The history of the Viking invasions in England and what is now France in the ninth and tenth centuries is fairly well documented by medieval chroniclers. The process by which these people adopted Christianity, however, is not. The written and archaeological evidence that we can cobble together indicates that the Scandinavians who settled in England and Normandy converted very quickly. Their conversion was clearly closely associated with settlement on the land. Though Scandinavians in both countries expressed no interest in Christianity as long as they engaged in a Viking lifestyle, characterized by rootless plundering, they almost always accepted Christianity within one or two generations of becoming peasants, even when they lived in heavily Scandinavian, Norse-speaking communities. While the early history of the Vikings in Ireland was similar to that of the Vikings elsewhere, it soon took a different course. While English and French leaders were able to set aside land on which they encouraged the Scandinavians to settle, none of the many petty Irish kings had the wealth or power to do this. The Vikings in Ireland were therefore forced to maintain a lifestyle based on plunder and trade. Over time, they became concentrated into a few port towns from which they travelled inland to conduct raids and then exported what they had stolen from other parts of the Scandinavian diaspora. Having congregated at a few small sites, most prominently Dublin, they remained distinct from the rest of Ireland for centuries. The evidence suggests that they took about four generations to convert. Their conversion differed from that of Scandinavians elsewhere not only in that it was so delayed, but also in that, unlike in England and Normandy, it was not associated with the re-establishment of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Rather, when the Scandinavians in Ireland did convert, they did so because they were evangelized by monastic communities, in particular the familia of Colum Cille, who had not fled from foundations close to the Viking ports. These communities were probably driven by political concerns to take an interest in the rising Scandinavian towns.

This dissertation summarizes the evidence for the use of canon law collections in England during the Christian Anglo-Saxon period, that is ca 600-1066. The method is text-historical, the focus being firstly on the scientific description of the primary evidence, and secondly on the evaluation of that evidence to determine which canon law collections were in circulation in Anglo-Saxon England, and exactly when, where and (in some cases) to whom they may have been available. An attempt is also made (in Chapter 2) to find a place for future discussion of canon law collections within the field of Anglo-Saxon Studies, a field traditionally resistant to this particular aspect of early medieval legal culture. This dissertation has been envisioned as primarily descriptive. Here and there, however, attempts are made to venture beyond mere description of the evidence and explore the broader significance of canon law collections to Anglo-Saxon legal culture as a whole; however, given the still nascent state of the study of Anglo-Saxon canon law, such explorations are very often speculative and can only be considered preliminary to a more detailed investigation into the social, political and institutional significance of the evidence that is herein presented. This is simply to say that the goals of the present study are more humble than might be hoped. A solid foundation, rather than a consummate edifice of historical analysis, is sought after. Indeed, it bears advertising up front that not only has the definitive treatment of Anglo-Saxon canon law yet to be written; in all likelihood, it will still be many years before it is even prudent to attempt such a thing. The appendices contain a number of transcriptions of canon law collections from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, including the first ever transcriptions of the Collectio Sanblasiana and Collectio Turonensis, as well as transcriptions of Book 4 of the Collectio quadripartita and of the Collectio Wigorniensis (or 'Excerptiones pseudo-Ecgberhti') in four of its five redactions. The appendices also contain a review of the complex historiography surrounding the latter two collections, as well as case studies of three texts that appear to have been crucial to the development of canon law in the Anglo-Saxon church, namely the Libellus responsionum, the Constitutum Silvestri, and Ecgberht of York's Dialogus. While the appendixed material is intended primarily as support for the broader arguments developed in the dissertation proper, it is also hoped that scholars will find some of that material useful in its own right, and that it will serve to promote further discussion of the importance of canon law collections, especially Continental canon law collections, within the context of Anglo-Saxon history.

