Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Anglo-Saxon'
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Thornbury, Emily Victoria. "Anglo-Saxon poetics." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.615780.
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Hofmann, Petra. "Infernal imagery in Anglo-Saxon charters." Thesis, St Andrews, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/498.
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Andrade, Anthea Rebecca. "The Anglo-Saxon Peace Weaving Warrior." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2006. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/12.
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Beowulf presents a literary starting point in the discussion of peace weaving, reflecting the primary focus of Anglo Saxon epic poetry on the male hero rather than the peace weaver. Scholarship on peace weaving figures in the poem tend to negatively perceive the lack of female presence, and determine the tradition as one set up for failure. Adding historical peace weavers like Queen Emma to the discourse encourages scholars to view smaller successes, like temporary peace, as building on each other to ultimately cause the peace weaver to be successful at her task. From studying the life of Queen Emma, the continuous struggle of such a figure to be an influential presence in her nation is more evident. Combining the images of peace weaving set down by literature and then history prove that figures participating in the tradition are as vital to the heroic world as the warrior himself.
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Ayling, Dorothy Ruth. "The psalms in Anglo-Saxon literature." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.309995.
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Kabir, Ananya Jahanara. "Interim paradises and Anglo-Saxon literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.624789.
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Richardson, Andrew Frank. "The Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of Kent." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365113.
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Johnson, Christopher. "The priesthood in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:21163779-5879-4da7-9582-7fd3b7a489f1.
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The Priesthood in Anglo-Saxon England explores the life and work of priests in England between the arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the reforming Council of Clofesho of 747. It seeks to reposition priests within the consciousness of Anglo-Saxon historians by demonstrating the essential role which they played first in the conversion of the English, and then in the pastoral care which the English people received up to the reforms instigated by Archbishop Cuthbert at the 747 Council of Clofesho. The thesis draws on several trends in recent Anglo-Saxon historiography, notably focus in recent years on the role and function of monasteria. Sarah Foot’s work, Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600 – 900, is the primary study in this area. Many historians working in this area have read Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, the main narrative source for our period, in a predominantly monastic light. Close attention to the text of this and other works of Bede’s however demonstrates that priests were indispensable in the initial conversion and continued care of the people, particularly because of their ability to celebrate the sacraments. This thesis contends that monasteria increasingly gained control over pastoral care through their continued endowment and royal privilege. This effectively removed the cura animarum from the bishops, to whom it was theoretically entrusted. Following the example of Theodore and Bede, and on the prompting of his contemporary Boniface, in 747 Archbishop Cuthbert recognised the need to reform the structure of the church in Southumbria, particularly the relationship between the episcopate and the monasteria, and so restore the cure to its rightful place. He and his fellow bishops achieved this by redefining pastoral care along sacramental grounds, thereby excluding monks from its exercise, and putting the priest back at the heart of the church’s mission to the people of England.
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Lavelle, Ryan Lawrence. "Royal estates in Anglo-Saxon Wessex." Thesis, University of Winchester, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.431234.
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Using a study area of the pre-Conquest shires of Hampshire and Dorset, this thesis provides an analysis of the lands used to support members of the Anglo-Saxon royal family in Wessex and the strategies employed to manage those landholdings. Categories of land units are explored, along with their interactions with other land units. The main evidential corpus for this study is Domesday Book, which provides a starting point from which to examine the 'farm of one night'. This distinctive type of estate is explored, including where these places appear in narrative sources. The nature of booklands granted to members of the royal family is also discussed in detail, showing that the control of those royal family members who held booklands was limited by royal landholding strategies. It is also suggested that the lands held by royal agents were closely associated with the running of night's farm estates. The examination of the categories of land results in a picture of a closely controlled system of managing the distribution of landed resources imposed during the later Anglo-Saxon period.
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Burch, Peter James Winter. "The origins of Anglo-Saxon kingship." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2016. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-origins-of-anglosaxon-kingship(49264d94-935e-4661-82da-891c9ab0448b).html.
