Medieval History Commons^™

Liturgical Processions In The Black Death, Eric A. Gobel

The Hilltop Review

The popularity of the flagellant movement in the German speaking lands during the Black Death is due to a number of factors. Flagellation may seem like a nonsensical reaction to despair from a modern perspective, but for medieval people, the itinerant processional penitent pilgrims represented more than a bloody, painful spectacle. Rather, it was a rational and emotion reaction to their troubles. The success of the flagellants lays, not in the grotesquerie of their performances, but instead in their ability to provide people with familiar, engaging ways to perform and observe penance while also departing from ecclesiastical norms that had …

Depending On Sex? Tongue, Sieve, And Ladle Shaped Pendants From Late Iron Age Gotland, Meghan P. Mattsson Mcginnis

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Artifacts of female dress such as brooches and pendants have long been objects of interest to scholars of late Iron Age /early medieval Scandinavia. They figure in dating and tracing stylistic developments, and their presence is often (controversially) used to help assign gender to burials. There are three types of pendants which constitute a type of feminine adornment unique to Viking Age Gotland: the so-called tongue, sieve, and ladle pendants. The purpose of this paper is to examine these pendant types and the possible symbolic and magical functions behind their forms and manner of use, and how these functions intersected …

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 …

Hell In Hand: Fear And Hope In The Hellmouths Of The Hours Of Catherine Of Cleves, Stephanie Lish

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an attempt to investigate how well the borders and miniatures of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves facilitated the method of meditation recommended by Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen and therefore was a useful tool in Catherine’s search for eternal salvation.

Viewing Heaven: Rock Crystal, Reliquaries, And Transparency In Fourteenth-Century Aachen, Claire Kilgore

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis examines reliquaries and objects associated with medieval Christian practice in fourteenth-century Aachen. The city's cathedral and treasury contain prestigious relics, reliquaries, and liturgical items, aided by its status as the Holy Roman Empire's coronation church. During the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (r. 1349-1378), reliquaries, pilgrimage, and architecture reflect late medieval interests in vision, optics, and transparency. Two mid-fourteenth century reliquaries from the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, the Reliquary of Charlemagne and the Three-Steepled Reliquary, display relics through rock crystal windows, in contrast to the obscuring characteristics of earlier reliquaries. Not only do the two reliquaries visually …

A Dialogue On Disaster: Antichrists In Jewish And Christian Apocalypses And Their Medieval Recensions, Natalie Latteri

Theology & Religious Studies

This paper examines textual and iconographic representations of antichrist personae in medieval Christian and Jewish manuscripts. Through a common language of polemics, Christians and Jews conflated antichrist personae to represent a more generalized category of apocalyptic antagonist that reflected the most significant temptations and threats to each respective religious community. As will be argued here, the greatest temptation and threat for Christians and Jews alike were those posed by members of the other religious group

The Crusades And The Crusaders (Library Resources), Holy Cross Libraries

Library Resources for Campus Events

A bibliography of resources available through the Holy Cross Libraries which provide additional information related to “Crusades and Crusaders,” a lecture by Kevin Madigan '82, held at the College of the Holy Cross on March 23, 2017.

Professor Madigan explains what the Crusades were and explores how Crusaders viewed themselves as pilgrims on an armed expedition undertaken for Christ, authorized by the Pope, who were given full remission of their sins. He also traces the historiography of the Crusades in the 19th and 20th centuries to lay context for decision of the Holy Cross student body in 1925 to adopt …

Lost & Found: Order In The Court -- The Party Game, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The second game in the series, Lost & Found: Order in the Court …

Historiography And Hierotopy: Palestinian Hagiography In The Sixth Century A.D., Rod M. Stearn

Theses and Dissertations--History

Judean hagiographies are unusual. Some are unexpectedly structured: a saint’s life in the form of a history text. Others offer surprising content. Expected hagiographic stylizations, for example, often depict moments in which the saint is offered money for a miracle. In such cases the saint invariably refuses. Judean saints, however, accept gratitude willingly – often with cash amounts recorded.

The peculiarities of these works have regularly been examined on literary and theological grounds. In this dissertation I propose a different approach: socio-economic context. The monasteries that produced these texts were utterly dominated by the environment of Christian Jerusalem. Although often …

Research And Study Of Fashion And Costume History Spanning From Ancient Egypt To Modern Day, Kaitlyn E. Dennis Miss

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Through a generous donation to Morehead State University, research has been conducted on thousands of slides containing images of artwork and artifacts of historical significance. These images span from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the inaugural dress of every first lady of the United States. The slides are in the process of being recorded and catalogued for future use by students in hopes of furthering academic comprehension and awareness of the influence of fashion and costume history through the ages. Special thanks to the family of Gretel Geist Rutledge, faculty mentor Denise Watkins, as well as the Department of Music, Theatre, and …

Pilgrimage Project, David Sheffler, Mike Boyles, Christopher Baynard, Ron Lukens-Bull

DHI Digital Projects Showcase

The University of North Florida Pilgrimage Project combines interdisciplinary approaches with digital and STEM technologies and applies them to the study of pilgrimage with a special focus on the Camino de Santiago.

