The Thesis explores the Venetian Inquisition's handling of cases involving crypto-Jewish, crypto-Muslim practices and some cases where people had lapsed into Islamic ways, especially when in remoter parts of the Venetian empire or within the Ottoman empire and who sought reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Despite their differences, the offences involved the practice of dissimulation and connected with Venice's position as a transit city, since for most offenders, Venice was one among their various destinations in their peregrinations in the Mediterranean. The Thesis draws on the printed transcripts of cases involving Judaism, but also unpublished archival material in both the State archive, and the Patriarchal archive. The discussion, with close textual analysis focuses on the lengthy testimonies given before the Inquisition by a variety of people, who appeared as accusers and witnesses, and examines what they perceived as alleged crypto-Jewish and crypto-Muslim practices in the atmosphere of growing concern about religious deviance in late Renaissance Venice. It analyses the tribunal's approach to the accusations and offences, and changing patterns of practice, paying close attention to the Inquisitors' questioning strategies. As most offenders had undergone conversion, this Thesis analyses how they fashioned their identity in front of the Inquisitors who, on the basis of Church and State regulations, insisted on unambiguous religious identities. The Thesis delineates the convergences and divergences in the handling of these offences, and challenges some perceptions of power relations between accusers and accused. While following these investigations, much is revealed about communities in cosmopolitan Venice, their locations and inter-actions, and how Christian and non-Christians perceived, and mis-perceived, each other. Insights are also provided into movements of individuals - as for commercial or mercenary military purposes - in and between remoter parts of the Venetian empire and the Ottoman empire.

This thesis examines the effects that the religious changes heralded by the Counter Reformation and the decrees regarding religious imagery and the Eucharist promulgated at the Council of Trent had on the decoration of Venetian churches from the close of the Council in 1563 until the first years of the seventeenth century. Although politically Venice shielded her independence from the power of the Papacy, she nonetheless responded in conformity to the Tridentine decrees and played an important role throughout the Cinquecento as a centre for religious renewal. In turn this had an important impact on the fabric and decoration of the city’s churches, particularly in the last two decades of the Cinquecento. Focusing on four Venetian churches that were the objects of extensive decorative programmes during the late Cinquecento; San Giacomo dall’Orio, Santa Maria dell’Umiltà, the Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore, this thesis combines archival and visual evidence to reach a deeper understanding of how the decoration of the Venetian church changed in this period. The central tenet of this thesis is that Venice made an important and early contribution towards developing the ‘ideal’ visual response required by the Council of Trent. In the immediate aftermath of the Council of Trent until the end of the century Venice enjoyed a period of important artistic renewal and achievement. This ‘golden age’ emerged in the years following Trent and in a period characterised by ongoing war and ravaging pestilence. Yet far from discouraging creative genius, the contemporary religious and political upheaval appears to have challenged artists and patrons to ever greater achievements. It thus appears that the conditions imposed by the Council of Trent created a framework within which artists could better represent the values of the renewed Catholicism of the late sixteenth century.

This doctoral thesis examines the Arabic translation of Gregory Nazianzen’s Oration on Baptism (Oration 40) by a tenth-eleventh century Melkite translator and writer, Ibrāhīm ibn Yūḥannā al-Anṭākī. In particular, it focuses on the way al-Anṭākī presented Gregory’s theosis theology and investigates the extent to which he engaged with Islamic thought, primarily his borrowing of concepts and structures from Islamic debates such as the unity and the divine attributes of God and the perfection of the soul. This study asks to what extent this theology, which combines both the social and the spiritual aspects of human perfection, or the reception of Gregory helped the Antiochene Melkites develop a strong identity at a time when they were ruled by the Byzantine Empire but attached to the Islamicate culture they shared with their Muslim neighbours. The key conclusion of this thesis is that the Arabic translation of Oration 40 can be said to present a version of Gregory’s theosis theology which is enriched by the concepts and terms used by Christian and Muslim writers of the period. Although it cannot be said to represent a development in this theology but should be viewed as a creative retelling of it, al-Anṭākī’s erudition in the discussions of Christian Arabic theology and Islamic thought, as well as his references to these discussions in the words he used, makes this text particularly interesting. Theosis seems to have captured what he saw as essential for the good of his community: attachment to the Church or tradition, living the life that Christ lived in this world but with an emphasis on the public expression of the faith, perfection of the soul and the union with God here on earth and in the world to come.

