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1
Wathey, A. B. "Music in the Royal and noble households in late medieval England : studies of sources and patronage." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.235758.
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Schell, Sarah. "The Office of the Dead in England : image and music in the Book of Hours and related texts, c. 1250-c. 1500." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2107.
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This study examines the illustrations that appear at the Office of the Dead in English Books of Hours, and seeks to understand how text and image work together in this thriving culture of commemoration to say something about how the English understood and thought about death in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Office of the Dead would have been one of the most familiar liturgical rituals in the medieval period, and was recited almost without ceasing at family funerals, gild commemorations, yearly minds, and chantry chapel services. The Placebo and Dirige were texts that many people knew through this constant exposure, and would have been more widely known than other 'death' texts such as the Ars Moriendi. The images that are found in these books reflect wider trends in the piety and devotional practice of the time. The first half of the study discusses the images that appear in these horae, and the relationship between the text and image is explored. The funeral or vigil scene, as the most commonly occurring, is discussed with reference to contemporary funeral practices, and ways of reading a Book of Hours. Other iconographic themes that appear in the Office of the Dead, such as the Roman de Renart, the Pety Job, the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, the story of Lazarus, and the life of Job, are also discussed. The second part of the thesis investigates the musical elaborations of the Office of the Dead as found in English prayer books. The Office of the Dead had a close relationship with music, which is demonstrated through an examination of the popularity of musical funerals and obits, as well as in the occurrence of musical notation for the Office in a book often used by the musically illiterate. The development of the Office of the Dead in conjunction with the development of the Books of Hours is also considered, and places the traditions and ideas that were part of the funeral process in medieval England in a larger historical context.
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Hamilton, Elizabeth P. K. "A Study of Early Sixteenth-Century English Music Fragments from the DIAMM Database." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/20241.
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While the study of complete sources is very valuable, and has contributed greatly to what is understood of music history, the perspective they contribute is limited because they cannot reveal information about how music and music sources were most often used. The study of functional sources, more probably created for use, allows for more insight into how music was performed and understood, and how such sources were created, used and valued.
This study examines twelve fragmentary early sixteenth-century English sources from the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM) database, constituting a sample of functional music sources in this period. The study of this sampling reveals information about how functional manuscripts were created, used and valued in England during this time period. Some of the fragments contain works with concordances. These concordances are compared using variant comparison, where differences in the versions of the work are considered and weighed. The comparative study of concordances provides insight into the transmission of the versions, scribal and performance culture, as well as into music culture in general. Overall, the study of this sampling of early sixteenth-century functional English sources provides a clearer understanding of the use of accidentals, scribes and scribal culture, performers, performance practice and music culture in England at this time, contributing to the understanding of music history.
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Phillips, Kim M. "The medieval maiden : young womanhood in late medieval England." Thesis, University of York, 1997. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2439/.
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Langum, Virginia Eileen. "Discretion in late medieval England." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609515.
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Hulton, Mary H. M. "Urban weavers of medieval England." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.311596.
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Nilson, Benjamin John. "Cathedral shrines of medieval England /." Suffolk (U.K.) ; Rochester (N.Y.) : the Boydell press, 1998. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37089482f.
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Helmholz, Richard H. "Marriage litigation in medieval England /." Holmes Beach (Fla.) : Wm. W. Gaunt and sons, 1986. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37375127t.
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Hardingham, Glenn James. "The regimen in late medieval England." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2005. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/284049.
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This thesis examines the nature and uses of the regimen in the fourteenth and fifteenth century in England. The introduction discusses the historiography of the regimen primarily through a delineation of the genre. It argues that the usual focus of the regimen of health and its characterization as a medical text is too narrow, proposing that the text, in both its form and use, was a text on guidance of body and soul that can not be separated from other works of political governance, ethical behaviour and spiritual advice. In order to establish the subject, chapter one presents a distillation of multiple dietaries structured as a daily regimen. The second chapter deals with medical regimens – those books of advice on health usually written by doctors – written, translated or transcribed in late medieval England. It works as a survey and discussion of the contents, composition and audience of texts ranging from calendrical regimens and the classic epistolary dietary, to plague tracts, works resembling political begging letters and the widespread universal regimen. Chapter three investigates the links between the regimen and the institutional regimens practiced in English hospitals, religious houses and noble households, to argue that all texts on rule share similar concerns with health, both of the body and of the spirit (corporate and individual). The final chapter uses John Lydgate’s popular Dietary as a means to discuss the regimen’s central place in the literature of the fifteenth century. Among its roles was that of a handbook for the fifteenth century reader, a guide to ethical behaviour in the social environment not dissimilar to the courtesy books; while a focus on early printed books reveals the regimen’s influence on the vernacular religious text. This is followed by a handlist of regimens written, translated or used in late medieval England.
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Bale, Anthony Paul. "Fictions of Judaism in medieval England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.395238.
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Clement, Claire. "Mapping Women's Movement in Medieval England." VCU Scholars Compass, 2012. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/367.
