This thesis is the first large-scale study of the mission of the Anglo-Saxon Saint Boniface to Hessia, a region in the centre of modern Germany, between 721 and 754. The aim of the study is to explore in more detail than has so far been achieved three aspects of the Bonifatian mission in Hessia: first, his fonnative years in Wessex and the political context of Hessia before his arrival; second, the ways in which the Anglo-Saxon missionaries represented certain aspects of mission in their literary discourse with Insular and Roman contacts; third, the specific challenges of the mission and the methods used by the missionaries to overcome them. The thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach that has not yet been attempted in Bonifatian studies. The historical sources chiefly include the surviving letters of Boniface and his associates as well as the later vitae of Boniface and several other figures connected to his mission. The archaeological sources include furnished burials, fortifications, settlements and ceramics. These sources are brought together with the aid of a considerable amount of original toponymical and topographical research within Hessia itself. The thesis is divided into three parts. In Part I, after an introduction and historiography (chapter 1), the theoretical and methodological foundations of the thesis are established (chapter 2). In Part II, Boniface's early years in the West Saxon church (chapter 3) and the development of Frankish rule in Hessia between the early sixth century and the beginning of Boniface's mission (chapter 4) are contextualised more fully than previous studies have attempted. In chapter 3 several features of the church and kingdom of Wessex are identified that would fundamentally inform Boniface's approach in Hessia. In chapter 4 a new model for the development of Frankish influence in Hessia up to 721 is outlined, and its significance for the Bonifatian mission discussed. Part III focuses attention on the Bonifatian mission in Hessia. Chapter 5 offers a broad overview of the mission: important cronological matters are discussed and clarified and the progress and development of the mission between 721 and 754 is outlined. It is argued that Boniface made a concerted attempt to evangelise Saxony from 739 onwards, but that his efforts were thwarted by growing political instability 2 on the Hessian-Saxon borderlands and the opposition of elements of the Rhineland Frankish church to his mission. Chapters 6 and 7 explore two important aspects of the mission. First (chapter 6), the letters of Boniface and LuI are subjected to careful textual analysis. Second (chapter 7), several specific features of the Hessian mission are explored in more detail. In chapter 6 a distinction is identified in the nature of the literary discourse between the missionary community and papal Rome on the one hand, and the missionary community and the Insular Anglo-Saxon church on the other. The argument is made that the literary representation of the mission in letters between Anglo-Saxons, in contrast to letters between Anglo-Saxons and Rome, reflected a distinctive conceptualisation of continental mission that combined emotive themes of peregrillatio, suffering and the concept of Germallia as an ancestral homeland that had been ensnared by Satan. In chapter 7 the Bonifatian mission In Hessia is examined from several viewpoints. Using topographical and toponymical evidence, an original argument is put forward for the existence of numerous pagan cult sites within Hessia that together constituted part of a pre-Christian 'sacred landscape'. This is followed by an examination of the earliest ecclesiatical foundations of Hessia. New observations and arguments are proposed concerning the development of Hessia's early ecclesiastical landscape during Boniface's mission, and this landscape is then discussed in relation to the 'pagan' landscape which it was intended to supplant. This is followed by a detailed discussion of Boniface's attempts to gain material support for his mission through his dealings with the Frankish clerical and lay elites, with a special emphasis, using original charter-based research, on his relationship with the local secular elites of Hessia. Finally, the ways in which Boniface evangelised and instructed the population of Hessia and attempted to maintain control of his mission territories are examined. By taking a broad, contextualising, interdisciplinary approach, this study illuminates the ways in which Boniface, strongly influenced by the structure of the West Saxon church, made practical attempts to establish a coherent ecclesiastical network in a politically volatile region where pagan customs and identity were deeply inscribed in the landscape. Through the textual analysis of the letters, the dissertation also presents the argument that the conceptualisation of mission as an inherently painful peregrinatio encouraged Boniface and his fellow missionaries, despite circumstances of extreme adversity in Boniface's final years, not to abandon their largely thwarted evangelisation of the Hessian-Saxon borderlands. In doing so, the study offers invaluable new perspectives on and insights into the Bonifatian mission in Hessia. The second volume of the thesis contains: three appendices giving the results of the textual analysis of the letters of Boniface and Lul discussed in chapter 6; two appendices listing the grantors of property to Hersfeld and Fulda referred to in the discussion of charter evidence in chapter 7; and all figures and plates referred to in the first volume.

