Medieval History Commons^™

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 …

“Clamor Validus” Vs. “Fragilitas Sexus Feminei”: Hrotsvit Of Gandersheim On The Agency Of Women, Caroline Jansen

Masters Theses

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim has generated interest among scholars of gender and sexuality due to her status as a woman and writer of Latin legends, epics, and plays in the Ottonian Empire. As the only prominent female playwright of her time, Hrotsvit presents an intriguing, complex treatment of female characters and their sexuality, particularly her plays, which rework both well-known lives of female saints and the tropes of the Roman playwright Terence’s comedies. One issue that has not been fully addressed, however, is the gendering of the heroines populating Hrotsvit’s plays—while some scholars refer to the characters as “overcoming femininity” others …

Front Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.52, No.2 2017

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, Letters To Her Sons (1447-147)), Lynn Blanchfield

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Learning To Die In London, 1380-1540, Wendy A. Matlock

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Experience Of Beauty In The Middle Ages, Bonnie Millar

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Ecology: Land, Life, And Law In Medieval Britain, Linda E. Mitchell

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Back Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.52, No.2 2017

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Invisible Injuries: The Salvific And Sacramental Roles Of Christina Mirabilis, Sarah Macmillan

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The Life of Christina Mirabilis depicts a series of self-inflicted torments which are seemingly unique in medieval devotional literature in that they leave no outward evidence on her body. This essay examines the self-healing nature of Christina's wounds and the importance of their invisibility in a culture which typically emphasises the visibility of the broken body. It considers the ways in Christina’s resurrected body (in both the Latin (c. 1232) and English (c. 1420) versions of her Life) contributes to thirteenth and fifteenth-century purgatorial and Eucharistic theologies, and suggests a correlation between the bodies of Christina and Christ which …

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 …

Visionary "Staycations": Meeting God At Home In Medieval Women’S Vision Literature, Jessica Barr

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Medieval vision literature frequently features descriptions of supernatural travel: to Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory, or to locations that allow the visionary to receive knowledge to which she would not normally be privy. A less explored trope of this literature, however, is the travel-without-travel that occurs when the visionary’s physical location is overlaid with a transcendent mode of perception. This essay will analyze such moments of spatial transformation in late medieval visionary and hagiographic narratives. In the vitae of many medieval holy women, visions that transform the domestic sphere figure as evidence of their sanctity; in first-person visionary accounts, on the …

Royal Mothers And Their Ruling Children: Wielding Political Authority From Antiquity To The Early Modern Era, Kara Larson Maloney

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Books And Life Of Judith Of Flanders, Amy Livingstone

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

A Medieval Woman's Companion: Women's Lives In The European Middle Ages, Kara Larson Maloney

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Book Of Margery Kempe, Summer Santos Webber

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Imagining The Parish In Late Medieval England, Janelle Werner

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Anchoress: A Novel, Kellyann Fitzpatrick

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

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.

Inventing Saladin: The Role Of The Saladin Legend In European Culture And Identity, Brian C. David

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis seeks to uncover and understand the strange historical journey of the Muslim Sultan Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known to the West as Saladin. The historic Saladin was a ruler famous for his successful campaigns against the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, his victory at the Battle of Hattin, and his holding action against the Third Crusade. Upon Saladin’s death in 1193, he became the subject of numerous legends, most of which describe him as a merciful, chivalric, and ideal leader of men. The epitome of what a thirteenth century European noble was supposed to be. This thesis seek to explain …

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 …

Statements In Stone: The Politics Of Architecture In Charlemagne's Aachen, Mary Katherine Tipton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Statements in Stone is an intersectional and preliminary study of the architecture and Social aspects of the palatine complex of Aachen Germany during the reign of Charlemagne approximately spanning from the 790s to 814CE. The interplay between built space and its Social uses inform the larger Social understandings and interpretations of power and authority. Court poetry written by contemporaries and courtiers of Charlemagne allow readers to glimpse the court as it moved through and interacted with the built environment. Architectural precedents inform the connotations associated with the spaces of Aachen, while spatial theory will provide a framework for understanding the …

The Interconnection Between Law And Christianity In Medieval England, Maria Isabel Caplazi

Young Historians Conference

In England, the influence of Christian morals and beliefs grew rapidly during the medieval era. Religious beliefs were evident in literature, laws, as well as social hierarchy. The extent of religious influence on medieval English law is undeniable, however historians have yet to attain a full understanding of religious reach because of institutionalized relativism -- the concept that varying environments affect how social regulations are established in their area. This paper discusses two of the most prominent ways Christianity influenced medieval English law -- through direct influence on laws themselves as well as religious impact on the individual administrators of …

The First Crusade: The Forgotten Realities, Jonathan Chang

Young Historians Conference

In the Middle Ages, Europe saw a great amassing of thousands of lords, knights, and ordinary people for an extraordinary expedition into the Holy Land. This event was called the First Crusade. The First Crusade was one of the more successful crusades, however, this fact is overshadowed by the negatives of the crusades. My paper explores the reasons for how the crusaders were able to be victorious in the First Crusade.

Lesbians In The Middle Ages: Bietris De Romans, Maggie A. Benware

Young Historians Conference

Sexuality, particularly homosexuality, in the Middle Ages was heavily enshrouded by a culture saturated in religious values. Coupled with a lack of voice of women in this time, it is no wonder that evidence of lesbians is sparse. In lieu of this, historian Judith M. Bennett has offered the classification of a “lesbian-like” woman. This paper not only supports her assertion, but also offers the example of author Bietris de Romans as a “lesbian-like” woman.

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

Medieval Iceland, Greenland, And The New Human Condition: A Case Study In Integrated Environmental Humanities, Steven Hartman, A.E.J. Ogilvie, Jón Haukur Ingimundarson, A.J. Dugmore, George Hambrecht, Thomas Mcgovern

Publications and Research

This paper contributes to recent studies exploring the longue durée of human impacts on island landscapes, the impacts of climate and other environmental changes on human communities, and the interaction of human societies and their environments at different spatial and temporal scales. In particular, the paper addresses Iceland during the medieval period (with a secondary, comparative focus on Norse Greenland) and discusses episodes where environmental and climatic changes have appeared to cross key thresholds for agricultural productivity. The paper draws upon international, interdisciplinary research in the North Atlantic region led by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) and the Nordic …

Hist 4654 Medieval London: Syllabus, 2017, Maryanne Kowaleski

Digital Pedagogy: Omeka Medieval London

Course syllabus for the 2017 offering of the course HIST 4654 Medieval London

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 …

Windows To The Divine: The Development Of Byzantine Art, Sam Klein

Tenor of Our Times

Byzantine art took significant inspiration form its Greco-Roman heritage but then distinguished itself through a shift in focus away from Hellenic realism and towards formal abstractions of Christian motifs. These conventions developed alongside political and theological turbulence to eventually influence a vast area of Asia Minor and Eastern Europe.