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This thesis investigates women’s geographical movement in medieval England from the perspective of mobility and freedom. It uses pilgrimage accounts from medieval miracle story collections and to gather information about individual travel patterns. The study uses GIS to analyze gendered mobility patterns, and to investigate whether there were noticeable differences in the distance which men and women traveled and the geographical area of the country they originated. It also analyzes the nearness of men’s and women’s respective origin towns to alternative pilgrimage locations, as a means of examining the factors determining gendered travel mobility. The study finds that women’s travel distances were less than men’s, especially in the later medieval period, but that they were in fact more likely than men to come from areas proximate to alternative pilgrimage sites. This suggests the existence of higher mobility capacity for women living in areas with greater contact with other travelers.
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Holloway, James Edward. "Charcoal burial in early medieval England." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2009. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/252132.
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Until relatively recently, archaeologists and historians have tended to ignore the burial practice of the late Anglo-Saxon period (c. AD 800-1100) in favour of other aspects of the archaeology of this period, or of the burial practice of earlier periods, assuming that burial in this period is uniform and well-understood. In fact, the late Anglo-Saxon period shows a great deal of diversity in burial practice. One of these diverse forms of burial is so-called “charcoal burial”, in which the body or coffin is laid on or under a layer of wood charcoal. This thesis examines the possible symbolic associations of charcoal burial, as well as how those associations might have been used to convey issues of status, identity, group membership or religious belief. Data presented includes the historical context of sites with charcoal burials, as well as their chronology, distribution and demographic characteristics. The manufacture and use of charcoal in the late Anglo-Saxon period is also studied, as are examples of similar burial rites from outside England. In addition to archaeological data, textual sources provide information on the symbolic context in which this burial rite occurred, suggesting that charcoal burial was one of a number of types of burial associated with ideas of cleanliness and protection, serving to define a space for the body against the “filthy” and possibly threatening earth. This rite was selected for the burials of specific, usually high-status individuals, rather than being associated with any specific segment of the population. Its application appears to have varied from site to site, representing a flexible, creative burial practice capable of producing a range of symbolic associations for funerals.
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Oliver, Andrea E. E. "Constructions of Masculinity in Late Medieval England." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.520420.
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Gribbin, J. A. "The Premonstratensian order in late medieval England." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.599702.
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This thesis concerns aspects of the history of the English Premonstratensian canons in the later middle ages, and concentrates on the period c. 1458-1500 in particular. It focuses primarily on the conventual observances of the abbeys of the 'white' canons and their visitation by Bishop Richard Redman (1505), commissary-general of Prémontré and English visitor, as revealed in his visitation register and other manuscript sources. The first chapter, by way of introduction, surveys the development and organisation of the English Premonstratensian province. This includes a brief discussion of the origins of the white canons, the foundation of the English houses, and their devolved government from Prémontré, their French motherhouse. Chapter Two considers the manuscript sources containing the visitation records of the English Premonstratensians, Bodleian Library, Oxford MS. Ashmole 1519, and British Library Additional MSS. 4934 and 4935. The first of these, the Ashmole MS., is shown to be the most important primary source for our period, as it contains Richard Redman's visitation register. Following a discussion of the register's composition, is an examination of the unpublished journey itineraries contained in the Ashmole MS., which enabled Redman to travel from abbey to abbey. The third chapter contains an extensive analysis of Redman's visitations, mainly between 1478-1500, and attempts to ascertain the nature and observance of monastic life within the English Premonstratensian abbeys. An account is given of the procedure of visitation as conducted by Redman and Premonstratensians generally, followed by an examination of the name lists in Redman's register, which give an idea of the level of recruitment amongst the canons and the complements within each abbey. Various aspects of Premonstratensian life, including conventual food and clothing, and the misdemeanours recorded during the visitations, such as sexual immorality and apostasy, are considered. Redman's comments on the maintenance of economic structures within each house and the conservation of monastic buildings, are briefly discussed.
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Ralley, Robert Charles. "The clerical physician in late medieval England." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.431171.
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Coveney, Natasha. "Moated sites in medieval England : a reassessment." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/33361.
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This thesis sets out to reassess medieval moated sites in England in light of up-to-date information, and to investigate a number of key areas: where moated sites were located, why they were dug, who had them dug, and their relationship with their localities. Variations between sites and whether it is possible to make overriding conclusions about moated sites are also considered. A new dataset of moated sites was created for this thesis, to take into account information not used in previous studies. This new dataset of 8452 sites has been used to create a new distribution map of moated sites in England. The thesis explores the implications of this, and the reasons behind the distribution, including the influences of topography and geology, areas of Forest Law, settlement patterns, and social emulation. A new chronology of the construction of moated sites has been created from this new dataset. This chronology has been used to look at how the distribution of moated sites may have changed over time, and who was responsible for the moats dug at different periods. The study then questions whether there is evidence for a single motivation for the use of moats or whether there were multiple influences, and how this may vary from site to site. As well as motivations associated with defence and status, those examined included factors such as the use of moats as fishponds. This study concludes that there is no simple explanation for the presence of a moat at a site. In addition moated sites are considered in relation to the particular social groups responsible for their creation. The evidence is examined to see whether moats were seen as particularly desirable or important for one of these groups, and where there are and are not correlations between size and date, and the social group the moated sites are associated with. Finally, the complex relationship between medieval moated sites and their local landscapes is studied. This includes the location of moats in relation to features contemporary to and older than them, high status features such as parks, and the use of a moat to separate the ‘island’ from the immediate locality. The continued variety between sites is considered in these contexts. The study concludes that moated sites are a highly varied and complex group. This means that there is no one set of rules and explanations that apply to all moated sites, and no simple explanation to why one site was moated while a similar site was not.