Ransoming For The Faith: Medieval Perceptions Of The Role Of Mercedarians In Catalan Society, Spencer Thomas Hunt

Masters Theses

The Medieval advent of institutionalized religious ransoming marked a clear shift in popular concern for captive aid. The present study examines the Catalan based Order of Merced in an attempt to reevaluate the role of religious ransoming in Christian communities. This project reconstructs internal and external perceptions of the Mercedarian brothers and their chosen vocation of ransoming through an analysis of contemporaneous discourse about the order and patterns of lay engagement with the brothers. The first section utilizes published collections of papal and royal records. These documents, combined with the polemic and apologetic texts of the thirteenth-century Christian author Pedro …

The Church, State, And Literature Of Carolingian France, Steffan James Geiter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the eighth century rise in power of the Carolingian Church and the Carolingian dynasty through an early promise of religious revival, monarchial revival, and increased Papal power. Such aims gained the Carolingians a powerful in the Church. Aided by Boniface (672-754 AD) and the Church, the Carolingians replaced the Merovingians in Francia. In conjunction with this revival, Church scholars dictated a reformation of kingship in treatises called the Speculum Principum. A king’s position became tremulous when they strayed from these rules, as it betrayed their alliance. Ultimately, Louis the Pious (778-840 AD) faced deposition after they …

In Search Of Askia Mohammed: The Epic Of Askia Mohammed As Cultural History And Songhay Foundational Myth, Joe Wilson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis offers a detailed historical analysis of The Epic of Askia Mohammed, a foundational myth that ranks among the more well-known global tales of cultural heroes and state formation. The sudden regime change that resulted in the collapse of the Songhay Sunni dynasty and the ascent of the Songhay Askia dynasty in 1492-93 is one of the most important events in West African history. This swift rebellion reversed decades of destructive economic and religious policies. As such, the memory of these dynamic and transformative times was captured by the griots, the oral historians of the Sudan. Nouhou Malio, …

Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist In Twelfth-Century Literature, Lindsey Zachary Panxhi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature,” I analyze the appearance of the Eucharist as a sacred motif in secular lais, romances, and chronicles. The Eucharist became one of the most controversial intellectual topics of the High Middle Ages. While medieval historians and religious scholars have long recognized that the twelfth century was a critical period in which many eucharistic doctrines were debated and affirmed, literary scholars have given very little attention to the concurrent emergence of eucharistic themes in twelfth-century literature. This is unfortunate, since the Eucharist emerges as an intriguing motif, appearing in fantastic encounters …

Ecclesiastical Liberty On The Eve Of The Reformation, Kenneth Pennington

Scholarly Articles

Traces the concept of "libertas ecclesiae" and "libertas ecclesiastica" from the early Church to the 17th century. The focus of the essay is how the Fifth Lateran Council from 1512-1517 used the concept of ecclesiastical liberty to defend and establish the freedom of prelates and clergy from lay power and lay violence.

Knowledge Is Power: The Political Influence Of The Chanter Social Circle At The University Of Paris (1200-1215), Andrew X. Fleming

Anthós

The faculty of theology within the medieval University of Paris formed a major node within the social network of thirteenth-century Europe. Through an analysis of papal and university statutes concerning the development of a defined understanding of heresy, an overview of the historiographic methodologies traditionally used in studying such a topic, and a prosopographically-based analysis of the actions taken by Pope Innocent III and a small circle of theologians at Paris, we hope to come to a more clarified understanding of the political motivations which drove academic and papal reform within the thirteenth century. More specifically, this study aims to …

Leo The Great On The Supremacy Of The Bishop Of Rome, Denis Kaiser

Andrews University Seminary Student Journal

Pope Leo the Great built his rationale for the supreme authority of the bishop of Rome on an existing tradition, yet with his additions he developed a theoretical rationale for later papal claims to absolute and supreme power in the ecclesiastical and secular realms. Previous bishops and church leaders had laid increasing stress on the unique role of the Apostle Peter as the founder of the Roman churches and episcopacy, the significance of the Roman bishop as Peter’s successor, and the apostolic significance of the city and episcopacy of Rome. Yet Leo’s rationale for the absolute control and power of …

Late Medieval Mediterranean Apocalypticism: Joachimist Ideas In Ramon Llull’S Crusade Treatises, Michael Sanders