St Nicholas was one of the most popular saints in medieval Italy. His cult attracted the attention of popes, kings and emperors, and his shrine at Bari became an important international pilgrimage destination. This thesis asks how the cult of St Nicholas came to be so widespread and popular in Italy, and why the saint attracted the attention of diverse groups and individuals. This thesis is structured around four chapters. The first demonstrates that through a process of Latinisation the cult of St Nicholas became integrated within Italian literary traditions and within a new spiritual era. Chapter Two reveals that this Latinisation also occurred within the saint’s iconography. Chapters Three and Four are case studies of the cult in Puglia and Venice, locations which claimed possession of the saint’s relics. These case studies show that the general developments that the cult of St Nicholas underwent in Italy, identified in Chapters One and Two, did not apply universally. Instead, the presence of the saint’s relics resulted in a different profile of the saint in Bari and Venice. Through the process of Latinisation, the cult of St Nicholas became updated and remained relevant for its new Italian audience; Chapters Three and Four show alternative ways that the cult of St Nicholas gained widespread popularity. This thesis presents for the first time an iconographical study of St Nicholas in Italian art, which develops existing research of the saint’s Byzantine iconography. Chapter Four presents a profile of the cult of St Nicholas in Venice in the Middle Ages, which is a significant oversight in the literature. The thesis uses a variety of visual and textual sources, in particular fresco and altarpiece representations, archival documents from Venice and Rome (including the Apostolic Visitations), and under-exploited contemporary and antiquarian Venetian sources.

The Italian iconography of the doctor saints Cosmas and Damian reflects fluctuations in the fortunes of the cult of those saints with significant variations in appearance and meaning being tied to changes in the position of the saints with respect to function, as miraculous healers, as representatives of professional doctors and as patrons of a powerful family. This study considers the development of the iconography of the doctor saints Cosmas and Damian in Italy, beginning with the emergence of images in the late antique period. These early representations are explored within the context of the historic and liturgical origins of the cult of SS. Cosmas and Damian with particular attention paid to the hagiography and more specfically the miracle stories which provide a significant amount of information about the role of images in a Christian healing cult. Evidence that sheds light on the early development of the iconography of the saints reflecting their position within the broader context of the establishment of Christian healers in direct opposition to their popular pagan counterparts. In the fourteenth century the appearance of SS. Cosmas and Damian was transformed mirroring the appearance of contemporary doctors, which in turn reflected the professionalisation of medicine and the role of the saints as patrons to members of that profession. This iconographic development is considered in the context of sources such as university statutes and civic sumptuary regulations that helped to shape the environment of increasing specialization that resulted in the necessity of a distinctive costume for qualified professionals. At the same time there remained continuity in the position SS. Cosmas and Damian inhabited in the popular imagination with images of the saints continuing to be associated with their traditional role as miraculous healers. Finally the large number of images commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence in the first half of the fifteenth century are examined. At this time the position of the saints, as intercessors for and protectors of the Medici family allowed them to appear in unfamiliar locations granting them a civic and political relevance not achieved before in the history of the cult. The clear identification of the saints with the family allowed them to act as a reminder of the family’s position in Florence and for a time the doctors were known as family patrons rather than solely as doctors and healers.

This thesis considers the character and development of clerical social criticism in England between c.1540 and c.1640. It draws principally on a number of sermons and treatises that offered critiques of the prevailing structures of wealth and power or exhortations to the fulfilment of charitable obligation. The paradigm through which these texts were constructed was that of ‘complaint’, a genre that was particularly vibrant in medieval discourse and in the sermons and ‘commonwealth’ tracts of the 1540s. It will be argued that rather than eschewing this tradition, late sixteenth-century preachers appropriated and refashioned its structures, themes and authorial positioning in response to far reaching economic, social and religious change. Particular aspects of socio-economic change, and of their effects on the clergy in particular, are examined in the introduction. Among the themes that are particularly germane to this thesis are the history of the enclosure movement; increasing commercialisation; and changing attitudes towards the poor. The first chapter assembles a number of printed texts in order to re-examine the trajectory of clerical complaint literature in the context of these developments. The second chapter considers the potential for social and political criticism in sermons preached at the county assizes, a sub-genre of ‘occasional’ sermons that until recently has received little attention from literary scholars or historians. The latter half of the thesis offers three case studies of selected sermons by three different authors. The intention of these chapters is primarily to examine the interaction between a text and its particular local context, although attention is also paid to broader social, political and discursive developments that help shed light on the historical meaning of these sermons. It is thus hoped that this study will contribute particularly to the ongoing interdisciplinary work of ‘contextualising’ the early modern English sermon and of reconstructing the role and status of the parish minister. Rather than a ‘voice in the wilderness’, it is concluded, the clerical moralist was an active agent in the discursive interpretation of economic change, and in the fashioning and communication of the reputation of powerful individuals.

Religious life in the later middle ages was increasingly dominated by the mendicant Orders, notably the Franciscans. Their dominance also extended to the artistic life of the day. The initial artistic campaigns of the Franciscans centred on the native province of the founder, most notably in the Upper and Lower churches of S. Francesco in Assisi. With the expansion of the Order and the death and canonization of the second Franciscan saint, Anthony of Padua, his adopted province, the Veneto, became an important centre for theological and artistic activity. The Basilica del Santo, built to enshrine the new saint's relics, rivalled the mother church at Assisi in both scale and lavishness of decoration. The fourteenth century in particular was marked by a succession of decorative programmes, a large part of which has survived. Soon the other Franciscan churches in the Veneto were similarly patronized. Unlike Umbria and Tuscany, areas where Franciscan churches are ridden with problems of dating and attribution, the Order' churches in the Veneto are probably the best documented of Italy. They provided a unique opportunity to set up a control of Franciscan patronage of the arts during the later middle ages. This thesis touches on all types of Franciscan patronage: conventual, and lay, communal and ecclesiastical. This research relied on a newly published Franciscan archive of over 27,000 documents, and is the first extensive survey of its kind for the Franciscan Order. It is hoped that this contribution has filled some gaps in our knowledge of artistic patronage. Firstly it has thrown light on the role played by the Order of friars minor in artistic projects, from the initial planning stages to the commissioning, execution and supervision of works. It has been shown that Franciscans were not always involved in artistic projects; at times they cooperated with individuals, or families, and at other times they played no part at all. Whether actively involved or more inactive, the friars were open to all sorts of artistic experiments, which means that the Franciscan church was an ideal environment for creativity.