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The origins of kingship have typically been accepted as a natural or inevitable development by scholars. The purpose of this thesis is to question that assumption. This work will re-examine the origins of early Anglo-Saxon kingship through a coherent and systematic survey of the available and pertinent archaeological and historical sources, addressing them by type, by period and as their varying natures require. The thesis begins with the archaeological evidence. ‘Elite’ burials, such as Mound One, Sutton Hoo, will be ranked according to their probability of kingliness. This process will point to elite burial as being a regionally-specific, predominately-seventh-century, phenomenon of an ideologically-aware, sophisticated and established political institution. Consequently, elite burial cannot be seen as an indication of the origins of kingship, but can instead be interpreted as a development or experiment within kingship. Analysis of ‘elite’ settlements, such as Yeavering, and numismatic evidence, will lead to similar conclusions. Further, consideration of various other settlement types – former Roman military sites in Northern Britain, former Roman Towns, and enclosed settlements – will point to various potential origins of Anglo-Saxon kingship in the form of continuities with previous Roman, Romano-British or British power structures. The thesis will go on to consider the historical sources. Those of the fifth and sixth centuries, primarily Gildas’s De excidio et conquestu Britanniae, point to several factors of note. The cessation of formal imperial rule over Britain following c.410 effectively created a power vacuum. Various new sources of political power are observable attempting to fill this vacuum, one of which, ultimately, was kingship. Through analogy with contemporary British kingdoms, it is possible to suggest that this development of kingship in England may be placed in the early sixth, if not the fifth, centuries. This would make the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingship significantly earlier than typically thought. This kingship was characterised by the conduct of warfare, its dependence on personal relationships, and particularly by its varying degrees of status and differing manifestations of power covered by the term king. Further details will be added to this image through the narrative and documentary sources of the seventh and early eighth centuries. These predominately shed light on the subsequent development of kingship, particularly its growing association with Christianity. Indeed, the period around c.600 can be highlighted as one of notable change within Anglo-Saxon kingship. However, it is possible to point to the practice of food rents, tolls and the control of resources serving as an economic foundation for kingship, while legal intervention and claimed descent from gods also provide a potential basis of power. Several characteristics of seventh- and early-eighth-century kingship will also be highlighted as being relevant to its origins – the conduct of warfare and the exercise of over-kingship – relating to the general propensity for amalgamation through conquest. Other trajectories are also highlighted, specifically continuity from previous Roman and British entities and the development of ‘pop-up’ kingdoms. The overall result is one in which long-term amalgamation and short-term disintegration and re-constitution were equally in evidence, set against the wider context of broad regional continuities. Overall, therefore, the thesis will not fully resolve the issue of the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingship, but it does offer a means to re-frame discussion, explore the social and economic underpinnings of kingship and assess its primacy as an institution within early Anglo-Saxon England.
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Church, Alan P. "Scribal rhetoric in Anglo-Saxon England /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9320.
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Richardson, Andrew. "The Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of Kent /." Oxford : J. and E. Hedges, 2005. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40026956f.
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Schubert, Layla A. Olin 1975. "Material literature in Anglo-Saxon poetry." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10909.
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x, 208 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.The scattered instances depicting material literature in Anglo-Saxon poetry should be regarded as a group. This phenomenon occurs in Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood, and The Husband's Message. Comparative examples of material literature can be found on the Ruthwell Cross and the Franks Casket. This study examines material literature in these three poems, comparing their depictions of material literature to actual examples. Poems depicting material literature bring the relationship between man and object into dramatic play, using the object's point of view to bear witness to the truth of distant or intensely personal events. Material literature is depicted in a love poem, The Husband's Message, when a prosopopoeic runestick vouches for the sincerity of its master, in the heroic epic Beowulf when an ancient, inscribed sword is the impetus to give an account of the biblical flood, and is also implied in the devotional poem The Dream of the Rood, as two crosses both pre-and-post dating the poem bear texts similar to portions of the poem. The study concludes by examining the relationship between material anxiety and the character of Weland in Beowulf, Deor, Alfred's Consolation of Philosophy, and Waldere A & B. Concern with materiality in Anglo-Saxon poetry manifests in myriad ways: prosopopoeic riddles, both heroic and devotional passages directly assailing the value of the material, personification of objects, and in depictions of material literature. This concern manifests as a material anxiety. Weland tames the material and twists and shapes it, re-affirming the supremacy of mankind in a material world.
Committee in charge: Martha Bayless, Chairperson, English; James Earl, Member, English; Daniel Wojcik, Member, English; Aletta Biersack, Outside Member, Anthropology
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Dane, Caryl. "Enamelwork from early Anglo-Saxon contexts." Thesis, Bangor University, 2012. https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/enamelwork-from-early-anglosaxon-contexts(fa52ae15-3ade-46a1-9107-ade724b89c83).html.
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This study concentrates upon two diverse categories of enamelled objects: items considered to be typical artefacts of the early Anglo-Saxon culture, which have essentially been dated to the sixth century, together with, approximately contemporaneous, enamelled hanging bowl furnishings. Much has been written about hanging bowls, which are frequently discovered in early Anglo-Saxon contexts, but enamelled early Anglo-Saxon metalwork is sparse and therefore, to date, has received comparatively little attention. This thesis is the first comprehensive study of enamelled early Anglo-Saxon metalwork. A substantial component of the study is cataloguing both categories of enamelled artefacts from Anglo-Saxon England, supported by photographs and drawings. Enamel was once believed to be a technique confined to the decoration of some Anglo-Saxon female dress-fasteners, but the catalogue extends the variety of known Anglo-Saxon artefact-types which carry enamel, by the addition of more recent finds. After a discussion of ways in which the Anglo-Saxon adventus has been viewed, the relationship between past and contemporary crafting skills, prevalent styles, and particular motifs associated with enamelwork, from the preceding Iron Age and Roman periods, and both classes of enamelwork, are examined and compared. A review of constituent analyses implies a technological change from Romano-British enamelling, but there is continuity in style and motifs. Caryl Dane Enamelwork from Early Anglo-Saxon Contexts ii Enamelled artefacts are further considered in terms of function, gender association, and status. These items were not ‘poor-man’s garnet’, but created for a privileged minority. The study extends to analyses of the concentration, dissemination of, and interconnection between, many of the enamelwork find-sites. A regional focus on East Anglia is demonstrated, particularly, South Cambridgeshire and the Lark valley area. The distribution outliers are much more widespread than previously thought. It is suggested that early Anglo-Saxon metalworkers were influenced by those who produced hanging bowls but it is unlikely they were working in the same workshops.
