Medieval Studies Commons^™

King Of The Who? The Collective Unconscious And The Crafting Of National Identity In The Medieval Arthurian Tradition, Melissa Ridley-Elmes

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis examines the ways in which British writers of old have attempted to create a sort of ideal, national, British identity through the archetypal image of King Arthur, the “once and future king.” Drawing from sources such as Malory, Laʒamon, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, this thesis suggests that these authors’ texts, along with the texts of others who have modified the myth throughout history, have helped change and develop the way in which Britons think of themselves and their nation over the course of time.

The Seven Seals Of The Apocalypse: Medieval Texts In Translation, Francis X. Gumerlock

TEAMS Commentary Series

Filling today's religious book market are Apocalypse commentaries teaching that the seven seals of Revelation 5–8 describe tragedies that are to take place in the last days. Medieval Europeans, on the other hand, thought very differently about the seven seals. Some used the seven seals for catechetical purposes and associated them with seven major events in the life of Christ or seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Other medieval writers taught that the seven seals contained symbols about life in the church between the first and second comings of Christ. Still others viewed the seals as milestones in the grand …

Richard Newhauser (Ed.), The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities To Individuals (Book Review), Denise A. Kaiser

History Faculty Publications

Book review by Denise Kaiser:

ISBN 9789004157859

Alexander In The Himalayas: Competing Imperial Legacies In Medieval Islamic History And Literature, Anna Akasoy

Publications and Research

In 1888, Rudyard Kipling published a collection of stories in a volume with the title The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales. The collection includes the short story The Man Who Would be King, in which Kipling's alter ego, a British journalist in India, makes the acquaintance of a pair of adventurers, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan, who demand his help as a fellow Mason. The two shady characters have set out to take advantage of divisions among the natives and are determined to install themselves as kings in Kafiristan, a remote region inhabited by pagans in the north of the …

Narrative, Authority And The Voices Of Morality And Reason: An Intertextual Exploration Of Select Texts Of Mirror For Princes Literature & The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night With Select Sufi Literature, Sharon Allen

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Anonymous Text Of Ms Bodley 451 And The Intellectual Character Of The Abbey Of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Winchester, Johnna L. Ap'morrygan

Honors Theses

This thesis will begin by describing MS Bodley 451 and its texts in detail and will continue with the close examination of a previously unpublished text appearing there. It will conclude with an assessment of the evidence offered by Oxford MS Bodley 451, other contemporary documents, and the overall historical record about the likely intellectual character and activities of the house during the early twelfth century.

The Cistercian Studies Conference, 2008, The Institute Of Cistercian Studies

Conference on Cistercian Studies Programs

Program for the 2008 Cistercian Studies Conference at Western Michigan University in conjunction with the 43rd Annual International Congress on Medieval Congress. This congress happened between May 8-11 2008.

43rd International Congress On Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University

International Congress on Medieval Studies Archive

The printed program of the 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 8-11, 2008), including the Corrigenda.

Literary Influences On Dante's Use Of Fear In The Commedia, Andrew Pearson

Presentations

This presentation explores the literary influences that may have guided Dante's use and development of fear reflected and directed by his use of the word paura. These influences include Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The presenter also suggests a distant echo of fear finding its way into John Milton's Paradise Lost.

The Rhetoric(S) Of St. Augustine's Confessions, James M. Farrell

Communication

In this essay, I offer a sympathetic reading of the rhetoric(s) of Augustine’s Confessions. First, as a historian of rhetoric I am interested in what Augustine’s narrative can tell us about the theory and practice of rhetoric in the late classical period and the early Christian era. From this perspective, I am interested in exploring what Augustine discloses about the rhetoric he learned in the provincial Roman schools, and taught at Carthage, Rome, and Milan. Second, I am interested in Augustine’s own work on rhetoric, especially his De Doctrina Christiana, most of which he composed during the period right before …

The Shepherd Goes To War: Santo Domingo Revisited, Martha Daas

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

The thirteenth century was witness to a revolution in personal piety and the Camino de Santiago represented this new age. Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages became not only a symbol of devotion, but also a powerful method of active participation in one’s own salvation.¹ The importance of this burgeoning individualism is reflected by the miracle tales of a saint who is connected both spiritually and geographically to Santiago and his trail. Like the miracles attributed to the patron saint, the miracles of Santo Domingo de Silos, as they are interpreted by Gonzalo de Berceo, reflect this revolution in personal …

