In this thesis I examine the debate surrounding Therapeutic Touch, a controversial energetic healing modality being practiced by registered nurses in biomedical institutions across North America. The debate surrounding the therapy takes place within medical journals, popular media articles, and on the internet. Within the debate, definitions of illness etiology, appropriate treatment, patient management, and alternative therapy use are contested by Therapeutic Touch proponents and critics. Through discursive analysis, interviews with local participants in the debate, and participant observation within the TT community, I present an analysis of the issues being contested and of the discursive strategies used by proponents and critics within the debate. The debate is contextualized in two ways: first, as an instance of medical heresy, in which an alternative healing group arises within the orthodox medical community and struggles to maintain itself within biomedical discourse and institutions; second, I contextualize the debate as an example of the wider trend towards integrative medicine in North America. Integrative medicine sees alternative therapies being increasingly used within health care delivery systems, either by alternative practitioners, or by biomedical practitioners who have co-opted alternative techniques. I argue that Therapeutic Touch proponents have utilized several discursive strategies in presenting and arguing for their alternative healing model. These strategies surround the issues of professional legitimacy, scientific validity, and TT’s perception as religious or spiritual. Therapeutic Touch proponents manage their discourse by conforming it to orthodox biomedical discourse and by pursuing a strategy of professionalization. Through this management process, they have been able to maintain a marginal presence within biomedicine. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis explores the literary topos in which heresy is defined in terms of disease, focusing particular attention on the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118). By examining the portrayals of two heretics – the philosopher Ioannes Italos and the dualist Bogomil heresiarch Basileios – in a body of interrelated source material, conclusions are drawn related to the contemporary thought-world, which influenced the authors, their works and their understanding of the heterodox threat. This, in turn, is used to gain insight into the contemporary dynamics of imperial propaganda and power. There are four main chapters, the first of which discusses the methodological approach adopted throughout this study. This section treats various questions related to the problems inherent in heresy scholarship, such as the ever-changing definition of ‘heresy' and the use of source material that is fundamentally antagonistic towards the heretical subject. The second chapter traces the transmission of the focal topos, ‘heresy as disease', within heresiology from its origins in the fourth-century Panarion of the bishop Epiphanios of Salamis up to the twelfth century, where it is found used prevalently by the court of Alexios I. Chapter three then offers a detailed analysis of the primary sources that are employed in the case studies of Italos and Basileios: Anna Komnene's Alexias, Euthymios Zygabenos's Panoplia Dogmatike, the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and trial proceedings preserved from the synodal examination of Italos. The final chapter explores the surviving presentations of both men – their depictions as ‘outsiders' and the specific association developed between their teachings and disease – within the context of the newly emerging and insecure Komnenian dynasty. ‘Heresy as disease' is found to transmit an ideological framework, allowing Alexios to reinforce his unstable position by capitalising on the image of the great Orthodox doctor, providing a cure for the common soul.

This dissertation re-examines trials for heresy in England from 1382, which saw the first major action directed at the Wycliffite heresy in Oxford, and the early Reformation period, with an emphasis on abjurations, the oaths renouncing heretical beliefs that suspects were required to swear after their interrogations were concluded. It draws a direct link between the customs that developed around the ceremony of abjuration and the exceptionally low rate of execution for “relapsed” and “obstinate” heretics in England, compared to other major European anti-heresy campaigns of the period. Several cases are analyzed in which heretics who should have been executed, according to the letter and intention of canon law on the subject, were permitted to abjure, sometimes repeatedly. Cases that ended in execution despite intense efforts by the presiding bishop to obtain a similarly law-bending abjuration are also discussed. These cases are situated within explorations of the constitutions governing heresy trials, contrasting their use of apparently standard legal terminologies with more aggressive continental inquisitors, as well as the theology and cultural standing of oaths within both Wycliffism and the broader Late Medieval and Early Modern world. This dissertation will trace how Lollard heretics gradually accepted the necessity of false abjuration as one of a number of measures to preserve their lives and their movement, and how early adopters using coded writing carefully persuaded their co-religionists of this necessity. Furthermore, it will argue that the bishops who conducted the trial system deliberately constructed it to encourage this type of perjury, even suppressing attempts to alter heretics’ actual convictions, for the sake of social order and stability.