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Chapman, Emma Rosamund. "Children and child burial in medieval England." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2016. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/255866.
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This thesis presents an investigation into children in medieval England through burial, the most archaeologically-visible evidence for the treatment and conceptualisation of children in life. It examines whether children were distinguished in burial from adults in parish cemeteries of the 10th-16th centuries. Selected cemeteries are analysed in detail to establish whether or not children received different burial treatment to adults. The burials of biologically-immature individuals are compared with the remainder of the burial population, totalling c.4,700 individuals, assessing whether the provision of burial furniture, burial in a shared grave and location of graves varied by age at death. The dissertation includes a discussion of archaeological and historical approaches to children and child burial, both general and medieval, medieval attitudes to children, death and burial, before discussing the case study sites in depth. From this, the methodological issues of undertaking such a study are considered and a sympathetic methodology developed, before the presentation of analysis, discussions and conclusions. I demonstrate that a variety of burial practices were used during the medieval period and that differentiation by age at death occurred. The results show that burials of juveniles are commonly differentiated, particularly infants aged 0-1 year or children aged 12 years or younger, by furniture, inclusion in a multiple burial and location. The thesis concludes that a variety of factors affected how an individual was buried, with age a strong determining factor for those dying at a young age. The influence of age is interpreted as resulting from medieval attitudes to infants, children and adolescents based on active, socially-identified characteristics, indicative of age-based appropriate burial treatment on both familial and community levels due to emotional, social, religious and economic concerns.
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Nelson, Kathleen E. "Medieval liturgical music of Zamora /." Ottawa : The Institute of Mediaeval music, 1996. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb369600647.
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Baccianti, Sarah. "Telling stories in the Medieval North : Historical writing and literary artistry in Medieval England and Medieval Scandinavia." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.530107.
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Barton, Paulette Elaine. "Mercy and the Misericord in Late Medieval England." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 2004. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/BartonPE2004.pdf.
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Wheatley, Abigail Margaret. "The idea of the castle in medieval England." Thesis, University of York, 2001. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9826/.
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The castle has long been regarded as a practical, military architecture, introduced by the Normans as a tool of feudal control. More recently, castles have been accorded a certain symbolic significance, expressing military and political power. However, this thesis argues that the castle was a meaningful architecture in a much more sophisticated sense than these arguments admit. It discovers complex iconographies of meaning in castle architecture through examination of castle imagery in a wide range of textual and visual sources, and in the architecture of castles themselves. The Introduction reviews the different approaches which medieval architecture of different kinds has attracted in modern criticism. An interdisciplinary approach is advocated, which uses a wide range of sources to build up a composite understanding of architectural meanings. Chapter I problematises accepted definitions of the castle which, through their rigidity, obscure the castle's ideological significance. Linguistic and archaeological arguments are employed to show that the medieval understanding of the word 'castle' was more flexible than is usually recognised. Subsequent chapters explore particular implications of this flexible understanding of castle architecture within its cultural context. Chapter 2 challenges the idea that the castle was necessarily a private fortification, investigating its use in the construction of civic identity. Chapter 3 discovers affinities between ecclesiastical and castle architecture at practical and ideological levels, revealing the castle's role in medieval Biblical interpretation. Chapter 4 explores the imperial and historical connotations of castles, noting their frequent association with evidence of the Roman occupation of Britain. These medieval ideas of the castle present an architecture with important historical, spiritual and civic symbolisms expressed through a complex architectural iconography. This understanding underlines the importance not only of the idea of the castle, but of the role of architecture in linking the material, the intellectual and the aesthetic in medieval culture.
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Coote, Lesley. "Prophecy and public affairs in later medieval England." Thesis, University of York, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242159.
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Wheatley, Abigail. "The idea of the castle in medieval England /." Woodbridge ; Rochester (N.Y.) : York : York Medieval Press in association with Boydell Press ; Centre for Medieval studies, University of York, 2004. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb39278696v.
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Henderson, Namananda. "Village community and peasant society in medieval England." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2006. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0017893.
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Poleg, Eyal. "Mediations of the Bible in Late Medieval England." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2007. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1683.