Meaningful Mingling: Classicizing Imagery And Islamicizing Script In A Byzantine Bowl, Alicia Walker

History of Art Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Medievalism And Exoticism In The Music Of Dead Can Dance, Kirsten Yri

Music Faculty Publications

In 1991, the alternative rock band Dead Can Dance released an album that caught the attention of music reviewers by constructing an aural allegiance to the Middle Ages. Suitably called A Passage in Time, the album was described as imitating medieval chant, troubadour music, Latin hymns and courtly songs and included Dead Can Dance’s hybrid medieval songs as well as performances of actual medieval repertoire. In modeling their songs and sounds after historical recordings of medieval music, Dead Can Dance also adopted some of the ideological parameters of these performances and historical reconstructions. Examining the output of Dead Can Dance …

"My Trouthe For To Holde-Allas, Allas!": Dorigen And Honor In The Franklin's Tale, Alison Ganze

English Faculty Publications

Though others have explored in detail the deep and abiding concern with honor Arveragus and Aurelius evince in the tale, Dorigen’s own preoccupation with honor—no less significant in the tale’s exposition of trouthe—has not received much critical attention. Indeed, the question of Dorigen’s honor is often preempted by analysis of the (masculine) chivalric code of honor, which subsumes female honor within it. Yet an analysis of Dorigen’s promise to Aurelius and of her despairing complaint will reveal that she, too, participates in the same concept of trouthe that binds her male counterparts, one that privileges trouthe not simply as honor …

Review Of Gendering Disgust In Medieval Religious Polemic, William I. Miller

Reviews

Ms. Cuffel works with sources in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, Latin, and more than a few of the various medieval vernaculars, which has to be somewhat intimidating to a reviewer whose connection with the me- dieval is Old Icelandic and Old English and whose connection with Hebrew was via the whip of Bar Mitzvah and who learned all the words needed to vaccinate anally thousands of chickens in the lul, the chick- enhouse, on a kibbutz way back in 1964. I thus have to take the author at her word except, I suppose, when it comes to knowledge of the re- …

The Cistercian Studies Conference, 2007, The Institute Of Cistercian Studies

Conference on Cistercian Studies Programs

Program for the 2007 Cistercian Studies Conference at Western Michigan University in conjunction with the 42nd Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. This conference happened between May 3-6 2007.

42nd International Congress On Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University

International Congress on Medieval Studies Archive

The printed program of the 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 10-13, 2007), including the Corrigenda.

Beowulf, Anthony Alvarado

Masters Theses

My composition is a tone poem based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf Specifically, this piece depicts Beowulf s three battles with three diverse monsters. The first Grendel, second Grendel's mother, and last a dragon. In this composition, the music does not follow any specific or traditional forms. Instead, each episode is presented as a picture of each event.

The choice to depict the story of Beowulf was an interesting choice. While historically the story is significant, it is not a very popular one. The poem is the oldest surviving manuscript written in Old English. However, more recent (relatively) …

Re-Inventing Alexander: From Christian Warrior To Pagan Saint, Martha Mary Daas

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

In this essay I examine the appropriation of the Alexander legend by the Spanish author of the Libro de Alexandre to determine to what degree the poet's creation of a new mythic hero successfully fulfills the ideal of the Christian medieval warrior. By examining the poet's attempt at Christianizing the great warrior, I prove that Alexander retains his standing as a mythic figure: one who cannot be contained within a single ideological interpretation.

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.

The Man-Made Disaster: Fire In Cities In The Medieval Middle East, Anna Akasoy

Publications and Research

Considering the building materials and climatic conditions in the medieval Middle East, fires must have been a major problem. This article provides a first survey of sources which are relevant for studying the impact of fires in urban environments. Evidence can be found, for example, in historiographies such as Ibn Kathīr's The Beginning and the End, or in legal discussions. Most fires mentioned in these sources were caused during riots or war, or by accidents in markets. The article also analyses how far fires fit into the general pattern of discussions around disasters in medieval Arabic literature.

