The period from c.718 to c.1000 oversaw the reconquest of a significant part of the Iberian Peninsula by the Kingdom of Asturias (718–910) and its successor in León (910–1037); the study of this process of Reconquista has in recent years focused on two broader social changes: the increasing exploitation of the peasantry, and the eclipse of public power. In the Introduction, I argue that it is necessary to integrate the study of peasant societies with analyses of royal and aristocratic power; reframing the subject in this way, we are able to appreciate the diversity of social experience which characterized both peasant and aristocratic life across the two case studies here examined, Southern Galicia, and the Liébana. I argue that the tenth century must be seen on its own terms, and without the benefit of hindsight, if we are to characterize it fairly. Chapter Two discusses the source material I have used in the elaboration of this thesis, highlighting its uses and problems from a critical perspective. In Chapter Three I show that fluid social structures allowed a family to rise to power from amongst the village inhabitants of the Liébana. Public officials such as counts were not able to impose themselves frequently upon this society. In Chapter Four, I show how a rich and aristocratic family of lay magnates, based in southern Galicia, were major political operators from the ninth century, but only came to exercise significant social influence amongst local society after the construction of the monastery of Celanova in 936. My Conclusion contextualizes these changes; it also argues that more nuanced and less schematic approaches to social relations demonstrate that peasants retained considerable autonomy in this period, and that factional politics influenced the stability of kingship far more than the supposed eclipse of public power.

This thesis seeks to understand the changing place of angels in the religious culture of Anglo-Saxon England between AD 700 and 1000. From images carved in stone to reports of prophetic apparitions, angels are a remarkably ubiquitous presence in the art, literature and theology of early medieval England. That very ubiquity has, however, meant that their significance in Anglo-Saxon thought has largely been overlooked, dismissed as a commonplace of fanciful monkish imaginations. But angels were always bound up with constantly evolving ideas about human nature, devotional practice and the workings of the world. By examining the changing ways that Anglo-Saxon Christians thought about the unseen beings which shared their world, it is possible to detect broader changes in religious thought and expression in one part of the early medieval West. The six chapters of this thesis each investigate a different strand from this complex of ideas. Chapters One and Two begin with Anglo-Saxon beliefs at their most theological and speculative, exploring ideas about the early history of the angels and the nature of their society – ideas which were used to express and promote changing ideals about religious practice in early England. Chapters Three and Four turn to the ways that angels were believed to interact more directly in earthly affairs, as guardians of the living and escorts of the dead, showing how even apparently traditional beliefs reveal changing ideas about intercession, moral achievement and the supernatural. Lastly, Chapters Five and Six investigate the complicated ways that these ideas informed two central aspects of Anglo-Saxon religion: the cult of saints, and devotional prayer. A final Conclusion considers the cumulative trajectory of these otherwise distinct aspects of Anglo-Saxon thought, and asks how we might best explain the changing importance of angels in early medieval England.

This thesis examines urban political conflict in the late Middle Ages (c. 1370-1440) in Europe’s most heavily urbanised regions, Italy and the Southern Low Countries. Conflicts have frequently been viewed in the context of an emerging state-controlled political order, and have been interpreted either as forms of disruptive disorder, or as affirmations of political processes shaped by states. This thesis suggests that urban conflict should be studied not in the context of a state-controlled political order, but within the political framework provided by the numerous semi-autonomous jurisdictional institutions inside and outside cities (such as guilds, parishes or contending outside powers). This pluralistic order of politics gave rise to a form of political order sui generis which expressed itself in two ways. According to a general logic of conflict (Part One), particular rationales for justifying conflict (Chapter One) and specific political practices ranging from concealed protest to urban warfare (Chapter Two) were embedded in this multi-faceted and shifting political framework. Action groups could be negotiated and renegotiated around the resources provided by the city’s multiple legitimating institutions (Chapter Three). At the same time, such political institutions were configured differently in different cities, and this also generated a particular logic which lay at the basis of different systems of conflict (Part Two). Levels of conflict could, in fact, vary greatly between Bologna and Liège (Chapter Four), Florence and Tournai (Chapter Five), and Lille and Verona (Chapter Six), where, on the basis of different underlying political institutions, diverse practices of conflict and forms of association prevailed. The pluralistic order of politics itself was, therefore, a form of political organisation which crystallised around conflict. It gave rise to a logic which put conflict at the centre of the political order of late medieval cities.