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Bennett, Naomi. "The Christology of the Anglo-Saxon homilies." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244973.
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This thesis examines the representations of Christ in the Old English homilies, by analysing as separate groups the homilies of Ælfric, Wulfstan, and the anonymous collections in the Blickling Homiliary and the Vercelli Book. The introduction outlines the background and contexts of the homilies, their significance, and previous work in the field. A definition of Christology is given for this context, as well as a brief examination of the Christology of other Old English texts. The chapters of the thesis follow rough chronological order, beginning with the Blickling Homiliary. Although this homiliary is incomplete and its homilies are anonymous, one can gain some sense of the compiler’s attitudes, and it is a valuable record of preaching at the time. The majority of the homilies are for penitential feasts, and due to this penitential purpose there is an emphasis on Christ’s future role as Judge, rather than a personal relationship with Christ. Christ is a fairly abstracted and inactive figure, more divine than human, and his involvement in the world is often represented by intermediaries, such as the saints. Nonetheless the image of Christ is on the whole a gently compassionate one, with the homilists’ overall goal being to encourage listeners to emulate Christ and his saints in order to be with them in Heaven. The collection’s anonymity and early date suggests a more popular conception of Christ than some of the later, more deliberate collections. The Vercelli Book, of which the content is also anonymous and roughly contemporary with the Blickling Book, exhibits perhaps the most uniform Christology of any of the Old English homily collections. Whereas the Blickling Homiliary follows the sequence of the Church’s calendar, the compiler of the Vercelli Book made what is effectively a florilegium and thus had greater freedom to choose texts to fit his intended message for the collection as a whole. The Vercelli Book focuses heavily, though not exclusively, on penance and judgement, and Christ is most often portrayed as an enthroned judge, whilst the judgement itself rests less upon him than on an individual’s actions and the petitioners’ pleas. There is little emphasis on Christ’s life, though the saints’ actions reflect his teachings. The poetry of the Vercelli Book is also examined where relevant. Ælfric’s portrayal of Christ is both comprehensive and consistent. With a strong focus on scripture, Christ takes more of a predominant role. Augustine’s heavy influence brings with it the notion of grace, which allows Ælfric to focus more on the Bible’s positive messages, and less on eschatology. Ælfric depicts Christ particularly as Redeemer, significant both for individuals and humankind; his portrayal has the same gentleness as that of the Blickling Homiliary. The homilies follow the liturgical calendar, hence their wide scope. Ælfric’s varied yet deliberate presentation of Christ exemplifies his broad theological aims and his use of a wide range of sources. His homilies aimed to evoke a response from his listeners, in penitential acts, praise of God, receiving the sacraments, and thus meriting salvation. Wulfstan’s relatively succinct corpus of homilies spends little time on the gospels, and emphasises far more the need to live a good Christian life, through education in prayer, the catechism and creed. God is usually the background authority figure, with the Antichrist often taking a more prominent and defined role than Christ. Even so, the legalistic and authoritative divinity can be associated with Christ, who must be appeased for fear of the end of the world and imminent judgement, and who also mirrors the earthly rulers with whom Wulfstan would have interacted on a regular basis. In conclusion, I have found that the depiction of Christ is a telling reflection of the intents and styles of each homilist or collator. Whilst the anonymous homilies may show contradictions, the overall trajectory is coherent, and both Wulfstan and Ælfric exhibit consistent and deliberate Christologies, usually distinct from their theologies. The depiction of Christ is by no means uniform, but reflects both a wide range of sources and images, and the abilities of the respective homilists to adapt them to their own purposes, settings and audiences.
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Breeze, Steven John Alan. "Performance in the Anglo-Saxon poetic imagination." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 2018. http://bbktheses.da.ulcc.ac.uk/365/.
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This thesis proposes a distinct, poetic conception of 'artistry' (the collective term incorporating performer, performance, and musical instrument used in the thesis) in early medieval England. Through stylistic and aesthetic analysis of Old English poetry, informed by oral-formulaic and post-oral-formulaic theory, and theoretical strands such as Peter Clemoes on the relationship between thought and language and Michael Drout on tradition, the thesis accepts that representations of artistry are principally idealised, generalised, symbolic constructs. They reveal concepts significant in the Anglo-Saxon poetic imagination. Cultural understanding of artistry is expressed in wisdom poems from the period, and reflected in narrative poems. In Beowulf, artistry is shown to be intrinsic to the poem's construction, interperformativity, and narrative cultural contexts. In addition to brief, oblique depictions, in which singing and harp-playing is commonly referred to, the dominant type of artistry is storytelling. The thesis thus challenges the primacy typically afforded the 'oral poet', questioning the supposition that the poems routinely represent the performance of analogous poetic material. Idealisation is challenged in non-poetic material, indicating that the significance and popularity in society of the kinds of secular artistry represented in poetry is influencing Anglo-Saxon cultural behaviour, leading to admonition among certain members of the clergy. The extant literature of a closely related culture, Old Norse Eddic poetry, does not contain such representation, which appears unique to the Anglo- Saxon poetic imagination in the early medieval period. After the demise of Old English poetic form, aspects of this this distinct representation lingered, a sub-tradition of which is discernible in Laȝamon's Brut. Artistry in post-Conquest poetry is disconnected from a poem's wider narrative events and its architectonics. It becomes a crystallised, formulaic component with routinised referentiality, partly the result of the transition from oral to textual transmission. Artistry becomes a tradition of the archaising, retrospective poetic imagination.
