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Articles 1 - 24 of 24
Full-Text Articles in History
Unearthing The Witch: Reckoning With Gender, Magic, And The Unusual Dead Within Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burials, Samantha Melvin
Unearthing The Witch: Reckoning With Gender, Magic, And The Unusual Dead Within Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burials, Samantha Melvin
Student Research Submissions
The fifth to seventh centuries CE, or the Migration Period, marked the development of Anglo-Saxon culture and society in England. The early Anglo-Saxons are known largely through their material culture and mortuary practices, left behind in medieval cemeteries that twist their way across the English landscape. The remains of early Anglo-Saxons tell rich and interesting histories about past peoples, but within the broader landscapes of these cemeteries are deviant burials. These are burials that are specifically typified as ones that ‘deviate’ from the norm, usually indicating that the inhumed individual was punished in death for actions committed in life. These …
Monks Praise The Female Saints Of Anglo-Saxon England: Hild Of Whitby And Edith Of Wilton, Lori Ferguson
Monks Praise The Female Saints Of Anglo-Saxon England: Hild Of Whitby And Edith Of Wilton, Lori Ferguson
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Female saints and abbesses made powerful contributions to the conversion of England in the seventh and eighth centuries and to its religious life in the tenth and eleventh centuries. However, the documentary record about these women is not only sparse, but also mediated mostly through hagiographies written by men. It has been argued on the basis of these hagiographies that minimal respect was accorded to English female saints during the early medieval period. This thesis tests that assertion by studying the lives of two eminent examples from the beginning and the end of the Christian Anglo-Saxon era: Hild of Whitby …
Oswald Of Northumbria: Pagan Hero, Christian Saint, Caleb Lyon
Oswald Of Northumbria: Pagan Hero, Christian Saint, Caleb Lyon
WWU Honors College Senior Projects
An overview of Saint Oswald's depiction by Bede and the pagan characteristics visible in his ninth and tenth century Christian worship.
Vice & Virtue As Woman?: The Iconography Of Gender Identity In The Late Anglo-Saxon Psychomachia Illustrations, Stephenie Mcgucken
Vice & Virtue As Woman?: The Iconography Of Gender Identity In The Late Anglo-Saxon Psychomachia Illustrations, Stephenie Mcgucken
Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality
In the Late Anglo-Saxon illustrated manuscripts of Prudentius's Psychomachia, vice and virtue are often shown ambiguously and the audience is encouraged to question what is male and what is female, and whether such categories are appropriate in understanding these illustrations. This paper utilises transgender theory to demonstrate how gender could be deployed in Late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts to question the roles of men and women with the ultimate aim of stressing the importance of righteous behaviours.
“Æthelthryth”: Shaping A Religious Woman In Tenth-Century Winchester, Victoria Kent Worth
“Æthelthryth”: Shaping A Religious Woman In Tenth-Century Winchester, Victoria Kent Worth
Doctoral Dissertations
It is well established that Anglo-Saxon writers were concerned with a specific set of principles (chastity, wisdom and piety) articulated in monastic life. However, the representation of women’s religious lives and the exemplification of their values influencing male saint’s Lives and their authors have to date been largely overlooked. To rectify this omission, I focus on Wulfstan’s tenth-century Vita St. Æthelwoldi, in which Æthelthryth’s character plays a far more significant role than we have heretofore noticed. Apart from the traditional figurae the author uses to depict her virtuous devotion, Wulfstan’s account of Æthelthryth is a testimony of a particular …
The Great Heathen Failure: Why The Great Heathen Army Failed To Conquer The Whole Of Anglo-Saxon England, Ryan Macneill
The Great Heathen Failure: Why The Great Heathen Army Failed To Conquer The Whole Of Anglo-Saxon England, Ryan Macneill
Graduate Theses
In the year 865 CE, a coalition of Viking forces combined to form an army aimed at the conquest and settlement of England. Known as The Great Heathen Army, these Vikings managed to capture most of the territory that today constitutes England with the notable exception of the English kingdom of Wessex. And so, despite many successes, they failed to conquer all of English territory. Though these events, which transpired throughout the 860s and 870s, are well documented, the Viking perspective is rarely taken into account and there has yet to have been an argument that pinpoints how and why …
Demonic Pedagogy And The Teaching Saint: Voice, Body, And Place In Cynewulf's Juliana, Christina M. Heckman
Demonic Pedagogy And The Teaching Saint: Voice, Body, And Place In Cynewulf's Juliana, Christina M. Heckman
Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality
