This thesis offers an interdisciplinary approach to the period between c. AD 400 and 650 in the Lincoln region, considering in depth not only the archaeological evidence, but also the historical, literary and linguistic. It is argued that by using all of this material together, significant advances can be made in our understanding of what occurred in these centuries, most especially with regard to Anglian-British interaction in this period. It is contended that this evidence, when taken together, requires that a British polity named *Lindēs was based at Lincoln into the sixth century, and that the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Lindsey (Old English Lindissi < Late British *Lindēs-) had an intimate connection to this British political unit. In addition to investigating the evidence for Anglian-British interaction in this region and the potential legacies of British *Lindēs, this thesis also provides a detailed analysis of the nature of the Anglo-Saxon population-groups that were present in the Lincoln region from the mid-fifth century onwards, including those of *Lindēs-Lindissi and also more southerly groups, such as the Spalde/Spaldingas. The picture which emerges is arguably not simply of importance from the perspective of the history of the Lincoln region but also nationally, helping to answer key questions regarding the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the nature and extent of Anglian-British interaction in the core areas of Anglo-Saxon immigration, and the conquest and settlement of Northumbria.

The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa is the primary Armenian-language historical source for the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Matthew was a monk who lived in the ethnically mixed city of Edessa; within his Chronicle, he describes the apogee of independent Armenia, its fall to piecemeal Byzantine annexation, the subsequent loss of Byzantium's eastern territory to the newcomer Saljuq Turks, and the sectarian tension that accompanied the First Crusade. This thesis sets out the methodology adopted for the construction of a critical edition of the text, addresses the approach that Matthew took to the composition of the Chronicle, and gives the edited text of the prophecies attributed to Yovhannēs Kozeṙn and the author's prologues to Books Two and Three of the Chronicle. Chapters 2 and 3 comprise a review of the scholarship to date on the Chronicle, and a discussion of the approach taken to a critical edition of the text. The Chronicle survives in a large number of relatively recently copied manuscripts; it was therefore necessary to devise an approach to text collation and editing that takes full advantage of recent advances in computational methods of philology. I have developed a set of software tools to assist in the task of editing the Chronicle; these tools are useful for the creation of text editions in any language that can be represented through the TEI XML standard. Chapters 4–8 give an examination of the overall framework of Matthew’s Chronicle, and of his interpretation of recent history within that framework. Following a long tradition of the use of prophecy to explain Armenian history, Matthew uses two prophecies attributed to the eleventh-century clerical scholar Yovhannēs Kozeṙn, themselves extended in the twelfth century under the influence of the Apocalypse attributed to Methodius, to frame his argument that both the Byzantine emperors and the Armenian kings had abandoned their responsibility toward the Armenian people. His attitude toward recent history, and particularly toward the Latins of Outremer, may be used to demonstrate that he wrote the Chronicle no later than 1137.

The influence of the Roman Republic and Empire is visible everywhere in the contemporary United States government. Some even propose a “democratic legacy” that the United States has inherited from the Roman Republic, a legacy that dooms modern America to a similar “decline and fall.” These arguments reached their apex in journalism surrounding the 2016 presidential election. A comparison between American Presidents and Roman Emperors proves that these assertions are false, employing case studies in each society’s democracy, interactions with deliberative bodies, public image management, and demagoguery. The distinctness of Roman and American social and political culture in each of these areas suggests a fundamental incongruity between the political figures of the two cultures. Even apparent commonalities can be misleading, as there are significant structural or cultural discrepancies that prevent scholars from drawing conclusions about Presidents using the Roman Imperial example. The argument of this thesis is therefore historiographical in nature: The findings this thesis contains suggest that modern scholars should not read history, specifically Roman history, to predict or justify present political circumstances. The comparisons made between Emperors and Presidents instead serve to prove the distinctness of contemporary American political culture as well as ancient Roman political culture. Acknowledgement of the uniqueness of both of these societies allows scholars to better understand both Presidents and Emperors within their own context. This separation will also lead to more directed, better informed study in the field of Roman history and in the field of modern American governmental policy.