This dissertation summarizes the evidence for the use of canon law collections in England during the Christian Anglo-Saxon period, that is ca 600-1066. The method is text-historical, the focus being firstly on the scientific description of the primary evidence, and secondly on the evaluation of that evidence to determine which canon law collections were in circulation in Anglo-Saxon England, and exactly when, where and (in some cases) to whom they may have been available. An attempt is also made (in Chapter 2) to find a place for future discussion of canon law collections within the field of Anglo-Saxon Studies, a field traditionally resistant to this particular aspect of early medieval legal culture. This dissertation has been envisioned as primarily descriptive. Here and there, however, attempts are made to venture beyond mere description of the evidence and explore the broader significance of canon law collections to Anglo-Saxon legal culture as a whole; however, given the still nascent state of the study of Anglo-Saxon canon law, such explorations are very often speculative and can only be considered preliminary to a more detailed investigation into the social, political and institutional significance of the evidence that is herein presented. This is simply to say that the goals of the present study are more humble than might be hoped. A solid foundation, rather than a consummate edifice of historical analysis, is sought after. Indeed, it bears advertising up front that not only has the definitive treatment of Anglo-Saxon canon law yet to be written; in all likelihood, it will still be many years before it is even prudent to attempt such a thing. The appendices contain a number of transcriptions of canon law collections from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, including the first ever transcriptions of the Collectio Sanblasiana and Collectio Turonensis, as well as transcriptions of Book 4 of the Collectio quadripartita and of the Collectio Wigorniensis (or 'Excerptiones pseudo-Ecgberhti') in four of its five redactions. The appendices also contain a review of the complex historiography surrounding the latter two collections, as well as case studies of three texts that appear to have been crucial to the development of canon law in the Anglo-Saxon church, namely the Libellus responsionum, the Constitutum Silvestri, and Ecgberht of York's Dialogus. While the appendixed material is intended primarily as support for the broader arguments developed in the dissertation proper, it is also hoped that scholars will find some of that material useful in its own right, and that it will serve to promote further discussion of the importance of canon law collections, especially Continental canon law collections, within the context of Anglo-Saxon history.

Dissertation Abstract: The medieval wood-of-the-cross legends trace the history of the wood of Christ’s cross back to Old Testament figures and sometimes to paradise itself, where the holy wood was derived from the very tree from which Adam and Eve disobediently ate. These legends are thought to have originated in Greek, afterwards radiating into Latin and the vernacular languages of Western Europe. The earliest witness of these narratives (the “rood-tree” legend) is extant in English fragments of the eleventh century, with full versions found in one twelfth-century English manuscript and several Latin ones originating in England. In this study I examine both the setting into which the rood-tree legend arrived, as well as the later, more elaborate wood-of-the-cross legends that inspired adaptations into Middle English writings. The opening chapter establishes the development of the wood-of-the-cross narrative and its manifestations in both the Latin West and the Eastern languages. Chapter two characterizes the strong devotion to the holy cross in Anglo-Saxon England, and its manifestation in literature, theological writings and art, while chapter three details the Latin and Middle English versions of the wood-of-the-cross legends in manuscript form in England. The fourth chapter traces the concept of the “cross as tree,” beginning with medieval glosses on important biblical tree references, followed by the use of the cross-tree image in Christian writings from patristic times through the medieval period. The penultimate chapter examines key narrative motifs from the legends and provides important parallels of these motifs in other genres, including romance, hagiography and travel writing. I conclude that the wood-of-the-cross legends would have been welcomed into Anglo-Saxon England by a pre-existing reverence for the holy cross, and that this devotion probably bolstered their reception in that country. However, the most significant reasons for the legends’ popularity are not specific to England, but rather are common throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages: the adaptability of the tree as a symbol, the familiarity of the narrative motifs used, and the significant appeal of the legends’ typological structure which tied the wood of Christ’s cross to the very tree whose violation had brought about the Fall of man.

Agobard of Lyon has usually been studied because of his writings about Jews. This dissertation likewise began from a desire to understand Agobard’s anti-Jewish writings, their content, motives, and impact. Approaching that topic from the basis of Agobard’s whole corpus of writings, however, forces an acknowledgment that Agobard cannot be reduced to simply “Agobard and the Jews,” although the subject clearly created a great amount of anxiety for him. Also, by beginning with Agobard’s own works, this dissertation discusses him on his own terms first, without relying on the historiographical tradition which defines him as a Visigoth, a tradition ultimately found wanting. This dissertation effectively dismantles the model of Agobard as a Visigoth working in the Carolingian world, and replaces it with a model of Agobard as a Carolingian. As such, this study explores his anti-Judaism in terms of his immediate historical context and links it with his other anxieties and the Carolingian desire for a perfect, Christian, society. Doing so also opens the door for a re-evaluation of the traditional interpretation of the Carolingian period as the last “golden age” of European Jews outside of Muslim Spain. At its conclusion, this study argues that the Carolingians, by deliberately attempting to create a Christian society, however “well” they treated Jews in their own time, laid some of the ideological groundwork for the later isolation and persecution of Jews in Europe. The introduction begins the exploration of Agobard’s historical context by discussing the history of both Louis’s empire and Agobard’s Lyon. The first chapter provides a quick summary of his life and works. From there, the dissertation turns to its in-depth study of Agobard in the second through fourth chapters. An analysis of his main anti-Jewish work, De iudaicis superstitionibus et erroribus in Chapter 3 is prefaced by a study of the character and possible roots of his anti-Judaism in Chapter 2. The last chapter looks at Agobard’s other concerns, how they relate to his writings on Judaism, and finally how his great amount of worry around Judaism can help shape our understanding of medieval Jewish-Christian relations.