In Cynewulf’s Old English poem Juliana, the saint frames her encounters with her adversaries as pedagogical confrontations, refusing the lessons they attempt to “teach” her and ultimately adopting the identity of a teacher herself. These confrontations depend on three key tropes in the poem: Juliana’s voice, as a material manifestation of language deployed by the saint; her body, both as living body and as relic; and place, especially the place of the saint’s martyrdom and/or burial. Viewed through theories of material feminism, these tropes reveal diverse forms of agency in the poem, as both human and non-human agents make …
"We Are Strangers In This Life": Theology, Liminality, And The Exiled In Anglo-Saxon Literature, Nathan John Haydon
"We Are Strangers In This Life": Theology, Liminality, And The Exiled In Anglo-Saxon Literature, Nathan John Haydon
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
In “‘We Are Strangers in this Life’: Theology, Liminality, and the Exiled in Anglo-Saxon Literature,” I analyze the theme of exile in the theological literature of the Anglo-Saxon era as a way of conveying the spiritual condition of eschatological separation. The anthropological theory of liminality will be applied in this dissertation as a way of contextualizing the existence of the exiled, and the multiple ways in which exile is enacted. The intervention of the theory of liminality in this dissertation offers a methodology and vocabulary for assessing what exile means in terms of a spiritual identity, how it operates in …
An Analysis Of The Metal Finds From The Ninth-Century Metalworking Site At Bamburgh Castle In The Context Of Ferrous And Non-Ferrous Metalworking In Middle- And Late-Saxon England, Julie Polcrack
Masters Theses
This thesis opens with an investigation of the evidence for blacksmithing and non-ferrous metalworking in Anglo-Saxon England during the Middle- and Late-Saxon periods, c. 700-1066. The second chapter of this thesis focuses on knives and non-ferrous strap-ends during this period in order to discern any regional distinction in metalworking from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. I initially conjectured that Northumbrian knives and strap-ends would show stylistic differences from knives and strap-ends made in other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, but in this chapter, I conclude that Northumbrian metal objects were homogenous with the assemblages from the remaining kingdoms. In the final chapter of …
Viking Nobility In Anglo-Saxon England: The Expansion Of Royal Authority Through The Use Of Scandinavian Accommodation And Integration, Lauren Marie Doughty
Viking Nobility In Anglo-Saxon England: The Expansion Of Royal Authority Through The Use Of Scandinavian Accommodation And Integration, Lauren Marie Doughty
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This project seeks to understand the transformative period in Anglo-Saxon England between the ninth to eleventh centuries. During these centuries, Anglo-Saxon kings extended their royal power through the manipulation of Scandinavian ethnicity by using the mechanisms of accommodation, integration and appeasement as well as the incorporation of female royal power. Anglo-Saxon kings such as Alfred the Great, Æthelræd the Unræd, and Cnut were challenged by various hindrances from expressing their full royal authority, including the rise of an independent nobility, economic difficulties and invasions. Despite intrinsic limitations on their rule, kings such as Alfred, Æthelræd and Cnut sought to expand …
Old English Manuscripts In The Early Age Of Print: Matthew Parker And His Scribes, Robert Scott Bevill
Old English Manuscripts In The Early Age Of Print: Matthew Parker And His Scribes, Robert Scott Bevill
Doctoral Dissertations
Covering the first dedicated program in the study of and publication of Anglo-Saxon texts, my dissertation examines the sixteenth-century origins of medieval studies as an academic discipline. By placing recent scholarship on media, materiality, cognition, and intellectual history in conversation with traditional paleographical methods on medieval and renaissance manuscript culture, I argue for a new way of understanding how early modern scholars studied and presented the medieval past. I take as my focus a corpus of emulative Anglo-Saxon manuscript transcriptions produced under Elizabethan Archbishop Matthew Parker. Equal parts facsimile and edition, these transcriptions are a unique example of early modern …
Responding To Modern Flooding: Old English Place-Names As A Repository Of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Richard L.C. Jones
Responding To Modern Flooding: Old English Place-Names As A Repository Of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Richard L.C. Jones
Journal of Ecological Anthropology
