Les historiens qui ont produit l'histoire du notariat français ont isolé cette institution du monde judiciaire médiéval, alors que dans la pratique, un lien étroit unissait le notaire et la justice. Ce lien est perceptible à Orléans grâce aux registres du notaire Pierre Christofle, qui pratiqua dans le deuxième quart du XVe siècle. Sa principale tâche était de donner un caractère authentique à tout acte que les justiciables jugeaient opportuns. Cette fonction d'authentification, le notaire Christofle la devait au prévôt, seigneur judiciaire de la ville d'Orléans. À titre de clerc de la prévôté, et afin de répondre aux différents besoins des justiciables, Pierre Christofle rédigea plusieurs minutes qui touchaient de prés le monde judiciaire. Ce notaire doit par conséquent être considéré comme un auxiliaire de la justice et non pas comme un simple intermédiaire entre la justice et les justiciables. En plus de la faculté d'authentifier, le prévôt détenait la faculté de juger, faculté dont il dut se départir au profit des juges. Certains historiens ont vu à tort cette attribution des fonctions du prévôt comme une division de la justice en deux juridictions, la première contentieuse, relevant des juges, et la deuxième gracieuse, relevant des notaires. Les accords de Pierre Christofle démontrent que ce notaire possédait les deux compétences; de plus, ces accords possédaient la même force probante et exécutoire que les jugements rendus par les juges, ce qui invalide la distinction historiographique entre les décisions rendues en justice et celles rendues par des pratiques infra judiciaires. Il faut plutôt voir les facultés de juger des juges et celles d'authentification des notaires comme des composantes complémentaires de ce que nous avons défini comme un appareil judiciaire médiéval. Cette conclusion renforce par conséquent le lien entre justice et notariat au Moyen Âge et rétablit le rôle et la place de Pierre Christofle au coeur du monde judiciaire orléanais.

Borrowing from standpoint and postmodern feminist epistemologies, this thesis proposes to deconstruct the concept "violent women" and challenge the traditional 'bad'/'mad'/'other' framework of understanding women who engage in violent behaviour. The concept decontextualizes differences between women who commit violence and the stereotypical framework hinders any alternative understanding of their individual cases. Using contextual constructionism and Best's (2001) criteria for identifying claims as a theoretical framework, a qualitative content analysis of Canadian newspaper articles between July 2004 and July 2006 explored the news media's representation of Karla Homolka when she was released from prison in July 2005. While the stereotypical concepts that this study sought to transcend (i.e. discussing Karla through the 'bad'/'mad'/'other' framework) emerged throughout the coverage, insights into how the media constructs "identities" that people come to "know"' also emerged. The media's representation of Homolka at the time of her release was concluded to be hyppereal; a simulated character named "Karla" that must Canadians are familiar with. Yet this character may or may not resemble the actual Karla who currently resides somewhere in Montreal.

This dissertation argues that edifying dialogue is an appropriate and satisfying component of historically critical biography. It has been a part of biography. The edifying and critical intent is traced through pre-modern biography to demonstrate that this was the case in the Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Early Christian and Medieval eras. Key authors examined include the author(s) of the Pentateuch, the Gospel writers and the authors of the Biblical epistles, Herodotus, Polybius, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, Athanasius, Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, and John Capgrave. It can be a part of biography even given the challenges of contemporary theory posed by the extreme positions of positivism and postmodernism (or their chastened re-formulations). Important authors discussed in this section include Arthur Marwick, Keith Jenkins, David Harlan and Peter Novick. It is a part of some biographies meant for a particular audience (such as feminist works). And hopefully it will be increasingly looked upon as the preferred way of writing biography. My dissertation follows these stages. I begin with what biography has been and argue that the Greek and Roman historians believed that the intent of biography was critical and edifying. In fact, critical and edifying intent is notable also in Biblical and medieval biographies. The next section argues that edifying discourse is compatible with both traditional and postmodern theories of history-writing. The third section of the dissertation moves from theoretical considerations to the work of two notable Christian historians, George Marsden and Harry Stout. I note that these two scholars in particular are, in theory, open to my argument but that they can hesitate to engage in edifying discourse in biography. Finally, I briefly examine a few authors who write edifying and critical biography. Toril Moi, Carolyn Heilbrun, and the Bollandists are discussed in this section. / Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Graduate

