Medieval History Commons^™

Jewish Daily Life In Medieval Northern Europe, 1080-1350, Tzafrir Barzilay, Eyal Levinson, Elisheva Baumgarten

TEAMS Documents of Practice

Designed to introduce students to the everyday lives of the Jews who lived in the German Empire, northern France, and England from the 11th to the mid-14th centuries, the volume consists of translations of primary sources written by or about medieval Jews. Each source is accompanied by an introduction that provides historical context. Through the sources, students can become familiar with the spaces that Jews frequented, their daily practices and rituals, and their thinking. The subject matter ranges from culinary preferences and even details of sexual lives, to garments, objects, and communal buildings. The documents testify to how Jews enacted …

Demons & Droids: Nonhuman Animals On Trial, Gerrit D. White

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Nonhuman animal trials are ridiculous to the modern sensibilities of the West. The concept of them is in opposition to the idea of nonhuman animals—entities without agency, incapable of guilt by nature of irrationality. This way of viewing nonhuman animals is relatively new to the Western mind. Putting nonhuman animals on trial has only become unacceptable in the past few centuries. Before this shift, nonhuman animal trials existed as methods of communities policing themselves. More than that, these trials were part of legal systems ensuring they provided justice for all. This shift happened because the relationship between Christian authorities and …

Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum With The Lost & Found Game Series, Owen Gottlieb, Shawn Clybor

Articles

This chapter addresses design research and iterative curriculum design for the Lost & Found games series. The Lost & Found card-to-mobile series is set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the twelfth century and focuses on religious laws of the period. The first two games focus on Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, a key Jewish law code. A new expansion module which was in development at the time of the fieldwork described in this article that introduces Islamic laws of the period, and a mobile prototype of the initial strategy game has been developed with support National Endowment for the Humanities. The …

Enlightening The “Dark Ages”: Historical Genealogy And The Medieval Narrative, Jess R. O’Leary

The Forum: Journal of History

No abstract provided.

Historical Ecology Of Norse Greenland: Zooarchaeology And Climate Change Responses, Konrad Smiarowski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis invokes Historical Ecology approach to better understand human impacts on marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and the creation of cultural landscapes and seascapes in Norse Greenland. It also investigates climate impacts on human economic strategies, as they vary substantially by island and region in the North Atlantic but were especially important in arctic Greenland.

The analysis centers on the animal bone data and uses both existing and newly generated zooarchaeological collections to contribute to the study of Norse Greenland and its place in human ecodynamics research. The newly analyzed archaeofauna shows that the culturally Nordic European settlers used to …

Lenses, Focus, And Fluidity: Lessons From Medieval Queer History, Reese Hollister

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The Medieval era is sometimes overlooked within the field of Queer and Transgender History, but a recent shift in focus has revealed new discoveries and interpretations. This historiographical analysis posits that in the Middle Ages, gender and sexuality were much more fluid than previously believed.

The Battle Of Tours Reconsidered, Paul Aitchison

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

This paper examines the Battle of Tours/Poitiers in 732 between the Merovingian Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel, and the Umayyad governor-general of al-Andalus in modern-day Spain, Abdul Rahman Al-Ghafiqi. Since the pivotal works of Sir Edward Gibbons were published in 1776, the battle has been seen as keeping Europe from falling completely to Islam. More recent scholarship highlights the battle as pivotal in Charles's quest to consolidate power in his ultimately successful bid to create a new power in western Europe, the Carolingian dynasty, which would eventually be created in the crowning as the Holy Roman Empire his grandson, …

Outlaws And Traitors: Justifying Rebellion In The Old French Epic Of Revolt, Klayton Tietjen

Doctoral Dissertations

The plot of many chansons de geste hinges on acts that would have been considered treasonable by medieval legal custom. Yet despite conspicuously treasonous behavior, rebel characters remain the heroes of the tales. Coming to an understanding of the esoteric way that medieval poets and their audiences would have perceived the difference between rebel characters and traitor characters is the pursuit of this study. Through an investigation of the narrative logic and poetic details of epic poems like Girart de Vienne and other chansons de geste, the divergence between treachery and rebellion can be shown to reside in narrative …