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Direct access to the Bible was the exception rather than the rule in medieval Europe. Limitations imposed by cost, sacrality and degrees of literacy determined people's ability to own or consult the Bible. The multitude of events and objects, which offered mediated access to the Bible, stand at the core of the dissertation. From liturgy and sermons to church murals and ornate Gospel Books, a mediated biblical world-view was presented to medieval audiences. A close analysis of these media reveals that, although relying on the Bible as a source of authority, its language and narrative were altered in an attempt to make it palatable and effective to medieval audiences. Analyses of specific test cases, such as Palm Sunday processions and Advent sermons, reveal a constant clerical effort of displaying the Bible and its narratives in visual, vernacular and performative ways. The Bible can never be divorced from its physical form and shape. Through an extensive survey of biblical manuscripts, their layout and additions, an inner-biblical hierarchy unfolds, in which the book of Psalms took precedence. This reflects not only the reception of the Psalms, but also the place of these manuscripts at the junction between preaching and liturgy. Attitudes towards biblical manuscripts, and especially gospel books, supply additional evidence for use and provenance of Bibles. An examination of veneration of the Bible in civic and ecclesiastical rituals, from the Ordinary of the Mass to oaths in courts of law, leads to a reevaluation of Bibles and gospel books. The dissertation leads to a new understanding of the Bible within the late medieval sacrede conomy. It shows how ritual behaviour, content and appearancew ere intertwined to present a complex notion of the Bible, which has endured until modernity.
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Piroyansky, Danna. "Cults of political martyrs in late medieval England." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2005. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1873.
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A number of prominent men who lost their lives during political struggles were posthumously venerated as martyrs in later medieval England. This dissertation aims to recreate some of the context - religious and cultural as well as political - in which these cults developed, and to chronicle and evaluate the activities and representations which they produced. It will be argued that political martyrdom formed part of a distinctive religious culture in which suffering for a cause could be highly valued as a form of martyrdom. The three cases studied here bring us in contact with different aspects of late medieval English society. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster (d. 1322) was regarded posthumously as Christi miles, and represented ideas linked to knighthood and chivalry, treason and betrayal. Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York (d. 1405), was portrayed in contemporary hagiographic sources as pastor populi, representing the ideal ecclesiastical shepherd, dedicated to justice in both religious and political affairs. King Henry VI (d. 1471) was seen as a pious victim already in his lifetime, represented in the hagiography as an innocent, Job-like, child-martyr. Cults of political martyrs formed an organic part of late medieval lives, which were commnunal and private, local and regional, devotional and social. They demonstrate the flexibility with which religious symbols - chastity, martyrdom, virtue - formed part of political language, and were available to people at different levels of society, and with different degrees of access to liturgy, clerical assistance and power of patronage. These cults - created rather than imported - offer us an insight into fourteenth and fifteenth century English society, its modes of thoughts, belief, worship, as well as political culture and language.
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Cheung, Salisbury Matthew R. "The secular liturgical office in late medieval England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c634eb66-b4f2-4ab7-bc45-25561662a115.
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This thesis challenges existing preconceptions about the textual uniformity of the late medieval English Office liturgy. The received narrative is that all breviaries of the same liturgical Use are in large part identical. This study demonstrates that all complete, surviving manuscript breviaries and antiphonals of each secular liturgical Use of medieval England (dating from s.xiii – s.xvi) do share a common textual ‘fingerprint’ particular to each Use. But this is in large part restricted to the proper texts of universal or popular observances. Other features of these service books, even within the sources of the same Use, are subject to significant variation, influenced by local customs and hagiographical and textual priorities, and also by varying reception to liturgical prescriptions from ecclesiastical authorities. Distinct regional patterns, especially in the kalendar, are a principal result. Rubrics (giving details of ritual) and lessons (at Matins) in particular suggest that the manuscripts are witnesses to textual subfamilies, and that these represent succeeding stages of the promulgation of the major Uses across England. The identification of the characteristic features of each Use and the differentiation of regional patterns have resulted from treating each manuscript as a unique witness, a practice which is not common in liturgical studies, but one which gives the manuscripts greater value as historical sources. The unique character of each allows it to be situated in its temporal and intellectual context and indeed to illuminate that context. For instance, properties of individual manuscripts can be compared with other evidence for the prescription of liturgy in England in order to assess the efficacy of ecclesiastical orders of this nature. A descriptive catalogue of 115 manuscripts and transcriptions of their liturgical kalendars provide both a resource for further research and a proof of concept of the methodology.
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Taylor, Jennifer. "Medieval England: A Thematic Unit for 3rd Grade." Miami University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1111684023.
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Marter, Philip. "Medieval pottery production centres in England AD850-1600." Thesis, University of Winchester, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.441565.
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Claughton, P. F. "Silver mining in England and Wales : 1066-1500." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.269812.
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Rogers, Janine. "Gender and the literature culture of late medieval England." Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=35053.
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This dissertation explores the impact of gender ideologies held by medieval readerships on the production of books and circulation of texts in late medieval England. The first chapter explores how the professional book trade of late medieval London circulated booklets of Chauceriana which constructed masculinity and femininity in strict adherence to the courtly love literary tradition. In the second chapter, I demonstrate that such a standardized representation of courtly gender could be adapted by a readership removed from the professional book trade, in this case the rural gentry producers of the Findern manuscript, who present a revised vision of femininity and courtliness in their anthology. This revised femininity includes several texts which privilege the female speaking voice. The third chapter goes on to investigate the use of the female voice in one particular genre, the love lyric, and asks if the female lyric speaker can be associated with manuscripts in which women participated as producers or readers. Finally, the fourth chapter turns to masculinity, examining how the commonplace book of an early 16th century grocer, Richard Hill, contains selections from didactic and recreational literature which reinforce the ideals of masculine conduct in the merchant community of late medieval London. The dissertation concludes that manuscript contexts must be taken into account when reading gender in medieval English literature.
