Alcibiades was one of the most dynamic and engaging figures of the Peloponnesian War. Like a chameleon, he managed to change himself to fit almost any occasion and audience; few historical figures can claim to have successfully switched allegiances as many times during a conflict. Starting as a general in Athens, he moved on to side with the Spartans, then the Persians, and then returned to Athens. Some would consider him a young and impulsive egoist, but a closer investigation indicates that he more than likely had a larger, pragmatic goal motivating his actions. This essay will aim first to establish his break from the philosophical status quo of Athens, and then to determine the nature of these larger goals. It will pivot around Alcibiades’ address to the Athenian assembly, using it in a comparative analysis of both Pericles’ Funeral Oration, and briefly supplementing it with Plato’s Alcibiades I.

The written was the world of early medieval Iberia. Literacy was limited, but textuality was extensive, in the authority conferred on text and the arrangements made to use it. Roman inheritance is manifest, in documentary and legal culture, engendering literate expectations which define the period; continuity across conquest by Visigoths and Arabs, and the weakness of states in the north of the Peninsula, must lay to rest the traditional coupling of literacy with politics which underlies the paradigm of the Middle Ages. Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, as estates expanded to surmount locality and enter communities which had made do with memory, engagement with documentation was incentivized for the laity. Organization to do so followed, at one remove: the person of the scribe, who wrote the charter and recorded all those involved in and present at it, before recycling the text back into the community by public reading. The scribe mediated the text, and as his occupation consolidated he became more fully a literate interpreter. The charter, once created, had an active afterlife of dynamic circulation, enabled by multiple and accessible archives, particularly in the hands of the clergy. Written evidence was the surest defence in case of dispute; charters were self-promoting in their mutual citation as well as practical efficacy. But they also diffused legal knowledge: as each rhetorical, pragmatic, silent, and legislative reference to written law was read aloud by the scribe, how to capitalize on its provisions became better known, so kings and counts seized the potential. For the clergy, the Bible, canon law, and monastic rules were the texts which bestowed identity, but as they interacted with the laity, they set the charter in the history of salvation, and modelled textuality to society, as their monasteries became the microcosms of its written framework.

This study will explore the similarities and differences between Alcibiades and Nicias’ speeches to the Athenian Assembly in 415 BC and Secretary Hillary Clinton and President Donald J. Trump’s first presidential debate in 2016. The ancient speeches were regarding the Sicilian Expedition, while the modern speeches focused on each candidates’ foreign policy plan regarding Syria and the Islamic State (IS). Despite the near 2,500-year difference between these two democracies, there are striking similarities between the ways their governments are structured as well as the values they uphold. I explore the significance of the fact that the Athenians and the modern-day Americans have two ostensibly functioning democracies yet the candidates whom they elected and the subsequent results were disadvantageous for the long-term sustainability of their countries. I will look at the differences between the expectations of the democratic institutions and what the outcomes of the debates were. Additionally, I compare the differences between the Athenian democracy and the American democracy.

La thèse présente la première traduction française du troisième livre du Contre Eunome de Grégoire de Nysse (fin du IVe s.), accompagnée d’une annotation consacrée principalement à l’identification des sources bibliques et profanes et à l’étude du vocabulaire. La première partie du commentaire offre une étude de l’histoire de la transmission du texte et constitue les prolégomènes à une nouvelle édition. La seconde partie est consacrée aux outils littéraires de la controverse et prête une attention particulière aux sources profanes de la polémique mise en œuvre par Grégoire. La troisième partie concerne le rôle du texte biblique dans l’écriture de Grégoire ; l’étude de plusieurs lieux exégétiques permet de montrer comment ces développements échappent pour partie à leur contexte immédiat et s’inscrivent dans un débat plus large. La thèse montre l’importance de cette œuvre dans le développement d’une écriture chrétienne de la polémique et en rassemble les principales caractéristiques. / This work proposes the first French translation of Gregory of Nyssa’s book III Contra Eunomium (end of the 4th century), with comprehensive annotation devoted to the biblical and classical sources and the vocabulary used by the author. The first part of the commentary, which is conceived as a preliminary study for a new edition, deals with the transmission of the Greek text and offers a tentative reconstruction of its textual history. The second part is a study of the literary tools put forth in the controversy and pays particular attention to classical sources. The third and last part deals with the use made of biblical citations. By examining closely some exegetical passages, we show how Gregory’s opus goes beyond the contextual frame of the controversy against Eunomius and widens the scope of debate. Our main argument is to highlight the importance of the Contra Eunomium in the development of a Christian polemical style and points out the main characteristics of this literary genre.