In this thesis I examine the debate surrounding Therapeutic Touch, a controversial energetic healing modality being practiced by registered nurses in biomedical institutions across North America. The debate surrounding the therapy takes place within medical journals, popular media articles, and on the internet. Within the debate, definitions of illness etiology, appropriate treatment, patient management, and alternative therapy use are contested by Therapeutic Touch proponents and critics. Through discursive analysis, interviews with local participants in the debate, and participant observation within the TT community, I present an analysis of the issues being contested and of the discursive strategies used by proponents and critics within the debate. The debate is contextualized in two ways: first, as an instance of medical heresy, in which an alternative healing group arises within the orthodox medical community and struggles to maintain itself within biomedical discourse and institutions; second, I contextualize the debate as an example of the wider trend towards integrative medicine in North America. Integrative medicine sees alternative therapies being increasingly used within health care delivery systems, either by alternative practitioners, or by biomedical practitioners who have co-opted alternative techniques. I argue that Therapeutic Touch proponents have utilized several discursive strategies in presenting and arguing for their alternative healing model. These strategies surround the issues of professional legitimacy, scientific validity, and TT’s perception as religious or spiritual. Therapeutic Touch proponents manage their discourse by conforming it to orthodox biomedical discourse and by pursuing a strategy of professionalization. Through this management process, they have been able to maintain a marginal presence within biomedicine. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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The cathar heresy in southern France Abstract: This master's degree work deals the history of the cathar heresy in the area of southern France from the mid-12th century to the 1st third of the 14th century. It supplies the minute description of the historic events, that influenced the development of the cathar church and trace the changes in the political, religious and social sphere that accompanied it. The work sketches out the base of the cathar doctrine along with the structures of the cathar ecclesiastic hierarchy. On the base of the accessible sources and literature, it takes aim in charting the fates of the cathar heresy from the point where it first emerges in the historical sources, through the period of its development in the space of Occitania and the crusade against cathars, as far as its slow destruction during the activity of the papal inquisition. The work tries to handle the social and political phenomena, which partook in the development of the heresy and describe the change they undertook in the era of its persecution. This works brings new impulse for the study of the issue of the history of the cathar heresy and its relation with other heretical groups into the Czech academic sphere. Key words: cathars, heresy, Middle Ages, history of France, crusade, inquisition

Ce travail de doctorat porte sur la xenia en Grande Syrie, du règne de Constantin à celui de Justinien. La comparaison des usages grec et syriaque de la notion d’hospitalité a mis en évidence d’importantes modifications sémantiques qui reflètent des divergences irréductibles entre les conceptions païennes et chrétiennes de l’hospitalité. Cette notion se christianise au cours des IVe-VIe siècles, jusqu’à devenir un objet théologique, apanage des milieux monastiques, syriaques notamment. Mais la christianisation des mentalités implique-t-elle nécessairement une modification profonde des pratiques sociales culturelles de l’accueil et une mutation complète des structures matérielles où se déroulent les activités du recevoir ? L’étude des structures d’hospitalité a révélé la pérennité de la localisation des structures d’accueil à l’échelle du territoire syrien tout au long de l’Antiquité tardive, même si la diversité des solutions adoptées, à l’échelle des structures elles-mêmes, semble témoigner d’un réel attachement aux traditions régionales. Enfin, l’analyse des acteurs de l’hospitalité a révélé que les moines sont loin d’être les seuls acteurs de l’hospitalité en Grande Syrie. Il existe par ailleurs un paradoxe entre le discours normé et universaliste de l’accueil chrétien et la réalité telle que nous pouvons la décrypter. Les liens entre hospitalité et dissidence doivent être envisagés. De nouveaux critères de sélection des hôtes apparaissent à la fin de l’Antiquité. L’hérésie réintroduit l’idée de critères particuliers, ce qui engendre une déconstruction du modèle social et de nouveaux enjeux politiques, lesquels semblent conditionner la naissance de l’Église miaphysite. / This doctoral thesis deals with xenia in Great Syria from Constantine’s reign to Justinian’s. The comparison between the Greek and the Syriac uses of the notion of hospitality brings to light important semantic modifications that reflect irreducible differences between the Pagan and Christian conceptions of hospitality. This notion gets Christianized in the course of the 4th and 5th centuries, to the point of becoming a theological topic, privilege of monastic milieux, particularly Syriac ones. But how far does the Christianization of mentalities necessarily imply a deep modification in cultural and social practices of reception and a complete change in the material structures in which reception activities take place? The study of hospitality structures and facilities reveals the durability of the localization of reception structures at the level of the Syrian territory throughout late Antiquity, even if, at the level of the structures themselves, the diversity of the solutions adopted seems to testify to a real attachment to regional traditions. Finally, the examination of the protagonists of hospitality shows that monks are far from being the only actors of hospitality in Great Syria. Besides, there is a contradiction between the standard universalist discourse of Christian welcoming and reality, as we can decipher it. The links between hospitality and dissidence have to be considered. New criteria of selection of hosts and guests appear in Late Antiquity. Heresy re-introduces the idea of specific criteria into use, which causes the “deconstruction” of the social pattern and new political stakes, which seem to influence the birth of the Non-Chalcedonian Church.

