This study posits an intertextual paradigm of governance, modelled on the interdependent nature of late-medieval Anglo-Scottish cultural relations, for interpreting Chaucerian reception by Scots poets of the long fifteenth century. These poets use Chaucer to enrich their own works in ways that advance an autonomous, self-governing Scottish literary tradition. Chapter 1, establishing context for the study, comprises two sections. The first analyses how Scottish chronicles (including Bower's Scotichronicon, Wyntoun's Original Chronicle and the anonymous "Scottis Originale") interpret selected details of English chronicles to suit Scottish interests; the second explores interdependency's importance to the eponymous heroes of Barbour's Bruce and Harry's Wallace, who defer to friends, monarchs and moral ideals in order to further their goal of Scottish autonomy. Chapter 2 explores the Kingis Quair's paradox of freedom through service, which applies not only to the narrator's liberation through service to his lady but also to the poet's literary emancipation through a transformation of motifs from Chaucer's Troilus and Knight's Tale. Chapter 3 examines how Robert Henryson's Moral Fables argue for a monarch's success through restraint; the Testament of Cresseid echoes this concept both in Cresseid's evolution from a slave of lust to a liberated penitent and in Henryson's creation of an alternative yet narratively consistent fate for Chaucer's Criseyde. Chapter 4 focuses on Gavin Douglas' Eneados and Palice of Honour; each depicts a dynamic in which Douglas' debt to Chaucerian works such as the Legend of Good Women and the House of Fame is matched by Chaucer's need for Douglas to perpetuate his legacy. Chapter 5 demonstrates how William Dunbar's philosophical, petitionary, occasional and courtly poems advocate self-governance as a condition for governing others; special attention is paid to poetry concerning James IV and Margaret Tudor's marriage, wherein Dunbar artic / Cette étude avance un paradigme intertextuel de "gouvernance," basé sur la relation interdépendante entre les cultures anglaises et écossaises pendant le Bas Moyen Âge, pour interpréter la réception chaucérienne des poètes écossais au quinzième siècle et au début du seizième siècle. Ces poètes emploient Chaucer pour enrichir leurs oeuvres propres afin de promouvoir une tradition littéraire écossaise autonome. Chapitre 1, établissant le contexte pour cette étude, comprend deux sections. La première section analyse comment les chroniques écossaises (telles que le Scotichronicon de Bower, le Original Chronicle de Wyntoun et l'anonyme «Scottis Originale ») interprètent les détails choisis des chroniques anglaises pour convenir aux intérêts écossais; la deuxième section examine l'importance vitale de l'interdépendance pour les héros éponymes du Bruce de Barbour et du Wallace de Harry, deux leaders qui déférent aux amis, aux rois et aux idéales morales pour réaliser leur but d'une Écosse autonome. Chapitre 2 explore le Kingis Quair et son articulation du paradoxe d'une liberté qui se trouve dans la servitude, un paradoxe qui s'applique non seulement à la liberté achevée par le narrateur dans son service pour sa dame, mais aussi à l'émancipation du poète dans sa transformation des motifs tirés du Troilus et du Knight's Tale du Chaucer. Chapitre 3 examine comment les Moral Fables du Robert Henryson soutiennent qu'un roi puissant, c'est un roi modéré; ce sentiment trouve un écho chez le Testament of Cresseid, qui suit non seulement Cresseid dans son évolution personnelle (d'une esclave du désir à une pénitente libérée) mais aussi Henryson dans sa création d'un destin pour Cresseid qui contraste mais complète le destin de Criseyde dans le Troilus. Chapitre 4 centre sur l'Eneados et le Palice of Honour de Gavin Douglas; ces deux oeuvres décrivent une dynamique dans laquelle la dette de Douglas aux oeuvres chauc