This thesis examines the post-Roman and Anglo-Saxon religious reuse of Roman structures, particularly burials associated with Roman structures, and churches on or near Roman buildings. Although it is known that the Anglo-Saxons existed in and interacted with the vestigial, physical landscape of Roman Britain, the specific nature and result of this interaction has not been completely understood. The present study examines the Anglo-Saxon religious reuse of Roman structures in an attempt to understand the Anglo-Saxon perception of Roman structures and the impact they had on the developing ecclesiastical landscape. In particular, the study reveals how we may better understand the structural coincidence of Roman buildings and early-medieval religious activity in the light of the apparent discontinuity between many Roman and early-medieval landscapes in Britain. The study begins by providing an overview of the evidence for existing Roman remains in the Anglo-Saxon period. It examines the archaeological and historical evidence, and discusses literary references to Roman structures in an attempt to ascertain how the ruins of Roman villas, towns and forts would have been perceived. Particular attention is paid to The Ruin, a poem in Old English which provides us with our only contemporary description of Roman remains in Britain. The first chapter concludes by examining the evidence for the religious reuse of Roman secular structures in Gaul and Rome, providing a framework into which the evidence in the subsequent chapters is placed. The examination the proceeds to burials on or associated with Roman structures. It shows that the practice of interring the dead into Roman structures occurred between the fifth and eighth centuries, but peaked at the beginning of the seventh, with comparatively few sites at the extreme end of the data range. The discussion is based on the evidence of 115 sites that show this burial rite, but it is very apparent that this number is only a fragment of the whole, as these inhumations are often mistakenly identified as Roman, even when the stratigraphy demonstrates that burial occurred after the ruin of the villa, as is often the case. The placement of the bodies show a conscious reuse of the ruinous architecture, rather then suggesting interment was made haphazardly on the site: frequently the body is placed either centrally within a room, or is in contact with some part of the Roman fabric. Some examples suggest that there may have been a preference for apsidal rooms for this purpose. Churches associated with Roman buildings are then examined, and their significance in the development of the English Christian landscape is discussed. Churches of varying status – from minsters to chapels – can be found on Roman buildings throughout the country. Roman structures were clearly chosen for the sites of churches from the earliest Christian period into the tenth, and probably even the eleventh century. Alternatives to the so-called proprietary model are examined, and their origins and development are discussed, particularly in reference to the continental evidence. The end of the study places the thesis into a wider landscape context, and introduces potential avenues of further exploration using GIS. The study concludes that there are a number of causes underlying the religious reuse of Roman buildings, each not necessarily exclusive of the other, and that the study of these sites can further any investigation into the development of the ecclesiastical topography of England, and the eventual development of the parochial landscape.

Belief in prophetic inspiration and the possibility of discerning the future was a cornerstone of medieval conceptions of history and of God’s workings within that history. But prophecy’s significance for the Middle Ages is due as much to the multiplicity of its meanings as to its role as an engine of history. Prophetia was described in terms ranging from prediction and historiography to singing and teaching. This thesis examines the attempts of medieval thinkers to wrestle with these ambiguities. The nature and implications of prophetic inspiration were a crucial area of contention during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as scholastic theologians, with their particular techniques and standards of rationality, attempted to make systematic sense of inspired speech and knowledge. These attempts reveal a great deal about medieval structures of knowledge, and about theological reflections on the Church’s place in history. The stakes were high: ‘prophecy’ not only was the subject of Old Testament exegesis, but also, in its various forms, was often the basis of authority for exegetes and theologians themselves, as well as for preachers, visionaries, saints, and even writers of secular works. Those who claimed the mantle of the prophet came just as easily from inside the institutional structures as from outside. Theologians began legitimating a moderate form of inspiration that justified their own work through ordinary activities such as teaching and preaching, while trying to keep at bay perceived threats from powerful assertions of prophetic authority, such as Islam, female visionaries, and schismatic and apocalyptic Franciscans. This study argues that, as theologians sought to determine the limits of prophetic privilege, and to shape prophecy for their own purposes, they actually opened space for claims of divine insight to proliferate in those ordinary activities, and in a way that went beyond their control.

My doctoral thesis examines the intellectual and political relationship between England and the general councils of the Church from the Council of Pisa until the Council of Trent. It illuminates the hitherto unexplored features of the revolution that was the end of universal papal authority. With the transfer of spiritual authority to Henry VIII, the heads of England’s Protestant regimes inherited the papacy’s distrust of the general council, which had the potential to interfere with the course of the reformation in England. At the same time, the thesis examines the changing nature of public commitment to universal decision-making in the Church in the face of resistance by hierarchs (papal or royal). It finds a widespread support for the general council over the period, but also a plurality of views about how conciliar government could be reconciled with monarchical rule in the Church. In the fifteenth century, conciliarism had to contend with the suspicions of those who wished to shore up the Church hierarchy against Wycliffite attacks. In the sixteenth century, there was still competition between the establishment’s defence of an hierarchical Church, directed by the monarchy, and theories which stressed the importance of conciliar government. These arguments took different shapes when used by popular rebels in favour of traditional religion grounded on conciliar consent, or by Protestants in favour of synodal government by the godly. But they were both outcomes of enduring instabilities in the ideology of Church government, which had their roots in the fifteenth century.