Esta tese procura estudar as relações entre o humanismo erasmiano e os processos de confessionalização desenvolvidos no contexto da Europa ocidental a partir da década de 1530. Um dos pressupostos da investigação é a existência de grande distância entre as perspectivas de Erasmo, moldadas segundo as noções de minima dogmata (a definição de um conjunto de dogmas reduzido ao mínimo essencial) e de condescendência para com as diferenças secundárias de doutrina dentro da fé cristã, e a atitude que norteou os processos confessionais, assinalada pelo enrijecimento doutrinário e pela multiplicação de dogmas. Apesar dessa distância, o humanismo erasmiano foi elemento importante na configuração da atitude confessional, tanto pela centralidade que deu à pregação enquanto instrumento catequético, quanto pelo estímulo que proporcionou à abordagem filológica nos estudos bíblicos. Nesse processo frustrou-se o projeto da minima dogmata: a multiplicação de dogmas trouxe, também, a multiplicação das acusações de heresia. Esse resultado ambíguo nos ensina algo sobre as ambiguidades de Erasmo e do seu humanismo. Ambos encontravam-se num contexto de enormes mudanças em todas as áreas, mas ligavam-se profundamente a estruturas sociais e a formas de pensamento do passado. A luta de Erasmo contra a tirania, marcada pela defesa dos antigos privilégios dos ordines contra as intromissões da centralização política, representou uma apropriação criativa dos valores que caracterizaram, cento e cinquenta anos antes, o humanismo cívico florentino; mas se revelou também um programa desprovido de qualquer viabilidade. Como humanista, Erasmo procurava adequar o mundo ao livro (à sabedoria dos Antigos, somada à sabedoria da fé cristã); nesse processo, deu respostas inadequadas aos problemas de sua própria época. Situado num momento de contrastes, na confluência de dois mundos e pertencendo, por formação e por convicção, ao mundo que se dissolvia, o humanismo erasmiano nos ensina muito, tanto sobre as estruturas do mundo medieval em crise como sobre as novas realidades que despontavam. / This thesis aims to study the relations between Erasmian humanism and the processes of confessionalization developed in Western Europe context from the 1530s. One of the assumptions of the research is that there are great distances between the perspectives and ideas of Erasmus, molded according to the notions of minimal dogmata (defining a set of dogmas reduced to a minimum) and condescension toward the minor differences of doctrine within the Christian faith, and the attitude that guided these confessional processes, marked by doctrinal rigidity and by multiplication of dogmas. This distances notwithstanding, Erasmian humanism was an important element in shaping the confessional attitude, both by the centrality that it gave to catechetical preaching and by the stimulus to philologycal approach in biblical studies. But the project for minima dogmata was thwarted; the multiplication of dogmas brought also the multiplication of heresys accusations. This ambiguous outcome teaches us something about the ambiguities of Erasmus and his humanism. Both were in a context of profound changes in all areas; but both were deeply linked to social structures and ways of thinking of the past. Erasmuss struggle against tyranny, marked by the defense of ordiness ancient privileges against the intrusions of political centralization, represented a criative appropriation of the values of old Florentine civic humanism; but it also revealed a program lacking any viability. As a humanist, Erasmus sought to adapt the world to the book (the wisdom of the Ancients, and the wisdom of the Christian faith); in doing so, Erasmus gave inadequate answers to the problems of his own time. Set in a time of contrasts, at the confluence of two worlds and belonging, by formation and conviction, to the fading world, Erasmian humanism teaches us a lot about the structures of the medieval world in crisis, and about the new realities that was about to breaking out.

