Trajectory Through The Onset Of The Battle Of Hastings, Hannah A. G. Wiley

History Capstone Research Papers

The English Language: How the French Normans Changed its Trajectory through the Onset of the Battle of Hastings

Abstract

This capstone discusses the convoluted connection between Denmark, England, and Normandy and identifies how this complicated shared history led to William the Conqueror’s infiltration of England, via Normandy. Subsequently, the Battle of Hastings promptly follows, ultimately ushering in a new era within Anglo-Saxon England. This pivotal event established the prevalence of the French language within the English language in a variety of capacities, especially pertaining to sub-sections within culture. These various sections within culture are related to the military, law, government, …

Saints And Sainthood Around The Baltic Sea: Identity, Literacy, And Communication In The Middle Ages, Carsten Selch Jensen

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume addresses the history of saints and sainthood in the Middle Ages in the Baltic Region with a special focus on the cult of saints in Russia, Prussia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia (more commonly referred to in the Middle Ages as Livonia). The articles cover a wide range of topics, for example the introduction of foreign (and "old") saints into new regions, the creation of new local cults of saints in newly Christianized regions, the role of the cult of saints in the creation of political and lay identities, the adaption of the cult of saints in …

Digital Addenda To: The French Of Outremer: Communities And Communications In The Crusading Mediterranean, Laura Morreale, Nicholas Paul, Alan M. Stahl, Philip Handyside, Massimiliano Gaggero, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari

Publications

Digital addendum to the essay collection originating with the 2014 Fordham conference entitled The French of Outremer. The addendum includes files for 3-D printing (in .stl format), an enriched manuscript stemma, a Byzantine genealogy, as well as more traditional textual addenda to contributions in the book.

Abstract of the book, from the Fordham University Press website: "The establishment of feudal principalities in the Levant in the wake of the First Crusade (1095-1099) saw the beginning of a centuries-long process of conquest and colonization of lands in the eastern Mediterranean by French-speaking Europeans. This book examines different aspects of the life …

Crusader Orientalism: Depictions Of The Eastern Other In Medieval Crusade Writings, Henry Schaller

Summer Research

This paper examines the ways in which different texts (crusade chronicles, French epic poems, and crusade sermons) written during the early Crusades and Crusader States created a coherent portrait of the East. It compare the ways Edward Said’s Orientalism, which examines colonial texts, and the effect their portrait of the East had on European identity, with texts of the Crusades. These texts cast the Orient into a place that was the antithesis of Christendom, defining what it meant to have a Christian, European white identity. This was done through representations of: threatening sexuality, skin color, unlimited wealth, and a fictional …

Clemence Of Barking And Valdes Of Lyon: Two Contemporaneous Examples Of Innovation In The Twelfth Century, Lisa Murray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Twelfth Century in Western Europe was a remarkable time in history. Scholars have noted that Roman law was being revived, Aristotelian theory was being studied, Romanesque and Gothic art was being produced, scholasticism was being cultivated, and economic growth was being fostered by the rise of towns. These are just some of the developments that help give this era the well-known term “twelfth-century renaissance.” Despite the flourishing of creativity that this label suggests, there are few surviving, specific examples of innovation from this time that have been passed down to us. In AD 1175 the Benedictine nun Clemence of …

When We Were Monsters: Ethnogenesis In Medieval Ireland 800-1366, Dawn Adelaide Seymour Klos

Master's Theses

Ethnogenesis, or the process of identity construction occurred in medieval Ireland as a reaction to laws passed by the first centralized government on the island. This thesis tracks ethnogenesis through documents relating to change in language, custom, and law. This argument provides insight into how a new political identity was rendered necessary by the Anglo-Irish. Victor Turner’s model of Communitas structures the argument as each stage of liminality represents a turning point in the process of ethnogenesis.

1169 marked a watershed moment as it began the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. English nobles brought with them ideas of centralized power. In …

Literary Theories Of Circumcision, A. W. Strouse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Literary Theories of Circumcision” investigates a school of thought in which the prepuce, as a conceptual metaphor, organizes literary experience. In every period of English literature, major authors have employed the penis’s hood as a figure for thinking about reading and writing. These authors belong to a tradition that defines textuality as a foreskin and interpretation as circumcision. In “Literary Theories of Circumcision,” I investigate the origins of this literary-theoretical formulation in the writings of Saint Paul, and then I trace this formulation’s formal applications among medieval, early modern, and modernist writers. My study lays the groundwork for an ambitious …

A Bibliographical Guide To The Study Of The Troubadours And Old Occitan Literature, Robert A. Taylor

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Although it seemed in the mid-1970s that the study of the troubadours and of Occitan literature had reached a sort of zenith, it has since become apparent that this moment was merely a plateau from which an intensive renewal was being launched. In this new bibliographic guide to Occitan and troubadour literature, Robert Taylor provides a definitive survey of the field of Occitan literary studies - from the earliest enigmatic texts to the fifteenth-century works of Occitano-Catalan poet Jordi de Sant Jordi - and treats over two thousand recent books and articles with full annotations. Taylor includes articles on related …

"So Vexed Me The Þouȝtful Maladie": Public Presentation Of The Private Self In Hoccleve's My Compleinte And The Conpleynte Paramont, Lauren M. Silverio

Honors Scholar Theses

The scholarship surrounding the life and work of Thomas Hoccleve is relatively young and lean compared to the tomes of knowledge that have been circulated about the slightly older and vastly more popular Geoffrey Chaucer. Up until the second half of the 20th century, Hoccleve came through history with the unfortunate moniker of the "lesser Chaucer." What this insult neglects, however, is that Hoccleve was more than just a lowly clerk who spent his days admiring and emulating the so-called Father of English Literature. Thomas Hoccleve deserves recognition for conceiving and creating works that are impressive both in their form …

Review Of Reviving The Eternal City: Rome And The Papal Court, 1420-1447 By Elizabeth Mccahill, Brian Maxson

ETSU Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Review Of Reviving The Eternal City: Rome And The Papal Court, 1420-1447 By Elizabeth Mccahill, Brian Maxson

Brian J. Maxson

No abstract provided.

Annual Reports Of Clcweb: Comparative Literature And Culture 1999-, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven & Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven

No abstract provided.

Aaron Swartz’S Legacy, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

“Aaron Swartz’s Legacy,” Academe: Magazine of the American Association of University Professors 95(1): 19-23. Special issue on the “New Public Intellectual.” http://www.aaup.org/article/aaron-swartz%E2%80%99s-legacy#.UtZGm2RDtmk

Review Of Takhyil: The Imaginary In Classical Arabic Poetics, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

No abstract provided.

Zadam Bede’S Dutch Realism And The Novelist’S Point Of View, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

No abstract provided.

Laws, Exceptions, Norms: Kierkegaard, Schmitt, And Benjamin On The Exception, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

No abstract provided.