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McNellis, Lindsey. "'LET HER BE TAKEN': SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND." Master's thesis, Orlando, Fla. : University of Central Florida, 2008. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002170.
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Rogers, Janine. "Gender and the literate culture of late medieval England." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0015/NQ44566.pdf.
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Hall, Alaric Timothy Peter. "The meanings of elf and elves in medieval England." Connect to electronic version, 2004. https://dspace.gla.ac.uk/handle/1905/607.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Glasgow, 2004.Ph. D. thesis submitted to the Department of English Language, University of Glasgow, 2004. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.
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Hall, Alaric T. P. "The meanings of elf and elves in medieval England." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2004. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4924/.
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This thesis investigates the character and role of non-Christian belief in medieval societies, and how we can reconstruct it using written sources. It focuses on Anglo-Saxon culture, contextualising Anglo-Saxon material with analyses of Middle English, Older Scots, Scandinavian and Irish texts. We lack Anglo-Saxon narratives about elves (ælfe, singular ælf), but the word ælf itself is well-attested in Old English texts. By analysing these attestations, it is possible to discover much about the meanings of the word ælf— from which, I argue, it is possible to infer what ælfe were believed to be and to do, and how these beliefs changed over time. Using methodologies inspired by linguistic anthropology (discussed in Chapter 1), I develop these analyses to reconstruct the changing significances of non-Christian beliefs in medieval English-speaking societies, affording new perspectives on Christianisation, health and healing, and group identity, particularly gendering. The body of the thesis, chapters 2–9, is in three parts. Because of its historiographical prominence in discussions of Anglo-Saxon non-Christian beliefs, I begin in Chapter 2 by reassessing Scandinavian comparative evidence for elf-beliefs. I also show that it is possible to correlate the meanings of Old Norse words for supernatural beings with other Scandinavian mythological sources for world-views, providing a case-study supporting similar approaches to Anglo-Saxon evidence. Chapters 3–6 reassess Anglo-Saxon linguistic and textual evidence, tackling in turn prehistoric naming patterns and morphological developments, poetry, glosses, and medical texts. The long-standing assumption that ælfe were incorporeal, small and arrowshooting proves to be both unfounded and implausible. Traditionally, ælfe were conceptually similar both to gods and to human ethnic others, all of whom were opposed to monsters in Anglo-Saxon world-views. They were probably only male. In textual evidence, ælfe are paradigmatic examples of dangerously seductive beauty and they are possible causes of prophetic speech and certain kinds of ailments. They inflicted ailments at least at times by a variety of magic called siden, cognate with the much-discussed medieval Scandinavian magic seiðr. Both of these points associate ælfe with femininegendered traits, and I show that by the eleventh century, ælf could also denote otherworldly, nymph-like females. These otherworldly females seem to have been new arrivals in Anglo-Saxon belief-systems. Demonisation is clearly attested from around 800, but ælfe were not conflated with demons in all or even most discourses, even after the Old English period. Chapters 7–9 develop this core evidence to argue for the cultural significance of the beliefs it reveals. By adducing comparative texts from medieval Ireland and Scandinavia and from the early modern Scottish witchcraft trials, Chapter 7 shows how the characteristics of ælf in Old English could occur together in coherent, ideologically significant narratives. Chapter 8 considers the Old English charm Wið færstice in a similar comparative context, focusing on the trial of Issobel Gowdie for witchcraft in 1662, and considering the importance of elf-beliefs in Anglo-Saxon healing. These chapters emphasise cultural continuity in North West European beliefs, questioning inherited scholarly constructions of fairy-beliefs as distinctively ‘Celtic’, and showing striking continuities between Anglo-Saxon and early modern Scottish beliefs. Chapter 9 concludes by combining earlier findings to make new assessments of Anglo-Saxon Christianisation and constructions of group identity, danger and power, and gendering. I examine gender in particular, combining evidence from throughout the thesis with comparative textual and archaeological material to argue that mythological gender transgressions were important to early Anglo-Saxon gendering. Beliefs in effeminate ælfe helped to demarcate gender norms, but also provided a paradigm whereby men could in real life gain supernatural power through gender transgression. I link the subsequent rise of female ælfe to changes in Anglo-Saxon gendering, whereby gender roles were enforced with increasing strictness. By combining detailed linguistic and textual analyses in a suitable comparative context, I reconstruct aspects of non-Christian belief which are marginalized in our early medieval sources, and detect how they changed over time. Such beliefs illuminate various aspects of medieval culture, including social identity, health and healing, the sources and use of supernatural power, and Christianisation. My methods, meanwhile, provide paradigms for taking similar approaches to studying belief and ideology in other areas of medieval Europe.
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Gribbin, Joseph A. "Aspects of Carthusian liturgical practice in later medieval England." Salzburg, Austria : Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1995. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/34017348.html.
