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This thesis addresses the problem of the challenges posed to the role and status of the revealed Christian religion and theology in people’s lives and world-views in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and expressed by thinkers of the period in western Europe. Although these challenges have been long regarded by historians within the general notion of ‘secularisation’, this was not the case for the period in question. That religion was inescapable for the period in question is indisputable; therefore, what did, in fact, characterise the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was a growing uneasiness, a questioning of the role of religion, a fluidity of the boundaries between sacred and profane and a continuous redefinition of fundamental concepts. In view of that, in place of terms ‘secularism’ and ‘secularisation’ this thesis prefers to talk about the distancing between the temporal and the divine spheres. The focus of this dissertation is on some aspects of this vast question. This thesis examines four case studies from four different areas of what now constitutes western Europe. It looks at the writings of four very influential thinkers of the period c.1580 - c.1620: Pierre Charron, a French theologian (1541-1603); the work of Justus Lipsius, a Flemish scholar (1547-1606); the work of Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian friar and advisor to the Venetian Republic (1552-1623); and lastly, the work of King James VI of Scotland and I of England (1566-1625). All four authors grappled in their works with the question of the status of religion as a defining factor in the way people conceived of the Church, the state, politics in general, truth and ethics, sacred and profane - ideas about divine and temporal morality and their relation; the distinction between public and private; separation of ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction; the distinction between an internalised notion of religion and an external; theory and practice; and finally the relation and compatibility (or not) of religion with politics; religion and philosophy; and politics and morality. What makes these contemplatives additionally interesting is that they were regarded as ambivalent in their religious convictions. In this respect, this thesis is essentially an exploration in the world of ideas and shared assumptions (mentalities), addressing questions regarding the ‘limits of the thinkable’ and the ways in which people of the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century understood the world around them and its structures. Alongside this main issue, the dissertation is also interested in questions pertaining to the implantation and circulation of ideas, and appropriations of intellectual themes, while also addressing some aspect of the complex relationship between theory and practice.

The Observant Franciscan Order was, with the exception of the Carthusians and their single house established at Perth by James I in 1429, the last religious order with late-medieval origins to found houses in Scotland before the Reformation. Most likely invited to come to Scotland in the 1450s by Mary of Gueldres, the Dutch wife of James II of Scotland, they were to found nine houses by the first decade of the sixteenth century. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, the Observants in Scotland never supplanted their Conventual brethren. In addition there is little evidence that the two branches of the Franciscan Order in Scotland were in competition with each other: there were no attempts by their respective Scottish patrons to reform any of the existing Conventual houses to the Observance. The Observants settled in Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Ayr, Elgin, Stirling, Perth and Jedburgh, which put them in six royal burghs, two important ecclesiastical burghs as well as all three of the Scottish pre-Reformation University centres. With the exception of Glasgow and Ayr they were all east coast burghs or on the east-facing river systems, most of which had well-established trade links with the Low Countries, Flanders and Northern Germany. It has always been assumed that the Observants occupied an influential role at court but this influence appears to be tied to certain locations. An investigation into patterns of royal patronage suggests it was most prominent in those royal burghs where the Observant house had most likely been a royal foundation. Overall, the thesis aims to shed some light on the role played by the Observants in later-medieval Scotland; how they were perceived by their contemporaries; and what actual influence they had both at court and within the burgh community. In so doing, it also aims to dispel some of the myths that surround them: myths very often based on conjecture due to a dearth of primary sources, which often put the Observants in a better light than they might have deserved.

This thesis considers the drive to commemorate within Ulster Protestantism. It focuses on Londonderry between 1859 and 1886 with particular attention paid to the role of evangelicalism, prominent during the relevant period. The assessment is made against the historic backdrop of the Ulster Revival (1859), disestablishment of the Church of Ireland (1869) and the threat of home rule (1880s). In order to gauge more accurately the contribution of religion, a multidisciplinary approach was adopted. Insights from anthropology, political science and sociology were used to complement the primary historical approach to the subject. The subject is approached from two angles, focussing initially on a historical and biographical study of William Johnston (1829-1902), a representative figure who illustrates wider trends and linkages in Ulster's political world and secondly on the city of Londonderry and its anniversary commemorations, and on the important intersection between the two. The discourse from the sermons preached at the 12 August and 18 December commemorations, organised by the Apprentice Boys of Londonderry Association, were analysed using Ninian Smart's Dimensions of the Sacred as an analytical tool and were compared to the discourse in the secular events. This helped to ii clarify the nature of the outlook held by the protagonists and establish the extent to which it had a religious framework. The catalytic role of evangelicalism seemed evident as the synthesis between Loyalism, Orangeism and evangelicalism was explored against political chronology and in relation to covenantalism. A change in direction and a new political agenda with strong religious conviction became an aspect of Loyalism. This change was reflected in ritual that underwent significant development in the period. This was considered in relation to two important relevant scholarly concepts that related to identity, the 'invention of tradition' and 'civil religion'. The period between 1859 and 1885 proved pivotal in the development of Ulster Protestant cultural identity.