This edition of the treatise on heresy ascribed to Pseudo-Reinerius is based on a collation of 29 extant mss. The text prepared from these has been compared with two mss. of sections V-XI of the longer recension of the so-called Anonymous of Passau treatise, the earliest version of which was compiled about 1260. This comparison has shown conclusively that the Pseudo- Reinerius treatise is derived in its entirety from these sections of the longer recension of the Anonymous of Passau treatise. The contents of both treatises have been analysed in detail, so that an assessment might be made of their value as source material for the history of heresy in the thirteenth century, more particularly in south Germany and Austria.

Esta tese procura estudar as relações entre o humanismo erasmiano e os processos de confessionalização desenvolvidos no contexto da Europa ocidental a partir da década de 1530. Um dos pressupostos da investigação é a existência de grande distância entre as perspectivas de Erasmo, moldadas segundo as noções de minima dogmata (a definição de um conjunto de dogmas reduzido ao mínimo essencial) e de condescendência para com as diferenças secundárias de doutrina dentro da fé cristã, e a atitude que norteou os processos confessionais, assinalada pelo enrijecimento doutrinário e pela multiplicação de dogmas. Apesar dessa distância, o humanismo erasmiano foi elemento importante na configuração da atitude confessional, tanto pela centralidade que deu à pregação enquanto instrumento catequético, quanto pelo estímulo que proporcionou à abordagem filológica nos estudos bíblicos. Nesse processo frustrou-se o projeto da minima dogmata: a multiplicação de dogmas trouxe, também, a multiplicação das acusações de heresia. Esse resultado ambíguo nos ensina algo sobre as ambiguidades de Erasmo e do seu humanismo. Ambos encontravam-se num contexto de enormes mudanças em todas as áreas, mas ligavam-se profundamente a estruturas sociais e a formas de pensamento do passado. A luta de Erasmo contra a tirania, marcada pela defesa dos antigos privilégios dos ordines contra as intromissões da centralização política, representou uma apropriação criativa dos valores que caracterizaram, cento e cinquenta anos antes, o humanismo cívico florentino; mas se revelou também um programa desprovido de qualquer viabilidade. Como humanista, Erasmo procurava adequar o mundo ao livro (à sabedoria dos Antigos, somada à sabedoria da fé cristã); nesse processo, deu respostas inadequadas aos problemas de sua própria época. Situado num momento de contrastes, na confluência de dois mundos e pertencendo, por formação e por convicção, ao mundo que se dissolvia, o humanismo erasmiano nos ensina muito, tanto sobre as estruturas do mundo medieval em crise como sobre as novas realidades que despontavam. / This thesis aims to study the relations between Erasmian humanism and the processes of confessionalization developed in Western Europe context from the 1530s. One of the assumptions of the research is that there are great distances between the perspectives and ideas of Erasmus, molded according to the notions of minimal dogmata (defining a set of dogmas reduced to a minimum) and condescension toward the minor differences of doctrine within the Christian faith, and the attitude that guided these confessional processes, marked by doctrinal rigidity and by multiplication of dogmas. This distances notwithstanding, Erasmian humanism was an important element in shaping the confessional attitude, both by the centrality that it gave to catechetical preaching and by the stimulus to philologycal approach in biblical studies. But the project for minima dogmata was thwarted; the multiplication of dogmas brought also the multiplication of heresys accusations. This ambiguous outcome teaches us something about the ambiguities of Erasmus and his humanism. Both were in a context of profound changes in all areas; but both were deeply linked to social structures and ways of thinking of the past. Erasmuss struggle against tyranny, marked by the defense of ordiness ancient privileges against the intrusions of political centralization, represented a criative appropriation of the values of old Florentine civic humanism; but it also revealed a program lacking any viability. As a humanist, Erasmus sought to adapt the world to the book (the wisdom of the Ancients, and the wisdom of the Christian faith); in doing so, Erasmus gave inadequate answers to the problems of his own time. Set in a time of contrasts, at the confluence of two worlds and belonging, by formation and conviction, to the fading world, Erasmian humanism teaches us a lot about the structures of the medieval world in crisis, and about the new realities that was about to breaking out.