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Dutton, Anne Marie. "Women's use of religious literature in late medieval England." Thesis, Online version, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.296557.
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Savill, Benjamin. "Papal privileges in early medieval England, c. 680-1073." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cd5c5cd5-bdfd-4fe4-a022-487faa3196df.
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Papal privileges were documents issued in the names of the bishops of Rome, granting or confirming special rights to individual persons or institutions. They comprise a genre of written evidence unique among what survives from early medieval Europe in the breadth of their distribution across both time and space. This thesis investigates their role and function in England up to 1073 and, in so-doing, reevaluates the region's own place within wider continental developments. Studies of the relationship between the early English church and Rome have formed a key component of modern Anglo-Saxon historiography, to some degree conjuring a held truth that the English maintained an exceptionally 'close connection' to the papacy. Yet while studies of Anglo-Saxon diplomatic and documentary culture have stood at the forefront of the past half century of scholarship on pre-Conquest England, this work has not, so far, seriously extended to the analysis of papal privileges. Accordingly, the documentary aspects of this Anglo-papal 'connection' have typically not been afforded the same level of scrutiny, nor rewarded with the same level of insight, as their 'native' counterparts, despite the relative wealth of material available to scholars. This thesis confronts this blind spot in the scholarship. Yet this is about more than simply 'filling in the gaps.' The unique quality of papal privileges - that is, as a recognisably single broad genre of written evidence produced and authenticated at a single location, yet sought by, and issued to, diverse beneficiaries from across the post-Roman west - means they have an extraordinary potential for historians as tools for comparative analysis between different regions. The thesis proceeds in two stages. Part One determines the form, content and function of the surviving corpus of papal privileges in early medieval England. It establishes not only a solid source base for further research through a corpus-wide diplomatic analysis of these documents, but also demonstrates the various processes through which these aesthetically-spectacular instruments were petitioned, drafted, conveyed and confirmed, and the implications of this for further inquiry. Part Two then proceeds chronologically, investigating in turn the four periods for which reliable evidence for the acquisition of papal privileges in England survives: c. 680-c. 715, c. 770-c. 830, c. 960-c.1000, and 1049-73. It looks at each individually as a discrete period by which we might study not only the function and effect of these documents in England, but furthermore take into account the entire, continent-wide corpus of contemporary acquisitions - thus allowing us to think comparatively about perceptions and uses of papal authority. The thesis rejects the idea of a 'central'/papacy-defined meaning or role for papal privileges in the early medieval west, arguing instead for a diversity of uses and 'readings' across England and Europe, in which the intentions, perceptions and frameworks of reference of the beneficiaries and their local/'peripheral' societies were key. It further argues against the use of any simple 'royalist'/'papalist' binary as an explanatory model for this period; and against the notion that (at least in terms of documentary activity) early medieval England had any kind of uniquely 'close connection' or special relationship to Rome. If there was a peculiarly 'special' quality to papal privileges for English institutions in these centuries, it perhaps only came from the comparatively non-routine, even exotic, nature of such acquisitions - something increasingly unusual in light of wider European developments from the mid-ninth century onwards.
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Spencer, Daniel. "The development of gunpowder weapons in Late Medieval England." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2016. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/398051/.
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The present thesis is a study of the development of gunpowder weapons in Late Medieval England. This was a new technology that had reached Western Europe by the early fourteenth century, which had first supplemented and later supplanted traditional forms of artillery. The development of early firearms has long been recognised as significant by historians and has been identified as a key part of the military revolution hypothesis. As a result of this, gunpowder weapons are often discussed in general works on English military history but there is at the moment no satisfactory study on its long-term development in England. The aim of the present study is to rectify this gap in the literature by carrying out a thorough examination and comparison of the extensive surviving financial records for the English Crown and towns for the period covering the reigns of Edward III to Henry VII. This information will be analysed to determine how the use of guns on military campaigns, in towns, royal fortifications and on ships changed over time, as well as to assess what factors influenced the development of gunpowder weapons and to see if these changes constituted a military revolution. As a result of this research, it is now possible to establish a comprehensive narrative of how English gunpowder weapons developed throughout this critical period in the history of the technology.
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Norris, Stephanie Latitia. "Flesh in flux: narrating metamorphosis in late medieval England." Diss., University of Iowa, 2012. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1372.
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My dissertation reevaluates medieval concepts of body and identity by analyzing literary depictions of metamorphosis in romance. Focusing on examples such as the hag-turned-damsel in the Wife of Bath's Tale, the lump-turned-boy in The King of Tars and the demon-saint of Sir Gowther, I take as my starting point the fact that while those texts pivot on instances of physical transformation, they refrain from representing such change. This pattern of undescribed physical metamorphosis has broad implications for recent work on evolving notions of change and identity beginning in the high Middle Ages. While Caroline Walker Bynum has read the medieval outpouring of tales about werewolves and hybrids as imaginative responses to social upheavals, I consider why such medieval writings ironically focused on shape-shifters but avoided metamorphosis itself. I argue that we can understand why Chaucer and other writers resisted imagining bodies in the process of transforming by examining the history of ideas regarding metamorphosis in the medieval west. While the foremost classical writer on transformation, Ovid, reveled in depictions of metamorphosis, by the late Middle Ages a new religious discourse on change enjoyed prominence, the doctrine of transubstantiation. In its effort to separate substance and accidents, Eucharistic theory strove to detach identity from physical change and exhibited a certain level of repugnance over images of physical transformation. I argue that medieval secular writings address that anxiety over bread-turned-God in moments such as the close of the Wife of Bath's Tale. In a scene that recalls the place of veiling in Eucharistic ritual, the hag uses the bed curtain first to cloak then reveal her newly young and beautiful physique. Ultimately, the corpus of medieval literature on change--a body of work that engages both Ovidian and Eucharistic writings--suggests that identity intertwines with physical metamorphosis in a productive, if problematically unstable, manner.