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The thesis provides a contemporary historical assessment of religious identity during periods of social change by studying in detail <i>l’Eglise Anglicane du Congo</i> (EAC) at the point where issues of migration and identity intersect. It argues that migration brings or hastens change by providing migrants with a new set of life experiences which, in dialogue with the old set of traditions and experiences, negotiate an altered identity. The research was largely based on quantitative data analysis from unstructured oral interviews gathered during fieldwork. The particular use of narratives and terms frequently mentioned by EAC members was studied to provide an understanding of the hydridity of corporate EAC identity and of the varying identities of different groups within the EAC. An historical background to the EAC, present on the Semeliki escarpment since 1896, is provided first. Its identity is understood as one which cohered with the values of order of ruling elite. Two patterns of post-independence migration are then analysed; migration to towns from the rural escarpment and migration from Uganda to Congo at the end of Idi Amin’s regime in 1979. During these migrations centralised ecclesiastical control was weakened, Anglicans established their church in new places, and they developed alternative versions of corporate identity by resisting and assimilating ideas and practices from their different circumstances. Rural-urban migrants tended to favour a conservative approach whilst trans-border migrants saw the EAC more as an institution offering development and freedom. In the 1980s and 1990s neighbouring denominations, Anglican revivalists, young women and youth all contributed to identity change by challenging the received EAC identity with contemporary, popular and pneumatological expressions of Christianity. Membership of the <i>Eglise Anglicane due Congo </i>(EAC) during migration and subsequent resettlement gave migrants a socio-religious framework that provided stability during change but also flexibility to respond to change and thus maintained unity within the EAC. The study of the spread of a church through migration, which this thesis has undertaken, presents a new way of looking at the question of popular identity within mainline denominations, and may well provide a valuable methodology for future studies.

The Jesuits, particularly Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), were the first enlightened missionaries who once in China discovered that the association of the God of the Bible with the old Chinese belief in the Lord of Heaven (Sangje) neatly conformed with the supplemental doctrine of the Deity they were reintroducing in the Middle Kingdom. Ricci’s idea of God revealed a profound and apodictic interpretation of the Deity. If on the one hand, it built on the old revered Chinese notions of religiousness, on the other hand, it had little to do with a metaphysical, compassionate concept of self-expenditure one could associate with the experience of love-pain, or <i>jeonghan.</i> Since the early 1970s, the Korean concept of <i>han</i> – the conventional meaning of which may be expressed in the English term resentment – has been the subject of theological discourse amongst Korean theologians who identify it with liberation theologies that have developed in Latin America and elsewhere. <i>Han</i> suggests a wide range of meanings and ‘pathologies’. Dominant amongst them in recent Korean Christian discourse is <i>wonhan</i>, which implies the bitterness of one who has been treated wrongly and who harbours resentment and hatred. While recognising that this is the traditional understanding of <i>han</i>, this thesis will fundamentally dwell on another dimension of meaning as conveyed in the term <i>jeonghan</i> which suggests a ‘pathetic’ – that is com-passionate, love-pain – rather that pathological dimension of meaning. The thesis chooses the term ‘com-passionate’ in recognition of the affinity of meaning between <i>jeonghan</i> and the Greek notion of <i>pathe</i> understood as self-expending affection, or in Cicero’s term <i>sensu amandi</i> which holds life suspended in ‘pathetic’ self-expenditure. This reflects the interpretation given by the Korean <i>seonbi</i> (scholar), Yi Byeok (1754-1786) whose main work provides the central focus of this study. The aim of the thesis is to invoke this more com-passionate and self-expending understanding of <i>han</i>. It will do so by examining the epistemological interaction between the Jesuit encounter with China’s religious traditions, with special reference to Matteo Ricci’s <i>True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven </i>(1603) and the Jesuit influence on a particular group of <i>seonbi</i> in Joseon (Korea) represented by Yi Ik, An Jeong-bok, Jeong Dasan and Yi Byeok. Against a background analysis of Joseon’s encounter with Ricci’s Western Learning (<i>Seohak</i>), the thesis includes an original translation of Yi Byeok’s main work, <i>Essence of Sage Teaching (Seonggyo yoji)</i>, together with the original Chinese version.

This thesis examines the history of body-soul debates in English, Anglo-Nonnan, Northern French and Gennan from c.1200-1500. Focusing uniquely on the question of contexts rather than origins for the debates, I summarise their roots in apocryphal and pre-Christian myth before turning to close readings of the debates themselves and detailed examinations of their manuscripts. I argue that the various adaptations of the Latin 'Visio Philiberti' should be seen not only within the context of each language's vernacular literature, but also as a reaction to doctrinal changes in Christian theology during the period in which they were written. I also look at how these adaptations reflect the transmission of the debates by the religious orders, and examine the evidence for my argument that each bodysoul debate constructs specific paradigms of body and soul's relationship, focusing in particular on the differences between the hostile debates in England and France on the one side, and the 'friendly' debates in Gennany on the other. Finally, I examine parallel developments in the regulation of vernacular devotional literature in England, France and Germany in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, using a case study ofBL MS Additional 37049 to argue that these developments are reflected in more repressive and authoritarian adaptations of body-soul debates. Siting this hypothesis within the context of recent discussions of 'vernacular theology', I argue that body-soul debates functioned as literature which sanctioned authoritarian attitudes to vernacular literature and society, while at the same time presenting the possibility of a dialogic response to repressive measures and destabilising the 'topoi' of obedience and subservience that they ostensibly support.

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