At the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, when Bertilak de Hautdesert reveals Morgan le Fay’s involvement in Gawain’s quest, the Pearl Poet introduces a difficult problem for scholars and students of the text. Morgan appears out of nowhere, and it is difficult to understand the poet’s intentions for including her so late in his narrative. The premise for this thesis is that the loathly lady motif helps explain Morgan’s appearance and Gawain’s symbolic importance in the poem. Through a study of the loathly lady motif, I argue it is possible that the Pearl Poet was using certain aspects of the motif to inform his story. Chapter one of this thesis will focus on the origins of the loathly lady motif and the literary origins of Morgan le Fay. In order to understand the connotations of the loathly lady stories, it is important to study both the Irish tales and the later English versions of the motif. My study of Morgan will trace her beginnings as a pagan healer goddess to her later variations in French and Middle English literature. The second chapter will discuss the influential women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and their specific importance to the text. It will examine Queen Guinevere, Bertilak’s lady and Morgan le Fay. This chapter will also analyze three contemporary Middle English texts: John Gower’s The Tale of Florent, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and “The Weddyng of Syr Gawen to Dame Ragnell.” The loathly lady motif was popular at the end of the fourteenth century, which lends evidence to the argument that the Pearl Poet was familiar with the motif. Finally, the third chapter will provide an exploration of Gawain’s role as the loathly lady’s knight and the symbolism of Gawain’s shield and green girdle, the setting of Hautdesert and the Green Chapel, and the Pearl Poet’s emphasis on family relations. Ultimately, I argue that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an untraditional loathly lady story that uses the motif’s themes and symbolism to emphasize the poem’s feminine landscape and the importance of Morgan le Fay.

From the Icelandic Svarfaðardalur translates to “unruly valley.” The Saga of the People of Svarfadardal proves to be all of this while touching on issues of political power, loyalty and honor. The complexities of the saga have traditionally posed problems that restricted an understanding of the text while barring shape to the characters. The saga leads its audience through events that when interpreted, can vary through individual viewpoint and experience, putting audience analysis at the core of Svarfdæla. From its scattered, inconsistent beginnings, the study presented here shows the path taken by each character through to the saga’s finish. Each character is permitted a consistency to their persona, allowing their interaction with one another coherency. In the end, Yngvild Fair-cheek and her infamous words take on a valid and realistic purpose, releasing her of her cold-hearted image.

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<p> My dissertation focuses on the intersection of the discourses of space and place, art, religion, and politics in poetical accounts of heaven. My study investigates how authors deploy these various traditions to create a heaven that accommodates the needs of a particular audience. Heaven is, according to Yi-Fu Tuan, a "mythical place," which cannot be located. To avoid the problems of a "mythical place," we represent that location with slightly-blurred experiential knowledge or communally-sanctioned practices. The creation of heaven, I argue, does not occur <i>ex nihilo</i> but through a refashioning of knowledge and practices to engage audiences with descriptions of heaven. To examine this concept, I primarily analyze the descriptions of place in <i>Pearl </i> and <i>Piers Plowman,</i> while providing discussion of <i>Paradiso, The Vision of Tnugdal,</i> and episodes from the writings of Hadewijch that offer competing and complementing visions. This study offers an opportunity to view heaven not as simply a consistent and monolithic feature of society but as a created site. Rather than examining heaven solely as art, or only through doctrinal concerns, heaven must be considered in terms of a variety of discourses. The layering of art, politics, religion, and space and place remind readers of the medieval religious project. God, for the medieval, was not an abstract ideal but an ever-present quality of their daily existences; as God could be seen in all facets of life, so too can heaven be seen through aspects of life that seem mundane and removed from ethereal experience. </p><p> The first chapter of <i>The Creation of Heaven in the Middle Ages </i> outlines the problem of considering heaven as a monolithic entity. By tracing the history of heaven, the chapter demonstrates that we cannot view heaven as outside of time and place; heaven responds to the needs of particular audiences. As such, heaven cannot be considered only a religious place; heaven is a place that depends upon the engagement of multiple ideas, including theories of space and place, art history, and politics. The second chapter investigates the places of the afterlife in <i>Pearl</i> and <i>Piers Plowman.</i> While similarities exist between the two, each text offers a striking vision of the afterlife; and while a cityscape, and a besieged church and tower evoke distinct impressions of heaven, the chapter examines how each of these visions forces the reader to wonder if heaven might be a viable end. The third chapter engages in how the aesthetic choices of heaven work to create meaning within the mind of the reader. The larger goals of medieval aesthetics, embodied in stained-glass windows, reflect the projects of <i>Pearl</i> and <i>Piers Plowman,</i> namely to teach through a series of highly colored and instructive scenes. The final chapter offers a view of heaven through the political atmospheres of Ricardian England, reflecting the various choices of that monarch that impacts not only earth but also the heavenly retinue. A brief postscript closes out the dissertation that asks how these medieval visions might allow us to view the current interest of heaven, which can be seen in the popularity and success of life after death accounts</p>