In this thesis, a collective urban sector-consisting, in various different guises, of civic governments, urban merchants, and townspeople-is presented as a vital and distinctive component of later medieval English political society. The dynamics of this urban political sector are reconstructed through the use of a modified version of the 'urban systems' approach found in historical geography and economic history, positing that towns are defined by their evolving relationship with one another. Drawing from the municipal records of twenty-two towns, this thesis charts the composition of the later medieval English 'urban system' and the manner in which urban groups belonging to this 'system' participated in a broader national political sphere over four chronological periods-1413-35, 1435-50, 1450-61, and 1461-71. In 1413-35, the highly authoritative and institutionalised governments of Henry V and the child Henry VI fostered vertical relationships between the Crown and a variety of individual civic governments, leading both national and urban political actors to operate within a shared political culture, but not necessarily encouraging inter-urban political communication. This would change in the periods that followed, as the absence of strong royal authority after 1435 renewed the strength of lateral mercantile networks and facilitated the re-emergence of a semi-autonomous inter-urban political community, which saw little reason to participate in the civil wars of the early 1450s that now seemed divorced from its own interests. In the 1460s, however, the financially extractive policies of Edward IV once again gave civic governments and ordinary townspeople a greater stake in royal government, which was reflected in the high level of urban participation in the dynastic conflicts of 1469-71. The developments occurring in these four phases illustrate both the interdependence of urban and national politics in the later medieval period, and the mutability of their relationship with one another.

This thesis examines the relationship, in theory and in practice, between the concepts of justice (iustitia) and mercy (misericordia) in English courts between c. 1100 and c. 1250. During this period English judges (in courts of both common and canon law) were faced with a serious dilemma. The emergence of systematic law had fundamentally altered the pastoral foundations of the act of judgement. On the one hand, judges were incorporated into a system of law in which justice was expected to be routine and regular. They were bound by procedure, and ‘justice’ was considered to lie in the return of due punishment for injury. On the other, this notion of strict justice coexisted with an alternative way of conceiving of judicial responsibilities, which emphasised that justice was incomplete unless it incorporated within it the principle of mercy. This tradition argued that, both for the benefit of the offender and the judge’s own soul, it was safer and more virtuous to mitigate the punishments prescribed by law. English judges were caught in a dilemma, and were, in effect, obliged to choose between two fundamentally opposed ideas of justice, and two starkly contrasting approaches to sentencing. This thesis argues that such a choice was a problem which concerned the schools of theology as much as it did the courts of law. It examines the attempts of theologians and lawyers to resolve the dilemma and provide practical counsel to judges. Scripture, classical philosophy and patristic texts were the key sources in a discussion of how judicial discretion should be exercised in choosing between punitive and merciful courses of action. Rather than conceiving of justice as a purely procedural exercise, English law, and English judges, appreciated that the act of giving judgement was a complex pastoral challenge.

Rédigé vraisemblablement à la fin du IVe siècle, à une époque où l’enseignement traditionnel des écoles romaines se maintient et où le paganisme cherche à conserver sa place face au christianisme, le commentaire de Servius à l’Énéide de Virgile, dont le livre V fait l’objet du présent travail, est une œuvre particulièrement importante. Il est destiné à ouvrir à ses auditeurs (les élèves de la classe de Servius), puis à ses lecteurs, la possibilité de mieux comprendre le texte virgilien, et il offre au spécialiste moderne de multiples traces de rites, croyances, pratiques et récits mythologiques qui, sans la richesse de ses développements, resteraient inconnus. Le commentateur laisse parfois percevoir au fil de ses remarques sa vision de l’époque de Virgile et de la sienne propre, et il livre aussi des éléments d’information concernant la réception de l’Énéide dans l’Antiquité tardive. L’intérêt de l’ouvrage est doublé du fait que s’y sont entremêlés ensuite des ajouts d’origines diverses transformant pour ainsi dire le commentaire de Servius en un second commentaire, connu sous l’appellation de « Servius Danielis », présent dans certains manuscrits médiévaux. C’est pour toutes ces raisons que nous proposons, après une introduction consacrée à ses thématiques centrales, une traduction complète de ce double commentaire servien au livre V de l’Énéide de Virgile, en accompagnant et documentant cette traduction par les notes nombreuses et détaillées que réclament la richesse et la complexité de ce travail caractéristique des savants que l’Antiquité appelait des « grammairiens ». / Most certainly written at the end of the 4th century, at a time when traditional teaching from roman school persists and when paganism tries to keep its position facing Christianity, Servius’ Commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid, whose book V is the subject of this study, is a particularly significant work. It is intended to permit the listener (Servius’ students), then the reader, to better understand Virgil’s text and offers to modern specialists many vestiges of rituals, beliefs, practices and mythology’s stories that, without the richness of its body, certainly wouldn’t be known nowadays. The commentator sometimes suggests, throughout his remarks, the vision he has of the Virgil’s time as being his own time and he also gives some information about the Aeneid’s reception in the last Antiquity. The interest of the book is doubled because the text is mixed with elements from diverse origins; it turned the commentary into a second one, known as “Servius Danielis” text and present in some manuscripts. That is why we offer, after an introduction devoted to the main themes of the book, a complete translation of this double servian commentary at the Virgil Aeneid, book 5; this translation goes with many detailed commentaries needed due to the richness and the complexity of expert’s typical work which Antiquity called “grammarian”.