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Pengelley, Oliver C. H. "Rome in ninth-century Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0228e2f8-e259-46b7-85fc-346437db4d60.
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This thesis explores the impact of Rome upon Anglo-Saxon politics, religion, and culture in the ninth century. From the Gregorian mission onwards, Rome helped shape the ecclesiastical and devotional contexts of Anglo-Saxon Christianity and occupied a central place in the imaginations of early English writers. Yet the extent to which these links continued into and throughout the ninth century remains obscure, with scholarship about religion and culture often treating the period as a hiatus. In political narratives, the ninth century is treated as a crucial period, and Roman involvement is most visible in this sphere. By redressing the imbalance between religion and politics, this thesis achieves a thorough appreciation of the part played by Rome in these various fields of experience, as well as showing how Anglo-Saxon writers located themselves and their pasts in relation to the city. It does so over the course of five thematic chapters, which progress from an analysis of the most fundamental issues to more imaginative ones. Chapter one examines contact and communication between England and Rome, arguing that the two areas were closely and constantly connected across the century. The second and third chapters explore the impact of Rome on religion and kingship respectively, finding that while Roman influence on the church was most pronounced in the first half of the century, in political terms the city played a significant and changing role throughout the period. Chapters four and five consider the position of Rome in Anglo-Saxon historical thought and geographical understanding, examining how writers continued to define their position in a wider Christian world with reference to the city and its past. This thesis argues that, in the ninth century, Rome continued to play an important role in English life, while also influencing Anglo-Saxon thought and experience in new and dynamic ways.
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Sowerby, R. S. "Angels in Anglo-Saxon England, 700-1000." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:60cb4d1f-505a-4ef9-8415-bc298f3cb535.
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This thesis seeks to understand the changing place of angels in the religious culture of Anglo-Saxon England between AD 700 and 1000. From images carved in stone to reports of prophetic apparitions, angels are a remarkably ubiquitous presence in the art, literature and theology of early medieval England. That very ubiquity has, however, meant that their significance in Anglo-Saxon thought has largely been overlooked, dismissed as a commonplace of fanciful monkish imaginations. But angels were always bound up with constantly evolving ideas about human nature, devotional practice and the workings of the world. By examining the changing ways that Anglo-Saxon Christians thought about the unseen beings which shared their world, it is possible to detect broader changes in religious thought and expression in one part of the early medieval West. The six chapters of this thesis each investigate a different strand from this complex of ideas. Chapters One and Two begin with Anglo-Saxon beliefs at their most theological and speculative, exploring ideas about the early history of the angels and the nature of their society – ideas which were used to express and promote changing ideals about religious practice in early England. Chapters Three and Four turn to the ways that angels were believed to interact more directly in earthly affairs, as guardians of the living and escorts of the dead, showing how even apparently traditional beliefs reveal changing ideas about intercession, moral achievement and the supernatural. Lastly, Chapters Five and Six investigate the complicated ways that these ideas informed two central aspects of Anglo-Saxon religion: the cult of saints, and devotional prayer. A final Conclusion considers the cumulative trajectory of these otherwise distinct aspects of Anglo-Saxon thought, and asks how we might best explain the changing importance of angels in early medieval England.
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Bintley, Michael D. J. "Trees and woodland in Anglo-Saxon culture." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2010. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/20204/.
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This thesis presents an interdisciplinary cultural history of the Anglo-Saxon relationship with trees and woodland. Although the paramount importance of woodland to the Anglo-Saxon world is a known and undisputed aspect of early medieval studies, the intricacies of the relationship between the Anglo-Saxons and trees have never been fully appreciated because this subject has not, until now, been the focus of an interdisciplinary study. By exploring the representation of trees and woodland in Old English literary culture in the context of Anglo-Saxon literary-historical sources and the early medieval archaeological record, this thesis seeks to shed new light upon the terms of this complex interaction. I present arguments for the existence of a common Germanic tree creation myth, reaffirm the notion of an Anglo-Saxon world tree analogous to the Norse Yggdrasill that was subsequently replaced by the cross, and re-evaluate the role of trees in Anglo-Saxon heathenism and Christianity. I demonstrate that the paramount importance of woodland in Anglo-Saxon material culture was understood, appreciated, and is well represented in Old English literature. Furthermore, I show that attitudes towards the physical make-up of settlements were strongly defined by an enduring attachment to woodland that had its origins in the forests of first-century Germany.