Studies of England during the Reformation period have been broad-ranging and often controversial. Ever changing perspectives and altering interpretations of the archival materials, alongside a lasting interest in the process of religious change make this a topic of enduring interest. For Yorkshire, first studied by Dickens some 70 years ago, recent approaches have opened the way for a return to the ecclesiastical archives and have created a need for their re-interpretation in the light of work by historians such as Shagan and Hoyle. This thesis examines religious change in Reformation Yorkshire in the context of regional culture and .resistance. The extent to which these three issues were intertwined influenced the ways in which Yorkshire towns, villages and parishes received religious change, the ways in which they resisted it, and the ways in which elements of reform became adopted as part of evolving local cultures. The county witnessed extremes of belief on both sides of the confessional divide, from early engagement at Hull to continued conservatism at Whitby, whilst the majority of the population continued to attend church and conform to the religion they were offered. Resistance to change ranged from open rebellion to sullen acquiescence, and included more subtle and underground forms of opposition. As religious change became more embedded in societies it is possible to see its influence in even the most traditional forms ofregional culture. Drawing on the extensive. ecc.lesiastical archives for the Diocese, and taking Dickens' interpretations as a starting point, this thesis demonstrates the complexity and diversity of the process of religious change in a region traditionally perceived to be isolated, backward and Catholic, and through local examples emphasises the continued importance of regional studies to a fuller understanding of the interaction of change, culture and resistance in early modern English religion.

The thesis is a detailed study of the debates of the Italian Constituent Assembly on the question of the inclusion of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 and the constitutional and practical ramifications of the broader issues of religious freedom in general, and the religious minorities in particular. Section A briefly outlines the changes in the role of the papacy from the mid 19^th century until the end of World War II, the emergence of political Catholicism and the significance of the Lateran Pacts. Religious freedom for Protestants over the same period is then discussed, focussing in particular on their legal position. This is followed by an analysis of Catholic religious freedom as established by the Catholic Church and of the relationship between the Vatican and the Christian Democrats. In Section B the debates on the articles dealing with the inclusion of the Lateran Pacts and religious freedom for the minority religions are discussed. Draft article 5 of the constitution is the basis for the analysis, the individual clauses of which have been treated separately. Methodologically, this was the most appropriate way of tackling the extremely complex issues linked to the various clauses. In Section C, the most significant conclusions to emerge are the determination with which the Catholic deputies fought for the inclusion of the Pacts, frequently using religious arguments while ignoring juridical advice, and the communist leadership’s decision to vote with the Christian Democrats for inclusion of the Pacts. For the minority religions, the crucial factor in their continued oppression after the war, apart from the Communist’s decision, was the lack of will in the Assembly to draw up clear guidelines that would allow for changes in the Fascists legislature that controlled the actions of the minority religions, thus ensuring that their struggle for religious freedom would continue.

This dissertation will argue that at an early stage in ecclesiastical history, the tradition's founding and constituent principles were betrayed by a complicity with the prevailing politics of sovereignty. This has led to a recasting of divine transcendence in terms of sovereign power and a displacement of Christianity by Christendom, from which the Western church has not recovered. The thesis follows the contours of contemporary theologians who seek to explain a dislocation between faith and socio- political life in terms of a fall in early modernity, but proposes that the earlier compromise represents a more decisive and determinative fall. In order to trace the genealogy of this compromise, the dissertation will examine its various manifestations in four synchronic historical studies. These are the third/fourth century writings of Eusebius of Caesarea; the early thirteenth century careers of Pope Innocent III and Emperor Frederick Il; the late seventeenth-century latitudinarianism of William Ill, Gilbert Burnet and the associated founding of the Bank of England; and the contemporary expression of what Hardt and Negri have termed 'Empire' and the rise of the politics of biopower. Through this genealogy, the historical alignment of the Christian church with the mundane politics of sovereign power will be demonstrated. The contemporary significance of this alignment, it will be argued, is that the Christian church is robbed of any political emancipatory potential. The final section of the dissertation will gesture towards ways in which theology may recover such a potential. Drawing on an alternative theological configuration which will already have been intimated in the four studies, the final section will develop an innovative Christological configuration of kenosis or what is termed 'kenarchy.' This will provide a re-imagining of the divine distinct from its implication with imperial sovereignty which could allow theology to make a more effective contemporary political intervention.

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