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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.

La dynastie de Smolensk est une famille princière qui se définit par une origine généalogique particulière (le lignage de Vladimir Monomaque et son fils Mstislav le Grand) et une implantation territoriale (la cité de Smolensk et le territoire environnant). Elle a joué un rôle important dans les destinées de la Rus' médiévale : depuis leurs bases de Smolensk, ses princes ont été au XIIe siècle parmi les compétiteurs les plus importants pour le trône de Kiev, ainsi que dans une moindre mesure ceux de Novgorod et de Galicie, alors même qu’ils établissaient à travers la Dvina (Daugava) des relations commerciales solides avec la Livonie et les réseaux commerçants de la Baltique. Cette situation favorable, qui connaît son acmé dans les années 1212-1223, évolue profondément aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles : très éprouvés par les crises multiples que traverse la Rus', les princes de Smolensk se trouvent progressivement réduits à l’état de satellites des grands ensembles qui se forment alors, la Lithuanie et la Moscovie. Cette évolution, qui n’avait depuis plus d’un siècle fait l’objet que d’études partielles, est reconstituée ici dans son intégralité : à partir de l’ensemble des sources disponibles (chroniques russes et européennes, documents diplomatiques, matériau archéologique), est établie une prosopographie des princes, suivie d’une étude de leurs traditions familiales (cultes, onomastique), de leur implantation territoriale à Smolensk même et dans leurs autres zones d’action ; après quoi vient l’analyse de leur histoire politique, bâtie sur une lecture critique des sources. / The princely house of Smolensk forms a dynasty, whose members shared a common genealogical origin (they stem from Prince Vladimir Monomakh and his son Mstislav the Great) and a territorial implantation in Smolensk, a city today located in Western Russia. This dynasty played an important part in the political life of medieval Rus’: from Smolensk, its princes in the twelfth century often controlled such an important center as Kiev, and also less systematically Novgorod and Galicia; they also were a significant commercial partner of the East Baltic trading networks known as the Hansa. This situation of prominence, which has its acme in the years 1212-1223, is deeply altered after this period: the princes of Smolensk, whose power is heavily handicapped by the multiple crises of the 1220-1250s, start to play the role of a buffer state between the two ascending great powers in the region, Moscow and Lithuania. In 1404, the last prince of Smolensk is expelled from the city for ever, as Grand Prince Vytautas of Lithuania conquers the city. This evolution, which for the last century had not been thoroughly inquired except for numerous partial studies, forms the subject of the present dissertation: on the basis of all the available sources, I attempted to build a prosopography of all the princes, followed by a study of the family traditions (onomastics and local cults), of their implantation in Smolensk and their others areas of action, and a detailed analysis of the dynasty’s political history.

Le « martyre d’amour » n’est pas seulement un thème relevant du « mal d’aimer » à l’époque médiévale.C’est aussi un lieu du lyrisme d’où un « je » souffrant tourne sa douleur en poème d’amour, ou en chanson, à l’instar des troubadours et des trouvères. L’étudier dans le roman en vers de la seconde moitié du douzième à la fin du treizième siècle, ce n’est donc pas observer qu’un thème ressortissant à la douleur d’aimer, à la mélancolie amoureuse de nombreux héros, amants, c’est plutôt essayer à travers ce thème, de reconnaître comment, le « je » souffrant du romancier donne naissance au roman en vers. C’est tenter de mettre en relief la part de lyrisme qui émane de ce roman à travers les images qu’il renvoie à la fois de lui même,de son mouvement, de sa forme, et de son créateur et observer comment le roman en vers devient un objet d’amour littéraire, un travail d’art. Enfin c’est montrer comment le roman du « je » assure une transition entre le grand roman courtois et le « dit » d’amour. / Not only is the « martyre for love » a theme rooted in the « pain for loving » at medieval times. This isalso a lyricism place from where a suffering « I » turns his martyrdom into either a poem of love or a song,as troubadours and trouveres use to do. Considering this theme in verse romance from the second half ofthe twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth is more than observing a theme bound to the pain in lovingand the love-melancholy of numerous heroes and lovers ; instead, the intent is to recognize how the verseromance originates from the poet’s suffering « I ». It is about highlighting the lyricism share that comesfrom the romance through the images it projects from itself, its rhythm, its form, and its creator, then,observing how the verse romance becomes a literary love object, a work of art. Lastly, the intent is to showhow the romance of the « I » ensures a transition from the great courtly romance to the « dit » of love.

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.

This thesis examines fragmentary Finnish in Late Old Swedish charters (c. 1350–1526) issued in the Finnish part of the Swedish realm, the diocese of Åbo. Consisting mostly of proper names, albeit occasionally displaying Finnish inflectional and derivational morphology, these fragments have previously not generally been regarded as representing actual written Finnish, but rather as onomastic loans or transcriptions of oral language by more or less monolingual Swedish scribes. This thesis attempts a description and analysis of the Swedish–Finnish language mixture, to see to what extent the embedding of Finnish segments in these Swedish-language charters can be said to reflect scribal proficiency in Finnish or a lack thereof. The thesis relies on theoretical and empirical findings in the fields of code-switching and historical sociolinguistics. To provide a socio-historical context for the linguistic analysis, sociolinguistic conditions in medieval Finland and the textual genre of medieval charters are outlined. The bilingual segments in the data are then described and compared with models of code-switching from modern studies, to see whether their form corresponds to patterns that could be expected of more or less balanced bilinguals. The choice between Swedish and Finnish linguistic variants is also considered in the light of textual and sociolinguistic factors, and a study is made of Finnish grammatical transfer in the scribal Swedish of medieval Finland. Although the scarcity of the medieval data does not allow definite conclusions, the tentative results reveal a language mixture that is mainly well formed, though limited in scope and with some instances of scribal errors that could be due to a lack of proficiency in Finnish. On the other hand, the insertion of Finnish segments shows a stylistic patterning that suggests a linguistic awareness on the part of the scribes, and the choice of Swedish prepositions in certain constructions differs quantitatively from the norm in non-Finnish parts of medieval Sweden, in a way that can partly be attributed to the influence of Finnish locative case semantics. While it is apparent that proficiency levels in Finnish must have varied somewhat among medieval scribes in Finland, the results point to a more or less bilingual proficiency, or at least extensive passive knowledge of Finnish.