Of the four most diverse insect orders, the Lepidoptera contain remarkably few predatory and/or parasitic taxa, and while species with carnivorous life histories have evolved independently numerous times in moths and butterflies, this has rarely led to diversification. As a rule, aphytophagous taxa seem prone to extinction. In this dissertation, I explore the ecological and evolutionary consequences of entomophagy in the butterfly family Lycaenidae using several approaches: natural history observation, phylogenetics, population genetics and stable isotope chemistry. A striking exception to the lack of radiation and persistence in aphytophagous lineages is the lycaenid subfamily Miletinae, which with 13 genera and 190 species is among the largest and most diverse groups of aphytophagous Lepidoptera. Most miletines eat Hemiptera, although some consume ant brood or are fed by trophallaxis from their host ant. I inferred the higher-level phylogeny of this group using data from one mitochondrial and six nuclear genes sampled from representatives of all genera and nearly half the described species. Biogeographic analyses indicate that Miletinae likely diverged from an African ancestor near the start of the Eocene, and four lineages dispersed between Africa and Asia. Phylogenetic constraint in prey selection is apparent at two levels: related miletine species are more likely to feed on related Hemiptera and are also more likely to associate with closely related ants species, either directly by eating the ants, or indirectly by eating hemipteran prey attended by those ants. I then examined the influence of diet on the population structure of lycaenid butterflies, and more specifically, I investigated whether particular feeding habits are correlated with traits that might make species vulnerable to extinction. To do this, I compared the phylogeography and population genetics of two endemic lycaenid species of roughly similar age from southern Africa: Chrysoritis chrysaor, whose caterpillars are strictly herbivorous, and Thestor protumnus, whose cuckoo-like caterpillars survive by soliciting regurgitations from their host ants. I sampled both species from populations throughout their entire known ranges, and found that in contrast to C. chrysaor, T. protumnus has exceedingly small effective population sizes and individuals disperse poorly. With its aphytophagous life history, T. protumnus exhibits a high degree of host dependence and specialization. Although these results are correlative and based on only a single comparison, it seems likely that small population sizes and extreme ecological specialization make populations of T. protumnus more susceptible to disturbance and prone to extinction. Having focused in detail on the population biology of just one species, I then analysed the evolution of Thestor as a whole. This genus is exceptional because all of its 27 described species are thought to be entomophagous, and all are thought to be predators or parasites of a single species of ant, Anoplolepis custodiens. Using representatives sampled from all known species and populations of Thestor as well as 15 outgroup species, I inferred the phylogeny of the genus in two ways: first by using characters from mitochondrial and nuclear genes, and second by analyzing genome-wide SNPs generated for each species using double digest RADseq. I also sequenced the ants associated with each of these taxa using ddRADseq. This investigtion showed that all 24 of the species in the Western Cape utilize Anoplolepis custodiens, while T. protumnusand T. dryburghi (the two species that are found in the north-western part of South Africa) use a closely related, but different species of Anoplolepis, and T. basutus (the species found in the eastern part of South Africa) utilizes yet a third species. Thus factors driving diversity in the genus Thestor may have initially involved ant associations and/or geographic isolation, but other forces are likely to be responsible for generating and maintaining the more recent diversity in the group. Flight time may have separated the “black” and “yellow” groups of Thestor: the black group fly predominantly in the summer months, while the yellow group fly predominantly in the spring. And while species spread across the genus fly in the spring and summer months, only members of the yellow group fly during the winter and fall months. Despite these broad scale differences, species in the genus Thestor show little evidence of niche partitioning, especially those in the Western Cape, and represent an extreme example of the coexistence of 24 species apparently utilizing a single food resource. While working on the previous three projects, I was surprised by the number of species of South African Lycaenidae with incomplete life histories despite decades of work by avid lepidopterists in the region. For example, in the genus Thestor, although all 27 species are assumed to be aphytophagous, partial life histories have been described for only four species. In part the paucity of data is due to the difficult terrain occupied by these butterflies, and the fact that those whose caterpillars associate with ants often spend significant portions of their lives hidden in ant nests in crevices of rock that are intractable for excavation and observation. To deepen our understanding of South African lycaenid life histories, I used nitrogen and carbon stable isotopic methods to survey a large number of species and their potential food sources. With these methods, I confirmed some known or suspected life histories and showed that in any one area, a species can have a highly variable diet. I also discovered that some of the nitrogen stable isotope values are much higher than expected for land animals, implying longer than average food chains and/or extreme environmental conditions. Together, these studies shed light on how carnivorous life histories affect the evolution of lycaenid butterflies, and help to explain why entomophagous lineages appear to be an evolutionary “dead end” in contrast to their herbivorous counterparts. / Biology, Organismic and Evolutionary

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.