My thesis examines the function and development of the cult of saints in Coptic Egypt. For this purpose I focus primarily on the material provided by the texts forming the Coptic hagiographical tradition of the early Christian martyr Philotheus of Antioch, and more specifically - the Martyrdom of St Philotheus of Antioch (Pierpont Morgan M583). This Martyrdom is a reflection of a once flourishing cult which is attested in Egypt by rich textual and material evidence. This text enjoyed great popularity not only in Egypt, but also in other countries of the Christian East, since his dossier includes texts in Coptic, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Arabic. This thesis examines the literary and historical background of the Martyrdom of Philotheus and similar hagiographical texts. It also explores the goals and concerns of the authors and editors of Coptic martyr passions and their intended audience. I am arguing that these texts were produced in order to perform multiple functions: to justify and promote the cult of a particular saint, as an educational tool, and as an important structural element of liturgical celebrations in honour of the saint. Another aim of this work is to stress the entertainment value of such texts. I explore the sources used by Coptic hagiographers for creating such entertaining stories, as well as the methods they used to re-work certain theological concepts and make them more accessible to the audience. The thesis begins with description of the manuscript tradition of Philotheus and a brief outline and comparison of its main versions. The second chapter discusses the place of the Martyrdom of Philotheus in Coptic hagiography and its connection to the so-called cycles. The next two chapters explore the motifs and topoi characteristic of Coptic martyr passions, especially the legend of Diocletian the Persecutor and the image of Antioch as the Holy City in Coptic hagiography, as these two motifs appear in one way or another in the majority of the martyr passions. Chapter 5 is dedicated to one of the focal points in the Martyrdom - the miracle of resurrection and the tour of hell – and its literary and theological background. Chapter 6 discusses representations of magic and paganism in Coptic hagiography and some of the concerns of Coptic hagiographers. In the last chapter I explore the geography of the cult, its iconographic and hymnographic dimensions and the transformation of the perception of the saint; the second part of this chapter discusses the questions of performance, authorship and audience.

Between the fourth and the seventh centuries CE, Christian patrons erected thousands of churches, chapels, and monasteries in cities and villages across the Mediterranean, decorating the apses, walls and floors of many of these structures with figural and geometric mosaics. These late antique Christian mosaics have been studied for their iconography, their Graeco-Roman components, and as evidence for the religious beliefs of newly-Christian patrons. However, art historians largely have ignored the ways that texts, inscribed within the visual field and composed of the same mosaic material, functioned as images in Christian spaces. For the first time, this thesis assembles the foundations of a comprehensive catalogue of early Christian mosaic inscriptions, places them back into the physical spaces in which they were meant to be read, and analyzes how these texts functioned both verbally and visually for the late antique reader/viewer, against the backdrop of Graeco-Roman traditions. I first examine the ekphrastic components of Christian inscriptions and look more closely at the different ways in which texts work with and against images and spaces, encouraging the viewer to react physically and mentally. Second, I study the language of light used by the inscriptions, and argue that this language linked text to the material of mosaic and enabled patrons to make complex statements about their cultural erudition and religious affiliation. Third, I investigate the functions and visual forms of short tituli which label scenes or name figures to simplify, authenticate or transform static images into narratives in motion. Finally, I turn to the frames of the inscriptions and contend that different forms conveyed powerful visual arguments. By writing these texts back into their mosaics, this thesis argues that texts and images were inseparable in the period, and that text written into images performed and played in more complex ways than has been previously thought.

