The charms are among the oldest extant specimens of English prose and verse, and in their first form were undoubtedly of heathen origin. In the form in which they have been handed down they are much overlaid with Christian lore, but it is not difficult to recognize the primitive mythological strata. The charms have points of contact with medieval Latin literature, both in form and spirit; and yet they afford us glimpses of the Germanic past, and pictures of the everyday life of the Anglo-Saxons, not found in other Old English poetry.

Die koronare Herzkrankheit ist derzeit die häufigste Todesursache auf der Welt. Die Prävention der Arteriosklerose und ihrer klinischen Manifestationen wie der koronaren Herzkrankheit sind wichtige Ziele. Das Gen des endothelialen leukozytären Adhäsionsmoleküls-1 (ELAM-1,E-Selektin) sollte auf DNA-Polymorphismen untersucht werden, um einen möglichen genetischen Hintergrund von zellulären Interaktionen, die in den arteriosklerotischen Prozeß involviert sind, zu untersuchen. Eine signifikant höhere Mutationsrate (P=0,039) wurde bei 41 Patienten mit 40 Jahren oder jünger mit einer angiographisch nachgewiesenen schweren koronaren Arteriosklerose, im Vergleich zu 51 Patienten zwischen 40 und 50 Jahren, gefunden. Assoziationsanalysen zum Vergleich der Häufigkeiten des DNA-Polymorphismus in Abhängigkeit von den Risikofaktoren (männliches Geschlecht, Myokardinfarkt in der Eigenanamnese, positive Familienanamnese, Zigarettenrauchen, Hyperlipidämie (Hypercholesterinämie, Hypertriglyzeridämie), niedriges HDL-Cholesterin, Diabetes mellitus, Adipositas und arterielle Hypertonie) zeigten nur für die Hypertriglyzeridämie und die positive Familienanamnese eine statistisch signifikante Assoziation. Diese Daten lassen den Schluß zu, daß der DNA-Polymorphismus des endothelialen leukozytären Adhäsionsmoleküls-1 mit einer frühzeitigen schweren koronaren Arteriosklerose assoziiert ist. Der gefundene Polymorphismus ist ein zusätzlicher Risikofaktor bei einer positiven Familienanmnese. / Coronary heart disease is the major cause of death in the world. Prevention of atherosclerosis and its clinical manifestations such as coronary heart disease are fundamental goals. To contribute to the analysis of the genetic background of atherosclerosis especially endothelial dysfunction we searched for DNA polymorphisms in the endothelial-leukocyte adhesion molecule-1 (ELAM-1,E-selectin). A significantly higher mutation frequency (P=0,039) was observed in 41 patients aged 40 years or less with angiographically proven severe coronary atherosclerosis compared with 51 patients aged between 40 and 50 years. Association studies with risk factors for coronary heart disease (male sex, myocardial infarction, positive family history, cigarette smoking, hyperlipidaemia (hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia), low HDL cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, obesity and hypertension) showed associations only for hypertriglyceridaemia and a positive family history. These data suggest that the polymorphisms in the ELAM-1 are associated with a higher risk for premature severe coronary atherosclerosis. DNA polymorphism in the ELAM-1 gene is an additional coronary risk factor if a positive family history exists.

This study demonstrates, through the detailed examination of a specific example of written Old English, that a very large proportion of the general vocabulary of Old English survives in some form in Late Modern English. The "Finnsburg Fragment" is parsed and translated and its lexicon glossed. After a brief discussion of several special semantic categories and the traditional categories of semantic change, the study enlarges upon the historical setting which influenced the loss, retention, shift, or stability of these two hundred Old English words. Appendices group the lexicon by parts of speech as well as by semantic history.