The Levant: France’S Colonial Crucible, Michael Adelson

French Summer Fellows

In the medieval era of religious and political tumult that culminated with the Crusades, (mostly) Roman Catholic Western European citizens from all walks of life committed themselves to conquer Jerusalem and wrest control of historically Christian lands from the Muslim polities that claimed the region. The historical Kingdom of France was a major contributor to the Crusades, and as such, the feudal realms established in the Levant in the wake of the First Crusade were dominated by former French crusaders and citizenry. The geographic boundaries and demography of these Crusader States are reminiscent of French hegemony in the Middle East …

Anglo-Danish Empire: A Companion To The Reign Of King Cnut The Great, Richard North, Erin Goeres, Alison Finlay

Northern Medieval World

Anglo-Danish Empire is an interdisciplinary handbook for the Danish conquest of England in 1016 and the subsequent reign of King Cnut the Great. Bringing together scholars from the fields of history, literature, archaeology and manuscript studies, the volume offers comprehensive analysis of England's shift from Anglo-Saxon to Danish rule. It follows the history of this complicated transition, from the closing years of the reign of King Æthelred II and the Anglo-Danish wars to Cnut's accession to the throne of England and his consolidation of power at home and abroad. Ruling from 1016 to 1035, Cnut drew England into a Scandinavian …

Trouble Within The Fold: The Communal Response To Madness In Medieval Europe, Alice P. Holland

University Honors Theses

Medieval descriptions of mental distress can inform us on a range of subjects, from community organization to diagnostic and interpretive practices. While we often employ the medical model of understanding disability presently and, while this model was still present in the Middle Ages, medieval individuals often understood mental distress as a religious phenomenon. This paper utilizes two miracle collections written in the twelfth century: The Miracle Collections of Thomas Becket and the Miracle Collection of Our Lady of Rocamadour. Miracle collections record miraculous occurrences at a saint's shrine. Many of these miracles documented healings and, of these healings, some …

Meet Me In The Middle Ages: Engaging With Fantasy, Reality, And Collaborative World-Building, Amanda Greene

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This critical essay accompanies and describes my thesis project, Medievalia Miscellany, a magazine for middle-grade readers which explores the world of medieval fantasy through art, comics, stories, and activities. Throughout the essay, I use my own term “archaeological upcycling” to discuss and explore a variety of relationships between ideas of parts and a whole. I then use it to characterize the way stories are created out of many different parts and how these parts help a reader to relate to both the world of the story and the world in which they live. I describe the genre of medieval fantasy …

Margery Kempe’S Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation And The Life-Course, Lucy Barnhouse

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Superior Women: Medieval Female Authority In Poitiers’ Abbey Of Sainte-Croix, Alexandra Verini

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Nuns’ Priests’ Tales: Men And Salvation In Medieval Women’S Monastic Life, Holle Canatella

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

This Is My Body: Eucharistic Theology And Anthropology In The Writings Of Gertrude The Great Of Helfta, Jessica Barr

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Letters Of Margaret Of Anjou, Gabrielle F. Storey

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments For An Ill-Used Past, Ana C. Núñez

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Lay Saint: Charity And Charismatic Authority In Medieval Italy, Mary Anne Gonzales

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Mélusine Romance In Medieval Europe: Translation, Circulation, And Material Contexts, Angela Weisl

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Notes On Contributors

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Troya Victa : Empire, Identity, And Apocalypse In The Frankish Chronicles Of The Fourth Crusade, Jordan Amspacher

Doctoral Dissertations

Histories of the Fourth Crusade have long revolved around the so-called “Diversion Question,” or the process by which a crusading army sworn to liberate the Levant from Muslim control ultimately found itself laying siege, not once but twice, to the largest city in Christian Europe. Competing answers to the Diversion Question have have tended to focus on the economic and diplomatic motivations of the crusade leadership. Scant attention, however, has been paid to the religious and intellectual motivations at play within the minds of these thirteenth-century Latin Christians. This dissertation examines intellectual trends in twelfth-century Latin Europe and the ways …

The Siege Of Calais During The Hundred Years War: An English Perspective, 1344-1347, Jordan J. Bruso