Place-names are used to communicate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) by all indigenous, aboriginal and First Nations people. Here and for the first time, English place-names are examined through a TEK lens. Specifically, place-names formed in Old English—the language of the Anglo-Saxon—and coined between c. 550 and c. 1100 A.D., are explored. This naming horizon provides the basic name stock for the majority of English towns and villages still occupied today. While modern English place-names now simply function as convenient geographical tags Old English toponymy is shown here to exhibit close semantic parallels with many other indigenous place-names around the world. …
The Conversion Of The Anglo-Saxon Kings, Marc Beneduci
The Conversion Of The Anglo-Saxon Kings, Marc Beneduci
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
This thesis examines the history of the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon practice of kingship and explores the conversion of that institution from a native and traditional pre-Christian political apparatus into one of autocratic Christian rule. By examining this period of history and studying the infiltration of foreign cultural elements, this study explores and discusses the ways in which the Anglo-Saxon regnal society was fundamentally transformed from an archetypal representation of the Germanic heroic age into one with a synthesis with aspects of Christian rule and religiosity. The nature of the time period requires alternative methods of historic understanding to be …
Bound By Words: Oath-Taking And Oath-Breaking In Medieval Lceland And Anglo-Saxon England, Gregory L. Laing
Bound By Words: Oath-Taking And Oath-Breaking In Medieval Lceland And Anglo-Saxon England, Gregory L. Laing
Dissertations
The legal and literary texts of early medieval England and Iceland share a common emphasis on truth and demonstrate its importance through the sheer volume of textual references. One of the most common applications of truth-seeking in these sources occurs in the swearing of oaths. Instances of oath-taking and oath-breaking, therefore, are critical textual loci wherein the language of swearing unites an individual’s socially constructed reputation and his personal guarantees under the careful supervision of the community. Traditionally, scholars looking at truth and attestation from the later medieval period tend to view early cases of swearing as procedural, artless, or …
“The Nonmusical Message Will Endure With It:” The Changing Reputation And Legacy Of John Powell (1882-1963), Karen Adam
“The Nonmusical Message Will Endure With It:” The Changing Reputation And Legacy Of John Powell (1882-1963), Karen Adam
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis explores the changing reputation and legacy of John Powell (1882-1963). Powell was a Virginian-born pianist, composer, and ardent Anglo-Saxon supremacist who created musical propaganda to support racial purity and to define the United States as an exclusively Anglo-Saxon nation. Although he once enjoyed international fame, he has largely disappeared from the public consciousness today. In contrast, the legacies of many of Powell’s musical contemporaries, such as Charles Ives and George Gershwin, have remained vigorous. By examining the ways in which the public has perceived and portrayed Powell both during and after his lifetime, this thesis links Powell’s obscurity …
Behind The Shield-Wall: The Experience Of Combat In Late Anglo-Saxon England, Jordan Poss
Behind The Shield-Wall: The Experience Of Combat In Late Anglo-Saxon England, Jordan Poss
All Theses
Most studies of the Anglo-Saxon military examine its structural ties to economic and social structures, rarely investigating Anglo-Saxon battle itself. This paper asks the question 'What was it like to have been in battle with the Anglo-Saxon army?' After introducing the topic in a study of the 991 Battle of Maldon and describing the development of the Anglo-Saxon military system between the fifth and eleventh centuries, this paper relies on case studies of the most thoroughly-documented Anglo-Saxon battles, those of 1066--Fulford Gate, Stamford Bridge, and Hastings--to reconstruct the conditions of Anglo-Saxon combat and their effects on the men who fought …
Anglo-Saxonism And Victorian Archaeology: William Wylie’S Fairford Graves, Howard M. R. Williams
Anglo-Saxonism And Victorian Archaeology: William Wylie’S Fairford Graves, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
William Wylie’s Fairford Graves is prominent among a series of publications dating from the mid-nineteenth century reporting the discovery of early medieval cemeteries and defining their national and racial significance for English history. This paper discusses interpretative themes in Wylie’s text and images. It is argued that Fairford Graves was more than a set of descriptive observations upon the excavations and finds. The paper shows how Fairford Graves was a statement about Wylie’s identity as well as the imagined Teutonic origins of the English. Seen in this light, the investigation, interpretation and publication of the early medieval burials from Fairford …
The Emotive Force Of Early Medieval Mortuary Practices, Howard M. R. Williams
The Emotive Force Of Early Medieval Mortuary Practices, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
No abstract provided.