In the summer of 1391 anti-Jewish violence spread across the kingdom of Castile and the Crown of Aragon. Unprecedented numbers of Jews were murdered and even more were forcibly converted. These converts, known as conversos, formed a new, self-perpetuating social group, which, together with the rest of Spanish society, remained deeply conscious of its distinct ethnicity and culture. A century later, testimonies to the Spanish Inquisition depict a converso community with a continued, if varied, affiliation to Judaism. This dissertation investigates the economic, social and political factors that promoted Jewish identification among the first two generations of conversos in Majorca following their baptism in 1391. It employs previously unexamined and unpublished archival sources to argue that corporate fiscal obligations had a major impact in shaping the converso community in Majorca, just as they shaped Jewish social and communal life prior to 1391. Conversos organized collectively in order to meet royal fiscal demands, settle their corporate debt and fund social welfare following the disruptions of 1391, adopting administrative models of the former aljama. The monarchy continued to relate to the conversos as a distinct corporate entity in the same ways it had dealt with them as Jews. Royal efforts to prevent converso emigration to the Maghreb, where many fled to renege on Catholicism, carried overtones of the same proto-mercantilist policies that motivated its failed attempts to revivify the island’s Jewish aljama. Publicized restrictions against conversos, many of whom continued to cultivate prior commercial and family relationships with Maghrebi Jews, contributed to popular assumptions that Majorcan conversos at sea were Judaizers, spurring targeted anti-converso and anti-Jewish piracy. Conversos thus remained entrenched in the same socioeconomic structures, and employed the same licit and illicit strategies to cope with royal exploitation, as when they were Jews. This perpetuated a group identity that was unmistakeably anchored in their Jewish past, and which could promote other aspects of Jewish affiliation. In 1404 the conversos established a formal confraternity which replicated the social welfare programs and administrative techniques of the former aljama within the framework of a Catholic pious society, representing one of the first necessary adaptations to Christian life.

The legal treatises of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were written in the thirteenth century, when most of the kingdom had been re-conquered by the Muslims. There are no treatises from the twelfth century, when the kingdom was at its height. The thirteenth-century jurists claimed that the kingdom had always had written laws, but they may have been making this up for political purposes. The treatises also discuss issues important to the noble class of which the jurists were a part: property rights and the feudal services owed to the king, as well as the proper way to plead their cases in court. But what do they say about criminal law, and laws for the lower classes? How were crimes tried and punished in the twelfth century, and did this differ from the laws recorded in the thirteenth century? Chapter one deals with the different treatises, and their claim that there was a set of laws called “Letres dou Sepulcre” in the twelfth century. The most important of the treatises for criminal law, the assizes of the burgess court, is examined in detail. Chapter two looks at the small number of laws that survive from the twelfth century, in charters, the canons of the Council of Nablus, and the chronicle of William of Tyre. Chapter three is a study of other descriptions of crusader law in the twelfth century, including those by Christian and Muslim pilgrims, and especially the observations of Usama ibn Munqidh. These accounts are tied together by the common theme of theft and the ways that thieves could be punished. Chapter four deals with cases mentioned by thirteenth-century sources, including theft, assault, and prostitution, but especially cases that led to trials by battle. The usefulness of such trials for dating some of the laws is also examined. The conclusion demonstrates that certain parts of the assizes relating to criminal law must have already existed in the twelfth century, and offers some tentative ideas about the specific origin of the laws. Avenues for future research are also introduced.