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the siege and capture of the port city of Calais in 1347 by King Edward III of England (1312-1377) during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). The capture of Calais was the culminating event of King Edward III’s 1346-7 military campaign in Normandy and France. This victory provided the English military with a strategically strong foothold on the European continent to conduct future military and economic operations. This thesis blends the methodological approach of “old military history” from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries with “new military history” beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century in an …

The Long Investiture Controversy: Western Europe's Power Struggle Between Church And State (494-1598), Kieran Vrklan

History | Senior Theses

Conflicts between the Catholic Church and European monarchs are nothing new. Foremost among this timeless conflict is the Investiture Controversy, beginning in 1076 due to a feud between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of Germany and ending in 1122 with the Concordat of Worms. Monarchs were appointing bishops and abbots, a job meant to be for the Pope. The Concordat sought to alleviate the conflict by stating the Church had the sole ability to select the bishops and appoint abbots of monasteries. However, this crisis continued centuries after as monarchs sought to appoint, or publicly support, clergy to …

A Performance Of Disease And Its Cures: Lovesickness In Medieval Iberia, Lillian B. Sanders

Masters Theses

In the context of late medieval Iberia, lovesickness as a real disease was both treatable and threatening to one’s lived experience. Different forms of lovesick cures, from both learned and vernacular healers, arose from the Galenic regime of the humoral body. Cures such as charms, mixtures, and verbal expressions helped heal lovesick patients, as is shown in the archive through sources like remedy books and literary texts depicting lovesick affliction. Much of the current scholarship on lovesickness focuses on medieval medicine through the archive. Through the lens of performance studies, I argue that medieval Iberians enacted cures on lovesick patients …

The Effects Of Regional Separatism On Late Roman Identity In Fourteenth-Century Byzantium, Evangelos Zarkadas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how tendencies of regional separatism affected the political and ethnic contexts of late Roman identity during the course of the fourteenth century in the Byzantine Roman Empire. Fourteenth-century Byzantium was characterized by political fragmentation, significant sociopolitical changes and alterations, and subsequently a crisis of the Roman identity. The major question that the research will answer is: who was considered to be a Roman during the fourteenth century, and what did it mean for someone to hold that identity? The thesis will focus on two major and important geographical areas in the fourteenth century: the Principality of Achaia …

The Unity Of Normanitas: Norman Identity In Twelfth-Century Scotland And Southern Italy, Zachariah J. Chamberlin

All Theses

Scholars have rigorously debated the extent to which the Normans remained a definitively identifiable group as they branched out from Normandy in endeavors of conquest and expansion. In the twentieth century, historians such as Charles Homer Haskins and David Douglas maintained the unity of Norman identity throughout the British Isles, southern Italy, and the crusader states. Other scholars like R. H. C. Davis argued that the Normans were merely extraordinary cultural assimilators and decried the notion of Norman unity, or Normanitas, as a myth propagated by chroniclers and historians dating back to the tenth century. Drawing upon recent scholarship, …

'Geomorlic' Or 'Eorlic?' Uncovering Early English Emotional Communities In "The Wanderer," "Deor," And "The Wife’S Lament", Hunter Phillips

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In my honors thesis, I uncover what I consider to be a poetic trope governing emotional expression in three of the Old English 'elegies.' Narrators in these poems engage the emotional values of the Old English "Heroic Tradition"-namely the value of keeping silent in the face of adversity-through abstracted and idealized figures like the 'eorl' (warrior/man). The invocation in these poems of the eorl and eorl-like figures such as a hlaford (lord) or geong mon (young man) functions as a poetic trope that signals the speakers engagement with the heroic emotional community represented by that figure. I name this …

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 …

Noble Pagans And Satanic Saracens: Literary Portrayals Of Islam In Medieval Italy And Iberia., John Spencer Jones

Honors Theses

The medieval Christian world is generally associated with a kind of religious zealotry that would seem to preclude the development of nuanced understandings of the religious Other. The heightened interreligious contact in regions such as Iberia and the Italian Peninsula, however, made room for relationships with members of other faiths that resulted in more developed ideas about these other creeds. This honors thesis examines the portrayal of Islam in the Christian literature of medieval Italy and Iberia, dating from the late 11th century to the middle of the 14th century. It categorizes a few types of the literary “use” of …