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Montaño, Jesus A. "Writing a nation : figuring community in late medieval England/." The Ohio State University, 1999. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu148819010986812.
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Kerr, Sarah. "A study of lodging ranges in late Medieval England." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2016. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.706995.
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This thesis examined the architecture of medieval lodging ranges in England. The project aim was to contribute to the knowledge of this building type which had received little attention in recent research, resulting in some stagnation of the subject. The thesis begins with a historical context of lodging ranges introducing key themes of late medieval society. To fully understand the building type, the study focused on the architecture of surviving examples and used this to discuss the form, function and use of lodging ranges, as well as contribute to the understanding of the occupants. The function of lodging ranges was a multi-faceted topic, revealing their complex role in constructing social distance, displaying the hierarchy in the retinue and acting a status indicator of the lord and the individual. Studying the remains of lodging ranges contributed to the understanding of the occupants, and it is clear that their military role had been exaggerated in previous studies, partly as a result of inaccurate interpretation of the buildings. The greatest contributor to the discussion has been the remains of lodging ranges themselves; they contained a wealth of information which revealed how they were used, who lived within and what they meant in medieval society.
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Claridge, Jordan. "The trade of agricultural horses in late medieval England." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2015. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/58423/.
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This thesis explores how the medieval English economy was supplied with horse power during the period of 1250-1349. The diffusion of horse power is recognised to have been a major factor in the development of the medieval English economy, increasing labour productivity in farming and the efficiency of overland transport, but the infrastructures through which these animals were produced and distributed is poorly understood. This thesis is the first study that addresses this significant gap in our understanding of medieval English history and it endeavours to answer two questions: how was the country supplied with working horses, and what implications did the trade in these animals have for the economy and society at the time? The first section uses statistical analyses of over three hundred manorial accounts from c.1300 to explore the role of medieval English demesnes (the home farms of lords, as opposed to the lands of their peasant tenants) in the horse trade. The second section uses both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in exploring tax records and manorial court rolls to assess the role of the peasantry in the horse trade. The third section employs a price database constructed from the manorial account sample and is used to establish price levels for agricultural horses and illustrate the structure and nature of the market for the animals.
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Johnson, Tom. "Law, space, and local knowledge in late-medieval England." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 2014. http://bbktheses.da.ulcc.ac.uk/73/.
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This thesis explores the manifold ways that people encountered and adapted to legal processes and concepts in late-medieval England. It argues that these encounters with law were inextricably related to space and local knowledge, that is, to particular physical places, and the localized information that was produced within those places. The thesis makes two historiographical interventions. Firstly, it argues that the huge variety of different law courts operating in late-medieval England created a situation of ‘legal pluralism’, meaning that there were far more opportunities to become involved with legal institutions than has generally been assumed. Secondly, it argues that previous attempts to understand how ordinary people interacted with law have been too focussed on the central and ecclesiastical law courts. In order to redress these problems, the thesis posits the idea of the ‘local legal regime’: the localized cultural logic that informed people’s encounters with the particular formulation of legal pluralism in the locality within which they lived. The thesis examines three case studies of different local legal regimes. The first chapter looks at the provincial city of Hereford; the second chapter examines the coast of East Anglia; the third chapter looks at the Forests of Yorkshire. In each case, particularly local institutional arrangements, landscapes, and socioeconomic and demographic features crucially shaped the way that people encountered and drew upon law in their everyday lives. Overall, the thesis has two important implications. Firstly, what we often take to be generic aspects of the late-medieval English legal system – such as property rights or nuisance litigation – were in fact underpinned by distinctively local arrangements and expectations. Secondly, we ought to understand law as something rooted physically in the locality. As people moved through the late-medieval landscape, they were encountered with, and able to adapt to, a variety of different legal claims.
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Cooper, Suzanne Fagence. "Picturing music in Victorian England." Thesis, Bucks New University, 2005. http://bucks.collections.crest.ac.uk/9932/.