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Xu, Zhangfeng. "'The Anglo-Saxon chronicle', A.D. 1017-66." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2018. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=239283.
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Parsons, David. "Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions on portable objects." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1994. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/273006.
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Lucy, Samantha Jane. "The Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of East Yorkshire." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1995. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272643.
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Kovalenko, A. Ya, and V. К. Tur. "Anglo-saxon tradion of naming: lingustic aspect." Thesis, Sumy State University, 2018. http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/67358.
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Anthroponomics as the study of names of human beings is of limited
but important value. Proper names are attracting considerable interest due
to implementation both linguistic and extralinguistic processes in their
structure [1, p. 67]. Such combination creates favorable conditions for
integrated study on history, culture and language that, in turn, are of
principle importance while examining Old English [2, p. 1]. The aim of this
paper is to conduct structural analysis of names of the Anglo-Saxons who
inhabited Great Britain from 449 till 1066. Twenty chronicles dated from
650 till 1066 were the materials for our research. The total number of
proper names found is 48.
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Fulk, Angela Beth. "“On Anginne”: Anglo-Saxon Readings of Genesis." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1197587870.
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Doz, Daniel. "L'Espace fantastique dans le cinéma anglo-saxon." Lille 3 : ANRT, 1986. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37594708q.
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Bedingfield, Marvin Bradford. "The dramatic liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England /." Woodbridge : the Boydell press, 2002. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb39279042h.
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Birnbaum, Tahlia. "Aspects of Shame in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/13719.
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This thesis explores a new kind of shame introduced to the Anglo-Saxons with the conversion to Christianity. Shame came to be viewed as a positive emotion; it encouraged one to recognise sinful behaviour and repent. It differed from heroic shame, a negative emotion to be avoided for its association with humiliation. This new sense of shame had to be learnt; it was taught through preaching, and internalised through processes of confession and repentance. The first chapter, an examination of vernacular glosses to the Psalms, looks at the translation of two words from Latin into Old English, forwandian and aswarnian, which enabled religious concepts of shame to be expressed verbally. Chapter Two argues for the importance of the Alfredian Pastoral Care as an administrative document aimed at regulating the behaviour of society through encouraging penance and feelings of shame. The second half of the thesis uses this understanding of shame to reinterpret literature tied more closely to historical events. Chapter Three focuses on Aldhelm's seventh-century treatise, De Virginitate, which includes shameful descriptions of sexual behaviour to reinforce the sanctity of virginity for a monastic audience. Chapters Four and Five examine the broad range of documentary evidence for King Æthelred II’s reign, suggesting that by the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, shame could incorporate a range of nuanced meanings, and could be used as a political tool to manipulate people’s behaviour and opinions. Looking at how shame is used as a rhetorical device alerts us to the different agenda of each author, enabling new interpretations of these texts and the events they record.
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Shields-Más, Chelsea. "The reeve in late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2013. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/5534/.
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The aim of this research is to build a picture of the reeve in late Anglo-Saxon England. This little-understood figure has traditionally received limited attention in scholarship, and this study attempts to rectify this, and to shed light upon this official and his impact on English society. Chapter One explores the nature and implications of the reeve’s role as an administrator in Anglo-Saxon government. The law codes emerge as a key source in determining how legislators saw the reeve fitting into and contributing to the mechanisms of the administration. Chapter Two looks at the reeve’s status in late Anglo-Saxon society, as well as both the nature of the reeve’s relationship with the king, as well as how he acted as a counterbalance to the powerful and influential ealdormen in the localities. Taking a step away from the reeve as a royal agent, Chapter Three focuses on the reeve as an estate manager for the private aristocratic lord. The nature of the reeve’s work on the late Anglo-Saxon estate, as well as how he was rewarded for that work, is explored. The resultant picture not only broadens our knowledge of the private reeve, but also how he fit into tenth- and eleventh-century English society. Chapter Four explores the manner in which the reeve is presented in late Anglo-Saxon homiletic discourse. Arguably, the increasing number of negative references to the reeve in these moralizing texts is reflective of his growing prominence and influence in late Anglo-Saxon England. The work of Archbishop Wulfstan of York is also examined: it is argued that despite the plethora of moralizing references to the reeve at this time, Wulfstan’s thinking represented a departure from this trend. The archbishop crafted a role for the reeve that was integral to the realization of his vision of a “holy society”.
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Bobo, Kirsti Ann. "Representations of Anglo-Saxon England in children's literature /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2004. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd666.pdf.
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Zanella, Giacomo. "Bayesian complementary clustering, MCMC and Anglo-Saxon placenames." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2015. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/78043/.