The assertion that the Mahābhārata (MBh) narrative is innately incapable of achieving a conclusion has attained the status of a disciplinary truism in the epic’s study. My thesis challenges this prevalent assumption by proposing an un-investigated path of inquiry into the philological, historical, literary and semantic aspects of the epic. The thesis discusses the ending of the MBh, the Svargārohaṇa parvan (SĀ) by exploring several trajectories: the study of the SĀ in epic scholarship; its reception in the later tradition in Sanskrit literature; and finally, the problematic aspects of the SĀ and its relation to the rest of the narrative. It first points out that in comparison to other MBh episodes, the SĀ has been received with significant disregard or suppression in the literature commenting on the epic. Second, it characterizes the nature of the suppression of the SĀ in each of the three literary strands commenting on the MBh (epic scholarship, Sanskrit adaptations and theoretical discourses). It argues that all of these considerations, which are external to the MBh, have tended, in various modes, to suppress, ignore or overlook the importance of the SĀ. The thesis then proceeds to argue that on the most significant and internal level of the text itself, the SĀ is intrinsically consistent with the rest of the MBh narrative, and that this makes it thematically integral to the text as a whole. This argument derives from the importance with which this study addresses the moment of the condemnation of dharma in the SĀ, and is furthered by a philological and semantic study, as well as textual analyses of the multiple occurrences of the Sanskrit verb garh throughout the MBh. The use of this verb by the epic protagonist, Yudhiṣṭhira, in condemning his father, Dharma, at the last scenes of the SĀ comprises a key moment that bears significant and myriad implications upon the understanding of this pivotal concept (dharma), to which the entire epic is devoted.

Pierre Hadot, dans Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? et dans Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, propose une relecture des textes fondateurs de la philosophie occidentale afin de démontrer qu’originellement, les philosophes de l’Antiquité avaient pour but non seulement d’élaborer une systématisation rationnelle du monde, mais également de modifier concrètement, grâce à certains exercices, leur manière de vivre. Aujourd’hui, cette conception de la philosophie n’est plus privilégiée : l’aspect intellectuel à pris le dessus sur l’aspect expérientiel, ce qui incite à considérer la philosophie avant tout comme un discours rationnel et objectif. Pour cette raison, la pensée métaphorique, imagée et poétique de Zhuangzi, ne peut pour certains être considérée comme véritablement philosophique puisqu’elle ne cherche pas à élaborer une conception systématique de la réalité. Elle propose plutôt des moyens de s’ouvrir à l’expérience, grâce à certaines pratiques concrètes, afin de devenir plus sage. Ce mémoire cherchera à réhabiliter l’aspect expérientiel de la philosophie privilégié notamment par les penseurs grecs de l’antiquité, afin de démontrer la valeur proprement philosophique de l’oeuvre de Zhuangzi. / Pierre Hadot, in Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? and Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, suggests a new interpretation of texts from ancient philosophers which show that originally, the goal of those philosophers was not only to elaborate a rational systematization of the world, but also to change concretely their way of life. Today, this conception of philosophy is no longer promoted: the intellectual aspect has overcome the experiential aspect, which results in the general conception that philosophy is mainly a rational and objective discourse. Thus, for some, the metaphorical and poetical writings of Zhuangzi cannot be considered truly philosophical because they do not search for a systematic conception of reality. They rather suggest approaches for new experiences of reality, made possible by certain exercises, and show how to gain more wisdom. This work will try to rehabilitate the experiential aspect of philosophy, in order to show the philosophical value of the Zhuangzi.

This thesis investigates the Roman idea of fortuna, by examining its representation in different media (coins, cults, philosophy, and literature) and the thought worlds which these media inhabited. Drawing chiefly on evidence from the late Republic and the first two centuries of the Empire, I examine the interactions between the meanings of fortuna and the contexts in which they occur, showing how fortuna was used to construct understandings of broader social processes. Chapter 1 charts how various groups and individuals appropriated the religious character of fortuna into discourses of power to promote their interests, from the first archaic cults through to Imperial fortunae. By propitiating fortuna, the founders and worshippers of these cults attempted to ‘tame’ fortuna by representing themselves or the groups to which they belonged as particularly favoured by this deity. Chapter 2 examines how literary authors used fortuna to talk about ideas of social status, luck, chance, and fate. How these authors chose to describe fortuna, or which powers they chose to ascribe to her, were choices frequently determined by the text’s relationship to the structures of Roman power. Chapter 3 examines the iconography of fortuna on Imperial coins, for which I used a statistical methodology to quantify her numismatic representation. This sets our understanding of the interconnections between numismatic iconography and cultural and political history on a firmer basis and allows us to analyse more precisely how fortuna was imagined in imperial ideology. I look at the periods in which fortuna was most often deployed and when her iconography and legends underwent the greatest changes, discussing the political and cultural contexts that motivated these uses. Chapter 4 addresses philosophical conceptions of fortuna. I look at what was peculiarly Roman about how Roman Stoics and Epicureans figured fortuna in their physics and ethics, focusing especially on the philosophical and cultural implications of their concern with fortuna.