This thesis investigates the first poetry written in Castilian by intellectuals, the 'mester de clerecía', ‘craft of clerics’. Exploring the unique circumstances of Iberia in the Middle Ages as a hub for the intellectual vanguard and a holy territory for encounters with saints, pilgrimage and Reconquest, I examine the canonical texts of an alleged thirteenth-century poetic school as the Castilian bedrock of a wider Iberian and European literary movement. Notably including analysis of the fourteenth-century "Libro de buen amor", a canonical work in its own right thought to parody the earlier poems, I also reassess the significance of the verse form 'cuaderna vía' for the 'mester de clerecía', in which the thirteenth-century poems are exclusively written. Over an introduction and four chapters, I combine close reading of the "Libro de Alexandre" (Chapter 1), Berceo’s Vidas of Millán, Domingo and Oria (Chapter 2), the "Libro de Apolonio" and "Poema de Fernán González" (Chapter 3), and the "Libro de buen amor" (Chapter 4), with research into intellectual, pedagogical, and religious contexts. Notably, I have found the poems analyzed to be especially concerned with the landscape of the reading mind. The result is an expanded view of the 'mester de clerecía' as theological and philosophical poems that offer ways of understanding and approaching the life of the mind as well as that of the body that are thought-provoking and informative to this day. Concluding that the thirteenth-century, canonical poems are the witnesses of a 'textual community' of authors rather than a poetic school, I advocate an inclusive definition of the 'mester de clerecía'. The 'mester de clerecía' are of extremely rich intellectual scope and are of potential interest to scholars of all European literatures, and literary, intellectual, and social history, as well as theology and philosophy.

The manuscript Berlin, SBB-PK, mgf 863 was written in about 1430 to 1435 and contains more than 600 short narrative texts in German prose (with some Latin insertions). Among them is the collection of the ›Alemannische Vitaspatrum‹ as well as an additional, extensive and multifarious exempla corpus, which mostly contains translations from well-known Latin collections such as – for example and most prominently – Caesarius' of Heisterbach ›Dialogus miraculorum‹. Because of the specific composition of the corpus and its large extent, mgf 863 builds an excellent basis for the investigation of exempla, a text type which has not received much attention in German studies. The manuscript was probably produced in Strasbourg where it belonged to the library of the nuns from the convent of St Mary Magdalen. It contains a large quantity of textual material with close links to Strasbourg in terms of content or history of transmission. My primary interest is in the texts in the manuscript, in their contents and interdependencies, as well as in their history and their contextualization in, for example, groups of manuscripts, exempla tradition and religious practice. The project aims at a contribution to exempla research as well as to literary and religious life in Strasbourg in the late Middle Ages. My approach comes primarily from literary studies, but also uses palaeographical, textualcritical, and historical methods. The thesis combines case studies of the transmission of individual exempla or groups of exempla with general research into the history of texts (›Textgeschichte‹) and the history of transmission (›Überlieferungsgeschichte‹) of German prose exempla. A repertory in the appendix provides an overview of the manuscript's content. It helps to orientate within the study; furthermore, with over 600 entries, it provides a tool for the identification of German exempla.

From its beginnings, Christianity has been fundamentally conditioned by the idea of repentance. However, while the institutional practice of repentance in the early Christian world has received much scholarly attention, relatively little exists which deals with the development and applications of the wider concept (of which its institutional aspect is only a part). The purpose of this dissertation is to provide both a re-assessment and a re-framing of this foundational concept of repentance in Christian late antiquity, with special reference to formative Greek monastic sources from the fifth to seventh centuries. Following a discussion of scholarship, terms, and methodology in chapter one, the question of defining repentance in the Greek patristic world is addressed in chapter two, looking first at the major sources for later approaches (the Septuagint, the New Testament, and Classical/Hellenistic texts). A significant re-appraisal of the dominant scholarly narrative of repentance in the early church will be offered in the following chapter, making way for a close study of the chosen monastic authors: Mark the Monk, Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, and John Climacus in turn. A threefold framework whereby their respective approaches to repentance can be understood in their integrity and diversity will be suggested, involving 1) initial or 'cognisant' repentance, in which the sinner recognizes his or her fallen state and turns it heavenward; 2) 'existential' repentance, which involves the living out of repentance as a way of life, governing all the Christian's actions and intentions; 3) 'Christ-like' repentance, which serves as the summit and ultimate goal of the Christian's personal repentance, whereby the loving and sacrificial 'repentance' of Christ for others and the world at large is assimilated and worked out in the Christian's own life. It will be argued that this framework provides a new and significant hermeneutical lens through which not simply the early Christian concept of repentance in itself can be better understood, but also through which the development of early Christian self-identity and self-perception, particularly in an ascetic context, can be gauged.