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Common cluster models for multi-type point processes model the aggregation of points of the same type. In complete contrast, in the study of Anglo-Saxon settlements it is hypothesized that administrative clusters involving complementary names tend to appear. We investigate the evidence for such a hypothesis by developing a Bayesian Random Partition Model based on clusters formed by points of different types (complementary clustering). As a result we obtain an intractable posterior distribution on the space of matchings contained in a k-partite hypergraph. We use the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm to sample from such a distribution. We consider the problem of what is the optimal, informed MH proposal distribution given a fixed set of allowed moves. To answer such a question we de ne the notion of balanced proposals and we prove that, under some assumptions, such proposals are maximal in the Peskun sense. Using such ideas we obtain substantial mixing improvements compared to other choices found in the literature. Simulated Tempering techniques can be used to overcome multimodality and a multiple proposal scheme is developed to allow for parallel programming. Finally, we discuss results arising from the careful use of convergence diagnostic techniques. This allows us to study a dataset including locations and placenames of 1316 Anglo-Saxon settlements dated around 750-850 AD. Without strong prior knowledge, the model allows for explicit estimation of the number of clusters, the average intra-cluster dispersion and the level of interaction among placenames. The results support the hypothesis of organization of settlements into administrative clusters based on complementary names.
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Carella, Bryan J. O'Neill Patrick P. "Alcuin and Alfred two Anglo-Saxon legal reformers /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,833.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007.Title from electronic title page (viewed Dec. 18, 2007). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English." Discipline: English; Department/School: English.
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Spiegel, Flora Elise. "Creator and creation in Anglo-Saxon literary traditions." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.613911.
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Woodman, David Anthony. "The Anglo-Saxon charters of York and Durham." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.612196.
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Key, Jennifer Selina. "Death in Anglo-Saxon hagiography : approaches, attitudes, aesthetics." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6352.
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This thesis examines attitudes and approaches towards death, as well as aesthetic representations of death, in Anglo-Saxon hagiography. The thesis contributes to the discussion of the historical and intellectual contexts of hagiography and considers how saintly death-scenes are represented to form commentaries on exemplary behaviour. A comprehensive survey of death-scenes in Anglo-Saxon hagiography has been undertaken, charting typical and atypical motifs used in literary manifestations of both martyrdom and non-violent death. The clusters of literary motifs found in these texts and what their use suggests about attitudes to exemplary death is analysed in an exploration of whether Anglo-Saxon hagiography presents a consistent aesthetic of death. The thesis also considers how modern scholarly fields such as thanatology can provide fresh discourses on the attitudes to and depictions of ‘good' and ‘bad' deaths. Moreover, the thesis addresses the intersection of the hagiographic inheritance with discernibly Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards death and dying, and investigates whether or not the deaths of native Anglo-Saxon saints are presented differently compared with the deaths of universal saints. The thesis explores continuities and discontinuities in the presentations of physical and spiritual death, and assesses whether or not differences exist in the depiction of death-scenes based on an author's personal agenda, choice of terminology, approaches towards the body–soul dichotomy, or the gender of his or her subject, for example. Furthermore, the thesis investigates how hagiographic representations of death compare with portrayals in other literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, and whether any non-hagiographic paradigms provide alternative exemplars of the ‘good death'. The thesis also assesses gendered portrayals of death, the portrayal of last words in saints' lives, and the various motifs relating to the soul at the moment of death. The thesis contains a Motif Index of saintly death-scenes as Appendix I.
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Cubitt, Catherine Rosalind Eva. "Anglo-Saxon church councils, c.650 - c.850." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1990. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272348.
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Hawkins, Emma B. "Gender, Power, and Language in Anglo-Saxon Poetry." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1995. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278983/.
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Many Old English poems reflect the Anglo-Saxon writers's interest in who could exercise power and how language could be used to signal a position of power or powerlessness. In previous Old English studies, the prevailing critical attitude has been to associate the exercise of power with sex—the distinction between males and females based upon biological and physiological differences—or with sex-oriented social roles or sphere of operation. Scholarship of the last twenty years has just begun to explore the connection between power and gender-coded traits, attributes which initially were tied to the heroic code and were primarily male-oriented. By the eighth and ninth centuries, the period in which most of the extant Old English poetry was probably composed, these qualities had become disassociated from biological sex but retained their gender affiliations. A re-examination of "The Dream of the Rood," "The Wanderer," "The Husband's Message," "The Wife's Lament," "Wulf and Eadwacer" and Beowulf confirms that the poets used gender-coded language to indicate which poetic characters, female as well as male, held positions of power and powerlessness. A status of power or powerlessness was signalled by the exercise of particular gendered traits that were open for assumption by men and women. Powerful individuals were depicted with masculine-coded language affiliated with honor, mastery, aggression, victory, bravery, independence, martial prowess, assertiveness, physical strength, verbal acuteness, firmness or hardness, and respect from others. Conversely, the powerless were described with non-masculine or feminine-coded language suggesting dishonor, subservience, passivity, defeat, cowardice, dependence, defenselessness, lack of volition, softness or indecisiveness, and lack of respect from others. Once attained, neither status was permanent; women and men trafficked back and forth between the two. Depending upon the circumstances, members of both sexes could experience reversals of fortunes which would necessitate moving from one category to the other, on more than one occasion in a lifetime.
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Aliaga-Kelly, Christopher John. "The Anglo-Saxon occupation of South-East Scotland." Thesis, Connect to e-thesis, 1986. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1007/.
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Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 1986.Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, 1986. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.
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Arthur, Ciaran. "The liturgy of 'charms' in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Kent, 2016. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/54689/.
