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Although the present revival of interest in the lute and its music began in the late nineteenth century, it was not until the early 1970s that the historical method of lute playing in the Renaissance are paintings, woodcuts, old lutes, and lute books.

Historians of science express widely divergent interpretations of the significance of the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) to the history of science. An examination of the history of science reveals two basic schools of thought about Bruno. Specifically, historians of science disagree on the reason for Bruno’s execution at the hands of the Roman Inquisition in 1600. One school of thought, the “martyr to science” interpretation, insists that Bruno died as the direct result of his advocacy of Copernicanism. The opposing school rejects this assessment and names a variety of unorthodox religious beliefs as the motivation for Bruno’s execution. These two positions, the “martyr to science” and the “anti-martyr to science” schools of thought, form the basis of two parallel interpretive schemes about early modern science that have coexisted in the history of science for nearly 150 years. In particular, the “martyr to science” school tends to view religion as innately hostile to science. Moreover, this school also emphasizes the discontinuities between medieval and modern science. In contrast, the “anti-martyr to science” school often rejects the existence of an inherent conflict between science and religion. The “anti-martyr to science” school also tends to highlight the continuities between medieval and modern science. / Master of Arts

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This thesis investigates the shifting representation of trash and trifles in the literature and art of sixteenth and early seventeenth century England. It connects previously disparate critical fields – religion, politics, national identity, travel, literary criticism – in order to offer new perspectives on the period. The investigation of the terms ‘trash' and ‘trifles' at the centre of this project reinstates a crucial literary perspective to the historical study of early modern England's crises in spiritual and material value, whilst retaining a keen awareness of the importance of interconnected historical contexts ranging from the mercantile to the spiritual and the cultural. I have traced the connected development of the terms trash and trifles across the period 1519-1614, and closely examined their use in response to various crises in value, whether spiritual or mercantile. How writers of polemic and drama develop a language in which to articulate such crises, and the ways in which that language necessarily combines elements of both the spiritual and the mercantile, is a central theme. Key elements of this development are marked by Queen Katherine Parr's invective about the mercantile corruption of spiritual treasure with material papal ‘tryfles'; Sir Thomas Smith's assertion of the spiritual immorality of material ‘trifles'; Thomas Harriot and John White's presentation of the mercantile and spiritual benefit of exporting trash and trifles to the New World; and in the staging of trash and trifles in a series of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century plays which, I argue, were in part designed to mount a defense against anti-theatrical allegations regarding the effeminate valuelessness of playing. This thesis illustrates how the deployment of the terms trash and trifles in early modern England can be productively used to trace the shaping of the Protestant English commonwealth as a destinct, secure and valuable entity in an unstable and increasingly global post-Reformation world.

The sixteenth-century Reformation in Germany is often viewed as having made a radical change by breaking with the thinking of the past and starting something new. One example given is the Reformation's perceived rejection of philosophy (that is, philosophy's method, subject matter, and purpose), although the regard for philosophy has often been assessed only on the basis of second-order data. Past research has looked at various individuals' keeping or breaking with the preceding era and at the question of continuity between individuals within the Reformation movement of the sixteenth century. This interdisciplinary study examines the regard for philosophy and both the keeping and breaking of the whole movement, by considering how philosophy is used in The Book of Concord, which contains Reformation documents from the earlier and later sixteenth-century that were widely accepted and given authoritative status. The specific Book of Concord uses of philosophy considered are second-order statements about philosophy and its cognates and about logic, as well as first-order uses of organization by [ancient Greek topoi] ("topics") or loci ("places") and of argumentation by both induction (namely, example and analogy) and deduction. The study's taking philosophical uses as indicators of regard for philosophy has been called for in previous research and is relatively unique. Another significant contribution of this study is a detailed treatment of syllogisms used in arguing, for example, for the Reformers' position that justification, or righteousness before God, is only on account of faith in Jesus Christ. The study also considers the Reformers' formal distinction between justification and sanctification, or holy living, as a case study for philosophy in service to theology as its handmaiden in a ministerial role. More than finding an inexplicable, eclectic use, the dissertation concludes that The Book of Concord where necessary rejects philosophy and logic but nevertheless at the same time makes use of them, except where the use of such methods contradicts or goes beyond the Reformers' understanding of God's revelation in the Bible. Such rejection but simultaneous use both keeps and breaks with the preceding medieval period and continuous within the Reformation movement of the sixteenth century.