Landscapes Of Conversion: Guthlac's Mound And Grendel's Mere As Expressions Of Anglo-Saxon Nation Building, Paul Siewers
Landscapes Of Conversion: Guthlac's Mound And Grendel's Mere As Expressions Of Anglo-Saxon Nation Building, Paul Siewers
Faculty Contributions to Books
An examination of the Old English poem Beowulf as a landscape-text, expressing the Anglo-Saxon project of political hegemony over native peoples and environments.
Death Warmed Up: The Agency Of Bodies And Bones In Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites, Howard M. R. Williams
Death Warmed Up: The Agency Of Bodies And Bones In Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
It is argued that recent archaeological theories of death and burial have tended to overlook the social and mnemonic agency of the dead body. Drawing upon anthropological, ethnographic and forensic analogies for the effects of fire on the human body, together with Gell’s theory of the agency of inanimate objects, the article explores the cremation rites of early Anglo-Saxon England. As a case study in the archaeological study of the mnemonic agency of bodies and bones it is suggested that cremation and postcremation rites in the 5th and 6th centuries AD in eastern England operated as technologies of remembrance. Cremation …
Material Culture As Memory: Combs And Cremation In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Material Culture As Memory: Combs And Cremation In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
This paper argues that mortuary practices can be understood as ‘technologies of remembrance’. The frequent discovery of combs in early medieval cremation burials can be explained by their mnemonic significance in the post-cremation rite. Combs (and other objects used to maintain the body’s surface in life) served to articulate the reconstruction of the deceased’s personhood in death through strategies of remembering and forgetting. This interpretation suggests new perspectives on the elationships between death, material culture and social memory in early medieval Europe.
Placing The Dead: Investigating The Location Of Wealthy Barrow Burials In Seventh Century England, Howard M. R. Williams
Placing The Dead: Investigating The Location Of Wealthy Barrow Burials In Seventh Century England, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
No abstract provided.
Monuments And The Past In Early Anglo-Saxon England,, Howard M. R. Williams
Monuments And The Past In Early Anglo-Saxon England,, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
Recent research on both old and new excavation data from Anglo-Saxon burial sites reveals a widespread and frequent practice of reusing monuments of earlier periods. Both Roman and prehistoric structures provided the focus of cemeteries, burial groups and single graves between the late fifth and early eighth centuries AD. It is argued that this practice was central to the symbolism of Anglo-Saxon mortuary practices, and was important for the construction and negotiation of origin myths, identities and social structures.
Who Were The Whigs And Democrats? The Economic Character Of Second-Level Party Leadership In Tidewater Maine, 1843-53, Wayne M. O'Leary
Who Were The Whigs And Democrats? The Economic Character Of Second-Level Party Leadership In Tidewater Maine, 1843-53, Wayne M. O'Leary
Maine History
This article analyses the religious, socio-economic and vocation characteristics of the members of the lower house of the Maine legislation during the period 1843-1853. This analysis is used to differentiate the members of the Whig and Democratic Parties in Maine at that time.