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This thesis analyses musical imagery created by Victorian artists. It considers paintings, decorative arts and photography, as well as contemporary art criticism and poetry. Focusing on artists associated with Pre-Raphaelitism and aestheticism, it shows how they used musical subjects to sidestep narrative conventions and concentrate instead on explorations of femininity, colour, mood and sensuality. This thesis begins by considering the musical experience of four artists - Frederic Leighton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and James Whistler - and the influence of personal taste on their musical subjects. It then looks at the depiction of non-Western performance, including images of dancing girls. The third chapter explores the links between music and worship, and the subversion of traditional religious iconography by aestheticist artists. Chapter four analyses images of musical women, and especially the late-Victorian interest in mermaids and sirens. The theme of sensuality continues with an investigation of the connections between music and colour, by assessing the influence of Renaissance Venice, Wagner and French theories of synaesthesia on the Victorian art-world. The final chapter looks at the interconnectedness of music, nostalgia and bereavement in aestheticist painting. Although this study approaches the subject of music-in-art from a number of different directions, there are two key themes that underpin the interpretation of musical images. The first is that musical symbolism was malleable: music could signify both religious devotion and sexual passion. The second is that, in the Victorian imagination, music was oppositional and unstable. It was linked with femininity, emotion, colour, desire and the supernatural. This thesis demonstrates that the idea of music was a key component in the emergence of anti-Establishment art in Victorian England.
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Burrows, Donald. "Handel in England: Sacred Music." Bärenreiter Verlag, 1987. https://slub.qucosa.de/id/qucosa%3A37211.
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Ward, Emily Joan. "Child kingship in England, Scotland, France, and Germany, c.1050-c.1250." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/274253.
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This dissertation is a comparative study of children who succeeded as kings of England, Scotland, France, and Germany as boys under the age of fifteen in the central Middle Ages. Children are often disregarded in the historical record, even those divinely-ordained as king. The research undertaken in this thesis aims to uncover a more human aspect to medieval kingship by combining social aspects of childhood and gender studies with a political and legal approach to the study of the nature of rulership and royal administrative practices. Part I provides vital context of how royal fathers prepared their underage sons for kingship. I argue for the importance of maternal involvement in association, demonstrate the significant benefits a comparative approach brings to our understanding of anticipatory actions, and reveal the impact which changes in the circumstances and documentation of royal death had on preparations for child kingship. In Part II, I focus on vice-regal guardianship to expose how structural legal, social, political, and cultural changes affected the provisions for a child king. The symbolic meaning of knighthood, which had been a clear rite of passage to adulthood in the eleventh century, later became a precursor to kingship. The child’s progression to maturity was increasingly directed by legalistic ideas. These developments meant that, by the first half of the thirteenth century, queen mothers faced greater challenges to their involvement in royal governance alongside their sons. Part III presents a challenge to the idea that periods of child kingship were necessarily more violent than when an adult came to the throne through an analysis of instances of child kidnap, maternal exclusion from guardianship and departure from the kingdom, dynastic challenge, and opportunistic violence. Children often appear as passive actors controlled by the adults around them but accepting this unquestioningly is too simplistic. Child kings could make an impact on the political landscape even if they could not do so alone. Through an innovative comparative analysis of a child’s preparation for rulership, the care of king and kingdom, and the vulnerabilities and challenges of child kingship, I demonstrate far greater political continuity across medieval monarchies than is usually appreciated. This constitutes a fresh and original contribution towards the study of medieval rulership in northwestern Europe.
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Blažeković, Zdravko. "Music in medieval and Renaissance astrological imagery /." Ann Arbor, Mich : UMI, 2008. http://opac.nebis.ch/cgi-bin/showAbstract.pl?sys=000252641.
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Blažekovič, Zdravko. "Music in Medieval and Renaissance astrological imagery /." Ann Arbor (Mich.) : UMI, 2006. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb400633724.
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Watts, Rebecca. "Childhood development and adult longevity in archaeological populations from medieval and post-medieval England (AD950-1855)." Thesis, University of Reading, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.631678.
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This study examined the age-at-death distribution of multiple indicators of non-specific stress in archaeological populations from multi-period sites spanning medieval and postmedieval England (AD 950-1855). The aim was to assess how disruptions during specific periods of childhood development (between six months of age to growth completion) affected adult longevity. It was hypothesised that greater levels of childhood stress would have a negative impact on long term health, resulting in reduced adult longevity. This would be evident in a greater prevalence of stress indicators among individuals who died during early adulthood. Adult skeletons from Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire (a small market town), and 13 London cemeteries were examined for the presence of cribra orbitalia and linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), reduced diameters of the vertebral neural canal (VNC), fluctuating asymmetry of the craniofacial skeleton and short femoral lengths. Individuals who died between 18-25 years had experienced chronic ill-health before 15 years of age, resulting in smaller transverse diameters of the VNC than individuals who lived into older adulthood. Levels of LEH were comparable in all age categories, suggesting illnesses responsible for enamel defects did not have a detrimental effect on longevity. An earlier age-at-death for males and females with small transverse VNC diameters was observed at both sites and all cemetery periods, excepting low status females and high status males from post-medieval London. Similarities in the prevalence of stress indicators at Barton-upon-Humber and London may suggest that many adults living in London were migrants who grew up in small towns where environmental conditions were similar to Barton-upon-Humber. Females with a history of poor health were unlikely to migrate, while the privileged status of wealthy males protected them from health insults. This study demonstrates how analysing multiple stress indicators can elucidate the long term sequelae of stress which occurred at specific periods of childhood development.