In the summer of 1391 anti-Jewish violence spread across the kingdom of Castile and the Crown of Aragon. Unprecedented numbers of Jews were murdered and even more were forcibly converted. These converts, known as conversos, formed a new, self-perpetuating social group, which, together with the rest of Spanish society, remained deeply conscious of its distinct ethnicity and culture. A century later, testimonies to the Spanish Inquisition depict a converso community with a continued, if varied, affiliation to Judaism. This dissertation investigates the economic, social and political factors that promoted Jewish identification among the first two generations of conversos in Majorca following their baptism in 1391. It employs previously unexamined and unpublished archival sources to argue that corporate fiscal obligations had a major impact in shaping the converso community in Majorca, just as they shaped Jewish social and communal life prior to 1391. Conversos organized collectively in order to meet royal fiscal demands, settle their corporate debt and fund social welfare following the disruptions of 1391, adopting administrative models of the former aljama. The monarchy continued to relate to the conversos as a distinct corporate entity in the same ways it had dealt with them as Jews. Royal efforts to prevent converso emigration to the Maghreb, where many fled to renege on Catholicism, carried overtones of the same proto-mercantilist policies that motivated its failed attempts to revivify the island’s Jewish aljama. Publicized restrictions against conversos, many of whom continued to cultivate prior commercial and family relationships with Maghrebi Jews, contributed to popular assumptions that Majorcan conversos at sea were Judaizers, spurring targeted anti-converso and anti-Jewish piracy. Conversos thus remained entrenched in the same socioeconomic structures, and employed the same licit and illicit strategies to cope with royal exploitation, as when they were Jews. This perpetuated a group identity that was unmistakeably anchored in their Jewish past, and which could promote other aspects of Jewish affiliation. In 1404 the conversos established a formal confraternity which replicated the social welfare programs and administrative techniques of the former aljama within the framework of a Catholic pious society, representing one of the first necessary adaptations to Christian life.

National historical memory in France has often given rise to violent polemic. Controversial episodes of national history, such as the Second World War and Algerian conflict, have attracted considerable attention. Yet despite its obvious importance as a particularly violent war of decolonization and precursor to the Vietnam War, the First Indochina War (1946-54) has largely been ignored. In the context of decolonization and the beginning of the Cold War, however, Indochina offers a unique example of the complex relationship between event, commemoration, and memory. This dissertation examines state commemorations, official and unofficial sites of memory, film and other media representations of the war, and several “flashpoint” events that have elicited particularly heated debates over the legacies of the war. The thematic structure allows me to bring together various vehicles and artefacts of memory, from monuments to commemorative ceremonies to veterans’ associations, along with less tangible expressions of memory expressed through public debates and film. I also analyze the tangible legacy of colonialism in the metropole: the ‘repatriate’ camps that housed primarily French citizens of Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian origin after 1956. This chapter makes an important contribution to the history of immigration to France, which is critical to understanding issues currently facing this multicultural society. Two dominant narratives emerge from my analysis. The first is maintained by a majority of veterans and elements of the political right and extreme right, and is characterized by themes of heroic soldiers combating communism and a belief in their abandonment by the metropolitan government and public. In some cases, a sense of duty to protect ‘Greater France’ is invoked, and in others, the duty to fight with the independent Vietnamese against their communist oppressors. The second narrative casts the conflict as a ‘dirty’ war of colonial reconquest. Though the primary goal of the dissertation is to elucidate the construction of particular narratives of war, I argue that this memorial process is inherently intertwined with the re-evaluation of the colonial project. The fundamental disagreement over the nature of the war, as either a battle against communism or a war of colonial reconquest, has prompted extensive debates over the relative merits of the colonial project and its putative resurrection in 1945.

Abstract The research presented in this dissertation is an examination of the manuscript tradition of John Scottus Eriugena’s Latin translation (the Versio Dionysii) of the Greek works of Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite. The goal of this project is fourfold: first, to establish the relationship between the extant families of the manuscripts; second, to re-examine the state of Greek studies in the 9th century based on the relationship between the manuscript families; third, to trace the continued use of these recensions through the 12th century; and, finally, to examine Eriugena’s interpretation of the writings of the pseudo-Areopagite based on the Irishman’s translations of certain philosophic ideas. The First chapter establishes the existence of three distinct recensions, rather than two, as previously thought. Two of these recensions represent attempted corrections of the third. All three recensions (together with their corrections) are attributable to Eriugena (whether directly or indirectly). The second chapter examines the level of Eriugena’s understanding of Greek, especially within the context of the state of Greek studies in the 9th century. Special attention is given to the corrections of the later recensions, which suggest an improvement in Eriugena’s Hellenism. The third chapter examines the continued use of the Versio’s during the Middle Ages through the 12th century, with special care to clarify which recensions were known to which readers. The fourth and final chapter presents the originality of Eriugena’s interpretation of the pseudo-Areopagite’s thought. This originality stems in part from his understanding of the Greek text, and in part from his attempts to harmonize his sources.