The Hilltop Review

The thirteenth century witnessed dramatic changes that transformed the medieval world and remain important today. The violent changes caused by the War of the Sicilian Vespers and Spiritual Franciscan movement popularized the apocalyptic ideas of the twelfth-century Italian abbot, Joachim of Fiore. The abbot's historical paradigms of biblical history influenced many southern Europeans, including the medieval mystic, missionary, and philosopher Ramon Llull (c. 1232-1316). Llull dedicated his life to converting the world to Catholic Christianity using a variety of means, including evangelical missions, Neoplatonic philosophy, and crusades. Llull's crusade treatises, the Tractatus de modo convertendi infideles (1292), Liber de fine …

The Fourth Crusade: How Internal Dynamics And Leadership Transitions Could Have Led To Its Diversion And Ultimate Failure, Tyler G. Grable

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Fourth Crusade, a war called to recapture Jerusalem, ended in disaster for the Christian city of Constantinople and the city of Jerusalem remained untouched by the crusading host. The fact that a war called to protect Christians in the Middle East and to recapture the city of Jerusalem for God resulted in the sacking of one of the largest Christian cities has led to much scholarly investigation into what exactly caused this to transpire. For the better part of a millennium scholars have sought answers to significant questions and have produced a variety of explanations for why the crusade …

Mirrored Images: The Passion And The First Crusade In A Fourteenth-Century Parisian Illuminated Manuscript (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale De France, Ms Fr. 352), Susanna A. Throop

History Faculty Publications

This lavish mid-fourteenth-century Parisian illuminated manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 352) combines a description of the Holy Land with an abridged version of the history and continuations of William of Tyre in Old French known as the Eracles. It is both visually familiar to scholars and under-studied. Several of its Gothic panel miniatures, especially folio 62r, the conquest of Jerusalem, have been published more than once, yet the manuscript's illumination programme as a whole has not been assessed since Jaroslav Folda's 1968 doctoral dissertation. Analysis of folio 62r in the context of both the full illumination …

02, A Mystery Of Belonging: Original Ownership Of The Portland State University Book Of Hours, Shirleanne Ackerman Gahan

Texts of Time

Shirleanne Ackerman Gahan discusses patronage and ownership of Books of Hours and explores evidence within PSU’s book that suggest information about its possible owner or owners.

10, Points Of Difference, Charolette Stoehr

Texts of Time

Charolette Stoehr describes the points of difference and continuity amongst Book of Hours.

12, A Love Affair: Passionate Pursuits Of The Book Of Hours, Tammy Boyer-Martel

Texts of Time

Tammy Boyer-Martel focuses on how the Book of Hours provides crucial resources of cultural context that reveal the intimate and personal relationship between text and owner.

09, Decorated Borders: Marginalia, Jackie Anderson

Texts of Time

Jackie Anderson explains the importance of devotional books in medieval life and describes the significance of color and symbol in the marginal illustrations and illustrated initials on a fifteenth-century manuscript.

05, Latin, Vernacular Language, And Personal Devotion In The Portland State Book Of Hours, Matthias Bladou

Texts of Time

Matthias Bladou describes the use of Latin and vernacular French in the Book of Hours, and how language reflected a more personal use of prayer texts in the fifteenth century.

11, Depictions Of The Arch In Medieval Books Of Hours: Historic And Symbolic Origins, Caitlyn Au

Texts of Time

Caitlyn Au describes the use and meanings of the medieval arch shape as a frame for displaying illuminations within niches and through symbolic gateways.

06, The Transition From Psalters To Books Of Hours, Thomas Goodwin

Texts of Time

Thomas Goodwin describes the types of manuscripts that preceded Books of Hours, their commonalities and distinctions, and the changes in content and design of devotional manuscripts over time.

01, "Texts Of Time: The Portland State Library Book Of Hours And The Medieval Manuscript Tradition" Exhibit Catalog, Anne Mcclanan, Shirleanne Ackerman Gahan, Melissa Medefesser, Kenna Miller, Matthias Bladou, Thomas Goodwin, Devin Courtright, Bethany Kraft, Jackie Anderson, Charolette Stoehr, Caitlyn Au

Texts of Time

This is the catalog for the exhibit "Texts of Time: The Portland State Library Book of Hours and the Medieval Manuscript Tradition"

Peter Abelard’S Theology Of Atonement: A Multifaceted Approach And Reevaluation, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

As a person trained primarily in philosophy, Peter Abelard employed an intense questioning mentality in fleshing out his theological ideas.  His extreme debating style of totally deconstructing theological positions and then afterward including some of those same aspects into his own views made it easy for his religio-political enemies to take apparently heterodox statements and declare these as representative of Abelard’s entire atonement theology.  However, many of his theological beliefs are supported in the New Testament and were already held by the church fathers.  He frequently affirmed Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice as the ransom to redeem man.  He rejected various contemporary …