History Commons^™

Elite Women In The Mediterranean 31 Bc – 1380 Ad: An Investigation Into Female Agency, Identity, And Patriarchy Across Classical And Christian Paradigms, Julia Maurer

Capstone Showcase

This paper explores the responses of elite women to patriarchal regimes across the Classical Pagan and Medieval Christian paradigms in the Mediterranean from 31 BC to 1380 AD. While the current historiography acknowledges the radical differences between the two worldviews fundamental to the core values of Western Civilization, an investigation of three women that can be taken to be emblematic examples of the periods in which they lived reveals a striking continuity in the nuanced social roles available to women. This continuity contradicts expectations of significant changes reflective of this revolutionary paradigm shift.

I utilize Julia Augusti, Vibia Perpetua, and …

Mapping Manuscript Migrations: Building And Using A Linked Open Data Environment For Medieval And Renaissance Manuscript Studies, Lynn Ransom, Toby Burrows

Digital Initiatives Symposium

“Mapping Manuscript Migrations” is a digital humanities project that brings together three distinct data sets about the histories of more than 215,000 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts for browsing, searching, and visualization. Four leading institutions from Great Britain, France, Finland, and the United States collaborated on this project, pooling their expertise in Semantic Web technologies and medieval manuscript curation and research, as well as contributing their own data from the three contrasting datasets. The Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania, the Medieval Manuscripts Catalogue at the University of Oxford, and the Bibale database from the Institut de recherche …

The Reconquista And Crusading In The Late 11th And Early 12th Century, Catherine Hill

Capstone Showcase

The purpose of this project is to recount the historiography and literature of the Crusades and the Reconquista and then offer some commentary on their relationship in Spain in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. Both of these fields have a tremendous amount of scholarship to understand these phenomena in medieval history. Therefore, the scope of this project is to compile the main scholarly debates surrounding the connection between the Crusades and the Reconquista and consider the evidence for the various approaches. The relevant background history of the Reconquista contextualizes the literature of the two fields. The main debates …

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 …

Teaching The Principles Of Research Through The Creation Of Digital Content, Melodie H. Eichbauer

Florida Statewide Symposium: Best Practices in Undergraduate Research

This presentation highlights the outcomes of a series of student internships that resulted in the production of successively more complex content videos for my undergraduate survey EUH 2021 Medieval European History. The production of the videos mirrored the research process and those creating the videos thought about and worked through the steps that a research project takes. Students enrolled in the course, which explores the period c.400 and c.1400 A.D., oftentimes have a difficult time with how to conceptualize the information, how to navigate the information, and how to delve into the information. The students engaged in the video product …

Madness And Hysteria: Social Control In Early Modern Spain, Jackie Everetts

Student Symposium

This presentation will critically examine “hysteria” as an example of the influence of a male-dominant perspective on women in early modern Spain, particularly from the mid-1400s to the late 1500s. Analyzing the exemplary case of Juana I of Castilla, it will discuss possible contributing factors that may have led a woman to exhibit symptoms of hysteria as a mental disorder, as well as the social ramifications of hysteria as a means of controlling women. Juana I was the daughter of the one of the most influential queens of Spain, Isabel I la Catolica, and the mother of Carlos V the …

The Role Of The Midwife In Hapsburg Spain, Grace Jones

Student Symposium

The Holy Roman Empire during the early modern period (14th and 15th centuries) accounted for several countries within central Europe that fell under the mandate of the Roman Catholic Church. Of the many royal families that ruled these countries, The Hapsburg family maintained a position as Holy Roman Emperor for many consecutive years, and gained majority of their favor and power through political marriages and the children that came from these unions. Gender roles during the 14th-16th century were very strictly defined, with women following roles set out through religious mandate and the misogynistic teachings of male philosophers. The role …

Spirituality: Take Me To A Higher Place, Kane Stanglin, Alexandra Mendez, Laura A. Eads, Kyle Crosslin

Collin College Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Student Research Conference

Panel Chair: Marta Moore

Papers Presented:

"The Acceptance of Fate from a Man of God" by Alexandra Mendez

"Acceptance Is Peace" by Kane Stanglin

"Hindu Beliefs in Bhagavad-Gita" by Laura A Eads

"Analysis of 'The Sovereignty of Goodness of God'" by Kyle Crosslin

Romance And Reason: Contextualizing The Arthurian Romances Of Chrétien De Troyes, Alexandra Borkowski

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

The twelfth century saw the birth of the romance in literature, as well as the intellectual and social developments of humanism. The romance often involved the adventures of the knight, focusing on the behavior of the knight using the ideals of courtly love and chivalry. Chrétien de Troyes (c.1135-c.1183) contributed to the discussion of chivalry and courtliness by writing narrative poetry involving the Arthurian legends. He focused on the consequences of his knightly characters’ choices in order to show examples of how a proper knight should behave. This emphasis on the choices of each knight conveys a humanistic perspective, which …

Minhag And Migration: A Yiddish Custom Book From Venice, 1553, Lucia Raspe

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation focuses on a Yiddish book of customs written in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century, which describes synagogue and home observances over the course of the Jewish year. Comparing MS Oxford Can. Or. 12 to the fifteenth-century Hebrew custumal it is based on (MS Frankfurt hebr. oct. 227), the presentation will discuss the efforts of Ashkenazic émigrés to northern Italy trying to preserve their identity in the face of a Jewish world suddenly become complex.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Book of Customs (MS Frankfurt hebr. oct. 227)
• Book of Customs (MS Oxford Can. Or. 12)