La résolution des images a dû être modifiée afin de respecter les droits d'auteurs. Voir le tableau comprenant la liste des vases afin de trouver ces images en meilleure qualité. / La présente étude sert à rassembler tous les vases attiques à figure rouge présentant des scènes sexuellement explicites connues à ce jour. Un examen attentif de ces sources permit de les décrire ainsi que de les comparer afin d'en faire ressortir les similitudes et les différences. Ces vases, étrangement, proviennent majoritairement d'Étrurie, ce qui surprend lorsqu'on sait qu'ils ont été fabriqués en Grèce. Grâce à l'étude du commerce à cette époque, on constate que ces vases n'occupaient pas une grande place dans les relations commerciales entre Grecs et Étrusques. De plus, ces derniers les utilisaient dans un contexte funéraire, ce qui diffère grandement des Grecs. En effet, ces derniers semblent avoir utilisé ces vases dans un contexte où le vin était central, le symposion. Bien que ce genre de banquet était une activité généralement domestique, on se rend compte, à la lumière de découvertes archéologiques, que les vases sexuellement explicites auraient pu être utilisés dans un contexte lié à la prostitution, les bordels. Ceci nous amène donc à nous questionner quant au statut des femmes qui y sont représentées. Finalement, l'étude des sources littéraires, de peu contemporaines aux vases à l'étude, nous renseigne, en partie, sur les opinions quant aux différentes pratiques sexuelles de l'époque. Au final, bien que des pistes théoriques intéressantes se dégagent de l'étude de ces vases, il reste que des conclusions sûres et hors de tout doute sont impossibles étant donné le manque de source. Ces vases présentent donc un portrait à mi-chemin entre la réalité et le symbolisme de la sexualité en Grèce antique. / This study serves to collect all the red-figure Attic vases with sexually explicit scenes known to date. A close examination of these sources made it possible to describe and compare them to bring out the similarities and differences. These vases, strangely, come mainly from Etruria, which is surprising when we know that they were made in Greece. Through the study of trade at that time, we see that these vases did not occupy an important place in the trade relations between Greeks and Etruscans. In addition, they used them in a funerary context, which differs greatly from the Greeks. Indeed, they appear to have used the vases in a context where the wine was central, the symposion. Although this kind of banquet was generally a domestic activity, we realize, in light of archaeological discoveries, that sexually explicit vases could have been used in a context related to prostitution, brothels. This leads us to question the status of the women that are represented. Finally, literary sources that are contemporary of the studied vases, tells us, in part, on different views on the sexual practices of the time. Finally, although interesting theoretical tracks emerge from the study of these vases, it remains that firm conclusions are impossible given the lack of source. These vases therefore gives us a portrait halfway between reality and symbolism of sexuality in ancient Greece.

- 5 - Abstract: The diploma thesis "Coronation of Byzantine Emperors in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages" deals with gradual changes of the ceremonies associated with the imperial accessions. Using narative, legal, artistic and numismatic evidence, it attempts to identify crucial components of each coronation ceremony, analyses gradual transformation these components underwent and points out new developments that helped each emperor to estabilish his right to the throne. The thesis also deal with the imperial insignia used both during coronation ceremonies and during other court rites.

This dissertation is focused on a comparison of the ancient theme in children's literature during the second half of the 19th century until 1945. The theoretical part focuses on the comparison and evaluation of the religious, political and cultural situation in the Czech lands, whose background was created children's literature with themes from antiquity. The practical part deals with the comparison of the most important works of Czech and Slovak authors, who were devoted to children's literature with themes from antiquity within the range. KEYWORDS: Antiquity , literature , youth , children , comparison, religion , politics, culture

Pas de résumé français / Pas de résumé anglais