Scholarship of the anonymous Old English prose Life of St. Mary of Egypt ranges from source studies and linguistic analyses to explorations of Anglo-Saxon female sexuality and comparisons to saints' lives translated by the monk Ælfric, but all of these studies have been based on either the text extant in BL MS Cotton Julius E. vii or on W. W. Skeat's edition of the Julius manuscript, Ælfric's Lives of Saints (1881-1900). There is, however, an as yet unedited fragmentary copy of the Old English Mary of Egypt in BL MS Cotton Otho B. x, a manuscript severely damaged by fire in 1731. Digital imaging of damaged manuscripts in concert with ultraviolet fluorescence and other special lighting techniques has been shown to be effective for restoring the legibility of previously inaccessible texts. By means of such digital facsimiles I have transcribed the text of Mary of Egypt in Otho B. x, have collated this text with Skeat's edition, and have discovered that Otho B. x contains textual evidence not found in Julius E. vii. In this thesis, I present my findings and discuss the significance of this new textual evidence for the Old English Life of St. Mary of Egypt.

In the fifth century, after the departure of the Romans, according to tradition, which is based on the ancient written sources, Britain was invaded by the Angles and Saxons. This view has been questioned in the last century. The size of the ‘invasion’, and indeed its very existence, have come into doubt. However, this doubting school of thought does not seem to take into account all of the evidence. An interdisciplinary, nuanced approach has been taken in this thesis. Firstly, the question of Germanic raiding has been examined, with reference to the Saxon Shore defences. It is argued that these defences, in their geographical context, point to the likelihood of raiding. Then the written sources have been re-examined, as well as physical artefacts. In addition to geography, literature and archaeology (the disciplines which are most commonly used when the coming of the Angles and Saxons is investigated), linguistic and genetic data have been examined. The fields of linguistics and genetics, which have not often both been taken into consideration with previous approaches, add a number of valuable insights. This nuanced approach yields a picture of events that rules out the ‘traditional view’ in some ways, such as the idea that the Saxons exterminated the Britons altogether, but corroborates it in other ways. There was an invasion of a kind (of Angles – not Saxons), who came in comparatively small numbers, but found in Britain a society already mixed and comprising Celtic and Germanic-speaking peoples: a society implied by Caesar and Tacitus and corroborated by linguistic and genetic data.

This master thesis is a contribution to the knowledge concerning settlement structures and appearances of villages in the eastern hinterland of medieval Prague. The work focuses on the microregion situated in the basin of the Rokytka stream. Based on archaeological and written sources, contemporary settlement network is reconstructed, inclusive of its transformations taking place between the 12th and 16th centuries. The core section of the thesis includes processes and interpretation of the results revealed during the rescue archaeological excavation in the territory of the deserted medieval village Babice. Considering the microregion within its wider context of Prague hinterland allows evaluating its economic potential and its relation to the High Middle Ages city.

In this paper I will examine the sources for the tradition of the address of the soul to the body or the dialogue between, the two. I will consider the Old and Middle English poetic expressions of the body-and-soul legend in terms of the criticism of the ten poems which specifically belong to that tradition and the elements which constitute that genre. I will also deal with those poems written at the same time which exhibit one or more of those elements, with the body-and-soul tradition in English morality plays, with the Ars Moriendi, and with the Dance of Death. I will demonstrate that a shift occurs in the consideration of death from a concern for the soul to a preoccupation with the grotesque and gruesome aspects of death. The address and dialogue forms fall into disuse as a vehicle for theological argument concerning the responsibility for sin, and the view of death reflected by the popular pictorial representations of the Dance of Death becomes prominent.

The purposes of this study were to formulate a definition of the "bob-wheel" stanza in which a number of Middle English and Middle Scots poems were written, to inventory and describe these works, with special attention to the structure of individual stanzas, to identify the genres, the periods, and the dialects in which they were written, and to trace their origin and development between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The dissertation includes a general introduction of the topic, chapters on the influence of Latin and Romance stanzaic structure, a chronological survey of the bob-wheel poems, and a conclusion in which theories concerning the origins, development, and decline of the form are discussed.

Im vorgelegten Materialband wird illustriert, wie im Rahmen der ethnografischen Erforschung der Praxis des Ganztagsangebotes von Grundschule und Hort mittels der Technik \"Ablaufgrafik\" Informationen zum zeitlichen und territorialen Ablauf des Ganztagsprogrammes dokumentiert und in der Begegnung mit Feldakteuren reflektiert werden konnten.

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.