This thesis makes available the writings of Mary Birkett Card, a Dublin Quaker, as collected by her son Nathaniel Card in 1834. It provides an annotated transcription of the manuscript collection, with textual and editorial notes, and an introduction recovering her life within her cultural community. The writings consist of a spiritual autobiography, 43 religious letters, other prose pieces and over 220 poems. Two poems were published in her lifetime: A Poem on the African Slave Trade (1792) and Lines to the Memory of our Late Esteemed and Justly Valued Friend Joseph Williams (1807). The introduction is in three parts. Part 1 offers a biographical outline and sets Mary Birkett Card's childhood poems in the context of the Quaker community in which she grew up. Part 2 explores her autobiography, questioning concepts of a separate female autobiographical tradition. It then investigates her encounter with 'deist' thought, and later conflicts, after her marriage. These concern money (seeking to reconcile the spiritual and material) and issues of language and gender (a desire for'a pure language', linked to constraints upon women's speech). Part 3 contrasts her 1790s verse with her later poems, and epistles, arguing that embedded within these works as a whole lies a struggle with her literary imagination. Throughout, the writings are set within the context of contemporary literary forms in poetry, Quaker writing and women's writing. They are considered in relation to now current critical debates - on public and private spheres, autobiography, abolitionist verse, women's intimate friendships, domesticity, philanthropy and sensibility. It is shown that Mary Birkett Card's literary creativity was intimately connected with her Quakerism, and, moreover, with attempts to negotiate an ideal of Quaker womanhood. One important aspect is the challenge her work poses to assumptions, still generally prevalent, about Quaker women's far greater autonomy within marriage in comparison to women in society at large.

Works of art often refer to one another. Perhaps a closer examination of this relationship occurs if they are theoretically displaced from the sequence of events that contextualise them. Placed side-by-side, they may take on a fresh meaning that might identify artistic intention as universal — as a 'redemptive' statement of Being. Both Piero della Francesca and Stanley Spencer painted 'Resurrection' pictures. The five hundred years that separate them notwithstanding, the reasons for their so doing must bear some comparison. Each made a statement of belief in their depiction of a metaphysical world created primarily in the imagination but housed in cultural milieus that would identify them as 'visionary' amongst their peers. Yet, in many ways, one picture is the antithesis to the other, the first deeply religious, the second highly personal. Regardless of their differences, each work might perpetually and simultaneously strive toward 'the spiritual' in an individual and universal sense. As an artist whose work ostensibly denies any lofty 'spiritual' aspiration whatsoever, Frank Zappa's dismissal of authority, whether couched in religious, musical or sociological terms, marks a valid juxtaposition to current acceptance of artistic form. Not only was it legitimate to invite a musician into the affray, for me it was a vital continuation of my earlier exploration. Zappa seriously challenges the notion of 'feeling' as little more than a pre-set conditioned response to music. I hoped to establish that Zappa's own quest for musical perfection flew in the face of his notorious cynicism, proclaiming his output as 'redemptive' — alongside that of Piero della Francesca and Stanley Spencer. It is the main contention here that as the human predicament requires that the artist should attempt to re-present his vision in order to redefine reality for himself and his peers, the role of artist as 'visionary' is worthy of perennial consideration.

This thesis challenges existing diocesan histories of Cork, Cloyne and Ross. Its local focus provides an invaluable opportunity to explore the successes and failures of the reformations in the region. The arguments are split into four chapters, which are divided between the upper and lower clerical orders, the secular and religious clergy, both before and during the eras of the Tudor reformations. The argument uses antiquarian sources, Irish annals and English state papers to narrate the formation of diocesan, parochial and monastic structures in the region. The quality of each is then assessed for both the late medieval and reformations periods, with direct reference to the effects of the peculiarities of Co. Cork’s religion upon the progress of reform. The thesis argues that the secular elites of Cork, Cloyne and Ross were intrinsically wedded to its church, involved heavily in the creation of the parish and monastic networks. Following the contraction of the crown polity in the medieval periods, local families took on increasing levels of influence. During the Tudor period, the crown sought to expand its power in the region. However, the agents of reform failed to engage with the Irish and Anglo-Norman elites. Instead, their work would be accomplished at the expense of the traditional political and religious structures. This failure was based in the pervasive economic and polical connections between the secular and religious elites of Co. Cork, but was reinforced by the particular weaknesses of the Anglican reformation strategy.