This thesis is the first systematic examination of the textual and material evidence for diseaseand hunger in Carolingian and early Ottonian Europe, c.750 to c.950 CE. It draws upon medieval textual records including annals, capitularies, chronicles, concilia, correspondence, histories, gesta, poetry, polyptychs, secular biographies, and vitae, as well as numerous modern archaeological, palaeobotanical, palaeoclimatic, palaeomicrobiological and palaeopathological reports in order to comment on epidemics, epizootics, food shortages and the baseline or current of non-pestilential disease and chronic hunger underlying them. It first surveys the historical and scientific scholarship on these phenomena and the methodologies intrinsic to their study. The evidence for non-pestilential and chronic hunger is then addressed, before pestilences and food shortages are identified in time and space. We can discern roughly thirty-two peacetime epidemics, ten epizootics, ten famines and twelve lesser shortages. A short investigation of the impact of, and response to, disease and hunger in Carolingian and early Ottonian Europe is presented in conclusion. The thesis demonstrates that disease and hunger, in both endemic and epidemic forms, were common realities for mid eighth- through mid tenth-century continental European populations, and argues that epidemics, epizootics and subsistence crises had major, short-lived but possibly cumulative, repercussions for Carolingian and early Ottonian demographic and, consequently, economic growth, in addition to intensifying the impact of the silent toll of the baseline of non-pestilential disease and chronic hunger. The textual evidence addressed in the thesis is presented in Latin and English in three appendices. / Cette thèse est le premier examen systématique des sources textuelles et matérielles concernant la maladie et la faim en Europe carolingienne et ottonienne, entre le milieu du VIIIe et le milieu du Xe siècle. Elle s'appuie sur des sources textuelles, comprenant des annales, capitulaires, chroniques, actes de conciles, la littérature épistolaire, les oeuvres historiques, les gesta, la poésie, les polyptyques, biographies laïques et vies de saints, ainsi que de nombreux rapports archéologiques, paléobotaniques, paléoclimatiques, paléomicrobiologiques et paléopathologiques récents afin d'expliquer les épidémies, épizooties et pénuries alimentaires, de même que le problème fondamental de la faim, qu'elle soit la conséquence de maladies non-pestilentielles ou de maladies chroniques sous-jacentes. Elle passe en revue l'historiographie et l'état des recherches scientifiques sur ces phénomènes ainsi que la méthodologie qui sert à leur étude. Les indications concernant la faim non pestilentielle et chronique sont alors analysées, ensuite celles concernant les pestes et les pénuries alimentaires, qui sont identifiées dans le temps et l'espace. Nous pouvons discerner assez bien trente-deux épidémies en temps de paix, une dizaine d'épizooties, dix famines et dix à douze pénuries moindres. La conclusion présente une enquête bref sur l'impact de la maladie et de la faim et la réponse qu'elles ont suscitées en Europe carolingienne et ottonienne. La thèse démontre que la maladie et la faim, dans ses formes endémique autant qu'épidémique, étaient des réalités courantes pour les populations européennes continentales entre le milieu du VIIIe et le milieu du Xe siècle et défend l'idée selon laquelle les épidémies, les épizooties et les crises de subsistance ont été majeures, de courte durée mais dont l'effet a pu être cumulatif. Leurs répercussions sur la démographie de l'Europe carolingienne et ottonienne et, par conséquent, sur la croissance économique ont intensifié l'impact déjà dévastateur des maladies non pestilentielles et de la faim chronique. Les indications tirées des sources écrites utilisées dans la thèse sont présentées en latin et en traduction anglaise dans trois annexes.

Medieval Japan was a fluid society in which many wanderers, including religious preachers, traveled the roads. One popular band of itinerant proselytizers was the jishū from the Yugyō school, a gender inclusive Amida Pure Land Buddhist group. This dissertation details the particular circumstances of the jishū nuns through the evolving history of the Yugyō school. The aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the gender relations and the changing roles women played in this itinerant religious order. Based on the dominant Buddhist view of the status of women in terms of enlightenment, one would have expected the Buddhist schools to have provided only minimal opportunities for women. While the large institutionalized monasteries of the time do reflect this perspective, schools founded by hijiri practitioners, such as the early Yugyō school, contradict these expectations. This study has revealed that during the formation of the Yugyō school in the fourteenth century, jishū nuns held multiple and strong roles, including leadership of mix-gendered practice halls. Over time, as the Yugyō school became increasingly institutionalized, both in their itinerant practices and in their practice halls, there was a corresponding marginalization of the nuns. This thesis attempts to identify the causes of this change and argues that the conversion to a fixed lifestyle and the adoption of mainstream Buddhist doctrine discouraged the co-participation of women in their order.

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