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Full-Text Articles in History

A Medieval Pirate's Life: The Role Of Piracy In Medieval Life Versus Its Role In Modern Historiography, Leah Lam Apr 2023

A Medieval Pirate's Life: The Role Of Piracy In Medieval Life Versus Its Role In Modern Historiography, Leah Lam

History ETDs

Medieval piracy is a mysterious phenomenon that is interwoven within the politics, culture, economic histories of the Middle Ages. Its presence throughout the Middle Ages is not questioned, yet it is rarely researched thoroughly. The subject of medieval piracy falls prey to the biases and assumptions that modern historians carry towards piracy as a whole, making the subject be under researched and improperly utilized. In this thesis, I will be highlighting the role that piracy played in medieval life and the way that modern historiography has neglected it. To do so thoroughly, I have pulled examples from different times, regions, …


The Magic Of Love: Love Magic In Medieval Romance, Dalicia Raymond Jul 2020

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 …


Cultural Belief In The Supernatural From 500 To 1500: Change Over Time, Significance, And Dispersion Of Ideas From Augustine To Shakespeare, Stephanie Victoria Violette Apr 2017

Cultural Belief In The Supernatural From 500 To 1500: Change Over Time, Significance, And Dispersion Of Ideas From Augustine To Shakespeare, Stephanie Victoria Violette

History ETDs

This project is an amalgamation of case studies, arguing that not only did the supernatural permeate every level of medieval society, but that its potential for analysis and interpretation is largely unexplored. These case studies include: an analysis of the Church Fathers works, including Tertullian’s De testimonio animae, Augustine of Hippo’s De cura pro mortuis gerenda, and Gregory the Great’s Dialogi, addressing the variation in these works’ theological ideas about the soul; an analysis of the works of Gregory of Tours (his Liber vitae Patrum and Historia Francorum), which reflect popular beliefs as opposed to those …