The Concentration Of Carnivalesque Themes In The Shared Fabliaux Of The Decameron And The Canterbury Tales, Timothy R. Jordan

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Geoffrey Chaucer's interest in social interactions in The Canterbury Tales is easy to see through his pilgrims' estate-based conflicts with each other. In addition to the frame narrative, the interest in social interaction is also apparent in the characters of the individual tales and as a reflection of the conflict between the individual pilgrims. Most of these social interactions embody what is called the camivalesque: free, open, contact between people due to the suspension of social hierarchies. Mikhail Bakhtin has described the camivalesque as characteristic of medieval thought. In medieval literature, the genre of the fabliau, short bawdy stories that …

Far From The Heart: The Social, Political, And Ecclesiastical Milieu Of The Early Abbotsof La Chaise-Dieu, 1052-1184, Maureen M. O’Brien

Dissertations

This study examines the institutional development of the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu, whose evolution depended upon its community of monks, its patrons, and its response to the demands placed upon it by the society at large and the Church in general. It examines these factors as they were managed by its first eightabbots by tracing the development of their personal, social, political, and ecclesiastical networks in an effort to identify how those interactions took place and why they took the forms they did. This analysis rests on the examination of charters that were drawn up by the abbey and by …

"Opene Þefore Þe I3e Of Þin Intellecte": Holy Tears In The Book Of Margerykempe And The Orcherd Of Syon, James Ryan Gregory

Masters Theses

St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) discusses in her greatest work, Il Dialogo, the various stages by which the human soul can ascend the spiritual path to God and salvation. She specifically treats the matter of "holy tears" and outlines a complete taxonomy of holy weeping, a six-tiered scale through which the soul can ascend in pursuit of union with the divine. The activities of Catherine's insular near-contemporary, Margery Kempe, a woman famed for her persistent wailing in remembrance of ail things holy, are recorded in a text whose construction of its eponymous heroine parallels in many ways the hierarchy …

Vengeance And The Crusades, Susanna A. Throop

History Faculty Publications

This article demonstrates that the popularity of the idea of crusading as vengeance was not limited to the laity, and, instead of fading away after 1099, the ideology grew more widespread as the twelfth century progressed. The primary aim here is to present the evidence alongside preliminary analysis, reserving further, more detailed interpretation for future publications.

The Cistercian Studies Conference, 2006, The Institute Of Cistercian Studies

Conference on Cistercian Studies Programs

Program for the 2006 Cistercian Studies Conference at Western Michigan University in conjunction with the 41st Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. This conference happened between May 4-7 2006.

41st International Congress On Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University

International Congress on Medieval Studies Archive

The printed program of the 41st International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 4-7, 2006), including the Corrigenda.

Flarr Pages #52: The Language Of Medieval Mystics: Teaching With Hildegard Of Bingen And Catherine Of Siena, Jennifer Deane

FLARR Pages

Between roughly the years 1050 and 1500, a flowering of new spiritual expressions, forms and ideas took root in western Europe. One of these was mysticism,. the belief that one can achieve direct consciousness of (and connection with) the divine through contemplation, intuition and meditation. The compelling stories and writings of medieval female mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) and Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) offer unique ideas, images and topics for German, Italian and Latin language instruction.

The History Of Reynard The Fox: How Medieval Literature Reflects Culture, Anne Lair

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Teaching about the Middle Ages in French culture or literature courses is always an enlightening experience to me because of the richness of symbols, events, and starting points occurring during this time period. Very often, when thinking about the Middle Ages, Christianity, chivalry, and nobility come to mind, all values still of high importance in contemporary Western societies. However, medieval culture presents itself with an array of other behaviors and values, some of which may today be considered as offensive and even sometimes “alienating”: primitive, barbaric, or even animalistic forms of behavior.

Sovereign Right, Democracy And The Rule Of Law, Artur Golczewski

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In the often hotly contested contemporary critical discourse, the related notions of individual and social identity, values and viable conduct continue to be the bone of contention, as their competing rationales sanction radically distinctive existential frameworks. The present essay employs some of the methodological strategies of the genealogical analysis as progressively refined by Ernst Kantorowicz and Michel Foucault, and it aims to chart a trajectory of historical applications and effects of the theory of sovereignty as the organizing principle coordinating our legal and socio-governmental rationales of value and of individual and social conduct. The principle governing Kantorowicz’s selection and consideration …