In the fall of 1971, this writer undertook a creative project in costume design for the play Macbeth and met with the director to discuss the production concept. The director specified his particular costume requirements, and the designer researched the late eleventh and twelfth centuries to determine salient features of the historic dress. The designer again conferred with the director, and a collaboration of ideas resulted in costumes primarily reflective of the late eleventh and late twelfth centuries. During production in April of 1972, a committee of faculty members and students evaluated the costumes, which were judged favorably. Specific reference has been made to the validity of costume evaluations in general, and recommendations for future projects in costume design have been discussed.

Sculpted alabaster tablets depicting the head of St. John the Baptist on a charger, such as the Spilsbury alabaster now in the collection of the University of Victoria's Maltwood Museum and Gallery, were produced in large numbers in fifteenth-century England. Important as examples of private devotional art, they were probably first made as minor works subsidiary to alabaster monument and altarpiece production. / Graduate / 0377

In 1493 Johann Trechsel published in Lyons a Latin edition of Terence's six comedies, generally known today as the "Lyons Terence." The volume is illustrated with 160 woodcuts. The first woodcut, on the title page, shows the author in his library; the second, a full-page frontispiece titled Theatrum, pictures a building with a stage and audience; the remaining woodcuts, half-page illustrations distributed throughout the text, depict figures on stages, a different stage for each of the six comedies. Chapter 1 introduces the woodcuts both as book illustrations and theatre documents. As book illustrations, the woodcuts are striking partly because of their size, their quantity, and their artistic merit and partly because they comprise the earliest series and narrative illustrations to accompany a printed Latin text. Commissioned for this particular edition to Terence's comedies, the woodcuts suggest a pedagogical concern with illustrations that provide a running commentary on the text. As theatre documents, the woodcuts are significant because they represent the first instance in which an editor has illustrated a dramatic text by depicting characters on stages. Chapter 2 analyzes the composition and distribution of the woodcuts by comparing each illustration with the text it introduces. Marking each traditional scene division, the woodcuts depict the characters who participate in the dialogue to follow. By manipulating the characters' placement on the stage, their use of curtains, and the number of times they are depicted in a single picture, the artist establishes conventions to identify (1) the major character group comprising a scene, (2) characters who speak apart before joining in conversation with those already on-stage, (3) characters who remain apart throughout a scene and speak only asides, and (4) characters whose voices are heard but who never appear on the stage. The artist does not portray nonverbal stage business. Chapter 3 investigates the possible influence of narrative art on the conventions identified in Chapter 2. First, I argue that the woodcuts were directly influenced by the miniatures in the Terence manuscripts; this influence accounts for errors and idiosyncracies in representing characters and the priority of character depiction over stage action. Second, I show that the woodcuts adopted conventions for representing narrative action, especially transitional links, from narrative art in general. Chapter 4 distinguishes between staging and the stage. Although the woodcuts do not represent characters so as to suggest the staging of Terence's plays, they do depict those characters upon stages. The Andria stage, moreover, appears to be indebted to the contemporary booth stage. The compartment labels I take to be a literary rather than a staging feature. Chapter 5 summarizes the findings of the dissertation. It concludes that the woodcuts, innovative illustrations which supplement a classical text, function primarily as a pedagogical aid to help the reader follow the Latin dialogue of the comedies.

This study concerns the concept of sacred architectural imitation, using the Platonic notion of mimesis which then later finds expression in the medieval idea of imitatio. In Religious as well as in artistic and architectural forms of expression, the notion of imitation is indeed a very central and complex issue. At the heart of this concept is the question of meaning, or, more precisely, the transference or translation of meaning; from original to copy, from prototype to reproduction. / In order to better illustrate and understand the principles guiding the notion of medieval sacred architectural imitation I have chosen to focus on five specific instances surrounding the replication of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, arguably the most revered landmark in Christendom. / A close examination of the relationships which exist between model and copy will bring to the fore the dynamics which govern the process of mimesis by which meaning is reproduced in the architectural replicas. / From this comparative analysis will emerge a more universal picture of the medieval concept of religious imitation. Indeed, if anything, a preliminary survey of the great many imitations of the Holy Sepulcher spread throughout Europe reveals to the observer a surprising trend, namely a consistency of inconsistencies in their effort to "copy". / The present study will demonstrate that these seeming inconsistencies within the application of the mimetic process nevertheless reveal a somewhat unexpected structure. / From the pattern of these inconsistencies will emerge a clearer picture of the principles governing the transfer of sacred meaning via the method of imitatio during the Middle Ages.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between political authority and economic change in the tenth to twelfth centuries AD. This is often interpreted as a period of dramatic economic and political upheaval; enormous growth in commerce, the emergence of an urban network and increasingly centralised polities are all indicative of this process. Ireland has rarely been considered in discussion of this sort but analysis of Ireland’s political economy has much to contribute to the debate. This will be tackled through a consideration of the coinage struck in Ireland between c.995 and 1170 with focus upon the two themes of production and usage. In analysing this material the scale and scope of a monetary economy, the importance of commerce and the controlling aspects of royal authority will each be addressed. The approach deployed is also overtly comparative with material from other contemporary areas, particularly England and Norway, used to provide context. Ultimately, in seeking to analyse these questions within this comparative context, the issue of where economic agency behind changes in the European economy will be considered. Chapters 1 and 2 situate the research within the wider scholarly debate and precise historical context respectively. Chapters 3 to 6 are a consideration of the manner in which the Hiberno-Scandinavian coinage was produced and administered. This reassesses questions of the scale of production, administration and the role of royal authority in the production of the coinage based upon a comprehensive re-categorisation and re-dating of the material. Chapters 7 and 8 concern the use of coins in the urban environment of Dublin and across the entirety of Ireland, with coinage analysed within its archaeological contexts. Ultimately, this thesis suggests that monetary economy and levels of commerce were substantial, variable and yet relatively geographically constrained. When considered in relationship to contemporary political contexts, the importance of royal authority in directing the economy is determined to be minimal with agency behind economic change seen to rest with an urban, mercantile community.

D.Litt. et Phil. (Greek) / This thesis deals with the Christian divine, holy and saintly protection of African rulers in the Afro-Byzantine ‘Coptic’ (mainly Nubian and Ethiopian) iconographic tradition. The term ‘icon’ is used in its Byzantine Orthodox meaning as “a theological art picture; a religious, sacred image”, according to the theological and artistic Byzantine prescriptions.1 The term is also applied to frescos, murals, mosaics, larger wooden panels, illustrations in manuscripts and scrolls and smaller items such as protective amulets and charms, depicting a Christian holy representation. The iconographic themes, representing authority and its preservation and protection will be discussed, analysed and examined, the two coefficients being authority and protection of royals and their deputies and officials (i.e. the ‘protected’) on the one hand, and on the other hand Christ, the Holy Virgin, angels, military and non-military saints, supernatural and holy beings (i.e. the ‘protectors’). Firstly, a historical overview of the Byzantine and Afro-Byzantine Orthodox society in terms of religious, social, cultural and political influences is presented and the importance of Orthodox iconography and hagiography and the transformation of local Afro-Byzantine themes are analysed. As such, once the conversion from paganism to Christianity took place in Africa, influences of the Byzantine iconography and hagiography were transformed and integrated with local African Orthodox themes. Byzantine ideology and political theory as well as their relevance for the Coptic-Egyptian, Nubian and Ethiopian context have been discussed, while the artistic and symbolic iconographic representations of the Byzantine (and Medieval Afro-Byzantine) periods...

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