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This thesis undertakes a re-evaluation of the concept of ‘charms’ in Anglo-Saxon culture, and reconsiders three core issues that lie at the heart of this genre: the definition of galdor as ‘charm’; the manuscript contexts of rituals that have been included in this genre; and the phenomenon of ‘gibberish’ writing which is used as a defining characteristic of ‘charms’. The thesis investigates the different meanings of galdor from the entire corpus of Old English before reconsidering its meaning in ritual texts. It then explores the liturgical nature of these seemingly unorthodox rituals, and argues that ‘charms’ were understood to be part of the Anglo-Saxon liturgy. The manuscript contexts of ‘charms’ indicate that Anglo-Saxon scribes did not distinguish between these rituals and other liturgical texts, and I take a case study of one manuscript to demonstrate this. Some rituals from the Vitellius Psalter have been included in editions of ‘charms’, and this case study reinterprets these texts as components of a liturgical collection. The Vitellius Psalter also reveals intertextual relationships between ‘gibberish’ writing in some of its rituals and exercises in encryption, suggesting that several texts encode meaning in this manuscript. The findings of this case study are then developed to reconsider the phenomenon of ‘gibberish’ writing that is used as a defining characteristic of ‘charms’, and it offers an alternative way of reading abstract letter sequences in ritual texts according to Patristic philosophies of language. This study does not aim to analyse every ritual that has been included in the corpus of ‘charms’ but each chapter will take case studies from a range of manuscripts that are representative of the genre and its sub-categories. The thesis challenges the notion that there was any such thing as an Anglo-Saxon ‘charm’, and it offers alternative interpretations of these rituals as liturgical rites and coded texts.
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Doyle, Conan Turlough. "Anglo-Saxon medicine and disease : a semantic approach." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2017. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/268228.
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As a semantic investigation into Anglo-Saxon medicine, this thesis investigates the ways in which the Old English language was adapted to the technical discipline of medicine, with an emphasis on semantic interference between Latin medical terminology and Old English medical terminology. The main purpose of the examination is to determine the extent to which scholarly ideas concerning the nature of the human body and the causes of disease were preserved between the Latin texts and the English texts which were translated and compiled from them. The main way in which this has been carried out is through a comparative analysis of technical vocabulary, excluding botanical terms, in medical prose texts utilising the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus of texts, and a selection of printed editions of Latin texts which seem to have been the most likely sources of medical knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England. As a prerequisite to this comparative methodology it has been necessary to assemble a corpus of Latin textual parallels to the single most significant Old English medical text extant, namely Bald’s Leechbook. These parallels have been presented in an appendix alongside a transcript and translation of Bald’s Leechbook. A single question thus lies at the heart of this thesis: did Old English medical texts preserve any of the classical medical theories of late antiquity? In answering this question, a number of other significant findings have come to light. Most importantly, it is to be noted that modern scholarship is only now beginning to focus on the range of Late Antique and Byzantine medical texts available in Latin translation in the early medieval period, most notably for our present purposes Alexander of Tralles, but also Oribasius, Galen, pseudo-Galen and several Latin recensions of the works of Soranus of Ephesus, including the so-called Liber Esculapii and Liber Aurelii. The linguistic study further demonstrates that the technical language of these texts was very well understood and closely studied in Anglo-Saxon England, the vernacular material not only providing excellent readings of abstruse Latin technical vocabulary, but also demonstrating a substantial knowledge of technical terms of Greek origin which survive in the Latin texts.
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Bobo, Kirsti A. "Representations of Anglo-Saxon England in Children's Literature." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2004. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/228.
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This thesis surveys the children's literary accounts of Anglo-Saxon history and literature that have been written since the mid-nineteenth century. Authors of different ages emphasize different aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture as societal need for and interpretation of the past change. In studying these changes, I show not only why children's authors would choose to depict the Saxons in their writing, but why medievalists would want to study the resulting literature.
My second chapter looks at children's historical fiction and nonfiction, charting the trends which appear in the literature written between 1850 and the present day. I survey the changes made in authors' representations of Anglo-Saxon England as children's publication trends have changed. I show how these changes are closely related to the changes made in popular conceptions of the past. My third chapter discusses the way in which children's retellings of Beowulf have placed the poem into a less culturally-dependent, more universal setting as they have separated the tale from its linguistic and cultural heritage. Children's authors have gradually removed the poem's poetic and linguistic devices and other cultural elements from their retellings, instead favoring a more courtly medieval setting, or even a generic universal one.
Children's literature is an important indicator of the societal values contemporary with its publication. Authors and publishers often write the literature to reflect their own ideologies and agendas more openly in children's literature than in other literature. As I show in this thesis, the attitudes toward Anglo-Saxon England which pervade children's literature of any age make it a particularly useful tool to those scholars interested in the study of popular reception of the Middle Ages.
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Coates, Simon J. "Images of episcopal authority in early Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/26404.
