Thesis--Tübingen. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-197).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

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.

Habilitationsschrift--Ratisbon. / Includes bibliographical references (p. xxi-xcviii) and index.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, May 2008.

This dissertation is an historical and philosophical study on the development of a subjective concept of individual rights. It takes the form of a history of ideas informed by genealogical methods of inquiry. Rather than seeking an origin for and underlying truth to human rights, it treats human rights as a product of various historical developments which are capable of being investigated in terms of their contingency as well as their continuous traditions. The thesis begins with an analysis of political theory in ancient Greek thought, primarily as a means of suggesting possible alternative political philosophies to the rights-based approach dominant in modern Western societies. The thesis then considers the theologicalpolitical discourse on sovereignty in the early Middle Ages, revolving around the doctrine of divine right and influenced by the function of the Christian Church in defining the nature of government. This is followed by an examination of the emergence of hierarchical, feudal relations and the formulation of feudal rights as based on proprietary notions and coinciding with individual liberties. In the following chapter there is a discussion of the juridical construction of sovereign power that emerged from the reception of Roman law and the development of canon law, the influence of legal textuality on the granting of rights and liberties, and the emergence of a discourse on public right as a way of defining the relationship between the prince and his subjects and thus delimiting sovereign authority. Finally, the thesis considers the legacy of the theory of natural rights and its relationship to forms of liberty, with an analysis of: firstly, the idea of natural rights that developed through canon law and the discussions surrounding the Franciscan poverty disputes; secondly, the role of property rights in the formulation of the rights of liberty; thirdly, the Christian understanding of liberty as a subjective attribute or power through the theo-ontological theory of human nature as represented by the free will; and fourthly, the transformation in Renaissance and early modern legal and political theory of the concept of liberty into a political doctrine about individual autonomy and inherent freedom. The purpose of the dissertation is to describe the multiple and complex historical processes from which the idea of subjective rights has emerged, as a means of understanding how human rights have come to play a seemingly essential role in modern legal and political discourses and practices.

The aim of this thesis is to consider the knowledge and use of law by John of Salisbury, evaluating what he thought law should be, whence it originated and how it related to aspects of society, for example the institutions of the monarch and the church. For this purpose, the main evidence used will be Historia Pontificalis, Policraticus and the large corpus of letters. Chapter One is entitled Types of Law and gives an outline of the main types of law as John saw them. Chapter Two is entitled Canon Law. This chapter is devoted entirely to the study of John's knowledge and use of canon law. In this chapter, consideration will be made to what canon law John appears to have known and how John used this knowledge within his written work. Chapter Three, entitled King and Law, focuses upon John of Salisbury's opinion of the relationship between the monarch and the law. Chapter Four, Theory of Law: Church and King considers John's ideas on the relationship between church and monarch. Attention will also be paid to how he conveyed his ideas during the papal schism and the Becket dispute as well as John's ideas on judges. Chapter Five is entitled Law in Practice: Church and King, whereby analysis will be made of how John sees the monarch's involvement in issues such as church elections.

This doctoral dissertation analyses depictions of hell in sanctions, i.e. threats of punishments in Anglo-Saxon charters. I am arguing that an innovative use of sanctions as pastoral and ideological instruments effected the peak of infernal imagery in the sanctions of tenth-century royal diplomas. Belonging to the genre of ritual curses, Anglo-Saxon sanctions contain the three standard ecclesiastical curses (excommunication, anathema and damnation). It cannot be established if other requirements of ritual cursing (authoritative personnel, setting and gestures) were fulfilled. A lack of evidence, together with indications of more secular punishments, suggests that sanctions were not used as legal instruments. Their pastoral function is proposed by frightening depictions of hell and the devil, as fear is an important means of achieving salvation in biblical, homiletic and theological writings available or produced in Anglo-Saxon England. The use of the infernal motifs of Hell as a Kitchen, Satan as the Mouth of Hell and winged demons in sanctions are discussed in detail. Sanctions frequently contain the overtly didactic and pastoral device of the exemplum. Notorious sinners believed to be damned in hell (e.g. Judas) are presented as negative exempla in sanctions to deter people from transgressing against charters. The repeated use of terms from classical mythology for depicting hell in Anglo-Saxon sanctions appears to correlate with the preference for hermeneutic Latin by tenth-century monastic reformers. The reasons for employing classical mythological terminology seem to agree with those suggested for the use of hermeneutic Latin (intellectual snobbery and raising the stylistic register), and glossaries constitute the main source of both types of Latinity. The sanctions of the Refoundation Charter of New Minster, Winchester, which is known to display the ‘ruler theology’ propagated by the monastic reform, are examined in their textual contexts with regard to the observations made in the earlier parts of this dissertation.

Univ., Diss.--Saarbrücken, 2003.