This thesis studies, through a literary and theological analysis of her writings and an examination of her background, how a fifteenth century Spanish nun called Teresa de Cartagena dealt spiritually with disability. She was physically disabled, having become deaf as an adult but also having endured many illnesses. Her first book, Arboleda de los enfermos, was written to pass on to other sufferers the spiritual lessons she had learned from her own suffering; that suffering was good because it had saved her from sin and had brought her to God. Her second work, Admiraçión operum Dey, was written to answer those who had criticised her for the act of writing because of her gender, at that time a disability for any woman wishing to write or teach. She justified her writing as a special work of God, but did not claim mystical direct divine inspiration. Teresa was a member of a prominent family of Jewish Christians (conversos). At the time she was writing, the second half of the fifteenth century, anti-converso prejudice and violence were growing in Spain. This culminated in the introduction of the Inquisition in order to deal with the so-called 'judaising conversos'. In these circumstances her conversa status was a distinct social disability, but there is no express mention of this in her writings. However, there are traces in her writings of converso concerns, and of a specifically converso theology. Although there have been many studies of Teresa de Cartagena from the viewpoints of medieval Spanish literature, disability studies, feminist history and her use of rhetorical techniques, there has been no in depth study of her theology and spirituality. This thesis demonstrates that, although in general these were orthodox and unoriginal, they were unusual for a woman of her time and background.

Ce mémoire traite des Saturnales de Macrobe, haut fonctionnaire du 5ième siècle après J.C. et encyclopédiste latin. Malgré l’opinion reçue, selon laquelle les Saturnales dépendraient presque exclusivement d’un nombre très restreint de sources, souvent copiées mot à mot, on a reconnu depuis longtemps que Macrobe remanie de son propre chef l’une de ces sources, les Propos de Table de Plutarque, dans son septième livre. Ce mémoire démontre que ce modèle, tout comme les sources mineures, latines et grecques, avec lesquelles Macrobe le complète, lui était assez familier pour servir à l’articulation d’une vision propre; les Saturnales ne peuvent donc être cités comme preuve de la décadence de leur époque. Ce mémoire fournit une traduction et un commentaire des chapitres 7.1-3 des Saturnales, avec une explication de leurs rapports avec les Propos de Table 1.1 et 2.1 de Plutarque ainsi que des éléments propre à Macrobe, afin de reconstruire sa méthode de composition et de déterminer ses attentes par rapport à son lecteur de l’empire tardif. Le commentaire est précédé d’une introduction de l’auteur, de l’œuvre, et du septième livre. / This thesis deals with the Saturnalia of Macrobius, the 5th century senior civil servant and Latin encyclopedist. Despite the scholarly consensus that the Saturnalia is virtually exclusively dependent on a small number of sources, usually copied verbatim, it has long been recognized that Macrobius independently alters at least one of these sources, the Quaestiones Convivales of Plutarch, in his seventh Book. This thesis demonstrates that Macrobius was familiar enough with the text of Plutarch, as with the texts of several other minor Latin and Greek sources with which he supplements him, in order to use him to articulate original concepts important to the Saturnalia as a whole; the work cannot, therefore be cited as evidence for the cultural decadence of the later Roman Empire. This thesis provides a translation and commentary of chapters 7.1-3 of the Saturnalia, explaining their relation to Quaest. conv. 1.1 and 2.1 of Plutarch and the original readings and structure of Macrobius, in order to determine his method of composition and his expectations of his Late Antique reader. The commentary is preceded by an introduction of the author, the work, and the seventh Book.