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This thesis is an attempt to indicate the importance attached to the episcopate within the early Anglo-Saxon Church and the diverse manner in which episcopal authority was defined. It explores the reason why the role, function and authority of bishops concerned both bishops themselves and others within the Church, and the purposes to which texts defining and describing the conduct of bishops were put. One purpose of the study is to seek to reassess the historical problem of the Christianisation and transformation of early Anglo-Saxon society. This transformation altered the structure of the way in which people thought about their lives. The figure of the bishop became one means by which this transformation could be explored, explained and understood. The episcopate became a locus of authority within a newly Christianised world. The extent to which texts concerned with defining episcopal authority used and explored models and ideas derived from earlier Christian tradition is explored. The introduction establishes some of the parameters of the thesis and shows how a monastic bias has been injected into the study of early Anglo-Saxon history by the writings of Bede and the Tenth-Century monastic reformers. An opening chapter analyses the sources used: hagiography, the writings of Bede and the decrees of church councils. It stresses in particular the need to approach hagiographical sources from a theoretical perspective. Chapter two delineates Bede's conception of the Church as an episcopal institution and shows the manner in which he was concerned to portray the conversion of the English people largely through the work of bishops. It also discusses the functions which Bede expected bishops to perform. Chapter three also on Bede focuses upon the manner in which, as a monastic writer, he conceived the ideal bishop to be both a pastor and a solitary heavily influenced by ascetic and monastic conceptions of the episcopal office.
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McKenney, Jenny. "Reconstructing Anglo-Saxon England in antiquarian writing, 1660-1735." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ53731.pdf.
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Semple, Sarah Jane. "Anglo-Saxon attitudes to the past : a landscape perspective." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.270145.
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Faulkner, Mark. "The uses of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, c. 1066-1200." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b98cb64f-c896-4402-8aa1-9bd317675c12.
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This thesis examines the uses of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in the 150 years immediately following the Norman Conquest. By focusing on the most common types of use evident in the manuscripts, it explores how readers actually interacted with books. It also treats manuscripts as cultural artefacts through which it is possible to observe the literary and social consequences of the Conquest. The Introduction summarises our current understanding of the literary culture of this transitional period. Chapter II, ‘Destruction and Conservation’, examines claims that Norman elites destroyed Anglo-Saxon manuscripts; finding these claims unjustified, it investigates the circumstances in which manuscripts were lost and identifies how readers evaluated the contents of pre-Conquest books. Chapter III, ‘The Movement of Pre-Conquest Manuscripts’, looks at the consequent loan, exchange and sale of pre-Conquest manuscripts after 1066. Chapter IV, ‘Updating Pre-Conquest Manuscripts’, discusses difficulties which Norman readers encountered with pre-Conquest books, including script, abbreviation, orthography and textual redaction, and examines how these technical features could be modernised. It also investigates more practical modernisations to liturgical books, chronicles and cartularies. Chapter V, ‘Glossing and Annotating’, concerns readers’ reactions to the texts found in pre-Conquest manuscripts, particularly vernacular homilies and translations. It argues that the post-Conquest classroom was essentially trilingual, though Latin became the lingua franca. Chapter VI, ‘Record-Keeping in Pre-Conquest Manuscripts’, explores the use of pre-Conquest manuscripts – copies of the gospels, liturgical books and patristic texts – as repositories for records. Chapter VII, ‘The Veneration of Pre-Conquest Manuscripts’, continues this exploration of the symbolic capital of pre-Conquest books by examining how Norman churchmen supported the veneration of particular manuscripts as secondary relics, and introduced new traditions regarding other books. The Conclusion refocuses the findings of this thesis on two key issues: early medieval reading practices and English literature between 1066 and 1200.
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Cathers, Kerry. "An examination of the horse in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Reading, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271183.
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Bedingfield, M. Bradford. "Dramatic ritual and preaching in late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8ec8d938-7e4c-458c-8b7d-02f71dfcdc77.
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Visitatio, however, is driven by the same forces that drive equally dramatic liturgical commemorations year-round, climaxing in but not exclusive to the period around Easter. Beginning with an account of late Anglo-Saxon baptism, I examine the liturgy for the high festivals from Christmas to Ascension Day. For each chapter, I describe the liturgical forms for the day and their intended relationships with the participants, focussing on the establishment of dramatic associations between the celebrants and certain figures in the commemorated events. I then compare the liturgical forms with vernacular treatments of a particular festival, looking both for overt instruction and more subtle influence of the liturgy on the preaching texts. Anglo-Saxon preachers and homilists openly assumed the themes and symbolic images of the dramatic ritual in their attempts to make their congregations understand and take on Christian imperatives. Recursively, vernacular preaching helped solidify the meanings of the symbolic elements of the dramatic ritual and their significance to the lives of Christians. Anglo-Saxon appreciation of the dramatic potential of the liturgy was realized both in creative expansion of the liturgy and in the vernacular preaching texts that identified and enhanced this dramatic dynamic.
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Hough, Carole Ann. "Women and the law in early Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.335867.
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Leahy, Kevin. "The Cleatham Anglo-Saxon cemetery and its regional context." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.400997.
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Neville, Jennifer Lynne. "Representations of the natural world in Anglo-Saxon literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.363863.
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Hall, Linda Tollerton. "Wills and will-making in late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2005. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9859/.
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Ramirez, Janina Sara. "The symbolic life of birds in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2006. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9897/.
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