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This PhD thesis presents an investigation of animal visual culture in the Middle Ages. The term animal visual culture is most simply defined (and intended to be understood as), visual material culture which demonstrates animal/creature-related images or material which becomes circulated in animal/creature forms. The thesis uses an archaeological approach to investigate visualisations of animals (as opposed to a purely zoo-archaeological, historical or art historical approach). Three main types of visual material culture were researched for the representation of animals: stained and painted glass, misericord carvings and portable material culture. The representation of animals in each data source was investigated to explore the extent to which species, chronological, and either geographical or artefact patterns could be established within a 500 year period of the Middle Ages. A number of species, chronological, and either geographical or artefact patterns could be established.It was concluded that the patterns of representations were linked to the ideas various organisations and individuals had about animals or wanted others to have about animals. Animal visual culture is a manifestation of medieval life and faith. It challenges our modern day understanding of the complex medieval issues influencing the creation and intended function of animal images in society.

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This thesis on Heinrich Wolfflin (1864-1945) is a problematisation and, essentially, a revision of the interpretation of his personal discourse: the theories, themes and implications of three of his texts. This re-evaluation is a historiographical analysis in connection with the unpublished material in the Wolfflin archives, which establishes Wolfflin's concern for the subject in terms of an anthropological Kulturgeschichte. The subjectdriven terminology of the texts indicates an aesthetics of perception and reception. Wolfflin's thinking is analysed with regards to his methodological practices (formal analysis and comparison of two images) and academic scholarship (focusing mostly on Renaissance and Baroque studies). His texts are an exemplification and evidence for the theoretical conception of the historical categories (in a philosophical and epistemological sense) of bodiliness (Karperlichkeit, Karperhaftigkeit) and visuality (Sichtbarkeit, Anschauung) within the cultural transition between the fields of historicism and modernity/modernism. Through the impact of photographic reproductions he demarcated an analytical typology of architectural form and spatial effects, and of modes of depiction (of artists, sculptors or arqhitects) and categories of beholding (of the viewer), with emphasis on the underlying and ontological connection between each of the two domains, that is, bodiliness in the Prolegomena and Renaissance and Baroque, and visuality in the Principles of Art History. The fundamental and problematic interweaving of issues of theory and history characterises Wolfflin's theories throughout his life and in this his discourse is symptomatic for the emergent discipline of art history. The construction of the Wolfflinian field is set up in relation to the conditions of the intellectual context of the discipline, as extrapolation of aesthetics, philosophy, psychology, epistemology, systemisation, Wissenschaftlichkeit and history-writing. The identification and unfolding of multiple intentions, ambiguities and problems are crucial aspects of this interpretation of Wolfflin's theory of art history in theoretical and practical terms.

Notwithstanding nearly four decades of debate on the history of childhood, medieval infantia - especially early infancy - remains probably the least-known period of life. Medieval art may seem to present the infant merely as a swaddled cocoon, an image often misinterpreted. High infant mortality rates in the past - although accurate demographic data for the Middle Ages are lacking - have persuaded some scholars that parents regarded infants as potentially short-lived creatures whose demise was met with resignation or even indifference. However, this dissertation provides a more nuanced imagery of early infancy in medieval culture. Contemporary authors were interested in infants not just from a medical or moralistic view-point, but also as an innocent being whose death could be truly tragic. The biblical story of the Massacre of the Innocents inspired artists, authors and playwrights alike, not simply as one episode from Christ's infancy but as a horrifying drama of great emotional impact. When the danse macabre emerged as a literary and visual theme, it included the young infans amongst Death's archetypal victims. Such an attitude to infants presupposes that their mortality was regarded not with indifference but rather as profoundly moving. Yet there was also an ambivalent attitude towards the infant, who was considered weak and immature as well as innocent. In fact, the age of heavenly perfection to be adopted by all mankind at the Resurrection was generally believed to be that of the adult Christ. Nonetheless, the introduction of a limbo puerorum suggests not only a desire for a more merciful fate for unbaptized infants but also that they were envisaged as children, not as would-be adults. All this material, derived from a wide range of primary and secondary sources, cumulatively suggests that medieval attitudes towards infant mortality were more complex, subtle, and emotional than modern scholars have frequently suggested.

In this thesis church space is examined as a product of the material and conceptual interactions between architecture, painting, symbolism and the faithful. In order to study the conditions and factors that shape church space, I undertake a case study that examines the space of the Chora, a Byzantine monastery situated in Istanbul, Turkey, as a product of the intersection between art, symbolism, and the faithful. The parekklesion of the Chora (1316-1321) is explored within the context of its architectural and iconographic design, its symbolic function, and in relation to the way that the faithful experienced their presence within it. In addressing issues related to the experience of church space by the faithful, I problematise a reading of space as γίγνεσθαι – a realm of becoming – and engage with questions that address the involvement of the body – material and conceptual – in the process of producing space and meaning. The concept of church space as an interactional realm of becoming is understood as closely linked to a perception of church as a space in between that unites the human and the divine in a ‘heaven on earth’ and facilitates communication between them. In addressing the complexity of experiencing church space, this study challenges views of space as an empty medium and attempts to establish links between church space as an intermediate domain of becoming and the philosophical concept of chora.

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